#but anyways no self preservation at ALL

[ratatatastic]

idk about you but the cats team letting the cubbies reel in fish that most fishers tell you to avoid is sooooooooo (houndfish and a barracuda)

[llamahearted]

just a conversation I think milly and wolfwood would have, had they been given the time or space for it

[cawsket]

The moral of the arcane season two act three is that if you're suicidal you should just go ahead and kill yourself

[iinryer]

i have GOT to stop “View Post”ing filtered posts. like. girl. you filtered it for a reason. we know exactly what’s going to be there and that it’s going to piss you off

[daisywords]

thinking about the combination aquarium/library from Fablehaven again...proof that you can and should include cool stuff in your writing just because

[khattikeri]

maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)

it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.

mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.

it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.

it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!

the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.

and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.

it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.

he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...

...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.

there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.

but doesn't that prove the point?

wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.

jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.

jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...

do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.

"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.

that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.

that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.

of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.

with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?

jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.

of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.

i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.

if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.

is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.

however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.

this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.

this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".

of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.

to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.

wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.

for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.

that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.

[allgremlinart]

i’m so jeeko insane it’s going to be in the dsm6 i think dilfcember will be the only thing not terrible about Family Holidays Month thank you for your participation 🫡

hi jeeko anon from November... I hope I delivered for dilfcember but also here's some jeeko au wip snippets for you. some wippets, if you will

[slavhew]

Hello!

If you're not too busy, would you mind listing some of the things you think count as death flags for Mr. Spender?

There's the obvious fact that he's the "old" mentor to group of young protagonists, but what else do you think would count?

OHH BOY ok so I'd think I'm a crackpot for this but since we're talking about Zack "Foreshadowing" Morrison. I have some thoughts

No harm in leading with the (chronologically) first thing that jumped out at me:

This one IMMEDIATELY made me antsy whenever I came back to it after my initial read, and considering Zack has referred to it on twitter in the past as one of their favorite jokes it's definitely not been forgotten about.

Second, the sheer amounts of near-misses, jokey or not, of Spender narrowly avoiding specifically lightning

Again, not much, but it's weird that it happened thrice, latter two of which had real gravitas rather than an one-off joke.

And third, Spender himself. He's repeatedly shown himself to be kind of a self sacrificing idiot, as well as prideful to a fault. Granted, it's both him and Mina trying to take on all the responsibility of saving Mayview and its inhabitants from their fate.. But Spender is exactly that right measure of doesn't-value-himself-enough (chest footprint aftercare or lack thereof), having an obscene amount of power (enables his loner act + pride) and poor judgement that has the capacity to put him at great risk. And it has!

Spender has not only shown low enough self-esteem to view himself as the de-facto scapegoat for the safety of the town, but also prideful enough to make very bad calls that end up in people, often himself, hurt (COUGH FORGE INCIDENT COUGH)

This is all conjecture, but it's definitely enough to make me worried about him :') Even if all this doesn't mean he'll necessarily die he's definitely getting (even more) seriously injured at some point. I love the guy but he's so far doing a horrible job of convincing me he wants to live bad enough to circumvent at least that

[zorosdimples]

knowing i should take a step back from tumblr for my own wellbeing vs. being emotionally attached to this app and the people on it

[inkybinkyboink]

holy fucking shit i finally Get It. i finally Get urinetown. i get what little sally says when she says "urinetown is here", it's because urinetown is a world where everything wrong with society is placed into one box. what's interesting about this, and this is what makes it so intrinsically Brechtian, is the fact that even though urinetown is conceptual, it's still inherently society, because all of the conflict in the story stems from real life issues.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

progressing through the myth of sisyphus again

[tate-lin]

Jason Todd is my favourite character in all of DC but:

If someone doesn't want to kill, you can't ask, tell, or expect them to kill for you

Or, you can, but you'd be a complete asshole. The only time those expectations are valid is when a person signed up for a job where killing is expected (e.g. the military).

But as we all know, Batman is not the military nor the police. He only has one rule—or only one rule he truly cares about��and that's to not kill.

And frankly, I don't care what his reasons are for that; the bottom line is that he doesn't want to kill and we should respect it. Because at the end of the day, when you take a life, you're the one who's fully responsible for it. You're the one who has to live with it. And because of that, nobody should force you to do it.

Look, like I said, Jason Todd is my favourite character too. But that doesn't mean I don't find it disturbing or unfair when he expects Bruce, and only Bruce, to kill the Joker for him.

Do I find it understandable and human? Of course! Jason died horribly and gruesomely to a madman who'd do the same to anyone else so long as he finds it funny enough. It's only natural for him to want and expect someone—especially his father, the one he loved the most and the one he'd been searching through the thin crack of the door for even as the countdown struck zero—to put an end to the clown permanently, but. Does that mean he should? Absolutely not, and I think it's straight-up awful that so many people in this fandom encourage this take.

And the kicker is, if Catherine was still alive, if Catherine was the sort to become a vigilante and this happened to the both of them, do you think Jason would have the same expectations for her? I bet not. Not because he's sexist, but because Bruce is Batman and we take Batman for granted.

Yeah, you heard me. We take him for granted. We expect too much out of him.

This has been a slow-coming realisation, but it comes after a particularly harrowing conversation with my sister during which she told me that I was taking her for granted and I surprised myself by agreeing with her. I won't go into the nitty gritty details but what I took away from the conversation was that just because someone can do something, and you yourself would do that something for them, that does not mean you should automatically expect them to do the same for you—especially if it goes against their character and what they stand for.

This goes the same for Bruce. Just because he's capable of murder and is justified in doing it, that does not mean that he should do it if he doesn't want to. And just because Jason would do it for him if the reverse happened, that still does not mean he should do it if he doesn't want to (which Bruce would have never asked for anyway because that's just not part of his character). No matter their similarities, Jason and Bruce are two completely different people and they can't be expected to do and choose the same things.

Batman, of course, chooses to take responsibility for many, many things, most of which are completely optional. He's a billionaire, he doesn't have to help his city by spending his nights saving people, facing the worst the city has to offer, and risk his life and sanity on the daily. He's the CEO of one of the most wealthy companies in the world, he doesn't have to uplift his city by donating to orphanages, hospitals, and charities, creating programmes to help the youth, the poor, the disabled, ex-convicts, and other minorities, as well as funnel any struggling person he encounters to his company so that they can be assured of a job. He was a single and free man, he didn't have to agree to care for several angry, reckless, and bitter kids with death in their hearts.

All of the shit he does is completely optional! Yet, the one thing he explicitly chooses not to do, the one thing he absolutely refuses to take responsibility for and takes great pains to avoid, is killing.

And I get it, this is murder we're talking about here. You can't just expect people to be just okay with doing that, even if that person is a demented dude in a bat costume.

Actually, why are we expecting so much out of such a person? Cause Batman can do anything? Cause Jason is his son and Gotham is his city? Cause if given half a chance, we wouldn't let Jason down? Cause if something happened to us, we hope that we mattered enough to someone for them to avenge us, no matter if doing so would completely destroy them? Tear them apart from the inside-out? No matter that we're already dead and they'd have to live the rest of their lives like that?

Just something to think about.

At any rate, I think it's wrong to look at someone and expect them to kill for you. If Gotham wants Joker gone, they're just gonna have to do it themselves cause expecting a volunteer to do this extra shit they never asked for and explicitly does not want to do is more than just appalling.

It's cruel.

[paperlovesadness]

Biggest Miles Kane fans (in order):

Alex Turner

Miles Kane himself (rightfully so)

You & me Tumblr friend. (And his mum)

Generally people with taste 👌

[sovonight]

,

[caterpillarinacave]

You gather your nerves a moment, which is fair, strange doors have not been so innocuous for you as of late, then creep up to the establishment and push open the door, it gives easily and quietly you slip in, behind the door is small hallway with thick curtains you brush aside, you're looking at a small illuminated room that you would guess is the entrance to the museum, but there's no one manning the front, you call out and knock on the desk yet no answer, you've already come this far so you go further in.

At first it's just pictures on the walls in moderately open spaced windowless rooms, the pictures themselves are interesting, supposed creatures sighted, this places versions of UFO's and Bigfoot's, but also nothing you haven't flipped past in the books you've been searching, the next room is the same and you're beginning to feel the weight of your trespassing misconduct the longer you linger, the museum seems to be set up in a circle so if you keep going forward you should end up back at the front so you move on, the next room has a large curtained off display that takes up most of the back wall, your curiosity piqued you move to pull aside the curtain, the fabric is soft and slides beneath your fingers, you raise it just enough to see a picture on the wall of a strange landscape, short blue and grey plants and a dusty pink sky, in the picture is a smiling man holding a book and looking passed the camera, on his jacket dangles a white key...

"May I ask for an explanation?! Our door is closed for the night hours."

You drop the curtain and turn to find an older gentleman looking at you from across the room, he seems irritated and mildly alarmed, you hurriedly apologize and explain the door was open and rush to ask about the display behind the curtain, he is not impressed with your questions and asks that you leave, realizing your unfortunate situation you acquiesce and ask for the hours you can visit instead, he gives you a time and pointedly tells you the cost of the entrance fee as well, you head back to your friends place, your heart in your throat, this is the closest you've been to figuring out what to do next in almost a week, the itchy paranoia of last worlds government catching you shadowing your every move.

You reach your friends place, they're still out probably picking up dinner, you are still caught off guard at times by how similar this place is to your world, sure their versions of things are a little odd, the tv is circular, doorframes rounded out, other little oddities, it's all so similar though you may as well just be in another country maybe, with a strange accent.

You decide to take this moment to add to your journal and look over your things, while you did a quick inventory check when you first got here you haven't checked the items themselves until now.

Your walkie crackles when you flip it on, same as ever.

Your phone remains serviceless but fills its charge when you turn it on and off. Interestingly you notice it trying to pick up a wifi signal and when you check there seem to be a couple networks nearby, locked though.

The funnel still amplifies the noises around you and you hear the neighbors discussing something on the tv next door as clearly as if they were speaking to you. When you look through the funnel you don't notice anything. You hold it back up to your ear listening to all the different things around you and pull out the spinning top, as soon as the top hits the table the noise disappears, confused you look at the funnel and then listen again, but no noise, the top falls over and the noise returns. Strange.

The berries taste fresh and make you feel better, but you are running low even though you resupplied a bit before leaving.

The dog tags seem unchanged and your key and whistle seem the same as ever.

When your friend gets back you ask about the wifi, they call it something else, but once you parse it out they help you set it up. Your phone can now access their version of the internet so your friend shows you a program to message them just in case. They also give you a device to keep in your pocket that connects you to the wifi wherever you go, so you can contact them while you're out and about. You tell them about the museum you saw earlier, how you think it may be a lead, and the old man running the place. They seem excited for you and make plans to join you tomorrow to go see it.

You go to bed that night thinking of your plans for the morning and turn over the strange dreams or images you remember from when you passed through the door. You slip off into an uneasy sleep, gold threads weave from dream to dream until you stand before an open doorway of light, something about this doorway is wrong though, you can feel it, you reach out to touch, the crackles of energy electrifying the air...someone reaches out and stops you, you can't see their face but you hear them as if through water. You can almost make out the words...you know they're speaking to you, you just can't hear it well enough.

You turn to them, but you still can't see anything but their lips, it looks like their telling you to stop...to go...you can't make it out.

"...op...ea...G...ome!"

With that last echoing and indecipherable shout you awaken to the dark room, the walkie crackling from where you left it.

"S....l....o...h..." You fumble with it a second but the sounds die out no longer sounding like anything but static again. You don't end up sleeping much after that.

The next day you both head out to go to the museum. You take a minor detour to check the Door, but when you get close you see the alley has been blocked off, you notice some people from the last dimension around, their odd features sticking out to you but hidden away to fit in with the locals.

You cross the street with your friend and try to stay inconspicuous. Probably best stay away from here going forward.

You guys make it to the museum and head inside where the old man from last night mans the desk, your friend pays for the tickets and he hands them to you along with a pamphlet.

You don't bother looking at all the things you saw last night, your friend follows though obviously intrigued by the pictures. You reach the curtained wall and pull back the fabric, but find there's nothing there, dusty spots frames may have hung and empty tables where things had obviously been displayed are all that's left.

In shock you stand confused, your friend catches up and looks behind the curtain curious, you explain it's all gone, they seem befuddled as well. Obviously the content behind the curtain has been moved but it can't be far right? Maybe it's just in the back. Either way, it feels like someone is hiding something from you. You notice a door leading to the back that's for employee's.

Do you go through the door?

yes

[wiccawrites]

Dragon!Porsche, the deity who has been guarding a perilous mountain range for almost a thousand years now. He's bound to these mountains – the result of a curse he placed on himself centuries ago, when his own foolishness led to the death of his own brother.

Porsche keeps to himself; is careful that the occasional caravan of traders or group of bandits doesn't know he's there. He does send his pet tigers after the bandits sometimes, if he sees they're the especially bloodthirsty kind who won't spare innocent lives but he makes sure his presence is undetected.

Solitude is his penance.

He's spending another evening watching the stars when he hears ruckus coming from a nearby pass. There is screaming, but not the terrified kind that Porsche has gotten used to. Instead, it sounds like an argument.

"I can't let you do this!"

"How did you even follow me? I took the fastest stallion here!"

"Would you please stop changing the topic? Your Highness. You seriously cannot be trusting some half-crazed old man's advice on how to save the kingdom."

Kingdom?

Porsche knows there's a human settlement on the other side of these mountains. Or at least, it had been a settlement centuries ago. He and Porchay used to slip into their human forms and visit there, under the guise of travelers.

Was that settlement the same kingdom these two humans were referring to? It could be. The number of traders passing by these mountains had grown significantly over the centuries.

Out of curiosity, Porsche follows the sound of their voices.

"If it can save the kingdom, I'll take advice regardless of who it comes from."

"What if it doesn't work? You'll bleed out and die!"

"I've instructed Arm to distribute rations to our people. Ships and caravans are ready. Pete will lead our men. Kim has already planned an escape route that will guarantee the survival of most of our people."

Porsche is close enough that he can see two figures -- a man and what sounds like a boy barely breaking into adulthood. The man has his back turned to Porsche but the fine quality of his clothes are certainly fit for a royal. His broad frame hides the face of the person he's talking to from Porsche's line of sight.

Porsche is close enough that he can hear the man's voice grow soft.

"It will be difficult, but I trust my brother to lead our people. He'll take care of you, so please look after him for me too."

"No. I won't do it. No. Please, Your Highness. Please don't do this. Please. You can escape with us."

"The moon is almost at it's peak. You should go."

That it is.

The moon is full tonight and she lends her light to the darkness. It's thanks to her that Porsche sees the blade glisten in the man's hands, hidden behind his back.

The boy tries to plead some more, but he runs out of time.

As soon as the moon rises to its highest point in the sky, the man pushes the boy away. He turns around, slices his palm with the dagger and lets his blood drip into the earth before turning the knife towards himself.

The metallic scent blood fills the air and Porsche looks on in regret as he hears familiar words uttered into the night before the man finishes what he'd set out to do.

The thing about being nigh immortal is being able to witness the stories about you turn into tales, which then turn into lore, that somehow evolves into a legend. To this man's credit, he does have his facts right.

Had Porsche been a weaker deity, a selfless blood sacrifice made at the height of the full moon would have bound him.

But Porsche is much more powerful than that.

He watches as the man falls to the ground, a pool of his own blood already beginning to form around him.

"P'Kinn!"

The man's companion rushes to his side and Porsche freezes in place as he sees tears flow down the boy's face.

No. It can't be.

Porsche is stepping closer to get a good look of the boy's face before he can even think about throwing a glamor on himself. He steps on a branch that snaps loud enough for the boy to look up, red-rimmed doe eyes the exact same as they had been nine hundred years ago.

"Please," the boy's voice wavers as he begs, completely oblivious to the fact that Porsche had never been unable to deny him anything since they were born. "Please save him."

Without even thinking about the consequences – the bond he'd be forming with a virtual stranger, the life force that he'd be sharing with someone who he wasn't even sure was worthy saving, the target he'd be placing on all their backs if the wrong people found out – Porsche takes the dagger and gives in to his brother's request.

(Later, when the three of them are safely in Porsche's home, the man he'd saved wakes up. His name is Kinn, and he is the king of the relatively small but prosperous kingdom nearby. There is an invasion brewing and all plans of negotiation have failed.

"They will need to pass through these mountains if they want to get to us. Please, protect us."

"Done."

"You won't ask for anything in return?"

Porsche holds up his hand, shows Kinn the fresh scar on his palm.

"You've already paid the price. You're a king, aren't you? The ritual you performed binds you to me. As I am bound to these mountains, so shall you be."

"You're saying I'm your slave and I can't leave this place," Kinn says grimly. Porsche nods, lets him assume the worst; hopes this interpretation of the bond will keep Kinn as far away from him as possible . "For how long?"

"This is not a bond that can easily break."

"Will you keep protecting the kingdom?"

Porsche sneaks a glance at Kinn's attendant. The boy called Chay, who was currently napping beside one of Porsche's tigers.

"Sure, why not?"

"Then so be it.")