#even though in reality there is only one and that is jäger but some people just dont know how to Deutsch i guess

[charming-my-pants-off]

Gotta say, these two boys aren't half bad together.

Place a ADS or three down in room and then yeet some magnets outside..

B E A U T I F U L

[stramberryparadice]

SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN #139 - THE IMPOSSIBLE FREEDOM ?

Here is the English translation of the post I wrote here in French.

I apologize in advance for my mistakes, I'm not good in English but I hope that will be understood.

---------------

Shingeki no kyojin is finished. A leading manga of the 21st century has just ended in tears, blood, mourning, disappointment, frustration… and love. So many emotions come to me when I read this final chapter, I needed to express them as clumsily as it is. I’m sure it’s going to get lost in the Internet, but whatever— it is necessary to remove both the joy and the frustration that I feel to pay tribute to Isayama who offered us a work as powerful as it is cursed.

As intense as it is uneven, as perfect as it is imperfect.. like his tragic hero Eren Jäger, who shows us that men are so weak and pitiful in the face of time and the cruelty of the world. How much even if this hero possesses in his hands the power of a God. My analysis will surely be clumsy, I apologize. And I will not fail to point out at the end the bitterness felt on the final development of some characters including that of Misaka Ackerman.

Eren like “CryBaby”

What a slap for the reader to witness such an emotional picture. Yes. Isayama reminds us to what extent Eren isn't a brave knight, not a charismatic hero, not the genocidal demon of this story but a child.. whose weight of Destiny is too heavy to bear. Scan 139 reminds us to what extent we have lost ourselves, just as Eren has in the way, forgetting the very essence of the story that has been told to us from the beginning. It’s not a story of geopolitical warfare, a biological parasite, titanic monsters, a northern deity, or a philosophical-esoteric trip. It's the story of a boy who wants to emancipate himself, to live for himself, tasted of the thirst for adventure, the tranquility of his loved ones but born in a cruel and alienating world that leaves room only for death, abuse of power, betrayal and despair .

A journey where the child becomes an adult at the cost of his or her life. Learning the most painful lesson… To be an adult is to renounce one’s dreams, to bend one’s knee in the face of the servitude of one’s mortal condition, to be content with one’s cage in order to enjoy the little that one can have at one’s disposal, to mourn those who may disappear from one’s life.

A young boy who dreamed only of freedom, surrounded by people who love him. A child whose inspirations, as impulsive, unreasonable and immature as they may be, will push him to his limits. A child who grew up too fast, who could not mourn his mother, aware of her physical and spiritual weakness, who was confronted with the violence of this world which reminded him of his condition of being insignificant, a pawn on the chessboard of the "Way".

A child whose powers worthy of a God then gives him the possibility to realize the unthinkable, almost the absolute fantasy of every Man : to shape a world in his image, to be as free as a bird flying above the clouds without reddish stain to touch the sky. Move forward, Move forward whatever the price… move forward for an illusion of freedom, for an infantile obsession.

And by assuming the role of the wicked “demon” of tales so that the brave knights can free this world from the evil that eats it.

Lost between the present, the past, the future.. time no longer makes sense. Only finality counts, annihilating its titans whatever the price. They have to pay for his mother. They have to pay for his fallen comrades. They must pay for reminding us of our pitiful helplessness as human beings.

But the Demon also has a heart, remorse, feelings, there are people who attach him to this world. Therefore, what to choose?

Divine Freedom or Mortal Love? The impossible equation... Although Eren may have travelled the road in search of the answer, how can freedom and humanity be reconciled? Free your people and protect your loved ones, though imperfect?

______

He will not find the answer— neither by searching the past of the goddess Ymir, not by consulting the other Titans carriers, not by creating the different alternative realities that led to the same observation… only death can free the bird from its cage, only the death of Humanity is able to reconcile the sublime and the hideous. Or rather, a common enemy that will crystallize all their ills. But who would be crazy, brave enough to accept being the victime ?

Like a Christic figure, Eren will assume this role. But not without having to confide his last wishes, his last secrets that can no longer contain… because yes, the demon is limited by his adult condition of 19 years. Yes.. the child has grown up. Recklessness, impulsiveness, daring in the face of death, the omnipotence of the child leaves room for a teenager who is now afraid of dying, who has succumbed to love, who doubts, who is aware of his weakness.

Eren has finally become a man...in pain. He finally accepts his feelings, his weakness in the face of death that awaits him.

He’s not a running child anymore. The plates are only explicit about this. The power of narration.. we come back to the fundamental of this history, which is human psychology. The feelings, the relationships that unite all people between them. Friends or enemies, men or women, child or adult, Eldien or Mahr... Despite our differences, our disagreements, we are all equal and weak in the face of death... but also in the face of the love we can bring to others.

Yes, Eren is a weak hero. Yes, he admits to loving Mikasa. He admits that until the very end, he didn't know how it was going to go. That he was himself a pawn in the divine game of Ymir. Another puppet at the service of a little girl who is also blinded by her duality, by her toxic love for her executioner. One cannot remain insensitive to this remarkable development of the character of Eren whose death was inevitable. For whoever plays with divinities can only lose his humanity, his freedom too. By the ultimate sacrifice of his selfish and human desires finally. Eren alone became the true savior of this world. He will also have kept his promise to his friends, to the beings he loves by offering them last memories through the “Way”.

Selfless Love or True Freedom

As Mikasa said: The world is cruel, but also … Very beautiful.

Whoever sets a glance without hatred on the world, with compassion, with love for his neighbor will be able to claim to touch with the finger this Freedom so sought.. a selfless love, not turned to satisfy one’s own selfish desires.

Because Love, like hate, takes different forms.

Love connecting us to our roots, our family of blood…

Love binding two beings who love each other, desire each other, cherish each other, seek each other….

Love that binds us to his comrades, his battalion, his family of choice, his heart…

Love that life brings to us in all its forms…

Love… this power that is unpredictable and uncontrollable.

And that can become the obsession of a lifetime. It is by becoming an obsession that love becomes as destructive as hatred, and sends us back to our condition as an alienated Man… locked up in his “Path”, in his cage.

It's by demonstrating resilience and self-sacrifice that man can taste freedom. We can find redemption in the love that others have for him, that we also have for him. For a few hours, a few years…

At the cost of a renewal of the cycle of hatred, because man remains selfish, not all are ready to make sacrifices. Therefore, Mikasa and Eren have made the greatest of sacrifices for the survival of their comrades and the world: they give up their chance to be happy together, sacrifice their desire to be together for the rest of humanity. As in tragedies, the main heroes are victims of Destiny, are those who will pay the price so that others can flourish and live. The children have become adults.

Just as Armin is no longer the whiny little boy to protect. Unlike Eren, he managed to learn from his mistakes, grieve, face his own fears, confess his love to the girl he loves. It is finally he who will raise the wounded little boy, who will comfort him.

The frustration

Mikasa is the main character of the story. It's through her that awakening is made, it is through her hand that she closes this long journey. In Eren’s memories, it is always central. It is the key, the final solution.

It's his psychological, his emotional journey that we will follow throughout the manga. Eren is only a complement, the character who crystallizes his goals. In a world where men are “dominant”, the woman must bend her knee, support her prince so that the light shines on him. Isayama knew how to play perfectly on this classic code of narration. Whether one agrees or not with the conclusion of certain female characters, the work often highlights the fact that men are only victims of their passions and obsessions.

-------

Only women seem to emerge victorious in the face of the cruelty of the world : they take up arms (Historia), continue to fight in the face of despair (Mikasa), enjoy life and bring joy around her (Sasha), support other women in their emancipations ( Ymir with Historia) question their education (Gaby) disobey (Annie), go against the “moral” principles to survive (Ymir Frizt who continues to love his executioner), sacrifice for the common good (Hanzi Zoe)… But of course… without also paying the price of sacrifice and making concessions.

Historia bears a child of a man whom she does not seem to like but assumes the role of the mother whom she would have liked to have while assuming the heavy attribute of the office of Queen in a country plagued by nationalist tendencies guided by fear. With Eren’s help, she did not give in to the temptation of self-sacrifice but decided herself who she would save or not, what path she wanted to follow. Her desire was to be a mother, a good mother. Whatever the father, it was an indestructible motherly love that she wanted to offer to a child. The one she never had.

Mikasa agreed to kill Eren because, if she had given him another answer, their life as fugitives would have been but a fleeting dream and Eren’s death was inevitable.

Despite her powerful love for Eren (as addicted as he may be, explained by the power of the Ackermans?), she will break the chains of her servitude by killing her only Love. She is the light. She accomplished the journey of a true heroine by demonstrating resilience, by giving of herself for the world.

She had only eyes for Eren.. was open to others, to show empathy, a desire to continue living for other comrades who are dear to him.

-------

Mikasa also leads the way in Ymir Fritz… you can love a monster, you can be a prisoner of a toxic relationship but you can free yourself from it. One can become free, but the price to pay will be to carry this infinite sadness, this frustration of having been able to live another story if things would have been different. By her kiss, she showed what true Love is.

Although the frustration is present, although we would have liked her to turn the page and rebuild her life, she must also pay the price of her “freedom”, of her “survival”: haunted by the sacrifice of Eren, guardian of her memories, from her grave as if to preserve her existence as long as she can live.

Once again, women show that they are stronger than we think. So Ymir was also able to free himself of his toxic link with the King by making the Titans disappear.

In the image of the bittersweet end of the chapter, which shows us that the disappearance of a monster, of a divine force “responsible” for the horrors, is not the long-awaited salvation.

The vices, the human fears will remain the poison, preventing us from reaching this illusory freedom. Men do not need deities to dig their own way to death.

-----

From "occidental" point of view, it is true that this is a blow to the “strong” women of the work still alive. Reduced to being collateral victims of Love, as toxic as this link may be (Ymir-Mikasa). Reduced to attaching themselves to winning or losing romantic figures depending on whether their love-interests is the villain of the story (Mikasa-Annie). Reduced to their role as mother-benefactor (Historia-Gaby).

It’s awkward, but I think Isayama wanted to show that no one is spared. That no character can claim complete tranquility and sweet freedom.

Everyone has had to sacrifice something to survive, and women and men are equal in this judgment. Women also remain victims in a world that remains dominated also by the cruelty of Men (the human race in general). They are not completely free, they are also trapped in roles.

Everyone carries the weight of his choice. That characters have a duty to remember, to pass on to future generations the horrors they have lived to try not to reproduce the same mistakes. Even if their new life choices are imperfect, disappointing for those on the outside.

Levi sacrificed many of his comrades to fulfill his promise to Erwin in his quest for truth and to continue the fight for Eldian freedom.

Armin and Mikasa sacrificed Eren: their friend, their love, the dearest being to fulfill their promise to discover the outside world and touch that freedom.

Like Levi Ackerman and his love for his battalion comrades. As for Mikasa and his love for Eren (because she saw the human behind the monster). She has been waiting for a sign for 3 years to see him again in order to follow up on “see you later Eren”.

Finally, a bird comes to give him his wrap. To encourage him to go forward again. To continue to live…

--------

The most free people are those who honestly and sincerely love someone. Those who are able to see the beauty of the world despite its ugliness. Who give without waiting for return. Those who continue to look at the world without hatred, those who do not succumb to its cruelty. Tears are running down…

[izzabeean]

Chapter 5 : Impulse

SUMMARY

You've learned something you wish you didn't about Ushijima and now you wish you could forget.

pairing : ushjima x f!reader / oikawa x f!reader / iwaizumi x f!reader

genre : angst + fluff

word count : 2,836

tags :  alternate universe - college/university, post-break up, friends to lovers, pining, slow burn

a/n : What can I say, Y/N has a bit of a sweet tooth! I mean if I spent a day in the city you bet I would be eating a lot of food. Or is that just me? Anyway, I am happy with how this turned out! The next chapter is going to be so fun!

Will try to post every Thursday evening PST, if not latest by Friday.

Hope you're enjoying the series so far!

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Today sucks. 

After last night, you didn’t think it could get any worse, but you were so wrong. The sliver of hope that today was going to be a bit better quickly vanished in a matter of seconds leaving your heart even more shattered than you thought was possible. 

So why? 

Why is it that you saw the person you’d love the most with a girl you’d never seen before? As much as you wish it weren’t so, the evidence is right in front of you no matter how many times you try to push the image away. 

Staring down at your soft serve ice cream, nearly melted, you let out a big sigh trying to repress the tears wanting to form. You wish your favorite flavor of frozen dessert could solve all your problems, alas, the rich creamy flavors only remind you of a date you had with Ushijima… 

“It’s never too cold for ice cream,” you spout, arms linked with Ushijima marching your way to your favorite ice cream shop. It was this particular spot that made you realize Ushijima is more than what you’ve ever wanted in your life. You’d been dating for six months now, a new record in your love life, also a big surprise you haven’t tired him out with your nonsense.

Instead of arguing whether a cold dessert was an appropriate snack in the winter, he just let out a deep sigh in reply knowing you’re not going to be convinced otherwise. 

“Don’t give me that,” you holler, covering your face in your hands, refusing to look at Ushijima.

Gently, he grabs your hands pulling them away from your face giving you a little kiss on the cheek in apology for his teasing.

“Y/N.”

Oikawa’s voice pulls you out of your bitter memory back to sitting across from him at a cafe. Your heart drops, realizing that there will not be any more moments like that with Ushijima. Did everything always remind you of him this much?

“You’re ice cream,” Oikawa says, eyes locked on to the dessert dripping on your hand. 

Quickly you get up from the table grabbing some napkins to wipe up the mess you’ve made which resonates with you very well at this point. Not only are you emotionally a mess, apparently now you can’t even physically get a hold of yourself. Emotional pain is just temporary, yes, yet there’s this overwhelming feeling that makes you think your entire world is closing in on you.

In the process of cleaning up the sticky residue, you let out a growl noticing it’s dripped onto your palish pants producing a humiliating colored stain. You start pressing on the fabric in hopes your mishap would magically disappear… It doesn’t. 

Oikawa peers down at your pants attempting to conceal his chuckle with a titter.

“It’s not funny,” you rasp.

But Oikawa can’t stop himself from bursting into a loud guffaw resulting in a free-flowing of tears. 

Completely exasperated by the chaos, you throw out what’s left of your liquefied treat and sit back at the table covering your face with your hands. You didn’t feel in a rush to embarrass yourself more by strutting around the city with a large smudge of ice cream on your pants.

Once Oikawa gains his composure, he takes his jacket off and passes it to you across the table.

“You can hold this to cover it,” he offers.

The gesture feels loaded, like the true intent is much more devious than that, especially since he seemed to find it so amusing. There’s no way Oikawa could perform such gracious acts of kindness. 

“Take it,” he says. 

“Aren’t you going to be cold?” You reply, shoving the coat away with your hands. 

Oikawa shrugs, “I’ll be fine.”

Giving in to his persistency, you take the jacket. “Thank you,” you breathe.

You watch Oikawa straighten out his shirt and fix his hair as a couple of girls walk by giggling, smiling at him, one even gives a little wave. It puzzles you how Oikawa can be such a dreamboat, from your years of friendship, his reputation borderlines annoying and childish, but the little gestures he’s made today have really made you rethink; this was a side to Oikawa you’ve never seen before.

On your way back to the train station, you look out toward the horizon and see the sun setting; pinks and oranges fill the sky, and the sight before you is quite romantic. The scene itself ended up turning out to be soothing despite the alarming encounter from earlier.

Now your new reality is finally setting in where there’s no Ushijima.

“I don’t want to go home,” you utter.

Oikawa studies you with your head hanging low. The glow of the sun coats you in its gleaming rays, he wasn’t sure if he was imagining things but he noticed the light capture a shimmer of a single tear tracking down your cheek. Then it finally resonates with him: you're not okay. 

“Wish I could get out of these pants though,” you laugh. Then just like that, you revert to a smile. 

“Let’s take you out,” Oikawa says.

“Out? Like to a club?” You didn’t fully expect any sort of resolution from Oikawa, your comment was meant to be rhetorical. 

“Yeah! You, me, and Iwa! We never go together and it will be good for you to go out to have some fun!”

“I don’t know about that,” you sigh.

Oikawa’s eyes widen, the look on his face is full of excitement basically begging you to say yes. He must know you’re feeling vulnerable because it doesn’t take a moment more of hesitation to.

------

When Oikawa said he was going to take you out, he really meant it. The nightclub is lavish as loud music pulses in your chest while crowds of people huddle around the bar and scatter across the dance floor. 

Oikawa could be considered an avid clubber, how could he not be when he is so popular with girls, and had always tried to convince you to join him. You never really have, but you’ve also never really had your heartbroken to this degree. 

“It’s about to get even more crowded,” Oikawa yells into your ear.

10:13 pm on a Saturday evening and it’s going to get busier? Oh god.

Crowds aren’t your thing. Clubs aren’t your thing. Drinking isn’t really your thing. What are you even doing here?

“Shots?” Oikawa suggests pointing to the bar.

Your stomach churns at the thought. Diving into the night with shots seems excessive; they always leave a bitter taste in your mouth and the strong smell makes you want to gag. You wanted a drink to ease you into the evening...

“6 shots of Jäger,” Oikawa orders. 

Maybe not so much tonight.

The bartender retrieves the alcohol and brings back six shot glasses, each filled to the rim of dark liquor. Holding the shot glass up to your face, the potent smell makes your nose scrunch. With a cheers, you throw back the alcohol and the sensation burns your throat; it’s awful. Knowing there’s a second shot waiting, you don't delay the inevitable.

“Someone’s eager,” Oikawa purrs watching you down the second shot. 

The corners of your mouth turn down as the hairs on your back stand up. You let out an ick and turn to Oikawa and Iwaizumi who are both in awe of your tenacity.  Truthfully, you were shocked too. Then all the tension in your body seems to disperse, from the day, from entering the nightclub. You finally feel relaxed.

“Am I going to be waiting for you all night? Or what?” You tease eyeing their untouched liquor. 

Both men look at each other and take the shot in one gulp. Calling over the bartender you order another round, this time they’re a lot easier to take.

“You’re really not playing around,” Iwaizumi teases, impressed that you’re able to down three shots in a matter of minutes upon entering the venue.

Shifting your gaze to Iwaizumi, he looks so hot in his black button-up shirt with the top two buttons undone. A warm feeling fills your chest, you didn’t know if it was the alcohol hazing your perception or you were genuinely starting to crush on him. 

Damn it, you think to yourself while your eyes continue to linger on him. 

Considering your current situation, the smart thing to do here would be to do nothing. On the other hand, you couldn’t help that your heart fluttered in Iwaizumi’s presence. Surely, he didn’t realize the meaning behind his words but it brought you lower into the sort of absolution that you were definitely forming a rebound crush on him. But you couldn’t let yourself. Of course, if you did, you were bound to hurt Iwaizumi and your friendship with Oikawa. You had to stop yourself before it was too late.

Oikawa’s eyes fall onto you, noticing your ogling. You seem to illuminate with this glow he hasn’t seen all day and for a split second, he is fueled with irritation at the sight. But catches his outward anger and pushes it down, gaining composure. 

------

Keeping up with Oikawa for most of the night was a bad idea. Certainly, it didn’t occur to you until you stumble into the bathroom all by yourself, realizing you were most definitely unable to stand straight without help. 

Check yourself out in the mirror, you pull out your phone to take a raunchy selfie. You smirk at yourself checking the photo before posting it to your social media story.

That will show him, you think, hopeful Ushijima will see the image you’ve posted. He’s not the only one who can have fun.

Before even pressing “post” you get a text from Oikawa asking where you are. You giggle as you type come find me and press send with the intention of finding him first.

As you leave the bathroom, you begin to scan the crowd for Oikawa or Iwaizumi trying to recollect where you last saw them. The crowds of people in the vicinity make it practically impossible and the further you walk into the nightclub, the louder the music gets, the brighter the lights are, the warmer your body feels. 

All you wanted to do was get out.

Stepping outside, there’s this instant relief from the crisp evening air although it doesn’t last long, and soon a violent shiver courses through you. Turning around to go back inside the bouncer stops you then points to what seems like an endless line of people. 

“B-but, I-I just need to get my jacket,” you stammer.

“Sorry, ma’am. You’re going to have to wait in line,” he booms.

Your outward calmness cracks, too anxious to even think up an excuse. You needed to find Oikawa or Iwaizumi and you need to find them now! 

You turn your attention back to your phone as you begin to type out a text to come meet you outside the club.

“Hey sweet cheeks,” a raspy voice calls out.

You look up and see a rough-looking guy in line making intense eye contact with you. Normally you don’t judge, but your drunk bordering wasted self notes this man was very sketchy and it’s best to avoid him. So you turn your back to him and call Oikawa instead.

“Hey don’t ignore me,” he yells.

You start walking in the opposite direction from the line as far away from the stranger as possible. You’re a bit worried he can still see you and slip into an alley beside the nightclub, the phone still ringing on the other end. 

“Pick up. Pick up. Pick up!!” You mutter into the receiver. Oikawa doesn’t, so you try again.

“I don’t like being ignored, sweet cheeks.” The same raspy voice makes you jump as you turn around to see the scraggly man backlit by fluorescent streetlights, only making his appearance more menacing. 

The call goes to Oikawa’s voicemail again.

“Guess your friend ditched ya,” he continued walking closer to you. The statement sobers you up as his aura escalates to a more threatening demeanor. 

“They said they’ll just be out,” you squeal.

“Yeah?” The stranger keeps shortening the distance every step. “Why don’t you come with me?”

He’s so close now that you can smell his disgusting breath and you start to panic. “I-I can’t, I’m waiting for someone, th-thank you though.”

Why the fuck did you say thank you? Your brain screams at you.

“Oh come on sweet cheeks,” he coaxes, reaching out to clasp on to your wrist. “I’ll show you a good time.”

Your body freezes at his touch. It stings as a sharp pain from his grip makes you want to scream or cry, but the shock was melting your ability to. You felt so useless and timid in times of distress. You didn’t know what to do, you couldn’t escape searing clutches of--

“What do you think you’re doing?” A deep voice thunders.

The stranger turns to see the culprit and you slowly glance to see Iwaizumi with an intimidating aura protruding from him. 

“Just having a nice talk,” the stranger purrs, tightening his grip more and you let out a little yelp.

“Is that what this is? She looks pretty scared to me,” Iwaizumi retorts.

“This’ none of your business kid,” the stranger rages.

“Actually it is,” he demands stepping closer. “Let go of her.”

A vein on Iwaizumi’s neck pops out as his hands start to ball into fists. Now the stranger is intensely regretting his choice and you can sense it from the fact he’s visibly shaking. You are nearly on the verge of tears from the pain in your wrist and wonder if he was going to break it.

“Let go,” Iwaizumi orders again.

And this time he does, the man, nothing but a weak buffoon, frees your wrist and walks off in a trudge.

“You okay?” Iwaizumi walks over to you to take a look at your wrist. 

You nod, letting out a deep exhale trying to hide how petrified you were while holding your wrist.

“Does it hurt,” he asks, gently applying pressure to it. “Let me take a look.”

Initially, you flinch at his touch, afraid the searing pain will return, instead, his fingertips lightly trace your wrist while analyzing it thoroughly.

“Let me take you to a hospital to be sure.”

“No, no,” you breathe, locking eyes with him. “I’m fine, just a little sore.

Iwaizumi’s face flickers with a bit of uncertainty but decides not to push it and lets go of your wrist to take out a cigarette.

“Fuck,” you hiss. You felt like an idiot for going off on your own, for drinking this much, for going out at all. “I’m sorry.”

Deeply inhaling the smoke, he turns to you, “For what?”

“For running off by myself, and you totally just saving my ass. It’s just… pathetic,” you exclaim, reverting eye contact with him-- you’re slightly embarrassed and his silence is only telling, considering you barely know each other. “I swear to god, I’m not normally like this.” 

“It’s not pathetic,” he states, shrugging his shoulders. “Oikawa says you’re dealing with shit.”

Your reaction isn’t short of an embarrassment. His words hurt you as the scenario of Oikawa telling Iwaizumi about your break-up fills your mind. You scoff. “I’m fine!”

“You’re a horrible liar.” Iwaizumi didn’t have a problem calling you out as you stared at him after a few moments of silence. 

“So what am I supposed to tell him?” you mutter, this surge of anger sweeps over you, you feel this swell of rage boiling inside. “That it’s ok to see my ex, not even a day broken-up with a new girl? It’s fucking bullshit!”

He turns to look at you and blinks at your reaction. The sudden unexpected word vomit makes you pause. 

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to take it out on you,” you whisper. “It’s just weird, you know, all of it. I didn’t expect to be blindsided like that. It’s just…” You look over to Iwaizumi listening intently to you and feel your face grow hot. “Oh my god, I’m sorry! You never asked.”

It’s awkward and quiet, you’re pretty sure Iwaizumi can feel it too. You’re puzzled with what to say and feel pressured to express a less depressing answer. You didn’t want to drop the mood of the evening. In those moments, it became apparent you needed to sober up.

“Can I have one?” you ask. 

He looks at you with wide eyes, “You smoke?”

You take out your lighter that you have stowed away in your purse flaunting it as evidence of your new bad habit. Iwaizumi tosses you the pack of smokes.

“You’re not going to tell on me, are you?” You’re trying to sound like you’re joking but a hint of worry seeps through and you’re left waiting for a serious response from him.

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

[pernatius]

The Forbidden Blade: Ch 95

Ch 94

“What I have done to her is nothing new. No, it’s better than what I did to her before. This is the final piece, my final gift to the people of the world. Well, it would’ve been before you came back.” A bluish glow circles around my clenched fist. I throw it at him. My fist collides with the wall, causing it to crack and blacken around my fist, but it’s inches off from touching him. “Just like with Zelous your bloodlust gets in the way. You’re not going to kill me. At least not anytime soon.”

A dagger pierces through my chest. It went right through my heart. The council members try muttering their concerns. Beteka screams my name. A grin stretches across Oud’s face. I ignore all of them, especially Oud. Wrapping my fingers around the blade, which slices into my skin, I pull it out. Once I get a grip of its handle I stab it through Oud’s heart. Even though I am bleeding it doesn’t faze me in the slightest. Turning my head towards the one that tried to end my life right then and there, my eyes met with the confused man who had just spoken out about disowning me. 

“Impossible! You should be dead.” 

“No, you should be.” Raising my hand towards him, my hand is once again circled in that glow from mere moments ago. 

He steps back. “You can’t kill me. I’m a solidified soil. I’m your-” Before everyone’s eyes Jäger is fading out of reality. Jäger’s eyes widen. “Stop this, Arthus. You can’t do this to me. Not yet. Don’t you know wanna know where your mother is,” his disappearing persists, “She’s on the other side of the world. She was banished to another-” He’s gone before he can finish. 

My shoulders lower. “There’s other lands besides Krala, Ignitus, and Inferbris?” 

“Of course there is,” I turn towards the bleeding Oud, “But it’s impossible for any mortal to get there. The waters dividing us are too strong for any boat, but even if she did the lands over there are said to be a hellscape. Your mother has been long dead.” He lets out a pathetic laugh towards my scowl. 

I turn the handle slowly, twisting the blade within him. He lets out an ear-piercing scream and digs his nails into my wrist. They puncture into skin. Oud kicks as well, slamming his feet on my legs. Still, I persist even as he spits his blood onto me. That is until I feel their eyes on me. I feel them watching in horror. It reminds me of when I killed Beteka’s grandfather in cold blood. Instead of Oud’s eyes it’s Beteka’s grandfather’s eyes. Blood drips out from them, mixed with his tears, which causes me to step back. Oud then falls to the floor with a thud. Raising my hand up to my face, I watch it shake in his blood. 

He struggles, but he gets himself back up. Leaning against the wall, he pulls out the dagger. From the wound his blood pours. It drips onto the floor. “I respected Vel. He was a great commander. I admit that he was even a better one than me, yet I killed him,” I hear Beteka’s hand tightly grip the blanket beneath her, “You hate me, yet you can’t kill me. You make me suffer. You enjoy seeing me in this state you’ve forced me into, yet you can’t do it. It’s not bloodlust. No, I was wrong, it’s because you’re scared. Arthus, you’re scared of becoming yet another Vancaster.”

I, once again, have my fingers wrapped around his throat. His feet are dangling inches off the floor. “What if I am?”

“It means you’re weak. No, you both are. He could’ve done it in a blink of an eye even with that body’s limitations, but he was scared as well. He was scared of your judgement, scared that you’ll fear him. Funny enough, all of this hesitation only brings you both in a darker light than the one shining down on me. At least I had enough human decency, morals, to end Vel’s life instantly. Just like so.” The man underneath my grip flings the dagger. It goes right through Beatche’s head. Turning my head, I watch the woman fall to the floor. 

“Beatche,” Beteka cried out. She stumbles over to her lifeless body and lifts Beatche’s head up. I watch Beteka’s tears rain down on her lifeless face. 

Because I was distracted, this gives Oud an opening. He thrust his fist towards my jaw. This, after I fall to the ground, causes me to begin to drift off into unconsciousness. Zya’s advice then hits me, as he sends his foot to crush my knee, “Heed the shadows in the light for they will bring about your downfall.” 

He grabs the sword. The solidified soul aims it towards my eye, “That birthmark didn’t glow before. I wonder what would happen if I made that no more.” Before he’s able to do the job Beteka swings the bloody dagger, the one that had just been used to end Beatche’s life, and it slices across Oud’s chest. “You treacherous woman,” his eyes now point towards her, “I’ve had enough of you!”

There wasn’t enough time. All I could do was watch. Beteka tried blocking, but the blade cut right through it. Snapped in half, Beteka falls to the floor in a bloody mess. The council members try to break free of their captivity, but it’s no use. They remain a helpless audience. 

“Beteka,” I cried out. My eyes water, as I stare at her now lifeless body. 

“A shame. She was supposed to birth my child.” 

I grab his ankle and fling him off of me. As he gets up, I force myself back up as well even with my shaking leg and point my now glowing hand towards him. “The eyes can deceive the soul, but the soul can not deceive the eyes.”

Oud begins to fade out of reality. “The heros are the ones who are supposed to win in these types of stories, not the villains.”

“I’ll happily agree with you on that. I’m no hero, especially throughout the time my eyes laid underneath that dreaded Vancaster blindfold, but neither are you. However, I’m the one that’s going to finally put an end to this story.”

Oud is gone, but I don’t focus on that. I have my attention to the girl beneath me. Hugging her lifeless body tightly, I cry. “Beteka...Please. Please, not you. Not you too. I can’t lose you. I can’t lose anyone else, especially not you.”

In my mind, I stood before Zelous. “She’s not gone. At least she won’t be for a long time.”

“What do you mean? She’s dead. Can’t you see it?”

“There is a way to bring her back. Thanks to your powers I don’t face any limitations anymore. However…”

“However?”

“My powers may not have limitations anymore, but I am just another immortal being. I am not enough to overpower Dieus. I am not omnipotent...It’s a soul for a soul.”

“You’re going to give up your life for Beteka.” I feel my heart drop. 

“No, I’m giving up my life for you. There’s a reason why I’ve been so interested in you. Whether you would like to agree or not we are similar, but not the same. Your heart is in a different place, a better place. Arthus, lead a better life. Lead a life I wasn’t able to.”

“Zelous, what are you talking about?” My eyes water. 

“I will no longer exist. My sister is going to be awfully mad though,” he smirks at the latter half, “But at least now the universe will be at peace once again. Arthus, I’m sorry for what I’ve caused you.” 

He gently places his hand onto my shoulder. For some odd reason I cry. Even after everything I want to fight him on this decision, but at the same time I can’t help myself from standing still. 

Before me my hand glows. I watch Zelous sacrifice himself. “Goodbye, Arthus.”

[burnedlegate]

Chapter I - Catching Fire

um, ok, so here it goes? the first chapter of my Finn/Daniel fanfic. i want to eventually post this on AO3, so idk if I’ll add another chapters here, but let’s say this is.... a trial?? first of all, i have no idea how tags on AO3 work and tbh they scare me, also, as i said in the previous post, i’m not a native english speaker and i often mix up the tenses and stuff (also the quotation marks are wrong, i mean, not english but czech, but i didn’t think i was gonna publish this when i was writing it so... yeah. and i’m not editing that shit now),

so.. that’s a thing. i’ll be happy for any kind of feedback, especially if it’d about some typos or stuff like that! now i’ll keep trying to gather courage to put this on AO3 :’D

People say that everyone has a home somewhere, waiting for them. The courier‘s oldest brother used to say that, but the way he spoke about home – for him, it was a concept to be abandoned, useless, futile. Veronica used to say that when she talked about the Brotherhood of Steel and her ideas about its inovations, and she said it even after what she was evicted from the order and refused to step inside the bunker. Ulysses, whose home was irretrievably destroyed, said this to her, and he stayed true to his words, watching over the land and its horrors to this very moment.

Her father used to say that, and when he said that, he spoke about their mountain cabin in the Mahagony Mountains in Utah.

That cabin was irretrievably lost now, incinerated into ash and burned carbon. One could say home isn’t a place, but a person; but her father was gone as well, crucified by the Caesar’s Legion.

The courier, Finley Jäger, didn’t have a home. She thought California could become her home, but the forced patriotism couldn’t replace the feeling of safety and certainty. She thought Nevada could become her new home, but that very thought forced her to flee the country to… this place.

The courier didn’t have a home. She used to have a mountain cabin, and she used to have a father. Now she stood in the Zion Canyon, and she realized that she’ll never be closer to that memory than now.

This feeling, this moment – you’ll never have it again.

„Hey, Finley,“ Jed’s voice interrupted her. When she turned to face him, the caravaneer working for the Happy Trails Company spoke again: „I was sayin‘ that in case the New Canaanites won‘t be able to get us back home, you’ll step in with your Pip-Boy and your maps. Since Ricky run away, you’re our only option. We can count on you, right?“

Finley, known as Finn among friends, raised her thumb up.

„I’ll take that as a yes,“ Jed squinted, and the courier responded: „Yeah. Sorry, was savoring the moment here.“

„It sure is beautiful here,“ Stella said. With that, Finn finally stepped away from the ledge.

Jed sighed loudly. „Enough lollygagging! Get moving and keep an eye out for tribals!“

„Sir, yes, sir,“ Finn answered avidly and the caravan started moving again with two mercenaries in front, two behind them, Jed in the middle and her and Stella right behind him. Stella adjusted the rifle on her back and interjected: „Sorry to bother you with reality, ol' Jed. Who cares if we can't get back out the way we come? That's not a problem.“

„It’s simply the way it is,“ Jed answered, visibly trying not to sigh again, and slightly sped up to avoid more remarks of his companion. Stella obviously didn’t miss it as she muttered under her breath: „Heard you the fifteenth time, Stella. What's it matter if we're trapped here? Everything will be just fine.“

„What’s this about?“ Finn asked, surprised by Stella’s anxiety.

„Well, if you were listening, my dear courier, you’d have heard me expressing my deep concerns over us getting home, because we sure as hell ain’t going back the same way,“ Stella said, and the courier just shook her head: „Hey, we’re cool, I got my maps and everything!“

„Just like you got your big backpack and everything?“

The courier puckered her lips: „You just won’t let that go, will you.“

„Well, considering the fact that you stated that you’ve been here, I found it really curious that you thought you could bring a whole damn armoire with you,“ Stella answered.

Before the courier could answer anything, Jed suddenly stopped dead on his tracks, looking alerted – both of the women almost bumped into him.

„What’s up, Jed?“ Stella asked with an obvious hint of the everpresent anger in her voice; but the caravaneer put finger to his lips, shushing her instantly. Then he said very, very quietly: „Hold on, now... could swear I heard something up ahead.“

In that very moment, the mercenary in front of them fell to the ground. Dead.

„Fuck,“ Finn breathed out as the brain of father of tree and rancher from California of the name Timothy Wells splattered on the ground. „Fuck,“ she breathed out again when she was crawling for cover behind a boulder with Stella following her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

„Goddammit, ambush! Cover, people! Watch yourselves!“ Jed screamed and did the same, hiding behind a boulder close to her. Finn pulled out her weathered 10mm pistol, which she truly didn’t expect to pull out so soon, and aimed at one of the ambushers placed on the cliff above them. But the paint on his face, his braids, his weapon-

„Holy hell, it's the White Legs! What are they doing this far south?“ Jed screamed to confirm her worries, and Finn breathed in, and out, because-

It seemed – it seemed her worst worries came true. She came all this way for nothing. She came to herself just in the moment to crouch to the ground to evade a flying tomahawk, which, luckily, pushed her back to reality. There’ll be time for mourning later.

If there’ll be a later.

„Goddammit, never should joined this assbackwards caravan,“ Stella cursed under her breath and fired a few shots from her laser rifle. Finn fired a few shots at the White Legs on their terrain level, because she had a scant view on the White Legs above them in her current position. She looked around and found out that most of the mercenaries, which the company hired, were dead.  

„We’re sitting ducks here!“ Stella screamed. „We need to get out of here, fast!“

„There’s no way out of here!“ Jed screamed back. Finn looked down from the cliff to the river which flew through the canyon. It’d be… quite a fall. But they couldn’t push through the tribals. And they couldn’t go back. They were, very effectively, trapped – and they were losing.

„Enough of this!“ Stella suddenly screamed and stood up. „Here I come! I was a sheriff once, goddamn it!“

With that, she charged at the White Legs.

„Stella!... Oh no! Don't you die on me, woman, you hear?“

Finn shot at another tribal, killing her. At least she thought she did. It seemed like whenever they killed one, another one popped up from nowhere. They had to get out of here.

„Jed! We need to go!“

„There’s nowhere to go!“

„We can just jump down-“

„Are you out of your mind?!“

„We can’t fight through them!“

Suddenly, a blast threw both of them a few feets back. The only thing Finn heard for a while was an annoying humming noise, and then it was humming coming from Jed’s pistol who shot down a tribal woman coming at them with a shishkebab. A shishkebab. Where the hell did they get these weapons?

Something pulled her up to her feet – Jed – and gave her an intense look, and screamed, but Finn had problems comprehending what he was trying to say.

„On your feet! Keep fighting! Come on, I got ya…“

He tried to move them both behind another cover. But it was too late. It was always too late.

***

The young missionary, Daniel Young looked down from a cliff to look at the Narrows and it inhabitants, currently waking up to a new day. The Sorrows got up and went to sleep with the Sun; the Sun’s been up for two good hours and the tribals were cooking fish on the fire, getting ready for scouting the area, waiting for the morning service.

He was walking around the camp for two good hours. When he woke up after five in the morning, he managed to calm himself down by this perambulation (perambulations) around the Narrows, but it never really helped. And it surely didn’t help him rest.

It’s been a long time since Daniel had a good night sleep. Sleep used to be an escape for him, from this world to the world of what could have been; now it’s become an obligatory route to the world of what happened, what he saw, what he had to see, and his mind was forcing him to go through these moments again and again and again. Sleep was, of course, necessary for survival, but Daniel Young wasn’t its greatest fan, so to say.

Now, he’d usually go over his supplies, but honestly, there wasn’t much to go over. It’s been a long time since he’d seen some proper supplies, and the situation wasn’t getting any better. He didn’t have the time to go look for them himself, and the Sorrows couldn’t go either, considering most of the tourist spots taboo. And then there was always Joshua, telling him that they don’t really need the supplies. That there’s a simpler solution.

Much simpler solution.

Daniel sighed and adjusted his hat. Watching over the Sorrows always woke some inner peace in him; Zion had the same effect, being as beautiful as it was. Daniel wished he could stay, but…

He turned to look at the Zion Canyon, spread in front of him like a picture.

But what he actually saw made him stare in shock.

Even though he was stuck in his inner monologue, which usually lasted for a long time (because he usually thought about what could go wrong and there was always a lot of things which could go wrong), his eyes managed to ignore his inner dilema and registered an atypical appearance disturbing the awakening landscape – he saw two persons.

People.

The first one he recognized. The tribal markings of the Dead Horses, the cap – he remembered this particular scout, and if he remembered correctly, his name was Follows-Chalk. The other figure, however, was a whole different story.

First of all, it wasn’t a tribal. It was, very clearly, an outsider – and Daniel knew outsiders. He knew mercenaries, NCR prospectors, raiders. Which one of these was the woman accompanying the scout, that he did not know, but he immediately got that suspicion that she’s up to no good. Maybe he was wrong, of course, and it was wrong to judge someone by the first impression.

But the thing was, first impressions mattered now – and they especially mattered when he had a tribe to protect.

He woke up from his reverie (though he was not sure this was the right term to call it) and headed down from the cliff. He passed some of the Sorrows‘ scouts who gave him confused, questioning looks, meaning that they became aware of the people approaching as well. He simply nodded at them, suggesting that he has the situation under control.

Which he did not.

Once he got in their line of sight again, the scout and the woman saw him too. He finally got a good look on the woman – ashen hair, freckles spread on her face, a hunting rifle on her back. The scout looked mildly distressed, but he seemed to be keen on following her. That, however, didn’t have to mean she posed no danger to him. To the Sorrows.

Daniel thought, and immediately regretted the sentiment – how much better would it be if she run into Joshua instead of him. It surely was strange that her first stop was here, and Daniel just felt his heartbeat getting faster, possesed by fear.

Finally they stood face to face, the woman measuring him with her gaze. He realized that his hand was on his holster, but it was too late to appear charitable now.

„Uh... I apologize if this comes across as a less-than-cordial welcome,“ he said. „But how did you get in here? You from the Mojave?“

The woman opened her mouth, and closed it. It appeared that she was considering what to answer, or more likely, in which way to answer. However, before she actually said anything, Follows-Chalk replied for her: „She came with a caravan, but the White Legs ambushed them! She is the only survivor.“

The woman didn’t say anything, only gave the scout a quick look. A quick one, as if she wanted to keep her eyes on him. Then she finally spoke.

„A Happy Trails Caravan, yeah. If the name rings any bells. Not like it has to anymore. Everyone’s. You know,“ she paused, and added in much quieter voice: „Dead.“

The way she said it made Daniel freeze in the spot for a second. He wasn’t sure if to let go of his holster or just hold it tighter. And yet, another emotion, besides whatever this was, was sympathy.

He decided to put his hand away from his gun.

„That’s,“ he sighed. „I'm so sorry. That's terrible. The tribals, White Legs – we’ve been having a lot of problems with them recently.“

The woman didn’t say anything, so he continued: „In fact, that's why I'm here. I'm Daniel, a New Canaanite missionary to this tribe, the Sorrows. I think it important that you speak to my colleague, Joshua Graham-“

„That’s what I said, but she refused,“ the scout said urgently. The woman scowled and said: „That’s not how I’d put it, I simply decided to seek alternatives.“

Daniel paused. „I – okay. I’d simply feel more comfortable if-“

„No offense, but you’re sending me to Joshua fucking Graham. We came here looking for New Canaanites, not the infamous ex-Legate!“

Daniel blinked few times, slowly. „Joshua Graham is a New Canaanite, just like me. I assure you, he is on our side here.“

„Our side?“ the woman parroted. „You including me in that sentiment as well now, huh?“

„Sentiment?“

„As far as I’m concerned, I’m not on your side. I was supposed to get our caravan to New Canaan, not into this bullshit, so I’d truly prefer getting out of here, you know? Now.“

Daniel nodded, resisting the urge to sigh. He felt like he had enough of her sass for the day and yet, they just began talking. „Listen, I understand that this isn’t what you signed up for. But we didn't ask you to come to Zion. As far as I'm concerned, you're an uninvited guest. In better times, I'd drop everything to help you out, but… these are not those times. And I’d truly prefer if you talked to Joshua about what’s happening here.“

The woman gave him a sharp look. Daniel didn’t know how to properly describe it, but there was hesitation in her eyes, hesitation which very closely reminded Daniel of fear.

Of course.

He could’ve realized it sooner – the courier was hesitating simply because she was afraid of Joshua. Maybe not, of course, but – that look spoke for everything. He’d recognize ít everywhere, specifically because it was residing on faces of all New Canaan inhabitants when he brought Joshua back home, broken, burnt, left to die.

It was only natural, of course. But in this situation, most unwelcome. Daniel gave the woman a long look, thinking about his possibilites.

„You’re injured,“ he suddenly remarked, noticing the wound on her shoulder. It was a simple cut, probably done by White Legs‘ blade, and the woman not being aware of it only proved its triviality; she quickly touched the wound, obviously confused.

„Oh. It’s nothing, really,“ she said.

„Want me to take a look? I’m a doctor. Of sorts.“

„Well…“

„I could fill you in in the meantime. I still think you should at least go to introduce yourself to Joshua, but I can see that you need to understand the situation first.“

The woman finally understood his intention. She gave him a surprised look; honestly, Daniel was surprised himself, but he didn’t want to throw this woman in what she considered a lion’s den. Maybe if he explains her the basics of what’s going on, she won’t be so hesitant about talking to Joshua – and cooperating with Joshua in general.

„Alright, yeah,“ she said. „I think that’d be wise.“

Now it was time for Follows-Chalk to look uneasy. „What should I do then? Should I head back to Joshua and tell him the news?“

„Yes, if you could be so kind,“ Daniel nodded. „Tell him that – um…“

He still didn’t know her name. That was embarrassing.

„A courier,“ the woman chipped in. „Finley.“

„Right, just tell him that Finley will arrive soon and that there’s much for them to discuss, but she’s injured as of now.“

„Can you make it back safe?“ the courier asked.

„I’m going to be okay,“ Follows-Chalk said and smiled. „See you later then, yes? I can not wait!“

The courier nodded, flashing him a smile as well, even though hers was much more hesitant.

With that, Follows-Chalk departed, while the courier and him, with eyes of all the Sorrows on them, entered the Narrows.

[newstfionline]

Europe ponders prospect of life after Merkel

Sara Miller Llana, Rachel Stern, CS Monitor, November 21, 2017

PARIS; AND BERLIN--Earlier this spring, when President Trump threatened to drop out of a major climate accord and berated fellow NATO members on his first trip to Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rallied the continent.

“The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over,” she told a crowd in Munich. “We Europeans really must take our fate into our own hands.”

Implicit in that message was the reassurance that it was Ms. Merkel who would shepherd Europe in the reshuffled order.

But what if there is no Merkel?

Month-long negotiations in Berlin to form a coalition government after September’s federal election collapsed Sunday night. Germany found itself in uncharted waters, facing its worst political crisis since World War II. Many have begun to see Merkel as a weakened caretaker chancellor with an uncertain future.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called on the political parties to resume coalition talks. If they cannot reach agreement, he seems likely to call fresh elections.

The crisis undermines Merkel’s stature after 12 years in office that have made her a crucial pillar of the European Union, and some observers call it an important wake-up call about the new political realities facing Europe. Just as the EU adjusted to a disinterested America under Barack Obama and later a defiant one under President Trump, it may have to get used to life without the continent’s de facto leader, they say.

“People are slowly getting used to the idea that there will be life after Merkel, and Europe has to get used to this idea also,” says Roland Freudenstein, policy director of the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies, a think tank in Brussels.

The crisis in Europe’s economic powerhouse has struck at a delicate moment for Europe. The EU is in the middle of complex and rancorous negotiations with London over Britain’s exit from the Union; extreme right wing, anti-EU political parties remain a force in many countries; the euro-zone needs reform to strengthen its common currency; and though the flow of migrants has slowed, it has not dried up.

On all these fronts, Germany has come to be seen as the indispensable nation, whose decisions shape European debate.

Paul Nolte, a professor of contemporary history at Free University Berlin, says the instability in Germany is certainly not good for Europe. Yet he also sees it as a reality check. “It works against the myth of Germany the strong man, and Merkel the strong woman of Germany,” which he says he has seen oft-repeated during his recent academic year as a visiting professor at Oxford University.

“I’ve often been irritated about how much trust and expectation is being projected onto Germany and Merkel. I think it’s good to see Germany in a way being shrunk to its real size and not blown up to some mythical dimension,” he suggests.

It’s also time, he says, for other member states to step up, notably France.

New French President Emmanuel Macron is keen to take on new responsibilities. After winning office on a strongly pro-EU platform, he has voiced grand visions for Europe including a European finance ministry, continent-wide taxes and a common military force.

But none of those ideas will come to anything without German support. That support--uncertain even with Merkel in office--is now firmly on hold.

“The expectations of French-German-leadership in the EU are frozen,” says Thomas Jäger, professor of international politics at the University of Cologne. “There will not be a new dynamic in the EU without these two states working closely together.”

It is unclear still how or when a new German government might emerge, given the apparently irreconcilable differences among potential coalition partners from left and right that torpedoed the talks.

An opinion poll on Monday showed 45 percent of voters favoring new elections and 49 percent believing that Merkel should run again, which she has said she would do.

But even if she prevails, the Chancellor knows that her party made its worst electoral showing since 1949 partly because the far-right, anti-foreigner Alternative for Germany did better than ever before, entering parliament for the first time.

For the political analyst Mr. Freudenstein, this is no more than the “normalization” of German politics, undergoing the same changes as other European nations that have have contended with pressure from far-right parties for decades. “We are only becoming more like our neighbors,” he says.

[castlehead]

mx pharaoh -b-side u-

Ideals and notions slash into every oblivious dawn, which now I can only see through windows in the visiting room Clark 8 has. My friend on the outside came to visit today. He said I was living on “Borrowed Time” and that I should be lucky. I listen to him and do not quite know what he means by that.

. . . . . .

Ether swirls forlornly.

Merit in people, like merit in poets, according to poet Wallace Stevens, is a bore. Well seems to me a baseless assumption but I have not a friend in a single bloodvessel so maybe I am doing something wrong. But contra standards everything is baseless, sideless, endlessly sidereal. In a lit World. In a leaning, lit up, bloodshot World. But that is where I am in the night under a cloak of meds turning me robotic or like something.

. . . . . .

Generally, if the sky fell, which it has, would to me the sun in actuality be the burning pyre of a onceplanet, diffuse now, back then, though, home to matter unfeasibly unfreezeable, in regards the fiery heat, and lurking in their heat those burning bodies, knowing the surface of the sun as theirs, or at least learning like as we do of the grand mirror of consciousmind.

Under a newer cloak of mild hospital patterns I live a milder life than once I knew in being thrust indeterminedly blank, into sideless nothing. Knowing not.

A thing unto myself like a sack of carrion carried. Locked in a thrust of obligation and to trudge through my blazes and situations and then come to crisis.

Frame of reference disappears. Seeing God, whether true or untrue, which really doesn’t matter, produces doubts you hoard like a magpie. They are special to you. In the moment of seeing, there it dawns, lets itself be seen, is seen, but for you only, and never again: then you are forced to find understanding within yourself. You will be at inward war for endless time, I think silently: finding kinship with hope and an impossibility.

You experience the thing. It lights up your flesh like the last burnt being on an inhabited sun. Once. Once I could relay a moment with another, focus my thoughts, have a diameter more than an inch of reason around my headspace. Different however than phrenology. Old World cures. Trepanation. That guy Geoffrey Dahmer drilled acid like LSD into the brains of 14 year olds. And turned them into idiotzombies. Like he drilled holes in their heads. And poured pure acid into the drilled holes. But maybe that’s just an urban legend. In any case.

Who? Is? On? My? Side? Slipping slipping slipping dawn proves this abstract to think about when there is nothing to grab onto. Like in that moment of reckoning, even; you forget your confusion and say, “The star was never a planet, nothingness can exist godlessly most sensibly.”

But not that no. Not a farrow for the plow there. Just old rusted junk and the skeleton of old mouse of Burns. I frame it as a remark not a question needing appeasing: Who is on my side. Words on the life and soul of one, whose difference between life and death relied on a fucking air conditioner, and hence, a fall broken.

Then and then only can it be seen what it is. Something I guess not like expecting anything. There’s an old bluff in every answer to a personal question I use and it’s, Well that’s just me. Or. Something of the sort. Nearly draconian my sense of self whips me. Lashing a handsome leather one.

And maybe I block myself out of my own portrait or maybe others do that I wouldn’t know I’m not a fan of blaming people like I wasn’t there man I didn’t geographically locate the body of another and install myself fucking into their fucking harddrive. And see their thoughts about where he was and also reflections in sensations and impressions of emotions. I am the static field my space proclaims, and the static reality is where I am in the moment however the soul is often placed where I long to be and suffer to be.

. . . . . .

In this fecal birdcage I am hassled by the names I call myself. Hateful little whispers my own mind builds together and that unto itself, is unto itself, it is pressing, it is a pressing matter, it presses on me like a lover of a kind. Cosmos, touching. My evicted head, squeezed head, attenuating.

There is nothing different going to happen besides some screams. In answer is the clogged place the sound releases me from, once again, into the World, the whirly World, filled with friends or not with friends or not with friends but family or not family but just my Dad.

So I am injured greatly at heart. I am very sad. What is my sadness I do not know what my sadness is but it remarks on a soul hurt as if it knew more than that, more than little horrors, here and there, and mere, stubborn names, frames of mind, or all of it observed through a still glass, time then seen in and as frames, each: memory nearly real as present, and all of it a polaroid, a stillness made from the primordial clay by some mindfuck cretin upstairs.

So I knew perhaps a stubborn, loud thing of being had, which invaded all possible analysis with its goofy inverted visions. Trembling under disregards. You know, cutting myself out; or do I make nothing for nothing is real? Maybe the only real thing one does is his laps around his true character, his head waiting for an end to the meanwhile. As if to prove through the effort that truth is present there somewhere in the greymatter and would present itself, living and fecund and like a mirrored life maybe drumming in some morsecode blather of an arc I’d travel to in that life, a clime mine, and away from that picture in the glass, a face which even by the mundanest observance causes ringing in my ears.

And yet an observance guttural and still viewing the spectacle of nothing there. Dear everyone, my sumptuous actions. Are of bloom or like I guess to say in bloom sorta. These my fatted acts. Rosebud caught not in the bud, left unfed anyway to fetidness, roaming lights in the mind revolving, as would alive stones, real expanses of mind, of a mind of leafy strands of hair, soupy lectures on an element about me unfulfilled.

Well spare me, me. Or do I speak or have I ever spoken; I do and have. Logic’s remaining drug will be unapproved by the FDA. It will go waxing, first waiting to draw closer these stones, these eerie feelings about a glutton replenished again, a waterglutton again, rose budding again. Tears. Amor Fati. Winsome of incipient chance. Out of a straight line a knot. Something a definition. Not what I was. Who I was.

Will I not be owlish in eye, stretch rude features? Generous little snot. Begin. Provoke me. Tell me you matter, do you. Drain me out like foul blood. I am. Say breaths. Este loco. Este loco. Este loco. Precarious rich flowershoots fished risky out of a vase on the ledge of leaning dawn. Or I am fucked up and leaning on my friendless self. Or am I somewhere weightless and dark in a dried out morbidity, this horseman of myself pacing, clicking, clicking around his halls of hell, chiseling out aggressive conversation with himself despite me, whether I engage him or not. I am the place droopysnouted humankind takes their feelings, a place to browse through them, be a dog at. It is just some people walk in the shade and think it’s more than that.

. . . . . .

Staring down a bottle of expired Roxicet, right there, and my eyes glued there, and my face plain and stoic, and I already nearly under the table with five shots of Jäger and three lines of good shit. Like I mean fucking fire. But I guess blow and liquid shitface didn’t drown out the noise of my own mind, harping at itself, again, batty again.

Besides the talk of different friends at this guy’s house I mean, which was like thousands of pianos tapping a variety of keys. An eager discord I thought, eagerly. To drown out with.

Weird half-convos and I guess a few pills. Yeah, it was reason enough to ingest that shit. Reason enough to eat half the bottle nearly, and wind up passed out on the side of the street at 3 A.M., picked up to my shaky haunches, heaved rather, by a few preferably [in my mind] anonymous ex-friends, them all bodies for the carnage, this disturbing wastefulness, nearly a tale for Fitzgerald to read and think of abandoned

Airdales. I was green. Froggy. But at least I wasn’t blue.

But from that day on I figured out how easy it was to steal pills. How easy it was to lose people. Everyone. A few simple turns and you can be throttled forever until you put down the brick. Left me with a massive headache. The loss of trust people had in me is a gift doe. And, at least now, I take an aspirin or two, maybe. I was fourteen. In a word I have started recovering from my own illness that is yet too much a choice for me to call disease. Been shattered by drugs, this time bundles of heroin.

Spent four months in and out of seedy places in Windsor Locks, CT, cultivating this addiction, ignoramus that I am, who does not listen to his body. Tried quitting seven times; sick sick sick, unending sick, physical convulsions, puking black grease, needing water that yet when I drank it burned my throat. Physical addiction is the story of Narcissus embodied. Wasted money, wasted years.

I am clean now I guess and scared of drugs generally, but will probably pick up cocaine again. Perhaps this reasonable fear comes too late to retain the whole of what (or who) I once was. But I pick up the scraps and call it a day like anyone does.

So as of now I am clean. Only fitting I’d push myself to the extremity at the very end. I am doom-eager as Orpheus, my solitary lady, haha. I have thirty days clean and feel higher now than I ever was quenching my habit by the coming of the sun, my girlfriend and I driving to Hartford to pick up and sick as hell.

Every morning that was what it was. Blank sleep, maybe too disturbed to call it sleep, waking and heading to resume my disembodiment etc. Ah,

  Hell,

I am done, I am serious, life is no joke; I tell myself this. If one doesn’t take what they have been given seriously life will respond and turn them into a joker, and their life an exposed punchline, meaningless, detrimental to everyone. A bug is in every family as Kafka said. But we are all bugs, sweaty, stinking, plain, thoughtless, wrong. I have in such and such a way quit my buzzing against the window and resigned myself to dying in this place, this World, this planet: this imprisonment etc., between two walls of infinite glass. It’s lovely. For we are all resigned. We as a race of people are stuck with life’s retaliation against those who do not celebrate the gift that it is. The positivity here is muddled I guess but it exists here in the words.

I am staying sober. Alright? For good. For my brain. For my body; I can make out a few of these directives without stalling. I still stall. But I am healing. Just like you. I am healing forever. We heal by affirming the awesome power that takes our ommateum and feelers to the glass walls and reveals our painful futility etc. which is grace. Life is grace. So we shall live and continue to live gracefully.

i don’t regret surviving anymore from that long fall a subsequent long haul i know it yes through these days of insidious boredom after too long a while walking the halls brought to me like unto me like 'unto’ like a thunderous punishment or a poison’s delay creeping stiffness over my slouching heart

a ‘wellnesss’ now and faked well for all time over itself, over itself and out i go into a dreamt stop of it all one of these days that encircles vulturelike round me whom is in this senseless room ordinarily and draped in an ordinary at least for the place a hospital a gown greeklike and soiled kind of by the wiping of snot and snot the more

i was listening to m83’s “soon, my friend” and came up with an idea. the idea was being stabbed in the chest. i thought this was a good idea because it hurts to be stabbed in the chest but life also hurts so to not be stabbed in the chest would hurt but maybe just later or over time collectively. i guess it’s a metaphor or something.

[Fecal ape. No remonstrance to that in this tattered brain, thank Lordy. None but the blare. And then these swaying things. Meretricious, subdued talk, of something hungering wealth in something aside from this field in my dandy head. Grope, grope, youth. File the truth. Mister, she came by but in the end asked for nuffing like you didn’t say. You don’t say. Well laddie churn about on that liquid sea. Black as regular. Another day on the Hudson, another yearned conversation, another bandaged head against the wind.]

so then i thought abt what love was and it was like being stabbed in the chest the first time you love and they leave you, then you meet someone else and you leave them, and they remove the weapon. and it’s like there’s this blind pain for years before that: you’re telling people, “Hey man, I’d love to hang, but I have a knife in my chest,” or “There are things I wish I could have done before this knife was sticking out of my chest,” or “The additional six inches of this leather knifehandle protruding from my chest make it very hard to navigate crowded rooms.”

[Embattled in scorn, years of shouts, foreign eye, a foreign, bleeding eye, yes, an evil one of those a better evil than the finest smile’s chancedisgust seen by that very communicated evil. In the eye. Shivershivershiver. Oh and what did the lady say a'you. Well sire she said I had not got a melon ripe enough but my head’ll do. Cheers. Tripe, well gone’s miss. Feel around in the dark for some verb, aside, you know, from anything like 'feel.’ Dread upwards, vertical people pounding pulpit. I’d say. Mmmmsmash.]

and then the other person comes along and they ask why. so i explain to them. and they hold my hand for awhile and maybe sit under a tree with me. then i say to them will you take this thing out please and they do it and i finally bleed out and die, after all these years. then they walk away, heartbroken. i left my girlfriend of three years a week ago. she finally let the wound be a wound. and then i think there is this subtle exchange of stabbings between rejector and rejected. and i think, we have enough blood to get us through the year, we have enough temperance to hide ourselves this last time, until the last time ends, and even she, thinking she saved you in removing whatever offending object, has unknowingly conspired to rid you of her. for death takes all, and where a relief begins another ends.

[Sad sad sad. My noise, but a ghost’s achoo through paper floors.]

. . . . . .

—To understand the interconnected conversation or to just somehow prove that something impossible could happen. How is nothing impossible you may ask well let me tell you. Our hero taps his crooked index on the chalkboard. That is life. And our life is rational thought. Not in a solipsistic sense, wherein the five senses are overseen by some abstract Will For Things More Pleasing. But in that reason gives us the pleasure of life for that is synonymous with purpose. So then. For something to be Impossible, besides conceptually, is impossible, because for it to exist as a word it needs to in its extremity pinpoint something absolute in words that do not exist in reality. It says that words are realer than beings in at least our three dimensional reality. It does not matter what this image, object is, or looks like, -but is this even logical for a word to etymologically call for itself to get gone to nothingness and exist, impossibly in its own fourth dimension logic, as an example that is not itself, within the ballpark of its opposite meaning at most. Words literally make more sense than reality doez. Which basically tells us we are the result of words and can be draped with whatever context makes the most sense. Look at, and I mean really look at the idea of Being. To me, the universe seems to have an aim, that is, expands itself with everything because not to include everything would imply not only that something could exist and calls for something other than everything in order to be/.-after but that if manifested would be absurd, nonsensical, for yet there. This statement proves the absurd. At the end of the day the word is pretty clearcut. Not possible. To make it possible is a logical fallacy. Well then haven’t we figured this out? Do you want me to spell it out for you. Ok then: It is not possible, so it is possible, as itself a word, qua a word. This has some catastrophic consequences. It means that language is fleet. It can simultaneously make sense and not. The Meaning, confined to the word itself, is one that exists as much and as light and heavy as money. Yet why is what is possible possible? How do we mark that. It means a load of assumptions. It means that there need be a lifeline for the universe. That at its most far reaching, Throughout its life, the universe itself denied that this would happen, when, and this is crucial -when there was more to add. That possibility were a matter of duality. Impossible cannot be called possible bc that is absurd. It is not the definition of the word. An infinite universe says this: impossible is an impossible word. It assumes something other than it’s own infinity.

Conservation of energy. No loose ends is the assumption here, which can be used if they are put in this environment to simultaneously justify and call their existence false. Everything that exists is everything that exists and impossible is a literal lie and proof of this, I feel, because it is a word that needs itself, you know -in order to be. Said MX Pharaoh through miraculous whiteness and white ethersglow a ascending him to a head of breathed punk until he realized he is too late for this car. The monolith. It will get HIM. I will give up my HIM. And Cherryblossom my own, forever, yet that will kill us both. I give up my myself to words that don’t exist.

—The stunt of a wonderful, broad nascence too ill stemmed to not screw out at every board’s unclung fangs. This thick meteoric chamber. Guide us willful. Plank to plank, threadless way, pushed mechanic feet -Dickinson //

To start out on the water and end in the meadow. To deny the distance between anything in my reach, everything, the least or perfectest touching The Mind Of Cosmos with ye own bare lurid looking. You look long when you lose me. Then you lose me I am back to the nurses harping on old fellas who stroked out. Endless debate in the brain, then nothing, k-holekablooiy. But nah. She doesn’t give up not for nothin. Dwelled hard in my brain and barely there before. What difference was there ?? well the loose chains to myself, makes clouded things. With its armor. Making it perilous to merely move.

—Honestly the only dead writer I relate to Is Antonin Artaud. A'saith. Love can drive a man to cruelty. His mind can rebel against its borders and piss off into nothing. I took my hand and petted the venetian blinds with my hand. “Touch with my tactile impressions.” I remember. Pessoa.

Monolithic as it was there was space enough to hit him. Made in no debt to anyone but himself, to reason, to find sonorous reason compiled

In this ship of mates. Long groveled he. Atop his vestibule shedding cuticles. And some mute drone like a cateye’s dearth in it o such a thing, and such

a thing as would insist me past deliverance, working wicks at both ends and driving the conversation. Looted, but not unemployed. Free hat. Free HAt !

–What    . [?] –Keeps getting better. It does. PRomise, I.

… …

Few rue the slain, even in these irrational days. Corruption is seen from afar when it is right in front of you. Begging rhetoric, gold mountains of rhetoric. Feasibly HE was as far away as the floor. Busiest one. Soaked not in sun. For one day to bruise through venetians, that day, some part in the mix, or a lost umbrella or unoriginal ideas or faked curiosities I seize myself and slap him up right well to unhook his jaw M8 just a tiny flaw HE had nothing to do with ye ruining. Sun aslant. Sun given. OR a one his own. Where circles fix one of their ends.—

—That Shia Leboeuf or whoever’s motivational speech got to me. MX Pharaoh, a'saith. Extend the pause between period and period ol patcheyes say it is I JJ I have come to blight you, strike you, be like you like me to be and something carried with that black as art, as the puppetmasters speak again for you -M8 these are not real quarterstones through the suck. Sneak in the creaking bed, surrounding me like folds of weatherdd sheet, wooly mup of hair stickin, embracing into an egg of lightness, outside of a world filled with truisms, hiccuped persuits hosing down the interest like a brainwash: club me silly: So some by the dreaded thousandhead come like thunderheads. Stuff not lasting awhile. The only way to do it is to do it. I was abt to hit post on a status and two text messages. This is what that happens after the book. It was like i was abt to drop a bomb or something, which is why similar things happen in reality we call ‘dropped bombs’ -and just furiously held myself alone, but together. Strike, my patience.

“Yr so sexy.” They fuck. And that no more I would feel. And that no more I would but try and strain myself out of, instead of undeveloping the complacent rut. To not feel something different that impossible time in Bantam CT.

… …

The hanging pendulum, famous pendulum, I brought a disguise. That ippie Jesus lad was he. Round squat lad. That’s right. Annour away from here. Ye. Das Righ. When cannit. Some guy talking to the police bout a crash somewhere. We had this great blanket that had ciggie holes in it it was Black one side White the other, forget leavening, have liquor be the rise always, and forevour, she had a worst part of life, dolour, cherry, feast of I admit another’s blocked chemistry, gangly ganglion fretting the nethers’re fed well worser then and as the corroding jism implies and implies all day long. Playing skermish his index with words on the board: Don’t! Perceive! Doubt! Make it like he dinna think of doing it the night before in this the dim place, of a city [THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE WELLKNOWN “STRIDENT BAT” NSA RECORDING, DISLODGED FROM ITS SAFE AND BROUGHT TO THE BLEAK PUBLIC] lording over his width and graveness obsoletely,ekin -int o- INTO the air. We was playing catch. Teleophne. The sars scare -Why –Cali hipsters -Bay Area, true heroes Fazzfazz. Fazz. Lonely mean men off to the sides of the street looking you. Fortunate you look. MX Pharaoh. Lonely alien plains their eyes. Ghost meat. Feel them burn a hole in ye back as ye cross. And called her that, for she is blossoming, for she limitless, pigs raining down to the world in droves of ström, lorilee the chance was -Ear -Wax parents.Searin-bet- stridenscimist. Then to the anchoring felicity that night feet in me lap. Stringy memories launch by like a list of buzzfeed. He struggled to notice fingers of him in hers. delicate cross, small, pink foison of bushytail, or a thing we had, or when it was it was had. Feeble embers these. The tap of a shoe is like a kiss and there’s, a sopping tongue there’s, white guilt there’s, manic, seeing figures in the tar of a television’s blank screen, of which frightened Cherryblossom, fidgeting her psyche to recall and experience and re-live a done for sure thing. Worried told her he was. And now this. MX Pharaoh left the door open all night. He says he means the window said patcheyes. Lost delivery, hope those vapethings get here. Squatting to piss public. Glad I don’t got to do that. Pharaoh said. Massagin a bad neck hoping madness to bend him back to life. It was never that I was back HE said. I was neck. I broke my neck in the crash. Is this even real. And all this looking into her eyes that day speaking lil wayne fashioning pigeon grills, good movies and tainted moments and their audacity to be tainted. Comforting things like that song in my head most times.

Simone to my Jean Paul. Delineating skyscape in the night waging itself free into the starry Staten Island chasm. Hope little prose roses lift him. Croon. Empty now. I was poor once. Less of an appetite now. Can starve for a few days and be fine. I had a little house in Bantam in Connecticut where I did that. Furtherance. Lift me now and ever in good stead. Such sadness. Such inexplicable maddening stabs of sadness. A knife’s throat drinking up quaffing up. Bloodblood. Bloodspew. Recoil at me she do. Fear symperanekromenoi for they are those who know not they are dead. Lifted lies, old father. That’s what they are and I read them to you for my video in the coffeeroom. Pharaoh shirking his moral duty. Pishyynallalastersheppalalalalalala. For when you can’t think of a word for omnipotent eyes. Teacher, teach. Little ones one day sighted in my possibility will too wag from me o sorrow. Pharaoh took his last drag on her porch.

“Rose the tenant. Crazy bitch.” This, Simone. “You put her out soon.” I say. Then her:

“Granma makes me hold her papers when she’s trying to get things in order.” “Soon enough. Seems nice.” I say.

… …

Well it goes faulty. Drip. Drip. Drip. The faucet singing her tone row into the night. I stayed on the couch that night embodying soft abstractions. Dripdripdrip. Into faculties my night emits like systems, unlike faculties, like the mechanism of dripping itself as consummate, like they each were in their drops blessed whole: not form, unformed, but reaching into form through concept, concept, generality by generality elucidating the complex: a'saith the poor-sighted phantasm in his eyepatch. Dragged her into this. Pharaoh was bleeding thoughts. He says to himself did I see all this time a lie shining broken light all over the fleeting like it would make it lift, make it see itself through into clarity. My thoughts. He thinks man what a day what a day. Something of kin I feel. After this book is over, there will be a part of the life of Pharaoh where he thinks clearly of his epitaph. It will say A Just Death. For he thinks, at least it will be his, and if so, some moral measure could exist in the world, if by these granted hallelujahs a punishment makes me rescind back into the wordworld like some rite of passage, but writing nothing. Meets a good friend halfway. Tries to get back her, begging for Cherryblossom. And all these repetitions. Are they with gusto ah, enough? Or twirling leaves. Senselessly from the tree. Deciduous as mine pineal perspective, growing anew, growling anew, then dead, dead again, faced again, risen. He believed, then, that if T. were to kill himself he would feel for him, and her, and not be glad it happened, and not have such a secret to keep. For it is not to stomach without a bitter feeling in the right way of how that feeling is in that pit there.

No beginning no end. Stone heart, pealing laughter. Cherryblossom he wanted some sifting through. Some irrational need to. Maybe to make sense. Find GOD. But GOD would not have any multitude be in his creamy lap. Lost folds of sheet. Or lost in them. I would have marked another blight. I would have come again in six years to leave Cherryblossom thought Pharaoh. Thought Pharaoh: my inkling of prescience was not a rudiment doubt but one more complex chink for the place the hole. Chest cavity’s ache. I shouldn’t have done. Well now who is that young squanderer: he makes to heave his cutlasslegs and paint the street with kicking blood. Can goes: blunkunk! Blunkunk! He kicks the sodacan like an old maid he does. Well that’s what they think of me, he thinks; and he channels HIM who gives Pharaoh the thoughts of others. More trained. More the luckier. I still learned to use the words Pharaoh thought. And when they gently there in my head manifested as actual words -that limited the whole scenario. GOD-train. Mellifluous summer and home again from a stay in Staten Island. Waging silent postures waiting at the curb. Fat tangle of feelings:

[So it would have easily been the soft gloaming, so it would, so it would have righted itself in the encroaching rheum, and yet he was here, now, Pharaoh was here: and in his grace met something nondescript amongst big waves of time, something like when he smoked a ton of Angel Dust and thought of the rain, and himself, and all the lightning in the distance, opining and scary, the faced, the unfaced, the lorded morals of a scared kid in the corner, the corner an eye and an eye a flick away from being a movie for our lives to look at, and we see the movie: and he thought of her silly, raven hair, and the somber grate outside by the sitting trash; and of Cherryblossom, by now but the trillionshadow’s abrupt gaze, waveful and timely, back into the night of a substance, like perhaps the remembered reality of drugs, drugged reality, embracing the life of him who falls: Saw my feet a'saith. Hanging in the air. And HE was not the cause. HE had the very first knife that broke the spring in his gut. HE kept it on his celestial mantlepiece, you know, that towering muttering spaceconstruct through wild byways, where once HE hanged Pharaoh by the tits of void. But Pharaoh. Oh my lovely by his docks biking to the piers the metal napes sinking slovenly into abusive, hurtling waters. Like a thousand pounds. Andandand. Food for thought: life’s done. I can uncreate HIM. But for the plied wares I would not have reckoned HIM, thought Pharaoh. So then out the speckled iris the man shunned doubts and things and claptrap shaped into these light, fitful unnamables, seeking their tide yet really the wreck, the blind misery in the heat lightning of that alien Connecticut night, wherein I [and this the voice the woodwork wouldn’t have guessed] was this GOD in the moon, and the moon a plane’s drifted glint a distance resized and resized. Fly fly fly. Oh my Cherryblossom, and my friends, and specky hipsters, and the delicacy of life, and ooo the righteous glint a sand speck dries the eye to. And so he go scoffed at the feeble reed he but was. He thought of himself as he was, and of you as well, strange, omnipotent eyes, and of all the hankering voices singing from their last climes. licking yon wounds of wonder. Usurper and usurped in union and none in charge. No last buck. No trinity of sleepless nights giving him his religious stomachbutterflies. So it was neon yellow morning finally across the last day and Pharaoh smudged in his eyesocket once out into his breach, once that eking bit of the unreal panted into thought and out of strange scope and thoughthindrance. Tempted by dreams to punch through floorboard and in him a wandering wastrel’s presence a fertile eye like a dunce nudged into the chair in his corner. Forgone this, foregone that, so much had happened. Pharaoh needed more time to understand this but was tired of waiting and the light poured and the mouth of the window was all gripping and finding views here and there he made a wizz on the sides of the toilet kind of. Shaped crass the eye. The umlaut of moon and sun above the brow of mankind. Pharaoh smudged in his eyesocket and thought of his patronage, absurd ghosts, and his histories within him and all aflame like sightless ruin, like something needful in the dark.]

[These connections, these feeble relations I have forged, between myself and myself, and others with others, they are nothing, they are dull words in the dark, when still I have not bridged myself to those others, nor them to me, for then is left but GOD to mangle.]​

[pernatius]

The Forbidden Blade: Ch 80

Ch 79

Again, for miles stretched darkness. Above us, however, floated several torches. Their light shines onto us, yet I still see darkness etched between his crevasses. Between the cracks on his lips, the bags underneath his eyes, and descending from his cheekbones laid darkness. 

We looked into each other’s eyes. He already knows what’s going on in my head. Zelous knew what I was going to tell him, yet I spoke anyway. I told him about my complaints, the insult I felt towards his lack of trust, “I have the right to know, especially when it means my life is at risk.”

“Arthus, you aren’t like Beatrice. Don’t let your emotions get to you like it did with her.”

What happened with Beatrice had happened mere minutes ago. Every detail of it, the blood and even the sounds of her bones cracking from the collision, is reminded back to me. It’s as if I’m there again, watching it happen from the safety of Xyetius’s blade. It makes me sick. I want to throw up, escape this false reality we both are currently sharing, but I push past it because I know doing so would dwindle the all so limiting time I still have left. 

Still, even though I wasn’t in control, someone died by my hands. Yes, I have killed before. My own father’s blood lies on these very hands. However, this time it’s different. I feel remorse. I feel regret. I wish I could’ve done something. I wish I could’ve prevented it. I could’ve saved her, but I watched. Again, I let it all happen. 

No, I won’t make this about me. I am not going to make myself the victim again. Instead, I’m going to keep my promise. I’m going to fix this, everything else that has yet to fall, so that this won’t happen again. 

So, I breathe. All of it comes locked up in my head. The stress disappeared and with it a clear head was born. “Clearly, you’ve known for some time that the Shadowmen have been wanting our head. So, it wouldn’t surprise me if you already planned out how to stop them from doing so.”

A smirk arose from him, pleased to see the sudden fickle between us had disappeared. Zelous is good at reading people. He’s excellent at understanding how others think, especially with me. His continued talent for this angers me. 

“Sometimes the easiest way to end things is with the most simplest answer. We will go straight to who had stolen my, “he places his hand onto his chest, “rightful spot as my Shadowmen’s leader.” 

“You’ve already figured out who the new leader of the Shadowmen is?” I still continue to be a child. It shouldn't have surprised me, especially at this point, that he figured out who was behind all of this. Maybe I had asked such a stupid question because I didn’t want to believe how much wit Zelous truly has compared to me. 

“It’s Oud.”

“It’s Oud?”

Proclaiming he’s the enemy of the both of us doesn’t sit quite well on my tongue. Yes, our first encounter wasn’t particularly the best. I resented him for some time after. However, this attitude towards him has greatly shifted. After our second encounter, the spite we felt for one another disappeared. Since then Oud has treated me as his equal. He has become a great ally to me, which is of course what I wholeheartedly believed until he explained his conclusion, “Oud is loyal to his empire just like any other man in Ignitus. Because of this, he wants us and all of Krala to fall. This is why he was so quick to make amends between the empires because he knew it was the only way to set his plan into motion. In order to fight for something you must lose something, or so I have learned from watching humanity from afar. Oud had to lose his pride in order to gain our trust. He knew Beteka would attack us on that day because he’s lived with her under the same roof and inside the same bed. There’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed her resentment towards us, especially on the day we shook hands for the first time. Oud was hoping she’d do the job for him, but when she didn’t he came to his enemy’s home. He apologized, making sure we wouldn’t get suspicious. However, with how close we have gotten to him in such a short amount of time, he’s gotten conceited. Oud also knew Beatche, because of her relationship with Beteka, would say the things she did. She planted suspicion in us. He wants us to go directly to him. His cold hands were the final thing I needed to figure this out.”

His hands were awfully cold. It was inhumanely cold. 

“That is a lot,” my eyebrows etched together, “So, you want to play along with Oud’s plan?” 

“Arthus, I am more than capable of making this my game. That little stunt I played with Beatrice won’t be reflected with Oud. I won’t treat him so lightly, especially now that I know he has been deceiving me and has now used Beatrice and Tiatus against me. He used them in order to get my attention. He didn’t care about them. He doesn’t even care about any of the other Shadowmen. All he does care about is his empire.”

“O-okay? I’m kind of still processing all of this. Let’s go back to the part about his cold hands. How exactly do they flow back into your conclusion?”

He lets out a chuckle. Before a tear, because of his growing buoyancy to my question, can reach his cheek, he wipes it away and flicks it into the darkness surrounding us. “Humans will do anything to get what they want even if it means losing a bit of their all so great humanity. They often go insane, driving into new territories. In these new places they reach for the taboo in order to escape insanity, or so they would like to believe that’s what will happen when they do. Oud, for his reason, has lost his senses. He's so close in achieving what he wants, but there’s too many bumps in his road. So, because of his impatience, he’s become desperate. The man you saw wasn’t Oud. Oud is dead.”

It makes sense. His hands were way too cold. Again, it’s scary to think of how smart Zelous is. He’s put this all together so quickly. He’s figured out Oud before Oud has figured out himself. Maybe this is the fault of my own pride, but I didn’t like that. I hated knowing how much better Zelous is. 

“Dead? How can that be when he was just here?”

“Arthus, I know you know about Jäger.”

Yeah, I do. That man was my true father. He was once Cetius’s brother, but even a Vancaster cannot be protected by the Vancaster curse. Venadius was killed off by his own brother. Jäger and Venadius may share the same mind, but they’ve become two different people. Who my father was is something I can never really know unless I was there when he was alive, but I know he’s not him. The years of knowing that his own brother backstabbed him has caused him to change, corrupt him. His humanity has separated from his psyche. As Zelous was saying, he drifted into desperation to seek revenge against his own blood. Venadius removed what he had felt for Krala and along with it the memories of his family, of me. 

“Both men are not in the same way of how you mortal would define death. These men shouldn’t be in the same world we both are currently residing in, yes, but the Shadowmen and I have found a way around it. We’ve hardened the soul, allowing it to stay in this world without having a true physical body. It hasn’t been perfect as the soul doesn’t match with his previous body. Although, that was until tonight. It seems like someone has bettered our craft. Well, it has yet to be the perfect successor as this version can be easily figured out to be a false physical body.” 

“Why would Oud want this?”

“Because the soul would then have the same properties as mine. It can not be sent to the afterlife once it is fatally wounded.”