#happily full of compassion. ( visage )

[jarienn972]

La Sirena - Chapter Nine

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer

We're nearly to the completion of this little @cssns tale but we’re not quite there yet. This chapter started to get really long so I decided to break it up and create a bonus epilogue chapter that will wrap everything up! Writing my first complete AU has been quite the challenge, as well as quite a learning experience. Thank you, @kmomof4 for all of your encouragement and beta assistance along the way! And thank you, @courtorderedcake for the beautiful artwork that has graced every chapter.

So here we are at huge turning point. Poseidon sided with Emma and intervened to stop Regina's evil "test" but is there a future for our heroes or did rescue come too late for Killian this time? Catch up from the beginning at AO3 or FF.net or on Tumblr: One  Two  Three  Four  Five  Six  Seven  Eight

*********

The immediate threats may have gone away, but Emma knew the ordeal was still far from over. Regina's menacing presence no longer lingered over the bay as a pleasant breeze ushered away the remaining dark clouds and the dulcet melodies of the songbirds returned to the trees, yet she couldn't relax. She scarcely noticed the school of colorful fish darting to and fro around her as she swam for the shore. Her attention was singularly focused.

Gentle waves lapped at Killian's motionless form as he lay prone in the damp sand. Morphing back to human legs, Emma clambered awkwardly out of the shallows, crawling her way up to the shore to reach the injured human. Her eyes were welling up with tears as she feared her efforts may have been for naught.

Please, let him be alive, was the only thought on her mind as she reached for his arm, tenderly caressing bare skin exposed beneath the torn black silk. Angry red welts covered his upper arm where the kraken's suckers had latched onto their victim, and while Emma was apprehensive about moving him, she also feared that if he were still breathing, he'd suffocate if she didn't turn him over.

She placed her right hand behind his head and gently cradled it against her palm as she used her left hand to lift his torso slightly and roll his limp body toward her, allowing his back to rest upon her knees. His eyes were closed and barely fluttered when she brushed away the sand that marred his face, noting quickly that the sand was covering up the bloody evidence of his reopened head wound.

"Stay with me," she pleaded. "Stay with me, Killian…"

A weak moan and a dribble of sea water escaped his throat, reviving her hopes as she lowered her head over Killian's and pressed her lips against his bloodstained cheek. Her golden tresses draped across his face as if to shield him from the world as she momentarily forgot that they were being watched by the god of the seas.

"Can you save him?" she implored the deity who'd remained offshore. "Please don't allow all of this to be in vain! Please don't allow Regina's hatred to win!"

"Emma, my realm is the sea, you know this," Poseidon reluctantly reminded her. "Nothing I do can save the life of a human if it is their time. Only my brothers, Hades, ruler of the underworld, and Zeus, supreme ruler of Olympus, could intervene, but I am fairly certain that neither is likely to be interested in the fate of a single human."

A despondent Emma wasn't about to take his deference as an answer.

"But it is not fair! If not for Regina's interference, Killian would have been fine. He would have survived and…"

"And?" Poseidon interrupted her. "He would have survived to be trapped here on this cove with you. How long before he longed for his own world again? Would he have felt imprisoned here with only an immortal siren for companionship? I'm not trying to be unkind, but truthfully, what is best for this young man?"

"Certainly not death," Emma rebutted angrily, her emerald eyes staring intently at Killian's unconscious visage as she challenged the deity. She didn't understand why this one human's fate was so important to her, why he held such a tight hold on her after so short a time… "Why would he be allowed to escape the sirens only to die from Regina's awful conduct?"

The god sighed and shook his head as he lowered his trident to his flank. "Ah, Emma… You remind me so much of my Ursula…" He tread a little further into the shallows before pushing himself up atop a large boulder, curling his glistening platinum tail around the rock and scratching at his beard as he formed his next words inside his head. "Like you, she possessed a compassion towards the human race that I failed to understand for many centuries. It wasn't until that fateful day that the first human sailed beyond the isle of the sirens that I ever had reason to converse with one. I confronted that man, trying to determine what ruse he'd employed to get past my protections and what I discovered was a young man who was simply trying to return home to his ailing mother.

"That man had fought through attacking enemy ships and fierce sea creatures until he was the sole survivor on his vessel. He'd tried in vain to return to his homeland, but he wasn't yet a skilled sailor and had navigated himself in circles before crossing into our realm. He knew who I was the moment I appeared before him, and I could sense his fear and reverence. He was a humble man with a good heart, and it was that humble, pure intentioned heart that my daughter sensed and eventually fell in love with. She urged me to aid the man's return to his land but after being gone so long, there was little left for him to return to. He banded with a few survivors and formed a new village on an island near our realm, eventually marrying my daughter.

"The reason I'm telling you all of this, Emma, is that you clearly felt that same compassion because, like Ursula, you sensed this man's good heart. I never believed it would be possible for a siren to sense such emotion, but from the day you separated yourself from the council, I have known that you were different. A creature birthed to enchant and entice humans to their death wasn't intended to possess compassion - let alone the emotion you're feeling right now."

"And what might that be?" she asked with a sniffle while shifting her position ever so slightly so that she could see Poseidon's face.

"You've fallen in love, Emma, and that is a most powerful emotion."

"Love?"

"It's what is driving you to want to protect him. It may perhaps be part of the instinct that compelled you to rescue him in the first place. But I say that with the warning that I can not promise whether the emotion is reciprocated. Only he can answer that question."

"Is that the reason for these tears? Are sirens even able to cry?"

"You may be the first."

"Is love the reason I feel like a piece of myself may die with him?" she questioned as her fingers unconsciously laced through the matted, scraggly dark hair at the nape of Killian's neck. "If Regina's treachery has taken him from me, I swear, I will find her and…"

Poseidon cut her off before her anger overshadowed her present dilemma. "I promise you, Regina will be dealt with, swiftly and surely. Once I determine my brother's role in this debacle, Regina will likely be stripped of her powers and if I see fit, banished to the Forbidden Isles."

"Banishment to the Forbidden Isles seems harsh, even for what Regina did…" Emma sighed, hugging Killian even closer to her breast until she recalled the damage the kraken had presumably inflicted upon the man she loved and loosened her embrace. "If I am to be truthful, all I really want is whatever is in Killian's best interest."

"If only all sirens were blessed with your wisdom," Poseidon smiled. "Perhaps it is time to grant all of your kind the full range of emotions?"

"Or perhaps it is simply time for us to mend our ways? All humans are not evil, and some of them out there are still your descendants - maybe even Killian here."

"It has been so many generations since I've kept track of my descendants," the deity lamented. "I'm afraid that there is so little trace of my lineage left that it would be nearly impossible to determine. Being a descendant of an Olympian god doesn't necessarily grant that good heart that makes a man immune to the siren song either. Many of my grandchildren's grandchildren succumbed to greed, avarice and other sins of humanity, but as you've said, there are many good ones out there. Perhaps you are right that it is time for the gods to amend our perception of humanity, but I fear the likelihood of that happening is negligible."

"I was afraid of that," Emma responded as her gaze cast downward.

"However," Poseidon continued, "while I cannot directly heal this human, I do have an idea that could expedite his return to his own ship, where he belongs."

"May I go with him?" Emma asked impulsively, her query catching the god off-guard as she raised expectant eyes to meet the god's gaze.

"Emma, are you certain?" the flabbergasted Poseidon inquired.

"I am quite certain. If there is a way to return Killian to his ship and to his family, I wish to go with him."

"To do so, you would have to give up your immortality and all of your magic," he explained.

"Lord Poseidon, I have spent centuries alone. I never desired any companionship until I spoke to Killian. If there is a way to save him and for me to accompany him, I will gladly surrender my immortality."

"I can arrange that, but I do remind you that I cannot guarantee that your emotions will be returned by him. There is no way to make someone love you…"

"It is a chance I will happily take, Your Majesty. My instincts are telling me that he shares my feelings and I can no longer imagine spending an eternity here without him. If he is to return to the land where he belongs, then I know I belong there at his side."

Poseidon nodded as he raised the trident, pointing it skyward. "Then so it shall be," he stated as clouds gathered once again above the bay, swirling into a mighty vortex before the god vanished in a blinding flash of lightning.

*********

A warm, tropical breeze tickled his cheek as Killian shifted his aching body. He could feel the sun on his back as he felt around, grasping and then releasing a fistful of sand. His memory was sketchy as he struggled to lift his head and force his eyes open, not yet certain if he was alive or dead. Maybe somewhere in between?

His head was throbbing too much to hold up so he slid his forearm beneath it and just let it rest there. The simple act of drawing breath was agonizing. Did the dead still experience pain in the afterlife or was this his purgatory? Left broken and abandoned on a deserted beach with the sea just beyond his reach?

Bits and pieces of memories (or maybe, hallucinations) came and went when his eyes would fall closed. Pirates and sinking ships. Palm trees and some subterranean lagoon. A mermaid with long, golden hair and a tail that shimmered like pearls in the sunlight. A huge sea beast with tentacles that were as long as the Jewel from bow to stern. He even pictured a gigantic trident reaching out of the waves.

How hard had he struck his head? he wondered as the fingers on his left hand gingerly touched the open laceration at his scalp, noting the crimson stains on his skin as his hand fell away. Sucking in a deep breath that he immediately regretted, he almost wanted to laugh at his unbelievable situation. What a fine mess you've gotten yourself into, Killian Jones, he thought.

His gaze drifted back to the bay, staring out at the horizon as his vision began to blur and he found himself fighting to remain conscious. He squinted in an attempt to make out a faint blob off in the distance and assumed he was imagining the peal of a ship's bell and approaching voices when he succumbed to the pain-free peace of the darkness.

*********

The familiar bob and sway of the sea was a welcome sensation as Killian began to come around. Breathing was still a chore but even before his eyelids began to part, he knew something was different. The recognizable scents of musty books and linens filled his nostrils along with some sort of strong alcohol - although definitely not the drinking kind. The creaks and squeaks of wood battered by wind and waves was a familiar reverberation in his ear.

He threw his eyelids open and lurched upright, only to be halted and eased back onto the bunk by a large, calloused hand adorned with a single, hefty, carved silver ring.

A ring that even in his discombobulated state, he noticed and identified instantly.

"Liam?" he choked out, his throat dry and burning as though he'd swallowed much of the sand back on that beach.

"Aye, little brother," Liam smiled broadly as Killian's eyes finally focused on his elder brother's bearded and clearly anguished face. Liam's typically perfectly pressed uniform was rumpled, wrinkled and as deeply creased as his face, but Killian didn't yet know that it was the product of days searching for, and then worrying over his younger brother. "Now, will you please lie back down? Doc says you still need a lot of rest to recuperate."

"Liam, I can't believe it is really you. It has been an eternity, it seems… I thought I'd never see you again…," Killian excitedly babbled as clarity slowly returned. The comforting sight of his own first officer's cabin, paltry as it might be, helped him relax as he settled back into the pile of feather-stuffed pillows propped against the stateroom wall. Scratchy as it was, Killian didn't even protest as Liam draped the Royal Navy-issued charcoal grey, woolen blanket over top of his heavily bruised chest. "It is really you, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is really me, brother," Liam replied as he fretted with the bedding, trying to make the narrow bunk as comfortable as possible for his only sibling who had seemingly just returned from the dead. "I was warned you might be a little out of sorts for a couple of days from your injuries, but yes, I am really here and yes, I am beyond happy that we located you alive. It took us days to locate you on that tiny island. You were bloody lucky that the other survivor was one of the prisoners and not one of those pirates."

"Prisoner?" Killian repeated with his face scrunched in confusion and obvious discomfort.

"You really need your rest, Killian, and I need to go make my rounds. We can talk more later…"

"Brother, I don't understand… There was no survivor from that ship, save for myself." Killian became increasingly agitated and shook his head at the wrongness of it all. That motion, of course, only made his achy skull hurt more and loosened some of the bandages Doc had wrapped around his cranium to cover the jagged wound and the uneven stitches he'd used to hold it closed. "I was the only one who survived… I failed all of our men…" Killian squeezed his eyes closed as his wavering voice cracked with melancholy. "I'm so sorry, Liam, but I'm hardly fit to be your First Mate…"

"Brother, please just rest. You're spouting such nonsense. I'll send Doc right in to examine you. Your head injury must have been far worse than he thought to have affected your memory so severely."

"My memory is fine," Killian stated bluntly. "Far better than my performance as an officer…"

"For allowing yourself to be captured so your wounded crew could escape? That's hardly a failure, brother. I recommended you for a commendation for your bravery and I truly feared I would never have the opportunity to pin that medal on your uniform myself."

Liam's words made no sense. No one awards a commendation to a man who failed his mission and lost his entire landing team. He knew he must be dead and this purgatory was a cruel end to his fantastical journey.

"I'm sorry, I've been such a failure, Liam. You do not need to cover for my sins. I am only alive today through the mercy of the gods who sent down an angel to rescue me…"

"Bloody hell, Killian…," an exasperated Liam sighed. "Whatever are you rambling on about? I sincerely hope that either Doc or the lass can talk some sense into you…" Liam snatched up his plumed uniform hat from the writing table as he rose from his chair at his brother's bedside, doing his best to straighten his overcoat to look proper and authoritative, as a Captain should be.

"Lass?" Killian asked in bewilderment. What lass? He could only picture one lovely lass with flowing, blonde hair and emerald green eyes, but she could hardly have followed him here…

"The other former prisoner of those cowardly pirates that we rescued from the island with you, you git," Liam muttered, flopping his hat back atop his head as he shoved aside the heavy canvas curtain that provided Killian's quarters a semblance of privacy from the rest of the crew berths lining the narrow corridor that dissected this deck. It was far more crowded and noisy than his own quarters which were a deck above, spanning the width of the stern, not that he had occupied them for the past few days.

Liam's footsteps resounded heavily on the oak planks beneath his feet as he lumbered down the passageway and rapped on the wall outside of another curtained compartment. The ship's doctor, who's face looked nearly as haggard as the Captain's, drew the curtain open and immediately straightened his posture at the sight of his superior officer.

"At ease," Liam grumbled, letting the doctor know with a casual wave of his hand that military decorum wasn't necessary.

"Sorry, Cap'n. Taking a break from your vigil over the young Lieutenant Jones?"

"More like taking a break from Killian in general."

"Has he awakened?"

"A short time ago - yes. He isn't making a bloody lick of sense, babbling on about being a horrible officer who failed his crew and was saved by some mythical angel. How severe was the injury to his head?"

"How wonderful to hear that he's come around, but his head injury appeared largely superficial. I'll happily give him another once over now that he's awake. Maybe those pirates poisoned him or something that is affecting his mental state?"

"I hope it is something easily remedied or I fear his career may be in danger. I'm going to go fetch the lass we rescued along with him. Perhaps hearing her tale will help sort his head out…"

"Sounds like a very good idea, sir," the doctor responded as his troubled captain departed without another word, trudging tiredly towards the ladder to the upper deck.

*********

The visit by the ship's doctor only left Killian more irritable and baffled by their blatant dismissal of his miscarriage of his duties. They must all be daft, Killian thought. Or they think I am? Maybe he was merely imagining all of this?

Had any of this been real?

As the doctor had replaced bandages and prodded him in every tormenting and unpleasant place imaginable, Killian saw the very real evidence of his injuries. He was peppered with cuts, scrapes and contusions in various stages of healing. Some of the more painful ones were deep purplish while others had begun yellowing. There were red welts on his arms and across his torso that Doc couldn't identify, suggesting they might be burns or some manner of rash, but Killian's mind recalled a vastly different source. He'd been quickly shushed at the mere mention of encountering a kraken.

Doc offered him medicine to ease his discomfort which Killian knew meant the potion they'd sourced in the Far Eastern realm. He didn't know much about the substance, but he declined, preferring to keep what remained of his wits about him. The exasperated doctor muttered something unintelligible under his breath and shook his head at the young lieutenant's stubbornness, but Killian did overhear him mention that Liam had gone to fetch the supposed other prisoner from the pirate ship before departing Killian's quarters.

Killian knew with absolute certainty that no one else had escaped that ship with him, whatever had led to its sinking. Whomever this mysterious woman was that Liam had mentioned, she must be the key to unraveling this insanity. He was anxious to meet her, although he was also embarrassed to have a lady see him in such a disheveled state.

He also couldn't get the image of an ethereal presence to depart his head - one with flowing, pale blonde hair, porcelain skin that nearly glowed in her state of undress, and a supple, shimmery tail fin that playfully flicked water towards him.

No, he scolded himself. She didn't exist. Just a dreamy figment of his overactive imagination…

The sound of hushed voices in the corridor beyond the curtain snapped his attention back and Killian strained to hear what they were saying.

"Seems to be healing well, but his head's a bit out of sort…" Killian heard Doc telling someone that he soon realized was Liam when he heard his brother respond.

"It's unorthodox…," he heard Liam say, but he could only make out portions of the rest. "Doesn't remember… Miss Swan, we're hoping… We realize this is a highly unusual request, but given your time together…"

Miss Swan? Killian knew no one by such name, but why would Liam bring a stranger to visit him in his convalescence? Perhaps he should just pretend to be asleep and they'll go away, not that the ruse had ever worked to fool Liam. He closed his eyelids anyway as he heard the rattle and squeak of the curtain being drawn, determined to ignore his unwanted guests anyway.

"Should I return when he isn't asleep?" a feminine voice asked shyly.

"I swear, he was awake a moment ago, Capt'n," Doc said with an echo of concern in his voice, although Killian wasn't certain if it was directed toward him or if Doc feared the Captain's ire.

"I apologize, Miss Swan," Liam muttered with an audible sigh. "I thought it would do him good to see you - that it would aid his recollection, but he's a stubborn arse…"

"No apology necessary, Captain," the woman replied. Her voice was tantalizingly familiar to Killian, but he couldn't place why. He almost wanted to secret an eye open to catch a glimpse but he didn't dare. "Would it be alright if I sat with him for a spell?"

Oh, bloody hell, no! Killian screamed internally. Liam would never permit such a thing. Having a woman onboard was scandalous enough…

"I'm hesitant to allow that since this deck is less secure than my quarters, milady," Liam answered, only Killian could hear the but coming. "But since this is an unusual situation, I'll allow it. I'm sure I can find enough chores to keep my crew occupied for a bit and keep them away from this deck."

"Thank you, Captain," she responded and Killian could hear her smile in her voice. He was disappointed in his brother and was nearly betrayed by the frown he fought from forming on his own lips.

"I shall check back in a short time, lest my brother or any other sailor here attempt to take advantage of you."

"I am sure your brother will be a perfect gentleman, as he was while we were awaiting rescue. He could scarcely glance at me without blushing…"

Wait… What did she just say? Killian's brain was swirling with new questions as Liam bid the mystery woman farewell for the moment. He wanted so much to look upon her face, but he must wait until he heard Liam's heavy footsteps trailing away.

Could this really be…?

[mikauzoran]

Adrienette Drabble: Partner

(Sorry this is late.)

“What?” Marinette sighed.

“What?” Chat Noir echoed, reaching out to poke her nose.

She grabbed his finger and gently bent it backwards.

“I give,” he gasped, terror in his eyes.

Marinette quirked an eyebrow in confusion. “I barely touched you.”

“I have a piano recital coming up, if you’ll remember,” the oversized cat sniffed indignantly.

“Oh!” Marinette squeaked, grabbing his hand and inspecting it for damage. “I’m so sorry! I forgot. Are you okay, Minou?!”

“I don’t know. I think you pulled something,” Chat snickered. “I think I’m going to need you to put on a skimpy little nurse’s outfit and pamper me back to health.”

Marinette smirked up at him from where she sat on the floor with her sketchbook. Her grin was positively lascivious. “Oh? Would you like that? Me in a nurse’s costume?”

“I’d like you in anything,” Chat purred, allowing the thoughts that he had to keep a lid on as Adrien to come to the surface. “I’d like you in nothing,” he added.

“Oh?” Marinette fingered the top button of her blouse impishly.

“Yeah,” he chuckled from his perch lying on his stomach on her chaise longue.

She undid the button and Chat both at the same time.

He gulped as he caught a glimpse of her lacey lilac bra.

“Do you use a rectal thermometer on cats too, or is that just dogs?” she hummed thoughtfully.

Chat softly cursed as he buried his face in the chaise and tapped out.

“Ooooh,” Marinette cooed theatrically. “Poor kitty can dish it out, but he can’t take it.”

“Have mercy, Princess,” Chat groaned. “I am but a lowly alley cat, and you are a divine being. What is my seductive allure when compared to yours, O Goddess who did teach the sun and moon to shine in all their radiant glory?”

Marinette abandoned her sketchbook to lean in closer, pillowing her forearms on the seat of the chaise. “Keep talking,” she prompted beguilingly. “That silver tongue of yours might get you somewhere after all.”

With a smirk, Chat interlaced his fingers with hers, bring her hand to his lips to kiss her pinky. “The stars pale in comparison to the blue flames of passion in your eyes.”

He kissed her ring finger. “The flowers of the field sigh in envy as you pass, for their maker lacked your imagination, O Goddess, and did not attire them as resplendently as you clothe yourself.”

Next, he brought her middle finger to his lips. “Though you are powerful beyond measure, My Warrior Princess, your soul is kind and gentle. Though you could command obedience, you win your subjects’ unyielding love and devotion through your great compassion and unassuming, quiet leadership.”

He placed a tender kiss on her index finger, his eyes never leaving hers. “O Goddess, as if your passion, your creativity, your pure soul, and all your other gifts which I have failed to mention were not enough, the beauty of your visage, your person, and every part thereto is such to bring proud men to their knees. How much more so a lowly alley cat? Goddess, you are perfection, and every part I do love,” he confessed resolutely, lifting her thumb to his lips for its turn.

“So, I pray thee, Lady and Mistress of my heart…keep it well. I gladly entrust it to you in full confidence that you will use it gently and with care. I give it willingly, but…because I know my sovereign is generous and indulgent…I dare to entreat a blessing in exchange. O Goddess, show this poor knave mercy and bestow your favor upon his unworthy lips,” he whispered in conclusion.

Marinette grinned, taking Chat’s hand in her own and tugging off the glove carefully. She pressed his index finger to his lips before adding her own mouth to the other side of his finger, sandwiching the digit between the two sets of lips.

Adrien’s heart fluttered in his chest. Even though the finger kept their lips fairly well apart, he could still feel her lips moving in a slow, tantalizing dance. He happily kept pace, accepting the feeling of her breath on his face, the occasional brush of her mouth against his.

It was over too soon, and Marinette pulled away with a radiant grin. “Chat Noir, where did you learn to speak so prettily, you charmer?”

Chat shrugged, drunk on the sparkle in her eyes. “My mother did a lot of Shakespeare. Not that I claim to approach that level of greatness with my oratory endeavors, and I’m sure I made plenty of mistakes, but…listen to enough Shakespeare, and you start picking up the cadences and vocabulary. Besides, I firmly believe that the sexiest thing a guy can do is quote Shakespeare, so I might have some skin in the game.”

“The sexiest thing a guy can do is quote Shakespeare while posing for an underwear ad,” Marinette amended.

“Yeah, okay,” Chat agreed while, internally, Adrien declared, “Challenge accepted.”

“You’re going to make some woman insanely happy someday, Minou,” Marinette chuckled.

“If you’ll let me, I’d like to start now,” Chat purred before he could consider the repercussions of what he was saying.

Marinette blinked, leaning back slightly. “Chat?” She swallowed nervously. “What do you mean?”

Internally, one part of his mind was begging him to throw on the brakes. The other half was shouting at him to go for it.

Reasoning that this could be good practice for when he finally revealed his feelings to Marinette as Adrien, Chat decided to go all in.

“Marinette.” Chat took a deep breath. “You can say no, and I swear we’ll still be friends after this, but…I wasn’t just flattering you earlier; I was one hundred percent serious. My heart is your captive. …May I have the honor of taking you on a date?”

Marinette’s face lost all color. Her hand went to cover her mouth as she gasped, “Oh, Minou. Oh, Chat Noir.”

Chat winced, turning away. “Yeah. Okay. That sounds like a ��no’.”

“Chat,” she cooed sympathetically, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder but, then, thinking better of it, retracting. “I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t realize you were seriously flirting with me this whole time. I—”

“—It’s okay, Princess,” he quickly assured. Yes, it stung, but there was still hope for Adrien. “Don’t worry about it. I guess I’m a little over the top, so…I mean, Ladybug didn’t realize I was actually flirting with her either for a long time.… But it’s okay. No hard feelings. If you can only think of me as a friend, then that’s enough.”

“It’s not…that exactly,” Marinette muttered, averting her gaze as her cheeks went scarlet. “I…I have been seriously flirting with you for at least the past two years. It’s not that I’m not interested. I just…” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to capture her scattered thoughts.

“Is it the secret identity thing?” he inquired, perking up with renewed hope. “That doesn’t have to be an issue.”

It was a little inconvenient that Adrien currently had a girlfriend, but that could easily be fixed if Marinette could accept him on both sides of the mask.

“Say the word, Princess, and my secret is yours,” he urged, hoping she’d say yes so that they could start on their ‘happily ever after’.

“Chat, no,” Marinette sighed, looking miserable. She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms and shook her head. “There’s someone else.”

Her words hurt like a gunshot wound.

“O-Oh?” Chat gulped.

This was eerily familiar.

You’re an important friend, Chat Noir, but there’s someone else I’m in love with.

He’d heard those words over and over from another girl’s lips, and now Marinette was going to say them as well, crushing him all over again.

She nodded, reluctantly meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry. Chat, you mean so much to me, but I don’t think I can be with you. I’m in love with someone else. I think I’m always going to love him, even if he can’t return my feelings, and it’s not fair to you. I can’t give you my heart because it’s already his, and you deserve so much more than to be a stand-in for somebody else. I’m sorry.”

“That’s…okay.” He forced the words out, shoving his feelings down until he could be alone to unpack them. He smiled weakly. “Uh…thank you. I, uh, appreciate your consideration of… That’s nice of you, not to just date me when you couldn’t be serious about me. I…”

He did not appreciate her consideration. He did not think it was nice of her. He’d rather be a second choice stand-in for someone else than never know any kind of love at all. Couldn’t she at least give him a chance? If she thought he was attractive, why not date him and give him the opportunity to win her over? She thought she was giving him kindness, but it was, in truth, cruelty. She thought she was being good by being honest, but he’d rather have pretty lies.

“You never mentioned that you were in love with someone before,” he remarked softly, trying to process his myriad thoughts. She hadn’t mentioned this other guy to either Chat or Adrien.

Marinette shrugged.

“May I ask his name?”

He wasn’t sure if it would make it easier if he knew to whom he had lost out.

She shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry, Chat Noir.”

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Okay. That’s fair…. I think I’m going to go now.”

She winced. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.” He raised and dropped his right shoulder, attempting to be cool and nonchalant. The last thing he wanted was to be further humiliated on top of the prior injury his ego had sustained.

He got up to leave.

She stood and caught him by the arm. “You’ll come back, won’t you?” Her fingers tightened around his bicep. “I’m sorry. It’s selfish of me, but…I really love having you in my life. Please come back soon—when you’re ready, I mean…but soon, please. I’ll miss you,” she pleaded.

He couldn’t find his voice to respond. He couldn’t answer the tears starting to gather in the corners of her eyes or the wretchedness and guilt written on her face.

So he didn’t. He pulled the arm she still gripped towards himself, and she came with it, tripping into his embrace. He pressed his lips to hers with heat and desperation.

She gasped, and he pressed harder, further.

She whimpered, and he could taste the salt of her tears as she began to cry.

He pulled back, horrified, and tossed, “I’m so sorry,” over his shoulder as he fled, unable to look at her face for fear of what he might find reflected there.

[claire-alex-fan]

Very Special People: Joseph Merrick – Elephant man, Chang and Eng – Siamese twins, Francesco “Frank” Lentini – Three-legged boy, Carl Unthan – Limbless violinist

Special people always fascinated me, not because of their visage (even it’s make an important role), but mainly because of their stories. Even when those people were different, anybody can’t deny their will to live. Their will to live as others, will to shout: “Who cares I am different? I am human just like you! Behave to me as to human!”

Those special people always gave me brave to live and go for my dreams. They gave me hope.

As a little honour to those special people I wanted to draw some of them and add their story. I hope it will be inspiring for you.

And please, be forgiving for my English. I am not national speaker.

And it will be little bit longer…

  (I made this pictures year ago and I did't submit it because of this long english description. Description I came out of most beautifull book Very Special People by Frederick Drimmer, what I have thank's to closest friend)

Joseph Merrick – Elephant man

Joseph Merrick was first special person, whom I ever know. Thanks to him started mine fascination with stories of special people. Although his story didn’t start happily, but mainly because of compassion of Sir Frederick Treves he could live how he always wanted – live in seclusion with something as small as acceptance.

 Joseph Carey Merrick (August 5, 1862, Leicester - April 11, 1890, London). He suffered from two very rare diseases, namely neurofibromatosis and Proteus syndrome and because of that he suffered severe deformations of face due to which he was difficult to talk, could not laugh or sing. He also had deformed right arm and both legs. Because of his fall in childhood he had a severely damaged hip, so he could barely walk.

               In his early childhood he must run from home. During these years, when he lived as he could, he decided to perform in a panoptic, where people first saw him as an Elephant Man. Here he was noticed by Tom Norman, who travelled with him to London. Here he performed in a small shop opposite the medical academy, where Frederick Treves first noticed him. Treves convinced Norman to allow Joseph Merrick to undergo a medical examination. Treves investigated him, and because Merrick was unable to talk, doctor thought he was imbecile.

               However, Victorian England changed its attitude towards panoptics, and so Tom Norman, along with Joseph, had to go to Europe, where they did not do well. The manager eventually picked up Merrick's almost all of the property and send him back to England.

               Exhausted, without anything and with severe bronchitis, he got back to London. He did not know what to do or where to go. Because of his appearance, people have been avoiding or trying to persecute him. From the hands of the crowd he was saved by the police who found the last thing Merrick had owned - a card from Doctor Frederick Treves.

He was admitted to isolation at the London hospital, even though Treves had broken the hospital rules. Here the doctor began to recognize a person who, despite all expectations, was intelligent, full of emotion, and with a soul of romance.

Here in the hospital began times that were radically different from those that Merrick had lived through.

However, although the nurses were not hostile to him, Treves knew that theirs professional conduct only confirmed Merrick's thought that he is a mere monster. Treves decided to bring him to his girlfriend. He briefly warned her about his appearance and asked her if she could greet him and give him a hand. And she also did that. The meeting lasted only a moment, and Merrick started to cry. Then he told Treves that she was the first woman to smile at him and gave him a hand.

               Because Merrick could not stay forever in the hospital, Treves decided to put his story in the Times. With the help of the newspapers, he organized a collection to buy two rooms in the hospital. Thanks to his story, he was able to collect so much money that he could not only buy the room, but he also had enough finances for the end of his life. At the same time, the aristocrats became interested in him, and Merrick got into the society of higher people and he kept regularly correspondence with many of them.

               Merrick was a soul of romance, and he was very happy to read stories of love. He also confided to Treves that he sometimes wished to be in the institution for the blind. He claimed that he could find there a woman who would not see him and so could fall in love with him.

               The happiest moment in his life happened when he wanted to go somewhere out into the countryside where he could walk without people's view. Treves had arranged for this, so Merrick could travel to a small villa that belonged to Lady Knightley's estate.

And so Merrick got into the forest silence, watching animals, exploring the countryside and collecting flowers.

               Merrick died six months after returning from the countryside. He was found in bed on his back. Treves, who led his autopsy, said he broke his neck because his head was too heavy. (Merrick normally slept with his knees at his chin). Apparently Merrick wanted to fulfil his last wish and sleep as normal people... and it became fatal to him.

 Chang and Eng – Siamese twins

Siam (today’s Thailand) always fascinated me because of cats, kitchen, but mainly because of Chang and Eng.

They showed me that even when you are reliant on somebody you whole life, you can love each other. And solidary, knowing that someone can be with the other not only for own benefit, that was something what I needed when I read their story for first time.

 Chang and Eng Bunker (May 11, 1811 - January 17, 1874), sometimes called the first Siamese twins.

Brothers were born in Thailand (formerly called Siam).

Conjoined twins have been known earlier in history, but Chang and Eng have become one of the most famous. So thanks to them that every twin born conjoined are called Siamese twins.

Both brothers were born healthy and beautiful. The only thing that distinguished them from the other children was that they were a connection from the breast bone to the belly button. After their birth, local doctors advised their parents to let brothers cut off. But their mother refused to do so, preferring to have two children, though conjoined, than two separate dead bodies.

Their mother cared for them with love and regularly practiced with the twins, so that the muscular band that connected them was longer and the brothers gained at least a little more freedom. Through her diligent work, the boys could eventually stand side by side, walk and live as if they were normal children.

               The most interesting were their connections. Both brothers, though twins, had a distinctly different personality. Chang was dominant and often decided where the brothers would go, and when he and his brother argued, it was the Eng, who retreated.

Nonetheless, although they were different, they held brotherly love and devotion.

When the twins were ten years old, they had to start assisting in livelihood because they lost their fathers and their mother had to take care of the whole family. So they began with a street shop, which was very good for them because they had a natural charm and a sweet smile.

               In this time businessman Robert Hunter came to meet them and offered them to show them to world. He knew that twins which was never seen before would be able to sell well in panoptics. So he began negotiating with the authorities to bring the twins into the world. Five years later, he got the franchise, and with the then twelve-year-old twins he went to Boston, where he immediately began to perform and immediately pulled crowds.

They also travelled to England and visited the most important doctors of that time and they confirming their authenticity.

And they did not lose sympathy with others (several times when they noticed that they had a handicapped child in the audience, they gave him a gift) or a sense of humour.

               When the twins were twenty-one, they quarrelled with their manager, Captain Coffin, (who had taken them over from Robert Hunter, who had to leave for his business matters) and decided to travel alone. However, although they wanted to travel back to Thailand, they never returned to their homeland.

When they were on their travels through America, they met P. T. Barnum, about who has been told that every weird man in the 19th century has ever met him. But they only cooperated with him briefly.

When twins were twenty-eight, they decided to settle down and buy a small farm. They began to grow corn, to keep pigs and to long for the family. They gained American citizenship, and because they had no surnames, they decided to accept the surname Bunker. It is still unclear why they decided to name their self like this.

Twins started to propose two girls, but their neighbours did not agree. But even this did not forced twins to make any retreat. Both of them wanted to love and they were not afraid to fight for it. They therefore decided to undergo surgery which had to divide them. When their mistresses learned about it, they immediately talked to them because they did not want to risk that something happened to the brothers in the operation.

And not long after that, a two-fold wedding took place.

Coexistence with twins, though, required a special regime, but in essence it did not restrict anyone. The two brothers became the fathers of more than twenty children (Eng was father of six boys and five girls, and Chang had seven girls and three boys).

               Because of the war they lost almost all of their property and were forced to go back to the show business and they returned to P. T. Barnum. After a journey in Europe, when the brothers returned to America, Chang had a stroke and because of that he was paralyzed to part of his body. He realized that it made life harder for his brother, and he began to fall into depressions, which often drowned in alcohol.

In January 1874, Chang had a bronchitis disorder. Even though his condition improved, one night, Chang woke up in the middle of the night and awakened his brother because he badly breathing. Both of them fell asleep again, and a few hours later Eng awoke knowing that there was something wrong. Chang was dead. Eng knew very well that his end would come soon. They called on the doctor to try to divide the twins, but before he arrived, it was obvious that it was too late. Eng had severe cramps and died shortly after the doctor arrived. It was on Friday, January 17, 1874.

               And this is how died the most famous Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng, who, even though they had not spent simple years, astonished surgeons and viewers all over the world, they never lost their sense of humour, and their devotion and mutual love. They lived and died and also pass their message - forever together.

(With this one picture I had a lot's of fun, and there is early sketch af Chang's face: sta.sh/01a32mmc8afk)  

Francesco “Frank” Lentini – Three-legged boy

This man captivated me because he took his condition with humour. He taught me self-acceptance and mainly that, whatever we are, we can always take it with humour and don’t care what thinks people around, because they don’t know what we feel, or what we had to go through. And because of that it’s more important how we accept ourselves and not how accept us others. And with bit of humour we can bring some hope to people who need it.

 Francesco "Frank" Lentini (April 18, 1881 - September 22, 1966), sometimes called Three-Legged Football Player, was born in the small town Rosolini in Italy. Because of the part of the body of his incomplete twin, he had a scrubby pan attached to the skeleton, from which another leg had grown. It was shorter than the other legs, but, he had full control over it and managed to kick into a ball, which he later used in his performances.

               When he was young, his family had to immigrate to the United States. Here he first appeared in the circus.

Even though his third leg had never bothered him in his life, he was often ashamed of it and advised the doctors to remove her. When doctors refused surgery, he gradually fell into depression. He noticed that everyone around him was sorry for him, and he began to hate himself. His family did everything to cheer him up. Once they took him to the Disability Institute. Little Lentini here saw the children who had to suffer because of their disability. Lentini himself says that experience was not pleasant to him, but when he saw the other children who had far worse deformities than he, and how they wanted to live and did what they could, it's gave him hope and desire to experience his life. He reconciles with himself and learned with his third leg to do a lot of bits, but also ordinary activities such as jump, swim or drive a car.

               Several people asked him how he bought boots, and he simply said, "I buy two pairs of boots and I give my left boot to my one-legged friend who lost his leg during an unfortunate accident."

               He had performed for many years, married and had four children. He spent a long and happy life, and finally he did not mind was different. He was able to accept himself and motivate others.

               He died because of lung failure in Jacksonville, Florida, on September 22, 1966.

 Carl Unthan – Limbless violinist

Carl Unthan is close to me mainly because of his violin plays. He all his life wanted to live like if he had no handicap. He tries to be like others and it strengthened him.

But always when I touch my violin I recall two men. My grandfather, who bequeath me that violin, and at Carl Unthan, who thought me that every person, if he/she want, can make every dream come true.

 Carl Unthan (April 5, 1848 - 1929), sometimes called the Limbless violinist.

He was born in Germany, and when the midwife saw he had no arms, she suggested she would suffocate him, but his father strongly rejected it. He gently took his baby and carried him to his wife.

               Carl grew rapidly, and his relatives and neighbours often regretted him. As soon as his father noticed it, he immediately realized that regret in a boy wakes up only self-pity, and it destroys him. He forbade everyone to regret it. He set three principles. The first one was that no one should regret the boy. When the boy was a year, he began to try to put things on his feet, and so a second principle emerged. No one was allowed to put on him shoes or socks. Carl began to use his legs instead of his hands and he became extremely skilful. Once at dinner, he started feeding by his feet. His father said at that moment that Carl could do what he wanted and nobody could help him.

Carl grew up and became very skilled. Gradually he managed a great deal of activities that no one thought he could do without hands. He was tenacious and patient (and stubborn), and what he did not do for the first time, he still tried to do it until he succeed.

               The house he lived in was attached to the school building, and little Carl had often secretly sneak there and learned to write and count. When his father enrolled him at school at the age of six, he could read and write.

And he has also tenaciously learned many other activities we consider as commonplace. He learned to dress himself, swim, even go shopping, or help his parents farm fields.

               However, he was still very sensitive in the core, and other people often unconsciously hurt him. When his younger brother died, several people drop a hint that God had called to himself the wrong man. Every note about his physical condition was like a burning blow to his face. However, over the years, he has learned to accept all of the notes.

               Carl loved music very much, and he was eager to begin playing the violin. No one ever thought Carl could learn such a thing, but Carl did not agree with them. Once he secretly lent the violin, tied it to the chair and began to play on them. He ignored the fact that his family was covering his ears. He trained long hours with the tenacity of his own. When he was sixteen and he mastered the violin play, his parents sent him to the Conservatory. After his first concert, he began to travel and play. People watched him watch not only because of music but also because of how he can play without hands.

When he was in Prague (today's capital of the Czech Republic (my homeland, yay!)), he met a young singer named Antonie Beštová and immediately fell in love with her. He persuaded her to go with him to a concert tour, and when he finished, he asked for her hand. Antonia accepted his offer.

               When the First World War broke out, he was over sixty years old, but still he wanted to serve his homeland. So he began showing wounded soldiers who had lost their limbs how they could live without them. None of the soldiers couldn't be as skilled as Carl, but his optimism and tenacity gave them hope and a taste for life.

               Before his death, he wrote his autobiography and instead of manuscript he called it "pediscript" because he wrote it with his legs. At the beginning of the book, he wrote the motto that had led him all his life: "Where there is a will there is a way."

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘THE TOUCH’ “Can I do something for you?”

© 2020 by James Clark

We live in a time when there are many who bid to confound the orthodox. Great gobs of rebels roam the town, threatening to install jurisdictions putting an end to the easy days for what is left of a mainstream. Our entertainments, for instance, smack of concussion. All these game-changers never doubt that their look and ways are destined to happily rule.

There is the possibility, however, that all of that critique will slip back to the defaults of religion and science (and their minions of humanism). It’s one thing to feel that something very important is not in play. It’s quite another thing, it seems to me, to define and embrace what that elusive phenomenon is.

One remarkable effort in that area is the output of the films of Ingmar Bergman (1919-2007). The latter’s career was not without renown and homage. But looking for responses, in such a direction as we’ve mentioned, have not found cogent takers amidst film enthusiasts.

   There was a quite unique showdown, as to this silence—within the trilogy of three extremely violent films, namely, Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1968) and The Passion of Anna (1969)—which embedded itself on the heels of the production of Shame and the overtaking of The Passion of Anna, namely, The Rite (1969), with its remarkable emphasis upon deploying the motions of hands and fingers to open the elements which have been imprisoned for so many centuries. The Rite was a prototype, and yet a rich study of the vagaries of depending upon exotic and flawed rebels. A subsequent film, having more completely delivered the imperative of taking upon one’s self to find the riches of sensibility, namely, The Touch (1971), our film today, runs a gamut for all to see, while being doubly ignored within its drama and being known to the world as the worst film Bergman ever created.

   The Rite would be validly recognized as an avant-garde film, drawing upon Theatre of the Absurd, particularly, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (1960), and Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958). (In The Passion of Anna, Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot [1954], rides pretty high.) And although, in The Touch, a protagonist does reprise Rhinoceros (1960), nearly, all the viewers believe Bergman has produced a soap opera. Soaps galore, there are; but what you don’t want to get suckered with, as to the tedious narrative of “unique David,” the American archaeologist and his “ardent” student, Karin, finding small-town Sweden far  from enough, is that Bergman would waste time on a vehicle of domesticity.

   Start with the title. Our helmsman, as good as it gets for theatrical dialogue, has put the viewer’s feet into an absurdist fire which might deliver not only a drastic migration but a wise one. Humankind on earth, being what it is, however, another resource becomes paramount. The forces of anxiety, in which Bergman excelled, becoming, as viewer ignorance piled up, demanded a more visceral presentation of cinematography, in hopes that a more powerful physicality would cotton on to the communications. Not that inventive cinematography had not already been deployed in films twenty years before, but now requiring a sort of shock treatment to catapult the attention to something very different. At the era where Bergman was now intent upon radical disclosure, he was blessed with a cameraman, namely, Sven Nykvist (1922-2006) who, along with Bergman’s drive to the uncanny, constituted a long parade of optical strangeness at the infrastructure of our film on tap. Not only would Nykvist fit the bill as to unearth incisive visual mood, but he and Bergman coincided in their range of history and priorities in significant ways. They were born in Sweden about the same time—right after World War I—and their parents were intensely involved with the clergy. Nykvist seldom saw his parents, who were based in Africa as missionaries; and Bergman was far from tolerant toward his pious parents. Coming of age during World War II, they both found film work under the Axis powers—Bergman’s first screenplay being produced in 1944, and Nykvist doing cinematography in Italy. Bergman’s ambiguity about Hollywood would be a long-term collision with the Jewish owners of the heyday of American filmic drama. On casting his male protagonist for this blow-out of a movie, he chose the hyper-Semitic, Elliot Gould. Why? Because wordy self-promotion and desperate virtuousness are the farthest contrasts needed to elicit real lucidity, a lucidity of touch. On casting his other two protagonists—long-term Bergman stalwarts, Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow—there was their recent outings, in The Passion of Anna, bemusing and troubling. The Andersson role finds her married to an internationally renowned architect, tasteful, sensitive and cynical to the self-serving portal to nihilism. At a dinner party, Andersson, named Eva, is asked if she believes in God. Her reply is to ask of her husband, “Do I believe in God, Elis?” The von Sydow role is that of a passive artisan being pushed around by a pathological brute of a wife. Now it’s Bibi, once again asking for direction, in the person of Karin; and Max, a sensitive physician in the person of Andreas—also his name in The Passion of Anna—left  shattered and angry.

   The outset, as always by Bergman, is elegant and primordially engaging. Karin parks at a hospital, and the lush foliage reflects upon her windshield, a trademark more calming than thrilling. But now we do have a major figure, despite her having died a few minutes before, and Karin enters this stage as an extra, more distracted than touched. The blur of the coat room during the rush of the emergency upstages her emotionally pat mission. While the doctor assures, “It was very peaceful”—she strangely distancing by way of, “May I go in”—we know by the inflected sensibility that she and her mother were not very peaceful together. Karin slowly walks toward the bed, and then there is a cut to her mother, her eyes open and showing a calm, handsome visage. Then a close-up of the lady’s hands and fingers. The inertia stages a rally of sorts in the form of her handsome portable clock and its showing 5 to 3. (A playful, dialectical hope in the midst of possibly carrying on to a sort of dance, a roundelay consisting of two opposing forces reaching a synthesis, a special truth.) Then a glass of water, half-full, on a table, along with a wristwatch and jewelry. Her daughter comes to the bed, sits rather gingerly on an edge and then she holds her mother’s hand. She touches her cheek, her forehead and her hair. A nurse suggests, “But perhaps you’d like to take the wedding rings now…” She closes her mother’s eyes with her fingers. She suddenly, in a sort of panic, kisses her. The tone, the touch coming across, in this, amounts to more a formality than compassion. She quits the room as if having escaped from a chore. (At the end of the film, Karin will cancel an affair on the basis of duty to her husband and children, who by that time hate her. In a flashback the now deceased is visiting her daughter’s family. Her mood, her body language, emits of not being welcome, a somewhat annoying foreigner. Karin and Andreas cherish their garden, but the love becomes eclipsed by its technology and show of advantage. During a slideshow, Andreas, losing control of the jist, blurts out, “That’s my mother-in-law, she’s dead.”) Back at the hospital, the camera lingers on the mother. A field of light nuance presents. A pan down to her  hands, and a delicate embroidery.

The nurse delivers the jewelry in the corridor, without eye-contact. Karin begins to make some formality pertaining to the attentions of the recent patient. “Mother was…” The busy nurse cuts her off with a dry, “You’re welcome.” On the way out she cries for many reasons. A cut to her hands and fingers, caressing the jewelry. By the time she had placed the two rings on her finger, in a dark exit, there were loud footsteps approaching. The newcomer turns on the light, disclosing his very overweight presence, having arrived as if an oncoming rhinoceros. In fact, Bergman, now intent upon the ins and outs of avant-garde endeavor, nails him as a version of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, a figure of anger and destruction and soft self-pity, becoming a wake-up delivered toward myopic bourgeois carelessness. His hard eyes become soft. “Can I do something for you?” She tells him to leave her alone. He races along with, “Oh, I’m sorry,” now in the register of the nurse.

They meet again, but their faring means nothing. We have reached a home of the dead—soap opera style. All we can do is notice that there is so much more trailing them. Nykvist, come on in!

It turns out that our “reckless lovers,” supposed paragons of the new and the deeper, generate a sea of emotions, going nowhere for them, but going somewhere for us. Their first extensive meeting is on the ramparts of an ancient fortification, more than inert in seemingly overwhelming the river far back in the scene. As they perform their walkabout in a world of ancient stones a slight view of that sea appears, a portion of the kinetic. A ship in the distance. The known and the not wanting to know more. While this encounter mounts quiet motion wasted, the new man, bizarre as a troupe of pornographic superstars in the film twinning this film, has become a mysterious, unearthly monarch to Karin. She brings that David to her almost palatial home one sunny weekend, in hopes that her passion for gardening could meld somehow with her treachery. “We work in the garden every spare minute. Andreas adds, “Our garden is actually our pride.” Then she goes on, “Oh, you must come here in the spring or early summer… We’re both very fond of flowers and trees as you can see.” The many blossoms and trees in view surely reach a facsimile of magic. But, when delivering their understanding of the boon, all of their fund of majesty, disinterestedness, rapidly withers. This feast running to famine puts, for the one and only time, an entry to Karin’s sense of more than one magician. David delivers the routine praise, and she therewith lets her hobbyist priority take over. “And all winter we dream about what we’re going to do next summer.” Andreas is called away on the phone by his medical duties and, when David iterates, “Everything in the garden is lovely,” she touches upon a major challenge: “You know it’s very difficult to talk about that kind of thing.” Her malaise at that crucial point, instead of initiating a hard and solitary investigation, finds her leaning on a flashy but weak savior. On to a “confession,” from the guest, “I suppose it’s hardly the thing to tell you, but I fell in love with you…�� (The little judge, in The Rite, comes to a confessional to supplement his generally solitary researches. He comes to grief in consulting a mob of useless nihilists. The two, pledging love here, do stand as looking for a change. But not a brave change. Bravery being a rare instance, where so much is obsolete, or at least hugely overrated.) A glowing Karin rises to, “Please have some raspberries.” Bergman’s raspberries being a broad hit. Moreover, a feeble dialectic leans upon what should be fluent. A grey, skinny candle near the window; yellow roses unfocused. The great lover, saying, “No, no, no, I couldn’t eat anything more. I’m stuffed…”

Andreas having settled the phone emergency, he takes up an undisclosed earlier conversation, pertaining to David, of a mysterious wooden sculpture of the Madonna, hidden in a long-forgotten chink in a small minor church in the vicinity where he was carrying out one of his archaeological duties and loves. The two technicians find easy-going pleasure therein, and David actually musters a sense of singularity about how the craft and care had come to such a resting place. But Andreas cuts short the “mystery,” with, “Would you like a whisky?” and then it’s off to the less than interesting slideshow and the carelessly addressed deceased—another locked away treasure. The medic trots out some blossom highlights—one being an orchid named “insectaria.” “It attracts the interest of the fly.” (David being an incubus curiosity to Karin’s fly.) The jiggling show, being something else, unnoticed. “Are you sure David is interested?” she cautions. Another hit to the easy-wise, is the portrait of their donkey. “It died two weeks after this photo was taken…” Long before the mother-in-law’s death, there she is, onscreen (as having noted), sharply different from that of the others, in being seriously poised and reflective. That touch being, arguably, all this film seriously amounts to. (“Uh, she’s also dead,” speaks volumes about this family, and also the newcomer-insect he’s found to be jagged to his liking.) Scotch helping along, the visiting pedant blurts out, “Have you a picture of your wife nude… I would like to see a picture of Karin nude.” Andreas/ Max (having a long history of Bergman films being shocked and embarrassed) laughs it off. But this little bomb marks the end of smooth sailing for that family, left to settle into forces of sensibility apparently without accommodating the beauties of blossoms. The coda of that night is optically and viscerally firming. A close-up reveals a rambling kiss curl for David, Bergman having broached a similar ripple in the film, Dreams (1955). His hands are shown, tightly locked. (“Don’t worry, there won’t be a scandal.”) David refusing Andreas’ offer to drive the Scotch bomb home, the man of the house settles for, “I’d love to see the church.”/ “Yeah,” is all he gets. Before bed, we see a limp dialectic having squelched any mystery: Karin along a wall; a gold lampshade; and, beyond that, the non-magical film screen. An errant prayer. Here’s the night, as they would have it. He declares, “I’m glad he didn’t stay too long.” She asks, “How did you like him?”/ “A damned nice fellow, I thought. But he drank a bit too much, didn’t he?”/ “Did he? I didn’t notice, actually.”/ “Foreigners, you know…”/ “How did you meet?”/ (His friend, Jacobi [a long-term name and desperate signal of trouble in Bergman] directed David to Andreas. The diagnosis given, to her, was a kidney stone. As we will hear later, the “Rhinoceros” had attempted suicide. Andreas’ hands are seen to be tightly held.) In bed, he holds her at her shoulder. His fingers are stock still. Then their hands are locked in profile. A flow of bedding looks as if he has a large flow of mucus.

The preamble of the budding lovers comprises her at home doing domestic chores, with the lightest and most tedious play-list on the radio. She tells her young son, “Let’s get a move on!” She hears staunch church bells at their rendezvous. He would show up with a corn-cob pipe, perhaps imagining being as tough as General MacArthur, but in fact just corny, a ludicrous excuse for getting a move on. Now he’s at left, she at right, and between, a painting at the altar. Making such a trio of magic needs more than corn, girlie sentiment and gloomy piety. The disinterestedness and love, of the presence of the statue on this site, being light years away from our shabby protagonists. David’s flashlight plays over the major figure and a smaller one, as to companionship. Far more than our protagonists will ever know, there is a touch capable in their own hands and fingers to convene a consummation truly astounding. He directs Karin to the subtle smile of the figure. Easy subtle. While there is a world of subtlety to engage. On reaching the façade of the antiquity they come upon a stone figure, a sort of map or warning. A trail, in the manner of a serpent, conspicuously showing a vise or wall. A serene church being only part of the mystery. She returns for a second look of the trail. She runs an ignorant hand over the point of contention. He lifts her hand from the pictograph, simulating the snag. From the depths to the soaps. His hand, lifting hers, describes a knot. He rushes a finger over her palm. A logo on the cuff of her shirt is a pussycat.

There are many moments of Andreas’ career and Karin’s matrimony. They mean little here, beyond the ironies of their distractions. He, once again, on the phone at home: “I think so, too. But the symptoms are kind of vague, don’t you think? If only she wasn’t so damned hysterical. It might be just nerves.” She tells him, on the subject of her adolescent daughter, Marie, “She’s going out with some friends tonight. Mind that she’s home by midnight.” Then Karin, about to invade for the first time, the supposed lair of the vague and the perfect, changes clothes many times, perhaps a habit of Marie. The hurricane of bourgeois seductions finds, beyond hysteria, a policy of simplicity, namely, an old woolen number. (The judge, in The Rite, also hoping to strike the perfect tone in face of questionable priorities, frequently changes his clothes due to a medical weakness. Woolens speak to the issue of desperate Anna, in her film, The Passion of Anna, where sheep become butchered.) Karin’s apologetic gambit when being late here, “It’s one-way streets all the way from where we are,” becomes an unintentional disclosure of deadly childishness. Her one-way involves ticking off his one and dying plant and his filthy apartment. But then, perhaps not so out of the blue, the rendezvous begins to sound like a Hollywood charmer. “You’re nervous, David.”/ “Yes, I’m nervous. My pulse must be 690. Aren’t you nervous?”

Whereas the “exotic” mob, in The Rite, were truly pathological mercenaries, David, as now revealed, is a humanitarian softy with an animus toward the likes of Andreas—modern, technically conversive and rather cold. That he doubles as a rhinoceros—a primeval poster boy—has fooled Karin into thinking that heights are just around the corner. (A lovely touch of dramatic irony occurs with David, having been working abroad, arriving on the same night Andreas was staging a gala at the end of a medical conference. Karin skips out of the techies, only to confront her “something else,” being dressed and coiffed exactly like the medics at play. Eventually he’ll tell her that his ideal is attaining an assistant professorship at a rural university. “We could live a settled life on your conditions.”)

With so much bilious churning to the fore, their supposed breakaway is a redundancy, a screwball farce. He asks, “What should we talk about now?” She suggests, “Shall we take our clothes off and go to bed and see what happens?… But we must close the curtains. I’m shy.”/ “Oh, so am I!” he assures. Karin’s one-way nude becomes a study of quirkiness so lost as to be a sort of sign of a plague. “I want you to look at me first. I’m 34. You can see that in my face, especially around the eyes. I have a scar here on my stomach. I’ve had two children, and Anders [their boy] was very big, you know. My breasts were nicer before… I’m not an experienced mistress, etc.” David, in this blizzard, feels, “I’m afraid I can’t today.” This somehow brings her to the point of duplicity. “I’ve no idea why I’ve come here to you… I don’t even know if I’m in love with you.”

The next time they meet, David kisses her till her lips bleed, and he rapes her, in a similar way to the rape of Thea by the judge, in the other experimental ball of fire, The Rite, chasing most of the viewers out of contention, while subsequent fireworks get down to smaller bits of delight. A short time before, she had, in the course of Andreas’ leaving town for a conference, found herself behind a light grey transparent curtain as she waved to him leaving from the carport. In her profile as she moved along the window, the curtain became animated, a ripple effect came to life, whereby she became active in an uncanny way, at a volume too weak to matter. In The Rite, Thea provides a credo of startling dynamics, only to provocatively turn her back on it. Now it’s Karin’s turn, having never been exposed to anything but domesticity. Heavy feeling, but merely destructivity, on tap. She attempts a rational experience. “What just happened? Don’t you think you were very childish?” (Childish [and more] when she comes to realize, on encountering his sister, that his story, about his Jewish family all killed by the Nazis [but him], is a fabrication. Advantage, and not a trace of disinterestedness.) His apologia runs as follows: “I don’t know what to do with my churned-up feelings. Isn’t it absurd? After all, I’m grown up.” (Even beyond the absurd.) The four candles behind them, obviously lacking the real deal of three. At the medical reception congress, six candles blaze. Overkill. Karin is a model of being in her element. Other elements are stillborn. On leaving there, for the supposed truth, an adolescent quarrel flares up. She tells him she’s a little tipsy from the zone of chemistry. Viewing herself in a mirror she lifts up her hands and her fingers are playful. He, on the other hand, proceeds to trash the apartment, rhino-style. As things get even worse, she’s heard to remark, “No one has ever struck me.” Impetuous Americans, right? Before the standard American movie redemption on the staircase, he ploughs into, “I hate that goddamn Andreas, that fucking, hypocritical idiot. He can go to hell!” (Here we could mention that his sister in London, while debunking the family war crisis, does float the idea that she and David are doomed by an incurable disease. What we do see from her is a lot of alcohol and cigarettes.) Karin places her hand and fingers over his obviously stupid mouth. Back at the love nest, a little bird is seen quickly passing by their window.

   Back home with Andreas, their chess game shows her between two dim lights. Another arrangement features a small fireplace. Their son comes by and berates the film being played by him. “Just a lot of romance.” Andreas notices the split lip. She remarks, “Could it maybe be vitamin deficiency?” (That little ironic joke has a serious side, pertaining to comprehensive resilience. At this juncture of making waves amidst slugs, transcending cinema while cherishing its daring, our film—as with the coda of The Rite—must recognize and reveal the reflective imperatives integral to these meta-actions. We have to make the best of these two transcendent demands, in order to appreciate the range of the “vitamin deficiency” of the narratives, past and present, and why they still matter.) Bells are quietly heard. Before going to bed, Andreas does some reading of a favorite Swedish poet. Beyond all reason, could he actually collide with the uncanny? Next day Karin, an unlikely user of such vitamins, reads one of the poems to David, feeling the need of some couth. “I think he’s the best. ‘Wake me to sleep in you/ Wake my words to you/ Light my dead stars nearer you/ Dream me out of my world…/ Give birth to me, leave me/ Kill me near you/ Nearer the hearth of birth/ Take me warmer, take me nearer you.’” (A testament like Thea’s. What’s up?) During a long absence while David is currying advantages for his career, both of them know well that the excitement was bogus. (Nowhere near do there expressions recall the poetry.) A blur of his fingers touching his writing page to her. [Typed and sterile.]. Her report of interest: “We’ve all had colds. I was absolutely streaming…” Followed by, “David, dearest friend I have in the world, can you forgive me for not writing to you for several days. We’ve been spring cleaning…” He writes, “One day I stopped dead in my tracks and said to myself, ‘We’re painfully united!’”

On a brief visit after many months, the flat filthy, and she announcing she’s stopped smoking, her positions in space steal the show. There is a lineup—David to right, she in the middle and a mirror showing her. His preoccupation upon smarts well established; her presences lost. She invites him to lie on the bed with her. She becomes rigid, as if having been shot. He avoids her hungry mouth. She goes on to give him a hair wash, and then Andreas comes by, wanting to talk. With Karin ensconced in the bedroom, like a naughty adolescent, the doctor touches upon people beginning to talk about her cheating. David thinks to be helpful in recommending the cockold appreciate what he remains to have, his work, his children, his plants… Then, the host, garbed in dressing gown rhinoceros grey, rips up some turf with, “You’ve humiliated us both long enough with this ridiculous visit.” The husband replies, “I don’t understand why you’re so aggressive, David.  I like you… I liked you at the beginning already, when I took care of you after your attempted suicide.” David’s entitlement-hunger rips up again, with the retort, “It was an accident with that ridiculous gas oven.” Andreas, not as liking the brute nearly as much as he claimed, crushes the wimp with data. “We were never to speak of it,” the born lawyer maintains. Well aware that Karin is on hand, he leaves, holding an advantage of feeble satisfaction. “She has to make up her mind for herself. She hates any form of decision.” Her, “Do you think he knew I was here?” puts her in her place, unequivocally. David’s use now of “touch” reflects how averse he is to the magic of touch. “Wasn’t that touching? That was too goddamn touching…”

Other touching moments prove to stage modest but memorable rallies. The two dwarfs observe that the Madonna is doomed. The specialist tells the seeming dare-devil, “Something peculiar has happened, something no one can explain. Before she was walled over, she was the home of some insect not known today. The larvae have been sleeping inside her in darkness for 500 years. And now they’ve awakened and they’re eating the image away from within.” (Her finale, small, quirky and magnificent.) His finger amidst the insects. Not a rite, but the unintentional makings of a finite true love. He opines that the insects are at least as beautiful as the image itself. He would, of course, discount the touches being integral to this death, and this creativity. Karin looks down. “I’ve lost my footing or whatever it is. I used to be fairly secure in my world.” David mocks, “That’s too bad!” Prefacing her bid to turn things around, she wonders if something is wrong with her. She envisages, “It’s possible to live two lives, becoming into one wise and good life that could benefit other people and make them happy.” (Irony, of course. But the inchoate effort to touch the elements. In that vein, she slams the rhinoceros, not particularly effectively. “I know you are going to leave me, because you hate yourself.”) She takes another look at the frieze on the exterior of the place of love. Next day, dressed in chic black leather, befitting an international power of coherence, she discovers that the indispensable man has left town. She smashes a glass, takes off her gloves and presses her hands into the shards.

When desperation takes over, complication races. She’s pregnant and Andreas, one night, now in separate bedrooms, refuses to help when contractions become extreme. Then, sometime after the birth, David resurfaces to announce that he can’t live without her. They meet in a plant conservatory, where birds of paradise are in great supply, and where neither of them notice. He woos her like a Junior High, a filibuster going nowhere. He bitches like a Junior High on realizing he’ll have to find another sucker. Karen explains, “I feel it’s my duty to stay where I am.” Staying where she is, she’s roundly hated.

And yet, the population being what it is, there’s good times ahead. Marie, the caution, is something else. Before the deep freeze, she joins her mother for a safari to find a new outfit. David, in an orange, woolen jump suit, had stalked them and was rapping on the store window. Marie backs out of that fun. She glares at David, knowing very well that the fix is in. Addressing the girl as if she were a duchess of long ago, the supposed new deal gushes, “Do you mind if I talk to your mother for a minute?” She has no time for that prowler. I like to think  she’s about to become like her grandmother, which is to say, like the middle-aged lady arranging a divorce, in the film two years appearing after this (prototype) film, namely, Scenes from a Marriage, where a shallow, bourgeois lawyer, Marianne, cocooned in a mob of that sort, could piddle away a lifetime of schemes and never have a clue, never have love to give and receive.

As this second, and last, test drive of the frontiers of contemporary sensibility, comes to an end, there is, I think, a need to disclose how Bergman’s endeavor dovetails with other investigations. His title, The Touch, emphasizes that a locked away treasure of disinterested loving action calls for us to press open, by a touch, the full dynamic of not only human life, but the cosmos itself. That the forgotten crypt has reached its last phase does not undermine the process of greatness per se. A heart becoming lost forever in such a bid is a heart having delighted in playing a part of mustering the primordial heights. The host, therein, is far from simply delivering a mystical enjoyment. The host, in fact, teems with players, but to a test, a test, as we’ve just revealed, to be nearly completely lost in action. The Swedish Madonna had a career of serenity. Few of us are so lucky. But, on the other hand, where the going is very rough and swift, the pathology of advantage can prompt intensities to the liking of the true. Those truly on the go are equipped for shooting rhinos. Their range is their fortune. There are many masterful hands. A solitary play between immortal and mortal has its validity, as well as its blessings. On that note, however, there is full liberty to carve careers wherein the quick and the dead can be engaged for infinite permutations. Joiners being a doubtful policy, but, as we’ve indicated, rare moments do surface.

[starryburglar-archive]

Xion Info

Full name: Xion “Feamainn”

Species: Human

Age: 16

Sexuality: Demisexual

FC(s): Bae Yoobin

Bio: Xion is a very special case. For starters, she's a Nobody; and Nobodies are beings that are born when a person with a strong heart is consumed by the darkness and loses their heart, the shell of their body takes a new form which is Nobodies. And Nobodies, since they lack a heart, technically don't have feelings. Xion, however, wasn't born like other Nobodies. She doesn't have a real self to which she can recall memories. 

She was created in a lab... she was a puppet. Created by Vexen and to be used by Organization XIII as their Keyblade Wielder, she was created to mimic Roxas, copying the Keyblade and being able to use it herself. Not only that, she was created with Sora's memories of a certain someone: Kairi -- this is why she looks a lot like her. She was unaware of all of this until almost a year had passed, in which she discovered who she was and where did she come from. Her story ended in tragedy, as Roxas stroke her down and she vanished, returning to Sora.

Despite not being a real Nobody, not having a heart so supposedly not having any feelings, and most of the time lacking a 'real face' to the majority of the Organization, Xion became very good friends with Roxas and Axel. One could say that they were the only one who could see her 'real face' until it was too late. Xion herself developed her own personality: she was a sweet girl who loved the sea and seashells, but she could also be very sad and seeing the glass half empty rather than the other way around.

Unknown to her after her sacrifice, Xion would be brought back to life. At first for devious reasons, as it was Vexen’s experiments in replicas ( now fully perfected ) for Xehanort which brought her back to life. This meant she wasn’t fully herself at first since she had a piece of Xehanort’s heart inside of her at first. However, Sora’s compassion made her return to who she was.

Once the Keyblade War came to an end, Xion was trouble as to what to do. She was her own self now, which was great! But, where to live? In the end, she decided to live in Radiant Garden with Namine, Ienzo, Even, Ansem the Wise, Dilan and Aeleus. However, she constantly visits Twilight Town for the fond memories and to hang out.

Note: Follows game lore for the most part.

[ MAIN || INBOX || HEADCANONS || VISAGE || MUSINGS ]

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V001: Her Own Self

Default main verse. Takes place after the events of KH3, where Xion is finally her own self, the war against Xehanort is over and is now happily living her own life for the first time in forever.

V002: Puppet Days

A 358/2 Days verse. It’s the Organization days, in which Xion is just another member, unaware of who she really is, and trying her best to do her missions properly so Saix doesn’t get mad at her. And at the end of the day, she goes to the clock tower on Twilight Town to eat ice cream with Roxas and Axel.

V003: Seashell and Rock Collector

A modern verse. Xion has always been a very quiet and shy girl, never knowing how to start conversations with strangers or making friends. It’s kind of a difficult task on its own for her. If she manages to open up and even make a friend, she can be a very sweet girl who will probably share her love for seashells, the sea and precious rocks

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

CONNECTIONS

Roxas and Axel / Lea

:: Xion ♣ Sharing sunsets and ice cream ( Sea Salt Trio ) ::

Riku :: [ Nana ]

pending tag

[officialhexrpg]

Arts & Graphics April Writing Challenge 2nd Place: dragon_rider2637

The song of a hundred bells ringing in perfect unison pierced slowly through the haze of sleep over Sophie's mind. Though this same phenomenon had occurred several times with increasing frequency over the past weeks and months, there was something different about this time. Sophie listened to their mournful peels, shivering slightly as a strange feeling of melancholy pervaded the tiny room. He was more than just a father to me… She cut her thoughts off sharply before they could send her spiraling any further into the abyss of depression. No, Sophie, you must not think of that now. Not now and maybe not ever again. A sudden jangling sound from somewhere below her tower room sent Sophie rising to her knees, gingerly avoiding the low ceiling. Scurrying to her miniscule window, she peered out into the world that seemed to lay miles away. From her vantage point, she could see a carriage waiting patiently before the thick iron gate to the tower. No ordinary carriage, mind you, but a prison carriage, a one way ride to the blade of the executioner. Acidic bile rose in Sophie's throat, choking out her breath. Her heart pounded hard in her chest, through her vision, on her temples. Footsteps thumped up the long set of circular stairs, each one clanging solidly against the stone of the tower. The owner of the heavy steps seemed to be ascending up, up, up toward her for an eternity. A breathless eternity of waiting and wondering. At long last, a stout man appeared at the top of the stairs, red-faced and out of breath. Sophie regarded him solemnly with a blue-eyed gaze, twirling a strand of tawny hair between her fingers. He stared back at her, a touch of something akin to compassion in the creases of his mouth. They stayed that like for only a few moments, but those seconds dragged on and on. His voice broke the silence. "It's time," he whispered softly. "It's time." A somber mood descended over them as she nodded slowly. "It is time," she murmured in agreeance. With a wry smile, she allowed him to lead her away to see her father. The journey passed quickly and before Sophie knew it, they rumbled into a square packed full of Seconds who were jostling back and forth to get a good view. The hubbub of chaos and commotion, however, turned to entire still as Sophie emerged from the carriage. The now-still crowd parted in unison as she looked up to the podium where her father stood. They watched her in dread silence as her hating footsteps carried her to face one of her worst fears. The executioner pushed back his hood, a shadow of limitless rage crossing his face. Sophie recognized him, but the changes that were apparent in his sunken cheeks and maniacal smile stunned her. She watched, astonished, as he raised the heavy ax high above his head. "I told you that it was all about Time," he whispered, his voice hoarse and scratchy. "No one else matters. Bow to Time and your life will be spared." Despite the warning in his words that left little to the imagination, not a single knee bent in a bow. The executioner noticed, roaring out in annoyance, "I said BOW TO ME!!" The sharp blade of the ax quavered with the force of his angry exclamation. Sophie sighed, looking up at him with a sad remembrance of how he different he used to be. So this is how it ends, after all this time. This is what he does when his wits finally leave him. A small smirk slipping across her now peaceful visage, she muttered, "Goodbye, father." With her final farewell paid, she squinched her blue eyes shut. Images, forgotten reminders of her past, leapt unbidden through her mind. And for the first time in forever, she remembered who she had been. * * * * * A young girl, no more than two or three years old, stood by the edge of a dusty road. The girl's mother sat several paces back in the shade of an oak tree, trying to work a particularly ornery chunk of cotton into her spinning wheel. She glanced up to her daughter with a worried expression. "Love, why don't you come back here? I don't want to lose you." The tiny girl smiled at her mother's attention and took another wobbling step forward. "Sweetheart!" The mother jumped to her feet and swept the child up in her arms. Carrying her back away from the road, she snuggled the adorable girl to her chest. "Stay here by Momma, darling." Then more to herself than to her daughter, she added, "I worry, what with the incessant ticking and tocking. He could pass us by at any time, and she would be such an easy target." Satisfied now that her daughter was far enough from the road to be safe, the woman went back to her spinning. As her nimble fingers skipped over the wheel, long-lashed eyelids began to get heavier. Her beautiful eyes drooped shut, plunging her into an uneasy sleep haunted by wristwatches and grasping hands. Playing with a rag doll, the small girl listened to the sound of a thousand clocks ticking in perfect harmony. It suddenly came to a deafening crescendo, a violent syncopation of clashing ticks and tocks. Surprised by the abrupt cacophony, she glanced up to see an endless train of Seconds. The sight startled her even more than she already was and she inserted one itsy-bitsy thumb into her mouth. Upon meeting her gaze, the creature in the front of the group bent down and spread his arms wide to her. She knew exactly what this motion meant, as her mother had gone it to her more than once. Huggie! After carefully scrutinizing her mother's reaction to the newcomers, the girl raced to the Second to claim her proffered cuddle. She paused briefly at the side of the road, letting her brilliant blue eyes slide to the slumbering figure of her mamma before launching herself at the mechanical figure with a high pitched shriek. "Huggies!" He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Hello there, dear. Do you want to come with me? We could have so much fun!" Enticed by his offer, the girl nodded happily and let him carry her away. She didn't look back to her adoring mother even once. Scarcely an hour passed before the troop arrived at the palace of the Lord of Time. Stunned, the girl watched the massive building unfold before them. So big… she thought with a shudder. The massive, dark exterior wasn't particularly inviting, and she wasn't overly fond of the idea of entering. The strange creature who was carrying her, however, had other ideas. Yanking open the imposing doors, he marched right in. The hallway was practically silent. The only sound was the eerie echo of a gargantuan clock nestled somewhere deep inside the fortress. Even the shuffling steps of the Seconds were so quiet that they were difficult to make out. Whimpering softly, the girl glanced nervously around her surroundings. Even though she was quite young, she could tell that something wasn't right in this place. The whole feeling of wrongness culminated with her tiny shriek as she was deposited at the feet of a tall man. He wore a villainous grin that stretched all the way from one pale cheek to the other and held an glowing golden globe of gears in one of his hands. With his other hand, he reached down to lift her trembling chin. "Why, it's a little human," he exclaimed in surprise as he examined her. "She would make an excellent addition to my collections!" He lifted her up, up, up to his eye level and stroked her silky blond curls in wonder. "And what a precious little girl you are! I'd like to be your new daddy!" Miles away, a weary mother awoke to find herself alone. Frantically searching for her young daughter, she called out in desperation, "Sophie? Love? Please come back to me!" A sob tore free from her lips. "Please tell me that he hasn't taken you away!" * * * * * In time, the girl grew to forget her mother and her past life. She came to know only Time as her father. She changed, and though she knew she wasn't the same as the Seconds, she because one of them. Nothing but a minion in the service of Father Time. Until she did the unthinkable. "Sophie, come on! We're going to be late and you know that it irks Father so very much when we're late!" One of the Seconds tugged gently on Sophie's sleeve. "You won't get away with this again!" Smiling absentmindedly, Sophie nodded slowly. "That's nice…" Clearly not paying attention, she waved at one of the small human children who bashfully ducked behind its mother's skirt. The persistent Second tapped Sophie's arm again. "We really must be going! He threatened to throw you in the dungeons last time, and heaven knows he's taken a turn for the worse since then!" Sophie sighed and turned away from the happy sight of the frolicking villagers. "Of course, you're right. They're just so…" She paused, trying to find the right word. "Alive." A worried pang of fear passed through the Second's metallic eyes. "Um… yes, right. They are alive. And so are you! We all are, in fact." When Sophie didn't responded, the panicked second finished lamely, "And we're all happy, too! Now come along; I've got to get you home before he notices how long you've been away." They returned to the castle, entering with some amount of trepidation in their steps. They tiptoed cautiously through the empty halls, their hearts pounding and breaths coming rapidly. Only after sneaking past the room where he spent nearly all his time did they finally feel safe. "I think we're good now," Sophie whispered to the Second. "What do you think?" A booming voice came from behind them, causing them both to jump with fright. "I think that you're both extremely late. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?" The Second stared down at her feet. "I'm sorry, sir. We lost track of time and…" Sophie butted in, whirled around to face her father. Her eyes blazed with pent-up anger and her fists clenched at her sides. "Do I have anything to say for myself? Of course I do! How couldn't I, after you've kept me locked up in this monstrosity of a building for fourteen years?" Father Time rose to his full height, an irritated tick pulsing up his sculpted jaw. "I kept you here for your own good. The world out there didn't appreciate you, but I did. Nobody out there was willing to love you, but I was. You see, dear? This was for you! All of it!" Normally, this was the point where Sophie would shut up and take his words. But not today. Today, she fought back with all of the gumption she had kept hidden her whole life. "This was for my good? Have you seen the people out there? Real people - people like me! - and they're all happy! They're all full of joy! Their children play and have fun, smiling and laughing! Why would you take that from me? Why couldn't you love me enough to let me grow up like that? I mean, I don't even know who I am anymore!" He shook his head with a low growl deep in his throat. "It's all about Time, Sophie. That's all there is to it." Advancing on her, he shoved her against the wall. "It's all about Time! ALL ABOUT TIME!!" Panting, he sneered at her. "I thought you had learned your lesson last time. Clearly, I was wrong. I hereby sentence you to execution, unless you bow to me and acknowledge me as the holder of supreme wisdom." A tear slid gently from the corner of her eye. "No," she muttered. "I won't bow to you. You don't deserve it!" An awful calm entered his harsh eyes. "Very well. You'll only have one more chance, no more. You've disappointed me, darling." Turning from her, he motioned to a group of Seconds. "Guards, take her from my sight!"