#head cannons. auction house

[itsrainingbubbles]

More law and Luffy growing up together where cora lives and somehow ends up on dawn with law

Law still wants revenge for doflamingo almost killing cora so he'll still head out to sea, plus asl always talks about heading out to sea and that energy is contagious

Law heads out when he's 17 like ace had and everything else is like cannon with Luffy gathering his crew and going on his adventures

He reunites with law in sabaody and the moment he sees law in that auction house he jumps him and they both go tumbling down to the ground

So at that point they'll know Luffy knows law but they won't know how he knows him and they don't get to learn because everything else goes like cannon again and they all get separated

When they meet again on punk hazard the strawhats aren't as skeptical about the alliance but they still have their guard up since they still don't know how they know each other

They finally get their answers during the celebration and Luffy sits on laws lap like he has every right to be there, and to his credit law doesn't push him off and instead shifts to be more comfortable, so yeah maybe he did have every right to be there

They all question them and finally get the answers they were looking for

The interaction goes something like this

Strawhats: who exactly is this guy??

Luffy: he's my boyfriend, duh!

Strawhats: WHAT!??

Law, sighing: we grew up together and this little shit 'claimed' me as his boyfriend within a week of us meeting

Luffy: but you eventually stopped protesting!

Law: yeah well, you're really hard to refuse

I have this whole vision in my head but I just woke up and this is all based on a dream I had

[beanghostprincess]

Aight… Have I got something for you. I have been sitting on this head cannon for MONTHS and I need to tell someone so prepare cause i’m strapping you into this (head)cannon with me :D

A lot of people say buggy could be necertari but bare with me, what if he was half a necertari?? What if, his father was a king of alabasta but had an affair with a nameless woman and she got pregnant with buggy. The woman was the most kind and selfless and took care of her son until he turned 5. The king found out however, and he knew that a blue haired kid walking around would raise suspicion. Keep in mind, buggy doesn’t have his signature nose (ITLL MAKE SENSE TRUST ME)

So a group of men are paid off to kill this nameless woman and child to cover up for the kings sin. Buggy’s mother finds out and takes her son to run away, but they don’t get far. They reach an alleyway and buggy’s mother pushes him aside into some crates or something just when the men turn the corner. She tells them she sent her son away so there’s no point looking cause he’s long gone. Buggy is unconscious, lying under a mess of garbage as the men beat and kill his mother (it’s dark, ik)

When buggy wakes up and sees his mom he’s understandably traumatized, and doesn’t know what to do so he lays down under his cold mothers arm and cries for a bit until he falls asleep. However, it isn’t long until some people find him in the middle of the night, and figuring out that he has royal heritage, take him with them for a cashgrab. The people are slave owners/traffickers, and decide to sell on the idea that buggy is a nefertari. (Gross/Warning) They “prep” him until he’s around 8-9. (Done) To keep people or marines from finding out who he really is, they sew some pigskin onto his face. Hence, the peculiar nose.

Buggy at this point has given up, he feels nothing. His back is covered in different emblems of different slave houses and he’s about to be sold again. Until…. a certain red haired kid shows up and sees through the cracks of a cellar window. It’s shanks of course, and shanks, already traveling with Roger, goes to get Rayleigh. He tells them all about the boy he saw and they “by coincidence” do some shopping during the auction and pass by. Roger of course makes a mess and steals this traumatized angel and brings him back to the Oro Jackson.

Buggy is freaking terrified, he doesn’t understand what’s happening bless his heart. But years of training had prepared him so when the doctor stretched out a hand he did too. “I-It’s 10 berries….” he whispers, leaving everyone nauseated and shocked (I’m evil, ik) Roger and shanks however make a plan, and instead of 10 berries, shanks gives buggy his old hat. It was just a hat, but it opened buggy up to the idea of freedom. To the possibilities of happiness.

TO SUM UP WHY I THINK THIS SHOULD BE CANNON:

-Buggy acts a lot like roger, which I think is because Buggy sees him as his hero and new father. He was everything freedom embodied, which was what buggy was missing

-We don’t know buggy’s backstory or where he came from, we don’t know why it hurt so much when shanks left or why roger took him on

-THE NOSE JOKESSSS. The nose has just grown into his skin at this point, and now it’s just part of him. But he always has a twinge of PTSD when someone mentions it, he hates it, it’s his past

-It makes the whole “I looked up to shanks/sacrificed everything” sooooo much angstier/juicier. Sure, maybe he was just an apprentice, but Shanks was his everything. Shanks saved him, and saved him again, and again, and again, and-

-Why is he a coward? He’s not. He does it for his crew. His crew as most likely been through similar situations, being freaks and all. He puts on this mask to keep them safe. If he plays the coward yet terrifying pirate, they’re safe. No one below will mess with them, and no one above cares about them.

-It would make sense with why he’s so weak. He doesn’t use haki because (ANOTHER HEADCANNON) he’s too physically traumatized. Luffy was able to become more than his trauma with ace and everything, and so were shanks and others. But buggy’s was too much, he didn’t know how. So when shanks threw away their dreams, that was it. The final strand was gone and so was his haki

-yes it’s dark, but I think there’s a reason for how he acts, and he is odas favorite. So when crocodile and mihawk beat him up, yes it’s horrible and brings him back to his past, but it’s for his crew. To keep them safe

-The big plushy costume keeps anyone from seeing his scars/what about impel down?? we never see his back, and we know the systems corrupt so no one probably cared anyway.

*shows off my traumatizing headcannon* Thank you and good night

I- I wish I could give a detailed explanation of how this makes me feel but I can just stare at my screen and say "wow". Because what the actual fuck this is great???? I mean. I've always loved the whole "Buggy being a Nefertari" thing but THIS???????????? And I've always supported the whole "oh yeah he was probably a slave" because, you know, makes sense. But?????? Wow. Okay??? Also, Shanks being the one to find him??? You're killing me here, anon. I think I want to open up your skull and kiss your brain.

[providing-leverage]

My personal head cannons for Eliot Spencer because he's southern

I'm technically in the Midwest but right next to Oklahoma so whatever

Can't say goodbye quick. Not around people he likes. Says goodbye in the house, chats for a bit. They go outside to get into the car. Chats for a bit. About to get into the car "oh but did I tell you-" and "the other day-"

Hardison and Parker are groaning and trying to hurry him up but it still takes like an hour to leave

Auctions. So many auctions. Loves them. Will go and wander around but never buy anything and it drives everyone CRAZY because he still insists on going because what if I do find something

Can't walk on the grass if there's a sidewalk. This is a military thing, but it's been drilled into him, so unless it's an emergency Eliot is taking the sidewalk not the shortcut.

Can shake hands very well, very firm. He was 100% in AG/FFA (Future Farmers of America, very big high school club). Young Eliot received a grade on his handshaking ability

Speaking of AG. This is where Eliot learned how to grift, how to be charismatic, to give speeches and sell things. I cannot count how many times my friends have tried to convince me to buy a kind of grain or cow food or agriculture supplement as practice for their tests in AG.

Loves quilts. Quilts are great. He doesn't let himself think about his life before the military too often, not because it's awful, but because it hurts too much. But sometimes he'll think about the quilts his grandma would make and how well he would sleep wrapped up in them.

Food is his love language (this is cannon) but is also his weakness. Convincing him to do anything is as easy as offering him a good meal afterwards.

Can drive a post in less than five hits.

Going back to the topic of high school, Eliot participated in drive your tractor to school day every year

Like Parker, has been driving since a very young age. It's not illegal if it's in a field.

Probably liked to hunt a lot as a kid, lost his taste for it later.

Definitely did the big family thing in the summer, all the people you call aunt and uncle and cousin but are like three times removed. Tons of food, water gun fights, sleeping in tents in the yard

Loves loves loves to star gaze. Think Supernatural, when the boys will park in a wide open space and sit in silence and just watch.

As a date drags Parker and Hardison out and they complain about the ride to the middle of nowhere, but go quiet when he lays out the blanket and they see, maybe for the first time, how beautiful the sky is when the nearest city is more than an hour away, when there's no trees or anything to block the view.

The two of them eventually fall asleep but Eliot doesn't. He can't. His partner's might take his breath away but mother nature was his first love and he will never be able to take his gaze away from her.

(when the sun is starting to light up the east, he carries Parker back to the truck and tries his best to get Hardison but it does not work with the hight difference.)

[southeastasianists]

The artefacts had lain in the sea near an isolated rock outcrop, undisturbed for centuries.

Then in 2015, commercial and salvage diver Ahmad Qamarulhazman was scanning for debris underwater near Pedra Branca when he saw what looked like a stack of plates.

But they were covered with so much marine growth - algae, molluscs and other organisms - that he thought it may have been a ship’s radiator. Whatever it was, it didn’t look like it belonged there - wedged between rocks at about 8m underwater.

When Mr Ahmad surfaced, he told his supervisor Ramdzan Salim.

That chance sighting led to the discovery of the first ancient shipwreck in Singapore waters, with the largest haul of blue-and-white porcelain from any documented shipwreck in the world.

"IT'S MIND-BOGGLING"

Pedra Branca, located near the eastern entrance of the Strait of Singapore, is off-limits to most people. The subject of a territorial dispute between Singapore and Malaysia since 1979, the Hague determined in 2008 that it belonged to Singapore.

What prompted divers to head down was a maritime accident on Dec 30, 2014.  

A Singapore-registered barge, POE Giant 12, had run aground at Pedra Branca due to bad weather. The barge was carrying two bulk loader cranes and they were in danger of toppling on Pedra Branca’s historic Horsburgh Lighthouse.

As part of the salvage operation, the cranes were blown up and the divers were there to clear the debris from the explosions.

On that salvage operation in 2015, Mr Ahmad had been on his last dive and they were making sure scraps of metal from the demolished cranes were cleared.

Instead, he found celadon plates lost in the sea since the 14th century.

Back then, his supervisor Mr Ramdzam was sceptical when he was told about the items Mr Ahmad saw.

The waters around Pedra Branca were rough. How could ceramic or porcelain plates survive such conditions, as well as the construction of the lighthouse in 1851 and the explosions that had just gone off?

“It’s mind-boggling, isn't it?” Mr Ramdzam told CNA in an interview at his home on Wednesday (Jul 7).

“To us, especially, (who were) on the job - we were dealing with explosives … And on the very last day when Ahmad did the post-removal survey, we find fragile stuff still intact - literally like an elephant stepping on an egg!”

“Maybe it's fate - that these things wanted us to find them,” he added.

CLUES FROM EMPRESS PLACE EXCAVATION

When their work was done, a small group of divers went out in a dinghy and retrieved a few marine growth-encrusted plates from the seabed - but it was a mystery what they were and how they ended up there.

Mr Ramdzan, 49, recounted how at a team dinner later, someone alerted him to television news footage of excavation findings at Empress Place.

He caught only a glimpse of the news broadcast, but when he read the newspapers the next day, he saw a plate that looked exactly like one of those he had retrieved from Pedra Branca.

Archaeologists had discovered Chinese imperial grade ceramics among other artefacts at Empress Place. Lead archaeologist Lim Chen Sian said then that the artefacts could reveal details about life in Singapore before the early colonial days.

Archaeological digs since then have found artefacts dating back to the 13th century, substantiating the belief that Singapore was a trade hub before colonial times.

It took a while for Mr Ramdzan to reach the right person at the National Heritage Board (NHB). At the same time, he had also contacted an auction house. But when someone at NHB got back to him, he turned down an offer from the auction house to evaluate the items.

Mr Ramdzam recalled that they rode to a meeting at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute with the plates in a box perched on his motorcycle.

“We put them out on the meeting table ... and we can see their amazement ... we'd got some good pieces,” he said.

NERVOUS, UNSURE

Nine months later, Mr Ramdzan and Mr Ahmad, 33, were back at Pedra Branca with a small team from NHB and ISEAS, including Dr Michael Flecker, a visiting fellow at the archaeology unit at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute.

The divers were initially nervous as they were unsure what exactly they had found.

“Could it be that those pieces we first found were the only ones there?” Mr Ramdzan said. “And then we mobilised the whole team ... only to find an empty seabed.”

But Dr Flecker came up from his first dive with a Chinese seal, said Mr Ramdzan, confirming that there was a wreck there. It was later said to be about 100m to the northwest of Pedra Branca.

During future expeditions, the treasures that were recovered included Longquan dishes and bowls, as well as blue-and-white porcelain pieces, either whole or in shards. But there were nearly no traces of the vessel that had carried them.

At a press conference revealing the haul on Jun 16, Dr Flecker, who has more than 30 years of experience in marine archaeology, said: “Remarkably, the first ancient shipwreck found in Singapore waters seems to be contemporary with 14th century Temasek.

“Apart from a large cargo of Longquan green-ware and other ceramics, she carried more Yuan dynasty blue-and-white porcelain than any other documented shipwreck in the world. Many of the pieces are rare, and one is believed to be unique.”

That piece was a blue-and-white bottle with a flanged straight neck that was still intact.

IT TAKES A TRAINED EYE

Juggling work and other commitments, Mr Ramdzan went on six other trips to Pedra Branca with the team over the next five years. But Mr Ahmad could not join any of the expeditions due to his work.

Mr Ramdzan said each trip began at the break of dawn. They would take more than three hours to sail from Singapore to the islet, then do two dives before heading back, reaching the mainland at about 8pm.

Excavation of the shipwreck’s contents went on until 2019, but the team continued work on another shipwreck that was found from detection surveys conducted by ISEAS in the area.

The second shipwreck is likely to be the Shah Munchah, a merchant vessel built in India, which sank while voyaging from China back to India in 1796.

Artefacts recovered from this wreck include Chinese ceramics and copper-alloy, glass and agate objects, as well as anchors and cannons of the ship.

How did delicate porcelain plates and ceramic artefacts lay under the waves for 700 years undiscovered?

Many were hidden in rocks or buried in the seabed, said Mr Ramdzan. For the first shipwreck, the items that were exposed were covered in marine growth or coral and it took a trained eye to recognise the treasures that lay barely 100m from Pedra Branca.  

What will go on display at the museum has been thoroughly cleaned and scrapped to reveal the original designs and carvings that lie beneath.

"INDIANA JONES"

A commercial diver since the age of 17, Mr Ramdzan had been on four wreck expeditions, the most memorable being the Tek Sing in 1999. Then, he helped retrieve more than 350,000 pieces of porcelain from the 19th-century Chinese junk, which sank to the bottom of the South China Sea in 1822 off the island of Bangka in Indonesia.

Wreck salvaging is rarer for Mr Ahmad, who in 2015 also joined Dr Flecker in searching for artefacts on the Empress of Asia, which was sunk by the Japanese in 1942. Such jobs are “rare”, he said.

Often, they would be called upon when ships are on fire, had run aground or when there is an oil spill or the threat of one.

“We respond to disasters globally worldwide pretty much like the fire service,” said Mr Ramdzan.

“Especially in the salvage industry, it's a dirty job ... You'll be diving in oil, you'll be diving in less than ideal conditions, in cargo holds or inside engine rooms,” he said.

“It is very rare that you actually dive in blue or clear waters.”

For them, salvaging wrecks is a “good break” from their daily jobs, said Mr Ramdzan.

And it was clear from Mr Ramdzan’s flat in the west of Singapore that he has a soft spot for things lost underwater. The living room was like a maritime museum, filled with artefacts he has reclaimed from the ocean.

“Someone labelled me as an ‘Indiana Jones’ because most of the things that I collect are novelty items from jobs,” he said.

“Most of the things that I put on display tell a story in their own way and some of them I wouldn't trade for all the riches in the world because I know there's only like one of them.”

[hydraulicfluidinmyteapot]

Pirates of the Caribbean

This is an ask from @shrigma-male​, but i accidentally deleted the ask.. so sorry! I am high key excited to get an ask about this topic, as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is probably one of my earliest animatronic centric obsessions. not only is it one of the earliest and most impressive feats of Imagineering, it also remains solid to this day. it houses a great many iconic animatronic figurines, all of which work together in perfect harmony to capture beautifully life filled scenes of a cohesive storyline. Its individual ride concept was so strong that it birthed a line of clones and even a famous movie franchise. isn’t that sick? a RIDE was the key source material for a whole movie series! but it’s unsurprising, with the time and care poured into the ride. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you think about it, the ride is JAM PACKED so there is a LOT to talk about. This will only be a super brief post information-wise, but who knows? There may be more to come if this performs well. Apologies, my life’s not going great at the moment and i don’t have a lot of spare time so this is not as high a quality as i would like it to be.

Here’s my fast fact file on it!

Debut: March 16, 1967

Withdrawal: All rides are still operating

Attraction: The Pirates of the Caribbean 

Locations: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Shanghai Disney (but this one’s heavily modified)

Attraction Type: Dark ride

Riders Per Vehicle: 23–24

Number of vehicles:  50

Animatronics: 119 ish but it depends on the ride version

Ride videos: The entire ride varies from version to version and different people want to see different parts. i’m leaving you guys to find your own ride videos. it’s a very popular ride, just type on in to youtube and you’ll find heaps of nice high quality ones. 

The thing that stands out about this ride is the theming and the sheer amount of effort put in to creating an immersive environment. the ride houses an impressive 119 audio animatronics, 53 of which are animals. There are 630,000 gallons of water in the ride (original Disneyland) and takes three whole days to drain. there are over 40,000 gold coins in the treasure room scene alone. It holds what could possibly be considered Disney’s first themed restaurant which can be seen at the start of the ride. It is objectively one of the coolest things I’ve ever ridden. I want to call specific attention to the boat scene, where cannons fare at each other from opposite ships, creating glowing impacts and throwing water about. the first time I rode it it ensnared my attention and completely suspended my disbelief.The ride system is based on the one used in it’s a small world, due to that rides incredible success in debuting a boat-based transport system. Although I hate it’s a small world with a burning passion and refuse to write anything on it, I must be forced to admit that it did wonders as a test on how to create a good dark ride, emphasising key features such as a high rider capacity, boat-based transport system, and proving that animatronics are an incredibly attractive key event. Since the 60’s when it debuted, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride has gone through many changes throughout its location, including entire scenes being added and removed. but what it has maintained throughout its historic run time is its notoriety and splendour. the key change that I will bring up is the 2006 and 2007 renovations that include more theming from the very successful movie franchise. slightly unrelated, but the song “Yo ho, a pirate’s life for me” was actually first written for the ride. The rides are all being constantly updated in minor ways whether it’s slightly improving the animatronics, touching up background details or changing costuming. I’ll attach here a brief sort of timeline of the ride that I’ve whipped up here, but it only touches on the most notable modifications. sorry about how crap-tier it is..

Now, to talk more specifically about animatronics. The animatronics used on this ride are some of the earliest made by Disney. some are really quite basic, with their full range of motions being a singular full body action such as raising and lowering out of a barrel, but others move heads and arms in (sort of) lifelike actions. Some are newer, (specifically captain Jack Sparrow), but most are the original ones from the 60’s. One of my (and everyone’s tbh) favourites is the redheaded lady. She is (very originally) named Redd. Previously she was being sold off for auction, but in 2018 she was swapped to being an auctioneer. She has stunning red curls and a beautiful dress to match, and now holds a gun. here’s a little before and after.

 in the same refurbishment that changed her the mist screen in the tunnel before the fort battle was removed and replaced with a pirate in a cage who turns into a skeleton via an optical trick as well as an octopus playing with some medallions, along with the original 1967 narration about cursed treasure being restored. Her new version is based off none other than Anne Bonny herself (worth a google, she’s a fucking BOSS (like seriously!! Queer history icon!!! LOOK 👏 HER 👏 UP 👏 )) . She’s also displayed in dead man’s cove in a portrait, which I think is kinda neat. Her Paris version is completely silent, but the others yell about selling rum. Sadly I have never actually seen the new Redd in person, as I have only ridden the ride in Tokyo (where she is still being sold).

Now, the barker bird! oh how I love him so <3 he’s a little green pirate parrot, who spent his days crying about the ride. he was originally in the queue area but got kicked outside eventually to help deal with crowd control. he was then gotten rid of in 2006 in the big movie refurb. He was remarkably similar to the original barker bird who resided outside of the Enchanted Tikki Room; however, the pirate version has a peg leg, eye patch, tattoo on his chest and wondrously villainous hat. he was originally based off of Captain Flint, the parrot from Treasure Island. It is theorised that he has a skeletal clone inside the ride; the parrot belonging to “the Dirty Feet pirate”. 

When you first get on the ride, the first animatronic you come across is Old Joe. he is an animatronic character used in multiple different attractions, including Liberty Belle Riverboat, The Western River and Mark Twain Riverboat. in each version, he lives in a shack and is associated with the banjo. I say associated because it is actually a really common misconception that he actually plays the banjo. he does not, it is just a dark scene and there is banjo music playing around him. you can see the tip of his pipe glowing as you approach it in the ride, lit up alongside the fireflies. he is a small taste of what is to come.

Barbossa replaced the original pirate captain of The Wicked Wench in the boat battle scene in the mass movie renovation. he is my tied favourite with the redhead, as his dialog adds so much to the scene. his character moves in a beautiful fashion, lit up by a spotlight. His face is artfully painted, capturing what I believe to be the most human expression in the entire ride. His boat is fighting a Castillo del Morro fortress of Isla Tesoro, whilst busy searching for treasure and presumably captain jack sparrow. in 2011 his WDW version’s outfit was swapped over to his privateer uniform from On Stranger Tides, to keep the ride tied to the movies. What can be considered quite odd is that in Paris’s later renovation, the Captain did not replace the Wicked Wench captain, and was rather added in to a scene at the end of the ride, in the skeleton grotto. he is standing on the shipwreck beside the skeleton helmsman, carrying a lantern. 

The auctioneer. I don’t like him. greasy man. his eyes are wild. He’s originally voiced by Paul Frees (an icon, a legend) and is inspired by Captain Bartholomew Roberts (considered the most successful pirate in the golden age of piracy. He is also a pirate from the ship The Wicked Wench, and his auction is set up near a canteen called "La Cantina”. very creative. He was originally selling brides (human trafficking, not very snazzy) but now he sells chickens he stole from townspeople. however, this is unsuccessful. In the Paris version, instead of the chickens he is trying to sell a painting of Jean Laffite. Funnily enough, Jean is one of Disney’s sort of “stand in” pirate characters that they frequently just use whenever they need a pirate to slide in. Unfortunately, the auctioneer is always kept relatively up to date with the shiniest, newest technology that Disney can spare, and is always one of the most advanced figures on the ride. doesn’t deserve it, he’s slimy and I don’t like him. I should probably mention that he doesn’t actually have a name other than the auctioneer. There’s also a clone of him used in the haunted mansion for the duelling animatronics. loser. 

This is a very long post, so I shall cut it here. I will leave you with an image gallery, further reading and a possible promise of a part two if this post does well. Thank you!

(ok so i actually haven’t got any further reading gathered yet. give me like 6 hours and ill fix it in an edit. i promise. i just want to get this post out asap)

[katherinewilliams221b]

Can you do some head cannons or blurbs about Corentin? I’ve come to love his character so much! X

Hi, anon! I love how we all fell in love with him a little

I answered this ask a while ago with some info about how I picture him and here is the summary:

He is the youngest of three siblings: Arlette, Lorraine and Corentin (now they have names!)

The image I have of him is very stereotypical, it’s all about the aesthetics, you know?

Their family is art-oriented, his parents and Lorraine are musicians, they all play the violin, the organ, and many types of flute, but his sister is mostly a cellist.

He is passionate about literature, like his father, and he’s written some secret novels no one knows about!

Since his family owns considerable wealth, they live in a castle-like mansion in France, and probably have more houses scattered around the country. They always host big parties and auctions collecting and investing in all forms of art.

Corentin is the most reserved of the three, he feels more comfortable around books, that’s why he accepted the post as a librarian in a remote school, walking away from the noisy lifestyle he had in France.

But he has an adventurous side too! This bat loves a good mystery from time to time ;)

He is wise, kind, and full of knowledge, but he is not arrogant. He knows about everything and anything, and since he is a good story-teller, you always want to know what he has to say about something.

Despite being far away from his home, he keeps in touch with his family and they all get together very well.

He doesn't like coffins. A soft mattress with silk sheets is always better.

I like to use the concept of sun-sensitive in my universe, I know not all people agree with it, in folklore you don’t usually find it, but I like it, it gives vampires more nuance, I find it a very interesting trait.

On that note, I also hc vampires in the Potterverse being able to perform wand and wand-less magic.

Although he has some sort of victorian aura to him and he is as elegant and as dramatic as that time period stereotype, he has a very modern mindset.

He also likes to be informed about muggle affairs, and every morning he reads different newspapers, magic and muggle, in English and french. Always with a cup of blood in hand.

His most precious object is a gramophone her mother gifted him when he parted to Durmstrang, and the discs with his parents and sister’s music on them.

He always wears proper clothes and shoes, but he likes to wander around the castle with fluffy slippers at night

Thanks for the ask! If I come up with more hc I’ll add them

You can also send me your own ideas! I’d love to hear them <3

[tabloidtoc]

National Enquirer, October 12

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Queen Elizabeth’s 73-year sham marriage to Prince Philip collapses

Page 2: Kanye West is in top-secret talks to launch his own TV network and is crowing it will be bigger than the Kardashians -- he wants it to reflect his lofty vision of what the world should be and to provide a spiritual awakening for the masses but he doesn’t realize there aren’t a lot of people who want to spend hours a day listening to him rant about how the world would be a better place if he was in charge -- meanwhile Kim Kardashian is at the end of her rope again 

Page 3: Furious Angelina Jolie is tearing into Brad Pitt’s new girlfriend Nicole Poturalski blasting her as a scheming psycho and as a borderline stalker who is dating Brad just to get famous and it’s going to end in disaster for the whole family not just him so she’s already told Brad to keep Nicole away from their kids and she’s looking to make this part of their ongoing legal case 

Page 4: Newly single Kelly Clarkson has enlisted fellow country star Maren Morris to help her find a new man -- Maren advised Kelly to use her talk show to connect with men she admires but Kelly may have taken her advice a little too literally when she had her crush Keanu Reeves on the show and was drooling all over him though she knows it’s probably wishful thinking 

Page 5: Ellen DeGeneres kicked off her new season by publicly apologizing for allegations of misconduct on her talk show but body language experts blasted her remarks as tone deaf and missing the mark totally 

Page 6: Jimmy Fallon’s wife Nancy Juvonen is furious over the time he spends nurturing his bond with close pal Kathie Lee Gifford -- Jimmy loves to reminisce about the old days at NBC with the former Today yakker especially during today’s challenging times and he worships her and he’s the only late-night host who treats Kathie Lee like an A-lister but Nancy can’t stand Kathie Lee’s constant self-obsessed talk and considers her a squeaky third wheel 

Page 7: Cher keeps trying to turn back time with plastic surgery but the results have been disastrous and although she insists her most recent work is a facelift her kisser is frozen and packed with Botox and fillers and lip injections -- she also appears to have had a nose job and a face and neck lift to achieve a smooth jawline and neck and the results have left Cher barely able to move her face and even made it difficult for her to speak let alone sing, disgraced chef Paula Deen had emergency eye surgery this summer in a desperate bid to save her sight -- Paula had been suffering from declining vision for months and was shocked when doctors told her the cornea was dying and going under the knife was necessary to save her sight 

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Tiger Woods took a brief break during practice, Leighton Meester caught some waves in Malibu, Kristen Taekman in a New York Jets bikini, Dolph Lundgren doffed his mask after leaving a lunch date in Beverly Hills, Dominic Cooper took his electric bike for a spin in London 

Page 11: Cash-strapped Tori Spelling and husband Dean McDermott are back in couples therapy and on the verge of filing for bankruptcy -- they’re in counseling for the same old stuff which is their constant fighting and spending money and work that isn’t happening -- the parents of five were hit with tax liens totaling nearly $1 million and were also sued by American Express over an unpaid credit card bill of almost $90,000 which Tori asked her mother Candy Spelling who is worth about $600 million to pay but Candy refused and after Candy revealed her plans to leave her fortune to animal charities Tori and Dean may file for bankruptcy because they both love to spend, Bravo bigwigs are hoping hotel heiress Kathy Hilton will fill the vacancy left by Denise Richards and Teddi Mellencamp on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and producers are trying to keep ratings high by getting veteran Kyle Richards to recruit sister and former castmate Kim Richards and half sister Kathy -- Kathy is said to be high on producers’ wish list because of her wit and humor and is also considered old-school Beverly Hills and show brass want her to bring a certain glamour and sophistication to the show 

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Demi Lovato at a NYC screening party (picture), when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve in Times Square Anderson Cooper won’t be there because he would rather be at home with his baby boy, The Bachelor has cut all ties with Colton Underwood after his ex Cassie Randolph got a temporary restraining order against him, Teresa Giudice plans to move to NYC after listing her New Jersey mansion but she still wants to keep her job on The Real Housewives of New Jersey and to get around that Teresa hopes to pretend she’s moved into her brother Joe Gorga’s home in Jersey 

Page 13: John Legend revealed couples therapy helps strengthen his marriage to Chrissy Teigen and said they keep their romance going strong by communicating and being considerate and listening, Jackie Stallone was more than just Sylvester Stallone’s mom -- she was also one of the world top astrologers and psychics who predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and Kanye West’s presidential run 

Page 14: Crime -- convicted Melrose Place killer Amy Locane is in lockup again for a fatal 2010 drunk-driving smashup that took one life and nearly took another after a New Jersey Superior Court Judge said she got off too easy by serving two years behind bars and sentenced Amy to eight more years in state prison 

Page 15: The gruesome house of horrors where Drew Carey’s ex-fiancee Amie Harwick brutally met her untimely end is on the market for $1.5 million and her family can’t wait to get rid of it, Shannen Doherty is in pretty good spirits amid her ongoing battle with stage 4 breast cancer according to her former Beverly Hills 90210 co-star Jason Priestley

Page 16: Cover Story -- After decades of turning a blind eye to her husband’s cheating Queen Elizabeth’s 72-year marriage has shockingly collapsed and Prince Philip is now banished to a remote cottage far away from the monarch -- despite royal courtiers painting a rosy picture of the couple quarantining together at Windsor Castle since March the truth is their marriage has been a sham for decades and they’ve been living separate lives for over 50 years and all this forced togetherness was simply too much for them -- Philip has been cheating on Elizabeth since before they were married and has several love children; he has rumored to have had flings with actress Helene Cordet and Daphne du Maurier and Pat Kirkwood and Jane Russell and Merle Oberon and Zsa Zsa Gabor and Princess Alexandria and Sacha Duchess of Abercorn and most recently Lady Penny Romsey -- there will be no divorce and they will just quietly continue their separate lives to the end of their days but the queen never wants to see Philip again 

Page 18: Larry King’s estranged wife Shawn Southwick is demanding $33,000 a month in spousal support because she claims she gave up her music and TV career to marry the frail talk show host and then raise their sons Chance and Cannon, Hollywood Hookups -- Halle Berry and Van Hunt dating, 90 Day Fiance stars Ashley Martson and Jay Smith split for good, Justin Duggar dating Claire Spivey 

Page 19: Tom Cruise is set to shoot the first major movie in outer space and he’s headed to the International Space Station in October 2021 with director Doug Liman -- the two and possibly one additional actor will hitch a ride aboard Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to film the unnamed project, the IV needle allegedly used to administer the fatal dose of propofol to Michael Jackson on June 25 of 2009 is up for auction by the estate of the late singer’s father Joe and the chilling item used by Michael’s physician Dr. Conrad Murray is reportedly still stained with Michael’s blood -- it was submitted to the auction by Michael’s cousin Marsha Stewart who says she took it from Michael’s bedroom days after he died, Sharon Stone has pressed her lips on a long list of Hollywood hunks but picked Robert De Niro as far and away the best kisser but rated her other leading men as kind of like meh 

Page 20: Stars Playing Stars -- how they did it -- Muhammad Ali and Will Smith, Frida Kahlo and Salma Hayek, Ray Charles and Jamie Foxx 

Page 21: Marilyn Monroe and Michelle Williams, Queen Elizabeth and Helen Mirren, Billie Holiday and Diana Ross, Bob Dylan and Cate Blanchett 

Page 22: An adopted son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen has charged it was his mother not his father who was the monster in the family -- Moses Farrow says Woody did not molest adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992 and that he can no longer stay silent as Woody continues to be condemned for a crime he did not commit 

Page 26: Less than nine months after Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash a vicious feud has ripped the family apart -- the row erupted between his widow Vanessa Bryant and her mother Sofia Laine after Sofia went on TV to publicly accuse her daughter of tossing her out of the family home -- Vanessa feels she’s already given her mom so much and then she heard through the grapevine that Sofia complained she should have more -- it does seem cold that Vanessa would take such action against her mother but she’s ready to take on anyone using her husband and child’s deaths as a selfish cash grab and that includes Sofia 

Page 27: Danny Masterson’s rape trial is looming and the Church of Scientology is doing everything in its power to back the scandal-scarred actor -- the church’s leaders have assigned their top lawyers to aid Danny who is a prominent member of the religion and the lawyers are scouring every law on the books to get the case thrown out or get him acquitted -- the church has previously been accused of trying to get the other side’s defenses dismissed or judges thrown off cases and using all manner of tactics to delay due process 

Page 28: American Life -- Bighearted ex-billionaire Chuck Feeney has spent 38 years giving away nearly all of his vast fortune and the generous do-gooder said he wouldn’t have had it any other way 

Page 29: Famed stoner Willie Nelson can’t stop sampling his own marijuana products and now friends fear the 87-year-old music legend is smoking himself to death -- Willie’s a believer in the powers of cannabis and promotes it passionately but years of smoking has done a number on his lungs and he can barely breathe at times, Julia Duffy has been keeping close a tragic heartache for more than a year -- her only son Danny Lacy committed suicide at age 29 after years of suffering from mental health issues 

Page 34: Comic Kathy Griffin has seen her popularity plummet in recent years and it’s played a role in her plans to sell her sprawling Bel Air estate -- Kathy has burned a lot of bridges and concerts and TV appearances have dried up because of her many industry conflicts so she’s trying to unload her massive manor with wine cellar and movie theater and eight bedrooms for $16 million -- she didn’t want to sell it but the cost and size have become too much for her to handle 

Page 36: Health Watch 

Page 38: CIA bigwigs once hired a psychic to determine if there was life on Mars -- the misguided mission was said to be part of Project Stargate which was launched in 1978 and somehow cost an astronomical $20 million after the CIA hired a man who claimed he could see the surface of the planet in his mind -- the unnamed man claimed he could see huge pyramids and an obelisk structure and road networks on the Red Planet as well as living creatures, John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman shocked the parole board when he admitted he deserved the death penalty even as he begged for his freedom at his last hearing -- his murderous motive was seeking self-glory -- the board denied his parole saying they found his statement infamy brings you glory disturbing 

Page 42: Red Carpet -- London Fashion Week 

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Luke Bryan and his dog Choc 

Page 47: Odd List -- doctors remove granny’s football-sized tumor 

[arcanemoody]

Gotham Secret Santa

Title: Songbook

Author: arcanemoody Tags: Season 5, post-S05E07: Ace Chemicals, Bickering Like an Old Married Couple, Referenced Past Trauma, Pre-Slash, Developing Relationship, 78prm, Happy Ending Summary: Whatever Ed needs, he can have. Oswald isn’t sure how he can make that any clearer.

For @ckatattack for the @gotham-secret-santa. I hope you like it!

--

Oswald sorted bolts at his ally’s behest. He helped push the tables together in the library, cleared the combined space so that his partner could work on the engine of the submarine while maintaining a clear view of each schematic. All while humming to himself and emptying boxes of scrap on the side table designated for his work; filing bolts, screws, and other detritus into separate piles and compartments for easy retrieval.

Contrary to the accusations Edward liked to throw at him, he hadn’t intended for his old friend and enemy to be doing the majority of the work -- conceptualizing, working from schematics, redesigning schematics. Oswald himself found none of this intuitive, and had hoped by making himself scarce, Ed's progress could continue uninterrupted. His 10th-grade shop teacher had said once, with a screwdriver in his hand, Oswald Cobblepot was essentially a gremlin. He couldn’t even wire a lamp from a kit; couldn’t sand or carve the blocks used to make a simple standing clock. And his lack of technical acumen was matched only by his inability to commit to physical labor. A submarine was seriously outside his expertise. Seeing to their cargo and procuring the niceties and basic needs his colleague eschewed in favor of managing his labor was much more his speed. He checked on (and added to) their pile of treasure. He made sure Ed had decent food and untainted water. He sorted bolts. He worked very, very hard to tamp down any indignity he felt in each task.

"Are you humming Dinah Shore?"

It took a moment for him to realize that Ed was addressing him. "What?"

"That song. What are you humming?"

Oswald shook his head, slightly dazed. "I-I don't know. It's just something I remembered… maybe from one of my mother’s records? Put it in a box, tie it with a ribbon—'

“...would surely fill the deep blue sea,” Ed finished in his gentle tenor. “That's Dinah Shore.”

“Is it?” Oswald shrugged. “Huh. Well, if you're that desperate for me to not sing it, I think I must have the actual record somewhere.” Ed’s brow furrowed.

“78RPM? Red label? Columbia logo?”

“I think so.”

“That‘s my record, Oswald!” he shouted, taking a large step forward.

His brain froze up in the way it tended to do nowadays any time Ed leveled an accusation at him, grappling with whether it was warranted and whether the vehemence required a match in tone. This did not. He took a deep breath.

“Technically speaking, it’s my record. I bought it.”

“Yeah, along with the rest of my records, my books and my clothes,” Ed shot back. “Well, excuse me for wanting you to feel at home when you got out of Arkham!”

The lot at the police auction had been purchased through an intermediary -- the same intermediary that made a hefty donation to the policemen's union under the name of the Van Dahl living trust. Oswald had known that if the GCPD had felt free enough to use his name to trap Edward into a confession, they would probably be vindictive enough to refuse his name on a purchase order. 

"And anyway, since you left them all at the manor, I'd say that still makes them mine.”

“Technically speaking,” he replied, mimicking Oswald’s earlier tone. “I didn't leave.” “You certainly weren't living there when I got back!” The air in the house had been stale the day he and Fries forced the front door open. Only the kitchen had maintained its normal, spotless, lived-in atmosphere, due to Olga’s continued employment, salary operating on an automatic deposit. The rest had fallen into a cluttered disrepair that illustrated the descent of Riddler’s madness.

“I wasn't not living there.”

“Of course not. You were on the run. Well, you were 'not living there' just enough that I gave Ivy your room.'

“No you didn’t.” Ed’s statement was dismissive rather than outraged. Not an accusation; a fact. Confirming that he had evidence to back up his claim. 

“How do you know?” Oswald asked, curious. 

“Because when I went there in March, my room was as I left it.”

March. 

Two months before Sofia had been taken out for good.

When Riddler had broken him out of Arkham, the purple panel coat with the fur trimmed collar  (flattened now and in desperate need of dry cleaning) had been slung across the passenger seat of the truck. The coat he had left in Ed’s apartment after Galavan’s murder, the coat he’d subsequently gotten back after the GCPD delivered the lot from the auction. He had been too preoccupied at the time to question its presence or how Ed might have retrieved it when Oswald himself had changed the locks a year earlier. 

“You broke into my house!” “It was hardly breaking in — the windows weren’t even locked,” he paused at Oswald’s shocked expression. “I never did it when you were home. Just after you were arrested and, later, when you were squatting at Falcone’s place.”

“Right, because that makes it better! What were you even doing there?”’

“Looking for my things, mainly. I wore the same suit for months and it wasn’t like I had a lot of loose change to throw around, even with Lee’s help.” “So you turned to house breaking. How clever of you.”

“One house. And I didn’t take anything that wasn’t already mine.”

‘Just as before.’ Oswald flinched at the thought, turned away. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, refrained from upturning the table with all of the bolts he’d sorted. One could afford to pick one’s battles during a long-form escape attempt. .

“Well you can go back for your precious record collection any time you like! If the front door is still on the hinges, I’ll even loan you my key.”

Said key disappeared from his keyring two days later, around the time Oswald found the library work space empty.

-- He did not turn up to sort bolts, shuffle schematics or retrieve provisions for Edward the next day. 

Or the next day. 

He arranged trades. He drank wine on Barbara’s sofa, listening to her talk through the physical transformations of her second trimester and Lee Thompkins’ warnings about high heels being a fall risk and, therefore, a risk to the fetus. 

“As if I would ever fall,” she scoffed. 

He refrained from stating the obvious, pouring himself another glass to avoid grinding his teeth.

On the third day, he turned up to an empty room. He sat waiting in the empty library long into the evening. The sun was setting, filling the room with an orange glow when a member of his security team turned up, an anxious expression on their face. 

“Boss.”

“Where is he?”

-- First Bank of Gotham. A historic granite and lime building measuring half a city block on the edge of the industrial sector on the north side.

The Court of Owls had done a good job of hiding their centuries-worth of dirty work in plain sight. Post-No Man’s Land “restructuring,“ the alley where he and Edward had made their bloody escape two years earlier was on the edge of Firefly’s territory, frequently disputed by Fries’ minions staking a claim. The odds had been in Firefly’s favor recently and Bridgit, to Oswald’s surprise, allowed him to pass through with barely a nod of encouragement. 

“String Bean entered through the southwest staircase. My scouts say he’s been there a while,” she lifted her mask, giving him a pointed stare. “You’ve got an hour, Pengy.”

Oswald nodded, leaving his guards under his former housemate’s watchful eye (and flamethrower). This was Firefly being sentimental. He knew it wouldn’t last long if they overstayed their welcome. 

There were more stairs than he remembered. Each floor opened onto a circular hall of doors with the door knobs either broken or missing, papers and files scattered, the mundane facade of an centuries-old evil organization that still needed three floors of pencil pushers to move their assets and occasionally serve as cannon fodder. Oswald remembered their holding cells being on the sixth floor, close to the roof. The trip to the ground level had been a whirlwind of improvised carnage -- guards, personnel, people in uniforms, people in office wear, he and Ed and tore through everyone on their way out, before crashing onto the pavement outside, covered in the blood of violent rebirth.

He found Edward on the fourth floor, door ajar on what had once been a holding area, dilapidated desks and disabled security gates, loose wires where key panel locks had once been. Long legs folded into a too small office chair, eyes downcast, his friend’s visage brought a lump to his throat.

“Reliving old memories?” Oswald asked, annoyed even as the fear and agony he’d been holding in check all day melted from him.

Ed didn’t look up.

“Edward?”

Another long moment passed before he finally spoke. 

“I found my overcoat,” he said, gesturing at the pile of green plaid slung over the crook of one arm and draped over his lap. Nearly two years in dark storage, no doubt covered in mildew, dust mites, and other unspeakable things. 

“Were you looking for that recently?”

“No,” he shook his head. “I hadn’t even thought about it, or this place in quite some time. I was looking for scrap steel for the outer panels, maybe some extra supplies... I took a notion once I realized where I was. Have I been gone long?”

“Six hours.” Eight, though Ed didn’t need to know just how early Oswald had turned up to the library.

“I couldn’t find any of your stuff. Or anything that looked like it might be yours. Sorry.”

Oswald did his best to contain his reaction, that Ed had done something thoughtful. For his sake. He winced against the ripple of familiar warmth, butterflies. Things he could not afford in the midst of a long-form escape attempt.

“It doesn’t matter. Are you ready to go now?” 

Ed nodded, walking half a step behind as they descended back down the stairs.

--

“How long were you their prisoner?” He asked, after they had crossed the perimeter, doubling back twice to avoid whatever shadows Ed seemed positive were following them. The sun had long since set and what little light they had was from the security teams flanking them, throwing long shadows on the broken pavement.

“Before you arrived?” Ed shrugged. “A few weeks maybe? I was interrogated before they put me in the cage. It was difficult to keep track but not impossible. It wasn’t like Arkham -- their  objectives involved keeping me alive. Though what keeping me alive meant in a city they wanted to destroy is anybody’s guess.”

Probably holding his sage intellect in storage for future endeavors, as Barbara had. Oswald felt angry on his old friend’s behalf as well as himself. He hadn’t been interrogated -- just sedated, stripped, and thrown in a cell. For the formerly missing mayor of the city, it was beyond insulting. 

Ed wasn’t finished.

“They gave me haloperidol so they could question me. That was bad. I was still detoxing at first -- that was worse.”

“From what?”

“Amphetamines, mostly. And whatever psychotropics Tabitha gave me. Withdrawal symptoms ideally shouldn’t last as long as those did. I tapered off to avoid complications with my heart muscle, adrenal glands...”

Oswald held his breath.

Following Riddler’s progress after his death had been difficult from the distance of Ivy’s greenhouse hideaway in Bludhaven. Even after returning home, tracking headlines and articles stopped at a certain date, bleeding into coverage of the mayor’s disappearance. One of those articles included a grainy shot of Ed leaving a press conference at city hall, face a mask of composure, but for the downward cast of distressed brown eyes in rubbed gray newsprint.

He knew Ed had tripled his original kill count in less than two months. And that he’d kept the authorities on the run right up until Jim Gordon decided handing him over to a cabal with designs on child abduction and mass murder was a charming notion. That Ed himself had crossed that threshold virtually without a fight.

“...why?”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Uppers tends to do that--”

“I didn’t want to sleep,” his tone took on a sharp edge and he was glaring at Oswald again. “I don’t even know why you’re asking me. You know exactly how long I was there. You went to Jim first. You always go to him first.”

That jab… felt oddly personal. Oswald wondered what he was missing in that accusation— the narrowed gaze and the resentful pinch to his mouth. Never mind that Jim Gordon was the one who arrested and subsequently reported the “Riddler’s” escape and Ed, a forensic investigator, should have known the importance of following clues.

“If I could gauge what Jim knew, I had a bead on what the rest of the GCPD knew and I could plan accordingly. So, yes, I went to him. And he lied to me and I knew it -- just like I always know when he lies to me. The man has a terrible poker face.”

“So do you.”

“So stop playing with me,” he said, choking up. Having his own methods questioned was galling. And it wasn’t as though his talent for shallow subterfuge hadn’t fooled him once— back when Ed cared about him and a blind spot was established. Memories that brought a salty weighty to the back of his throat and behind his eyes. “Did you even find out ‘who runs Gotham?’”

The question was flippant, almost cruel. Ed’s answer was not.

“That and more,” he replied, somber, almost pensive; enough to deflate Oswald’s ire. 

“Well. Good for you, then.”

“There are things they told me,” he said, serious now, neither chiding nor angry. “...I can’t talk about it. Not yet.”

Oswald kept his eyes on the dark path ahead, tried not to think about what could be worse to talk about than his anguish over the deaths at Haven or the almost blissful oblivion of his first murders. A distant part of his brain reminded him that it could be still another play, but he had seen Ed devastated enough over time to recognize truth from fiction.

“Okay,” he nodded. 

“Things that involve you.”

“I understand. Save it if you want, Ed. You can tell me whenever you want to or hang onto it forever. I don’t care.”

The walk back to the library seemed longer than before. Oswald was surprised that Ed continued to shadow him even as the streets (what had once been streets) diverged and he headed in the direction of city hall.

“Don’t disappear again.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re not capable of scaring me!” he said. Patently untrue and Ed knew it, too. “Anyway, I thought you might have gone to the manor.”

“I tried that first,” he replied, producing his keyring from the pocket on his boilersuit. “Yesterday.”

“And?”

“I want to say the front door is still on the hinges, but I couldn’t get more than a few yards away to look. Nature seems to have taken back a good portion of your father’’s estate and... some of it was not happy to find me there.”

“Ivy. Well, it’s good to hear that she's kept up her hobbies,” he laughed, breathlessly. Guilt was rare and pulsed dully in the same pained spot in his stomach where heartbreak loved to dwell. The teenage plant maven had kept Oswald company when he had wanted no one near him and he’d rewarded her generosity of spirit with contempt and vitriol. Forgiveness was, as ever, too high a price to ask for. He’d have to settle for just knowing she was alive. 

“Hang on to the key, anyway. We may need it eventually.”

If they ever went back (and if Ivy killed him on sight), Ed would still need to get inside the house.

—

After the bolts and the sonar, after Penn’s arrival and subsequent dispatch, aborted departures and new arrivals and scrambling to recover what they could from the bottom of the river, they managed to fight through the vegetation and rehome the manor.

Oswald arrived with lunch one afternoon and found a 78rpm in a battered paper sleeve on the dining room table. He reached out to touch it, wondering briefly if it was a trick of his remaining eye.

“Ed?” he called out. 

“I found your record,” Ed said, closer than he’d initially guessed, initially in his blind spot and then moving over to his left side. No longer disputing ownership. “Not here. It turns out the library’s music archives weren’t completely depleted.”

Oswald smiled, turning the record over, noting the red label, the Columbia logo.

“Do we still have a working turntable?”

Ed smiled, amused, offered an arm to guide him.

“Back here.”

It took more than a few breaths to blow the dust off both record and player, more than a few minutes to turn the crank on his father’s old gramophone without overwinding, and finding the appropriate place to drop the needle. The voice that warbled out was familiar in a way that conjured images of his mother’s living room, frying onions in the kitchen, the sharp bite of paprika and heavy salt in the air… none of which echoed Ed’s place in his mind. 

“This isn’t Dinah Shore.”

“No, it’s Doris Day,” he replied, a hint of amusement breaking through what, no doubt, had to be a heavy sense of injustice (Ed’s impeccable brain turning on him yet again). “I got the song and the label right but the vocalist wrong. Such an obvious detail to miss.”

Oswald shook his head, reaching out to take his partner’s other arm, squeezing lightly.

“It’s an easy mistake,” he replied, his non-bandaged eye focused on his dearest friend’s shifting expression; dark eyes misty, a hint of a smile. “No worries, my friend.”

Oswald watched Ed swallow, feeling an answering squeeze on his arm. The two of them leaned against each other, swaying, almost in a dance. Oswald hummed. -- A/N: The song Oswald sings is “Put ‘Em in a Box, Tie ‘Em With a Ribbon,” sung by Doris Day. Ed’s thinking of “Love That Boy” sung by Dinah Shore (and actually misremembers it with a lyric from “Mad About Him, Sad Without Him”). Both were released by Columbia in 1947, Doris is singing about taking romance and chucking it in the river, while Dinah is still in the bloom of loving someone from afar, alternately delighted and miserable.

[erintoknow]

the glass labyrinth

fallen hero fanfiction time; i think this clocks in at the second longest singular fanfic i’ve written oof. ~7.1k words [ao3]

this might be easier to read on AO3 where it’s broken into chapters. :v

–––

Take a breath, hold it, let it out. You are not Ariadne Becker. Not here. Not now. You are Adrestia, your suit the color of empty void reflecting no light, cape drawn tight around your shoulders further obscuring your form. Only the mirrored treatment of your helmet betrays you as still human. Still needing to see, still needing to be seen.

Your first goal is to secure the regenerator of course. The miracle device that could be your best ticket out of the mess you’ve dug yourself into. There it is, behind glass, under watchful eye. So close. Two parts to contend with. A central core housing the experimental technology and on a  pedestal beside in a too-plain looking briefcase. The schematics to assemble the rest of the unit.

What will the finished product look like? Baptismal font or casket?

“Adrestia. Imagine, meeting you here.”

You turn and there’s a moment of disorientation. Since when are you as tall as Dr. Mortum? – You aren’t Jane. Mortum’s expression is cold but polite. You have to assume she knows that you know about her attempts to get Jane to quit. Her plans to do the same. What’s her play here?

You give a slight bow, and mimic the cold curtesy in her voice. “Dr. Mortum.”

“It occurs to me that this is the first we have met in person.”

You spread your arms wide, twirling your fingers. “And now we have. Am I everyth–thing you hoped for, doctor?”

There’s a brief flash of annoyance and then Mortum regains control of her poker face. “You’ve been taking good care of the armor, I see.”

“You did good w–work.”

“I… you’re welcome?” She hadn’t expected that.

Maybe you can still salvage this. Get her back on your side. You let your arms drop to your sides. “Look, I’m… sorry.”

“Sorry?” The confusion is plain in her voice. “For what?”

“I…” You laugh, then cut yourself off with a wince. The voice filter warps everything. “I th–think we got off on the wrong foot.”

Dr. Mortum’s expression hardens, her eyes narrowing. “If you’ve hurt her–”

“Her? Oh.” Shit. This might have backfired. “Doctor, I would never hurt her.”

Does she believe you? You wouldn’t, coming from someone that looks and sounds like you do. This was a mistake. Reaching out is always a mistake. When will you learn?

“So you say,” Dr Mortum confirms your fear. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to.” She turns away from you, slips past the gawkers come to check out the auction items ahead of time. You move to follow after her but the crowd doesn’t exactly leap out of your way.

You haven’t exactly been making friends either within Los Diablos’s self-proclaimed ‘villain’ community. Just because you’re all on the wrong side of law now… it doesn’t make you allies. And how many remember Sidestep? You’d swear you recognize a few faces, a few suits. Is that Sharkinator at the bar? You’d recognize the sharkhands anywhere. There’s a blast from the past. When did he get out of Prison?

Are you imagining the eyes burning a hole in the back of your head or are you really being watched? The Boulevard Casino is coated in the hum of telepathic dampeners, a hissing static beyond hearing. If it wasn’t for the physical proximity of the Rat-King, slipping it’s telepathic presence between you and the hum like a shield you’d already be clutching your head in a migraine by now.

Would sneaking in have been better? There’s no point wondering now. You don’t need to worry about evading cameras and security this way. Dampeners, radio jammers, cameras, good old fashioned armed men in fancy suits. Hollow Ground’s security is not messing around.

That’s fine, neither are you.

There’s a pressure on your attention, an urging from the Rat-King. You let it turn you, guide your sight. A woman moving through the crowd, tall, taller still by the antlers spiraling up from a helmet in the shape of an antelope skull. She’s armored, head to foot. Brown faux-leather, almost certainly masking proper armor underneath by the bulk of the thing. Gloved hands hide her skin. Her boots are made up to look like cloven hooves that add to her stature. 

Not exactly a practical outfit.

Why is the Rat-King pushing you towards her? The dampeners prevent that. Wait, is that.. Oryx? Small time hitman. Or… hitwoman, you suppose. Was supposed to have fled town awhile ago after a job turned bad. Not that you would have had anything to do with that, of course. You don’t have the time in the day to personally meddle in everyone’s illegal business.

Something… isn’t right with her though. Her movement is… too smooth? Or not smooth enough. Like she doesn’t belong here. Is she going to be trouble? You need this to go off perfectly, you can’t afford any potential complications.

It’s not hard to pick out her path. She’s sticking to the walls, you could intercept her, pull her into an empty side-room before she reaches the auction hall.

No one even bats an eye as you step out from behind the curtain and grab Oryx by the shoulders, pull her backwards into the room. She grunts, elbows you in the stomach to get free and drops into a combat stance as you step backwards.

You raise your arms, try to control your heart rate. That snarl, the way she balances herself, positions her arms. Jesus christ, it’s Argent behind that mask isn’t it? Just your fucking luck. If she has any sanity she won’t risk a fight here. Not under Hollow Ground’s nose. “I d–don’t want a fight.”

“Funny way of showing it.”

“It’s– it’s easier to to talk in private, w–wouldn’t you say…” You incline your head, exaggerating to make the gesture visible through your helmet, “Argent?” Fuck, you need to get it under the control. Adrestia can’t stutter.

There’s silence, and then Argent crosses her arms with a small laugh. “You’re always the worst.”

You put your arms down, “I’d say the same about you.”

“Well? What do you want?”

“I hope you’re not here for my sake.” What on earth is Argent doing here? Are the Rangers involved? They’re hardly at full strength, would they seriously try to bust something this big? It would be a disaster.

“What is this? Fishing for compliments?” She leans in, “You aren’t nearly that important.”

You put a hand to your chest and laugh, “You wound me.”

“Easy to do.”

You elect to ignore that, “You’re hardly the type for fancy parties. Though…” You tap the chin of your helmet, “I suppose you are better d–dressed this time?”

“Excuse me?”

“It suits you.”

Argent’s voice goes low and cold. “What does that mean.”

Shit, what do you mean? You wave a hand, “Never mind, it’s not important.” You can feel her eyes on you under the mask. “W–w–why are you here?”

Argent doesn’t move, unnaturally still. “Personal business.”

“That business is…?”

“Not yours.”

You huff. It’s an active effort to maintain eye contact even shield as you are. But you don’t dare look away. “So, then who else of your little friends are lurking around here? Who can I expect to find Ortega dressing up as?”

“I don’t need them.” Evasive, obviously, but what kind of evasive?

“Or…” You cross your arms, drum your fingers against your arm. “You don’t want them to know…?”

She shrugs, breaks eye contact. Damn, got it in one. “If you say so. What, you think you can blackmail me about it?”

“Oh, please,” You laugh, “They’d never believe me.” Argent’s already a known loose cannon. And there’s too many ‘heroic’ reasons you could trot out to excuse it. It wouldn’t even be hard.

“That’s true,” Argent shifts position, “Ortega has a lot of faith in her friends.”

You find yourself agreeing. “Too much.” Why can’t she see you for what you are? How can she want that? Care about –that–?

“Hrmm…” Argent steps closer, “must be lonely, not having a team.”

You stay put, ready for any sudden movement. “I’m better off alone.”

“Is that so?” She tilts her head down towards you.

“Other people always let you d–down,” you don’t bother trying to filtering the bitterness out of your voice. Let the distortion do that. “Even if they don’t– don’t want to.” The only person you can trust in the end is yourself. If even that.

“I’m not talking about forever,” she snorts, “just tonight. To stay out of each other’s business.”

“A t–truce?” you ask, incredulous. She seriously doesn’t want a fight then. Just what is Lady Argent doing sneaking into a black market auction hosted by the city’s criminal kingpin? What could any Ranger want here?

And how can you use this to your advantage?

“You’re seriously suggesting a truce?” You repeat.

“For now.”

Like hell are you going to let her escape your sight. “Oh r–really now?” You offer her a arm, “then let me be your escort f–for the evening.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“It’s… n–not a joke.” Your let your arm awkwardly drop.

“You’re serious.”

“Easier to–” might as well try honesty, “–to keep an eye on each other that way.”

“…fine.” 

“S–so you accept?” You offer your arm again.

“Don’t make me regret this.” Argent sighs, and takes your arm. “Where are we going?”

You laugh, sharp and nervous. No idea what that sounds like on other end of the distorters. Hopefully something more confident than what you’re feeling right now. “W–w–where else would we go? The auction.”

Will you ever escape the path that was laid out for you? When you were Sidestep you fought against boosts and mods that stepped outside the law. Fought to uphold the very system that had enabled your creation and mistreatment.

Now you’re on the other side of the coin and you’re still pulling on what they taught you. Spying, lying… You let your gaze dance across the room take-in and evaluate. Who might cause trouble? Who can you push? Who to avoid? Thirteen years on and what has really changed for you?

You can never get out. Not really. 

Argent stands at your side, dressed as a two-bit murder. It doesn’t seem right. You were wrong, it doesn’t suit her at all. What does she want here so badly she’d lower herself like this? The worry is wriggling like a leech at the back of your mind. At this point there’s not a lot more you can do. Either it becomes clear and you deal with it, or it doesn’t and it never matters.

What does matter is making sure no other surprises catch you unawares. Surprises like–

“Shit.” You whisper.

Argent jerks her head in your direction, shoulders tense. “What?”

No point playing this close to your chest. You had done some research via Jane and Dr. Mortum after your first encounter. Mortum had promised to look into it further once the auction was over but… This isn’t something Argent deserves to run into un-forewarned. “Over there, against the wall.” You quickly gesture with an arm, trying not to look like you’re pointing. “The woman in white and red?”

Argent shifts around to hide looking. “Yeah?”

“Shroud.”

“Who?”

“Ember’s enforcer from San Francisco.”

“Ember…” She growls. Not the reaction you had expected. You have to grab her arm to keep her still. “Stay clear of her. She touches someone, they die. Apparently.”

“Oh.” She steps back into place, looks back at you. “Thank… you…?”

What does Lord Ember want so bad he’d send risk sending one of his scariest agents away to collect it? You really hope it’s not what you’re thinking. 

Who are you kidding, you’re not that lucky.

“Why warn me?” Argent stands a little too close for comfort.

“Uh…” Why did you? “Just– just because we’re enemies, it d–doesn’t mean I want you dead.”

“Hrm.” You’re not sure what to make of that, and Argent doesn’t elaborate.

“This is… awkward, r–really.” You confess.

“What?”

“Trading quips in a fight w–was easier than this.” You don’t look at her, watch the crowd, the stage. The auction is well under way at this point. Nothing particular amazing just yet. You keep an eye on the countdown timer ticking away at the corner of your Heads-Up Display. Not much longer until showtime.

She keeps shifting her weight back and forth. That’s why you don’t wear high heels to a standing event, honey. You learned that the hard way as Jane. “It’s easier to judge someone in a fight.”

You glance over at her and she freezes up. Huh. That’s a switch. “And so what’s your judgement on me, then?”

“Jury’s out.” She raises a hand as if to fling back her hair and then stops, tries to turn it into a dismissive hand gesture but there’s no saving that one. “But… I haven’t killed you yet.”

“Not for lack of trying.” You’ve had some close calls those last few fights before you buckled down on this project. God knows you’ve done enough to her, if anyone deserves first shot at taking you out, it’s Lady Argent.

“Oh please. I have been playing.”

“Why?”

Argent sighs, turns her head to focus on the stage instead of you. “I have fun, I guess.” She shrugs. “Fighting you, I mean.”

“I… huh.” If things weren’t awkward before, they are now. Hasn’t she figured it out yet? Who really possessed her? Well, you’re not about to come clean now. Not here, not when you’re so close.

Dr. Mortum’s ‘disintegration’ ray comes up on the stage next, packed into a very fancy clear case. Jane had put in some overtime helping Mortum raise money, liquidate assets, finding buyers… but did the doctor have enough? Even if she does… even at the starting bid, that’s going to hurt her.

You could – you could bid against her, drive the price up even higher. You know more or less what her limit is and you’ve got way more than that to play with. You only needed the money to get inside, she needs it to stay in business. And to potentially turn against you.

Or… or you could try to buy it for her, as a gift? The gun clearly has some sentimental value to her beyond the scientific, she’s said as much. Would gifting it help change her mind? Or would she view it as a bribe? See it for what it was: you trying to buy her respect?

The bidding slowly climbs, and Mortum stays in the game as it goes. Maybe… you should stay out of this one. There’s too many variables. Too many risks. 

You’ll only step in if Mortum gets outbid. There. That’s as good a compromise as any.

The bidding ends up in a war between Mortum and woman in a business suite far in the back. You tense up, but no, the woman ultimately folds. Dr. Mortum wins her gun back at a very pretty penny. Good for her. Hopefully this won’t come back to bite you in the ass.

The countdown on your HUD chimes. Getting into the final moments now. You glance to your side to check on Argent and – she’s gone. Fuck! When did that happen? While you were focused on Mortum’s lot? Damn it. There’s no time to track her down now.

As soon as time hits zero, the bomb you rigged on the power substation for the block will go off. Power to the whole block of the city will go down. The casino is bound to have back-up generators but enough to power the whole security system? Dampeners are not energy efficient. 

Looks like they’re putting the Regenerator up on stage next. Well, that’s handy. You won’t have to dig around backstage to find it then.

The Regenerator… One-of-a-kind prototype. The company responsible immediately shut-down and all their equipment confiscated. And what can it do? Perfect regeneration. The only way to remove your tattoos is to cut deep enough into the skin, practically flay yourself alive. Even if you lived, you’d be crippled, horrifically scared at best.

But with the regenerator in your hands and fully functioning…

Well, it’d be a whole lot easier than trying to overturn the United States Government.

Final count down now. Then showtime. Breath in, hold, exhale.

5…

You’re not scared. You’re Adrestia.

4…

It’s like leaning out of a window, watching the street below.

3–

A bright flash and a piercing boom rock the auction hall and the crowd cries out in a panic. Your helmet visor dims but not quick enough and the eyes hurt like hell, after images swimming across your vision. Shit! Fuck! You stumble into someone in front of you and they shove you back.

Someone else is robbing the Auction Hall?

The lights flicker overhead before staying dark, and the weight of the dampeners pressing in on you vanishes. There we go, there’s your cue. You hum a few notes under your breath as let you mind unfold, track every panicked presence huddling together. Too much light, now not enough. People are scared. Hollow Ground’s supposed to ensure a neutral territory, and yet here’s trouble.

With the Rat-King backing you up, you reach out and wrap your song around the crowd. A jangle of discordant thoughts. The Rat-King buffers you from the worst of it as you smooth out the edges, point them towards the exit. You don’t need to nudge everyone. Just the key parts and the rest will follow or be swept along.

Everyone here is a criminal, be they boost, mod, or norm. It won’t be the end of the world if it breaks down into a mass panic. But trying to keep them calm is good practice for the next time you’re faced with civilians. There’s no need to fill up any more hospitals.

Back in the physical world you slowly push your way against the flow of the crowd. Up to the stage. The emergency lighting comes on, casting the room in grim shadows. You brace yourself for any hint of the dampeners but it doesn’t come. Good, you guessed right then. Even with back-up generators, cut off from the main grid the Boulevard Casino doesn’t have enough power to handle everything.

There’s still too many people. Hardened villains thinking about how to turn the chaos to their own advantage. Is it an attack? Earthquake? Is Hollow Ground losing their touch? How can this benefit me?

You can’t risk any interference. Reach out again, second chorus, worst than the first. Reach in deeper, into the darker spaces. It’s an incoherent barrage from a dozen different traumas and the Rat–King has to pull tight around your mind to keep you from collapsing, from reeling back in shock and snapping the connection.

You can do this. Raise the conductor’s baton, pull it all forward.

Pull them out.

Get out.

Go!

Someone screams and the rest of the crowd starts to move. No calm to it now. Well, you tried. Someone shoves you aside, and oh yeah, physical bodies are still a thing. Switch to low-light vision and the visor tints everything green as you make the rest of the way to the stage. Get back in the game Chickadee.

As you’re about to climb onto the stage, the Rat King pings your attention.

“Dr. Mortum?” You move over to her, and she takes a step back, hand falls on something on her hip. Shouldn’t be surprised the doctor would have hi-tech glasses. Try to get a read on her thoughts and it’s like grasping at a nest of eels. Multiple tracks going a mile a minute. Maybe in another setting you could pry them apart, but you can’t spare the focus now.

“Adrestia.” Her voice is cold, but shaky. Putting on a mask. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

“Goodness. Y–you think highly of me, don’t you?” You hold out your arms to the side, no hidden tricks up your sleeves. “What are you still d–doing here?”

She doesn’t relax. “Your little light show went off right when I was collecting my gun. I need to find it.”

“You’re serious.” 

“I’m not leaving without it.” She sounds serious. Must be to have resisted your mental push both times.

You shrug, try to play off your concern. “I’ve got my own business, but if I find it… I’ll keep it safe. But it won’t be any good if its owner gets herself killed tonight.”

“What are you planning?”

“Nothing.” You turn away from her. “I can’t speak for anyone else though.” You can already sense them, multiple people are on the stage. Prelude to a fight. What are the odds you can grab the regenerator and slip out while they’re busy killing each other?

Ignore the eyes staring daggers into your back as you clamber onto the stage. “Ah, fuck.” There’s a stare-down going alright. Lady Argent, still in Oryx costume is standing between Shroud and… fuck, that’s one of Hollow Ground’s men. Jake Manalo? Jane’s only encountered him briefly. He’s some kind of boost but hell if anyone can give a straight answer as to what. His thoughts are fuzzy, out of focus. Shroud’s are walled, a barrier with the sensation of metal to touch. Only Argent is readable to any extent. Damn.

Try to skirt around the edge, circle back to the regenerator. Wait. Is that Mortum’s gun on the ground? Can you you grab it without being noticed… No luck. Jake spots you, hunches his shoulders. “Adrestia, come join the party. And step away from the merchandise.”

Argent glances back towards you and everything goes to hell.

Shroud makes her move, going after Argent. Argent dodges the outstretched hand, claws slicing through her gloves as she twists to strike back. 

Fuck.

Dash across the stage, to grab Mortum’s gun, tossing the case aside like a candy wrapper. Mortum’s gun doesn’t actually kill people does it? It just… stores them for… later. That’s too handy an ace to ignore right now

Jake has left the two women to duel it out in order to chase after you. But whatever Jake’s got, he doesn’t have a powered suit with booster jets. You dash past him, dropping into a slide under his outstretched arm. You come to a stop by the Regenerator, spin on your heel and drop a knee. If you can take out Jake now, maybe you can abscond with the prize while the other two are duking it out.

How does this damn thing work? Hell, when was the last time you used any gun? There’s a light blinking on the side. Battery? As long as there’s enough charge for one shot. You’ll work out the rest later.

Someone off stage yells as you line up your shot. Hold your breath, sight, finger on the trigger… there’s a loud bang and every nerve in your body lights up in terror.

The gun drops out of your hands, clattering on the stage. How? Why? What is that thing doing here? Taller then any one else here, stretching its multiple arms, both organic and metallic up in the air. In the green haze of your low-light vision it could have stepped directly out of one of your nightmares, but no. Very much real. Very much alive. But… something isn’t right. The Catastrofiend’s movements are sluggish and while her skin was in never in great condition to begin with, it looks… wrong? Melted? Skin or clothing? There’s no seam.

Is… this where the Catastrofiend been all this time? Trapped in Dr. Mortum’s teleportation gun? Did she know that when she asked Jane for help in getting it back?

In the back of your mind the Rat-King screams at you to move.

Dive to the left and a blade stabs the ground where you were kneeling. Mortum’s gun rattles on the floor and you manage the presence of mind to grab hold of it again, clipping it back of your belt. In front of you, the Catastrofiend groans, a sickly bubbling sound as she clutches her vestigal human arms to her chest, her other 4 arms unfold and stretch out. Exposed muscle twining into metal, each limb ending in a long razor sharp blade. Like the rest of her, the blades are warped, discolored, wrong.

Oh shit.

Oh fuck.

“What the fuck is this!?” Shroud yells. The Catastrofiend gurgles and turns to swipe at her. She leaps backwards, almost toppling over. 

You need to get out of here.

“It’s the goddamn Catastrofiend.” Jake snarls. At the sound of his voice, the monster turns and swipes at him too. Something… happens, Jake goes blurry and the blade passes through him like air. No time to think about what that could mean.

Argent snarls, razor claws at the ready. “How the hell did it get in here?” When the Catastrofiend turns to swipe at her, she’s ready, stepping in under the arm, slashing at the skin. Something oozes out, but it doesn’t look like blood. 

Is it responding to sound? Can she still see? How the hell long was it in there for? Mortum mentioned something about… quantum degradations right…? Your stomach twists. And you were seriously thinking of using it on someone?

With the Catastrofiend taking precedence, a truce seems to settle out. Jake, Argent, and Shroud triangulating. around her. You’ve seen the monster nearly come out on top against the entire Rangers team at their height before. It’s only a matter of time before they break ranks and run. You’ve seen the Catastrofiend survive being shot in the head, even as… wrong as it is, there’s no way the three of them are beating this.

This is your chance.

Two parts to the device, don’t forget. The briefcase gets attached to your suit’s utility belt next to Mortum’s gun. The prototype itself… it’s bulky, you’ll have to carry it with two hands. You wrap your song tight around yourself, willing the chaos to let you pass by unnoticed. In the back of your mind, you can feel the Rat-King echo you back, magnify the sentiment.

You get your hands under the rough metal edges and heave it into the air. Don’t look. Nothing to see here. Don’t look this way. The battle with the Catatstrofiend is way more pressing, isn’t it? Absolutely.

You don’t breath again until you’re well behind stage. A scattering of items that still haven’t been sold off remain, abandoned in the chaos. They’ll notice you’re gone eventually. But will they have the luxury to chase after you? Banking on your luck doesn’t seem like a smart move.

This part of the Casino is well beyond anything you got to scout in-person as Jane. You’ve spent plenty of time studying the schematics however. You can imagine the red line guiding you alone. Into the backstage hallway, hang a right, there’s a room here. Storage closet. Crouch down just outside and put the prototype aside.

Time to put the Nanovores to work, outstretching your hand against the floor, eating through metal supports and vinyl tiles until the indigestible remains of floor begin to fracture and give way. Slap the floor hard with your hand and it drops into something deeper below.

This part of town is shot through with old smuggling tunnels from the Prohibition era. Illegally dug little boltholes, cramped but big enough to fit crates of alcohol. Earthquake country means they’re near suicide to use. Which is why you spent over a week a making sure this tunnel would be usable.

Never let the enemy set the field if you can help it.

At the end of this tunnel is Rosie and the get-away truck. You’re almost there. you can do this.

Once the hole is sufficiently wide, you pick up the prototype. There’s noise coming from down the hallway. Pursuers or just echoing from the fight? You can’t tell. Doesn’t matter, it’s time to jump. A hole this time, not a window, but your heart leaps into your throat all the same.

Your booster jets dampen the fall, but the shock rattles up every joint along your legs regardless. The cart you had prepared ahead of time is right where you left it, save for a scattering of debris. You put the prototype down on the cart and sweep it clean in one motion.

Take a breath. Home stretch. Next step is to get to the first support joist and start the process of collapsing the tunnel behind you.

The tunnel is damp, and crowded, and dark dark dark. You tap on the clip-on flashlight on your utility belt, a tiny narrow cone cutting into the void. It’s not much but it gives your low-light vision something more to work with. 

The floor is lumpy, uneven. It makes pushing the cart painfully slow and uncomfortably noisy. With more time you could have smoothed out the floor, but the time constraint on planning this operation had been absurdly tight as it was. Once your far enough away you can start collapsing the tunnel behind you and it won’t–

Scratches against stone echo behind you and the Rat-king screams for you to move. Only to flinch and clutch your head under the weight of the dampeners pressing back down on you. Something runs across your back and you stagger forwards against the handle of the cart as you cry out. Turn and catch the silhouette of Oryx’s horned mask.

“Are you k–k–kidding me–” You suck in your breath as she swipes at you again, press yourself against the wall as silver claws rend the air where you had just been. Did she cut through your suit? Everything still reads green.

There’s a snarl and you throw your heads up, “Wait, wait, hold on–” If Argent could track you down here, the rest of them can’t be too far behind. “L–let’s talk?”

Argent stares you down, your flashlight bouncing off her silver frame. Shoulders hunched, hands ready to swipe.

“We had a truce.”

She doesn’t relax, but doesn’t attack either. “Only as long as it was convenient.”

“You know w–what’s inconvenient? Getting caught.” The return of the dampeners is a significant problem as well, but Argent doesn’t need to know that one. How did they get them back on so quickly? 

The tension drags out entirely too long before Argent drops her hands to her sides. “Then what are you saying?”

“If we fight here we risk them finding us, or worse, damaging this thing.” You gesture behind you. “Let’s… get out of here, then w–we can decide if we’re going to k–kill each other or whatever.”

Argent narrows her eyes, flexing her fingers. Quickest of glances behind her, an opening you don’t take. “Fine.” She sighs, “No tricks, I’ve got your number.”

Oh thank god she can be reasoned with. “Come on, help me push, it’ll go f–faster with both of us.” You move to one side, making space for Argent. She scrunches her nose up, giving you a once over and then steps up beside you, grabbing the handle. Together you trundle through the dark.

“How far?”

“A distance but–” you watch her from the side, “we’re close to a checkpoint I set up to–to–to collapse the tunnel behind me.”

She snorts. “Dangerous.”

“Y–yeah well…” try to keep the emotion out of your voice, “it’d be a bother if someone chased after.”

“Too bad for you.”

“Too bad for me.”

The two of you continue along in silence. Pushing the cart is much easier now with Argent’s help. Silence is dangerous however. Too many unanswered questions, such as: “What uh– what happened with the Catastrofiend?”

“Ran. Chased it, found you instead.”

“W–well… fuck.”

“How did that thing get in there?”

“N–n–no idea.” You lie, more than a little anxious that you can’t pick up whether she bought it or not. You still have Mortum’s gun. Should you– no, no, who knows what else might come flying out. And suppose it did work, what would you even…? No. It’s not an option.

The dampeners begin to lighten as you continue further down, gone by the time you reach a split in the passage, joists in holding up the ceiling. Small miracles. “Hold on.” You brush your head over the frame, nanovores reducing it to dust under your hand. The ceiling begins to shift and you grab the cart with Argent again. “Come on, let’s move.”

“Cute trick.”

Would it be gauche to thank her for? Does she know? This isn’t the time to risk it. You can’t bring Argent straight to Rosie. Too dangerous. No, instead, take the other path as the ceiling collapses behind you. This path ends in a brick wall, easily kicked down. 

The room on the other side is pitch black as the two of you clamber through. A basement. Old, abandoned. No sense of any other minds nearby. Once you’re above ground you can just radio Rosie. But first you have someone to deal with.

Argent lets go of the cart, turning to face you. “So we both wanted the same thing. Lucky us.” You can feel it now, without the dampeners to mask everything. She’s desperate for this.

“So…” You stall for time as you try to get a read on her thoughts. “You know what this is, w–what it can do.”

Argent hunches her shoulders, reading to move. “So do you.”

“It needs to–to be assembled.” You reach back to pat the briefcase hanging from your belt. “What, are you planning to set it up at the Rangers?”

“Don’t be absurd. This is black tech.” Argent huffs. “Even my leash has limits.”

“Leash?” You shake your head. No time to unpack that one. “W–well, I’ve got a place to assemble it safely.”

“And you know how to do that?”

“Do you?”

“Whatever, that isn’t even the biggest problem here.” Evading the question? Interesting. Argent pulls off her helmet, shaking out her silver hair with a grimace on her face. “This is.”

You take a step back, cross your arms. “W–what is?”

“Us.” Argent gestures between the two of you, “this is going to take time to bring online. Weeks… maybe?” She shakes her head. “I’m not letting it leave my sight.”

“Same.” Too much is riding on this.

Argent barks out a laugh. “Why? You already have secrets you can lord over me… you know what I did: the masquerade, breaking and entering–”

“Oh please, d–d–don’t be stupid.” You wave it away, “I know the Rangers. You could explain it all away in a heartbeat. Infiltrating a villain hangout? Retrieving black tech? They’ll give you a f–fucking medal.” Is she really that scared of being found out? Why?

“And you? What, am I supposed to just trust someone hiding behind a mask?” Her voice is razor sharp, “You’re a telepath.” You wince under your helmet. “you manipulate everyone and everything around and… I don’t even know what you would want it?”

Her thoughts are barbed, hard to read but… she wants to trust you. Doesn’t want to blow this chance. But why would she? Why would anyone trust you? Ever?

You can’t tell her who you are. Not here, not now. If you were lucky she’d just kill you. She’s earned it, certainly. More likely you’ll have to go into hiding, abandon any pretense of the civilian life you’ve slowly been reclaiming. And that’s… Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do? What keeps holding you back?

Argent is getting antsy. You need to say something before she just goes for it and attacks. Maybe you’d win, but damaging the prototype is a risk you’d rather avoid. You can’t exactly come clean about why you need it either. If she treats you with any modicum of respect now, then it’s because she’s operating under the mistaken assumption that you’re human.

The very thought of risking that, of letting it go. Of never seeing Julia again, or worse– You can feel your heartbeat quicken. Fuck. God damnnit. You’re trapped.

No matter what you do, you’re going to have to trust her with something.

Your hands are shaking as you reach up, find the clasps of your helmet. Across from you, Argent tenses up but doesn’t attack. Why the hell are you doing this? Except – she deserves to know. And what do you have left of your civilian life left at this point anyway? You knew this couldn’t last forever.

The display goes dark as you pop the helmet from the seal, disconnected from the rest of the suit. Your gut twists, a sharp pain as you struggle to keep your breathing under control. You feel sick. Unreal, like you’ve stepped outside yourself. This is such a stupid idea.

You can feel the Rat-King curl around you, trying to protect you from the danger. Joke’s on it, the biggest danger to you here is yourself.

Can barely see as you pull the helmet up, over, hold it in your hands in front of you. In this dim gloom you can’t read Argent’s face, only her mind. Quiet, struggling to process what she’s seeing. She steps toward you and you step back.

“Ariadne Becker.” If there was any doubt about her being able to see in the dark, it’s gone now. All that effort into avoiding her, and you’ve blown it in one go.

“G–got it in– in one.”

Can see her cross her arms through the gloom, shift her weight. “It wasn’t Locus, was it Ariadne?” She snarls. You can feel the fury building up in her head, leaking out through her composure. Didn’t she promise to eviscerate the person responsible?

Die now or die later, might as well jump.

“Y–yes.” You can’t look at her as you say it. “I’m sorry–”

She moves on, grabbing you by the front of your armor claws digging. Panic takes over and you drop your helmet trying to get free, only for white to explode across your vision as your head is rocked hard to the left, pain searing across the right side of your face. Her hand is the only thing holding you upright.

“Don’t you dare try apologizing to me.”

“It– it was w–wrong, I–”

The second slap hits you on the left side of your face, there’s a ringing in your ears, and you can taste copper from biting your tongue. To call her ‘mad’ undersells the storm of emotion radiating off her. Is she going to kill you? Maybe. Of all the beatings you’ve taken in your life, there’s no question you deserve this one.

“I–I–I’m sorry.” You swallow hard, fighting back nausea. “I shouldn’t have– I mean I– I know what it’s– what it’s like and I…” You’re babbling now. Too many words desperate to get out at once.

Her hand comes down again, hard. You can really taste the blood now. “Don’t you fucking dare compare yourself to me.” She growls in your face, as she raises her hand, pulling it back into a fist, and you try not to flinch. Brace yourself. When the blow doesn’t come you open your eyes.

Her hand hovers an inch away from your skin. “You used me.”

“I–I–I did.”

From the corner of your eye you can see her uncurl her fist, fingers slowly elongating into claws, piercing through the glove. “I should kill you.”

“It– It would be… pretty easy right now.” Your heart is pounding, mouth tasting copper, and throat feeling sticky. The Rat–King in the back of your head is screaming at you to do something but this… You don’t fight back, don’t struggle. This is too familiar. Memories of other times, other, brighter rooms. For everything you’ve tried to change, you’re still were you started.

If she did you in now, does the thing you can’t bring yourself to go through with… then isn’t that a victory for everyone really?

“I could do it…” Her hand is shaking, doubts unraveling in her mind. “I should…”

“Then do it already!” You cough, as she lets you go and you stagger backwards, hit the brick wall and try to hold yourself up. “I thought you– why hesitate?”

“Shut up!” She hisses through clenched teeth and comes at you again. This time her hand around your throat, squeezing just enough to send alarm bells. “You really want to die that badly, Becker?” You can feel it running through her head, all the little fantasies she had constructed about this moment.

Your vision blurs as you laugh. “Y–yeah, actually.”

Can feel something sharp poke against your neck, and then just as suddenly it’s gone. Argent hisses air through clenched teeth. “Don’t be a coward.” She touches her other hand to your face, one nail scratching just under your eye.

“W–what?”

“You don’t deserve to get off that easy.”

A line of white fire runs down your face, blinding you in your left eye. Blink, and your vision is back but bloody. You can feel the cut run from forehead to check. Hurts like hell, can already feel the blood running down your face. This is going to need stitches.

She lets go of you, pushing you back against the wall as she steps away. Licking the blood off her finger, she glares at you. “That was for using me. Don’t ever go into my head again.”

You slide to the floor. This… this really just happened. “I–I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.” There’s no way you’ll every be able to explain it, is there? But then, it’s not really about you, is it? 

“Shut up.” Argent snaps. “You said you can put it together?”

You nod your head. You hope you aren’t over-estimating your ability.

“Then put it together. Don’t even think about double-crossing me on this.” Her smile in the dim glow of your suit’s flashlight is cold and all teeth. “Don’t worry, Becker.” She puts a finger to her lips. “This’ll be our secret.”

She turns away from you and stalks up the stairs to find her way out of whatever building this is a basement of. As she turns she moves her hand from her mouth out to the side, transitioning into giving you the middle finger as she departs.

You sit there against the wall until her footsteps fade and you lose track of her mind. Gingerly you touch a hand to your face, hiss at the fresh sting of pain. Still bleeding. Will absolutely need stitches. Probably end up a scar.

Well, it’s not like you don’t have plenty of experience covering those up.

Except… maybe you’ll let this one be.

[whumpingwithirondad]

Tony is so-not a Dad

Do you want to see more posts like this? Comment down below!

So, this began when we were talking what we like and don’t like about fics. I could not cut this into parts so yeah, this is a bit long :D 

wordscorrupt

I love Peter calling tony mister stark or sir I don’t know I don’t try to get him to call him dad unless some requests it. There’s just something so endearing about it lol and I love the way he says it in the movies it’s adorable

irondadgroupie

Yes! I think Mr Stark is kind of an endearing nickname and usually when people call Tony it, the man is nonchalant but when Peter call him that...the boy has him wrapped around his finger.

I think if Peter thinks of the word Dad, he thinks of his biological father and traces of Ben and Tony. He is so confused so he refuses to call anyone Dad. Plus I think if Peter ever started calling Tony dad, the man would be terrified :D

wordscorrupt

tony's heart skips a few beats from excitement anytime he hears peter say his name. omg tony would be pulling out a cross if peter ever called him dad out of the blue. the only time i could understand is if hes delirious and tony would play along but otherwise tonys calling a priest bc his kid is possessed

irondadgroupie

That is a great idea! Like the enemy knows Tony and Peter are close, he is like a father to the boy so they if there is like a shape shifter as Peter who calls Tony dad, Tony immediately puts the thing into chokehold because his kid does not call him that.

wordscorrupt

omg just the mental image of that. it happens in front of happy or rhodey too and they are like WTF TONY DONT HURT THE BBY

irondadgroupie

But yeah, I like the idea of Peter being out of it, like has a high fever and is barely in the real world, then Tony would be like "Yes, Dad is here, kiddo." And when Peter gets better and hears about it he is so embarrassed.

irondadgroupie

I just had the though that if someone stole Peter's phone and tried to have a conversation with Tony (I don't know, maybe to humiliate Peter) and they wrote the word Dad, Tony is immediately going "Okay, who is this, why do you have my kid's phone?"

wordscorrupt

yesss exactly and tony just never mentions it too. he hears about from bruce or one of the other doctors that took care of him as well

irondadgroupie

Like Tony's motto is: "Yes, he is my kid but I am not his dad"

wordscorrupt

tonys like; yes i take care of him, provide for him, clothe him (too many iron dad pajamas to count), feed him (he eats me out of a house), protect him but im not his dad.

wordscorrupt

peter gets kidnapped by a group of people who think he's tony secret son or something and tony sends a text like "hey bud wondered what you wanted for dinner tonight we're ordering in" and one of the guys texts back "anythings good with me dad" and tony basically fucking smashes through the walls like ten seconds later

irondadgroupie

Yes! And others are like: "Tony, you are such a dad.""I am not, we don't share blood!" Like Tony pays for Peter's school (what the financial aid doesn't cover), makes sure he visits doctor and dentist regularly, keeps his schedule on his phone, buys him new shoes and jackets for winter (he hates Peter's style but the kid likes it so yeah, why not), helps him revise for exams (I can just imagine Tony driving and saying a verb Peter needs to conjugate )

irondadgroupie

Yes! They make sure the style of writing is similar, check few previous messages so they wouldn't be caught, they send the message and are like "yeah, now we can have fun" and ten seconds later a cannon blows up a wall and Tony flies in. "Pretty good job, fellas but you forgot one thing, I am not his dad!"

wordscorrupt

yes! domestic tony is my everything. he definitely pays for peter's school and donates to the programs/clubs that peter is involved in as well. helps him with his college essays and applications. tony got the best doctor and dentist for peter as well and calls in to make his appointments for him. one of tonys favorite pastimes is shopping for clothes for peter online and he always make s sure to throw in one of those dumb science joke shirts everytime. tony making sure that peter is getting his daily nutrition in becuase he was not gonna have the kid pass out on him again because he blood sugar was low.

peters just in the corner, mouth taped shut with duct tape and chained up and he just nods his head like 'duh'

irondadgroupie

Aww! The image of Tony in online shops and occasionally asking Pepper: "You think Peter would like that color?" "Tony, he has like 10 jackets already!" "He could do with a new one, he's a growing boy."

irondadgroupie

I don't think Tony makes the appointments until it is absolutely necessary. Like once Peter complains about neck ache and Tony says: "It might be wisdom tooth, I'll give you a number to a dentist. She works with enhanced individuals." Then he pesters Peter for weeks "Did you make the appointment yet?" But yeah, Peter's mind is like swiss cheese, he never remembers. One day Tony calls him "You have dentist today at 3, I'll pick you up from school." "Mr Stark, I can make my own appointments!" "Yeah, clearly."

wordscorrupt

tony stresses shops but instead of shopping for himself he shops for peter instead

i like to think the reason that peter doesn't make the appointments is because he hates going to the dentist/doctor so he thinks he can just lie about actually going

irondadgroupie

Tony is a trophy!wife inside. He buys Peter vitamins and when he is over, makes sure the boy eats a good breakfast (even if they are running late because you don't fucking skip breakfast!). But yeah, Peter is an idiot and if Tony is not there to remind him, Peter forgets to eat. Once Tony was on a week long business trip and when he came back, Peter fainted into a hug. Like Tony can't even remember how many times he had had to hold Peter's feet up because the boy felt dizzy after a work-out

irondadgroupie

Oh, why is the image of Peter being chained up so adorable? :D He watches as Tony captures the bad guys and then kneels next to him and rips of the tape. "Idiots," Peter calls to the bad guys as Tony just chuckles while working on the chains.

irondadgroupie

And Pepper returns like half the packages that arrive :D Otherwise Peter's room would have no space for the boy

irondadgroupie

Oh yeah, Peter afraid of dentists. Like the boy tries to get out of the appointment claiming he is not feeling well but Tony puts a hand to his forehead and goes "Yeah, sorry, kiddo, you are going." And then Tony guesses what the problem is "I hate dentists too. In my days, they were terrible, not gentle at all, left me with some deep rooted fears. But this lady is so nice and patient and if you are a good boy, she will give you a candy bar after you are done."

wordscorrupt

yes vitamins and protein shakes and everything else to keep peter from passing out every five minutes. loads his backpack with all kinds of snacks to keep him going throughout the day at school. oh my god the image of peter kind of just fainting into tony's arms when trying to go for a hug instead and tony just grabbing him like its not big deal. he knew the kid was going to forget about keeping his diet up.

wordscorrupt

pepper lets tony have the fun then has to return half the things for sure and tony buys so much he doesn't even remmember what he actually all got so he never catches on

wordscorrupt

peter just grumbles as tony bribes him into going to the dentist. thats the one thing tony is not above. he gets that peter hates going and tony doesn't blame him at all but he has to get the kid there one way or another

wordscorrupt

its great that the doctor tony chooses for him works at the compound which makes the most sense. peter is a terrible patient when he's sick or injured, trying to fight off the doctor and attach himself to tony instead. hes probably more terrible when he's alert and forced to go down for a checkup and just grumbling the entire time and glaring at tony for making him do this in the first place

irondadgroupie

Yeah, Tony orders a bunch of all kind of protein products, there are cardboard boxes of them in nearly every room, even in bathroom because one time Peter fainted when getting out of the bath and had Tony not heard the splash, the boy most certainly would have drowned.

irondadgroupie

Tony catches Peter like: "Wow, wow, buddy, let's get you lying down." And he sets the kid on the floor and pats his face while Pepper gets fruit juice. Yeah, opening the packages is like second Christmas. Tony is always surprised what he ordered :D I also think Tony spends time on online auctions, getting movie memorabilia and such for his boy

irondadgroupie

AWW Peter pouting and looking so adorable Tony takes a million pictures. The dentist is very understanding and explains beforehand each procedure. But Peter still grips the handles of the chair because he is nervous.

"You are doing so well, sweetie," the woman says and Peter relaxes a bit. "You have beautiful teeth, they need just a little cleaning up."

wordscorrupt

Peter nearly tears the leather from the chair from gripping it to hard. Tony eventually reaches out to hold one of his hands and Peter instantly relaxes

he thinks he's in the clear once his cleaning is done and he's helped up from the chair until the dentist says they need to talk about his x-rays and how it looks like his wisdom teeth are impacted

irondadgroupie

"Helped up from the chair" makes it sound like Peter suffered from a dizzy spell and had to lay down for a while. Happened to me after my wisdom teeth operation :D In Finland, we don't get anesthesia when taking out wisdom teeth (unless the person has severe fear or the operation is large), it's just pain killers and numbing the area with drugs

"It's so embarrassing," Peter muttered as he accepted the cup of water Tony offered.

irondadgroupie

I think Peter would be doing a stress test and the heart monitor goes crazy with something abnormal and the boy just collapses. Maybe his heart starts beating too fast and they have to use cardioversion

wordscorrupt

Oh man he’s terrified the entire time not knowing what’s going on. Is he dying??

irondadgroupie

Or maybe they are sparring and suddenly Peter gets out of breath and grabs his chest and collapses on the ground.

Tony is certain he killed the boy

wordscorrupt

Tony’s thinking Peter just fainted from stress but then why would he grab his chest. He’s asking Friday if 15 year olds can have heart attack’s at the same time he’s racing to the medbay with Peter in his arms

irondadgroupie

Just think of the surgery day, Tony might be more nervous than Peter because they need to stop the kid's heart to repair it

"Don't worry, I'll be okay," Peter tells him and May with a brave smile.

irondadgroupie

Yeah, Peter fainting from stress is common because he tended to run himself down. Tony had gotten very skilled in reviving the kid, usually pouring cold water on his face was enough. But now he debated whether chest compression were needed.

irondadgroupie

You know, one idea has been flying in my head. Peter's blood sugar dropping dangerously low that Tony has to feed him jam or something with lots of sugar to bring him back around. Like Peter would lie on his lap and Tony had to feed him the stuff with a spoon. Like with a diabetic patient, he rubs the jam to the boy's mouth, gums and under his tongue

wordscorrupt

oh lord tony thinking about the fact that peter could technically be dead while in the operating room. lets not even mention post surgery, where peter has a long scar down  his chest and has about a million tubes coming from his chest. ive seen patients in the cardiac icu and its freaking ridiculous how many machines and lines they are hooked up to.

yes tony trying to hold peter up at the same time trying to force (gently!) food down his throat to get his blood sugar back up and peters kind of just out of it

one time peter passes out on stage during a decathalon competition

irondadgroupie

Tony has to practically massage the boy

irondadgroupie

's throat to make him swallow the food and Peter just doesn't answer, just moans or mumbles when Tony shoves another spoonful of jam into his mouth.

Can you imagine Peter's blood sugar dropping during the night and Tony literally can't wake the kid up in the morning.

wordscorrupt

oh my god that would be terrifying. for a second he thinks the kid has died in his sleep but once he kind of gets his mind straight, he checks his pulse and he still has one

tony has to carry around of those machines that checks a persons blood sugar levels

irondadgroupie

Yes! It was during the last question. Tony was watching and he saw the signs that yeah, Peter is going down soon. But he was too far and couldn't get to the stage to catch the boy.

wordscorrupt

the entire audience gasps of course but then imagine their reaction when tony stark of all people is rushing up to the stage. peter hits his head pretty hard on the podium as well and by the time tony gets to him, he's bleeding from his headsterday a

irondadgroupie

Yeah, Peter's alarm went off several times and Tony finally comes to the room. "Kiddo," he shakes his shoulder. "Come on, up you get, you'll be late for school." But Peter just lies on the bed and he is completely limp. Tony nearly has a heart attack when the boy doesn't open his eyes. I can just imagine him starting to shake Peter's shoulders "This isn't funny, kid! Wake up!"

irondadgroupie

Oh, Peter definitely hits his head. Tony immediately kneels beside the boy. "Peter," he taps his face. "Hey, kiddo, wake up!" But the boy doesn't react and Tony take of his jacket to press it against the wound

wordscorrupt

Tony rushes peter down To the medbay because while peter still has a pulse he’s not waking up. Bruce is there as tony runs in a wild look on his face

Tony demands that they bring down the curtains on stage to give them privacy and then starts ordering people around one of them to grab any kind of sugary food they can find

irondadgroupie

Bruce takes Peter's blood pressure and checks sugar levels and immediately starts setting an IV. "He is fine, Tony, it's just his metabolism screwing with him again." He gives Peter a shot of glucose (the kind they use to treat diabetes patients or people who have alcohol poisoning) and it doesn't take long until Peter is opening his eyes, still loopy and confused why Tony immediately smothers him into a hug.

irondadgroupie

"Don't worry, he is okay, this happens all the time," Tony says and lifts Peter's eyelid to check his pupils. He quickly checked the boy's neck for possible breaks and when he deems it safe, moves Pete's head a bit so that airways stay open. "He just needs something sugary to drink and eat."

irondadgroupie

"I have this," A girl from the opposing team offered a bag of fruit shaped candy that was coated in sugar. Tony smiled: "That is just perfect." Tony crouches lower and opens the boy's mouth until he can place one piece in there.

irondadgroupie

But honestly, since Peter has a head injury, the more realistic alternative is that they bring a cold compress to hold on his forehead

[lexrius]

The Dragon’s Mate

AN:This is the first fanfic I’m posting here. Kinda nervous, but here it is! I don’t own any cannon characters. They are owned by JKR. Rey Winchester is owned by the wonderful @drew-winchester. Viper is my own Character.

Please Enjoy!

-----

I watched from Diagon alley as the dark wizard snuck towards Knockturn alley. I kept my head down as I walked into knockturn alley behind my target. "Sulfuric sanctum." I heard him whisper to the statue in the stair case down to the shops. I followed closely as I whispered the same password. "Ladies and Gentlemen! The bidding for the opal-eye egg is about to begin!" I watched as they auctioned very illegal items. I grinned my teeth as my intel walked beside me. "I'm going to need an eye witness Fryer." I whispered and bid every now and then to appear non-suspicious. "You know the cost Akela." "Not sending you to Azkaban should be enough." I glared at him. "Been there done that. It won't harm me to go back for another ten years. I want my Galleons." I scoffed and handed him some galleons. Soon the egg was shown and my attention soon shot to it. I waited for the bidding to end then followed the wizard out into the dark alley. “Incarcerous!" The wizard struggled as we apparated to the ministry. "You bitch! Let go of me!" I silenced him and threw him into a cell. I confiscated his wares. I rubbed the dragon egg softly. "We'll take care of this. Get this egg back to the sanctuary." Moody ordered. I nodded and began to walk out. "Akela!" I turned and watched him hobble over to me. He handed me a letter,"The Phoenix calls. We'll see you at Grimwald place." I nodded and apparated away with the dragon egg. I smiled as I breathed in the Romanian air. I apparated to the house I knew would be open these hours for me. I opened the door and walked in while cradling the dragon egg in my arms. Charlie Weasley had his head on his desk. Books everywhere. Silent snores escaping his mouth. I placed the dragon egg on the table and lightly rubbed his shoulders. His eyes peered open and closed with a groan. "Viper? What are you doing here?" I kissed his shoulder as I walked to the table. "Your boss sent me on a mission to retrieve a stolen item." I picked up the dragon egg and placed it in his hands. "The Opal-eye!? Thank you love!" He placed it on his desk and embraced me. I missed the feeling of his arms around me. After he got accepted into the dragon sanctuary; Charlie and I kept our relationship even through long distance. with him being a Dragonologist and me working in the ministry as an Auror. "How long can you stay?" He asked as he pulled me towards his bed." "Sadly love only one night." I kissed him deeply. "Let me take the dragon back to the sanctuary and we'll make most of tonight." He kissed me back. I smiled and changed into pajamas I kept here and observed the note Moody gave me. "We're escorting Potter to Grimwald place. Meet us there tomorrow night." I read. I looked up as Charlie apparated back into the house with a yawn. He smiled and stripped in front of me and climbed into bed. I nuzzled with him as we made love with the moonlight glistening our skin. ---- I met with the order brooms at the ready as we entered the Dursley's house. Harry with his wand raised looked at us with uncertainty until his eyes met Moody's. We escorted him out of the house. His smile widened as both Tonks and I raced on our brooms. The feeling of racing through the quidditch field ran through my head. I saw the same look in Potter's eyes. Like Charlie's. Definitely a seeker. We made it to Grimwald Place and walked in. Tonks nearly tripping on a hat hanger. Molly ran up to me and kissed me on the cheek. "Charlie says hi by the way." I whispered to her as Ginny ran up with a big smile on her face. ---- A week passed since we went to Grimwald Place. We escorted the kids to the Hogwarts Express. I was worried though. Umbridge was going to work there as the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. And not only did the minister want her there, but Moody put in the good word of me being a good teacher and great with magical beast. I was given the okay to teach at Hogwarts. Taking Hagrid's place as the Care of Magical creatures. I smiled as memories of the past came running back. Padfoot trotted next to me and pulled my jacket sleeve. I followed suit as a note appeared in his mouth. He turned into his normal form. "Dumbledore wanted you to have this." He placed the letter in my hands. "He said keep an eye on Harry. Now go catch the train before it leaves." I nodded and said goodbye. ---- I got into my robes and sat down at the professor's table. Flitwick smiled at me and congratulated me for becoming a professor. I then smiled at Rowan who had become the new History of Magic teacher. I sat next to Professor Sprout who gave me a tight hug,"It's good to see you again darling." "It's good to be back." I hugged her back. We sat down and watched the sorting hat sing his song. In times of old, when I was new, And Hogwarts barely started, The founders of our noble school Thought never to be parted. United by a common goal, They had the selfsame yearning To make the world's best magic school And pass along their learning. "Together we will build and teach" The four good friends decided. And never did they dream that they Might some day be divided. For were there such friends anywhere As Slytherin and Gryffindor? Unless it was the second pair Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, So how could it have gone so wrong? How could such friendships fail? Why, I was there, so I can tell The whole sad, sorry tale. Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those Whose ancestry's purest." Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose Intelligence is surest." Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those With brave deeds to their name." Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot And treat them just the same." These differences caused little strife When first they came to light. For each of the four founders had A house in which they might Take only those they wanted, so, For instance, Slytherin Took only pure-blood wizards Of great cunning just like him. And only those of sharpest mind Were taught by Ravenclaw While the bravest and the boldest Went to daring Gryffindor. Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest and taught them all she knew, Thus, the houses and their founders Maintained friendships firm and true. So Hogwarts worked in harmony For several happy years, But then discord crept among us Feeding on our faults and fears. The Houses that, like pillars four Had once held up our school Now turned upon each other and Divided, sought to rule. And for a while it seemed the school Must meet an early end. What with duelling and with fighting And the clash of friend on friend. And at last there came a morning When old Slytherin departed And though the fighting then died out He left us quite downhearted. And never since the founders four Were whittled down to three Have the Houses been united As they once were meant to be. And now the Sorting Hat is here And you all know the score: I sort you into Houses Because that is what I'm for. But this year I'll go further, Listen closely to my song: Though condemned I am to split you Still I worry that it's wrong, Though I must fulfil my duty And must quarter every year Still I wonder whether sorting May not bring the end I fear. Oh, know the perils, read the signs, The warning history shows, For our Hogwarts is in danger From external, deadly foes. And we must unite inside her Or we'll crumble from within I have told you, I have warned you... Let the Sorting now begin. With that the students were sorted and Dumbledore began his welcome speech. "-I would like to introduce to you two new professor's who will be joining with us this year. Viper Akela who will be taking over the Care for Magical Creatures classes and Dolores Jane Umbrige who will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts classes." He then continued his speech until he was rudely interrupted by Umbrige. She then went and gave her own speech. She finished and went back to her seat. My heart pounded as rage filled my head. After that we ate. We went to a teacher's meeting to discuss the curriculum this year. We looked at Umbridge dumbfounded. She wasn't going to teach them to defend themselves! Dumbledore sent me a look which kept my mouth shut. "Miss Akela; may I have a word with you?" Umbridge said to me as we were leaving. I stopped and watched her closely,"The Minister has given me orders for you to report everything that goes on that I may not see. I will be doing check ups on your performance as well." She smiled sickly at me and walked away. I waved my wand and shut the door in her face. She turned with a quizzed look on her face. 'Oh I ticked her off.' I thought. "Miss Akela?" "First off it is Professor Akela; Umbridge. Secondly; I only answer to two people and that is Madeye Moody who I work under as an Auror and Headmaster Dumbledore who I work under as a Professor. I don't work under you Umbridge! And you better damn well remember that!" I glared at her and walked away. I sighed and went to my Dorm. I smiled as I saw my niffler Galleo was snuggled in his small bed. I sighed and went to bed. This was going to be a long year. ---- I smiled as I taught my third year students about nifflers. Galleo being the perfect one to show them how to handle nifflers if they ever work with one. I smiled as each student was well behaved except a few who were messing around. Which I docked points away. After dark however I would turn into my animegus form and wander around the forest talking to the centaurs on what was going on. Torovus was shocked to see me, but greeted me as an old friend. However; I started to notice small things going on. Some of my students came to me after getting detention from Umbridge with red marks on their hands. Then with Umbridge as High Inquisitor she has put up educational degrees. It wasn't until I saw Nevile Longbottom and Rey Winchester sneaking into the Room of Requirements. "Nice one Potter." I smiled as I heard two students of mine mention a DA meeting. --- I was cleaning Hagrid's hut and feeding the creatures when Hagrid came bursting in with his umbrella pointed at me,"What are ye'-" HE then stopped and smiled as he recognized me,"Blimey... is that really you Viper?" I laughed as Hagrid hugged me,"You've gotten so big and grown up! And how's Galleo?" As if on cue the niffler clawed up my back and clung to my shoulder. "Snrk Snrk!" "So does this mean I get to retire from my teaching post?" I laughed as he looked at me in shock. "Dumbledore requested you?! I thought you were going to be the new Defense Professor, but then I heard that Umbridge has taken over the school." "Basically." We then heard a knock on the door. "We'll talk later Hagrid." I opened the door and saw Ron, Harry and Hermione. I nodded towards them and walked back towards the castle. ----

I had come down from the Owlery when I was told by Professor Snape that I had night watch tonight. It was a couple of nights before Christmas break and I was stuck on night watch.

Great.

It wasn’t until I saw McGonagall with Harry and Ron helping Harry towards Dumbledore's office where my I started to panic. "Professor Akela, please get the rest of the Weasley children up. Something may have happened to Arthur. And please send word to Charlie and Bill as well." I nodded and rushed towards the Griffindor common room. Ginny, Fred and George rushed towards Dumbledore's office. I looked with worry as Harry snapped at Dumbledore. I helped the kids pack as we went back to number twelve Grimwald place. I came back to Hogwarts to teach for the rest of the week. I jumped slightly as a light came bursting into my dorm. I relaxed when I saw it turn into a Welsh Green. "I don't know when this will reach you love, but I have most of Christmas off and would like for you to spend it with me." Charlie's voice emerged from the dragon’s open mouth. "Let me know soon love. I love you. Also tell McGonagall hello." I smiled and watched as the dragon disappeared. I took out my wand and aimed it towards the window. I remembered going to the Burrow for the first time. The laughs with the twins. Hanging with Ginny and teaching her a little bit about quidditch. Quidditch practices with the entire family. And the romantic night under the stars with Charlie. The first time we made love near the lake. Our whispers of sweet nothings and I love yous. Our promise to spend the rest of our lives together. "Expecto Patronum." I said quietly. I watched as my patronus took form into a mare. I looked at the Bay mare with a gentle smile,"I will see you in a week my love, but send an owl to your family. Your father has been hurt. Please stay safe Charlie. I will contact you the day before I leave. I love you too." I flicked my wand and the light shot out towards the mountains. ---- I spent a day at number twelve Grimwald place. Helping Molly around before Christmas. "Professor? Are you not staying here for Christmas?" Hermione asked. I smiled and shook my head. "She's going to Romania to study a handsome red dragon!" Fred popped next to me. "Yeah I bet she's going to research a lot of things. Maybe even the way he mates!" I blushed as I shooed the twins away. "Those two! I swear-" I sighed and looked shyly at the blushing Griffindor. "Sorry about that, but what they said is true. I will be going to Romania to visit Charlie." "Is it hard? You know; to stay together?" She asked as she helped me with the cooking. "At times. But letters and Holiday's like this makes the wait worth something. It's almost like a blessing in disguise." I smiled at her. She smiled back and kept cooking. "If only that blessing wasn't covered by the curse of long distance." A voice appeared behind us. I turned and saw Charlie walking in with some presents and that handsome grin of his. I dropped the spoon I was holding and ran up to him. He put down the presents just in time for him to catch me in a hug. "Charlie?! What are you doing here?!" I asked as I kissed his cheek. He laughed and kissed me back,"Picking up my wonderful girlfriend. I'm also here to see how dad's doing." Molly came through the kitchen and rushed to her son. Soon all the siblings began to join in. Charlie even dragged Harry into a hug. Charlie and I had dinner here and then apparated back to his small cottage. ---- I woke up to the sounds of dragons roaring in the distance and a Weasley snoring beside me as his arms enveloped around my body. I sighed as I snuggled closer to the love of my life. "Vi?" He woke up groggily as he pulled me to his chest running his hands through my hair and up my bare back. "Sorry to wake you Charlie." I kissed his chest. He smiled and rolled on top of me. His lips met mine just as the sun peaked through the curtains. We laid there trying to muster up the energy to get active as Charlie was taking me to see the new Peruvian Viper they got in. We finally got up and walked around the sancuary. We even visited Norbert. My eyes fell upon the Norwegian Ridgeback. Remembering when a furious but excited Charlie wanted me, Penny,  Liz and Barnaby to help him move Norbert to Romania in the first place. "Viper? Can I ask you something?" "Mmm what is it love?" I felt his arms leave my sides and felt his hands entangle in mine. "Marry me?" My stormy eyes met his with shock,"What? "Marry me. Viper you are my everything. Without you I'm just an incomplete mess. You are what keeps driving me to go on all these adventures and to enjoy everyday even if its been my worst." He kissed me deeply. My heart pounded as everything clicked in my head. "Yes." I answered out of breath. He smiled and pulled a ring out of the dresser and put it on my finger. "Charlie..it's beautiful. Where did you get it?" "I made it with Norbert's fire. Remember that night where I asked you to get me a couple of things while you were in France? The gold and the gems were used for this ring." He put it on my finger and kissed my head. I observed the ring in awe. "Charlie that was two years ago." "And it took me that long to make it." He then chuckled as he held me,"Did you know dragons mate for life?" I laughed as he spewed more dragon knowledge. Viper Weasley. It had a nice chime to it. We went back to the Cottage after a picnic in one of the open fields near the reservation. It was a wondrous night full of soft music, dancing and wine. I opened my eyes and looked at the time. I got dressed and started reading over my notes for next semester. I felt Charlie wrap his arms around me as he peppered my shoulder with kisses. "You looking over your class notes?" "Yes I'm trying to decide what I should teach fourth years about first." He rested his head on my shoulder as he read my class list and schedules. I felt his arms wrap around me as he hummed quietly,"Viper Akela. I love you so much. My Raksha." "Don't make me blush Longhorn." ---- I made it back to Hogwarts and began my lessons again. Because of Umbridge's terrible classes; I was teaching them defensive spells against some creatures. Umbridge was observing my classes today. And she was getting on my nerves. I was teaching the fifth years about Granians. I even brought my granian from my Ranch. He was my personal steed since I was a kid. "Now who can tell me where the name for Granians came from?" I walked towards the chalkboard and grabbed a piece of chalk. "They're named after Norse hero Sigurd's steed Grani." A ravenclaw called out. "Correct! Ten points to Ravenclaw for Mr. Aileanach's sharp answer. Although next time I prefer if you raised your hand next time." I laughed and returned to the board as I sketched out a quick Dioramma of the winged horse,"Granians are the fastest breed of winged horses to be discovered. My friend Storm here has run on ground around 71.76 km/h. Any witch or wizard can own one if permitted to own one and must keep it under a Disillusionment Charm daily so no muggles see the creature's wings. Now-" "Ahem." Umbridge interrupted. "Yes Professor." I looked at her trying to keep my temper. "Do you have a permit to care for all these creatures?" "Yes I-" "And do you have a permit to keep them here?" She interrupted again. "Yes. Headmaster Dumbledore has agreed to let me keep these creatures-" "And where do you keep them when you are gone from the school?" "Home with me! Dolores if you are done I have a class to teach!" I snapped at her,"And if you don't shut your mouth and keep interrupting me I will put a silencing charm on you!" With that I turned my back to her and wrote on the chalk board. "Apologies everyone. Now back to our lesson. Granians best known for their speed have been entered into horse races. However; they are forbidden to run in a normal horse race as it would serve unfair to muggles and the horses they-" "Ahem." I turned towards Umbridge with a glare that would terrify any dragon. "It says here that you are an auror. Why did you not teach defense against the dark arts?" "Because a monkey took the position before me. Besides; I love magical creatures and aced my classes with Outstanding on my O.W.L's." Umbridge turned red as I called her a monkey. "I think the Minister would love to look over your old records. You seemed to be a trouble maker in school. You seem to still be a trouble maker to this day." "What does this have to do with my class Umbridge?" I glared at her. "Hmm and it looks like you use your vacation days quite well. Why is that?" I stopped and then turned back to the class,"I want a three page research essay on winged horses on Friday. Tomorrow we will be learning about Abraxans. Class dismissed." I noticed Rey staying behind looking at me with worry. "Are you going to answer my question Akela?" "If it will get you off my back Umbridge; it is to see my Fiance who lives there! Is that a problem?" "No. I guess congratulations are in order. Who is the lucky man?" She asked. "Charlie Weasley; now leave while I clean up here." "I can leave whenever I want to Akela. Personally you threatening me in front of students was humiliating! I can have you fired from it!"I turned and glared at her,"You know. The Minister and Dumbledore made a mistake to make you a professor. I can see your mother and father made a mistake as well." With that I grabbed the reigns of Storm and walked him back to his stall. It was a quiet until I heard a couple of footsteps running towards us. "Viper!" I turned and saw Ginny and Luna running towards me. "It's professor here Ginny. Hello Luna; keeping the Thestrals well fed?" "Oh yes Professor! I saw one give birth recently too!" She said dreamily. "I'll have to check on them later." "Is it true though?!" I looked at Ginny with a questioning look. "Did Charlie really propose?!" I smiled to her and showed her the ring Norbert made. "Did your brother tell you?" I asked her as both girls observed the golden ring with the Garnet gem in the center,"No Neville and Rey told us. Rey over heard you talking to Umbridge. Charlie really did an amazing job!" "Yes he did. Now off to your next class you two." I watched them run back towards the castle. I walked to the Forbidden Forest to check up on the Thestrals. Even seeing the baby that Luna mentioned. --- I did some rounds and heard some strange noises come from the wall. 'I'm searching for those brilliant students who use you for teaching.' I thought. I watched as the room of requirements appeared before me. I heard mutters and whispers of worried students. I entered quickly and shut the door behind me. I looked around and spotted all the Weasley siblings, Harry, Hermione, Nevile, Rey and Luna as well as many other of my students. "Professor Akela!? We were umm-" Hermione started. But I raised my hand to silence her. "Going behind Umbridge's back and rules and from the looks of it teaching Defensive spells?" I looked at them all. "Which spell are you all on?" I asked Harry. "The Patronus charm." I nodded and thought of a dueling dummy. Which appeared. I raised my wand and aimed it at the dummy. "Have you just started to teach them?" Harry nodded and backed away from the dummy,"We've barely just started professor." "Well then. All of you listen because once I show you how to do this, Harry will continue his teachings and I will disappear without knowing anything." All the students muttered among themselves before returning their glances to me. I took a deep breathe and eyed my target,"Powerful memories can change. Think of a memory that makes you happy. Close your eyes and imagine that memory. Is it family? Friends? Or maybe even a place with the love of your life? Let it flow through your body and then cast the spell Expecto Patronus." I watched everyone looking at me with intent eyes. "Expecto Patronus!" I swished my wand and out came the Bay Mare. It galloped around me snorting and whinnying as it then charged the dummy. It then dissipated back in to a blue-ish white smoke. Everyone clapped and thanked me. "Mr. Potter." I looked at Harry with an impressed look,"They're all yours." I smiled and left the room as they began practicing. I made it down the hallway before I spotted a furious looking Umbridge marching towards the Room of Requirements. I walked up to her and stopped her,"What's got you in a huff Professor?" I glared down at her but she waved her wand and I was launched backwards towards the entrance of the Room. She looked at the wall and I pulled my wand out on her. She flicked it again and launched me against the wall. "Bombarda!" She said as the wall's bricks exploded. There were a couple more before a small hole appeared in the wall. "PROFESSOR! You are destroying this school! I will speak to Dumbledore-" I stepped in front of the wall but that didn't stop her. "Bombarda Maximus!" "Protego!" The impact was to great and I was slammed through the wall and into the practice chamber. Blood trickled down my arm as I had a gash on my shoulder when a sharp piece of rubble ripped through it. Fred and George ran up to me and helped me up. "You all will be in trouble for this! And Professor Akela; you will be fired from your position as Care of Magical creatures professor and I will indefinitely report this to the Minister of Magic to make sure you are sacked from the ministry!" I griped my wand as she walked over to my students. "No." "What do you mean no!?" She yelled. "I told you once bitch. You are not my boss. I didn't do anything to go against your rules. In fact I tried to stop you from breaking the school's own rules. You just destroyed a small section of Hogwarts and attacked a teacher!" I aimed my wand at her. "I will escort Potter and the others to detention, but you will not threaten me or any student again! Is that clear?!" I glared at her as more blood trickled down. Umbridge took a deep breathe and looked at Harry. "Potter will come with me and so will you. The rest of the students will be led by Filch to the detention hall." The kids started making a fuss but I silenced them. "Just go and don't make things worse." I looked especially at Fred and George who nodded and understood. ---- I stood in Professor Dumbledore's office with Harry as the Minister, Kingsley and Dawlish as they tried to apprehend Dumbledore. He soon disables them and was whisked away from the school. The minister; after talking to Kingsley, looked in my direction,"Is it true that you knew about this illegal organization?!" He yelled at me. "Minister I had no knowledge of this organization. I asked her what she was so upset about and she used her wand on me and started to destroy Hogwarts walls. That is all sir." "Hmm. I believe you contacted the old Care for Magical creatures professor; am I correct Umbridge?" "Yes sir! And she was very willing to come back." "Very well. Viper Akela; you may stay but you will be an assistant to Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. You are no longer a Professor." HE ordered. "Yes sir." I hung my head as he sent me out of the office. --- Luckily Professor Grubly-Plank enjoyed my studies more than her own and let me continue to teach the children. I was however summoned to Umbridge's office with Snape. I saw Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Ginny, Nevile and Rey being held in her office. "Ah good. Both of you have arrived. Severus I need some Veritaserum." Snape explained that he used the rest and would take too long to make more. "I don't care how long it takes. I want answers from them all! Akela; I need you-" "He's got Padfoot!" Harry cried out. My heart sank. "He's got Padfoot at the place where its hidden." Harry explained. "What-What is Padfoot?" "I don't know. What was I summoned here for again?" I asked her. "I need you to go to the Ministry and get the Minister here!" She barked at me. "Of course." I apparated to number twelve Grimwald place and bursted in. Sirius stood up with his wand raised. Molly, Arthur, Lupin and Kingsly all aimed their wands at me. "We have a problem!" ---- After some careful plannings we apparated to the Ministry to see the Prophecy room demolished. "Those kids are fast." I muttered. We made it to an area of the ministry I have never seen before. We noticed the kids being held by death eaters. We went down and started firing spells at the death eaters. Tonks and I gathered the kids in a hurry. Her getting Luna and Ginny away while heading towards Hermione. I grabbed Rey and Neville and ran towards Ron. I heard something shatter as Sirius was shot with the Killing curse. I watched in horror as one of our own passed through the veiled archway. I heard growling in front of me as Fenir Greyback stood before me. "Long time no see Blonde!" He sent a killing curse towards us. I put up a protection spell and disarmed him. "Incarserus!" He was tied down with ropes. Another deatheater appeared and charged towards us with a dagger in his hand. He charged towards Rey and Neville and before I can even think I rushed towards them as well. "Duck!" I ordered them. Neville and Rey ducked as I shifted into a wolf. I lunged at Greyback's shoulder and ripped into his scarred skin. He howled in pain and tried to get me off of him. He was able to lift me off and slammed me into the rocks. He took his dagger and stabbed it into my ribs. "You deserved this bitch." He grabbed my head as I changed back and was about to end my life. "Diffindo!" He screamed in pain as blood splattered the rock next to me. I looked over to Rey who had her wand pointed at him. He raised his wand at her but a good rock to the head knocked him out. "Remind me to give Griffindor fifty points for that Rey!" I laughed as I helped them towards cover. We continued to fight and defend ourselves until pops were heard all around the room. It was Fudge apparating to the Ministry with aurors close behind him. Heat me in shock and anger and started to march my way until he turned and stopped in fear. I turned and saw Bellatrix and Voldemort apparate away. Fudge sent for the aurors to arrest the death eaters while the children and the others wounded were taken to St. Mungos. You'd think we had a successful day. But with the death of Sirius and Voldemort still out there. The day was more for grieving. --- I sat next to Nevile, Luna, Ginny and Rey and told them stories about my adventures as an auror. "I even worked with your father once Rey! Strict man he was, but very damned good auror." I smiled at the young Griffindor. "Which reminds me." I handed her the old hard covered book I had with me. "Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them? Professor; I already have this book." She told me. "Look inside. My friends and I added to them." She peaked inside and her face lit up,"Your book got signed by Newt Scamander?!" "The one and only. He was impressed with our We added so many drawings and notes to it we added our own names to it. "Added notes and drawings by Longhorn, Raksha, Bowbie and Serpentina?" Ginny read aloud. "Our nicknames for each other in Care for Magical Creatures. Longhorn was Charlie, Bowbie was Barnaby, Serpentina was Liz and I was Raksha." Rey looked at all the notes and drawings in awe,"Think you can add a couple more?" I asked her. She smiled and nodded,"Add a couple more? This book will be filled with nothing but drawings!" Neville looked over Rey's shoulder and read the book from besides her. I played with the ring on my finger thinking of the future. I grabbed my notebook and started writing to my parents. --- I stood in the stalls to my ranch as I brushed Storm's pelt and mane. I heard a pop outside and saw Professor Dumbledore walking up to me. "Headmaster? What brings you to my home?" I smiled generously. "I have come to ask if you will have the honor of being Care of Magical Creatures Professor again." "Isn't that Hagrid's job now?" I asked as I finished grooming the Granian. "Yes, but you have better skills with higher class beast." He stepped closer and placed his hand on the horse's muzzle. "I will also need someone to care for Fawkes. I will be doing a lot of traveling this year." He smiled at me and handed me a letter. "I am also asking you as an auror. Hogwarts needs extra protection this year." I nodded and accepted the letter. "It was nice teaching them. I'll do it." "Excellent! I will be seeing you next year Professor Akela. And congratulation on the engagement!" I smiled and thought to my beloved.

[sharpeningtheblade]

AN 1892 MODEL ARTILLERY OFFICER'S SABRE Curved, single-edged blade with jelman, the base engraved and gilded with monogram "FAR" for king Frederick Augustus III (1904 - 1918), Saxon coat of arms and floral motifs. Mark "W.K & C" e "EISENHAUER". Gilded, brass hilt with crossed cannons, Saxon coat-of-arms on the loop-guard and pommel shaped as lion's head. Wooden grip covered with fish skin with metallic wire binding. Blackened scabbard (scratched) with one suspension ring. Saxony, first quarter of the 20th Century length 94 cm. © CZERNY’S INTERNATIONAL AUCTION HOUSE S.r.l.

[justforbooks]

Rebirth Of A Legend

While the 1950s and 1960s produced many remarkable personalities, few public figures had the charisma and audacity of the late Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who converted a warship into the yacht Christina, one of the most glamourous private yachts ever built. Inseparable from his ocean-going palace, Onassis lived aboard for decades, reveling in a life of partying and pleasure that by turns made him hated, envied and admired while attracting the global celebrity set of the era to his jewel of the seas, now reborn as Christina O.

This is one yacht that cannot be fully appreciated without knowing a little about her larger-than-life owner, a man who created the boat as an extension of himself and his professional and personal ambitions. Ari Onassis was not the first yachtsman to understand that by pampering influential guests he could open doors that might otherwise remain closed. And life aboard Christina was an endless round of lavish self-indulgence. Ex-King Farouk of Egypt, a frequent visitor and a man whose appetite for the good life would eventually drive him into exile, referred to the yacht as “the height of opulence.” The actor Richard Burton said, “I do not believe that any man or woman in the world would resist the temptation and the pure narcissism shamelessly flaunted on this boat.”

Onassis was immensely proud of Christina and insisted on escorting his guests on guided tours from stem to stern and deck to dazzling deck. All the bathrooms were in marble, the fittings in gold. There was a fireplace encrusted with lapis lazuli at a cost of a dollar per square centimeter. The dining room included frescoes by Marcel Vertes representing the family throughout the seasons: Tina, Onassis’ first wife, skating, and Alexander and Christina picnicking in the grass.

Other artwork had less exalted origins, the two El Grecos, for instance. Onassis knew these were fakes, but as he once said, “If people want to believe they are authentic, why spoil their pleasure.”

The décor in the nine guest suites was inspired by the Greek islands after which they were named. Onassis’ children, Alexander and Christina, used to occupy the Chios suite and the Ithaca suite respectively, although Christina would give up her place when Greta Garbo, Maria Callas or Jackie Kennedy came aboard.

There were also the Santorini, Mykonos, Lesbos, Andros, Crete, Rhodes and Corfu suites. All contained wood and stone work that had been brought in from the Greek islands, the beauty of the materials chosen to enhance the guests’ pleasure.

The most beautiful suite was that of Onassis himself. Located on the pilothouse deck, where it remains today, it consisted of three rooms: the stateroom, an office containing a Louis XV desk, and an ostentatious bathroom. In addition to gold fittings, the bathtub in blue Syene marble was surrounded by a mosaic depicting fish scenes in the style of the lost palace of King Minos of Knossos.

His taste might, in our politically correct world, be regarded as intolerably crude, perhaps, but he was a man of his times, fabulously wealthy, unapologetic and unashamed of his virility. In Ari’s Bar on the main deck the stool seats were covered with the tanned foreskins of whales. The footrests were whales’ teeth and the ivory armrests were engraved with scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey, Onassis’ favorite epics.

During one cruise, the famously aloof Greta Garbo was seated at one of the stools in Ari’s bar when her host entered and said, “Madam, do you realise you’re sitting on the biggest penis in the world?”

With two chefs, one French and one Greek, Christina’s galley offered the finest dishes and rarest wines, with Onassis fussing over the smallest details on the menu. Among the crew there were two hairdressers, a butler and a Swedish masseuse. There was an elevator, an operating theater with radiography equipment, a telex and a network of 42 telephone lines.

Whether it was in the harbor at Monte Carlo or cruising off Venice or in the Caribbean, Onassis sailed with the stars. The parade on Christina’s guest list included Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli and Rudolf Nureyev. Among the heads of state, industrialists and high ranking statesmen: John Kennedy and Sir Winston Churchill. Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Paul Getty, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace—all were there at one time or another. Britain’s wartime Prime Minister was such a revered guest that Onassis gave up his own suite whenever Churchill visited, an honor never conferred on anyone else. And Churchill, who was aboard for eight cruises between 1958 and 1965, must have enjoyed the company of his host, who could in turn be a public entertainer, a political or a cultural critic, all with surpassing intelligence, charm and insight.

Christina was also the stage for Ari’s endless amorous adventures, and in that respect the summer cruise of 1959 was a blend of high drama and bedroom farce, because this was when Onassis finally won over Maria Callas after she came aboard with her husband. In the course of a few days, the other guests witnessed the break up of two couples and the start of one of the more sensational love affairs of the era. Its notoriety was eclipsed only by his subsequent marriage to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Christina started life as a Canadian Navy River Class Frigate, HMCS Stormont, built in 1943 by Vickers of Montreal. After distinguishing herself in the Normandy landings, she became a surplus relic. Onassis bought her in 1952 as part of a block purchase of ten ships from a Baltimore scrap merchant, John Shapiro. His plan was to build a fleet of whalers in collaboration with the Greek government, and when this enterprise fizzled Onassis kept the Stormont for himself. Shapiro said later, “I sold her to him for the scrap value.”

Onassis had showed his sharp nose for business, paying $50,000 (some put the figure at $34,000) for a ship of 1,724 tons, propelled by steam engines developing 6,500 hp that gave her a top speed of 21 knots. There is no record of what happened to her four 20 mm Oerlikon machine guns, various cannons and 145 depth charges. What mattered to her new owner was that at 327’ LOA and 36’6” beam she could be converted into something quite exceptional. Onassis chose the Howaldt Werke shipyard in Germany for the conversion, pouring in a total of four million dollars; and he paid great attention to the work, intervening personally on many occasions during a project that lasted a year and a half.

He commissioned a German professor of architecture, Caesar Pinnau, who created harmonious, classic lines, characterized by a very high stern. All did not go smoothly with the work, however, as there were many complicated challenges to overcome. The stem, for example, had to be rebuilt in one piece and welded to the existing skeleton. But it was above all Onassis’ demands that posed seemingly insoluble problems.

He wanted Christina to carry a fleet of tenders, a normal requirement aboard large modern yachts today but unheard of in postwar Europe in the early 1950s—as indeed were large private yachts themselves. In addition to two lifeboats, Christina was to house five fast launches, a glass bottomed boat for underwater observations, a small dinghy, two kayaks, a Fiat 500, and a five-seater seaplane, the famous Piaggio. This armada meant that the engineers had to resolve many stability calculations. Part of that problem was settled when Christina became one of the first yachts fitted with Vosper stabilizers.

For the comfort of the passengers there was an electronic climate control system that also regulated the temperature of the swimming pool; the pool could be transformed into a dance floor, and this raised the question of providing enough electricity to the ship’s systems. Demand was so great that Christina’s four generators had to run almost continuously and so required special soundproofing.

Onassis took delivery of his jewel in October, 1954. By then, Christina had little in common with Stormont. Her hull had been lengthened by 29’ and only her engines and forecastle had survived the extensive conversion.

As fabulous as the life of the Christina was, her decline was just as spectacular. After Onassis died in 1975 the boat became the property of his daughter, Christina. Jackie Kennedy Onassis owned 12.5 percent, the same share she had in the private island of Skorpios, but she abandoned her rights after bitter negotiations in which Christina Onassis tried to compel Ari’s widow to renounce all claims to the inheritance. The dispute was settled for $26 million. Christina kept the yacht that bore her name and continued to maintain it as her father had, and in 1978 she made a gift of the boat to the Greek government. An unfortunate move, as it turned out, because after using her for state functions in the early days, the government abandoned her and the looters took over. Among the greatest losses was the famous Syene marble bathtub.

Christina continued to rot until 1991 when one Alexander Blastos came into the picture and said he wanted to buy the boat and bring her back to life. Blastos was a self-described financial genius; he had the paperwork to prove it, and his offer of $2.2 million at public auction was immediately accepted. Sadly, his deposit check for $220,000 bounced. Investigation showed that Blastos had over-stated his credentials. He was actually a waiter from Keene, New Hampshire, and it was in New Hampshire that he was eventually charged with fraud. At his trial the court learned that between 1991 and 1995, in addition to swindling various people out of money and airline tickets, he had also commissioned a complete and reportedly superb redesign of Christina from the Luigi Sturchio studio. That project went nowhere. Ex-waiter Blastos got five years and was fined $250,000.

Serious buyers appeared, among them Peter Tauck, whose company bought the yacht in 1998, only to sell her again to John Paul Papanicolaou, a ship owner and friend of the Onassis family. With a group of investors, Papanicolaou and Tauck organized a refit with the intention of offering the yacht for charter, either for a private party or by the cabin, as on a cruise ship. From the outset, their avowed objective was to restore Christina to her former glory.

Considerable design work was required beforehand, and this was undertaken by the Greek naval architect Costas Carabelas. The refit contract went to Viktor Lenac, a Croatian shipyard, and work began in January, 1999 with the removal and storage of interior fittings. At the Lenac yard one of the first tasks was to clean the hull with high-pressure water jets, the force of which opened up two enormous cavities in the steel.

When ultrasonic measurements were made to test the rest of the plating it was found that 65 per cent of the hull needed replacing, not the 20 per cent originally predicted, which meant that instead of drydocking the boat for 60 days, as anticipated, she spent 345 days in it.

Christina O was delivered to her new owners last July 24 after 16 months of intensive work requiring a total of 1.2 million man hours and an estimated cost of $50 million. In all, 560 tons of new steel had to be added. It is now half an inch thick (12 mm), in compliance with the exacting SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) regulations governing a charter yacht.

The SOLAS standards highlighted other major problems. The sun deck or compass deck where the Galaxy Bar occupied an area of about 1,600 square feet, could not, for stability reasons, be decked in teak. This extra weight of several tons 33’ above the keel would indeed upset the stability of the boat which, incidentally, is now fitted with two sets of Vosper stabilizer fins.

Because the vessel is very low on the water, most of the lower deck portholes were eliminated, leaving only those installed in staterooms at the aft end of the ship. The fire control system was redesigned and prop shafts aligned, a vastly complicated operation because of their length. Cold rooms, an incineration chamber and garbage compactor were installed to serve the new, professional galley on the lower deck.

The three original steam engines extended through three decks, occupying a huge volume amidships. Their replacement by two MAN diesels of 2,775 hp each has greatly increased space in this area. The MANs are placed farther aft, rendering the funnel duct redundant.

Additional space has also been gained on the main deck, which now has a 1,000 sq. ft. dining room. This is flanked on each side by relaxation areas with sofas, a gaming table and a piano. On this same mid- or promenade deck, there is a new gym and a lounge decorated in the style of an English clubroom.

The staterooms on the main deck have hardly changed, but in order to house more passengers a new accommodation area has been created at the aft end of the lower deck in the crew’s former quarters. Now there are eight guest staterooms, which increases the guest capacity to 36 people, without counting the famous Onassis suite. This remains one of the most beautiful apartments on the boat, with the main changes in the furnishing of the bathroom, which has an immense shower stall and a marble bathtub.The funnel has been retained, along with its trademark yellow color, but it is now a dummy, housing an air conditioning system and a back-up generator set, again complying with SOLAS standards. The new engine exhaust has been created in the form of an aft mast and takes up a lot less room than that of the old system. Similarly, the arrangement for stowing the ship’s tenders has opened up extra space. There are less of them and they are smaller than in Onassis’ time, but positioning them around the funnel and on the foredeck has created new exterior layout possibilities.

Among some of the elements preserved from the Onassis era are the wall lights, the leather settees in his suite, and the onyx and silver handrail of the monumental stairway. Ari’s Bar has been preserved largely intact, though the famous stools have been recovered with leather but retain their whale teeth footrests. The Atlas on the wall, which incidentally was in a very good state of preservation, has also been kept. The Lapis Lounge abaft the bar retains much of its former ambiance even if, for safety reasons, the fireplace decorated with lapis lazuli is no longer functional—and works by Renoir, Le Corbusier and Chirico can now be found here. The fake Grecos are gone.

For the rest, the classical decoration reflects Mediterranean inspiration with light-colored tones strengthening an abundant luminosity. The best fabrics from Mulberry and JR Scott have been used, with elegant furniture by Giorgetti.

In short she has regained much of what she had before, class and beauty, two of her late owner’s most cherished ideals.

In her time the old Christina became the epitome of opulence, a shrine for celebrity worship and a dockside paradise for tabloid paparazzi. Above all she may be remembered as an object of desire created by the forceful personality of the man who married Jacqueline Kennedy.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[alo-bien]

Family

Hey @awkward-agilator , I’m your Secret Santa for @demigodsecretsanta ! Thank you for the wait. I hope you have a wonderful year! And now, your gift.

If somebody told past Leo that he would actually have a family, he would’ve laughed. Fortunately, he’d been wrong. After he left to rescue Calypso, he didn't think anybody would miss him: nobody did in all those years after his mother's death. Leo wouldn't have imagined in a million years that he'd be received by Piper and Jason with a bone-crushing hug. He expected it of Jason, but Piper gave him a welcome surprise. He remembered what she told him then, “You’re family, Leo. Of course, we missed you.”

After his return, he and Calypso moved to California, where they finished high school. They worked hard and saved enough money to buy a warehouse. There they made a few additions and it became Leo’s and Calypso’s Workshop. While business took off, they lived in a small apartment. Sometimes they stayed over at Piper’s and Jason’s house.

Leo and Calypso worked repairing all things that needed to be repaired including demigod weapons. With time, they became one of the most successful workshops in the area. Their dream was to build a flat above the shop big enough for them to invite friends over.

Now, after a few months of remodeling, their dream had come to life. It was finished just in time for the holidays. To celebrate it, Leo invited Jason and Piper to spend New Year’s Eve in the new apartment. As a bonus, they could watch the fireworks from a small terrace one floor above.

Remembering all this almost made Leo forget that he was making a salsa for them to eat the chips with. And that it smelt like something was burning. He cursed.   

“Are you done with that salsa, Repair boy?”

“Almost done, Beauty Queen!” Turning the stove off, Leo poured the salsa he was doing in a small bowl and took it to the living room. Along the way, he also grabbed a bag of chips. He put them down on the coffee table in front of the TV and sat next to Calypso on the couch. They were watching a Christmas movie while waiting for the New Year.

Piper crouched towards the table, grabbing a chip and dipping it in the salsa before taking it to her mouth. “I have to say, perfect as always.”

“Thank you, thank you. Chef Leo at your services.” He did a little bow and pretended to take off his imaginary hat. They laughed at that.

For the next two hours, they ate chips and watched the movie. When it was almost midnight, Leo and Calypso went to the kitchen to prep the glasses with the champagne.

They joined Piper and Jason in the small terrace above his apartment to see the fireworks. Calypso gave them their glasses.

“Admiring the view?”

“Yeah, it was a good idea to build it,” Piper said.

“We didn’t plan on it at first, but I realized we needed a place for Jason to land or take off in case of an emergency. Y’know, so he could be the Blonde Superman he is.” Leo laughed. Jason shook his head. “No, but in all seriousness, we also have it to protect against monsters. As you can see, we have a cannon that launches celestial bronze.”

“Nice touch.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the fireworks indicating that a new year had begun.

Raising their glasses, they made a toast. “For a year with fewer monsters!” said Jason, flinching at the memory of the three dracanae that attacked them on their way.

“For a year of successful business,” said Calypso.

“For a year of awesome inventions,” said Leo, a crazy glint in his eyes.

“For a year with us still being a family,” said Piper, knowing how much it meant for Leo. She smiled at him. “Now, let’s drink!”

Everyone finished their glass of champagne and put it to the side. They stood shoulder to shoulder watching the fireworks. After the show ended, they went back to the living room.

“Okay, who wants to get crushed in Monopoly?” Leo took out the Monopoly from a shelf and set it up on the coffee table.

“Oh, Repair Boy, you don’t know who you’re messing with.” Piper sat on the floor next to the coffee table. “I’m in.”

Jason and Calypso looked at each other. They shrugged and sat down around the table.

Leo grinned. “I’m the banker.” He organized the board with the cards and fake money. Each of them chose a token and the game was on.

Three hours later, the game had turned into a free for all auction with fake money laying everywhere on the floor along with an asleep Jason. His glasses were on top of the shelf, a part of the board was burnt and Piper and Leo were still going on with their auction. Calypso had gone to bed an hour earlier.

Suddenly, Leo screamed. “Ha! Take that, Beauty Queen. The railroad’s mine.”

The scream woke up Jason, who accidentally shocked him. “I’m sorry. You startled me.” He yawned. “You’re still playing?” He rubbed his eyes. “Do you know where my glasses are?”

Leo pointed to the shelf. Jason got up and picked them up.

“Leo, I think we’re done. It’s a tie.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Pipes. We both know I won.”

Leo started making a pile of the money on the floor to put it on the table. Piper rolled her eyes.

When he finished the pile, he got up and stretched. Piper did the same. “It was a nice night, don’t you agree?” Piper said, glancing at the boys. “But now, I just want to sleep.”

They nodded.

“Thanks, guys. For coming,” Leo said as they walked towards their rooms.

“You know we’ll always be there for you, Leo.”

“Yeah, we’re family after all.”

[raevan-muns-supercut]

“It’s not MY fault we’re in fucking handcuffs.”

& “How are YOU mad at ME when I’m the one who’s in FUCKING JAIL?”((Idecided to combo these two prompts, into one, because it fit. I mean it reallyfit well together considering the individuals involved.))So, one must imagine first a night of Tart fun, which for a certain groupmeans, drinking games, over raucous flirting and an ever escalating game ofTruth or Dare. As a rule, they did try to behave themselves, all of them, butwithin this element were a couple notable trouble makers, Andji and Raerysoften found somewhere near the middle of the cyclone. Once tequila had been introduced, there was no way to actually control it; itbecame a game of herding cats, one that few would find success with. This episodeof drunk and disorderly involved a certain fiancée - Badeau, the love ofRenthios. Well, things had certainly gone from fun to not so in short order. Somewhereafter the eighth round of shots, it had been suggested that the crowd dispersefrom the Silvermoon City Inn and head toward Raerys's Town house. On theoutside this seemed an utterly perfect idea, they would have the pool and thebar and rooms for those who were too drunk to portal home. In the morning, their Hostess promised breakfast, a swim, massages and whateverelse might cure their hangovers. Among them were Renthios, Andi, Trisandrah,Badeau, and Farris. The rest, perhaps slightly less sot-like, had long gonehome, leaving the real drinking to the professionals. The party had kicked up in earnest in the house, spilling eventually out to thepatio and the pool area, despite the hour slipping far past midnight. And whilesome might consider the residential neighborhood filled with Lords and Ladies asafe place for such debauchery and noise, Raerys's neighbors did not.As one might imagine, there were lights flicked on around them, then flickedup. Couples and singles rolling over in their beds, cursing that damned womanand her eccentric friends. Which, on the whole was all fine and good until Andidiscovered in one of her bags a package of fireworks that Yunni had given her. When drunks band together in the pursuit of devilry, good sense rarely winsout. Both Trisandrah and Renthios tried to stop the other four from theircourse of action, but with concerted effort they set up a line of empty boozebottles along the fence and poked a bottle rocket down into each one. Farris was gleeful, speaking in her slury pirate-patois about firing cannonsand brandishing a cane like a rapier. She had dressed as a bloke for theevening, a fancy looking one, but a bloke just the same, much to Raerys'sdelight. The two were egging things on, while Andi seemed excited at theprospect of making some room in her purse. To be fair, Badeau mostly made sly comments and pointed out things like thedistance between the bottles, speaking of things like full coverage of sparkswhen the rockets did go off, estimating the resistance on the wind and makingsmall adjustments to the pitch of the bottles while Raerys and Andi got thingslined up and sorted out. When it was done, they stood back each with another drink in hand because, whythe fel not right? Sipping and patting themselves on the back for their displayprowess. "We need to light them if we're serious... I mean... hic, Farris saysthere are pirates out there... we need sally forth? Tally ho? What did you sayFarris?""Blast their wee bollocks off!!" Farris slurred in response, weavingback and forth in front of Raerys, though looking damn cute as she did so. "Yeah, that darlin' whose got a match?" Came Andi's query and thenall hell broke loose. Hours later, three of the party sat in a holding cell beneath the localconstable's office, a stiffly magisterial guard posted outside while thetrouble makers cooled their heels and nursed their hangovers behind bars. Raerys, Andi and Bad all sat in opposing corners, glowering at one another,muttering curses and casting blame for their predicament in all directions.They were still handcuffed, which likely saved the guard a good deal oftrouble, as there might have been a full on scuffle between them had they freerange to use their hands. Bad looked between both Andi and Raerys, eyes glittering and squinted down intoa sharp and accusatory glare. "Don't look at me in that tone of voice; you're the one who said we shouldaim for the Spire! I just did what you told me!" Raerys leaned over, heldin place by the cuffs that were wrapped around the bar behind her. Andi nodded in grudging agreement, "She's right... would'a been fine ifwe'd just shot up in the air... but nooo, had to be all bad ass about it andstart a pissing match with the guards!"Bad frothed then shouted at the two, “It’s not MY fault we’re in fuckinghandcuffs!”Raerys turned bright red, looking away. "He's got a feckin' point Rae, you're the one who tried to light the nightwatch on fire when they came... what are you some kind of idiot?"The red headed violinist had no defense; they were both right on this count. Itmight have only ended with a citation but she had gotten mouthy and uppity withthe guard, until she lifted a blazing fist and threatened to deck him. Thenseveral more guards descended on the house and pulled the three out into thestreet and to the Klink. How the other three had avoided this fate, one could only guess. However,Raerys had her money on running for the wine cellar at the first sound oftrouble. All but Farris. She had seen which way the wind was turning, anddespite her drunkenness had the gift of most privateers - disappearing when theshit hit the fan."Shut up you three..." The guard barked over, and they did. Silencedescended upon them though their moods were sour as lemons and they shot sideeye back and forth, like it was a game of hot potato. A while later footsteps came down the hall, Renthios and Trisandrah in thecompany of a rather pucker assed looking magister. He in the red robes alsowore the keys, probably to their cell. Raerys was delighted; the cavalry hadcome through, bailing them out, and settling up with the guards. The looks however on Trisandrah and Renthios's face were not relief, but anger,quiet yet well contained. The old magister stepped up and spoke to them each in turn. "Miss Rosewood or Songbrook or whatever it is you're going by, your bailhas been posted and the citation waved with a warning. Your record is clean andI cannot in good conscience keep a member of the peerage here for such a nominalinfraction. However, I suggest you keep better company and avoid furtherconfrontations with the Guards. This is not Ogrimmar... we have lawshere." He stepped up and opened the door, moving toward Raerys to remove her handcuffsand release her. As soon as she was free she was quite contrite, looking over at Ren and Trisshamefacedly. With swift steps however, she exited the cell, wanting to be wellaway before the Magister changed his mind. "Mister Badeau... you're being released to the custody of Sir Renthios.You are also being passed on with a warning. Do not make me regret this... thepaladin has considerably more faith in your kind than I do." The old fartthen let Bad go too, though as he joined the others in the passage outside thecell, he and Raerys began muttering angrily at one another again."As for you, Miss..." he eyed up Andi and slid a hand into a pocket,withdrawing a crisp piece of paper. "You're under arrest for the matter ofan unpaid parking ticket, leaving your Hawkstrider tied outside the auctionhouse for over the allowed fifteen minutes and then not cleaning up after itwhen it relieved itself on the steps. I realize this may have escaped yourattention, but we have sent several copies of the citation and a summons all ofwhich you have ignored. I am afraid you'll be with us until the matter has beensettled."Andi looked up at the old mage, squinting, her red hair getting the better ofher as she cheeks rose to match its shade. "Are you feckin' kiddingme?" She growled. The other two troublemakers were well into an argument, something about Raeryspaying for their bail or not. She seemed reticent on not helping the rogue withhis financials, as he was the one who advocated for shooting at the Spire inthe first place. Their argument became all the louder while Ren and Tris didtheir best to calm them down. Andi lost it, struggling against her handcuffs, and hollering at them in thehall. "Hey, feck you both..." They turned in unison and stared her down, "You're the one who had thefire works... what sane person wanders around with those in their purseanyway?" Raerys shot back, Bad turning to look at Andi and nodding inagreement. Andi shook her head, looking past the magister who now was leaving, the womanstill stuck in the cell with her hands cuffed to the bars. "Howare YOU mad at ME when I’m the one who’s in FUCKING JAIL?”@eye-of-kuu@andijelly@trisandrah@theblacksails@renthios-duskblade

[nxjacbbnc-blog]

Prior to event day

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