#currently it's the ''six hundred men... six hundred men under my command... with only one goal in mind--MAKE IT BACK ALIVE TO OUR HOMELAND''

[redwinterroses]

YOU'RE AN EPIC FAN TOO!?!?! /pos EPIC/MCYT OVERLAP REAL

YES AND I AM BLAMING WOLFYTHEWITCH which is super funny because I ALSO blame them for my (mostly offscreen) cPhilza love so they're two for two there lol. And an irl friend rec'd it too... It's been playing on the background channel in my brain for.... about a month now. To a distracting and annoying extent, actually, I literally can't turn it off. /nm

[skryae]

Current update from my playlist: I was listening to ‘Monster’ just earlier and since I put my playlist on shuffle—it then played ‘Full Speed Ahead’ and considering the lyrics:

[ Monster ]

Deep down I know this well,

I lost my best friend,

I lost my mentor, my mom,

Five hundred men gone, this can’t go on!

Then later being hit with:

[ Full Speed Ahead ]

Six hundred men, six hundred men under my command,

With only one goal in mind,

Make it back alive to our homeland.

I don’t know—there’s just something that I love how when you go back to something and relate it to something you learn later on like this, it both feels so satisfying to see the story and kinda laugh (and cry) at the irony of the lyrics and stuff and I’m just—I wanna cry I love Epic so much I swear.

[saltyladynightmare]

Jiliu AU 9.2

Beginning, Previous, Next, Masterlist

A/N:

Ori'Ana : mando'a/basic, a mix of Ori'vod, and Anakin, basically naming him Older Brother Anakin, just as the suffix -'ika makes 'younger Brother' from Vod'ika

/italics/ : thoughts, emphasis

bold : talking though the Force, because why not

Chapter 9 is not completely finished, but chapter 10 is an idea. If anyone has any ideas for scenes in which the Vod'e are learning how to use the Force, please feel free to contact me or leave a comment. So far, all of my ideas involve various troopers launching themselves into walls when they jump/run/do something too fast. It gets monotonous after a while.

Warnings:

Anakin is a lonely string bean. He also has no trust in the Jedi, because I was salty when i started writing this, and must stick to my guns. Mentioned mistreatment of the Coruscant Guard.

~~~~~~

Fox commed at 0003. When Anakin accepted the comm, he was unsurprised to find it was only audio. Fox was using the comm built into his helmet; the one with top tier GAR encryptions, assigned to each Clone Commander. Exactly as careful as Anakin had hoped.

"General Skywalker," Fox greeted.

"Commander Fox," Anakin returned easily. If titles were what Fox wanted to use right then, than Anakin had no problems letting him lead the conversation in a direction that would make him most comfortable. "I'll warn you now; this isn't a social comm."

"Your earlier comm conveyed that, sir," Fox assured gruffly.

Oh, good. "I know you're busy, so I'll do my best to keep this brief," Anakin started. "Due to..." whatever in the name of the Force had happened, "...an incident on my last mission, I'm on medical leave for the foreseeable future."

"What?" Ah, there's Ori'vod Fox, as Anakin knew and adored. Never mind that Anakin was a little under nine years older than him. Elder Sibling was a mindset, not a birth order, even if he and Fox had a weird tendency of tossing that particular title back and forth like a live grenade.

"I'm fine," Anakin stated. "I'm not dying, or even lightly maimed. I'm moving around on my own, and I'm not on bed rest." Anakin inhaled to continue, but hesitated. He cursed himself. This is Fox. Anakin can tell him this kind of thing without being judged for more than being a little bit of an idiot. He was pretty sure. But really, even if he was wrong and Fox did judge him, what dignity did Anakin have left? "I'm currently confined to a heavily shielded room in the Healing Halls, because the Force is suddenly excruciatingly loud and my body responds appropriately, but physically okay."

"Appropri—you're saying that your body is acting like its taking sonic damage?"

Anakin grinned. "Yes. Good news is: there is a possible treatment option, but I'm probably not going to see results for a few days if it does actually work." It'd work. Anakin would make sure of it, even it meant hemorrhaging energy into the Force itself. He would not stay in this room for a moment longer than necessary. "In the mean time, I've been confined to a heavily shielded room with limited access to the outside, and a To Do list longer than a venator-class cruiser. I was wondering if the Guard was able or willing to assist my men in getting some of the things on my list completed."

Fox went quiet for several beats. Anakin bit his lip to force himself to remain silent, giving Fox enough time to process.

It didn't take him long. "You'll want Guide," Fox stated.

"If he's willing," Anakin agreed.

Fox concurred, "If he's willing." The crackle of flimsy shuffling fizzed through the admittedly shoddy speakers of Anakin's make-shift comm. "I can arrange for four Vod'e to be available at oh-six hundred today."

"Excellent." Anakin hauled his aching body up onto the chair behind him, and reached for one of the closer, mostly blank datapads. "If you could comm me with the names of the four, I'll wright up instructions to send them."

"Will do."

Nerves rolled in Anakin's gut, but he shoved them away. Fox is reasonable, and if he turns Anakin away, that's on him, he reminded himself. "While we're talking," he started forcefully casual, "does the Guard need anything? We're aiming mostly for medical supplies and food, but I want to introduce Torrent to little bit of everything."

Fox hummed contemplatingly. Anakin tapped a free finger against the datapad. Fox didn't need to think about what the Guard needed; he knew because he was a good Commander. He was staling because, like most competent people who'd been spurned before, Fox was hesitant to ask for anything like assistance.

"Ten crates of food, and three crates of medical supplies," he said eventually.

"No problem." Anakin typed the requests into the 'pad one-handed, making a note to triple that if at all possible, and maybe see about getting them a quick sweet snack they could stash in their utility belts. It was the least he could do.

While he typed this, and Fox filed his mountains of datawork, something pings softly on Fox's side of the comm. A moment later, Fox told Anakin, "Guide has agreed to act as a guide."

Anakin grinned. "Well, that's one thing off my mind. And the other three?"

"Pending."

"Ok." Anakin thought about ending the conversation there with a reminder to comm him when Fox had confirmation. Something in him rebelled at the idea. It wasn't a big deal to stay on the line with Fox, it had been awhile since they had talked. And, if Anakin was honest with himself, he really didn't want to be alone right then anyway. If Fox wants to end the comm, then he can, Anakin decided. Until then, they could sit in silence.

Absently humming to himself, Anakin pulled his To Do lists toward himself, and woke up the one with his personal long term list to add a note to talk to Rex about supporting the Guard the next time Torrent got leave on Coruscant.

The idea was to not only help the Guard so they could actually get a few eight hour sleep cycles in a row if they so chose, but also to ensure Torrent understood the Guard were not data processors, or flimsy pushers.

Not that Anakin had heard Torrent's opinion on the Guard, or if they even had an opinion. Still.

Anakin had heard more than a few troopers' thoughts of them, and it had not been good. Best nip that at the bud, really. Especially when such opinions came from ignorance and misinformation.

"The other three have gotten in contact with me," Fox stated abruptly. Anakin twitched in surprise, before blinking at the comm in his mech hand. Right. He was still on a comm. "They've agreed to provide assistance. Sending their comm codes now."

The comm vibrated in Anakin's hand, metal against metal, signifying an incoming text comm. A quick check shows the new comm code, all helpfully labeled.

"I have them," Anakin tapped the tiny screen with his thumb to save the codes.

"All four of them are currently available, General," Fox stated.

Ah. Time to get to work, it seemed.

"Understood, Fox. I'll leave you to your datawork," Anakin assured the Commander. "Hopefully, I'll see you before I get shipped out again, should everything conclude as expected."

"Yes, sir."

And Fox is done for the day. Commander Fox will keep going because he must, but Vod Fox needed either his allotted five hours of sleep or several cups of kaf before he could produce anything like social skills. Understandable. In his place Anakin would be a walking corpse all the time instead of only in the last six hours of his thirty-two hour shift.

"K'oyacyi, Fox." Anakin hit the button that'd end the call before the exhausted man could reply, hoping against logic the man would get some rest some time soon. Stay alive, Fox, stay alive.

Anakin breathed deep, held it, then let it out slowly as he set the comm on the table top.

Fox was a grown man, he'd live this long, he'd survive a few more days if he had anything at all to say about it; this Anakin knew.

Trusting this was, as always, more difficult than Anakin could say. He did it anyway. He must.

Anakin sighed, and picked up the comm again.

He tapped the screen a few times, calling up the comm codes Fox had sent him, then selected the one that looked the most familiar.

Hopefully, this would be Guide.

The comm rings once, then clicks to signify it had been answered.

"CT-5155."

Anakin smiled at the crisp acknowledgment. "Good morning, Guide. Eat anything interesting recently?"

Guide perked right up. "Ori'Ana!"

"Upani," Anakin returned warmly. "Fox said you had agreed to assist my men in our endeavors?"

"Torrent, right? Yes, I did," Guide affirmed. "Do you have plan for tomorrow, sir?"

"Less plan, more To Do List. If I give you the comm code of the other three volunteers, could you add them to this call?" Anakin smiled sheepishly. "My...device is a little limited."

"No problem!"

In short order, Guide linked in three other Vod'e.

Immediately, in the manner of siblings everywhere disturbed by another particularly daring sibling, they started complaining.

"What in the name of the Force is this supposed to be?" It wasn't until the unspoken threat crackled through the tiny speakers on his comm that Anakin realized exactly who he had on comm.

"A debriefing!" Anakin chirped.

The comm went silent. Then—

"Commender?"

"Sir?"

"Ori'Ana!"

The three Vod'e try to out speak the others, but it was Guide's near demented giggling that won out in the end. Anakin grinned.

"The one and only! It's good to know you three are still among the living," he greeted. "My understanding is that the four of you have volunteered to act as guides for my men as they run errands?"

"We did, sir, although I hadn't known the Favor Commander Fox mentioned was to you," Ka'ahk stated.

Faze, Guide, and who Anakin could only assume to be Slip, Guide's newest not-so-shiny partner after his last one had learned all he could from Guide about the lower levels of Coruscant, named such for his ability slip out of any sort of sticky situation Guide might fling himself, and thus his partner, into, murmured their agreement.

Heh. "Classic Fox move there," Anakin observed. "Now, as I told Guide earlier, I have a To Do list I both need and want completed before I ship out—"

The next few hours are spent going over what, exactly, the four Guardsmen would be helping his men with over the next few days. When they need to sign off to get their scheduled five hours of sleep—and, oh, did he both await and dread the moment Kix caught wind of that little detail— Anakin began messaging and comming his lower level connections to arrange for a drop of disguises that would make the men less obviously clones by midday.

That done, he messaged the four Guard Vod'e with the coordinates of the drop, and the instructions on how to get them. Then, he messaged his Command Staff with the details of what he had done.

Breathing in deep, Anakin forced himself to set his comm down. He checked his To Do lists, and grumbled at finding there really wasn't much more he could do at—he glanced at the clock and cringed—0347 in the morning.

A quick evaluation of himself revealed he was /way/ too wound up to even consider sleeping right then.

Okay, now what?

He plopped his chin on his palm, eyes wondering around the walls the light from his datapad barely touched. He could work on the mousedroid, or stretch some. Except he didn't really want to do either of those things.

So what else—ah. His eyes land on the neat pile of holocrons in the center of the table.

Rex had left him the list of questions he couldn't answer before, right?

He looked at the clock again.

Yeah, he had time.

With a flex of his fingers the holocron on top lifted up and came to hover before him. A twist in the force here, and a press there, and its seals cracked open, allowing greenish white light to escape. It swirled gently, then twisted up and around into a humanoid figure in armor.

Anakin sat back. "Hello, General."

"Greetings, General."

[waitingforwinterwinds]

A Clash of Kings - 06 JON I (pages 84-96)

Sam tries to make Jon understand how cool libraries are, new recruits begin training, and Mormont drops some lore and philosophy on Jon in preparation for the Big Northern Road Trip. (Now with extra Northwardness.)

-

Sam yawned. "Maester Aemon sent me to find maps for the Lord Commander. I never thought... Jon, the books, have you ever seen their like? There are thousands!" He gazed about him. "The library at Winterfell has more than a hundred. Did you find the maps?"

It's an easy thing to forget, my local satellite library has thousands of books, easily, maybe even over ten thousand. A big city library? could fit a few hundred thousand, maybe more. Maybe millions. Though there are places where a library of one hundred books would seem like a vast amount.

For a place like Westeros, this is probably one of the largest and oldest collections outside of Old Town if Winterfell's library can be counted at 'more than a hundred.' And Sam's no peasant either, he was a lord's heir, for him to be in awe at the scale of the library, says a lot about the availability of books in general. Even amongst the noble class.

"An inventory," Sam said, "or perhaps a bill of sale." "Who cares how much pickled cod they ate six hundred years ago?" Jon wondered. "I would." Sam carefully replaced the scroll in the bin from which Jon had plucked it. "You can learn so much from ledgers like that, truly you can. It can tell you how many men were in the Night's Watch then, how they lived, what they ate..." "They ate food," said Jon, "and they lived as we live." "You'd be surprised. This vault is a treasure, Jon." "If you say so." Jon was doubtful. Treasure meant gold, silver, and jewels, not dust, spiders, and rotting leather.

Well someone's clearly never seen MacGyver Lost Treasure of Atlantis. "This is the treasure! Knowledge!!"

The vault opened onto one of the tunnels the brothers called the wormwalks, winding subterranean passages that linked the keeps and towers of Castle Black under the earth. In summer the wormwalks were seldom used, save by rats and other vermin, but winter was a different matter. When the snows drifted forty or fifty feet high and the ice winds came howling out of the north, the tunnels were all that held Castle Black together.

Ohhh, good world building, very sensible given the weather and conditions. I do like these little details about the architecture and buildings, the practicalities of it all. The bits that show GRRM thought about things for more than two minutes and went beyond "how cool would a giant ice wall be?!"

(Very cool, freezing in fact, it's basically an artificial glacier with a permanent address.)

The morning sky was streaked by thin grey clouds, but the pale red line was there behind them. The black brother's had dubbed it Mormont's Torch, saying (only half in jest) that the gods must have sent it to light the old man's way through the haunted forest.

Haha, the gods lighting directional beacons... they can't even pick up the phone and take a message correctly.

mmm, but there we have another interpretation of the comet, and again, it's localised, very 'how does this relate back to us and our world view and current events.'

The sept tempted him no more than the brothel; his own gods kept their temples in the wild places, where the weirwoods spread their bone-white branches. The Seven have no power beyond the Wall, he thought, but my gods will be waiting.

Well that's neither creepy nor ominous...🙃 (concerned sarcasm)

"What do you make of them, Snow?" ... "They smell of summer," Jon said as Ser Endrew bullrushed his foe and knocked him sprawling. "Where did Conwy find them?" "A lord's dungeon near Gulltown," the smith replied. "A brigand, a barber, a beggar, two orphans, and a boy whore. With such do we defend the realms of men." "They'll do." Jon gave Sam a private smile. "We did."

You know what that is? Growth. And also Satin? (Who I have not met before? yay! welcome to the team!)

It's a good moment of character growth though, for Jon. A quiet one, but a good one, that he can recognise potential in others, and also that he himself was not as good as he had believed, that he also has grown into a better man and brother of the Watch.

"These are old," Mormont complained, and his raven echoed him with a sharp cry of "Old, old." "The villages may come and go, but the hills and rivers will be in the same places," Jon pointed out.

... Jon. Sweetheart. Have a seat. Actually, can the writers of La Brea come have a seat also. Now, we'll start slow, so y'all can keep up. We're going to begin with something called "weathering" and "erosion."

(For those not familiar, La Brea was a show that came out in 2021, a sinkhole opened a portal to the past, and some folks got stuck on the wrong side. But they knew exactly where they were because the Hollywood Hills hadn't changed their profile a single inch in 12,000 years! I have a minor beef with this show, solely because of that. and also because a ring dropped on the top soil by a boulder in the past was found by the exact same unaltered boulder, barely a few feet down in the present day. THAT'S NOT HOW TERRAIN WORKS!!! *ahem* excuse me.)

The point being, the rivers and hills might not be 100% accurate depending on how old the maps are.

"Aye, Dywen says. And the last time he went ranging, he says he saw a bear fifteen feet tall." Mormont snorted. "My sister is said to have taken a bear for her lover. I'd believe that before I'd believe one fifteen feet tall.-"

So Direwolves are fine, normal even, but Direbears is where you draw the line? ... hehehe, ah my mind went two places.

1: Owlbears 2: "Mother F☠️☹️💣king bearshark!" / "Mother F☠️☹️💣king Avril Lavigne!" (Rock N Roll, Avril Lavigne, official video.)

"How long ago was this?" "Eighty years, or close enough," the Old Bear said, "and no, I still hadn't been born, though Aemon had forged half a dozen links of his maester's chain by them. -"

I like book Mormont. It feels like he gets more 'screen time' and the down time to be more personable than the show version. The books as a whole more down time, tbh, for the characters to breathe and think and connect.

"- Tell me that none of this troubles you, Jon... and I'll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it." Jon drew himself up, taut as a bowstring. "And if it did trouble me, what might I do, bastard as I am?" "What will you do?" Mormont asked. "Bastard as you are?" "Be troubled," said Jon, "and keep my vows."

A good chapter for Jon's character growth, the quiet kind of growth. I do like that he's acknowledged that, even though he has chosen his path, there are still feelings and connections to his previous life and family.

[astaroth1357]

Leviathan's Odyssey 7:

Flood

Mammon: Levi!!

*Mammon is the first to leap forward and run across the beach, faster than Lucifer could stop him. His enthusiasm, however, seems to wind down considerably when his brother doesn’t make any move to meet him… and then he retreats back to the others when a massive, serpentine head rises out from the water by the shore. This new beast is not quite as large as the one from before (which likely was Levi himself in some kind of horrific second form) but it could still swallow any one of brothers whole and looks very hungry and eager to do so… particularly when six other heads just like it come up to join the fun*

*Levi stops the clamoring hissing of the monstrous serpent with only the raise of a hand, leaving Lucifer to assume whatever it is, must be completely under his thrall… an impressive feat for a creature that size…*

Levi: This is Lotan. Don't mind him.

*as their formerly missing brother starts his stride across the beach, a growing knot begins to twist in the pit of the eldest’s stomach… The kind of feeling one gets when they’ve realized that they’re out of their element... but they’re up against someone else who very much is. Fighting to keep a composed demeanor, he waits until Levi’s right in front of them before responding*

Lucifer: You look well, Levi... I’m glad. Though I’m surprised you've turned up here of all places...

*Leviathan, maybe amused by the statement, sticks the end of his trident into the ground by his feet before smiling*

Levi: Same goes for you, but this is just my first stop. *he shrugs nonchalantly, glancing all his brothers over until his eyes land on… well, a new face*

Levi: And what’s that thing...?

*Lucifer follows his eyeline to baby Satan, currently peeking his blonde head out from the safety of his shirt. He had almost forgotten he was still holding him...*

Lucifer: Oh, well… I suppose this is your new brother…

Levi: You stole a kid??

Lucifer: Well, no. He’s uh... it’s complicated.

*Levi looks a tad confused but leans down to get a better look at the boy. Again, much to Lucifer’s surprise, their seemingly fearless child attempts to hide his face back into the fabric…*

Levi: Huh. Looks like your guppy’s shy. *he flashes yet another shark-toothed grin… where he had developed such a maw is a mystery to Lucifer… None of his brothers' teeth get that sharp*

Lucifer: He’s not usually… *one of his hands instinctively goes to shield Satan’s head. A part of him hopes that it’s only Levi’s appearance that he finds scary… but a greater part of him fears there’s more to it than that…*

*it doesn’t take Levi long to look past Satan and back to the others, all of whom are still grappling somewhere between a state of shock and guilt*

Levi: Well. I’m happy you all found each other. Up here... *they watch for a moment as his slitted eyes narrow slightly...*

Levi: ...without me.

*Mammon is again the first to step forward, putting a hand over his own chest*

Mammon: I looked for ya when we-

*he could continue but Levi cuts him off with a sudden spike in volume, picking his trident back up from the sand*

Levi: -and just look at the house you got! *he lifts the weapon over to the Demon Lord’s villa, sitting perched on a scenic hill above the beach* Doesn’t it look just… nice?

*the twisting in Lucifer’s gut is only getting worse… he doesn’t like where this is going…*

Lucifer: The house isn't ours, Leviathan… We’re borrowing it. We live somewhere farther inland...

*the way that Levi’s eyebrows raise only further cement his fears… For a moment, he swears he sees something flash in his eyes but it's gone too fast to identify it…*

Levi: So that means you have two then?

*they all watch in confusion as he bends down to scoop some sand between his fingers…  letting the white grains slip slowly from his grasp*

Lucifer: Two…? Two what?

Levi: Two territories. On dry land. *Levi watches the sand pour to the ground, seemingly mesmerized by how it falls, before returning back to his brothers*

Levi: I bet that really must be nice. Really… really nice. *Lucifer sees the look in his eye change again, but this time the darkness lingers… radiating what he can only describe as pure malice and envy*

Levi: But that doesn’t surprise me. You guys have always had it better than I have…

Mammon: Huh..? *Mammon raises an eyebrow, apparently blindsided by his comment* What the hell are ya talkin about, Levi?

*Lucifer can’t help but shoot a look at him, even for the innocent question. There’s something very different about the Levi before them right now… They shouldn’t risk giving him ammunition. Unfortunately, Levi’s eyes only narrow again but this time into deadly thin slits*

Levi: What am I talking about? Isn’t it obvious?? Or are you still just as dumb as ever, Mammon? *Levi sweeps his trident out to the side, baring his pointed teeth in a silent snarl*

Levi: All of you had it so much better in the Celestial Realm than I did! Mr. “Always Perfect” Lucifer and his stupid little lapdog, Mammon! Oh how everybody looked up to you! *he jerks his trident towards a frightened Asmodeus, the anger in his eyes only intensifying*

Levi: And then there’s you! Always sneaking out to parties and sleeping who knows where, but were you ever cast out for it?? No! Because you’d always go crying to Lucifer to get your way!!

Lucifer: That’s enough, Levi-!

*Leviathan’s tail lashes the beach sand, kicking up a cloud of white behind him and they hear the low hiss of the seven-headed beast still very much watching them…*

Levi: Shut up! I’m not done!! *his trident next jerks towards Beel and Belphie, the older of whom currently pushing the younger behind his back defensively*

Levi: And then there’s you two! Who could ever get enough of hearing how everybody loved the twins?? “Did you see what Beel did today?” “Hasn’t he gotten so big?” “He’s a shoe-in for seraphim for sure!” And if you had just stayed in your goddamn place, Belphie, then NONE OF US WOULD EVEN BE HERE RIGHT NOW!!!

Lucifer: LEVIATHAN, I SAID ENOUGH!! *Lucifer’s beach clothes quickly evaporate as they get replaced by his demon form, black wings towering high above his head, but Levi remains undaunted*

Levi: AND I TOLD YOU TO SHUT!! UP!!!

*the sky above them darkens as growing clouds bloat out the artificial sun, the sheer intensity of Levi’s rage apparently beginning to disturb the sea around them. The waves suddenly start getting choppy, bubbling up and crashing into each other furiously...*

*for a moment, Lucifer is astounded how Levi’s emotions alone could have such an effect on the currents, but that’s only until he looks a little closer… It’s no current or wind changing the waters, it's a horde of creatures struggling for space above the water’s surface: tails, fins, tentacles, and heads of all shapes and sizes breaching the formally calm seas to make their presence known. In a matter of moments, they find themselves outnumbered not by the tens or hundreds, but by the thousands… An ocean’s worth of monsters calling for their blood from across the shore…*

*as the brothers realize what they must be seeing, a collective horror casts over them… Levi himself takes a few deep breaths and raises his trident back to the army, quieting his troops once more, but they remain near the surface to watch for his orders. Dormant, but far from absent in their conflict… A tense silence hangs in the air but Lucifer is the first to break it with a quiet, harsh whisper*

Lucifer: Leviathan… What is the meaning of this? What are these things and why are you here?

*Levi slowly lowers his trident and glares back at his brother with a look that’s not smug, nor boastful. It holds nothing but anger and contempt for him and seemingly everyone around him...*

Levi: Shouldn’t it be obvious, Lucifer? I’m still a general, aren’t I? So what if my men look a little different now... *he digs the end of his trident into the sand, keeping his head aloft in a way Lucifer had only seen him do on the battlefield*

Levi: I want better land. I’m here for more territory and I’m starting with this beach. *though his voice is assured and commanding, Lucifer narrows his eyes at him just as Levi had done before*

Lucifer: No. I can’t let you do that. *Levi, of course, doesn’t back down for a second*

Levi: Well, too bad it wasn’t a request.

Lucifer: This beach and the land it’s attached to are all property of the Devildom and its ruler, Lord Diavolo. I cannot and will not just let you take it. *Lucifer’s words actually seem to give Levi a pause for thought, but more out of surprise than anything*

Levi: Wait, did you just say “Lord” Diavolo…? *he thinks for a moment before a smile finally comes back to his face, though this time with an air of mockery* Did you just call the Prince by his title? Don’t tell me you’re his lackey now, are you…??

*Lucifer, to his credit, doesn’t flinch or look away… but he doesn’t look particularly happy either*

Lucifer: I remain my own man, as I’ve always been… But I owe my loyalty to the Prince and I will oversee his interests as I see fit. *it seems regardless of his answer, Leviathan still snorts at him*

Levi: So you are!! And here I thought I’d never see you take a knee to a demon! Just how low have you sunk now, huh? *Lucifer opens his mouth to respond, but Mammon beats him to the punch*

Mammon: Would it kill ya to just shut up already, Levi?? We ain’t just gonna let ya take what you want! *despite his brother’s outburst, Levi only continues to look amused*

Levi: And you really think you can stop me?

*he raises his trident once more and an unearthly chorus is sung from the waves, a deadly hum of hissing and growls emitting from his waiting “soldiers,” itching to attack on his say so. Many most likely already having the reach or capability to pluck the other demons from the sands where they stand*

Levi: … you and what army?

*Mammon’s silence appears to be his answer as he glances anxiously to Lucifer… the rest of his brothers doing the same. In times like these, they all turn to the eldest to come up with a plan, but it seems that this time, Lucifer finds himself with limited options… He takes a moment to study his family’s faces - then the savage crowd of beasts surrounding them - with an expression that’s near unreadable…*

Lucifer: … I can call Lord Diavolo from here. What are your demands?

*there’s a sharp intake of breath from his brothers, not a one expecting him seemingly to back down so quickly*

Mammon: What?!

Asmo: Lucifer?? You can’t be serious!! *though his brothers are stunned, Lucifer doesn’t take his eyes off of Levi while still maintaining his stoic expression*

Lucifer: If this is the bed he wants to lie in, then so be it… 

*he and Levi glare at each other momentarily, before the other finally says something in response*

Levi: Tell your prince that I’ll start flooding Devildom within the next twenty minutes… If he hands over his territory willingly, then I’ll let him evacuate anyone living on it. Otherwise, it makes no difference to me.

Lucifer: If that’s really what you want… But Levi? *Lucifer waits until he has his full attention to make his point clear… His expression may have even softened some… Is it with worry? Maybe even disappointment?* 

Lucifer: Don’t do anything you may regret…

*Leviathan looks at him for a few seconds more, before turning his back to them entirely*

Levi: … You have my demands, don’t you? *as he starts to walk away, Lucifer says something else just barely loud enough for him to hear*

Lucifer: You’ve changed… Leviathan.

*for a split second, Levi’s steps falter… but he doesn’t stop nor turn back to respond*

Levi: I’m just who I need to be… Lucifer.

Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

[lesetoilesfous]

caning, forced to watch for kanders?

Fuuuuuuuuck this one killed me and was also very fun to write, thank you for the prompt!

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Prompt: Caning, Forced to Watch

Pairing: Kanders

Characters: Karl Thekla, Anders, Knight-Commander Greagoir

Warnings: Corporal Punishment, Child Abuse, Implied Sexual Abuse, Public Humiliation, Systematic Abuse, Graphic Depicition of Injury

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, there's some comfort here but I can never write a happy ending when they're still in the goddamn Circle, the Circles are awful.

Word Count: 3,759

It isn’t personal. Karl knows this isn’t about him. He knows, with a very specific kind of agony, that Greagoir has no idea that any of the apprentices currently gathering to sit on the shabby wooden seats assembled in a semi-circle in their dormitory would take this personally. He, like most of the templars in Kinloch, has long since fallen under the impression that no one in this blighted tower likes the young man tied with rough hemp rope to a wooden step ladder in the middle of the circle of chairs any more than they do. And Karl knows that isn’t true: not only because he loves the thin, bruised, frightened looking teenager trying to pull a brave face so much that he thinks he might risk tranquility just to get him out of here. He also knows it isn’t true because one of the six year olds looks like she’s about to burst into tears: the one Anders would climb into bed with and read stories to until she fell asleep without waking up to screaming nightmares. Karl knows it isn’t true because Angelique looks like she’s seriously considering giving up all the Orlesian courtesies she was governed in before she found her magic and setting Greagoir on fire. Karl knows it isn’t true, because little Surana looks like they’re contemplating blood magic.

But the templars have been good at understanding their wards.

A few of the apprentices, of course, giggle. There are red cheeks and flushed faces as elves and human children try to decide whether they’re supposed to avert their eyes. A wooden stepladder (borrowed from the tranquil’s storage closet, if Karl had to guess) is set up in the middle of about a hundred wooden chairs. One for every apprentice in this dormitory. Anders’ hands are tied to either side of the top of the ladder. The apprentices are giggling because his robes have been lifted and tucked into his belt, exposing his long, skinny legs (with a scattering of small round bruises in sets of five on his thighs that Karl doesn’t want to look at.) All of them are staring at the old grey smalls covering Anders’ arse, or trying to look away from them. So the teenagers are giggling, because they’ve never seen anything like this. The older kids and young adults look as if they’re about to attend a hanging. So do the younger apprentices. The pretty ones.

Anders’ jaw is tense, and he’s staring rigidly at the dull, grey, distant wall. Karl can tell how frightened he is because of how still he is. Anders is the kind of boy who never sits still: who’s always gesticulating when he speaks, or wriggling to sit in ever more improbable ways in his chair. Now, every part of him is motionless, his bound wrists frozen beneath fingers that are half curled over the old, paint-stained wood of the stepladder.

Knight-Commander Greagoir stands up, and the giggling stops like a head cut off by a meat cleaver. In the Knight-Commander’s hands is a long, thin wooden cane. Karl is having a hard time breathing.

He’d chosen not to sit at the front. He can’t decide if it was pragmatism or cowardice. He doesn’t want to watch this. He doesn’t want anyone to watch this. He doesn’t want it to be happening at all. But Karl knows that one of the few things worse than this is the templars finding out exactly how much he and Anders have begun to mean to each other: so much so that sometimes when they’re drawn together they flinch away on instinct, too frightened of what the scope of their feelings means for the remainder of their short lives in captivity. Karl can’t let any of the twenty or so templars in attendance, standing at regular intervals behind the gathered seats, know exactly how personally he’s about to take this. So he takes a seat in the middle of the crowd, and sits with his hands folded in his lap, and forces his gaze away from Anders and the purple bruise squashing his left eye shut.

“Apprentices.” Greagoir doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. It carries anyway, bouncing against the high stone walls and through the wide empty space. Karl hates him. He hates that he’s doing this here, where they sleep. He hates that when he goes to bed, when he dresses, when he needs a piss, he’s going to have to walk over this patch of floor and remember this. He hates that the smaller kids are going to have to walk over the stone that appears again and again in their dreams and nightmares. He hates that this will likely not be the worst thing he sees done, here.

“It has come to my attention that some of you believe there are no consequences for your actions.” Greagoir punctuates his sentence by slapping the cane in his hand lightly against his metal gauntlet. Several of the apprentices flinch. Karl feels his own shiver ripple through his shoulders and tenses so hard it hurts. Anders’ mouth pinches shut, so tightly his lips bleed white. “You think that you live in a land of extremes: that my men and I will either do nothing, or kill you. I would like to disabuse you of this notion.” Greagoir steps forward, towards the innermost ring of chairs around the ladder, and the apprentices who’d been unhappily forced into those seats when they found all the others filled lean back so fast their chairs creak. Greagoir’s expression doesn’t change.

“It is not our job to kill you. It is our job to protect you. From outside forces, yes. From demons, yes. But also from yourselves. You are not safe in the outside world, and the outside world can never be safe from you. We keep you here for your own good. We clothe you, feed you, educate you. We provide you with more luxury than most peasants could imagine in a lifetime.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Karl sees Samael frowning. The boy had been brought in from a family of twe in Amaranthine. He was, by all accounts, a boy from a life of deep poverty. But he rarely agrees with the templars when they weaponise it against him.

Greagoir gets closer to Anders, and Karl’s mind fills with a vivid, sudden vision of climbing onto his chair and running forward, through the crowd of apprentices, tackling the Knight-Commander to the ground and punching him until his face is bloody. But he doesn’t do that.

“In return, we ask only that you behave yourselves.” Greagoir points at Anders, so suddenly and so violently that several of the apprentices flinch again. Anders, for his part, noisily puffs a strand of hair out his face, and Karl nearly wants to cry. Greagoir’s mouth tightens in a thin, sour smile. “Anders thinks that misbehaving makes him interesting. He thinks it makes him brave, or heroic. He thinks that we are terrible villains, and he is a noble mage, and that he can make fools of myself and my men. But this is not the case. Anders, like all of you, is a child.” Greagoir gestures with the cane, and a Dalish girl who still hasn’t told them her name flinches back so fast her chair tips backward.

“He is a naughty, stupid, little boy. Not only is he a naughty, stupid, little boy - he’s a dangerous naughty, stupid, little boy. Like all of you, like all mages. He needs to be protected from himself. So I want all of you to watch this, and I want all of you to know that this is what happens to naughty children. It is not brave. It is not interesting. It is not heroic. It is foolish, and painful, and humiliating. And I will beat as many of you as I need to, to protect you and all of Fereldan from the far greater danger of mages, like Anders, who will do anything to be 'free'.”

Satisfied, Greagoir steps back and raises the cane. Karl is squeezing the wooden sides of his chair so hard he imagines he can feel it splintering. Tears prickle hotly at the backs of his eyes. Greagoir's hand falls in a swift slash of air and lands with a crack on Anders’ arse. Anders huffs a breath, but doesn’t make a sound. The cane rises again. No one is laughing now. Out of the corners of his eyes, Karl can see the way that every apprentice has become tense and still. His vision distorts like thick glass in a fishbowl. The children around him feel both very close and very far away. He feels as if he’s so close to Greagoir and Anders that he could breathe and touch them.

On the third strike, Anders makes a soft sound of pain, a bitten off grunt that they wouldn’t have heard if it wasn’t for the deathly silence that has fallen over every child in the eastern dormitory. On the fifth strike, Anders yelps - a sound so high and loud it’s almost like an animal. Karl forces himself to look at his face, then, and sees that it’s washed a furious, burning red, all the way to the tips of his ears. And Karl hates it and hates the Circle and hates Greagoir, for turning the gentle, intimate pinkness of Anders’ blush into something humiliating and awful. Karl can feel his magic roiling somewhere between his mind and the Fade like a building wave. Around him, he can feel the tension of the other apprentices' magic, too, as they try to control their fear and anger and embarrassment. It prickles over his skin like static electricity, pulling at the back of his neck.

When Greagoir strikes Anders a seventh time, Anders starts to cry. It’s a terrible, soft, huffing sound dragged from between his lips like a pulled tooth. Greagoir pants, his own cheeks beginning to flush red with exertion, and hits Anders three more times in quick succession. Anders writhes against the stepladder, and Karl notices for the first time that his ankles are tied to the base, too, with the same rough thick hemp rope, which has already begun to rub his skin red and raw. Karl drags his eyes up Anders’ bare, bruised legs and swallows hot, sour bile in the back of his throat when he notices the lines of red that are beginning to spot through the fabric of Anders’ smalls.

Greagoir hits Anders a tenth time, and Anders keens, tossing his head, his nose running, snot mixing with a mess of tears on his red cheeks. Anders' legs and arms are shaking, now, and every time Greagoir hits him he cries out, trying to flinch away from the blow. The stepladder shakes, creaking with the force of Anders’ struggling against the ropes. One of the younger children, Matthias, starts to wail. One row behind him, Karl can sees Angelique crying, silently, her face a mask of polite neutrality.

Greagoir gives Anders fifteen strikes, and by the time he’s done blood is running in droplets down his legs like a monthly bleed. Anders hangs his head, hair falling forward mercifully to cover his face, and shakes, sobbing against the ladder. Greagoir holds the cane between his hands, the wood red with Anders’ blood. “Let this be a lesson to you all.”

Then he turns, and leaves. All of the apprentices remain frozen in their chairs, unsure of whether they can move. But one of the templars - Drass, steps forward and unties Anders brusquely from the ladder. Anders slumps, crumpling to the ground and making a soft sound of pain when he lands on his arse. Drass looks up at the assembled crowd, looping the ropes neatly around his gauntlets. “I’ll need a volunteer to take this ladder back to Owain, and another to take him to the clinic.”

Angelique gets to her feet. “I’ll take the ladder. Karl, do you mind taking him to the clinic?”

Karl nearly passes out with relief. As it is, he makes a mental note to ask Anders to kiss Angelique for him, later, and stumbles forward on numb, clumsy feet to where the love of his life is curled up, bleeding on the floor. Because he couldn’t volunteer, couldn’t find the neutrality to say anything without giving himself away. But Angelique had done it for him. Karl crouches, and gently slips his hands under Anders’ arms, lifting him easily (too easily, it’s always too easy to lift him, a boy this tall shouldn’t be this light.) Anders blinks up at him, eyes red and puffy, lip bitten through, swelling and bloody for it, hair clinging haphazardly to his cheeks and chin.

“Thekla?”

Karl wants to hold him. He wants to hold him, and kiss him, and tell him nothing like this is ever going to happen again. But he can feel Drass’ eyes on him, so doesn’t do any of those things. He waits until Anders drags his feet under him, and slings his arm over his shoulders, and tugs his robes loose of his belt to cover his legs with a wave of relief so strong it nearly incapacitates him. Anders shudders as he’s fully clothed again, and Karl wants to stop, and apologise, but instead he gently tugs him towards the door. Anders limps with every step.

*

Wynne doesn’t heal him. She explains, curtly, that she’d been instructed by Greagoir not to erase a painful lesson with magical healing. Karl had explained, loudly, that Anders could hardly learn the lesson if he died of infection or blood loss. At that, Wynne had given him a pot of ointment and gauze and told him to leave. Karl had, face burning with the force of anger. Anders hadn’t said anything throughout, which was making Karl’s hurt do worried somersaults. Slowly, limping, they’d walked back downstairs towards one of the apprentice bathrooms. Hadley was on duty, at least, and gave them both an apologetic, embarrassed smile, averting his gaze to the side of the bathtub as Karl helped Anders undress and get inside. Anders had said nothing throughout, his brown eyes unfocused and his breathing shallow.

He’d only come back into himself when Karl had picked up a rag with one arm under Anders’ almost concave belly to support him, Anders’ ribs sticking sharply into his forearm. Karl had stared at the series of haphazard, angular weals and welts cut into Anders skin in deep, angry purple and red lines. His skin was more bruise than anything else, painted yellow and green, covered in dried lines of blood. Karl had suddenly found that he couldn’t move, kneeling beside the iron bathtub, rag in hand. That was when Anders had come back, hand squeezing his forearm. Karl had looked up, and realised that his chin and the stubble that kept growing there no matter how often he shaved, was damp with tears. Anders hadn’t touched his face - couldn’t, with Hadley watching, no matter how nice he was. His eyes were hollow and dark with anger and a terrible, wounded sort of fear. But his long fingers had dug deeply into Karl’s forearm, squeezing it hard.

“It’s alright.”

Karl nods. He doesn’t say, it’s not alright. He doesn’t say, it’s never going to be alright. Instead, he dips his hand in the bathwater, coaxing heat into it with his magic, and gently begins dabbing at the dried blood. Anders’ breath hitches every time he touches the cuts, and by the time Karl’s finished the water’s pink and Anders is crying almost silently in soft, coughing hiccoughs. Hadley’s mouth is turned down in an unhappy frown, but he stands ramrod straight against the wall in front of the bathtubs, watching them. Gently, Karl helps Anders get out of the bathtub, drying him off and helping him get dressed before walking him back towards his bunk bed.

Jowan is gone - probably off trailing after Surana like a lost puppy. Karl doesn’t really care, he’s just grateful there isn’t someone immediately above them to watch as helps Anders lie on his front. The apprentices in the beds nearby skitter away from them like frightened sparrows as soon as they get close, and Karl can’t find the energy to apologise to them for it. Anders’ bed smells like soap and old rags and ink, and his pillow is stained with decades of other apprentices. He lies down on the thin mattress, and Karl kneels on the stone beside the bed, gesturing to the robes over Anders’ legs.

“I need to put on the ointment.” He says, and wishes he was better with words.

Anders huffs, turning to look at him with one brown eye that’s almost yellow in the shadow of the bunk bed. “You don’t need to ask. It’s not as if everyone hasn’t seen it, anyway.”

Karl freezes, breath hitching in his throat. “Anders -”

Anders buries his head in his arms, and his voice is muffled when he speaks. “Just do it.”

Karl’s stomach flips. But he gently lifts the robe above Anders’ legs and pulls down his smalls, his mind loud with uncomfortable recollections of more precious moments - like the first time he’d undressed him, like this, and the way they’d both blushed, and the sound of Anders’ sighs when...Karl swallows, and his fingers touch the scattering of bruises dug into Anders’ thighs. He doesn’t say anything, though he looks up at the back of Anders’ head and the tangled hair there. Anders doesn’t move, and doesn’t say anything, so Karl grimaces and unscrews the lid of the ointment. The salve inside is thick and white and sticky. It smells bitter and astringent, and when Karl dips his fingers inside it tingles against his skin like peppermint. He pauses, pulling the blanket in a tent over Anders’ arse and legs in an awkward attempt at preserving his dignity.

“This might hurt a bit.”

Anders grunts, fingers crushing the thin pillow beneath his head, face still buried in his arms. “I’ll live.”

Karl nods, and gently begins to dab the ointment against the deeper cuts. Some of them are so deep that the skin around them is peeling back, pulling them wider open. The ointment fills the deep red wounds, shiny against the purple and blackening skin. Occasionally, Anders flinches, and every time he does Karl stops until Anders nods, quietly murmuring, “Ok”, with a hoarse voice. When he’s done, Karl feels like he’s run a marathon, wiping his fingers clean with a rag and pulling Anders’ smalls back up and his robes down over his legs before covering him with the blanket.

The mage lights in the dormitory are darkening, heralding curfew, and a queue of some twenty or so apprentices is waiting outside the western bathrooms. Everyone is paired up. You learned quickly not to bathe on your own, no matter how nice the templar in the bathing area was. Karl knew Anders, at least, had learned that the hard away. The dormitory is full of apprentices yawning and talking quietly - a few sitting up beside candles squinting at their parchment as they try to finish their homework. But the dormitory is also strangely hushed, utterly devoid of the occasional laughter that usually peppered the evenings as everyone came back from classes. No one has forgotten Greagoir’s lesson, yet, and Karl doubts they will for a while.

He knows he only has twenty minutes or so before the apprentices in the beds around Anders’ get back from bathing. He doesn’t care. He adjusts himself on the floor, and leans as close to Anders as he dares - watching the templars that line the distant walls like living statues, or gargoyles. “I want to kill him.”

Anders startles, sitting up with a wince and looking around at the templars himself before staring at Karl with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “You can’t say that!”

Karl meets Anders’ eyes, and lets him see all the anger he’s been trying to keep hidden. “I would. I’d do it in a second. I don’t care if they make me tranquil. Send me to Aeonar, even.” Karl lifts his chin, and tries to ignore the shivering fear in his chest as he says the words. “I’d do it.”

On the bed above him, Anders' pinched, narrow features soften. “I’d never forgive you.”

Karl blinks, and isn’t sure why that makes him want to cry, suddenly. “How d’you think I feel?”

Anders slumps, pursing his lips as his brows draw up, glancing furtively to either side before moving his hand under his blankets to squeeze Karl’s fingers at the edge of the mattress. Karl shifts closer, moving so his body is hiding their joined hands. “M’sorry. Must have been shit, to watch that.”

Karl chokes. “It must have been shit to experience.”

Anders’ fingers tighten reflexively around his, and he’s quiet for a moment. “I can’t imagine, watching them do that to you. I think I’d have set this whole blighted place on fire.”

“I wanted to.” Karl admits, leaning heavily against the thin wooden frame of Anders’ bed. There’s all sorts of graffiti on it - mostly templars and mages in ever more crude positions. And initials. Something in Tevene, Nolite te bastardes carbonodorum. Karl swipes his thumb over the back of Anders’ hand, stroking it softly. “I can stay here, tonight, if you want me to.”

Anders’ mouth trembles. “No, you can’t.”

Karl swallows against the thick lump in his throat, watching the queue of apprentices dwindle by the bathing area. One of the templars at the other end of the dormitory has already begun bedtime checks - lifting open apprentice’s clothing crates for perfunctory searches and ushering students still working to bed. “I want to.”

Anders’ expression softens, and his fingers flex in Karl’s hand. “I know.” He glances at the templars - still forty feet away - and leans forward to press a quick, clumsy kiss to Karl’s temple, before letting go of his hand like he’s been burned. “Go to bed, Thekla. I’ll be fine.”

For several seconds, Karl sits there, skin burning where Anders had kissed him, hand numb with the ghost of him. Anders gives him a small, shy smile and Karl returns it despite the way his heart is trying to tear itself into pieces. He gets up, and stretches his cramped legs, and starts walking the long way back to his bed in the middle of the dormitory. He doesn’t say anything.

The words sit heavily on his tongue, anyway, unspoken. No, you won’t.

[echo-three-one]

Whatever It Takes

Sequel to A Forgotten Memory

Roach's stealth skills are put to the test as he sneaks past an alleged Augustus base to capture him and gather intel about the recent EMP based attacks. Will Roach be able to impress Captain Price?

Previous Chapter : Soap - Experiment 001

Chapter 9 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

"A SurPRICE Visit"

Gary 'Roach' Sanderson

Task Force 141

400 meters outside Augustus' Mountain Base

Germany

The winds were picking up when they landed and Roach flew about a few more meters away from Price.

"This EMP blast is messing with my signals. Captain, can you find Roach?" Ghost spoke over comms, his voice crumbled over the static.

"He landed not too far from me. Come on boy, let's get a head on." Price replied to Ghost as he helped Gary get up and untangle himself from his mess. Gary nodded and followed his Captain into the edge of the mountain.

"There it is. Augustus' base." he mused as Gary scoped through his supressed silencer. Trucks were leaving the area filled with armed hostiles.

"Ghost, you see this? They're leaving the hive." Price informed the recon man.

"Aye, sir. Looks like they're headed to Alex's direction. If we time this right you'll have less people inside there." he replied. Gary wondered why they were leaving. It didn't make sense to back-up an already reclaimed base back at Alex's.

"Let's go Roach. I'll take the one on the left tower, you take the one on the right. I'm currently spotting four Tangos by the gate. Fire when ready." Price instructed. Roach took a deep breath to steady his sights, quickly pulling the trigger once the crosshairs aligned with their heads.

"Good kill. Your sniper skills are improving, Sargeant." Price mused as he signaled them to move forward. For a Captain who's left him a solid first impression as a strict angryman, Roach didn't expect the kind words from him. It almost felt overwhelming.

"You go ahead and take what's important inside that guardhouse. I'll cover you from this position." he commanded and Gary sprung safely into action, switching to his suppressed pistol and into the guardhouse.

It was simple, a few cameras, some photos of people who they let in and a few map layouts. Gary quickly snapped all of them for Ghost to see. Roach also grabbed the radio and placed it near his ear. Gary set his sights on an AK-47 lying on the ground.

"Roach, be careful when using unsuppressed weapons. It might reveal our existence." Price muttered to which he nodded. It just made sense.

"Jäeger, kopierst du?" the radio muttered. Roach's German wasn't on point and any non-reply from the other end would result in an investigation.

"Ja, alles klar." he replied, trying to replicate the accent. There was no more reply on the other side which meant Gary actually nailed his reply.

"Captain, behind that door is heavily guarded. I suggest a reroute to the back door just a few meters east of your position. This isn't Augustus' base, it's a remote research facility studying plant life by the border and he seemed to take it over." Ghost informed after gathering the photos, Gary waited on the edge of the wall covering his Captain's six. The duo proceeded as suggested and climbed over an unguarded fence.

"We're at a greenhouse. Labeled 6." Price whispered.

"Do you see any cameras?" Ghost asked.

"Yeah. Looking at the plants." he muttered.

"Circle around it and find cover behind the safehouse labeled 5. If my German is correct, the central area should have 2 scientists on their way in there." Ghost informed.

"Right on schedule." Price nodded to Roach as they both knocked them down quietly and non-lethally as they were civilians. Gary quickly slung his weapon and hid it behind the huge white lab coat the both of them now wore.

"Keep your weapons hidden, until I say so. Okay?" Price said as he pulled the bodies somewhere hidden. Gary nodded as they confidently waltzed inside the base, using their fake ids pinned on their coats for entry.

Gary watched a lot of sci-fi fics and most of them depicted labs as white walled, glass-divided rooms with hundreds of scientists working on some random machineries. Except here, it's plants. It seemed normal as if they infiltrated the wrong base. Price seemed to worry too, his steps were further apart and he seemed to be in a hurry. They were losing hope on a lead, until one armed guard, different from those outside started climbing up the stairs.

"Finally. Some good news." Price muttered as they made their way up the stairs.

"Authorized personnel only." an armed guard stood by the steps blocking the duos way. It was too crowded and too risky to engage him and press through and they both needed a new plan.

"Es tut mir leid." Gary replied as he pulled Price to the restrooms.

"It's no use. We can't go guns ablazing right here." he noted to his Captain.

"Bollocks." he cursed.

"We need a diversion." He added.

"Way ahead of you, Sir." Gary smirked and showed him his c4 trigger, pushed it and an explosion followed.

"Nice. By the guard house?" Price asked while they waited for reinforcements to assist the blast.

"Yeah."

"Quick thinking lad. I like that."

Several armed men came rushing down the stairs, yelling in a different language, all going to the exit. They stomped to the stairs and carefully breached the second floor of the building, shooting armed tangos using suppressed weapons. They had to act fast and stomp on their comms as soon as they're down so that the others outside will not fall back.

Ten guards were left behind to protect the second floor, and with the help of stealth, Gary and Price took them out smoothly. All that's left are the intel waiting to be harvested.

Gary snapped all possible evidence, every nook and cranny was investigated while Price tapped his heavy fingers on the keyboard.

"Looks like they're going large. They're planting something by the major cities cell towers. Here's one in Berlin." he muttered, printing a copy of the blueprints.

"Price! R-ch" Ghost's static crackled across their comms.

"Th- found- guards!

Get. Out. There. NOW." he added.

"Kill every civilian in there. That will let our little friends out of the shadows. I know they're after us…" a menacing voice said over Roach's stolen receiver.

"Shite. They're killing civvies." Gary said, worried.

"I'm sorry Roach. But we can't save them. It's a trap. Now protect that camera and let's get the fuck out of here." Price consoled as they continued pressing on toward the exit.

Screaming people followed by gunshots echoed across the white halls of the research facility, Gary didn't want to look back, Gary didn't want to hear any more screaming but it was all around him. Whoever commanded this act to be done must be eradicated from this world.

LOCAL MILITIA SETTLEMENT

Alex greeted the duo as soon as they stepped inside the village. It felt lively as everyone was celebrating their victory.

"Captain." Alex nodded and Price returned the gesture with a handshake.

"This is Blitz. Their leader." he added, introducing the man to Price.

"Thank you for helping us." Price acknowledged.

"No. Thank you for helping us. You have good men fighting for a good cause." he remarked, nodding at Alex and Gary. Gary also got acquainted with the leader, exchanged a few words and got offered soup.

"Tough day, huh?" Alex nudged over Gary, who's still sad about the situation earlier.

"You and me, both." Gary muttered as Alex patted his shoulder.

"We'll get him soon enough, Roach. Justice will be served." Alex consoled as Gary took a deep sigh.

"They're planting EMP bombs on major cell towers. Maybe incorporating it with them to perform large scale blasts." Gary pondered, taking a sip off the delicious soup.

"Yeah. That's our go signal. It's now a terror activity. Imagine a day without communication. International trade would crumble." Alex explained to which Gary nodded in agreement.

"Global cripple. People's minds get hurt, Economy gets hurt and we aren't focused enough to defend ourselves."

"That's what he's up to." Gary finished.

"And we have to stop it. Whatever It Takes." Alex looked at Gary with determination, that kind of pep talk that makes him a little less sad.

"Yeah." Gary agreed.

~

Another briefing, but this time, it was going somewhere. Operation Burn, the task is to eliminate Nero and all his allies, if possible. Funny enough, the real Nero burned everyone else. Whoever thought of this name was smart enough to connect the dots.

There's another person added to the team, the redhead leather jacket agent, Alexandra Ryder. An interpol agent tasked to destroy all traces of said EMP machinery. She looks tough, acts tough and basically is tough. France seemed to be going along well with her. That's a bonus for alliances such as these.

"So, I heard Price noted your sniper improvement." Ghost nudged.

"Yeah. Thanks Simon. Your training sucks but it helped a lot." Gary complimented.

"Tried talking to France and the new girl today." Ghost reported. Gary turned to him, clearly interested about his story.

"It was actually good. They're both intimidated by the mask and that's why they can't initiate conversation with me. But the talk went pretty well so I guess you needed to update your scoreboard or something." He muttered.

Gary chuckled. "That's one step towards her."

"I'll let the Interpol handle Berlin. Since it involves just the weapon, as for other news. I think it's time to transfer our two hostages back to the USA." Gary quickly turned his head back to the screen. No. It can't be. He had to stop this decision.

"With all due respect sir. I do not agree with this!" Gary stood up and all eyes were on him. He's still concerned about the welfare of the two plus he didn't want Maxine to leave. Not yet.

"I've read the report on their case sir. And it's not that I don't trust the system there but what if there's still another one in there with ties to Nero. He was able to slip by under our noses once or more times than that but let's consider the possibilities here." Gary explained as he looked around. Alex seemed to agree with him.

Shepherd let out a soft sigh.

"We'll discuss this possibility Sgt. Sanderson. You can sit down now." he said and resumed briefing.

"Brave move you did there, soldier." Ghost remarked as Gary let out a sigh. He wasn't sure on he's really concerned, the IP Address being extracted from Samantha or Maxine's smile that he will be missing if she left.

Next Chapter : The Heart Knows what the Brain doesn't

Notification Squad, my beloved

@samatedeansbroccoli @smokeywhalee @whimsywispsblog @enderio @beemybee @ricinbach

[theoriginalladya]

(also. if you ever felt inclined to write a group hug. i'd be first in line to flail all over it)

from this prompt list

On AO3 here

Ask, my dear (and you always ask so nicely!!!) and you shall receive!!!!!  Enjoy!  

(also, you may have seriously helped me sort out a big part of their story with this prompt!!! THANK YOU!!!)   (under cut because it got long)

TW:  description of battle, blood mention

Translations at the end.

~~~~~

“Shit!”

The exclamation is the only warning Shepard receives before Vega ducks down behind cover next to him, his large bulk hunching in on itself as much as it can so it provides a minimal target.  That the ‘minimal target’ is now positioned right next to Shepard and puts him in danger as well, is completely beside the point.  It’s why they pay us the big bucks, right?  Out of instinct, he reaches over and pushes Vega’s head down just a little bit lower.  

The lieutenant takes it all in stride as the firefight continues around them.  “Hehehe, thanks jefe.”

“Not a problem, Vega. I watch out for my team.”  Their eyes meet; Shepard sees the glitter of determination of his reflected in the younger man’s.  “All of them.”  No one left behind, is more than just the four words themselves.

An explosion nearby shakes the walls and results in both men ducking lower for a good thirty seconds.  Slowly, Shepard lifts his head, peering over the top edge of cover, so he can he survey the battlefield.  A flash of bluish white energy from at least a hundred feet away starts in his direction; he retreats quickly while shouting, “Kaidan!”  The ball of energy flies over his head, barely missing the top; a deep grunt of indignation escapes his throat as he lands hard on his ass. Beside him, Vega shifts awkwardly in the cramped space.

“Kind of busy at the moment, commander!”

“Light me up, dammit!” Shepard shouts back.  Several moments pass without a response.  “I’m not being unreasonable here, Alenko!”

Vega moves to a crouching position and lays a wave of suppressive fire across the space.  Shepard pushes to his feet, keeping below the top edge as much as possible, this time peering around the side of cover.  Kaidan is off to the left, currently in the middle of what would look like hand-to-hand fighting to the uninitiated, but in reality, is just a bit more complicated, utilizing hand-to-hand techniques but with powerful biotics moves.  Flashes and flares of mass energy shoot out from them as their biotics connect, and from this position, it’s impossible to see who has the advantage.  It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before; then again, since arriving at this facility, that’s pretty much been the Cerberus approach.

With one last, heaving effort, Kaidan pulls his arm back as if to punch the person, but with a loud, growling roar a wave of energy flies from his hand as he thrusts it forward. The resultant explosion throws his opponent about twenty feet away where they hit a wall, crumple, and fall into an unmoving heap on the floor. 

There are still targets on the field that need removal, but many of them are worn down and this is his job.  Under normal circumstances, Kandra assists him in the process, lighting up each target for him so when he charges into them, they go down instantly or within seconds of his arrival.  It’s not a perfect tactic by any means, but effective in reducing numbers quickly, and it’s certainly an unexpected tactic, most of the time, anyway.

But Kandra has been missing for almost a week now along with three of Kaidan’s biotic spec ops people.  It’s taken that long to trace them here; as near as he can figure, being held hostage somewhere within this facility.  But that does him little good now, so he has to rely on Kaidan to light up his targets; sadly, a less efficient system when his skills and Alliance training are far better utilized in other ways.

That doesn’t mean Kaidan isn’t helping.  Not at all. The major turns, dark eyes connecting with Shepard’s briefly, and Shepard can see the toll it’s taking. Anger in Kaidan is … unusual to see first-hand, and intimidating as all hell if you’re on the receiving end of it, but it’s easy to understand the source.  Shepard nods at Kaidan while shifting his balance so he can move the instant the first target lights up.  

Barely is the wave of energy released from Kaidan’s fingers when Shepard starts forward.  His hand starts tracing the mnemonic even before he moves, and by the time he hits his third step, the world around him speeds up into a blur of motion as he shoots forward at full throttle.  The instant he connects, he’s looking for the next target to repeat the process.  And again.  And again.

At the end of the hall, no fewer than six more Cerberus troops lie on the ground, incapacitated. Kaidan hurries over to join Shepard while Vega brings up the rear, pausing by each target taken down just to make sure.  Any hint of a breath and he shoots, just once in the head.  It’s enough; these troops won’t ever see the light of day again, nor will they stop their retreat once the mission objective is obtained.

“Which way?” Kaidan asks as they rejoin at the T-intersection.

Shepard nods to their right.  “Floor plans say the heart of the facility is this way.  That’s my guess.”

Vega snorts softly. “Well, what are we waiting for, Loco? Let’s get moving.”

~~~~~

Hall by hall, they clear their way deeper into the facility.  The other teams, including the one with Emilio and Konstantin, are moving in from other directions; all teams have the same goal: reach the heart of the facility, find Kandra and the other spec ops personnel.  As they move, however, it’s becoming increasingly clear this place needs to be destroyed at all costs.  They might be able to do that on the way out, but the primary objective doesn’t change.  

The arrive at a door set back off the hallway in a recessed alcove and secured from the opposite side.  Kaidan drops to his knee and pulls up his hacking program.  James and Shepard stand off to each side, prepared to give fire support if necessary.  The minutes tick by, the air grows thick with tension.  Finally, Kaidan rises and steps back, in the process raising his biotic barrier field as he nods at Shepard but says nothing.  Shepard uses hand signals to communicate now, and they open the door and slip through.

The doorway leads into a short hallway that quickly opens into a much larger area … that is filled with signs of battle, but not directed at them.  No one in here, it seems, is even aware of their arrival.

“What the hell?”

Vega’s whispered exclamation registers fully with Shepard.  “Agreed, lieutenant.”  He glances over his shoulder at Kaidan whose gaze is focused solely ahead of them … and intently.  Shepard frowns.  “What is it?”

Kaidan’s shoulders tense and his biotic corona flares around his entire body; this isn’t his barrier field, this is something different, something raw, a reaction to what, Shepard doesn’t know, but he recognizes the difference and follows his lead. As he does, he closes his eyes and focuses…

“А щоб твоя дружинонька з кумом повелася!”**

He doesn’t understand the words, but he’s heard the language and that tone enough at this late date to know it can mean only one thing, and that’s not good.  He steps to the side and pushes Kaidan ahead of him and Vega.  “You take lead.  Now!”

As they near the opening, it’s easier to get a grasp on the scene before them.  The room is some sort of … medical amphitheater, set lower in the center of the room with what looks to be an operating table in the middle surrounded by surgical paraphernalia.  Three bodies in scrubs lie on the floor, unmoving.  Three more currently hurl mass effect fields at one another across the room from various points, changing position in between. One of those figures stands just to their left.  Dressed in some sort of hospital gown, her corona flaring so high Michael wonders that she doesn’t overclock her amp in the process despite being L2.  

Kandra Alenko, both hands raised, one aimed at either of the two remaining targets, lashes out angrily at her opponents using two separate waves of energy while bellowing a roar that would put any lion to shame.  “А бодай тебе чорти вхопили!”**

The three men rush into the space immediately.  Kaidan makes a bee-line for his twin, while James drops to a knee and without hesitation, takes aim at the person to their far right, unloading his weapon on them.  Shepard, spying the last target directly across the room and conveniently ‘lit up,�� charges over, a feral grin curling at his lips.

It doesn’t take much effort to bring these last two opponents down between Shepard’s biotics and Vega’s bullets.  When all is said and done, both reconvene with Kaidan who kneels on the floor with a collapsed Kandra in his arms.  “She’s overdone it,” he says in a voice that’s tight with concern as he looks up at Shepard.

“’m fine,” Kandra mutters, curling in toward her brother and tucks her head onto his shoulder.

But not before Shepard notices the blood trickling down from her nose and her ear.  Jabbing an arm in the direction of the lower level, he orders, “Vega, get something we can stop the bleeding with!”  He turns back to Kandra and reaches out to push some of her dark hair back from the left side of her face.  That’s when he notices more blood matted near her implant scar. Carefully, he points it out to Kaidan who pulls off his gauntlet and gently prods at the area.  “Kan?”

She winces, biting back a cry of pain unsuccessfully, and curls tighter to him.  “Don’t … please!”

He pulls his hand back.  “What happened?”

She mutters something unintelligible and slides her arm around his shoulder as he stands up, bringing her with him.  “Lean against me if you feel dizzy,” he says softly, holding her in place at his side as he sets her feet on the floor.  

She wobbles a moment and doesn’t bother to nod, simply rests her head against his shoulder. Vega runs over with a sheet from the operating table below and hands it to Shepard who takes it and rips off a portion of it, handing that over to Kaidan.  Kandra, however, reaches out and snatches it from her twin’s fist, lifting it to her face.  Several minutes pass in silence, during which James starts to pace and prowl around the room, eventually retracing their steps to the doorway, presumably to keep an eye on things outside of the room.  As quiet as it is inside here now, it’s easy to forget they’re in enemy territory and the battle still rages elsewhere.

Assured Kaidan has the situation with his sister under control, Shepard follows after the lieutenant. His agitated state is obvious. Walking up next to him, Shepard asks, “You okay?”

The lieutenant mutters something in Spanish Shepard doesn’t understand, but if his tone of voice means anything at all, it isn’t complimentary in the least.  “Yeah, jefe, I’m good.”  Vega looks back at the twins, watches for a moment, then shakes his head and mutters again.  “What the hell, man?  This shit’s so fucked up!”

Shepard nods his agreement with the assessment.  “Not sure yet, but I’ve got an idea.  Hopefully, Kandra will be able to tell us something.”  A burst of static burns over his comms, but nothing intelligible comes across so he doesn’t try to return it.  He looks over at Vega.  “She’s not going to be in a good place coming out of this, you know.”

Vega’s eyes meet his and for the first time, Shepard sees something hard, glittering there. It’s startling; it’s also clear it isn’t just because she’s a part of their group, it’s more than that.  James’ eyes trail back one more time in the direction of the siblings.  “Yeah, I know.”

The soft shuffle of padding footsteps nearing them has him turning toward the twins.  Kandra still looks a bit dazed, but if the grim determination and fiery spark in her eyes means anything, and Shepard knows from experience it does, it won’t be there much longer.  “We need to get you better clothing than that,” he says, nodding at the hospital style gown she wears with the rest of the sheet Vega had retrieved tied around her.  

“It’s not far,” she informs him.  “Through those doors and to the right.”  

Shepard nods once, watches as she visibly shakes her head as if clearing it, before releasing her hold on her brother.  It brings her to her full height, just at Kaidan’s shoulder.  All three men straighten as if standing at attention, each recognizing in their own way just how strong and resolute she is.  This isn’t the same woman who walked out of Vancouver with them just months ago.  Shepard meets her gaze head on and she seems startled for a moment when he opens his arms to her, inviting her in closer.  A half-second passes when a small smile finally appears at her lips.  As he wraps his arms around her, she murmurs, “Thank you.”

“For what?”  

“For coming to get … me.”  

None of them say anything about the crack in her voice.  Shepard’s arms tighten around her and Kaidan moves in and wraps his around the both of them.  “No one gets left behind,” Shepard insists quietly in her hair, repeating what he’d told Vega just a short while ago.  “You’re as much a part of this squad as we are.  Understand that?”

Kandra’s head rises and she looks at him, then her twin, and then over at James who stands awkwardly to the side.  Her eyes soften just a bit and she reaches a hand out, grasping him by his belt and tugging him into the group hug.  “Yeah,” she tells them as she slides her arm around his waist and he wraps his around her shoulders, “I get it.”

~~~~~ 

**А щоб твоя дружинонька з кумом повелася  - Wish your wife had an affair with your kids’ God father.

**А бодай тебе чорти вхопили  - May devils grab you.

[prongsisabadger]

TWP Chapter 26

Turns out having no intel on something didn't mean it wasn't there, just like Cody had pointed out. So having no reports on weaponry in the southern hemisphere didn't mean there wasn't any. Getting through the blockade was hard enough, the 212th lost two gunships and the 501st lost one. That was almost a hundred men we had lost even before landing. I tried my best not to think about it and to close myself off the Force so as not to feel their pain, their agony, their sadness and anger. I held onto the overhead handle even tighter, closing my eyes and forcing myself to breathe even more deeply. Then, I steeled my resolve. They would not die for nothing. I opened my eyes to see T.H. looking at me, he tilted his head as the gunship shook from a nearby explosion. He wondered if I was okay. I looked right into his visor with determination and nodded sharply.

The pilot announced we were two minutes away from the landing site. The blast doors opened and the men retrieved their blasters from where they had been hanging on the ceiling. I had been assigned a single platoon. That was four teams of nine, thirty six men, thirty six lives that were mine to protect. Thirty six soldiers that were mine to lead. The LAAT/i shook one last time as we touched down and the light turned green as the doors opened.

Master Kenobi had already landed with the ground assault troops, and Master Skywalker was right behind me with the tanks and heavy weaponry. We got to work immediately, setting a perimeter and securing it as the rest of the gunships and equipment arrived. We knew we had a limited window of time before the seppies sent their ground forces to try and take us down, so we decided on sending our patrols early.

I did disagree with the plan, we had not been expecting fire this heavy when we first came up with the it, separating our forces now would be suicide. Even more so when we had a single company trying to make a dent in a planet that was already occupied. But I was outnumbered, the mission was to take as much of Felucia as we could before the rest of our forces arrived and the fastest way to do that was to spread out. Master Kenobi understood my reluctance and told me it was not a decision they made lightly, even if it looked like it to me. The entire GAR was being spread past its capacities and we were not the only ones who seemed to be going into a blaster fight with a single bioblade. But orders were orders, and I could only bend the rules so far when it came to protecting the troops' lives. Ahsoka was given the western patrol and I was in charge of the eastern. We each took a platoon and, in no time, we departed.

True to their word, T.H. Waxer and Boil flanked me as we made our way through the Felucian forest. I did my best to expand my awareness of the terrain through the force, feeling any disturbances within the flora or fauna that may give away the presence of droids. Things were quiet, a little too quiet for my liking. It wasn't that I believed we would be jumped upon by droids any time, no. It was the kind of trepidation where you can feel something bad is about to happen, but not to you.

"I want someone monitoring comm chatter, I have a feeling we'll be needed back at central." I said out loud, knowing someone would take the directive.

I could feel the clones' reluctance to leave command with so few troops to guard them, and I understood. I felt the same way. Being sent on a planetary invasion with a single company was suicide, just like the mission to Teth had been. Rex -from what little he had told me- didn't look back on the battle with much joy.

Time passed differently on each mission. The Abregado system was crystal clear in my mind's eye. Christophsis had gone by way too quickly, as if I had been in a fever dream. Orto Plutonia had been a strange mixture between slow motion and real time, some things I remember very clearly and others are a complete blur. This mission seemed like it was going extremely slowly, as if my mind was trying to have me remember everything from the color of the plants to the sound of the soil beneath my boots. I guessed it all depended on how my psyche decided to process the situations I'd been through, but a humanoid's brain was a curious thing for sure.

I sent two teams out -one to the north and one to the south- to set up the marker beacons that would make up our perimeter. Each team would set the beacons within a two click range from our current position and then return. Once that had been accomplished, we would be going back to central to, hopefully, receive the rest of the invasion forces. Meanwhile, the remaining teams and I decided to scout ahead for possible enemies.

As it turns out, we found two probe droids lurking around, which -fortunately- had not seen us before we took them down. For the first time in quite some time, our mission had been completed without any casualties or wounded, and every threat we had found had been neutralized. The two teams I had sent out came back in one piece, they had both completed their assignment and one of them reported to have taken down yet another probe.

This concerned me a little, if there were so many probes in this area, it meant the seppies were scouting the area for something. One of the possibilities was that they had been trying to establish a safe route towards central in order to box us in. But at this point it was all speculation. Now, we just needed to go back and reinforce the other two platoons that had been left with the Masters.

"I'm not saying this to try and test Murphy's Law, but I don't like it when things are this quiet." Said one of the troopers behind me. And I couldn't agree more. Even when I had expanded my awareness of our surroundings and had kept it that way the entire time, things were too quiet.

"Me neither, trooper, so look alive, I think things will definitely get more interesting whether we like it or not." I answered. "We'll report the probes as soon as we get there. There were too many for my liking."

"Yes, Commander."

…

"Three hours," I yelled, taking cover from the tank fire we were receiving. "I leave you alone for three hours and I come back to this?"

My men spread out to reinforce the perimeter central had created. The floor was hot alright, Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker had been attacked from the north, as I had expected and were now trying to fight off wave after wave of battle droids.

"Spare me the lecture, Kriari, did your troops complete the mission?" He asked deflecting blaster fire with his lightsaber.

I huffed, having lost my patience.

"Of course we did, we found three probes as well, which is not good. I think they were scouting for a safe route here." I said adjusting my position and the grip on my own lightsaber. "I think we'll be outflanked in no time, and I do reserve the right to say 'I told you so' when it happens."

As if on cue, the comlink on my wrist started beeping. I had made it a habit to wear the earpiece at all times, so when I pressed the blinking button, I was the only one that heard what Boil had to report.

"Better call off the invasion and ask for reinforcements instead, Master." I said moving in front of a trooper to shield him from a stray blast. "The marker beacons to the south east picked up at least two droid battalions headed our way."

I thought I heard him curse under his breath, but I couldn't be sure. Master Kenobi didn't strike me as someone who would lose his temper over something like this, but we all had our bad days, and this one had certainly not been a good one. We were sustaining very heavy fire, and the tanks we had brought didn't seem to be enough to make a dent in enemy ranks. I covered Master Kenobi as he retreated to make the call, we all knew we wouldn't make it out of Felucia if we didn't get reinforcements or an extraction team.

I continued to serve as a shield to the troopers while they fired on the droids. there was such an amount of them that it seemed the battle would never end. Lines upon lines of shiny yellow battle droids kept advancing as we tried to make a dent. Behind me, Waxer, Boil and T.H. fired round after round and their concentration was such that they didn't even have the time to curse, yell or even complain about the entire situation.

"All done, an extraction team will be here soon," Said my Master, retaking his position and activating his lightsaber. "Where is Ahsoka?"

Right, Ahsoka. I hadn't been in contact with her since we left for our patrol, and I felt a little guilty for forgetting about her right then. I had been too busy to notice she hadn't returned yet.

"She isn't back from her patrol, she will though." Said skywalker as he returned blasts back to their source.

I tuned out the rest of the conversation after that, concentrating on keeping myself and my men alive. The separatists were advancing steadily and the distance between them and us continued to reduce. One of the droids had managed to shoot one of the tank operatives, so I signaled one of the nearest trooper to follow me.

"Get that tank operational, I'll shield you from blaster fire!" I yelled.

I had a much better view of the field from atop the tank, and it did not look good for us. For a second, I lost my concentration. Someone was reaching to me through the force, someone familiar. A presence I had not felt in a long time was trying to reassure me. I am here now, it said. And I knew exactly who it was.

"Master!" I yelled. "The 104th has arrived!"

I heard the troopers yell in relief and renew their fighting effort. Extraction team was here, we only had to make sure we were here to be extracted. But the enemy was splitting up their forces, which was never good. They were either going to regroup with the two battalions five clicks northeast of our position, or they were going for Ahsoka.

"Boil," I said as I tapped the closed channel I had with my three shadows. "How far out is the enemy northwest of here?"

I heard grunting and panting on the other end of the comlink before I got an answer.

"They should be here in ten minutes, Commander- eat laser maker damned tin cans." He said under his breath.

Ten minutes. I had to report to my master, but before I did I heard someone yelling my name. A vulture droid was spiraling out of control and headed right towards me. Before I could think about it, I took the trooper from the driving seat and threw us both off the tank. I managed to soften our landing a little with the Force, but the blast still knocked the air out of my lungs. I was panting for air when I asked the trooper if he was okay. He was, thank the force.

"Kriari, are you-"

"The droid battalions to the northeast will be here in ten minutes, Master." I interrupted as I helped the trooper to stand up. "We need to get the men out of here."

I tried to dust myself off as best I could and when I went to grab my lightsaber, it wasn't on my belt. I sighed, already done with the damned planet. The last thing I needed was to lose my lightsaber.

"Commander!" yelled someone from across the perimeter. "Catch!"

The trooper threw my lightsaber in an arc towards me and returned to the fight before checking if I'd caught it.

"Thanks, Waxer!" I yelled back.

"So," I turned to see the amused smirk on my master's face. "Where the hell is Ahsoka?"

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Chess Not Checkers

Summary: King Liam and Queen Kendall finally have a meeting with Bradshaw and Isabella to discuss the betrothal treaty.

A/N: The final part of this Fracture trilogy, and probably my favorite one to write. Who knows what the writers have planned for Auvernal’s hostile takeover of Cordonia, but I’m not letting that shit fly not another damn second. As always, thanks for reading and enjoy!

Catch Up Here

Tags: @senseofduties @lapisreviewsstuff @akacalliope @badchoicesposts @drakewalker04 @canknot @sirbeepsalot @hopefulmoonobject @texaskitten30 @eadanga @the-unconquered-queen @flyawayboo @aestheticartwriting @ao719 @zaffrenotes @kingliam2019 @aworldoffandoms 

~v~

“Do not wear a blue tie!” Liam hears his wife yell from their walk-in closet.

Liam drops the tie in his hand and steps away from it, suddenly suspicious. “Why not? Is something wrong with them?

Moments pass and Kendall walks back into their bedroom, slipping on a pair of heels. “Nothing is wrong with your ties. But the color blue brings out your eyes, and we aren’t going for a warm and friendly aura. Wear red. You’ll look bold and commanding.”

Today is the day for their meeting with Bradshaw and Isabella. For the past week, he, Kendall and their group of close friends have been talking and going over plans to get Eleanor out of her betrothal to Bradshaw and Isabella’s son. While Olivia wanted to ambush them and have them killed as soon as they stepped foot in Cordonia, Kendall wanted to be as quick and civil as possible. While she isn’t above starting an international war, she doesn’t want that to be her first option.

Liam decided to step back on this and let Kendall take the lead when it came to dealing with Auvernal. He’s willing to intervene if the need arose, but for now, he is perfectly content with just silently supporting his queen. She has a solid plan of attack, and he’s excited to see everything play out.

“Red it is.”

Kendall finishes putting on her lipstick and drops the tube onto her nightstand, as Liam puts on a deep red tie. He slips on his jacket to complete the look, checking the pockets a few times, and the couple walks out of their private quarters, headed to Liam’s study, a guard a few steps behind, watching from a safe distance. Kendall demanded that they get better security, so they are currently in the process of testing out a few ex-military men and women.

Bastien greets them at the door to the study with a quick bow. “Your Majesties.”

“Hello Bastien. I take it our guests have settled in?” Liam asks.

“Yes, they’ve been in here for about 10 minutes.”

“And they haven’t caused any trouble right?”

Bastien shrugs. “They’re about as well behaved as we can expect them to be. No red flags, sir.”

“Very well.” Liam squeezes his wife’s hand, and she squeezes back. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Bastien steps aside and lets them in. Bradshaw and Isabella are there, Isabella checking her nails, a bored expression on her face, Bradshaw standing at the bar cart, sipping on a glass of scotch. Liam bites down on his tongue in order to prevent himself from berating Bradshaw and calling him a tacky piece of shit for taking it upon himself to get a drink.

Kendall squeezes his hand once more before dropping it. “Bradshaw, Isabella! How was your flight here?”

“Nice. Thanks for sending your jet to get us.”

“No problem.”

“I will say your security detail is extremely...thorough,” Bradshaw continues. “They took all of my wife’s jewelry, all of our electronics. I couldn’t even keep my lucky handkerchief.”

“It’s a new security protocol,” Liam says. “This palace has been through...trying times recently, so we decided to take the necessary precautions. Surely you two understand.”

“Of course!” Isabella says brightly, trying to keep things as light as possible. She looks Kendall up and down, silently appraising the new mother. Kendall looks good, with her dewy skin, long brown hair drawn into a low ponytail and simple black dress. “Kendall, you look amazing! I could barely get out of bed for the first month after having my twins and I looked like a whale, but you’re glowing.”

“Thank you, Queen Isabella.”

“Yeah, you’d think after such a...traumatic birthing experience, you’d be lying low,” Bradshaw adds. “You must be made of steel.”

If the mention of her labor brought up any sort of emotion, Kendall refuses to show it. Liam studies her, and she remains absolutely calm, as if she didn’t hear Bradshaw at all.

“I’m from New York,” Kendall says with a shrug. “We’re tough people. Resilient.”

“I can see.”

“Why don’t we all have a seat?” Liam suggests. “There’s a lot that we have to talk about.”

“First and foremost, congrats on the little bundle of joy!” Isabella says excitedly. “Boy or girl?”

“Girl,” Liam confirms. “Named Eleanor after my late mother.” Isabella coos.

“A little princess! A future queen.” Bradshaw nods approvingly. “Congratulations.”

“Where is the princess?” Isabella asks. “We’d love to officially meet her.”

“She’s with her grandmother right now,” Kendall says. “And she’s only two weeks old, so she’s not accepting visitors at the moment.”

Isabella falters a bit but she quickly recovers. Kendall can tell she wasn’t expecting that as a response. “Very well. I guess we’ll have to meet her at another time.”

“When the rest of the world meets her at her anointing ceremony,” Kendall says, her tone short. “And not a moment sooner.”

“Now, now, Queen Kendall, simmer down,” Bradshaw starts. “You’re mighty tense for someone who’s practically family at this point.”

Kendall reels back, mostly in shock that Bradshaw had the audacity to get so familiar with her. Who the fuck does he think he is?

“The condescending orders may work for you and your marriage, King Bradshaw, but please never again make the foolish mistake of telling my wife what to do, especially in our home,” Liam warns, his jaw getting tense. “And thank you for bringing up this marriage alliance, because it’s the perfect segue.”

“When should we make the announcement?” Isabella asks. “I was thinking we could host a small gathering first, just so the kids get acquainted with each other first. I’m sure Isaac and Lyra will absolutely adore Eleanor.”

“That won’t be happening,” Kendall says with a shake of her head. “But speaking of Isaac and Lyra, I found out some wonderful information not too long ago.” Kendall sits back in her seat, beaming. “You two are married in name only.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me loud and clear, and it’s a pretty straightforward concept to grasp. Bradshaw needed a wife, Isabella was a gold digger and just cunning enough to get what she wanted. Match made in Hell if you ask me. You guys both have people on the side, and you live separate lives.”

Bradshaw is visibly flustered, but after a few tense seconds, he chuckles. “With all due respect, our marriage is none of your concern. And that had nothing to do with our children.”

“Oh, but it is and it does,” Kendall says. “Bradshaw, you don’t appreciate the art of storytelling. I’m building to my point. You guys are married on paper only. Which is fine, live how you want to live. But on my maternity leave, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. And I’ve been particularly fond of Auvernese history and inheritance laws.”

“What about it?”

“Six hundred years ago, your ancestor, King Marshall, married a woman named Catherine. He was still the Crown Prince at the time, they were young and in love. Sounds simple enough, but Catherine had been previously married, and that marriage produced a son, Harold. This was quite a scandal, for multiple reasons. But Marshall and Catherine wanted to be married. Marshall’s parents were against it, no way the heir could marry a divorcee, with a child. But Marshall persisted. After a long standoff, the then king Erik relented, but on one condition. He put it in writing that under no circumstances could a non-blood relative receive land or titles through royalty, and heirs were only legitimate if they were conceived within the marriage. The monarchy was to flow solely through the bloodline, come Hell or high water. Marshall accepted, and the amendment was added to your country’s Constitution, a document that can only be added to, never taken away from. It’s a harsh, strict law, and many people have fought it, but your country’s Supreme Court has never overturned it, nor has the European Court of Human Rights. Anyway, Marshall married Catherine, and they lived happily ever after, having 3 children of their own.”

“Now that I’m done with my history lesson, I’m sure you’re wondering what my point is,” Kendall continues. Her eyes flicker over to Isabella, who’s glaring daggers at her. “You want to tell him, or should I?”

Bradshaw looks between the two women, “Tell me what?”

“That your treaty mandates that the Crown Prince or Princess of Cordonia, child to King Liam and Queen Kendall, is to marry Prince Isaac, or Princess Lyra of Aurvernal, child of King Bradshaw and Queen Isabella, thereby uniting the two countries. Those are the exact words, your words. But Bradshaw, the problem with that is, you don’t have any children.”

“Excuse me?”

“Bradshaw, don’t listen to a word this woman says,” Isabella orders.

Kendall rolls her eyes at the demand. “Bella over here, was very reckless and wasn’t cautious of her ovulation cycle or taking precautions, because she didn’t get pregnant with your children. The twins belong to someone else. I did a little digging, and voila!” Kendall moves her arms dramatically, the boisterous New Yorker coming out. “I found the truth.”

The silence in the office is so thick, it threatens to stifle everyone.

“I don’t believe you,” Bradshaw says.

“I don’t care. Notice how your wife hasn’t jumped in to defend herself or deny my allegations.”

Bradshaw turns to Isabella, his glare so cold, it could’ve frozen her on the spot. “She’s lying, right?” She doesn’t say anything in response and he bangs his fist on the table in front of him, making her jump. “RIGHT?!”

“Bradshaw, I’m sorry. They’re still yours in–”

“I don’t want to hear another word from you!” It’s one thing to cheat. Bradshaw doesn’t care about that. But his wife’s recklessness could crumble the monarchy.

“She could’ve gotten away with it, because those children are a spitting image of their mother, it’s almost scary. No one would bat an eyelash or ask questions.” Kendall thinks back to the spy mission Olivia completed last week, a trip to the hospital the twins were born at. This information came about after she knocked out a few guards and scoured the family’s medical records records. “But it’s simple biology. A woman with type A blood, and a man with type AB blood cannot produce two children with type O. Now, as for the true, biological father, that is something I don’t know, but Isabella is currently sleeping with her personal bodyguard so it may be him.”

Liam waits on bated breath as he watches the exchange. Bradshaw’s face is beet red, and Liam is on guard, defensive just in case the other king decides to do something stupid. 

“So you see, Eleanor isn’t going to be marrying your son, ever. Or your daughter.”

Bradshaw dismisses Kendall’s words with a hand wave. He’s not letting go so easily. “I signed their birth certificate, I am their father. Your husband signed a treaty, whether you like it or not. And the fact that you just admitted to breaking countless laws with your little espionage scheme is grounds enough to get you into a lot of trouble.”

“Prove it,” Kendall challenges. “Prove that I had someone access those records, and that I’ve been collecting intel. I’m already done so you didn’t catch me red handed, and there’s no proof of my admission. The two of you were thoroughly searched and stripped of any cell phones, recorders, and cameras. Our guards have 24/7 security footage in this office, so on the off chance you were able to get in here with any of the aforementioned items, you would’ve been caught planting them before this meeting began. And besides, you push this issue any further, I will demand a paternity test on the world stage, and then all eyes will be on us. You’d rather die than publicly admit your wife cheated on you and someone else fathered those children.”

“I’ll have children with Bradshaw, easily,” Isabella says quickly. “Problem solved.”

Kendall grimaces sarcastically. “You specifically named Isaac and Lyra in the treaty. Had you not done that, your plan could’ve worked. Nice try though, and kudos for the quick thinking.”

Bradshaw glares at Kendall and then stands. Clenching his fist, he tries to breathe, to calm down. “You insolent, little girl. You think because you’ve read a few history books that you’re so smart and you can play politics? You think you can blackmail or extort me?” He scoffs before turning to Liam. “I know she gets your dick wet every once in a while, but you’re letting your commoner wife dictate you and shape international diplomacy?”

Liam’s nostrils flare but before he can reach across the table to attack Bradshaw, Kendall’s places a comforting hand on his shoulder, signaling for him to remain seated. There’s no need for violence when they clearly have the upper hand.

“I don’t think I’m smart. My bachelors degree from Brown in Policy Analysis and my Master’s from Columbia speak volumes all by themselves. There’s no need for vulgarity and petty insults because you aren’t intelligent or mature enough to comport yourself professionally.”

“I figured you wouldn’t back down after the whole paternity fiasco, and that’s fine.” Kendall shrugs with nonchalance. “We can involve the United Nations and the International Law Commission, and have them review that treaty if that’s what you want. But when I get in front of an audience and turn on the waterworks, crying about how my unborn daughter and I nearly died in the middle of a hostage situation, and instead of helping though you had the means to do so, you strong-armed my husband into signing a sham treaty, I don’t think that’ll go over too well for you.”

“It’s politics,” Bradshaw snarls. “You got bested.”

“No, it was a shitty coercion attempt. And a direct violation of Article 51 of the Vienna Convention Treaty, something your ancestors signed.”

“You don’t want to go down this road with me, with Auvernal,” Bradshaw continues, his eyes getting black as coal. “We want to be adults about this alliance, but please don’t force my hand. We can either be a powerful ally or a dangerous enemy.”

“You’ve been not-so-subtly hinting at war or a hostile occupation of Cordonia for over a year, and we’re not afraid of it. Like I’ve told my husband, I am not afraid of war. In this case, I’d welcome it gladly..”

“Ooh, such big fighting words.”

“Bradshaw, stop it!” Isabella hisses. He was always one for threats and brute force, when it wasn’t necessary.

“Shut up, you traitorous whore.” Bradshaw keeps his eyes on Kendall. He raises an eyebrow in challenge. “Well, the choice is yours. Excuse me, the choice belongs to the monarch. I keep forgetting who is who, considering your husband lets you wear the pants in this relationship.”

Liam sighs. Bradshaw wants to get a rise out of him for some reason, and it’s almost amusing. 

He gets out of his seat and starts walking around the office. His movements are poised and he glides across the room, until he’s standing where Bradshaw is. “Unlike you, Bradshaw, I actually respect my wife. She’s strong and intelligent, and she has my full support in whatever we do. Your attempts to belittle her for being my queen consort are weak and baseless. And because she doesn’t want me to react, I won’t.” 

“Of course not.” Bradshaw smirks. “Oh, King Liam the Gentle Hearted. You’ve always been the weakling, the coward. Too afraid to actually do something, opting to always play it safe. Tell me, how’s that working out for you? For your people? All the bombings and assassination attempts? How’d that work out for your precious daddy, Constan–”

Bradshaw can’t finish the question because in a flash, Liam pulls a dagger out of his suit pocket and trains it at Bradshaw’s throat, the tip of the blade just barely touching his Adam’s apple.

“Ohmygod!” The words fly out of Isabella’s mouth so fast, she stumbles over them. Liam motions for her to stay calm and seated.

“What was that?” Liam asks. “Please continue to speak on my late father, I dare you. Go on, I want to hear what you were about to say about him.” Bradshaw stays silent, his eyes trained on the dagger. “Eyes on me, Bradshaw.” Liam hits Bradshaw under the chin, forcing the other man to look him in the eye.

“I am so sick and tired of people mistaking my kindness for weakness. I try to be a good leader. Thoughtful and compassionate. I just don’t want my people to fear me, to cower in my presence. It’s so easy to rule like you do, through fear and intimidation. That’s the true cowardice. And yes, I am a kind man, but don’t ever in your poor excuse for a life attempt to write me off as weak or cowardice. The Queen was correct, you do not scare us in the slightest. You’re nothing more than a little man with a Napoleon complex and a need to overcompensate for your own shortcomings, with a wife who honestly couldn't care less if you live or die. Your country is broke and falling apart at the seams because all of your resources go to an oversized military and flashy attractions, so you bulldoze your way into other territories to offset the damage, but hear me well when I say Cordonia will not be one of them.”

Kendall’s breath hitches in her throat at the unexpected action. Liam pulling a dagger - no doubt a gift from Olivia - on Bradshaw wasn’t part of their plan. But she wants to see where this goes, what his next move is. She’s known Liam to get upset before, but this is something new, this tense, tight-lidded rage. Where Bradshaw is one to puff out his chest, yell, and make threats in order to cause confusion and chaos, Liam moves like a ninja, swift, direct, and lethal.

“You want a war? We can go, in an instant. This country may be small and peaceful, but we descend from strong leaders and brave warriors. And be advised, that I’ve been through a lot this past year, and I have a lot of rage inside of me. Keep poking the bear, Bradshaw, and I will not stop until I personally kill you with my bare hands. I will not rest until I witness the life leave your eyes, and your country is nothing more than ashes and rubble. Just say the word, and it’ll be a done deal.”

“Don’t forget, darling,” Kendall stands to join her husband, but she keeps a watchful eye on Isabella. But the woman is practically frozen in fear, not an imminent threat in the slightest, “that if we go to war, it won’t be just Cordonia and Auvernal. It’ll be Auvernal and the small countries that they’ve seized against Cordonia and her allies. Greece, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia, and my home country, the United States.”

“Oh right! Silly me, how could I forget? Thanks for the reminder, my love. So Bradshaw, Isabella, how about we forget the whole alliance and treaty fiasco, right here, right now. Or we can go to war.” Liam shrugs and presses the blade deeper, still careful not to break the skin. “Or how about I end this right now, slit your throat, and let you die a slow death, bleeding from your jugular and choking on your own blood. I don’t want to do that, because it’ll stain my very expensive floors, but I will. The choice is yours.”

“We withdraw!” Isabella exclaims, finally standing. “We’ll forget the whole thing, we’ll call it all off! Just put the weapon down, please!”

“Isabella, didn’t I tell you to be quiet?”

Liam tsks. “Listen to your wife, Bradshaw.”

“Bradshaw, are you truly prepared to die here?” Isabella asks. “Is all of this worth it? Put your foolish pride aside for once in your damn life! It’s over.”

Bradshaw looks Liam in the eye, knowing that the other king isn’t bluffing. Slowly, he raises his hands in the air. “We concede.”

“Good. That wasn’t so hard was it?” Liam lowers his dagger and Bradshaw releases a sigh of relief. “But just one more thing.”

“What?”

Liam extends his arm, the dagger slashing out and quickly plunging into Bradshaw’s side. Shouting in pain, Bradshaw falls to his knees. “I may not kill you for your disrespect towards my wife, holding her life over my head, and threatening war against me, but I can’t let you leave unscathed. But fear not, it’s a minor wound and I didn’t hit any arteries, because unlike you, I’m a skilled fighter and I know what I’m doing.”

Isabella jumps out of her seat, and rushes to Bradshaw's side, pressing into the wound to stop the bleeding.

Kendall takes in the scene. She didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the pathetic man-child writhing in pain on the floor, or his wife for that matter. Had Liam killed him where he stood, she probably would have have batted a mascara-covered eyelash. “Bastien!”

At the urgent calling of his name, the King’s guard enters the office. His eyes immediately fall onto Liam and Kendall, before taking in Bradshaw and Isabella. “Is everything alright in here, Your Majesties?”

“Excellent!” Kendall exclaims. “We’re actually done here, so if you could see to it that Bradshaw gets that nasty wound patched up and send the happy couple on their way, that’d be great.”

Bastien nods. “Of course.”

“Thank you. Bradshaw, Isabella, it was a pleasure having this meeting with you, and our attorneys will be in contact soon.” Kendall reaches for Liam’s hand. “Ready to go?”

“Ready.”

~v~

Liam’s feet dig into the soft carpeted floor of his bedroom as he walks into the en-suite. His eyes immediately land on his wife, who’s in their marble tub, covered in bubbles, sipping out of a bottle of Dom Perignon.

“Slow down, Speed Racer,” he teases.

“Eleanor doesn’t need to get fed for a few more hours, and I think I deserve this champagne.”

“I couldn’t agree more. I just don’t want you to get a headache.”

“I’ll drink a few glasses of water before I go to sleep.” Kendall holds the bottle out to Liam, offering him some, but he declines. So she just sits it on the floor. “Is Nori asleep?”

“She is. I swear, she’s the most alert and stubborn newborn on earth. She did not go down easily.”

“You’re already being bested by our daughter?”

“I know you two have been conspiring against me while she was still in the womb.” Liam smiles softly. “But I am still the champion, she eventually settled.”

“Good.”

“Enjoying your bath?”

“Yes. Can I sleep in here tonight?”

Liam chuckles. “Your skin will get incredibly dry and wrinkly.”

“I’m sure that’s nothing a few spa treatments and some heavy duty shea butter can’t fix.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted,” Kendall answers with a dramatic sigh. The day was long and she’s been running on pure adrenaline, it’s easy to forget she did push out a human just two short weeks ago, under very extreme circumstances. “And sore. I never want to wear heels again.”

Liam crouches down, getting on his knees at the edge of the tub. Reaching in he grabs one of Kendall’s feet and pulls it out of the water. Carefully he presses his thumb into the arch.

“Mhmm. I always forget that you moonlight as a masseuse.”

“Only for you.”

“It better be,” Kendall shoots back with a smirk.

“After the day we’ve had, I say you’ve more than earned a foot massage.”

“Ugh.” Kendall slips further into the tub before resurfacing. “I cannot stand those smug, overbearing assholes. Thank God we’re done with them.”

“Do you really think we’ve seen the last of them?”

“You probably pissed Bradshaw off when you stabbed him,” Kendall says pointedly, the mischievous look on her face betraying the seriousness in her tone. “But I do. They’re underhanded and sneaky, the threat of us exposing them publicly and involving superpower countries is enough to stave them off. But like we both said, war is on the table if push comes to shove.”

“Can I just say that you were absolutely amazing today.” Liam can’t get rid of the goofy grin on his face if he tries. He’s in awe of his wife, of her wit and strength.

Liam switches feet and she sighs in content. “Yes, please sing my praises.”

“I cannot believe how courageous you were, how absolutely brilliant. I’ve never seen anyone able to stand up to Bradshaw the way you did.”

“The same could be said for you. You were ready to kill him then and there. By the way, I was not anticipating that at all, but you had them scared shitless.

“The only reason I was able to do that is because I knew I had you in my corner the entire time.”

“I’ll always be in your corner, Liam.”

“I know, and I need to trust that. But all praise aside, I should have never put you in this position to begin with you. You should be spending this time relaxing and being with our baby, not getting involved in dirty politics.”

“Stop it!” Kendall wrangles her foot out of Liam’s grasps, and hits him in the chest with it. Liam looks down at the sudsy print on his chest incredulously. 

“Did you really just hit me with your foot?”

“Yes!” He’s going down that slippery slope of insecurity and self loathing. “I’m the Queen, I know my job will never be done. This past week has been stressful, yes, but it has not taken away from my maternity leave or my time with Eleanor. I can multitask, you know.”

“I know, I just wish you didn’t have to be burdened with the weight of the crown at a time like this.”

“Stop apologizing,” Kendall orders. “I’ve forgiven you and it’s all in the past now. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

The corner of Liam’s mouth quirks up, a hint of a smirk on his face. He loves his wife’s commanding side. He leans over the tub so he’s hovering above her. “As you command, my queen.”

“The Queen also commands a kiss.”

“That can be arranged.” Liam surges forward, one hand reaching out to cup his wife’s cheek, the other getting tangled in her now damp hair and captures her lips in a kiss.

Kendall hums in satisfaction and sits up to deepen the kiss. Water sloshes out the side of the tub, soaking Liam’s pajama bottoms, but neither of them care. Her hands travel to his back, pulling him closer.

Too soon for either of their liking, Liam breaks the kiss with a groan. “4 more weeks. That is a depressingly long time from now.”

“Do you have the willpower?”

“I don’t know, but let’s not test it and disobey doctor’s orders.” Liam kisses the tip of her nose. “As soon as you’re cleared, I’m taking you to Valtoria, and we’re going to spend a few days in the small cottage you had built on the property. And I’m not letting you come up for air.”

A chill runs down the length of her spine. “Mhmm, don’t threaten me with a good time, Rys.”

“Oh, it’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” Liam reaches back into the tub and pulls the drain. He grabs a large towel and unfolds it. “Now come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Liam helps his wife out of the tub and drapes the towel across her shoulders. She shivers dramatically, her teeth clicking together for added effect. He knows she’s putting on a show, but he curls her into his side, which is what she wanted.

After changing into the closest pair of pajamas she can find—really just a pair of Liam’s sweats and an old Knicks t-shirt—and peaking into the bassinet at their bedside, Kendall finally collapses onto their bed. Liam joins her, loosely slinging his arm around her midsection. The smell of whatever fruity bubble bath she was just using invades his senses, but he welcomes the scent, his eyes closing instinctively. Kendall smells like home to him.

Kendall turns around in order to look at her husband’s face. For the first time in a long time, he looks peaceful. The outcome of the day instantly took 5 years off of his appearance, and she’s glad. She hates that he carries so much stress with him at all times. 

“Hey Liam,” she whispers, poking his arm.

“What is it?” He asks, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“I love you.”

That gets a smile out of him. His grip on her tightens slightly. “I love you more.”

“I love you infinity.”

“I love you infinity plus another infinity, for good measure,” Liam shoots back.

“One of these days, I’m going to win.”

“But not today. Now get some sleep.”

Kendall gets closer to Liam, until she’s practically on top of him. His heartbeat is slow and steady underneath her head, and the rhythmic thump slowly pulls her into unconsciousness.

Today was a victory. Sure the kingdom of Cordonia had other things to face, but Kendall takes comfort in knowing that she’ll face them with Liam, as a team. The two of them together are unstoppable.

Today was officially the start of their happily ever after.

[introvertguide]

Movies and the Tracking Shot

In the language of film, there are many ways to place actors, props, or cameras in a way that conveys a message to the audience. The tracking shot is a specific way to include the audience into a situation on film and it really intensifies the experience. Some of the most anxiety inducing horror shots as well as introductions to a new world have happened with the tracking shot. Technically, any shot with camera movement could be described as tracking, but the really good ones tend to follow a character or group through a situation or world that is realistic but in some way other worldly because of the circumstances. Our current film under review for the AFI top 100, Goodfellas, has one of the most famous tracking shots, so I wanted to highlight it along with some other great tracking shots in film history:

THIS IS PRETTY SPOILER FREE, BUT SOME OF THE CLIPS ARE VERY VIOLENT AND INTENSE SO DON’T FOLLOW THE LINK IF YOU THINK IT WILL TRIGGER ANXIETY!!!

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Paths of Glory (1957)

This is one of the first real tracking shots and the camera is literally on a track. You can actually see the track along the ground as you are lead through a trench in WWI along with Kirk Douglas. It is horrifying in that it really displays the British idea of keeping a “stiff upper lip” as hundreds of men who are obviously terrified, as they are surely about to get slaughtered, make way for their commanding officer to lead them over the trench wall. This film was a favorite of Winston Churchill how complemented the realistic depiction of officers in trench warfare. The film was directed by Stanley Kubrick, who later showed his affinity for this type of shot. Here is a link to the clip which also shows the raiding run after the trench tracking shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyyGHHXfck

The Shining (1980)

The initial lack of sound and the steady cam shot by operator Garret Brown that follows Danny Torrance through the halls of the empty hotel is haunting. As the boy pedals his tricycle, creepy music slowly builds until he finally runs into the infamous twins. It establishes the loneliness and the inability to escape. There is nothing for this child to do but explore alone, an activity which will only lead to danger. It is not an intense scene per se, but there are few better ways to establish the world of the Overlook Hotel. Here is a clip that shows the scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy7ztJ3NUMI

Goodfellas (1990)

I love this scene because it goes from a dirty alley back through the kitchen/ backroom and into a fancy club. It shows the lead character progressing from the streets and through the life of a working stiff (paying off people as he goes) and ending at a table prepared just for him at the front. He basically walked his new girlfriend through his life in a single 2 minute shot through the club. An absolute masterpiece of cinematography by Martin Scorsese. Here is a link to the clip as well as a link to the deep dive discussion with the steady cam operator:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCYwcObxl78

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVDC95rprFs

The Russian Ark (2002)

I have seen this film a couple of times and it is more of a technical accomplishment than a great story. The film is made up of a single study cam shot with almost 1000 actors and 3 orchestras all filmed in a single museum in Russia. It is the story of a French aristocrat dreaming about 200 years of Russian history and the constant movement does make it all feel dreamlike. The producers could only manage one day to use the museum and they could not damage anything or add structures to set up cameras so the entire 96 minutes was done with a single shot in a single take. The amount of rehearsals and planning that were needed for this is mind boggling and it is worth a watch to give respect to the effort along. Here is a link to the trailer if you want to get an idea of what the film is like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1kphEEXn8

Children of Men (2006)

This is the most constantly intense movie that I have ever experience and I do not rewatch it because even individual scenes cause me great anxiety. I have seen it once all the way through without pausing and that was enough for me. There are actually many tracking shot scenes throughout this film that last from 5-10 minutes at a time, and this is including my personal most panicky shot that I remember experiencing in the theater. There is a car ambush scene that has the camera in the place of someone in the car swiveling around to try and keep up with what is coming. It is active in that you feel like you are being attacked, yet it is passive in the way that there is nothing the audience can do to help or protect themselves. Straight out of a nightmare. I kind of a hate the scene for how bad I felt afterwards, but I love it because I recognize how good the cinematography was to affect me so strongly. I have a link for the clip below and, although it does not affect me the same since I have watched it many times, I want to give a quick warning to watch at your own risk because it is violent and intense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVg66ndzfpU

Birdman (2014)

This film won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Cinematography as the entire film is made up tracking shots. The lead character is suffering through a mid life crisis as the character he played as a young man has almost become his identity and haunts him as he tries to re-establish himself as a serious actor director and not “the guy the used to be Birdman.” There are many great tracking scenes, but I think my favorite is one in which he gets trapped outside the theater and he has to run through time square in his underwear to get back around to his dressing room. Here is a link to that scene, but I recommend checking out the movie and try to count how many cuts you can actually see. There aren’t many:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O8wiwu0elA

The Revenant (2015)

I also saw this film in the theater and it is extremely intense, but I was ready for it because a friend of mine compared the opening to Children of Men. That put me on guard and I am glad because it is brutal and unforgiving like the situation. DiCaprio plays maybe the toughest character ever based on a real person and the man suffers greatly all in the name of vengeance. He is with a group of fur traders and they are attacked by Arikara warriors. Walking along as a bystander as the horrors unfold for six minutes is an amazing way to introduce the savagery and pain of a fur trader’s life in the new world. These men did not belong there and those tribes who did belong were not welcoming to outsiders destroying the food source. There is also a bear attack sequence in this film, but the computer graphic additions kind of ruined it for me. Here is a link to the opening attack scene and, again, it very violent and intense so watch at your own risk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x0oa0zyC4A

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There are many other films that utilize this kind of tracking cam and often the effect makes it end up like a first person shooter video game. This is a perfectly viable way to have a tracking shot, but I don’t feel like it gives the same intensity as the above examples. I movie that was done completely in first person was Hardcore Henry (2015) and it is fun to watch; Doom (2005) has an extended first person scene as well. Chase scenes in horror films will have this first person view as well, although a with a prime example being Halloween (2018) does a fantastic job of this during the trick or treating home invasion scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy2kMtJa2q8 (warning! very violent)

The tracking shot is a great tool to bring the audience into the director’s world and it can be used to great effect. Are there other examples not listed that exemplify the technique?

[primordialpaper]

The Composition of a One Wendy Marvell

Irene Belserion was no stranger to less than ideal living conditions.

She had languished for three years in the dungeons of her own castle.

She had roamed the country aimlessly as a dragon for hundreds more.

She had spent years further still, enduring the unique agony that was the tasteless, sleepless, skin-crawling existence of a dragon masquerading as a human.

Thus, it was with no small amount of contentment that she regarded her current residence within the subconscious of a one Miss Wendy Marvell.

Now existing as a force of personality; less than a spirit, more than a thought-projection, Irene was blissfully free from the prison of scales and Enchanted flesh that was her old body. She savored every decadent moment of consciousness without the sensation of being crammed and bound into a facsimile of her original human form.

It might not have been the same as when she was the sole, commanding occupant of the young Dragon Slayer’s body, but Irene was more than willing to remain a passive presence in the back of the girl’s mind. 

However, that didn’t mean she was above offering her host a few pointers every now and then. Her fellow Enchantress was a prodigy, truly, and it pained Irene to see such tremendous talent be hampered by the lack of a proper mentor. Fortunately, Irene had, quite literally, written the book on Enchantment magic.

“I know of a spell,” she declared in the midst of a scuffle between Wendy and a horde of cultists. Her teammates were sufficiently scattered across the decrepit shrine they’d been enlisted to bring down, and thus out of earshot. “that inflicts terribly painful boils upon the target of your choosing. These men would be more easily dealt with if they were scored with debilitating blisters, no?”

“That’d just be cruel.” Wendy admonished, nimbly evading a mage’s wild sword swipe. In the same motion, she swung her foot up and around to strike her assailant’s head, the following gale bodily hurling him and a few others away. “Our job is to subdue the dark wizards and hold them until the Rune Knights come to arrest them. I can do that without being needlessly vicious.” 

If Irene had retained physical eyes, she would have rolled them. Did this girl not possess even an ounce of spite or fury within her? What was the point of doing battle against such sufficiently distasteful foes- fanatics of Ankhseram- if you didn’t take the opportunity to make them suffer a bit? It’d certainly been more entertaining than her current ‘bash them into unconsciousness’ approach.

In the midst of her apathy, Irene cast her gaze over her surroundings. This could only be the coven’s ritual chamber. It contained all the necessary accoutrement: chisels for carving runes into stone, a skylight to incorporate any lunar or celestial elements, no shortage of candles and braziers, and an intricately drawn latticework of chalk on the floor. It was an aesthetic Irene could certainly appreciate. In the vernacular employed by Wendy and her companions, Irene... stanned? The configuration of the room? Was that the proper term?

Before her mind could descend down the rabbit hole that was this era’s incomprehensible slang terminology, Irene’s attention was caught anew by the chalk lines on the floor. To someone with centuries of experience in all manner of dark magic, like herself, it was clear these patterns were from a particular branch of tributary rites, specifically, one that involved the tithing of proffered souls to a higher, infernal power.

Unease settled in her non-existent stomach at the thought of just what Wendy’s team had interrupted...

Irene was about to suggest as much to the girl, when she felt the cold steel wires of horror twine themselves around her host’s chest and limbs, catching her breath in her throat and binding her legs in place. The Sky Sorceress was struck speechless, paralyzed by the scene her conquest had led her to.

Gods... Oh gods...

Through both Wendy’s eyes and a wall of wrought-iron bars, Irene observed two figures huddled together within what looked to be a holding cell of sorts.

One was a bedraggled woman, and the other, clutched desperately in her arms, was a child who couldn’t have been older than six. Their bodies were slack and unmoving, and were it not for Wendy’s advanced hearing picking up their faint breathing, Irene would’ve thought them dead. The gags over their mouths, their humble civilian clothing, and the assortment of scrapes and bruises that littered their bodies were as stark identifiers to their roles as the tags that were affixed to slaughter-approved livestock. 

In the eyes of these cultists, both groups were indistinguishable from each other, it seemed.

With no foes around at the moment, Wendy dashed over to the cell door. With a few muttered words of power, the padlock was summarily torn away by her dainty, glowing hands. Those same hands quickly settled against the two prisoners’ foreheads, thrumming with spectral blue light as she assessed their condition. 

“They’re unconscious- under a sleeping spell, most likely. Based on the level of malnourishment, they’ve been here for a couple of days at most. The boy is in the early stages of a fever. They both have minor injuries, likely from when they were captured, and... lacerations on the feet, so they couldn’t r-”

Wendy went quiet at the sound of numerous approaching footfalls. The hateful presence they carried in the air revealed them to be more cultists.

Slowly, Wendy stood. Her hands had become fists, and shook faintly. The air around her picked up.

Irene could feel the stirrings of something vast and terrible, like the calm just before the onset of a hurricane. If Wendy’s horror was cold wires, then her fury was the hot winds that spun into a storm.

Murmuring under her breath, Wendy summoned a translucent, multi-hued dome over the mother and child, shielding them from any further harm. The candles and torches within the chamber all sputtered out, felled by the tempest now whipping throughout the room. 

More cultists poured into the chamber, guided only by a solitary torch one of them held aloft. They saw that their prisoners- sacrifices- had been discovered. One dark wizard at the mob’s head hurled a roaring ball of flame at Wendy’s back. The attack was dismissed, diffused into little more than a wave of smoke, with a careless handwave from the Enchantress. The smoke was further dispersed when the girl blinked out of sight in a blur of dark blue.

With a high pitched shriek of rending air, Wendy appeared behind the cluster of dark mages, her presence alone more than enough to snuff out the final torch. As the room was plunged into darkness, Irene was able to admit her error in judgement.

Wendy Marvell, at her core, was not a spiteful or vicious girl. It wasn’t in her nature to cause undue harm or misfortune to others. She was a healer at heart. But through that same heart pumped the blood of a dragon. Those healer’s hands were also the instruments of an Enchantress. The powers to mend and maim were both within her purview, and would be employed with the cool ruthlessness of someone who’d decided exactly how much she was willing to take from the world, and exactly what she’d do when that line was crossed.

Wickedness might not be this young witch’s forte, but wrath? Her’s could be as frightful and destructive as the skies she ruled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Team Natsu, sans one errant bluenette, had posted up alongside the Rune Knights that had been dispatched to collect the dark mages they’d helpfully rounded up. Under the Fairy Tail mages’ watchful eyes, the slightly singed, starstruck, frostbitten, battered, or otherwise incapacitated cultists were loaded into detainment carriages to be carted off to their awaiting prison cells. 

Natsu and Gray were boastfully comparing the amount of mages they’d taken down (“Open your eyes! My pile’s clearly bigger than yours, Ice Pop!” “Because you went for the biggest guys you could find! In terms of numbers, my pile has the most, Flame Brain!”). Erza looked about ready to intervene, either to break up their dispute, or to claim that her own pile was clearly superior. Lucy was committing to memory the layout and atmosphere of the decrepit temple- it was practically begging to be featured as a setting in her new novel. 

Regardless, all four wizards looked up at the call of, “A little help, please?”

Out of the mouth of the shrine stepped Wendy, who, while looking none the worse for wear, was supporting a bedraggled woman with an arm over her shoulders. With her free arm, the woman clutched a small boy to her chest. In her other hand, Wendy held what looked like a sack of dark cloth.

At once, there was a flurry of activity, with Erza summoning a cushioned chair for the unsteady woman, while Lucy helped ease her into it. Gray was alerting the Rune Knight’s Captain of the presence of civilians, while Natsu tore back into the temple to check for any other remaining scents. 

“Ma’am, are you alright? Are you injured?” Erza urged the woman, who had begun crying silently as she held her son close.

“N-no, no. I was, b-but she-” still freely crying, the woman’s gaze sought out Wendy’s, and she reached out to clasp her hand. “You saved us. Thank you, oh thank you!” 

Wendy’s smile was a soft, warm thing, and she gave the woman’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Of course.”

Before more could be said, the Knight’s Captain stepped in, offering the names of two missing residents from a nearby town, to the enthusiastic confirmation of the woman; Rose Perkins, and her son; Adam. 

From the side, the Fairy Tail mages listened as Wendy explained in low tones how she’d discovered the two townspeople imprisoned, mended their injuries, before leading them out of the shrine.

“You conducted yourself very well, Wendy.” Erza commended, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder, only for a frown to pull at her face. “I must ask, though, where are the cultists you subdued? We’ve yet to reach the number of dark mages specified in the job request form.”

Wendy’s expression was blank for a moment. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh!” she held up the cloth sack- closer inspection revealed it to be one of the black robes worn by the cultists- she’d carried with her out of the temple. “They’re here.”

Her teammates’ faces paled, expressions’ ones of almost comical horror as they gazed, frozen, at the small bluenette. Not that Wendy noticed. Her attention was focused on undoing the knot she’d tied in the makeshift sack now resting at her feet. 

“I would’ve smelled severed heads, I would’ve smelled severed heads-”

“We should’ve never let her hang out with Gajeel!”

“It’s even worse than I envisioned! Wendy you’re too young to go to prison!”

The group’s panicked muttering was cut off when the sack fell open, it’s contents revealed.

Lucy shrieked.

Natsu and Gray both grimaced in disgust.

Even Erza took a step backwards.

Upon the rumbled black fabric was a pile of gleaming, squirming slugs. Small, dark, slimy slugs.

Expression uncharacteristically dark, Wendy snapped her fingers. “Deus Zero.” There was a great puff of smoke, which then dispersed to reveal a pile of dark mages in place of the glistening gastropods. Some were unconscious, and all bore marks indicating that, before being transfigured into slugs, they’d received quite a thrashing.

“Now, you have an idea of how things felt for the two innocent people you held captive. Helpless and at someone else’s mercy.” Wendy’s voice, normally soft and gentle, carried with it an undercurrent of both crackling magic and simmering wrath. “Now to see if you’ve learned anything.” a hand brimming with pulsing green light was held aloft. “Are you going to surrender quietly to the Rune Knights, or do you want to be taken into custody as slugs?”

The single menacing step forward that followed her question was all it took before those cultists that were conscious nearly trampled their companions in their haste to put distance between themselves and the enraged Enchantress. Luckily, after recovering from their own moments of horror and disgust, the surrounding Rune Knights moved in to take them into custody.

Letting out a sigh, Wendy turned back to her companions, looking sheepish and scratching the back of her head. “When I saw they’d kidnapped Ms. Perkins and her son, what they were going to do to them, I sort of... lost my temper a bit. I thought that they ought to look as vile on the outside as they are inside, and see how they like being trapped and helpless. Slugs were the first thing that came to mi-”

“Miss Marvell!” the Captain called out from beside Rose Perkins and her son. “If you don’t mind, Adam here says he wants to say ‘thank you���.”

“Oh, of course!”

As the rest of Team Natsu observed Wendy crouch down to meet eyes with the young boy, smiling kindly as he stuttered out an expression of gratitude, they felt themselves relax. Their little Sky Sorceress certainly wasn't one to be trifled with, but in terms of the composition of Wendy Marvell: witchcraft and whirlwinds took up much less space within her than that which was allotted to healing charms and gentle breezes.

[tessatechaitea]

Cerebus #8 (1979)

This cover doesn't help me remember what this issue is about.

Having only ever read the first half of Cerebus via the collected stories in the Cerebus phonebooks, this is the first time I'm seeing most of the early covers of Cerebus. I probably started reading the monthly issues during "Flight" but had purchased the "Melmoth" back issues. So I'll be getting a lot of new material in the covers and the Aardvark Comments section all the way up through "Jaka's Story." In Note from the Publisher, Deni explains that Cerebus is currently selling 4,000 copies a month. That's four thousand dollars a month! Of course, Dave probably has to sell at half the cover price, so maybe that's more like two thousand. And then there's the expense of paying for your own printing and shipping. I have no idea what that might cost but let's pretend it's another thousand dollars. That leaves Dave and Deni with one thousand dollars per month before taxes and art equipment! And I know I'm being way too optimistic so let's say it's more like $750. In Canadian dollars! That's probably about five hundred American dollars! But then again, this was 1979 dollars and cars were about six thousand dollars back then. You could buy a house for twenty grand. So by Issue #8, Dave was either really starting to make a lot of money or heading toward financial ruin. I'm not sure why I even began this paragraph when I have no idea what I'm talking about. Although, four thousand copies of an independent comic book by the eighth issue? That's good fucking marketing. No wonder Dave Sim became the God of Self-Publishing. In his Swords of Cerebus essay, Dave Sim continues to explain how he was growing as a writer and artist. It's the kind of thing a fan of Sim's work enjoys reading but not the kind of thing that I can make entertaining in a brief synopsis. So fuck off to the next paragraph already. We're done here. At the end of the last issue, Cerebus escaped his battle with a gigantic Black Sun spider god. But he did not escape as unscathed as I maybe led everybody to believe. He was actually bitten and poisoned by the thing and now he's wandering the desert (unless it's the tundra (which is probably a definitive desert but what am I? A reader of The Farmer's Almanac?!), hallucinating and probably dying. Some Conniptin soldiers find Cerebus and take them back to their Commander's quarters. The Commander isn't the main leader of the army; the main leader is some cocaine snorting prince who thinks he's a god. He wants Cerebus made into a bath robe which would mean Cerebus would get the last laugh. Because remember how badly Cerebus' fur smells when it gets wet? Ha ha! That joke was so funny Dave used it five or six times in the Bran Mak Mufin issue. The Captain and the Commander make plans to oust the young Lord and take over the army themselves. But they need Cerebus by morning for their plan and Cerebus isn't healthy enough. So they take him to the army's doctor for a few Star Trek jokes that seem cheesy and overly done (but maybe not so much in 1979? Or is that the whole point of the running joke here? Because it's a tired format that Sim subverts at the end?) but which ends with a pretty fantastic punchline.

To really appreciate this joke, I think you have to remember what the world was like in 1979. If you weren't born or cognizant of the world at that time, I can't explain it to you. It's like trying to explain Ringo's obsession with the hole in his pocket to somebody who has never seen The Yellow Submarine and who also doesn't know who The Beatles are and has also never heard music or seen animation. Yeah, the 70s were that fucking cool.

The Captain and the Commander take Cerebus out later and point him in the direction of a campfire. They tell them the men around the fire drugged him and they should pay. Feverish and sick, Cerebus runs up to the small camp and begins slaughtering the four men around it. He hallucinates that three of them are Elrod and one of them is Sophia. So what the reader learns this issue is that Cerebus is ready to kill all of the other characters of his comic book at a moment's notice. How The Roach and Weisshaupt and Elrod and Rick and Astoria and Cirin last as long as they do is a miracle. Or it's just part of the contrived story. I guess if it were real, it would seem like a miracle. But since this is all written by Dave Sim, it's just the way it was meant to be. I'm not sure what their eventual plan is for Cerebus as this just seemed to be a test. I guess he's their Manchurian Candidate? The four mercenaries Cerebus killed were Hsifan. The Commander and Captain are Conniptin. I have no idea what these things mean. I think Hsifans make really good ninja assassins though so killing four of them is pretty damned impressive.

Like I said. Killing twenty-five Hsifans is pretty damned impressive.

This story highlights one of Cerebus' bigger life problems: he's constantly being pulled into other people's stories. If he's not trying to steal some treasure to get more gold crowns so he can drink more ale, he's slaughtering other mercenaries to get more gold to drink more ale. And when he's not doing either of those things, it's usually because he's gotten caught up in somebody else's story. I suppose that's what you need to expect when you're some kind of prophetic Messiah. Your story has already been told and you're just time's puppet. But — and I think this is the most important part — something about being an aardvark allows Cerebus to tell destiny and fate to fuck off. So quite often, Cerebus just walks away from the story he got sucked in without a care to its resolution. It has something to do with aardvarks being soulless and less with aardvarks being hermaphrodites. Because I think maybe that's just Cerebus. The Commander and Captain want to make Cerebus their new leader because they can't stand the selfish, greedy fops who rule. The Conniptin motto is "Might makes right! Fight, fight, fight!" Which you really can't argue with unless you're a talented fighter. So Cerebus is offered the job which he can refuse if he doesn't mind having his guts spilled on the floor.

Seems like Cerebus' future is pretty cut and dry. If you forget that he's an aardvark.

Cerebus decides he'd rather escape than be a puppet of the Commander. But after knocking out the guard and trudging some way across the snow, he thinks twice. He decides having a warm place to sleep and free food are a better deal than running for his life from vengeful Conniptins. He also likes the idea of leading an army. If you're not into Cerebus as a mercenary captain, don't worry. It won't last more than one issue!

Damn, I'd forgotten about this line. It used to be one of my favorites to quote whenever being offered some payment or reward of some kind. "What's better than X? Mayhap two Xes!"

Fred Hembeck writes in to Aardvark Comment this month as well as, if not as famous as, David R. Wooten. Pretty sure I've seen David's name in quite a few letters pages of DC comics. The Singles Page is a strip by John Barclay called "Small Potatoes!" It's twelve panels of a couple of guys singing "Dude Looks Like a Lady" on, I guess, a street corner. They sing, over and over again, "DooDuckGlackaLayda!" It's social commentary of some sort. I think. Maybe he's just making fun of the repetitive nature of the song, or any song you're forced to hear out in public by buskers and bucket drummers. Who can tell?! Humor was different in 1988 (the Singles Page is only from the Bi-Weekly! That's why the date is different from the comic). Cerebus #8 Rating: A. There's something happening here. What it is ain't a standard comic book. But it's not what a lot of people thought of as an underground comic book. For one, not once has Cerebus walked around with an erect penis. What was this nonsense not being published by DC or Marvel but also not being weird animal porn that is also personal confessional?! I wish I hadn't been so ashamed of purchasing adult material that my mom might raise an eyebrow at but then say nothing at all. One time she cleaned my bathroom where I had a playboy under the sink. Instead of saying anything, she just straightened it up and left it. I couldn't look at her for weeks. Although I was pretty relieved because at least a week before that, I had about twenty Playboys in there! I can't remember why I moved them but at least she didn't know the extent of my wanking! She probably thought, "Oh how cute. One magazine! And the centerfold is an African-American lady. My boy ain't no jerk off racist!" instead of thinking, "How many fucking porn mags does he need? Does he do anything but jerk off? Oh God! I'm not touching anything of his ever again! Plus isn't this copy of Penthouse the one with an underage Traci Lords?! I wonder how much that will be worth in thirty years?" Of course she thought that last thought not realizing that thirty years later, it would be considered child porn. No, I don't own it anymore, you pervs. I threw out all of those porn mags when I went to college because I didn't know where to hide them! Also I was underage when looking at the Traci Lords' Penthouse so it wasn't weird. She was older than me in those pictures!

[bardengarde]

4, 5, and 7 for the historical figure asks!!!!!!!!

First of all, what is the name of your favorite historical figure?

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

4. In your eyes, what is their biggest strength?

The more I thought about answering this, the more difficult the question became! In the end, I think Chamberlain’s biggest strength was his character. In the letter he wrote to Maine’s Governor Israel Washburn, requesting a commission, he wrote “I have always been interested in military matters, and what I do not know in that line I know how to learn.”  Source

Although that statement was only in reference to the military, obviously, I feel like it encapsulates a lot of his outlook on life. If there was something he did not know, he learned it; likewise if there was something he did not think he could do, he did it. “Do it; that’s how!” His father had once ordered Lawrence whenever he was unable to free a cart wheel that was caught between two stumps and asked how he should clear it. “Perhaps the underlying thought was to ‘haw the cattle to’, back out the wheel, and straddle the stump. But the terms and tone gave no instructions- only the order. The youth (which is Lawrence; he referred to himself only in third person in his Early Memoir) seized the hub, lifted the wheel clear of the stump, and threw it over with such force that the cart-tongue knocked against the nose of the ‘off-ox’ and the whole team was ‘off’ in a jiffy.”  Blessed Boyhood!, Chamberlain. Pg. 42

Yeah, you read that right. Lawrence pulled a Valjean with a cart he claims had “only three or four hundred pounds of hay on”, and his father looked on him with a “moment’s pale astonishment, but not a word was said.”  Blessed Boyhood!, Chamberlain. Pg. 42-43

And, as far as learning goes, he was fluent in like 11 different languages, could play the organ and bass violin, and overcame a speech impediment by figuring out how to phrase syllables that frustrated him in a sort of rhythm as if he were to sing them. Also remind me to tell you about the preparations he took in order to study to be accepted into Bowdoin College because that was also an insane feat.

Beyond that, Chamberlain was a reserved, quiet, and respectful man. From what I’ve read, he treated all he met with the same respect he believed that any man was due. Even as an officer, he still did not put himself too highly above other enlisted men. He was humble, and the men of the 20th Maine idolized him as one private remarked. “Lieutenant Colonel Chamberlain is idolized by the whole regiment. He makes a fine appearance, mounted on his rich present, at battalion drill, but he does not ride him in the presence of the enemy. ... Of course I do not have much to do with him, yet, if I wanted any favors, I should apply to him at once, knowing I should get them if it were in his power to confer them.” In The Hands of Providence, Trulock. Pg 77-78

I could go on- from being able to inspire all but six of the 120~ remaining members of the disbanded 2nd Maine to fight with the 20th, to commanding his men to salute the surrendering confederate soldiers as they surrendered their arms to his men at Appomattox Courthouse. I believe one of the biggest reasons he was so well liked and respected by his men and many others who knew him were because of those core values of his: learn what you don’t know, do what you think you can’t, and to treat everyone you meet with dignity and respect as they deserve. 

5. What is the most ridiculous statement on them you've ever read?

He wore a beard for the first part of his adult life up until after he had gone to war, then a Mr. Brown trimmed it all off and left him with the mustache that we all know and love and he liked the look so much that he wore it for the rest of his life. 

“Mr. [Adjut. John Marshall] Brown took the opportunity today of cutting my beard to suit his notion of my face. He has left me with a ferocious mustache and my bit of an imperial only. The ends of the mustache he has waxed and twisted and they reach positively the angle of my jaw... and would almost meet under my chin. Mr. B. thinks he has me now to suit him- especially for a profile.” Joshua L. Chamberlain- A Life In Letters, edited by Thomas Desjardin. Pg 174

Don’t ask me how, but it reminds me of this vine

7. Let us know three random facts about them!

oh lord where to begin-

- Gonna combine two facts into one in that he was, in fact, a Horse Girl and dedicated almost two pages of his Early Memoir to a story of how he tamed a mare at the tender age of thirteen and mentions her again and again and how well they understood each other. That being said, I feel like any time he mounts a horse it ends in a near death experience for him. That same mare once jumped fence where there was also a low hanging branch and while she made it over just fine, Lawrence had to jump off her and grabbed the branch where he was left hanging there, in his words, like Absalom. One time he was trying to plow a field with the same mare, but had trouble steering her and opted to hop on her back to see if that would make a difference. She got spooked somehow and took off in the direction of a fence, reared, and Lawrence very nearly missed falling on top of the plow. He also had six horses shot from under him while in the war. Six!  I’d add excerpts and more sources here, but this post is already a mile long. If anyone needs the proof though, tell me and I’ll make a separate post. For now.... trust me.  - He was friends with the Stowe’s, as in Calvin and Harriet Beecher. Calvin Stowe was the professor of natural and revealed religion at Bowdoin College and Lawrence studied Hebrew literature while taking his class. Lawrence was also invited to the Stowe’s house by Harriet on some Saturday evenings along with some other friends of the Stowe’s where she would read her newest chapters of her current work before she sent it to be published in the abolitionist paper The National Era, what would later become the book we all know as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the Hands of Providence, Trulock. Pg. 42

- While he was in college, there was this event called “Class-Tree day” where the custom of each class could go out, find a tree, and come back and plant it on campus. The game was to find a tree as far away from the school as possible, and Lawrence went out with a group of friends to find their own. His friends had brought some alcohol with them (which Lawrence did not drink; he did not drink at all while attending college) and they caused a scene in a town called Lisbon and the people there complained to the college about the students and Lawrence was brought forth to testify against them and point out who had brought along the refreshments. Except he didn’t; he made it clear he did not drink any alcohol but refused to testify against his friends because he did not want to break the trust he had with his friends and commit such a traitorous act. The president of the college threatened to expel him and Lawrence still did not relent, and said that if he was sent home for this then he knew his father would be proud of him. As he packed up his things, his friends heard about what happened and would not let such a fate befall him so they all marched to the Presidents office and fessed up. They all got basically a slap on the wrist and Lawrence wasn’t expelled! Blessed Boyhood!, Chamberlain. Pg. 55-57 Original post is here if you want to ask me more things!

[girllovescomic]

Winter Begonia recap episode 22

The beginning of the episode is a recap of the last episode, where XIao Zhouzi begs Shang Lao Ba to take him away from Si Xi’er and Er Ye promising to save him from the clutches of that old bish.  They shooed away by the skittish guide.  Outside, Shang Lao Ba asks Er Ye to confirm whether he will help out find a way to get the young talented singer out of his ongoing nightmare.  He discuss how abused the young singer is by his master, who is keeping him from performing and forcing him to do hard labor. The skittish guide takes his leave, but not before Er Ye buys off his silence.  LOL, Shang Lao Ba’s face.

OMG its MY QUEEN.  She is engaged in a fierce gunfight and I doubt it is with that stuttering Gu. One of her men falls, hit by the bullets and confirm my suspicions.  He claims the opposite side is not from the common army.  He urges her to leave since she is pregnant.  Awww, my queen is crying.  She is loyal and fierce.  MAH GIRL. As she wipes her tears, she states with resolve in her face they will fall back while searching for a solution.  We see what appears to be soldiers shooting at them as she escapes.  Hmmm could they be from a private army?  It is night and she is lurking near some kind of base ready to break into like a boss, but is stopped by a coming car.  She smirks as she realizes the golden opportunity to hide under the truck. OHHH, looks here!  Her hub hub, Cao Jr. listening to a report from adjutant Sun about Nanjing mobilizing a separate battalion of two hundreds to come to Beijing for some kind of economic and social order.  LOL, what?This is what you waste your time on instead of protecting the country against potential invaders? Cao Jr is not quite impressed by this news and asks who is the commander.  Sun tells him it’s Liu Hanyun, our penguin’s godfather. Hmmm..Oh, so we learn that Liu Hanyun has defeated many bandit groups and wheels start turning inside my head.  Could he be responsible for the attack on Gu Dali’s group? Oh, our hub hub is asking Sun if Laozi Mountain has been hit.  Unfortunately, Sun is a bit lost by the question, prompting the hub hub to dismiss him. While he paces, worried about the whereabouts of his mountain queen, she barges inside his room ready to pounce on him.  LOL, is he running away from her?  BWAHAHA, I cannot! He asks how she got inside his compound and she is like, why are you asking. He asks why she is bloody and she accuses him of being the cause of her current state.  As she is about to stab him, he blocks her hand and asks if Laozi Mountain is really in trouble, which stuns her.

A couple of very cute boys are practicing their poses while Zhouzi is singing for Si Xi’er. Oh these cute boys are as petty as their master, no likey. Geezus xrist, there is only young good looking troupe members, smh. Si Xi seems dissatisfied by what he hears and asks the young singer to sing again.  He does and Si Xi claims his vocals sound annoying.  As he is about to beat him with that wooden sword, someone calls out for him.  He tells Zhouzi he should practice more if he ever wants a chance to sing on stage, which I doubt he will ever let him do so, and sends him back to the courtyard to do some more hard work.  

At the freight agency office, Fan Lian barges in at the same moment Manager Ma is giving CFT a report of the business. He tells CFT that Si Xi is too sly for him, having uncovered Fan Lian ruse to send his people and pose as wealthy patrons interested in borrowing some of his performers.  Instead of putting his best performers, he chose the tone deaf and ugly ones.  LOL. His men were too afraid to make it obvious they were there for Zhouzi, especially as Si Xi claimed he was selling out any one for private performances.  In order to get Zhouzi out, they are going to have find another way, like a complete strange with no connection to the opera circe, since Si Xi will sniff them out.  CFT is afraid that Si Xi may get wind of Shang Lao Ba’s interest for Zhouzi and kill him before they have a chance to snatch him. Fan Lian wonders who would qualify for that role of being a wealthy loafer who could easily host an opera performance without raising suspicion.  LOL, Fan Lian would have fit the bill if he was not linked to Shuiyin. He suggest that CFT goes to the Chamber of Commerce, which I have to admit is a good idea, but unfortunately it is shut down as CFT informs him that none of those members would agree to help his foreign sexy ass.  Right at this moment, Cao Jr and another guest are announced.  

It turns out the other guest is the fierce mountain Queen who is ready to pounce on Cao Jr, angry that he is telling her to stay put instead of seeking revenge immediately.  Our lonely warrior is looking mighty fine in a gray western clothing, I would also be pouncing on him if I was Gu Dali.  He promises to seek revenge but he wants to do carefully since his opponent is a government official.  She pushes him away clearly unhappy with his inaction.  He turns to CFT hoping he could mediate between the two, but CFT seems lost somewhere, lol, hopefully thinking of his penguin. LOL. Cao Jr asks him to seek a safe place for his mountain queen, which befuddles CFT.  He asks why isn’t she staying in his military base, since she is such a soft butch (and looking good as one).  Cao Jr drops the mini bomb on CFT, informing him that he is going to be a papa.  CFT is stumped by the news and then burst into a giggle.  I laugh along with him at how prodigious our lonely warrior was.  He congratulates him with a thumbs up for getting it at the first shot while our Amazonian and lonely warrior looks at him like he was cray cray.  LOL, I cannot with this show.  He states he will send congratulations to the Commander for becoming a grandpa which gets our Amazonian Queen taking her badge of honor as tough single mum-to-be.  No one is going to raise mah son but me, f them Cao men, this baby is going to be king of the mountain!  This gets the sexiest laugh out of Cao Jr.  Seriously, he is looks so hot when his face is relaxed, le swoon. He asks what if it is a girl, and of course our Amazonian Queen puts him in his place by stating the girl would be like her momma.  Seriously, why even bother asking that question Cao Jr? Unless...someone wants to keep his badass queen next to him. CFT is looking at the incongruous couple like it was a comedic opera and struggling not to laugh.  Cao Jr kicks him in the shin to get him to support his point.  CFT tries to tamper our two rugged warriors, bringing some levity to the situation. He urges the amazonian queen to not be rash and lay low in a safe place of his choosing, while they await for news about Liu Hanyun. Cao Jr informs him the politician will be in the city under the guise of inspecting economic and social order, but it is in fact an opportunity to investigate CFT’s smuggled weapons side business and the Cao’ involvement.  They both comment this visit is suspicious af and may not have good intentions, which will harm both families. He asks our lonely warrior for another assist with something, which I have the sneaky suspicion has to do with his penguin.

A woman is walking dressed in a velour cheonsang and OMG, it my Amazonian QUEEN.  She’s at Yunxi Troupe and Si Xi asks where she’s from.  She tells him she’s from Shandong and is the wife of a powerful businessman.  She is looking for a performer to relieve her boredom.  Geez, it sounds like he is selling a rent boy as he tells her what his young cast can do for her, like take her to the best places in Beijing to entertain herself. She’s like, stop buttering me up with these subpar candidates, asking him about a boy she saw with him at Huibin House called Xiao Zhouzi.  Ohhh, is that white lie going to work on slick Si Xi? His face change and tells her that Xiao Zhouzi is too disappointing to be up here.  Yeah, I doubt it. She tells him she will decide for herself, whether the young performer is worthy or not. One of her ‘guards’ shows him the money, which makes him change his tune real quick.  They head to where Zhouzi is being held.  Upon seeing them swapped money, he is terrified and gets on his knees, begging Si Xi’er not to let him go. Geez, as he been in this situation before? When Zhouzi said he will do anything as long as he gets a chance to perform on stage, Si Xi’s pettiness tells him tough break.  Gu Dali and her ‘goons’ take Zhouzi despite his protestation, knocking him out to make sure he complies.  LOL asks himself whether Mrs. Wang (Gu Dali’s disguise) is a bandit and I SQUEAL.  He looks on at his ‘disciple’ and basically wax poetic to say ‘tough luck buddy’.

He is dropped off in front of a building and hears someone singing opera.  He stumbles and we see our cute penguin on stage.  OHHH, so they dropped him off at the Royal Theater! Nice.  Our cute penguin being absolutely adorable while asking Zhouzi how old is he. The boy answers 14, which impresses our penguin for the innate talent the boy has.  He promises him he will help him soar if he is willing.  Our poor baby Zhouzi is so overwhelms, he faints.  Apparently he was starving and he chows down on a pig trotter like life depended on it. Er Ye comments that their adoptive son is much like his other father.  LOL, indeed.  The cutie hubby tells his son to not listen to his other dad, and eat to his heart’s content.  Apparently Si Xi never let his harem of young boys eat meat because he doesn’t want them to get fat.  LOL, the face on our chipmunk upon hearing this.  He replies that if that was true, Cai Lao Ba would not sell tickets since he is fat.  Er Ye reprimands him, telling Cai Lao Ba is plump, not fat and tells Shang Lao Ba to be careful not to say this aloud or offend someone again.  LOL, it fell on deaf ears as Shang Lao Ba basically curses Si Xi with an early death, saying to Zhouzi that as soon as the old bat is six feet under, he will be free to make his name.  Best girl Xiao Lai is like OMG leader, please don’t say such ominous things.  Once again, Er Ye tells him not to teach their kid awful things like this, especially if Si Xi does survive past the age of 90.  Shang Lao Ba replies that all of his effort (hmmm...you mean all of Er Ye’s efforts) to snatch Zhouzi is because he believes he will have immediate success and that will ensure he will be protected from any abuse.  Er Ye smiles at his baby and we get a smile from Shang Lao Ba in return.  Is this the first time they both smile so openly to each other? You can see an enormous shift in their relationship as both are so relaxed with each other.  Shang Lao Ba wonders about Zhouzi’s stage name, clearly dissatisfied with his current name.  Er Ye is like, honey, you suck at naming people, giving names like Red January, Red February and so on.  Shang Lao Ba is like, bae, the only reason why my troupe members have such sucky name is because I was not really putting too much attention to it, but when he does, the performer would greatly benefit from it.  LOL, Er Ye is like, ok honey, go ahead and see what that pretty head of yours come out with. Shang Lao Ba says the name must have a flowery flow especially since Zhouzi is a dan ju’er while hubby looks at his beauty like he is the most beautiful flower he’s plucked.  Seriously, those gazes are killing me. Shang Lao Ba gives the name of Zhou Xiangyun. Sigh, how I wished I understood the meaning of his name.  

Hubby writes their son’s new name and shows his beautiful calligraphy to his wifey.  Wifey comments the writing has both the flow of grass and grain, and hands the paper to his adoptive son so he can learn his new name. Zhou kowtows in front of his new leader/father, so grateful by the gesture, he tells Shang Lao Ba he doesn’t know how to repay him.  LOL our penguin tells him to repay him with daily serving of pig trotter since he devoured today’s serving.  He sends best girl to help settle Zhou at Shuiyin House, while hubby asks how is Zhou going to buy pig trotter for him when he barely makes any money. Wifey answers that best girl will give him the money.  Er Ye asks his bae if their bouncing baby boy is ready to become a ju’er.  Our penguin says it is complicated to say, twirls while doing his elegant opera gestures and sashay away from the room while his suave Er Ye smiles, probably thinking how cute his wifey is. 

Best girl brings Zhou Xiangyun to the dormitory where the younger male members are sleeping.  Oh boy, you can already smell the bullying as they basically said they would not sleep around Si Xi’er former disciple. Best girl tries to wield her authority with the boys, getting them to clear up an area for the bouncing baby to sleep.  They seemingly comply but you can tell they are going to push him out as soon as she turns around and leaves. My poor baby, can he catch a break? Especially since they treat him like he has the plague.  Finally La Yuehong helps him out, putting our baby’s things next to him.  Zhou Xiangyun spots the beautiful golden bracelets that LYH kept from his senior sister.  Zhou glances at his benefactor and I ship it.  Later at night, ZXY is kicked out of the bedroom, drawing attention from his new leader.  Shang Lao Ba asks who did this to him, but the already broken boy is not willing to snitch.  SIGH, he is too sweet, is he going to survive in this cutthroat world of opera? Shang Lao Ba goes inside to investigate and admonish the other boys. Dasheng pretends to be sleeping, prompting Shang Lao Ba to throw his shoe at him.  Each one, except for LYH who remains quiet, act innocent as if ZXY threw himself out.  SXR knows they are lying, telling them they are wasting their acting talent on this issue instead of the opera. One of the performer asks why he is so protective of an outsider, especially Si Xi’er disciple.  He tells them ZXY is far better than all of them, which gets them rankled. One of them is like, how can this kid be better than me when I came from a proper academy while he came from the cesspool that is Yunxi Troupe. SXR decides they will have a contest to prove ZXY has more chops than all of them; if he loses, he will give them an additional wage.  ZXY wants to back out, but Shang Lao Ba is like how are you going to prove you have what it takes if you cannot even perform in front of them?

He takes him to his room and have a father/son talk.  SXR tells him how he uses to fight against bullies, but since Si Xi’er abused him, his spirit has been broken.  AWWW. He tells him not to worry and sing his best, even if SXR ends up losing money. As our little puppy is talking about repaying him for all the good things he’s done form, SXR falls asleep.  LOL.  Our penguin snores so loudly.  The next day, the boys ask LYH to represent them against ZXY in the little contest, which he declines at first, stating he did not participate in the bullying, but relents as the other performer convinces him with the promise of extra wages.  This gets SXR snickering and he tells his newfound prodigy to remain calm and sing accordingly.  If he wins, he will treat him to good food; if he loses, he won’t beat him.  ZXY is still hesitant, scared of singing in front of a gathering, but SXR tells this is small compared to the size of a real audience.  LYH introduces himself as a laosheng ju’er while our hesitant baby boy struggles to introduce himself and his role.  SXR comments on that, predicting he will probably lose. LOL. He asks them to perform Meilongzheng (The Emperor and Country Girl), the same opera he sang back in episode 2 when he saw his future husband for the second time and got married on the spot, after being rescued by his dashing prince from the rich spoiled brats. At first, our broken little puppy is unable to sing properly, sounding like a cat whose tail was stepped on.  Like seriously, what the hell was that?  He stops telling SXR he was too nervous.  SXR tells him not to be so anxious and let his voice flow from his throat, not by forcing it. He starts over again and it sounds much better.  LYH sings along and everything looks great, while our suave hubby comes to the courtyard to bring his bae breakfast.  AWWWWWWW, I can’t!  Where is my Er Ye???? Btw, the lyrics are quite interesting and seems to describe our main couple’s relationship: “This Begonia brings out the romantic.”  This freaking show is dropping hints so loud, you have to blind and deaf not to see it glaringly clear. Our suave prince stands in the entrance, away from everyone’s gaze and watches the show right as as ZXY loses the plot.  LYH is exasperated with the kid, believing he was worth the trouble and storms out.  Best girl yells at LYH and defends ZXY for being inexperienced, which gets one of the sheng performers to accuse her of being swayed by the kid’s good looks, which gets Shi Jiu hot under the collar.  I guess all she can insult people like that.  LOL.  SXR tells everyone to stop arguing, informing them he knows of ZXY potential and what he is capable of. The same performer tells his leader to stop giving the kid excuses, more interested in knowing if he will get the additional wages. At this time, our suave dashing hubby steps in, steps in, calling his wifey out for breakfast. RAWR, what a good hubby! 

Shang Lao Ba asks why hub hub is here so early.  LOL, this reminds me of the novel and how much of night owl CFT is while SXR is an early bird. Er Ye explains that he was standing there watching the performance and wanted to know how Shang Lao Ba was going to judge this contest.  Shang Lao Ba states the kid’s performance was not that great, sounding like a couple of cats’ howling.  LOL.  Er Ye cautions his wifey on how he is going to judge ZXY, worried this will increase the bullying if he is declared a loser, but Shang Lao Ba replies favoring the potential prodigy will actually draw more ire from the rest of the troupe.  I am with Shang Lao Ba on this.  It is clear these performers respect only one thing and that is talent. He tell Er Ye about his own case of stage fright, which surprises the hubby, probably thinking his babe was born on the stage.  Shang Lao Ba replies that anyone with pride has stage fright and he is right about this.  Because you tend to want to be perfect, you actually get inside your head and get so nervous you forget how to perform. Er Ye asks how he was able to face his stage fright and once again we are reminded of the horrible abuse our penguin suffered to reach the top.  His dad actually paraded him naked in front of everyone, from the backstage to home.  Er Ye is disgusted by the poor treatment his baby went through, stating he would never used this kind of treatment.  Shang Lao Ba casually claim the embarrassment is so extreme that you will never be scared or cowardly. Er Ye urges him not to use this method with ZYX because the broken boy would probably be so traumatized, he might jump off a bridge.  Yeah, I believe it.  Shang Lao Ba is like, oh is it because I am thick-skinned while ZYX is thin-skinned. Well despite you being physically abused, you were never told that you would amount to nothing, especially get on stage. Er Ye laughs and replies that he needs to find another method.  Seriously, sounds like an old married couple talking about how to raise their kids.  I CANNOT SKHHKHKHFLKJ

SXR gets out of the house and announces LYH is the winner, therefore the performers will get an additional wage.  He calls out ZYX to follow him.  They end up at the noodle restaurant and our broken boy starts the mea culpa.  Shang Lao Ba tells him not to worry, he won’t scold him for failing, reassuring him it will take sometime to get good, He orders a cornucopia of food claiming the boy is too skinny.  LOL.  Seriously all that food!  ZYX is like, boss, this is too much, but SXR replies he can take his time to eat all of it.  ZYX tells him he is a good person and will repay him with hard work, but SXR is like don’t worry, just eat.

There was so many cute ChengShang moments, I melted into the ground.  To see them talk as if they were an old married couple discussing their son’s education was the sweetest thing. It was interesting to find out that SXR did not put that much thought in naming some of his troupe members, which tells me he did not see them as more than supporting cast.  This does not mean he doesn’t care, in fact, he considers them his siblings in the troupe, since they grew up together, but Zhouzi is the first true disciple he actually recognized, one he can elevate to surpass him.  Let’s not forget, this is someone who is extremely passionate about the art, who can even get lost listening to other performers, so him recognizing someone’s innate talent is on par with his behavior. 

I was also so happy to see my other ship, Gu Dali and Cao Guixi in their bickering self.  Seeing Gu Dali in a dress again, OH MY QUEEN can rock a beautiful cheongsam when she wants too.  I love her independence, even in front of the lonely warrior, telling him in no uncertain way that she will be the one raising their little bundle, he can step aside.  The fact that Cao Jr actually needs his little uncle to help deal with this Amazonian Queen, BWAHAHA.  This is so refreshing to see a woman, especially in that period, stand up and declare that she needs no dude to help her raise her family. What a contrast to the demure Er Nainai whose own strength was subdued by societal pressure.  Yes, Gu Dali is a bandit, who probably do not ascribe to the set set of customs as Er Nainai, but nonetheless, it is somewhat disconcerting to see when framed in this context. 

What do you guys think?

[talpup]

Light In the Darkness:60

It’s here!  Feels like I’ve been waiting ages to share this chapter with you all.  Stuff is going down.  This chapter has SO MANY hints in it.  And while it does answer some questions.  It leaves us with countless more.  Enough talking.  Please enjoy.

Please remember this fic is rated mature and has warnings of violence, abuse, sexual tension, sexual behavior, and other possible triggers.  For a full list of story tags please check the fics AO3 (link to that at the top of my tumblrs homepage).

Chapter 60

It was six hours till sunrise on the longest day of the year.  After countless years of waiting, the time had finally come.  The long awaited Ends First Breath was upon them. It was the beginning of the end.  Or as Alowishus’ followers believed, the beginning of the end that led to a new beginning.

Alowishus’ time spent waiting had not always been done in patience; but it had never been wasted.  So much effort had gone into the preparations for the three trails Yami and Teris would face that would ultimately awaken Chaos from his slumber and give him the rest he so desperately wanted.  It was a shame he couldn’t take his father’s skull to witness the event the man had tried so hard to prevent.

Alowishus entered the grand hall of Sanctuary.  He came across Slade and saw the stub where the man’s severed hand had been, now bound with linen.  Alowishus gave him a nod.  The Rope Mages misdeed had been forgiven, his act of attrition admirable and accurate given the stakes.  Teris Nova would be put through the first trail this morning Her body, mind, will, and soul tested to see if she was worthy and in control of primordial force that had chosen her.  She needed all her strength if she was to survive.  If the rebirth of Chaos was to begin, the Ray of the worlds Annihilation had to face her fate, even if she refused to accept it.

“Are the masks ready?”

“Yes, Master.”  Slade said, bowing.

Alowishus nodded.  “Good.  We must all be present for this but we can take no chances that they will see Ellara’s face.  Immediately after the ceremony we leave them.  Misandre will deliver our group back here. You will be the last to past through, unless I say otherwise.  Should their bindings become undone you are to restrain them, but only if it looks like they’re making a move to follow or attack.  They’ll both be weak so it’s doubtful, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Yes, Master.”  Slade nodded.

“After this.  We’ll see about getting you a new, better hand.” Alowishus told the Rope Mage.  He moved down to Misandre, the Spatial Mage who had taken over since Erskin’s death.  “Speaking of the bindings.  How are they?”

“Perfect.” Misandre said looking up.  She held one out.  “Care to try?”

Alowishus held out his hands.  “Please.”

As Misandre tied the bonds loosely, he watched her work.  Her hands much too large for her frame.  Erskin’s last gift to them, Alowishus thought.  The late Spatial Mages hands, while jarring on one so small and feminine, had served to strengthen Misandre’s own magic which he had always found somewhat lacking, especially when compared to Erskin’s.

As Misandre stepped back, Alowishus pulled against the ties, the bonds tightening.  During the ceremony they would all be left without magic.  Only items spelled or naturally imbued with mana would work.

“The more one struggles the stronger the bonds grow.”  Misandre said, watching him.  “Nothing can break them.  The only way for them to release is to stop fighting.”

Cloaking himself in mana Alowishus tried to break free.  Satisfied he stopped and relax.  The binding fell off.  “Marvelous.”  He smiled. “Come.  Let us join the others and cleanse our bodies and minds.”

60.2

Since a Spatial Mage had been with whoever had taken Yami and Teris, Commander Greywright saw no sense in leading the search for them from Lord Nathyn Silva’s home.  The royal had been kind enough to offer; but such an unnecessary imposition would have only strained already tense relations.  Having sent out a team from Magic Investigations as soon as Jax and Julius had reported the matter, Greywright now read their findings.

“Tell me again why the both of you were out there?”  The Magic Knights Commander questioned.

“She’s my sister.”  Julius said.

“And what made you head over to the Black Bulls base to check on them in the first place?”  Greywright asked.

The two Captains shared a look.  Jax turned back to the Commander.

“Does any of this really matter?  We should be out there looking for them. Questioning people.”  Jax urged.

“Questioning people like Lord Nathyn Silva?”  Greywright remarked.  “What’s your interest in him?  Why would he order the abduction of two Magic Knights?  One of which is his son and heirs Intended.”

“Because--” Julius began, but fell silent.

“If you two don’t tell me what the hell’s going on I’ll lock you in a cell and have Ellara get the answers out of you when she returns.” Greywright growled.

“Why not call her in now?”  Julius suggested.

“She’s at her home in Raque.  Sent there under command of Sir Jorah and a healer.”  Greywright informed.

“But surely we could benefit from having her here to lead and assist on the Investigations side of things.” Julius pushed.

“What part of under command of the Wizard King do you not understand?” Greywright asked.  He had made the same argument moments ago to Sir Jorah; but the Wizard King had been adamant that Ellara was not to be disturbed.  Her health and well being apparently paramount even under such circumstances.  He saw the two Captains share another communicative look and slammed a hand on his desk.  “Speak!  Damn it!”

“A few weeks ago there was a brawl at the Boiling Brew.”  Julius said.

“I heard.  You, Win, Heath, Jon, Yami, and Tobin made quite a mess and killed twenty people.”

“Attackers.” Julius corrected.  “All interested in Yami.”

“Unpaid debt?  What?”  Greywright asked.

“If your asking for my thinking.  News of him and Teris being together has spread and Lord Nathyn doesn’t like it.”  Julius said.

“That’s some thinking.”  Greywright said, raising his brows.  Of course he knew royals made such orders, their money able to buy men that could never lead back to them.  But to make such an accusation, even if it came from another royal…  “Got any proof?”

“You know I don’t.”  Julius snapped, his concern and headache cutting his temper short.

Greywright let the tone slide.  “We can’t so much as hint at such a thought, let alone question Lord Silva.”

“I know.”  Julius sighed.

“But that’s what you think.”  Greywright said, sitting back in his seat.  “That since the attempt at the pub failed, this is another one.  Ballsy.  Even for a royal.  To order such at thing so close to his own home.  Not to mention that his sons Intended was there and is also missing.”

“Which is why we also wonder if it could be the Agents of Chaos or some other interested faction.”  Jax put in.

“Now that’s more likely.”  Greywright pointed.  “Ellara had mentioned that it’s been quiet.  Maybe they were laying low. Preparing for this.”

“If it’s been quiet then why is she overworked?”  Julius questioned.

“Enough.” Greywright commanded.  “I’ve ignored your hints at this nonsense once before.  I won’t do it again.  Even if it’s your sister and protege that are missing.  She’s the Wizard Kings Advisor.  Sir Jorah’s and my trust in Ellara Shaw is absolute.”

Julius looked away.

“How many teams do you have looking?”  Jax tendered, watching his friend struggle to control his emotions.

“Everyone.” Greywright told.  “Sentries.  Magic Knights.  Magic Investigations.  Though with a spatial mage involved, who knows if they’re even still in the kingdom.”

“We have to find them.”  Julius said, fists trembling on his lap.

Greywright looked to Julius.  “The Wizard King and I agree.  Even if their magic didn’t combine to create the ultimate weapon that could wipe out the Clover Kingdom, if not possibly obliterate the world.  We don’t leave any Magic Knight in the hands of the enemy.”

60.3

“Sleep well, Yami Sukehiro?”  Alowishus greeted, standing before him.

Yami’s eyes opened.  He had been moved.  They were outside.  Is was still dark out.  He pulled at the bonds tied around his wrists holding his arms above his head, noting how they felt different from the magical chains of before.  Looking up he saw what looked like mere rope anchored to some sort of tall stone, the rock cool against his back.

“Where’s Teris?”  Yami demanded.

“She’s coming.”  Alowishus assured.

Yami caught sight of Calen the only man he currently wanted to kill more than Alowishus, simply because the Mage was still dampening his magic.  Pulling against the rope, Yami asked.  “You think this thing can hold me?  I’ll be out of it and on you before you know it.”

“You’re welcome to try.”  Alowishus smirked.

The Rope Mage that had captured Teris laid Yami’s belt, grimoire, and katana on the stone at Yami’s feet.

“And you’re kind enough to bring me my weapon.”  Yami’s eyes flicked up from his katana to Calen.  “I’ll make sure it tastes your blood first.”

A massive portal, that would have taken more than a single spatial mage to create, opened.  Yami’s eyes widened at the number of people who appeared, walking through.  There were a lot more crazies than he had imagined.  Well over three hundred if he were to guess.  The half dozen or so that stepped behind Alowishus were all wearing masks.

“Their faces as ugly as yours?”  Yami taunted their Master.  Patience waning and worry growing, he yelled.  “Where’s Teris!”

As if his demand had conjured her, another portal opened.  Teris appeared.  She was bound at the wrists with rope and carried by yet another masked figure.

“Happy?” Alowishus asked, raising a brow.

“What do you want?  I’m gonna kill you.  All of you!”  Yami yelled at them.

Yami wrists pulled against the rope, trying to break free.  Something was about to happen.  He didn’t need his gut to tell him that it was nothing good.  The raised stone platform he was on.  The tall smooth rock he was tied to.  It was too much like an alter.

“Teris! Teris, wake up!”  Yami called to her.

“Himmel will wake her soon enough.  First she must be put into place.” Alowishus told.

“What place?  What are you going to do to her?”  Yami demanded.

“Master!” Calen called, feeling a sudden heat come from the grimoire he held.

Alowishus turned just in time to see Calen drop Teris’ spell-book.  Tilting his head, he watched the grimoire ignite in a blaze.

“You bastards!”  Yami yelled, thinking that they were burning her grimoire.

“It’s—it’s not burning.”  Calen said in awe, watching the flames lick around the tome.

“Get someone to take it into position.”  Alowishus ordered.  “Quickly before it can no longer be handled.”

Teris groaned feeling the now common sense of disorientation that told her she had had another forgotten communicative dream.  Eyes opening slowly, her sense of disorientation grew.

Seeing her eyes open, Yami struggled all the harder.  “Teris!  Teris.  Are you alright?”

Teris’ lolling head rose.  Her eyes widened, seeing a masked faced.  Barely realizing that she was being carried, Teris tried to thrust out a hand and shoot a beam of light at the figure.  Her fierce and sudden squirming caused the person carrying her to drop her.  The rough landing didn’t help her unclear head.

“Yami.” Teris breathed, hoarsely.  Looking up at him, she tried to get up.

The Chain Mage rushed forward pulling her to her feet.  He held her as she tried to make her way to Yami.

“Yami!” Teris called, struggling to break free and get to him.

“It’s alright.  We’re gonna get out of this.”  Yami assured her.

“Sure you are?”  Alowishus taunted Yami.  He stepped in front of Teris. “You’re practically glowing my dear.”

Teris snapped her teeth at Alowishus when he reached out to caress her cheek.

“Get you’re filthy, dead mans hands off her you crazy freak!”  Yami raged.

Clint made to move her into place.

Alowishus held up a halting hand.  The Master of the Agents of Chaos turned to Yami.  “I enjoyed our talk yesterday.  But you never fully answered my question.  Do so now.  Tell about your family.”

Yami glared at him.  “I’ve told you everything.”

Alowishus tisked and shook his head.  “No.  Not everything I imagine.”  He turned to Teris, lips brushing her ear as he questioned.  “Has he told you?  Do you know the answer I seek?”

Teris pulled away and spat in his face.

Alowishus smiled.  Wiping his face with a single finger, he collected her spittle.  Teris’ nose wrinkled, face twitching as she watched his tongue leak out to lick his finger clean.

“As sweet and fresh as a summers morning you are.”  Alowishus declared.

Yami growled, slinging curses.

Alowishus turned his eyes on him.  “You should be ashamed.  Keeping such flavor all to yourself.”

Yami thrashed wildly.  “Stay away from her.  I’ll kill you!”  His feet pushed against the rock he was bound to, swinging him out only to do so again and again.

That’s when Teris’ eyes focused on the monolith.  A cold chill shot through her, though she couldn’t say why.  Her knees buckled.

“No.” Teris muttered, head shaking.

Alowishus grasped her under her chin as Clint struggled to hold her up and still.  “Do you recall what the page of Chaos has told you?  Tell me.  What does it say!”  Seeing nothing but wild fear in her eyes, Alowishus pushed her face away.  “Put her into place.  Kefer!” He gave the Projection Mage a nod.  “As we discussed.”

“Master.” Kefer bowed, joining him as he stepped closer to Yami.

“Your family.”  Alowishus said.

Yami’s head turned to watch Teris being half dragged, half carried to and around the stone platform.

“Yami!” Teris cried out.

Alowishus snapped his fingers in front of Yami’s face.  “Answer me.”

“Where are you taking her!”  Yami shouted.

“Answer me first.”  Alowishus stated, calmly.

Yami’s head turned back, trying to see Teris.  “I don’t know what want!”

“Tell me about your family.”  Alowishus commanded again.

“I already told you everything.  What more do you want!  Want to know the way my mother sliced vegetables?  The best and worst haul my father ever brought in?”  Blood began to trickle down Yami’s arms, though he didn’t feel the cutting rope as he struggled. Unable to see her anymore, he turned back to Alowishus.  “Where are you taking her?”

“To the other side of the stone.  She’s behind you.  Separated by little more than three feet of bedrock.”  Alowishus told.  “Now. I’ve answered you.  So answer me.”

“I don’t know what more you want.”  Yami clipped, loudly.  “Let me see her.  You!”  His eyes pinned on Kefer.  “Show her to me.”

Alowishus gave a small smile.  “Grant him his wish.”

An imagine of Teris appeared.  Alowishus hadn't been lying.  Wrists still tied by the same rope, Yami watched them anchor Teris to the stone in the same fashion he was.

“I gave you what you asked.  Now answer me.  Tell me about your family.” Alowishus pressed.

“Fine.” Yami gritted.  “My oldest brother had a thing for whores.  So much so that he caught something and gave it to his wife.  He survived. She didn’t.”

“Not what I’m interested in.”  Alowishus said.

“Then what?  Tell me what you want me to say and I’ll say it.”  Yami said.  He watched a second masked figure tear Teris’ blouse open.

Yami went wild.  Cursing, threatening, and thrashing.  Raw and cut from the rope that bound him, blood now rolled freely down his arms.

“Your family.  Tell me about them”  Alowishus instructed, again.

A knife glinted in front of Teris’ chest before the image tightened on her face.

“Stop! I’ll tell you whatever you want.”  Yami spat.  “Get that blade away from her.”

“Tell. Me.  About your family.”  Alowishus clipped, impatience growing as the sunrise which would force an end to his questioning drew nearer.

“My Grandmother was a foreigner.”  Yami told.  “She came from what she called a land of rain and fog.  She didn’t wash ashore like me. She came seeking out new people and ways of life.  She was interested in different cultures and how our stories and magic might've been similar to hers.  Only thing is in my homeland there is no magic.”

“Interesting.” Alowishus said.  “But not what I’m looking for.”

Yami watched Teris’ face contort as she began to scream in pain. Pulling against his bindings, he shouted.

“Tell me about your family.”  Alowishus said over Teris’ screams and Yami’s threats.

“I’m the third seventh!”  Yami yelled.

Alowishus held up a hand.

Teris’ screams died down to a whimper.  Yami watched a bloody knife cross the frame of the projection, Teris trembling uncontrollably.

“What’s that?”  Alowishus asked.

“I’m the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son.”  Yami confessed.  “That’s what you’re looking for.  Isn’t it?”

Alowishus stepped back.  While he didn’t understand the full meaning of it, he knew the significance of the numbers.  He had known Yami had to have been special to be chosen by the Darkness; but had had no clue how.  Yami’s family being nothing more than peasant fishermen in a land with no magic, Alowishus couldn’t figure out what had made Yami worthy.  The third seventh, Alowishus thought watching him. Even in a land without magic Yami would have been special.  Here he was—well he was Teris’ opposite.  Darkness itself.

“Thank you.”  Alowishus said.

The image of Teris blinked out.

“Finish up.”  Alowishus called, knowing that the projection had cut off because all magic in the area had ceased.  “It’s almost time.”

“Time for what?”  Yami demanded.  “What are you going to do!”

On the other side of the monolith Teris braced against the pain as the knife once again began to cut deep into her chest.  She pressed her lips between her teeth, biting down.  Her lips tore.  The smell and taste of blood overwhelmed her senses.  She had tried to see what they were carving into her chest; but couldn’t tell.  She raised her face to the sky screaming once more, the pain hot as if the knife was more than just slicing her flesh, but branding her very soul. She heard Yami yelling.  Could faintly feel the vibrations of his struggle through the pillar of stone they were bound to.

As the sky began to grey, the masked figure with the knife and Chain Mage stepped away joining their Master and fellows.  Slowly Teris quieted.  Yami’s roars silenced shortly after her screams ceased. A hush fell over the open meadow hill crest.

Yami turned his head, laying the side of his face against the cool stone. “Teris!  Talk to me.”

Teris sucked in a ragged breath.  “It’s alright.  They stopped.  I’m fine.  You?”

Yami glanced up at his bonds.  “Never better.”  His teeth pressed together, finally feeling the pain of the rope cutting into his skin. Taking a breath, he promised.  “I’m gonna get us out of this.”

Teris’ eyes darted over the empty field.  “Not if I get us out of it first.”

“If you do.  Roast them all.”  Yami told, eyes scanning the massive gathering before him.

“That goes without saying.”  Teris swallowed pushing down the sense of dread that fell over her.  The scene of the wide open space and soft slope with its tall grass swaying in the fading darkness felt eerily familiar.

“Teris. I’m sorry I--”

“Don’t! Don’t you dare!”  Teris cut Yami off.  “This is crazies and zealots.  This wasn’t either of us.”

Yami gritted his teeth.  The blood slick bonds that held him were no weaker or looser.  His eyes closed, head banging back against the stone.  Continuing to twist and pull, he grimaced ignoring the burning sting of the rope that bit and sawed into his flesh.

“Yami.”

“We’ll get out of this.”  Yami told her.

“I love you.”  Teris breathed.

Yami ground his teeth together, jaw muscles spasming.

“Don’t you dare give up!”  Yami ordered, swallowing the catch in his throat.  “I’ll never forgive you if you do.”

Teris saw the sun crest the horizon.  Her heart seized in fear.  Why was she so afraid?  What kind of sick ceremony was this?  Though she couldn’t have said why, she tip-toed, pressing her feet against the monolith as the suns light neared her toes.  Her breath shortened, heart racing.

In the quiet Yami could hear Teris breathing fast and hard.

“Teris.” Yami called, his fight to get free picking up once more.  “Talk to me.  Teris!  What’s the matter?  What’s going on?”

Teris opened her mouth to answer, but clamped it shut as soon as the light reached her toes.  Her entire body heated in a flash; as if a flame had touched a bottle of whiskey, only the blood flowing through her veins was the alcohol.

“She’s glorious.”  Ellara breathed, the knife she had used to carve the symbols into Teris’ flesh dropping from her hand as she reach out to touch her husband and Master.

“It’s only just begun.”  Alowishus muttered, eyes fixed on Teris.  “The primordial force that sleeps within her will awaken and show a small piece of itself today for the first time since life as we know it began.”

Teris could hear Yami calling to her along with the threats and curses he slew at their captors; but it was as if he was doing so from some great distance.  Maybe even another time or reality.  The sun had risen to her mid-thighs.  Teris squirmed and danced, stomping and kicking back against the monolith.  She pulled against her bonds, if for no other reason than to cause pain somewhere else.  Anything to take her mind off of the searing burn that threatened to consume her.

The light radiating from her grew in intensity as it reached her waist. Teris now unable to keep from screaming.  The three symbols that had been carved into her began to glow.

Though they were on the opposite side of the monolith, shielded by it and the Darkness within Yami, Ellara was forced to close her eyes against the blinding Light that was Teris.  The Advisor lifted her masked face, an invigorating warmth overcoming her.  Ellara wasn’t the only one in the gathering feeling the effects of the reviving. Alowishus laughed manically, his arms held up and out.  The Master of the Agents of Chaos stared watching Teris writhe and fight to hold onto who she was.

Teris felt on fire.  No.  She was the blazing fire.  She was the Consuming Light.  The Ray of Annihilation.  Her time of power had come.  No! Her mind screamed even as her voice grew hoarse as she cried at the blistering pain.  She had to keep it together.  She couldn’t to lose herself and forget who she was.  She had to remember Yami and those she loved.  She couldn’t forget what they meant to her.  She had to fight and hold on.

Yami’s skin reddened and began to peal.  He felt an intense heat but barely registered it as he fiercely fought to free himself.

Alowishus knew that the only thing keeping them alive.  Keeping their blood from boiling was Yami’s presence between them and Teris.  The land on Teris’ side of the pillar was already ablaze.  The roaring fire near deafening.

What was she doing in this small, weak, frail body, Teris wondered.  Her existence could not be bound.  Could not be contained in a single place.  She had no form.  She was Light.  She had been born of Life and Chaos.  She had battled Death and lost.  She had seen Chaos and Death form the Darkness.  Her enemy.  Her opposite.  The lover she wanted and could never have or end.  This mortal form was not for her.  Yet she had chosen this girl.  Why?  She sensed the weakening Darkness as her power grew to its full potential.  Would this be the day she finally ended him?

Teris shook her head.  She was Teris Nova.  Royal daughter of Lord Jaxon and Lady Resa Nova.  She had two older brothers.  One whom she loved dearly.  The other not so much.  She was a Magic Knight.

She was the Consuming Light.  Her power could end or give life.

Yami roared.  The stone a thousand times hotter than an iron mongers forge.  His back, shoulders, and arms blistered and burned against the heated rock.  His strength was waning by the second.  Energy sapped from him like liquid from a punctured water skin.  Yet Teris’ now constant screams spurred him on.  His sole focus and need to get to her was all that was powering him.  That mental will forced his battered, burned, exhausted body to move.  He would not fail her.  He would surpass his limits.  Right here.  Right now.

Yami yelled.  The rope cut passed flesh to bite bone.  His thoughts fell out for the briefest of seconds, eye flicking black.  The cord gave.

“He broke free!”  Ellara gasped.

“Impossible!” Misandre turned her gaze away from the vision that was Teris and saw the truth for herself.  “Master!  We must leave.”

“Not until it is finished.”  Alowishus yelled, over the deafening noise, the waves of power coming off Teris pulling at his hair and cloak like a wind storm.

Yami barely paused to reach down and grab his belt.  Slinging it over his head and shoulder, he unsheathed his katana and made for the other side of the monolith.  He had barely taken a step when he was thrown back by a force of mana he hadn’t thought existed; at least not in one place.

The sun crested over Teris’ head.  Her screams were swallowed up by the sound of raw mana pouring out of her.  Her eyes began to glow white hot.  All the dreams of Chaos returned in an instant.  She threw her head back shooting the incinerating beams of light into the sky.

The force threw the viewing Agents of Chaos back, leaving only their Master standing.

“Teris!” Yami rolled to his knees.  The shock wave of mana forced him to crouch.  Driving his katana into the earth, he half pulled, half crawled back toward the monolith.  “Terrriiisssss!”

“Magnificent.” Alowishus breathed, immovable in the hail of the mana storm.  “Yami Sukehiro.  Teris Nova.  You are truly worthy to wake Chaos bring me the final death.”

Above all the noise and consuming, searing pain Teris heard Yami’s voice. It was the only thing that kept her anchored to who she was.  “Yami! Yaammmiii!”

60.3.2

A burst of mana ignited the land.  Seated in Greywright’s office for a morning meeting, Julius, Jax, and Greywright stood.  Greywright spun around, looking out the window.  Julius and Jax rushed out onto balcony.

A beam of light lit up the sky.  Jax shielded his eyes.  Julius squinted.  The two men looked at each other as the beam dimmed and disappeared.

“Go!” Jax needlessly said, Julius already breaking apart and fading away as he time jumped.

“What are you standing around for!”  Greywright barked.

Jax rushed to the Commander’s side.  Greywright pulled a transportation charm from his desk drawer.

“Damn it!”  Greywright cursed, dropping the thing on the desktop.  “It’s not working.  There’s too much surrounding mana.”

“Cob.” Jax suggested, already making for the door.

60.3.3

Julius appeared on the open slope as the last of the overflowing mana escaped Teris.  Shielding his eyes from the dust and derby, he looked about.  Seeing Yami, he started for him.

“Spade! Don’t let him get away.”  Yami yelled at his mentor.  “I got Teris.”

Yami pushed to his feet.  Pulling his katana from the earth, he sprinted. He found Teris laid out on the stone platform.  There was a pool of molten lava at the base of the monolith where she had likely stood. Smoke was even coming off the super heated rock where her grimoire sat.

Throat tightening, Yami skidded and slid to her.  He pulled her limp body into his arms.  “Teris.  Talk to me Ikigai. Open your eyes.”

Yami took in the three symbols that had been carved into her chest. Running along side the lines and curves of sliced open flesh was a line of raised, welted blisters.  His hand hovered over the wounds.

Pulling her closer, he squeezed her tightly.  “Teris.  Come on, Princess. Breath.”  Yami rocked, holding her, refusing to believe she was gone.  She couldn’t be gone.  “I’m so sorry.  Come on Teris. Say something.”  Why wouldn’t she move?  Why wouldn’t she breathe?  He couldn’t lose her.  An otherworldly cold came upon him.  Rage overtaking him at the thought of a world without her.  No! He wouldn’t allow it.  She had to live.  Same as when he had broken free of the bonds, Yami’s eyes flicked black for the briefest of instance.  “Look at me, Teris!  Move!  Breathe damn it!”

Teris’ body jerked.  She sucked in a rushing breath of air.  Yami squeezed his eyes shut, thanking whatever forces had brought her back to him. She coughed.

Yami brushed back her hair.  “It’s alright.  I got you.  Julius is here.  It’s over.”

Hearing Yami’s voice, Teris turned away squeezing her eyes all the tighter. “Don’t.”  She gritted, trying to push him away, afraid she would incinerate him.

Yami gripped her, refusing to let her go.  “It’s okay.  It’s okay. It’s over.  You’re fine.”  He pressed his forehead against hers, eyes closing in relief.  “You’re fine.”  He breathed to himself.

Ellara, Calen, and Misandre rushed to their Master.

“We got to go.”  Ellara whispered, afraid Julius would recognize her voice if she spoke loud enough for him to hear it.

Alowishus pulled his arm away from her grasp.  “You go.  Misandre.  See my wife is safely returned.”  He turned to Ellara.  “Get back there as soon as you’re returned to your home.”

Ellara understood what he wanted of her and nodded.

“Calen. You and the others see everyone is transported to safety.  I will join you shortly.”  Alowishus instructed.

“Master.” Calen tried.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had some fun.”  Alowishus told them. “And I wish to see what the possible future Wizard King has to offer.  As Teris’ brother, his power should be exemplary.”  When they didn’t move he ordered.  “Go!”

“It would be wise if you tried to run along with them.”  Julius said, stepping a few paces away from him.  “Not that you’d get very far.”

“Julius Nova.  The next Wizard King.  Now why would I run from you?” Alowishus questioned.

“You’re right.”  Julius said holding out his hand in front of him, calling forth a time sphere.  “It would be a futile endeavor.”

Alowishus smirked.  He’d rid the young man of his arrogance soon enough. “You’re the one that found Yami Sukehiro.  Correct?  Took him under your wing.  Taught, supported, and defended him.”

“Yami needed little support or defending.”  Julius told.

“Tell me.  Did you know from the beginning that he was something special? That he’s the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son.” Alowishus asked.

Julius blinked at that.

Seeing the mans expression, Alowishus remarked.  “I see you are like me. Not knowing the full meaning of such a thing, but knowing that it is significant.  That such numbers in such a combination are powerful in and of themselves.  Your sister survived by the way.  I knew she would.  She is strong.  Her tie to Yami great.  He was the one who anchored her to herself.  Who called her back from the force that is within her.  You should thank him for her life when you get a chance. For all the kingdoms lives.  If she had given in and perished, they and the lives of most beyond the four kingdoms wouldn’t exist. Then again.  You likely won’t get the chance to thank him for your lives as I will soon be ridding you of yours.”

“It’s the Solstice.”  Julius murmured, feeling stupid for not realizing sooner.  “The longest day of the year.”

“And the day of the Lights greatest power.”  Alowishus nodded.

“Now that I know what you’re up to do you think I’ll let you do the same with Yami come winter?”  Julius questioned.

Alowishus grinned.  “I’d imagine you’d try to stop me.”

“I’ll stop you now.”  Julius struck out.  He sped time around the Master of the Agents of Chaos.  When nothing happened, he pulled back in surprise.  Calling forth his grimoire, he tried again.  When it still didn’t work, he attempted to hold him in a stasis sphere.

Alowishus lifted a brow, smirking at the Julius’ confounded scowl. “Admirable attempt.  But, time has no hold on Death.”

Julius made to try something else.

Alowishus shook a finger at him.  He took a step, his image a blur.  Suddenly he was on Julius who had been a couple meters away.  Julius blinked in surprise, wondering what kind of magic the man had.

“My turn.”  Alowishus grabbed Julius by the collar.  Lifting him with a single arm, he slammed the Captain into the ground.

Yami was loathed to leave Teris.  She was still too weak to stand.  And though both their mana was so low as to be nearly nonexistent, their mana was also too raw and wild to trust him letting his near hers.

Still held in Yami’s arms, Teris croaked.  “Julius is struggling.” She was too out of it to do any more than comment.  Shock at the fact that her brother had faced difficulty would come later.  “We got to help him.”

Yami didn’t have to try to stop her from getting up.  Teris’ muscles tensed in an attempt to move, but that was all that happened.  She was spent.

“He can manage.”  Yami said, confidant in his mentor.  As much as he hated leaving the fight to Julius, he wouldn’t leave Teris.  What if one of the Agents of Chaos’ spatial mages appeared and took her the second he stepped away?

Teris struggled to turn her heavy head to look up at Yami.  “We can’t let Alowishus get away.”

Blinking heavy eyes, Yami swallowed more grit than saliva, his mouth and throat so dry.  He looked down at her in grateful awe and tenderly caressed her face.  “Julius won’t let him.  He’ll capture or kill him.”

“Your wrists.”  Teris breathed, seeing the raw, deep cuts that had been cauterized by the heat.

“It’s nothing.”  Yami said, struggling stay seated upright.  He had never felt this weak and spent in his life.  Even his experience with Lotus Whomalt’s ash magic hadn’t left him half this bad.  The only reason he hadn’t fallen over and succumbed to exhaustion was adrenaline and his will to be strong for Teris.

“Just rest.  We’ll get you to the healers soon.”  Yami told Teris.

Julius was forced to go on the offensive which was a new experience for him. Even as a first year Magic Knight he had rarely used any of his offense spells.  Still confounded that his magic seemed to be useless against his foe, Julius backtracked.  He flew through the air; ducking, diving, and weaving away from his pursuers onslaught.  No matter how much he sped the time of his own movements Alowishus was able to match them.  How?  Julius was knocked from the sky and sent spiraling, having never seen the strike that knocked him off course.

He hit the ground hard, body leaving several gouges in the earth as he tumbled.  Alowishus landed on him with such force and speed that it knocked out whatever air Julius had left in his lungs.  Alowishus’ weight and strength broke passed Julius’ mana skin and snapped several of the Captain's ribs.

Julius gasped, sucking in lungfuls of air.  He coughed, sputtering at the pain.  His hand lifted, time sphere once again appearing.  Alowishus grabbed the mans wrist, his own magic fighting against Julius’ to weaken and subdue the Magic Knight.

Yami saw Alowishus break passed Julius’ mana skin.  The Master of the Agents of Chaos stepping on and over Julius’ prone body.

Rather than admit the Captain had proved a challenge, Alowishus lied.  “As the Ray of Annihilation’s brother I find you a great disappointment, Julius Nova.”

Though Julius’ time sphere weakened and dimmed, Alowishus could still feel it slowly aging him.  He had to crush it and the man.  He had waited countless year for this.  The trails that would bring Chaos forth had begun.  Alowishus refused for things to be put on hold.  Death might be patient, but it also waited for no man.

Beginning at the wrist his foe held, Julius’ hand weakened and withered.  His time sphere broke.  Julius’ eyes widened in shock and horror.

Alowishus sneered above him.  “I pity the future of the Clover Kingdom if you take the helm of their Magic Knights.  Not that there will be a future for any kingdom once I’m done.  Goodbye, Julius Nova.  It’ll be a shame I won’t be able to take your corpse and make use of your eyes or hands.”

“Julius!” Yami yelled.  He pushed passed his limits and pushed to his feet. Weak and dizzy, legs like a new born fawn, Yami tripped.  He staggered and hit the side of the monolith.  His flesh sizzled and stuck to the super heated rock.  Gripping his katana, Yami forced what little was left of his mana to cloak his blade in darkness and sent it out toward Alowishus with every ounce of strength his tense, tired, spasming muscles could muster.

At the same time Teris focused her last reserves, condensing it into her palm.  Unable to lift her hand, she turned her head resting her cheek against the still hot stone slab.  Closing an eye, she aimed.

Light and dark hit Alowishus and sent him flying.  Yami crumbled to the ground beside Teris, both unconscious.

Greywright and Jax appeared with Cob.  Taking a quick scan of the area, the Magic Knights Commander pointed at Yami and Teris.  “Cob.  Get them to the healers, have a team of guards placed on them.  Then return.”

Greywright called upon his magic to create an army of men that surrounded the splayed out figure he didn’t recognize but assumed was the enemy.

Jax rushed to Julius’ side.

Julius sat up. shaking his head.  “My magic was ineffective.  It didn’t work on him.”

Jax turned to look at the still downed enemy in wonder just in time to see Alowishus Spade disintegrate into dust with one last word.

“Magnificent.” Alowishus breathed of Yami and Teris.

Thank you to those who have left hearts.  And a special THANK YOU to those who have recently left comments or re-blogged. They really mean a lot.

Taglist: @captncappuccino .

Next chapter snippet:

“Bronn.” Jax warned.

“No!” Bronn shouted, refusing to stand down.  He pointed an accusatory finger at Greywright.  “This is on them!  Him and his precious Wizard King decided not to tell those kids what was going on and ordered us to keep quite.”