#finding out this episode aired BEFORE Waters of Mars is wild

[spaceagesparkledust]

So I was watching The Tempation of Sarah Jane Smith Part 1 and

Sarah Jane 🤝 Tenth Doctor

Messing with fixed points in time only to have it backfire terribly

[searchingwardrobes]

Self-Promo Sunday: Labyrinth

As I’m weeding out my obnoxious amount of fics on Ao3, the first ones I’m deleting are ones like this that were originally speculation fics that canon has now blown out of the water. Even though I knew this spec fic would never actually happen since it closely follows the plot of a Smallville episode by the same name. This was also written before we knew Colin would be playing Wish!Hook. I loved making the creepy pic set for this, which ended up being pretty perfect for Halloween week. I also was struck by how much Andrew J West and Colin look alike. This is a Captain Cobra fic all the way with adult Henry, so that realization gave me massive feels.

Many are a little sad that I’m deleting some of my fics on Ao3, but just remember that they will now be here on tumblr as well! This just means that new readers finding my fics on Ao3 won’t be so overwhelmed and my very best ones will be easier to find.

Summary: One moment, a curse is bearing down on him, and the next Killian Jones wakes up in a mental hospital. They say every thing he has ever known to be true is a fantasy. But surely that's part of the curse . . . right? Inspired by the Smallville episode of the same name. No need to have watched Smallville to get this story. However, there are some fun easter eggs for Smallville fans.

Rating: G

Also on Ao3 until 11 / 3 / 2019

Tagging the usuals:@snowbellewells​​ @kmomof4​​@jennjenn615​​ @kday426​​ @let-it-raines​​ @teamhook​​@kmomof4​​ @bethacaciakay​​ @profdanglaisstuff​​ @resident-of-storybrooke​​ @thislassishooked​​ @tiganasummertree​​@whimsicallyenchantedrose​​ @snidgetsafan​​ @delirious-latenight-laughs​​ @winterbaby89​​ @distant-rose​​@shireness-says​​ @xhookswenchx​​ @optomisticgirl​​ @spartanguard​​ @branlovestowrite​​ @welllpthisishappening​​ @stahlop​

Killian Jones smiled as he brought his cup of coffee to his lips, gazing out of the bay windows to the view of the sea. He could hear Emma’s footsteps above him as she padded across the nursery on the second floor. Through the baby monitor on the coffee table, he could hear her coo a good morning to the baby. His smile widened when little Chloe babbled a response. The voices of the two lasses he loved most in this world quieted on the monitor as the rocking chair began to squeak. In his mind’s eyes, he could see Emma holding Chloe to her breast as she nursed her, rocking slowly back and forth. She would smile down at their wee one, touching a finger lightly against the baby’s soft cheek.

The family’s golden retriever bounded down the stairs, its claws click-clacking on the hard wood floor. The dog nuzzled against Killian’s hook, giving the cool steel a lick.

“Morning, Shelby,” Killian chuckled, giving the dog a pat of greeting.

The dog sat on her haunches, contently waiting by Killian’s side for him to finish his morning coffee. She waited there patiently, and then Killian would rinse out his mug and fill her bowl with kibble. It was their daily routine.

But suddenly Shelby whimpered, turning her head towards the front door. She rose onto all fours, fur bristling as she stalked forward. She stopped directly in front of the door and let out a low, deep growl. Killian arched a brow.

“What is it, girl? You hear something I don’t?”

Killian set his mug on the coffee table and went to the dog who was now scratching at the door, whimpering once again. Killian opened it, and Shelby bounded on to the front porch, barking wildly. Killian stepped out cautiously, hook raised. He had a bad feeling about this. He strode to the top of the porch steps, his eyes widening as he saw what was barreling down the street straight for the house. He turned and raced back inside.

“Emma!” he screamed.

His wife was at the top of the steps, clutching the baby in her arms. Chloe was wailing, her cries different than any Killian had heard before. Cries of fear.

“Killian! Behind you!” Emma screamed.

He turned as the billow of crackling smoke poured through the front door. This curse was different than all the rest, pounding against him like a physical force. With the names of his wife and daughter on his lips, Killian fell backwards, his head smashing against the floor.

*************************************************************

Still on his back, Killian’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked at the harsh fluorescent light swinging overhead. Two men he didn’t recognize were leaning over him. One had a round face, soft with fat and sprinkled with red facial hair. The other had a long, thin face and large ears. Both had dull, unfocused eyes and laughed maniacally.

“Did the curse get you?” chuckled the chubby one.

“Yeah,” the other one said, giving a high-pitched giggle, “which realm did you wake up in?”

Killian sat up, utterly confused, to find himself on a cold, linoleum floor surrounded by a group dressed in white. They were seated in folding chairs in a circle around him. Killian scrambled to his feet, taking in the room. This made no sense. It was a large, colorless room. Industrial, with bars on the windows. Everyone was dressed in plain white pants and shirts. Kilian looked down. Including him.

“Where am I?” he muttered. “Where are Emma and Chloe?”

“Gentleman please sit,” a cultured voice asked gently, and the two men shuffled to chairs and dutifully sat. Killian refused.

“What the bloody hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, Captain Hook,” the man with the red beard chuckled, “but this ain’t the Jolly Roger!”

The man’s words rose in hysterical volume as he spoke, and the others in the circle joined in his laughter.

“What realm am I in?” Killian roared, “What did this curse do?”

“Which curse,” giggled the thin one, “the one that the Queen of Hearts protected you from? Or the one you cast when you were a dark one?” The man used air quotes around the final title.

“Oh, oh, I know,” the chubby one squealed, clapping his hands, “it was the one that separated him from his true love.”

Killian’s anger rose as a hand rested on his shoulder. He turned to a man with a white beard, dressed in a tweed suit. “Killian,” he said softly, “why don’t you sit back down.”

Killian stumbled away from him, “What happened to me? Who are you?”

The man raised his hands in supplication as if Killian were a wild colt who might kick him in the head. “I’m Dr. Hudson. You were just telling us about your dog barking and the smoke coming. Then you blacked out for a minute.”

Killian noted the man giving an almost imperceptible nod over Killian’s left shoulder. He whirled instinctively as two muscular orderlies stepped forward. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he warned, lifting his hook aloft. Then he started. There was no hook at the end of his left arm. Just a stump of flesh. Not even the end of his brace. Just a scared, mutilated stump. Fairly fresh, like the days and weeks right after Milah’s demise.

“No,” he gasped in a shuddered breath.

When the orderlies grasped him by the arms, he fought, or tried to. Tried to think of Emma and Chloe and the fact that he needed to find them before something horrible happened. But in his haze of confusion, his reflexes just weren’t what they should have been. And soon he was being dragged down a sterile hallway and thrown into a padded cell.

*******************************************************

Killian was pacing his cell when a face appeared in the tiny barred window in the center of his door. He commanded that Killian step back. Killian obeyed, but planted his feet in readiness. When the orderly stepped through, Killian charged. The man easily tossed him across the floor, and Killian groaned. His body felt so sluggish. As if he had been asleep for a century. Dr. Hudson strode through the room shaking his head. He gestured to two more orderlies, and before Killian knew what was happening, they had him in a strait jacket and seated in a chair. Dr. Hudson paced in front of him.

“Killian,” the doctor sighed as he wiped his glasses on a handkerchief from his pocket, “you really must stop all this fighting. Let me help you.”

Killian jerked against his bonds, “Where is my family?”

The doctor sighed, then in resignation set a manila folder on the table before Killian. He took out a photograph and help it up for Killian to see. Killian’s vision blurred with tears to see the smiling faces of his wife and daughter. But then he shook his head. The photo was one of those cheesy ones taken in a studio at a department store, with the three of them seated together with Killian’s hand resting awkwardly on Emma’s shoulder. The kind Emma always made jokes about. The photos in their home were all candid shots. He narrowed his eyes as he looked closer – and that was his left hand.

“That picture is fake.”

“No,” the doctor said softly, “it isn’t.”

He pulled another item from the file – a newspaper clipping. The headline read, “Young Mother and Infant Die in Fatal Crash.” Killian leaned over it, confusion marring his brow. There was a picture of a car wrapped around a tree and a smaller photograph of a laughing Emma blowing a kiss onto Chloe’s cheek.

“No,” Killian argued, shaking his head, “that never happened. It was morning. We were all just waking up, and the curse came –“

“Killian,” the doctor interrupted, splaying his hands across the top of the table, “you must pull yourself out of this fantasy world you’ve created. Your wife and daughter were killed, and you lost your hand. Ever since, you’ve been in this mental hospital, thinking you’re Captain Hook and everyone you know and love are story book characters.”

“I’m not crazy!” Killian cried out, wincing when he realized his voice sounded exactly that.

The doctor stood and strode to the sink in the corner of the room. He picked something up as he spoke, “Your wife wasn’t Emma Swan, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.”

He turned and in his hand was a bottle of hand soap – “Swan Soap” it said on the bottle. He walked across the room and set the bottle on the table. Killian blinked as he stared at it, his mind flipping over.

Dr. Hudson resumed his seat across from Killian. “Her name was Emma Nolan, before she married you, and her parents were two ordinary people named David and Mary Margaret Nolan.”

“What about Henry?”

The doctor smiled. “You mean Henry Mills? Our janitor?”

The doctor gazed at Killian intently with hazel eyes that seemed to swirl with multiple colors. The room seemed to spin and Killian felt suddenly dizzy. Then there was a knock at the door, and Killian jerked as if suddenly awakened from a dream. A nurse bustled in with a clipboard in her hand. The doctor scribbled something, and the nurse glanced hesitantly at Killian with the same look he had seen on the face of all the orderlies. A look of fear and disgust. Killian blinked when he saw the nurse’s nametag – Regina.

“You see, Killian,” the doctor continued, standing to his feet as the nurse left, “you’ve taken bits and pieces of the things around you to create this fantasy of yours. But it isn’t real. Your wife and child are not out there waiting to be rescued. They’re dead.” Dr. Hudson reached under Killian’s mattress, pulling out a well-worn book. “The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get well.”

He tossed the slender volume onto the table before Killian and left. It was a copy of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

*******************************************************

Killian shuffled forward in the medication line, feeling a hopelessness he hadn’t felt since the days of seeking revenge against the Crocodile. If those days were even real. Killian wasn’t sure any more. At least now he was out of the strait jacket. He had decided to at least play nice.

“Don’t take the medicine they give you,” hissed a voice behind him.

Killian ignored it. If he wasn’t crazy, everyone else here was. Best to keep a low profile and ignore the other patients.

“You’re not crazy – Hook,” the person continued.

There was something about the voice that sounded clearer, more steady than the voices of the other patients. He turned tentatively to see a young man in his twenties with brown hair and eyes smiling at him. Something about the face seemed familiar to him. He narrowed his eyes to study the man more closely.

“Henry?” he said tentatively.

The young man’s eyes lit up, “Yeah, it’s me. I’m here to rescue you.”

Killian shook his head to clear it, trying to process this latest development. He had looked in the mirror since waking up in this place, and he could clearly see he hadn’t aged at all. How was Henry . . .

Before he could complete that thought, two orderlies came up behind Henry and grabbed him. “Believe in yourself!” Henry shouted before the men jabbed a syringe into his neck. They then dragged him through a heavy, locked door. It all happened so fast, Killian was rooted in place for a moment.

Then suddenly, Henry’s words surged through him. Believe in yourself! He wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t weak. He was pirate Captain Killian “Hook” Jones, and his family needed him. He scanned the room as he stepped out of the medicine line. He saw a janitor unlocking the supply closet with a huge ring of keys. He grinned to himself in delight as he remembered all the times he had watched Star Wars with Henry. He couldn’t do the Wookie prisoner gag alone, but he could at least pose as a Stormtrooper . . .

**************************************************

Killian stumbled across the snow with Henry leaning heavily against his shoulder. Not only had they heavily drugged the lad, but they had also beat him pretty severely. Henry had a gash across his forehead that was currently trickling blood down the sleeve of the janitor’s uniform Killian was wearing. And based on the way he kept wincing and holding his side, Killian was pretty sure Henry also had a few cracked ribs.

Shouts sounded behind them, and Killian knew the hospital guards were gaining fast. He didn’t know why his body was so weak, but it was, and the added weight of his boy didn’t help. Killian prayed to whatever gods would listen for intervention. They needed a miracle.

Suddenly, a sedan spun to a stop in front of them, tires squealing. The back door opened, and a dark-haired little girl leaned out. “Hurry! Get in!” she cried.

“Lucy,” Henry groaned, his voice laced with affection. Whoever this little girl was, apparently, they could trust her. And, Killian hoped, whoever was driving.

Killian shoved Henry into the backseat as gently as he could under the circumstances, then slid in himself. The driver turned to face him, her familiar penciled eyebrows arched and a half smile on her lips.

“Good to see you again, pirate.”

“Regina?”

“Um, can everyone catch up later?” the little girl interrupted. “Cause those guys have guns.”

She didn’t have to tell Regina twice. The queen put the petal to the metal just as shots rang out. She flew through the gates of Dreamshade Mental Hospital – Killian rolled his eyes at the irony – and turned on two wheels onto a residential street. Then she sighed and visibly deflated. For the first time, Killian noticed the head of gray hair in the front passenger seat. He groaned when the passenger himself turned to glare at him.

“I believe a thank you is in order for rescuing you, Captain.”

“Thanks, Crocodile,” Killian bit out through clenched teeth.

“Calm down, Captain Guyliner,” Regina grumbled, “at least you didn’t wake up thinking you were married to him.”

Killian couldn’t help the grimace that crossed his face, and an awkward silence descended. The little girl – Lucy - wrapped her arm around his left bicep and leaned into him. He started a bit at the sudden affection.

“Grandpa!” she enthused. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

“Grandpa?” Killian’s eyes shifted to Henry in surprise.

“Yes,” Henry chuckled, then winced at the pain in his ribs, “she’s my daughter. Let’s just say I was up to more in the Enchanted Forest than just looking for a way to break this current curse. Good things happened to.”

Killian noted the obvious affection in Henry’s voice and the tenderness in his gaze. Killian looked down at Lucy, who still clutched his arm and beamed up at him. How could you love someone so much whom you just met? The thought immediately took his mind to his own daughter. He swallowed thickly as he regarded Lucy.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.”

Killian closed his eyes, immediate pain washing over him. “I missed it,” he choked out. “My baby girl. I missed everything.”

“No, you didn’t, Killian,” Regina assured him. The words were a balm to his wounded heart. Regina only used his name when she was completely sincere.

Henry struggled to sit up as he addressed Killian, “Don’t worry, Dad. Mom and my little sister are exactly as they were when you last saw them.”

“Where are they?” Killian asked, his nerves sparking in agitation to do something.

“A place that isn’t easy to get to,” Rumpelstiltskin explained with vehemence in his voice, “but believe me, we will get back those we love. No matter the cost.”

Lucy picked up a duffel bag from the floor and handed it to Killian with a huge grin on her face. “I thought you might be missing this.”

He opened it to find his brace and his hook. He turned to Lucy and smiled, placing a kiss to her temple. “Thank you, lass.”

“Killian, do you remember all those times you whined about your true love kisses never working?” Regina quipped as she pressed harder on the gas. “Well, pucker up, pirate. Because your lips are our only hope.”

[bugaboowritings]

How Animan Worked Out (With Masc!Mari) Fic

Nino has a fat man-crush on Mari. 

Made it gay thanks to @knoxursoxoffpenwriter69. 

At this point, I think I want to rewrite episodes with Masc!Mari. It’s a nice task and good exercise to make me more creative with set ending. Plus, it’s fun to put my own twist on things. Also I used ‘american’ terms for the school system since it’s easier to understand, but if you know what is what in french please do tell me. 

Masc!Mari is an AU created by @daloochsdoodles. 

“Sorry, Alya.” Mari grimaced, swinging his locker closed. “I have to babysit that day. Even if Manon gets picked up early, it takes me a good day to a week to bounce back.” Shivering as he thought about the glitter incident. A nightmare that he still can't forget.

Alya hummed in agreeance. “She’s truly a wild card." Pressing her lips together like she always did when she had a counter-argument. "Buuuuutttt- try having two Manon’s living with you 24/7.” Alya stomped her feet and made her best “baby-doll eyes” impression. “But Mari, pleaseeee! Hang out with your best friend before we become old and grey and regret missing out on the good old days.”

Mari gave her a blank stare. Informing her that she wasn’t winning this battle. Alya signed in defeat. “Okay, are you at least free to get lunch?”

“I can always open my schedule up for food.” He confessed. Making Alya roll her eyes and push him back playfully. Only to stop laughing when he missed his footing and tip back a little too far. Alya’s face suddenly switches from joy to pure horror. Happening all in slow-motion as Mari felt his soul leave his body. Prepared to feel his back land on the cold floor. Panicking, even more, the moment Mari felt someone’s shoulders with against his. Dragging an innocent soul to his clumsy doom.

“MARI! Oh my god!” Alya rushed to her knees picking up the papers that went flying up in the air as a loud smack hit the floor. Watching her best friend went on autopilot. Spitting out apologies like they were hot coal in his mouth. Mari’s face burned up with embarrassment.

“I’m so so so so sorry- I didn’t mean to. Gosh, my luck isn’t the best. I’m so sorry about this, here let me help you-” He stammered, quickly scooping up the loose-leaf paper on the floor.

“It’s fine. Really.” The other person mumbled, shoving everything in their backpack. Keeping his voice low to make less of a scene. “You don’t have to worry much, rea- Mars?”

Mari broke their neck at that. He hasn’t heard anyone call him “Mars” in some years. It was an old nickname that he picked up when he was a planet in a school play. Playing the planet “Mars” and singing a song about its carbon dioxide atmosphere. Cringing when he thought back at it. His performance was so memorable that his whole class started renamed him after his character.

“Uh- Nino?” Mari questioned back before getting a nod from him.

“Wow, Nino. It’s good to see you again!” Mari beamed. Standing up now to his full height. Looking back at Nino before handing off his work. “I haven’t seen you in like- forever.”

Nino admitted the same thing. Not helping himself as he gawked at Mari’s height. Normal reaction after meeting a friend that doubled in size since middle school.

“I’m sorry, again.” Mari shyly smiled, looking around for any more lost papers. Tensely itching the back of his neck.

“No! No-no problem.” Nino jumped. Hiding the red that appeared on his face with his cap. “We’ll all good, really dude.” Bring another sunny grin to Mari’s face.

Coughing to bring their attention to her. “Then that means you forgive us making you almost making you lose your report, Turtles, the Best Pal of The Sea,” Alya judged, raising her well-groomed brows at that title.

"If you're going to bullshit your essay, spice it up."

“Alya.” Mari shushed, receiving her “what” face. Shrugging off her friend's looks before handing it to Nino who said,

“It’s a report for Mr. Malume. He said to write an essay that 'fun or meaningfully'. I wrote it last minute and Noel had 'Finding Nemo' on repeat the whole day- yesterday so I guess that 'inspired' me.”

Alya couldn’t help the chuckle that came up from her throat. Mari snorted.

“Hope it goes well then.” Already turning around before saying, “I’m Alya by the way. Mari’s best friend.” She held out her hand for Nino to shake. “A.k.a. the editor of the Ladyblog and lover of muffins.” Ignoring Mari’s eye roll as she shameless plugged in her blog.

“Sorry to cut our time short, Nino, but I was promised lunch by a friend.” She hinted, motioning Mari to follow her lead.  

“You know where the bakery is at right?” Mari asked. Letting Alya go-ahead to their usual spot.

“The best bakery in Paris?" Nino praised, slinking his bag around his shoulders. "Couldn’t forget it.”

“Great. Then you should totally come by.” Mari trailed off. Walking backward before shooting him a wink. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Leaving the DJ alone by his thoughts and shit essay as Mari caught up with Alya, who had a sudden craving for some fries.

----------

Sipping the last drop of her smoothie with her chewed straw, Alya finally asked the question that bubbled in her mind. "So Nino and you have a long history then?"

"We were friends back when we were like eight or twelve or something." Mari closed the white kitchen cabinet. Letting his hand rest on the handle as the other pulled out two bowls for their ice creams.

"God, it's been too long." He mumbled, tugging on his lip, in deep thought about the last time he had a proper conversation with Nino. Not noticing Alya sucking the air out of her cup like she was a fish out of water.

"I haven't spoken to him after I started my tr- actually that's a lie. We spoke at a school assembly! Granted it was a 'hello' and 'good-bye'. . ." Mari thought back to his old memories with Nino. They were the same classes for some years. Up until the beginning of high school is when they quit having lessons together.

"Ah," Alya hushed. "Tea?" She smirked.

"Shush Alya." Throwing a metal spoon he drew from the kitchen drawers. "Don’t make it seem like we ended on bad terms." Not stopping the reporter's stupid grin as she only giggled some more.

-------

The bakery’s bell jingled as Nino pushed opened the front door. The scent of baked goods calmed his nerves. Relieving him since the whole walk there was a hot mess. Nino tried prepping himself mentally to not freak out or mess up his words since he planned to hang out with Mari the whole day. SO he had to try his best to not become a total mess-

"Nino!" Mari greeted, looking up from the counter. Swiftly wiping his hands on his apron then sweeping back his messy hair. 

OH NO, HE’S HOT! 

I’m a total mess, Nino acknowledged as his palms grew sweaty. 

 "I didn't expect to see you.” Quickly adding, "-this early, I mean. Most people I know aren't really morning people." Mari explained, not noticing how Nino awkwardly smiled back. Fatigue seemed to trickle off Mari’s face once he saw his friend. Showing off a toothy grin. 

Which made Nino crossed between relaxed and hella nervous (which should have to cancel out, but those two emotions just wrestled in the pit of his stomach) as Mari’s eyes stopped the words from coming out of Nino’s throat. Mari could bring anyone to ease with one of his smiles, but there was something about his eyes that made people sweat and burn. Nino's face composes a thin smile, nodding to whatever Mari was rambling on.

"-breakfast then. Right, Nino?"

"What?" Nino slapped himself mentally. Excusing himself and asking Mari to repeat himself.  Already praying for an Akuma attack to save him from this moment.

"Do you want anything?" Mari nodded toward the pastries which were fresh from the oven. Still warm from toasting to a golden brown.

"It's my treat."

"I have to clean up before we can go out so you have something as you wait." Already pulling a clean plate by the counter. Motioning to the glass display between them for Nino to take a look. 

Nino wanted to say that he didn't want anything, but his brain didn't like the idea that Mari could possibly take offense for denying a free pastry. Or then like him less. Which could make Mari not want to hang out or maybe even be his friend. Nino's adolescent mind could write novels using the outrageous scenarios it made up on the spot. It wasn't until he met Mari's eyes again. Which like a wave, brought him back to ease.

"The chocolate croissants are calling my name." He hummed. Causing Mari to chuckle.

Okay, maybe this isn't so bad, Nino thought. Returning Mari’s bright smile. 

----

Mari slurped the last drop of his slushie. "How did you know about the panther? I came here like, not even last week and didn't even see ANY of this!" Throwing his hands up to motioning all the panther posters. Holding up his drink to prove his point. "They even had themed-food! Granted, it's just a different cup but still!!" Mari's enthusiasm gradually rubbed off to Nino, who couldn't help to laugh at Mari's reaction to everything. It was like watching a little kid gush about an amusement park. Making him feel like time hasn't passed between them. As if they were eleven again. Mari surely had that part down since he acted like it.

"Mari!"

Nino and Mari both turned to see two guys their age walking towards them. Turns out it's Max and Kim. Max waves as Kim raised his arm in salutation.

"Yo, Mari! Nino!"

"Hey, Kim, Max; what are you doing here?"

Kim gave a smug grin."We heard the new panther's here. I wanna see who's get the bigger guns!"

Kim shamelessly flexed his arms before getting a comical eye-roll from Max. Nino heard Mari whisper under his breath if he was the only one that didn't know about the panther. Not helping the chuckle that slipped his lips. Earning him a light elbow jag from Mari.

"Do you want to come with us?" Max promptly asked.

Nino stopped the panic from dripping into his words. "We were actually on our way to see it. . ." Nino trailed off. The whole point was to get close to Mari, not with the boys. Nino was already cooking up a plan to get out of this mess.

"Cool!" Kim grinned. "We can just head there together!" Throwing his arms over Nino and Mari, pulling them to the panther enclosure. All without a second thought.

--------

Otis, the panther's care keeper, slid a metal dish covered in raw meat at the foot of a tree. Watching the black feline gracefully leap down from its playground to this meal. Otis rubbed the bridge of his nose in thought before scribbling something down in his notes. Flipping thought them before marking some charts and - then messing up a whole page with his blue pen in shock. Scorning the source of the sound that spooked him and the panther. Not to his surprise, it was a child banging on the glass. However, not any child but a teen with nonsense for brains.

"Whoa! Look at the size of that piece of meat it's eating!"

"Kim, don't hit the glass like that!" Mari barked, bothered by his actions. Kim didn't budge from his spot as he gawked at the black cat. Nino watched Max suddenly type something in his phone before informing them more about the panther.

Dropping another fact, "It's a typical diet for this feline species since it requires the strength to run at speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour." Looking up from his screen to see the panther himself. Moving closer to the cage in awe. "So it needs quite the amount of calories."

Everyone nodding to that as they watched the wild animal rip up its lunch in smaller pieces. All as if it was an episode of Animal Planet in front of their eyes.

Of course, Kim had to ruin the tranquil moment.

"60 miles per hour? Is that all? I could have sworn panthers were much faster than that." Bending his legs in some simple stretches like the ones he did before a swim or a race.

"I bet that I could beat it in a race."

Squishing his face on the glass screen again. Cooing at the panther. "Hey, kitty, kitty. How about a little race with me, huh? Last one's a rotten egg!"

"Kim, calm down."

"Cocky, are we?"

"With a 6 feet-per-second wind behind you and 45 degrees to the north-east... I don't think you'd be a rotten egg. You'd be lunch."

"Not another challenge, please."

The group reasoned with Kim to stop provoking the animal. Which grew more aggravated every minute Kim stood there. Knocking it in his head that they WEREN'T here to do that. Not noticing the growing frown on the zoo keeper's face. Hushing curses as Otis jingled his keys to find the right one to the door.

"Kim, have some sense and leave the animal alone." Mari snapped. Flicking Kim's forehead. "You're making the panther growl and the zookeeper here is about to kick us out if you continue!"

Kim sighed, letting his shoulder slump down. "You guys are no fun." He huffed. Nodding his head towards another exhibit. Already leaving as he got his last remark in.

"Let's leave that poor widdle kitty alone with its babysitter!"

Followed by an ow as Mari kicked him.

-----

"Serious, you are no fun."

"Neither is this. Pass." Nino huffs. Dropping his outrageous dare before Kim could have the chance to change it.

"Rinnnngggg! There's the bell," Max held on to an imaginary microphone before commentating, "Nino has now lost his ability to reject this next truth or dare. If he still has the guts to say no then he gets the ultimate punishment. Care to explain it, Mr. Dupain Cheng?"

Mari held back their laughter. Holding on his own imaginary mic and his earpiece. Mustering up the best newscaster voice he had. "Thanks for that Mr. Kante. If Nino dares to reject this truth then he will have the chance to win a trip to clean Kim's gym locker for the next wee-"

"MARI!"

Confused to hear his name called out again, Mari turned around. Having the boys follow his actions until they came to view a pretty girl with glasses. Waving to Mari, who like a puppy-dog raced to her before excusing himself from his friends.

So long for alone time, Nino mumbled.

Kim, Max, and Nino watched as Mari hugged the girl. Both exchanging some words before the girl started to throw her hands around. They were a bit too far to hear what they were saying but by the looks, she had something important.

-----

"BIG! Not just the run of the mill story but it's BIGGER, Mari!" Alya exclaimed. Barely able to hold her excitement in. "The best part of it is that Nadja asked me directly! SHE WANTS ME on this STORY! She wanted ME to report on it!" Alya gushed, not believing that this isn't a dream, but reality!

"That's amazing!" Mari cheered. Feeling the high Alya was one as she screamed at him on how her dream was on the verge of coming true.

"RIGHT!" She huffed, throwing her hands around. Almost tossing up the bag she had in her hands. "I just knew that I had to tell you in person-Crappppppppppp." Losing her enthusiasm as she noticed the bag and the time on her watch.

"I have to go give my dad his lunch. I left the twins with Nora, so I have to split before things get out of control." Alya and Mari pulled each other in a hug before Alya dashed off to her father's office. 

"I'll call you!" Mari yelled. 

"Better." She replied. Not having to turn around for Mari to know that she still had her grin. 

-----

"Seriously, dude." Nino groaned. "Mari doesn't have a girlfriend."

"Well, who was that chick then?" Kim pushed on. Poking Nino's shoulder before brushing him off. "Mari has been a loner for like -ever! Why is he covered with ladies, now!?"

"If any girl that Mari talks is his girlfriend, then he's married to all of Paris then!"

"That's Alya Cesaire," Max pulled up her Instagram. "She's the editor of the Ladyblog and is the new girl from our school. She recently moved for her father's new job and her mother works at Le Grand Paris. Not to mention her sister is notorious kickboxer here. Getting the best seats at every match she fights in." 

Nino and Kim looked at Max with blank stares.

"What?"

"Max, how did you even-"

"She's tagged Mari in a lot of her pictures." He nonchalantly says. Before liking one of Alya's photographs. "Everything else is in her bio."

Before the boys could even say anything else, Mari came back running. Mumbling a 'sorry'. At that moment, Kim jumped the gun before Nino could try and shut him up.

"Dupain-Cheng," Kim smirked, wiggling his brows. "When were you going to tell us that you were off the market?" Slinking his arm around Mari's broad shoulders.

"What market?"

"Kim, just stop." Nino hissed now clearly annoyed. However, that made Kim more pushy the more he was told no.

"You know, the market." Wiggling his eyebrows more furiously. AS if that would help and make his point. Kim just looked like an idiot.

". . .What."

Max stepped in, "Kim thinks that Alya and you are an item." Double tapping on another picture.

Mari couldn't help but awkwardly laugh at that. "Bold of you to assume that I'm taken."  Shrugging off Kim's arm. "Alya and I are just close friends."

With that Nino sighed a breath of relief. Mumbling a 'thank god', slumping down to a nearby bench. Quickly losing the color from his face once again. He didn't say that out loud, did he? Looking back to his friends who looked back at him with a perplexed expression. Kim then broke the silence with a loud gasp. Max looked up from his phone, connecting the dots in his head. Mari's face grew a big grin.

Plotting his hand by Nino's head, Mari leaned in. Watching as Nino's blush grew bright and bright. Mari's nose scrunched up, a cute quirk he had for years, something he did when he was examining something thoughtfully. Mari's dark eyes narrowed making Nino sweat bullets.

"Nino, oh my god!" Mari exclaimed. "You have a crush!"

At that point, Nino had two options. Confess to him or play dumb. However, his knowledge of romance from soap operas told him to shout:

Yes, I do Mari. It is you that I care for.  I know we been through much and been away from each other for some years. However, that hasn't stopped the passion in my beating heart for you. You are still the Mari I know and care for. Please let's stay together as we developed our bromance. Let me be your rock. Let me be there when you have a rough day. Let me hug you and smell the flour and sugar on your sweatshirt after working a long day in the bakery. Dude, I would do it all for you. Just let me-

Nino decided to play dumb before his mouth spilled out a whole ballad.

"Whattttttttttt." Nino squawked. His voice was now higher than normal. "Whatchu mean?" Pulling his head back like a turtle going in his shell. "I don't have a crush on anyone."

"That's the biggest lie of the history of lies." Kim jumped. Swiftly pushing his way to Nino's face. "Luckily, we have a way to break liars here." He grinned.

"Nino Lahiffe, you own us a truth." Kim huffed. Crowded by three curious guys, Nino was in a position he wouldn't want anyone in. “Or you will be cleaning my gym locker after practice.” 

Nino frowned at that. “Why is that even the punishment? Can’t you easily do that?” 

“WE’RE ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE!” Kim barked. Only to regain his stupid grin from before. Making the hair on Nino’s neck raise. He felt his weak knees buckling in place. His arms growing heavy as his stomach was rocked with his boundless anxiety. Mom's spaghetti    

"Do you like Alya?"

what.

 "What?"

"I mean the signs are all there. He got irritated whenever we were talking about Mari and Alya being a thing." Kim pressing the fingers in his hands as he went on. "He even told us to knock it off when we were thinking of ship names."

"Not to mention, he seemed pretty relieved to know that they were still single," Max noted, pushing up his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

"Come on, guys," Nino reassured. Trying to play it cool. "You are just imagining things." Picking at his ear. Avoiding eye contact.

They were off by a mile, but they were getting too close for his liking. 

"He's totally is crushing on her." Kim smiled all smugged. "The denial  just proves it."

----------

Yeah, Lady Beetle knew it wasn't right, but he just couldn't help himself. He loved playing matchmaker and he felt like Andre, the Ice Cream Man, the moment he "protected" Nino and Alya from the Akuma attack by locking them together in the empty gorilla cage.

Ignoring Chat's stare as he evilly giggled to himself.

[thecomicsnexus]

THE WILDSTORM #3-6 JUNE - SEPTEMBER 2017 BY WARREN ELLIS, JON DAVIS-HUNT, JOHN KALISZ, STEVE BUCCELLATO

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

In New York, Ivana Baiul is on the phone with someone, explaining that her work is in lockdown while they deal with the fallout from the Angela Spica situation, but that she anticipates a promotion out of it, which could lead to the removal of Miles Craven. The room of analysts she is technically overseeing includes two men watching footage of Angela Spica activating her armor in the middle of a crowd.

On the screen, a woman in the crowd turns around, and then she's gone. The same woman is suddenly inside a digital comic on a nearby tablet. She walks from that to the background of a currently-broadcast episode of the forensics show Crime Doctor on the Galaxy television network, and from that to a soda commercial. She appears in a commercial for the same soda in Times Square, and is then walking through Times Square itself. Critical of the soda, she pulls out her phone to watch a Kord video of Martian Manhunter. Appearing in the background of that, she is suddenly in her flat. Pausing to light a cigarette using a lighter that commemorates the "1955 Mars Expedition", she looks up at a wall of pins and pieces of paper, and wonders where she will add the information she has newly gained about Angela Spica.

Angie Spica thinks about her life. Working for a front organization for a year before being brought into I.O. proper. Getting suddenly transferred to the Senior Reporting Group in Manhattan. Then getting pressganged into brainstorming new armor designs for the Razor covert action teams, despite her background being in medical engineering. Trying to square the circle, which led her here, on the run, doing diagnostics on the launch system she built into herself.

Energy bleeding out of the air suddenly earths itself like lightning in the middle of the room, and three newcomers are standing there. They introduce themselves as Adrianna, Cole, and Kenesha, and say they were sent by Jacob Marlowe, to offer her "aid and shelter". Angie begins losing her composure, claiming that I.O. runs the planet and that she will be safe nowhere, but before the newcomers can calm her down, Miles Craven's Razor team dynamites their way through the door and throws flashbangs.

Reacting first, Cole jumps backwards, pulling out his pistols, shooting at the flashbangs, causing them to ricochet backwards into the Razors. The resulting explosion knocks everyone in the room down, and the Razors stride in, wearing fearsome body armor. They demand that everyone lay down their weapons. Cole has a mask on at this stage, and before the Razors have time to process what is happening, Angie activates her armor and launches a set of micro-drones equipped with searchlights, which cripple the optics on the Razors' armor. Blinded, the Razors' pointman is easily knocked backwards by a dum-dum bullet from Kenesha.

In the command room at I.O., the woman from Analysis uses the little their cameras are currently able to catch to discern the make of the micro-drone Angie is using: a design proposed for rescue missions, but then shelved because Strike insisted that they had a military application as smartbombs.

In the bunker, the pointman suddenly realizes that Kenesha's dum-dum bullet is also an explosive device, seconds before he is blown to bloody chunks. The other members of his team are knocked down, and Cole keeps them down with suppressive fire, but Adrianna has her own problems: a piece of shrapnel in her head has caused her to bleed silver and speak in a nonhuman tongue.

Craven orders the Razors to fall back and use explosives, but Cole knocks the grenade back towards them again. Cole looks back to see Kenesha fretting over Adrianna, and Angie, fully armored, clutching the remains of her laptop and cutting a hole in the roof to escape through.

Facing defeat, Miles Craven orders a scorched-earth tactic: to demolish the building and leave no survivors.

Acting fast, Cole achieves twin close-range headshots on both surviving members of the I.O. Razor covert action team, seemingly killing both. Cole pauses to congratulate the team, missing the fact that one of the Razors has survived, and pulled the pins on two grenades. Acting fast, Kenesha pulls the shrapnel out of Adrianna's head, causing her to come back to her senses and teleport the three of them out of there with no time to spare.

Over Montauk sound, Angie Spica's armor transforms in order to adapt to underwater travel and she dives into water.

In the I.O. command room, Miles Craven is looking at a bank of dead monitors. He says he needs Ben Santini to handle this, and that he needs to talk to Michael Cray.

At the safehouse in Brooklyn, Cole is angry at the outcome of the mission, and shocked that Adrianna managed to survive traumatic head injury, but doesn't know how. Adrianna says that the issue needs to be resolved, and that she will recover Angie.

Miles Craven walks into his New York apartment to get a change of clothes. His husband, Julian, is up, and the two pull out a bottle of wine while Miles lays out the situation: the flying power-armored woman who saved Jacob Marlowe on the news is actually the rogue researcher who recently stalked them, and who built her suit with technology she stole from I.O. - technology that I.O. itself stole from a crashed spacecraft called a "Breslau" which belonged to Henry Bendix, a creepy old man who is a peer of Miles'. Trying to cover this up, they discovered an unaffiliated covert action team - a wild CAT, something they've never encountered before.

In an unspecified location, Henry Bendix walks out of a teleport machine, and then chews out the operator for taking so long. Meeting his underling, Lauren Pennington, he walks out with her, insisting that she brief him in his private quarters. However, as soon as they are alone, his shoulders slump in relief and she takes a seat. Bendix starts drinking alcohol and complaining about the air quality on Earth. As he opines that he sometimes wishes he could have the excuse to blow up the world, the view pans out to reveal their location - a massive space station, orbiting Earth.

In the I.O. cafeteria, Michael Cray is having a coffee, but suddenly part of the cup deflagrates in his hand. He recovers from this shock just in time to talk to Miles Craven, to who he lays out the news: he has an inoperable brain tumor, but feels fine. Miles Craven asks him if he still wants to do his job.

On the road into Tiverton, RI, Angie Spica slouches purposefully.

In an I.O. facility, the assassin Michael Cray is taking his last assignment. He wants to leave and begin treatment for his brain tumor, but his boss, Miles Craven, is persuasive - his previous target, Jacob Marlowe, was saved from him by a woman identified as Angela Spica, who built a suit of armor from tech stolen from I.O. - tech I.O. was not supposed to have. Craven needs Spica dealt with, and Michael is the best for the job, but time is a factor and Craven needs him to also make the dossier. In private, Michael admits to himself that he loves the world for its strangeness and, because of that, he's afraid to die.

At night, Lucy Blaze is arriving at Camp Hero, responding to seismic activity and a sighting of Angela Spica. Via her earpiece, she confirms evidence of a struggle and the mangled corpse of an I.O. covert action operative. She finds an egress, not created by seismic activity, but before she can add more, the radio becomes useless from sudden static. At this point, a nonhuman creature steps out of the shadows and greets her verbally. Blaze refers to the creature as a "daemon" and pulls a smallarm. The creature says it is simply observing these events, as she is, and that it and its allies have reached the conclusion that if the situation surrounding Angela Spica is allowed to come to a head without either of their factions interfering, it will be for the best. The creature then vanishes, leaving Blaze to ponder.

A woman against a background of planets and pink energy. An arm, shapeshifting to reveal blue skin and talons. A chair surrounded by a wall of televisions, all showing one woman making a myriad of choices. "Incision", the new single from Voodoo. Coming soon on Lady Backlash Records.

In Michael Cray's headquarters, he is going over the raw data, trying to distract himself from his life-threatening condition. However, when he reviews the footage from the bodycams the covert action team was wearing, he makes a startling discovery...

On a street in America, Angela Spica is on the run. Without money or even a jacket equal to the wind, she uses her suit implants to hack into an ATM, wryly ashamed of herself for doing so. Suddenly, bursts of pink energy outline a human shape at multiple locations on this block, with the effect eventually grounding itself on the pavement in front of her. The woman in the spacesuit now standing there introduces herself as a friend, and asks for a chance to tell her story.

At a nearby diner, the astronaut introduces herself as Adrianna Tereshkova, a former member of a secret space program called Skywatch. Skywatch built the stealth system she reverse-engineered for her suit. She left due to the incident which left her with the mirrorglass eyes and teleporting abilities she now has.

Tereshkova explains that most of Skywatch's spacecrafts use electromagnetism, to great effect, but that they are keen to master interstellar engines. By interfacing with Angela's tech, she is able to show Angela a VR representation of her memories: Skywatch had assigned her to the astronaut team testing the Incision system. The Incision system was based on the theory that if one could cut through reality, one would find an "under-verse", through which it would theoretically be faster than light in travel. The designers had nicknamed this under-verse "the Bleed". But when the Incision system activated, the ship was crushed and the crew died. However, in the Bleed, she was found by... something, who put her back together and caused her to wake up in a crater in Russia. Adrift, she was found by Jacob Marlowe, who she acknowledges as a flawed employer, but also one who respects the needs of outsiders like her and Angela.

In New York, Michael Cray confronts Miles Craven, and turns down the mission to assassinate Angela Spica. Craven insists that Spica is a "good target", but Michael disagrees, pointing out that she was deemed trustworthy by every test I.O. put her through. That she needs a sympathetic ear, not a hitman. That she responds with fear in the footage from the CAT bodycam. And then Michael lays out his bigger problem: Craven assured him she deserved death, but he only found out she didn't because he was given raw data instead of manifactured profiles for the first time. So now, at the end of his career, he is left to wonder how many of his targets were good people who fell afoul of Miles Craven.

Craven jokes that Michael is not thinking straight due to his brain tumor, but Michael is unmoved. Craven shrugs, and says that if Michael will not kill, then he's useless to him. He orders Michael to hand over his badge and implies that he will withhold Michael's tumor treatment unless he complies.

In his quarters, Michael is left to think about the course of his life. The pride of his father. The wondrous strangeness of the world, at its best and its worst. The failings of his fellow men, and his efforts to correct it. Then, the Navy. National service with handgun and shotgun and hacksaw. And then, being recruited by Miles Craven. The wondrous strangeness of the world reduced down to a distant head in a rifle scope.

There is a knock on Michael Cray's door. When he answers it, a woman named Christine Trelane introduces herself as working for a private outfit, Executive Protection Services, who can offer him better medical treatment than his current employer, to do the same job but with more freedom.

There is a second knock at the door, and the knocker says that his personal effects have been taken to him.

In his apartment, Michael Cray is reacting suspiciously to a knock on the door. Informing the knocker that he is just changing clothes, he pulls out a handgun and waits the thirty seconds necessary for the knockers to try to sneak into his flat, at which point he shoots one in the leg. In the ensuing fight, Michael uses handguns, furniture, and in one case, the subject's own neck, to gain situational dominance and kill both attackers. His visitor, Christine Trelane, repeats her job offer: better pay, medical insurance, and more freedom. Michael asks if the job includes a flat with better security, and when Christine responds in the affirmative, he accepts her offer.

At the safehouse in Brooklyn, Adrianna arrives with Angie. Cole and Jacob arrive to meet her. Cole promises coffee, while Jacob promises answers. Angie accepts both.

Adrianna takes this time to retire to her room, where she takes off her clothes, revealing that she has no human face, just a mask and a silvery humanoid body, complete with toes and ears but void of facial features. Sitting down to meditate, she generates a miniaturized rainstorm.

In the kitchen, Jacob sits down with a bottle of alcohol to tell Angie a story: he created the Halo Corporation to design and sell consumer electronic devices. Jacob Marlowe believes in the future, and he wants the optimal version thereof. To that end, he assembled a group of incredible people and gave them a support structure, creating what I.O. refers to as a "CAT" (Covert Action Team).

Jacob then moves on to explain I.O. Created at some point in the 1950s as a classified joint intelligence committee, I.O. metastatized beyond all attempts to curtail it, and has been secretly running world events for years. The notable holdout is Skywatch, a secret space program which predates I.O. Skywatch was briefly part of I.O., but broke loose. As a result of the break, a series of treaties were signed between the two agencies, amounting to a non-aggression pact - I.O. can do what it wants on Earth, and Skywatch can do what it wants in space.

Angie interjects here, asking why I.O. would voluntarily give up control of Skywatch. Jacob, pausing to take another drink, explains that while I.O. envies Skywatch's hardware, the technology is in service to an ideology and a mission which is at odds with I.O.'s goals of control and medium-term benefit. Earth is rich and warm. Space is cold and dead. Mars is theoretically habitable, but still a challenge to get to and borderline unsurvivable, for... a host of reasons. So I.O. lets Skywatch alone.

Jacob moves on to the final key point: both I.O. and Skywatch are masters of their own domain. Each demeans the ideology of the other, but each secretly desires the resources the other commands. And while the treaties hold them in check, enough shock might make them fight, which would be disastrous.

At this point, Jacob pauses, and asks her why she rabbited at the bunker in Montauk. Angie tries to bluff, but eventually reveals the truth: when she created her drysuit, she gave it medical-grade scanning equipment, for use in disaster zones. Cole registered as a human. Adrianna registered as... something. But Kenesha has a completely inhuman internal structure, and that frightened Angie. In the quiet, Jacob asks if she would briefly scan him. Angie complies... and gets a shocking look at his skeleton. He states his case - he is not a medical miracle, but simply a lifeform alien to Earth, like Kenesha. He built the safehouse and populated it with people who have no home in the outside world. He and they are fighting two rival world-ruling powers, and a host of smaller powers, to fix a world that doesn't understand them. And he is offering her a place in this endeavour.

In Skywatch's space station, Ms. Pennington rouses Henry Bendix with new intel. Grumbling, Bendix watches footage of Angie Spica's transdermal drysuit changing configuration over Montauk sound. After a few seconds, he recognises the technology as being copied from the old Breslau II spaceships that Skywatch used when he was younger. As a brace of Skywatch craft make launch for the planet, Henry Bendix announces that he will "rain fire from heaven" to discover who is stealing from him.

REVIEW

By the pacing of these first six issues, I feel sometimes that this story was meant for HBO. But depending on the budget, it could also end up on Netflix (well, it would most likely end in the DC Universe service).

It’s all about world building in these issues, and putting all the players on the board. Some of them we barely seen. But Angela, Grifter and Michael Cray are clearly the stars of this part of the story.

I should have continued reviewing individual chapters, but to be honest, every chapter would have the same score (it has a very consistent quality). The fact that it is a 24 issue maxi-series is also a bit ridiculous, most comic-books these days do not get to issue 13.

This is a great story thus far, but I feel a lot more could have been done in the meantime (there is a Michael Cray series as well). What I am trying to say is... it’s been a while since DC/Wildstorm published WildCATs. The whole point of Flashpoint was to integrate the two universes. Now this is some kind of reboot? Or is it a stand-alone story? Just wondering, doesn’t really affect the quality of this story, but brings many questions to my mind.

The art is very consistent as well, and apart from very well placed cliffhangers, it feels like these are not episodes. Perhaps six issues make one episode. In an HBO show, these six chapters would make one episode (maybe I am overestimating HBO... it could be half a season).

I give these chapters a score of 7

[poorquentyn]

Men’s Lives Have Meaning, Part 5: The Hour of Ghosts

Series so far here

“There’s a tipping point in every tragedy where inevitability locks the exit doors on free will and you know that after this, there is no turning back.”

-- @racefortheironthrone​

Hello everyone. My name is Emmett, and I could have been imagined, designed, constructed, and sold as a consumer for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. I had just turned twelve when the first one came out at the end of 2001, I’d read the books that summer, and the infusion of swelling Hollywood orchestras and Peter Jackson’s beloved action schlock was perfectly calibrated to take my love for the material and shoot it into the stratosphere. I still look back on those movies with love...mostly. There are moments, especially in Return of the King, where the tone tips overboard: 

On one level, that’s what we want our heroes to say, right? We’re up against the odds, we might not be rewarded for our efforts, but let’s do it anyway; that’s the lesson a lot of great genre fiction is meant to leave us with, in one form or another. The problem with that clip is the knowing wink, the sly acknowledgement that after they’ve escaped so many other hair-raising disasters, this is just another day at work. I get the joke, but it would make more sense for (say) a Bond or Indy movie, where it really is just another day at work and part of the enjoyment comes from how what’s over-the-top for us is normal for them. In the context of LOTR, it’s tonally off, because this is not supposed to feel episodic. It’s supposed to feel climactic, like our heroes are genuinely in danger as everything comes to a head, and that’s marred when you expose the plot armor so blatantly. If this is just another day, why are we supposed to be invested in their risk? 

Of course, Peter Jackson didn’t invent that problem. It’s a storytelling problem. And that is why GRRM created Quentyn Martell. It’s why he tries to tame a dragon and why he fails: to reclaim the stakes and re-sensitize us to the risk. It’s not just that he dies, it’s how and why he dies. What does it mean to not have plot armor? What does it say about quest narratives that they can collapse so completely and yet the quester clings to tropes as if they’ll save him? How are we to live if Story fails as an organizing principle? “The Spurned Suitor” brings these questions to the forefront, right before “The Dragontamer” sets it all on fire. It’s the most reflective and dialogue-heavy of Quent’s chapters, the most thematically explicit; it’s the one that cuts through the hellish imagery dominating this storyline right to what it all means. In genre terms, where previous Quent chapters soaked the fantasy tropes in blood-red horror, this chapter has a distinctly noirish feel to it, in terms of both imagery and theme.

“The Merchant’s Man” introduced Quent reeling from his friends’ deaths; “The Windblown” caught up with him in the wake of the Sack of Astapor. In both chapters, as I said in the essays in question, GRRM’s focus is less the traumatic event itself than the psychological impact on Quent--both are about how one processes these existential challenges to the hero’s journey, and why one would keep going in the face of them. “The Spurned Suitor” pulls the same trick, but with a twist. In this case, the pre-chapter trauma that shapes the chapter isn’t an obstacle to the quest. It’s the outright failure of it. Quent reached the beautiful princess, proved himself willing (though not exactly eager) to transform from a frog back into a prince...but she said no. 

To be clear, chapter title aside, the horror here is not getting rejected by a pretty girl. (Like I said last time, Dany doesn’t reject Quent in favor of the dark dashing Daario and his lust for open war, but in favor of the dishwater-dull Hizdahr and the peace he ostensibly brings; as she tells herself upon agreeing to marry the latter, she’s trying to act on behalf of her people.) The horror here is getting rejected after losing your friends and killing screaming teenagers along the way; the horror is selling your soul to live a life you didn’t want to live, only to find you’re not even going to get that. The horror is that it wasn’t worth it. It all meant nothing. Story is a lie. Of course, if that’s all there was to Quent’s story, it would be tired and boring. What grounds it emotionally is that laserlike focus on the aftermath of that revelation, as it hits home harder with each step of the descent. What do you do when your easy narrative falls apart and you’re left with no good options?

In “The Merchant’s Man” and “The Windblown,” Quent’s reaction to this trauma and disillusionment was to repress what he’d gone through and done, soldiering on with the Windblown repeatedly intervening (as if sent by some sinister observing God-Author) to allow him to do so. Now that he’s faced with the failure of his quest, all the kid wants to do is to go home, but he can’t bring himself to face the shame of failure and (even more so) his survivor’s guilt...

“We should be heeding Selmy. When Barristan the Bold tells you to run, a wise man laces up his boots. We should find a ship for Volantis whilst the port is still open.”

Just the mention turned Ser Archibald’s cheeks green. “No more ships. I’d sooner hop back to Volantis on one foot.”

Volantis, Quentyn thought. Then Lys, then home. Back the way I came, empty-handed. Three brave men dead, for what?

It would be sweet to see the Greenblood again, to visit Sunspear and the Water Gardens and breathe the clean sweet mountain air of Yronwood in place of the hot, wet, filthy humors of Slaver’s Bay. His father would speak no word of rebuke, Quentyn knew, but the disappointment would be there in his eyes. His sister would be scornful, the Sand Snakes would mock him with smiles sharp as swords, and Lord Yronwood, his second father, who had sent his own son along to keep him safe…

“I will not keep you here,” Quentyn told his friends. “My father laid this task on me, not you. Go home, if that is what you want. By whatever means you like. I am staying.”

...and so instead, he reaches out to the Windblown in the hopes that they’ll once again keep his quest going, even as their actions and attitudes continue to undercut the ostensibly righteous and hopeful nature of said quest. We see that right from the beginning of Quent’s penultimate POV chapter:

The hour of ghosts was almost upon them when Ser Gerris Drinkwater returned to the pyramid to report that he had found Beans, Books, and Old Bill Bone in one of Meereen’s less savory cellars, drinking yellow wine and watching naked slaves kill one another with bare hands and filed teeth.

This fighting pit, an unofficial but not-so-secret alternative to Daznak’s, is a glimpse of the Meereen outside the rarified domain of the Masters. The black market sprang up as the sanctioned one shut down, and that the Windblown are taking part reminds us of the sellswords’ own analogous role in The System, straddling the line between a standard part of Essosi military coalitions and a wild card constantly in the position to upset the applecart. 

That backdrop provides the thematic and emotional context for the decision Quent makes in this chapter. The hour of ghosts, indeed; the shadow city of alleys and cellars into which Team Quentyn descends in “The Spurned Suitor” is haunted, not only by those already dead but also by the deaths to come. As has been the case throughout Quent’s storyline, his personal struggles dovetail with (and are influenced by) the big picture of the Meereenese Knot. Just as Dany’s refusal obliterated the remnants of the “tale to tell our grandchildren” veneer, leading to Quent betting his life on a wild roll of the dice, so has her departure at Daznak’s shattered the pretense of peace, leading to the whole pot boiling over as ADWD comes to a close. Indeed, I’d argue that Quent’s quest and Hizdahr’s peace are analogous. They sound good on the surface, appealing to values we instinctively support, but quickly prove rotten underneath the gild, enabling the worst actors in the Meereenese Knot instead of righteous causes, before they both finally come crashing down at the same place and time in the Kingbreaker/Dragontamer two-sided setpiece. It’s all approaching the tipping point, personally and politically. 

But as I said, what makes Quent’s chapters more than glum grim deconstruction is the extent to which the characters are aware of this tipping point, that the story is falling apart around them, and that’s made explicit in “The Spurned Suitor.” On their way to their fateful meeting with the Tattered Prince, Quent and Drink argue about the former’s plans, and IMO it’s one of the most important and profound passages in the series. Let’s break it down. 

“ ‘The dragon has three heads,’ she said to me. ‘My marriage need not be the end of all your hopes,’ she said. ‘I know why you are here. For fire and blood.’ I have Targaryen blood in me, you know that. I can trace my lineage back —”

“Fuck your lineage,” said Gerris. “The dragons won’t care about your blood, except maybe how it tastes. You cannot tame a dragon with a history lesson. They’re monsters, not maesters. Quent, is this truly what you want to do?”

“This is what I have to do. For Dorne. For my father. For Cletus and Will and Maester Kedry.”

“They’re dead,” said Gerris. “They won’t care.”

“All dead,” Quentyn agreed. “For what? To bring me here, so I might wed the dragon queen. A grand adventure, Cletus called it. Demon roads and stormy seas, and at the end of it the most beautiful woman in the world. A tale to tell our grandchildren. But Cletus will never father a child, unless he left a bastard in the belly of that tavern wench he liked. Will will never have his wedding. Their deaths should have some meaning.”

Gerris pointed to where a corpse slumped against a brick wall, attended by a cloud of glistening green flies. “Did his death have meaning?”

Quentyn looked at the body with distaste. “He died of the flux. Stay well away from him.” The pale mare was inside the city walls. Small wonder that the streets seemed so empty. “The Unsullied will send a corpse cart for him.”

“No doubt. But that was not my question. Men’s lives have meaning, not their deaths. I loved Will and Cletus too, but this will not bring them back to us. This is a mistake, Quent. You cannot trust in sellswords.”

“They are men like any other men. They want gold, glory, power. That’s all I am trusting in.” That, and my own destiny. I am a prince of Dorne, and the blood of dragons is in my veins.

We see here that Quent’s sunk cost fallacy has completely taken over his decision-making process. Because his quest has already gotten people killed, it must continue, or in his mind, they died for nothing. This is, of course, extremely relatable. We’ve all made decisions like this, albeit usually on a much smaller scale. No one likes to admit failure, everyone wants to attach some meaning to their losses, and we’re meant to understand why Quent is so helplessly mired in panicked desperation. I can fix this, I will fix this, oh gods please I have to fix this...

GRRM makes this decision easy to empathize with in order to sucker punch us with the larger revelation: the basic mechanics of the genre are designed to create precisely such a sunk cost fallacy. You are supposed to lose companions--that raises the stakes, heightens our emotional involvement, and challenges the protagonist both externally (how do I logistically complete the quest without that companion?) and internally (how do I soldier on in the face of that loss?) You are supposed to have a low point where you question everything that’s led you to this moment. You are supposed to take an enormous risk. You are supposed to, literally or metaphorically, tame a dragon.

In Quent’s case, however, we’re dealing with a Last Hero who never finds the Children of the Forest--or perhaps, a Last Hero whom the Children pitilessly watch die. As such, when looking at his arc as a whole, those losses and low points don’t serve to allow our hero to prove himself and us to revel in victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Instead, they are warning signs that our hero ignores. Quentyn’s story interrogates reader assumptions about quest narratives: why do we embrace such a narrative? What are we overlooking when we do so? What if the quest in question rips those assumptions limb from limb and leaves them to bleed out on the deck of the Meadowlark, in the ashes of Astapor, in that hellish pit beneath the Great Pyramid? 

As far as what all this looks like to Quent himself, it’s made clear that what he’s relying on to save his quest (and his soul) isn’t anything intrinsic to his actions. He’s not counting on courage or ingenuity. He’s not even counting, first and foremost, on the Windblown. He’s counting on the story itself to save him, the elements of his narrative that would seem to demand he succeed: his princely heritage, his lost companions, the fact that he’s taking a big foolish romantic risk. 

But as I said a few essays back, the story is in fact out to kill Quentyn Martell, and so Drink does what good friends have to do sometimes: tell you that you’re spouting BS. “Fuck your lineage” is GRRM speaking through Drink, launching a deconstructive nuke at the idea that your bloodline is what makes you The Hero. That holds true with the *actual* heroes as well, of course--one of the major themes of Jon’s story is that everything he’s learned and struggled with is what makes him a worthy savior figure, not R+L=J in and of itself. But it’s different with Quent because he doesn’t have a grand destiny, earned or otherwise. As such, he’s left alone in an existentialist void, trying to create meaning out of what’s befallen his quest. 

And just as I wrote my series on Davos’s ADWD arc in order to talk about his letter to Marya, I wrote this series in order to talk about Drink’s response to Quent’s desperate plea to the gods that “their deaths should have some meaning.” This is a bold statement, I know, but: “Men’s lives have meaning, not their deaths” is the closest we’ve gotten to an overarching thesis statement for ASOIAF. It reaches all the way back to the first book, to Ned (who, like Quent, turns out to not be the protagonist after all) and his shocking demise. So many readers have interpreted that moment, as well as the Red Wedding two books later, as being indicative of nihilism on GRRM’s part. Everything is chaos, honor gets you killed and is therefore worthless, “power is power.” But this is not so. Ned’s legacy is not his death, it is his life. The children determined to find each other again because Dad taught them to stick together and be brave, the vassals who have set out to rescue and restore those children in his name, the memory both in-universe and IRL of a decent man who treated his servants like human beings worth listening to and who was determined to protect the young and innocent...all of this is the meaning of Ned Stark, not that he ended up as a head on a spike. By the same token, the meaning of Tywin Lannister isn’t that he died on the can. It’s why he died on the can, and that is because he lived a terrible life. His legacy is his family tearing itself apart, his hoped-for Lannister regime falling to pieces across Westeros, and his oh-so-symbolic reeking corpse. One of these men, for all his mistakes, found and spread a worthy meaning in his brief time on Terros, and the other, for all his triumphs, did not. We are all mortal; all of us, “from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat,” are ultimately helpless before the abyss that Quent leaps into in his final chapter. No one (not even Euron, try as he might) can change that. What matters, what makes us who are, what means something, is how we live our lives knowing that in the end, the house always wins.

“Men’s lives have meaning, not their deaths” is also the first arrow in my quiver when it comes to defending the worth of the new characters and storylines in the Feastdance. Why should we care about the Martells or the “Griffs” if they’re just showing up now and will probably die before endgame? Because moving the plot along to book seven is not actually what makes a story meaningful. Lives lived make stories meaningful:

The door to the roof of the tower was stuck so fast that it was plain no one had opened it in years. He had to put his shoulder to it to force it open. But when Jon Connington stepped out onto the high battlements, the view was just as intoxicating as he remembered: the crag with its wind-carved rocks and jagged spires, the sea below growling and worrying at the foot of the castle like some restless beast, endless leagues of sky and cloud, the wood with its autumnal colors. “Your father’s lands are beautiful,” Prince Rhaegar had said, standing right where Jon was standing now. And the boy he’d been had replied, “One day they will all be mine.” As if that could impress a prince who was heir to the entire realm, from the Arbor to the Wall.

Griffin’s Roost had been his, eventually, if only for a few short years. From here, Jon Connington had ruled broad lands extending many leagues to the west, north, and south, just as his father and his father’s father had before him. But his father and his father’s father had never lost their lands. He had. I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

And of course, Drink’s powerful words are GRRM’s message to us about how to think about Quent. Do not think that he meant nothing because he failed and died or because he was never going to be the protagonist, the author is saying. What matters is his life, the POV we have experienced and come to understand. He lived, he tried, he died. It is for us to remember him. I only wish he had heeded the lesson Drink was trying to teach him, before it was far too late. 

Only with that why firmly established does GRRM move onto the what, knowing that the former will lend resonance to the latter. The plot of “The Spurned Suitor” concerns Quent turning in desperation to the Tattered Prince and his Windblown for help taming one of Dany’s captive children, despite having betrayed them. As the city simmers and seethes around them, the princes meet in secret.

The sun had sunk below the city wall by the time they found the purple lotus, painted on the weathered wooden door of a low brick hovel squatting amidst a row of similar hovels in the shadow of the great yellow-and-green pyramid of Rhazdar. Quentyn knocked twice, as instructed. A gruff voice answered through the door, growling something unintelligible in the mongrel tongue of Slaver’s Bay, an ugly blend of Old Ghiscari and High Valyrian. The prince answered in the same tongue. “Freedom.”

The door opened. Gerris entered first, for caution’s sake, with Quentyn close behind him and the big man bringing up the rear. Within, the air was hazy with bluish smoke, whose sweet smell could not quite cover up the deeper stinks of piss and sour wine and rotting meat. The space was much larger than it had seemed from without, stretching off to right and left into the adjoining hovels. What had appeared to be a dozen structures from the street turned into one long hall inside.

At this hour the house was less than half full. A few of the patrons favored the Dornishmen with looks bored or hostile or curious. The rest were crowded around the pit at the far end of the room, where a pair of naked men were slashing at each other with knives whilst the watchers cheered them on.

Quentyn saw no sign of the men they had come to meet. Then a door he had not seen before swung open, and an old woman emerged, a shriveled thing in a dark red tokar fringed with tiny golden skulls. Her skin was white as mare’s milk, her hair so thin that he could see the scalp beneath.

“Dorne,” she said, “I be Zahrina. Purple Lotus. Go down here, you find them.” She held the door and gestured them through.

Team Quent is going underground and behind the curtain in “The Spurned Suitor.” In terms of the big picture, we’re seeing a Meereen that Dany never even glimpsed from atop the pyramid. On a more intimate scale, this imagery reflects the scales falling from Quent’s eyes about how the world works. He never thought his quest would involve cutting ethically murky deals in back-alley parlors (again, it’s suddenly a noir story), but if he wants to keep going for his fallen friends’ sake, it’s the only avenue he has left. It’s worth noting here how Quent contrasts with his fellow Questers for Dany. Where Quent wonders why Dany would ever choose him “among all the princes of the world,” Aegon has never even considered that she would reject him, because he was raised in a Perfect Prince bubble while Quent was told out of nowhere to Go West East, Young Man at age 18. Tyrion, too, wanders the shifting political sands of Essos in the wake of Dany’s crusade, but at this point in his storyline, he finds it hard to care about most of it, so his bitter detached cynicism makes for another illuminating contrast with Quent’s grief and desperation. And Victarion...well, as I’ve argued before, his story is the black comedy to Quent’s tragedy. Vic’s doom is presented as a huge joke on him by his puppetmasters: Euron, Moqorro, and George R.R. Martin. There’s no tragedy there because Vic keeps rejecting the possibility for growth or change. He’s there to be laughed at, by us as well as the monkeys. But with Quent, there really was a worthy life he could’ve lived (as I’ll get into next time). It’s just not this one, this one-way ride into fiery oblivion, escorted and enabled by the Satan of Slaver’s Bay and his motley crew. Speaking of which:

An undercellar. It was a long way down, and so dark that Quentyn had to feel his way to keep from slipping. Near the bottom Ser Archibald pulled his dagger.

They emerged in a brick vault thrice the size of the winesink above. Huge wooden vats lined the walls as far as the prince could see. A red lantern hung on a hook just inside the door, and a greasy black candle flickered on an overturned barrel serving as a table. That was the only light.

Caggo Corpsekiller was pacing by the wine vats, his black arakh hanging at his hip. Pretty Meris stood cradling a crossbow, her eyes as cold and dead as two grey stones. Denzo D’han barred the door once the Dornishmen were inside, then took up a position in front of it, arms crossed against his chest.

One too many, Quentyn thought.

The Tattered Prince himself was seated at the table, nursing a cup of wine. In the yellow candlelight his silver-grey hair seemed almost golden, though the pouches underneath his eyes were etched as large as saddlebags. He wore a brown wool traveler’s cloak, with silvery chain mail glimmering underneath. Did that betoken treachery or simple prudence? An old sellsword is a cautious sellsword. Quentyn approached his table. “My lord. You look different without your cloak.”

“My ragged raiment?” The Pentoshi gave a shrug. “A poor thing…yet those tatters fill my foes with fear, and on the battlefield the sight of my rags blowing in the wind emboldens my men more than any banner. And if I want to move unseen, I need only slip it off to become plain and unremarkable.” He gestured at the bench across from him. “Sit. I understand you are a prince. Would that I had known. Will you drink? Zahrina offers food as well. Her bread is stale and her stew is unspeakable. Grease and salt, with a morsel or two of meat. Dog, she says, but I think rat is more likely. It will not kill you, though. I have found that it is only when the food is tempting that one must beware. Poisoners invariably choose the choicest dishes.”

“You brought three men,” Ser Gerris pointed out, with an edge in his voice. “We agreed on two apiece.”

“Meris is no man. Meris, sweet, undo your shirt, show him.”

“That will not be necessary,” said Quentyn. If the talk he had heard was true, beneath that shirt Pretty Meris had only the scars left by the men who’d cut her breasts off. “Meris is a woman, I agree. You’ve still twisted the terms.”

“Tattered and twisty, what a rogue I am. Three to two is not much of an advantage, it must be admitted, but it counts for something. In this world, a man must learn to seize whatever gifts the gods chose to send him. That was a lesson I learned at some cost. I offer it to you as a sign of my good faith.” 

We’ve got a literal descent matching the emotional/thematic one, to make a foolish risky deal that will end up claiming our protagonist body and soul, with someone who’s lying and spinning right off the bat, his deceptively simple appearance hiding a cruel sardonic heart...so yeah, like I said, the Tattered Prince is the devil of the Meereenese Knot, the tempter-corrupter figure luring Quent into hell. “Tattered and twisty, what a rogue I am” is precisely the sort of way Satan and characters similar to him talk; they lie to you, and then they make fun of you for believing them. After all, Quent, you only got into Meereen in the first place because of the Tattered Prince’s deceitfulness...and because of your own. 

The Pentoshi gave a shrug. “One thing I am certain of. Someone will have need of our swords.”

“I have need of those swords. Dorne will hire you.”

The Tattered Prince glanced at Pretty Meris. “He does not lack for gall, this Frog. Must I remind him? My dear prince, the last contract we signed you used to wipe your pretty pink bottom.”

“I will double whatever the Yunkishmen are paying you.”

“And pay in gold upon the signing of our contract, yes?”

“I will pay you part when we reach Volantis, the rest when I am back in Sunspear. We brought gold with us when we set sail, but it would have been hard to conceal once we joined the company, so we gave it over to the banks. I can show you papers.”

“Ah. Papers. But we will be paid double.”

“Twice as many papers,” said Pretty Meris.

“The rest you’ll have in Dorne,” Quentyn insisted. “My father is a man of honor. If I put my seal to an agreement, he will fulfill its terms. You have my word on that.”

The Tattered Prince finished his wine, turned the cup over, and set it down between them. “So. Let me see if I understand. A proven liar and oathbreaker wishes to contract with us and pay in promises. And for what services? I wonder. Are my Windblown to smash the Yunkai’i and sack the Yellow City? Defeat a Dothraki khalasar in the field? Escort you home to your father? Or will you be content if we deliver Queen Daenerys to your bed wet and willing? Tell me true, Prince Frog. What would you have of me and mine?”

You’ve been lying this whole way, to the world and yourself. What’s one more piece of wood on that fire? Again, though, it’s precisely that sunk-cost fallacy, the panicked certainty that it’s too late to turn back, that gets Quent killed. In so much of genre fiction, that “I started this, I have to finish it” drive is celebrated, even cast as the thing that makes you the hero. Here, it is revealed as a sad self-delusion that only serves to throw another body on the pile of the dead. Quent needs so badly to make his friends’ sacrifice worth it that he’s willing to sell out an *entire city* (namely, Pentos) to make it happen. The cynical world-weary Windblown are here to cut through that fragile narrative, telling Quent that neither he nor his story is special:

“I ask your pardon for our deception. The only ships sailing for Slaver’s Bay were those that had been hired to bring you to the wars.”

The Tattered Prince gave a shrug. “Every turncloak has his tale. You are not the first to swear me your swords, take my coin, and run. All of them have reasons. ‘My little son is sick,’ or ‘My wife is putting horns on me,’ or ‘The other men all make me suck their cocks.’ Such a charming boy, the last, but I did not excuse his desertion. Another fellow told me our food was so wretched that he had to flee before it made him sick, so I had his foot cut off, roasted it up, and fed it to him. Then I made him our camp cook. Our meals improved markedly, and when his contract was fulfilled he signed another. You, though…several of my best are locked up in the queen’s dungeons thanks to that lying tongue of yours, and I doubt that you can even cook.”

“I am a prince of Dorne,” said Quentyn. “I had a duty to my father and my people. There was a secret marriage pact.”

“So I heard. And when the silver queen saw your scrap of parchment she fell into your arms, yes?”

“No,” said Pretty Meris.

“No? Oh, I recall. Your bride flew off on a dragon. Well, when she returns, do be sure to invite us to your nuptials. The men of the company would love to drink to your happiness, and I do love a Westerosi wedding. The bedding part especially, only…oh, wait…” He turned to Denzo D’han. “Denzo, I thought you told me that the dragon queen had married some Ghiscari.”

“A Meereenese nobleman. Rich.”

The Tattered Prince turned back to Quentyn. “Could that be true? Surely not. What of your marriage pact?”

“She laughed at him,” said Pretty Meris.

Daenerys never laughed. The rest of Meereen might see him as an amusing curiosity, like the exiled Summer Islander King Robert used to keep at King’s Landing, but the queen had always spoken to him gently. “We came too late,” said Quentyn.

Interesting to note that Quent is pulling an UnKiss here, convincing himself that Dany did not laugh upon him revealing his identity and mission, when in truth, she did. That just goes to show how thoroughly he’s backed himself into a corner. “We came too late,” and so again, we have a Quent chapter ending with the Windblown enabling our hero’s descent. Of course, Quent is responsible for this decision--he came to them, not the other way around. I’m not trying to strip him of agency, as that would be a much less engaging story. But what I’m interested in here is how the failure of the quest, the shattering of the ideal, has led to Quent making this terrible decision. Here’s where GRRM’s existentialist-romantic take on the genre comes into play: Quent was taught to uphold and believe in certain norms because an ordered universe will reward him for it, not because following the rules is the right thing to do in itself. As such, when Quent’s quest proves over and over again that there is no inherent order to the universe, and as such no automatic reward, Quent loses all moorings; he doesn’t have that Davos/Brienne “no chance and no choice” ethos to keep him going in the face of the abyss. 

And that’s why he makes a deal with the devil: it seems like his best option. 

“I need you to help me steal a dragon.”

Caggo Corpsekiller chuckled. Pretty Meris curled her lip in a half-smile. Denzo D’han whistled.

The Tattered Prince only leaned back on his stool and said, “Double does not pay for dragons, princeling. Even a frog should know that much. Dragons come dear. And men who pay in promises should have at least the sense to promise more.”

“If you want me to triple—”

“What I want,” said the Tattered Prince, “is Pentos.”

And as always, making a deal with the devil lands our protagonist in fiery torment, condemned by his own folly. After Quent’s death, Barristan takes responsibility for delivering Pentos to Tatters, and come TWOW, I think Dany will fulfill the bargain after confronting Illyrio RE Aegon. Because a deal with the devil can’t be undone--it just transfers from person to person. 

Indeed, it’s tonally appropriate that Quent’s quest climaxes not with him becoming the hero, but with him letting the devil back into paradise. One thing I noticed in this reread is how closely the form of “The Spurned Suitor” matches that of “The Dragontamer.” In both chapters, Quent trembles on the edge of the Void, wondering am I really going to go through with this, decides that he is, and this descent is promptly made literal. In his third chapter, he descends to the cellar to face the Tattered Prince and his cronies, sealing the doom that unfolds in his fourth chapter, in which he descends into the dank dark hell beneath the Great Pyramid to face Rhaegal and Viserion. One inextricably leads to the other; symbolically, the Tattered Prince is the dragonfire, the epitome of how Quent trying to “fix” his own story only serves to keep revealing how it cannot be fixed. This is your life, Quentyn Martell. You are not the hero. And just as with my second favorite character in ASOIAF, Stannis Baratheon, this revelation will be rendered in fire and blood.