#bc how do you argue with the mark given to someone by the universe itself

[varpusvaras]

Breha wanted to have a soulmate.

Her parents were soulmates. They both had a mark of the Hand of Skies, the constellation visible during the winters of Aldera, on their left shoulders. Her mother had originally had the right hand of the constellation, while her father had had the left hand, and the mark had completed itself for both of them after they had met each other for the first time. It had been an early match, and her parents had grown up together since they had been ten years old. For as long as Breha remembered, she had looked at their love and connection, and indulged herself in the warmth and familiarity they shared with each other, dreaming of having the same for herself.

Her parents hoped for her to have a soulmate, too.

"Being a Queen is an important task", her mother always said. "Sometimes, it can be very lonely, too. I have gotten over so many moments of doubt with your father on my side."

She didn't talk about the other reason to her, but Breha knew about it anyway. She knew enough other Royals, other Nobles, of people born into influental families all across the Galaxy.

She knew what happened to those who didn't have a soulmate.

A soulmate was a part of you. A soulmate was someone who no one would ever take away from you. A soulmate was someone who would stay at your side.

A soulmate meant protection.

Breha didn't fully believe that her parents would make her marry someone she did not truly want to, but the fear was still there, and it gnawed on her, stronger and stronger, with every passing year. Alderaan was an affluent world, after all. Old, rich, and located in the Core. Many would be vying for the hand of the future Queen, if it was free for the taking.

Her parents had both gotten their marks at nine years old. Most people on Alderaan got their marks before their tenth birthday.

Breha's twelfth birthday had come and gone, and her thirteenth was fastly approaching, and there was nothing.

She didn't dare to speak about her growing nervousness to her parents. It felt like she would be insulting them, by insinuating that she thought that they would force her into something she did not want. She couldn't just keep it all inside, either, as it continued to bother her more and more.

In the end, she went to her grandmother.

"Sometimes it just takes time", her grandmother said, stroking Breha's back as Breha sniffled against her collar. "Sometimes the Galaxy and the Force has to look at things a little deeper, and to take a lot of things to consideration, things that you and me, or no one else, for that matter, has no idea about. It has to look at so many options before making the decision, so that the decision is the right one."

It did make Breha feel a little better. Maybe she had hope. Maybe she or whoever it was, at the other side, was just a little difficult to match with. Breha didn't think of herself as particularly difficult or complex, but maybe the Force knew something tha she didn't.

So she kept her hopes up, and she waited.

--- ---

She got her mark a week before her birthday.

She had noticed it immediately after waking up, and she had jumped out of her bed and ran to her parents to show it, without even bothering to change out of her nightgown before going.

Not that they cared, as they were just as happy as Breha herself.

The mark was a small flower, on the inside of her left wrist, with seven rounded petals that turned to sharp points at the last second. Breha thought it looked a lot like a star, if one had been turned into a flower.

Her grandmother agreed when Breha showed the mark to her.

"It's a forest star", she told her, "they grow in very deep forests, where sunlight comes through the trees only in small dots, and all the colors are dark and the ground is always glistening with water."

She turned Breha's hand a little to see the mark better, as it was sitting off center, on the right side of Breha's forearm. She was quiet for a moment as she looked at it, clearly contemplating her next words.

"What is most notable of them", she said, finally, "is that they always grow in group of threes."

She ran her fingers over the mark once more, and then gave Breha's hand a little pat.

"It's a beautiful mark", she told Breha, smiling. "With a mark like that, you're going to have a wonderful soulmate, I already know it."

Breha believed her. She had been right about the mark. She would be right about her soulmate as well.

--- ---

Breha met Bail Prestor when she was just shy of seventeen, after she had finally gotten her feet properly back under herself. She noticed him immediately, and joined him and his father to a debate between few other noblemen of Alderaan, that had been invited to the Palace.

She took his side against one of them, and when Bail turned to look at her and smiled, a little unsure but genuine still, Breha felt like something had bloomed underneath her skin.

When she looked down, there was another flower on her arm, on the opposite side of her original one.

She lifted her eyes back to Bail, to see him looking at her now with surprise in his eyes and equal amount of surprise in the smile he still had on his face.

Breha smiled back at him, brightly, with joy and relief.

--- ---

"I will do my best", Bail promised her that night, "no matter what, I will be the soulmate you deserve."

Breha believed him.

"Thank you", she said. "I will do so as well, for you."

She was there for Bail just as much as Bail was for her, after all.

--- ---

"I must admit", Bail said one day, when they were walking through the gardens on a late afternoon. "I am still a little surprised about the mark."

"How so?" Breha asked. She had the feeling that Bail wasn't talking about being the soulmate of the Princess.

"My mother looked up the flower when I got my mark", he said. "She told me that they grow in threes. I expected you two have two flowers, or something similar, I think."

That was right. Breha glanced at their hands. They had both received each other's mark, so they had fullfilled the mark for each other, but the flowers sat apart from each other on their skins, leaving a gap between them.

A gap, just wide enough, that a third flower could fit in between, linking their flowers to each other.

"That would've made sense", Breha admitted. "My grandmother told me the same. We have fullfilled each other's marks, though. I think that is the most important thing."

"It is", Bail said. "It just makes me think..."

He looked down on their hands, and then up at the sky, right past the mountaintops.

"If there is someone out there, with a single flower on their hand", he murmured, reaching for Breha's hand as he spoke.

Breha laced their fingers together, and thought.

All marks had a meaning. A point of connection. Like her parents, with each one side of a whole constellation, two hands made of stars, always meant to be holding each other.

Wouldn't it mean something, too, for her and Bail to have flowers that always grew in threes?

Breha looked up at the sky as well, and she wondered.

--- ---

Years went by. Breha married Bail. She became the Queen.

There were two flowers on each of their arms, apart from each other, with just enough space for a third one in between them.

--- ---

Being a Queen was sometimes lonely work.

What her father had not told her, was that being a Senator was sometimes just as lonely.

During the longest days, Breha would look down on her hand, to the two flowers on her skin, her own and Bail's, and she would draw strength from seeing the proof of the connection she and Bail had, even when the void of space was in between them.

She knew Bail did the same, and Breha was happy that she had been able to give him that connection, that lasted over time and distance.

She looked at her mark for a long time, when the word of the war starting reached Alderaan.

--- ---

Bail was calling her in the middle of her Court.

Usually, when he had something to tell her during their work hours, Bail would send her a message and ask her to call him, or call Visaiya, if it was something more urgent. It wasn't like him to call her like this, without sending a word out first.

She looked up at her Ministers, and gave a signal.

"My deepest apologies", she said, standing up. "I am afraid that I have to take an incoming call right away from the Viceroy."

There were no objections. The war had forced them to raise their means of security on both Alderaan and Coruscant, especially since Bail had not confined himself to only inside the Senate and the House. Anything sudden regarding him was treated with utmost gravity.

She stepped outside the Courtroom into the foyer to answer.

"Are you alright?" She asked, instantly, when the call connected and Bail's image appeared. "What's going on?"

Bail didn't look injured or even angry or crestfallen or anything of the sort that she had kind of expected.

Instead, he looked almost flustered when he looked at her, his eyes wide open, like something entirely unexpected had happened.

"I am alright", Bail answered, and then drew in a deep breath. "Something has happened, and I needed to tell you about it right away."

Before Breha could ask more, Bail pulled up his sleeve, and turned his hand around to show her.

There, on the inside of his arm, right at his left wrist, were three flowers.

It was just like Breha had imagined it. The third flower, right in the middle of the other two, interlocked its petals precisely with the flowers on both sides of it, and so linked them all together, with no space left between them anymore.

Breha lifted her eyes to Bail, who was looking at her, like he was just waiting for her to say something.

Breha had just one thing to say to him.

"Who?" She asked.

"I don't know", Bail answered.

It was not what she had expected him to say at all.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I was just returning to my office", Bail said. "I had to wait a little since there had been some sort of incident, and the troopers needed a little more time to clear things up, and then I just felt it. And there it is, now."

Breha looked at the mark again.

Three flowers, right next to each other, interlocked.

There was a rule in giving and receiving another part of the mark, and fullfilling it.

There needed to be a point of connection in order for it to happen. It wouldn't happen simply for being in the same space with the other. There needed to be a moment of true attention, intentionally given and received, for the connection to happen.

That meant that Breha had more to ask.

"Who did you talk to?" She asked. "When it happened?"

She hadn't even needed to ask. Bail had already arrived back to the point himself.

"Oh", he said, then thought for a moment. "I think I need to have a word with the Commander of the Guard."

Breha knew from the moment Bail said those words, that many things were about to change irrevocably.

She looked Bail in the eyes, and she knew that he knew it too.

[auburnfamilynews]

Auburn football’s 2010s weren’t actually bookended by Outback Bowls. The 38-35 victory over Northwestern 10 years ago rightfully belongs to the 2009 season; if you count that as part of the just-concluded decade, you have to logically shift the Tigers’ recent 31-24 defeat to Minnesota to the 2020s.

But who cares about logic in the face of a narrative contrast like this? 10 years ago, Auburn went to Tampa with a 7-5 record, no top-25 ranking, and an SEC mark that left them sharing the West cellar with Arkansas and Mississippi State. But Gus Malzahn’s exciting offense, cathartic wins over West Virginia and Ole Miss, and a stirring challenge of undefeated Alabama had Auburn fans buzzing enough for the Outback folks to take the Tigers over several equally qualified SEC candidates. Against the Wildcats, Auburn didn’t play well at all — Northwestern racked up 34 first downs and outgained the Tigers by 196 yards — but squeaked out an OT win thanks to a bevy of Wildcat turnovers, missed field goals and general lack of explosiveness. With a five-star JUCO quarterback signee tailor-made for Malzahn’s attack already on his way, Auburn fans entered the offseason universally thrilled about the direction of the program.

A few weeks ago, Auburn went to Tampa with a 9-3 record, a No. 12 ranking in the polls (and a top-5 resume according to SP+), and the glory of another riveting, emotional Jordan-Hare victory over Alabama. But 10-win seasons for four other SEC teams meant an Outback bid nonetheless, against a Gophers team that had gone 10-2 itself. The Auburn defense struggled for much of the first half, the offense for much of the second half, and in the end the Tigers were outgained by 262 yards in a game that wasn’t as close as the 31-24 final. With major questions to answer along both lines of scrimmage and the offense’s continued habit of collapsing for long stretches against quality opponents, even Auburn fans who still support Malzahn enter the offseason ambivalent about the direction of the program.

Two seasons, two Auburn teams, one of which was easily better, one of which accomplished more, one of which represented a stronger and more stable Auburn program. But the other got a much easier opponent in its bowl, an opponent who played much worse. So that’s that team who gave Tiger fans the better feelings entering the offseason.

Two Outback Bowls, 10 years apart. The 2020 edition didn’t leave Auburn fans less happy because these Tigers weren’t as good. In fact, they were much better. The competition just got much harder.

There’s your decade.

Let’s briefly list Auburn’s accomplishments over the past 10 seasons:

— The program’s only national championship since 1957

— Two conference championships, tying with LSU for the most of any SEC team other than Alabama in that span

— Three SEC West titles, more than any team other than Alabama in that span. Among all SEC teams, only the Tide and Georgia claimed more division titles

— Four BCS or New Year’s Six bowl berths, tying Florida for the most in that span among SEC teams other than Alabama

— Four wins over Alabama, with the Tide ranked No. 9, No. 1, No. 1 and No. 5 at the time of Auburn’s victories. Those wins represented 36 percent of all SEC wins over Alabama during the decade, with the rest of the conference going a combined 7-70 against the Tide

— Defeated unbeaten No. 1 Georgia and unbeaten No. 1 Alabama in the space of three weeks in November 2017

— This

— This

— This

— This

— This

— This

Given the ruggedness of the current SEC and the depth of Auburn’s accomplishments, the 2010s were Auburn football’s greatest postwar decade aside from the 1980s. If you give extra weight to what we might call the program’s extracurriculars — a Heisman trophy winner and an all-time college football legend in Cam Newton, the most unexpected and exhilarating regular season in recent college football memory in 2013, the wonder of November 2017, the catharsis of beating Bama for Rod and Paula, nothing less than the greatest play in the history of college football — you could argue the 2010s were Auburn football’s greatest postwar decade, the end.

Either way, the person far and away most responsible for that decade is Gus Malzahn.

————————————-

It’s the rancor I don’t get.

Wanting Gus let go: that I do, sure. Despite the midseason run in 2016 and the records set in 2017, for six seasons now Gus’s offense has shown all the steady reliability of a teenage TCBY employee. Those offensive collapses have meant a long string of soul-pummeling defeats far more frustrating to experience than they appear to be on paper. (Given that LSU just cemented themselves as one of the best college football teams ever assembled, “LSU 23, Auburn 20” reads as the sort of score Tiger fans could look back on with fondness for a valiant effort. Nope!) That simultaneously keeping up with Saban’s Alabama, Smart’s Georgia and now Coach O’s LSU is a herculean task doesn’t mean it’s not the task assigned to Auburn’s head coach. If Gus can’t perform it — and as the Minnesota game reminded us, the offense’s vanishing act doesn’t seem like a problem he’s yet learned how to resolve — Auburn should try to find someone who can. In theory, that person would only have to maintain what’s already a more-than-capable defense while building an offense that simply has to avoid melting down like so much grilled cheese vs. the teams that matter. Shouldn’t be so hard, right?

I can’t bring myself to agree with that argument. But if you want to make it, be my guest. There’s a logic to it.

What there’s no logic to is looking at Auburn’s 2010s and snarling about how Gus sucks. There’s no thinking behind looking at everything Malzahn has brought to this program — as both coordinator and head coach, on the field and off — and yowling like a hurt cat that he needs to be fired yesterday. There’s nothing rational about being more angry over bowl losses to UCF or Minnesota than you are happy over Iron Bowl victories over Alabama.

College football fandom is an inherently irrational enterprise, I know, and I can’t sit here and guarantee that no other coach would have achieved what Malzahn did at Auburn these past 10 seasons. But I can guarantee an unholy crapton of coaches would not have. Many, many coaches would have lost that game on Nov. 30, would have let Derrick Brown and Marlon Davidson and Kam Martin and a whole lot of other good Auburn Tigers walk off Pat Dye Field for the final time as losers.

He didn’t. For goodness’ sake, some of you, show some damn gratitude.

———————————

I wrote before the Georgia game that Auburn football couldn’t stay in the same place. It needed to beat Georgia and Alabama and move forward with confidence under Gus, or lose to Georgia and Alabama and move forward under someone else, or split and watch Gus ride off into an Arkansas sunset.

The moment the Tide fell for Gus’s punt team shenanigans, none of those scenarios had a chance. Auburn wasn’t ever firing a coach that had gone 9-3 against that schedule with that win over Alabama. Gus wasn’t ever leaving a job where he can win a national title for one where he can’t if his seat isn’t white-hot.

So it turns out Auburn could enter the new decade in the same place after all. Gus will take another stab at stopping his offense from falling down a flight of stairs four times a year; the defense and recruiting will push ahead as their usual high-caliber selves; the fans will keep bickering in endless circles, trying and failing to make sense of a program that should be good enough to make us unambiguously happy but doesn’t.

Personally, y’all, I don’t know. I’ve given up on knowing. “I don’t want Gus fired, but I want a new coach, but there’s no new coach I want” is, obviously, gobbledygook. Nonetheless, it’s all true: I don’t want Gus fired. But I want a new coach. But there’s no new coach I want.

Gus hasn’t been nearly poor enough that I ought to want a new head coach. I know this. I remember all of the above. But for my entire Auburn life, a Tigers decade has been defined by a single coach: the ’80s by Dye, the ’90s by Bowden (mostly), the Aughts by Tubby, the 2010s by Gus. After 2018, after Florida and LSU and Georgia and Minnesota, I struggle to believe Gus still has enough of his offensive fastball to get Auburn off the train platform and onto somewhere better. The 2020s seem likely to belong to someone else.

I would like to find out who that might be. I would like an end to the endless arguments about Gus in my Twitter mentions. I would like to quit writing pieces addressing whether he should remain head coach. I would like to express my opinions about Auburn’s coaching position and have them not be gobbledygook.

But that’s not happening yet, and that’s OK, too. Another year of life in the muddled gray area won’t kill us (probably). Maybe having an experienced coordinator aboard Gus knows and trusts makes a difference. Maybe Tank Bigsby gives Auburn a Kerryon-esque anchor at running back, and that makes a difference. Maybe the lighter schedule makes a difference. It’s college football; there’s a hundred things we can’t see that could make a difference.

Another thing we can’t see: who on earth Auburn could hire who we’d confidently say would do better.

I’m ready for whatever the next stage of Auburn football might be. But considering what Gus Malzahn has given us — and that it’s unclear if anyone else could give us anything more in the near future than he will — I can wait for that stage a little while longer.

Photo via.

from The War Eagle Reader https://www.thewareaglereader.com/2020/01/a-decade-under-the-gusfluence/