#being my assistant loremaster for the fic

[gallusrostromegalus]

I just discovered your posts about AEIWAM and I'm already in love. I've loved Unohana for years and your post talking about her backstory in your fic is just.... /chef's kiss. (also I had no idea non-ADHD people don't get the euphoria of meeting someone who Gets It, this explains a lot). I'm so excited by everything I've seen so far!

Cool because I added a lot more because I thought Unohana needed a Terrible Science Buddy and also Minazuki would be cool if it was a one of a pair of swords that are medications on how healing requires both creation and destruction- Minazuki's ray form heals by creating- she can replenish lost blood or grow new bones and tissues, but she can't destroy an infectious pathogen or pull out shrapnel. Minazuki's other form is... well, it's blood that digests an opponent if they don't dodge good enough. I think that Unohana actually needs to use both forms for them to work- the material consumed/destroyed by the blood form is where Minazuki gets the raw materials and energy for the healing ray form.

So I made up Sakukoji, her sister sword whose ray form destroys foreign and alien bodie within the body of a patient or remove excesses produced by the body, like cancer or excess calcification, but can't replace lost blood or close wounds like minazuki can. Sakukoji's second form looks more like an enormous fungal body that can change and add to the form of any living thing it touches. Sakukoji needs her second form to release all the toxins and excess matter she's built up.

The sisters are yin and yang to each other, each a force of creation or destruction, but with an element of the other as well, and both ultimately in service of the third force- preservation.

Sakukoji's weirlder is Tama Nikyu, a victim of an extremely aggravated act of plagarism. Here's an illustration of their froms:

(please embiggen for details)

I made Minazuki look a bit more like a Short-tailed River Stingray because they're awesome, and Sakukoji looks like a filter-feeding manta because she kind of is.

Also. Gooey :)

[thevalleyisjolly]

8 and 10 for Elrond?

My blorbo! Thank you so much, anon! <3

8) Made-up connections with other characters that weren't in the canon (friends, enemies, whatever)

I mean, I am all about Elronduil, absolutely one of my favourite ships to the point that I wrote an essay about it for a fanzine once. Have they met in any of the canon texts? Nope! Do I find the similarities and the differences between both their in-universe characters and their narratives roles fascinating? Yep!

I am forever changing my mind between Elrond and Sauron never meeting outside of the Annatar thing, and Elrond and Sauron having one terrifying battlefield encounter that technically and barely ends up a draw. On the one hand, I like the idea that Sauron has never met Elrond one-on-one and fundamentally fails to understand him or the way he works. On the other hand, I also like the idea of them meeting on the battlefield once, briefly, during the War of the Elves and Sauron. Maybe Elrond's doing something with Song, and Sauron, who's already hunting for the Elvish commanders, notices and goes for him? Elrond, despite his many skills and accomplishments, is not a match for Sauron in terms of raw power, but what he has got is friends. For the minute or so that they fight, he spends a good part of it losing, but the important part is that he doesn't actually lose and holds out long enough for Celeborn and others to come in with an assist/distraction, at which point he pulls out some Maiar bullshit and summons a magical fog or something which even Sauron can't pierce through that enables all of them to retreat.

10) Content about them I'd like to see more of

Oh, where to start? I'd love to see more Elrond content that really engages with the mortal part of his heritage. Very understandably, he's often interpreted through an Elvish lens because he did choose that fate, but I think it'd be interesting to see the ways in which he relates to and identifies with his mortal heritage - and then narratively, that as a way to think about what defines humanity and what being human means.

His reaction to Númenor's destruction is something I think about on a regular basis, as is the founding of Imladris during the War of the Elves and Sauron. I like to imagine Sauron absolutely losing his shit over why he can't find this one haphazard band of refugees and soldiers, while they're camped out in the valley, just doing their best to make it another day, another week, another month, another year. More of Elrond on Númenor, being the best uncle to his nephews and nieces! And post-apocalyptic loremaster Elrond after the War of Wrath, although this is admittedly a little more headcanon-y.

I'd love to see more of Elrond in Aman, and his relationships with literally everyone there except Maglor and/or the House of Fëanor. All my love to every fic writer who has written an Aman fic where Elrond is a main character and he doesn't exist in the story solely/primarily to offer unconditional forgiveness to and advocacy on behalf of the House of Fëanor. I'd love to see Elrond and his parents reuniting, Elrond getting to meet and build relationships with all the family he never got the chance to meet in Middle-earth, Elrond and Bilbo (and sometimes Gandalf) raising very good-natured hell together, Elrond and Celebrían doing literally anything.

On which note, of course, Celrond. I am loving the Celrond renaissance I've been seeing lately, and it's truly something the world needs more of.

[angstbotfic]

Fic: Ak’tephari Prophecy Ch 63

Read at AO3

When the Elemental Powers sent them back to Kyna, it looked like very little time had passed while they were gone. Everyone seemed to have been knocked flat on their backs by the force of the magic, but the soldiers were right where they’d been, trying to hold the door. Then Emma realized the Krannans on the floor were just men again.

She had just breathed a sigh of relief when she heard a groan from in front of the dais, and they rushed to where Merlin and Maleficent had collapsed beside each other and were beginning to stir. Emma helped Merlin sit up and Regina helped Maleficent.

“Is it done?” Maleficent asked.

“Yes, and-”

“Emma?” came an uncertain voice.

“Henry!” As one, Emma and Regina ran back up the steps.

Henry was sitting against the far side of the altar, looking dazed but completely healthy. They flung themselves down to hug him, and Emma was crying and kissing his hair and promising never to put him in danger again.

“Mama,” he murmured, holding them close. “My mama. Both. The Powers explained it. I always wanted to find you.”

“And here I am. Here we are,” Emma said.

“And we love you so much,” Regina added.

“Well that’s unexpected,” Maleficent said. She and Merlin had come to stand behind them.

“You have no idea,” Emma said, starting to laugh a little at how much her world had changed in the last little while.

“Hey boss lady?” came Leroy’s voice. “These Krannans are starting to come around.”

“Shit,” Emma muttered, rising to her feet and drawing her sword. Her companions tensed too.

“We have no interest in fighting,” came a voice from the floor. Emma’s eyes picked out a Krannan commander holding up empty hands, his sword lying beside him, and she went to stand over him, her sword still drawn and pointed at him.

“You don’t?”

“No,” he insisted. “Thank you for freeing us from those horrible- things.”

Emma had suspected that the soldiers hadn’t gone along voluntarily, but that didn’t mean they were in the clear. “We’ll see if your leaders feel the same way.”

**

The Krannan encampment was startlingly ordinary, Emma thought as the company commander led them through it toward the king’s tent at the center. People were mending gear, making food, training—turning to stare at the strangers who were being escorted past them, but generally acting as if there hadn’t just been a world-changing event in the Citadel they were supposedly guarding. But maybe they didn’t know, Emma realized.  There was no way the Xan had been able to control all of them, so most of them must have just been following orders as if this was a regular military campaign.

“I don’t like this, Emma,” Billy said, coming to walk beside her. “I don’t trust them to just let us go after we go talk to their king. They could capture us.”

“They already captured us,” she pointed out. “This was a friendly invitation to talk, and he didn’t disarm us, but if we refuse they could make it unfriendly in a hurry. There are too many. They let us go, or we don’t go.”

**

“Seize them!” a man exclaimed the moment Emma and Regina were ushered into the central tent. His ornate uniform meant he must be a general. “It’s Princess Regina! She did this to our king!”

“Whoa, hold on, we didn’t do anything!” Emma protested, wishing they hadn’t had to leave their companions outside even as she knew it wouldn’t do any good if this really went south.

“Liar,” the man said, crossing the space to confront them. Emma put her body between him and Regina without even thinking about it, but he loomed over them both easily. “King Leopold was going about his business perfectly fine this morning, and then after you all showed up and did who knows what in that Citadel he had a horrible fit—convulsing and screaming and then he fell unconscious. You did this. We will make you pay.”

“No,” came a weak voice from behind him, and they all turned, startled, to see a man emerging from a curtained area at the back of the large tent. He could not have been past middle age, but looked as if he’d aged dramatically in a short while from suffering.

“Sire, the healer said that you should rest,” the general said, instantly solicitous.

“And rest I shall,” Leopold said. “But first, I wish to thank these brave souls who have freed me.” He settled, unsteady, into the ornately carved chair that served him as throne here.

“Freed you?” Emma said.

“Yes. Vilm,” he said, turning to the general again, “bring them seats so that we may talk.”

Once they were seated, Leopold began, “I made a terrible mistake.”

Emma bit the inside of her cheek to keep from loudly agreeing.

“My kingdom had become poor and isolated,” he went on. “Our mines were producing less ore. Our metalworkers were being surpassed in fame and skill by those of other lands. We have always been dependent on trade, so it was only a matter of time before we would be unable to even feed ourselves. And so I set the loremasters to work trying to find a solution to our predicament.” He began to cough and was unable to continue for a long moment until a servant brought him a cup to drink from.

Finally, he continued. “When they came to me and said that here at Kyna was a tremendous source of power that had served our ancestors well in the Xendek dynasty and could restore us to glory, I-” He paused, shaking his head sadly. “I should have known the answer would not be so simple, but I was too desperate to help my people to examine it closely.”

“What happened?” Regina said, her brow furrowed with concern for him, and Emma couldn’t share her compassion but loved her for it.

“The Xan possessed me and the senior members of my court who had accompanied me here,” he said, shuddering with horror. “They commanded us to secure you, and when we couldn’t do it by diplomacy they seized control of the entirety of our economy to raise this army to take you by force. And you know the rest.”

“We do,” Emma said, her voice hard. She could not forgive this man for what he had nearly done to Regina.

“I know that I have done incredible harm while the Xan were in control of me, and accept that responsibility. It cannot be undone, though I will make the best reparations possible to all who were affected.” Leopold turned to Regina. “In particular, Princess, I can never apologize deeply enough to you, nor repay my debt to you for saving me from my own folly by sealing the portal. If there is anything I can provide to you to assist in your journey home, it is yours.”

“We can think of some things,” Emma assured him.