#because they should be the exception to the rules of public health and safety

[carmen-berzattos]

Thoughts on that ceasefire statement?

So I have several people asking me about this. I do have some thoughts, but you'll have to forgive me, I am only able to engage with this passingly.

I want to make a few things clear: I'm originally from Iraq. I do live in the U.S. now, but I grew up in Iraq. And like most Arabs, the Free Palestine movement is unquestionable for me. I have been an uneqovical supporter of Palestine my whole life. Which means the past couple of weeks have been excruciatingly painful. And the horrifying circumstances of it have taken over almost my every waking moment. That, coupled with my own childhood of living through a war which the past two weeks have been triggered again and again, have really tanked my mental health. I mention this to make clear that I will speak to this question just this once, to articulate some of my thoughts around it. In order for me to do the work for Palestine sustainably which I fully plan on doing, I need space to step away from it. I'm choosing this website with the pretty images to be said online space. So I will not engage in any further discourse after this. Even now, I will engage only as far as my mental capacity will allow. As I'm sure you can understand, I am utterly exhausted, and what little energy I have left is better expended elsewhere. I thank you for your understanding.

I want to start by pointing out something that I unquestionably liked about his statement, because I think it's important and a lot of people won't read this whole thing: His mention of the West Bank. The media attention has focused a lot on Gaza, and rightly so. But Palestinians in the West Bank have been suffering gravely for the past two weeks under the tyrannical rule of the settler colonial Israeli government. You should all go read about this and learn more. Palestinians are getting arrested, kicked out of their homes, being brutalised, harrassed, and murdered. It's starting to get *some* coverage now, but still not enough. This would also be my time to remind you that the West Bank is not at all controlled by H*m*s so like, bitch what's your excuse now?

the gist of my thoughts: Is Hozier a Palestinian freedom rebel? No, absolutely not. Is he a hateful supporter of genocide? Also, no, absolutely not. I think Hozier is a well-intentioned celebrity with passing knowledge of what's happening, a publicity team that curtails his words for better or worse, and who has a lot to lose if he missteps in any direction. Whatever we may think of his actual politics that we can glean from his music is not quite the same as coming out with a very clear statement that could put him, and a lot of the people around him at risk. And I mean that both physical safety and otherwise. I think saying something very overtly pro-Palestine could very well put a target not just on him and his team, but possibly on fans attending his concerts in droves right now, especially since he's in the U.S. right now which is a) not his country and b) the country that's primarily funding this war so like fuck me the pro-zionist sentiments here are still STRONG (I just got egged yesterday at a protest and wearing the keffiyah has genuinely made me fear for my life for the past couple of weeks). This may be disappointing (it is), but I frankly have very little energy left to truly feel disappointed. More than anyone, I would have loved for him to come out, blazing fires in his eyes, carrying the Palestinian flag. But alas, I knew that wouldn't happen except in my wildest dreams. I understand that people want to hold him accountable. But it does feel to me like expending this level of energy on a celebrity whose statement was frankly more nuanced than what even media outlets have said is just not where I'm at. I understand if that's where you're at. But it's not something that I can currently engage with.

This is the extent to which I am able to speak to this at the moment. I am sorry if it's not good enough or extensive enough. There's so much that you can pick at, the framing of it, the specific wording that he used. Again, for better or worse, but I just do not think this conversation is where my currently very limited supply of energy should go to. It is up to you whether this is where you'd like your energy to go <3

I hope you're all well. Sending you all so much love.

[gretaxstuff]

A Challenge but With Hope.

Margarette U. Garcia, SHS University of Perpetual Help System - Laguna.

As this story starts, I would like to acknowledge the family members of the people who did not make it through the pandemic. A lot of things have happened to all of us these past 3 years. A pandemic hit us so hard that a lot of families struggle to make it every day. I am very thankful to God that my family is not that rich, but we are comfortable. Our barangay was one of many in Carmona that has a lot of COVID-19 patients since, in our community, the houses are so close to each other that almost one wall connects two houses together.

So as this pandemic starts, the way we act, perceive, and analyze the world has unquestionably changed as a result of COVID-19. What used to be so close now appears to be so far away. It forced us into what felt like a "warp zone," where you have to train yourself to adhere to new laws. Keep your distance from anyone you encounter or converse with. Why is this person not hiding their identity? Is the person coughing in front of me sick? Do I need to spritz alcohol on the doorknob first before opening it? What is the physical separation protocol once more? a meter or two? Also, a lot of businesses went bankrupt.

I personally observed how businesses of all sizes attempted to survive despite unfavorable labor and financial conditions and government-imposed restrictions. Our barangay has all these problems, and you may call it miraculous, but yes, our barangay and its people have found a way to survive during this crisis. And since the government's implementation of the regulations, the Philippines has struggled. The Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) was introduced after a period of appalling incompetence, during which the authorities both grossly underestimated the virus and failed to keep up with the preventive measures of neighboring countries.

In addition, it appears that the last-resort shutdown itself exacerbated a number of problems rather than effectively resolving the fundamental issue at hand: ensuring public health and safety rather than reducing the full impact that the virus had on the country. Except for frontliners, strict rules to follow the ECQ are mandated for all citizens until at least May 15.

Curfews, severe penalties for being outside, and a populace that is becoming increasingly hungry have resulted as a result of this. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on all of us. However, depending on our status as individuals and as members of society, the pandemic's effects and repercussions are felt in different ways. While some people try to adjust to working online, homeschooling all of their children, and using food panda and grab to get groceries and food, others are forced to be exposed to the virus in order to keep society running.

Our membership in society and, thus, our susceptibility to epidemics is determined by our many social identities and the social groupings to which we belong. These are challenging that the entire country and the entire world will need to cooperate on. Since many nations are affected, there is currently an international effort to resolve this problem. The gifts, on the other hand, I think are from God. First and foremost, the nation's leaders are working hard to support their nation. Other gifts include those given by the courageous frontliners — ordinary people who played crucial roles in this problem and rose to the status of heroes.

The last gifts are us — those of us who are aware of the issue and working to address it in any way we can. Because we now have confidence in our abilities, these gifts essentially guarantee a great future for us. As long as we unite and give it our all, we can solve any issue. I believe that we Filipinos should take accountability lessons from this problem. Many people took action, improved their performance, and became more responsible as a result of this situation.

I hope we can resolve this problem, but I also hope we can take something positive away from it. I hope that this pandemic will serve as a wake-up call to everyone, serving as a reminder that we are all connected as people in addition to serving as a reminder to stay safe and practice proper hygiene. We can all work together to solve problems because we are all related.

We've made it through the day at home by completing tasks. We perform household duties and arrange donations for organizations as a way for our family to spend quality time together. As we get ready for Lent, it's also a moment to reconnect with our Savior. Every time we attend mass and pray the novena, it feeds our spirit. As a result, I immerse myself in God's Word every day, because if I don't guard my heart, my love for Christ will grow stale. These are the times when I first started counting my blessings to determine what was still left.

In difficult times, counting our blessings brings us solace and fortitude. It lessens the pain we feel when we lose something or are disappointed. We might feel hopeful by remembering that there are still many things to look forward to and appreciate. The strong presence of the Holy Spirit resides inside us, so there is no need to live in fear. God did not guarantee a world without problems. He permits our struggles because they are necessary. He permits people to go hungry so they can taste His provisions and increase their faith in Him.

Filipinos learned to keep their attention on God and not the issue during those trying times, when their loyalty and faithfulness are put to the ultimate test. Because He provides us with strength, we are able to remain patient and carry out God's will in whatever we do. Never let the lack of trust in others dictate what we should do because our Lord knows our needs and will never replenish us in the same way. Instead, His response to us will always be exactly in line with what we currently need.

We must promote virtue in our neighborhood and broaden the scope of our giving, ideally to those who are in extreme need. In addition, I'm hoping that we may all be each other's beacon of hope when we're all feeling hopeless. Only he has the power to restore and heal the soul; we are unable to do so on our own. All in all, we should all be thankful for what we have and still be thankful for what we lose. We may have lost a lot, but we made it up to now. This is my roller-coaster pandemic experience.

[rauthschild]

The United States of North America, in the Family of Nations, Law of Nations, Response

We begin with an excellent summation by Spike Cohen which captures the essence of it:

"In, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court overturned a 40 year old case called Chevron [Deference] that granted radical levels of power to federal agencies.

Spike Cohen @RealSpikeCohen explains this case and its importance.

“A family fishing company, Loper Bright Enterprises, was being driven out of business, because they couldn't afford the seven hundred dollars per day they were being charged by the NMFS, the National Marine Fisheries Service, to monitor their company. The thing is, federal law doesn't authorize the NMFS to charge businesses for this. They just decided to start doing it in 2013. Why did they think they could get away with just charging people without any legal authorization? Because in 1984, in the Chevron decision, the Supreme Court decided that regulatory agencies were the "experts" in their field, and the courts should just defer to their "interpretation" of the law. So for the past 40 years, federal agencies have been able to "interpret" laws to mean whatever they want, and the courts had to just go with it.

It was called Chevron Deference, and it put bureaucrats in charge of the country.

It's how OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was able to decide that everyone who worked for a large company had to get the jab, or be fired. No law gave them that authority, they just made it up. It's how the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, was able to decide a piece of plastic was a "machine gun". It's how the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the NRCS, is able to decide that a small puddle is a "protected wetland". It's how out-of-control agencies have been able to create rules out of thin air, and force you to comply, and the courts had to simply defer to them, because they were the "experts". Imagine if your local police could just arrest you, for any reason, and no judge or jury was allowed to determine if you'd actually committed a crime or not. Just off to jail you go. That's what Chevron Deference was. It was not only blatantly unconstitutional, it caused immeasurable harm to everyone. Thankfully, it's now gone. We haven't even begun to feel the effects of this decision in the courts. It will be used, for years to come, to roll back federal agencies, and we'll all be better off for it. And that's why politicians and corporate media are freaking out about it.”

~Spike Cohen

This above summation adequately describes the impact of this decision on so-called Administrative Code and all the related Article I Courts and Tribunals in this country.

The Reign of Bureaucratic Terror unleashed by the Chevron Deference (to "Experts") Doctrine has been relegated to the dustbin of history, where it belongs, except that such a decision and such a doctrine should have never existed at all, we are well-pleased.

The proposition that the legislative powers of any Congress should be delegated and redelegated by those operating under delegated power themselves is and always has been unacceptable.

This practice has reliably resulted in the Uncle Ernie Scenario in which a task is assigned to one person and then passed on to a different person to perform; the first person to whom the assignment is actually entrusted passes off their responsibility for performance to the second, who has no direct accountability.

In this way, liability is evaded by the first person and accountability is avoided by the second person, and the public interest is disserved throughout.

The various Territorial and Municipal Congresses have been passing off their responsibilities to unaccountable Federal Agencies since the 1880's, so that faceless, unelected, and largely unaccountable bureaucrats have been writing Administrative Codes and enforcing them as law for over a hundred years--with ever-increasing impunity and corruption.

The break in the dam related to this corruption came last year with another Supreme Court case, "West Virginia v EPA" in which the Justices reiterated a hundred-plus year-old Tennessee ruling in Norton v Shelby County, finding that Congress has no ability to shuffle off its legislative powers to other entities.

The immediate effect is to gut the Administrative Court System and de-fang the various Federal and State-of-State franchise Agencies.

If Congress wants to burden the public they will have to get down to it and do their own dirty work and take responsibility for it from now on. They will no longer have the Agencies to do it all for them, no longer be able to escape their liability by re-assigning their role to unelected bureaucrats.

The unelected bureaucrats will no longer be able to extend their capricious and autocratic rule subject only to their own courts.

A sigh of relief can be heard across the land.

Politically, the court has handed Congress its own head on a platter, and the Executive Branch, too, while significantly increasing its own power and the power of its subordinate "judicial [district]" courts.

This one move has its good points and bad points from an American Public perspective.

The good part is the removal of oppressive bureaucratic and executive powers; the bad part is increased reliance upon courts attached to military judicial districts which were set up in the wake of the Civil War and which are infamously known as "Carpetbagger Courts".

It is doubtful that this "judicial [district] court system" was ever legal or lawful in the first place.

It was initiated in May of 1865 via the creation of ten new "military districts" covering the eleven defeated Confederate States of States, and was invoked via non-existent emergency powers.

The primary duty of this ersatz judicial [district] court system was to keep order and collect war reparations; it was only required to provide "an appearance of justice" --- not actual justice.

The current action can be viewed as the British Territorial Government's "judicial district court system" knocking off their Municipal Court competition.

It can also be viewed as the British Territorial Government taking a controlling position over the vast Federal Agency structure created by FDR and all the more than 350 three-letter and four-letter Municipal Agencies created in the 1930's.

It can be viewed as a peremptory move by the court to reign in executive power, also.

There was a reason that FDR created all those "Federal Agencies" -- and it was simply to enable him to rule as a despot using "Executive Orders" to run the entire country.

So, the whole Chevron Deference Doctrine that has just been overturned, was only an extension and proliferation of already existing abuses of power and non-existent authorities that began in the Belle Epoch Era after the Civil War --abuses that have continued unabated until now.

The first such inroads began with the Pinkerton Laws extended to the Railroad Corporations allowing them to hire and deploy foreign police contractors in this country, followed by the deployment of U.S. Marshals in the western Territories formed during and after the Civil War.

Then, within twenty years, there began a proliferation of "departmental agencies" such as the Department of Justice, Inc., and the Department of Defense, Inc., operated as undisclosed Territorial Government Subcontractors to defend and protect the District Corporations against the American Public, at the expense of the American Public.

It was during this time period from the 1880s to the 1930's that various other "government" departments and functions were secretly privatized and farmed out to individual privately owned and operated corporations in the business of providing essential government services.

It was during this period of time that the Federal Reserve System, Inc. came into being and the United States Department of the Treasury, Inc. and the Bureau of Land Management, Inc. and the various state-level Bureaus of Vital Statistics came into being.

These are all private enterprises secretly and deceptively operating under color of law as if they have legitimate government authority, and all of their assumed powers have rested on the same practice of "secondary delegation" of powers that has been overturned in the Loper Bright Enterprises decision.

Please note that the International Monetary Fund, Inc., has operated as the United States Department of the Treasury, Inc., and as the United States Treasury, Inc., since 1924. These, in turn, have been acting in concert with the Internal Revenue Service, Inc. These are all British Crown Corporations.

Meanwhile, the IMF, INC. has operated as the US DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, INC., and the UNITED STATES TREASURY, INC. and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INC., and so on, in a similar "mirrored" bureaucracy having little or nothing to do with this actual country or our people. These are all Holy Roman Empire Municipal Corporations.

It's clear that the overturning of the Chevron Deference Doctrine means overturning many of the powers assumed by these incorporated entities and de-legalizing many of the enforcement activities that have been used to purloin property interests and illegally confiscate assets belonging to Americans beginning in the 1880's.

The so-called "Executive Powers" exercised by FDR and his Successors to accomplish all these evil ends and to benefit from corporate cronyism are similarly overturned by this decision, in that the Executives of the Federal Municipal Corporations can no longer delegate their powers away to these incorporated Agencies.

Like the Territorial and Municipal Congresses, the Presidents are now stuck doing their own dirty work and are liable for the performance and the results.

As Americans, we are pleased, but wary.

The judicial district court system has its own evil history of abuses and it is no accident that Americans who can't tell you how many doughnuts are in a dozen can still remember the phrase, "Carpetbagger Courts".

These courts were famous for misaddressing anyone who had anything of value as a "rebel" or "insurrectionist" and then illegally and immorally confiscating their private assets to pay "war" reparations for a mercenary conflict -- which is, itself, both illegal and unlawful.

Should we celebrate this power grab by these "judicial" courts? Probably not.

They are not our courts and their history in this country is not at all reassuring.

From the Autochthonous American perspective, we have been at peace since 1814, and nobody should be misidentifying us as part of any foreign citizenry, impersonating us, accusing us, latching upon our assets, misaddressing us, or otherwise presuming anything against us.

From the Autochthonous American perspective, there are no "emergency powers" nor "executive orders" and no "war powers", either. These phrases and everything attached to them pertain to foreign corporations and their internal operations.

They have nothing to do with the American Public and never did.

Untangling this vast web of semantic deceits and misdeeds, breaches of trust, violation of service contracts, and wrongs visited upon the innocent will take time and effort to unravel.

We are guardedly optimistic about the recent Supreme Court reversal of the Chevron Deference Doctrine. It has many foreseeable good results and is a big step toward restoring sanity both in court venues and in the arena of public administration.

Many of the most egregious abuses will be stopped.

The effect of further empowering military district judicial courts is unknown and unsettling from the perspective of the civilian population and the American Government, which considers the occupation of our country by foreign mercenary forces to be illegal and unlawful and also considers the basis for forming the so-called "judicial district court system" to be lacking.

A British Territorial "United States" Congress ordained these courts via legislative act in 1865, but that is no excuse to impersonate Americans and subject them to foreign law in breach of trust and service contract, just as a Mercenary Conflict does not provide recourse to the Law of War.

If these infamous courts and those running them can be correctly and sufficiently re-educated, justice may return to this country prior to the broad spectrum reopening of our assembly courts. This would certainly be welcome instead of a last-ditch effort to further defraud, brutalize, and mischaracterize Americans on the way out the door -- which is the other possible outcome.

Millions of Americans have been impersonated as British Territorial U.S. Citizens and have been illegally presumed upon to pay mortgages and property taxes which they either (1) don't owe in the first case, or (2) owe, but not in reference to what is owed to them.

A large-scale plan and effort to foreclose on millions of American homeowners and landowners under these false presumptions has been uncovered, and Carpetbagger Courts brought forward into the modern era would certainly be handy and well-practiced in the art of illegal confiscation of assets.

It is our position and purpose to oppose any such activities being carried out against our people and against their lawful persons by British Territorial Mercenary Interests or any other parties and players.

It can be easily observed and historically documented that Americans don't owe any "National Debt" and don't owe anything to the Central Banks. Instead, we are the only solvent underwriters.

Unlike our Tory neighbors, we didn't borrow any money from King George to fight against ourselves in the War of Independence, nor did we mortgage our lands to pay his Successors back for more loans enabling ourselves to fight for His Royal Britannic Majesty in World War I or World War II -- which is the source of all those "mortgages" which are owed on British Territorial properties, but not on American properties.

It becomes apparent why there has been such a concerted effort on the part of the British Territorial "U.S. Government" to misidentify Americans as British Territorial U.S. Citizens: they get to collect mortgages and property taxes against U.S. Citizens, not Americans.

Likewise, while Americans may owe them for stipulated services, they owe the Americans an insurmountable debt, requiring them to provide a debt swap "credit exemption exchange" with Americans, but not with British Territorials. This provides another powerful incentive and motivation to secretively impersonate and misidentify Americans as British Territorial U.S. Citizens.

There are millions upon millions of Americans who have been secretly mischaracterized as British Territorial U.S. Citizens, Americans who have been impersonated and who have paid mortgages they didn't owe, property taxes they didn't owe, internal revenue taxes they didn't owe, and franchise taxes they didn't owe, all because of unconscionable citizenship obligations that were foisted off on them while they were babies in their cradles.

If the purpose of the current action of the U.S. Supreme Court is simply to narrow down the competition to fleece the Americans out of more property, and to shut down the Municipal courts in advance of another unjustifiable assault on us by Territorial Carpetbaggers, then the end of Agency Oppression will be tempered by the onset of Territorial Courts engaged in illegal confiscation and asset stripping similar to what went on after the so-called American Civil War ended.

We have discovered plans outlining such an assault on American homes and land holdings, and also plans by the U.S. Government corporations to hold vast numbers of trials and executions at public expense--- actions that will kill large numbers of people, create untold social upheaval, and further traumatize the American victims of all these crimes without, however, coming clean about what has happened here.

We strongly oppose and object to any such destructive course of action from persons who remain our Debtors in fact.

[thelistingteammiami]

How the Short-Term Real Estate Market Is Affecting the Florida Market

Short-term rentals diversify the housing market. They give travelers a budget-friendly alternative to hotels and allow homeowners to earn passive income by hosting vacationers. However, these properties can negatively affect real estate markets — particularly a hot one like Florida — over the long term.

The Airbnb State

Airbnb has disrupted the hospitality and real estate industries nationwide. This short-term homestay platform usually has a presence in almost every state, but its listings are primarily in the biggest cities. The Land of Flowers is an exception to this rule.

Florida is one of the few states with significant quantities of Airbnb rentals in multiple towns. Most Floridian Airbnb hosts are in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Kissimmee, Saint Petersburg and Davenport.

Regarding density, Broward County has 9.1 listings per 1,000 inhabitants. It’s less than half as densely Airbnb-hosted as Hawaii. Still, it’s impressive because the county is the second-most populous in Florida — the country’s fastest-growing state and third-largest demographically.

Transient rental is a huge business in the Sunshine State because it’s America’s top tourist destination. In 2022, a historic 137.6 million vacationers visited the Citrus Capital.

Airbnb already has a massive footprint in the Sunshine State and is on track to expand further in South Florida. Many developers are building hotels masquerading as condominiums with hundreds of doors licensed as short-term rentals.

More similar commercial real estate projects are likely to get underway because the demand for short-term rentals in the peninsula remains strong. The units sell like hotcakes while the wait list of interested buyers continues to grow longer.

Why Do Cities Not Like Short-Term Rentals?

Some cities dislike short-term rentals for various reasons. Many homestay hosts evade taxes and take business away from tax-paying establishments. However, Airbnb has begun deducting taxes from host incomes and remitting them to the authorities in specific jurisdictions.

Critics say Airbnb rentals aren’t subject to health and safety codes like traditional lodging businesses. That’s why some property developers catering to aspiring Airbnb hosts put a premium on hygiene to win over hotel customers.

Many neighbors of Airbnb hosts in multi-family dwellings complain about disrespectful guests. Some transient occupants can be noisy and bother residents.

Year-round residents of touristy locations who don’t own a home — and have no means to do a cross-country move — are the biggest haters of Airbnb because they feel the pinch. Many landlords in these places find homestays more lucrative, compelling them to target transient occupants instead of renting to long-term tenants. The advent of Airbnbs in tourist destinations with low housing inventory creates a chain of adverse events for people who desire to reside there over the long haul.

The non-owner-occupied landlords too eager to make bank off the Everglade State’s scorching tourism sector convert their long-term rentals into short-term accommodations. This decision reduces the number of local properties for rent. Less housing supply drives up the rent.

This situation also makes home buying more challenging. Absentee homeowners have less incentive to sell an income-generating property, leaving homebuyers to fight over fewer houses for sale. Although building costs can jump by 2%, a new construction project can appear more enticing when buying an existing home means bidding higher than you should.

Is Florida Banning Short-Term Rentals?

No, Florida isn’t banning short-term rentals. On the contrary, the legislature places obstacles to prevent curbing short-term rentals.

In 2011, state lawmakers passed a bill barring local governments from using zoning to disallow vacation rentals. Due to public backlash, the legislators revised the law three years later, reempowering communities to regulate such properties as long as they don’t restrict their duration or frequency, or ban them altogether.

Effects of Short-Term Rentals on the Florida Real Estate Market

Short-term rentals contribute to higher rents and home prices in the Gulf State.

Rising Rents

The growth of home sharing in Florida has aggravated its rental crisis. The state has a dim view of rent control. Governor Ron DeSantis has given landlords the green light to charge a monthly nonrefundable fee instead of a security deposit. When you add short-term vacation rentals into the picture, the shortage of available units for year-round tenants becomes even more pronounced.

The Waller, Weeks, and Johnson Rental Index offers insight. As of November 19, 2023, Miami ranked 7th in the top most overpriced markets in the United States. The average rent in the city was $2,768.53 when it should be $2,572.02, translating to a premium of 7.64% and an increase of 2.88% year over year. You need to make at least $110,741.08 a year to avoid spending more than 30% of your annual income on rent in the 305.

Eight other Floridian metros made it to the top 80. In order based on rental premiums paid ranging from 6.15% to 1.96%, they were Cape Coral, North Port, Tampa, Deltona, Orlando, Lakeland, Palm Bay and Jacksonville. In an environment where property owners can rent out to anyone and jack up prices as they see fit, the market typically would correct itself and punish overly greedy landlords with vacancies. This notion is true to some extent.

One study revealed Airbnb hosts in college towns saw 36% fewer bookings when raising rents by 20% or more during weekends when rival teams visit. This phenomenon resulted in 78% lower rental income.

Affiliation bias played a role in this noticeable drop in occupancy, but greed and animosity toward rival fan bases did, too. The wealthier the landlords, the more they’re unlikely to shape up.

Soaring Home Prices

Airbnb inflates home prices higher than rents in zip codes with fewer owner-occupied properties. Florida attracts snowbirds, so it’s home to many absentee homeowners who regularly live elsewhere for a significant portion of the year. Whether they host transient vacationers or not, they don’t intend to sell their secondary residences and indirectly keep the housing supply low.

Research shows house prices rise by 0.026% for every 1% increase in Airbnb listings within the zip code. The “Airbnb effect” accounts for 1/7 of the overall property price growth, so it’s one of the forces making home ownership out of reach for many.

Will Short-Term Vacation Rentals Be Profitable in the Future?

Florida will remain a fertile ground for home sharing as long as two conditions persist — it continues to magnetize countless visitors and its lawmakers maintain friendly policies for vacation rentals. The first domino will fall when at least one of the two is missing. Landlords may get fewer reservations or face more restrictions on how they operate. Either way, rents and home prices decrease when transient rentals bring in less return.

[hitchell-mope]

88. Somethings you should probably know.

WARNING! Some points may be controversial. So I advise you to not read it if you don’t like what I have to say. Everybody got that? Good. Then let’s begin.

I’ve based this on the opposite of what I’ve watched in police procedurals like law and order uk and blue bloods. As in. All the characters are beholden to the law. With very few exceptions. And even then it’s due to the statute of limitations. For example. They will always be taken off a case that they have a personal connection to. Like when Phaedra Wilkins is murdered in season nine. Just because no one likes the cow doesn’t mean they’re allowed to investigate.

I’ve tried to make Findlay Sullivan the opposite of a typical leading lady that you usually see on tv. For instance. She’s the heir to New York State. But she’s not a self hating socialite who feels the need to apologise for being rich. She’s not a tv feminist. She doesn’t believe that women should be excused for crimes they’ve committed just because they’re women. She’s much more likely to side with a man in an argument. She’s not a female misogynist. She just doesn’t believe that men are wrong by the simple virtue of being men. Essentially. She just doesn’t believe in the Unfair Sex trope. Away from that. She’s very happily married to her college sweetheart with three sons. And they never have martial problems related to the job because I’ve also averted the Wet Blanket Wife trope. It also helps that she’s basically his sidekick on investigations. She also donates her unneeded paycheque to charity every week. She’s a centillionaire. So why would she need it?

Since this is an alternate universe. Certain things have happened differently in this universe. For example. The Romanov’s are still on the Russian throne because the Bolshevik revolution never happened. The Windsor’s fell out of power in 2030 and were replaced by the Burtons who are Anglo-Indian Fae. By season seventeen the is throne filled by Reuben Burton and his wife Chantelle.

In this universe. Guns are meticulously controlled. The public is completely legally barred from owning firearms. If you’re a cop. You can apply for a license. It’ll take you a decade but you can apply. During which you’ll be thoroughly screened. Until then you’ll be partnered with a license holder. That is unless and until you learn magic. Then any application is shredded and your main focus is to learn defensive spells.

90% of drugs are legal and lot of the health effects have been lessened. The only ones still illegal are those created by mobs like the Carothers family. And that’s because they don’t toe the line with regards to safety precautions and protocols.

Of age, consensual prostitution is legal. If you’re 18 or above and you decide to engage in prostitution as a career path you are legally protected from arrest. If you’re a trafficker. Then you’re on the wanted list. It’s just that simple.

Another thing I like to try and focus on in this is fairness and unfairness within the law. As in. Sometimes doing the right thing means you get arrested. Ie. In season five Sidney has to arrest Godfrey Christensen (literally God himself) for drowning several child traffickers in their own blood. And a major subplot in season thirteen pertaining to a false rape accusation takes its toll on Findlay to the point she seriously considers quitting the precinct due to serval instances of purely rotten luck.

Democrats make up the majority of American government. Has been since 2008 when Michele Obama was elected. There is a slight hiccup in season eight when Martha Fuchs tries to take over the world. But that’s eventually dealt with and Bethany DuPont gets elected at the start of season twelve. And no. Before anyone asks. Melania Trump was NEVER President in this world. Instead the president from 2016 to 2020 was Chelsea Clinton. My world my rules.

The government in much, much, much, much more on the ball in this world. For example. Covid only lasted a year in this world because EVERYONE abided by and enforced the guidelines. And it all went much more smoothly.

And last but by no means least. The fancasts I use for the characters are done by way of Playing Against Type for example. I’ve used Aidan Gallagher as the fancast for Drummond Sullivan. Aidan is known for The Umbrella Academy. Five Hargreeves is well, Five Hargreeves. More of an antihero than anything else. And Drummond is the biological son of a mob boss and is one of the token evil teammates in the cast. His catchphrase is essentially threatening to Irish jig on people’s faces with his cloven hooves. He’s also primarily a carnivore So. There’s that. But you get the point. I apply the fancast to the opposite of what they’re known for. Wether it’s John C Reilly as the de-facto Big Good. Or Aidan Gallagher as a hyper violent maniacal satyr.

There’s probably more but that’s all I can think of right now. So. Tell me what you think?

[eboshi-of-irontown]

The ridiculous thing about taking this to court was that Eboshi did not actually care that much.

She'd lashed out. She could admit it-- lashed out and closed Chapter Three out of anger and vindication. Eboshi did not regret it because the Acherons were arrogant fools who abused magic and summoned demons, and so they should be punished for those things.

But she had better things to do than show up in court and argue for something she did not fully believe in.

At least it was keeping the Acherons busy. That was an infinitely good thing. It meant Eboshi could conduct her audit-- and meet Ashitaka secretly-- in peace.

Now, she stepped up to the judge, greeting him smoothly and then launching into her own opening statement.

"I won't waste your time, your honor. The closing of Chapter Three was the natural result of a routine inspection. Inspectors must follow strict guidelines-- they must enforce a standard. Without that standard, all kinds of exceptions might slip under the radar without notice and the quality of public establishments would eventually, inevitably, degrade. That's why we have the standard in the first place. It is not suggestion, it is rule.

The inspector who entered Chapter Three that day acted according to law and well within those guidelines of his position. He found that Chapter Three was not in compliance with the health and safety codes that all businesses in Swynlake, magic or not, must comply with. His job was not to look at Chapter Three's finances, nor become intimate with Chapter Three's customer base. He was a neutral party and made the best decision he could, based on protocol and his own experience. I urge your Honor to keep in mind the importance of this protocol as we move forward with this case, and the potential dangers of undermining it. Thank you."

Eboshi turned around and met Belle's eyes-- flashing her a brief, sharp smile.

@labellerose-acheron

Throwing the Book *** [Eboshelle]

[ablednt]

Actually helpful advice for the kids on this hellsite

Once again tired of "don't make a carrd or tell people your triggers" posts going around literally telling kids it's Dangerous to set boundaries. So here's what I've learned in my teen years on how to stay safe in the hellscape that's the internet.

Identity

You don't have to link all your social media together but you can if you want to. Don't give out something that is more private (like discord account, Skype or zoom account, facebook, Snapchat etc.) publicly or to people who aren't familiar with yet though.

Use a nickname rather than your real name or birth name, an account and name change may unfortunately be necessary so if you want to keep a name safe or use it irl then don't attach it to public social media. This can be fun though! Go apeshit coming up with different aliases and names! Call yourself lizard if you want to!

The only thing you absolutely need to put somewhere on your account (or carrd) is that you're a minor. You don't have to give the exact age but I promise this is important because even if there's plenty of context clues that you're a minor if you don't indicate this somewhere clear and adults start treating you like shit you need to be able to point out that they're knowingly doing this to a minor. That has saved me from gross bullshit a lot. Yes, people should default to treating people who's ages they don't know as a minor to play it safe but the majority of people assume everyone is the same age as them so you need to make it clear you're not an adult.

Pronouns don't make you identifiable and anyone who acts like putting your pronouns in your bio is unsafe is probably transphobic lmao. You don't have to if you don't want to (and don't mind people not using/knowing your pronouns) but it's safe to put them there most of the time. (The only exception I can think of is if you're closeted and your parents may find your account but in that case you should probably stay closeted online to unless you feel safe/know they aren't likely to find your account.)

You don't have to list every privilege you have and you probably shouldn't but if you're white you probably should indicate this somewhere. This is to hold yourself accountable because yes even teenagers can be racist and underaged people of color also deserve to feel safe. If you're nonwhite and don't feel safe doing so you don't have to list your race or ethnicity.

If you're part of a system/plural or questioning you do NOT have to say your systems origins, if you have DID/OSDD, or list your headmates/alters. The system community has a lot of people in it (and singlets adjacent to parts of the community due to bullshit discourse groups welcoming them) who will target underaged systems to fakeclaim them or harass them etc. I suggest having everyone use aliases/nicknames on a system account and you only tell your origin to people you feel comfortable around and safe with. Your safety and privacy is more important than your trendy system carrd goals I promise!

You shouldn't really just list any disorders you have but it really does no harm to put marginalized identities you're proud of on a carrd or in your bio. You might get a shitty anon or two but I promise people aren't going to dox you if you say you're autistic on your carrd or something.

I personally wouldn't list any special interests that are particularly recognizable (popular media should be ok but more niche stuff may not be) or publicly share a kin list just because you never know if you'll want to switch up your identity online to feel safe and the more things are clearly tied to your current nickname and handle the harder it will be to do this. However if you feel safe doing so it's not the end of the world. Just be careful about it and don't feel pressured to give more info than you're comfortable giving.

You do NOT need to tell people your trauma in order to tell them your triggers. If you need something tagged with a tw you really should indicate this somewhere so people know to tag it (unless you intend to send every you're mutuals with an anon with what to tag which is also an option but may be difficult) but you shouldn't tell them your trauma or medical history to justify it. Your boundaries aren't up for debate and you have nothing to prove. You should only talk about your trauma if you feel safe doing so (and even then please don't give identifiable details like.names of people involved or specifics as that can cause serious problems.)

Boundaries & etiquette

DNIs are good! BYFs are good! Anyone who tells you that they're not good or useful is absolutely trying to disrespect your and other people's boundaries. You can and should make a DNI and list the people you don't want to interact with. (Generally it's better to say groups rather than specific people or names because it's easier to again not be recognized if you need to change accounts/aliases but you can do this if you have strong reasoning and absolutely have to to feel safe.)

DNIs (and also.trigger lists) don't have to all be bad things! You can put fandoms that make you uncomfortable, things that trigger you but aren't bad inherently, etc. on these lists. They're about helping you feel safe not having the hottest takes or being the most morally correct.

Some people you should put in your DNIs as a minor are proshippers/anti-antis and MAPs. Both of these groups have been proven time and time again to groom minors online so the earlier you get away from them the better.

Once you have your DNI please do be aggressive in reinforcing it! Block people who break your DNI, tell people who complain about your DNI to fuck off! Do not tolerate people trying to debate the boundaries You have set this is your corner of the internet to feel safe! They can go somewhere else! Being blocked by a kid on the internet is not the emotional blow abusers act like it is. You're not mean for having boundaries please internalize this and stand up for yourself!

If other people have a DNI you need to check that before following them this is for both your own safety and theirs. If you're unsure what something on someone's DNI means ask around to find out before following just in case.

Do NOT get involved in discourse! This doesn't mean you can't ever take part in or boost serious things. Discussing/calling out bigotry (racism, ableism, transphobia, etc.) isn't discourse. Sometimes callout posts for legitimately harmful people is necessary so that's not automatically bad. But I'm taking about the shit that's #discourse. Stay out of ace discourse. Stay away from syscourse. Don't debate with terfs or transmeds or shitty people. I know it seems like it'd be cathartic to win debates with shitty people, I know there's people who will try to bait you into the latest argument over which lgbt+ identities can say what slurs or whatever the fuck the pointless bad faith argument is, and I know you want to prove that your marginalized identity doesn't make you a bad person like bigots say it does. But as someone who's mental health was absolutely destroyed by discourse as a teen it's not worth it. By all means discuss issues as they arise, broaden your perspectives and horizons, etc. but don't engage knowingly in discourse it will save you so much trouble in the long run.

Try to avoid talking to adults 1x1 if you can avoid it! It's okay to dm with an adult you feel safe talking to sometimes and while it's certainly okay not to interact with adults at all if you don't feel.comfortable it's generally okay to do so. But if an adult is going out of their way to consistently talk to you in private needlessly that can be a red flag. If an adult tries to insinuate that they're the only adult around you can trust that's DEFINITELY a red flag. Basically talk to people in places you can easily involve others if needs be. If someone sends you a dm that makes you uncomfortable screenshot it in case you need to show someone etc.

Don't discuss NSFW things with adults, in spaces adults have easy access to (for example a discord server open to all ages), or even with other underaged people who haven't indicated they're comfortable with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with being aware of nsfw stuff or experiencing sexual attraction as a teenager but it's very important that you don't put yourself in situations that may be unsafe for you or others. Most good discord servers have rules against this for this exact reason. Now, to make it abundantly clear, if you did or do ever say something nsfw and an adult takes advantage of this or responds in a way that makes you uncomfortable this is NOT your fault! The responsibility falls on adults to act appropriately but it's still a good idea to keep youeself out of harms way.

That's basically it on a general level. Once again, posts telling you not to make DNIs or carrds or trigger lists (all used to set clear boundaries) are very suspect and either grossly misunderstand how these things work or are intentionally demonizing them in order to have more opportunity it excuse to do harm. Setting clear boundaries is good. Doing things that help you feel safe and respected is good. Just don't go and get involved in discourse or give out personal information or anything.

[krisrix]

Saw a post about the "lack” of trauma in Wayward Son, especially in comparison to the representations of trauma in Carry On. Which seemed like a gross oversimplification of the many ways trauma can manifest and therefore came across to me as dismissive and gate-keeping, whether or not that was the intent.

There is no one correct way of experiencing, exhibiting, or depicting mental health/trauma. And these things shift within everyone all the time. The way a person’s trauma manifests at one point will not be how it always manifests. That’s part of the problem.

So, I thought I would offer some of my own thoughts about the ways we see Simon and Baz’s mental health issues and trauma played out in WS, especially in comparison to how we see it in CO.

This is NOT exhaustive. I am likely going to forget many things. But it’s something.

Simon:

Simon shows signs of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and rejection sensitivity dysphoria

These were all things he had in CO, but they were well-hidden thanks to his compartmentalization abilities and the fact that he was held together by pure stress and adrenaline at all times

Pretty much every single thing shown to us in CO is also shown to us in WS, though sometimes in more subtle ways - name it, it’s probably there

Now that he has his own space, his own rules, and no reason to fear for his life on a constant basis (no care homes, no attacks, no Big Bad, no roommate out to get him), he actually has SAFETY and COMFORT for the first time in his life - and he has no fucking clue what to do with it!

He crumples under the complete LACK of pressure - it was the only thing holding him together

He’s developed a drinking problem, neglected his hygiene, dropped out of school, and gained weight due to lack of maintaining his usual levels of self-care - this is not someone being “listless” - this is someone with mental health concerns on a level where intervention is needed

But rather than tackle this, Simon forces his brain to continue its attempts at compartmentalization, and he stops going to therapy

Except he can’t do that anymore, because Pandora’s box has been opened - AND, again, he has no external pressures keeping him going

He feels hopeless about his future and views himself as completely useless

His self-esteem is awful to the point where he is sabotaging his own health and relationship

He thinks he’s showing Baz “who is really is”, but he’s actually just discrediting himself entirely, showing us his self-destructive hero complex in a different way than in CO

He’s still reactive and loses control - he screams at Penny when she uses her magic on him, he’s itching for a fight, and he’s also channelled a lot of this into possessiveness

He still shows his black-and-white morality continuously throughout the book - not trusting the vampires, throwing his life on the line to save Agatha even though he knows it’s a trap, still quoting the Mage, etc

He only comes to life when he finally has a reason to be useful again

He kills vampires and possibly kills Terry - this is not surprising - he spent his entire childhood as a soldier, slashing things, blowing things up, etc - WS is showing us this side to him explicitly, whereas it was more glossed over in CO - but it was always there (he killed an excitable dog in CO, remember?)

He is disfigured - he cannot go out in public without depending on someone’s magic (which we already know from CO that he hates!) or covering up oddly in a trenchcoat

Even with those things, he can’t go confined places - like the Tube - or a public toilet!!!

Prior to Penny’s new spell, he had not been able to sit up straight properly for over a year - OVER A YEAR - he probably has chronic pain on top of the trauma of this

Baz:

Simon tells us he’s “blossoming” - that does not mean it’s necessarily true

Baz has thrown himself completely into his studies, and whenever he is not on campus, he is babysitting Simon

He is still coping with self-destructive martyrdom - he devotes all his time to Simon and does whatever he can to make Simon comfortable

One remnant of their history as enemies manifests in how Baz is terrified to set his boundaries in the relationship - he’s always on eggshells, he’s always counting himself lucky to be in Simon’s good graces at all, after everything

He watches everything he says around Simon - he’s terrified of giving Simon a reason to officially end things - the teaching-Simon-to-drive scene is a perfect example - it’s sweet and flirty and sexy, but also, Baz is SO careful about making sure Simon doesn’t get frustrated with him or the process

He still sees himself as unworthy of love - which is why he would rather have what little shreds of a relationship they still have left, than nothing at all

He is MISERABLE in America - he is starving and being burned alive and gets shot multiple times!! And he never once complains - that’s not admirable - that’s sad - that’s really fucking sad

He continues to put all of his dignity and pride into his external self, both visually and through his academic achievements, rather than into his mental and emotional well-being - perhaps even MORE than ever before, given how much he’s “blossomed” despite not going to therapy

These are high-functioning mental health issues - not a lack of them

He still hides his vulnerability and affections - he still never feels safe being himself - both as a vampire and as Simon’s boyfriend - coincidence? I think the fuck not

He likens Simon kissing him after the Ren Faire fight to when they shared magic, taking down the dragon - he thinks about how this time, he doesn’t need to pretend he’s not soaring inside - and then a few hours pass, and Simon pulls away from his kiss, and Baz has to go right back to hiding

He spent his entire childhood playing the villain, and now that he doesn’t have to anymore, we get to see that this is not who he was in the slightest

He’s the one appalled when Penny is doing illegal things - he’s the one always trying to talk them out of an altercation - he WANTS to be good but wasn’t allowed to before

He IS loyal - very loyal - and Simon uses this against him in subtle ways

He has no idea who he is - but we do get to see him try to find out, thankfully - it’s a matter of how much of this he is willing to accept and use as a catalyst for his own self-actualization - this is a journey he has only just begun - which should be celebrated, not seen as a dismissal of his struggles which came before

“You live in fear! In denial!” - pretty sure that says it all

There is so much more than this, but I am just so fucking tired.

Feel free to reblog, add your own thoughts, counter-points, etc. I love a good discussion. Just be respectful, ok? It’s not hard.

[echo-bleu]

To Fall, There Is Death

This work was created for the @rnmbb Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2020 event.

The amazing @slynella/Slynella was my partner for this event and created three absolutely wonderful illustrations for this story! The artworks are incredible and I love them to pieces, thank you so much Sly 💙

Huge thanks also to @eveningspirit for helping me build the plot of this and handholding through the writing. This fic was hard to write, both because I got lost more than once in the narrative and because I basically left the fandom when I was less than halfway done. But, here it is.

This fic is loosely based on both Dumas' The Three Musketeers and BBC Musketeers, and borrows some plot elements (and a few lines) from the latter, but there is no historical accuracy whatsoever and it is set in the fictional kingdom of Antar. The title comes from “Quo ruit et lethum” which is the actual motto of the Musketeers: To Fall, There Is Death. The header of each part is a chess move or a chess opening, usually with some relation to what happens in the part (and a few where I just liked the name :D).

[apparent deaths by shooting and hanging, mentions of war and injuries, canonical levels of violence, past abuse]

Read on AO3 (13k).

The day Alex died was the beginning of the end.

Liz would be hard pressed to tell when it had all started, when the pieces had first been put in motion. So much had happened to lead them there, one step away from checkmate, one step away from the end of the game.

Maybe it had started six months ago, when the King died. She remembered the funeral ceremony that gathered all of the court and so much of the city, Max and Isobel’s regal and solemn faces. Max had worn white, and knelt to receive the crown on his head. “The King is dead,” they’d chanted. “Long live the King!”

But things had been moving even before that. Maybe it had started a year ago, when Lord Michael first came to the court and challenged Alex to a duel. Alex had been injured already, barely able to stand on his feet. Liz remembered the absolute shock on his face, when Michael had pushed back his hood and revealed himself, after the King introduced him as his natural son.

Alex had lost the duel. He’d stood there afterwards, dazed and devastated, unable to take his eyes off Michael for one second, like he’d expected him to disappear again. He’d spent most of the next three weeks drinking himself to the ground every evening, just to dull the pain that never left his eyes.

So maybe the pieces had already found their place ten years ago, in that time Alex only ever hinted at, when he and Michael were engaged to be married. He’d never told Liz and Maria the story. “There was a man, once,” he’d said. “He died.” Kyle had probably known more, after all he was Alex’s friend when they were children, but he never said. In all the years they’d known Alex, though, there were always these shadows in his eyes, that spoke of a dreadful weight, a longing and a guilt that never left him.

*

Bishop Takes Knight

Now

The Musketeers on duty stood in line for muster, as Alex limped down the ranks and inspected their gear. Musketeers had to be dressed perfectly in every circumstance, boots shiny and blue cape draped over their shoulders, because they could be called to attend the King and the royal family at any moment. Liz was with Maria at the very end of the line, Alex’s seconds-in-command, his most trusted people. Kyle wasn’t there, because a patrol had come back injured from a skirmish with the Red Guard the night before and the surgeon hadn’t slept all night, getting a bullet out of a Musketeer’s shoulder.

Alex handed out orders for the day and dismissed his Musketeers. Liz and Maria joined him in the armory, since they were to be on duty at the Palace that day, and together they selected loaded muskets and their trusted swords.

There was nothing to indicate how horrendous things were about to get, except maybe for the slight trembling in Alex’s hands as he fit his scabbard on his belt, or the way Liz and Maria squeezed his shoulder a little tighter than usual before going to ready their horses.

They barely had time to step out of the garrison, leading their horses out of the large wooden gate, before everything went to hell.

“Musketeers!” a voice rung out, harsh and unforgiving.

Alex froze in his steps, recognizing the figure in red before any of them. There were half a dozen Red Guards scattered around the square, unmoving, watching them, and in the middle, Lord Michael, in full leather armor under his red cape. He had several pistols on his belt, and one held loosely in his hand.

“Manes,” he added with venom in his voice. “Still standing, I see. Still the Captain.”

“Michael,” Alex answered, his voice smaller and shakier than Liz had ever heard it in public. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to finally do what I’ve been waiting for for ten years,” Michael spit out. “I’m here to kill you.”

Liz fully expected Alex to take a fighting stance, bring out his pistol and defend himself, but he sagged instead, looking defeated. What had become of her friend, the war hero who went up the ranks so fast he became the youngest Captain ever? Where had Alex Manes, the fearless soldier, best swordsman in the Kingdom, gone?

She’d seen the change, of course. The last year hadn’t been easy on Alex. Ever since Michael first came to the court, he’d been different. There was a spring in his steps, at first, just knowing that Michael was alive, but with the months passing, with Michael showing his loyalty to Jesse Manes at every turn and his hatred of Alex, it had grown into a weight, a ball and chain he dragged everywhere with him.

Liz hadn’t realized that it had gotten that bad. Alex wasn’t defensive, he was resigned. It was almost like he wanted Michael to kill him. Like he felt that he deserved it.

He gave Maria the reins of his horse, and turned back to Michael, facing him.

“We can still work this out,” he said, his voice low and sad. “There are other ways, Michael. You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, I believe I do,” Michael snarled, still speaking loudly so that everyone in the square could hear him. “You had me hanged, Alex. On the day we should have been wedded.”

Alex looked stricken. “I didn’t–”

“I was in your bed, for months. I know who you are, deep inside. Definitely not a morally uptight Musketeer. You disgust me.”

“We can settle this like gentlemen,” Alex said, hand going for his sword. “Last time I was injured, but we can duel again. The King isn’t there to stop us from dueling to the death this time. You can have your reparation.”

Michael waved his pistol around. “Damn the rules!”

“Michael!” Liz cried out. This was too much. If Alex wasn’t going to defend himself, then she would. “The King will never forgive you if you do this.”

“The King is my brother,” Michael spit. “He’ll choose me over one Musketeer. Especially one who’s been a thorn in everyone’s side for so long.”

Liz closed her eyes. She wanted to believe that it wasn’t true, that Max truly respected Alex and wouldn’t stand for this, but how well did she really know the King? Just because he liked her, because he always asked her to be his guard and they’d had a few moments together, didn’t mean she knew what he was thinking. This was a matter of politics, the King and the Prime Minister, the Musketeers and the Red Guard. It would never be a simple question of friendships and personal preference.

When she opened her eyes again, Michael had his pistol trained on Alex.

“Michael,” Alex murmured. “Please. I never wanted this. I loved you.” He had tears running down his cheeks.

Michael’s jaw was set, but he twitched at the words.

“You never loved me,” he snarled. “I was just a toy to you, that you discarded at the first occasion. How was it like, Alex, to see me hang at the end of a rope? How did it feel?”

Alex let out a sob. Michael locked eyes with him.

It all happened fast. Michael aimed his pistol just as Alex looked away, devastated. The shot rang out like a death sentence, echoing across the square.

“Alex!” Liz screamed, as her friend collapsed. She ran to Alex’s side, all thoughts of safety be damned. He was lying on his side, unmoving.

“Lord Michael!” someone cried. The Red Guards around the square started moving, rallying around Michael as the Musketeers took out their guns. But there wasn’t going to be an all-out battle, not today, not like this. Michael looked at them disdainfully and turned away, taking his men with him.

“Kyle! Kyle, come here right now!” Maria yelled toward the open gate of the garrison, joining Liz at Alex’s side.

But Jenna Cameron was already moving Alex, checking his pulse. “It's too late,” she said. “He's gone.”

Liz stayed frozen for a second, incapable of believing it. She looked between Alex’s still form and Michael, now retreating from the square without even a look behind him.

“Come back, you coward!” Liz screamed at the top of her lungs. She launched toward him, but Maria caught her across the waist and held her back, sobbing.

Michael’s steps halted for a brief moment, but he didn’t turn. He kept walking away until he disappeared down a side street.

Liz collapsed against Maria, and they both fell to their knees crying, cradling Alex’s lifeless body.

*

King’s Gambit

A year ago

Liz winced as Alex hit the floor hard, head first, grunting in pain. The whole court cheered, but watching it brought her no joy, no excitement. Alex was the best swordsman in the whole Kingdom, he should have easily won against a fresh-faced arrogant Lord, bastard of the King or not. But the asshole was good, and he’s provoked Alex when he was already injured, just a week out of being stabbed grievously enough that his left arm was of no use. Liz seethed in anger as he sneered at Alex from above.

“Come on, you’ve got to surrender,” she murmured under her breath. She hoped her friend would have the common sense to understand that his health was worth more than winning this ridiculous duel, even if he felt the heavy gaze of his father, the Prime Minister, on him.

Maria, beside her, was holding her breath just as much. She knew how much Alex’s abused body could handle, and this was already too much. They sighed in unison as Alex rose to his feet once again, stumbling on his boot-covered wooden leg before dropping into a fighting stance. Lord Michael goaded him openly, exchanging a few parried blow before he plunged under Alex’s guard and elbowed him hard in the temple. Alex crumpled to the floor.

Liz was almost relieved that Alex didn’t rise again, until she realized that he’d passed out. Maria rushed to his side, taking his pulse, and Liz only started breathing again when she looked up and nodded.

“Goddammit, Alex,” she whispered. Cameron squeezed her shoulder from behind.

They both sighed in relief when Alex made it back to his feet with Maria’s help, and knelt in front of the King.

“You fought well, Captain,” the King said. “But my son is an excellent swordsman, and you are obviously injured. Do you accept your defeat?”

“I do,” Alex answered through gritted teeth.

“Very well. Then I declare Michael, count of Dimaras, the winner of this duel. Michael, will that satisfy your call for justice?”

“It will for now, my King,” Michael answered, kneeling beside Alex. “The rest of my claims will be settled another day.”

Liz stared at him, wondering exactly what he had against Alex. She’d never seen him before, so it was obviously something from Alex’s past, from the time he never spoke about. Alex had that look on his face that she’d only seen on his worst days, the ones where he drowned himself in wine, or trained until he collapsed in exhaustion.

There was a story there, and it wasn’t a happy one.

It took several days for it to come out. Alex spent them in the worst mood, spending his days in the armory despite his injuries, hacking at straw mannequins until he couldn’t feel his arm anymore. His friends didn’t push him. Liz and Maria recounted the duel to Kyle in detail, of course, but they didn’t try to force the story out.

They knew their friend. Words didn’t come easily to Alex even on the best of days, but now between his concussion and his exhaustion, he could barely string together a sentence. He seemed to be in shock.

When he was finally ready, one night at the tavern, after almost a full bottle of wine, the words came out stumbling over themselves. It was disjointed, slurred, barely intelligible, but Liz understood enough. There was a boy, once. Lord Michael, before he was the King’s bastard, when he was just a street orphan. He and Alex had fallen in love and gotten engaged. Alex’s father had disapproved, and made it clear, but they were going to elope.

And one day, Jesse Manes had found them in the gardener’s shed, and he’d glimpsed the fleur de lys branded on Michael’s shoulder, marking him a thief and a convict. Alex hadn’t cared, he’d trusted Michael, but it gave Jesse the opportunity he’d been waiting for to destroy them.

He’d attacked Michael with a hammer, and then, by the authority granted to him as the lord of his lands, he had sentenced him to death. Alex had been powerless. The last thing Michael had seen before the rope suffocated him was Alex’s tears.

Except that somehow, Michael was alive. And he held Alex responsible for what had happened to him. His knight in shining armor, the one Alex had thought would steal him away from his monster of a father, had become the black bishop of Jesse Manes’ game, intent on taking his revenge against Alex.

“Ten years learning how to live in a world without him,” Alex sobbed into his bottle when he finished. “What do I do now?”

Liz didn’t have an answer. She hugged him tight until he fell asleep.

*

Endgame

Now

On the day of Alex’s funeral, the sun shone high and hot in the sky and it felt like it was the universe’s way of laughing at them. Liz got up early to clean her leathers and polish her boots until they shone brighter than they should have been able to, given how worn they were. She checked her uniform meticulously, taking particular care of the fleur de lys engraved pauldron that marked her commission and the expensive rapier Alex had gifted her years ago. Squaring her shoulders for the hard day ahead, she walked down the ranks of solemn Musketeers, adjusting blue capes and leather doublets as she gave out orders. Alex deserved them at their best, and she was going to make sure that they were.

The service was beautiful and heartbreaking. Commander Valenti gave the eulogy and all the Musketeers stood at attention under the heat as the casket was lowered into the ground. Alex had been a well-respected and beloved Captain, who’d always taken care of his men.

Liz felt a pang when she saw Gregory Manes, freshly returned from the war on their border, shed a tear as he threw a rose on the casket. He was the only one of Alex’s brothers that she liked, the only one who supported him. Jesse Manes stood, impassible, as people came to offer their condolences. He never even twitched a muscle, and Liz hated him for it.

She kept observing him throughout. This was the man who had had his own son killed. They all knew whose orders Michael had acted on, even if he’d pretended to do it out of revenge. Liz, whose own father was an immigrant tavern owner who’d done everything for his daughters, couldn’t understand how a man like Jesse Manes could even exist. He hadn’t hesitated to have Alex murdered because Alex threatened his position as the Prime Minister.

And now he stood there and didn’t even have the decency to show some grief. He was dressed in the black of mourning, but he looked at people with the same disdain, the same arrogance as he always did.

This was a man who thought himself untouchable.

Liz was going to prove that he wasn’t. They were moving toward the last stretch of the game, and even with Alex gone, she would make sure Jesse Manes didn’t win. She patted the stack of letters tucked into her leather doublet. One way or another, Alex would be avenged.

*

Zwischenzug

Three months ago

“Alex!” Maria exclaimed as Alex joined them at the long mess table in the garrison’s courtyard. Kyle moved to give Alex space to sit down on the bench, while Liz grabbed a bowl of soup for him. “Where were you? We looked for you everywhere!”

“Did Commander Valenti ask after me?” Alex asked, dropping onto the bench.

It wasn’t the first time, in the last few months, that he’d disappeared on them like this. He had done that before, but usually they found him passed out somewhere in a tavern, or occasionally curled up in bed in his room, in too much pain to move. But recently, it had changed. He rarely drank too much anymore, and wherever he went every few days, he came back looking rested and content. It wasn’t common when it came to Alex, so his friends hadn’t pushed him to reveal his whereabouts. That day, though, he seemed on edge.

“No, we just thought we might hit the tavern,” Liz answered. “Dad is making rice pudding tonight.”

“I have something to tell you first,” Alex said, lowering his voice. They all leaned in to listen. “I just came from the Palace. You’ve all heard that Princess Isobel is pregnant?”

They nodded. It was the talk of the month everywhere in the city. Princess Isobel was King Max’s twin sister, and since the death of the old King four months ago, the next in line for the throne. King Max had yet to marry, even though he was already twenty-eight, so Princess Isobel and Prince Noah’s child would be the first Prince or Princess of the new generation.

“You remember how I told you that my father will try to regain more power?”

Liz nodded. “He had the old King’s ear, but Max hates him. He’s been talking about appointing a new Prime Minister.”

“My father won’t stand for it,” Alex said. “He will move against Max soon. He knows Max won’t let him keep his position for long.”

“But what can he do?” Maria asked.

Alex’s eyes turned stormy. “He’s ruthless. He plays the long game, and he’ll stop at nothing to get even a scrap of power. My source says that Prince Noah is his henchman, he’s the one who convinced the old King to arrange this marriage. He wants to get Isobel on the throne.”

Liz widened her eyes in shock. “By killing Max?”

Alex just nodded.

“But Isobel hates him just as much as Max does,” Maria said. “It wouldn’t change anything, would it?”

Alex bit his lip. “It looks like he has some kind of leverage on her. With that and Noah’s influence, he could get her to do what he wants. And–” he hesitated.

“What?” Kyle pressed him.

“Now that Isobel’s pregnant, he could also eliminate her as soon as she gives birth,” Alex sighed. “If he played his cards right, he’d be named Regent.”

Liz swore under her breath. This was bad, worse than she could have imagined. “How do you know all that?” she asked.

“I’m getting...inside information,” Alex answered. “That’s all I can tell you, I can’t put my source’s life at risk. But we have to stop my father.”

“But how?”

Alex ran a hand over his face, suddenly looking exhausted. “I don’t know yet. But I will figure it out. In the meantime, we’ll double up all our guard duties for both Max and Isobel. We won’t let them get hurt.”

*

Castling

A month ago

The convent was easy to defend, its thick outer walls ready to weather a siege, but the inside was cold and sparsely furnished. The weather was just starting to warm up, spring giving way to summer, but Liz shivered as she stared at the lime-washed walls, her linen shirt too thin to keep out the chill.

“I can't believe you slept with the King!” Alex exclaimed, throwing his hands up. He was pacing back and forth in the corridor outside the Mother Superior’s private chambers, which had been ceded to the King for the night. They’d arrived at the remote convent the night before, under fire from a host of unidentified mercenaries, intent on killing the King.

“Alex, not so loud,” Liz whispered back. She wrung her hands together, nervous. “It was special circumstances, okay? He was scared and someone was trying to kill him. He just needed some reassurance.”

“And you had to sleep with him?” Alex lowered his voice. “After what happened to Rosa? Liz, did he force you?”

“No, of course not!” Liz clasped a hand over Alex's mouth, worriedly looking at the door behind which King Max was asleep. “He didn't force me. He didn't even ask me, I offered.”

“I don't understand,” Alex said. “We're here to protect him. We spent the whole day yesterday under heavy fire because someone is after him. And he's the King, Liz!”

“I know.” Liz looked away. She hadn’t meant for this to happen. Max had looked so down, so alone, she’d just wanted to offer comfort. The sex had been a spur of the moment thing, and although she was convinced neither of them had really forgotten why it was wrong, they hadn’t cared. Max might be the King, but he was a human being just like any of them, with his own fears and desires, and Liz had felt close to him ever since he started requesting her as his personal guard more often.

“Oh my God, you're in love with him,” Alex realized. “Fuck. That's a development I didn't expect.”

“I'm not in love with him!” Liz protested, but her voice wavered. She could see in Alex’s eyes that he was far from convinced.

She was about to argue more when she saw a nun approach from the corner of her eyes.

“News?” Alex asked.

The nun, a young, fresh-faced woman who seemed nervous and shy under her black veil, pointed toward the convent’s courtyard. “Your friends are back.”

“Good. We'll be with them in a minute,” Alex said. “We'll talk again later,” he added to Liz.

“Alex?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“Yes?”

“Can we keep this quiet for now?”

Alex sighed. “Of course. The King sleeping with a commoner, be it a Musketeer, is not something we want to shout from the rooftops, anyway. Is this about Kyle?”

Liz shrugged. She and Kyle had found comfort in each other, back when they first became Musketeers. Liz had never been in love, and she liked Kyle more as her friend than whatever they had been back then, but she knew he still felt something for her that wasn’t just friendship. She didn’t want to hurt him, and knowing that she’d slept with the King, of all people, surely would.

“Fine,” Alex grumbled. “Let's go.”

He had sent Maria and Kyle with most of the Musketeer team that had traveled with them to pursue their assailants yesterday, after they had managed to make them flee. Liz was relieved that there hadn’t been a single casualty on their side, whether Musketeer or civilian. They had done their best to protect both the nuns and the King, but if it had come to it, the King would have had to be Alex’s priority, and Liz knew he would forgive himself for putting nuns in the line of fire, however willing they had been.

Their friends looked tired and dirty, but not injured. “Did you catch them?” Alex asked.

“No,” Kyle shook his head. “We almost got one, but they disappeared. Only thing we found is one of their horses.” He gestured behind him to one of the Musketeers, who lead a horse over.

“Any identifying marks?” Alex asked.

“Only this,” Maria said. She pointed to the embroidery on one of the saddlebags. Five dots, joined by a thread, making a lopsided W, in yellow thread on the dark leather.

Alex took in a shocked breath.

“What is it? Do you recognize it?”

“That's Cassiopeia,” Alex said. “That's Michael's symbol. His men are the ones who attacked us.”

He brought a hand to his throat, cupping the ever-present gold medallion and ring he wore on a chain. Liz had never asked what they were, but since Alex had told them his story, she’d assumed it was his engagement ring, and maybe a portrait of Michael. She’d seen him do this very gesture many times over the past few months, nearly any time Michael’s presence at court came up, but rarely with such anguish on his face.

“This was in the saddlebag,” Maria said, handing over a stack of what looked like letters, tied with a brown cord. Alex took them with a frown. “Nothing else?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

He nodded tightly, and ran a hand over the embroidered constellation. “I should have known my father would send you,” he muttered. “He knows where to place his pieces. What have you done, Michael? What are we going to do?”

*

Giuco Piano

Ten years ago

They were seventeen, and in love. The sky was full of stars above them, on a warm summer night. Alex and Michael were lying in the grass at the very edge of the Manes estate, behind the gardener’s shed. The gardener, for whom Michael worked during the day, had long retired in his  house further up on the hill, and Michael had brought out the blankets he used to sleep on a straw bed in the shed.

Alex spun the thin golden ring on his finger. Michael had given it to him earlier that day, going down on one knee, a plan already formed for them to get married and escape the Manes estate and its bigotry by the end of the summer. He had made the ring himself, during the shifts he picked up at the village smithy. He’d even plated it with gold he’d saved up from the jewelry people asked him to repair.

Michael was good with his hands. He was good with everything, really. He was smart and quick-witted, and he knew the name of every plant in the estate’s garden. He’d taught himself to read and write, and he spent his night poring over thick tomes Alex snuck out of his father’s library for him.

It wasn’t fair that he wasn’t allowed to make use of all of this knowledge, just because he’d been born a commoner. An orphan. He’d told Alex about all he’d had to do just to survive, unable to even get an apprenticeship because he had no parents to sign a contract. The years of labor, from an age too young to remember. The abusive employers, the orphanages, the streets.

The jail he’d ended up in, and escaped from. Alex knew what the mark branded on his shoulder meant. It meant that Michael had been convicted and thrown in prison, at fourteen, for stealing food from the market. It meant that even if Alex’s father had been willing to let him marry a man, and a commoner to boot, it would never, ever be a criminal like Michael.

That was okay, because Alex had no intention of asking him. In a few days, he’d turn eighteen, and they would run away together.

Right now, they could enjoy a summer evening together under the stars, far away from prying eyes.

“This is Ursa Major,” Michael pointed at the sky. “It looks a bit like a frying pan. Then Ursa Minor. The brightest star is called Polaris, it's the brightest of all stars. Then Draco, the dragon, goes around it, see? A curve here, and then back. My favorite, though, is Cassiopeia.”

“Where is it?” Alex asked.

“There,” Michael pointed a little to the left. “It has five major stars. Like a W, see?”

“I think so,” Alex murmured. “Yes, got it.”

He turned to press a kiss on Michael's cheek. “I like listening to you. Keep going.”

“Cassiopeia is the prettiest,” Michael said. “It was named after a queen who thought she was the most beautiful person in the world, more even than the nymphs. She angered a god, Poseidon, and he set a sea monster on her kingdom. She had to sacrifice her daughter to appease him.”

“Ugh,” Alex made a face. “That's not a nice story.”

Michael shrugged. “I like it, I think. The daughter was saved by a hero and married him. Sometimes I wonder what my mom sacrificed me for. Maybe she's safe and happy somewhere out there.”

Alex squeezed his hand. “Yeah. I wonder that too,” he murmured. “My father would happily sacrifice any of his sons for the kingdom. Me especially. He wouldn't even blink.”

Michael sighed. “I wish that weren't true. We'll get out of here as soon as we're married, right? Then he can't touch us anymore.”

“We'll never truly be out of his reach,” Alex said. “He's the highest ranking officer in the kingdom already. He'll be Prime Minister soon.”

“Then we'll just have to go really far away,” Michael whispered.

Alex closed his eyes and let Michael kiss him, wishing that were possible.

*

Fork

Now

“It’s done,” Michael stated, throwing his pistol on Jesse Manes’ desk. It made a dull thud. Manes looked up and deigned giving Michael his attention. “He’s dead. I’m sure the word will reach your office soon.”

“Any clean-up needed?”

“No. Full daylight, as you specified. Dozens of witnesses can testify that I did it alone. You have nothing to worry about.”

Manes stares at him for a few seconds, then pushed the pistol away from his paperwork and put it aside. “Good,” he said, in clear dismissal.

Michael ignored the implicit order and dropped into a chair, pulling his feet up on the desk. Manes scowled.

“I thought I would feel something more than this...emptiness,” Michael muttered. “I loved him, once.”

“Are you sorry you killed him?” Manes asked him, annoyed.

“Regrets are pointless. Right now, I need help. His Musketeer friends won't let this go unpunished, and even my status will not be enough, not if they can reveal that I'm branded.”

“You're just as weak as Alex after all,” Manes sneered. “I thought you were different.”

“Weak? No. Just practical. I haven't forgotten that you're the one who gave the order to hang me, Minister. I have very few reasons to trust you.”

“You're right, you're not like Alex. Maybe I can still make something of you.”

“You can use me,” Michael offered. “Ortecho and DeLuca want revenge. They want me. Exchange me against the letters.”

“They have leverage. Why would they give it over?”

“It's become personal. Alex was the one who wanted you gone. The other Musketeers care about very little beside their wine and their petty quarrels with the Red Guards. You hand me over, they'll let the letters go.”

“What about you? Why would you even offer that?”

Michael shrugged. “I'll take my chances against them. I came to the city to kill Alex, and I have accomplished my mission. With the old King dead, I doubt Max will keep me in court much longer, and if he learns about my past, he won't take it well. My best bet is to disappear again.”

“So you think you can slip their watch and escape the city?”

“With Alex dead, I'm the best swordsman in the city. I can take two Musketeers.”

Manes shifted in his seat. “Very well. We'll offer the exchange.”

*

Bad Bishop

A year ago

“Careful,” Alex murmured, wincing in pain. He shifted his position until he was more comfortable on the bed, waiting until the ache in his shoulder subsided a little.

“Sorry,” Michael said sheepishly, untangling himself from Alex’s limbs. Propping himself up on his elbow, he trailed his fingers down Alex’s chest to his navel, tracing every scar.

It had been three days since the duel, since Michael had declared his feud with Alex in front of the court and then tended to his wounds and forgave him in the privacy of his chambers. Alex’s arm was still too sore to use, though he’d discarded the sling, and his concussion was just starting to clear up, so he was off duty for the time being, by Kyle’s order. Michael had found them a room in a small inn outside the city, known to be discreet, where they’d spent the night learning each other’s body all over again.

They’d changed, in ten years. Both of them had become different men, forged by hardships and age, but their love hadn’t altered. It was scarred by the wounds Jesse Manes had inflicted on it, just like their bodies, but it was just as strong.

Alex reached out with his good arm to touch Michael’s throat, which he was seeing bare for the first time. The deep rope burn there had become white with age, but it was impossible to miss without the high-collared uniform to hide it, a stark reminder of what their love had cost Michael.

Michael’s face fell, sadness replacing his prior playful smile. “It wasn’t you, Alex,” he said.

“I know,” Alex murmured. It didn’t make it hurt less. He’d blamed himself for ten years, for letting his father catch them and giving him an excuse to go after Michael, and he wasn’t going to stop now. He’d failed Michael in every way. He’d watched him hang, unable to save him from that fate.

He’d walked away, unable to stand the sight of his lover at the end of a rope, and that had somehow allowed Michael to escape.

“I love you,” Michael said. “What your father did isn’t your fault.”

Alex just sighed and let his hand fall back to the bed. Michael leaned in to kiss him, softly, and continued his exploration of Alex’s body with his left hand, the scarred, gnarled fingers brushing against his skin.

He reached past Alex’s waist and down his naked hip, to where his right leg ended just below the knee. Alex froze. His wooden leg was resting somewhere beside the bed, the stump naked and ugly, swollen from overuse. He hadn’t let Michael touch it yet, or even really look at it.

But Michael didn’t pause, didn’t recoil back in disgust. He kept touching Alex’s skin, his fingers light like a feather despite their obvious stiffness. Alex shivered as he slowly went over the scars, then back up the inside of his thigh.

“That alright?” Michael asked in a whisper, looking back up at him.

Alex nodded mutely.

“What’s this?” Michael asked, cupping the medallion that hung from Alex’s neck..

Alex blushed and hung his head. “Open it,” he murmured.

Michael’s breath hitched when he saw the tiny gold plaque inside the medallion, delicately engraved with the lopsided W of Cassiopeia.

“I had it made after you—” Alex cut himself off and swallowed, the words stuck in his throat. “I could never forget you, but I needed to remember what I was fighting for. It kept me going.”

Michael ran his thumb over the engraving, then around the clumsily made golden ring he’d once given Alex.

“When all this is over, I’ll make you a much better ring,” he said.

Alex smiled tightly. “I like this one. But we can get matching rings for our wedding, after all this is over.”

It felt weird to even dare think about such a future, after the one they’d dreamed of had been ripped away from them. It felt like tempting fate. But Alex wanted to daydream again, to stop living like he’d die tomorrow.

To stop wishing that he’d died ten years ago.

“How’s the plan going?” he asked, shaking those thoughts out of his head.

“I think he’s starting to believe me, after the duel. He knows I’m the one who stabbed you in the shoulder too. I’m still sorry about that, by the way.”

“You don’t need to say it every time we meet,” Alex snorted. “I know. I understand why it was necessary.”

Michael nodded. “We’ll need him to really trust me, though. He needs to think that I hate you enough to be willing to ally with him, and that’s not going to be easy.”

“My father isn’t an easy man to fool,” Alex contemplated. “Do you know how to play chess?”

“I’ve learned,” Michael said.

He hadn’t known, back when they were engaged. Alex remembered trying to teach him the basics, but they hadn’t had time for more. He hoped Michael’s game was solid, because they were going to need it. “My father is a master player. Beating him at his own game will be hard, but he taught me well.” Alex bit his lip. “He’d use his belt every time I lost. Which was every game, until I finally learned.”

Michael made a complicated face, full of anger and sadness but also impatience. “Then you’ll have to guide me,” he said with a playful smile. “I can be your pawn.”

“Nah,” Alex shook his head, smiling along. “You’re no pawn. You’re...a bishop, maybe. White bishop pretending to be black.”

“I like that,” Michael smirked.

“I’ll like it more when we’ve won the game,” Alex replied.

*

Queen’s Pawn Game

Four months ago

“Where are we going?”

“I think I’ve figured out the next part of our plan,” Michael said, dragging Alex by the hand. Alex checked that no one was likely to see them, but the place was empty for now. Princess Isobel’s private quarters were off-limits to everyone but her personal servants and, apparently, Michael.

“Michael,” he called, before Michael could take him any further. Alex stumbled a little on his wooden leg when Michael stopped brutally. “Tell me.”

“Okay,” Michael relented. “I’ve been looking for something to use against your father for months. I’ve finally found it. Something that can bring him down.”

“What is it?”

“I asked Isobel—”

“What?” Alex interrupted him in shock. “Do you know how dangerous that is? What makes you sure she won’t just throw us in jail for plotting against the Prime Minister?”

“Calm down, Alex,” Michael sighed. “I know what I’m doing. Isobel wants him gone as much as we do.”

Alex just shook his head, still in shock.

“She says she knows how to get proof that he abused my father’s confidence,” Michael said. “Look, at least heart her out. She’s my sister, she’ll never rat me out.”

“What about me?” Alex asked.

“She admires you. And she hates your father. She will help, I promise.”

“Fine,” Alex relented, though his misgivings weren’t alleviated much. He’d avoided telling even Liz, Maria and Kyle about his plan, by fear that it would somehow get back to his father’s ears. And Michael went straight to the Princess? There was no way this was going to end well.

Isobel was waiting for them in her sitting room, regally sitting on a richly-decorated armchair. She was wearing a blue satin dress with a complex embroidery along her corset and a mounting collar, with matching sapphire necklace and earrings. Her hair was pulled up with pins and braided at the top of her head.

“Captain. Michael,” she welcomed them. “Please sit.”

Alex bowed and obeyed. “Your Highness.”

Isobel didn’t beat around the bush. “Michael told me you’re looking for proof of your father’s misdeeds.”

“I’m—” Alex fumbled, looking for a way to answer that wouldn’t risk implicating him or Michael.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you for details,” Isobel brushed it away with a sweep of her hand. “I believe I know where to find what you need. There are letters. He will not have destroyed them, because they serve as his insurance policy.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked. “Your Highness,” he added as an afterthought.

“You can drop the address when we are in private,” Isobel said dismissively. “The letters are between him and respected members of the court. They detail a plot fomented to overthrow the old King, years ago. It failed, because some of the plotters opted out at the last moment, but your father keeps the letters as proof to blackmail them into doing his bidding. And if he ever goes down, they will go down with him.”

“If you know all this, why don’t you expose him?” Alex dared to ask. This was not how he was supposed to speak to a member of the Royal Family, and he knew he was overstepping, but he had to know. “What does he have over you?”

Isobel leveled him a glare, but didn’t call him out on his impropriety. She started huffing, but her gaze grew sad instead. “He has Rosa,” she said quietly. “And that means he has me.”

Rosa. Free-spirited, beautiful Rosa. The best of them all, cast out of the court like a criminal and sent back to her father’s country, forbidden from any contact with them.

“You had her exiled!” Alex lost his temper before he could check himself. Rosa had been his best friend, the fourth of the invincible group he formed with Liz and Maria. She should have become Captain, not Alex. But she’d gotten too close to the Princess, and she’d paid the price for it.

That was why he watched Liz’s infatuation with the new King Max, Isobel’s twin brother, with wariness. He wouldn’t let the same thing happen to another of his Musketeers, to Rosa’s little sister.

“I did not,” Isobel sighed. “Your father did. She found those letters, she was going to expose him. Manes had her cast out and convinced my father the King to marry me off to Noah, who is loyal to him. He’s been dangling our relationship over my head for years.”

Alex couldn’t stop his anger now that it was out. He could only think of the tears on Liz’s face when her sister went missing, the months of thinking she was dead in a ditch somewhere. “And you think you got the short end of that stick? Rosa’s all alone in a country she’s never lived in, stripped of everything she accomplished for herself! For all I know she’s still a prisoner, too!” They’d gotten one letter, after months of silence, hand-delivered by one of Isobel’s maids. It had been upbeat and hopeful, like only Rosa could be when things were desperate, and Alex knew she hadn’t told them the whole truth.

Isobel looked away. “I know that, Captain. That’s exactly why I can’t expose your father. I can’t risk Rosa’s life, and he’s capable of having her killed if I take a single step wrong. That’s why I need you.”

“Why now?” Alex asked. “He’s been Prime Minister for eight years. What’s changed?”

Isobel sighed. “You can’t repeat this to anyone. Not even your friends, not until the official announcement is made.”

Alex silently put his hand over his heart as a promise.

“I’m with child,” Isobel said. “My marriage is...what it is, and I was willing to sacrifice many things for the peace of the kingdom, as long as my father was the King. But Max hates your father, and they’re already battling each other by way of new taxes and border strategies. I fear that it will turn into war soon. I won’t let my child get caught in the middle.”

Alex inclined his head. An expectant mother would do a lot for her child, he knew that. And Michael trusted Isobel. He could work with that. “Where are the letters?” he asked.

“Manes keeps them in his office, in a locked drawer.”

Alex exchanged a look with Michael. His father’s office was deep inside the palace, constantly guarded. Getting there without getting caught would be almost impossible.

He stood up and bowed deeply. “I will do my best, your Highness,” he said. He still had misgivings, but if Isobel was telling the truth – and why would she lie? – this was their chance to win the game. The Queen could do a lot of damage on a chess board.

“Captain,” Isobel called him, prompting him to straighten up. “Michael told me some of what happened to the both of you. Manes will not go unpunished for that.”

“He was within his rights,” Alex said bitterly. He didn’t know what to think about the fact that Michael had told Isobel about them, but he had told his friends, too. He couldn’t blame Michael.

“Maybe, but he hurt my brother. He will get what he deserves.”

Alex nodded, still doubtful. “Thank you, your Highness.”

*

Hedgehog System

Two years ago

Alex propped himself up with one crutch carefully as he tended to his horse. He groaned in pain when the young mare shifted her head brusquely and he had to side step, his stump brushing on his other calf. It had been just over two months since he’d been amputated, and the wound was slow to heal, his body still reeling from the infection that had almost killed him.

He wasn’t really supposed to be up and about, but most of the Musketeers were out on palace duty and he was bored. He couldn’t focus on paperwork anymore and he was too wound up to sleep, so he’d come to the stables to have something to do.

His mare moved again, and Alex barely avoided tumbling to the floor, his balance shot. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea after all.

“Alex!” a voice called. “Where are you?”

It was Rosa. Alex dropped his brush and grabbed his second crutch, leaning against the wall of the stall. “I’m here!” he called back, making his slow way back to the courtyard.

“Alex,” Rosa sighed, seeing him. She didn’t scold him for leaving his room, which was Alex’s first clue that something was very wrong. The second was the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“What happened?” he asked, worried. He dragged himself to a bench and sat down, gesturing her closer.

“I have to leave,” Rosa said.

Alex frowned. “Leave? The garrison?”

“The country,” Rosa sighed, drying her face. “I have to run.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isobel and I...we got caught,” she sobbed. “I have no choice.”

Alex closed his eyes briefly, then put a hand on her shoulder. “Rosa, who caught you?” He knew that Rosa has been seeing the Princess in secret for months, since before he and Liz had gone to war. They’d been discreet, but Alex had found a note Isobel had given Rosa by accident once, and she’d confessed everything.

Rosa bit her lip and met his eyes, hesitating. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Isobel is engaged, and I’m just a commoner. If I don’t leave, they’ll have me executed.”

Alex hugged her as she cried, until Liz and Maria returned from the palace. The goodbyes were painful. Rosa was forced to pack light, leaving with only her horse – most of what she had belonged to the garrison, anyway. She could barely stand to tell her father, but he accepted the truth sadly, preparing her as much food as she could carry for the journey.

Liz collapsed as soon as Rosa’s horse passed the garrison gates, weeping in Alex’s arms. Rosa could never come back, now. She’d have to make a whole new life somewhere, in a country at war with their own, and it was hard to tell if they’d ever see her again.

*

Center Game

Four months ago

Getting their hands on the letters turned out to be easier than they’d hoped. It was once they found them that things started to go awry.

Michael had orchestrated a commotion in the palace, enough to attract the Red Guards that stood outside of Jesse Manes’ office away. Alex knew that his father was attending the King, so he picked the lock and took Michael inside. They’d both been in the office many times, and they knew where Jesse kept his confidential papers and prized possessions. The drawer was locked, but it was the work of minutes to get it opened.

There were multiple stacks of paper inside. One was an entire bundle of blank lettres de cachet signed by the old King that made Alex wince internally. His father having that kind of power didn’t sit well with him. These letters could condemn someone to death without a trial or any kind of proof of a crime – only the whim of whoever held it. It was undoubtedly how Jesse had managed to have Rosa exiled.

The second bundle proved to be the one they were looking for. Alex untied it and started looking over the letters to check that it was all of it while Michael stood guard outside.

“Michael, look at those names,” Alex pointed at the headers of some of the letters.

Michael approached and read over his shoulder. “Valenti, DeLuca… They were involved?”

“It looks like it.” Alex sighed, his excitement dropping. “If these letters implicate them, we can’t use them. I can’t do this to Mimi, or to the Commander and Kyle.”

“It looks like it’s only the old Commander, Kyle’s father, not his mother,” Michael said, leafing through the sheets of paper. “But Mimi DeLuca was definitely involved.”

“So this is all useless?”

Michael didn’t have time to answer, because there was a commotion outside. “Guards! Why did you leave your post?” It was Jesse Manes’ voice.

“Shit,” Alex murmured.

His father was too close to the door, there was no way they would be able to get out in time.

“Hide,” Michael whispered hurriedly.

Alex didn’t have time to grab the letters from where he’d dropped them back into the drawer. He stumbled to the balcony and flattened himself against the window frame, hoping against hope that his father wouldn’t notice. It was a terrible hiding place, but there was nowhere else in the office that would fit him.

“Lord Michael, what is the meaning of this?” he heard his father ask.

“I happened to pass by your office on my way to see what was going on in the north wing,” Michael answered, his voice loud and formal. “I saw that it was unguarded and opened, and when I checked that everything was alright, I was almost ran into by someone fleeing the place. I think they searched your desk. I tried to stop them, but I was too late.”

Alex heard someone ruffling through papers.

“Minister, it was a Musketeer,” Michael added. “I saw the uniform.”

Alex held his breath.

“Alex,” Jesse muttered. “Of course. Him or one of his friends. No point in trying to close down the palace, those damned Musketeers have free reign here.”

“I don’t think he had time to take anything,” Michael said.

Jesse ruffled through papers some more, then sighed. “I have to go attend the King,” he said. “I’ll leave you in charge of tightening the palace security.”

“Yes, Minister,” Michael answered. “I will see to it immediately.”

Alex heard their steps retreat, and then the door closed. He didn’t dare move, in case Jesse had remained in the office for any reason, but he couldn’t hear any noise.

Several minutes later, the door opened again. “Alex?” Michael called quietly.

Alex stepped out back inside, grumbling as his leg protested his standing on it for too long. “He’s gone?”

“Yeah, he’s with the King. I sent the guards away for now and made sure no one would notice. We can’t take the letters now, though, or he’ll know.”

Alex cursed through his teeth. “Why did you have to tell him it was a Musketeer?”

“I needed his attention off of me,” Michael said. “If he thinks it’s you, he won’t search for the person responsible any further. The plan doesn’t work if he doesn’t trust me.”

“What plan? Even if we can steal the letters at a later date, we can’t use them. I can’t do this to Mimi and Maria.”

They discreetly walked out of the office and into another corridor, entering the Princess’s wing. This was the only place in the palace where they could be reasonably certain that they wouldn’t be overheard by someone with ill-intent.

“I think I have an idea,” Michael said. “It won’t be easy, and it might be dangerous. But that’s the way you play chess, right? Take risks?”

Alex shook his head. “My father wouldn’t agree with you. He makes hard decisions, but he doesn’t take risks.”

“And you?”

Alex shrugged. “I’ve learned that playing by his rules doesn’t give me the advantage.”

“Good,” Michael smiled. “So, maybe we can’t use the letters to incriminate him, but there are other ways they could be helpful. Getting my hands on them will take some time, but it should be easy enough. He’s starting to trust me.”

“How is that useful to us?”

“He’s going to make his move against Max soon. We need him to trust me enough to ask me to do his dirty work.”

Alex blinked. “You want him to ask you to kill Max?”

“I’ll start dropping hints,” Michael said. “That I’m frustrated that Max won’t give me more power, unlike the old King, that I’ve done this kind of thing before… With my past, he won’t have trouble believing me, and if he thinks he has leverage over me, he won’t think twice.”

“So you want to what, stage a murder?”

Michael laughed. “No, just convincingly fail at my task. And once he’s asked me that, we’ll have proof that he’s conspiring against the King.”

“He won’t give you the orders in writing,” Alex said. “He’s more cunning than that. It will be your word against his.”

“That’s where the letters come in,” Michael smirked.

*

Drunken Knight Opening

Two weeks ago

It happened in a matter of seconds. One moment, Alex was stumbling around the town square outside the garrison, drunk and depressed, ready to collapse into bed. The next moment, he had Michael in a choke-hold, and he was holding a dagger to his throat. Michael had shown up out of nowhere, running from a back alley, and Alex honestly couldn't have explained it if he tried, except to say that his body reacted long before his mind caught up.

“Alex,” Michael let out a strangled whisper. He tried to free himself, but Alex was restraining him too strongly.

“I knew you weren't telling the truth,” Alex hissed. “You had ulterior motives. You just can't let things go, can you?”

“Alex, I don't know what you're talking about,” Michael tried.

“Alex!” Maria called from the garrison door. Alex turned to her sharply, almost driving the knife straight into Michael's neck in the process. “What are you doing? He's the King's brother!”

“He's a liar and a thief,” Alex spit out. “And my father's spy.”

“Alex,” Maria tried, her hands up to show she was harmless. “You're drunk. Free him and we can talk.”

Alex’s rage spiked, hard and unforgiving in his chest. Maria was looking at him with something like pity in her eyes, like he was good for nothing more than her contempt, a shadow of her once great capacity for compassion. Maria, who had let herself be seduced by Michael, who still defended him after Alex had told her everything. She’d probably given him information about Alex, ways to reach his weaknesses.

“You!” Alex rounded in on her, not letting go of Michael. “You slept with him! Are you in love with him?”

“You don't understand,” Maria sighed. Liz came up behind her, her face resigned and sad.

“No, I don't,” Alex said.

“I didn't know, Alex. I swear I didn't.”

They circled each other a few times, in slow steps. Alex could see Liz out of the corner of his eye, ready to intervene, Kyle and his medical kit, waiting.

“Will that do?” he murmured in Michael’s ear.

“Lots of people watching us,” Michael whispered back. “I see Red Guards coming. It should convince your father.”

He chose that moment to free himself of the choke-hold. The main gauche nicked his neck, but the amount of blood wasn’t enough for it to be a serious injury.

Alex immediately drew his sword, but he stumbled, too drunk to fight properly. Michael threw him stumbling backward into Liz's arms, a slash of his blade sending fire down his arm. And just like that, the fight was over.

Michael disappeared into the crowd, swallowed into the sea of red uniforms arriving at the scene.

*

Promotion

Now

“How was my funeral?” Alex asked from his seat by the window, in the shadows, where he’d been watching the garrison’s courtyard slowly fill up.

“Very emotional,” Liz said, carelessly throwing her rapier onto the bed. “Commander Valenti had a lot to say about you. Your father looked very uncomfortable.”

“I'm sorry to have missed it, I wish I'd seen that. Any news from Michael?”

Maria shook her head. “Not since he killed you.”

“You’re never going to let us live this one down, are you?” Alex asked.

Faking his shooting in the middle of the street had been a rehearsed affair, with the help of a blank pistol and creative use of cow blood. Alex’s best friends and Commander Valenti were the only ones who knew. They’d had to bring the Commander in on the whole plan, but though she’d scolded them about taking unnecessary risks, she was overjoyed to get the opportunity to get back at her long-time rival. Jesse Manes had been a thorn in her shoe for too long.

“You and your lover just faked your murder to take down your father,” Maria said. “Things don’t get much more romantic than that.”

“You read too much,” Kyle grumbled.

Liz plopped down on Alex’s bed. “What now?”

“Michael should be talking to my father as we speak,” Alex explains. “He’ll propose to exchange himself for the letters. And since my father will think that getting revenge against Michael is more important to you than blackmailing him, we’ll have the leverage we need.”

“I still think this is a needlessly complicated plan,” Maria crossed her arms on her chest.

Alex shrugged. “But it will work,” he said. “We have a few days to prepare, and I have a mission.” He pointed at Maria. “You’re going to wait for Michael to contact you, and set up the exchange. I’ll give you the details.” He turned to Liz. “Since I need to make myself scarce until then, you and I are going on a trip. We’re going to get Rosa back.”

Liz and Maria looked at each other. “You think it’s safe?” Maria asked.

“I’ll make sure it is,” Alec nodded. “Our job is to get her here. Michael will handle the rest.”

Liz’s face lit up and she got up from the bed to hug Alex. “Thank you,” she murmured in his ear. “Thank you. Dad’s going to be so happy.”

*

Magnet Sacrifice

Two weeks ago

“So we finally meet properly,” Michael said with a smile, shaking Liz’s hand, then Maria’s. “I feel like it’s long overdue.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding us,” Liz joked.

Alex felt a little like his parallel worlds were colliding, his day life as a Musketeer and his night escapades with Michael. Having Michael here, at the garrison – even if they’d taken precautions and let him in through a back door, and he wouldn’t go past Alex’s office – was both exciting and terrifying. They were playing a dangerous game.

“How did it go?” he asked, cutting the pleasantries short.

“The altercation got back to his ears, as planned,” Michael said. “And he knows you have the letters. He sees you as his main threat, and me as his ally.”

“So you've convinced him that you hate me and that you're on his side?”

“Almost. Just one tiny detail left.” Michael shifted on his feet uncomfortably.

Alex frowned. “And what is that?”

“I need to kill you.”

Alex’s friends erupted in questions and protests, while Alex stared at Michael, considering.

“Eliminate a threat and collar you in the same move,” he said slowly. “That sounds like him.”

Michael nodded. “I think he wants to both be certain that I really hate you, and make sure that he has me under his thumb. If I kill you in broad daylight, in front of witnesses, then he’s the only thing standing between me and jail.”

“He probably likes the dramatic irony of it all, too,” Alex rolled his eyes. It sounded just like his father. He wasn’t a dramatic man for the most part, doing everything with military precision and very little imagination, but when it came to torturing his family, he’d always been inventive. He’d forced Alex to watch Michael be hanged, ten years ago. Alex hated remembering what he’d done to his mother until she left, but it had been ugly.

“So, can we do it? We’d have to make it convincing.”

“Wait, you’re actually going to do it?” Liz protested.

“It’s the only way to get at him,” Michael said. “If I don’t do it, he’ll stop trusting me.”

“Won’t it put a wrench in your plan? You still haven’t told us the whole plan,” Maria accused Alex.

“That’s true,” Alex admitted, raising his hands in the air. “I didn’t want to until we were sure it was going to work. I’ve told you about the letters.” He waved at his desk, where the stack of letters Michael had stolen from Jesse Manes’ office were kept under lock. “My father is very careful not to leave a paper trail. We have the letters, but we can’t use them. Michael can testify that my father had him try to kill Max, but it’s not enough unless we have some kind of confession. So Michael came up with a plan.”

“We both did,” Michael corrected. “You gave me the idea.”

“Let’s say it was a collective effort,” Alex conceded. “My father doesn’t know that we can’t use the letters. Maria’s parentage isn’t public knowledge, and Jim Valenti is dead. He’s desperate to get them back. So we came up with an exchange: the letters, against Michael’s head on a platter. We convinced him that Michael and I hate each other, first with the duel, and more recently when I attacked him.”

“Oh, so that was why,” Maria raised her eyebrows.

Alex nodded. “He’s the King’s brother, so I can’t touch him. My father thinks that I want his hide for how he ‘humiliated’ me. We’ll stage the exchange carefully, in a place where he thinks he has the superior position, and I’ll trick him into a confession. He won’t be able to resist showing me he’s won.”

“That sounds like a really complicated plan,” Maria frowned.

“He’s a master chess player. He’d see through something simpler right away.”

“But then how does it work if Michael ‘kills’ you?” Liz asked.

“It will be even better,” Michael said. “Because he won’t feel threatened anymore. I’ll kill Alex, secure my position. You’ll make the exchange, pretending that you don’t care about the letters and just want revenge. With Alex gone, he’ll think he’s untouchable.”

*

Zugzwang

Now

“You murderer!” Liz hissed as soon as Michael walked into the church, on Jesse Manes’ heels. Maria put a hand on her wrist to keep her from lunging at Michael.

They had chosen the church for the exchange because it would be empty at this time of the day, and it was neutral ground. Holy ground. Even Jesse Manes wouldn’t dare try something there. He’d come without guards, unwilling to trust any of them with this mission. A few coins had gone to the priest to make sure that they wouldn’t be interrupted.

“You shot him in cold blood!” Liz cried out again. She was a good actress, Michael has to give her that.

“He would have done the same to me,” Michael shrugged, lowering his collar to expose his neck, and the scar there. “He did, once.”

“Entertaining as this is, perhaps we should get down to business,” Manes said coldly. “Give me the letters, and you can do what you want with Michael.”

Liz took a step forward, and Maria let her go. She bowed her head.

“Minister, I’m sorry for you loss. I’m sure that discovering that your son was killed by one of your own men was devastating. I was surprised to hear that Lord Michael was still free.”

“He was...useful,” Manes said. “Are you aware of the contents of the letters?”

“Oh, she knows,” Michael said through his teeth.

Liz put her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Shut up, you traitor,” she spit out.

“She knows you tried to depose the old King,” Michael said anyway, putting as much contempt in his tone as he could. It wasn’t hard. He had plenty of contempt in store for Jesse Manes. “She knows you tried to kill the new one, too. But she doesn’t care, as long as her precious Alex is avenged.”

Manes hissed in shock and grabbed Michael by the collar. “You told them?”

Michael shrugged cockily, no trace of fear on his face. “I told them everything.”

“You’d murder the King, just to get your little favorite on the throne?” Liz asked, moving so that she was on Jesse Manes’ other side. “Why? Haven’t you got enough power already?”

“It wasn’t about power,” Jesse sneered.

“Of course it was,” Michael said, pushing him away. “You just wanted your own puppet. Max is too opinionated for you.”

Jesse let him go, his face reddening in anger. “You understand nothing.”

“Then tell us,” Liz said, taking the letters out of her pocket. “Tell us, and you’ll get your precious letters. Nothing will be able to hurt you anymore.”

Jesse glared at her. “The King is destroying our country. He’s emptying our coffers, ending taxes, bleeding us dry. We’re at war, you of all people should know that. We can’t win a war without money. I ordered his death because I alone will face the truths that no one else can stomach.”

Liz paused. “And the old King?”

“A youthful mistake,” Jesse shrugged. “Once we got past our differences, he was amenable to work with me. Just like Noah will be.”

“Well, wasn’t that an enlightening conversation,” a voice boomed out behind their backs.

Jesse turned around in shock as Alex walked in from behind the organ. “Hello, Father.”

“You’re dead,” Jesse hissed, eyes widening almost comically.

“Am I really? It seems that I’m a better player than you give me credit for,” Alex said, putting an arm around Michael’s waist. “You should choose your pieces better.”

*

En passant

Ten years ago

Alex stopped humming and jumped to his feet as he heard a horse neigh in the distance. His own horse was placid beside the stream, munching on a clump of herbs, but he perked up as well. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then Alex heard a gallop and a frightened horse passed him at high speed, jumping over the little stream without slowing down.

“Come back!” a voice called.

Alex took a few steps away from the cover of the trees and spotted a young man running toward where the horse had gone, limping slightly. His breeches were covered in mud, like he’d fallen off the horse. His outfit was made of cheap linen and rough wool, the only leather a satchel across his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked when the boy reached him. He seemed to be about Alex’s age, with light curly hair framing his face. He was beautiful, in the unrefined way that commoner could be, all muscles from hard work and sun-tanned skin. Below your station, Jesse Manes’ voice echoed in Alex’s ears.

The boy stared at Alex for a moment, giving up on chasing his horse. “He’ll come back eventually,” he sighed. “I’m trying to train him, but he’s stubborn.”

“He’s yours?” Alex asked.

“No, he belongs to the Valenti estate. I’m just helping train him.”

The Valentis were the owners of the land bordering the Manes’ estate. Alex mostly knew their son Kyle, who was his age, though they’d had a falling out and no longer spent time together. Kyle’s parents spent most of the year in the capital, since his father was the Commander of the King’s Musketeers. Alex and Kyle had dreamed of becoming Musketeers themselves as children, though now that Alex was preparing to enlist in the Army next year, that dream seemed far away.

“I’m Alex,” he said, because it seemed only polite to introduce himself. He’d never been allowed to interact much with the inhabitants of the town besides the ones that served his family.

“Lord Manes’ youngest son, I know,” the other boy said, irreverently, his face almost daring Alex to react. “I’m Michael.”

Alex hitched to put him back in his place, but he stopped himself. It was clearly what Michael wanted, so he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I’ve never seen you around before.”

“Only got here two months ago,” Michael drawled, with a hint of a northern accent. “I’m an orphan. I’ve lived in lots of places. You satisfied?”

Alex shrugged, still not rising to the provocation. “Where do you live now?”

“Here and there,” Michael ducked his head, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “In barns, mostly. I try to pick up work wherever I can.”

Alex bit his lip. Michael’s bravado seemed to stem from not wanting to be put down by rough conditions, and he could admire that. “Can you tend a garden?” he asked.

Michael nodded.

“Our gardener’s old and almost blind, he could use some help. I can’t promise you money, but there’s a shed. It’s sturdy and it keeps warmth pretty well.” Alex knew that mostly because it was where he ran to, when his father was angry enough that staying in the house was dangerous.

“Why?” Michael asked. “What do you want from me?”

Alex shrugged. “Properly pruned rose bushes? People don’t always have an agenda.”

Michael stared at him doubtfully, but he nodded. “I have to go,” he muttered. “Need to find that damn horse before nightfall.”

Alex watched him jump over the stream and take off running and stared after him for a while. He wasn’t sure what to make of this encounter. Mr Sanders would be glad to have some help, especially if it was help he didn’t have to share his paycheck with, but Alex didn’t know what had possessed him to offer the job to a boy he’d just met.

There was something about Michael. Alex couldn’t quite figure out what, but he couldn’t get his face out of his mind, as he hopped onto his horse’s back and led him back to the stables.

He tended to his horse quickly and went to change, knowing that his father was waiting for him in his study for their daily game of chess. It was the only time in the day that they still interacted, as Alex avoided coming down for meals unless they had guests. Since Flint had left the previous year, life at home had been worse than ever, and Alex spent as much time as he could outside or locked in his quarters.

His father scowled at him in displeasure when Alex slid onto the chair waiting for him, and made his first move without a word. He always played the whites. He always won.

Alex dreamed of inverting the board, sometimes. The whites played first, and that gave them an advantage. Maybe with that, he could finally beat his father – finally make him proud.

“You’re hesitating again,” Jesse said, as Alex took a minute second to choose between taking a pawn and protecting his bishop. “You’re still not rigorous enough. There are no easy moves in chess. Whatever you do, there will be difficult consequences, sacrifices that you have to make. You can’t win without making hard decisions.”

Alex didn’t reply, and went with the risky move, that could give him checkmate in five if his father didn’t see it.

Jesse saw it. Of course he did. He played with little creativity, but a ruthlessness that was unmatched, and he had an eye for the combinations. He was always ten moves ahead. Alex couldn’t beat him.

He would beat him one day, he promised himself as Jesse waited for him to topple his king before he stood up and removed his belt. He would beat him, and he wouldn’t do it to make his father proud.

He would win, and his prize would be freedom.

*

Checkmate

Now

“How very cunning,” Jesse sneered at Alex. “You tricked me into making a full confession. And what use is your confession, uh? The word of a lowly Musketeer against the Prime Minister of Antar?”

“The King may not believe their words, Minister, but he will most certainly believe mine.”

Jesse Manes turned sharply at the new voice. Princess Isobel was as beautiful as ever, illuminated in the mysterious light of the church's stained glass windows. Her light green dress, an intricate work of lace and satin, almost appeared white, and so did her long blond hair, gathered above her head with jeweled pins. She didn’t smile as Jesse bowed to her, deeper than his status warranted. “Your Highness,” he said, backing away.

“General,” Isobel replied coldly, as Liz, Maria and Michael retreated out of the church discreetly, giving her the floor. “The King will hear about this. I am certain he will not have any choice but to dismiss you, and even if your status may spare you from standing trial, you’ll be exiled.”

Jesse backed away a few more steps. “Isobel,” he said, his tone condescending, switching out of formal address. Isobel’s face scrunched up in disgust. “You can’t do that. You know what will happen if you do.”

“I highly doubt that,” Isobel answered. She stepped aside, and Rosa came out of the shadows behind her.

Isobel was incredibly good at this, Alex reflected. She waited until Rosa was at her shoulder and bowed her head to her, in a clear sign of her affection.

“Yes, Father,” Alex said. “I took the liberty to have Rosa escorted back to Antar. It turns out that the King was more than happy to pardon his favorite Musketeer’s sister, once the Princess made her case. And now, I have multiple witnesses who heard you confess to your plot to kill the King himself.”

He was still tense, watching his father's every move with his hand on his sword, but jubilation at this tableau is catching up to him. They had him. Their impossible plan had worked, and his father would never hurt anyone again.

Jesse looked scared now, looking around him for support that wouldn’t come as Alex advanced on him. Alex didn’t bother to hide his limp.

“Your blinders are what defeated you, father. You think I'm weak, because I love men. You thought Isobel was easier to manipulate than Max because she's a woman. You were wrong.”

Instead of stopping in front of his father to face him, he kept walking, until Jesse had to step aside to let him pass. “I believe this is checkmate, father,” he said in a low voice, meant to be heard by him only.

*

His friends were waiting for him behind the church. Alex led Rosa out, signaling his men to escort his father and the Princess back to the palace. Jesse Manes was done. He might not go to jail, but as soon as Isobel told the King, he would lose his job and his standing, and probably his title and estate.

Alex knees felt weak with relief, as he walked back to the garrison. Commander Valenti was standing with Kyle by the door to her office, and Alex simply nodded at them. It’s done. Kyle whooped in joy while his mother simply smiled.

Alex turned back to his best friends.

“So we’re four again?” Liz asked, watching Rosa with hesitation in her eyes, a fear impossible to put into words.

“I don’t know if I can get my commission back, but I’ll never stop being a Musketeer,” Rosa said with tears in her eyes. She held out a hand to her sister. “One for all,” she murmured.

Liz grabbed her hand, and Alex and Maria joined in, adding their hands on top. “All for one,” they said together. They fell into a group hug, relieved tears mixing with smiles.

Alex saw Michael standing at the gates out of the corner of his eye, leaning against one of the posts and watching them.

“Go to him,” Liz told him quietly. “You’ve waited for this for so long.”

Alex straightened his clothes. “I have something to do first,” he murmured. He unclasped the chain from his neck and took off the golden ring. Taking a deep breath, he slid it onto his finger.

He swallowed back a sob, looking at his hand.

“Does that mean we have a wedding to plan?” Rosa asked with a smirk.

“Soon,” Alex promised.

He didn’t look back as he joined Michael at the gates, and linked their hands together.

“It’s done.” He smiled softly at Michael, who didn’t speak. “We’re free.”

--

You can read the first two parts of the series for a more detailed account of Alex and Michael's duel and its aftermath (though keep in mind that they were written over a year ago, before season 2, and I've changed a few things to the plot of this AU since, most notably my plans for Maribel). I hope you liked this! And remember to go look at Slynella's amazing illustrations for this fic and give her all the love!

[khoicesbyk]

The Royal Romance.

A/N: I’ve decided to go into my own little TRR world and create an AU. This will be fun! So; Talley Ho! *in my Sherlock Holmes voice*

Rated: Explicit. | Contains sexual content and strong language. (You know? The usual from me. 😁) | Bolded and/or italicized words are conversations and thoughts of the characters. | Main Characters: King Marquise Rys (LI) and Queen Shanelle Dawkins (MC) | All Characters and names: (except MC and certain original characters, created by me) are property of Pixelberry.

Current Word Count: 1,500 words. (more or less. I stop counting after editing and re-editing. 🤷🏾‍♀️)

Song And Story Inspiration: NOLA-August Alsina | Away From Me/Control-Puddle Of Mudd

Prompt Time! Using @wackydrabbles prompt #76 “You’ll Feel Better In The Morning”. It’ll be in bold in black.

Tag List: @lifeaskim @choiceslady @secretaryunpaid @bebepac @pixie88 @txemrn @glaimtruelovealways @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30 @choicesfannatalie @hopelessromanticmonie @shanzay44 @wackydrabbles @choicesficwriterscreations

I AM UNAPOLOGETICALLY NSFW! READER DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED AND ENCOURAGED!

If you’d like to be added to my tag list. Just reblog or DM me and I will gladly add you. 😁😘

Chapter 21.) Shadow Of The Crown.

(This is from My King’s POV)

Here I sit with a drink in my hand while staring at the documents on my desk. One is the hotel blueprints I showed Tariq and the other is the Royal decree of debt collection for Lord Winslow. All both needed was my signature and a few lives would be turned upside down. But could I really do it? Could I be that heartless? Short answer: yes! Long answer: hell yes!

They deserve it after all. They’re coming after me and what is rightfully mine. They’re coming for My Queen. And they would have succeeded had that idiot not sent handwritten messages to me and Shanelle. I have always been afraid of becoming somewhat of a dictator like my father and my grandfather before him. But, now I understand why they ruled the way they did. Their enemies stopped at nothing. And clearly mine aren’t either.

Sure, their challenge for the crown and throne doesn’t bother me. But what does bother me, is them thinking that they’re going to undermine or intimidate My Queen. I can’t have that. I have to protect and shield her from them. That’s my job as her fiancé and her future King. I serve her before I serve my people.

They pushed me to this point. I don’t want to be this way. But if I’m gonna be honest, I actually like being selfish. Making them fear The Crown and it’s unbridled power is quite satisfying. I now understand why my father enjoyed it so much. He loved when nations feared him as much as they respected him. He always said it helped to know who was weak and who wasn’t. Just like now.

And sure, the court won’t like my decisions should I decide to make them, but then again that damn court doesn’t like anything that specifically makes them look bad. As long as I fall in line with what they want, they’re happy. My happiness and sanity be damned. Which is why I fight so hard for Shanelle. I want them to see her as the queen that she will be for all of Cordonia. But their stubborn determination will never let that happen. They’d much rather I be with someone like Duchess Kaitlyn or better yet, they’d rather I’d reunite with Madeleine.

Poor Maddie truth be told we were doomed from the start. Not just because I couldn’t get over My Queen but, we just weren’t compatible. And it didn’t help that she was still somewhat in love with Leo. Yet and still we tried to make it work. But the court and their whispers of an heir needing to be produced the minute we returned from our honeymoon, became too much. I do think she was a great queen. But with her endometriosis, she could never have children. And with no true blood heir, our marriage failed. I don’t hate her and I sincerely hope that she doesn’t hate me. She was a queen for Cordonia, not for me. I need a queen for me and I found her in My Goddess.

She is everything I could ever ask and pray for in a woman. Which is why this whole ordeal is so frustrating. I found the queen that I need and want. And the court has their noses turned up at her. Instead they’re actually leaning towards the Duchess and her idiot of a fiancé. Preposterous to say the least. They’re worried Shanelle would bring the country to ruin. But they have no idea how much ruin this kingdom would be in if the parliamentary vote goes in their favor. And when and if it does, they’ll be sorry.

All of this makes me thankful for whiskey because without it, I’d be out of my mind. It’s also making my current decision making a lot more fun. So do I or don’t I? I know the risks that I’m taking by signing these but a clear message has to, no…a clear message needs to be sent.

But what would she think? How would she feel or respond? Will she understand my decision? Now I have no delusions. I know that she’d be furious with me, but I’m only doing this for her and her protection. I see the way the vultures in the media treat her. Like she’s a fresh carcass for them to scavenge upon.

And while I’m proud to see that she is doing a fantastic job in her lessons with Regina, she’s still vulnerable in the eyes of the court. I realize that but I also know that she is a brilliantly resilient woman and I have full confidence that she will make a great queen.

That’s why I choose her. Her resilience. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit. The way she faces, challenges and takes down adversity is awe inspiring. She makes me a better king and a better man.

But the more I think about it, the more I lean towards approving the documents in front of me. Because I know that they won’t stop until she leaves me and Cordonia forever. And that will be the moment that I become the dictator that it was rumored my father was.

Many in the court whispered that he changed after my mother’s death. Which is partially true, he became suspicious of our enemies and certain allies and with good reason.

Many in the court didn’t like or necessarily agree with my mother. They opposed her being for and about the people. They wanted her to be about maintaining the court and its image. That wasn’t my mother. Like Shanelle, my mother was not a native Cordonian but my father loved her. Dearly. And much to the courts objections, he married her and eventually they had me. They were happy. He was happy. Until she was stolen from us.

My sweet mother. I miss her so much. I just want to hug her. I want to hear her sing to me. I want to see her smile again. I want to tell her how much I love her. Don’t get me wrong, I love Regina and will move heaven, hell and earth for her. She’s been good to me and my brother and she was a saint to my father. I do love her but it’s just not the same.

The way the court treated my mother is how they treat My Goddess and as a king and especially as a son, it’s infuriating. Both are beautiful, fierce and compassionate. My mother would’ve loved Shanelle. And much like Regina, she would’ve done everything that she could to convince the court, that she’s the one. My mother was young and vibrant when she was killed.

I’ve known for years that it wasn’t accidental. But I never knew who murdered her or why, but I vow that I will find out and when I do I will crush her murderers.

I can hear her beautiful voice in my head.

She would be disappointed with me. She would say, “my son, I know that you want to protect your fiancée but this isn’t the way to do it. I raised you to be better than this.”

And she’d be right she did. I am better than this. But I am also a king. My rule is being challenged. So I must do what I have to do as king to protect myself and My Goddess. Which is why these documents sit on my desk. This is how I protect us. What people don’t understand is that being a king is not just a title, it is a responsibility. I am responsible for the health, prosperity and safety of my people and especially my queen.

And what kind of king would I be if I can’t and don’t live up to my responsibilities?

And sure I could just brush off Duchess Kaitlyn and Tariq as nothing. And I really should but I don’t want to. I want them to fear what I can do. All with the swipe of a pen. And well this kind of power is delicious and it makes me understand who my father really was as king.

So if I sign these I will be the dictator that many in court said my father was. And honestly, especially now that I’ve thought about it I don’t care. I’m at my limit and this keeps me from plummeting towards having public executions just for the hell of it.

I can hear both my mother and My Goddess tell me not to do this. They’d say “Marquise you’re upset. You’re not thinking clearly. This decision isn’t who you are. Go get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” And they’re right I will as soon as I sign these decrees. And sure, Tariq and Lord Winslow will hate me. But that’s what happens when you cross me.

And with the stroke of my pen it’s done.

Long Live The King!

Forever I shall reign!

[amphtaminedreams]

COVID-19, Negligent Manslaughter, and a Timeline of Tory Indifference

“I feel sorry for Boris Johnson. He is doing the best he can in the situation and I don’t think anybody else could have done a better job.”

[exhibit A: a gem somebody that I’m Facebook friends with reposted earlier]

It’s a sentiment that I cannot quite wrap my head around. I sit here hopeless and furious and trying to hold back tears because it’s been almost a year since England first went into lockdown and yet here we are, almost 100,000 dead, in an even worse position than we were before whilst other countries begin to slowly return to normality. It is clear to me who is to blame for this, however there are a large proportion of people who don’t want to “politicise” the actions of the PRIME MINISTER with regards to his approach towards handling a virus sweeping the country he GOVERNS. 

Typically, these kind of posts making the rounds on social media will be accompanied by some kind of photo of Boris Johnson looking somber as if to suggest that the way things have played out were beyond his control and that he is some kind of broken man beleaguered by the suffering he has, despite good intentions, inadvertently caused.

This one in particular of Johnson with his head in his hands is a staple. In reality, this is a photo taken back in 2018 whilst he was receiving flack from party members for comparing Theresa May to a suicide bomber (for her handling of Brexit, ironically) as well as from the papers due to his rumoured (now also proven, in a completely non-surprising turn of events, to be true) affair with his former aide, Carrie Symonds. 

So let’s shut this narrative-where we should feel for Boris because he’s doing his best, and apparently a better job than anybody else could’ve done in his situation- down right here. In a supposedly developed country with one of the world’s largest economies, if we’re talking by proportion, our COVID-19 death toll is up there with the worst of them. It seems that every other state figurehead (bar a small handful), and I mean almost every single one of them, is doing a better job. People love to throw figures out there about how densely populated we are to combat damning statistics as if we haven’t got just as many factors playing to our advantage, as if it’s unfair to compare our response to Germany’s or Japan’s or Singapore’s (both of which are far more densely populated) or New Zealand’s or Vietnam’s, but we are an ISLAND with world-leading technology and infrastructure and healthcare equipment and professionals and a relatively high standard of living. In what world is almost 70,000 dead in a country with abundant time and means to prepare a response reflective of said country’s leaders doing a good job?

Apparently we’re supposed to believe that Johnson feels some sense of moral responsibility for this astronomical failure. A man who refuses to acknowledge the multiple children he has fathered outside of his marriages and who has had repeatedly engaged in affairs and one-night stands throughout said marriages. A man who continued to cheat whilst his most recent wife was receiving treatment for cervical cancer, for fuck’s sake. Yep, a real stand-up guy. 

So where does this idea that Johnson must feel remorseful for this catastrophe come from? We haven’t seen a second of remorse or a hint of accountability for the lives lost from him nor any members of his cabinet. That much is really no surprise; I have this hypothesis, and it’s not a stretch, that these people do not have an ounce of empathy in their bodies. These ridiculously privileged, privately-educated individuals who have had everything handed to them their entire lives simply cannot put themselves in the shoes of the average working person and that is the problem. Unable to recognise that what distinguishes them from most others is little more than the luck of being born into wealth and the abundance of recourses and connections that has entailed throughout their lives, they see us as beneath them-as less intelligent, less driven, and thus less deserving of the status and respect they enjoy. They see us as a bunch of whining, unmotivated idiots who do not recognise the chokehold they have over our media nor the fact that everything they do is a desperate grab to keep money and power within the hands of a select group of people, an exclusive members club from which most of us are barred (just take a simple Google search and watch Jacob Rees-Mogg’s opinion of the Grenfell victims or the buried Johnson speech where he talks about how inequality is essential). They know that we will squabble amongst ourselves about who is to blame rather than wising up to the truth which is that every decision they make is fuelled by cronyism and the inability to make and follow through with difficult choices, the pandemic being no exception. The supposedly self-made elite see the life of the average working class person as having far less value than their own, and their parties actions over the last 10 years have made that very clear. 

It was in December 2019 that the first case of COVID-19 was declared to the World Health Organisation and on March the 11th that they announced they considered it as a pandemic. In Wuhan, people were dying of pneumonia in their clusters. And what was Boris Johnson doing in this time? Well for starters, here in the UK we didn’t even have a pandemic committee-Johnson had scrapped it six months before. If years of benefits cuts and defunding of the NHS in favour of funding nuclear weapon programs, keeping British troops on other people’s lands, and tax breaks for the mega corporations that donate to their party didn’t convince you that the Conservatives have little regard for human life, them getting rid of this committee-whilst a pandemic has been declared year after year as the greatest threat to mankind-should have been the first sign of trouble. As if that wasn’t enough, he also skipped five of the COBRA (meetings are made up of a cross-departmental committee put together to respond to national emergencies and PMs routinely attend those pertaining to crises on the scale of COVID-19) meetings addressing the situation. Whilst other countries were closing their borders and stocking up on PPE, Johnson and his ministers were selling PPE abroad and simply telling people to wash their hands to the length of the tune of happy birthday. Their only policy was one of “herd immunity”, which was in fact not a policy but just an abandonment of their party’s public duty disguised as one, intentionally obfuscated with pseudoscientific jargon.

Even thinking the absolute worst of politicians you would hope that when it came to the point where the UK’s non-response to COVID-19 was becoming an international disgrace, Johnson and his ministers would take proper protective measures if only to save face. But when they eventually seemed to do so, it became clear that the priority was not the safety of the ordinary people affected by the virus. Outsourcing their test and traces system to companies such as Serco, Sitel, Deloitte and G4S rather than public health services, Conservative ministers could not resist attempting to line the pockets of their friends and benefactors in the process. According to the Guardian, instead of reaching out to the experts or using publicly funded services to handle COVID containment measures, the Conservative party has awarded a disgusting £1.5 BILLION WORTH of contracts to businesses with explicit connections to its MPs and donors, the majority of which lack any relative experience of the tasks they’ve been trusted to carry out. Unsurprisingly, the National Audit office found that when awarding contracts relating to the production of COVID-19 protection measures and treatment needs, there was a “high-priority lane” for suppliers referred by senior politicians and officials; companies with a political referral were 10 times more likely to end up winning a government contract than those without. On top of this, it is not hard to draw a link between the late initiation of lockdown measures and preemptive openings of pubs and restaurants against scientific advice to the interests of frequent donors such as Wetherspoons owner Tim Martin. Even if one chooses to ignore the blatantly obvious correlation between the owners of the businesses whose profits were prioritised over safety concerns and the number of those owners who donate to the Conservatives, party officials at the very least were reluctant to follow the lead of many other countries in financing furlough schemes themselves and instead avoided this responsibility by using loose lockdown measures to leave it down to the discretion of small business owners, who couldn’t themselves afford to furlough staff, whether or not to stay open. 

Time and time again, as the government flounder and fuck about, favouring personal desires to keep their powerful, high-paying jobs and to satisfy the corporate allies who make this possible, blame has been shifted from the public to care homes to NHS workers and back again whilst we, the public, make the biggest sacrifices of all under the illusion that we were being guided out of this pandemic rather than lied to and thrown under the bus. Whilst the elite continue to pick and choose what rules apply to them, it’s students and the elderly and the vulnerable paying the fines and scrabbling to afford basic living costs and hoping that they don’t lose someone dear to them.

Don’t get me wrong, a large proportion of the public have contributed to the spread too with their selfishness and entitlement and the arrogance it takes to develop a sudden refusal to acknowledge basic science from experts who have studied in the field their whole lives so that they can justify their need to go to the pub (speaking of, it’s absolutely HILARIOUS how many “mental health advocates” are suddenly coming out of the woodworks on football avi Twitter after they’ve spent years calling people on mental health Twitter attention seekers). And don't get me wrong, there were inevitably going to be casualties of this pandemic. But it didn't have to spread to this many people, and there didn’t have to be so many deaths due to a lack of preparation, and this wouldn’t have been the case if it weren’t for the inherent apathy of the Conservative party towards the lives of people of lesser status than them, the reluctance to put those lives before party interests. I wish I felt like there was an end in sight, I wish there was some positive takeaway from all of this, but even now, we continue to see corners being cut with the vaccine lauded as our saving grace and anti-maskers gathering outside hospitals to chant about how “oppressive” it is to be urged to wear a bit of cloth over their faces for the short periods of time in which they leave their houses and all I can think of is the selfishness that runs like poison through our country. It makes me sick and leaves me to question desperately where we go from here. I don’t like unanswered questions, I don’t like feeling politically directionless, and I don’t like the growing fear I have about the state of the world which seems to intensify every single day. In the UK at least, it’s starting to feel like nothing will ever change-we’re told we live in a democracy and yet mainstream media is owned by the people whose interest is to keep their Conservative friends in power. The stronghold they have over print media in particular allows them to continually get away with smearing and defaming every person who comes along and seems to want to actually help ordinary people, without being challenged, to the point where the only kind of “opposition” we’re left with promises nothing but a big boss approved tactical reshuffling of the status quo (which they call “electability”); it doesn’t feel like democracy when the majority of the country are being fed misleading information and convinced against voting in their best interests. 

This is the result of that. The state we find ourselves in is the inevitable result of being manipulated into helping the elite build their protective wall whilst the rest of us scrabble to get in and step on each others heads along the way, the people inside shouting over that it’s those even more vulnerable than ourselves that are taking our places. Outside the wall, the earth is falling from beneath our feet, and instead of throwing over the ropes to help us out, the people inside are stockpiling them so they can secure their firm place above ground and then later flog the rest. How many more people have to die before we reach some kind of widespread realisation of that? Where do we go from here and what do we do? Well for one, we can stop spreading those god-fucking-awful textposts on Facebook and get our heads out of our arses. Wear our masks over and wear them over our fucking noses. Have some fucking consideration for others. Don’t wait til an issue affects you personally to give a fuck about it. AND START HOLDING THE FUCKING PRIME MINISTER AND HIS MINISTERS AND HIS ENTIRE PARTY AS WELL AS THE OPPOSITION MPS THAT HAVE SAT BY THE SIDELINES AND ALLOWED THIS TO GO ON WITHOUT PROTEST ACCOUNTABLE. That would be a good start. 

I’m so tired. Things didn’t need to be this way, and yet because of the selfishness of the few, thousands upon thousands are dead. It’s not about “throwing around blame”, it’s not about “throwing around” anything, it’s about expecting a leader to do his best to protect lives. If that is “throwing blame”, let’s get things clear, I have no issue with hurtling it torpedo style at those who handed out a death sentence to so many in this country rather than do anything that might compromise their own privilege. Honestly, pass me the shovel after and I’ll happily bury the wreckage in the ground. Who wants to join?:-)

[eacuwell]

How Modern Society Will Relate to Herbal Medicine in the Future

"To practice herbal medicine is to utilize plants and plant extracts as a traditional medical or folk medicine. In addition to herbal medicine, other terms for it include botanical treatment and medical herbalism." 1 Plant-based components are utilized in these medications to treat particular symptoms or illnesses and many herbs or herbal formulations have been used for millennia in various civilizations, such as India and China.

Regulations and current trends in the industry

As a result, the general population is more educated about illness prevention and treatment choices than ever before. Herbal remedies have grown in popularity as people learn more about organics and healthy diets. Western countries are importing traditional Indian and Chinese herbal treatments, expanding the available variety. As a result of this development, it's more critical than ever before that consumers understand that herbal medications do have a physiological impact on the body and should be taken with caution. In the United Kingdom, regulations on herbal treatments have been rather lenient up until recently. However, some safety issues, such as the combination of St John's Wort with certain conventional medications, have come to light.

Herbal medications are now available on the market in three different ways:

Unregistered natural health products

O Approved and licensed traditional Chinese herbal remedies

o Approved herbal products

Natural treatments that aren't approved by the FDA

As of right now, the vast majority of herbal medicines sold in the United Kingdom are unlicensed since they do not need a product license or marketing authorization due to an exception found in the Medicines Act of 1968, Section 12.

Ayurvedic medications that have been approved by the FDA

As part of the European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products (2004/24/EC), a new program is known as the "Traditional Herbal Medicines Registration Scheme" was implemented in the United Kingdom on October 30th, 2005. This is a streamlined registration process in which remedies must still satisfy safety and quality requirements, but effectiveness requirements are less stringent than those for fully registered products.

Herbal medications that have been approved by the FDA

Currently, a product license is in place for around 500 herbal medications (marketing authorization). Any herbal medication must satisfy specific safety, quality, and effectiveness criteria before it can be granted a product license. The Traditional Herbal Medicines Registration Scheme was established because it was difficult for many to fulfill the requirements. A unique nine-digit Product Licence number with the prefix "PL" may be found on the product container or packaging of licensed herbal medicines.

What's to Come in

Unlicensed herbal remedies can no longer be sold due to safety and quality issues. All herbal medicines must have either a Traditional Herbal Registration (THR) or a Product Licence before they may be sold (PL). This rule does not apply to herbal remedies that may satisfy both of the following conditions:

As an unlicensed herbal medicine, it is allowed to sell in the UK under section 12(2) of the Medicines Act 1968.

2) was also legally available in the UK on the 30th of April 2004 under s.12(2)

Herbal remedies that satisfy these two criteria are eligible for transitional protection and may thus be sold as unlicensed herbal remedies until April 30, 2011, as long as they meet s12's criteria (2). 2

After April 30, 2011, herbal remedies that do not have a Traditional Herbal Registration or a Product Licence will be unable to sell or promote their products. This applies to all businesses. Even though the business has filed its application and is awaiting clearance, the Medicines, and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) would insist on its withdrawal if it is already on the market.

The MHRA showed its power by removing a product off the market without warning. While all homeopathic remedies are considered medicines, they found that Neal's Yard Remedies' "Malaria Officinalis 30c" didn't have a product license even though this medication was intended for the treatment or prevention of malaria. This medication has been discontinued by the manufacturer. 3

To continue selling herbal medicines, herbal businesses must now submit the necessary information to meet the criteria and standards established by the MHRA. Due to limited funds and resources, consulting a regulatory expert with experience interacting with the MHRA and dealing with rules daily is critical. Herbal medicines may continue to be provided to the public as a safe alternative and/or supplementary product to traditional medication with the assistance of a regulatory compliance consultant like GRS, which can alleviate this additional regulatory load.

[lunar-magnolia]

World Health Organization (WHO) declares Pandemic.

Only a couple of hours ago the World Health Organization declared the state of pandemic regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.

In this article I aim to spread as much information I can. It’s not being talked about enough and so, so little people have access to real information about how to contain it, what it is and how it’s spreading.

I am from Italy. All territory has been declared “protected zone” yesterday and today (11th March 2020) the president of ministry reinforced the safety measures taken.

Disclaimer: this article was written from an Italian point of view. All I write here is all I know about the emergency the world is in and what the official sources said to us through official medias.

_____________________________________________________________

First and foremost, let’s answer: What is a Coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a large family of virus known to cause illnesses ranging from the common flu to other serious diseases like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).

They are RNA viruses that resemble a crown when under a microscope.

Coronaviruses were identified in the 60s and are known to infect humans and some animals. They aim to epithelial cells, as well as respiratory tract cells and gastrointestinal cells.

The source of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) is still unknown. The Superior Health Institute thinks it could have been a result of a spill over, meaning it came from animals and evolved to infect humans. It is still not certain.

(source: http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nuovocoronavirus/dettaglioFaqNuovoCoronavirus.jsp?lingua=italiano&id=228 It’s in Italian, I’m sorry. I can translate it for you, should you need a whole translation)

With the what settled, let’s focus on why the WHO declared the pandemic state.

The WHO defines “pandemic” a situation that affects all continents. At first COVID-19 wasn’t considered a threat because of its lethality and the number of cases outside China.

Now it has been spread to all continents and the WHO declared the pandemic emergency.

To better understand what it entails, it’s worth mentioning that the word “pandemic” comes from the ancient Greek “pan” “demos”, meaning “all” “population”.

Ilaria Capua, director of the department of the Emergency Pathogen Institute in the University of Florida, states that the virus started spreading around mid-December/January, well before it was even disclosed that this virus existed outside Wuhan. This means it was in Europe (and every other nation) since then.

Since Italy declared its first case, the European nations have been kicking out Italians and blocking import of Italian goods. This was useless, as they got infected nonetheless and not by an Italian or a Chinese person.

Make an example of this and do not discriminate. It’s damaging and ultimately useless. It does not prevent contagion.

An important data is Italy having the highest number of cases in Europe, and possibly in the world after China. That is because almost everyone has been tested, starting from people who showed signs (and were confirmed infected) and then testing everyone they came in contact with in the last two weeks.

Be careful: the virus can be asymptomatic, so there are people who don’t experience symptoms but are vessels and can infect others. Although it’s rare without symptoms first.

Cases can be counted only if people get tested. So, if you’re from a country like the USA where the test isn’t free and costs a lot of money, please do not underestimate the number of infected people. It might be way more than you think.

After a mass movement of people coming from the red zones in the north of Italy (zones with a high risk of infection) to the south, and the carelessness of people who went against the decrees by gathering to party and protest, all of Italy has been put under quarantine till 3rd April 2020.

The government, working alongside medics and scientists, issued several emergency laws and sanctions to ensure public safety, plus a couple of hashtags trying to make people understand the severity of the situation.

President of the ministry Giuseppe Conte summarized all the new decrees with the trending hashtag “#iorestoacasa”, meaning “I stay at home”. That is, in fact, the first and foremost rule to apply when under quarantine and fighting a highly infective virus like this: stay at home and don’t interact with people.

As bad as it sounds, it is the necessary precaution. The virus can take up to two weeks to show symptoms, and even then, it’s not always detected immediately. Two weeks is a long time. One single person can infect dozens. And each in a dozen can infect other dozens and so on.

The decrees forced all unnecessary shops and stores, cinemas, theaters, bars and every other place where people gather to close. Only grocery stores, pharmacies and clinics are open to the public, but they must ensure safety distance between each client and regulate how many people at a time can enter.

Other commercial businesses, like restaurants, can only home delivery their products if they choose to operate.

Businesses with employees that usually work in offices are required to provide the necessary means to ensure everyone can work from home.

Ceremonies, events and shows are all cancelled.

Any movement inside and outside your city must be motivated by either work or health. People need to fill out a form stating why they are outside.

Lying and going around without taking the due precautions can result in fines and even jail time.

Medics launched their own hashtags too: #iorestoincorsia #turestiacasa. “I stay in the hospital ward” “You stay at home”.

This was a necessary step to take, to make sure people truly understand how paramount is to avoid needless contacts with others and contagion. Medics are working hard and to the bone, people are getting infected with such speed that the wards can’t keep up with demands, especially intensive care wards.

The decrees also include a set of rules taken from the WHO and adapted to the current situation that everyone should follow to ensure safety.

1.     Wash your hands often

2.    Avoid close contacts and maintain a safety distance of at least one meter with everyone

3.    Avoid crowded places

4.    Preferably stay at home, especially if immunocompromised

5.    Avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes with your hands

6.    Use a one-time napkin for your mouth and nose if you sneeze or cough. Alternatively use your inner elbow

7.    Open the windows as much as you can if you are with other people

8.    Avoid handshakes and hugs, and sharing glasses and bottles

9.    Clean surfaces with alcohol (75%) or chlorine (1%) based disinfectants

10. Do not take antiviral drugs or antibiotics, unless your physician told you to

11.  In doubt do NOT go to the ER: call your physician and, if you think you got infected, call the emergency service (112)

12. Stay informed and follow advice given by your healthcare provider

(Source: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public )

Most importantly every authority recommends to use your own common sense, your sense of responsibility, and self-quarantine.

It’s not only about you as a person, it’s about public health and safety.

The word “responsibility” comes from Latin verb “respondio”, to answer. We have to respond to ourselves first, to our conscience. Then the government.

In Italy’s case the government is helping us, pointing us in the right direction and uniting the people to fight a common enemy. It’s not about the single person, nor about political factions, it’s about all of us. Helping each other by staying healthy and avoiding endangering others needlessly.

This is above the law. This should go without saying.

This pandemic is a level. There is no discrimination. The virus doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, healthy or not, a baby or an elder, a teacher or a business person. We are all the same.

This is the right time to understand this. This is the time to understand what it means to care for others and ourselves as a community. Love thy neighbor as thyself.

And this is why self-quarantine is important.

I understand this is difficult. We are social animals and we need that social contact. These times are challenging for sure, impacting our habits and forcing us to change them, but it’s not forever.

Give up physical contact now, to feel its warmth later. It will be enhanced and most rewarding.

If your government still hasn’t given the orders, made exceptional laws, you must do what it’s necessary to ensure your own safety and the safety of others.

Keep a calm fear. Stay at home, but don’t panic. There is no need if you take the right precautions.

Respect the prevention rules. Respect the elders. Respect yourselves.

We can do it. All together.

I’ll leave some useful links in case you want to learn more. All of these are official sources. I highly recommend spending some time on the World Health Organization website.

https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nuovocoronavirus/dettaglioNotizieNuovoCoronavirus.jsp?lingua=italiano&menu=notizie&p=dalministero&id=4191 (This one is in Italian, let me know if you want a translation)

[turnedmypainintopurpose]

Daily Wisdom from the Fools Oracle Deck

37... The Law Fool

The law fool is on the same asking you to examine the rules and regulations by which you live there are social laws business laws relational laws and spiritual laws and it's important to decide which ones you choose to follow some are meant to protect you such as traffic laws for instance because they ensure Public Safety are you following societal law or are you applying your own set of rules to your life do you run red lights and stuff at stop signs to drink and drive do you obey the speed limits are you respectful of your responsibility to cooperate with the rules that are in place for everyone's protection even minor infractions can wreak major chaos usually when you least expect it scientific laws provide guidance on protecting your physical health do you suggest eating healthy foods getting enough exercise refraining from intoxicants and practicing meditation to reduce stress for example they're meant to educate you on how to best live in your own body and the only enforcement of their existence is the feeling of your physical health should you choose to habitually ignore them there are spiritual laws as well and their most simplified form they state that you're a divine creature being whose meant to invent life as you imagined and desire you get what you give whatever that might be in in whatever form in other words if you give love love returns and if you get fear fear takes over no expectations the law fool is here to awaken your awareness and respect for the laws and all rounds he invites you to intelligently choose to follow the ones that best serve your physical mental social and Spiritual Development in this way you control your destiny for once you understand the rules you can better play the game of life you cannot succeed if you remain ignorant or defined as a statement of your Independence this is foolish and will get you nowhere except maybe hurt assume a mature attitude and remember that although you ultimately decide on which laws to follow as a spiritual being living in a three-dimensional plane it's best to learn how to navigate this round as intelligently as possible then you're able to move through it and shape it in any way you desire the fools was done no the law

[cathkaesque]

Unlike other economic downturns, the fall of output in this crisis is not driven by demand: it is an unavoidable consequence of measures to limit the spread of the disease. The role of economic policy is hence not to stimulate aggregate demand, at least not right away. Rather, policy has three objectives:

Guarantee the functioning of essential sectors. Resources for COVID-19 testing and treatment must be boosted. Regular health care, food production and distribution, essential infrastructure, and utilities must be maintained. It may even involve intrusive actions by the government to provide key supplies through recourse to wartime powers with prioritization of public contracts for critical inputs and final goods, conversion of industries, or selective nationalizations. France’s early seizing of medical masks and the activation of the Defense Production Act in the United States to ensure the production of medical equipment illustrate this. Rationing, price controls, and rules against hoarding may also be warranted in situations of extreme shortages.

Provide enough resources for people hit by the crisis. Households who lose their income directly or indirectly because of containment measures will need government support. Support should help people stay at home while keeping their jobs (government-funded sick leave reduces movement of people, hence the risk of contagion). Unemployment benefits should be expanded and extended. Cash transfers are needed to reach the self-employed and those without jobs.

Prevent excessive economic disruption. Policies need to safeguard the web of relations among workers and employers, producers and consumers, lenders and borrowers, so that business can resume in earnest when the medical emergency abates. Company closures would cause loss of organizational know-how and termination of productive long-term projects. Disruptions in the financial sector would also amplify economic distress. Governments need to provide exceptional support to private firms, including wage subsidies, with appropriate conditions. Large programs of loans and guarantees have already been put in place (with the risks ultimately borne by taxpayers), and the EU has facilitated direct capital injections into companies by relaxing its state-aid rules. If the crisis worsens, one could imagine the establishment or expansion of large state holding companies to take over distressed private firms, as in the United States and Europe during the Great Depression.

Greater intervention by the public sector is justified by the emergency for as long as exceptional circumstances persist, but must be provided in a transparent manner and with clear sunset clauses.

This feels like an April Fool’s - the IMF calling for nationalisations? Would be great if the IMF hadn’t spent the last 50 years breaking up the social safety nets and nationalised industries bequeathed to us by the last “war economy.”

[aswithasunbeam]

Alexander Hamilton to Abraham Yates (Mayor of Albany), 26 Sept. 1793

“Sir

General Schuyler shewed me yesterday a letter which he had received from you.1 It was then for the first time, I understood, that I had come to this place upon conditions; which General Schuylers paternal anxiety led him to submit to, but which are of a nature too derogatory to my rights, as a citizen of this State, to be permitted by me to continue in force. I feel that by doing it I should betray those rights, and none of the principles which have hitherto governed my Conduct will allow me to be accessory, by my acquiescence, to so improper a sacrifice.

As I desire most sincerely to avoid misunderstanding with the Magistracy or Citizans of this place, I think it proper to place before you in the first instance certain facts, to the exact truth I pledge my Honor.

I undertook the journey to this place, upon the urgent advice of my Phisician accompanyed with his assurance that I might do it with perfect safety to myself and to others. I began it, for greater caution, two days later than he had recommended. We left our own house on Sunday morning the 15 instant, after haveing previously taken the air for two or three days successivly in our Carriage.

Our intention was to pass the River at Kings Ferry, but when arrived there we found there were no adequate means of taking over our Carriages which led us to take the rout th[r]ough the Clove and by way of New Burgh. These circumstances renderd our journey more than usually irksome and fatiguing. We travelled different times till Eleven OClock at night, and the day of our arrival at the ferry opposite to this City, we came no less a distance than sixty four Miles. The obstacles which induced us to remain there through the night, ill enough accommodated, certainly not of a very restorative nature; and yet with all this fatigue and embarrasment Mrs Hamilton and my self are at this moment in better Health than before we were attacked with the desease which is the Subject of so much alarm.

Moreover, as well for our own safty as from an unwillingness to spread a dangerous desese through the Country—we were particularly carefull in leaving be hind us every article of Cloathing which had been on us or near us from the Earliest approach of the Complaint, except perhaps some washed linen which was first thoroughly washed. With the exception of washed articles, neither of us has brought a single thing, which from its nature or situation, could possibly have imbibed infection. Indeed all such of my Cloathing as were capable of conveying infection were adapted to the Summer; those I brought with me are suited to Winter.

With regard to the washed articles common sense will at once pronounce that there can be no possibility of danger.

This detail is of a nature to remove from every reasonable mind all apprehension concerning us.

Either we have had the desease, or our Phisicians and ourselves have mistaken something else for it.

On the first Supposition, it is obvious, after all that has taken place, that no particle of infection can remain about us; on the second, it must be equally obvious that none can exist, when I inform you that our Summer residence has been two Miles and a half out of Philadelphia and that it is upwards of three weeks since either of us has been in that City. In the first case, what ever infection may have existed must have been compleatly discharged. In the last, the lapse of time concurring with the fatigue of so long a journey proves that none can have existed.

With regard to our servants it was my original intention (to avoid multiplying causes of inquietude to our particular connections or the citizens at large) to leave them at some place on the other side of the River where they now are and will remain long enough to dispel all apprehension on their account and give intire satisfaction. My carriages also are and will continue there. But we cannot conveniently be here without our cloathing; and as to being ourselves confined under the eye of a guard or exposing the family of General Schuyler to the mortifying situation of being cut off from their usual intercourse with the Town & their friends, it is absolutely inadmissible.

I hope I shall never be wanting in due consideration for the feelings of any community. I am sure that my regard for the citizens of Albany predisposes me to every reasonable accommodation to their wishes; and when at my own command I trust they will have no cause to think that I have slighted the indications of their present state of mind. But there are bounds to every thing. I can make no concessions inconsistent with due attention to my own delicacy or to my rights as a Citizen.

I am far from disapproving in the Magistracy or Citizens of Albany a careful attention to their own preservation from a contagious disease. But permit me to say they are both under an indispensable obligation to regulate their precautions by the rules of reason moderation & humanity. They are not at liberty to sport with the rights and feelings of a fellow Citizen. They are not at liberty to adopt a principle of conduct which if generally pursued in the full extent of its consequences would expose him to perish in the fields without subsistence & without shelter.

In our case there is the fullest evidence from the circumstances that there is no just ground of apprehension. The Physicians of your City have confirmed this inference by their unanimous testimony. This is and ought to be sufficient.

I am therefore Sir to declare to you that after the present day all stipulations which are said to have been made by General Schuyler will be considered as at an end. And we shall all think ourselves free from any other restraints than our own decisions and prudence shall dictate.

If I hear nothing from you in the course of the day I shall take it for granted that this declaration is not unsatisfactory. If I am told the contrary I propose tomorrow to recross the River with Mrs. Hamilton in order to put every thing where it was before any stipulations were made. I shall then repass the River with her to proceed to her Father’s House.

The result will determine whether from causeless apprehension, in violation of law & right, of that protection which is the primary object of Society—citizens are to be excluded from an asylum in the bosom of their family; in other words whether a Citizen has rights or not; and whether a public Officer who persevering in a faithful discharge of his duty, undeterred by considerations of personal hazard has happened to contract a contagious disease is, in return, when perfectly recovered to be deprived by arbitrary and tyrannical means of the essential rights of a member of the Society—merely because it has been his lot to have had a dangerous disease.

In the execution of this plan, which force alone can interrupt, I count equally on the exertions of the Magistracy to prevent lawless violence and on the good dispositions of the body of the Citizens, who will respect their own security & rights too much to permit those of a fellow Citizen to be violated. With respect

I am Sir   Your Obedient serv

Alex Hamilton”