#by car the rest of the way to denmark

[armenelols]

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[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Choke On The Sun

PAIRING: John Price x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: You'd known John ever since the Academy, and even after losing touch, the love you had for one another was never gone. Like a snake, it had stayed hidden in unseen places. But it was always there.

WORDCOUNT: 13.8k

WARNINGS: Blood, intense gore, torture, detailed descriptions of torture i.e. electrocution, loss of a finger, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, discussion of torture, canon-typical violence, death, near-death experiences, guns, weapons, abductions, betrayals, intended for mature audiences, happy ending, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You remember a story you’d been told when you were a rookie—fresh off the cut and eager-eyed with far fewer scars. A more of a glass-half-full type of outlook on life, unknowing of what you’d experience during your years with the SAS: what choices you would have to make.

It went something like this. 

There was a herd of deer that had jumped over the side of a bridge. On either end of that bridge, there were two trucks with their high beams on—not moving but sitting there; the deer got pressured. Spooked. One by one they just…hopped over and died on the rocks below—no noise above the breaking of bone and the clatter of antlers shattering to pieces. 

You have to wonder if it was the fault of the first one who had jumped over for leading the rest to a quick end, or the drivers of the cars just trying to get where they needed to go; ignorant of the way they’d been ogling to see the panic in wide, black eyes. Either way, a whole herd of ten met their fate and left their bodies to feed the larvae and the birds. 

The story had been told over drinks at a pub, at the time you’d taken an interest in it with no more than a slow comment of ‘poor things’ before you’d brought your glass to your lips. You don't know why you’re thinking about it now. 

The timing could have been more opportune.

You send a bullet into the man’s kneecap, hearing the bone disintegrate and the flesh open like a flower. His scream follows, loud and hoarse—sobbing trapped behind a bitten tongue that drips blood down his chin. 

Hand snapping up, you grasp the lower half of his face with a grunt, head shoving itself forward until you lock onto fluttering eyes and get consumed by a whining sob.

“I asked you a question,” you lick your lips, tasting sweat as it slithers down your skin. Your voice is slow and even, grip tight. With a shove, you push back the man’s face, wrist limp with the Basilisk as you wipe at your nose with it, unblinking, when you get to your full height. 

The room wasn’t anything different from a million other black sites you’d been to. A single chair where your mark sits tied up, a desk that had been pushed to the wall, and a single door placed into the cracking foundations of a concrete wall. No windows. No vents. 

Hotter than hell, too, and that place was something you were acutely in tune with. 

“Anthony,” you say, waving your free hand as the scent of blood gets stronger, pools of it already on the hard floor. “I’m gonna call you Tony, alright?” 

Tony yells, wrenching his arms against the zip-ties and screaming until his voice is hoarse. 

“Damn you! I told you I don’t know anything!” He sobs. “My leg—I can’t feel my leg, oh, God it hurts.”

You frown, glancing at the door. 

“Stop lying to me,” you look back, eyes unblinking in the low light. “You still have one left—tell me where your buyer is and I let you keep the ability to walk upright with a cane.” 

“I don’t know his name—!”

“I don’t need a name, Tony,” you growl, irritated. “I need a location.”

“Copenhagen!” He wails, body spasming and hair dancing atop his head. “The warehouse is in Copenhagen, please, that’s all I know!”

You blink. 

“Denmark?” You mutter, brows furrowing. 

“Fuck!” Tony screams long, his skull tilting forward as he releases his guts to the floor through quick gasps. Backing up a step to stay out of the spray, you watch him silently; thinking. The flood of the man’s crimson fluids ripples. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” 

“Denmark,” grumbling to yourself once more, you shake your head and sigh aggressively. “Of course.” 

Without another glance, you turn and exit the room, pushing your Basilisk into its holster as the gear on your chest clinks lightly like the sound of rain hitting a metal roof. The door closes behind you, voice calling to one of the guards as he looks up quickly. His face is pale. Tony’s wails still echo out; water filling a bucket. 

“Get a medic,” is what you settle with—slipping past on a fleet foot and new intel to pass on to Laswell. She’ll be intrigued, no doubt. 

One step closer, your mind hisses to you. Just a little bit longer.

It’s too late to gain a conscious now.

Emmett Kinsman had been dodging you for years—dodging the Task Force—but with one of his suppliers giving away a location you’d been unable to pin, there was hope for a swift resolution to this mess. 

The radio on your chest sizzles to life.

“Hart, sit-rep. How’s it lookin’ on the black site.” Kate’s American accent leaks into the earpiece attached to you, the cord looping the back of your neck and inserted into the shell; a device of black metal and plastic. 

“I have a location for Kinsman. Copenhagen,” you ease out, moving a finger to the earpiece and pressing. Glancing at the rows and rows of doors in this endless hallway of dark smoke and obsidian mirrors—you’re eager to get your boots to the ground. Your other hand snatches at the rag swinging from your belt, taking it out and rubbing at your face with it until the stain of oil and flecks of blood smear like frosting on a cake. “Where are the boys? I need to be wheels-up to meet them ASAP.”

“Coming to you.”  

“They’re here?” Your face twists as the words settle in, confused. “Why? Thought they were tracking another lead in Romania.” 

Kate’s voice is smooth in your ear, moving like water as you turn a corner, stuffing your rag back into your belt. 

“Are you surprised?” The woman jokes in a monotone; you’d only taken it as such because you knew her dry state of humor. “Really, Hart, you know he can’t stop until you’re back at his side. I was going to tell you sooner, but you were…occupied.” 

Your feet pause for a moment at the beginning of her sentence, instinctual heat moving the length of your neck until you clench your jaw and continue onward at a slightly slower pace—eyes narrowed on the floor ahead of you. 

“It isn’t like that, Kate,” you mutter. A low hum echoes the line and you fight a scowl as a group of soldiers walk past. Itching at your forearm, you shake your head. “John just likes having everyone together on missions like these. If it had been different, I’m sure he would have told me to fly back to them regardless of the intel. We’re tight on time.” 

“I’ve known you both for more years than I can remember,” Laswell sighs. “Don’t try that with me, Captain.” You frown, clicking your tongue. “They’ll be arriving on the tarmac—get ready for a quick exit. We need Kinsman by month’s end.” 

“Copy,” you utter, removing your hand from the earpiece and glaring ahead of you. A still-air silence envelopes the hallway, the only sound of your boots to the concrete and the reverberation that booms after. 

It was so quiet here. 

John Price—Captain Price—and yourself had a… complicated history. You’d joined up together; gotten through SAS selection neck-and-neck until time and its grubby fingers had forced your lives in different directions. Like two vines of reaching ivy, it had only been three years ago that you’d seen the other again, though you’d heard stories as you’re sure he had about you. 

Hart: not the kind that beats but the kind that bleats, you had to explain to most—you weren’t unknown to the darker side of the job and the people that specialized in it. Your file was stretched with so much black ink that when you’d gotten the call on your phone, an unknown number, you’d recognized the gruff voice behind it and the first question you’d asked was how the hell he’d gotten clearance to track you down. 

“No hello, then, Hart?”

“Not one for pleasantries, John. Explain. Quickly.”

“Business as always.” He’s wasted no time, voice going to a low grumble over the line that day. “Laswell took in a favor. You’ve been busy, Love…Room for one more joint-Op?”

It hadn’t panned out to only ‘one more joint-Op’. 

After the mission was over, it had been raining on base. The sky had shed tears from clouds deeper than the gray shades of your gear, splattering packed dirt and concrete. Above your head, the thin overhang off of the armory door had spared you some of it, but when the wind had shifted your clothes absorbed specks of water like spots on a fawn. Your eyes had been looking out—expression open. 

When the man exited the building and came up beside you, you both didn’t speak for a long time. You had been aware of his form, devoid of vest and gear, while yours was still layered with it to the utmost degree. You’d expected to leave that night—a good old-fashioned Irish Goodbye with a C-17 already waiting for you to board. To carry you off to another hellish deed done with ravaging cruelty for the sake of people who would never even know you existed.

The storm had stopped you…or, maybe something else had.

“Good to see you again, Hart,” John had stated, still not looking over at you as his arms had crossed, feet situating themselves. “Been too long.”

You had stayed silent—watching. The drain across the street was flooded. Sticks and leaves stuck at the drain as a whirlpool formed; only dangerous to bugs and the bits of garbage blown in by the wind. 

Only after the wind shifts again did you speak.

“And what has John Price been up to in that time?” Your eyes had slid to stare, piercing in the low illumination of the armory’s outside light. 

A huff of a chuckle, the one you’d remembered in the days of selection—coated in mud from crawling through man-made trenches and a sharp smirk of a snap when the barbed wire had grazed his back. 

There were too many stories here. Too many. So many it became impossible to wonder what could have been and what couldn’t—all that existed were the little moments of fondness.

The two of you were nothing else but souls long past redemption; stuck on that knife’s edge and waiting for the hand to shake and send you through it. 

You are made of memories. 

“That’s a story told over bourbon,” John’s lips had flickered, and you’d blinked slowly, head tilting. “Not anything worth reliving, yeah?” 

“Everything is relivable, Captain. You just need to find a reason as to why.” 

The man had nodded his head your way, conceding with his blank eyes ahead to the rain. A rumble of distant thunder had flown out, making your ears twitch. You couldn’t stop watching him now that you had the chance—the brunette strands; the fatigues, and that accent. The muscle you don’t remember him having in that specific place all those years ago. The wrinkles on his forehead from age and stress are shown in yours as a mirror. 

Tall; formidable. 

There was a tension in the air that you chose not to dwell on—the same that had been brewing for as long as you’d known him. 

“I want you to join up with me,” the sudden comment had made your body tense, eyes snapping away. In your pockets, your fingers twitch with surprise. 

“Join?”

“Thought I’d catch you before you disappeared again, yeah?” A sheen of slight embarrassment is over your skin. John chuckles again. “Extend a formal offer—Laswell was the one who suggested it.”

“Well,” you’d huffed, licking your lips. “Now I’m surely not accepting.” 

“Let me fuckin’ finish, Love,” John’s lips were pulled in a slight smirk—beard shifting. A pause as the wind whips again, shaking the trees before he grunts. “One-Four-One. My Task Force. Been thinking I’d need someone like you, but I knew you’d never agree to it.”

“Oh?” Your brow raises. 

“Not bloody stupid.” He sighs. “Thought I’d ask anyway. Give you a proper goodbye if you weren’t so keen on handing it out.”

“I don’t like goodbyes,” you mutter, hearing John’s feet shift—his boots scraping. 

“I know.” It’s low and even—not a prod or a dig. An observation. 

A hand is moved out to you, hovering. 

There isn’t any need for words when you glance down at it, and then up at him; staring into those blue eyes that so perfectly illustrate the hues of a roaring river, hidden away in the confines of a verdant forest.

A slow smile pulls at your lips, and you see the corner of the man’s eyes soften.

“Knew I’d get one out of you again,” he mutters as you slip your hand into his, a firm and all-encompassing heat of flesh and care. 

“Don’t get used to it, John.” Shaking his hand, you smirk, legs shifting. 

“Never,” he chuffs, squeezing your limb. 

You don’t know why you stayed under that overhang with him that night. You don’t think you’ll ever be able to explain it as you had looked up and seen the C-17 fly off without you in its cargo hold, hands resting on your vest collar and blue eyes watching you, slightly narrowed. 

You never even verbally told him you were sticking around…it had happened like a stray cat under the porch of your childhood home; taken in and cared for. Just the same, John never mentioned it beyond paperwork. 

Shaking your head, you blink back to the black site, turning that last corner and making it to one of the exits. Pushing the metal-reinforced door open, you shift outside and move a hand to cover the glare of the setting sun from your eyes, grunting. 

Laswell’s voice peaks back in as you jog toward the far-off body of a whirling plane, three figures just managing to walk down the ramp. 

“Hart? It’s Laswell.”

“Copy,” you say, knees taking the brunt of the heavy items you carry in pouches and have strapped to your form. “What is it?” 

“The Task Force is a go for Denmark—when you get there, I need everyone searching; we can’t lose him again.”

“Affirm. I’m on it, Kate.” You breathe. “John and I’ll get him. It’s personal for us, you know that.”

“That I do. Make sure to keep your heads on with this, Hart. Out.”

You lick your lips, nodding even if she can’t see you. 

Slowing as you near the plane, friendly smiles spark up from the two Sergeants. Gaz comes over, grasping at your shoulder and speaking above the engine behind him. 

“Ma’am! Good to have you back.” Soap chuckles, tilting his head your way as you grasp Kyle’s forearm—squeezing in greeting with a twinkle in your eye.

“Surprised to see us?” The Scot calls. 

You scoff. “Laswell gave you up.”

“Damn,” Kyle moves back, fixing the cap atop his head and glancing back at his fellow Sergeant. Simon nods from behind the two to which you respond in like. “She bloody betrayed us.” 

“Not as much as Kinsman,” the mood sours; lips thinning as you speak firmly. “Where’s John?” 

“Right here,” the man in question comes down the ramp, blue eyes meet yours. A second of inspection passes, eyes from both parties flickering up and down forms for any mistreatment—any ailments. “Kate already told me. We’re leaving now that we have you.”

Bumping Simon’s fist with yours as you pass him, you ascend the ramp, Soap muttering under his breath about the flight time from behind. 

Standing beside John, you pause like a bird, eyes half narrowed. “You didn’t have to pick me up, you know? I could have gotten another plane.”

The man the same rank as you hums, making sure the men are all inside and taking one last look out to the black site, eyes missing nothing down to the concrete structure to the lights that will soon illuminate the pure nothingness of the fields of this area.

“Wait time would have put us back.” Tiny eyes blink, a hand coming up to rest on his collar as his face shifts to you. “You good?”

“Always,” you mutter without hesitation. “Nothing from Romania, then?”

He grumbles, clenching his jaw and taking in your words. “Negative.”

A silence settles in which you quirk your brow—a small flicker of a smirk makes him turn away and stalk back into the hull, grunting in annoyance. You follow on silent feet. 

“That’s it? It must have been horrible, then. Care to explain?” 

“Get in your seat, Captain.” 

You hold back a low chuckle, walking beside him until you both come to the back of the plane—easing back into the hard plastic, you huff as you clip in your seatbelt. 

It’s all relative silence until the large metal beast is in the air; everyone's bodies shifting as the floor evens out. John and you take long breaths and, feeling the occasional jostle of the plane, you occupy yourself by picking at the dried blood all over your hands as the flight begins—Tony’s blood. 

Blue eyes blink down at you, watching from the side.

“He know anything important?” You stifle a yawn on your lips, one hand coming up to cover the open-jawed expression of tiredness. 

Glancing, you shrug with a slow response of, “Only a location. Even then I don’t know if it’ll pan out like we want it to, John.”

Everyone had been hoping for more, but they also knew that you were the best at interrogations and information retrieval. If you had called it that the man only knew a city and nothing else, John wasn’t one to question you. He knew better. 

A large hand shifts to grasp your right bloody one, picking it up and bringing it to his lap. You let him do it without protest, shoulders loosening at the roughness of his calluses moving across yours until the familiar ritual begins to take part like a black mass. 

Fingers twitching, you hear a hum as John takes out a rag from his pocket, opening it with a flick of his wrist. Moments later, the water bottle on the seat next to him is taken and the droplets that are left are scattered like rain over the fabric until they absorb. 

“All dirty, Love,” he grumbles as your eyes soften, watching him trace the lines of your palm with the wet rag—dabbing away the beads of red. Watching, you listen as he continues. “We’ll figure it out, eh?”

Blue locks with you, holding your gaze until the permanent set of his brows slowly loosens. “We will,” he reaffirms firmly.

“...I should have shot him when I had the chance,” you whisper to John, words low and tone nothing more than a mouse’s murmur; a small pebble hitting the ground. “Don’t lie and say it wasn’t my fault.”

“You’re going to fucking ruin yourself with that, Hart.” He advises, his cleaning of blood coming to a slow halt. “You did what you thought was best,” John leans in closer, not blinking as you try to move your head away with a half-hidden scoff. A damp hand grabs lightly at your chin, shifting it back as you blink in mild shock into John’s face. He doesn’t falter. “It’s all any of us can do, yeah?” 

As if it were nothing, he lets you go and shifts his focus back to cleaning your hand. You watch for a long moment, oblivious to the elbows hitting sides from farther down the hull, quick glances tossed between Sergeants and a Lieutenant who quirks a brow under his mask, huffing a sound in his throat.

“If I had,” you force back the stutter in your voice. “More people would still be alive.”

“Maybe,” John tilts his head, the rag brushing the length of your fingers. “Maybe not. We don’t know that, do we? No use wasting our breath talking about it then. What matters, Hart, is how we fix this.”

You sigh, repressing a shiver as his thumb brushes scars and blemishes, moving like moss over stone. 

“And we don’t leave our bloody problems for the next poor bastard, do we?” You puff air from your nose, shaking your head at the smirked comment. You watch John’s beard move with it—taking in the crinkling of his eyes and the way his knee hits yours. 

“Wonderful pep-talk, Captain.” You lean your head back against the netted sides of the aircraft, letting your eyes flutter shut; oblivious to the way he watches you. “The service is lost on you—therapist is right up your alley.”

“Fuck’s sake,” John scoffs. “I’d sooner go back to the academy than that.” 

“The food was utter shite, wasn’t it?” You agree.

“No need to bring it up,” John comments lowly, amusement thick in his words. 

You don’t know when you fell asleep, but you do know that the pressure around your limb stayed there for a long while—the rag moving over every sliver of skin until only the base was left behind; like a painter creating an ocean scene, shrouded in mist, every bit of red was gone. 

Your dreams are plagued by Emmett Kinsman. His sharp face; his sly eyes and his knack for being undetected.

He’d been a part of your and John’s class in the Royal Military Academy—when all was done, he’d graduated and begun to serve in the 22nd SAS Regiment just as the both of you had. There was never much interaction there, beyond shared drinks and a few good words, a single operation, but the bonds of brotherhood run deep. If given the chance over any deployment or service, John or yourself would have given your lives for him—for the boy you’d bled and persevered with to a point of utter loyalty akin to beasts; unrestrained by any threat of violence, sharp attitude, or past faults.

And in the end, he’d thrown that all away to get into bed with terrorists. 

Location: London, England

Time: 1718

Operation: ‘Purple Cloth’

Your eyes rest behind the glass of the bookstore, gazing out over the street from the second floor with a level of new-found skill and a surety in yourself. Fresh off the cut, you aren’t overly eager for this, but you’re assured in your abilities. 

There can be no failure.

Emmett is down below, sitting at a café and sipping tea as John is stationed at a building farther down the street; waiting. Another man, directly relaying information to Emmett, is at the café as well, sitting in the corner reading a newspaper and facing the individual you’re supposed to follow. Only the four of you for this, and you’re not overly familiar with half of them. John was your only shining grace. 

“Target’s getting the bill,” you shift your head into the collar of your shirt, muttering. “He’ll move soon.”

“He carrying?” John’s voice slithers in, a soft murmur. 

You stare, expression lax at the large body that shifts and stands with a tight shirt on, waving off the barista when she tells him to have a good day. “If I had to guess? Negative. Nothing big—no bulge at his spine. At the very opposite end, I’d say an X13 could be concealed and accessed via a slit in the pant’s pocket and in a holster at his thigh. They’re baggy enough for it, but the draw time’ll be longer. Drug runners are sloppy.”

John grunts, and you address Emmett. “How are we doing, Mate?” 

A smooth, suave, tone moves into your ear. “Not too bad, Sweet Thing. Else, I'd be better if you were sharing a drink with me before I disappear.”

“Only in your imagination, Kinsman,” John interrupts, unimpressed drawl taking your attention. “Keep on it.” 

“I swear I rank the same as you, Price. Where do you get off ordering me around like your dog?” The comment is so easily dismissed as a joke between comrades that there’s no hostility there.

“Since I was given oversight,” the amusement is easily taken in John’s voice. “I’m the one keeping your arse alive, eh?” 

The other addition to your team speaks up, a voice that in the future you’ve already long forgotten. He says to cut the chatter, and you have to agree. 

Emmett and the target are nearing an alley. 

“I’m heading down,” you utter, already turning and heading to the stairs, swiftly moving down them and exiting the building. 

“Copy,” John’s voice fizzles the line. “I’ll head them off.”

“Emmett,” you move to link up with the fourth member of the team as he joins at your side, both of you sharking a glance and a jerk of your heads. “Keep him away from civilians. We can’t deal with casualties in this populated of an area.”

“He won’t have a chance to shoot them,” the comment makes your brows furrow, the tone not a cocky gloat but rather...quiet. A moment of silence wafts out. “What in the bloody hell is that supposed to mean, Kinsman?” You frown tightly, your gut swirling with something unidentifiable. The X12 in the back of your baggy sweatshirt is heavy—suddenly ten times more so. 

In the corner of your eye, you see John far across the way shift, leaning before on a trash can, now standing upright. You swear you lock eyes with him, both gifted in all sense when it comes to war. Perhaps it was ingrained into both of your DNA—a knowledge of all things deadly; of threats unseen. Some primal and horrible understanding spanning back to when man had first raised a fist to another. 

“Oi,” your voice pushes. “What does that mean?” Feet pivoting, you move closer to the alley where the light shade of hair disappears. 

The line is silent. 

Silent before a loud gunshot rings.

Birds scatter, and you instinctively duck down, hand snapping to your service weapon as your eyes go wide. Head snapping about, you dash to the alley opening above the screaming; pushing past fleeing people.

“Hart!” 

“He’s in the alley!” 

“Do not engage until I get there, do you hear me?!” You’re already at the entrance, X12 ahead of you, and the safety flicked off with a heavy finger. “Hart!”

The body of your mark is on the ground—a bullet in the back of his skull. 

“Fuck!” You shout, feet slapping the concrete as you zoom past. “Price—target’s down, Emmett shot him in the damn head, on his tail now.”

“Fucking hell.” The man is growling out at you, voice heated.

Your eyes snap this way and that, weapon at the ready as you take a sharp turn. At the very end of the opening, you see him. 

Kinsman slips his service weapon back into the base of his spine, pulling at his shirt to cover the grip as a mass of the crowd is just behind him. He rushes quickly on long legs. 

“Emmett!” Your voice makes him freeze. There’s a long pause before anything is spoken; you have your sights trained—a perfect line-up to the roundness of his skull. 

“I had hoped to be fast enough,” the man tells you, head tilting to the side, “but I should have known you’d move head-long into danger without backup.”

“Hart,” John’s voice nearly startles you from the line. “Sitrep, now!”

“Why would you do that, Emmett?”

“There’s more to this than being pawns, Hart,” Kinsman growls at you. “I play my game right, I always come on top. I needed to earn their trust; our target had a price on his head and no one else could get as close as me. Well,” he pauses, “us.”

“I’m taking you in,” you grit your teeth, hands tight on the gun. You don’t even want to think about what he means by ‘their’ or his ‘game’. It was always word puzzles with this man—one second you had the right piece, and the next the entire picture had changed like sand in the waves of a tide.

“Are you really that torn up about a drug runner?” A scoff makes you hold back a snarl, but your resolve is shaking. This was a man you had trusted—now fast can something that was forged with steel break?

“He was just some filthy nobody, Hart.” Emmett starts walking into the crowd ahead of him, and in your mind you know if you take that shot you run the risk of shooting an innocent civilian. “I’ll be more than a nobody. Or a grunt soldier. People are going to know me.” 

Bodies flee quickly—screams. Mothers, children, husbands.

Kinsman smirks, and as your finger tightens on the trigger, he’s already swallowed by the hoard. 

“I’ll be seeing you.”

John and you sit in the safehouse, for a moment, surrounded by quiet and the smell of hot tea. One week in Denmark, and you have no leads. The other three are away, sleeping in the rooms down the hallway. 

“You’re still thinking about him,” John speaks up, eyes on you. It’s blunt, but that was just how he was. 

You peek your eyes open slowly, your body slouching in the chair and feet outstretched under the table. Your boot lightly touches John’s own. A long sigh exits your nose, grumbling on your tired lips. 

“John,” you level, drawing the name out like the years of your life. A thin warning. 

The man clenches his jaw slightly, bringing up his cup and taking a slow slip. You see the flesh of his throat bob with the liquid as it goes down, the overhead light of the kitchen only a single bulb of warm glow. 

“Been chasing him for years, Hart,” he says when the item is back to the woodgrain. Voice a deep murmur—a scrape of vocal chords. “We both have.”

“He knows too much,” you reply. “I can’t let him get away again. Strategies, operators, everything.” Your eyes shift as your head raises, blinking away the sleep in your glinting orbs. “For years he’s been under our nose, getting away with who knows what—”

“Hart,” your rant is interrupted, and you stop with a snap of your teeth. Blue eyes lock a concerned sheen to them. “Breathe.” 

Your face moves away, arms loosely crossed over your chest tensing. 

John’s body shifts to you, leaning forward until his elbows are resting on his knees. He stares, brows a line on his flesh. You send a swift glance, lips pulling. 

“...Stop that,” your voice murmurs, echoing off the walls of the kitchen. John blinks, not speaking as you move in your seat. The man tilts his head, a slow something making his lips go back slightly. Gradually, your face goes hotter, blinking at him a few times; sucked in like a fox to a trap. “John, quit it.”

“M’not doing anything, Love.” 

“Bullshit,” you try and glare at the looseness of his expression, his smirk that makes your gut tighten. Goosebumps move up your arms. “You’re a horror.”

A low chuckle wafts out, John shrugging casually before he leans back. 

He takes up his cup again and takes down the last of the remnants. “Go to sleep,” hits your ears as your pounding heart takes a breather. It’s a grumble on the air—not as much an order as it is a suggestion. “It’s late.” 

You decide to sip at your own drink as well, eyes drooping at the steam that wafts around your face, nose twitching to the scents. 

“You?” John hums, looking you up and down; seeing the fatigue you carry. You’d been relentless for the week you’d all been here, holding the few strings of the lead you had to your chest—five-fingered grasping with a desperate prayer to all things unholy.  

“I’ll be here.” You tilt your head his way, eyes still half-closed in your seat. Your answer is easy, pushed out in a slow sentence. 

“Then so will I.”

John sighs under his breath. It’s a moment before an exasperated chuckle moves through your earbuds. You smile, eyes slipping closed fully. 

Yet, they startle back open as the cup is taken from your hands, your chair moved back firmly. 

“Up you get, then,” John grunts, and his arms snake around you. Blinking quickly, your jaw is slack as you get taken up into a tight carry; John’s chest firm and your nose brushing the side of his chin. 

Air getting sucked into your lungs, you stifle a hitch in your breath. 

It’s only after he starts walking forward, hiking you farther up into him, and his fingers gliding over your clothes, that you start to relax. His heat seeps like a warm fire.

Head sagging to the side, you grumble into his neck as you miss his eyes looking down at you, eyes soft in a way only you would have been able to see. “Can walk, y’know.”

He hums, head shifting back to the hallway as he carries you to the last door on the right, bumping into the wood with his shoulder and shifting to walk in sideways so you don’t let your legs on the frame. 

“Remember Preu? 05’?” John asks you, moving over to the bed and setting you down slowly, a tiny huff exiting his mouth. Your body sinks into the mattress, head to the pillow as your hand comes up to rub at your eyes. The man moves to grab the blanket at the end of the bed—knowing your trained habit of sleeping atop the comforter on operations; not tangled up in sheets just in case. He slips off your boots. “Carried you two miles.”

“I recall it,” you grunt, a tired flicker coming to your lips. “Bleeding out and all.”

“Well,” John hums, quirking a brow. “Wasn’t about to let my Hart die on me. Blood was the least of my worries.” 

Your pulse flutters at the title, even if it’s just your codename and not the beating muscular organ inside of your breast. 

My Heart.

But it’s never that simple. 

A hand moves up your cheek, a kiss pressed to your forehead. 

The both of you already know you love each other. It wasn’t a secret. You were smart; eyes sharper than a blade—you caught the way he watched you, saw the softness of his expression, and felt the drag of his hand. Just as he caught the way you stayed beside him, an ever-present pair of eyes watching his six. The content nature that only you showed him. 

With feet so eager to leave at any moment, it said much that you chose to exist near him simply because you wanted to. 

You loved each other. 

Boil it down, and you’d both known even back in the Academy that it would be the two of you at the end of all things. The rivers said your name. The valleys rustled with the breeze of your breath. You saw John in the bits of water that sloshed the rocks and in the earth beneath your palms. 

Over the years you’d been apart, the yearning hadn’t been any less sharp—any less potent. In every birdsong, the echoes of the other's voice flew and disappeared on wingbeats. In everything that existed, there was a fraction of what should be. 

What should be. 

“John,” your voice is a whisper, nothing more than a rustle of a cloth. He keeps his lips to your forehead, resting there for a moment against all sense and responsibility. John’s eyes droop down, lashes resting on the swell of his cheeks. “You know I love you.”

He takes a breath. Rain is in the air—the movement of a storm’s wind. A leaving C-17. 

It’s a low mutter into your flesh.

“I know.” 

You grasp at his wrist, pulling lightly. Without a noise, John slips in beside you, kicking off his boots with a single clop of the soles to the wood and the movement of your blanket. He grunts, pushing his nose into your scalp, arms going around your middle. Your head slots under his chin, lips to his Adam’s apple.

The house is silent beyond the murmur of the pipes—the buzz of awaiting electricity. 

So many memories. So many lost dreams. It was akin to two skeletons lying in a grave of their own making, forever holding the bones of the other. Duty and honor are etched into the fractures. 

But he still holds you, he still murmurs into your ear, “Sleep, Love.”

“And you?” You ask, mirroring the conversation in the kitchen.

John’s lips move along your flesh, moving into a soft smile as he glances down at you. His beard scrapes you delicately.

“I’ll be here.”

Then it is here you’ll stay, dreaming of deer and the way nothing could compare to how he held you in his arms.

—

“I have eyes on,” your head snaps up, blankly staring ahead as your fingers hover over the hanging beads of a wind chime. You stand outside of a restaurant in the heart of Copenhagen. 

Laswell had sent in more eyes for the Task Force to use—local soldiers that knew the layout of the city better and where would be a good place to look. For days you’d been moving through the streets; far-off storage units and hidden buildings providing fruitless harvests. Anthony had said a warehouse, but that was panning out as nothing as well.

False information? Possibly, but unlikely. The man had been genuine in his pain and pleading, and it only served to confuse you more.

You had Gaz with you and five others, taking over as the leader of this fireteam while John headed the other with Johnny and Ghost. They were on the opposite side of the city, and you can’t help but compare this to the moment Emmett had become an enemy. 

But divide and conquer was the only option in times like these.

Emmett had become someone, just as he said he would. The man was in charge of supplying arms to terrorist organizations all over the world, and with his knowledge of how the SAS operates as well as any number of special forces, he’d utterly disappeared off the radar.

A wraith of lies and murder.

He had locations all over the globe with his goods, shipped out for money and power. 

And now you have a positive ID.

“Where are you,” your voice is hard and stiff, the body already moving back from the chime and leaving its little bits and bobs swinging. 

“Café down the street,” feet nearly locking together, you continue down the street to where you know Gaz’s last position was. “He’s just…sitting there.” A pause. “You want to know what it’s called in English, Ma’am?”

“The café?” your brows furrow, jogging across the street. 

“‘The Warehouse.’” Growling under your breath, you shake your head and send a curse into the air after a pause.

“I think the man thought he was clever,” Kyle’s voice is smooth and teasing. 

“Should have shot his other leg,” you grunt. “You told Laswell? John?”

“Negative, I’ll get on it—”

“I’ll do it,” you interrupt. “Tell the others to group up at your position and spread out to create a choke point; we can’t let him get away.”

“Rog. Will do.” 

You patch into John’s frequency.

“We have him,” you instantly breathe out. “Down Holbergsgade—café called ‘The Warehouse’.”

It’s swiftly that an answer hits you. “Get him surrounded, we’re coming.” 

Your heart is moving rapidly, fast in your chest as you pass people and business quickly. You didn’t like this—didn’t like the similarities, the…nostalgic dread that builds. A café of all places? Sitting down? Waiting?

It was so ironic it made alarm bells go off.

“John,” you lick your lips, glancing at faces as they pass. “I think he knows we’re here.”

“Explain.”

“A café?” John’s low grunt lets you know he understands. “Just sitting there? He knows—he’s not dumb enough to throw away all of his secrecy just as we so happen to get here and begin looking for him.”

“How sure are you?” The man takes your words into account, and you hear his breath puffing as he runs to your location. 

“Ninety,” you breathe. 

“Then I’m callin’ it off.” Your eyes widen, feet skidding as you come to a stop. 

You have no clue as to how far John will go to keep you safe—even if it means potentially letting one of the SAS’s highest HVTs go. There wasn’t anything that could compare to the thought of you getting in harm's way. Not you. 

John had spent his whole life watching soldiers die in the worst ways possible; they haunted his dreams and he knew they’d follow him to his grave—men he’d led down paths that they never should have been on. 

Not you. 

Losing you would break what little was left of him, the remnants held on by tape and sheer stubbornness. One of the last old faces he could still look at anymore; could draw comfort from in the thin hours. To hold and to love. 

You both knew you wouldn’t stand for it.

“No,” your voice cuts across, monotone. “I’m not allowing that.”

“Bloody hell, Hart, listen to me—do not,” John growls, making your spine tingle, “go after him. If he knows we’re fuckin’ here, we need to pull back and close off the area.”

You’re walking forward, that same pressure of a gun at the back of your spine. It was almost poetic. 

A thought sparks. Years of knowledge and understanding lighting up. 

Emmett was a snake. 

A snake that liked to play games and prove points; greed stuck into his brain for reasons you can’t quite say for certain. Even if you did catch him, he would never tell the locations of his goods or the buyers.

But there was one way to find out. One way this might turn.

“There’s a tracker in my arm,” you speak, growing more sure of your actions with every fast movement of your body. The café is just up the street, and a head of blonde hair is a knife to your vision. “I asked Laswell to insert and monitor it years back when I had to infiltrate a cell before I joined up with you again. Cautionary procedure since I had to forgo my rig and gear.”

A sharp bark. He knew what you were insinuating. “Hart!” You were going to get yourself taken hostage.

“Get Kate to watch it, John.” You move off his frequency before he can comment again, half of a roaring refusal cut off. Speaking to Gaz with a restricted throat, you say, “Kyle?”

“Right here, Ma’am.”

“Good. Don’t engage—I’m moving in.”

A stiff breath is taken in. “W…what was that?”

You don’t reply, only saying, “Whatever happens, I order you and the others to stay back, yeah?”

Your hand pulls the earpiece out and shoves it into your pocket right as you slip into the chair directly across from Emmett Kinsman. 

“Emmett,” you say in greeting, moving up a few fingers to a barista with a low call of your order. The individual nods and moves off before you lock on green eyes; they nearly make you flinch. 

You can only imagine what Gaz is telling John right now. 

Kinsman blinks at you, but he isn’t surprised. You were right.

“Hart,” the man smiles. His voice is still the same, though he looks older. “Pleasure seeing you again. Enjoying the sights of the city?”

“Not particularly,” you stare at him.

He chuckles, tilting his head before he brings his drink to his lips. He swallows and continues. 

“You always were serious. No fun.” You take the insult without any emotion, blinking at him slowly. What was his play?

“Why?”

“You already know why,” he shrugs, dressed in a nice suit. “I’ve made a name for myself—my name will be remembered for ages.” A twinkle in his eye. “SAS soldier turned weapon supplier; isn’t it exciting.”

“It’s a disgrace,” you lean forward, only stopping your voice from rising as a cup is placed down in front of you by the barista. 

Your face plasters a fake smile and you nod, moving it in front of you. Emmett watches with a smirk.

“I call it a change of heart.” He sighs, smirk simmering to a casual smile. “But I am glad to see you, you’ve been creating a big mess of things and I took it upon myself to have a meeting between us as old friends.”

“I’m not your friend,” you growl. “You’ve killed innocent people for no more than a fucking paycheck.”

“Well,” he snorts. “I don’t kill anyone. I’m the middle man—there’s a difference.”

Rage makes your eyes go to slits.

“And innocents, Sweet Thing?” Emmett leans in closer, face so smug and open you want to pull your weapon on him and worry about the consequences later. “What do I call what you do then?”

“A necessary evil,” you huff. “One I carry on my shoulders just like every other soldier does. One that was far better than supplying terrorists.”

Kinsman shrugs, moving back and picking up his drink, swirling it. “If you say so.” He hums. “You have to try the pastries here, you know. They’re very good.”

“I know you’re here because you expected us to find you, what I can’t figure out is why you broke your cover in the open instead of turning yourself in.” You look around at the faces in the outdoor seating, studying them trying to pinpoint if they’re civilians or in league with Kinsman. “Tell me before I decide to shoot you right here and now and end this regardless of hidden goods.”

“You already tried that, Hart,” Emmett laughs. “Pointing a gun at me didn’t work last time.”

“I’m not going to use a gun,” you ease out. “I’m going to take the butter knife on the table and slit your throat.”

“Uncivilized,” Emmet grumbles, frowning at the silver object near your hands. “It isn’t even sharp.”

“Good.” Green eyes narrow, unimpressed. He sighs, fingers moving in an outward gesture of exasperation. 

“If you must know before the main finale, I wanted to bring you here to say that I’m thoroughly impressed with your drive.” You try to stave off the shock in your stomach at the words coming out like a charmer’s flute. Raising a slow brow, you’re caught off guard. Emmett chuckles. “You nearly caught me at several instances throughout our game of cat and mouse. Many times I forget who the assigned roles were even given to; I’m telling you that I had fun.”

You stare, face tight. 

Emmett hums and his eyes go to slits. 

“But every game has to come to an end. I’m growing tired of it.”

The building across the street erupts into a great ball of fire.

—

John hears the explosion in the air, the shockwave that leaves his body halting to look into the sky in time to see black smoke.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuck!” 

He rushes into the panicked crowd, memories stuck in his head and a bone-deep fear he’d been feeling since you cut the connection in your earpiece. Gaz had been relaying to him what was going on action for action—a football game, only the difference was that your life was on the line. 

“Kate,” John shouts. “Get the authorities down here now! We have an explosion on Holbergsgade.”

“Explosion?” The woman’s voice is sharp and disbelieving. “What’s going on—”

“Hart’s in the bloody crossfire, there’s no time!” John’s face is tight, wind whipping past his ears as screams fly on the wind; crying. “The fool is trying to get herself taken fucking hostage for intel!”

Whatever else was said was lost to the wind—Gaz comes over the line, calling to him in a panic as Johnny and Simon join in. 

“The entire building just went up in—”

“Fucking Christ—”

“Price, what is this?”

“All of you get down here!” John sprints past people on the ground, ripping his gun out of the back of his waistband. There’s no arguing. 

When the Captain turns the last corner, carnage greets him. 

The building across from the café was reduced to nothing but rubble and a still-burning flame. Eyes wide, John only looks at it for a few moments, too preoccupied with you.

Where were you? 

His jaw clenches, eyes burning with rage. Such a perfect soldier yet such a flawed sense of teamwork, he had a feeling you’d try something like this—had left Gaz with you for that very reason. Fuck he should have been at your side. He should have known. 

A low grumble moves through his lips, head snapping all around. There are bodies on the ground. Blood pooling under thick building material—fabric in the breeze. 

“Hart!” John yells, running to the café and seeing the remnants of a fast fight. 

The Captain’s heart drops to his feet, face burning with hellfire so much that a sheen comes to his cheek. His hand moves out to touch the handle of a butter knife that had been slammed into the table now half-fallen over, eyes stuck on only one thing on the ground under it.

Through the wails and the call of sirens, the man stares at the two long fingers sitting in the dust.

Never in his life had he felt a fear like this.

—

“I wanted to be kind about this,” Emmett fiddles with the wrappings of his bandaged left hand, only three fingers remaining. “I was going to make it quick.”

You’re locked in a cell-like room, head to the side and blood leaking out of a cut face. Burns travel up your arm, the sticky puss leaking out only serving to make you shiver. You don’t know where you are—don’t know what happened after you severed Kinsman’s fingers with that knife.

But you know the pain isn’t something that you haven’t already gone through before. 

Your voice is hoarse but firm as it leaks out of you, vision spotty. You’d been thrown in here after a ride in the trunk of a car. The ground is concrete. 

“...Don’t make me laugh.”

Emmett growls, eyes wide with hatred. 

“Pathetic!” He barks eyes looking you over with disgust. “Look at what you did to my hand!”

His other hand connects with the bars of the cage, producing a metal ringing sound as you push yourself up with one arm, eyelids flinching in pain. Sitting up, your body falls back to the wall behind it, and you grunt when the air in your lungs is expelled. You lick at your dust-coated lips, your head ringing and your focus failing. Concussion. 

“Least of your worries,” you roll your jaw, a wave of pain making your body seize up and your hands tense with quivering shakes. Your mouth opens with sharp pants. Bile pools in the base of your throat. 

It’s nothing. 

John will come soon. The tracker. If Laswell can get it working again, you’d be out of here and you would have whatever this location turns out to be and the intel that it can offer you—computer databases would be a one-and-done game. You would get names, coordinates, and buyers. It could all be over. 

Your clothes are melted into your skin, and when you move, they peel away with the remnant of your epidermis. The flesh of your left thigh and arm had taken the worst of it—and the cut from flying debris over your left cheek hasn’t stopped bleeding. 

Blood drips from it, and a loud ache makes your head pound all the worse. 

You’ve gone through worse.

“I don’t know why I bother,” Emmett snarls, the crimson bandages thick over his hand. “But it isn’t a problem,” he says, moving his other hand to slick back his hair. “It isn’t a problem,” the man utters again. “You’re going to help me. Yes…I’ve made up my mind. I need you to understand why I do the things I do.” 

Your brows furrow, but above this burning in your head, it’s hard to understand what’s being said to you. Shadows move and Emmett orders one of his men to open the cell door.

You fight the black dots at the sides of your vision, leaking until you’ve accepted the reality of yourself going unconscious. As your body slouches to the side, hands ruthlessly grasp under your arms and drag you to your feet. 

“Everyone has a breaking point.”

—

“What do you mean,” John glares at Laswell, his arms crossed over his chest; hands tightly grasping at his biceps. “You can’t find her?”

“The tracker was old, John,” the woman tries to explain, furiously typing at her computer that rests on the table in front of her—her spine bent over as the rest of the One-Four-One stay in a limbo of anxious looks. “To get it working again, it would need something to restart it. I don’t know if you can see,” Kate’s eyes are hard as they lock with his, “but I can’t do anything if she’s not here first.”

“Well of course she’d not bloody here Laswell, fucking Kinsman has her!” He shouts, hands moving out in a display of aggression. 

“Captain,” Kate rises to the challenge, hand moving flat to the table and glaring with the heat of a thousand missiles. “Do not take that tone with me.” 

John snarls and jerks his head away, feet on the ground trading weight. 

The man was borderline feral—all snapping teeth and sharp glances. Gaz had seen him like this only a handful of times, MacTavish even fewer. Ghost, of course, knew, but even his brown eyes wouldn’t leave his Captain, absorbed in the way he was unable to stay still for even a moment. He was in full gear, too. Had put it on directly after returning to a local base. 

John was ready to go to war, down to the rifle that swung from a strap at his side, the ammunition stuffed to his chest—sidearm at his thigh. A rabid dog with intelligence and the knowledge of where teeth needed to be applied to a neck for a clean kill. Simon doubted he wanted it to be clean.

John was ready to rip people to pieces. 

“Give me something,” the Captain says in a low growl, beard shifting. “Give me what I need.”

Kate splays her hands. “All we have is surveillance of a car leaving the area—the smoke covers all chances of the drone we had flying picking up a clear picture. John,” Laswell eases, standing up, “there’s only so much we can do. We need to wait—”

“We can’t bloody wait,” Gaz speaks up, “What’ll he do to her in the meantime?”

“Garrick’s right, we need to be on the ground with this.” Johnny nods, mohawk bobbing. “That’s one of our own—we’re not sitting around with our thumbs up our arses, Laswell. Not with Hart.”

Simon blinks, humming. Laswell’s eyes shift to him, near pleading for one to be on her side with this and see sense. Ghost shrugs. “I’m with them. Hart’s one of our own; we’ll do what needs to be done.”

John’s chest swells with pride while his eyes get stuck on your file on the table, your printed picture, and your black ink—he’d never loved an image more, but nothing could beat the real thing. He needed you back. He’d gone through hell with you for his entire life; you’d suffered with him and only locked your hands together and held on tighter. 

That was love—that was duty.

John Price wasn’t against skewing his morals for the sake of your safety. You would always be his most important mission. The man didn’t want to think about what might happen if he found you too late.

“Give me the video of the vehicle,” he grunts, jaw tight and his eyes beady. His body slightly leans forward to Kate, love going lower. “Or I’m going out there myself.” 

Laswell frowns tightly at him. 

“I just sent it into forensics—they’re trying to get a match. Go out if you want, but I won’t be able to stop the firestorm that comes out of it.”

She closes her laptop and moves past him, sending one last comment into the stone man as he towers ever taller.

“She’s strong, John. If you’re smart, you’ll keep yourself out of the crossfire until we have a definitive hit.” 

Her voice echoes from behind him as his hands slowly move to clench into knuckle-whitening fists.

“If Kinsman gets a tip we’re still onto him—you’ll never see Hart again.”

—

Day Three:

Your days start blending. One moment you hear the snapping of your bones, and then the next you’re wasting away in this cell—ears ringing and eyes buggy. So much blood. Blood on the walls—blood on the chair they strap you into in the other room; even stuck in the groves of your flesh. 

You don’t think you can stop closing your eyes and seeing a deer at the bottom of a bridge drop-off. It’s stuck in your head like a virus; those car lights in the back of your mind just waiting for you. 

There’s no sense as to what they do to you—all its purpose is, is to prove a point to Emmett. A sort of broken retribution for your interference and his fingers. 

Vain man, really. You’d told him as much when he was watching you get your own finger torn off my pliers; spit it at him as the blood from your bitten tongue stayed his suit. You remember the feeling of the knuckle popping first, and then the burning heat of the flesh being twisted to the side. Two firm yanks and the flesh had sprung like elastic, fissuring, the tendon snapping. 

You think you blacked out after that, but you can’t be sure. All you remember doing is screaming. 

You woke up with your left pinkie finger completely gone, resting outside in the hallway to mock you from past the bars. Your eyes could see the bone sticking out of it, and all that was left on you was a badly cauterized stump. 

When Emmett had come to gloat, you started slurring out laughter. 

“I’m going to rip you apart.” Your broken body had jerked back and forth like a marionette doll, only succeeding in spreading more red over the floors as green eyes widened and went dumbfounded. 

It sounded like a choking fish.

All he’d done was left, quickly passing the pinkie left limp on the ground.

Day five:

You can’t move your body as they dump you back into the chair—the drain below you flooded over with crimson and bits of hair; vomit and torn-off fingernails. You’re unable to open your eyelids fully. 

A hand grasps at your face, yanking it up into the overhead light until a bucket of water is dumped directly over your head. Your body jerks, coughing and darting forward until you’re shoved to the back of the chair and the rope is tied around the front of your shoulders, the second at your wrists.

Trying to suck down air, you shiver with the strength of an earthquake. Whoever said that they would never be afraid while being tortured was a liar; whoever thinks that they would be able to push through it—a fraud. Emmett was right, everyone had a breaking point.

But you admitted yours would only come after your death.

Your legs are seized, bent up as you hiss as well as you’re able, teeth snapping. 

They’re dumped back down into a bucket of ice-cold water as droplets drip from your nose—wet skin for the moment only holding streaks of gore. Even with your scattered mind, you know what this means. 

Heart tight and eyes widening, you try to push back in the chair; try to fight the rope and the way your body won’t respond. 

A battery is rolled up beside you on a metal cart. Jumper cables. 

There’s a low chuckle at the way your face goes fearful. 

—

John shoves open the door to Laswell’s temporary office, already talking before it hits the far wall. 

“Do we have her?” His hands move beside him, brushing the grip of his sidearm. He hadn’t been out of his full gear for more than five minutes in days. Waiting day and night for any word; sleeping in it, eating in it. The forensics team had been stumped, unable to get more than a model out of the picture. 

But this might finally give him something to act on. 

Kate is moving, grabbing documents and her laptop, speeding past him and out of the door. 

“Kate!” John shouts, following after. “Hey,” he calls, grabbing at her arm to stop her. 

The woman only halts to say, quickly, “We have a hit. Follow me.”

John’s heart is rampaging, pulse wild under his skin as his gloved hands twitch. Finally. He can only smoke so many cigars—only think of so many scenarios until he feels he needs to vomit. You’d been gone for too long. Every moment had been like trying to walk with a cloth over his head; lost. 

He’d grown stiff. Stiffer than normal. Everyone had seen it.

“Where is it, then?” John asks as Laswell pushes open the door to the meeting room, the other three already inside.

“A property outside of Copenhagen—bought through a proxy on a fund that was linked to blood money in South America; it all went directly back to Kinsman. It was found only ten minutes ago.” A pause. Electricity in the air. “But that’s not how we found it.”

“How,” Simon asks, moving closer. 

John gives the woman his full undivided attention, hands moving to rest at his collar in a soothing gesture. 

“Her tracker came back on.” Eyes go wide, all sharing rapid glances as Kate opens her laptop and opens a man, turning the device for them to see. “Same location.”

Johnny blinks, his eyes narrowing. “And what does that mean?”

“That can’t have just done that by itself,” Gaz mutters, brown eyes sliding over to John who’s stiller than a wolf. The Sergeant pauses. 

His eyes are dead set on that screen. His thighs were so tense it was nearly like the Captain was about to sprint out of the room. Kyle’s face goes blank at that, never quite seeing the extent that your disappearance had on the man. His superior had bags under his eyes; far more pale than usual. His apparel was ruffled, too. Even in the more serious of situations, the Sergeant had never seen John so…out of it. He was always the one with the even head, even if he had a short fuse with certain things. Nothing was ever done without thought, he should say. 

But this is something else. 

“Torture,” Simon gives his two cents and John’s cheek twitches at the word. “Electrocution. They jump-started it and didn’t even know.” 

“Bloody Jesus,” John breathes. Everyone had already had a hunch, but no one had wanted to name it. 

It’s a low rumble that makes the rest of them freeze, though. It was so dead in tone that it even made Kyle’s spine lock up; Johnny’s eyes went a smidgen upward. Simon, although his face was covered, felt his lips twitch.

John looks at nothing but that dot on the computer screen.

“Am I green, Laswell?”

Kate looks at John. It’s like setting a hellhound loose. 

“You’re green, Captain.”

—

You’re tossed into the cell and your body rolls along the floor, bouncing and flinching until your back slams into the wall. Air is forced from your lungs, coming out in a loud grunt before you land on your stomach in a heap. Staying there, your nerves are fried. 

Every moment you think the twitching of your fingers will stop—the dance of your muscles responding to the aftereffects of electrocution, it only starts back up again. Your eyes blink rapidly; your clothes have the scent of smoke to them. 

Gasping for breath, you feel like you’re drowning and being set on fire all at once. 

Yet the question in your head was a simple one, one you’d been asking for days.

Where was John?

Emmett enters the cell, clicking his tongue as the metal hinges squeak. 

“I’m not surprised it’s taking this long,” he explains. “But I am surprised you’re still alive, admittingly.” 

A boot comes out and places itself atop your shoulder, pressing down slowly until its full weight is on top of you. Your mouth opens in a shuddering sound of a dying animal, blood dripping from your ears and nose. 

“I know you’ve taken torture before—even taken a part of it,” Kinsman sighs. “But, shit Hart, you really do scare me when I know you’re strong enough to get through th—”

Your body jolts up, grappling Emmet’s leg and twisting it to the side. Regardless of pain—of agony—there’s such primal rage inside of you that what little adrenaline you can bring forth is all that more addictive. 

The man collapses in a heap, gasping, but you’re already on top of him, wrestling your hand to his neck, missing finger and all. Blood moves, staining his precious suit and dripping from your mouth into his hairline. You bare down your weight on him, teeth clenched and eyes wild—one orb holding nothing but red from burst veins and the other full of a vicious gleam of ferality. 

Hands snap up to your wrists, mouth opening in flapping panic. 

But Emmett has grown weak; he’s out of practice. All of those years out of the SAS, giving up on the training of the body to match the mind. The idiot wasn’t even carrying a gun when he walked into the cell of a charging stag, its antlers dripping gore, sharper than any knife. 

When the flaps of his eyes fall there’s no gloating speech—there’s no snort of a tall and proper victor. All you do is take the front of his face, grasp it, and start sending his skull back into the concrete floors. 

Crack.

…Crack.

….Crack.

Only when the sound of his head breaking open meets your ringing ears, do you force your wheezing lungs to take a large breath. 

Emmet Kinsman died as he lived. 

A fucking piece of shit.

“Fuck you,” you spit on his corpse, saliva bloody; his jaw is loose as you release the man’s face, eyes bulging. Falling to the side, you groan in pain, your body curling into itself until you resemble a sleeping fawn. You’re shaking more and more with every second, coughing with the force of an earthquake until your shredded vocal chores force you to stop. 

But the brain is a funny thing. 

In times of danger, survival is the only thing that takes priority. It was why, in a long shove of your hand to the floor, with your bones creaking and your vomit meeting the ground, you’re able to stand. It isn’t enough to help you heal the snapped bone of your right leg, however, and in a steadily failing stupor, you drag it behind you. In this state, nothing else matters to you besides a simple command: get out.

Your shoulder slaps the metal of the cell as you stumble out of it, careening into the far wall and letting out a loud shout. 

Eyes fluttering, you connect your temple to the cool concrete, trying to breathe. 

It hurts too much, your mind says. God, I can’t feel my limbs. 

A long trail of blood follows you down the hallway as you slide along the wall, using it as a brace. 

You want to see John, you whisper inside of your head. You want to be held by him—be taken into his chest; cared for away from all of this fighting. 

A trip back to Herefordshire with him, to go deep into the country together; rest in the green grass where no one can find you for just a few good hours. It didn’t have to be forever, you would say. Just a few hours. A few hours of sky and earth wrapped in a time loop of just your own. 

You want to kiss him there. In the open, out in the wild. You want to stay by his side, your mind thinks as you stumble over the three dead bodies in the left corridor, bullet wounds in their heads. You want to be by his side forever, no more gaps in years, not more longing. It’s so close you can nearly reach out and grasp it—

Your name is yelled on a heavy breath, and hands capture your shoulders as you fall straight into them with no more strength.

Blue eyes lock with yours as you’re hurriedly settled to the ground, body limp and eyes trying to stay open. 

Blue eyes on a grassy hill.

“Hart, fucking hell.” Hands move your body, pressing and sliding—finding every opening and spreading blood like water. “Fucking hell! Hey!”

You’re yelled at, and the ripping of pouches and the familiar sound of bandages being wrapped come to the back of your brain. A hand shakes your head, locked under your chin as you take slow, broken, breaths. 

“Please, fuck sake, please,” it’s a desperate growl, so familiar and yet a world away. Your body is moved and manipulated as every leaking wound is packed with so much gauze it hangs out of you like you’re a mummy. The burns along your flesh are crust and infected, open skin peeling back. 

But the pain is lesser now. Easier to manage. 

There’s such a ruckus that it’s hard to focus on John—the man on the hill. In the grass and the wind. Brown hair moves in the breeze as white clouds roll past. On the air, there’s the scent of rain, and in the far distance, you can see a group of ten deer grazing, ears twitching.

Maybe you’ll ask them if they blame their leader, or the two trucks on the end of a bridge.

“Keep your eyes on me!” You blink into John’s tiny blues, that mist rolling back. You stare for a moment as he frantically screams into his radio; night vision rig on his head and all-black gear covering him from you. His face is pale, his eyes glossy. “Look at me, hey,” he blinks as he notices you watching, surging forward. “Hey, keep 'em open, yeah? You keep them fucking open, Love.” 

Your chest is heavy. 

“John,” you push out a flicker coming to your lips as your vision slightly unblurs itself to the sight of a flood of blood on the man’s body—an unimaginable amount.

“I’m ‘ere,” his accent grows deeper with emotion, one hand holding your cheek and the other at your shoulder, keeping you still to stop any additional damage. “I’ve got you, you understand me? I’m not letting you go, so don’t you think that I will.” 

It’s a double-edged sword.

A smile peels back your chapped lips, red running from the corner of your mouth. You glance at his stained gear again. The abyss swirls at the corners of your eyes.

“Is that your blood, or mine, John Price?” 

You hear him scream for a medic, and then it all goes numb.

—

You dream of deer on a hill, but every time you search for John, he isn’t there. You go past rivers—

“She’s dropping!”

“Get me the defibrillator!”

—past copses. Your voice goes high and low, but all the while you look, there’s nothing but a nagging feeling in the back of your head that you shouldn’t be here.

“Again!”

It’s a strange nagging, truly. Like falling asleep in the middle of the day and waking up in the night without any remembrance of what had happened prior. A displacement of the mind. 

“We’ve got a pulse, Doctor, do we stop and—”

“No, I need to finish off the internal bleeding or else she won’t make it another day. Get me the cauterizer, now.”

You blink and grip your chest, a sudden pain sharp in your heart as the grass moves about your ankles. Coughing, you bend over, your eyes fluttering rapidly. In the deepest part of your eardrum, you hear a murmur of a voice you can’t place.

“The man came back, again. He’s been out there for days. He just…sits there, waiting until someone tells him something. He can’t come in, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sure hearing his voice would help more than mine, but you’re in too much of an unstable condition for that. If you get another infection, you won’t…hm, I shouldn’t talk about that. Everyone in school said only to talk positively to patients when they’re like this. I…I’m sure he’ll be able to come in soon. I think everyone calls him John if that rings a bell?”

“John?” Your eyes flutter open, sharp light above you making you snap them back closed. No one answers. 

It’s a long moment before you find the strength to breathe in the oxygen from the mask over your face, taking a long and deep inhale before a slight cough makes your abdomen tight. You flinch at the pull of stitches, all coming from so many places, that it’s unwise to move too much. 

Gradually, you open back up your eyes, pushing past the sting. Inside of your throat, the skin is so dried out you can feel it cracking at every articulation of your words. 

“Where's…John?” When you shift your head to the side, no one’s there. No one’s even in the room, either.

Blinking through the haze, your lips twitch on your face, skin tight. With a slap of your weak hand, you grasp the oxygen mask and pull it down to your neck, grunting in mild annoyance at the medicated numbness of your form. 

Your leg is in a cast—and your left side is tightly bound by wrappings to hide away the burns where skin grafts most likely live. With a glance, you see the missing pinky and the bandages that cover the strange remnants. 

The facial wound will scar, you know, but right now it’s patched over and healing. That’s all you can ask for. 

Sighing long, you blink slowly at the ceiling, licking your lips. You need water.

Outside, the murmurs are missed to you as your unmarred hand reaches for the nightstand table, where a half-drunk bottle of water sits next to a tray of food. Even if your stomach rumbles, water takes precedence. Your throat was like the Sahara desert.

“Forget something, John?”

“Bloody fork. The bastard gave me the slip. Dropped mine, needed to go back and grab another.”

“Oh, that’s alright—you could have asked one of us to get one for you. We’d hate for you to miss any time for visiting hours.”

“It’s fine; gets me moving, eh?”

“Just grab us if you need anything else!”

A low grunt is accented by the opening of the door; immediately you tense and pause, neck fighting itself to shift forward once more.

Wide blues lock with your own, and it’s like every pain fades away. 

John’s jaw is slack hidden under the layers of his beard bristles, brows going atop his head in an instant. The sound of a dropping metal utensil echoes through the room. 

You both stare at one another for a long time, and the murmur of nurses accumulates to some peaking through the crack; their expressions also going to shock. A few scurry off, probably to get a doctor. 

“What?” Your hoarse voice asks, unnerved by this. 

At the sound of your voice, John flinches forward on his boots. The nurses get shut out with beaming faces as the barrier closes with a small click of metal.

Walking to the side of your bed, John clears his throat, eyes looking you up and down in two glances. A million things are hidden in them. After an opening and closing of his mouth, which you watch closely while squinting, he speaks.

“How are we feeling, then?” You breathe slowly and in tiny puffs. John looks at the oxygen mask as if telling you to put it back on, but you refuse for a moment. 

“Like shit,” you utter, voice cracking.

With a huff, John pushes away your reaching hand and gets the water himself, unscrewing it. Bringing it to your lips, you take it down as he speaks.

“Easy, Love.” 

When you’d had your fill and the ache settled, you brought a hand to your head and rubbed at your injured cheek before John sighed and grabbed at it, intertwining his fingers with yours and lowering the limb back to your chest.

You stare at him, and he stares at you. 

“I don’t know what to ask,” you confess. 

“You don’t have to ask anything,” John mutters, and his face is tight with worry. “You’ve been in a coma for three weeks, all you need to do is ease back into it.”

Your eyes snap back.

“Tell me if it hurts,” He speaks slowly, moving on one word at a time so the realization doesn’t dwell in your brain. “I can get someone to come in, yeah?”

Your hand in his burns, and John pulls at the chair by the nightstand until he’s able to sit down in it fully with a tiny grunt.

“No,” you say, “no, it’s…I’m fine.”

Better now that you’re here, but your body is tense. Three weeks?

“Just need to take it easy,” the man states, thumb running up and down your knuckles. “You’ll be better soon.”

A dry look is sent his way, and he hides a soft quirk on his lips. “You’ll be better, Love.”

You hum, head moving back more heavily into the pillow. 

“When do I get to go back?”

“When you’re healed,” he grunts. “Not a fuckin’ moment sooner.”

“We get anything on the other locations of the—”

“Hart,” you’re interrupted. Blue eyes stare at you heavily, digging past every shield you’d put up and every fear. What happened was still heavy in your mind; it pained you to imagine it, even the way John had found you—even if it was all glimpses. “Slow down. That’s not an order coming from a soldier, it’s a caution from an old friend.” John says, squeezing your flesh. His other hand comes to your shoulder, sitting there heavily. 

“Breathe,” he orders, face gruff. “We always figure it out.” 

You close your eyes and sigh, frowning. 

A low chuckle moves along the air a second later. 

“Never sit down, do you?” A flicker dances over your lips like a butterfly. “Impossible, you are.”

“You’re one to talk,” you huff, eyes shifting back to him. 

He’s smiling at you, and you can’t help but mirror it right back at the sight. Your facial injury pulls and tightens, but you would welcome an ache like that for as long as it stayed. A scar born of the stretch of lips is one well-earned. Only John could ever make it a reality.

The man stares at your lips, his wide build eager to stay over you in this state. He can’t stop himself from caressing your skin; to feel you alive and breathing. Talking.

“Scared me,” John admits under his breath. 

You blink, your smile fading slowly until it was like it was never there. Your body builds with guilt; also something only he could bring. “I’m sorry, John.” 

A small thinning of his lips is what you get, accented by a hum. 

“Hart,” he grunts. “I…”

John’s eyes closed for a moment before opening back up—spearing you with their gaze. Your tired eyes crinkle in confusion.

“What is it?” Over the tingle of your flesh from where he touches you, it isn’t hard to forget the world is around you when he’s here like this. You’re nearly trapped by his eyes, yet you welcome it eagerly. His voice moves out, accent and natural gravel, all. 

“I love you.” 

Your nose lets a chuff exit. Was that all?

“I love you, too, John—”

“No, Hart,” he pushes slightly harder, moving closer and licking his lips as he glances away. “No,” John looks you dead in the eye as you lay here battered and broken within an inch of your life—a risk that you took willingly as if it had meant nothing. The both of you weren’t new to this; you both knew that on any day you or he would do it over and over again until it resulted in death. That was the way of this game; this trial. 

You had both always been content with that, but when had it changed? 

Why was the thought of losing you more fear-invoking than anything else he’d ever encountered?

You watch him as his lips utter the words, lips close to yours and your eyes locked. 

“I love you.” 

Your voice is caught in your throat, stuck in the throws of a quick gasp. Not blinking, the man waits for you—waits for an answer to the earth-shattering confession. But it all came far easier than you would ever admit to anybody besides him. It was already known, after all. 

All that remained was the pesky words.

“I love you, too.” You beam, words low with intimacy. “I think I always have.”

John chuckles, a large smile pushing at his reddening cheeks. “Good,” he nods, clearing his throat. “Good,” he says again. “Well, I—”

You softly connect your lips with his, and you feel him pause, breathing you down for a moment as hearts beat at the same tempo. He sighs, one hand coming up to capture your cheek, holding it there for you as you sag into it and live in this everlasting moment. 

It’s there you had a revelation.

It was never Hart to him. John had never been calling you that. 

He’d always just been saying Heart.

You breathe out a laugh, when you separate, beaming in a happiness you thought was long gone from you—stolen in the dark nights and sold through even darker deeds. Neither of you was worthy of this, of the love that breeds in broken things. Yet, here it is regardless. Here, among blood and the blue eyes of a man you’d known since knowing anything became important. You had always known it was John. And finally, finally, finally.

“I would marry you in an instant, John Price,” you breathe when you separate, not weak enough to stop the words from exiting from the deepest part of your soul.

His crinkled eyes watch, reverently gazing at every blemish and mark; everything he could learn new again. John’s eyes are as soft as you ever imagined them to be, and he gives them over freely to you.

He kisses you again and leaves the taste of his heavy, happy, chuckle tingling across your lips.

“Seems I’d better get on that, then.”

A/N: This fic is strangely nostalgic for me even if I just wrote it - I remember the first ever fic I posted on here was a rescue fic, as well as a John Price fic; it's amazing to see how far I've come in regards to overall content/story building and how my understanding of the character has evolved. This might not be the best work I've posted on my blog, but I'm glad to say I'm proud of myself and how far I've come. It's so wonderful that I can have this feeling for such a big moment and still feel so drawn back to the past at the same time. Totally not tearing up at the thought rn.

Thank you all very much for your support.

TAGS:

@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting , @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot

[boxboxblog]

Driver Profiles: Kevin Magnussen

Hello, this is part of a series where I focus on one driver on the current (as of Oct 2024) grid and give an overview over their career and driving styles. I will be going in championship points order. Enjoy!

Name: Kevin Jan Magnussen

Age: 32

Nationality: Danish

Years in F1: 9 (Mclaren 2014, Renault 2016, Haas 2017-2020 and 2022-Present)

Number: 20

WDCs: N/A

Driving Style: An aggressive and no-nonsense driver, Magnussen is known for never backing down from a challenge and being particularly bold in wheel-to-wheel battles. He brakes particularly late, which can lead to some brilliant overtakes. Magnussen as also an extremely hard defender, and has a particular way of positioning his car that makes it difficult to overtake whilst remaining inside the bounds of legality. A negative of his style is that he often does not temper aggressiveness with strategic moves or calmness, causing many crashes and getting penalties often. This leads to him scoring much lower than he feasibly should.

History:

(Young Magnussen in his first kart)

Born into a racing family (his father was an F1 driver) Magnussen got his first kart at age 2, growing up driving. He started professional karting when he was 6 years old and showed strong promise. In 2008 he moved from karting to car racing, participating in Formula Ford in Denmark, and taking the championship with 11 wins. In 2009 Magnussen moved up to Formula Renault 2.0. He had an extremely successful debut season, finishing 2nd in the Northern European cup (NEC) and 7th in the Eurocup. He was also named rookie of the year in the NEC series and displayed strong promise for the future.

(Magnussen, 2009)

In 2010 Magnussen competed in the German Formula Three Championship, winning the opening round of the season at Oschersleben and taking two more race victories. His non-victory races also yielded high points, and he finished 3rd in the season, gaining the rookie of the year award for this series. In 2011 Magnussen moved to the British F3 Championship and had a great year. He won multiple races, and finished 2nd in the standings

(Magnussen on podium in British F3)

Magnussen moved up to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2012 and had a few race wins and high points finishes. He ended the season in 7th place in the championship. He competed once again in 2013, and it was far more successful for Magnussen, claiming five victories, eight other podium places and eight pole positions. He finished the season in first sixty points clear of the runner-up, winning the championship.

(Magnussen after winning the 2013 championship)

Throughout all of this, Magnussen had a relationship with F1, taking part in the Mclaren Young Driver Program from 2010 to 2013. In late 2013 it was announced that Magnussen was signed to Mclaren for the 2014 season, partnering 1x WDC Jenson Button. His first year in F1 was a mix of few highs, few lows, and many middles. His first race was a major high, as he would end the race in 3rd (later getting promoted to 2nd) and become one of the few drivers in F1 history to get a podium in their debut race. The middles were that most of his finishes for the rest of the season were in the 8-10 range, making low points his most normal result. He only finished outside the points a few times. While his performance seemed promising, especially for a rookie, he was replaced for the 2015 season by 2x WDC Fernando Alonso, becoming Mclaren's test and reserve driver.

(Magnussen after achieving podium in 1st F1 race)

The next time Magnussen would have a seat is for Renault in 2016. This would effectively cut off his relationship with Mclaren. His season with Renault would be an unlucky one. A number of races he was forced to retire due to engine problems, punctures, tire failures, and crashes. Regardless, he outperformed his teammate, Jolyon Palmer, scoring a majority of Renault's points. He finished the season 16th in the standings.

2017 Magnussen switched over to Haas, the newest team on the grid. There he would partner Romain Grosjean for the next four years. His time with Haas would be mostly results negative, as the team experienced car issues, money troubles, and other such problems. They almost never produced a competitive car, and so most of Magnussen's results remained in the low or no points positions. He did, however, out perform his teammate every single year they raced together and have a handful of standout performances in 2018. Beyond lower results, Magnussen created a reputation for himself as a dangerous driver due to his aggressive style, and was often at the epicenter of crashes. In 2020 both him and Grosjean were informed that they would not be back in the Haas seats for the 2021 season.

(Magnussen with teammate Romain Grosjean)

Magnussen returned to F1 to replace Russian driver Nikita Mazepin following the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and subsequent European sanctions) in 2022, and signed a multi-year deal with Haas. He partnered Mick Schumacher, son of a F1 legend, and their first year together was spent gaining mostly low level points and a few surprise high ones. 2023 was a more difficult season, and Magnussen (now partnering Nico Hulkenberg) saw a drop in performance. This was due to the fact that the 2023 Haas car did not respond well to Magnussen's driving style, and so he struggled the entire year to get into the points.

(Magnussen in his 2023 Haas)

2024 has so far shown similar results, as Magnussen has been outpaced by his teammate most races. His highest result this year has been an 8th place finish, and he has spent a majority of it serving as a back door defender for his teammate. He also received the max amount of penalties allowed in a season, and thus was suspended from the Azerbaijan GP. Half way through the year he announced that he would not be returning to Haas for the 2025 season.

Major Races:

2014 Australian GP - Magnussen's first race in F1, and his first podium, getting 2nd place. His solid qualifying and composure during the race made him a standout, and he had a stellar drive.

2014 Russian GP - One of his most underrated performances, Magnussen achieved a 5th place finish after fighting up the grid from 11th. He performed several fantastic overtakes and helped develop a strong strategy. This race displayed his ability to recover from setbacks.

2018 Bahrain GP - With a 5th place finish, Magnussen showed he still had potential in the Haas car. He was able to come back after a rather negative stretch in F1 and gain his team some valuable points.

2018 Austrian GP - Another 5th place finish, Magnussen solidified himself as one of the best midfield drivers, and helped Haas achieve there best ever constructers results. He showed his skill, avoiding race chaos, and navigating his way to a higher points finish.

2022 Brazilian GP - During sprint qualifying Magnussen secured his first ever pole position, His sensational lap showed his ability to capitalize on tricky conditions and pull a strong performance out of a struggling car.

That is all for Magnussen. i apologize for it being a shorter post, there is not much info on his early karting career that I could find. up next is Esteban Ocon.

Cheers,

-B

[andiatas]

Royal House expert: -⁠ Seems to have forgotten the art of celebrating with the people

Royal House expert Trond Norén Isaksen believes the Norwegian Foyal Family has much to learn from its Danish royal guests.

There have been magnificent parties, receptions and a lot of glitz and glamour in connection with the new Danish royal couple's visit to Norway this week.

- It is the task of the royal houses to highlight the state and its symbols with a festivity that the political power holders cannot afford, says royal book author Tor Bomann-Larsen to VG.

He thinks that it is natural that the display of splendour is at its strongest in the meeting with our old union partner, Denmark.

- The contrast with the state visit from Moldova is almost striking, although the political significance of this visit was perhaps just as great, Bomann-Larsen insists to VG.

- The so-called "pomp and splendour" stage makes the monarchy visible, but monarchies are not alone. There are also republics, such as the French one, with much pomp and splendour. This contributes to exalting the monarchy or the president, says historian and royal house expert Trond Norén Isaksen to VG.

- Then, it is the case that tiaras and gala dinners attract more attention from the media and the public than all-weather jackets and breakfast meetings. Therefore, a little pomp and splendour can help to increase the royal family's visibility, continues Isaksen.

"Most people"

He is of the opinion that in Norway, the royal family's current goal is for the royals to be like most people.

- People appreciate a down-to-earth royal house but also expect there to be something a little special and different about them. They shouldn't be exactly like the rest of us.

Norén Isaksen points out that the Norwegian royal house has much to learn from its royal Danish guests and the Swedish and British royal houses.

- When King Carl Gustaf celebrated his 50th anniversary last year, there was a grand gala dinner at Stockholm Palace. But the royal couple also went on a carriage and boat procession through the city, which ended with a large outdoor concert at the castle—a concert that was open to all and attracted many people. The Danish throne change was also a public celebration, and 174,000 people gathered outside Christiansborg Castle.

VG's commentator, Yngve Kvistad, writes that King Frederik is the influencer king.

- Europe's youngest monarch is criticized for being less visible than her mother. But King Frederik has several platforms where he meets people, writes Kvistad.

It is far from the Norwegian royal reality, according to Norén Isaksen.

- The Norwegian royal family, on the other hand, seems to have forgotten the art of celebrating with the people. When Princess Ingrid Alexandra celebrated her 18th birthday in 2022, the castle balcony was empty, and she drove in a closed car from the Castle to Deichman. "Why not an open car down the Karl Johan [street]?" asked people who were disappointed that they couldn't see her or take part in the celebration in any way.

According to Norén Isaksen, another example is the Crown Prince Couple's celebration of their joint 50th birthday last year.

- It took place behind high fences in the Palace's backyard with specially invited guests, again without the people being able to see them or participate in the celebrations. It would never work in Denmark, says Trond Norén Isaksen.

But there are several sides to the magnificent glitz and glamour celebration that we experience these days.

- You can wonder if a visit we've had by the new Danish Royal Couple with a lot of pomp and splendour can quickly become an escape from reality from all the bad things happening around the world, says TV 2's Royal Expert Ole-Jørgen Schulsrud-Hansen to VG.

Balance

Norén Isaksen points out that people expect that there will be some stardust.

- But not so much that it becomes unrealistic, tone-deaf or provocative. At the same time, there must not be so much pomp and splendour that it stings the eyes or that the content of what the royal family does is lost in the glare of the light. This balance varies depending on time and social conditions and is not always easy to strike.

Bomann-Larsen believes there is a sensitive tipping point in the relationship between domestic festivity and international misery.

- But in the deepest sense, the state visits clarify the countries' independence, mutual respect and recognition. A symbolic demonstration of power such as the one we see unfolding in the capital can be significant when many feel that national independence is threatened. Perhaps that is precisely why it is applied so thickly?

Translation and editing for clarity by me of an article by Jørn Pettersen for VG (Verdens Gang). The article was published on May 15, 2024, at 20:40, and updated at 21:57.

[houseofbrat]

I don't have to prove anything to idiots like you.

Kate was pregnant when she held her first Christmas concert in 2021. She was pregnant all the way through her mini-visit to Denmark in February 2022. Then she lost it after that trip to Denmark sometime prior to her & William doing engagements for St. David's Day (01 March 2022).

THAT is the miscarriage that is so "personal" to Kate that she feels compelled now to post about it. Because that life event caused Will & Kate to act in ways they shouldn't have, and in ways they both now seriously regret.

As for that fourteen-month-old baby girl, we're going to be discussing her after Charles & Camilla finish their tour. That moment might get hijacked by whatever befalls Andrew but whatever. That's Andrew's problem. And his ex-wife's and children's and sons-in-law's problem.

You can sit here and whine on my posts all you want, @cr19x. It's not my problem. I am not interested in doing idiot compassion, which is what you and the rest of the Wales fandom like to do when you sit down in your fantasyland.

Of course it does.

Because it is.

It's not surprising to me that Kate is now making select public statements on social media whether it's the ballet or sailing or child bereavement. Kate was perfectly happy to not be as vocal about certain things because her husband is the actual royal. She's just the consort. William has far more personnel devoted to him than Kate does to herself for this very reason. For more than twelve years, Kate did not have a problem with this situation.

Until she did, late last year.

When exactly?

I don't think the exact time frame really matters, but it was probably after she wore her thirteenth pantsuit on 10 October 2023.

So, yes, Kate is making "odd", "weird", and context-free social media posts. These kinds of posts will continue in the future even after the shit has publicly hit the fan. Because Kate has known for more than 10 months that the shit was always going to hit the fan and not make her look so good. It's not at all surprising when you realize that Kate has engineered her future as a public recluse. And she did it of her own accord.

You don't seem to grasp that part, do you, @cr19x? That Kate becoming a recluse was her own doing. Completely and 1,000% her own choice.

Guess it's time for me to post that quote again to see if you guys can actually solve this puzzle, before you wake up one morning with the answer rudely splashed across the international media.

“I spoke in the car about the hole at the center of this doughnut. And yes… seems at first glance to fill that hole perfectly. A doughnut hole in the doughnut’s hole. But we must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its center. It is not a doughnut hole at all, but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not whole at all!”

[lilac-amethyst-skies]

(If you do multiples or please choose one you like best) Romano, Italy, and Denmark walking in on their gf fast asleep on the couch or bay window having been reading. Stormy night outside, candles or fireplace lit, her book on her lap and glasses slightly askew. Plus size again please? You are truly amazing!! ❤️❤️❤️😍😍😍

Romano, Italy, Denmark X Plus-sized!Reader on a stormy night

Romano; Lovino had had a terribly long day. The stresses from work and life seemed to wear him down a little more than usual today. And now, as if to top it all off, it was absolutely pouring rain outside. Not even the weather would give him a break and the moment he got out of the car, Lovino became pelted with the ongoing rainstorm, leaving him soaked to the bone.

Lovino cursed under his breath.

He was sure this day really couldn’t get any worse.

Trudging up to the entrance of his home, he ripped open the door and slipped inside. Never had he been more thankful for the respite of his house. Lovino hopped a bit clumsily toward the bathroom, attempting to spare the hardwood flooring with little luck. He snatched a towel and did his best to dry himself off but couldn’t find himself trying too hard. His clothes would be coming off to be thrown into the wash anyhow.

With that idea in mind, he set off down the hallway. Lovino made a passing glance at the study on his way and stopped his brisk walk when he caught sight of you. Lovino hardly felt his wet clothes anymore when his eyes drank you in. Stepping further into the room, he found you fast asleep in that little nook in the window. You loved that bay window. To the point that Lovino had bought cushions to make it more comfortable for you to sit in—or, in this case, sleep in.

Your glasses were endearingly askew on your face, and it made Lovino chuckle out a breath. You made it easy for a smile to find his lips, and for that he was so thankful. Here, you looked so gentle and soft and entirely peaceful. So unaware of the world around you as the weather crashed outside.

Lovino found himself right beside you and couldn’t stop the urge to brush a few pieces of hair away from your face.

As cute as this was, he figured you would be terribly sore if you slept like this all night. The window was good for a nap, but not for a full night’s sleep. So, regretfully, Lovino decided to wake you.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, and still leaning over you whispered, “Sweetheart?”

You mumbled a bit in response, and he could only smile.

“You should move to the bed. It’s not good for you to sleep here all night.”

Finally, you opened your eyes to look at him. After fixing your glasses and a deep yawn, you nodded and sleepily found yourself on your feet, swaying a little too much in the process. Lovino was quick to steady you, but his proximity had you accidentally bumping into him. Your brow furrowed in confusion.

“Why are your clothes all wet?”

“Probably because it’s raining outside,” Lovino talked a bit too smartly and nodded toward the bay window to further drive his point. You shot him a look. Typically, you looked more ferocious, but due to you being so tired you were hardly a threat.

Lovino only laughed as you found your way to the bedroom.

Italy; These nights felt so easy. It was entirely too lucky how the storm started on your cozy night in. The wind howled and the rain hit harshly against the paned window, but here, Feliciano’s arms were wrapped around you just right and everything was as warm and comfortable as it could ever be. The two of you had leaned back on the couch. With your head rested on his chest, you could feel the rhythmic beating of his heart stirring. At first, his heartbeat was racing at a rampant pace, but the more you settled into the evening the more it calmed. Comfortable just as you were.

You had to admit, Feliciano providing his body heat was the least he could do, considering he was the one that had woken you up. Sometime earlier Feliciano had found you fast asleep on the living room couch. You’d started the fireplace, and after having wrapped yourself in blankets it seemed as though you couldn’t stay awake any longer.

Even now, Feliciano saw you struggling to hang onto your consciousness. The ambience of flickering candles you’d lit prior was hardly helping either. Your hair was charmingly messy, and your glasses were clumsily hung askew on your face. Feliciano pressed a smile to the back of your head, hugging you a little tighter. He closed his eyes taking in the scent of your hair.

He loved you like this.

Your breaths became slower and slower, and eventually they were steady and easy. You had fallen back asleep. Just as you were before, but this time you both were able to enjoy this rest together.

You nestled your face into his chest, and your glasses would have fallen off if Feliciano hadn’t grabbed them in time. As silently and carefully as possible, he placed them on the nearby end table. He knew you wouldn’t forgive him if he woke you up twice in one day. Though the thought did make him laugh a bit.

Feliciano allowed himself to sink into the cushions. No stress, no work—just the warmth of the fireplace and most importantly, you.

Denmark; Matthias gently closed the front door to your shared home. The warmth of the house kissed his face, and he already felt his chilled skin begin to soothe from the bite of the wintery, wet storm. He began to shed his gloves, his coat, his boots. All the while, Matthias was being uncharacteristically quiet while the wind howled outside. He had noticed the lack of lights the moment he drove in. Though, you had graciously left the lamp on in the entryway so that he would be able see what he was doing.

Odds are, you were already fast asleep. Curled up in the bed—warmly inviting.

Matthias let out a deep, relaxed sigh at the thought. It’d been a long day, and he wanted nothing more than to find his place right next to you. Without further ado, Matthias easily started his way up the stairs. In reaching the second floor, he had intended to make it all the way down the hall to the bedroom, but his eyes were drawn to the flickering light coming from the reading room instead.

It was then that he could also hear soft music playing. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile.

Maybe you were still awake?

Matthias quickly learned that this assumption was not the case. Leaning against the frame of the doorway, he took you in fondly. The light from the fireplace danced across your skin in a lovely dance as you slept comfortably on the couch. You had even gone so far as to light a few extra candles that left a delightful scent to the room.

After a moment, Matthias left his spot in the doorframe to make his way over to you. Upon further inspection, the book you had been reading was still loosely held in your hands resting against your lap. Your breath was easy and deep, and with the way your head tilted in your slumber, Matthias was impressed that your glasses hadn’t fallen off and onto the floor below.

Matthias held back a laugh as he snuck up beside you at the foot of the couch. Gently crouching down to your level, Matthias rested on his knees. Slowly and carefully, he attempted to readjust your glasses so that they would sit on your face right. Unfortunately, the tickle at your face was undeniable and you drew a quick breath in.

Matthias froze. His hand still hovering by your glasses.

Upon opening your eyes, you jolted a bit, obviously not expecting anyone to be there. You sleepily took in Matthias’ face and his hand right next to your face.

“…What are you doing?”

“Fixing…your glasses?”

You huffed out a laugh in response, sitting up a bit and putting a little distance between you both.

“What time is it?”

“Late.”

You could hear the fondness in his tone. So much so that you leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. Matthias hummed sweetly.

“We should probably get to bed then…” your reasonable tone quickly shifted into childishness as you dramatically stretched out your arms, whining, “Carry me.”

Matthias dramatically rolled his eyes as he all too easily bundled you into his arms and lifted you off the couch. Playful laughter fell out of you as he brought you down the hallway and to the bedroom.

[jormvngandrr]

5 for dialogue prompt, with Danny and Peter :>

[5] - “We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Denmark & Sealand

Human AU

A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck as Peter yet again forced one foot in front of the other, and then the other, and again the other to keep walking.

He reached back to wipe it away instinctively since it tickled like a bug crawling on his skin, and as he felt his whole neck wet, he let out an impatient grunt.

“Come on, we’re almost there.”

“You said that hours ago,” Peter responded, huffing as he stomped his little feet and wrapped his fingers tighter around the straps of his backpack.

“Yeah, well, that means we’re even closer than before.”

Peter didn’t believe that, though. Whatever turn they took a while back seemed to him like it sent them straight into another country. For all he knew, they could be arriving back in Sweden by this point.

He should have listened to Niklas. ‘Good luck going with uncle Mathi; he doesn’t know the way’ he had said in his stupid know-it-all tone and that stupid smug smile of his. The worst part? He had been right.

Peter frowned as he imagined Niklas sitting in the back of their dad’s car, unbothered, playing Minecraft on the way to Väinö’s cabin and then hiking swiftly the rest of the way when they couldn’t get the car any further into the forest. Papa could take them to and fro blindfolded, although that wasn’t saying much since he was already pretty blind…

Anyway! The point was that, had he stayed with his dad and his brother, he would already be at the cabin, all warm and cosy and having hot chocolate and a piece of pulla.

Instead, he was sweaty and tired after a long hike—longer than it was originally meant to be—and they were still going. His shoes were beginning to feel a little too tight on his feet, and his face was starting to get all red from the exertion.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time to go with uncle Mathias and fetch the bedrolls, and meet up at the cabin later whilst everyone else got a head start over to get dinner started. And it had been fun, up until this point.

After walking for a couple more minutes, uncle Mathias stopped for a moment, sliding the bedrolls and big backpack off his shoulders. He sighed, looked up into the trees, and then down at Peter.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

“I haven’t been here in a while,” he answered sheepishly, pushing a hand back through his hair.

“Can you call my dad?”

“No signal.”

“So…”

“You don’t know the way?”

“You’re the adult!” Peter cried, and uncle Mathias whined.

“You’ve been here more than I have! Let’s just keep going, then. Do you need help with that?” He asked, jerking his chin to gesture at Peter’s backpack on the ground. He, too, had taken it off to rest for a moment.

But his uncle was carrying all their other stuff already, so Peter shook his head despite the light strain at the middle of his back.

The rays of the setting sun had already painted the sky warm by the time they finally got there. They had seen the smoke from the chimney swirling up into the air and followed it, and before they even got to the clearing, Peter’s dad was already hurrying over to them.

“Papa!” Peter exclaimed and ran to him, forgetting all about his tired feet.

His dad picked him up, and rested him on his hip as he fussed over him and mussed his hair with his free hand.

“What took you so long?” He asked after pressing a small kiss to his forehead. The question wasn’t directed at him, though.

Still, he replied: “uncle Mathias didn’t know the way from the parking.”

“Yer an idiot,” Papa said to his uncle, and Peter pressed his lips into a thin line not to laugh.

“Not my fault your boyfriend decided to live in the middle of fucking nowhere,” uncle Mathias said, wheezing as he threw down the rolls and the backpack. He placed his hands on his hips and arched his back. It popped, and he let out a little, relieved noise.

“Watch your mouth,” Papa said, shaking his head in the same way he did whenever he caught him eating just one jelly baby too many.

“Oh, they’re alive,” a small voice spoke from a distance, sounding disappointed. When Peter turned around, he spotted Niklas standing by the doorframe. “You win,” he called out louder as he turned around and headed back inside.

Peter wiggled in his dad’s arms, wanting to be put down, and as soon as his feet were back on the ground, he squirmed out of his backpack and sprinted into the cabin.

“You bet on us dying?!” He cried accusingly as he ran after his brother, and from where his dad and uncle remained standing, Niklas’s response wasn’t loud enough to be intelligible.

“Sigurd and Eiríkur’re already here?”

Björn nodded. “‘S just the two of you missing. Dinner’s ready, too.”

Now that Peter was gone, he could feel the weight of Björn’s scrutinising gaze on him.

“There was no signal.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Björn said. He leant over to pick Peter’s bag up from the ground and hung it over his shoulder. It looked comically small on his broad frame. He pushed his glasses up into his nose. “I gave you directions.”

“Ej - every single tree looks exactly the same. Let’s head inside, I wanna beer.”

Mathias moved back to where he had dropped the rolls and the backpack, and before he reached for them, he looked back at Björn.

“You gonna help with this?”

“Nej.”

———

Väinö - Finland

Niklas - Ladonia

[boatdriinks]

aaaand part 3 of the ex-spouse series

Let's talk about Louise

After the unremarkable marriage that was his relationship with North, Kerry went back to his old ways for a time. Having fun, dating and sleeping around, while trying to be a present-enough father figure for his daughter.

For over 20 years, he went through several relationships. Some were serious, but most left him with a bad taste in his mouth and a resentment toward the other person.

He would meet and start dating Louise Nordin in 2054 while she was working as a model in Denmark. They dated long distance for two years and Kerry would invite Louise to move in with him on their third anniversary. He could see this was going places, and he was cautiously looking forward to taking things further.

He loved Louise's similar boisterous energy to his own. They could party, they could make all jaws drop in formal events for each other's careers, and they could talk to each other about anything. Kerry genuinely believed he'd met his one. He was able to talk to her about Johnny, about Derry. About how he hadn't treated his first wife that well, and Louise provided insight of how Zoh might've been feeling.

Despite what she heard, though, she didn't turn away. Kerry valued that. Not everyone could even begin to handle the trucktons of baggage that came with Kerry Eurodyne.

After 5 years of dating, they married in 2059. They lived blissfully alone together until April 28th, 2063 when their son, Theodore Nordin Eurodyne was born. Kerry's only son. And things were still good, but cracks would begin to form soon enough.

Drugs and alcohol took hold again during a particularly bad pass of the anniversary of Derry's, and then Johnny's, death. Kerry was spending more time away from home after Louise reluctantly retired for the sake of raising their son, because she and Kerry both hated the idea of their children being primarily raised by nannies.

In the midst of the conflict, the arguing, and trying to fix things, Kerry and Louise's daughter was born. Kimberly Nordin Eurodyne was born on December 1st, 2069. Kerry tried to clean up his act for the sake of his kids, but found that was far easier said than put into actions.

Kerry would catch Louise cheating in mid-2070, and that really sent him off on a war path. He'd cheat on her in return, out of revenge more than anything concrete. Kerry and Louise "patched things up," but he had a feeling she was still cheating after that point. He'd never question whether Kim was his. Whether she was actually or not, she was always going to be his.

It all came to a head, however, when Kerry was arrested for drug possession, assaulting a police officer, and public indecency in 2071. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, where Kerry would only receive one visit from Louise and their children before being served divorce papers.

Ever since Kerry got out of prison, things have been shit with Louise. She got some of his cars, his home in Tokyo, and worst of all: full custody of the kids. He guessed he couldn't blame her there. Kerry was unstable, and honestly? He didn't want the kids to see him while his mental health was deteriorating. It sure as hell wouldn't help when Louise would occasionally dangle the kids in front of his face in her worst moments, but Kerry rarely had the fight left in him to argue with her too much about it.

And yet, despite all of the bullshit since they finalized the divorce in 2072, Kerry still loved her. If he hadn't fucked it all up, he felt like he could've been with her for the rest of his days.

[carewyncromwell]

“If I lay here -- if I just lay here --  Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

~“Chasing Cars” by the Snow Patrol

x~x~x~x

featuring Ru Ollivander and Estrid Soelberg @thatravenpuffwitch​ and a reference to Galen Stagg @cursebreakerfarrier​ 💛 

x~x~x~x

Graduation. It was an event that marked the beginning of a new life, for the students of Hogwarts -- one that, at the turn of the 20th century, often included marrying and promptly starting a family, especially if one came from a well-respected magical family.

The Ollivanders were mortified, therefore, when their youngest child Rudolph (almost exclusively called “Ru”) instead promptly left their family home in favor of moving to Denmark to live with their close school friend Estrid Soelberg and her grandfather Maynard. It was particularly egregious considering that neither Ru nor Estrid had expressed any intention of or interest in marriage despite their cohabitation. 

This is what happens, though, when you pair up a rebellious kelpie impersonating the boy who tried and failed to bridle them when they were young with the solitary half-Veela who somehow managed to bring out and nurture their most human traits. One could hardly expect people like Ru and Estrid to follow popular convention. And so the two pointedly ignored the appalled reactions of the rest of Wizarding society and set about figuring out how to start the next chapter of their lives side by side.

The first hurtle for Ru was eating a proper dinner at the table with Estrid and Maynard, the way normal people do. They had become very used to eating alone, since before Hogwarts they frequently had to scavenge for food, and even at school, they had difficulty not hoarding food away from everyone else. But Maynard -- who’d heard so many stories about Ru from Estrid over the years that he’d already grown quite fond of them -- wished to be hospitable to Ru and make them feel welcome, and as much as the dinner made Ru uncomfortable, they weren’t blind to how much Estrid clearly esteemed her grandfather and really wanted him and Ru to get along. Plus it was because of Maynard that Ru now had a place to live in the first place, so it did behoove the kelpie to show some respect. And so, with some reluctance, Ru soldiered through and stayed at the table. Fortunately, even if their table manners were atrocious and they acted incredibly evasive the entire time, Maynard was a patient man and only approached Ru’s standoffishness with indulgence. He even managed to engage Ru a bit when he mentioned his love for painting.

“What style do you gravitate toward, in your work?” Ru asked, curious. “Neoclassism? Art Nouveau?”

“Oh, nothing quite that avant-garde,” said Maynard with a laugh. “Though I do like it, certainly. No, most of my stuff is more Romantic, in look...you’ll have to forgive an old man for being nostalgic for older styles.”

Ru gave a light snort. “There’s nothing wrong with older styles, if they’re any good. It’s just the Romantic stuff is fluffy and pointless.”

Rather than be offended by this rude assessment, Maynard merely raised his eyebrows, interested.

“Oh? I always thought the style helped capture the true beauty of the world we live in -- even the simplest, most seemingly insignificant kind.”

“That beauty can’t be true when the art polishes it beyond recognition,” Ru countered. “Romantic art turns generals into saviors, gardens into paradise -- normal men with scars and limps and bad posture into nothing but polished, perfect statues. It’s daft. The Romantics were so obsessed with capturing their precious feelings on canvas that all their work does is telegraph what they want their audience to think and feel, rather than trust them to use their own eyes and brains...or let the images just speak for themselves.”

Their electric blue eyes were as bright as the diamond earrings dangling beside their long hair -- shining with a bizarre kind of conviction.

“That’s the true magic of photography -- capturing a moment, just as it is, with all the little mistakes and flaws and blemishes therein. And yet also capturing a person and all of their beauty -- even the flawed, human things that painters stupidly try to gloss over.”

Maynard appeared pleasantly surprised by the response. His eyes seemed to brighten as he shot Estrid a rather wry smile. 

“Well now, Estrid, your friend truly has an artist’s soul!” he said, sounding rather proud. He beamed at Ru. “I have heard marvelous things about your photography, from Estrid. I don’t suppose there’s any photographs you’d be willing to show me, when time permits?”

Ru blinked. Then, upon receiving an encouraging look from Estrid, they gave a mild shrug.

“...S’pose there’s a few,” they granted with a small smirk of their own.

Maynard ended up looking over several albums of Ru’s work while Estrid helped Ru unpack the rest of their things. He was particularly charmed by how many pictures Ru had taken of Estrid dancing. 

When Ru went into the bathroom to wash up for the night, Maynard pulled Estrid aside.

“He’s not fully human either, is he?”

Estrid looked at her grandfather, startled. 

“I would think you sensed it too,” said Maynard. His gaze and voice were very calm. “I’d hazard a guess at mermaid ancestry, but I’m not quite sure...”

Estrid’s dark eyes flitted over to the closed door of the bathroom uncomfortably. 

The old half-Veela brought a hand down onto his granddaughter’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.

“No matter,” said Maynard. “It was merely mild curiosity, on my part...your friend seems to have sparked some to life inside of me, whether he meant to or not.”

Estrid looked up at Maynard. His eyes were sparkling fondly. 

“He is a truly fascinating person, my dear,” he murmured. “I can see why you’ve become so fond of him.”

Estrid smiled slightly too, her eyes softening. 

Ru spent a lot of time in the bathtub “washing up” before finally coming out. By the time they’d emerged, their fingers and toes were all wrinkled up like prunes, which seemed to please them quite a bit.

“Now, you see this? This is something else fun about humans,” they said with a broad grin as they sidled in front of the mirror in Estrid’s room and wrung their long black hair dry with a towel. “This body’s three-quarters water -- yet leave it in water for that amount of time, and the skin just crumples under the weight of it! It’s bonkers.”

“If you want to experiment with that again, go take a dip in the pond,” said Estrid coolly. 

She was sitting up in bed and she kept her focus on the book she was reading as she spoke, trying to ignore the fact that Ru had strolled into her room for a chat while dressed in only a smoking jacket. 

“You’re just lucky Grandfather likes you enough to forgive you for using up all the hot water,” she added as she turned the page. 

Ru gave a light bluster through their nose and mouth. “Your grandfather’s a wizard, isn’t he? He can always just heat up some more with his wand, can’t he?”

“No, he can’t,” Estrid shot them down without looking up from her book. “Grandfather never attended Hogwarts. He’s never used a wand.”

Ru blinked slowly at Estrid’s reflection in her long mirror as they considered this. Then, finally, they gave a light “...Hm” and dropped the issue. Clearly they’d decided it really wasn’t their business and, out of respect for Maynard, chose not to press Estrid for an explanation.

“I suppose the pond out there would be a nice place for a swim anyhow,” said Ru offhandedly. “Reckon there’d be some interesting moss and aquatic plants around there too...might make for some good pictures...”

With their black hair now dry, they strode over to Estrid’s bed and flopped down next to her. Their head landed right on the pillows, right above Estrid’s. 

“Ru?” said Estrid, startled. “What are you -- ?”

“What?” said Ru. “It’s comfortable.”

Estrid flushed as Ru closed their eyes. 

“It’s my bed,” she said forcefully. 

But Ru had already started to settle themselves in, turning over in bed so that their face rested in the light blond hair at the top of her head. They exhaled through their nose in a soft sigh that tickled Estrid’s forehead.

Estrid’s blush darkened. “Ru...you’re only half-dressed, you dalcop -- get up -- ”

Ru mumbled something largely undiscernible. 

Estrid brought a hand up to Ru’s chest as if to push them right out of bed, but she found herself hesitating, seeing the look on Ru’s face. 

All tension or strain had left their dark brows or long-lashed eyes. It left a strange, almost innocent expression behind...one better suited to a child, drifting off to a soft lullaby. 

The Hufflepuff didn’t think she’d ever see Ru look quite so peaceful before. 

“Ru...” she said a bit more softly. 

Closing her book and putting it down on the side table, she turned her focus more properly to Ru. She brought her hands up to adjust their smoking jacket, so as to better cover their hairless chest. 

Ru shifted slightly in bed -- without opening their eyes, they blindly brought a hand up through her hair. Then they adjusted on the pillows so that Estrid’s face ended up in the crook of their neck, right beside the glinting silver “bridle” chain fastened there. 

“...’Strid...” their voice came out as a sleepy garble.

Their long fingers tangled in her hair as they cradled the back of her head. Estrid’s expression softened a bit -- she remembered Galen mentioning once that playing with each other’s manes was something kelpies did to express affection. Ru themselves had taken to braiding Estrid’s hair, when they were spending time together on their own, back at school. 

They’d had a long day, Estrid decided. Moving to a new country to start a life you never thought you ever would -- all in preparation for a new newspaper job the next morning -- wasn’t something you did every day. No sense in scolding them for being a bit tired. 

Leaning forward, the Hufflepuff tentatively placed a soft kiss to Ru’s jawline. The feel of their soft, porcelain skin under her lips made her heart race and made Ru give a soft, contented sigh.

“Good night, Ru,” Estrid whispered.

Reaching for her wand on her side table, she quietly put out the lights. Then she brought the covers up and over the two of them, settled back down on the pillows beside Ru, and closed her eyes herself.

By morning, the two slept fully in each other’s embrace, Estrid curled up in a ball at Ru’s side while their legs and arms wound around her, their hand cupped beside her cheek and hair and their face resting beside hers on the pillow. When Estrid woke, the sight of Ru sleeping so peacefully beside her prompted her to kiss them awake -- a tradition that the two would take turns indulging in several times over, on those many wonderful mornings they would wake up, side by side. 

[saphira5]

David x Lycan Reader Part 2

Y/n stays on the ground crying, until the sun rays hit your back. Y/n gets up and turns around, y/n takes a couple of deep breaths. You decide to talk to David, y/n begins making your way to the castle. The doors and windows were all closed shut, y/n keeps a of distance from the castle, y/n walks deep into the forest, you dig a hole in the snowy ground.

Y/n then lays in the hole, you wait until the sun goes down. Y/n was about to crawl out when y/n heard two voices. 

"Selene's blood can give us the power to walk in the sun. But David is a problem, he is always by her side". A female voice says, then y/n hears a man's voice "don't worry, I will take care of David".  

Y/n can smell that the vampires do not belong from the Nordic Coven. They smell like vampires that belong to the Eastern Coven. Y/n hears them walk back to the castle; you listen for any sounds, once y/n thought it was safe, y/n crawled out of the hole, y/n covered the hole up. Y/n didn't want to leave anything to chance, y/n looks at the castle one last time. Then y/n turns around and y/n begins making your way to the Eastern Coven.  

It took y/n a couple of days to arrive in Czech Republic, you had to swim across the North Sea, were y/n arrived at Denmark. You then made y/n way to Hamburg; y/n then goes through Germany. And finally, y/n arrives in Czech Republic.  

You begin climbing to the top of a mountain, and once y/n reaches the top you see in all its glory the Eastern Coven.  

The sun was beginning to rise, y/n walked around the castle. But y/n keeps a good distance from the castle, because of the cameras that surround the castle. Y/n then heads into the forest surrounding the castle, y/n tries to find a place to rest.

You want to stay close to the castle, but y/n doesn't want a vampire to find you. Y/n decides to climb another mountain near the castle. 

 Y/n digs a hole in the ground, you get in and y/n covers the entrance.  

You sleep for a bit, y/n then begins digging out of the hole. Y/n sees the sun was at its highest in the sky, y/n seats down and you take off the backpack. Y/n had got a lot of interesting things from Denmark and Hamburg, y/n had found a shop selling the blueprints of the Eastern Coven's castle.

Y/n pulls out the blueprint, y/n places it on the ground.  

Y/n study's the blueprints thoroughly, you then place the blueprint back in the backpack. Y/n puts the backpack in the hole, you then cover it up. You climb a tall tree and look at the windows and door of the castle, y/n wanted to get a good layout of the castle. 

 When night falls you stay near the entrance to see who enters and leaves, the only vampires that leaves are death dealers and to your surprise humans also join them.  

You had eaten all y/n rations, beef jerky from Denmark, y/n couldn't get supplies from the town. Y/n didn't want to be spotted by vampires or humans. You also couldn't hunt deer because of the blood.

But y/n didn't mind, you have gone without food before. Y/n then begins making a routine, during the day when the sun is out y/n patrols around the castle.  

You have found out a lot about those who reside in the castle. 

 Y/n had found out who was in the woods talking about David. Semira was put in command of the Eastern Coven while Amelia was away in America, Semira's lover was a death dealer, Varga. Four days have passed since y/n had arrived, nothing but peace in and out of the castle.

Then the night came, and y/n saw about 10 cars, you knew the first car was carrying someone important. Y/n watches to see who steps out of the car. 

 Y/n sees an older man with white hair walkout first, Thomas, vampire elder and leader of the Western Coven. Then y/n sees a woman in a lovely grey sparkly dress with a huge diamond neckless around her neck, Amelia, vampire elder and ruler of the Eastern Coven. She is also a founder of the Nordic Coven, then y/n sees David. He steps aside and out comes a woman.

She has black hair and white tips, y/n thought it must be Selene.

[lemonpastilles]

Fender Bender - 1

She was really doing it. She might as well. She had already cut off everyone she had ever known, and Clemetine was not willing to go to yet another therapist. And yet, something still bugged her, every time she heard someone laughing, when the window was open in her dorm room. For the past two weeks, Clementine had been sorting all her belongings. She had always praised herself on being a minimalist, but suddenly the fifteen moving boxes didn't really add up to that. And so, she gave most of it away to charity. Even the things, she knew she was gonna miss. She didn't deserve nice things. And that's also why she let her hair grow out of the mullet, that she loved so much, and that's why she told her last therapist that she was fine. The fact that he believed her, always made her laugh, feeling some sort of accomplishment from decieving him. She felt proud of herself. For once. Was that really what he got paid for?

Dropping out of uni was not always the plan. Well, Clemetine's whole personality had always been to stick to the plan, stick to what she was told, but suddenly, psychology wasn't her calling. If she had to be honest, it never really was from the beginning. And now she had wasted two years on it, and not willing to waste another one, even if that meant having to sit with disappointment at the dinner table with the rest of the family. Another reason to move away. A few months ago, Clementine was scrolling through the traveling agency, and finally found her dream destination to run away to - North Shields. A new country, and a place, she knew she didn't belong in. And most importantly, no known relations, no expectations. And today was the day; she threw the key to the dorm room in the letter box of the uni and took the train up to the airport. Her journey on the train felt too long, and she almost felt like she couldn't breathe. Knowing that she always almost got a panic attack on the train, she quickly brushed the feeling off, trying to focus on the bushes outside the window. She had taken a backpack with all her essentials in it and a bigger suitcase with the rest of her home in. Clementine was sitting by the window, beside a larger man, who had been listening to the same song on repeat and way too loud for the past twenty minutes. The girl in front of her was picking her nails, and so when Clementine wanted to bite her own, she was reminded not to. Denmark was boring this time of the year. Well, it always was. Clementine had always said that winter was her favorite time of the year, and that hadn't been a lie; she loved not having to have an excuse for wanting to sleep all day and not wanting to see anyone. She loved that the sky was mourning with her. But today, the rain had only seemed a nuisance to her. She had been wearing a raincoat, that was sitting on the table in front of her on the train, but her blue hoodie was still moist, and her pants were almost soaking wet, when she first walked onto the train. Nevertheless, she acted the way she always did; unbothered, and so when the larger man had offered her napkins to dry, she simply smiled and shook her head no. That girl could really use that napkin right about now, Clemetine thought, looking at the girl in front of her, whose blood was peeking through almost every nail on her left hand. But suddenly the girl looked up, and noticed Clementine looking at her, so Clementine was quick to drift her eyes to the window again. Ever since she was a little kid, she had always wanted to learn how to truly let her eyes rest through a window, so they'd follow the movement of the passing buildings outside the window. Like the people she saw in the movies, where their eyes would go back and fourth looking outside a car's window. But she had never learned, and always felt nauseous after a while, trying to do it actively. And today had not been any different. Trying to make up for it, she closed her eyes, and immediately saw stars. And that's how she spent the last ten minutes of the train ride to the airport.

She checked herself in, and dropped off her big suitcase, only taking her blue Fjällräven backpack with her at the gate. Not a lot of people were going to Newcastle airport, just how Clementine wanted it. A few hours passed, and she was on board on her way to her new home.

When Clementine had landed in Newcastle, she had spent an hour or two, trying to figure out how to buy a train ticket to North Shields, until she had to cave in, and ask information, who almost seemed flabbergasted at a question, that, apparently, had such an easy answer. The machine by the train. Of course. At least, Clemetine could be on the move now, to get to her hotel, but when she stepped off the train, she walked and walked and walked, and was starting to lose faith in finding the hotel. Google Maps had, multiple times, announced, that the destination was in front of her. Clementine was on the verge of crying, but instead decided to sigh heavily and sit on her suitcase in front of the alleged hotel. She needed a moment of rest. But a moment turned into minutes, and minutes to an hour. She had already paid the hotel, and was almost certain, that she wouldn't be able to afford a new one at this hour, which she wouldn't even be able to check, since her phone was almost out of battery. So, she just sat. And people walked by her in streams. Older women, who tried speaking to Clementine and help her, but the thick Geordie accent had gotten on her nerve. She didn't realize that it would be this hard to understand people around here. But when a group of younger men came her way, she was relieved in their accents being a little diluted in comparison to the elder citizens. She had spotted them a few meters away, because one of them, who was wearing a cap and was a little shorter than the others, had pointed her way. They sped up, and Clementine flinched, but decided not to make a run for it, expecting them to walk right past her. But they didn't, instead they stood right in front of her, looking at her, like a lost puppy. "Alreet bonny lad?" one of them said. He was the tallest one of them. His shoulders broad, and his hair all over the place. She couldn't really make him out in the dark, but his voice and the odor of the boys had let Clementine to believe, that he was a smoker. "I'm sorry?" she asked quietly. And then there was, what seemed like, an "aha"-moment in the group, who now realized why, they hadn't seen Clementine before. She wasn't Geordie. And that's when Clementine realized that North Shields wouldn't let her be as anonymous, as she had hoped, because everyone knew everyone, and she'd stick out like a sore thumb. She was already sticking out like a sore thumb. 

[celtfather]

Celtic Music Stories #585

Listen to the audio liner notes from several musicians on the Irish & Celtic music Podcast #585.

Willowgreen, Poitin, Amelia Hogan, Kinnfolk, Boston Blackthorne, Téada, Barrenhart, Altan, Brad Tuck, Lúnasa, Sue Spencer, Marc Gunn, Enda Reilly, The Chivalrous Crickets

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THIS WEEK IN CELTIC MUSIC

0:06 - WELCOME

1:16 - WILLOWGREEN - A PIRATE HIDEOUT

Willowgreen performs traditional, contemporary and original music from Ireland, Newfoundland, Scotland, Canada, U.S.A. and the rest of the Celtic music world. Their signature vocal style combined with instrumentation including harp, hammered dulcimer, bodhrán, guitars, button accordion, whistles and mandolin appeals to audiences of all ages.

Jim Ofsthun bio: Jim is an original member of Willowgreen, and a talented vocalist and instrumentalist with international performances on Irish bodhrán, guitar, button accordion, and whistles. He is also a member of McInnis' Kitchen, and of Eira. He has family connections to the music through Ireland and Newfoundland, and is considered one of the top producers in Irish music in the Midwest.

4:37 - Willowgreen “Crocker’s Cove Reel” from Willowgreen

7:34 - POITIN

Poitín are an award-winning traditional Celtic band from Pilsen in the Czech Republic. They explore all forms of Celtic music but are firmly grounded in the pub session tradition and like nothing better than sitting round a table in the corner of a cosy pub playing old favourites about tarry sailors, merry maids and drunken nights. Poitín have performed at festivals across Europe in Italy, France, Poland, Denmark, Germany and the Czech Republic.

As the album says, it's 'one for the road', to go with you and keep you company in your car or on your bike, and this Celtic world music will take you from Ireland to Argentina, from England to Egypt, from Brittany to the Czech Republic and beyond.

15:44 - Poitin “Claudy Banks” from One For the Road

17:58 - AMELIA HOGAN - TAKING FLIGHT

Amelia Hogan is an impeccably authentic singer of Celtic music and her heart comes through in honeyed tones on Irish, Scottish, British, and American styled vocals. She sings in the Irish music tradition of Sean-Nós, or “old style” as well as accompanied. Amelia also plays bodhran and a small 22 string Welsh lap harp, and tours internationally to global acclaim.

Amelia Hogan sings both traditional and contemporary folk music with lilting graces and subtlety. She’ll weave a mysterious old magic that takes the listener out of time and place. She transports audiences with haunting melodies, holding them close, and stirs ancient spirits with an evocative storytelling presence.

24:07 -  Amelia Hogan “Taking Flight” from Taking Flight

26:19 - FEEDBACK

28:24 - KINNFOLK

Josh and Julie Kinn weave bouzouki, bodhran, and smooth vocal harmonies in their Celtic folk music from the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Kinnfolk have played at festivals and listening rooms throughout Virginia and beyond. In 2021, Kinnfolk was one of 10 bands--representing 10 countries from across the globe--selected to be part of the inaugural Robinson Emerging Artist Showcase hosted by the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival. As their notoriety has expanded worldwide, their music has been featured on podcasts and radio programs across the globe.

39:51 - Kinnfolk “The Hat Song” from The Knotted Circle

45:15 - BOSTON BLACKTHORNE - FISHING

Boston Blackthorne has been performing with the same core members for over 25 years. Their sound is a unique blend of traditional Celtic and Americana in a driving format - more rock than the Clancy Brothers, more folk than the Dropkick Murphys - while sharing some of the traditional repertoires of both.

They are proud of their deep songwriting bench - the original songs of Boston Blackthorne have won several national and international songwriting competitions including first place in the International Narrative Songwriting competition and honorable mention in the International Songwriting Competition.

The band’s sound is centered around powerful vocal harmonies and lead vocals shared by several of the members.  Between the 5 core members instrumentation includes fiddle, 4&5 string banjo, harmonica, 6&12 string guitars, mandolin, bouzouki, bass and drums

50:26 - Boston Blackthorne “Fishing over the Lusi” from Single

54:40 - ALTAN - FAVORITE SONG OF MAIRÉAD NÍ MHAONAIGH

You can hear more stories by the Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh on show #580.

Altan are an Irish folk music band formed in County Donegal in 1987 by lead vocalist Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and her husband Frankie Kennedy. The group were primarily influenced by traditional Irish language songs from Donegal and have sold over a million records.

The group were the first traditional Irish group to be signed to a major label when they signed with Virgin Records in 1994. The group has collaborated with Dolly Parton, Enya, The Chieftains, Bonnie Raitt, Alison Krauss, and many others.

57:29 - Altan “An Mhaighdean Mhara” from Island Angel

1:00:17 - ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC: BEST OF 2022 PLAYLIST?

ATLANTA IRISH DANCE BY BURKE AND CONNOLLY

Earlier this year, I wanted to learn more about Irish dance. I contacted one of the co-founders of Atlanta Irish Dance by Burke and Connolly. Emma Burke is a certified Irish dance teacher and internationally certified Irish dance adjudicator, which allows her to judge Irish dance competitions world wide. During her Irish dancing career, she competed all over the world, winning titles throughout.

Atlanta Irish Dance is the Premiere Irish Dance Academy in Georgia and one of the top Irish Dance Companies in the United States. They have an exciting performance based program run through their 501c3, in which they produce lively crowd-pleasing performances for crowds across Atlanta.  Their dancers and teams are ranked 1st in the Region, 2nd in North America, and among the top 10 in the World.

We talked a little about their Feis they do each year and Irish dance costumes. I’ll break that up with some dance tunes.

Feis vs Feisana from Atlanta Irish Dance

1:04:11 - Téada “Jigs - The Women of Monaghan / Nancy Hynes’ / Tap the Barrel” from Coiscéim Coiligh / As the Days Brighten

1:08:13 - COSTUMING WITH IRISH DANCE

1:14:31 - Barrenhart “Haste To The Wedding/Drowsy Maggie/Harvest Home” from Celtic Grass

1:16:10 - THANK YOU PATRONS OF THE PODCAST

1:17:10 - BRAD TUCK - THE RED VIOLIN

Born in Hant's Harbour, Newfoundland, Brad developed a love for music early in his life. Residing in St. John's, Brad is the drummer for a staple of the traditional Newfoundland music scene, Shanneyganock, and began a solo career in 2018 with the release of his first album "On These Waters". Brad was nominated for Traditional Artist of the Year at the 2018 & 2022 MusicNL Awards, and has released three full length albums, one EP and two Christmas singles.

1:20:14 - Brad Tuck “The Red Violin” from Stages

Colin Farrell of Lunasa told a story back in show #579.

1:25:15 - LUNASA - THREE REELS

Lúnasa is a traditional Irish music group, named after Lughnasadh, an ancient harvest festival. They tour and perform internationally, and have recorded a number of albums of both traditional and contemporary Irish instrumental music.

1:27:06 - Lúnasa “Morning Nightcap = McLeod's Farewell/Morning Nightcap/The Malbay Shuffle” from The Story So Far

1:31:17 - SUE SPENCER - MUSIC UNDER THE STARS

Sue grew up singing Newfoundland and Irish folk songs with her family, and comes by her Irish roots through Newfoundland.  Her driving guitar style and signature smile will lift your spirits.  Sue has been nominated multiple times for the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council Hall of Honour Award.  She also performs internationally as part of Willowgreen and McInnis' Kitchen.

1:34:43 - Sue Spencer “Tickle Cove Pond” from North Shore

1:38:59 - CELTIC INVASION VACATIONS

1:39:32 - MARC GUNN

John Sharkey White II requested my version of “Peggy Gordon” in the last episode of the podcast. Obviously, I am the host of this podcast. But I’m gonna read my current bio on my website like I’ve done with others.

Marc Gunn is a Rhythm & Folk songwriter who fuses Irish and Scottish folk songs with pop culture. One brewery called it Sci F’Irish music. His musical weapon of choice is the autoharp. He breathes acoustic Rock and Roll into this folk instrument and adds a bellowing taste of rhythm & blues.

Gunn found musical inspiration performing Irish drinking songs. He learned the art of performing at Renaissance faires and from his childhood idol, Elvis Presley, who said, “You've got to put on a show to draw a crowd.” His concerts are fun filled with sing along songs that get the audience's feet tapping.

And now for my song…

I first heard the song “Peggy Gordon” from a cassette of Irish Drinking Songs I found at Half-Price Books in Austin, Texas. I learned most of my early Irish song repertoire from that album, songs like “Whiskey in the Jar”, “Big Strong Man, “Wild Rover”, “Bog Down in the Valley” and lots more.

Their version of “Peggy Gordon” was short, but memorable. I played it on and off for many years. I remember singing it at a pub in Switzerland when I met Heidi and Stef of the Celtic band Bow Triplets.

In July 2009, I met my future wife, Gwen, while touring in Virginia. We had this whirlwind romance and began talking on the phone every day and went to see each other as much as possible even while I was out on tour. I was completely mesmerized by her.

A few weeks later, I was back in Austin. I was scheduled to record my next studio album with Rich Brotherton. He’s an incredible engineer and had done some brilliant work for Ed Miller and lots of top-notch artists in Texas.

I was having trouble singing the song. I was pitchy and my voice lacked any real emotion. The lyrics have this great feeling of love and longing. Which is exactly the feeling I was having with Gwen so far away. And so… I closed my eyes, focused on Gwen, and sang.

To this day, I still tell people it is one of my best recordings. Because I feel like I nailed it. And then to top it off, Rich Brotherton added some absolutely beautiful guitar work, as he did throughout that album. It is definitely one of my warmest and lushest and best-produced albums.

1:42:07 - Marc Gunn “Peggy Gordon” from The Bridge

1:46:26 - ENDA REILLY

Enda Reilly is a folk singer, songwriter and guitarist from Dublin, Ireland. Firmly rooted in the Irish tradition with songs that strive for a better future, Enda Reilly’s work invites you to see the world from his varied and unique perspective through each new song and project. From busking on Grafton Street to the National Concert Hall, Enda has performed on countless stages in his hometown of Dublin and beyond.

1:50:46 - Enda Reilly “Christmas True” from Christmas Is With Us

1:54:07 - CLOSING

1:54:22 - THE CHIVALROUS CRICKETS – LORD OF MISRULE

The Crickets explore the roots, branches and crossroads of Celtic and English folk and American Old Time music. With equal attention to exhilarating performances and academic rigor, they bring to the stage boldly reimagined arrangements of standards and originals with traditional influence. With a particular focus on song repertoire, they're known for their rich vocal harmonies and fascinating textural blends incorporating over 15 instruments, both modern and ancient.

They're a family band comprising two sisters, two couples and childhood friends. Four of their members are full-time classical musicians as well.

2:02:23 - The Chivalrous Crickets “The Lord of Misrule” from A Chivalrous Christmas

The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast was produced by Marc Gunn, The Celtfather. The show was edited by Mitchell Petersen with Graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs.

The show is supported by our Patrons of the Podcast on Patreon. Subscribe to get bonus podcasts and vote in the Celtic Top 20.

Visit our website to subscribe to the podcast. You’ll find links to all of the artists played in this episode. You’ll get access to our Best of this Year Playlist. You can subscribe to our Celtic Music Magazine and get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free plus, you’ll get 7 weekly news items about what’s happening with Celtic music and culture online. And best of all, you will connect with your Celtic heritage.

Finally, please tell one friend about this podcast. Word of mouth is the absolute best way to support any creative endeavor.

Promote Celtic culture through music at http://celticmusicpodcast.com/.

WELCOME CELTOPHILE TO IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST

* Helping you celebrate Celtic culture through music. I am Marc Gunn. I’m a Celtic musician and podcaster. We are here to cherish our diverse Celtic community and help the incredible artists who so generously share their music with you. If you hear music you love, please email artists to let them know you heard them on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast.

You can find a link to all of the artists in the shownotes, along with show times and chapters for each song when you visit our website at celticmusicpodcast.com. So you can skip around. And if you are a Song Henger on Patreon will get a music-only episode.

Once again, we are doing a different sort of show. This is not the usual format.

I collect stories from artists about the songs they write or play. It’s sort of like the Liner Notes behind some of their songs. Much like what I do on my Pub Songs & Stories podcast. I’m excited to share this nice bunch of stories as we finish up 2022.

If you’re in a Celtic band and would like to talk about a song or tune that you play, drop me a line. I’ll get you instructions and I’ll get you on the show next year.

ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC: BEST OF 2022 PLAYLIST?

Every week this year, Miranda and I compiled the latest Celtic Top 20 votes. We updated a playlist on Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube. These are all of the top voted tracks of the year. And so it’s a pretty fantastic playlist that will stick around.

We have a new playlist coming in 2023. Again, all due to your voting. You can help these artists out by following the playlists and adding tracks you love to your playlists. Subscribe to our newsletter to find out who was added this week.

Listen on Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

THANK YOU PATRONS OF THE PODCAST!

Because of Your kind and generous support, this show comes out at least four times a month. Your generosity funds the creation, promotion and production of the show. It allows us to attract new listeners and to help our community grow.

As a patron, you hear episodes before regular listeners, vote in the Celtic Top 20, and a private feed to listen to the show.  All that for as little as $1 per episode. You can also get music-only episodes as a Song Henger.

A special thanks to our Celtic Legends: Marti Meyers, Brenda, Meghan Walker, Dan mcDade, Carol Baril, Miranda Nelson, Nancie Barnett, Kevin Long, Annie Lorkowski, Shawn Cali

HERE IS YOUR THREE STEP PLAN TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST

Go to our Patreon page.

Decide how much you want to pledge every week, $1, $5, $10. Make sure to cap how much you want to spend per month.

Keep listening to the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast to celebrate Celtic culture through music.

You can become a generous Patron of the Podcast on Patreon at SongHenge.com.

TRAVEL WITH CELTIC INVASION VACATIONS

Every year, I take a small group of Celtic music fans on the relaxing adventure of a lifetime. We don't see everything. Instead, we stay in one area. We get to know the region through its culture, history, and legends. You can join us with an auditory and visual adventure through podcasts and videos.

In 2023, we’re going on a Celtic Invasion of County Mayo in Ireland. We’re gonna explore the area and get to know Grace O’Malley, the Pirate Queen. Learn more about the invasion at http://celticinvasion.com/

#celticmusic #irishmusic #celticmusicpodcast

I WANT YOUR FEEDBACK

What are you doing today while listening to the podcast? You can send a written comment along with a picture of what you're doing while listening.

Email a voicemail message to celticpodcast@gmail.com

When you make a per-episode pledge on Patreon, I plan to charge 4 episodes per month. But sometimes I forget. Other times, I charge for the show on the wrong date like I did this past month. As a result, the podcast income was short this month.

Thankfully, our Patrons of the Podcast are just incredible. They donated money and bought CD and digital downloads in my store to help cover the loss. Thank you SO much for your generosity, as always.

Asa Swain wrote: "Dear Marc, Thank you for playing “Banjos we have heard on high” in the Nov 28 episode (of the Celtic Christmas Podcast). It made me smile in delight. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas season. Thanks for sharing beautiful Celtic music with us year round.

I’ve been listening to your show for about 15 years, I got a chance to chat with you at the online Boskone you attended in 2020. (On zoom) You talked about how wonderful traveling was. I haven’t travelled overseas since 2019 (because of COVID), but in December my wife and I are going to spend a week exploring Iceland. We’re very excited. (we’ll only have 4.5 hours of sunlight each day, but we hope to see the northern lights) . All the best."

Check out this episode!

[thepitofjob]

Job 22: 22-30. "The Push."

Learning drives out evil, so it is the learned who must always be in charge. We should no more put ignorant men in charge of the temple than we should let them operate during surgery but we do. The reason for this is we believe we have achieved the maximum amount of enlightenment from religion that we can and attainment that is at the discretion of a didactic few. The Gemara is used to refute the capacity of man to learn.

This belief is what is called the Ophir, "to obtain what is desired at the expense of what one has when it is depleted of strength." The desire to be ever new, always free is the result of the Hebrew term. We can and must always fathom God and the creation and they are never the same due to what is called Shaddai El, "the gods that keep things stirred up." We do not say God is experimenting on us, trying to keep us off balance, but nature has certain dictates to which we must adhere and one pertains to the instability within the Self, especially as we age, as mankind ages.

The prophet says the choices we make must change along with us if we want the Almighty to be our God and find the bounty hidden in His Words. As the Psalter says, one little thing remains a secret to us even after all this time:

21 “Submit to God and be at peace with him;     in this way prosperity will come to you. 22 Accept instruction from his mouth     and lay up his words in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored:     If you remove wickedness far from your tent 24 and assign your nuggets to the dust,     your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, 25 then the Almighty will be your gold,     the choicest silver for you. 26 Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty     and will lift up your face to God. 27 You will pray to him, and he will hear you,     and you will fulfill your vows. 28 What you decide on will be done,     and light will shine on your ways. 29 When people are brought low and you say, ‘Lift them up!’     then he will save the downcast. 30 He will deliver even one who is not innocent,     who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

Why is man not happy, why is he not good? Job, the dreaming man asks. The answer is he has decided not to sharpen his aptitude. It's not as if we don't have the knowledge or experience to be an highly evolved and sophisticated mankind, we have decided this is not for us, and subjected the rest to hell on earth. The Rab hypothesizes it is because of the love of money, which it might be but there is immense profit in the relief of poverty. All the roi on earth one could want is to be found in the redemption of man through the relief of poverty.

The King of England, the King of Denmark, any monarch with a constitutional right to mint money and the Federal Reserve in the USA can print money with impunity without a need to pay it back. All money in circulation is printed by the government, its not done by magic and flows into the hands of government employees and private enterprises. An initiative designed to intelligently mint money for the sake of paying back the debt of poverty and turn $2 a day households into $200 a day households due to higher earning power would cause the private sector to boom. Cell phone and internet companies, clothing stores, restaurants, car manufacturers, hotels, airlines, furniture stores, appliance manufacturers, concert halls, all of it would benefit if our governments were to invest in the poor. It is very wise and very good to this and it would make people happy and not too corrupt, because the implications are these things are the product of a general increase in the aptitude of the world's population. It would permit a more thoroughly illuminated dialogue about what to do at any time.

To add this feature of Ophir to a Gemara, the Values in Gematria state:

v. 21-22: Submit and be at peace.

There are laws that decide how well educated our children must be all around the world, and there are standards well above this. Territorial governors that are falling short in educational standards can be relieved of duty and arrested.

Convention against Discrimination in Education: This 1960 UNESCO instrument is the first international instrument to extensively cover the right to education. It is binding in international law and has been ratified by 107 states. 

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: This document states that primary education should be free and compulsory for all. It also states that parents should be free to choose schools for their children that meet minimum educational standards. 

OECD Legal Instruments: These guidelines aim to encourage international cooperation and improve the quality of cross-border higher education. They also protect students and stakeholders from low-quality providers. 

Blueprint for Global Legal Education: This project aims to develop a global blueprint for legal education by comparing practices, developing benchmarks, and raising awareness of standards.

The Number is 10745, י‎ז‎דה, yazda, "you need to know."

v. 23-24: Remove the wickedness from your tent. Just as the male wiener reproduces sin, so does the mind when it harbors ignorance and guilt. All tents and their tent poles begin in the mind. If the tent is pitched with something artisanal in intent, it can lead to Shabbat. If it is a whore's tent, it will lead to disease and death. Either way, one cannot live in a tent.

The Number is 12722, יב‎ןךב‎, yavnechav, "find someplace you can rest."

v. 25-26: Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and lift up your face. No one puts on a skirt leans an autoharp on their lap and strums away singing hymn songs to God once they find Him. That is just outrageously stupid. The Sanskrit equivalent of delight is the result of what is called mumuksutwam, "a burning desire for liberation." All the conditions in the mind must be prepared for Self Liberation, what is called Shabbat by the Jews is the result of what is called mumuksa.

We force young people to endure the Shule or the Ashram whether they have discovered mumuksa or not but still we talk about it, we fan the desire knowing one day, self-definition will one day save the person's life.

Cute dumb and happy, while highly desirable are an unlikely combination, so we follow the Torah and used forced labor to teach young people how to be competent just to be sure.

Forced labor is found in two places in the Torah. One, in Shmot, suggests the Egyptians used it against the Israelites who were too uppity for their liking. Recall the Egyptians hated progress and change, they were brutal about it. There was a caste system, and that was the end of them...notice they are no longer here:

6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom [house of Pitah, "evil engineering"] and Rameses [son of the sun] as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

=Egyptians = miserly and miserable people like the Mormons and Evangelicals who worship themselves and each other like little gods, and invest everything in the afterlife while the real world rots.

Forced labor is the essence of the Ophir as change requires it. This is very good for society as persons who self-realize the details of their lives that make them happy are unlikely to forfeit them too easily nor borrow others by force. Self-definition protects all of us.

The other mention of forced labor is found in Shoftim, in which God says a Jew is always the slave master, never ever the other way around, and why:

20 When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3 He shall say: “Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. 4 For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

5 The officers shall say to the army: “Has anyone built a new house and not yet begun to live in it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may begin to live in it. 6 Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it. 7 Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.” 8 Then the officers shall add, “Is anyone afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too.” 9 When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.

10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

19 When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them?[b] 20 However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.

-> Recall Moses told the 20 year olds to lay siege to Canaan and take its resources for themselves,  18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

Va'etchannan says this war takes Seven Days to wage, to turn rough terrain populated by troglodytes and losers into a Land of Promise:

-> There are Seven Nations and Seven Days:

The First Day: Hittites "who fears".

The Second Day: Girgashites "thieves, infertile",

The Third Day: Amorites "talkers", 

The Fourth Day: Canaanites "royals",

The Fifth Day: Perizzites "rural villager", 

The Sixth Day: Hivites "tent villagers" and

The Seventh Day: Jebusites "those trodden down".

The Number is 10520, יהך‎, yehach, "willpower."

v. 27-28: You will pray and he will hear you. God does not want to hear us pray, he could care less. Other men need to hear us pray. Prayers are a signs of supplication to other men with whom we share reality. Men who are free listen to prayers, men who are not free make the prayers.

The Number is 14818, ידח‎א‎ח, "Push."

As the passage above from Shoftim states, among other things Judaism represents the art of warfare, in the mind and the real thing. The world is petting the PM like he is a nice dog, but the Lord has stated he must kill his enemies and not his smile while he does it. Other men of other faiths can be weak and diplomatic and wring their hands over explosions of activity on a geopolitical basis but as the Psalter says, the enemies of God shall not live alongside His friends. The enemies of Israel are all going to die and they are going to stay dead.

This is what it means to push.

v. 29-30: When people are brought low, lift them up. The Number is 16156, י״וי״הו‎, "the Eleventh Century."

=1824, יהודא, "Judah"

Ten centuries. a thousand years, is how long it takes for mankind to achieve one Ophir, to exhaust a negative tendency and replace it with a noble virtue.

The First Century is 1226, אבו, abu, "a want", and the Twelfth is 2080, ךף, "a spoon."

Since we can combine Hebrew terms in any degree or order and obtain the counsel of the Almighty what we have so far is "A desire is a spoonful of glory."

You take the spoonful, I'll take the whole pot.

A tent is too small, and a fight is not big enough for the glory God had in mind for us. So our Gemara says the usual, the world must work with greater speed and efficacy towards the Mashiach and this means the beanbags we have working for us in public office need to be told to pony up. Our public education and justice systems are just fucked and there is no good reason why. Our lives therefore are on hold, trapped in a tiny well the size of a spoon until they clean their hands up and act.

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

066 of 2024

The Red Survey ❤️

by joybucket

1. Do you like the color red? Yeah. Particularly together with black. 

2. List three things you like that are red. Strawberries, sunrises/sunsets, rubies.

3. Would you rather shop at Kmart, Target, or Macey's? We have none of these in Europe, so no idea.

4. What is one thing that makes you angry? Injustice.

5. What is your biggest passion? Trains and radio signal identification, can't choose.

6. Which of these words would you say describes you best: strong, determined, easily angered, passionate, or bold? Determined. And probably strong.

7. Name three things you can see in the room right now that are red. Can of Coca Cola from my husband, glue stick, grocery bag from Kruidvat.

8. Are you wearing anything red right now, and if so, what? No, not at the moment.

9. Do you like tomatoes? 🍅 I do, but I rarely like them raw. I love tomato soup, though.

10. Do you like cherries? 🍒 Yes, but I prefer sour cherries over sweet cherries.

11. Do you like red apples? 🍎 I've never been a big fan of apples.

12. Which of these cartoon characters do you like best: Minnie Mouse, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Elmo, Mr. Krabs, or Lightning McQueen? Minnie Mouse. I barely know the rest.

13. Would you rather eat spaghetti 🍝, sweet and sour chicken, or cherry pie? All of these sound good. Can't choose.

14. Would you rather eat red velvet cake, strawberry shortcake, or a raspberry snowcone? Strawberry shortcake.

15. List three random things you own that are red. My tablet (the cover is red), a small gift box that I use to keep stuff in, star-shaped candle holder.

16. Are you a fan of Taylor Swift? No. Honestly, I don't understand the hype.

17. Would you rather travel to Japan 🇯🇵, Morocco 🇲🇦, or Denmark 🇩🇰? Japan. I've been to Denmark already :D

18. Would you rather travel to Kenya 🇰🇪, Canada 🇨🇦, or Mars 🔴? Canada, definitely.

19. Name one celebrity you like who is from Canada. 🇨🇦 Keanu Reeves, hands down. The most genuine famous person ever.

21. Do you think you look good in red? Probably better than in orange :P

22. What is your favorite shade of red? Cherry, ruby, amaranth.

23. What is your least favorite shade of red? Brick red, probably.

24. Would you rather celebrate Valentine's Day or Christmas? Christmas. I'm not romantic :P

25. Which of these cartoon characters do you like best: The Cat in the Hat, Ariel (from The Little Mermaid), Sebastian (from The Little Mermaid), Bob the Tomato, or Mickey Mouse? Ariel, I think.

26. Have you ever driven a red car? 🚗 I don't drive, but I've been a passenger in a red car.

27. When was the last time you wore red lipstick? 💄 I've never worn a lipstick.

28. What are three things you dislike that are red? Apples, rhubarb, watermelon (it's red from the inside right?).

29. Do you like tomato soup? I love tomato soup. The Belgian way with little meatballs, or the Polish way with either rice or pasta.

30. Did you ever play the game Red Rover at recess as a kid? No, and I don't think we have such thing as recess here in my country.

31. Which of these cartoon characters do you like best: Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Cupid, Mario, or Spiderman? Mario <3 definitely.

32. Which of these names do you like best for a girl: Passion, Ruby, Cheri, Apple, or Rose? Ruby or Rose.

33. Which of these words would you say describes you best: loud, proud, attention-seeking, loving, or strong-willed? Proud, loving, strong-willed.

34. What was the last thing you ate that was red? Strawberries.

35. What was the last thing you drank that was red? Probably cranberry juice.

37. List three of your favorite Arby's menu items. I don't know what Arby's is. Never heard of it.

38. When was the last time you ate at Arby's? See above.

39. Which of these names do you like best for a girl: Valentina, Garnet, Robin, Lacey, or Crimson? Probably Lacey.

41. If you're female, list 3-10 words you could use to describe your period. 🩸 I'm not female.

42. Have you ever donated blood? No, I'm not allowed for medical reasons.

43. Which of these careers sounds the most appealing to you: firefighter, Santa's elf, paramedic, wedding planner, or flamenco dancer 💃? Paramedic.

44. Do you like ketchup? I do, but I not always fancy it.

45. Have you ever seen a total lunar eclipse (aka blood red moon)? 🔴 Quite a few times. Pretty spectacular.

46. When was the last time you shopped at Kmart? We don't have them in my country, but hey, at least I now such a shop exists :D

47. Have you ever lived in a red house? Yeah, red bricks. Even my current house is made of red bricks.

48. Do you know anyone who is colorblind and can't see the color red? My husband has some trouble distinguishing red from brown, but otherwise no.

49. Do you own a Raggedy Ann doll? Never heard of them.

50. List three things you like that haven't been mentioned already that are red. Cranberries, bell peppers, beetroots.

[earaercircular]

Swedish comet on its way to the stock exchange: could be Europe's biggest IPO since several years

At Northvolt's factory in Skellefteå in northern Sweden, batteries for electric cars from Volkswagen and BMW, both co-owners of the company, are produced, among other things. The factory here has a capacity of 16 gigawatt-hour batteries, corresponding to batteries for around 300,000 electric cars per year.

Eight-year-old battery maker Northvolt plans to go public next year and has the prospect of reaching a larger, triple-digit billion valuation.

There is money – lots and lots of money – in producing batteries right now. The Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt[1] stands to be worth up to 20 billion dollars in an upcoming IPO, writes the British financial newspaper Financial Times[2]. This is far more than both Visa and Facebook achieved when they went public in 2008 and 2012 respectively.

The eight-year-old Northvolt[3] aims to build the world's greenest battery with the smallest CO₂ footprint in production and subsequent use and with the greatest possible recycling. The company, which both produces lithium-ion batteries and battery systems and is the largest in Europe in its field, was founded by the two former Tesla executives Peter Carlsson and Paolo Cerutti, who are now respectively CEO and deputy commander in charge of day-to-day operations . They have the Danish businessman Jim Hagemann Snabe as chairman of the board. He is also chairman of the board of the German conglomerate Siemens and for some years was chairman of the board of the Mærsk group in Denmark. Previously, he himself was co-CEO of the German IT giant SAP.

According to the Financial Times, the Swedish battery manufacturer will go public in Stockholm, probably in 2024, and with the prospect of 20 billion dollars or almost 141 billion Danish kroner, it will be one of the largest stock market listings for a European company in several years. Northvolt itself will not comment on information about the preliminary plans for the stock market listing, which may change.

The battery market is hot

Northvolt dances with the wave that carries battery manufacturers forward.[4] The batteries are the decisively important part of the advancing electric car market and to be able to store energy – typically green power produced by wind turbines or solar cells.

There is a race going on to develop and produce the most efficient batteries, which are also manufactured in the most energy-friendly and environmentally friendly way with materials that are sustainable and cheap.

At the same time, the rest of the world is struggling to free itself from the firm grip that China currently has on the world's battery production by virtue of the many raw materials that China possesses and which are included in battery production. This has led both the EU and the US to open state support for battery manufacturers to establish themselves in the two areas of the world. Here, Northvolt has a clear trump card by virtue of its Swedish origins.

Among Northvolt's owners are the investment bank Goldman Sachs and the German car giant Volkswagen (VW), which is the world's second largest car manufacturer after Japan's Toyota. BMW, Siemens and the capital fund Blackstone have also bought into Northvolt, which is headquartered in Stockholm, but has production in Skellefteå[5], Västerås[6], Gothenburg[7] (together with Volvo) and Borlänge[8] in Sweden, as well as in Gdansk in northern Poland and in Heide west of the city Kiel in Northern Germany. The construction of a sixth factory will be started before the new year just outside Montreal in Canada and should be completed in 2026. It is part of Northvolt's five billion dollar investment in the North American market.[9] According to the Financial Times, Northvolt is the European entrepreneurial company that has raised the most capital.

Source

Thomas Breinstrup, Svensk komet på vej på børsen: Kan blive Europas største børsnotering i flere år , in: Berlingske 24-10-2023; https://www.berlingske.dk/virksomheder/svensk-komet-paa-vej-paa-boersen-kan-blive-europas-stoerste

[1] Northvolt AB is a Swedish battery developer and manufacturer, specializing in lithium-ion technology for electric vehicles. Northvolt is building a factory in Skellefteå, northern Sweden, and another one in Salzgitter, Germany, as part of Northvolt's plan to increase production capacity of 32 gigawatt-hours by 2023. Its headquarters for research and development is in Västerås, Sweden. https://northvolt.com/

[2] Northvolt plans Stockholm listing for potential $20bn IPO. Battery maker could go public as soon as next year in one of the largest IPOs for a European company in recent years; https://www.ft.com/content/ca7a87b7-8f37-411e-851e-cb83750dba0f

[3] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/668037918724669440/a-battery-for-cars-made-from-old-batteries?source=share&ref=_tumblr & https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/672075783410434048/swedish-northvolt-kicks-off-european-battery?source=share&ref=_tumblr

[4] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/732253772398657536/automotive-stellantis-and-orano-join-forces-in?source=share&ref=_tumblr & https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/682712149928394752/umicore-becomes-major-supplier-for-electric?source=share&ref=_tumblr & https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/713316858967801856/canadian-li-cycle-sets-up-a-battery-recycling?source=share&ref=_tumblr & https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/709766435386392576/france-allocates-30-million-euros-to-2-battery?source=share&ref=_tumblr

[5] Skellefteå is a city in Västerbotten County, Sweden. It is the seat of Skellefteå Municipality, which had 74,402 inhabitants in 2022

[6] Västerås is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, 100 kilometres west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 158,653. Västerås is the seat of Västerås Municipality, the capital of Västmanland County and an episcopal see.

[7] Gothenburg (Swedish: Göteborg) is the capital of Västra Götaland County in Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. It is situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, with a population of approximately 600,000 in the city proper and about 1.1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area.The city's population increased by 9,292 during 2022

[8] Borlänge is a locality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 44,898 inhabitants as of 2020. It is the seat of the Borlänge Municipality with a total population of 51,604 inhabitants as of 2017.

[9] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/726885760561725440/billion-dollar-investment-for-swedish-battery?source=share&ref=_tumblr

[thepercy6andtheradicalsabbatical]

Billund to Copenhagen

Matt and Becca started the day with a long tempo run, then we packed with the usual franticness and left the house (again in off and on rain) to walk to the bus station. At the station we caught the bus to Vejle smoothly (we now knew to put our bags under the bus like pros now). In Vejle, we caught a connecting train to Copenhagen that was a little over 2 hours. The Eurail app had said "reservations recommended" for the ticket, which Matt hadn't seen before, they all previously said either "reservation required" or nothing, which meant no reservations needed. We decided to risk it and not pay for a reservation. When the trian arrived, we found it was super short (ie only 2 cars) and pretty crowded but found a little space in the aisles. Matt was starting to think it might be a long 2 hours crammed on a small train when thankfully at the next stop lots of people got off and we were able to find seats for a comfortable rest of the journey. On arrival in Copenhagen we were surprised to see that our train was now really long (like 12+ cars), so we think our section must've joined another larger train at the first stop, which then allowed everyone to spread out for the rest of the trip. The kids were fired up to see the tivoli theme park directly across the street from the train station on our short walk to the hostel. We had booked at "next hostel" because it seemed to be the cheapest option in central Copenhagen that was also kid friendly and seemed to have lots of fun activities. We were surprised at how giant it was on arrival and the kiddos were extra excited to see the large common areas with foosball/ping pong/board games, giant TVS, a glass enclosed soccer arena, a seperate cinema, etc... Matt was slightly less excited to realize that all the people milling about in the lobby were waiting for the clock to strike 3 pm so they could do the self check in on the computer screens that were set up (as we had all been instructed when arriving 7 minutes early at the front desk) and also to learn you had to pay extra to use the kitchen, the arena, etc. (only $3 per person but still...). After Matt stood in a long line, we were able to check in and find our room with bunk bed pods and our own bathroom included. After the usual debating over who got what bed, we unpacked a bit, then went downstairs and paid our fees for the kitchen and arena and set out to explore Copenhagen. We'd read about a tasty food market so hopped on a bus to that area and first went to explore a nearby park where the kids had a good time exploring the playground (highlights included a small square trampoline, a slide that had stair steps down and a "hamster wheel" type contraption where if you braced yourself properly you could swing all the way upside down. There were also tricycles provided to ride around in the playground which the kids also enjoyed minus one buggy foot injury. We then set off to the market and explored lots of tasty looking food stalls before buying a selection from various vendors. Again food was delicious but expensive (seemingly a common theme in Denmark). Matt did a bit of a double take when he did the currency conversion and realized he had just shelled out `$100 for 2 kids burgers with fries and one club wrap and a beer for himself. Whilst dining at our outdoor picinic table between the two long buildings of the market, it suddenly started to downpour. We lucked out to have chosen a table with a sturdy umbrella overhead that kept us mostly dry but many others were sent scrambling. We had various desserts from a french bakery and gelato for a not-so-low-cal dessert course then cruised home to the hostel where the kids spent a bit more time in the arena before all headed to bed in our individual pods.