#from wander to; of blessed isles.

[thekeeperofbalance]

on my latest ask:

i want to establish that all four of my writing works are in a way crossovers with my fantasy world, albeit varying levels of interaction and influence (the unending weave is a bit metaphorical but i explain that in a post detailing the keepers and the way the unending weave works)

but, do not fret because i haven't talked about the unending weave, because i will explain everything as it appears in my stories and whenever it appears in my tumblr posts- i will do my absolute best to never leave a reference unexplained because my fantasy world can get complicated mainly because an entire third of it is dedicated to contradictions and paradoxes

i will say that it used to be more complicated, but i've consolidated and cut parts down-

[clare-875]

Burnt Scarlet (Sugawara x Reader)

_____ Pairing: Sugawara x Female Reader Summary: You make Sugawara flustered. Warnings: Fluff [Haikyuu Masterlist] _____

Sugawara wondered if there was ever going to be a sight that could top the one in front of him now. Then he stopped himself and ripped himself free of that thought; because it was stupid. There would never be anything as beautiful, anything as captivating, anything as perfect as you. You. You dressed in a flowy summer dress, the gentle breeze making your hair shine beneath the golden sun; You smiling up at him lips curved upwards and painted ruby red; You and your radiant eyes looking only to him. His heart pounds against his chest, he feels the heat rise in his face, and before he knows it he's facing away from you. You, confused at the sight of him turning away so abruptly look up to him through your eyelashes in confusion just as Sugawara tries to find the courage to look at you once more. His mistake. He tries to hide his face but he feels it, the burn of scarlet that paints his expression.

"Kou, you okay?"

He flusters more at the sound of your sweet voice calling his name, a tinge of worry within the midst of your words; all for him. "Y-yeah, I'm fine." You frown slightly at the sight of him still unturning from where he stood and wonder just what had gotten into him. But you decide to take things into your own hands, literally. You grab him by his right wrist holding it gently but surely and drag him forward towards town where the two of you were going to hang out for the day. "Good, then let's get going!" You smile encouragingly at the man who looks up, eyes widening at the sight of you once more. The sight of your glimmering smile, the adoration etched in your eyes and upon your face. The scarlet remains in place but he finds himself nodding as though in a trance, he would later beat himself up for not complimenting the beautiful outfit you put together; all for him.

"Oh my gosh Kou, look!" He turns at the excitement that laced your tone, the urgency in your hold as you pull him towards a section of the store seemingly covered with all things cute and fluffy. The both of you were now at a mall and had been wandering the isles for several moments. He looked down at your hold. Within it were two matching keychains, almost identical to each other albeit the difference in colour of the ribbon that adorned the small plush attached. "We could be matching!" Your voice is light and bright, and your eyes are filled with joy. Sugawara finds himself nodding before he even registers the words coming out of your mouth. He feels the churn of his heart against his chest, the burning feeling of his face. You would be the death of him. "Yeah, I'll go buy them for us."

His grasp is quick and he takes the keychains from your hold with ease and a swiftness you could not rebuke before he rushes for the cashier who looks up surprised at their determined customer. You look up blankly at his sudden absence and his almost instinctual agreement to buy what you had suggested. Sugawara feels himself flush at his blatant show of weakness to you, but then he is blessed with your airy laugh and a soft hand on his shoulder. "I could've got that you know." He feels the burning of scarlet once more uptake his features as he looks at your hands that gently take one of the keychains he had brought, securing it to your phone. "I-I know," Sugawara murmurs, before taking his own keychain and securing it to his own device. You grin at his obvious shyness grabbing his hand in your hold again as Sugawara feels himself come to life at just your touch. "Let's go!"

The next moment the two of you are at a movie theatre watching a horror movie you should've known would never be good. Although Sugawara feels the shiver down his spine at the scary flux of events on the screen he is almost content just by the tight hold you have on his arm. He feels the warmth of your skin against his, the softness of hair as you basically hug to death his right limb. He knows he should be terrified by the gruelling images in front of him, but instead, he feels like he's in heaven when he looks down on you. The pride he feels that you trust him to look after you even when you're not in any danger is immeasurable. He tries to ease your tension with a teasing comment, "It's not real you know," but then you look up to him glossy eyes and all, a heavy pout on your lips. "But it looks so real." The burn reaches his face again as he notices the proximity of you before you turn back to the screen letting out a muffled yell, oblivious to his mess of emotions.

After the movie he holds your hand in his and fights away the flush of his face to try to put you to comfort; ice cream usually does the trick. He pats your head gently as you sit down at a table and he says he'll be back with your treats soon. You smile up at him gratefully and Sugawara again has to hide his face just so you don't notice the ease of influence you have over him. He tries to be quick, easily having memorised your favourite, now picking out his own. As he waits for his order, his gaze moves fully to you once more. He wonders how he ever got so lucky to learn that his long-term crush felt the same way. He wonders how he ever got so lucky to get a girl as beautiful and perfect as you. His mind wonders only to be awoken by your hand waving to him. He looks up, lost in your gaze as he tries to wave back only to see you laugh. "No, Kou, the ice-creams!" He turns abruptly to see that the cashier has been waiting with his order for several moments now. He feels the burn of scarlet as he quickly apologises and pays before rushing back to you.

He feels the heavy torment of your gaze upon him as he sits down in front of you, but you merely smile and gather the cool treat in your hands thanking the man. "What were you thinking about?" He looks up meeting your wondering gaze, the questioning tilt of your head as he rushes to reply. "W-what?" You laugh breathlessly before shaking your head. "Seriously though, you've been acting strange all day, is something wrong?" Your mind paces through the events of your date, at each moment you tried to catch his eyes he would face away, at every touch you felt his grip tighten slightly and felt the growing warmth of his skin. Sugawara sees the crease between your eyebrows and panic now rushes through him at the sight of your worry for him, now beating himself up for being so distracted, just by your presence. "N-no, I'm sorry you're just- you're just so beautiful today and-" He struggles to strangle together a response and you watch the fight as amusement now lingers at the sight of his flustered state. You lean forward and Sugawara barely has the time to stop his rambling before you surprise him with a soft kiss to his lips.

"Koushi, you do realise we've been dating for six months now."

The burnt scarlet upon his face only grows. 

[reachwitch]

Roar of a Wolfborn completed 46/46

After losing her family, Sifkni finds herself almost executed. After fleeing, she travels to Whiterun where she encounters the Companions. She knows their secret, as she is also a werewolf.

Despite feeling that someone else is better suited for the role, she is soon thrust into the position of Dragonborn. She must learn to believe in her skills and heal from her past to fulfill her destiny.

Farkas x LDB {F Werewolf Nord} | Skjor x OC {M Skaal}

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | EPILOGUE |

Hunt of the Blood Moons

After defeating Alduin, Last Dragonborn Sifkni is called to Falkreath for a werewolf problem. She helps solve the mystery, only to have a Great Hunt called on her by Hircine. Farkas x LDB {F Werewolf Nord}

Chapter PROLOGUE | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | WIP

Sivaas

After her pack is killed, Estinan wanders around Skyrim. With no home to call her own, she makes do with hunting or selling her sword arm. She ends up in Riften on a fateful day. With her pockets emptied by a handsome thief, she tracks him through the sewers and begins her strange quest with the Thieves Guild.

Brynjolf x OC {F Werewolf Bosmer}

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | WIP

Fury of a Tundra Wolf

Former Harbinger of the Companions, Thea Icehammer, joins the Stormcloak army. She fights alongside the army to bring Ulfric his victory and to free Skyrim from Thalmor and Empire's clutches.

Galmar x OC {F Werewolf Nord}

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | WIP

Mother of Hunters Completed

Adelina, a devout Hircine follower and werewolf, is called to one of the Lord Huntsman’s Great Hunts. But as the Hare.

She must survive three days with his Hunters and three nights with him personally hunting her. Adelina must survive. If only to prove she is NOT a Hare. She will not ever be a HARE.

Hircine x OC {F Werewolf Nede/Nord}

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Epilogue | Lore Book

Vestige Liselle encounters another Problematic Prince ft. Dragons (and Mudcrabs)

Liselle’s encounters of Tamriel and Oblivion are detailed in mostly journals. ESO Main Questline, a couple Daggerfall Covenant Quests, Clockwork City, Original Plot: Coldfire Codex, Elsweyr, Mages’ Guild, Blackwood | Future Goals: High Isle and Necrom

Abnur Tharn x Vestige {F Breton}

Just a Ruin (and Mudcrab) Advocate | 158 Chapters | Journal Coldfire Codex Chap 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Rage of Dragons and the Vestige | 65 Chapters | Journal Mages’ Guild Fiasco: Journal of Vestige Liselle |  24 Chapters | Journal In Which Liselle’s Fist Lands upon Another’s Cheek | WIP | Journal

Blessings of the Moons

Finnki is the Thane of Whiterun. She takes frequent bounties to keep her life and mind busy. She comes across the scene of an ambush. There’s only one survivor. J'Med. He’s a Khajiit from far-off lands, traveling to Skyrim to shake off his past. Finnki helps J'Med with recovery and fitting into Skyrim. J'Med teaches Finnki about moving on and leaving one’s past.

OC {F Nord/Bosmer} x OC {M Khajiit}

Chapter 1 | 2 | WIP

Shadow of the Druadach

Tiernan is the Last Dragonborn. He is also a Reachman. He is a prickly man on his quest to save his world, despite the distrust and prejudice he faces on the daily. While he is looking for an Elder Scroll for Paarthurnax, he meets Rozelia Greensly. A master Mage at the College of Winterhold. She is very interested in the Reach and Reach magic. She joins Tiernan on his adventure, to his dismay. Perhaps the buds of friendship will bloom during their trip to find the Elder Scroll.

Last Dragonborn {M Reachfolk} x OC {F Breton}

Chapter 1 | WIP

[lumi-klovstad-games]

Saorlaith Clannmorna, The Lost Primarch of the Eleventh Legion and Warrior Queen of the Black Eagles

In the annals of Imperial History, there stand heroes greater than any other. These are the Primarchs, the Sons of the Emperor of Mankind, the patriarchs of the Twenty Legions of the Adeptus Astartes who united a frayed and divided galaxy in a long ago age when people still looked to the stars with hope... and the events of the Horus Heresy had not yet doomed the galaxy to darkness, suffering, and despair. But of these, only Eighteen are remembered: The Nine who Turned Traitor, and The Nine Who Remained, steadfast and loyal. Here then is a tale, a tale of the Eleventh Primarch, lost to history and imperial records. It is the tale of Saorlaith Clannmorna, Queen and Matriarch of the Black Eagles Legion.

Saorlaith was always an outlier. As the sole deliberate attempt by the Emperor to craft a female Primarch, it is unclear what he’d hoped to achieve, or what role Saorlaith would have been intended to serve in had events played out their planned course.

Such plans, clearly, were not to be.

Scattered like her brothers by the furious winds of Chaos, Saorlaith was deposited by chance or destiny upon a misty and mountainous world. It was a primitive world not unlike the forgotten highlands of the ancient British Isles of Holy Terra, green with moss and heather, black with stone, and grey with numerous lakes that stretched like battle scars across its face. These endless highlands were called Dún na Badb, a name which carried beneath it the world’s dark and violent history.

Saorlaith was found by a local woman, Morna. Enigmatic and feared, Morna was a Queen of a great and remote land, as well as a respected and wise priestess of the Old Deer God and The Horned Huntress. Morna had powerful sorcerous gifts, and used her fell gifts to ferret out secrets from her rivals, deliver sickness and bad luck to her enemies, or heal her friends, and her wrath was swift and fatal if crossed, with powerful armies that crushed her opposition. Yet the imposing woman genuinely loved Saorlaith, and doted on her as a daughter. She inculcated in the young Primarch the ways of blood and sorcery, and the thrill of battle. Saorlaith grew up with many visitors paying homage to her mother or seeking her advice, but few for long term company, leading to a brilliant yet aloof and suspicious young woman who found difficulty connecting with others, especially as few if any ever sought to truly gain her friendship rather than attempt to leverage her position and title in some way. She was always "the Princess" or "the Heirress", and never simply "Saorlaith" to most. Despite her loneliness, or indeed perhaps because of it, she quickly learned the ways of a Warrior Princess, bonding well with her instructors, from whom she knew and understood the social equation and status quo. Never did they seek to use her connections, or use her to worm their way into her mother's favor; they were invested in her advancement and survival, and she was invested in the skills they had to teach her. Progressing quickly, eventually supplanted her mother at the head of her kingdom's vast armies by the age of 16, though Morna remained a close advisor to her daughter long even after she eventually abdicated the throne in Saorlaith’s favor. 

It is said that the day before Saorlaith assumed the throne, she heeded her mother's wisdom and traveled alone into the misty crags and moors to seek the blessing of the old gods and their court. She traveled unarmed and undressed, wearing just a simple and undecorated gown, a mark of humility before the great powers whose favors she hoped to win.

During her wandering, Saorlaith came across a great and vast lake she had not seen before. Taking a moment to rest, she was engaged by a mysterious man and woman. The man was dressed in furs and moss, and his hat was rimmed with the teeth of mighty predators and crested with antlers from a mighty deer. The woman was clad in leather and hides, and a hauberk of green mail. Saorlaith spoke for some time with the travelers, who claimed to be acquainted with Morna. Upon learning that Saorlaith was Morna's daughter and heir, the two became delighted, and engaged the young princess all day and night with conversation and games of riddles and clever wit. As morning came, the travelers thanked Saorlaith for her hospitality, and the woman waded into the waters, and drew from them a mighty shimmering spear, Géar-Anail, the White Breath, bestowing it upon the princess as a coronation gift fit only for the true heir of Queen Morna. As the travelers passed back into the mist, Saorlaith could not help but feel as though perhaps she'd known them when she was very young. Taking her prize back to her home, she was crowned by her mother, and took her place as Queen of her mountain realm and commander of her army.

Saorlaith became known as “The Unbreakable”, as her campaigns claimed triumph after triumph, and though her skills as a strategist and tactician were certainly fitting for her labors when required, her victories came more from her wild and savage charges, overwhelming her enemies in a stampede of relentless violence in simple pursuit of glory and the win, pure battle and conquest for its own sake. Saorlaith was a warrior at heart. A capable queen, yes, but her heart ever longed for greater battlefields beyond. She ached for new battles, new foes, and greater glories. It was not in her restless nature to simply sit on what she had already accomplished, for she knew in her bones that it would be in that way that her victory itself would be the one to finally defeat her.

Having conquered her own world, Saorlaith grew despondent that such incredible success would be the end of her. There were no further gains to make, no great foes to keep herself sharp against. While Saorlaith reconstructed her newly unified planet into a mighty and glittering kingdom where the druidic sorcerous ways of her ancestors ran like blood through the lowest levels, upholding everything, she began to fear that her greatest triumphs might be behind her. All that lay before her had been conquered and reshaped. The occasional rebellion offered no challenge, no real chance to prove what else she might do.

One day, the magic whispered to Saorlaith that a stranger from afar would soon arrive, though her attempts to scry specifics went maddeningly unanswered. Whoever this stranger was, her blood raced at the thought of it. Some great warrior, perhaps? Some mighty challenge to overcome? Perhaps the Old Stag God had finally answered her prayers.

The day the Emperor came to Dún na Badb, Saorlaith was beside herself with anticipation, warmly welcoming the stranger and treating him to the finest hospitality of her people. She could tell at once that glory rode in this man’s wake, and that it was his destiny to show Saorlaith hers. She told him she would follow where he led, but formality required him to defeat her in the holy Carnfēth, the War Judgement – a sacred battle rite to determine leadership. As Queen, she would be shamed if she knelt before another warrior who had not defeated her in battle. Either the Emperor would defeat her in single combat without sorcery, or be denied his Primarch. The duel was the stuff of legend, and it is said to have lasted for nine days. Saorlaith was not the type to show quarter, and nor was the Emperor willing to relinquish his Eleventh to this backwater world. From the lowest valley to the highest peak, the two clashed, neither showing the slightest hint of false judgment or failed skill. Eventually, however, Saorlaith began to worry that the battle might have no end. Perhaps they were equally skilled, and the battle might last forever… neither fit to command or to be commanded, neither able to cow the other. In this moment, the battle was decided, for Saorlaith, distracted for the slightest measure, lost her footing and fell upon the sword she had given the Emperor. Yet Saorlaith was delighted – in having lost, she found renewed purpose. She had not finished her list of glories, and this loss symbolized that for her. The Emperor promised her an army unlike anything she had ever seen, and he promised her not simply a planet to conquer, but a galaxy in which to seek her glory. Saorlaith would never have refused such an offer.

During the ritual ceremony in which Saorlaith returned governorship of Dún na Badb to the Queen Mother Morna, the Emperor visibly recoiled, startled, in the Queen Mother’s presence as she caught his eye. It is not known why. The two leaders spoke no more with each other than the ceremony demanded, and the Emperor uncharacteristically left with barely-disguised haste, as though being in Morna’s mere presence was either panic or pain-inducing.

Returning to Holy Terra with the Eleventh Primarch, the Emperor was pleased to see her eagerness to take up the Great Crusade, and even more pleased to see that she had healed from her battle wound quickly. He judged, correctly, that she would indeed be a force to be reckoned with once paired with warriors who matched her skills and ferocity.

The Eleventh Legion, the Storm Sovereigns, was indeed a fine army as promised, but the largely Terran recruits disgusted Saorlaith. Clean-shaven Astarte warriors and standardized livery made them all look identical in the eyes of the Mountain Queen, and she immediately set about instilling her way and her image among her new army, just as she’d done at Dún na Badb. Her warriors would decorate their bronze-colored armor with personalized and intricate highland knotwork emblematic of her home world. Their hair and beards would be encouraged to grow wild, often being elaborately braided or otherwise decorated with feathers and beads. Before battle, they performed ritual war chants, songs, and dances, and decorated their flesh with blue paint. This was no mere physical affectation, but a vow to become as beasts who knew no retreat or surrender. The act of painting focused the Astarte’s resolve, steeling them for the blood and carnage to come. Further, like her brother Primarchs, she began to draw new recruits for the legion from her homeworld, filling its ranks with boisterous and passionate, but highly skilled, barbarian highland warriors she knew the measure of and trusted more than the "outsiders" she'd been saddled with. These warriors now had the technology and the means to follow their Queen to the cosmos, and to elevate their kind of warfare to a scale and level they had never previously dreamed possible, and the newly forged “Black Eagles” legion took wing to the stars, taking their appetites for blood and battle with them, ready to find glory and conquest wherever they landed.

The Black Eagles were much changed by Saorlaith’s leadership – she brought with her not just the battle traditions of her people, but also their sorcery. Those who she considered the most capable and trustworthy of her “Sons” were inducted into secret rites and taught a kind of magic that exposed weakness in the enemy, by revealing secrets or bringing flaws to the surface where they could do the most damage, in a way that simply appeared to be a horrific “run of bad luck” when it could be least afforded. The mystic chants of the highland marines’ sorcery and eerie bellowing of their animalistic war horns presaged doom to a thousand worlds that dared defy the Legion and the Great Crusade as their imminent assault would batter and break an enemy that was never as ready to face them as they might have believed or hoped.

Despite Saorlaith’s incredible battlefield successes, she found few friends among her Brothers. Angron was too much of a brute in her eyes; she was all for testing her mettle in battle and achieving glory, but Angron was simply about slaughter, like a rabid war dog Saorlaith would have happily put down herself had she been allowed to. Mortarion was perhaps her first real rival among the Primarchs, detesting her and her legion for their Druidic Craft, while Lorgar Aurelian saw in their rites and traditions the mark of heresy. Fulgrim she dismissed as a preening peacock too concerned with glamor to find true glory, Alpharius as a fool and a tryhard leader too clever for his own good by half, wasting his and the Imperium’s time on his overly complex schemes instead of simply winning when a simple win presented itself, and Pertuabo and Ferrus Manus confounded her with their hatred for weakness rather than their love of strength. Roboute Guilliman, Horus Lupercal, and Rogal Dorn all but outright hated her for her unwillingness to yield to their strategies and authority. Even Vulkan’s legendary patience and compassion met its limits with Saorlaith, who was far too independent to listen to his counsel. And in Sanguinius… Saorlaith saw something worrying. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but in Sanguinius she saw a lurking darkness that terrified her, and she avoided her angelic brother to no end. She made an effort to befriend fellow outsider Konrad Kurze, but his growing instability brought their friendship to an early end. Corvus Corax’s secrecy and tendency to favor subtler means, as well as his favoring of loyalty and obedience, grated on Saorlaith’s nerves. Jaghatai Khan rubbed her the wrong way, simply by being too much like her for them to have ever gotten along. While she didn’t dislike Magnus the Red, she felt his focus was too much on the mysterious and the ethereal, and the way he regarded her almost as a puzzle box to solve unnerved her. Ironically, Lion El Jonson, who had an upbringing relatively similar to hers, and in many ways might have been considered the other side of her coin, and therefore might have understood her better than any of the other Primarchs, held her in disdain for her “Barbarian ways” even if she secretly admired his results and composure. It was Leman Russ who was perhaps the most kindred of spirits, a true brother to her when all others grated, drifted, or avoided her. The Eagle and the Wolf, the Celt and the Viking, the Queen and the Chieftain, frequently fought alongside each other and for a time, they shared a close friendship, and the Black Eagles and Space Wolves accomplished great things together, but like all good things, this too was doomed to come to an end. Finally, Ailani, Saorlaith’s lone sister, and Primarch of the Imperial Hospitallers, never gave up hope on the wild warrior queen. Despite their frequent disagreements as Ailani’s peaceful healing ways clashed wildly with Saorlaith’s violent lust for conquest, Ailani was always there to listen to Saorlaith’s grievances and frustrations, and while they never saw eye to eye, the two sisters grew close as the Crusade went on.

However, the fate of the Eleventh Legion was already sealed, and they would not see the Horus Heresy play out. With her growing frustrations with her brothers gnawing at her, Saorlaith had become more headstrong and reckless than ever, and Leman Russ began to see her as a liability. Further, Russ began to question her loyalty, as, ever the soul of tact, Saorlaith bitterly complained of the Emperor's crackdowns on the Druidic Craft of her people and their worship of the Old Stag God. In her mind, this was not what she had signed up for. She had been promised glory for her and her people, not this... colonialist cultural censorship that threatened to eradicate keystones of her culture and heritage. As the Emperor began to make increasing strides towards banishing religion and sorcery from the Imperium, Saorlaith chafed more and more, becoming bitter and paranoid towards her brothers. She knew they disliked and even mistrusted her, and some like Mortarion and Alpharius were already claiming they could handle her campaigns more effectively than she could. Saorlaith deigned to let them try.

As Saorlaith and the Black Eagles outright began to refuse orders in pursuit of chasing their own glory independently, Leman's already waning patience wore out, and he brought his case to the Emperor, who advised the Sixth Primarch to “chastise” his sister and her legion. Unfortunately, by this time, Ailani had already begun conspiring with her sister to leave the Imperium entirely with their respective legions and peoples, with a dream to establishing their own free realm in the wilds of space, far apart from an Imperium both had gradually become increasingly disillusioned with. The gentle Ailani's blood boiled at the Emperor's treatment of her; she had never particularly willingly agreed to his Crusade, and for hundreds of years he had taken her home world hostage to ensure her continued compliance. Seeing in her so-perfectly opposite sister such incredible similarity, the two had plotted to desert. Let the Emperor have his Grand Vision. In some back corner of the universe, the two sisters would have theirs: a place where they and their people could live free from the Emperor's tyranny. Saorlaith began pulling her veteran warriors from the lines and assembling a small but elite force meant to safeguard and evacuate Dún na Badb. These were marines recruited from the planet, who had ties and roots and loyalties there. Her Terran recruited marine veterans remained on the front lines, mentoring the youngest and least experienced Marines to allay suspicion that her dedication to the cause might be lacking until she had already left. Let those wayward sons of hers know nothing of her plot, that way they might be kept safe, or as safe as possible, from the consequences of her decisions. Perhaps there would even be room for reconciliation in the future, should the winds of destiny blow in that direction.

However, upon returning home to Dún na Badb to evacuate it, Saorlaith was shocked and angered to find the Space Wolves already assembled there, with Leman Russ at the head of his force to deal with Saorlaith in person. Her heart sank, and her anger soared, as she assumed Leman Russ had already discovered her plot to desert. In fact, he had not, and he had simply been hoping to resolve what to him was a disciplinary matter that had far exceeded an allowable scale. Two clashing sets of intentions and views of reality among leaders neither of which being particularly known for diplomatic restraint is seldom a pleasant matter, and it was not long before an unforgivable mistake was made. Who fired first is both unknown and unimportant, but it was held that the battle was titanic; indeed, it was the most ferocious either the Sixth or the Eleventh legions had ever partaken in, for no Space Marine had ever faced a threat quite like another Space Marine. Yet for all the battle’s horror, it was ultimately mere prelude to the nightmares of the Horus Heresy to come. It is generally held that the Space Wolves emerged victorious. To her own shock, Saorlaith lost a second time, this time to Leman Russ, who gravely wounded her in single combat, though he was either unwilling or unable to complete the kill. Arriving in the Primarch's greatest moment of need was Medrawt, the feared First Captain of the Black Eagles, and her mightiest and most favored champion. Medrawt was a peerless warrior in the legion, long rumored to be the Primarch's biological son. Whatever the case he was among the first to be recruited to the Legion at Dún na Badb, and it was also at Dún na Badb that evidence suggests Medrawt proved his mettle and did the impossible by managing to distract and hold off Leman Russ long enough to facilitate Saorlaith's retreat from the battlefield, and then retreat in turn. Despite her escape with Medrawt and a host of survivors, her legion’s numbers were significantly culled in the battle. Three out of five Black Eagles who took part in the battle perished, crippling the Legion, and the novice Black Eagles and Terran veterans carrying the Legion's part of the Great Crusade elsewhere in the galaxy with no knowledge of the betrayal were no safer, being swiftly turned on by their supposed allies and eradicated without ever receiving an explanation why.

While Leman Russ and his legion purged Dún na Badb, he was puzzled to find Morna, the Queen Mother, completely absent. Reporting his findings to the Emperor, the Emperor showed a rare and fleeting moment of genuine fear upon hearing that the Old Crone Queen had vanished. But, this soon vanished, as, coupled with his rage at Ailani’s much more successful rebellion and rout of the World Eaters, in part due to the survivors of the battle of Dún na Badb arriving to assist in the evacuation of Ailani’s homeworld of Takiko, the Emperor turned his formidable psychic prowess to burning the errant women from history, along with their traitorous sons. The two had dared defy him. They had made a mockery of his power and authority. Their rebellion and flight from the Imperium threatened to undermine all he hoped to build by showing that ways other than Imperial Unity might be viable. It could not stand. It would not. Even Leman Russ, who personally fought his sister at the climax of the battle, forgot her in an instant. The records were purged. The monuments were destroyed. The Second and Eleventh Legions’ victories were “assigned” to other legions. All evidence of them was destroyed, except for the hole they left behind.

It is no wonder that the Eleventh Legion and their Primarch failed to aid Terra during the Horus Heresy. Of course, they had fled so far it would be ages, thousands of years, even, before they learned of the Heresy. Saorlaith’s feelings on the matter are unknown, but most assuredly complicated as she weeps for her lost people and quintimated sons.

Among those who are able to intuit the existence of the old Second and Eleventh Legions, and their Primarchs, doubtless a sense of wonder must set in.

What must have happened, that nobody can remember their names, their faces, or their deeds? Could it have been even worse than the Horus Heresy? Obviously it must have been, for the Traitor Primarch’s names are still remembered and the Second and Eleventh have been totally buried and forgotten.

Do these Primarchs live still? Do they regret their rebellion and treason? And perhaps… might they one day return? Surely if Guilliman and Jonson have returned in the Imperium’s darkest hours… all things must be possible. What redemption might lie ahead for Saorlaith Clannmorna of Dún na Badb, the Weeping Eleventh?

[quiiettreason]

𖤓 𝓓awn & 𝓓evastation

━━━  part 001. exile

summary — Nikolai Lantsov is saved from drowning and saves his savior from a hungry kelpie.

word count: 1.8k words

warnings — fem!oc ( i know, i’m sorry), death and descriptions of how people died, discussion of su*cide, some (soft) horror elements, blood/gore, book-canon typical violence, mentions of cruelty toward women and faeries, discussion and descriptions of war, trauma so much trauma, and the stages of grief. some pre-canon (book and show), but ends in season two.

good shit — kinda enemies to lovers and fae lore (and lore about Ravka that I made up).

anna’s annotations — there is a prequel to this fic. it's on wattpad, but i'm kinda getting sick of it there. it is linked in the masterlist.

Eulalie wondered if this was how her mother felt when she fled Ravka after the assassinations. Freedom. Anger. Depression. Guilt. 

Eulalie earned her first scars from ripping herself from the enslaved sirens in the fairy caves. Their too-sharp nails had dug into her skin and tore at her unblemished skin. She’d swam for her life through tight tunnels leading out to the sea between the Wandering Isle and Novyi Zem where frigid cold waters met pleasant warm ones. After days of kicking to shore, using a piece of driftwood to help her head above water, Eulalie crawled onto the sandy beach of a Zemini port town called Weddle. 

Exhausted, Eulalie had flopped her arm over her eyes, trying to catch her breath. Well, until a Zemini man started shouting at her in his native language of which Eulalie didn’t know any of. This was definitely how her mother felt. Alone in a foreign country where she didn’t know the language, the customs, or the laws. The only difference was Eulalie was surrounded by humans—some who could be Grisha, or zowa, as the Zemini called them. Blessed. 

The blessed people were the reason faeries fled Ravka to neighboring countries or even crossed oceans to avoid dying terrible deaths. Eulalie’s mother had warned them about venturing outside the Isle, and now Eulalie was paying the price. Maybe, just maybe, her mother had been right. 

But now, there was no going back. 

Eulalie tried not to think about Cecily. It hurt too much to relive her younger sister’s screams as she was pulled down to the bottom of the caves.

The Zemini man neared her, so Eulalie did the only thing she could think of—run. She didn’t know how far away from Weddle when she finally stopped. Eulalie was breathless, hungry, thirsty, and tired. She dragged herself into another port town miles away from Weddle, away from the Wandering Isle. Maybe whatever uncomfortable bed Eulalie crawled into caused the nightmares, but it didn’t seem to matter. She couldn’t escape it. He haunted her hellish dreamscape like a phantom. Not Killian. If only he did. 

Kaz Brekker. 

Even though it was her fault, Eulalie hoped that he could hear her sisters’ screams. Kaz was probably incapable of feeling guilty for what he did, but Eulalie still wanted it to hurt him as much as it did to her. Maybe he did. Eulalie couldn’t shake away the fleeting feeling of relief when she’d seen Kaz during the fire. He would have helped her rescue Pollyanna and killed Dara for her, wouldn’t he?

Was it all a lie?

Kaz had let her run back into her burning home to get Polly, and Eulalie had been the one to kill Dara. Eulalie had heard whisperings that there wasn’t a sin Kaz Brekker wouldn’t commit if the price was right. She supposed the price was her reputation and the sin was false hope that not all humans were vile creatures. Eulalie couldn’t even be angry at him—she had been the one to bring him to Hiraeth, and conning was Kaz’s specialty. Still, she wanted to scream at him and beat him until he was nothing more than a mural of blues, blacks, and purples. 

Instead, Eulalie spent the remainder of the winter and entire spring working in a library where she spent her days shelving books, organizing maps, and lying low. The two ladies she worked with befriended her—now, since Rhiannon died, Eulalie had someone to share her love for poetry with. What’s more, they didn’t seem to care that she was fae. But it all felt too good to be true, so she took on her sister’s name. 

“Just Maeve,” she’d tell people who asked. 

Summer thunderstorms were relentless in Novyi Zem. Eulalie's soaked hair clung to the skin on her face and dripped down her back as she hurried through the port town's harbor. Shriftport was bustling with varieties of people, but if they had one thing in common among their differences, everyone was human. It seemed that Eulalie kept learning the most roughly in the last eight months that no one could be trusted, especially not in a town scattered with Ravkan refugees. Thunder cracked above the rooftops, followed by a bright flash of lightning. Eulalie flinched from the sound, nearly dropping the crate of ruined parchment. She needed to find somewhere dry to put the crate and get out of the storm that chilled her to the bone. Eulalie looked out over the harbor. Swells of seawater were barreling toward two ships just off the shore. Pirates. It was one thing to raid another ship so close to shore; it was another so close to a well-established harbor. Eulalie fidgeted with her gilded anchor necklace she’d stolen from Rhiannon’s jewelry box before she disappeared forever. It was the only thing she had from home. An emblem that was probably cursed or haunted, but then again, Eulalie was already both of those things. At some point, Eulalie must have put down the crate because suddenly, she was empty-handed and heading towards the piers and the angry ocean that dangerously bobbed the docked dinghies and ships. She wasn’t alone. Others amassed on the boardwalk to watch the raid. Free entertainment, but Eulalie was genuinely concerned, and for good reason. Eulalie watched one of the ships tip to one side, and a person either fell into the watery depths or maybe was thrown. She heard some gasps from behind her, and she sprung off the creaking pier, diving head-first into the turbulent sea. Eulalie ducked under the swells, trying not to drink in the briny water. Her eyes and nostrils stung as she finally approached the ships. Eulalie gasped and searched the depths around where she’d sworn someone had fallen. She ducked under the water and found him unconscious under the surface. Eulalie dove down to the man, hooked her arms under his, and kicked for both their lives to the surface. 

It was a struggle to keep both their heads above the uneven surges that crashed into them and tried to pull Eulalie under. She took in mouthfuls of ocean water, burning her throat worse than the Kaelish whiskey at the Mumming Ball. Eulalie adjusted her grip on the man, his tacky clothes weighing them both down as the push of an undercurrent led them away from Shriftport to a rocky shore. She tried to listen for a sign of life. He wasn’t breathing, but his pulse was trying to compensate for the lack of oxygen. Eulalie hoisted herself higher and tilted his head back enough for her to open his airway. She’d learned from Mr. Lynch how to recusitate someone in the water after Saoirse almost drowned the summer after Maeve went missing.

Eulalie was grateful they were nearing the rocky beach—performing mouth-to-mouth was much easier on solid ground. She took a breath and crashed her mouth against the man’s, forcing air into his lungs. Then, she pulled back, catching her breath before repeating the action until they reached shore. Eulalie used all her strength to drag the man onto the beach but only halfway, saving the rest of her energy for reviving this bastard. She knelt beside him and hovered her hands over his chest, chewing the inside of her lip as she thought of how this would work. 

Just imagine the water flowing out of his body, her mother’s voice rang in her head. 

It sounded easier than it was. Carefully, Eulalie felt the water gurgling in the man’s lungs and moved the flow out through his throat. Then, urgently, she rolled the man onto his side so he wouldn’t choke on the fluids she was trying to expel from his lungs. The man sputtered and vomited the seawater onto the sand beside him. Relieved and a little satisfied with her work, Eulalie sat back on her heels, taking in the moment of peace. 

Which, like all things good, was fleeting. 

Something in the water stirred, and Eulalie felt the air chill, sending prickles over her damp skin. She didn’t want to look as if she already knew, but it couldn’t be. Right? Still, Eulalie dared to rake her gaze over to the creature standing in the shallow waves. A gray horse with sunken black eyes covered in dark green kelp stared Eulalie down like it knew what she was. But it seemed more interested in the human boy she had rescued. 

Kelpie.

Rumored to only inhabit lakes and rivers. Eulalie had been told that she was safe from them as they never came near saltwater or other fae, much less higher fae. She knew she could not just stay frozen on the sand like a coward. No, Eulalie could beat the kelpie. She was sure of it. 

Slowly, Eulalie rose to her feet, but the man on the sand stirred awake. He grumbled something in what she presumed was Ravkan. Eulalie’s heart thumped louder now. She dug her wet boot into the handsome man’s chest. 

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t feed you to that kelpie, Ravka,” Eulalie said to the man in modern Kaelish, hoping he understood. 

He did and wheezed. “Kelpie?”

The kelpie stamped its hooves into the water, splashing Eulalie and the Ravkan man. It neared them and snorted as if challenging Eulalie to choose an enemy. Whose side are you on?

She looked down at the man—he was a boy, really. He couldn’t have been older than early twenties, and probably not older than Eulalie. She reluctantly took her foot off the boy’s chest and faced the kelpie. 

“Saints, that really is a kelpie,” the boy rasped weakly as he tried to prop himself on his elbows. 

In an instant, the kelpie lunged at Eulalie, and she did the only thing she could think of, which was use the ocean to defend her and the Ravkan boy. Once he realized what was happening, he scrambled further onto the shore. It was at that moment that Eulalie felt like a total idiot, trying to fight off a particularly hungry kelpie by herself. Her spine cracked into a large black rock covered in barnacles. Eulalie’s eyes widened, and her arm came up to cover her face. 

The kelpie’s jaws unhinged, revealing a set of sharp, jagged teeth that sunk into her skin. Crimson beads oozed from the punctures and rolled down her arm. Eulalie tore her arm away, but that only made it worse. Instead of a regular bite mark, there were deep lacerations. 

The kelpie lunged again, grabbing hold of the same arm and dragging Eulalie into the watery deep. Her head plunged under the surface. This was it. The brutal death Eulalie always knew she would have. The kelpie bit into her stomach, then her legs. She couldn’t tell what the kelpie’s strategy was. Maybe it was to make her bleed out. Eulalie thrashed in the water, the salt stinging her already excruciating wounds. The pain was clouding her mind and couldn’t stop her from gulping down more seawater until she passed out from blood loss.

part 002!

[fictionkinfessions]

(victor frankenstein kinnie) i had a really weird dream where i organised a reconciliation meeting with the creature in a shed near the alps. i had an apology script and kept fumbling it and everything, it was incredibly awkward. but then two other creatures showed up from "different adaptations" and had different art styles and everything. when i saw the other two i was like "ah god. look its one thing when i see my creature but i feel really bad dealing with another two" a bunch of random dream nonsense happened, and then i ended up lost on the shores of the orkney isles. i was looking for my family and mary shelley and ...also wednesday addams? was there. and they couldnt help. after wandering for a bit i could see the three creatures wading out of the water to me and i went "ohh, i see. you guys are my family. i get it now :]" and then i hugged them, they started crying because they havent recieved affection ever. it was like an otherworldly renaissance painting. a blurry cloud manifesting in the shape of satan came down and blessed me saying "the curse is now lifted..." and i woke up drenched in sweat. erm. melatonin am i right

s

[lonesome-witching]

A Play in Three Acts

This might have been the most ambitious prompt I've gotten so far. Which is why this is quite long. Shockingly long actually. And I even tried to shorten it. Thank you for the prompt @allnewtpir. Hope this fits with what you had in mind.

You can send me prompts or find the previous ones right here.

Robin’s mom had often described her love story as a play in three acts. It was a story Robin had grown sick of. As a child she had hoped she’d be granted the same type of love story. But that was before her mother had started to sound like a broken record and long before Robin realized she’d never be granted that same fairytale. Because Robin wasn’t like her mother, she wasn’t like most girls. And while some saw that as a blessing, Robin knew it as a curse. So, she’d bury that stupid play in three acts into the depths of her memory and hoped it would fade away.

But it never did. She could still recount the three acts and how they were supposed to unfold. 

Act I

The first meeting 

The first time Robin met Nancy wasn’t really the first time they met. Their real first time meeting was in kindergarten when each of the children in the circle had been forced to state their name as they were introduced to each other. Nancy had been sitting neatly on her chair, her hands clasped in her lap and Robin had thought she looked so mature. She herself had sat with one leg pulled up on her chair and hugging her knee, a habit she still hadn’t gotten rid off. 

But it wasn’t about that first meeting. It was about the first time they really met, the first time they actually spoke to each other, the moment they went from strangers to acquaintances. 

That happened at the beginning of Christmas break 1984. Robin had been in no mood to leave the house, the cold kept biting into her skin whenever she so much as opened a window. But despite the fact her winter coat had torn at the seams, her parents thought it was a great idea for Robin to walk to the grocery store for some last minute shopping. Very last minute, seeing as her extended family was already on the way to Hawkins. 

So, Robin found herself wandering around the endless isles of chips and drinks and candies. She was searching for orange juice when she noticed her. Standing in front of the fridge filled with different brands of orange juice and sodas stood Nancy Wheeler, eyes glazed over, staring at something beyond the glass. 

“Are you alright?” Robin approached cautiously, keeping her voice low and kind. She never liked being pulled out of her own concentration and she probably wouldn’t have even said anything if she didn’t need the access to that particular fridge. 

Nancy jumped back, her eyes now directed at Robin. She wasn’t sure whether she should be grateful or ashamed to have Nancy’s attention. 

“Huh?” Nancy frowned and Robin thought she might have been crying. 

“Are you alright?” Robin repeated, just as soft as before. 

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” 

She didn’t look fine. “Are you sure? Because I’m not. My partners are being… they’re acting like they know how they’re supposed to act but all it’s doing is making me do stuff I don’t want to do. Like I didn’t even want to leave the house today and I begged them to not invite my drunk aunt over for Christmas but mother knows best, you know? She does whatever she likes and then pretends it’s for my own good.” Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Why was she still talking? 

“Who are you?” Nancy asked and somehow Robin sensed that Nancy was wondering the same thing, why was she still talking to her? 

“Robin. Robin Buckley. We have chemistry. The class. We have chemistry class together at school. Hawkins High.” She refrained herself from adding Go, Tigers to her speech. 

“Right.” 

“Sorry, you probably have your own holidays to get to, let me just…” She pointed her thumb toward the fridge and Nancy stepped aside. 

Robin looked at the different selection of bottles. She wasn’t sure which one her cousins would prefer. At least she assumed she was buying it for the minors and not for some type of special cocktail her mom was thinking up. Those never tasted good. She noticed a bottle that looked somewhat familiar, maybe a brand her parents had bought her when she was a kid. Her hands grabbed it, all under the watchful eye of Nancy Wheeler. 

She knew Nancy was still watching her, could feel those blue eyes staring holes in the side of her face, which is exactly why she continued staring at the bottle she now held in her hands. 

“Robin?” Something had changed in Nancy’s voice and Robin wanted to learn what it was. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you have anywhere to be right now?” 

Act II

Strangers to friends

Everything had changed after that first meeting. When school started up in January, Nancy sought her out. Third period on Monday, Nancy dropped down in the seat next to Robin for their shared chemistry class with a shy smile. Robin’s own smile bright enough to light up the Christmas tree her parents forgot to take down. 

“Is this okay?” Nancy had asked. 

“Of course, this is great.” Robin replied and maybe she shouldn’t have sounded so eager. But her words eased the tension in Nancy’s shoulders and she really couldn’t regret anything that had that effect. 

So, they sat together during chemistry. And then they started sitting together during lunch twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays, the two lunches Nancy’s boyfriend spent in the darkroom to develop pictures. And then they started sitting together during lunch all the time. Even when Jonathan sat next to her, Nancy’s attention wouldn’t waver from Robin. And then they started calling each other, late at night. 

It was during those calls that Robin really got to know Nancy. Somehow the distance between them made it easier for Nancy to open up. Robin learned that Nancy wanted to become a journalist, that she’d always loved writing in any capacity but that with age and experience she had gotten addicted to diving into mysteries and unraveling them for all to see. Robin had wanted to ask about this experience but she had bitten her tongue. 

She learned that Nancy didn’t like the cold. And the way she had said it made Robin wonder if there was a reason for it. 

She learned that Barb hadn’t run away. The night they had that conversation they both ended up crying on the phone until they fell asleep. According to Nancy, Barb had gotten into an accident. She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Robin didn’t want to accept this answer but she didn’t really have a choice. 

She learned that Nancy was determined and stubborn and smart. She learned that Nancy didn’t see herself that same way. She learned that maybe deep down she was falling in love with Nancy. 

And then summer approached and Nancy got a wonderful internship at the Hawkins Post, she had been ecstatic when she called Robin to tell her the good news, and Robin… Well, Robin had applied to every single store that had opened at the mall and had only gotten a chance from Scoops Ahoy. It hadn’t been her first choice, or her second or third, but it was a job and she needed the money. 

Nancy had been sitting on the Buckley couch when Robin had gotten the call. Nancy had seen the way Robin wasn’t all that excited for her own summer endeavors. And Nancy had tried to cheer her up instantly. 

And Robin had appreciated it. 

It was only when she learned that Nancy had gotten Jonathan a spot at the paper that something started to burn in her chest. It hadn’t helped that she had been informed of that on the same day Steve Harrington was hired at Scoops Ahoy. She’d be spending her summer with her nemesis while Nancy and Jonathan got to live out their dream, and it stung a little. 

It stung a little less when Nancy came into Scoops Ahoy on her days off. Always right around Robin’s lunch break. Always ordering a different flavor and tipping royally. Always wearing a skirt. 

“And I know I shouldn’t care what they think but it’s too much for me to take at this point. It’s humiliating.” Nancy pushed a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. 

“Who said you shouldn’t care?” Robin frowned at her lunch, no ice cream for her, she’d gotten sick of the treat after two weeks. 

“Jonathan. He said I shouldn’t care because they don’t know what they’re talking about but-”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care. I mean yeah, fuck these man for talking shit about you. You are better than them. But that doesn’t mean they should just get away with it. You’re brilliant and they should regret ever saying otherwise.” 

Maybe that had been a bit too much. There would come a moment when Nancy saw right through her and maybe that would be now. Because Nancy was looking at her with her mouth slightly agape, the spoon still resting on her tongue and her eyes wide. 

“Thank you. I think I really needed to hear that. Jonathan keeps telling me to suck it up because it’s such an amazing experience but I can’t just sit still and look pretty and do nothing.” 

Okay maybe Robin got away with it this time. 

“Don’t suck it up, Nance. Stand up for yourself. If you think there is potential in this article then write it and please, Nance, don’t give up. If Jonathan won’t stand by your side, I will.”

Nancy smiled. “Enough about me, tell me about your week. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.” 

So Robin did. “Somehow Steve is getting worse at flirting and I didn’t know that was possible. I still can’t believe he got you to date him.” 

“He was different in high school, you know that.” 

“Was he really that different?” 

“I guess so.” 

And maybe it was wishful thinking but there almost seemed to be a new glint, a new spark, in Nancy’s eyes. 

Act III

Love confessions

“Have you ever been in love?” Robin wasn’t sure where the words came from. Maybe because in the back of her mind a soft voice kept chanting Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. 

“Yep, Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year.” Steve followed the words with a sound that must be mimicking a gun. And Robin felt her own heart break. 

Somehow she and Steve had become friends. Through the translations and the scheming and the Russian layer with its doctors and drugs, it really wasn’t that hard to bond. 

“Oh my God, she’s such a priss.” And maybe the truth serum was wearing off because she didn’t really mean that. Nancy was more than a priss. 

“Turns out, not really.” 

Robin wanted to know more. But her own envy got in the way. She couldn’t bear to hear of all that Steve and Nancy had gotten up to. 

“Are you still in love with Nancy?” 

Please say no, please say no, please for the love of God say no. 

“No.” 

Oh thank God.

“Why not?” How could anyone not be in love with Nancy Wheeler? 

“I think it’s because I found someone who’s a little bit better for me.” What? “It’s crazy. Ever since Dustin got home, he’s been saying ‘you know you gotta find your Suzie, you gotta find your Suzie’-“

“Wait, who’s Suzie?” Robin interrupted.

“It’s some girl from camp, I guess his girlfriend. To be honest with you, I’m not 100% sure she’s even real. But that’s not- that’s not really the point. That doesn’t matter. The point is there is this girl, you know, the one that I like, it’s somebody that I… didn’t even talk to in school.” 

Oh God no, don’t say that. Robin exhaled, feeling this anxious tension crawl up her body. 

“And I don’t even know why. Maybe cause Tommy H. would���ve made fun of me or… I wouldn’t be… prom king. It’s stupid, I mean, Dustin’s right, it’s all just a bunch of bullshit anyway. Because when I think about it I should’ve been hanging out with this girl the whole time. First of all, she’s hilarious. She’s so funny. I feel like this summer I have laughed harder than I have laughed… in a really long time.”

Robin couldn’t help but smile a little. She did like Steve. She liked Steve a lot. Just not like this. She had finally found her people. Nancy and Steve. And yet she had fallen in love with the first one and was about to be forced to reject the other. Life wasn’t fair. 

“And she’s smart. Way smarter than me. You know, she can crack, like, top secret Russian codes and… you know? She’s honestly unlike anyone I’ve ever even met before.” 

Goddamit Steve! Why? 

Robin put her head in between her knees. She was going to throw up. 

“Robin?” Steve knocked on the wooden stall. Robin looked up, but Steve couldn’t see that. He couldn’t see the uncomfortable smile on her face. “Robin, did you just OD in there?”

“No.” Robin sighed heavily. “I… am still alive.” Unfortunately. She took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. 

And then Steve was sliding under the stall toward her. 

“The floor is disgusting.” Robin said, more out of instinct than anything else. She’d never been good at keeping her mouth shut. 

“Yeah, well, I already got a bunch of blood and puke on my shirt, so… What do you think?” 

“About?”

“This girl.”

“She sounds awesome.” 

“She is awesome. And what about the guy?” 

“I think he’s on drugs, and he’s not thinking straight.” 

“Really? Cause I think he’s thinking a lot more clearly than usual.” 

“He’s not.” Robin prided herself on her stern gaze. “Look… he doesn’t even know this girl. And if he did know her, like- like really know her, I don’t think he’d even want to be her friend.” Was she actually doing this? Was she actually about to confess her biggest secret to Steve Harrington in the dirty Starcourt mall bathroom. 

“No, that’s not true. No way is that true.” Steve leaned forward. 

“Listen to me, Steve. It’s shocked me to my core but I like you. I really like you. But I’m not like your other friends.” 

“Robin, that’s exactly why I like you.” 

Oh God, she was actually going to do this. “Steve, earlier when I talked about being jealous and, like, obsessed, it wasn’t because I had a crush on you. It’s because you got to kiss her.” 

“Who?” 

“Nancy Wheeler. You got to kiss her and hold her and you got to call her yours. And all I can do is be her friend and endure the lengthy conversations about her boyfriend just so she’ll look at me. Because it might be torture to hear about Jonathan or about what things were like with you, but it is worth it for that smile on her face and that spark in her eyes. I’d give everything for her to feel that way about me.” 

“What?” The door to the bathroom fell shut. Steve and Robin turned their heads towards the intrusion. There stood Nancy Wheeler for once sporting a pair of high waisted pants and a black and red striped shirt. 

“Nancy?” Robin exhaled the name. “I can explain.” 

“Okay.” Nancy stood there blinking at her and Robin wasn’t sure she could explain, her mind was still fuzzy. 

“What are you doing here?” She said instead and maybe she should have started with that question. She crawled to her feet. 

“Dustin, he radioed. He was worried. I rushed over as soon as I could. Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, just injected with truth serum.” Robin chuckled uncomfortably.

“Is that why you said… what you said?” 

Robin wasn’t sure what to reply. She wasn’t even sure that was why she had said it. Indirectly it surely had been the cause. So, for perhaps the first time in her life, Robin said nothing. 

“Robin, do you like me?” Nancy took a careful step forward. 

“Of course I like you, we’re friends. I like my friends, everyone likes their friends.” She quickly looked at Steve but saw nothing but confusion on his face. 

“That’s not what I meant.” Another step. 

“Oh.” 

“Robin, do you like me?” Nancy repeated, slowly closing the distance between them. 

Her mouth felt dry, like she had been roaming the desert instead of a Russian layer under the local mall. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t get a word out. With a resigned sigh she nodded her head. 

“Oh God.” Nancy exhaled as if she had been holding her breath. “That’s good. That is so good.” She laughed softly. 

“It is?” Robin croaked out. 

“I thought… I thought I was imagining things. That you were just being nice when you complimented me and made grand speeches but now I know I wasn’t going crazy.” 

“You weren’t.” 

“I like you too, Robin.” 

“You what?” Robin nearly shouted the words. There was no way. Nancy must have misunderstood her. 

“I like you. You listen and you always know what to say. You know a little bit about everything, you’re so smart. You’re so beautiful. How could I not like you?” Nancy was standing close now, very close. 

“But you’re Nancy Wheeler?” 

“I am.” 

“What about Jonathan?” 

“We broke up. He didn’t understand me. Not like you do.” Nancy was staring up at her through her lashes. And then she was leaning in, closing the last bit of distance between them and pressing her lips against Robin’s in a featherlight kiss. 

“Oh my God, I’m never going to hear the end of this.” Steve groaned. 

“What?” Robin had almost forgotten he was there. 

“I’ve been flirting with girls all summer and they’ve all turned me down. You flirt with one girl and she ends up kissing you. We both know you are never shutting up about this, Robin.” 

Nancy laughed as she intertwined their hands.

[fairy-verse]

I don't know if my inbox just straight up ate this ask, or if I accidentally deleted it, but luckily I'm smart and save all the questions in a word document when I answer them, so hah! I still got it.

If you want more in-depth descriptions of the different races, then please send individual asks for them.

evethepoptwist asked:

What do season fairies work for like what do they harvesting for, what do they make for their own little inventions and crafts, or how do they take care of animals by their own ways, depending on each seasons other than singing, dancing, laughter, etc. And can you tell us more about trolls, flower people, and mushroom people, and what do they do for the living? Since we barely know these guys other than talking so much about season fairies and the big folks

It is important to remember that the fairies mostly just create and work for the fun of it. Once they’ve made anything they require to survive for the seasons they do not belong to, then they’re free to just craft and create things that they love. They will harvest whatever food they can find within their respective season, and oftentimes trade with each other should they desire anything that belongs to the other seasons.

The animals care for themselves, but some fairies will take extra care in aiding them through life to ensure their survival, though it all depends on how much they love said animal. Most of the time, they will simply flutter around them and bring them as much luck as possible. Fairies possess an extra amount of luck compared to other beings, after all!

The trolls are night-dwelling creatures that hide in caves, holes, and makeshift homes that they create out of fallen trees, moss, sticks, and mud. Sunlight will turn them to stone, which is a painful process that cannot be undone. They prefer deer, moose, and rabbits as food, but have acquired a taste for humans, too. Fairies are mostly seen as tasty sweets to them. They have been known to create clothes and weapons, and they can speak to each other, though this is through grunts and growls. Most of the time, they fight amongst themselves and prefer solitude to companionship.

The flower people were born from the magic of the Luna tree on the Isle of Luna, and from said tree, they are granted immortality. They rarely leave the island, as what often happens to those that do so, is that they fall in love and will inevitably be cursed with heartache for eternity. They are the same size as fairies, and legend has it that they’re all blessed with the ability to communicate and manipulate the nature around them. No one fully knows what they do on the island, as no one has been able to cross the mist surrounding it.

The mushroom people are essentially just mushrooms with stumpy legs and arms that wander the forest floors. They will squeak, though no one yet knows if this is a form of communication or not. Sometimes, they may sit for hours and days without doing anything. They are popular pets among the fairies, especially the spring and autumn fairies.

There are also:

The Stonemen will appear as boulders, rubble, and mountains when asleep. The sleeping sisters are believed to be Stonemen who fell into a deep slumber many hundred years ago, and some think they will cause havoc once they awake again. This theory hasn’t yet been confirmed. Stonemen in general are peaceful and stationary, though when awake, they have been observed to find pleasure in watching fairies play together.

The small people/monsters look just like the big folk, only the size of fairies. They live in holed out trees and tiny houses on the forest floor. There are not that many of them on Fairy Island, as they’re not native there. They’ll live simple lives, preparing for winter, sewing clothes, creating fun projects they can play with, and sometimes even trading with fairies.

Gnomes are odd winter creatures that have their eyes hidden by pointy hats in the colour of either, red, blue, or green. They live in holes in the ground, though said homes look very cozy, often with a fireplace, a place for a kitchen, a big bed for the whole family, and such. They only come out once the snow lays thickly on the ground, and then they’ll collect sticks, frozen berries, and other trinkets they can find on the ground. Very little is known about them, though they’ll sometimes trade with the winter fairies.

Monster fairies can often be found close to Big Folk villages, and sometimes even in them. They like to settle within their attics for warmth, though there are still those who prefer to live in the forest away from them. Most can be found in Willoway Forest, though there are those who live in the Singing and Kval hills. They often steal food and clothes from the Big Folk. These fairies are the ones that look like variants of Papyrus, Toriel, Asgore, Temmie, esc…

Human fairies/Fae are in small numbers and can only be found within Ink’s domain, as he is the father of their race. They have blacked-out eyes and silvery blue wings, and they should never, under any circumstance, be trusted to make a deal with. Luckily, it’s difficult and extremely rare to ever meet with any of them.

[princess-ibri]

Sorry it's taken so long to do another Disney Parent Backstory. Took a while to get back in the mood, but here we go:

Cinderella 's Parents

Her mother was a woman named Margaret, and her father was Lord Augustin Tremaine (I'm going off an older Disney book where Tremaine was Cinderella's family name, not originally the Stepmother's).

Margaret worked as a lady's companion for a noblewoman who Augustin's extended family wanted him to marry (he was an orphan by then), and so the two saw each other frequently whenever there was a social event 

Augustin found himself more and more drawn to the charming and kind Margaret over his intended, and she found herself drawn to him as well

Eventually Augustin announced his love for her, and his intention to marry Margaret instead of the noblewoman chosen by his parents

This was of course something of a scandal among the gentry, and Augustin's family cut him off for it, but he had his own fortune and title and most importantly his True Love, so they lived quite happily for many years

At some point Margaret did a kindness for a fairy in disguise, who in turn promised her a boon. Margaret asked only that the child she was expecting would be watched over and aided if she was ever in great need, as neither she nor Augustin had family willing to care for the child if anything should happen to them

The pair began  calling their daughter "Cinder-Ella" after a memorable occasion when she wandered off and was found asleep by the kitchen fire (thankfully long died down) with her face all smudged and the name stuck 

Unfortunately, Margaret died when her daughter was only four years old, and Augustin died four years later, after an ill advised second marriage to the widowed wife of an old childhood friend… 

Prince Charming's Parents

Young King Maximilian fell in love with Lady Constantina at first sight, the very day they were introduced as young royals at a diplomatic meeting

She was a beauty from the Southern Isles, a cousin to their Royal family, and her lively spirit and wit immediately captivated him

She in turn found his brashness and blustery ways, which had often alienated him from others, to be charming, and the soft heart hidden beneath them enduring

They spent every hour they could together during the event, and afterwards, they entered into a correspondence that rapidly became romantic on both sides and were married as soon as the necessary protocols could be undertaken

They were very happy together, and were blessed with one son, Henri-Christopher, whom they doted on, though Constantina sadly passed away a few years before the events of Cinderella took place

[bedofthistles]

Angels & Devils - Moonacre Week 2024

He didn’t think it was quite fair that he could not just stay in London, but he had to admit that it was better than being thrown out onto the street. 

The kindness of his Uncle could be counted as sainthood, a blessing from the angels, that he was not simply tossed aside and left for granted. But Robin supposed that, in some way, he was technically directly in line to inherit the noble and prestigious Moonacre Manor, even if he didn’t necessarily want it. 

That was the problem with lineage, one could not but accept fate. 

And well, Robin had a lengthy Grand Tour plotted, through the southernmost countries, the mediterranean, the greek isles and such, but that would all be forsaken thanks to his father. Stupid man, a blight to the Merryweather name, but he supposed that was all behind him now. Soon, all he would have was responsibility. 

Well, the Uncle had to die first.

Robin rather seethed the whole of the journey - and while he thought it would have been wiser to have gone by train, perhaps that was the first hint, his Angelic Uncle had sent a carriage instead of paying for a ticket - staring out of his window, the little, tattered curtains drawn back except for when the sun got into his eyes. 

He rather imagined he saw something just behind them, or weaving through the trees, but when he tried to find it, it simply disappeared. As if it had never been there to begin with. 

He had tried to entertain himself with the book, the last of his father’s fortune, but he was too old for fairytales. At least, that is what he told himself. 

The truth was whenever he tried to read it, there was a profound feeling in his chest, like he was being chased, like he was a rabbit in the forest diving out of the way of hounds, and he simply had to put it down. It felt, rather, like he wasn’t supposed to be reading it, and so Robin scoffed and dismissed the idea of a fairy tale book. 

Then, they came to the gate. 

The carriage stopped, and Robin groaned slowly, because by god if that man stopped one more time for a piss on the side of the road- 

But then, the door opposite him opened. 

He had been sticking his head out of his window, leaning out to see that the servant - Dogwood? - was not urinating, but attempting to find the key for a large, ornate gate, when he heard it. The almost silent clink of the latch opening, the creak of the hinges, and as Robin looked back, he saw the strangest sight he had ever seen. (Though it would soon pale in comparison to what the rest of the Valley had in store.) 

Hanging upside down, as if she had been leaning over the top of the carriage roof, was a girl. He assumed it was a girl, as a long red braid waved gently behind her, iit could have been a young boy, but before Robin could decide, she reached out and snatched the book. 

Robin reacted faster than he could think, as his hand shot out, taking hold of her wrist. 

“I just want the pearls!” The girl hissed, tugging at her hand, but she was apparently a very weak highwaywoman. Robin did not have pearls, but she was still stretching her hand towards the book. 

Robin lurched forward and reached with his other hand out to snatch it away from her grasp, only to feel white hot pain across the back of his hand. Robin let go of an instant, the carriage lurched, and the girl fell. 

She had taken out a large needle and slashed it across his hand.

Robin stared at the blood blooming, before he twisted around, his head out the window, he watched the girl disappearing into the trees, she wore all black. What place was this? That young girls wandered around attempting to rob carriages? 

His question was answered upon his arrival. 

When he stepped out of the carriage, his cravat soaking up the blood, he reached to shake his Uncle’s hand, only to be rejected with a sneer. 

London may not have been perfect, there was enough villainy to spare and Robin was never not armed with some kind weapon of self defence, but this place was godless. 

A land of devils.

last | next

[thekeeperofbalance]

7: Are there aliens?

8: Are there yokai/magical beings?

Questions from the ask game for secret garden

7) yes there are aliens, the kraang do exist here (and, as this is heavily rise influenced, they are more like rottmnt's kraang than any other canon iteration) and they are important to the lore

edit: you can tell i Did Not read the ask game thoroughly before answering this- outside the kraang (which are strictly aliens in the gardens saga, there is no dimension trapping or anything) there are no aliens- like, outside one's that are important to the kraang's backstory (yeah they have a whole-ass backstory and it's kinda tragic, i.e. lost/forsaken potential)

8) there are multiple different magical beings, as secret garden/the gardens saga (as i am now calling it, because i was never really happy with secret garden) is technically a crossover with my fantasy world meaning it has the unending

minor tangent to explain the unending:

so. in the unending weave, there are two types of immortals, the divine and the unending.

the divine not being truly immortal (such as the greek gods in pjo, who fade if their seats of power or domains are destroyed or if they aren't remembered) meaning they somehow enter nonexistentance. they also are limited to their specific universe, while the unending exist outside the multiverse.

the unending being just that. the unending cannot die, they cannot be destroyed, they cannot fade, they have no end and are truly immortal. they will exist without humanity, without the universe, without time, without physical existence. they cannot become nonexistant. they are truly without end.

anyways, other than the unending (there are no divine beings in the universe of the gardens saga), there are the emayi which are humans blessed/cursed by the keepers (basically the protectors, priests, rulers, and almost gods of the unending who exist to keep their domains, which i will discuss in some other post because who the keepers are isn't really important to this universe) to be stronger, faster, more durable, have better senses, and far longer lifespans, at the cost of the appearance of humanity (aka they're anthromorphic beings that take an android form of a specific species of animal or are too other to be considered human aka they are like the unending in appearance but not immortality).

they inspired the yokai in japanese mythology and are the ancestors of the fae- the fae also exist in the gardens saga btw

i think that's it- this iteration has so much magic and so much influence from the unending weave-

tdlr; 7) yes, the kraang exist

8) yes, there are the unending (basically gods), the emayi (the humans blessed/cursed by the keepers (basically the unending's gods, even if they are unending themselves) to be a species of the unending without the immortality (just extremely long lifespans)) and the fae (descendants of the emayi)

this has nothing to do w/ ur ask but if i had to rank my stories by level of influence from the unending weave it would be: (warning: this is a bit spoilerly)

this hope rising like sparks. (one of the many larks (almost mc of the unending weave) across the multiverse befriends hisirdoux casperan before camelot)

in the gardens we grow of starlight. (the turtles are literally sponsored by the keepers, and everything to do with the hamato family lore has some time to the keepers)

within waters of the underworld. (magic is a blessing from a keeper, and every mage has a specific keeper as their patron, of which there are thirteen keepers)

homes; these places we've hoped for. (just background influence and worldbuilding, otherwise there would be too many gods/god-like beings)

[officialleehadan]

Four Days

hello darlings! today's story was brought to you by Stefan! Darling, thank you so much for your support! 

Prompt: Desert Glass - Honeymoon

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It was not Dabir’s first time to the Redsand Isles and he took special pleasure in showing Kalaesa all around the place that he often used to come during his studies. It was hot, of course. The Isles were tropical, even now, in what was, after a fashion, ‘winter’. All that meant was that there were afternoon rain showers of thick, warm rain that helped the island’s thick jungle flourish.

Currently, Dabir was introducing his lovely wife to the island’s many markets. As a major trading port, the Isles were a frequent port for ships crossing the ocean, and that meant goods of all sorts filled the markets. Dabir was thrilled to discover many of his favorites were still available, and had been introducing Kalaesa to the wide range of cultures on offer. Some she knew already, and happily traded him experience for experience.

Dressed as wealthy commoners, it was a blessing to finally be free of both her duty to the crown, and his worries about his enemies. Here on this island, with the protections of his old friend so thick he could almost smell them, mixed with the heady scent of flowers, it was safe.

Really, he was a fool for not running here to the protections of his own kind, but then, he wasn’t known for his good decisions when he didn’t have time to make a real plan.

Also, if he did that, he wouldn’t have met Kalaesa.

“You’re thinking too much,” Kalaesa said as she walked beside him, barefoot in the pink sand, with a skewer of some sort of fruit on it. Neither of them were entirely sure what the fruit was called, but it was almost like melon, and almost the same shade of pink-orange. Regardless, it was common about the isles, and they were eager to eat it whenever it was available. “But I know you. Tell me what’s on your mind?”

“How beautiful you are,” Dabir said, and twirled her gently by one hand. She really was lovely, dressed in floating pale blue silks that set off her auburn hair. It left her shoulders and a fair part of her back bare, and would be utterly inappropriate anywhere but the Isles, where everyone dressed so lightly. Even Dabir himself had relented to the heat and wore little but a loose shirt and trousers, and the sandals his own people preferred to boots. “And how glad I am to have met you.”

“You’re a flirt,” she accused him playfully but spun again at his urging, before she looped her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked. “And I’m sure you’re lying.”

“I am a little,” he replied and kissed the top of her head. “I was thinking I was an idiot for not running here, when I left Evash’hai. Yaimerisal would have given me shelter, and even Chakir would not be so fool as to challenge two Pillars, particularly one of Yai’s age and experience. I might be young to the title, but he has turned the fates of countries with little more than a visit for tea.”

“It does seem a little silly not to go to him, then,” Kalaesa agreed, never one to be delicate when she thought he was being a bonehead. It was, as it happened, something Dabir loved about her. She would never hold information from him to spare his feelings. “But I’m glad you didn’t, although I would wish you did, if only to spare you the suffering. This is very far from Kaelavash.”

“It is,” Dabir said and tossed their now-empty skewer into one of the many small braziers that the meat-sellers roasted their products over. “I would likely have never come to your cold shores. At least, not until Chakir gave up on me.”

“Maybe we would have met on a venture like this one,” Kalaesa suggested mischievously. “You wouldn’t know I was a princess, just wandering the markets, and I wouldn’t know you were a Pillar. Would you even notice me?”

“I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off you,” Dabir played along with her game and was rewarded by her bright smile. “I’m not brave. It would take me days of glimpsing you to work up the courage to say hello.”

“With your Evash’hai manners, you would sweep me off my feet just as fast as you did in this life,” Kalaesa teased, and drew him to where they could hear musicians, setting up for the evening market. The Isles loved to dance, and there was music every night. Dabir was only a passable dancer, but no one here was an expert in the colorful whirl. “And I’m sure I would scandalize you, what with my northern manners.”

“I imagine you would be the one to drag me off, not the other way around,” Dabir admitted with a laugh, since that was also rather what had happened. “But I would be in love with you between one glance and the next, so I would let you take me anywhere.”

“Oh anywhere?” Kalaesa asked with a coy look at him up through his lashes that immediately had him thinking of a different sort of dance entirely. By her sly smile, she knew exactly what she was doing to him, and was not the least bit sorry. “That’s a very dangerous thing to say to someone like me.”

“If you asked, I would give you the world,” Dabir said and pulled her close in the shadows of a towering palm. She fell into his arms with a soft laugh of triumph that told him he had fallen for her trap without even noticing it. “Everything in my power to give. If you asked for a drop of time itself, held in a crystal, it would not be too much.”

“I don’t want the world,” Kalaesa whispered to him, and stood on her toes for a soft, slow kiss. “I don’t want your power. I don’t want a drop of time, held in a crystal. I just want you to love me as much as I love you.”

“That, I will do until the end of our days and beyond,” Dabir promised her between kisses that made his heart pound under her small hand. He pulled her close and wrapped his power around them with a twist of thought he rarely used. The market vanished from around them in a rush of smoke that left them standing in the sand before their borrowed villa. Kalaesa gasped at the sudden rush of magic and Dabir took the moment to sweep her off her feet into his arms. “Come, my beloved. My wife. We have four days yet before we’re expected back. I see no better use for those days than worshiping you as you deserve.”

+++

Desert Glass: (FULL COLLECTION)

Desert Glass Volume 1

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Desert Glass V2 (For full collection, see V1)

Two Spies

Four Days (NEW!)

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MASTERLIST

[we-are-made-of-stories]

& turn the tower did

Kuwei Yul-Bo grows up like every other child in Shu Han: with the knowledge that to have power is to be a miracle, acknowledged and praised by the Tabans themselves. His father, Bo Yul-Bayur, is lauded as Shu Han’s greatest, the uncrowned king of the royal labs, and Kuwei wants nothing more than to be like him. But when the appearance of Ravka’s new Sun Summoner sparks a nation-wide testing spree in Shu Han, Kuwei quickly discovers that the price of miracles is not one he’s willing to pay. Or: On being more and less than human in a country that would devour you whole. Word count: 16.8k Fandom: Six of Crows; minor references to The Lives of Saints and The Grisha Trilogy Note: so pleased to have written this kuwei backstory for the @grishaversebigbang this year! it was an honor to have art made by @fricklefracklefloof (x), @kuwei-yul-arson (x), @doorhandle16 (x), and @soupdreamer (x), and to be beta'd by @poeticor (whose banger of a fic is available here). best gang fr! this is cross-posted to ao3 but you can read it under the cut!

In the time before the six nations came to be, when they were less than soldiers gathered under one banner, when they were simply ideals and nothing more, tales of powerful individuals spread far and wide. They crossed land and ocean and, some liked to say, reached the heavens, though at first they were dismissed as rumors of madmen seeking to sow chaos. What else would a rational individual accept? Power is only safe to trust when you hold it in your hands. Easier, then, to doubt stories than to confront an uncontrollable reality. But doubt does not change the truth.  More and more evidence rose, from all corners of the world, and soon it was fact that such magics existed. That those who wielded it were capable of feats no ordinary person could achieve: they could call on wind and lightning, sea and flame; they stopped hearts just as swiftly as they compelled them to beat; they made unbreakable blades such that one could triumph against a ten thousand-strong army.  Some said they were more than human.  (Some said they were less.) Ravka dubbed them Grisha in honor of a Saint who would become the first teacher of their fabled Second Army. Fjerda named them drüsje, witch, and set to eliminate their unholy sorcery from the world. Kerch saw what it could stand to gain from such power, and so they were known as the winstgevend, the profitable. Blighted by sickness in the body and land, in the Wandering Isle, they were welcomed and hailed as slánaitheoir, saviors.   In Shu Han, they were called sheng ji. Miracles; holy relics.  No one knew where the first sheng ji came from, only that they brought blessings wherever they went. In those days, Shu Han was little more than a dozen villages scattered across the land, each one eking out a peaceful life. Peace, then, was sustained by power, by protection. In those days, sheng ji were the deciding factor between affluence and ruin, conflict and security.  Some could call on the sea and wind, while others could summon flame. Some were masters of fate, cradling life and death in their hands, while others crafted marvelous inventions, that their people would know an age of prosperity. Little by little, a settlement of a handful of families turned to villages turned to walled city-states. And so the sheng ji were named as such, for much of their effort contributed to each city’s success, and they were beloved of their people, for they brought blessings when sometimes none could be found.  The most famous of the sheng ji became Saints: Sankt Kho of good intentions, for the clockwork soldiers he created to defend his people, and Sankta Neyar of blacksmiths, for a sword she forged that could cut through shadows and laugh at steel. It was their actions that paved the way for the first queen of what would become Shu Han, the Taban yenok-yun, the storm that stayed. And so the sheng ji, who were known as miracles, became known as holy, though not all were Saints, and were venerated throughout the land as such. The sheng ji then entered the service of the Taban queens and pledged to bring miracles to Shu Han forevermore. 

That was the story that stayed. Like all children of Shu Han, Kuwei grew up listening to it, believing it. He wanted to live it, too. But Kuwei would come to learn, as all the sheng ji before him once did: it was one thing to know a story. 

It was another entirely to know the truth. 

Kuwei knew there was something going on, because everyone was either too loud or too quiet. Or, at least, everyone was too obvious about their secrets because they’d stop talking about it if they saw him approaching. 

But it was the adults specifically who were hiding this secret, because none of the children on his street knew what they were talking about. The whole morning, there had been whispering tongues, and not one of them belonged to his friends. It was weird: new stories always got to them somehow, so it meant the adults were hiding it on purpose.

Usually, they weren’t very good at that. It was annoying that they decided to be today. 

That was okay. Kuwei knew he was better. 

Kuwei’s Mama and Baba were out for the day — Baba had to go to work, and he was frowning in a way that really did mean something was wrong, because Kuwei had never seen Baba look so unhappy before. He didn’t know if Baba being upset had anything to do with the secret nobody wanted to talk to him about, but he knew that Baba did really important work, so maybe he did. Mama was at the docks, preparing for her next trip to Kerch; she didn’t seem happy to leave either of them that morning, right when Kuwei first started seeing the gossip, and though she never did, looking back Kuwei thought that maybe Mama knew, too. Maybe they both did. They’d definitely hear about it at work. 

They weren’t around for him to ask, but Kuwei’s Yeye and Nainai were visiting, anyway, so he tried his luck with them during lunch. 

“Where did Baba go?” he asked them, as his Nainai dumped hei jiao ji ding on his plate. 

“Your Baba is a very busy man,” Nainai replied. “He had to finish important work today.” 

“What kind of work?” 

“He’s a sheng ji,” Yeye said, with an edge to his voice Kuwei always hated: it made him think he never knew enough, and that Yeye was looking for something that wasn’t there but should’ve been. Baba told him that it was because Yeye knew so much and was very wise, so sometimes he forgot that he was so smart that others could have a hard time keeping up sometimes, but Baba himself made interesting expressions when Yeye spoke to him like that, which happened a lot. 

“What do they do?” Kuwei asked. Baba could make medicines that made Kuwei hurt less, when he got sick, and he always helped their neighbors, too, when they asked — that was what being sheng ji meant. Was there more? 

Yeye made a quiet sound that sounded a little mean, then explained, still with the edge Kuwei hated. It was a long few minutes of him just saying things; Kuwei sometimes wondered if no one could keep up with Yeye because he kept rambling, not because he was too smart for everyone else. 

Being sheng ji sounded… complicated. Or maybe Yeye was just making it sound complicated. From what Kuwei gathered, they helped the people of Shu Han and they worked for the Taban family, which, on reflection, was simple enough to understand but that didn’t change the fact that something happened today. His Yeye and his Nainai rarely came to visit, after all, so there must’ve been a reason for them to be here. If it had anything to do with Baba, Kuwei wanted to know. 

When he tried asking about it, Nainai’s mouth pressed into a thin line and she piled more rice on his plate. Yeye said he was too young to know or understand — it was an adult’s business, not a child’s. 

So there was something. Something they did want to hide from him. But eight was old enough! Maybe not old and wise, like his Yeye was, because no one could ever match yeye’s wisdom, according to Baba, but Kuwei could still understand everything he needed to. Nobody needed to hide anything from him — he’d get it. 

Still, Kuwei already knew when he could keep pushing, and he didn’t see a good opportunity now. Baba always told him Yeye and Nainai were strict, after all, and Kuwei figured that Baba knew that better than him, what with a lifetime of living with them. 

So after lunch, Kuwei excused himself to go play outside. Yeye scoffed; Nainai waved him out with a stern reminder to be back before night, or he wouldn’t get any red bean shaobing. 

Kuwei learned more on the street than he did from his grandparents. There were so many people talking that it was just so hard to choose what to listen to first! They went quiet when they noticed him approaching, so he learned to sneak, carefully hiding in the right spots. 

What he learned: soldiers brought Zhou-nushi to the palace early that morning. They went to her house to— arrest her? That didn’t sound right. That didn’t sound like the Zhou-nushi he knew. 

Because Kuwei did know Zhou-nushi. She set up a food stall in the market, and he always visited her when they bought groceries. Her tang hu lu was the best he’d ever had. 

Zhou-nushi was very quiet when Baba and Mama were around, but she was nothing but kind to him. She was always spoiling him, Mama liked to say with a fond smile, which was maybe true: whenever Kuwei went to the market and approached her stall, Zhou-nushi would grin at him, like they were sharing a secret, and she’d always sneak him an extra skewer of tang hu lu, just because she could. And then Kuwei would smile at her, all crooked, and say, “Thank you, Zhou-nushi!” 

It didn’t seem right that they brought her to the palace. Arresting someone that nice didn’t add up, but neither did the gossip about her. 

“It was very selfish of her,” one auntie said, rather loudly. Kuwei didn’t even have to hide when she was talking like she wanted the entire street to hear. “Hiding that skill from the Tabans. From Shu Han.”

“Sheng ji have great gifts,” another agreed. “Miracle — what a joke. It clearly didn’t apply to her.”

Nothing made sense. All the conversations just made things more confusing, no matter how much Kuwei listened, which was a little upsetting. Maybe he really didn’t know as much as he thought he did. 

It was okay. He’d just ask Baba. 

“Is it true you work for the Queen, Baba?” Kuwei said that night over dinner. 

Baba raised his eyebrows, looking like he found something funny. Mama watched them, her mouth a thin line. “And where did you hear that?”

“Yeye told me,” Kuwei said, because it was true. And because Baba and Mama always told him to learn as much as he wanted, he added proudly, “I asked him! I re— resea…?”

“Researched,” Baba offered. 

“ — researched on my own!” Kuwei beamed. “And then I asked the aunties about what happened — they didn’t want to tell me, but I heard them talking about Zhou-nushi. Is that why you went to work today?”

“It is,” Baba said, slowly. 

“They said Zhou-nushi didn’t want to go to the palace. But aren’t all sheng ji supposed to help Shu Han? How come she didn’t want to?”

“Well,” Baba said after a beat, “sometimes people just want to live quiet lives. They want to live for themselves, and that’s not a bad thing.”

“They called her selfish, though.” Kuwei didn’t think that was anything but bad.

“It’s true that Zhou-nushi could have done more for Shu Han, if she went to receive training,” Baba conceded. “Still, I understand why she didn’t approach Her Imperial Majesty.”

“But you work for the Queen, too, right? Like the other sheng ji? You help Shu Han?” 

“Yes,” Baba said, not quite smiling, but he ruffled Kuwei’s hair anyway. “I do.” 

Later, Kuwei learned: 

Zhou-nushi never made it to the Imperial Palace. Neither did the soldiers. They ran into an accident on their way; it killed them all. 

When a messenger arrived at their house calling for Baba, out of breath and wide-eyed, Baba’s expression tightened, even as he invited them in for a cup of lapsang souchong. Kuwei hadn’t been asked to leave outright, but he saw Baba’s face, twisting with strange, foreign tension, so he stepped away. 

It would be all right. Baba could do anything. 

Baba would do anything. Ten minutes later, Baba and the messenger swept out of his office in a swirl of silk and cotton. Their tea was still steaming on Baba’s desk. 

Baba didn’t return until late the next evening, dark bags under his eyes. 

Mama took one look at him and ushered Baba to bed with her particular brand of fussing, which sounded so practical it didn’t seem like concern at all, and Kuwei crept into their room to steal under the covers. 

“Hi, Baba,” Kuwei said. 

Baba tugged the covers around both of them. “Hello, my nhaban,” he murmured, dipping down to kiss Kuwei’s head. “How was your day?”

“Good!” Usually, after Baba asked, it was the part where Kuwei would start rambling about what he did — and there was a lot, after two days — but Kuwei’s curiosity burned bright. He wanted to know more about Baba’s day; Baba didn’t usually talk about his work, now that Kuwei thought about it, which seemed unfair. Baba always listened to Kuwei and Mama: it was only right that Kuwei listened to him too. “How was yours?”

“Tiring,” Baba said. It showed in his smile. “But seeing you and your Mama always gives me energy, did you know?” Another kiss to the top of Kuwei’s head. “I’m very lucky to have you both, nhaban.”

And Kuwei knew not to press, so he just curled into Baba once more, Baba’s arms coming around him. Mama joined them soon enough in that large, long hug, and it was the quickest Kuwei had ever fallen asleep in a long time. 

The next day, the Queen made a public appearance. Kuwei didn’t attend the event, but he knew it was important; the Queen didn’t go out much these days, except for very special, important occasions.

There was nothing else discussed that day. Some of his neighbors talked about his Baba, about how regal and elegant he must’ve looked, which Kuwei supposed was true; others talked about what his Baba did. The uncrowned king of the royal labs, they called him, and Kuwei put it aside for another time. 

The Queen looked tired, some commented. Unwell. They talked about her daughters, Makhi and Ehri, and how it seemed that Makhi might become Queen soon. 

It would make sense to Kuwei much, much later. What would stay with him, years after the fact, was this: it was said that the Queen spoke at length about the terrible tragedy, the loss of new talent, someone who could have helped bring Shu Han to greater heights. Most agreed. 

What Kuwei would think of, years after the fact: the tragedy should’ve been the loss of the people and not just their potential. 

When a knock echoed through their house just before lunchtime, Kuwei hadn’t expected it to be Haoyu-furen. He knew her, of course; Baba was polite with her, and she was polite to them all in turn when she saw them out in public or at the work-related functions that Baba would sometimes bring Kuwei to. Kuwei privately thought she was one of Baba’s few tolerable colleagues because the others looked at Baba with such horrible jealousy when his back was turned and at him like they wanted to take something from him, but Haoyu-furen always held actual conversations with them. 

Still, she wasn’t close enough to visit them out of the blue like this, and she’d never said anything about even wanting to. 

“Enya,” Baba said, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting you today. What—”

“Greetings, Bayur-gong,” Haoyu-furen interrupted. She bowed low, stately and solemn in her dark green robes. When she straightened, her silver belt gleamed in the noontime light. “Enya Kir-Haoyu,” she said, “on behalf of Her Imperial Majesty. I am here to test if your son, Kuwei Yul-Bo, is sheng ji. The palace would be honored to accept him into its elite training program if he proves to have any powers.” 

Baba went very still. “I wasn’t aware Her Imperial Majesty wanted to begin the testing again,” he said slowly. 

“The news hasn’t reached the labs?” Her eyebrow raised. “I thought you’d be the first to know, of all people, Bayur-gong.”

“I’d heard of their new sheng ji,” Baba said. “The girl who can command riguang.”

“Reports say that she’s from an orphanage in Keramzin.” The Ravkan word sounded strange on her tongue, but Kuwei didn’t think he’d be any better. “That she was born in Rebe Dva Stolba.” Rebe Dva Stolba… That was along the border they shared with Ravka. Kuwei didn’t quite understand the significance, but Baba clearly did.  “Hence Her Imperial Majesty’s reinstatement of testing.”

“In her infinite wisdom,” Haoyu-furen agreed, then smiled, sharp. “For the longevity of Shu Han, of course.”

She said it like a threat. 

“For the longevity of Shu Han,” Baba echoed, a defeat, and let her in. 

Baba’s office was usually off-limits to Kuwei — not because Baba didn’t want him there but because Baba never wanted Kuwei to be restricted by the formality of his work, especially when he had visitors over — but Baba opened the door. His hands shook just the slightest bit, a faint tremor Kuwei would’ve missed if he hadn’t been looking so intently. If Haoyu-furen noticed too, she said nothing. 

The door had barely closed behind them when Haoyu-furen withdrew a vial from her large traveling bag. “Drink all of it,” she said, offering it to Kuwei. Baba’s expression turned stricken. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“What is it?” Kuwei asked more for Baba’s sake than his. If Haoyu-furen said it was safe, it was, but Baba looked so terrified that Kuwei might have laughed if he wasn’t as bewildered as Baba was worried. 

“The labs developed it decades ago,” Haoyu-furen explained. “In layman’s terms, it’s meant to put you in such a focused state that you’ll be able to call upon dormant powers.” 

That… sounded like nonsense. But Kuwei wasn’t his Baba, wasn’t Haoyu-furen; it wasn’t as if he knew enough to argue with them. He accepted the offered vial and downed its clear liquid in one go.

It took effect immediately. It was as if a mental block was lifted from Kuwei’s mind, some strange barrier he hadn’t noticed before, and behind it was something he ached to hold, possess, shape to his will, bright and flickering—

Fire flashed in his cupped palms. 

Behind him, Mama screamed.  

Baba ushered them to the living room almost immediately after, and his hands really were shaking this time, in a way they never had — I do plenty of delicate work which requires my hands to be steady, he’d once said to Kuwei. So it’s very important that I keep myself calm. That they were shaking now was a sight so foreign that Kuwei couldn’t tear his eyes away from Baba’s hands, unless it was to look at Mama’s stricken expression or his own hands, which were now perfectly normal.

If anyone else was looking at them, if they hadn’t seen the way flames leapt to life in his palms, they wouldn’t be able to tell Kuwei was sheng ji at all. 

The lights flickered open in the living room, even as Mama drew the curtains shut against the sun. This was usually the part where Baba or Mama offered their guests something to eat, something to drink, but they were ashen-faced. Kuwei, unsure of what to do and still feeling rather unmoored by the vial’s contents, sat himself on the couch. 

Baba broke the strange, tense silence, saying, “Haoyu-furen,” only to cut himself off at the end. 

“I know,” Haoyu-furen said. She picked up a metal toy Kuwei had left on the table. It was a kongming lock, already taken apart and yet to be reassembled. Under her fingers, the wooden beams slid into place, interlocking like Kuwei had never dismantled it. 

Oh. Oh! 

She took out a small notebook from her pocket and wrote his name, the latest in a list of many others, on a page about halfway through. “Fanren,” she said as she wrote it down. 

Kuwei frowned. Ordinary? He wasn’t, though. Spraying fire out his hands wasn’t ordinary. If that was ordinary, some of the current sheng ji shouldn’t have been considered at all. 

Kuwei started to protest the label, but then Mama folded him into a tight hug; her expression, when she turned his hands over to look at his palms, looking for the bright flames, was so grave that he didn’t have it in him to fight her. Not that he would ever fight Mama in general, especially after she had screamed like that. 

Mama never liked being scared. Mama, if it came down to it, always wanted to do the scaring.  

“I trust that I have your discretion,” Haoyu-furen continued. Kuwei watched the motions of his kongming lock, entranced, confused. Haoyu-furen served on the administrative staff, not as part of the sheng ji; but the law required her to report herself and to work for the Tabans as one. 

So she must’ve hidden it all these years. But why?

Baba inclined his head. “As long as we have yours.”   

“Of course.” That same sharp smile flashed on Haoyu-furen’s face, but there was something more defiant now, something bitter and angry. “For the longevity of Shu Han.”

Baba’s expression was still strained, pinched, but when he echoed, “For the longevity of Shu Han,” it lacked the naked fear he’d displayed in his office. For Kuwei, it was enough. “Thank you for your service,” Baba said to Haoyu-furen, and he showed her out the door. 

Mama, who had said nothing since she let out that horrible scream, kissed Kuwei’s forehead. “Kuwei,” Mama started to say, then fell silent. Finally, she shook her head, and offered him her hand. “Come,” she said, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s have lunch.”

“What about Baba?” he said. 

“He’ll follow us, nhaban,” Mama said. “He’ll join in his own time.”

“Okay,” Kuwei said, not quite believing it, and they left his Baba there, looking out the window for something neither of them could see. 

After Haoyu-furen left, and they finished washing up the plates, Baba and Mama brought Kuwei to the outskirts of Ahmrat Jen and flew kites with him. Kuwei laughed at the bright patterns fluttering against the pale blue sky, climbing higher and higher. When the afternoon grew too hot, they returned to the city limits and found shade in a plum orchard near their house. They came home with a basketful of plums which Baba made into sauce to go with their roast duck, while Mama presented Kuwei with a knotted thread for him to untangle. Kuwei was halfway through undoing a bogtsnii uya when Baba called them for dinner. 

There was even boortsog for dessert. Boortsog! Kuwei had his pick of syrups, jams, honey, and cheese, and nearly an entire bowl to himself. 

They tucked Kuwei in, and Mama told him folk tales from around the world — Mama picked up plenty during her time at sea — and Baba taught him a little more about chemicals and compounds and the human body. At first, Kuwei asked all sorts of questions (why did the wolf obey the horse? why did humans have organs that weren’t vital? why did chemicals have such complicated names?), even about his Baba’s lessons, which he usually didn’t find half as interesting as his Mama’s legends or even as Mama’s personal anecdotes, but eventually he couldn’t keep his eyes open. 

It was almost sad, Kuwei thought. He didn’t want the day to end. 

But Mama and Baba joined Kuwei in his bed, and he was warm and safe between them, and they stayed until his eyes closed, and for a while longer after that, Mama’s fingers stroking his hair and Baba humming an old lullaby. Then they left, because they thought Kuwei was asleep, but he wasn’t. 

They were both very upset today. Kuwei didn’t think they knew that he knew, but he loved them more than anyone, and at eleven, he was old enough to tell when something was wrong. He wasn’t stupid. Even if he was, they were too obvious about it. All afternoon, when they’d been outside, Mama’s gaze kept darting around like she was waiting for something to go wrong, and — this, Kuwei knew he wasn’t supposed to know — she had her lu jiao dao hidden in her clothes the entire time. He thought Mama might’ve also brought her saber, though he couldn’t be entirely sure unless he asked. Baba wasn’t any better: his face didn’t completely lose its tension, and his posture was as tense as a rope pulled taut. He didn’t quite meet Kuwei’s eyes, either. 

Their smiles were all wrong, too. Mama's smile was really more like a frown pretending to be a smile but not doing a very good job of it, and Baba’s was sad and strained at the corners of his mouth. It was the worst; it hurt a little to see. They shouldn’t ever look so unhappy. 

Did Kuwei do something wrong? He… He thought today was the best day. They had so much fun! It had all his favorite activities and his favorite food, and while they did it often enough, it was never really all at the same time like that. Mama and Baba even tucked him in like he was a young child again, wanting to curl into his parents forever and ever. 

Kuwei learned he was a little like his Baba today, a sheng ji. Today was supposed to be special. Today was special. Wasn’t it? Baba and Mama wouldn’t have lied to him, right? Kuwei knew they would never—

“What will we do about Kuwei?” Mama said. Even muffled by the wooden walls, there was still sharp urgency in her voice. Curious, Kuwei crept to the wall he shared with the living room, placing his ear against it. He’d never told them but it was, and had always been, too thin for him to ignore anything that went on. 

“Enya swore she wouldn’t report him,” Baba soothed. “She’ll keep our secret.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“It will be her word against mine. She has no proof of Kuwei’s abilities.”

“Then the labs will send someone else to test him. We won’t be so lucky twice, and I still don’t trust that she won’t find some way to turn this against us later.”

“I have enough leverage to stop further investigation. No one will believe that I willingly hid Kuwei from the labs.”

“Surely immediate rejection wouldn’t work? Outright denial would just make it look like we have something to hide.”

“I could say that I would know if he was sheng ji. Who would dare challenge me on something sheng ji-related?”

“Until the Tabans step in!’ Mama’s voice was like thunder, and Kuwei almost fell over himself in his scramble to get to the door.  

Kuwei hadn’t heard Mama this angry before, her voice sharpened like one of her knives, fury roiling like Mama was the sea in a storm. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten up at all, but Mama once sat with him during a bad thunderstorm after he’d run to her shaking and taught him to count the seconds between the flash of light and the crackling sound that followed; she told him dangerous things could be learned, too. Baba, returning with suutei tsai, said that knowledge was the greatest weapon. When you understand what you’re scared of, you won’t be scared again. 

They were right (though Kuwei did drift off in between them that night): that was the last time Kuwei flinched at storms. 

And Kuwei couldn’t ever be scared of Mama. 

Kuwei slipped out of his bedroom and tiptoed to the living room, paying close attention to Mama’s angry retort: “Your only feasible excuse would be to say there’s no point in testing him, since he’s not sheng ji to begin with, but they could just as easily claim that the controversy would blow over if it was proved in public. Then what? Have Kuwei demonstrate his powers in front of Shu Han’s top scientists, and prove him sheng ji and us liars?”

It would have been easier to sneak around if Kuwei could command mu instead of huo, but he could get by just fine. Avoiding the creaky floorboards was second nature, after a lifetime of sneaking by his parents’ room when Baba returned from a long day at the labs or Mama arrived from her latest voyage. If nothing else, the rest of their conversation covered any of his slip-ups. 

“It can be hidden,” Baba said. When Kuwei peered around the doorframe, he saw them standing in the middle of the living room, Mama’s brows drawn together tightly as Baba tried to negotiate with her. “With enough time, I could teach Kuwei to control it properly.”

Mama stared at him. “We’re staking our son’s life on something as tenuous as control? The Ravkan soldiers train for years to attain mastery, and he’s so young. What if he can’t? The lab’s drugs can— how did you put it? Call on dormant powers? He won’t be able to resist.”

Baba’s shoulders slumped. “It’s all the protection I can offer him.” It was wrong to hear Baba sound so defeated, his words tilted with world-weary exhaustion. It was worse than how he was at the end of a bad work day. 

They lapsed into silence. Kuwei glanced between them, uncertain. Was it so bad to be sheng ji? Baba was celebrated throughout Shu Han for his work. If they were worried Kuwei wouldn’t be able to handle the work, he could. He would. If they didn’t want him to work — why? It was for the good of Shu Han. Everything the sheng ji did was to build a peaceful, prosperous country. 

Then, finally: 

“He could come with me,” Mama blurted out. Kuwei had to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle his astonished yelp. Him, leave? With Mama? They all agreed that he should finish his education just to give him options other than being a trader. And still, that same question: why? “My next trip is in a few weeks.”

“What?” Baba said even though he clearly heard Mama. He never asked anyone to repeat themselves even if they were mumbling their words, and he somehow always understood perfectly. Once, Kuwei held an entire conversation with Baba while he was buried under the pillows, and not only did Baba play along like it was completely normal, but Baba quoted Kuwei back at himself, enunciation and all. (Before Kuwei knew what really made Baba sheng ji, he used to think it was that.)

Baba especially listened to Mama, mostly because he really did love her, but partly because Mama was a force of nature who wrecked havoc when someone denied her the respect she was owed. Kuwei had seen her raise hell a couple of times, and Baba would probably know better than Kuwei just exactly what kind of hell Mama could and would raise. He should, at least. 

“Kuwei could come with me,” Mama repeated, more confidently this time. “I could get him out of the country.”

“You would risk his safety out at sea?” Baba said incredulously. Kuwei winced at it, the rare, foreign bite of anger in Baba’s voice. “He’s eleven, a ship is hardly the place for him.”

Mama shook her head. “Do you think I haven’t thought of that? I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t desperate.  He’s most useful to them dead, we both know this.”

Dead? Shu Han loved their sheng ji. He wasn’t— he wouldn’t— but if they thought that it didn’t—

“What if he wasn’t? If we reported him now, and falsified a story about the drug failing, I would be able to protect him from the worst of it. He wouldn’t have to experience the labs. They’d make allowances for me, surely.” Baba paused, then added, quieter, “It’s the only one I’ll ever have cause to ask. for”

“It won’t last forever. You know that. You know that better than me.” Mama said it with horrible certainty, as if it was the unerring flight of an arrow to its target. 

“How is smuggling him out to sea any better?” Baba demanded.

“I would rather gamble on the seas than this inhuman excuse for a government!”

The arrow flew true. Kuwei could see the exact moment it hit its bullseye: Baba’s eyes went wide with hurt before, all at once, his expression shuttered to eerie calm. 

“If you thought it was so inhuman,” Baba said, voice cold, “perhaps you shouldn’t have married me at all. You knew the nature of my work. I told it to you, plainly. Or am I inhuman to you as well?”

Mama scowled. “Stop that,” she warned him, but Baba continued on anyway. 

Does Baba have a death wish? Kuwei thought, horrified, halfway to retreating back to his room entirely, ready to clamp his pillows over his ears until he was sure it was over. But the possibility of spectacle kept him rooted where he was. (Understand, and you won’t be scared again. Kuwei had to know. He had to.)

“Is that all that it was? Tolerating my work because you reaped its benefits without experiencing the hardships? You know I do it to survive, but you loathe  behind my back?”

Kuwei wasn’t scared of Baba, either, but he still winced, ducking back behind the doorframe. Maybe he’d been premature in wanting to stay. Mama got impatient and annoyed often enough, though never with them; on the other hand, Baba’s calm was like the mountains of Sikurzoi. He didn’t want to see this.

Mama’s rage really was the sea, all-encompassing and unpredictable. Baba… Baba went for weak points.

“Enough,” Mama snapped. “Enough! You’re picking the wrong battles, you know better than to argue with me about this. Of course I know you’ve never taken pleasure in it.”

“Then you should know as well that it’s Kuwei’s best option,” Baba retorted. “You’ve never told me to leave; why bring him elsewhere when we could protect him here?”

“I never told you to leave because you never would!” Mama cried, throwing her hands up. “I wanted to run away with you. I would’ve gone anywhere with you if I knew you’d take my hand.”

Kuwei sat on his heels, reeling. Mama loved Shu Han. She always spoke so fondly about her family, living so far east that he only saw them twice a year if he he was lucky, and whenever she came back from her trips, she said that nothing would ever compare to Shu food; Kerch, Fjerda, the Wandering Isles, and Ravka just didn’t have flavor, she told him. Novyi Zem was a second favorite location but even then, she said, it was hard to not look for her home. And… Mama built an entire life here. He didn’t know the full story, but he knew it was difficult, and she spent many years getting to where she was now. It was why Baba got so upset whenever someone implied Mama only achieved what she did because their marriage opened doors for her. 

Baba must’ve felt the same, because he opened and closed his mouth several times, saying nothing. Finally, a little helplessly, he said, “But it’s home.”

“I used to think your work kept you alive,” Mama said, rather abruptly. “That it was the best option you had because there was nowhere you could go, but that was never true. I would’ve taken us far away from this place the moment you said you wanted to go.”

“Her Imperial Majesty—”

“— is keeping you trapped here. Your choices have always been compliance or death.” Mama tilted her head, looking at Baba so sharply that Kuwei thought he could feel it like a cut across his own throat. “Do you want the same for Kuwei? This country is eating you alive, and it will eat him alive, too. You know this.” 

Baba shook his head, but his mouth thinned. “It will not kill him,” he said. “Shu Han will not kill our son. I will not let it.”

“One year down the line, do you think he will thank us for throwing him into the lions’ den?” Mama said coldly. 

“One year down the line, do you think he will thank us for leaving him in a foreign country by himself?” Baba snapped back, and oh, Kuwei never wanted to hear Baba this angry again.

“I would never leave him—” Mama began to snarl; Baba talked over her, unrelenting. 

“You’ll have to. Surely you don’t plan to have him on your ship forever. He deserves a normal, stable life. He can’t have that at sea.”

“Better the sea than the labs,” Mama retorted. “Unless you plan on challenging the Tabans for their thrones.”

Baba’s expression contorted in rage, surprise, terror, grief, a dozen other emotions Kuwei couldn’t parse. “We cannot challenge them,” Baba finally said. “Shu Han prospers. Its citizens would never understand why.”

“Then what?” Mama asked. Suddenly, she seemed very tired, all the fight drained from her. “We keep going in circles. Kuwei cannot leave. Kuwei cannot stay either. What else can we do?”

“Qin ai,” Baba said softly, and then he held his arms out to Mama. When Mama accepted, Baba folded Mama into a hug, and Mama yanked him close. They held each other tightly, until it looked like it hurt, with a sort of— of desperation Kuwei had never seen before, even when Mama was about to leave on her months-long journeys. “I’m sorry. We’ll find a way. I promise you.” Mama murmured something Kuwei couldn’t hear, and Baba kissed her hair. “I know. I know.”

Kuwei swallowed hard and went back to his room.

Strange dreams haunted him that night; Kuwei floated from life to life, like some strange voyeur of possibility all the while being trapped in his own body. In one, fire lit him up from inside out, only for gloved hands to take him in their palms and squeeze tighter, tighter, until he couldn’t even see himself in the suffocating dark. In another, the sky burned dark above the smoking piers of Ahmrat Jen, and a third saw the sea swallow his mother’s ship. Zhou-nushi turned to ash, scattering at his feet, her expression frozen halfway between terror and rage. Baba stood bound in chains, the way Kuwei knew the soldiers had bound Zhou-nushi before bringing her away, except that his chest was a bloody cavity, and where his heart should’ve been was just empty space that shapeless shadows kept digging into. 

Kuwei startled, waking from that last dream with a muffled yelp. His heart pounded. His throat stung with held-back tears. It was still dark outside, earlier than he’d ever wanted to get up, but his being awake was less a choice that he made and more one his body forced on him, and it didn’t want to change that, no matter how stubbornly Kuwei kept his eyes closed. He lay curled in his bed instead until he heard footsteps creaking outside his door — Baba rising to make breakfast, and Mama following behind him, still half-asleep herself. 

This was the only time of the day Mama was anything less than lethally graceful. Kuwei had a lifetime of memories of Mama shuffling after Baba, quietly grumbling that the bed was too empty when he left, of Mama pressed close to Baba even while he set the table or cooked. If Mama wasn’t with Baba in these early hours, she would spend time with Kuwei, reading to him from one of his books. Mama always loved them, Kuwei knew, but this was when she was at her softest. Her work trained her to be anything but, so Kuwei also knew Baba treasured these moments, even if he never quite said it aloud. 

“Qin ai,” Baba said softly — not enough, because Kuwei could still hear them anyway, although he could also never not hear them with how thin the walls were — and stopped just outside Kuwei’s door. “It’s still early. You can go back to sleep if you like.” 

Mama huffed. “And go back to that empty bed? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Their footsteps and their banter faded down the hallway as they made their way to the kitchen. 

Kuwei thought back to their argument the night before, about his safety and leaving and the Taban queens. Something in him ached to know that, soon enough, he wouldn’t have any of this at all, and it kept him rooted to his bed. 

Still, he couldn’t stay in his room forever. When it was late enough that Mama and Baba would become suspicious if he didn’t join them soon, Kuwei stumbled into their dining room, feeling cold in a way that had nothing to do with the spring morning. 

Mama looked him over with a critical eye as he sat down. “Did you sleep?” she asked, sounding displeased. 

Kuwei meant to lie, to deflect. To talk about something else until he gathered himself. But what came out of his mouth instead was another question, panicked and confused: “Will I die?” 

Baba froze, his cup of lapsang souchong halfway to his mouth. Mama’s brow wrinkled. “Whatever gave you that idea?” she said. 

“I… I heard you,” Kuwei said. “Last night. You want me to leave Shu Han. It’s not safe here.”

Mama stepped closer to him, squatting on the ground so they were eye-to-eye. “I’m sorry you heard that,” she said. “We must’ve been very loud last night. Did we disturb you?”

“A little,” Kuwei said. “But it’s okay. It’s just… Why— Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

Mama went quiet. The furrow in her brow didn’t disappear. Then, at last, Mama said, “We wanted to protect you.” She took his hands in hers, gentle tracing the lines on his palms. “There’s plenty of cruelty in this world, my brave nhaban, and it’s too heavy to carry. We don’t want you to carry it yet.”

“But I will eventually,” Kuwei said. What was the point of hiding it from him, then? “Shouldn’t I prepare?”

“You will not go to the Tabans,” Baba finally spoke up. There was surety in his voice now, where there was none yesterday. His eyes weren’t cold anymore but Kuwei still thought they looked closer to gold than they ever had before. 

“Why?”

Kuwei was old enough to know: Baba held no title, not really, but for the one the people and not the Tabans gave him — the uncrowned king of the royal labs. That had to mean something. It was one thing to be— to be forced, if what Kuwei understood was correct; it was another to be so good at it that you got titles, got respect. If Baba stayed, then there had to be a benefit to it, somehow, and Kuwei could earn it all. He knew he could. So why the hesitation?

“You help people,” Kuwei went on. “Don’t you? I want to help people, too.”

“I was young when I made the choice,” Baba said. “Younger than you are now. But it defines you, for the rest of your life. You will not be able to leave your service, Kuwei, and I do not want you to feel trapped by something you chose as a child.”

“So I won’t die.”

“Never,” Baba said fiercely. “Not while I’m here.”

Kuwei thought of Haoyu-furen’s hiding from the palace in plain sight and another question sprung to mind. “Is that why Haoyu-furen never joined?”

“I imagine so.” 

Well. It made enough sense, Kuwei supposed. They’d had a similar conversation about Zhou-nushi some years ago; he barely remembered it but he knew it went like this. He had another more important question, anyway. “Are you happy with your work?” Kuwei asked. 

Baba hesitated for a long moment. Then, finally, he said, “It’s important to Shu Han.” Before Kuwei could press for more details, Baba squatted beside Mama, and took one of Kuwei’s hands in his. That way, they were all linked together in a triangle. “Kuwei,” he said. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone about your being sheng ji. About Haoyu-furen.”

“That’s illegal though,” Kuwei protested. 

“It doesn’t matter. Kuwei,” Baba said. “Promise me.”

“Okay,” Kuwei promised. “I won’t.”

Kuwei didn’t quite understand it. But Baba and Mama looked relieved when he agreed — and that was worth more to Kuwei than any fame, any title he could gain. He could earn those things, but it wouldn’t matter if he just made them sad while he did. 

It was a heavy burden, to walk with a secret pressed tight against his chest. To see the neighbors that watched over him as he grew up, and the vendors that greeted him with a smile, and the children he’d played games with long into the sunset after classes, and know: 

If I told you, you would want me gone, too.

That night, Baba invited Jiali-dashu to their home for dinner. Kuwei had seen him on a handful of occasions — the first, when he was a few years younger, he had been the one to greet Jiali-dashu at the door with Mama. He had blinked, confused by the tall, stern stranger on their doorstep, before remembering himself and saying, “Oh, you’re Baba’s best friend.”

A complicated expression had twisted Jiali-dashu’s face. “You could say that,” he said, stiffly, and Kuwei had been too young to press for what that meant, but he’d called him dashu, uncle, and was never corrected. 

In the years since, he’d pestered Mama about it, only to be met with a shake of her head, a quiet grumbling about stubborn fools who didn’t want to talk. 

He’d never pestered Baba. 

Jiali-dashu visited frequently enough, but only for work. This was the first time Kuwei could remember Baba extending that invitation to Jiali-dashu for personal reasons, and he was just as stiff and awkward now as he was then. They didn’t have to ask him to go to his room after dinner — Kuwei was just as eager to get away from the clear tension between Baba and Jiali-dashu, who wouldn’t quite meet each other’s eyes, and from Mama, who at first looked torn between amusement and exasperation before shifting very firmly to murderous. 

(“It makes you wonder,” she’d muttered to him once, “exactly how those two fools manage to be heads of the royal labs.”

Looking at them now, Kuwei more than understood.)

“Jiali,” said Baba the moment Kuwei was out of their immediate earshot. “Kuwei is sheng ji.”

The dining room went silent. It would have been nice to have visual cues, but listening in would have to suffice. Kuwei wasn’t going to hide in the hallway again. 

“Is he now,” said Jiali, his voice clipped.

“Enya visited last week,” said Mama. “Kuwei can command huo.”

“Then I suppose you’ll be sending him off to the palace once the program opens for the year,” said Jiali-dashu

“We won’t,” said Mama, firmly. “Enya is seeing to that.” 

“We did, however, invite you here to ask for help,” Baba continued. “We plan to smuggle the lab’s sheng ji away.”

Kuwei did not have to be in the dining room to hear the shattering of porcelain. 

“What?” Jiali-dashu demanded. “Have you lost your mind?”

“I have not,” Baba said. “I have not lost anything. I have found my conscience; I am asking if you still have yours.”

“Sarantsatsral,” Jiali said to Mama in disbelief. “Surely you agree this will end in disaster. Suppose you do smuggle them out of the palace — where would they go that Her Imperial Majesty’s shadow won’t reach?” “Well,” Mama said, “I do have a ship.” “Fool,” Jiali-dashu said, sharply. “Fools, the both of you! Why would you risk everything you have ever built like this?”

“There are some things worth sacrificing,” Mama said. 

“Even your very lives? Even Kuwei’s?”

“Kuwei is why we came up with this plan in the first place.” Mama’s voice was still even but Kuwei thought he could hear the beginnings of thunder rumbling in her words. 

“And so leave with Kuwei,” Jiali-dashu snapped.  “Damn all the rest. Forget them and save yourselves. This is not a country meant for kindness. The most I can do is turn a blind eye when you leave, but I refuse to be your accomplice.”

“Jiali,” Baba said, his voice soft in a way Kuwei had never heard before. He almost wanted to call it tender if not for how cruelly Baba’s next words seemed to land: “Jiali, don’t you ever get tired, too?”

The jugular, Kuwei thought, inanely. Baba and the weak points and the jugular. 

“Do you remember?” Baba went on, when Jiali-dashu didn’t respond. “Our first practical exam. All our peers who we found on the table. You promised me then, Jiali, and you swore that you would never forget. Must I remind you? You said—”

“Bo, enough.” 

Silence fell between all three of them. Kuwei wasn’t sure if they were breathing. Kuwei wasn’t sure if he was, either. 

Then, finally, Jiali-dashu said: “Tell me about your plan.”

And so Baba did. 

But even the sheng ji could only do so much. There was once a king who lived in what is now known as Ahmrat Jen, who was crueler than the sharp peaks of the Sikurzoi mountains and colder than the fierce winds that swept through from the north. The king was a bloodthirsty man, and a greedy one, and so he once set his army out to conquer that which he thought owed to him. Power and glory were the honors he sought, and bloodshed was its price — but not one that he paid. His army, great as it was, tore through city after city after city in service of their king. Some capitulated, and so all their warriors, ordinary or sheng ji, were absorbed into the king’s army, and the king took ownership of the city’s land and resources. Some fought on, only to fall in the end.  But the army grew too large to maintain, to sustain. Eventually, the king’s army wore down to nothing, impaled on the jagged edges of his ambition, with no one to honor them but a king who howled and cursed in rage upon hearing of their failures. It was not grief that drove the king to wrath. It was grief that drove his enemies to march upon his helpless kingdom, their weapons glinting, their losses a bleeding wound with no salve.  And so Sankt Kho, who was then but a simple blacksmith, forged a new army for his kingdom. Sankt Kho had little loyalty or love for the king, but he could not stand against him, for the king had all the resources afforded to him by his station. What he could do was labor, day and night, for years and years, over inventions that might yet save his people whom he loved greatly. He had lived his life forging blades they carried into war; he desired to forge tools that could save them instead: clockwork soldiers that would never rust nor tire.  Sankt Kho had been working on these soldiers for years, and yet, he could not find the right miracle. But with the invading armies approaching, Sankt Kho grew desperate and afraid. He did not wish to see his beloved city pay the price for one man’s arrogance. What makes us different from you? Sankt Kho demanded of an uncaring king. What makes us any less worthy of life? What makes us so lesser that you would sacrifice us without a second thought? The king was cruel, but above all, a coward. He spared no thought for anything but retreat. Sankt Kho was loyal to the kingdom, not the king; Sankt Kho loved the people, not their ruler. He thought of them when he returned to his forge, when he crafted his soldiers, when he dug out a miracle from somewhere deep within him. When his work was at last complete, he brought the soldiers before the king, and they laid waste to the enemy with terrifying, brutal efficiency.  And the king, who once thought to abandon the people he demanded die in his stead, committed the worst of his betrayals: he set the clockwork soldiers to conquer, and conquer, and conquer, indiscriminately.  Some say that Sankt Kho’s fury was such that he stole into the king’s chambers one night to depose him, only for his own creations to kill him where he stood. Others claim that the king, for he was as ruthless as he was selfish, ordered Sankt Kho’s arrest, and that Sankt Kho, unwilling to raise even a hand against the people he so loved, surrendered and languished in prison until he eventually died. More still believe that, ashamed of the cruelty his clockwork soldiers wrought, Sankt Kho disappeared to lands unknown. But the reason for Sankt Kho’s absence mattered little: in the end, he was only legend, language, memory. And so, when even the king grew bored of endless bloodshed, no one could halt the swing of their blades as they tore cities apart, for the king was the soldiers’ owner but not their master.  It is said that the king descended into fury because the soldiers did not heed his commands. He wanted to conquer the continent, and the soldiers fulfilled his desire — but he knew, even then, that he would be helpless to their violence if they one day turned upon him. He knew that there was only one person who could put a stop to the brutality, and that he was long lost to time. 

Mama was not a manufacturer of goods. Mama traded goods, traded materials; she had a knack for sourcing rarities. It was how she and Baba met: Baba had sent out a commission for what was apparently an absurd quantity of chemicals, and Mama was not the only one who was willing to take it, but she was the only one uninterested in gaining a sheng ji’s favor. Sheng ji had always been treated like Saints in their own right, and Baba was no exception, even if at the time he hadn’t yet been the uncrowned king of the royal labs; he grew up in partial limelight and knew how to identify who didn’t care for him beyond his status. 

“Your Mama hadn’t cared,” Baba said sometimes, to tease her. “She just wanted her money.”

At that point, if Mama was there, she would lightly whack Baba. “Excuse you,” she said. “I was being professional.”

If their banter devolved from there, Kuwei would sneak away. 

“It wasn’t love at first sight,” Baba would also say. “But I appreciated that your Mama didn’t see a title.”

“Your Baba listened,” Mama would concede. “I grew up in a village on the far reaches of Shu Han — few in the capital spared me time of day or even really looked at me. Your Baba has never seen past me once.”

Kuwei wrinkled his nose at them each time. They were sickeningly sweet, and as much as he loved them, there was only so much he could endure. But they were good for each other, even he could see that: Baba was always just Baba in their home, nothing to prove, no miracle necessary; Mama stood tall on her own merits, and when her own reputation wasn’t enough — which still happened these days, much to their consternation — Mama was all too happy to leverage Baba’s. No one dared say anything about the flash of her silver pearl earrings; no one said Baba was inhuman. 

Mama humanized Baba in the eyes of Shu Han. Baba protected Mama’s image. It was strange, how it worked, the way others cast qualities on you through association, and they had the weaponization of it down to a science. 

Still, whatever doubts others cast on Mama didn’t apply outside of Shu Han. She had connections in Kerch and Novyi Zem, a little less in the Wandering Isles — the least in Ravka and Fjerda, where tensions still ran high and only few were willing to deal with a Shu trader, but few weren't none. 

Kuwei grew up with Mama leaving periodically: trips across Shu Han, trips overseas. He and Baba always saw her off at the port, and she would kiss them before leaving. They would watch until they could no longer see the gleam of her earrings, her ship fading into the horizon. While she was away, they wrote letters they didn’t send, because there wasn’t much point when they weren’t sure if they would arrive at all, and they exchanged them when she returned: small ways to say, I thought of you while you were gone. Kuwei looked forward to Mama’s letters more than anything else she brought back. 

That was normal. That was routine. 

Until one day, she didn’t return at all. 

An accident at sea, her first mate told them apologetically. 

An accident at sea. 

If Bo Yul-Bayur withdrew from his work, from the public eye, it was only to be expected after the loss of his wife. If his son turned muted, like his mother’s passing extinguished some light in him, it was a mark of filial grief. That they were grieving only meant that they had loved. 

And if Jiali-dashu and Enya-ayi visited more often, it was only to provide support to their friend and his son as they mourned a loved one, who was their friend, too. How lucky one should be, to have such support. 

Kuwei thought he might go insane with it. It seemed that all of Ahmrat Jen knew about Mama’s passing, that all of Ahmrat Jen thought it was their business. But Baba’s reputation was still on the line, despite it all, and they needed to keep it. 

He endured. 

They hung a blue banner over the front door, and they placed orders for blue clothes and accessories of all kinds from a seamstress who looked at them with something between pity and delight at having new customers, enough to last them the three-year mourning period. There was no body to bury, but there was still a tombstone and a funeral, and Kuwei offered the Joss paper. 

“Yeye doesn’t have a lot of sympathy,” Kuwei noted, after, in the privacy of their home. His grandparents stopped visiting by the time he’d turned six, citing health reasons, but they hadn’t changed at all.

Privately, he was glad he didn’t see them much anymore. He was more liable to start arguing with them these days. Yeye might not have approved of Mama’s roots, but it was a completely different thing, to tell Baba, at her funeral, that it was unbecoming of him to be so loud about his grief for her, as if being sheng ji meant Baba should have been as impervious as everyone said he was.  

Baba ruffled his hair in sympathy, then shed his blue outer robe. “Pay it no mind. We don’t need their pity,” said Baba. “We don’t need something that isn’t real.”

That much was true: they both knew Mama was exactly where she needed to be. 

Kuwei was not the only one Enya lied for. All the names on her notebook were fanren and not sheng ji, and they would stay that way. 

What she told them, after Mama’s faked death: a ship would come in two weeks’ time. If they wanted to leave Shu Han, the ship would take them where they wanted to go. She never gave Mama’s name, because news of her supposed death had traveled past Ahmrat Jen and her reputation still carried weight, but they would see soon enough the strength of Mama’s promises. All they had to do to secure passage was to show up at the appointed place and time, and to stay safe until then. 

It didn’t make sense, though, to house them until Mama’s ship arrived — they simply had to maintain their status quo. The more pressing matter was the sheng ji already in the palace.

The first sheng ji Enya-ayi and Jiali-dashu smuggled was Aidana Kir-Qazir, who arrived in their house in the dead of night, when Kuwei was supposed to be asleep. 

He wasn’t asleep. 

Kuwei stood in the silent dark, hidden from view, until they settled her in a spare room. He was old enough to heat water for suutei tsai though not experienced enough to command huo precisely enough to do it well, but it was still drinkable. Even Jiali-dashu, who often declined drinks — Kuwei figured it was because he wanted to leave as soon as possible; Baba looked momentarily wounded each time he was rejected, but kept offering anyway — accepted a cup. 

The next morning, Kuwei brought breakfast to Qazir-furen. He knocked once, and when she opened the door, he didn’t go in, only offered the tray for her to take. 

Her dull gold eyes swept over him, assessing. “Yul-Bayur’s son,” Qazir-furen mused. It was the first time he ever heard her speak, and he found he didn’t like the quiet promise of something in her voice. He didn’t trust it. 

Qazir-furen shut the door before he could ask about what that meant. 

Kuwei didn’t know what she commanded — huo, shui, jin, mu, tu, or mingyun. He decided he didn’t want to find out, because even just speaking with her seemed to cross the invisible lines she’d drawn. 

Still, he was there later that afternoon to collect her tray. Kuwei noted the scratches and bruises decorating her skin, and asked, tentatively, “Do you want Baba to look at your injuries? He can help.”

Her face darkened. “As if I would ever accept help from him.”

“Hey!” Kuwei snapped. Mama didn’t raise him like this, but he couldn’t help it, and anyway, if she were here, she’d defend Baba and Dashu, too. “Aren’t you at least a little grateful for what they’re doing? They’re putting themselves in danger to help you.”

“Grateful?” Qazir scoffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “His subordinates were the ones who did this to me.”

Kuwei went silent, stunned, and Qazir’s smile turned cruel. “Oh, you didn’t know,” she said. “Let me tell you, boy, the truth of those damned labs. The Tabans hate the sheng ji. They’re afraid of us. They bring us into their labs and programs with the promise of a better future we can help bring about to Shu Han, but it’s just another way for them to control us. The truth is, they want our power for themselves. All of this is just to keep us docile in the meantime. Your precious Baba and Dashu” — she spit out the titles like they were poison in her mouth — “are part of it. They don’t care about the rest of us. They just want to save themselves. I don’t know what their goal here is, but I’ll not accept anything from the men who want me dead.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kuwei said. “The labs don’t— Baba wouldn’t—”

“Believe what you will, boy.” Qazir’s face twisted into a sneer. “Tell me, have you ever wondered why our sheng ji number less than Ravka’s Grisha? The Tabans kill the ones who are too useless. Too stubborn. Your Baba and your Dashu experiment on the ones who didn’t make the cut.”

Kuwei huffed, finally fed up with the conversation, and yanked the tray back to him with more force than necessary. He didn’t have to listen to this nonsense. He turned to leave, then saw Baba lingering by the doorway, his expression tight. 

Guilty. 

“Baba,” Kuwei started, then stopped, scared of the question burning on his tongue. Scared of its answer. 

Qazir laughed behind him, high and hysterical. 

Baba began, “Kuwei—”

And he knew. 

The truth Kuwei learned: there was no left to remember it. No one knew what happened to Sankta Neyar, to Sankt Kho; no one knew why Neshyenyer was left unrusting in the halls of Ahmrat Jen. The Tabans were liars, crafting a narrative so convincing that no one knew fact from fiction. 

Kuwei’s truth: his father was a monster. 

Kuwei sprinted out of his childhood home, past the courtyard, past the gate, running blindly. The school was out of the question; his neighbors’ homes were out of the question. He ran until he found himself in the plum orchard he once spent that perfect afternoon in with his mother and father. Less than a year ago; a lifetime ago. The taste of plums rotted in his mouth.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, hidden in the shade. It could have been five minutes, thirty minutes, an hour. Kuwei drifted, unmoored, uncertain, like he’d downed an entire gallon of the drug his ayi once gave him. 

At the sound of footsteps on the ground, he looked up. Anger — betrayal; grief — lit him up from the inside once more. 

“Kuwei,” his father said, his hand extended. “Come home.”

“So it’s true.” Kuwei didn’t recognize his own voice. He sounded like his mother, like his  father during the night of their argument. 

Say it isn’t, he pleaded in his mind. Say she was lying, and that you’ve never experimented on anyone. Lie to me, I’ll believe you, so just—

But his father did not have interest in maintaining the mask any longer, it seemed. 

“Kuwei, please—”

“You lied to me,” Kuwei said. “You said you were helping people.”

“I had no choice—”

“Mama knows,” Kuwei said with cold certainty. He’s most useful to them dead, we both know this. “You both lied to me. You said you would protect me if I went.”

“I would have,” his father said. 

“If it helped the country, why would I have needed your protection?”

His father drew closer, speaking so softly that no one else, if there had been anyone else, could have heard him. “It’s true that the labs experiment on sheng ji,” he said. “Those who they deem too risky. Typically, it is the sheng ji who have control over wuxing rather than mingyun. Especially those who control huo.”

Kuwei paused. Considered this truth, and the story that unfolded before him a few years ago. “It wasn’t an accident,” he said slowly, “that killed Zhou-nushi. She did it on purpose.”

His father closed his eyes as if pained. “Yes. She did.”

“And you would have let me go? Knowing this? Knowing that death is better than whatever would’ve been waiting for me in the labs?”

“I would’ve protected you.” His father’s voice broke. “Kuwei, please believe me. I would’ve protected you. The labs wouldn’t have touched you. You wouldn’t have been a test subject.”

“Okay,” Kuwei said. “Okay. So I wouldn’t have been part, but I still would’ve been in the program anyway if you lied. You wanted me to become like you instead?”

Baba always went for the jugular. 

When he was younger, Kuwei always wanted to be his father’s son. 

Bo looked stricken. Just a year ago, Kuwei would have plied him with blankets, with food, would have curled beside him on the bed and stayed until his Baba felt more human. But all his compassion had burned up and out. 

Why? Kuwei wanted to demand instead. 

How could you? Kuwei wanted to cry. 

I hate you, Kuwei wanted to spit, wanted to scream, wanted to rage. Wanted to let the power in him flare, and burn, and burn, and burn, until Shu Han lay as scorched-black as his heart. But in the end, he couldn’t say it. 

Bo’s expression crumpled like he heard it anyway. 

The truth: Kuwei’s father loved him. Kuwei’s father was a monster. 

The truth: that was the worst part. Not that his father was crueler than Kuwei could forgive — but that Kuwei still loved him, too, despite it all.  

Kuwei didn’t want to speak with Bo more than he had to. He didn’t want to look at him. When Bo asked, again, for Kuwei to come home, Kuwei pushed past him and started the walk back in stony silence. 

It was better than Bo deserved.

“You see?” Qazir said when Kuwei brought her dinner, eager to escape Bo’s presence as soon as he could. Kuwei was, privately, half-surprised she hadn’t run off when Bo chased after him… but then again, there was nowhere else she could go, and that was the entire problem right there. “Boy, there’s nothing charitable about Yul-Bayur. Consider it a kindness that you found out now instead of later.”

Kuwei whirled on her, fire sparking between his fingers. “Don’t pretend,” Kuwei snarled, too furious to be gratified at the shock passing over her face, “that you did it just to be kind. You’re hurt, so you wanted me to hurt, too. Guess what — I am, and it doesn’t change a thing. We’re still here hiding from the Tabans in this house, and I’m still the son of a murderer, and you’re still legally dead, and my father is still the only reason we’re alive, so how about you shut up.”

It was probably unwise to turn his back on someone like her, who felt cornered enough to lash out at anyone, anything given half the chance, but she was probably no more trained than he was. Kuwei snatched up her tray and all its utensils before storming away. 

He slammed the door behind him on his way out. 

It didn’t open again. 

Kuwei ducked out of the house and sat in a corner of the courtyard, thin wisps of smoke rising into the air. Risky, maybe, but the entire plan was a gamble and he could pass this off as something else.

Bo. Sarantsatsral. Jiali. Enya. They were all in on it. They all knew. Kuwei didn’t know how involved Enya was, but the first three—

“Kuwei,” his dashu said. 

Kuwei went still; snuffed the fire. He was a little afraid of what he might do with it. 

“Dashu,” Kuwei said, not looking at him, and they said nothing more. 

Sparks flickered in Kuwei’s veins. His dashu held life and death in his hands. Kuwei didn’t trust that he wouldn’t set himself alight with the force of his own rage; he didn’t know if similar worries were what stayed his dashu’s tongue, but was— relieved, that it did. He would almost certainly fight him then. 

Dashu, he thought, must have been smart enough to realize this. 

When Kuwei mastered himself, it was only then that he spoke. He said: “When my father first told you of his plans, you turned him down immediately. Then he asked you if you were tired.”

In his peripheral vision, Kuwei saw his dashu take a seat beside him, close enough that they could touch but far enough that they had to make the choice. His dashu inclined his head. If he was surprised that Kuwei had heard the conversation, he didn’t show it. “He did.”

“What did he mean by tired? Tired of what?”

“The labs experiment on other sheng ji. Often, they do not survive the procedures.”

“And so you’ve been living off their suffering.” Something bitter curdled in Kuwei’s stomach, twisted his mouth. “Noted.”

“Do not take that tone with me, Kuwei,” his dashu said sharply. “You know nothing of the hardships we endured.

“Then start talking.”

“We were younger than you are now when we were accepted into the program,” his dashu started. “They told us we would ensure Shu Han’s continued longevity and prosperity, and they — other, older sheng ji — taught us how to use our powers. Your Baba and I were sent to work in the labs. Our first test subject was one of our peers who the Tabans deemed too uncontrollable. We couldn’t leave.”

“Couldn’t leave,” Kuwei repeated. “Why?”

“Because we knew we would be put on the receiving end of those experiments,” his dashu said. “And we wanted to live.”

“So all these years, you’ve been killing people?”

“We had no choice,” his dashu said again. “We weren’t arrogant enough to think we could challenge the Tabans and win.”

“There are always choices. You could’ve left the country,” Kuwei said. “ You could’ve run away. You’re the heads of the lab now — at any point did you think of changing the system for the better?”

“Don’t speak of things you have no experience of,” his dashu snapped. “We are not proud of our compliance. But we made them, and we are living with the consequences now. We are always going to live with them.” Softer, his dashu continued, “You’re lucky, Kuwei, that you have never experienced desperation like we have.”

Kuwei laughed. He couldn’t help the bitterness bubbling out of him. “I don’t understand desperation? Dashu, what is this if not desperation? I’m living in the world you and Baba helped build.”

“We built it because we wanted to live. Do you think we’re selfish for living?”

Selfish. What a funny way to put it. No, his father and his dashu had the right to live, but so did everyone else, and to frame those deaths as merely a byproduct of their survival—

“I think you’re cowards,” Kuwei said, “for not finding a better way sooner. Because if my father didn’t tell you about his plans, and it was me lying on that table for you to experiment on, you wouldn’t have hesitated. You would’ve killed me anyway.”

Jiali didn’t answer. 

Kuwei stood and left him in the dark, alone. 

Qazir stayed with them for nearly a month, which none of them were pleased about: she would still sometimes taunt Kuwei, bitter and cruel — though Kuwei offered her only icy ignorance — but mostly, she sat in silence; Bo went through great measures to limit contact with her; Jiali just flat-out didn’t initiate any contact at all. By the end of it, Kuwei had burned through all his anger; what was left was just exhaustion.

“This is not your absolution,” Qazir said to Bo on the night Sarantsatsral’s ship arrived, just before her own departure. The other sheng ji were likely already making the trip to the port.  

“I know,” Bo replied. 

Her eyes narrowed. For a harrowing moment, Kuwei thought she might lash out. Then she straightened to her full height, commanding, imperious, every inch as regal as the Queen even in traveling boots and a plain hemp cloak. “Bo Yul-Bayur,” she said. “May you find what you’re looking for.” 

Kuwei knew better than to wince, so he didn’t. He knew better, too, than to start a fight with someone as caustic and furious as Qazir. So he said nothing, just watched as her silhouette faded into the night. 

“May you travel in the direction of the wind,” Kuwei murmured to no one, and hoped, sincerely, that even if she would not, could forgive Bo for his crimes, their gamble would at least pay off long enough to see her settled in a better place. 

A package arrived for him during the second month, containing books on Ravkan, on Fjerdan, Kerch, Suli, Kaelish, Zemeni. Attached to it was a note that merely read: I’m sorry. There was no signature but Kuwei knew it was from Sarantsatsral. 

He sent no reply in return. 

The years went on. Sarantsatsral went to sea and returned to Shu Han, carrying smuggled sheng ji out of the country. Enya whispered of escape routes to anyone she tested. Jiali brought would-be subjects to their house, and Bo would open their doors to them. Kuwei, more often than not, was tasked with minding them: most couldn’t stand Bo or Jiali to accept even food or water. Most couldn’t trust him either, but wariness was the lesser evil than outright hostility. 

“You don’t have to forgive them,” Kuwei said to some. “You don’t even have to like them. But right now, we’re trying to keep you safe until you can leave Shu Han. Please, just… just accept our help.” 

“It doesn’t undo everything else they did,” Kuwei said to others. “It’s completely valid that you’re angry with them. This isn’t them trying to atone or righting wrongs — this is them doing what’s right, after years of not.”

You don’t have to forgive them. 

You don’t have to forgive them. 

You don’t have to forgive them.

It wasn’t quite Kuwei’s place to offer his forgiveness; he had never been in the crosshairs of their cruelty. But even if it was his place, he wouldn’t have been able to offer it anyway.

The second half of Bo’s plan — he wanted to make a drug that could hide a sheng ji’s powers. The rest of the world was cruel to them, just in different ways, and smuggling whoever they could was only a cure for the symptom and not the source. He spent hours with Jiali in the labs on most days, experimenting, trying to dig deep enough that their miracles would at last produce something good. 

Kuwei saw that point in it. He did. But he didn’t want to hide. Kuwei wanted to be nhaban, the rising phoenix; he wanted to pluck the Tabans and their precious falcons from the sky and set them alight in his hands. 

After Ravka’s civil war ended, riguang and heiying both vanquished, some of the sheng ji who stayed with them were from Ravka, captured by bounty hunters who crossed the border. Not all were soldiers of the Second Army but they spoke of it and how their abilities were not used for prosperity but death. 

This was, in Kuwei’s estimation, in some ways worse than Shu Han. At least in Shu Han, there were sheng ji whose powers went to medicine, to infrastructure, to art, to a dozen other fields. On the other hand, Ravka made no illusions about what their Grisha meant to them, and Kuwei thought he might prefer that honesty — bound by duty but not by lies. 

He could not burn the Tabans yet. But if he received training from the Second Army, there was no limit to what he could do. 

Kuwei learned his languages. Kuwei minded their wards. Kuwei went to school and lied to the public. Kuwei counted the days until he could leave. 

Kuwei endured. 

A breakthrough came in the fourth year of their quiet, late rebellion, when Kuwei was fifteen. Bo was convinced their drug was finally ready for use. Jiali agreed to test it. 

It was far down in the evening, at a time where no one should have been awake. But they all were there: Kuwei, Bo, Enya, Jiali, the three sheng ji who they put up until Sarantsatsral arrived next week. Enya had brought the palace’s testing drugs, vials of it lined up on a counter, which they would use after to check if the drug could resist even that. Bo held Jiali’s hand (Kuwei, despite it all, was convinced of Bo’s devotion; Sarantsatsral was likely privy to whatever development they’d had and gave her consent. He was just glad they’d stopped dancing around each other that much, and it was hard to begrudge them for it when these days it seemed Bo only smiled freely with Jiali), and Jiali himself eyed the vials, took a steadying breath, and downed Bo’s drug in a single gulp. 

“Well?” Enya demanded, after a tense, suspended moment where Jiali didn’t move at all. “Do you feel anything?”

Jiali turned his head to her. His eyes flashed with something that seemed unnatural. Then his hand shot up and forward, clenched, and suddenly Enya and two of their three wards were choking on nothing, clutching at their throats as they buckled to the ground. 

“Jiali!” Bo twisted around and caught Jiali’s other arm, trying to pin him down. “Stop, what are you doing, you’re hurting them!” 

Jiali looked at them with unseeing eyes. His hand clenched once more — and Kuwei moved before his mind could catch up. 

He grabbed Jiali’s outer coat, left discarded on a chair, and hopped up to tie it around Jiali’s head, yanking him backwards. The bounty hunters always tried to blind the sheng ji they caught; they knew they were useless when they couldn’t see, and it was how a number of their wards were captured. It bought Bo enough time to regain control of himself and take control of Jiali: blinded as he was, Jiali could not fight him off when Bo exerted enough of his power to still his hands. 

“Keep the blindfold on him,” Bo instructed, his voice deceptively calm. “Follow me to my bedroom, we’ll keep him there.” 

Kuwei swallowed hard and nodded assent. It was difficult to keep the knot tied securely when at every moment Jiali tried to fight him off, to say nothing of the height difference, but his fear allowed him to do nothing else.

One of their wards followed them to the room, handcuffs glinting. Kuwei wasn’t sure what piece of metal they’d transformed to make it, but it mattered more that they had it at all. Bo settled Jiali on his bed, Kuwei secured the knot, and their ward cuffed Jiali’s hands to the headboard. 

“Are you all right?” Kuwei asked their ward. They’d been on the receiving end of Jiali’s seemingly enhanced powers. It looked painful to see; it must have felt worse to bear.

“In shock, but we’ll be fine.” Their ward hesitated. “Do you need help?” 

“No,” Bo said, still with that forced, deceptive calm. He turned to look at them and smiled in a mockery of comfort. “I can manage from here, thank you. Please rest. I’ll tend to you afterwards.”

Another moment of hesitation, and their ward left, shutting the door behind him. 

“You don’t have to stay, Kuwei,” Bo said, even as his attention turned back to Jiali, howling and thrashing on the bed. 

Kuwei shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

Bo sighed but didn’t press the point. What he did instead made Kuwei single-handedly question Bo’s cognitive capabilities: he started undoing the makeshift blindfold. 

“Baba,” Kuwei protested. Handcuffed or not, there was no telling what Jiali could do in this state. 

“I’ll be fine, nhaban. I promise.”

“Don’t,” Kuwei started to say, but he was too late, and the blindfold fell off. 

“Jiali,” Baba said softly. “It’s me. It’s Bo. You’re with me, and we’re in my room. You’re safe.”

Jiali-dashu answered with a snarl. Baba’s expression twinged, but he still cupped Jiali-dashu’s face in his hands. “Jiali. You’re here, you’re with me, you’re safe.”

Slowly, Jiali-dashu’s frantic movements came to a halt. “Trust me,” Baba went on. He leaned closer, resting his forehead against Jiali-dashu’s. “You’re safe here. You’re safe. Trust me.” 

And then, when Jiali-dashu had gone completely still, looking at Baba with wide, hazy eyes, looking at him without recognition, Baba clenched his fists and he fell unconscious. 

The sheng ji, too, fell to Sankt Kho’s clockwork creations, who became heralds of death and destruction throughout the land. The king’s wish for annihilation was fulfilled at last, an inevitability.  There was no messenger to warn of the soldiers’ arrival, no possibility of forewarning when all that was left in their wake was ruin. But absence echoed, too, and Sankta Neyar stood waiting by the city walls, watchman to her people’s reckoning. It was only when at last the distant footfalls of metal grew closer and closer that Sankta Neyar left her post. Sankta Neyar was the first and only child of a noble family since lost to time. Despite her status, Sankta Neyar never once thought herself above labor, and she was skilled at forging. She whispered prayers over her sword until it was strong enough to laugh and steel and sharp enough to cut through shadows, and swore to protect her people with all her might.  She could not yet ask her people to retreat when she did not know if the soldiers would attack them or the city first. Better for them to remain inside the walled city limits where she could better protect them. If even her miracle failed, she would stall with all she had until they could escape.  And this was the story that stayed: Sankta Neyar of the Six Soldiers, who forged the unrusting Neshyenyer, who battled Sankt Kho’s clockwork battalion for three days and three nights. Sankta Neyar, who saved Shu Han from the despotic king that ruled over it.   It was Sankta Neyar who paved the way for the first queen of Shu Han, the Taban yenok-yun, the storm that stayed. When the Taban yenok-yun descended from the mountains of Sikurzoi, Sankta Neyar appeared before her throne in Ahmrat Jen: not to depose another tyrant, but to offer her loyalty.  To you, Born of Heaven, Most Celestial Highness, I gift my blade, said Sankta Neyar, and bowed low before the first queen of Shu Han. May you, too, be sharp enough to cut through the shadows and strong enough to laugh at steel. Long may you reign, with the blessing of the heavens upon you.  The Taban yenok-yun, pleased at the show of sincerity, offered Sankta Neyar a place in her court — the first minister of what would become Shu Han.  And so Sankta Neyar was celebrated in Shu Han thereafter. She pledged her life in service to the Taban queens, and together, they united Shu Han from the shores of Bhez Ju to the hills of Koba. Where they went, they mended the destruction the king and his clockwork soldiers had wrought, returning peace and prosperity to the land. Word of their rule spread far and wide, and soon more and more cities willingly accepted the Taban yenok-yun as their Queen. With them, more sheng ji came to swear fealty to the Taban yenok-yun, and Sankta Neyar gladly took it upon herself to lead the sheng ji in guiding Shu Han to a better future.  And so the sheng ji were revered in Shu Han, as integral to the country as the sea and sky and land, such to the point that Shu Han became known as a country of miracles.  It has remained so until this day.

Bo wrote to Sarantsatsral. Bo wrote to the Merchant Council of Kerch. He begged for asylum. 

Jurda parem, he called the drug they had created, without pity, because there was nothing else that could be true. 

The week it took for Sarantsatsral to make port was the longest of Kuwei’s life. They kept Jiali restrained to the bed until the jurda parem ran its course, and even then, they had to always watch him for fear of him sneaking away to take another dose. His strength declined rapidly, his muscles weakened, and maybe worst of all was what happened to his abilities: he could no longer control mingyun. 

They had to leave, soon. That much was clear, however deeply it would impact their smuggling of sheng ji. Enya said she would figure it out, but even if she couldn’t, they would still have to flee the country. Jurda parem was too dangerous to keep in Shu Han, and even Kerch where they revered profit above all, but Kerch had more protection than the Wandering Isles and even Novyi Zem, neutral as it was. 

Sarantsatsral couldn’t have arrived quick enough. 

The night that she did, Kuwei already had on hand what little he could bring with him. Their wards had even less. Jiali borrowed some clothes from Bo, and that was it. They could not afford to bring anything more. 

Truthfully, Kuwei didn’t want to go. It was wiser, yes. It was safer. But just as he had all those years ago, he ached to leave Shu Han, to leave Baba behind. 

The port was always crowded, even at night. Their wards and Sarantsatsral’s crew helped Jiali aboard, despite his weak protests which really only proved their points quite neatly. 

Kuwei glanced around. He made his choice. 

In the chaos, he slipped away. 

No one gave chase. 

Kuwei slid the door to his home open and the back of his head knocked back against the wall from the force of being shoved. There was no weight on his throat or his chest, but he gasped around a weak, strangled breath, thrashing around in the invisible hold, which let up only moments later. He breathed in, deeply, bowled over, and then looked up to see Bo’s wide eyes, Bo reaching out for him. 

Bo pulled Kuwei over to a nearby chair, then silently fetched him a cup of water. When Kuwei felt recovered enough to talk, he inhaled once, straightening his spine. “Thank you,” he said to Bo, whose brows furrowed like he didn’t quite trust that Kuwei wouldn’t collapse if he looked at him the wrong way but ultimately continued the conversation. 

Good. They didn’t have time for sentiment. 

“I’m sorry,” Bo said. “Are you all right?”

Kuwei had to clear his throat once, which didn’t help his case at all. “I am,” he said anyway. 

“What happened?” Bo said. “Where’s Jiali? Did the ship not arrive?”

“It did. He’s on it.” Kuwei canted his head to the side, considering. If he took into account how long it had been since he’d snuck away… “They’re either about to leave or have already to left.”

“They left you behind?” Bo’s eyes went wide. 

Bo wasn’t normally so expressive, Kuwei noted, somewhat distantly, but then again it might’ve been the shock. You normally didn’t briefly choke your son with magic powers the universe had arbitrarily decided to grant you, which the country in which you resided in either killed or literally-and-metaphorically shackled you for, when your son was supposed to be on a ship bound for anywhere here — manned by your wife who had faked her death for the express purpose of smuggling people out of the country — accompanied by several other people who had the same powers with one near comatose because of your experimental drug which you had developed in the hopes of helping your people but went horribly south.

Kuwei should’ve been more upset about this turn of events. 

Oh. 

Maybe he was in shock, too. 

“They didn’t leave me,” Kuwei said past the fog — the wall — keeping everything around him at more than arm’s length. There was no clarity in repression. “When they weren’t looking, I went back here.”

Bo stared at him for a long moment, his throat working as if to say something only to hesitate. 

This was probably not the best way to have this conversation. 

“You were supposed to go with them,” Bo finally said. “Kuwei, nhaban, why didn’t you go? It would’ve been safer for you.”

Safety. What was safe these days? Half the world wanted them dead or otherwise incapacitated. 

Kuwei said, “My entire life, you always fought to give me choices. I chose this.”

And besides, what would Baba do about it now? Kuwei was already here. The ship had left or would leave; that none of them returned suggested they hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. Not for the son of the man whose rank relied entirely on hurting them. 

Strange, the way others’ association cast shadows on you. 

“Choices have consequences,” Baba said. 

“I know. But I couldn’t leave.”

Baba’s exhale was ragged. He was smart enough to know there was nothing else they could do. “Then you must be prepared to live with them. Kerch’s ship arrives in a week. An infinite number of things could go wrong.”

“I know.”

“If worst comes to worst…” Bo trailed off. Kuwei frowned at him. This was not the time for sentiment, or hesitation, or dramatics; there was only forward, forward. 

“Yu yeh sesh,” Bo said at last. Despise your heart. 

The answer was supposed to be ni we sesh. I have no heart. Kuwei opened his mouth to say it, but the words dissolved like ash. Whatever kindling he’d once used to stoke his courage was suddenly nothing more than dim embers, a remnant of another boy from another lifetime, who didn’t know what scales he would have to balance. Who would never understand that, to sustain a flickering flame, you had to burn anything, everything.

But there were some things too precious to burn. There were some things Kuwei would burn for instead. 

“Yu yeh sesh,” his father said at Kuwei’s silence, more firmly this time. There was something like desperation in his eyes. “Kuwei. Whatever happens.”

Kuwei swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “Ni we sesh.” 

I have no heart, but for all that he needed to pretend, it wasn’t true at all.

On their last night in their home, his father made roast duck with plum sauce, and Kuwei dug up his mother’s recipe for boortsog, even though he didn’t need it when she made sure he memorized it years before she had to leave. But it was nice to have something to do with his hands. It was nice, too, to have something as warm as the suutei tsai his father served after dinner, where they both lingered in the courtyard in silence, trying to find excuses to stay a little longer. 

But they were pragmatic down to the core, and scientists besides. They couldn’t go for the jugular if they couldn’t cast aside all that was useless. When the night grew cold and long and dead, they headed indoors. 

If Kuwei decided to knock on his father’s door and steal under the covers, like he was five again, young enough that his only fears were the storms raging outside the windows and the monsters under his bed and not the monsters on the streets, in his home, and if his father shifted closer, mumbling old stories and recent discoveries — it was desperation, and it was comfort, and it was almost foreign, but above all, it was love. 

After everything. Despite everything. Because of everything. 

Kuwei glanced at his father’s expression. He looked so much older than he had before his mother left, before they started taking sheng ji in, before Kuwei ran off and set a fire just because he wanted something to hurt the way he was hurting. He was old enough to admit it to himself: his father was unforgivable. That did not make his actions unjustifiable.

At their core, they were nothing but pragmatic, and survival fetched a high price in the royal labs. Maybe that was the nature of Shu Han: to burn out everyone’s capacity for kindness until no one could afford anything but necessity. 

Did his father understand that? That even if Kuwei could never forgive him, that didn’t mean Kuwei didn’t love him. Kuwei thought of the silent meals and the late nights, the carefully metered distance and the aborted conversations, all the months Kuwei spent holding his anger like it would fix anything, and rather abruptly came to— not regret it. He wasn’t wrong to be furious. But something in his chest ached at the possibility of his father not knowing Kuwei loved him.

If they died tomorrow, he didn’t want his father to die unloved and sad. Still, Kuwei couldn't take back the years and regret was a waste of time. What he could do was this: he curled up closer, the closest he’d ever been since he learned his father’s truth, enough that they were hugging again like nothing ever changed, and he said, simply, “I love you, Baba.”

Baba stared at him in clear surprise, though his words didn’t falter once. His expression softened. He blinked away tears that Kuwei didn’t mention, and he opened his arms for a proper embrace.

Kuwei drifted off to sleep in Baba’s arms and did not dream of tomorrow. 

It was an ambush. 

Kuwei screamed, a feral, animalistic sound that he did not recognize as his, when a bullet tore through his father. The panic cleaved him in two; it didn’t matter whose bullet it was when his father was crumpled on the ground with blood so much blood he wasn’t moving he wasn’t moving he was dead dead dead—

With another scream ripped raw from his throat, Kuwei lunged for his father’s body, but hands caught him by the shoulders, tight enough that even moving hurt. He thrashed against the grip to no avail, howling curses foul enough that they would follow the soldiers from this life into the next. 

His father died knowing Kuwei loved him. His father died alone with a gunshot clean through his stomach. 

If his father was dead, Kuwei wanted to be—

No. 

Ni we sesh. I have no heart. 

The Fjerdans led him onto their ship in chains. Kuwei yielded; Kuwei amputated his grief the same way his father severed life. It wouldn’t serve him here. 

Kuwei had promised. And his father had sacrificed. Out somewhere in the ocean, his mother was manning a ship of smuggled sheng ji, and his uncle was recovering from jurda parem if he wasn’t already dead. 

Kuwei would survive to see them. Kuwei would survive to reach Ravka’s Little Palace, and find a cure for jurda parem, and train, and burn this wretched system down to the ground. 

He had no other choice.  

The Fjerdan soldiers dragged him to the admiral. Distantly, Kuwei noted that there were still gunshots in the distance, growing fainter and fainter. 

They asked him dozens of questions Kuwei knew he shouldn’t answer, but Kuwei couldn’t stake his life on the value of his knowledge. One day, it would just be easier for them to kill him rather than keep him alive; he had to delay that as long as possible. 

Kuwei answered in broad strokes, his Fjerdan clumsy and halting. Jurda parem was meant to hide a sheng ji’s powers except it amplified them instead. His father had been developing it for years. Kuwei himself only somewhat knew how. 

This was how to survive in a world of tyrants: Keep your head down. 

This was how to live: Resist.

They asked about the chemicals, the manufacturing, the side effects. Kuwei’s Fjerdan was mediocre, but better than conversational; he lied and pretended he understood little beyond the basic questions they originally asked. He especially did not mention the escape route his mother had been maintaining while his father and uncle developed the jurda parem. When they finally grew tired of probing him for answers he feigned incapability on, they locked him in one of the cells, calling him witch, calling him unholy. 

The miracles of Shu Han, witches of Fjerda, saviors of the Wandering Isles, blessed of Novyi Zem, profitable of Kerch — did it even matter what they were called? It all just meant not human. Never human; less than. In the universal language of power, there was only one word: control. 

In that, at least, they were equally fluent.

Kuwei couldn’t stake his life on the value of his knowledge, but these Fjerdan soldiers were the enactors of terror, never the terrified. What would they know of the desperation that overcame fear?

Alone in his cell in the Ice Court, Kuwei shivered, curling in on himself. This was nothing like Shu Han, where it never even snowed during the winter.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here. Months, certainly, but he was no closer to replicating jurda parem, finding a cure for it, or figuring out a way to escape. 

And that was— that was fine. If he was still alive to know these things, then he was still alive to take chances, whenever they arrived. 

The moment he found them, he would burn this wretched place down to the ground. 

Because it was truly wretched. It felt like the Fjerdans had somehow managed to unleash winter in one single room, the food was bland and tasteless, he was never allowed to even step out into the sun—

—and every day, news made its way even to him. The guards spoke of the half-machine, half-human soldiers Shu Han was developing under the orders of Her Imperial Majesty Makhi Kir-Taban, winged machinations that could scent sheng ji from miles away, brass knuckles embedded into their very flesh. 

It didn’t matter if Enya figured out how to continue smuggling sheng ji out of Shu Han if those soldiers were the Tabans’ latest war machines. Kuwei could only hope she’d gotten out in time. 

Kuwei worried at the threadbare blanket they’d deigned to provide him. It really was too cold here, and he wanted bright summer afternoons, flying kites on the outskirts of Ahmrat Jen, picking plums in the orchards. He wanted roast duck and boortsog and suutei tsai. 

He wanted to go home, but home was a place that would turn on him in a heartbeat. He wanted his family, but they were lost to him, maybe forever, and he would never hug Mama again, never have lunch with Jiali-dashu, never talk with Enya-ayi, and it broke something in him to know this. 

The Ice Court was a place for endings and not endurance, but Kuwei would suffer through a lifetime in this hell if only it meant he was by Baba’s side. 

[aphroditestummyrolls]

I’d love the engagement series for the wip

game. It’s one of fav you’ve done.

Hi anon! Thanks so much for sending this— writing out the rest of this little scene was such a nice break from working on BHaD chapter 3!

“I want to ask Wy to marry me.”

Well. Well, that was just… That was a bloody sunbeam through a cloud. That was what that was.

Colm couldn’t have kept the smile off his face for anything in the world. He couldn’t keep the happy little twitch from his fingers or try to squash the warm expansion that filled up his chest. He very nearly wanted to cry.

Jesper blinked at him. “What is happening to your face right now?”

“Oh hush, I’m so happy for you!” He gushed. His hands reached out and took his son— his grown, wonderful, clever, handsome boy— by the cheeks. By some miracle Jesper humoured him, and Colm was grateful. Through the misty eyed lens of time, he could see all the variations of wild and young that his boy had been, and all the ways he’d grown. All of the wonderful future paths he could take.

That he and Wylan could take together.

Jes patted his hand over Colm’s, only a little awkwardly, laughing a little. “C’mon Da, it’s not like he’s said yes yet.”

Colm tsked, swatting at the words like an irritation. It was a mere formality. “Oh, don’t give me that! I barely spent an hour with the two of you before I knew you two were special.”

“You did not—“

“The point is,” he let the bubbles of his joy settle a little, taking his son’s hands in both of his, “that that boy is clearly ass over tea kettle about you. And you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

That was the moment, it seemed, where Jesper finally let himself relax into the moment. His shoulders deflated, a proper grin spreading across his face like a sunrise. Those grey eyes were sparkling and bright, and he exhaled in a gust. It must be something, to get the weight off his chest.

“Is this the first time you’ve said it all out loud?”

He shrugged a little. “It’s the first time it feels really real, I suppose. I asked Marya for her blessing just before we left, but this feels… different.” It was a good different, clearly. It was the type of different that lit Jesper up from within, the type of different that glowed so bright, it warmed the whole room ten degrees.

It made him look terribly like his mother.

“Jesper, I…” it came out a little raspier than he’d like, clearing his throat. “Your momma—“

“Da, I—“

“Jesper Fahey.” They’d spent too long hiding her memory in the shadows, wearing her like a yoke around their necks. It still took so much to say the words aloud. But, they’d both promised to change, and this was the most important thing— learning how to carry her with them in a way that wasn’t stifling. “Your mother would be so, so proud of the man you’ve become. And she would love your Wylan.”

Jesper blinked hard, fluttering his short lashes as he looked down at their hands. But his smile didn’t waver.

“I, um… actually, I wanted to ask you about her. Is there anything of hers— her jewelry, I mean— around? Maybe something that I could fabrikate a bit?” He was fiddling with Colm’s fingers, not looking up at him. “It’s alright, if you can’t part with anything! It’s just that having something of hers, it would mean a lot, for making Wylan part of the family, I think. It would mean a lot to him— to us. And I wanted to make it, y’know? Like how you pass down and, and remake family rings in the Wandering Isle? It’s alright, though, if—“

Colm stood up and pulled Jesper with him, pulling him into a hug that could hopefully ease the nervous rambling. He didn’t even know what to say, or how else to express it all otherwise. Jesper had put so much thought into this. So much care.

He wanted to honour them.

Colm didn’t ease up his hold on his son until he finally let himself be held. He wrapped his gangly arms around Colm’s shoulders, and went comfortably quiet for a moment.

Thanks for playing! ❤️❤️❤️ (want to play? click the link for WIP list!)

[lilithblackwood]

Be honest with me, guys! For the next post or two, which story lore are you guys interested in so far? Because I’m always happy to talk about my works! (Definitely not because I’m needy for people’s opinions about what I write – )

Learn more about them with their summaries underneath the cut!

Witches and Nobility:

es·o·ter·ic

/ˌesəˈterik/

intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.

Danica is a mysterious young witch who's affiliated with the infamous Edalyn Clawthorne, AKA Eda the Owl Lady. Blessed with incredible magic and a sharp mind, she is a force to be reckoned with.

When a young human girl named Luz Noceda accidentally wanders into the Boiling Isles and joins them to learn how to become a witch herself, Danica soon finds herself swept up in a tidal wave of dark secrets, hidden tales, and a twisted history that could change everything.

What are her reasons for affiliating with a fugitive like Eda? What is her connection to the Emperor's Coven? And what exactly are the full details of her past?

Lotus of Rebirth:

Lan is a soft-spoken and gentle young woman with a unique green thumb. She works part-time as a florist and lives next to a a noodles restaurant called Pigsy's Noodles, alongside an optimistic young boy by the name of MK, who serves as the delivery boy. Despite the demanding work and rough city life, Lan couldn't be any more content with her life.

Her peaceful lifestyle abruptly comes to an end when the Demon Bull King is released from his prison after thousands of years of imprisonment. The trouble seems to grow when MK is chosen to be none other than the successor of the famous Monkey King himself, as he is the one to wield his mighty staff.

Join Lan as she helps MK on his journey to become the next Monkey King, tasked with protecting humanity against the forces of evil. But it won't be easy...

Something is stirring behind the scenes.

Something that could change the world itself for the worse.

And it may have something to do with Lan's powers and these strange dreams she has been having lately...

𝕎𝕆ℕ𝔻𝔼ℝ𝕃𝔸ℕ𝔻.𝔼𝕏𝔼:

Barbie's very first memory was waking up in the Amazing Digital Circus, an eccentric virtual circus world filled with never-before seen wonders and horrors alike, all under the control of the bizarre ringleader Caine.

At first, it's a dream come true. But there's just one problem.

Every human that enters this virtual world is not only forever trapped in their digital avatars, but face the risk of "Abstraction": the moment when someone finally reaches their breaking point from the insanity of their eternal imprisonment.

Join Barbie and the others as they struggle to survive and escape their new home with the threat of insanity looming over their shoulders, along with something far more sinister working behind the scenes of the program trapping them.

...but it looks like Barbie is not who...or rather, what she appears to be.

And she doesn't seem to be very keen at the thought of escape.

[rogueshadeaux]

His Light, Her Cause ➳ Eugene & Alessia

Made for @lobotomizedlemon long before I knew how important Alessia Donovan would be to me—and the twins! A story of how Eugene and Sia both found something worth fighting for.

2.2k words | 10-13 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: torture, depression, hallucinations

There wasn't much he could think about in that double plexiglass cell but her when the torture stopped at the end of the day.

They met on Armageddon Isles under pseudonyms, a pair of misfits that found their strength in each other behind the wielding of keyboards. She had been there when his voice deepened and solidified, and he was there to gift her the permanent moniker of Squeaks now that she was the higher pitched one. By the gods, there were some days where she was the only highlight of his waking hours; with a father that had long since disappeared, a mother fighting in congress to prevent the hell they barely dodged as the Beast traveled south, and a school life full of bullying more than friendship, sometimes slipping on those noise-canceling headphones was the only time he felt heard.

He’d found himself using that escape far too often. Definitely enough times to get caught by bullies, and give them more ammunition to use against him. Even if he wouldn’t be able to share that time with Squeaks while she went to school as well, it was fine. He just needed to escape.

It happened during lunch. Eugene tried to ignore their words as he sat at the picnic table in the courtyard and opened his computer, but it was hard. Especially when they loomed over him like vultures. His lunch met the ground and their mocking met his ears, but surprisingly, a fist also met the gut of the ringleader. A spry girl the same height as the man’s elbows threatened him like she was as tall as a mountain, refusing to waver under his glare and not breaking eye contact until the alpha and his pathetic pack of bullies scurried away, deciding Eugene wasn’t worth the effort.

Eugene rebuffed her small talk, shrinking in on his form with every growl of his rapacious stomach as she introduced herself as Alessia and offered to help him get some new food. He didn’t interact with her much until she began to gently probe him about the game he was playing, speaking with familiarity about it. Of loot and stats and strategies. Cut off by the harsh ring of the warning bell, Eugene took a gamble and asked the young lady for her gamertag.

And couldn’t believe his ears when he heard it.

“Squeaks?” He asked, eyes wide.

Alessia froze in place, the backpack she was about to shrug on instead falling to the dirt. “...Angel?”

They became inseparable at that moment. Two best friends on and off screen.

She was there the day he was swept up in a flurry of guns and black and yellow armor, barely able to hear his pleas over the screams of everyone else in their high school. How was it fair that he was the one beaten, bloody and bruised, and yet also the one being punished for the crime of protecting himself? And she couldn't do a thing but be pinned against the wall as they sedated and cuffed him, held firm against brick until her own vision faded and she passed out. She woke up with the school nurse at her head and her best friend gone, without a clue of where they took him.

No, that wasn't true—she knew exactly where. Where they would all go in the end, some fabled cell block with no address where he would rot like the others.

Rotting, though, would have been a blessing compared to what he was used for in those years under Augustine's wing.

But it was in the dark of lights out that his mind wandered, trying hard not to teeter over that fine edge of sanity the witch kept him hovering on to pull out the most of his power that he thought of those times. The inside jokes, the late night gaming sessions. There were some days when his body was red from lashes and weeping from cuts that thinking of her companionship was all that kept him from fully falling off of that cliffside. When he was dragged into his dark cell after it all, she would be there beside his bed as he drifted in and out of consciousness, whispering comfort to him. And he relished in that gentleness despite how insane it made him feel, because for a split second, he wasn’t alone.

Those mirages were his only solace in his times alone, and the only reason he pushed through every day without trying to find a way to make the pain stop—because maybe soon, he’d see the real thing again. And until then, this friend who’s touch was just out of reach was enough to keep him going until that moment.

Eventually, he could hear those words of encouragement as the uniformed pawns put cattle prods to his chest and zapped until his heart stopped beating, only reignited by his powers forcing it to work again. Hear her telling him to not give up or give in, to keep giving them hell. The same speeches she would use to encourage him to confront his bullies were now yelled over his own screams until all he could hear was her telling him to lift his head, to not crack, not break.

The DUP made him stronger, he wasn’t too proud to admit that. But that was also their first mistake—because as his sprites grew so tall their wings scraped the ceiling of cement, her voice did too.

And eventually, she had had enough.

The form he usually saw hunkered down by his uncomfortable cot was now standing in front of him as he sat slumped over and gasping for breath in the chair, chained down. She was the perfect blend of her true, short stature and the overwhelmingly strong knight she commanded in-game, armor glistening so brightly the pawns flinched away from the shine. A specter that refused to let him bend, the only sliver of light in the darkness of the hell he had found himself in, now standing with the might of King Arthur and his court. Behind her stood an army of angels at ease like soldiers, the sudden grouping of creatures taking the DUP by surprise.

Valiant savior, she swung her broadsword forward and pushed back his captors before releasing a scream of her own, the choir of angels that surrounded her blitzing towards them on an arch of vengeance.

The incident was spoken of for weeks after, in quiet corners of Curdun away from the Director’s ears. The aftermath required a biohazard clean up team and earned Eugene solitary confinement for the rest of his stay in Curdun Cay, as Alessia’s video form was one final swing from releasing Eugene from his restraints.

Alessia spent nights after Eugene was taken in confusion and anger, scrambling in the pitch black void his absence left her in. Searching for an anchor, for anything, to give her back that one person that mattered most in her life. Her parents would usually be too deep in the bottle by dinnertime to care about what she was doing on the computer, and she'd be sure to cover her tracks by dawn so they couldn't find the answers in the webpage history bar. She found herself using safeguards and random coffeehouse wifi to peruse forums less than legal, hoping to find someone to give her just enough information to find him again.

The days turned to months, and by the time they accumulated into a year, she was at her wits end. High school graduation came and went and she found herself standing on that stage with one less person, wondering if he was even alive to care about the milestone he was missing.

The only good thing that came out of her drive to find her best friend was the glory of the Conduit Rights League, and her assimilation into their organization. It gave her just enough power to find people with family and friends of their own stripped away and expected to simply paint over the gap in their lives like the space hadn’t previously held an intricate part of their being.

Maybe it was hubris. Maybe it was the hope that with enough noise, she’d be picked up by the concrete bitch herself and finally get an answer on where her best friend could be. But when no one objected to her idea of simply fighting back, she knew it was enough cause to keep going. If she couldn’t find the missing mural of her own life, she’d do enough to make sure no one had to repaint theirs.

The years tumbled over into each other; fall giving away to cruel winters which surrendered to the reblooms of spring. Project Sanctuary waxed and waned the same way; months of blockades and tear gas would give in to a loss, and the bulbs of hope would burrow under the snow of suppression in quick movements of refugees to Canada and beyond. Eventually she found herself fighting for everyone that couldn’t fight back. Organizing drives, contacting less-than-desirable people who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Not being scared to roll in the mud of the rain-trodden autumn herself. Balaclavas and switchblades. CPR and spray paint. A number shuffled a thousand different ways to stay anonymous and a motorcycle with a magnet that would latch onto the dangling license plate and hide it from cameras. Every slashed ACP tire, every thrown brick, was a fuck you to the same people ruining so many lives. Ruining her life.

The turn of autumn was coming back, the leaves fading to gold as the blood stopped running through the streets. Through it all, it simply wasn’t enough; the DUP had won. They eviscerated the rights of the whole until there was no one else to bully. That’s what they were in the end—another set of bullies. And while she was proud of how many she spared from their punches, it never felt like enough. She didn’t save that one person, and that fact lingered on her mind every time the clock passed midnight and she found herself unable to sleep.

Routine became strange in that period after it was announced the DUP was being defunded and the military was taking over; for now, there were simply protests. Petitions with signatures that would do nothing more than give the government a watch list and shifts at The Pit full of forced smiles. If she twirled her red hair the right way at a balding patron going through a midlife crisis, she knew it would garner her an extra $5 on the tip line, and she found herself doing that again and again to accumulate enough money to escape her reality. She had lost. She had failed. And maybe she needed to move on.

Another shrug of a lock of hair and she was sure the exuberant tip was in the bag when everyone's attention was captured by the flat screens on the wall; of a smoking military ACP and the hillsides of the Puget Sound. The screams of the ACLU and NARF that demanded reparations for the victims of a small tribe. The words of escaped bio-terrorists and DUP blockades.

A lead.

Sleep didn't come that night again, and she wasn't searching for it either; it was spent in encrypted chats and vpn networks, trying to skirt around the media blackout to learn more about this escape. If she could find a Conduit, she could find Curdun Cay. The DUP was weak, the government was mad, and there were so many pointed fingers that no one was realizing the loaded gun she was being handed in the accusations. She just needed that single lead.

And it came to her late that night in a call and a nickname she hadn't heard since that last day she saw him.

"Squeaks?" the voice on the other end said shakily. Broken-like. Eugene was always meek but there was something about how he practically whimpered her name that made her heart somehow drop and leap at the same time.

"Eugene?" She asked, incredulous.

"I don't—" He stuttered on the other end of the line. "I got out, but I don't know where to go. I don't—"

"You're one of the ones that escaped." She whispered in recognition, looking at the news stream as it continued its coverage of a Seattle falling to martial law.

He stayed silent on the line for a moment before admitting the biggest sin. "I'm scared. I don't know what to do."

Alessia was on her computer in an instant, finding connections in southeast Seattle and a place for him to hide. "Stay there, and don't move. I'm coming to Seattle."

"But you're—"

"I don't care." She said with finality. Her best friend was back, reigniting the fire in her heart. She was already searching for her bag and planned on packing it full of everything important to her and leaving that moment. "I don't care. You stay there, and when I get to Seattle, we'll figure this out, okay?"

Eugene nodded, breathing shakily. It took him a moment to remember Alessia couldn't see him from the alleyway he was in. "Yeah. Yeah, okay," he assured her. For the first time in a long time, he was feeling the warmth of a beacon of hope and the care of a friend.