#and yet our contract is eternal! my hands are tied! there's simply nothing i can do!

[leighways]

your icon just jumpscared me it's so cursed

Oh gosh!! I'm sorry nonny! I didn't mean to

IMPOSE UPON YOUR SLUMBER

[the-fae-folk]

Vows of Love

It is true that marriage among the folk is rare, very rare indeed. Few enter into the bonds of a marriage contract that is meant to last for more than a year or so. Most join together for the purpose of children, or passion, lust, or even for political reasons. But rarely...not more than once in an eon...there comes  those who decide that for reasons of their own that they wish to spend all of eternity with each other. We can recall the last two who did so. One a simple faun from the woods and the other an elf who came from the shining cities. They were not powerful in magic, nor rich in goods. They held no titles and carried no sacred knowledge or relics. Faerie is rich in the wondrous and the strange, the unique and the breathtakingly beautiful. Out of all that Faerie is...these two were the most ordinary of all, preferring only to live quiet lives in peace and comfort. But when they announced their intention to be wed to one another, to sign a marriage contract which would bind them together for all time...news spread quickly. And they came. Great Kings and Sorcerers, Queens and Heroes. Powerful entities who held strange forms and rarely left their hollows and homes. There were representatives from hundreds of courts, each garbed in the most splendid clothes that could be made, bringing marvelous gifts of magic and clever craftsmanship. They held the ceremony in the Deep Woods. Dryads aligned their trees to form a great living hall with green canopies for a ceiling and roots, grass, and flowers for the floor. Music danced upon the wind, filled with drums, flutes, and harps. It was, perhaps, a simple ceremony. It was to be presided over by a proud stag who ruled the small domain in the woods where the Faun lived. They came before him at sunset, just before twilight began. “As the seed becomes the tree, as the river flows from source to sea, as the seasons change, and the night turn to day at every morning...I have come before thee with the authority of Faerie itself. Your words today will be your oaths, never to be broken, to bind you always and for ever. Speak with greatest care, young ones.” First stepped forward the elf, a young Craftsman of wooden toys and furniture. His passion was humble, yet it was one he loved. Much of his skill and time was poured into his work, making each piece unique and beautiful. When he spoke, it was in his quiet, deep voice filled with assurance. “Each tree in the woods must grow from a seedling. Sunlight and rain will feed it as it reaches ever for the blue skies, and it may lean upon its brothers in the woods as the terrible storms blow. If it falls, it may be made into something new, something beautiful. Life is filled with change, some good, and some fearful. I cannot tell what will come tomorrow or any day after, but I know that it is you I wish to spend those days with, even should they be dark and cruel. I swear upon all that I am and all that I will be, that I will stand by your side for as long as I am able to do so. I will keep your secrets and will be your ally in all things. Should we be parted unwillingly, I shall fight to return to your side. In sorrow and joy I will remain, asking only that you will be there to hold me when I fall and guide me when I am lost.” Then forward stepped the faun. A creature of the flowers and the birds, he spent his time tending to the sick and injured creatures and fae of the woods. In the quiet evenings he played his flute as the very woods stilled to listen. No harm would he ever offer to another, for it was not in his nature, all he wished to do was open his heart and listen. When he spoke, it was with gentle love and understanding. “My beloved, the stars pass overhead in an endless dance, and with them my heart will lose itself to the melody of love. As the seasons change, so shall our lives, and yet my love will not die, but grow as the trees grow...slow...but stronger with each passing day. I wish to share in your joys, to know your sorrows, and I wish for you to do the same with me. Life is not always gentle or kind, so to you I swear that I shall try all my days to know you as you know yourself, to give you all that you need to live and grow, to be what you need me to be. I ask only that you give me the same as I ask of you.” Their vows made and the conditions set, the stag touched his antlers into red dye and with them he drew a line on the arms of the two before him, starting on one and ending on the other as they clasped hands, binding them together. “Do you agree to all that has been said, Children? To abide by the conditions asked of you until time itself ceases to be or till the contract is dissolved by a greater authority than I?” And they did. And they kissed to seal the bargain. Perhaps it was not a wedding of splendor and great speeches. Not a thing of dramatic declarations of love made in the throes of new passion. There was a feast afterward to congratulate the pair and because many were hungry. But it was simply not the great and romantic affair that you might imagine a wedding of Faerie to be. That is not to say, however, that it is without love. For nothing can be further from the truth. The Fae cannot lie, nor can they break a vow once it is made unless it is dissolved by a greater authority or mutual consent to end the agreement. So when two pledge that they will remain tied to one another for all time, it is not an act done lightly. You can be certain that they mean every word. It must be a truly beautiful love they share as the last light of the sun fades beyond the distant mountains. A quiet and soft love, but strong as the hills themselves and deeper than the seas. What would it be like to share such love with another?

[newstechreviews]

In a slightly different world, Fargo season 4 might never have happened. After the FX anthology drama ended its third season, creator Noah Hawley admitted that he didn’t have an idea for a follow-up. And, he figured, “the only reason to do another Fargo is if the creative is there.” So, if there was to be a sequel, Hawley estimated it would take three years. That was in June 2017.

Thirty-nine months later (it would have been 34 had COVID not temporarily halted production), the show has reemerged with a story whose timeliness is obvious. It marks a significant departure from the earliest seasons of Fargo, which pitted good and evil archetypes against each other in arch, violent crime capers that ultimately erred on the side of optimism. Season 3 flirted with topicality, from an opening scene that hinged on Soviet kompromat to a hauntingly inconclusive final showdown between the latest iterations of pure good—represented by Carrie Coon’s embattled police chief Gloria Burgle—and primordial evil (David Thewlis’ terrifying V.M. Varga). Five months into Donald Trump’s presidency, that ending simultaneously reflected many Americans’ fears for the future and suggested that the battle for the human soul would be an eternal one. You can imagine why Hawley might have considered it a hard act to follow.

Instead of trying to top the high-flown allegory of its predecessor, the fascinating but uneven new episodes tackle conflicts of a more earthly nature: race, structural inequality, American identity. To that end, Fargo season 4 ventures farther south and deeper into history than it has gone before, to Kansas City, Mo. in 1950. For half a century, ethnic gangs have battled over the midsize metropolis. The Irish took out the Jews. The Italians took out the Irish. Finally, just a few years after a brutal World War in which fascist Italy numbered among the United States’ enemies, the Great Migration has brought the descendants of slaves north to this Midwestern city whose complicity in American racism dates back to the Missouri Compromise.

This upstart syndicate is led by one Loy Cannon (Chris Rock in a rare dramatic role), a brilliant, self-possessed power broker who doesn’t relish violence but is determined to exact reparations from this country, on behalf of his beloved family, by any means necessary. Loy’s deputy and closest friend is a learned older man by the name of Doctor Senator (the great Glynn Turman, all quiet dignity). In an early episode, the two men walk into a bank to pitch its white owner on an idea they’ve been testing out through less-than-legal means in the Black community: credit cards. (“Every average Joe wants one thing: to seem rich,” Loy explains to the banker.) He turns them down, of course, convinced that his clientele would have no interest in purchasing things they couldn’t afford. We’re left wondering how the ensuing saga might’ve been different if Loy and Doctor Senator had been allowed to channel their considerable intelligence into a legit business.

Elizabeth Morris/FXSalvatore Esposito and Jason Schwartzman in ‘Fargo’

The Italians, meanwhile, are starting to enjoy the rewards of their newfound whiteness—a largely invisible transformation marked in The Godfather by Michael Corleone’s relationship with naive WASP Kay Adams. (In keeping with previous seasons’ allusive style, Fargo often playfully evokes Francis Ford Coppola’s trilogy.) In the wake of their capo father Donatello’s (Tommaso Ragno) death, two brothers battle for control of the Fadda clan—a crime family that has Italian-accented patriarchalism written into its very name. Crafty, spoiled, crypto-corporate Josto (Jason Schwartzman, doing a scrappier, cannier take on his Louis XVI character in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette) has long been Donatello’s right hand. But his younger brother Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito, imported from Sky Italia’s acclaimed organized-crime drama Gomorrah), a brawny brute who came up in Sardinia busting heads for Mussolini, stands between Josto and the consolidation of power.

Generations-old tradition dictates that if two syndicates are to share turf in Kansas City, their leaders must raise each other’s sons. These exchanges are supposed to be a sort of insurance policy against betrayal; never mind that they never work out as planned. So Loy very reluctantly trades his scion Satchel (Rodney Jones) for Donatello’s youngest (Jameson Braccioforte). The boy finds a protector in the Faddas’ solemn older ward, Patrick “The Rabbi” Milligan (Ben Whishaw, humane as always), who double-crossed his own Irish family in an earlier transaction.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny (E’myri Crutchfield from History’s 2016 Roots remake) is the show’s other innocent youth, a bright and insightful Black teenager whose parents (Anji White and indie rocker Andrew Bird) own the poignantly named King of Tears funeral home. Every Fargo season needs a personification of goodness, and in this one it’s Ethelrida. Not that her virtuousness makes her life any easier. In a voiceover montage that opens the season premiere, she tells us that she learned early on that, as far as white authority figures were concerned, “the only thing worse than a disreputable Negro was an upstanding one.” Her inscrutable foil is Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley), a white nurse neighbor whose patients tend to die before they can experience too much pain. Oraetta’s quaint Minnesota accent (another Fargo staple) belies the racist views she politely but unapologetically espouses; she seems fixated on making Ethelrida her maid.

Elizabeth Morris/FXE’myri Crutchfield in ‘Fargo’

It’s fitting that Oraetta is both the most tangible link to Fargo’s home turf and the first character who ties together the mobster’s story with that of the Smutny family. As her loaded last name suggests, she seems to embody a particular form of evil that has been a constant in American life since the colonial period: white supremacy. Oraetta harms, kills and plunders with minimal consequences. No wonder she has eyes for Josto, the first Fadda who knows how to wield his white identity, building alliances with government and law enforcement that would be impossible for the Cannon syndicate. (Josto’s version of Kay Adams is the homely daughter of a politician.) “I can take all the money and pussy I want and still run for President,” he boasts at one point.

The reference to our current President’s briefly scandalous Access Hollywood tape is so flagrant as to elicit an involuntary groan. It’s lines like this that expose the limitations of Hawley’s attempt to fuse the topical and the elemental. Fargo still creates an absorbing, cinematic viewing experience, with painterly framing, pointedly deployed split-screen and arcane yet evocative needle drops. A not-at-all-gratuitous black-and-white episode could almost stand on its own as a movie. And, as in past seasons, the show gives us many remarkable performances: Rock may seem an odd pick for a gangster role, but the same shrewdness and indignation that fuel his stand-up persona also simmer beneath Loy’s measured surface. The pain Whishaw’s character carries around in his body goes far beyond what can be conveyed in dialogue. Bird broke my heart as a meek, loving dad. But in his eagerness to make a legible, potent political statement, Hawley struggles to find the right tone and keep the season’s many intersecting themes straight.

Elizabeth Morris/FXJessie Buckley in ‘Fargo’

The show is simply trying to do too much within a limited framework. Fargo wouldn’t be Fargo without some eccentric law enforcement, so an already-huge cast expands to fit a crooked local detective with OCD (Jack Huston) and Timothy Olyphant—whose roles on Deadwood and Justified made him prestige TV’s quintessential cop—as a smarmy, Mormon U.S. Mashal who snacks on carefully wrapped bundles of carrot sticks. Yet Hawley also realized that he needed to break from previous seasons that, like the Coens’ film, cast a white police officer as the avatar of goodness; hence Ethelrida, whose investigation into her city’s criminal underworld takes the form of a school assignment, and whose soul is stained by neither corruption nor white privilege. She’s a wonderful character, but her and Oraetta’s story line can feel peripheral to the gang war.

With such a crowded plot, it’s no wonder the show can’t maintain a consistent tone. Each season of Fargo creates a hermetically sealed moral universe, doling out divine and definitive justice to each character according to their position on the spectrum spanning from good to evil. In the past, its archness has served as a self-aware counterbalance to the sanctimony inherent in such a project. And there’s still plenty of irreverence in season 4, particularly when it comes to Hawley’s depiction of the Faddas, Oraetta and the other white characters. But there’s nothing funny about the oppression and discrimination that Loy, Doctor Senator and Ethelrida face. Each of their fates is shaped at least as much by a society that is hostile to people who look like them as it is by the moral choices they make as individuals. So the scripts give them the dignity they deserve at the expense of inflicting earnestness—along with frequent reminders, such as Schwartzman’s Trump line, that the story’s themes remain relevant today—on a format that isn’t built for it. Realistic characters and absurd ones awkwardly mingle.

Hawley’s attempt to correct his show’s political blind spots is laudable, and some pieces of the allegory work well; the ritual of ethnic gangs trying—and failing—to work together by raising each other’s sons makes an inspired metaphor for America’s fragile social contract. Even so, Fargo seems fundamentally ill-equipped to address systemic inequality. Though that failing may well render future seasons similarly flawed, if not impossible, in our current political climate, it doesn’t negate the pleasures or insights of what remains one of TV’s most ambitious shows. Like this nation, the new season is a beautiful and ugly, inspiring and infuriating, a tragic and sometimes darkly hilarious mess. As frustrating as it often was to watch, I couldn’t look away.

[malyceaduncastellan]

Dear enemy brother

Hi guys! Honestly, I… didn’t expect that simply telling someone I was writing that AU would bring me so much popularity, I’m honestly stunned but… Not in a bad way, that’s for sure!

And for you guys, the third addition to the Dear Enemy Brother AU! Please enjoy!

Honor above all

When Jonah had woken up that day, he immediately gave up on the hypothesis that everything that had happened to him had been a dream. This wasn’t the ceiling of his room at headquarters. Nor was it the infirmary’s room.

He was in a bed with red-stained sheets, a strobbing pain in his stomach and an awful headache that made him feel dizzy. It took him some time to realize he couldn’t move his left arm. Turning his head or lifting it felt like hell.

-Ugh…

God, his head pounded horribly. He couldn’t stand that, really.

A voice he usually despised to hear rang in his ears.

-Don’t even try to move, Clingy Clemence. You should still be having this beauty sleep right now.

A needle was carefully shoved in his right arm, and the dizziness intensified until everything was black again.

The next time he woke up, he had to admit he felt a little better. The sheets weren’t blood-stained anymore, and his left arm seemed to be responding. He was pretty sure he hadn’t eaten in a while, yet the nausea that came to him convinced him he didn’t need to eat.

-Feeling better?

Jonah suddenly looked at the one who asked him that.

-I’m dead, aren’t I?

-No, but from your wounds, I’m sure you did your best.

Purple eyes scanned him suspiciously.

-You realize that stepping wounded in enemy territory is actually pretty reckless?

-What happened?

-You mean you don’t know?

Sirius Oswald, Queen of Spades, looked positively stunned.

-My mind is blurry.

Jonah didn’t feel strong enough to be snarky. His head hurt and he whimpered under the pain. It seemed to him that he could die only from that. He didn’t even notice Sirius’ hand on his arm.

-Doctor! He might need more painkillers!

It took what seemed to him like an eternity to finally be back to his senses.

-How many wounds did I have?

-Only three. But well, considering there was a hole in your stomach, a flow of blood on your hair and one of your bones going out of your arms, I’m guessing something went wrong. Did some of ours go wild at the border?

Suddenly remembering the whole scene, Jonah shook his head.

-No. No border fight involved. I was told to go solve a skirmish not far away from where you found me. They told me it was just a few men.

-I suppose there was more than a few.

-They were at least fifty. We were barely fifteen. Not… enough.

Jonah let out a sigh.

He wouldn't tell the Black Army what those men said. He wouldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t if he wanted too. Everything felt surreal.

“Well, sounds like master Amon was right, the King Lancelot did give us a lot of good experiments subjects!”

As good as Jonah was with a sword, he was no match for that much people. Neither were his men, and he screamed at the top of his lungs for them to escape. He didn’t even know if some of them made it. Then one of the disciples of the Magic Tower made him lose his sword and planted it in his stomach. Another one hit him with a stone on his head. He tried to escape and ended up with his arm broken from the fall.

He knew Black Territory was near the place, and hoped that those men thought he was too uptight to be willing to step in.

Just a few more meters, he thought when he almost reached the border and he heard a patrol.

The moment he finally got there, his mind went blank.

And now he found himself here. Betrayed by his king. Betrayed, somehow, by the Army this man was leading. Betrayed. Wounded. Angry.

-We wanted to call for your army right away, but saving you was a hard catch. But now, I guess we can tell them you’re alive and well.

-Don’t. It’s better if…

Sirius’ eyes turned skeptical, and Jonah knew he had to give him a satisfying explanation if he wanted to escape the grip of the Red Army.

-If you tell them you got me right now, they might think you did this. Let them look for me.  And when I’m fully healed, I’ll go back myself.

The last sentence was a lie, he knew that already. But going back there wasn’t an option. The oh-so-righteous Red Army, not-so-righteous already. It just wasn’t possible for him to go back to an Army lead by a traitor and a liar.

He had seen Lancelot’s signature on that contract the disciples shoved in his face to make him accept the truth. He could have recognized a fake one. This one definitely wasn’t fake, and Lancelot had sent his own men, including his right-hand-man to death.

There was no way he’d go back there. The Red Army just had lost its honorable looks.

-I believe you’re lying, said Sirius, bringing Jonah out of his thoughts. I don’t know what you’re going through. I won’t try to know either. But if you don’t want to go back to the Red Army, we won’t force you to. We value freedom even for you. Stay as much as you like.

Sirius’ sentences weren’t made for nothing. No one at the Black’s headquarters treated him as the Queen of Hearts. He simply was a wounded man found on the border, a guest that had to be respected and cared for.

Two weeks in, and Jonah Clemence was declared as dead or missing by the Red Army. And he knew what that meant. He knew who the Queen of Hearts now was, and it made him furious. But he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t go back. Not yet, not now.

Every night, he went to sleep crying and begging his dear little brother for forgiveness. He swore he would tell him what the Kind he was now serving was really like. He wouldn’t let his brother die for the King of Hearts’ whims.

And that’s how he came back to training. Two months after the Skirmish and he was practically as good as before.

He helped the Black Army as much as he could, progressively taking in Sirius’ paperwork, claiming that he had been Queen and that he knew how all of those worked. He found out how those men really were, never going back on their words, deadly honest with each other, hardworking. Sure, family ties were important to him, but now he wished they had meant nothing for his brother wouldn’t have been forced to serve King Lancelot.

He slowly became one of them without knowing. The Jack of Spades, especially, felt like an ally. He was the oldest of the Chosen Thirteen at 37. Somehow, Jonah knew that man found out why he stayed there on Black Territory, even though he never had told him anything.

Their talks on the evenings were always pleasant and despite being a Black Army officer, he was a refined man with good manners and a sustained language, which pleased Jonah.

He sometimes left to patrol at the borders and was the one who found him and saved him, so a lot a gratitude was involved, but Jonah knew that there was more to it. He became friends with Thanos Howard, Jack of Spades.

Since he was now well and fine, they often fought on training ground, Thanos claiming he needed to keep in shape and “lacking of worthy opponents”. Sometimes, the ten of Spades joined them, and it was probably the first time Jonah ever admitted he had fun while fighting.

Thanos was strong, deadly strong, being able to defeat Jonah and Seth at the same time, but Jonah happened to beat him sometimes, which earned him a lot of praise. It felt weird to him to feel that he was more than the pretty-faced heir of the Clemence Family, but it also felt good to feel worthy. It felt good to be proud when he walked through the corridors and he heard the soldiers praising his fighting skills.

He certainly didn’t expect what would happen. As usual, Thanos was gone on patrol that day, so Jonah replaced his expert mind while watching the soldiers train. A shout interrupted the training session and one of Thanos’ soldier came running in panic.

They brought back a dying Jack of Spades to headquarters, and the doctors couldn’t do anything for him. Jonah didn’t get to see his friend one last time as he only got to see the other officers before dying.

He felt angry. According to the soldiers, masked men attacked them while the patrol was running and the Jack had been hurt in the process. They said they didn’t know who the attack was from, until one soldiers lost his mask and revealed a Red Army man.

Jonah was furious. So he didn’t even ask any questions when he was called with the Black Army officers in Ray’s office.

It seemed that they were all waiting for him, which made him suspicious. Did they think he had planned this…?

-Relax, man, said Fenrir, Ace of Spade, while looking at him. We’re not suspecting you. It’s actually quite the opposite.

-We want to thank you, Seth said, for being a friend to Thanos and coping with us insulting the Red Army for his death. But we have urgent matters so the thanks will have to wait. Boss?

Ray nodded and looked at Jonah right in the eyes.

-I’ll make things short. I hope you know what Thanos’s murder means.

Jonah knew, of course. He was a soldier too, after all.

-The Red Army will need to pay. You will ask for a suitable punishment. However, as soon as they will here this, the Red Army will launch a war for honor.

An honor they had lost long ago for him, but he knew how that Army worked, he had worked for it.

-Yes. And I want you to make a choice. A choice I hate to force on you but a choice you have to make. We kept you here because you never acted as an enemy. But if war launches, whose side are you on?

-Yours.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate even one second. Thanos’ death had made painfully clear to him that he didn’t consider the Red Army worth it anymore. He would fight them for his friend and for the men that brought him back to life even knowing who he was. They were trustworthy. They were righteous. They were honorable. And he would fight for that.

-That’s what Thanos would have wanted to hear, Ray said. Because, you see… He wrote that before going on patrol. And he told us the exact same thing on his death bed. The thing is… Will you answer his call, Jonah Clemence?

Ray handed him a letter written in neat handwriting and clear words.

“I, Thanos Howard, Jack of Spades, hereby give my wills concerning my current position.

Knowing my dear army's functioning, I know these wills may or may not be respected and I acknowledge that fully.

However, as you know it, I'm the oldest of the officers, and it's time for me to make my retreat to live a peaceful life, which is why this will be my last patrol.

Therefore, I would like to recommend a name for my replacement as the Jack of Spades. You know him for his implication, his fighting skills and his loyalty.

I would like to recommend Jonah Clemence for this position.

Yours truly, Thanos Howard, Jack of Spades.

May freedom soar on raven wings.”

Ray waited for him to read the letter and said:

-We actually are considering his proposition. The soldiers like you and would find you worthy of the position. So, do you take the call?

He didn’t hesitate.

-In memory of my dear friend, I will.

And he wouldn’t flinch, he knew it. He would tell his brother about the truth lying in the Red Army core. He would avenge his men. He would avenge Thanos, and retrieve his honor.

For now, and until death would come upon him, he was Jonah Clemence, Jack of Spades.

[ofthemuses]

Area 11 Sentence Meme; from all their released albums

All the Lights In The Sky (2013)

i. vectors

One day I will find you  I saw that you were lonely too  You reached out and you took me I repressed that time Everything that I forgot, I see it clearly  can’t you see that you’re losing your mind A shot to the head leaves it all behind I’ll tear you apart Reach out your hands to catch me reach out your hands and you tear me apart But we are simply killing time I wish I’d see inside your mind I wish I’d seen inside you Almost the same, but not enough Never forgiven, but still in love

ii. euhpemia

Memories of fallen dreams and all those that have died. Demons are possessing me. I feel my hate take flight. I'm choking on my own words and I'm scared of backing down the hope within us all is up in flames Twisted by my warring conscience. The situation's pushing onwards. This can't be, was this me? I think I've lost control. I caused this, I forced this, Can I continue on? I caused this, I forced this, I caused this! Betrayed by trust, forever left to scream. Oh hold me closely and die in my arms, then take this secret with you. I became your puppet master This could fuel The Revolution! This could be my last solution! And all good victories come with a price. Just take my secret with you.

iii. knightmare / frame

What is life but a burden for me? All this anger, burning inside but buried deep One step forward and two to the side, every single time I fall asleep and I feel I'm falling Nightmare comes without warning I can't seem to sleep  In my dreams I feel I'm running towards her/his shining light She/he shines for me Just like glass I saw right through Something I couldn't see until I changed my point of view I cannot let you go inside of me, the will to change the world Can a mask be the face of reason? You will answer, to the pieces left behind Well I watched her/him die in your arms Freed but they'll never understand

iv. tokyo house party

I know that this will never work out So it shouldn't even start Cause I'm just a kid at heart And you know that it's such a waste Cause I hate that bitter taste and your bittersweet embrace I feel this has gone to my head I'll never drink again But fuck it, I don't care I don't know what you came here for This is where we are from (The town where nothing goes on) Waiting for our own special moment to die I got lost to find myself I wanna be with you tonight Cause everything's gone; it's been wiped out I feel a change in the pace I know I should run and I should fight But the look in your eyes: I could die here tonight Fear of failure, we're moving so slow

v. shi no barado

I saw your face in the LED's It's something that I can never repay, but I will try anyway. I sent a message I know you'd see Now fate led you down a path to me You're all I ever wanted you can use me, you can kill me My body will be a fortress I will keep you safe from pain My losses are your gains Together we can burn this to the ground, rebuild it into something right I'm not afraid and I'm not alone because you're with me in my dreams I won't give up on this perfect love

vi. cassandra pt. 2

Although it doesn't really matter now You use me, and I use you I'm your savior, you're my muse The best friend that you been to me but I wanna be your enemy You want a reaction You wear a red dress when you're in a bullfight You're drawing attention to your double life In dreams, I'm coming to find you and when I wake I want anyone else. 'Cause I don't love you, It's what I'm telling myself I’m hiding from you, ‘cause we are the same Wait, just wait for me and I'll come around My best friend that I've never seen That's turned you into my enemy No, it's all in my mind I feel I should save myself before this gets too real

vii. the strays

I'd still cheer for you ten years down the line Time stepped away from me Stray from this boring dream What must it be like with your world alight? How could I stay here and rust when I'm set to explode? You can outrun everything but the debts that you owe I'm numb from the distance If it's just the bored asking this kind of thing, where do we fit in? Take what you want from it We're the last ones left Get the others and cut to the next Scene To be truly free Freedom comes not from, but through me Do you remember when the stars were much higher? You would try to count them all But you grew tired - tired - tired

viii. dreams & reality

Dreams... are realities. You mean so much to me I can't forget the way, the choice that we made that day. Is it worth the risk that we take? Waiting and hoping from the side-lines But this is our moment, it's our chance to shine. 'Cause this feels better than the best thing 'Cause we are stronger than anything We've grown from all the things we've been through, And they couldn't break us if they wanted to. Your smile is brighter than the lights in the skies wont you tell me what is real? Lets write our names in history, Let's make these dreams reality,

ix. heaven-piercing giga drill

you came and dug me up into a world full of violence. So many faces, so many trials. They won't stop our evolution. Who do you think we are? Fight against your execution. Trust me and we'll fly, not fall. Tip the balance to risk it all. Together we can go so far. All the lights in the sky are stars. It follows everywhere I go. It carries the hope of humanity, and everything we know. Believe in me, who believes in you.

x. bōsōzoku symphonic

There's three parts to love, or so I believe. There's a part of you you lose, and another you receive. Here I break with the concept, though it's central to the piece. Leave my mark on the canvas, that only you can see. I deferred my happiness, for loneliness and time. But once I'm where I wanna be, you'll be far behind. And the chains that pull me down, slacken off when you're around. And it's comforting to know I'll rip out all the hooks from my skin so I can grow. Sometimes I disagreed, just to hear you scream. You were right, but I needed you to give emotion back to me. I'm not leaving you, I'm not leaving you!

Underline (2014)

i. are you listening?

All aboard this sinking ship No business here it's just relationships Should this mean more to me? Just join the tribe and feel accepted But cool don't come for free The rope that pulled me from the pit now hangs around my neck Is this the clue you wanted? Too cryptic for the rest Play the part of the victim if it puts your mind at ease Put all the blame on me So what you feel, is it nostalgia or love? Tell me now, are you really listening? When everybody tells you to stop, and that you’re never good enough; tell me now, are you really listening? Reach out for help, and she lets you down So gild your pockets, we'll watch you drown  Cause this means more to me It's hard when all I see Now we take control We fade into hindsight  Can this be realized?

ii. in the blind

I redesign, I realign. I redefine, and yet resign. My only hope: to feel. And when I phased out the "privileged" and the "purpose" I realized that art can never true be separated That should define who I will never be. Sorry. Cause this is the new way Still spinning cycles in my mind Hold me back and keep me down! Drop the weights, accept my fate, and trigger the explosion. Now keep the faith as illusions break and we'll show you something real. And when I reach out into event horizons will there be light and sound, or will it be just me?

iii. override (a)

Willing and wishing to break This won't be over so soon You'll claw yourself out of the womb Are you willing to die? To be born in the spotlight? I won't let you drown Are you willing to die? To be something? We patiently wait your return Rejecting your pitiful life You'll crawl on your hands and your knees You'll feast on the fear you receive And here in the alter you'll give your life for a reason to live Are you ready to die? Are you ready to die? To be more than they say you are? You'll be a mistake The child of the void and the ghost in the tape Can the ego you've sculpted endure the escape? I am willing tonight. I am willing to die to be something; trigger the override

Modern Synthesis (2016)

i. override [C]

Lay the new foundations; reprise Strange are the things that will come around Return to the question, I'm willing to die If this is real and this is anticipation Know it in your mind, hear it once and now you bear the load Are you ready for life? Make a stand in afterglow

ii. the contract

You’ve spent a lifetime locked in the same mindset You break the contract, and smile away your debt I play for closure, through the fear and the thrill of the fight Move a little bit closer, ‘cause you’re in for a jagged night I close my eyes; a toxic calling Just let it resonate, we call it suffering We know just who to trust this time I want you to give me what I need Lay waste to your beliefs, rebuild yourself for me I want you to come alive again I feign obsession, and abbreviate my views You're my possession, until I'm done with you I want you to feel as I feel I want you; submit yourself to me Your body and your mind; give it willingly Just sign the contract

iii. watchmaker

Serve or break the patterns that would be Middle child of eternity The creeping vines of anomie I never wanted to believe I never asked if I could stay Switch the pressures you relieve Sketching parallels to understand why I can't share your love I’m only building what I meant to do so many lives ago

iv. versus

I dream of it; am I a psycho? Watching you burn nothing else feels this perfect to me “Hands in the air”; salute or surrender? We adapt, mutilate, replicate and survive But choose a side The truth, the war; the rise, the fall The virus in our heads that infects us all Do you need it once more?  Can you remember what it is we’re dying for? (Fighting for?) Little soldier, little girl/boy who used to love this fucking world To love, to despise: such a fine line The hardest strikes always land when hands are tied The virus in our heads infects, manipulates our thoughts

v. processor

I took a chance to fly I want no role in your altercation I feel panic arise as rhetoric voices are feeding back again Blocking out vitriolic accusations: Was I listening? Because I want to be better on the inside I want to be better on the outside I fall asleep in the vestige I once called my home I pray for you, abide with the hopeless Regretting the choice but I can't turn away The modern synthesis compels me to start again I will have my way, I told you, I told you, I told you As I dispersonalise I taste a real life far from the pacifist you believe I exemplify I am the fury, I am hypocrisy The day I take control. The day you'll believe in me The path back home, the path I'll show you The path back home, where you'll wait for me, wait for me

vi. red queen

I said I don't mind, but you've touched a nerve The way you frame it, well, I got all I deserved Breathe deep and comfort the disturbed In the cave you fear what would you find? We played our hands together You lose me in your blood chemistry So we'd better try to match her/his speed Toast to the red queen/king and all she has seen Is it time to drink at your table? We can only wait and watch for so long Where you fall is not where you belong Unify behind false enemies Down other lines we would have been the same Beauty fades but still my charm deceives This night is shared and so we use each other ‘cause misery loves company And so it goes again A wasted day to vie for my affection Soon you'll come undone Can't fake a smile so they draw it on

vii. angel lust

how far did you deviate? The bridge collapsed but you took the stone From the ash an altar raised, you rebuilt your home And cynics they will try to tempt and change our minds We'll keep our faith alive, we'll raise our voices And scream it from our hearts: God loves her/his children we wait to receive a sign and the scraps of truth of what we believe The passion, the pain, our bodies ache, we cry your name

viii. the life of a ghost

Living the life of a ghost, there is no comfort for the mind Some sights we've tried to leave behind Always looking backwards down the road I will retain composure Lost in thoughts of where I am Stay 'til dawn, begin anew? With all honesty I want to be selfless To be human, but I'm beat and I'm worn-though I'm lost tonight I'm an ember, will you take my story? Pull back the curtain and walk towards the truth There is no comfort for the mind

ix. after the flags

Come on son do your country proud! Lead us down to the ocean and wash our hands of campaigns for the self-assured now Fading white in surrender and weary from the beating sun that blinds you Take a hit for catharsis Take a hit for them all After the flags they're selling off the wall I wanna die for a reason I wanna kill for a cause The fall won't kill but it's gonna hurt do you watch just to wince at this? we have been misled Straighten out your fiction As means to ends and ends to meaning guide you After the flags I'm nobody at all If I could reach you with reason You set us up for a fall After the flags you're nobody at all

x. nebula

This is my suffering, stuttering the words As all I can see is you Hey there you lost boy/girl, just look at what they've done to you They've poisoned the well of your mind but you'll make it through I'm falling to the call of you To love just an action, we overplay and overdo But now, there's no one beside me They've fallen behind

xi. panacea and the prelogue

Wait inside we'll talk a while I didn't mean to let the years go by Have we come to terms with the lesson that our fathers learned? Everything goes away I'd follow you, but not this time I'm sorry that I let you down, let you down, a lifetime ago I wanna say to all I leave behind, and to those I'll never find. That I need you to understand, understand, you're not on your own. What you value, is it worth the time? The only melodies that I could ever call mine were friendship and lust Will I feel absolved at the moment when we have it solved? Still it's never enough Lines fade out, but you illuminate the path back home, the path you've shown me

all your friends / new magiks / everybody gets a piece (2018)

i. all your friends

Habits tend to crystallize Did you waste it in the dark? Why were you sure it was real? you let all your friends tell you how to feel The archetypes; the ideal will soon embrace you when you let yourself heal Who are we to cauterise bleeding hearts that synchronise? Did he/she waste you in the dark? Choose your friends just to canonize you, as you let them fantasize

ii. new magiks

I'm watching the mirror crack to face my addiction This all feels a little strange, (A life fearing fiction) I better step outside It's all fine, from the shoreline The weight crushing down my heart, you don't want it, you don't wanna know A head full of dying stars, the shoulders that bear the load The wave crashes down on my heart You don't wanna know My mind's a rogue nation Just look how we weaponise carnal accusation It's all fine, a drop in the skyline Make it hurt Percolate emotion Boys/Girls lost to the ocean drown You were the bright newcomer I fucked you up that summer I didn't know, you let me know my mind is loaded

iii. everybody gets a piece

In time you'll grow, I fucking hope I'm outside looking in at all the time we're putting in Think I know what it means I won't say the right things just to open doors Don't waste your time in the studio I've been told to beg, steal and borrow I'm told it's not the way to go Nobody listens to the radio Everybody gets a piece Did you honestly say it might have been me? But all this while did you think of me, you know All this while, we were pure potential energy, dreaming Don't ask, you'll never get You never asked so you never got nothing Did you get all you wanted from me? You don't ask so you'll never receive Can't lose when you're playing for free

[cenniedolls]

In case anyone’s interested, here’s the first couple pages of Klaus and Bararoth’s adventure - an inauspicious meeting in a cave

Klaus took a slow, careful breath as his eyes adjusted.  The air was shockingly cool, after the shining desert heat, the dimness equally other.  Even indoors, the air back in the city was sharp with heat, barely mellowed by the shade of tiled roofs and fabric awnings.  Shards of light bled in through every crack and piecework screen and open window.  This was entirely different.  Whatever this cavern was, it definitely wasn’t just another of the shallow caves worn into the stone that thrust through the desert sands.

Of course, Klaus had known that coming in, as he’d stood at the decorated entrance, trying to read the ancient writing that seemed to shimmer before his eyes.  It was a warning, that much as clear, but he didn’t read many ancient dialects well, yet, and between the concealing spells and the elaborate script, Klaus couldn’t make it out.

The stone outcropping looked like any other, scattered across the desert; reddish stone in striated layers, scoured into fantastic shapes.  Perhaps a little more deliberate, once Klaus had broken through the first layer of spells, and could actually see it.  It was old, though, and the desert sands had worn away nearly all signs of craftsmanship.  

Just not the warning over the entrance, a classically peaked arch that opened into the stone.  The sand stopped at the threshold, despite the lack of anything visible to keep it out.  Klaus could feel the spell as he stepped through, after checking for more dangerous curses; the temperature dropped noticeably.  The passage twisted only a few steps in, and sloped, dropping beneath the desert in a long, slow curve.

Klaus had needed the small, shuttered lantern he kept in his kit to make his way down, but here, where the passage opened into a cavern, the way was lit in some way he couldn’t quite place.  The light was pale and filtered, as though daylight was leaking in from above, but there were no visible openings in the high ceiling.

Full of still, cool air, the main branch of the cavern wound off into the earth, with shallow grottos scattered along it.  An even layer of the same sand from the desert above muffled Klaus’ steps as he moved deeper, peering into a few of the low-ceilinged offshoots.  They were all as empty as the main vaulted passage, wide and silent.  Laying a hand on the curse-breaking kit that hung at his hip to reassure himself, Klaus kept going.

The back of cavern sparkled with magic, enough so that Klaus had to focus to see past the glittering spells.  These weren’t meant to conceal, like all the ancient wards outside, no; these were protective spells designed to contain.  Klaus grinned, remembering all the time he’d spent trying to translate scraps of crumbling, antique records.  He must have got it right.

Beneath the layers of spellwork, a blown-glass bottle laid atop a pile of silk cushions.  As long as Klaus’ forearm, mottled grey and green with streaks of bronze, with thick walls and an irregular, bulbous shape.  Something seemed to stir within it, but the glass was just barely too opaque to say.  Satisfied, Klaus took a step back, and set about neutralizing the spells.

Curse-breaking wasn’t a particularly wise course of self-study, but to get any kind of real training, you had to be sponsored by one of the emperor’s mages, or somehow get an apprenticeship with an accomplished curse-breaker.  Neither was within Klaus’ means, but he did have friends at the Archives.  As long as he could get through the spells, it probably didn’t matter where he’d learned how.

Finally, the last layer of wards dissolved.  Klaus put away his kit, and waved a hand through the air above the bottle, not yet making contact.  Nothing happened.  Giving in to the urge to touch the waist-high pile of decadent pillows, Klaus ran his fingers along the gold braid edging the top one, shimmering violet silk with tasseled corners.  He shivered, and told himself it was from prolonged exposure to the cool air in the cavern, and not the luxurious fabric under his hand.  His bare arms were cold under his thin desert cloak, that was all.  Nothing to do with silks fit for the emperor.

Only one thing left to do.  Klaus reached for the bottle, curling his fingers around the curve just below the stoppered neck.  It felt good in his hand, heavier than it looked, even smoother than the silk.  The cavern seemed to vanish, Klaus’ consciousness narrowed to the disconcerting patterns swirling in the glass, and the delicate wire cage holding the stopper in.  A loop of metallic cord, tied around the bottle’s neck, fell against his wrist as he lifted it, but Klaus hardly noticed.

Djinni.  Well, it was hard to say what was popular myth, and what was truth; the emperor’s djinn summoners were even more close-mouthed than his mages and curse-breakers, but Klaus had learned a few things as fact, by now.  First, that there were two types of djinni: Elemental spirits and cursed mortals, who had overreached what magic could be tolerated by mere blood and bone.  Second, that elemental djinni were summoned by contract, freely chosen, or close enough, and selected a vessel after that contract was made; only cursed djinni were tied to any object for eternity.  Of course, there were a thousand and one popular opinions about that, whether cursed djinni could or should be freed, but no sources Klaus could trust.

Logically, then, the third thing Klaus knew for certain was that the djinn sealed in this cavern was the second type.  There had been enough hints in the fragmented records he’d scavenged, even without the permanent vessel.  Whoever the djinn trapped in the bottle had been, he’d left people both angry enough to curse him and too scared to say why.

The wire practically melted beneath his fingers, unravelling with barely a hint of pressure, and Klaus had the stopper out in his hand before he had even thought to take the action, heart in his mouth.  And here, this was the explosive reaction he had been expecting, a rush of wind and light and more abstract power, the raw magic almost enough of a shock to make him drop the bottle.  The sand covering the floor of the cavern blasted away, baring the stone nearly to the walls, but the cushions didn’t move, and when Klaus could stop blinking his eyes, someone was sitting on them.

Human, Klaus had expected, or something close; he hadn’t expected gorgeous, however, and the figure lounging against the silk was undeniably both.  Rich bronze skin, far more of it showing than mages today, bright white teeth set in a supercilious grin, sleek black hair pulled into a long tail heavy with jeweled hoops, snaking past the man’s slippered feet… Klaus’ gaze followed the dark line, ending where the djinn’s hair vanished into the neck of the bottle.  It was barely more than inky smoke, at that point, hardly corporeal at all, and that more than anything reminded Klaus what he was dealing with.

“You called?” the djinn said, studying his fingernails in a gesture so affected that Klaus had to choke back a snort.  Of course, composing himself after just gave the djinn an opportunity to look him up and down, mouth twisting into a frown.

It wasn’t as though Klaus didn’t know what he looked like.  Suntanned, but still obviously too pale for Testharta, his hair a completely unheard-of sunset red; plain, undyed linen pants, loose and gathered at the ankles in a style that certainly wasn’t fashion, but simply the way all the most ordinary citizens of the empire wore them.  Matching desert cloak, formless and resembling nothing more than the sands themselves.  He probably had sand in his hair, as well.  

“They’re letting just anyone study magic these days, aren’t they,” the djinn muttered.

“Hardly,” Klaus retorted, before his brain could catch up.  “As if you even know what these days are like, anyway.”  

The djinn didn’t exactly gasp, but his eyes flashed wide before narrowing into a sneer as he straightened, all pretense of luxurious indolence falling away.  “As if I would have to, when such an obviously low-born foreigner can get in here.”  He paused, lifting his chin to level a supercilious glare at Klaus.  “Unless you’re running errands for someone powerful enough to take down those wards from a distance.  I don’t know which is a more ludicrous idea.”

“I’m not running errands for anyone.”  Now, anyway.  That sort of thing was how he made a living, such as it was, but the djinn didn’t need to know that.  “And I was born here, so I’m not exactly a foreigner.”

“A half-blood, then,” the djinn dismissed, neatly ignoring the part where Klaus was a good enough curse-breaker to get into the cavern.  “Probably a bastard, aren’t you?  No self-respecting mage would take on an apprentice like that.”

That much was true, regardless of what age the djinn hailed from.  “Good thing I’m literate, then,” Klaus snapped.  “Don’t know why I’d bother with a stuffy apprenticeship when there’s plenty to learn from books.”

The djinn looked surprised, at that, but the lift of his eyebrows settled into a condescending arch almost immediately.  “And what have your books taught you about dealing with the djinni?”

“Nothing about the attitude,” Klaus said, mentally re-evaluating the admittedly vague plan he’d come in with.  

“The attitude?  What, were you expecting to find a mindless servant, ready to unleash unfathomably powerful magic at your every whim?”

Something like that.  “No!”

“Good!  Because I’m not going to!”

“I thought djinni didn’t have a choice!”

The djinn sneered.  Klaus was beginning to think he didn’t have any inoffensive expressions.  “There are rules, you know.  Three wishes.  Really, it’s three times to overrule my objections.  For anything less than truly earth-shattering magic, not that I expect ambitions of that magnitude from someone like you, it’s enough if we can come to an agreement of our own free will.”

From this vantage point, Klaus didn’t foresee them agreeing on much.  He should probably think hard about what to do with the last two wishes, after solving the problem he’d gotten into this situation for.  He was going to want to get the djinn out of his hair as soon as possible, but he wasn’t fool enough to waste perfectly good magical wishes, no matter the source.

There was a moment of silence.  Klaus stared at the djinn, who glared back haughtily, before glancing down at the bottle forgotten in Klaus’ hand.  Like wind through narrow streets, Klaus couldn’t help following the line of the djinn’s hair back up, black smoke and jeweled rings solidifying the farther he looked, past thin ankles and silk pants, sliding behind the demanding line of the djinn’s back in his sleeveless tunic.  The creature had gone back to glaring at him by the time Klaus raised his eyes past the wide gold collar at his throat.

“Presumptuous,” the djinn muttered, before raising his voice.  “I am Baharoth, the most revered mage of my time, and I will not stand for being regarded in such a way by one such as yourself.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Klaus said, instead of I’ve never heard of you.  The name wasn’t familiar, not really, but it still felt like something he ought to know.  “I’m Klaus.”

“Hardly a Testhari name.”  Baharoth seemed to be leveling out, though; the comment wasn’t as cutting as before.  Curiosity must be winning over disdain.

“My father was a sailor.  From Cathnor, or Cydrane.  Someplace like that, so mother gave me a foreign name.”  

“Well, Klaus,” Baharoth said, “I suppose your ancestry is irrelevant to the fact that I’m stuck with you until your wishes are up.  Shall we leave this dismal cave and get to it?”

Klaus nodded, and they both looked back at the bottle.  

“You might as well put the stopper back in,” Baharoth snapped.  “Now that the seal is broken, I’ll come and go as I please.”

So Klaus did, wrapping the cord more firmly around his wrist and giving the bottle a light shake.  “What’s in it?”  

Baharoth glared at a point beyond his head, floating beside him as Klaus walked back to the entrance.  “None of your business.  It’s hardly relevant.”

“Then why bother telling me to close it back up?”

“Well, if you’d rather carry the stopper separately.”

“I guess I can have a closer look later.  Maybe someone at the Archives will help me figure it out.”

Hissing through his teeth, Baharoth settled his feet closer to the ground, very nearly effecting a mortal stance.  ���If you’re going to be difficult about it,” he muttered.  “As it happens, when I was killed for fear of my power and influence, the cravens responsible sealed my consciousness in that bottle, deep in the desert, and hid my body away high in the crypts.  The first time someone sought me out looking for wishes, I made sure to get it back.”

Klaus held very still, resisting the urge to shake the heavy glass again.  Ashes?  With the weight of the bottle itself, it was difficult to say, but…  “Why did you need it?”

“Who could have known that separation from the physical form weakens magic?” Baharoth said, staring sulkily past Klaus’ ear.  The avoidance had the feel of long habit.  “It doesn’t affect djinn wishes - and that is a fascinating subject; how djinn wishes work at all - but as I told you earlier, djinni can do magic outside of those three events.  Proportionate to what they could accomplish in life, or, in the case of elemental djinni, compliant with natural laws.  At first, when I practiced magic in this form, I found my power greatly reduced, as was undoubtedly their intention.  It wasn’t easy, getting my remains back.”

“I’m sure,” Klaus demurred.  Maybe he should have done a bit more historical research; Baharoth sounded more dangerous by the moment.  It was hard to keep that thought in his head, though, looking at the sulky-smug expression on the djinn’s narrow face as he drifted along, wearing pride in his accomplishments like a mantle.  Vain and moody, certainly snappish, but not threatening.

Baharoth floated behind him as Klaus walked back through the dark corridor to the surface.  No sound but Klaus’s own footsteps, light boots on sand, until they reached the entrance.

Dusk was falling, cool and silent over the desert.  Klaus shivered, grabbing his pack from where he’d stashed it in the rocks, and Baharoth frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Where are we?”

“About half a day from the capital,” Klaus said, side-eyeing him.  The geography hadn’t changed that much in the last few centuries.  “Another day to the coast if we can catch a barge downriver, maybe a week if we have to walk.”

“Walk to the coast?”  Baharoth muttered,  before shaking that off.  “And you say the desert has come this close to the capital?  The last time I was summoned, this area was still green, though drying.  The desert began in earnest a few leagues east.”

“The desert is nearly up to the gates,” Klaus told him, nonplussed.  He knew that the desert was expanding, but that seemed awfully fast.  

Baharoth glared at the sand, pulling his feet away from it to hover cross-legged in the air.

“I’ve got a friend in the city, so we’ll at least have a place to sleep if we get going,” Klaus coaxed.  

That got him a sniff that conveyed clear as day the idea that Klaus may, indeed, want a place to sleep, but Baharoth was above such mortal fixations.  Still, the djinn followed, the two of them winding through the dunes of moonlit sand.

[shardclan]

Conflicted did not begin to describe what Sliver was feeling, and yet there was a serenity to all this as well.

Fragment and Telos were not in the lair. They scarcely were since the Xannite nest was laid. Telos trusted The Machine, but her natural instinct was to want to see her eggs at least once a week. And Fragment's natural instinct was to fret over both the eggs and Telos. So he went with her on her journeys to the site of The Machine. She had taken up the slack many a time and was used to it by this point. Their time was drawing to a close, and she wanted them to be happy.

She wanted them all to be happy.

So when the scion came up to her pleading 'Aunt Sliver, you must come! I think we can do it, I think we can bring grandfather back but only with your help!', Sliver had willingly followed her. All the way she heard the child explaining the details of the plan, but Sliver only heard it from many mental miles away. On some level she must have understood, because she was gripped by a guilty terror. That as much as she wanted to see her father, Shard the Radiant, just one more time--as much as she wanted Fragment to see him just one more time--if she went through with this, she would be changed forever.

This would not be like Maat, an accidental offense, a crime of foolishness. This would a heavy, crushing sin she would have to carry on her back for the rest of her life and likely in her soul for the rest of eternity.

And yet like a dream, she watch the scion prepare. She watched the chalcedony rope, wretched creation she wished she'd never thought of, be tied to Horizon's neck. Watched the scion perfect a magic circle around the half-astral and around the pedestal with the false egg on it. And again she felt the fear. The horrible knowledge of consequence and punishment rushed through her at the sight of the false body just waiting there.

But the scion handed her the rope.

"Don't let go," she said. "We might lose him if you do."

Sliver looked down at it. One end was attached to Horizon and the other to the egg and she got the center length. Because she was the key it all had to pass through in order to work.

The dreamy detachment of the situation left her. For one terrible moment she was alone with her conscience. Alone while it screamed at her that she knew what she needed to do. That she needed to stop this. That the cost would be too great.

But.

She wanted them to be happy.

Just once more she wanted them all to have that wholeness and warmth that they could never find after he left.

So she closed her claws around the rope and held on tight.

"I'm ready."

The scion was beaming, her eyes full of the half-crazed light of a student getting ready to reap the fruit of sleepless nights and endless efforts.

"Okay. Horizon's going to go in. Just focus on him an... and remember not to let go. Absolutely don't let go."

Sliver looked up, and something in her eyes must have told the scion she didn't need to keep saying it.

"Alright, Horizon. Do your thing."

There was a silence. Horizon's mane started to shimmer and stand, and the silence turned into a hush. The magic circles flared to life and for one awful moment it felt as though the room was expanding and contracting at the same time. Like reality itself was compressing and turning inside out. Horizon's form blurred before their eyes. He wasn't moving, but suddenly it seemed he was soaring with a form that looked nothing like his physical body. There was an impression of stars and stardust and and vast nebulas around him, and it looked exactly like when the doors of the Observatory opened to a new exaltee.

HE IS HERE.

Sliver reeled back a little and her eyes darted to the scion, who gave her an assuring nod. It hadn't sounded like Horizon. She wasn't even sure she really heard it, not with her ears. But something was happening. Horizon twisted and jerked his head toward the high ceiling of the chamber, and his mouth opened wide. Instead of a scream came a reverberation, like so much thunder shaking the very atoms all around him.

The rope lit up. First gently and then with ferocity as something like a shooting star blazed along the line toward her.

Sliver gripped, but nothing could have prepared her for the sensation. The rope hissed in her claws, scorching her with fires greater than any the Flamecaller could ever have hoped for. This was not the fire underneath the earth, but a fire of stars and souls. A penalty for daring to think she could touch something as brilliant as her father's soul. And the searing of it was so agonizing she could not help but weep and scream even as she held on.

"Don't let go!"

"I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SOORRRYYYY---!!!"

It passed. The light went by her and she all but collapsed. She would have let go of the rope if she could have, but it was sizzling against her scales, cauterized into them and into the sensitive flesh beneath.

The egg shone. Shattered. And even though her desperation had driven her to this, Sliver could only barely turn her head to see it.

The hatchling hadn't looked exactly like her father. Even now, the colors weren't quite correct. But the soul was shaping the body. Pushing the dimension and the tiniest details out so that even though the colors weren't off and the wing markings were far beyond what her father at ever had, she knew it was him. She recognized him. And that alone left her weak with relief.

"We did it," the scion breathed. "Horizon, you can stop."

NO.

Both females snapped their heads around. "What?"

IT IS NOT COMPLETE. The imperial shivered, and there was a flicker as he became one creature again. "He's not all here. His regrets on this side were not enough."

"You can't pull him through?!"

Horizon squinted sourly as stardust began pouring from his mouth. "I would if I could. I can't... I can't shut myself off completely if it's like this. I have to stay as a conduit. I can't settle on this plane."

"What? What happens if you do?"

HALF A SOUL TO A SIDE. AND WITH THE OTHER SIDE IN THE GOD-TOUCHED DOMAIN OF STARS, THERE WOULD BE NO CERTAIN WAY  REUNITE THE HALVES.

Sliver sobbed with frustration, but it quickly turned into soft, if bitter laughter. "It was me. I wasn't enough."

The scion's fins flared at the idea. "But you're his daughter! I read all about how upset he was in leaving you behind! He loved you!"

"You don't need to reassure me. I know that my brother and I were loved." She rose shakily to her feet,  gritting her teeth and tearing the ropes from her flesh with a strangled cry. "But! We speak of the soul. And the soul knows blood, but it also knows bonds. And in that, there simply wasn't enough time for father to love us as much as I know he would have liked."

She walked gingerly to the awake, but seemingly unaware body of her father. Though her hands still shook from the pain of bringing him back, even if only by half, she touched his cheek with nothing but gentleness.

"But I know someone who did have the time. Someone my father shared most of his adult life with. Years of loving and being loved by him, compared to our precious few months."

She turned, her eyes glittering. There was no fear now, only the pure determination to not leave her father in this half-state. "Get a letter to Shard Jr. Tell him to bring Abaddon, and make it fast."

"What about mom and dad?" the scion asked meekly.

"Don't. It would break Fragment's heart to see father like this."

[lady-vetinari]

„And that is how the great dragon that haunted the town decided that just maybe, his life would be better lived elsewhere.”

Zadeer’s voice rings out across the assembly, his hands weaving through the air, letting images and sounds spring up from nowhere, and as he finishes the tale, sparks fly and he takes an elaborate bow. He knows his audience well, and the cheering rises up immediately. He grins and pulls one of his customary flowers from behind his head spines, handing them to the most ardent supporter. She blushes a little and smiles shily, then she scapers off to the side.

“Mother, mother, look what I got!”

The woman in question is dressed in the finest fabrics, but the trained eye – and Zadeer’s eye is very trained indeed – can spot the slightly too wide sleeves and slightly too elaborate embroidery and tell that she is not from around here. She gives him an appreciative nod, he bows again, a little more formally this time, and then makes his way out of the room. In the hallway, he his joined by another dragonborn.

“Putting it on a little thick, weren’t you, Zade?”

“Now now, darling, jealousy doesn’t become you.” Zadeer seems a little more serious now, but his voice still has that same undertone of performance it rarely ever loses, and neither man seems to be fully in earnest. “The little Miss is happy, the big Miss was reminded of the prowess of our warrior force, and she will appreciate her little sunshine being singled out. And really, how could a story about a dragon, three mice, and a knight on a donkey ever be political?”

“To feign innocence, Zade, you actually have to sometimes be innocent, you realize that, right?”

“Oh, shush, Ildrex. What was I just saying about jealousy? Let us tell our lordship that she his ready to hear his proposal.”

---

The celebration had been going on for quite a few hours already and showed no sign of stopping. Two neighbouring counties, always at war, finally having signed a treaty was worth quite a big celebration after all. Zadeer had sung an ode to peace when it started, and only someone who knew him as well as Ildrex would have spotted the jabs at both rulers, the likelihood of this venture’s success and the solemnity with which everyone who had been at each other’s throats only a few weeks ago promised eternal brotherhood now.

Having done his duty though, he could relax now – and did so with gusto. What would be the point of a feast if you didn’t indulge? The wine, the food, the delightful company… Heaven indeed.

“Zadeer!”

Reluctantly, he pulls himself away from his conversation partner and looks up at Ildrex. “This sounds urgent. Did someone poison the well? Don’t worry, we have plenty of wine still.”

“Very funny. Look!”

Ildrex points at the other side of the gardens where the noises have changed. Instead of merry cheers, people have begun yelling at each other, and even without hearing any actual words it takes no genius to work out that the soldiers are about to settle any remaining scores with force, rather than treaties.

“Ah, entertainment. I was just saying to my new friend here that the party was getting a bit dull.” Ildrex opens his mouth, and Zadeer quickly continues to stall him. “They are all drunk. There’ll be some bruises and cuts, the clerics will have to do some work, and they’ll regret it in the morning, nothing more. And there’s more of our side anyway.”

“If they draw weapons, this treaty isn’t worth the paper it was written on. Same goes for if one of the mages interferes. You know this, Zadeer, stop playing dumb. Put that mysterious training of yours to some good use!”

Zadeer sighs dramatically, takes the hand of the halfling sitting next to him and gives it a kiss. “Farewell for now, my dear. I am being called away onto the battlefield. If I live, I will return to you.” The halfling giggles, and Zadeer finally makes his way over to the pre-brawl, grinning as he sees Ilbrex roll his eyes.

On the way over, he grabs a lute from the hired performers that seem to have forgotten they are supposed to be playing, strums it a few times, and then begins playing a simple tune that is little more than accompaniment to his words, and yet fills the whole area with its sound, making even those sit up and listen that were focused only on shouting.

“Come all you lads and lasses, I’d have you give attention To these few lines I’m about to write here ‘Tis of the four seasons of the years that I shall mention Beauty of all things doth appear.”

The song weaves on, half sung, half spoken, and more and more of the soldiers lose their aggressive demeanour, positively enthralled by the sounds. He switches songs a few times, bringing the mood around until he ends on an almost serene, melancholic note. Not everyone seems to have fallen under his spell, but most have. The alcohol has made his job much easier than it might have otherwise been. And when he ends, and half the people before him have their arms around one another’s shoulders and tears in their eyes, he gives a small smile, a short bow, and raises his voice again.

“This night is much too beautiful, and life is much too short to live it in strife. Come, there is ale and wine to go around, we are all young and pretty, and the conflicts of the past are just that – past. So give your thanks instead to the lord and lady who have given us this bounty, and quarrel no more!”

Maybe to their own surprise, the crowd obeys, turning towards the high table to applaud the two rulers, and then start giving each other unintelligible apologies. Zadeer watches for another moment, then turns, passes the lute back and heads for his seat. Ilbrex meets him halfway, a tall half elf in simple robes behind him.

“Now that was easy.” Zadeer grins at him. “Have any more catastrophes for me to solve? A damsel in distress would be just the right thing. Or maybe I can end another war?”

Ilbrex opens his mouth, then just sighs and points at the half-elf. “This is Sister Dilah. She is quite impressed with what you just did, and would ask you for a favor.”

“Ah, delighted. A priestess, yes? Not quite a damsel in distress, but I’m sure we can work something out.”

He grins, she frowns a little, and Ilbrex hisses an admonishment that Zadeer has practice ignoring.

“I am a follower of Deneir. Someone as practiced with words has probably heard of him. It is obvious to me that he has blessed you. Your talent for words… I would offer you teachings to deepen your understanding of your talents, and I would ask if you would be willing to visit our temple some time. I am sure it would only strengthen your gift, and we could supply you with new tales to tell.”

Her voice is quiet, a little shy, but full of conviction. Zadeer studies her for a moment, gauging her. Then he throws back his head and laughs.

“Oh my, you are quite the find. Where did Ilbrex find you? The blessing of a god! Darling, this is pure talent and charm. No religion necessary, thank you very much. Ilbrex, you are almost getting good at pranks, do keep it up.”

Still chuckling, he pushes past them, barely hearing Dilah go, “You could do a lot of good. Please reconsider if-“ before he is out of earshot. He settles back on his seat and grabs his glass again. Before he can pick up where he left off, Ilbrex’s hand is on his shoulder.

“Zadeer. Can’t you take anything seriously? She was…” He grabs at his spines in frustration. “She had an honest request for you, and you just mocked her. I don’t mind if you do it to me, really, I know you, but other people, Zadeer! She just wanted to help you, and ask for your help. And you…”

Zadeer looks at him in astonishment for a moment, then raises a calming hand. “Oh, Ilbrex, I had no idea how much she meant to you. If I had realized you were wooing her, I would have never-“ He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Woo her? Woo her? Curse the gods, Zade, I am not… For someone who is so good at reading and manipulating people, you can be so bloody blind! I am not wooing her. I just want you to take something serious for once in you bloody life, and not mock everything you come across, is that so much to ask?” He breathes heavily, his nostrils flared. “You know what? No. No, I’ve had enough of this. You have such gifts, Zade, and you choose to squander them on… on nothing! You obviously don’t even take me seriously, after all these years. I’ve had enough. Find something to take serious, Zade, for your sake. But don’t expect me to be there while you figure out if anything is important to you.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, but simply turns and storms off. For a moment, Zadeer’s habitual smirk falls, and his vision narrows on the retreating form of his oldest friend, then he feels the halfling’s hand on his arm and returns his attention to the present.

“Ah, apologies. That was a bit nasty. I think he must be drunk. He’ll have come around by morning. Now, let’s not dwell on unpleasantness.”

The worry is wiped away immediately, and instead he grins again, no longer showing any signs of being affected by the words he just heard, and the rest of the celebration passes with more wine, more food, more music, and more laughter.

---

The next morning, Zadeer seeks out Ilbrex in his room, intent on gossiping about last night’s attendees. The room is empty. And when he asks around, all he learns is that the other dragonborn has gone.

---

A month or so passes, with no sign of Ilbrex. Zadeer finds that it has become harder to think of new stories, perform new songs, navigate the web of intrigues that are spun at court. And it is irritating that when people whisper about him now, he can’t be sure that they praise his latest performance. Rather, he is sure they are not doing that.

After another two weeks, he gives up, and makes his way to the small temple to Deneir that he has known about before but never visited. He sees the acolytes scribing letters and contracts for citizens, sees novices chronicling recent events, and priests studying old scrolls that seem to be everywhere. Amidst all of it, Sister Dinah stands.

She doesn’t smile when she sees him, but she does approach and looks at him expectantly. For once in his life, he has no words. Finally, she breaks the silence.

“Welcome, Brother Zadeer."