#i just wish they did the sequence of them getting caught by the soldiers differently yk

[tokyocyborg]

love me until i love myself

[bigfrozenfan-fanfics]

Chapter 10 - Skalastet

Links: Chapter overview, Character list, Map, Glossar Rating: M over all Publishing cycle: each Friday at 6:00 pm CEST dst/UTC +2:00 on (link)

Remarks: all my chapters contain carefully selected music tracks. It’s your own decision if you want to use them or not while reading. The purpose is to musically support the respective mood of the plot. If you can please use a browser for reading (not the Tumblr app) due to the text formatting and music.

Ryder stood there with arms crossed, leaning against a kota and watched their friends from Arendelle talking to Elsa. The wrong moment to disturb Kristoff for a serious talk; he thought. But maybe that was just as well. He pondered and weighed his options, but he just couldn't decide what to do.

He was constantly thinking about what he had learned at the Norting, and he was now very worried about all of them, but especially about Kristoff and his great love, Anna. If this son of Gyda, what did Yelana call him ... ah yes, Kolgrimr, was capable of all these things then ...; Ryder could not and didn't want to imagine what could happen then. His father had patted him on the shoulder and congratulated him on his first Norting in adulthood and that he was proud of him. But he almost wished now that he hadn't known about any of this. What was he going to do? Should he just ignore Yelana's warning and warn Kristoff and the others anyway, or wait and see? What if they stayed here in the camp a little longer? They would perhaps unknowingly find themselves in great danger. Would they even believe this story and warning?

Behind him he heard soft footsteps rustling in the grass and turned around. In front of him stood his sister with her battlestick in her hand.

“Fancy a little Skalastet?” Honeymaren asked cheerfully and grinned broadly, “You need some practice“. But her grin quickly evaporated when she noticed his depressed mood. She came closer and put one hand on Ryder's shoulder. “What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“Me? No, there's no ... everything's fine. But stick fighting? Now?” Ryder warped the corners of his mouth.

Of course, it had been a long time since they competed, Ryder knew that and he also realized his sister was right about it. Since the forest had been liberated there was no reason to defend their home against soldiers from Arendelle, they had already returned to their home. But he could still remember too well the bruises Honeymaren's battlestaff had inflicted on him often. She was just one of the best fighters among them, fast and agile. Most of the time he had no chance against her, even though he wasn't so bad himself as he thought. Honeymaren nudged him in the side with the end of the stick and grinned mischievously.

“Oh come on, do we have to do this?” he asked.

“It keeps us fit,” she replied, grinning a little wider. It had been too long since she had shown him which of them had the say in the duel. But of all of them he was still one of the best training partners, she had to admit. She took two steps back, whirled her stick over her head and looked at him challengingly. “Go on, get your staff.”

And Ryder sighed, “All right. But let's not overdo it like we did last time.” He walked the few steps to their kota and grabbed his long polished birch stick.

They walked a little way until the trees were a little closer together and started to tactilely stalk each other. “Come on Ryder, try to hit me!” She took her staff in her left hand, turned it casually around her wrist, and then went into a defensive stance.

Ryder dared a lunge and tried to hit her, but was too slow. His staff missed Honeymaren by far, she only had to take a step to the side and in one flowing movement effortlessly gave him a slap on his wrist. He cried out briefly in pain.

She laughed. “Come on. You can do better than that.” She bounced on the ball of her foot and made the stick spin around her waist.

Ryder looked at her grimly. “Whatever you say.”

Then he grabbed his battlestaff in the middle and struck with the ends of the sticks in quick succession, alternately, sometimes above, sometimes below. And each time, she parried his strokes, but moved further back. They danced around each other and the sequence of strikes accelerated. Sometimes he struck, sometimes she did. They jumped and ducked to avoid the opponent's strokes. Of course, both of them took light hits every now and then, that could not be avoided, but that was the purpose of the exercise, to be faster and more accurate.

The forest echoed back from the clacking sounds when their sticks met. They circled each other while searching for a gap in the other's defense, skillfully avoiding the surrounding trees. It was a constant back and forth, neither of them slowed down noticeably.

“Slowly I'm getting the hang of it again,” Ryder pressed out at some point, coughing but triumphant.

Meanwhile a few Northuldra, attracted by the sounds of the fight, had gathered nearby and watched their dance from a proper distance. Most of them cheered on Honeymaren, but there were also some voices shouting the same to Ryder.

Honeymaren slowly but surely gained the upper hand and pushed her brother back. In a desperate stroke, he raised his stick and swung it against her shoulder. But his sister was able to duck in time and in the same movement pushed her battlestick with force against his stomach area. However, he pulled his belly in just in time and made a leap backwards, directly between two trees standing relatively close together.

Honeymaren had intended exactly that, and with quick short strokes drove him back even a little further behind the two birches and then jumped forward. But not directly towards him, instead to the trunk of one of the two trees. She pushed off there, repeated it on the other tree trunk and in this way was six feet high in no time. Only now she jumped directly towards Ryder, the battlestick raised high above her head. This was a dangerous situation for any opponent.

Ryder followed her movements with his eyes and showed himself surprised. But in reality he had foreseen her move, timed the right moment and then whirled his staff around behind his back. He took advantage of the momentum, let it slide through in his palm on the other side, held the end in time and pushed the staff upwards. He hit Honeymaren at the thigh with force, causing her to groan in pain, and therefore took her out of her balance. Her intended strike missed its target and she hit the ground behind him and rolled to the side. Ryder, standing with his back to her, laughed out loud and raised his battlestick with both hands triumphantly over his head.

He was about to turn to her with a grin when a forceful strike against his feet took him off his legs and he crashed hard to the ground. His staff slipped out of his hands and rolled towards Honeymaren. She cleverly caught it with her tip of her foot and delivered it into her free hand with momentum. Ryder stared at her speechlessly.

“Well, little brother, you'd better watch your guard,” Honeymaren said, grinning but out of breath, and with these words held the ends of both sticks to his throat.

In the background, loud howling and the clapping of their audience could be heard. She finally took both sticks in one hand and with the other grabbed his arm to help him up on his feet.

Ryder rumbled softly, “Next time it will be different, for sure.”

They reached out conciliatory hands to eachother, but Honeymaren didn't let it be taken on whispering in his ear, “Dream on, little brother ...” when she pulled him to her.

One moment later, they both had to laugh loudly about it and walked exhausted and satisfied between the still clapping Northuldra. Some patted Ryder on the shoulder and one even gave him the compliment that he was getting better and better and it had been a great fight.

~~~

Arriving at the camp, they first laid back their battlestaves, then Honeymaren looked at him with a serious expression while she rubbed her thigh where he had hit her. “You can't hide anything from me, Ryder, you know that. I know you too well for this. There's something important on your mind today. Please tell me.”

Ryder put his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked at her with a forceful look. “All right, but you have to promise me it's just gonna be between us, okay?” His sister pulled her eyebrows together and then nodded.

“I promise. So ... shoot. I suppose it has something to do with the disappearance of the men this morning, doesn't it?”

“How do you know?” Ryder asked and looked at her in amazement.

Honeymaren tilted her head and looked at him reproachfully. “I'm not naive. I overslept today and father woke me very late. If he had been in the camp, he would not have hesitated so long, as angry as he was at me. So what happened?”

Ryder sighed and nodded. “Yes, you're right. There's been a meeting, a Norting. My first, as you can imagine. Yelana called it out and told us something I can't handle.”

“So that's it, a Norting.” She lowered her eyes and had a bad premonition. She felt her stomach begin to contract and said in a low voice, “Tell me.”

“Not here. Let's go somewhere quiet and unobserved.”

“Let's go into our kota,” Honeymaren suggested. He nodded and as they sat inside, Ryder told her in a low voice everything he now knew. Honeymaren listened very attentively and her face became visibly gloomier.

~~~

“Hello, Kristoff. Do you know where Elsa is? I was going to check on her, but she's not in her kota and I haven't seen her anywhere else,” Myrtha asked, who just stepped next to him. Kristoff looked up and rose. He now noticed another woman standing behind her.

“Hello, Myrtha. She's with Anna right now and hasn't been gone long.” He pointed in a direction where the four monoliths stood at the edge of the forest. “They were going to the waterfall to have an undisturbed private conversation. Sisterly conversations, I guess.”

His eyes fell on the small wicker basket she was holding in front of her. It was full of little birch wood boxes of various sizes, some of them open and filled with all kinds of pastes in greenish colours, next to them were various small bundles of herbs and a small mortar with a wooden pestle. The woman behind her carried a small bucket of water, and also some cloths and leather straps over her arm. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Myrtha noticed his looks and smiled at him. “Oh, that's not all for Elsa. I'm just making my morning rounds. There are always minor injuries and it is my job as healer to make sure everyone is comfortable. This is Ikka, my young assistant, by the way. I teach her everything.” Ikka gave Kristoff a shy nod. “Is everything all right with Elsa? What is your impression?” Myrtha then asked.

“Everything seems to be fine again, as far as I can tell. At least physically.”

“That's good. Some exercise will certainly do her some good. I'll come by again this evening, but I must be going now.” She nodded at Kristoff and left.

When Ikka passed Kristoff, she hesitated briefly and smiled shyly at him, but said nothing and then quickly scurried after the healer. Kristoff looked after them, thought for a moment and then shook his head before he sat down again.

“She likes you,” Olaf said after a few moments and smiled at him.

“Who?” asked Kristoff, who was already thinking about something completely different.

“Well, Ikka of course. Didn't you notice her looks when you talked to Myrtha?”

Kristoff laughed. “Yes, I noticed. But she's still young, and I'm obviously very attractive to her. She also doesn't know that I'm already engaged.”

“That's true,” Olaf confirmed, and fell into Kristoff's laughter.

“Which part of it do you mean? That I'm so attractive?”

Both snorted with laughter.

~~~

---

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a comment if you liked the story, I would be pleased to read your opinions, even criticisms. If you want to be tagged as soon I publish the next chapter please let me know.

Remarks: For the training scene with Honeymaren and Ryder my beta reader and I would have liked to have a fanart of HARU (@ xlayers), but since Ryder is not yet available as a model I took the liberty to make a small edit based on Jin Kim's concept art. It's just a pity that Ryder was apparently not intended to be handled with a fighting staff. 

Tagging: @karma26 @whether-near-to-me-or-far @annaofthenorthernlights @igotelsapregnanthelp

[moni-harmonia]

Inazuma’s Act I and II Review

FINALLY finished Chapter 2 Act II. I’ve been busy with a new videogame so I wasn’t playing Genshin too much these past two weeks, but I’m finally caught up.

I wanna talk a little about the story of Inazuma, especially because there are many things that I would change a little. I’m gonna be a little negative but I don’t want to take the credit out of the game, just pointing out things that I think could have been done better.

Keep in mind, this is just my opinion and you don’t have to agree.

First... I think the introduction is too long. I understand that as part of the plot, we’re not allowed to move freely in Inazuma at first. But I’m sure many people were excited to visit this new region, and the fact that we have to essencially do a whole quest before exploring really took away the excitement a little bit. I would have made it a little shorter at least, just enough to introduce us to Thoma and the situation there.

This, along with the rest, made Act I really long. It’s like twice as long as other quests. Now, I liked the final part, where we visit people who lost their Visions and try to help, but I think this could have been put in Act II, which is much shorter. But I know why they put everything in Act I... Because they wanted us to meet Ayaka and Yoimiya in person, so that we did their quests. Which introduces another problem for me...

I don’t think their quests had to be necessary for the story. Their quests are good but they should have been optional for now, at least not necessary for Act II. It made me a little tired, I really wanted to progress in the story but the need to complete two whole quests before that felt very long.

I don’t know about other people, but for me the fact that you had to do so many things just to progress made me want to rush a little. I think they put way too many things in this update. Honestly, they should have left Act II for 2.1, so as to share the story in different updates, because when Inazuma finishes then we’re not gonna have anything for a while after that, so instead of giving us so many things at once, they could have distribute it better.

Act II... was fine. The events were pretty good, but there is a major change I would make. Basically, change the order of the events. First, we go to meet Gorou and Kokomi, and then we hear that Thoma has been captured and we go save him and have the epic boss battle against the Shogun. We would have to make some adjudgment, but here’s why I think it works better:

The battle was exciting, but there wasn’t any build up for it, nor for the capture of Thoma. I would have put Thoma in the beginning, the Traveler talking to him. Thoma mentions that the soldiers were after him, but that he should be ok and we should worry about other stuff. Then Ayaka sends us to see Kokomi for planning stuff. And while we’re there, we hear about how Thoma has been captured. We get worried so we rush off to meet Ayaka, who tells us what happened in more detail, and then the rest is basically the same. Except... that I would put a escape sequence after we run away, to make it more exciting since they run away too easily in that part. I think that would have been a better ending for Act II.

Apart from all that... I would have put a scene where the Traveler or Paimon ask why people like Sara and Yae still wear Visions even though they work with the Shogun. I think it’s because they’re Electro, so she lets them use them. But why exactly? We don’t know her reasoning and that would have been interesting to know.

The new characters are good, I’m glad we got to meet more of them in Act II. I like Gorou, especially since he’s a Geo and there are too few of them right now... But I wish we could have meet a little more of the cast since there seems to be more characters that we haven’t met yet.

Anyway, the TLTR for this would be that Inazuma’s story has good ideas, but I think they could have been executed better with a better pace and more build up.

I’m excited for the next part, but I dunno if it’ll drop in 2.1, seems a little early but who knows, with the strange pace that we’ve been having...

[corvixa]

I have this thing, that when an idea gets in my head, I either get it out on paper or it will create a traffic jam in my head and bugger up everything. So, not including my ongoing Fics, which includes the Gold Universe as part 4 is still nearly finished, I just need that last push on it. These are Ideas that can have anything from a few scenes, an idea, plots, or several chapters.

So I call this -

Winteriron WIP

(because what else 😅, I have a problem.)

In Fire & Flames - In this universe, Phoenixes and Humans live together, if one species dies then the other will too. When a Phoenix does for good, lots of natural disasters happen, starts with Tony'parents dying and then Rhodey, who is also a Phoenix, finds Tony. Who is now familyless and dying as lone phoenixes tend to die. There are several different kinds, and they come in pairs general. Golden and Ice, for example, Golden are high in magic, Ice tends to protect, especially the rare Golden, it's more tribes than individuals, there is no requirement for who likes who. It's surprising how much making a few other Avengers phoenixes tweaks things here and there, this actually goes up to the fight in Siberia and is one of the bigger WIP's. (26k)

Flash of Gold - Avengers are shifters or humans with magic, and they think they know what Tony is. They believe he is a human with magic, but they notice that he has some shifter traits, which is odd as shifters can't have magic in this AU. Only in very old stories and myth. Tony, however, is a dragon, which are myth. Instead of being like most shifters a, a human that shifts to something, he is the reverse. It only has a few scenes. Full shebang, team as Family. Steve is even a good guy. James is brought to the tower after being found and slowly integrated into the group and is wondering wtf Tony is. (13k)

The Operative Program - Howard was never meant to be a father; he was a weaponsmith. So he took the red room and the wolf spider programs and decided to create himself an Operative that he hoped would be the darker side to help Steve when he found him. Two sides of the same coin, one for the light and one to work in the shadows, Tony would be under Steve's control, he would be a weapon for the man who only picked up a shield. (Also assassin Tony is just fun.) Tony in this is a mash-up really, Tony traits, like Gold but different as he has been trained his entire life, the only reason he has developed a sense of self is Rhodey and the fact his parents died at 17. Rhodey got there first after the car crash, getting to Tony before anyone else who knew what he was could potentially claim him. Tony definitely collects people. Yinsen and Vanko for example. Chapters from Ironman up to Avengers (not complete). But enjoyed myself rewriting some out of sequence chapters, so there is a nice big scene in Siberia. (15k)

Another Persons Wish - Now this was based on a post I saw going around. Person A is married to Person B. Person A is looking back at their life and wondering if they should have married B, etc. So, A is offered a wish. Poof. Goodbye Marriage. Person A is Steve, and the story is from Tony, person B's POV. It goes from Tony planning his anniversary(because I was apparently extremely angsty when I started this!) to waking up in the past, alone and wondering what the fuck has happened. 6 chapters entirely written. Chapter 7 is in a different file and in progress when I dabble on it. (30k)

Tarnished Gold - This is an AU from my AU AU XD. Basically similar set up to the Gold Universe, Tony escapes Hydra Captivity but is brought in by Rhodey instead of spending 2 years on his own cleaning up Hydra. He only spends about 7 months before Rhodey convinces him to come in. Few other tweaks here and there but that is just side. Rhodey and James are pals too. The plot here is Howard and Maria are brought back from the Dead and Rhodey is trying to work out how to tell them what has happened and that he can't just bring them to Tony, because he doesn't know if Tony will remember them yet. Tony is a little less 'give me orders, and I'll gut you, and more 'orders made things easier'. I basically flipped his and James reactions from the original Gold universe. Tony is more in need of a hug. It's very loosely put together. I wanted something where Howard was a good dad to offset the fact I kind of made him Hydra in the next piece, and I wanted a good family man Howard with the bringing the parents back because I love reading fics that bring Howard and Maria back. (9k)

Sins of The Father - Arno has just buried his father. His mother is in a coma, he is 20 and mourning his life now he's expected to take on the business when a visitor flips his work upside down worse than the phone call about the crash. His Father? Part of a program that summoned a creature known as a Void Walker. (A creature from the Void Loki fell into, the only native species to that area, most others can't survive the void, so Loki will read as Void Touched and is 'To Be Protected' because I think that could shake up the Avengers section nicely.) Oh and he has Howards DNA. So Arno is freaked that he has a brother, that someone released and sent to him and Arno is 100% sure he is not meant to deal with severe traumatised half-human assassins that could be his kid brother. That is how Arno meets Tony and becomes very invested and turns up big brother protective instinct to 13. When summoned they're tired to a person and has to obey orders, that person was chosen as The Asset under the idea he can't disobey, which obviously fails as Winter does everything to protect Tony, including freeing him and sending him to Arno. His last order is that Tony is not allowed to go looking for or rescue Winter, which I think will be some nice drama when Bucky gets brought in (I really like this one) It has mostly set up but 2 scenes for in the future, Tony finding Coulson threatening Arno in IM2 and the data dump. (21k) (in this S/S Helped is Yelped, I'd fix it, but I've been working on this post forreeever)

Blood and an Arc - This came about from reading the Tony is a vampire fic and noticing that when he gets turned, generally Tony hates being a vampire. There aren't many where he comes back from Afghanistan a vampire and goes, huh... Well. This could be interesting. Loosely based on Vamp the Masquerade but I've tweaked it because my brain takes ideas and then runs off madly into the sunset. It is however utterly all over the place, some from Ironman and then random out of sequence chapters that I'm unsure about as I hadn't slept in a very long time on writing them and Tony went kind of Spike-ish calling James 'Pet'. I do like the idea of Tony fully embracing his changes. Yinsen never intended Tony to live, so he did something extra whilst turning him, so he is not an ordinary baby vampire and is convinced (justifiably so) that if he meets any other vamps, they'll try to kill him. In notes have Sam considering being a werewolf who works out Tony is a vamp and freaks out, because Vampires vs Werewolves and Tony is utterly confused and tells Sam he smells of mint (seriously, insomnia) Sam is baffled to find out the centuries of hatred that is claimed to be instinctual is actually taught. Sam gets kind happy he has a Vamp friend. (20k)

The Original Plan - This sets up around the end of the Mandarin (because honestly, I prefer working with Tony that has powered, especially because James has the serum and I personally think it would expand life span more than shown in Endgame. So I like evening things out and powered Tony is my jam) Tony has a bunch of plans, and they go awry. He doesn't see why and has zero clue what's going on. It's because no matter how well he plans this out, he's caught up in other people's plans. Steve is a little more "End goal justify the anything and everything." In other words, getting Bucky back is his plan and everyone are just pawns in said plan. I've taken that tactical genius title and also pushed him a little darker. After Ultron, he brings Wanda on for 3 reasons. 1 Precedence. 2 Fixing Bucky. 3 Making sure Tony doesn't find out about his parents and making sure he is on the team and available to fix Bucky's arm. That last bit changes things as instead of pulling away from the Avengers, Tony fully moves into the compound(just after AOU, it's not good). There will be no accords and Steve will find Bucky and just move him in and general plans on telling no one about the Winter Soldier. I summed up a chunk of AOU in this format, and I liked it (in an angst and pain fashion.) But it's quite long for a screenshot, so here's a chunk. Bucky is being brought in soon, but as it is, Tony is not having a good time, there might be Wanda conditions in his mind that Steve can use to convince Tony to do things... Also, because he is living there, I couldn't justify Sam not noticing there is something very wrong, so he is asking questions he didn't in canon as Tony's PTSD is more in his face living together you know? (16k)

[ckret2]

Violet/Violent

Part 1, Hybrid Cultivar: Jonah’s got a Ghidorah head and he’s not afraid to clone it. Or, failing that, whatever stray biological matter his reluctant team of scientists finds inside of it.

Part 2, Violet/Violent: Dr. Shiragami and his fellow scientists are the proud accidental creators of an impossibility: a fusion between a rose, a human, and Godzilla. But Jonah doesn’t want a miracle. He wants a monster.

(KOTM one-shot, part 2 of 3. Stay tuned for part 3... *checks writing to-do list* ...eventually! If you want to read my other fics set in this KOTM ‘verse, click here.)

###

The pet rose/titan/human hybrid of Alan Jonah's gang of variously bribed and blackmailed scientists was growing faster than any of them had ever anticipated.

Her height had been holding steady for the last week, although she was still accruing foliage that spread her out sideways: an ever-spreading tangle of vines and branches. A matted mass of leaves enveloped the majority of her body like crocodilian scales or like great flakey layers of skin. They told themselves it was a mass of leaves, anyway. It was easier to look at her when they thought of the curtain of mass that made up her "hide" as "plant mimicking flesh" rather than as "flesh mutated to resembled plant," but in truth it was, by all measures—genetically, chemically, cellularly—a fusion of both plant and flesh into something entirely unprecedented and entirely new, in the same way that a mix of blue paint and yellow paint was neither "blue imitating yellow" nor "yellow imitating blue" but simply "green."

At most times, she was about seven feet tall, and typically she moved by undulating across the ground on vines and roots with motions like something between a millipede and a beached octopus. Other times, she pulled the thicket of her body in tight, weaving vines together like muscles and branches like bones, reshaping herself into something hunched but clearly bipedal, with stocky legs and a long thick tail and an array of grasping vines like undersized arms; and like that she stood just over ten feet tall. Most rarely, she would pull her vines and branches even tighter together into an even more solid form, stretching her legs long, straightening her back, lifting her head, sacrificing stability for height—until she stood fifteen feet tall, eerily humanoid, tottering like a toddler learning to walk. But a thick, crude, simple approximation of a human, like a golem made of trees rather than clay.

Back when she'd been about the size of a basketball, they'd started testing her for human intelligence—speaking to her, showing her books for children, seeing whether she could be taught to read and write. Within minutes of being shown a thick cardboard picture book meant to teach the alphabet, she'd seized up a marker and began scribbling letters on every surface she could reach—including letters she hadn't yet been shown. They still wondered if she'd observed them in the lab, if she'd perhaps picked them up from the scientists through some sort of as yet unidentified telepathic sense, or if she remembered them.

Dr. Shiragami suspected she remembered. He had no objective proof of this. Just a feeling, an uneasy feeling, that there was something observing them through the hybrid's strange small eyes; something that, although not human, once had been—and could recall that past life. An ex-human staring out at her former peers from the other side of death.

The letter she wrote most often was V.

She'd write it on a wall and stand beneath it, or on the floor and stand before it, as if using its tip to point at herself. Dr. Shiragami wondered what had been the name of the human whom Monster Zero had devoured and whose DNA had been used for their accidental cloning project.

He had nicknamed their rose/titan/human hybrid "Violet"—he thought that perhaps her name had once started with V, and without any idea what it was, the name of a flower seemed fitting. In his accent, when he wasn't careful, it came out as "Bioretto," which was how it caught on with the other scientists working with her; and the name drifted over the days to "Biorante" until her official name in their documentation on here was changed at last to "unknown Godzilla genetic sample" to "Biollante."

Dr. Shiragami thought the name sounded too much like "violent."

A true golem, made of clay, had two letters written on its head that meant "death." Writing a third letter changed the word to "truth" and brought the inanimate figure to life; removing the letter changed it back to "death" and put the figure back to sleep.

He hoped that, unlike a true golem, adding a letter to her name wouldn't change her nature.

###

"Dr. Shiragami, I did not bring you on to work with Monster Zero so that you could play with a walking plant."

"I work in genetics, sir. Genetics with a specialization in botany. You brought me on to gene sequence an alien that doesn't have genes."

"Hm." Jonah was staring through the observation window into the room they'd set up for Biollante. It was little more than a large room with a soft dirt floor and a skylight, with a water pipe she could work herself, a board to write on, and plastic playground equipment for lack of a better idea of what kind of enrichment a titan-plant-human needed. It was apparently insufficient entertainment; she was currently amusing herself by struggling to lift up and tip over a plastic playhouse designed to look like a castle. She'd fit in the play castle just a few weeks ago, but now it came up to her thighs when she was humanoid.

Dr. Shiragami said, "There's nothing I can do with an alien head without DNA in it, but there's—there's plenty I can do with a plant. A remarkable plant that consists of a genetic splice between three unspliceable species. I'm helping in what way I can—"

"Except you're not helping, doctor, are you? Because my objective is not to create novel freaks of nature; it's to get back on track with unleashing something that can combat the biggest extinction level event in this planet's history, i.e., us. So unless this creature you're wasting my time and resources on can do that—" Jonah suddenly fell silent. He watched wordlessly as the miniature titan knocked over a miniature castle. "Can this creature do that, doctor?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How tall is it going to get? Do you know?"

Dr. Shiragami's throat went dry.

"Has it displayed any violent tendencies?" Jonah went on. "Or are we going to have to train them into it?"

"You can't—"

"Can't I? Will you stop me?" Jonah asked. "What have you got, a doctorate? I've got men with guns."

"This is a living creature! Possibly a person—"

"You know how I feel about people."

"—A child. And a completely new form of life on top of that! I won't help you turn her into a monster."

"Fine," Jonah said. "You're welcome to resign at any time. I wish you the best of luck finding another way to fund your daughter's medical treatment."

Shiragami's blood ran cold.

"I'll leave you alone to think it over, shall I?" Jonah nodded to him and walked away.

Shiragami stared through the window at Biollante.

###

Biollante sprayed spores when she was upset, a thin sickly yellow haze of pollen. It made the scientists' and soldiers' eyes burn and throats close up. They now approached Biollante with pollen-filtering masks and goggles.

The facility hadn't been airtight when they made the discovery. Now it was, but not soon enough to prevent the spores from spreading for miles around them in every direction, settling into the sand, nearly invisible.

The desert was blooming. Trees and shrubs and vines shot into the sky, every species in the Rosaceae family they had ever tried to feed Biollante: roses and rowans and hawthorns, apples and almonds and peaches, more and more and more.

Somewhere in the Sahara, such an immediate reversal to desertification might have been a miracle.

If not for the fact that Biollante's spawn consisted of uncontrolled invasive species.

And at any rate—Jonah had not decided to hide his facility in that part of the Sahara.

Over five thousand years ago, the Sahara had been green. In fifteen thousand years, as the Earth's axis tilted, it would become green again. But even a green Sahara was mostly savannah, covered in shrubs and grasses, able to support clusters of trees only near deep water. The Sahara had never been jungles, never been rainforests. And some portions of the desert, even at the Sahara's wettest, remained desert still—such as the sea of sand dunes shared by Egypt and Libya.

Here, deep in the Sahara's heart, its truth, its natural, its healthy, its correct was desert. This was the part of the Sahara where there always had been, always would be, and always should be desert. A forest—a dry jungle of woody shrubby plants—would choke out the native species, destroy the local ecology, disrupt the weather patterns, displace the nomadic people that called the desert home. Everything about this part of the Sahara, from the temperature to the complete lack of precipitation to the nutrients in the loose sand, was unable to support a single one of the trees now growing there, much less so many.

Nevertheless, the forest spitefully flourished.

Like a fungus in a sack of flour, like a tumor in a heart.

And Biollante grew as well.

The scientists, even under Jonah's blackmail, were reluctant to harm her; so it was Jonah's soldiers who had learned via experimentation what could force her to fight. Fire—first only when it was thrust directly into her vines, but soon they trained her to lash out at the mere sight of it. Weedkiller, but only certain kinds—they'd tried so many different ones, seeing how she took each poison. Flashing blue lights. Recordings of the cries of MUTOs. Being presented with the dead head of Ghidorah, the monster that had devoured the things she was made from.

Dr. Shiragami was sure that Biollante must remember her past lives. Remember being Godzilla. Remember being human. Perhaps even remember being a rose—what did they know of the memories of flowers? Shiragami suspected plants remembered far more than humans gave them credit for.

The sight of Ghidorah made her struggle the hardest and roar the loudest. Once she'd been forced into the room with the dead head, she never cooperated with her keepers again. Now, the mere sight of humans was enough to enrage her.

She fought with spores, with choking vines, with cutting thornlike teeth. She fought with screams that they thought might have been an instinctive attempt to use Godzilla's atomic breath. These roars were horrible things, like Godzilla bellowing in rage and a woman wailing in pain and a tree splintering and falling all at once; they suspected she was twisting and snapping branches inside of her own body to make the sounds. She would no longer let anyone close enough to her to check.

Shiragami was only one remaining out of the original scientists that had been working with Biollante. All of the others either had been killed or else left—some in fear for their lives, but most in protest against what they were doing to a creature they knew deserved better. Shiragami now had new coworkers who cared much less. He would have left too—if not for his daughter, and if not for the fact that he thought someone should be working with Biollante who cared about what happened to her.

Even if he knew he wasn't doing anything to help.

They expanded her containment room when they could, but there was only so much they could do so fast when a facility that had been designed to camouflage into sand dunes was still trying to remain hidden now that it was in the center of a desiccated forest that it seemed the whole world was watching. She was too large to relocate without anyone noticing. Jonah ordered her nutrients be cut off—water only—in an attempt to slow her growth; in return, she began killing and devouring any humans that entered her enclosure. When they stopped entering, she burrowed her roots straight through the concrete foundation of the facility and deep down, they suspected perhaps even into the bedrock below.

As she grew so tall her head brushed the fifty foot skylights over her prison, she stopped using her humanoid form; as she kept growing still, she stopped using her bipedal form. Her prison cell was nothing but a mass of tangled vines, filling the room, brushing the walls. Vines—and sometimes teeth, gnashing between leaves and within blooms as she crashed branches through doors and felt her way down the halls.

Inside Jonah's facility, Biollante threatened to push them all out. Outside the unnatural forest, Monarch exploration crews backed by Egyptian and Libyan forces ventured into freakishly tall trees, as did curious or annoyed locals who wanted to know what strange forest had just appeared in the middle of their desert; it wouldn't be long until someone found the hidden facility.

Between Biollante and the investigating humans, Shiragami hoped Jonah was going to be pinched in the middle.

Jonah had what he wanted now that Biollante had been changed from a docile child into a wild animal. Shiragami wondered if Jonah had any idea how to tame her again. Surely he didn't.

For his daughter's sake, Shiragami would stay until the end, whether that end came from Biollante or Monarch; but for his other daughter's sake, he hoped she crushed Jonah beneath her roots when she escaped.

In the past couple of days, the bud of a rose ten feet long had emerged where her head had once been, up near the skylights.

Shiragami was sure it wouldn't be long now until she broke free. As soon as the rose bloomed.

###

(Click here for my masterlist of fics set in this KOTM verse, as well as my AO3 and Ko-fi links. If you enjoyed the fic, I’d appreciate a reblog or comment!)

[ladyfawkes]

Stop Calling Him ‘Horace’! - Eugene Fitzherbert Appreciation Week | Day 7: Birth Day

Sooooo.... Basically, I planned to have this pretty little fanfic finished up for today, the final day of Eugene Appreciation Week. This fanfic is extra-special, specifically it features our Eugene at ages we’ve never seen him in canon. Allow me to sum up this “plan” of mine in one word: HAAAAA!!!! Suffice it to say that although fanfic is very old-hat to me (I’ve been writing it since 1991, fgs) the world of fic-blogging is still relatively NEW to me and several of my fics and headcanons that I’ve released the past several weeks are needing to connect and soon, otherwise the whole convoluted, many-headed Medusa won’t wind up making any sense at all. I’m not exactly certain how it’ll all come together yet but I have to say that getting to spend the past week with all of you fellow Fitzy enthusiasts on Twitter and Tumblr has been some of the BEST DAYS EVER that I’ve experienced on the internet in my entire online life!!!! (And I’ve had an internet presence since 1991!!!) You’ve injected me with serious shots of Inspiration Elixir and I’ve had soooo very many ideas pass through my mind just over the past 7 days that I can’t possibly hope to catalog all of them. I haven’t felt quite this inspired in, well, YEARS.  I’ve enjoyed the heck out of sharing and exchanging headcanons, theories, ideas, essays, and even artforms. I’ve had a Tumblr account for more than ELEVEN YEARS and yet this is the first and only time I have consistently blogged and reblogged over the “heart-stopping” a time-span of 7 months **gasp** now (and counting). I’m a member of a couple dozen fandoms at least and this is the ONLY ONE that has consistently captured my interest AND managed to not scare the shit out of me so badly that I have to go and hibernate my account for the next, y’know, 3498349540 months. Until yet another worthy obsession captures my interest..... but Tangled the Series is still burning the brightest and I REALLY need it to right now, tbh. So THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everybody with whom I’ve interacted on this....I have health issues that cause me to transpose and forget names. But if you wish me to personally tag you, please tag THIS particular post and I shall tag you when I have actually finished this particular scene sequence featured in THIS ficlet. So now!!!!! Without further ado, I shall give you a teaser of the drabble-turned-ficlet-turned-short-story that will eventually feature the actual Birth Day of one Eugene Fitzherbert!!! Click the keep reading link below to see the remaining text. =)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edmund knew from the beginning that Alexys did not like the name “Horace”. At the time, the king had told her that it was family tradition that the first-born son should receive a strong family name. Despite her pointed protests, he was utterly immovable on the subject.

The more Alexys’s belly grew, the more her dislike for that name swelled too. Shouldn’t she have a say in their child’s name, given that she was putting in all the work of keeping him healthy and strong, so to speak? Shouldn’t her family names count as possibilities too? Unfortunately, Edmund’s childhood largely consisted of his father and grandfather basically hazing him into believing that he had to “take command” of virtually any subject matter, in practically any situation. As a result, he thought of just about everything in militaristic terms. Over the past 4 years, Lexy had slowly and subtly molded her hot-headed young 20-something husband toward different healthier, less uptight ways of handling life and looking at various situations.

They had finally settled on a great couple synergy and got along very well -- except for the times they had an ongoing argument, that is. And this was definitely one of those times.

“I don’t understand why you won’t see reason, Edmund!”

“Because it’s more than just a name, Alexys! It’s a birthright. It connects him directly back to us and these names might very well be the most important gift we could ever give to our children!”

“You don’t think I know that?? Just as sure as I know this child is a boy, I am equally certain that he will not live a traditional royal life. And his name must reflect that!!”

Apparently, entertaining the possibility that any son of Edmund’s wouldn’t want to grow up a devoted soldier completely servile to the Moonstone wasn’t a possibility he was ready to face. Alexys watched as Edmund drew in a long breath, held it, his face turning interesting colors. Slowly his hands balled into fists and rather than saying anything, he exhaled one very pent-up breath and stomped out of the room. She had never before seen him so agitated. Although she also sensed the naming subject wasn’t at the core of his ire that day, she never brought it up again. Alexys hoped that whatever it was eating at him, Edmund would be able to solve it by the time their child came. And that would happen any day now.

Alexys wanted so much to tell Edmund about the beautiful vivid dreams she’d been having about their future child the past few nights. But he’d been increasingly preoccupied, sullen, and distant over the past month. It was most unfortunate and Alexys was as yet at a loss of how to help him. Now....while it’s true every good mother believes their child to be exceptional, Alexys knew that their son was destined to shatter tradition. For the first time in millennia, she knew without doubt that he would be the one to bring light to the Dark Kingdom. 

One of her dreams began with a small boy, age 4 or 5, who had floppy brown hair and very expressive round eyes just like Edmund. In the dream, Alexys and the boy were standing on a trail near the edge of a narrow rock crevasse....a location that somehow seemed familiar to Lexy....but she couldn’t quite place it. The little boy smiled up at her cherubically and reached out a chubby little hand toward hers.

“Play?” he questioned sweetly. He was happily bouncing on his feet, very subtly heel to toe, and even when he was in one place he barely stood still.

“Yes, of course!” Alexys replied, grinning in awe at this absolutely beautiful dream-child her mind was currently conjuring. She gathered up her long skirts and petticoats in her left hand and took the little boy’s offered hand in her right. As they walked, she noticed a small mole at the base of the boy’s neck and it matched exactly the one that Edmund had, only in miniature. So her suspicions had been confirmed; this was indeed their son.  They approached what Alexys recognized to be a very-scaled-down version of The Great Tree....and the crevasse was apparently a much-scaled-down version of the gorge which held the actual Great Tree. Even though it wasn’t the real Tree, it still possessed a very substantial and robust trunk. It was about 30 feet high and could easily withstand the weight of a couple dozen grown adults, if they ever had the inclination to climb this dream tree from within my own mind, Alexys thought wryly. As they reached the ground level of this miniature Great Tree, the little boy let go of her hand and latched onto the tree base itself. He turned back to her and said, “Play?” again while pointing upward. Bounce, bounce. Instantly, Lexy’s mothering instincts came out. “Uh, little one, I don’t think it’s safe to climb--” but it was clear the little boy wasn’t really listening to her. And even faster than a real toddler could climb, he scrambled up and out of her reach in a flash, giggling with childish abandon. She kept pleading with this child to stop and to come back down instead, that he might get injured, but he clearly had no intention of heeding her. Not only that, she didn’t even know his name. One thing was certain -- he definitely did not answer to ‘Horace’. Poor Alexys hoped this nightmare of a fearless toddler wasn’t an omen of things yet to come.  She fleetingly considered just tearing off her petticoats and skirts to climb and then realized it wouldn’t matter anyway; she was nearly nine months pregnant and thus not climbing anything that day. “Look!” She suddenly heard the little boy’s voice again. This time, he was speaking from some 30 feet overhead through the tree boughs. Alexys moved away from the Great Tree’s base to a better vantage point further out from the trunk. Shielding her eyes from the sun, the queen looked up at the tree to see that the little boy was now pointing out toward the opposite direction of the crevasse from where they originally came. In the distance, she could see what looked to be a miniature version of the impassable mountain range between the Dark Kingdom and the Great Tree. Just beyond was Black Crystal Valley and in the center of the valley, an exact copy of The Dark Palace, only much smaller. What happened next was nothing short of absolute surreality on toast. “Look!” said the little boy’s voice again, still giggling as he climbed even higher until it looked like he was physically standing on the canopy leaves of the fake Great Tree. Lexy’s breath caught in her throat as this little boy reached up and plucked a literal piece out of the sun -- yes, he plucked a PIECE out of the actual SUN -- straight out of the actual sky. The light emanating from the Sun and the Shard he had in hand didn’t seem to be affecting the little boy the way it was affecting Alexys. She was shielding her face from its overpowering brightness when suddenly, the little boy wasn’t in the tree canopy anymore. In the blink of an eye, he was standing miraculously in front of her. Alexys blinked incredulously and tried not to yell aloud in shock due to being so startled. She failed at not yelling, but at least the little boy didn’t appear to notice. Next, this little boy held out the Sun Shard toward Lexy. He must’ve done something to help it because now she could look toward its brilliance without being blinded.�� “You can finally see my friend!” her boy said happily. Bounce, bounce. “We hug her!” he continued, holding the glowing object against his heart, rocking back and forth a few times. “And we kiss her,” and he gave the Shard his sweet toddler kisses. “And we be very soft,” he toddler-whispered, demonstrating deft touch through voice as well as action.“Now you!” he insisted, his pudgy hand offering the Sun Shard to her. Bouncy, bouncy, bounce. “I -- I don’t know. Won’t it burn me?” This dream had already gone so warped, she didn’t feel too weird for asking. Lexy was somewhat concerned with accepting the offerings of a toddler but he didn’t appear to be covered in slobber or any other mystery substances, thank goodness. Neither did the Shard. “Burn you?” the child echoed. He suddenly burst into giggles and said, “Silly Mama.” Lexy’s breath caught in her throat. Mama. He actually said it! How her mother’s heart fluttered. This….this interaction required something extra special. She oh-so-carefully got down on her knees (no small feat in her condition) so she could be level with her son. “Yes, your mama can be very silly sometimes,” Lexy acknowledged. Then she pointed toward the Shard in his hands and said, “Will you show me how?” Instantly, he came to her and passed the precious glowing object to Alexys. “Hold her here,” instructed her little boy, pointing toward his heart. Lexy was surprised to discover that the Shard wasn’t a shard at all -- and while it was very warm to the touch, it wasn’t burning hot. Pliable with only mild bit of give to it….rather like warmed sealing wax without the tackiness. Upon tucking the glowing object next to her bosom, Lexy looked upward at her boy and said, “and now I…” “Cradle,” followed by his rapid rocking back and forth motions. Bouncy-bounce bounce.  “Of course,” smiled Alexys, who had arranged both her arms to cradle this golden drop of sunlight. “Is that what you are now? Not a Shard -- but a Drop of Sunlight?” She was now talking to this object but again didn’t feel one bit silly for doing so. It seemed….alive, somehow. Slowly, carefully, she rocked back and forth while on her knees. “Sing, mama!” prompted her little boy, who was excitedly bouncing on his toes and clapping his chubby hands. A time-honored German lullaby sprang to mind and as she sang the words, the longer she sang, something rather remarkable happened. As Alexys looked down in her arms, she could’ve sworn she saw a ghost of an image, not more than a sparkling golden shadow really, of a completely different child in her arms. Only this child was much tinier and younger than the boy. This was an infant, a baby girl, one with remarkably long flowing golden hair. She appeared to have even more hair than her toddler son. By orders of magnitude more. Disembodied babygirl giggling and babbles filled the air around them. “You see her now!!!” Her little boy was more excited than ever! He clearly knows! Lexy could hear the rhythm of his feet in front of her. Bounce-bounce-bouncy bounce-bouncy-bounce. Alexys was afraid to look away, lest the wispy golden dust in her arms blow away before she could get her fill. “Who is she?” questioned Alexys in awe. “She is our friend. She is….Sun...shine. Yes. Sunshine,” the boy confirmed, tilting his head to one side as he spoke, as if he were listening for something only he could hear. ......to be continued!!!!......

[clansayeed]

Bound by Destiny ― Chapter 20: The Revelations

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny ⥽

Nadya Al Jamil (MC) has been struggling from the day she moved to Manhattan, but her new job as assistant to the mysterious CEO of Raines Corp was supposed to turn her luck around. Until she finds herself caught in the middle of a war involving the Council of Vampires who secretly run the city. An evil from the birth of Vampire-kind stirs beneath, feeding on the conflict, and finds Nadya bound to a destiny she never asked for.

Bound by Destiny and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

The danger is far from over. Tired of laying low Nadya and the others go on the offensive. Nadya, Adrian, and Kamilah go to the Musea Sanguis to confront the Trinity about the trial.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Adrian wants to be the one to take the risk but Kamilah forbids it. And when he goes to do it behind her back anyway she gets to it first.

“I wish you would just trust me sometimes, Kamilah. I know which members of my Clan will keep my secret.”

“It was a greater risk on your part. It’s done — leave it at that.”

The old phone vibrates in her hand. She glances at the first and only message it will ever receive before making quick work of snapping the SIM and tossing the battery and mobile in two different ponds.

“There’s a shred of luck in our favor,” she starts a brisk pace down the park path — doesn’t wait for Adrian and Nadya to catch up, “as they’re still in town.”

“Good — we can grab a taxi to their hotel. I don’t think we have to worry about one driver.”

“They aren’t at their hotel, Adrian. They’re at the Musea.”

Adrian mutters something under his breath Nadya can’t quite catch. But from context whatever it is it’s not a good thing. “So much for luck.”

“I’m inclined to agree. Despite his position in my Clan I’ve never found Jameson to be the most loyal.”

“He’s a good man, Kamilah. Maybe we can convince him that we’re only seeking justice.”

“I… I’m unsure of how he’ll respond.”

“Any chance we won’t run into him?”

“About as much chance as we would in the sunlight.”

The Musea Sanguis is a historian’s heaven and hell. Filled to the brim with artifacts and accounts from every period and civilization collected in one place not only for their study but also for their safekeeping. But unlike every other collection that would boast the same claims the one at the Musea is special in that it holds the mystical ‘truth’ everyone searches for.

Werewolf packs roaming the New World before Columbus ever stepped on her soil. Witches sealing deals with Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Vampire soldiers in every war and on every side. The Musea Sanguis told the tales forgotten and erased in the name of preserving the shadows and their secrets.

A necessary evil.

“So why would the Trinity come here now?”

Kamilah doesn’t answer; fixates on finding something hidden — a panel made to look like the white outer brickwork that slides aside to reveal a keypad.

Adrian shrugs. “Probably nostalgia; since the Ball brought them out of hiding. They’ve contributed to the Musea for centuries.”

“Wait — that doesn’t make sense.”

“The Musea is wherever the collection goes. New York is just its most recent home.”

Musea or not — Nadya had no idea she’d be able to cross ‘Break into a Secret Museum Within the Met’ off her bucket list. She’d have to add it first.

Kamilah punches in the final digit in a sequence and the maintenance door unlocks with a thunk of metal. The part of Nadya that was forced to endure the Heist of Monaco miniseries with Lily for thirteen hours straight knows this is too easy. Waits for something to jump out of the blackness when Kamilah opens the door and ushers them inside.

Or maybe life just isn’t a television minidrama.

The door closes behind them and darkness swallows them whole.

It’s beautiful, magnificent — ancient too but there are so many words she could use and Nadya quickly gives up trying to find them all because she’d need to go to another part of the gallery for a dictionary.

The temptation to stop and bask in the wonder of strange objects in glass cases is hard to ignore. Then she sees Adrian five steps ahead and rushes to catch up to his and Kamilah’s long strides.

There’ll be time to look at everything later. When everyone is safe.

“I can feel them,” Kamilah hisses; jerks her head towards an archway at the end of a turn, “quickly.”

The arch is rough and worn sandstone — as much an exhibit as anything under a podium or on a shelf. The exhibit’s wallpaper peels away from it; recoils from history it knows it ought not touch. If once there were engravings in the carved sides they’ve since faded with time.

Nadya lets herself indulge — brushes her fingertips along the porous surface as they pass.

“Peculiar, in fact, that as I stand before you and confess my intentions to rid myself of the pest Hydarnes, that a more loyal soldier would attempt to run me through for my wicked tongue. Yet there you stand; immobile.”

“Not immobile — Immortal. I know my place.”

“Ah, but that is the great lie. So called ‘Immortals’ walking among men… yet a blade would fell you as easily as it would a commoner.”

“Then you underestimate me, Augustine.”

“Perhaps I do, Valdemaras… Perhaps I do…”

“Nadya?”

She’s in two places at once. There’s the world in front of her; the stone pressing into her nails and feet rooted to the floor and Adrian and Kamilah turned back towards her with matching looks of confusion and worry.

Then there’s the archway; cut in sharp definition and painted vibrant to match the late King Cyrus’ famed conquests and with a familiar face glaring at her from across the room that both is and isn’t there.

She blinks rapidly — takes the choice away from her mind in where it wants to reside and forces it to focus on the here and now. To Adrian who is stopped before he can advance on her.

He looks down to Kamilah’s hand — confused.

“Let it be.” She doesn’t give him the chance to speak. But the look she gives Nadya is a knowing one. And isn’t that a big relief.

Kamilah releases him, gestures ahead. “They’re in the atrium beyond. Scout to see if Jameson is near. We won’t have long.”

Even when Nadya puts on her best ‘I’m not having strange visions I can’t explain and everything is fine’ face he doesn’t buy it.

“Are you…?”

“I’m okay. I promise.” Squeezing his hand. “Go.”

When he’s three bookshelves away Nadya goes to speak — finds herself silenced by Kamilah’s finger over her lips. They watch Adrian pass three more shelves and round a corner.

“What did you see?”

But it’s already fading — another in a long list of forgotten dreams. “It’s hazy…”

“Try Nadya, please.” And she doesn’t like the insistence in Kamilah’s voice only because it’s heartbreaking and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. “Breathe deep and try.”

She breathes. Breathes again, deep this time. Feels the gritty sand from the arch under her nails.

“It was… it was Valdas — or… his other name.”

“Valdemaras?”

Nadya nods. “Mm. Something about… I think I was him, again. I didn’t see him. Me. My face.”

But putting it into words is like painting without paint; or a brush or a canvas. She can mimic the motions and mouth words soundlessly but nothing is right.

“Come on. Adrian needs us.” She knows Kamilah and knows Kamilah won’t let it go. So she pushes the issue aside by evading the hand that moves her way and practically sprints to join Adrian around the corner. Leaves Kamilah behind only because looking back at her face is too much pain for her to focus on just then.

She comes to an abrupt stop when she turns and collides straight into Adrian’s back.

“Ow!” He doesn’t budge. More throbbing pain for her — hooray.

When the ringing in her ears stops Nadya catches a honey-sweet voice in laughter. It echoes off the domed ceiling and travels around the room like a malevolent breeze.

“There she is. Where Adrian Raines goes one can be sure his human toy follows close behind. But she isn’t all there is, is she? No… I can feel a familiar one close. Kamilah — surely you aren’t so naive as to try hiding. You’re better than that… or maybe you aren’t.”

But Kamilah isn’t hiding. She comes up right behind Nadya and coaxes Adrian forward with a hand at his back.

Isseya’s laughter continues from where she lounges on an old velveteen chaise; one of many such places to sit scattered around the vast and sparsely-filled room.

In fact as Nadya looks around there’s nothing to take up the decorative marble floor at all. The attraction lies instead in a dozen paintings hung on the walls. Each given a wide berth from the other.

Even with her glasses she can’t see the details of some at the far end of the gallery — but she doesn’t have to see them. She can hear them just fine.

Hear their voices, whispers, screams and cries of lust and loss rise and fall in tides. Hear to her left the clatter of steel and whinnying cry of warhorses as their hoofs pound a skull to dust. Hear to her right the rustle of thick curtained veils and the damp squelching of a dagger in the back.

Just as Kamilah comes beside her Nadya’s legs give way — stopped from collapsing to the ground only by the grace of Kamilah’s supernatural speed.

She claps her hands over her ears and opens her mouth in a silent scream. Feels tears sting her eyes and Adrian’s hands join in holding her up.

Their mouths are moving; her protectors trying in vain to find the source of her agony. She can’t hear a word over them.

“It seems you were right again, my love.”

Like someone’s found the dial in her mind the voices and their noises dim until they’re dull and in the background; a movie on in another room.

With bleary tear-filled vision Nadya looks up, up — focuses on the figure with his back turned to them. His attention unable to be ripped away from the painting as tall as he and a head more.

“How much did we bet?” asks Valdas in a calm echo. He turns and begins a leisurely stroll towards Isseya’s seat.

“Thirty-seven.”

“Shame — but I knew I couldn’t be wrong. I’ll be benevolent this time; you can pick my prizes when we return home.”

It takes everything inside her, which isn’t much left at this point, but Nadya musters up enough of her own voice to speak.

“Wh—What’s… hap-peni—ing… to m-mme…?”

The god-like vampire gives them a fanged grin. Isn’t fazed by anything so weak and unimportant as the snarls Kamilah and Adrian throw his way.

“Something wonderful.”

There’s a change in Adrian — she feels it first, is too slow to react — watches him rush the Trinity in a blur. “Whatever you’re doing to her, st—”

Valdas throws Adrian across the room effortlessly; waves his hand as if swatting a fly.

The younger vampire’s body collides into a stone pillar with a crunch. He falls to the ground limp but conscious. Struggles to stand.

“Adrian stop.” A shudder overtakes her as the voices crescendo again but Kamilah’s ready this time; holds her tight. “We did not come here to fight you, Domine. This is needless torture!”

Isseya snarls. “Is that sympathy, Kamilah? From you of all vampires? It’s disgusting.”

“She is an innocent.”

“She is beloved by that cur,” Isseya throws a gesture as Adrian struggles to stand, “and nothing he does is innocent.”

Her words fall flat as her lover rests his hand on her shoulder. “Isseya — calm yourself. Look in her eyes. She doesn’t know what she holds in her grasp.”

In silence something dawns on the wicked woman’s face — it falls into pity and scorn. “That’s her own fault.”

“I don’t disagree.”

Enough. It’s too much. Make it stop! “Make it-t stop, Kamilah, please…”

“Valdas!”

Whether he’s hesitating because he relishes her pain or because the idea of doing anything for Kamilah disgusts him — it doesn’t matter. Every passing second the voices and sounds clash and collide together and scalding pain stings at her temples.

Then a blink. That’s all it takes for the ancient vampire to cross the room and cup her cheeks in his large palms. She remembers now; recognizes the same face from the backs of her eyelids through the archway. The same features unchanged but now hardened by eternity.

“No!” Adrian cries. Nearly collapses in his haste to separate them but Isseya yanks him back by the throat with an almost feral grin. “Let go of — get away from her! Kamilah! Kamilah do something!”

She does. Looks into Valdas’ red eyes and sees something there Nadya can’t understand.

She doesn’t pull Nadya away from his grasp. Lets it be.

“Kamilah!”

“Trust me, Adrian, please!” And she asks the same thing of Nadya in silence.

Trust me. Please, trust me.

She does. Even when it feels like the noises around her are splitting her skull into fragments she does. When Valdas places two fingers on each temple she does.

There’s a vaguely familiar tugging in her gut — then nothing at all. No noise, no pain, no air on her face or sweat on her brow. There is blackness and a void and the feeling of blood pounding in her temples and roots growing out from the tips of her fingers and toes…

… then it’s gone.

Valdas stays close — she can smell the spice of his clothes. And something deeper than that… two thousand sheer veils hovering between them that she can brush away with a mere thought.

She can see the hall with her eyes closed; feel Kamilah and the leaden weight of her years and Adrian’s, too, the same but different in a way that can’t be defined. Nadya feels all the organs in her body yearning towards a brightness she can only call ‘devotion’ at the other end of the room.

So much blood, so bright…

But around her—around them—the world is empty. Dark and dim; filled with nothing but feathers that arrive on one wind and vanish on the next. The fragility of human life crumbling to a fine powder underneath their touch.

The moon was once bright but no longer holds the same appeal. In a world without cities or smog or the fake light of mankind there was once a forest bathed in the light of the endless stars. And in that forest there was a lover.

But that lover is gone now.

Right?

Nadya inhales and begins to plummet back down — flew up to the moon but wasn’t close enough to touch. Eternity rushes back within her, roots withered and dried and rotting away from her stems. The forest too gone in a single second.

When she opens her eyes the noises are silent. The hall is just a hall — startlingly empty for the crowd and clutter of the shelves they passed.

A rough thumb strokes her cheekbone and brings her back to herself. Causes Nadya to look up into Valdas’ golden eyes. She struggles to catch her breath.

Kamilah strokes her hair — tries and fails to keep the worry from her voice.

“Nadya — are you all right?”

She replies with a nod. Can’t — or maybe just doesn’t want to — tear her eyes away from the man before her.

“You’re so alone…” So many voices have tried to make a home in her head that Nadya doesn’t recognize her own right away. “You cling to what’s left but beyond her there’s… there’s nothing.”

Nadya reaches up and mirrors Valdas’ touch with gentle hands. “You’d rather wither as a corpse than live as a man. They’re the same thing to you; both empty and tired.”

“To know completion only to lose it was to be ripped in two.” Valdas says.

“But… having half of yourself must be better than nothing at all.”

“Such a way of thinking is mortal and beyond me. I wish it weren’t.”

“Eternity doesn’t settle for anything less.”

Her own words surprise her. That’s not Nadya’s way of thinking — it’s so pessimistic. But then again it’s not really her way of thinking now is it?

Valdas confirms the thought with an appraising look.

“Indeed…” His touch slides down her face — she’s seen what those hands can do; their violence. Yet he cradles her gently. “What I would not give for even a moment of your power.”

Power. It breaks the spell they’re under. Makes Nadya push herself away and back into Kamilah’s waiting protection.

She doesn’t have any power.

Hard eyes glance to where Adrian struggles desperately against Isseya’s impossible hold. The look she gives Valdas is pleading. Earnest.

The man waves his hand — silent permission given — and Adrian is at her side.

“What—did he—Nadya—I—”

She lets him know she’s okay with a touch. But that’s not what they came here to do. That’s not what they’re risking everything for. She’s risking everything for him and not the other way around.

“Why did you lie to the Council?” There’s no room for doubt; no room to oppose her. She knows — he knows that she knows.

She just wish she knew how she knew. And the confusion of it makes her skull want to crack open like an egg.

When Valdas doesn’t answer she tries his lover; “Why did you lie and say you weren’t with Adrian? You knew it would condemn him to death. What do you have against him?”

“Turn your accusatory eye elsewhere, little girl,” Isseya snarls, “perhaps to those you so vehemently protect. The best liars hide in plain sight.”

Adrian tenses. “How did I lie? Whatever Vega’s told you about the Ferals —”

“You think we care about a meager infestation?” Valdas barks a laugh; returns to Isseya’s side with a protective arm around her waist. “We’ve seen the likes of worse and weathered them still.”

“So this isn’t about the Council?”

“We couldn’t care less about you, them, or the problems you make for yourselves.”

“We’ve seen it all before.” agrees Isseya.

But Adrian’s struggling — refuses to let it go. “What you heard at the trial was lies; all of it. Vega fabricated it to point the finger at me. I… I don’t know why. I wish I knew why. But if you tell me why he made you lie then maybe I can figure it out.”

Adrian’s focus is on Valdas like he’s the one who makes all the decisions. But Nadya knows better — watches behind him as a peculiar expression melts onto the priestess’ features. She knows that look.

If it wasn’t for Adrian’s healing blood she’d probably still have bruises from that look.

“Wait —” it dawns on her slowly, “— were you there to testify for or against Adrian in the first place?”

Smart girl, says the glint in Valdas’ eyes.

“We were called to speak on behalf of the accused — on Adrian’s behalf. And when certain mysteries came to light we decided it was best to extend the same courtesy to him that was given to us.”

Adrian struggles to make sense of it. “What does that even mean? When did I lie to you? What—what courtesy?”

But it’s like the more questions he asks the more their silent rage builds. There’s a rope being pulled between them and every confused outcry Adrian gives is another slash of the knife. She doesn’t want to see what will happen when it finally snaps.

If she wasn’t still consumed with the raw feeling Valdas left inside of her — some parting gift, jerk — Nadya knows she’d be able to focus. But her insides are sandpaper and every breath, movement, thought makes them grate together.

Her only solace is that Nadya knows what that feeling is like. Felt it on her own level deep inside when she saw Lily losing her grip on the edge of her life. And again when she turned back against her better judgment to watch her friends leap into a Feral mob to keep her safe.

And again when Adrian was sentenced to death.

Eternity doesn’t settle.

The burning in her body is grief without an outlet.

How dare he. Innocent faces hide deceitful minds. How dare he. Our lifetimes are haunted by ghosts we dare not give names to — yet this is more. He is more. But dare we hope again after all this time?

Is it better to hope for a spec of eternity than to grieve for the entirety of it?

“I remember him fondly, Domine, though I would not dare to say my memory is worth more than yours. Strange, though, that Adrian would know nothing of you, your infamy, or your grief.

“And to weigh the bulk of his innocence on a creature that could very well be Cynbel’s reflection… We all saw it — even Kamilah felt haunted by his presence. You did the right thing Valdemaras. You did the right thing to he who would rather see you and your love continue to mourn than help you hope.”

Okay, so, whatever he did to her Nadya very much wants taken back — only because she’s not asleep and not hallucinating and both of those would be preferable to standing where she feels safest in the world yet somehow can’t escape the villainous drawl of Adam Vega.

Even if it answers a lot of unasked questions.

God, please let her be right about this.

“It wasn’t Adrian who lied to you. It was Vega.”

Adrian frowns. “Nadya, what are you talking about?”

“Just what I was going to ask…” growls Valdas in warning. She can feel the rumble of his voice deep in her own breast.

So Nadya turns her words — and attention — to Isseya. The uncontrollable hurricane. The coin of fate.

“Isseya, please. Think about it. You were so angry that night, right? I made you think about him — the one you lost — and you wanted to —”

“I wanted to rip you limb from limb and feed your organs in little pieces to the pond fish.”

Artful. And shudder-worthy. “E-Exactly. So I can’t even imagine what it must have felt like to sit in that trial and see Cadence. He looked just like him.”

“You saw it too…?” She asks in an almost broken whisper. Digs her nails deep into the meat of her lover’s upper arm; makes blood run down in thin strands that begin to drip-drip-drip on the white floor.

Nadya nods. “I did. And if I did then you can be sure Vega did with me. And I think he realized he could use your grief against you and for himself.”

Kamilah stays silent behind her. She doesn’t need to speak — Nadya knows; finally understands what her ominous warning was meant to serve as at Cadence and Katherine’s departure.

There’s a sliver of doubt, now — something hasty and makeshift to mend the fragile rope between them.

Isseya clings to her partner. “I told you, I told you…”

“I know, my love, but —”

“But that,” Nadya interrupts — and keeps going fast before he decides to do something irrational like snap her neck for her insolence, “right there. At the Ball you guys didn’t care who heard you but all of a sudden you were lying in front of the tribunal. You’re better than that — you said so yourself, Valdas.

“You don’t care what happens; to Adrian or to the Council. So why deny it so quickly? What do you gain from lying?”

The man grits his teeth. “If there is a point you ought to reach it. Quickly.”

Her heart begins to race. “Vega talked to you after the Ball didn’t he? He asked you about the questions you asked Cadence and then brought up all those painful memories of your lover, Cynbel.”

“Vega was an old acquaintance.”

“Pretty convenient timing though, huh?”

“He knows better than such insolence. We are —”

“No one cares who you are anymore!” And as the only one in the room with a pulse she really hates how hers keeps skipping every other beat. It’s just not fair. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you guys but the world moved on even if you didn’t. Nobody cares about the Trinity when there aren’t even three of you.

“Look at the facts, Valdas, please. Vega triggered your grief and — and used your hope, Isseya — to make you think Adrian was lying to you.”

“It… makes a modicum of sense.”

Kamilah steps out from behind her. Pensive thoughts and connected dots race through her mind. “If, through some means, Vega knew the man Adrian would call as his witness — knew the resemblance he bore — then it would be easy to reaffirm your doubts once the trial went in his direction.”

“And how would a youth like Vega know we would choose to deny your Adrian’s claims?” Valdas scoffs.

“Because he has moved on with the world, and knows we will always stay true to one thing.” Isseya relinquishes her bloody grip and coaxes her lover to meet her eyes.

“The rest of the world may burn but we will remain through the ages.”

Nadya, Kamilah, and Adrian watch the couple now enveloped in each other; gentle touches to eternal skin and one kiss in the wake of thousands — maybe even millions.

Adrian tries to advance — moves aside the hand she reaches out in warning — and moves slow and purposeful. Aware of the bloodshed just beneath the surface in front of them.

His sincerity makes his voice break. “I know what it’s like to love someone — and to lose them. How it never really goes away and… and how we have all these years to keep feeling the hurt. If I had even an inkling that your partner was still alive I would have done everything in my power to help you reunite.”

“See? Adrian isn’t capable of what Vega claims. He’s, well,” Kamilah looks him up and down, “he’s too damn soft, frankly.”

Isseya is the first to pull away. Keeps herself in the safety of Valdas’ embrace while scrutinizing Adrian and his words.

“I see none of the Godmaker’s ambition in you. Adam was always prone to bold and fantastical claims but that… that was a lie and he knew it.”

The Godmaker. Nadya doesn’t want to know. One problem at a time.

And speaking of problems — time is going to become one if they don’t start hurrying. She can’t let herself drown in the strangeness of what’s happening.

So here she goes. “The fact of the matter is Vega used you both. He used your loyalty to each other and I’d even say he used the memory of your partner to get what he wanted out of you and out of the Council.

“It’s despicable, and wrong, and downright evil. But he’s a career politician so I can’t even pretend I’m surprised…” Nadya shakes her head to get her thoughts back on track. “So please help us get back at him. Help us clear Adrian’s name and figure out who the real person at fault is.”

The couple exchange looks — Nadya’s actually sweating waiting for an answer. Then Kamilah makes… a surprisingly good point.

“If mortal altruism is not enough to spur you forward, then consider the state of your reputation should Adam succeed through manipulating you.”

That makes up their minds. If Nadya’s a little disappointed in them for it she doesn’t let it show. Something’s better than nothing.

At first glance it looks like Valdas’ focus is elsewhere — perhaps in the symbolic distance. Then Nadya follows his eyes across the hall to a painting alone in the far corner. Tucked away as if to be forgotten on purpose.

A dull throbbing starts in her temples. Not the same roaring pain from before but similar. The longer she looks the stronger it gets.

She doesn’t know how she knows; she simply does. Can hear it in the back of her mind the same way she’s heard everything else this night.

“What are the chances that this scrap of canvas will survive? Especially if you insist we leave it behind?”

“Do you not wish to see what will become of it, my dear? To see if it — like us — persists the ages?”

“A grand experiment for a later date. I have a meeting with Parliament at dusk.”

“Parliament will not rot from the inside after one day, Holy One. Stay with us. I beseech you.”

“You know how to tempt me so.”

“I may have an inkling after all these years.”

“And for the years yet to come.”

That’s why they came here. Nadya’s certain. Knows that if she runs across the room she’ll see two familiar faces and the one from the painting at Marcel’s castle. The Trinity.

Another familiar face, too. It lingers in the doorway at the far end of the room; silent, stoic.

She lets herself take in the gaunt features for what feels like the first time. Notes every inch of greying flesh and black veins pulsing out of throbbing temples disfigured with bumps like horns. Stares at lips peeled back and bitten off in the frenzy of hunger; the sharp and almost pristine tip of every fanged tooth.

The yellowing illness around bulging eyes. Pupils narrowed into slits. The way they tremble and struggle to hold her transfixed in their horror and, strangely, their splendor too.

She opens her mouth to speak. Breaks the spell they were held under.

The Feral lets out an unearthly howl and rushes in for the kill.

[sparklyjojos]

CARNIVAL recaps [1/13] These will be full recaps of Carnival, the JDC book between Carnival Eve (recapped here) and Carnival Day (will be recapped as soon as this one is done). It's necessary to know the events of Cosmic, Joker and Carnival Eve before tackling this one. (The Saimon Family Case isn't ultra necessary, but it certainly helps.)

Carnival on its own has 26 episodes, each one spanning a week. They’re told completely out of chronological order. A note at the beginning encourages the reader to either experience them in this weird sequence (“the reader method”), or use the list provided to read them in chronological order (“the writer method”). The recap follows the reader’s way.

This and the next book are intentionally written to be VERY confusing and will constantly jump between places, times and characters. There are dates at the beginning of chapters, but they won't necessary mean a chapter happens exactly in that timeframe. There are tons and tons of characters. GOOD LUCK.

As for content warnings, there will be suicide, a lot of death and grieving in general, mental illness, a global virus pandemic, poorly handled Nazis, and also the author can’t write gay people.

Today’s recap: Christmas on Easter, S-detectives galore, broken gaydars, and the author letting you know early that he won’t hesitate to kill major characters.

--

[PART 1 — CARNIVAL ACT]

--

ONE

23 Nov 1996 — 29 Nov 1996

EASTER ISLAND

--

Now that it's been over three months since the Crime Olympics began on August 10th, the estimated death toll has reached over four hundred million.

Each Saturday a great tragic incident happens somewhere in the world at exactly 1 PM local time. A mysterious terrorist organization RISE announced that it’s the doing of the Billion Killer, an omnipotent being with no tangible form.

While the Billion Killer is fearsome, most of the deaths happen due to other causes. RISE’s “Invisible Soldiers” (IS for short) are stealthily killing people, and the global crime rate is on the rise. Some call it an Invisible War. There’s also a new disease called Alive [or Arrive? can be either word] spreading around and killing people in droves with its extremely low survival chance.

--

Christmas Mizuno has recently been staying on Easter Island. While there, he makes friends with a blind girl called Joyeeta, the daughter of the owner of the inn that Christmas is staying at.

Before he came here, Christmas had assisted Ryuuguu Jounosuke in investigating one of the Billion Killer’s cases in Peru. While they were there, Ryuuguu suddenly collapsed in fever brought on by the Alive disease, but had the extreme luck to recover after a short period of coma. But after he woke up, he seemed… different, and in an unusually brash way told Christmas to basically fuck off and try to find any clues on the Easter Island.

Christmas was confused by the sudden change in Ryuuguu, but at least glad about him surviving. So much has already been lost in the Crime Olympics. The JDC building’s explosion in August killed close to 300 out of 350 members of the organization. Christmas’s beloved Kasumi Fuyuka was dead, and they couldn’t even find Ajiro Souji’s body in the rubble.

--

When Christmas and Joyeeta are riding around the island, she suddenly says in her poor English that “a giant bird is falling”, and immediately afterwards they hear a rumbling sound and feel vibrations like that of an earthquake. Christmas assumes a plane has crashed and they speed up towards the beach.

It turns out the Moai statues have suddenly fallen over and killed a lot of tourists. Between the bodies lies the sixteenth skull of the Billion Killer; these are strangely glistening skulls made out of yet unidentified material, that so far are suspected to be symbolic “medals” of the Crime Olympics, one skull being left on each crime scene of the Billion Killer.

One of the dead tourists managed to draw a dying message in the sand: a simple image of a flying bird (?) and the letters NAS next to it.

When they return to town, they discover Joyeeta’s father had died around the same time the statues fell, stabbed with a yet unknown weapon in a pool full of other people. Christmas thinks a lot about how the impact of this one death is lost next to the more flashy Billion Killer case.

Joyeeta believes that “the bird” may have been brought here by her dead older sister Tierra as revenge, and that it killed their father. Tierra had been once attacked by a guest, pushed him in self-defense and accidentally killed him, which made the enraged father beat her and kick her out. Tierra was found dead on the beach later.

Despite being fed this entire sob story, Christmas already suspects that it was Joyeeta who killed her father, but leaves that be.

He can't guess the trick behind the Moai case. What did the bird and NAS mean? The Nazca bird drawing? Or maybe a NASA space shuttle crashed near the island? Unable to figure out much, Christmas eventually goes back to Peru to reunite with Ryuuguu and investigate the Nazca lines just in case.

After he leaves, we the readers learn that the blind girl named Joyeeta was the one who had died, and Tierra was just pretending to be her. After Joyeeta’s death, Tierra had found a dagger on the beach and prayed to the Moai asking for her father to die somehow. When she checked the beach later, the dagger wasn’t there—and now it seems like the Moai heard her wish.

--

Thinking again on how Joyeeta's father could have been killed, Christmas reasons out that he was stabbed when everyone’s attention was focused on the rumbling and noise. It’s like that saying about “the magician's left hand”—an illusionist distracts the audience with his right hand while really performing the trick with his left.

If something had enough force to topple the Moai statues, maybe it would also be able to fling a knife into the victim somehow. Or maybe Christmas is just rambling again, but hey, wandering around in confusion until he bumps into a solution is his reasoning method after all.

--

TWO

30 Nov 1996 — 06 Dec 1996

NAZCA LINES

--

When Christmas arrives in Peru a week after the Moai case, another weird incident has already happened: the terrain inside the eye of the Condor of the Nazca lines was burned in a pattern resembling a crop circle, yet another skull of the Billion Killer found in the center. There were no victims of the incident.

Christmas, Ryuuguu, Jouka (dressed completely in white which complements Ryuuguu’s black nicely) and the local guide investigate the scene.

Ryuuguu really changed after going through Alive. While he still has all his quirky mannerisms, he acts colder and Christmas gets the unsettling feeling that his usually friendly colleague now hates his guts. What’s more, Ryuuguu recently proposed to Jouka, which came completely out of the blue for someone seemingly as uninterested in relationships. Almost like he’s a whole other person.

Ryuuguu eventually leaves them to board a Cessna with the guide so they can examine the Nazca lines from above. Christmas talks with Jouka. She also noticed the change in their fellow detective, but accepts that nobody stays the same forever.

--

The Cessna crashes.

The guide survives for long enough to explain the accident. Something weird happened to the engine and made them crash. Up until the last moments Ryuuguu encouraged the guide to escape while staying calmly in his seat. His last words were:

“So this is fate… nothing can save you from it… Ryuuguu Jounosuke dies here...”

Detectives aren’t exempt from death. Four million people die every day in the Crime Olympics, Ryuuguu and the guide being just a tiny fraction of that number. Accidents happen. Christmas knows this, but the shocking news are still too much to handle. Jouka starts wearing black.

Christmas thinks that maybe it wasn’t a complete accident. Maybe Ryuuguu was aware of how much the disease changed him and gave up on life. It’s been confirmed that he showed up at the plane’s checkup that day, which someone with his talent for breaking machines would never do to avoid touching something important by accident.

Jouka believes it could have been murder, but can’t guess the details. She says cryptically that she’s certain that “Jounosuke died, but Ryuuguu is still alive”. Christmas desperately wants to believe this means there were TWO Ryuuguus present, one of them a disguised stranger. The real Ryuuguu caught on and sabotaged the engine, thus killing the imposter.

But no matter how hard they hope and investigate, they have to accept that the person who was at the checkup and who died in the crash was the same original Ryuuguu Jounosuke, and he will never come back again.

The only thing they may do is to turn away from the unchangeable past and focus on the future.

--

THREE

24 Aug 1996 — 30 Aug 1996

STONEHENGE

--

Hikimiya Yuuya was lucky enough not to be in the JDC building when it exploded, but it still had a giant emotional impact on him. So many people died, Ajiro Souji went missing, and some like Kirika Mai are still fighting for their life in the hospital.

The Billion Killer struck once again on August 24th, this time causing pieces of the famous Stonehenge to fall over and kill some tourists, the mandatory glistening skull found at the scene. On the same day a similar case happened in France: over a hundred people were killed when the famous Carnac Stones somehow fell on their heads, as if they had been teleported high into the air.

Hikimiya is staying at the Paris headquarters of the international detective organization DOLL, which occupies a large building complex surrounding the Place des Vosges. He’s tasked with assisting one of only seven S-rank detectives in the world. Seven may seem like very few, but it’s actually a lot; often there was just a single S-detective in existence for years, and having more than four at once was unheard of until the last few decades. In comparison, there are over five thousand registered A-detectives.

JDC isn't looking too good in the rankings. They do have two S-ranks (Ajiro and Juku) and one A-rank (Yaiba), but Kirika is C-rank, Jounosuke and Nemu are both D, and poor, poor Hikimiya never rose above an F.

The book gives us a handy list of S detectives, all of which will be highly relevant later. (In order: name — official DOLL title — less official DOLL nickname)

Zerofini Roi — Armchair Leader — Madame Alpha (from France)

Lemuria Sullivan — Knight in Night — Herr Omega (from Spain)

Desert Colosseum — Deus Ex Machina — Frau D (from Germany)

Ronely Queen — Whodunnit Magician — Mistress Queen (from USA)

Souji Ajiro — Philo Sphere — Mister Dick (from Japan)

Firannu Meiruneshia — Locked Empress — E-Mail (from Italy)

Juku Tsukumo — God of Detectives — Jukebox (from Japan)

[I still can’t believe it’s spelt Ronely Queen, and I have long given up on trying to find the correct way to romanize Meiruneshia's name. And I know that Ajiro’s nickname probably comes from “detective” just like Dick Gumshoe, but. MISTER DICK. Who’s responsible for this.]

A person chosen to be an S-detective stays listed as one until their death is confirmed. They will still be considered S-detectives even if they’re kicked out of DOLL (Lemuria Sullivan apparently was, but that's a story for another time).

Strangely enough, all of the S-detectives (aside from Lemuria) can speak fluid Japanese, the official explanation being that Firannu is a giant nerd interested in Japan and infected everyone with enthusiasm towards learning the language.

--

Hikimiya and Desert Colosseum / Frau D are both experts in data analysis. Their work room aside from the traditional shelves full of files also hosts a giant supercomputer, which is affectionately called Egg Mac because of its egg-shaped dome that the operator enters to access the interface.

Despite the nickname, Frau D is a guy. He’s a heavy corpulent man with a charming round face and a weird hairstyle that makes Hikimiya think of a plant (cut short in the back and sides, the rest grown into a slightly green tuft). He has a fastidiously kept thin moustache and skin that’s way too nice for a dude in his early thirties. He’s strangely fashionable too. Really likes chewing gum and popcorn.

Hikimiya has several problems with the man. One, Frau always calls him the equivalent of “boy”, which feels condescending, even though Hikimiya really is like a decade younger and pretty naive. Two, Frau loves stupid pranks like pretending he’s dead, and it’s hard to tell whether he says something seriously or in jest. Three, he changes the number lock to their work room all the time, so Hikimiya has to sit outside and painstakingly figure out the new code.

Frau states that Hikimiya is the one who should mature, learn how to keep cool, and examine the situation carefully instead of relying on preconceptions (and so falling for something like that death prank). He thinks Hikimiya may already be an E-rank detective, maybe even a D-rank, and Frau just wants to help polish his skills.

It’s true that Hikimiya now needs barely an hour to break the number lock instead of half a day… but it’s still insufferable.

--

Hikimiya also meets DOLL’s leader and the single best detective in the world, Madame Alpha. At first sight she seems to be a pretty normal friendly lady. She looks a lot like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote and has that particular calming mom energy.

Hikimiya is a little awkward with introductions, which makes Frau poke fun at him, to which Madame just advises Hikimiya to never take anything Frau says too seriously. (“But I’m always serious~”, Frau responds.)

Madame states that she already found the culprit of the Carnac Stones case, talked with him, and he promised to go to the police station and turn himself in. (Frau criticizes her naivety, to which she responds like “it’s my case, I do what I want”.) But Madame already knows that it's not the case that Hikimiya wanted to ask about—rather, he wants to know if Ajiro Souji really died in the explosion. As expected from the greatest detective in the world, it's like she's reading his thoughts.

Madame’s unique and for now unexplained Zero Reasoning tells her that Ajiro Souji is still alive.

--

Later Hikimiya admits to Frau that he was surprised about Madame actually being a woman, considering that Frau is a man despite his nickname.

Frau explains that the nickname comes from the fact that in a way, he’s the actual Desert Colosseum's "wife" (Frau D = Frau Desert Colosseum). You see, Frau on his own is simply a talented A-detective. The one called Desert Colosseum is actually the advanced AI of the Egg Mac, and when Frau uses it for data analysis, together they reach the power equivalent to that of an S-rank detective.

--

FOUR

31 Aug 1996 — 06 Sept 1996

CAPPADOCIA

--

Hikimiya meets up in a cafe with two of his colleagues who have just arrived in France to investigate the Carnac Stones case (Madame found the culprit, but the trick itself has yet to be explained). It’s Tsukumo Nemu and Ryuuguu Jounosuke, who have been investigating as a great duo lately.

Jounosuke and Nemu had been lucky enough that they were leaving the JDC building at the time of the explosion, so they came out pretty much unscathed. Nemu still worries about Kirika, but Jounosuke as always is good at putting others at ease with his words. Perhaps it’s because he treats words and languages as dear friends, and always takes great care using them. ...but then he also has all those mannerisms like talking about himself in third person, or calling everyone with a gendered suffix -shi or -jou instead of the expected -san.

Jounosuke gets persuaded to try the local sweet apple tea instead of his usual coffee. The waiter still accidentally brings coffee, and Jounosuke even dumps a bunch of sugar into it on reflex before they have it taken back. Hikimiya says that the tea is already sweet and doesn't need sugar, but Jounosuke's sweet tooth is a hard enemy to defeat. They exchange friendly banter, then Jounosuke out of nowhere tells Hikimiya a riddle, and when surprised Hikimiya can’t find the right answer, Jounosuke triumphantly adds just a tiny amount of sugar into the tea, because hey, he won, he deserves it.

Hikimiya enjoys the stupid banter, but still can’t fully relax because of something that happened the previous day...

--

When he and Frau were at work yesterday, they got news about a new case, this one in Cappadocia. The Billion Killer had somehow managed to instantly burn down the entire rock monastery together with a movie crew, so that only the rock base and yet another skull remained. Frau asked Hikimiya to gather data about the place in the library.

Cappadocia is a quite popular and mysterious tourist spot. There are even wacky theories about the underground city having been an ancient nuclear shelter. Apparently, naturally formed ancient layers with glass have been found in many deserts, and some theorize they had been created by the heat of ancient nuclear explosions. Hikimiya thinks this ancient nuclear war theory is as interesting as it is depressing. Maybe humans really don’t change.

Hikimiya was pretty upset with his day and with Frau, but at least he was looking forward to meeting Nemu and Jounosuke again.

As expected from a detective said to know even tomorrow's news, Frau D already knew about his protégé's future meeting and asked if Nemu was Hikimiya’s girlfriend. When Hikimiya said she wasn't, Frau casually asked if Jounosuke was his boyfriend, then, because from what Frau could see, Hikimiya’s utterly happy expression probably meant he was about to meet with a loved one. Hikimiya sputtered and insisted they’re all just good friends. [Oh Hikimiya, if only you knew what your pixiv tag looks like...]

Frau was still looking at him seriously, so Hikimiya just tried to give him the data on Cappadocia that he had asked for. But Frau then stated he didn't need it, because he had already investigated the topic by himself in full—he just wanted Hikimiya to learn how to use sources instead of blindly accepting information from another person.

Hikimiya’s frustration with his own helplessness and the world hit a peak at this moment, and before he could blink, he was already rambling out completely irrational angry nonsense, like “then why are you keeping me here if I'm so useless, oh I get it, you’re gay and only chose me as an assistant from the DOLL database because of my looks rather than my skills”.

Hikimiya himself wasn’t sure where the hell this line came from. Maybe because he was often perceived as gay despite not swinging that way at all [here described as “being normal”, fuck off], so he was just subconsciously directing any self-doubt away from himself. Or maybe he was afraid of people targeting him for his body or something.

...and also because Frau had once taken him to a place widely known for its gay clientele. That happened too. [Hikimiya, honey, I'm sorry to say this, but if it took you this long to realize a guy who invited you to THE Club Banana Café on a go-go night was gay, then I question your detective skills.]

Frau was at first shocked at this outburst, but then calmed down and asked, “How did you know that I’m gay?” [What do you mean how, you literally took him to- you know what, let's just settle on both these guys being absolute dumbasses.]

--

...so even now when he’s with his friends in a cafeteria Hikimiya can’t fully relax, because he’s still dreading the possibility that oh god, what if the man he’s currently stuck working under really just wants him for his body? Frau told him not to worry, sexual harassment was not at all his thing and he wouldn’t force anyone into a relationship, BUT WHAT IF. [Are we really doing the predatory gay trope? Are we really? Sigh.]

Anyway… they talk about the Crime Olympics some more, and Hikimiya and Jounosuke continue to banter like brothers.

Suddenly there’s a commotion. The waiter that served the detectives’ table stumbles over towards Jounosuke and vomits blood before falling dead.

Jounosuke takes it upon himself to investigate the death. He talks to the chef to learn what happened, then comes back to his friends with a weird expression.

He discovered that the spoon in the sugar bowl at their table didn’t have any fingerprints on it. Of course neither Hikimiya nor Nemu used it (the sweet tea didn't need sugar) and Jounosuke as always had his gloves on, but it’s weird that other patrons who had been sitting there earlier didn’t leave fingerprints.

The only explanation is that any fingerprints were wiped away by the murderer while he was adding poison to the sugar. The waiter probably accidentally poisoned himself with the sweetened coffee he took back to the kitchen. The incident likely wasn’t even a murder attempt directed specifically at the detectives, but just another one of the thousands of everyday chaotic crimes of the Crime Olympics. Jounosuke was incredibly lucky to have used only a little bit of the sugar for his tea. Hikimiya unwittingly saved his life.

Jounosuke can't stop blaming himself for the waiter’s death. Hikimiya knows that this feeling of guilt is partially born from the memory of that time in Geneijo when he couldn’t protect Souya. Hikimiya wasn’t even there at the time, so he has no idea what to say to Jounosuke to cheer him up. Just like every day in the Crime Olympics, he’s just left cursing his own helplessness.

--

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

[someonestole15]

Cooldown

This time I might just disappear.

There is a song with those words mixed in there, I’m quite sure many of you know of it. Hell below, the Empire troops are moving in to secure the perimeter around the mountain while we sit up here, heading back to their command ship. Finger still itches, the whole encounter with the siblings felt off, they had me locked in, but left as soon as the call came through. Have they finally started following orders, or did they not account for the additional unit in this squad of ours?

Perhaps, I shouldn’t think about it too much, but I’ll keep an eye out for the two. A bit more relaxed now, I turned my view to the window as we passed by Saber.

About twice the size of the Corporation Destroyer, 260 meters, Saber was clearly designed for fire support, several turrets lined the main deck, all aimed towards the site we had just left. Smaller anti-air weaponry spread around, they had likely dropped that missile out of the air before it made its mark.

Spaced out by the humming and fatigue, I sorted out some of the data within my head while the helicopter made its way to the control vessel. A poke to my shoulder by Valkyrie woke me back up as the copilot confirmed the landing sequence.

A carrier vessel, floating in what seemed large enough to call an ocean, runways along the main deck, one offset to the side. Several dropships rising up to the main deck via an elevator, the helicopter circled around for a moment before landing on a pad out to the side of the ship.

A bump as the wheels touched steel, a soldier opened up the door as we dismounted and got clear. Locust took off almost immediately, disappearing over the hull while the soldier instructed us to follow him. Through a bulkhead and several winding corridors, claustrophobia started kicking in again.

Stalking eyes everywhere, I can feel them staring at me. I don’t belong here; I am but a visitor in this house of madness. Clicking of gears, the thoughts form on their own, why are you here?

Paranoia coming back knocking. Silence, your points remain mute but carry a hint of things that could happen here.

Another door, the soldier stood next to it and signaled us to enter. Sticking with the same style as the corridors, white surfaces and bright lights, cables running along the ceiling above a steel desk with two chairs on one side and two on the other.

“Take a seat. Command will be here in a moment.” The soldier at the door said as he closed the door. Right, let’s get this over with, I pulled one of the chairs and sat down, placing my rifle next to me as Valkyrie sat down, Nine sticking besides her.

A hologram projection built up on the chairs opposite to us, an avatar of a man with greying hair and one of the Empress herself.

“Channel is secure, we’re good to go.”

“Good. It’s good to see you are still in one piece, my Ghost.”

“A few new scars from this, but thank you.”

“Shall we get to the main point?”

“Of course, Commander Erikson.”

Surface of the table formed a grid as several elements appeared along it, designating different units out of the field.

Empire had things mostly under control; the area surrounding the mountain was back in their hold as the Corporation units had retreated. Crimson still sitting in orbit, data showed they were refueling their vessel to get out of the system, any trace left by them either denied or burned to ashes.

He said, she said situation, hard to keep under control.

Their plan for us three? Get on board the carrier and follow the Crimson. Cut the head off the snake before it gets any hungrier.

“Our current intel on them is limited, but their leader is not of the shy type…” Commander said as he drew a picture of the Crimson captain to the screen.

From a blacked out visor to a monster, barely recognizable anymore. The Captain’s face was like a mechanical skull, several sharp metal spikes around his head like a halo, making him seem almost celestial. Devil in a costume, changing your exterior doesn’t change who you are inside, I felt a slight sliver of anger in my body, the words I heard from him on Mars echoing inside my head. Somethings different while others remain, his eyes still carried a strong red glow to them.

“Can you get me to him?”

“I was just getting to that part.” Another picture to the screen, a sleek medium sized spaceship, fitted for both orbital and planetary operations.

“This is our specialized model for scouting, equipped for low profile operations. Built in cloaking tech capable of matching the surrounding area and match the temperature. Almost undetectable on radar, we can use these to get you close to the carrier.”

“When are we are taking off?”

“That’s on you. Gear up and get everything you need together, our ships armory is at your service. Empress, anything you wish to add?”

“My people have asked to stop the fight, and with one surgical strike, we can do that. Your squad has already shown that you can handle them. Give them hell, my ghost. Show them your fangs, oh Valkyrie mine and keep the wolf alive.”

The communications cut, I took in the information as Valkyrie looked over the intel again, running the files to her systems.

Rifle back in grips, I placed it on my sling and walked to the door. A quick knock, the soldier opened it up and I headed down the hallway. Rapid footsteps as Valkyrie caught up, Nine sticking with her as always.

Beginning of an end, I can feel it inside my systems. An elevator down to the armory, stopping here would be a waste of resources and time, and I got a bone to pick with the Captain.

The storm has passed, but another is already on the way.

[kitsunebishake]

Why Hríd is such an amazing character who just got done wrong during his “character arc” (SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK II AND FORGING BONDS)

WARMING: THIS IS JUST ONE LONG ASS LOVEMAIL POST FOR HRÍD

this was originally written as a thread on twitter but i’ll try my best to put it all here because someone asked for it some time ago

I’m putting it here because @chascah suggested i uploaded it here as well for those people who actually appreciate the icy boy

this is basically an analysis to most if not every quote from hríd, also adding some translations and little details from the japanese quotes (and some lore behind the whole idea of hríd’s new year alt)

let’s start then!

lemme start with the fact that hríd only appeared in 3 out of 13 chapters, yet is the character that caught my interest the most (funny because i already had a crush on alfonse, then i saw hríd and was like "oh, hello there")

hríd arrived like a half-dead yet somehow composed prince who somehow (x2) survived by himself in múspell for weeks (maybe even months, there's no exact timeline but it is canon that alfonse and the others spent some weeks in nifl, it probably also took them a while to navigate through múspell until loki arrived as ylgr)

he served as some kind of excuse to not put bruno too much with the main characters, practically a messenger only despite this guy being alive with burns and a broken sword (the crack on gjöll's blade hurts bc he couldve actually lost his sword and ended up defenseless in battle oof)

so, there was no really much use of his character other than being a magical solution for everything

he even helped unmask loki (though they never explain why hríd suspected of ylgr, we only know loki's own take)

btw, can we talk about the fact he probably outsmarted loki while the others weren't yet in múspell? he terrorized surtr's army and even outsmarted laegjarn and laevatein

and since he survived for so long i believe most of his wounds were made by surtr himself

they never really say whether he actually managed to kill surtr or not, but let's say yes just to add up on all of the things hríd does just in the story

at first glance it looks like he's doing nothing, but reading further into it and applying some logic

hríd's... he's pretty impressive for a prince so young

gotta also add how hríd appears less impulsive in japanese than in english

when "alfonse" blames him for being a traitor, hríd gets to the defensive immediately in english

in japanese, he's more in shock, probably because after all he's tried, he's being doubted by his allies (which shows a lot how much he cares about being perceived as perfect, something i'll get on to later if i have enough time)

I added this part in the middle of the whole thing because it was a different thread so excuse the sudden change of topic, kinda. It’s supposed to be from the last conversation in Book 2, where Fjorm tells Hríd she’s going to stay in Askr despite her “condition”.

"I understand your feelings, Sister. By all means, go. I will pray for your safety."

this is one of the quotes i'd like to put in that one hríd character thread i want to make

the feeling behind this quote got completely lost in translation, as there's no way to translate it properly

in japanese, hríd uses a pecular way of speech to refer to his sister here he says "... I get it. If that is what you wish, it's alright to go. I'll pray for your safety." the peculiar part, aside from hríds "..." is where he refers to fjorm, the "you"

hríd normally uses "kimi" to refer to people, which is like a more... gentle? way of speaking? men usually use it towards women bc they want to treat them nicely, and jps in general use it with people they don't know (it's that, or "anata" or "[name]-san")

yet here, hríd decides to use "omae" to refer to fjorm, which is more informal and even rude (specially for someone who normally uses "kimi", it means he wanted to express some kind of anger or frustration about fjorm's decision without saying it directly,,,,,,,,,,,,,which is very japanese to do so,,,,,, *looks into the distant "most japanese people i've known don't directly say 'no' and instead go 'hmmmmmm' '*very indirectly rejects*' and it's probably a fact*)

it feels like instead of being supportive, hríd just understood there was no way of convincing fjorm to stay with them

so he gave up and felt hurt by that

please protect hríd

Back to the rest of the analysis.

now let's talk about forging bonds, in the wiki there's only the opening part transcribed in japanese, the rest is only on english (i curse not having started playing 3 months earlier orz)

the first thing you can notice in the japanese version is how informal hríd is when he's stressed

while he speaks in an usually softer manner, here, he doesn't even greet ylgr and gunnthrá, he goes directly to "gunnthrá... ah, ylgr is here too" (he kinda does the same in the mainstory, where he just says “ah, fjorm, you’re okay... ylgr too :)”)

AND IMMEDIATELY, HIS NEXT TEXT IS HIM CALLING GUNNTHRÁ WITH "OMAE”

ALREADY DEEP INTO THE STRESS OF MÚSPELL INVADING THEM

this shows how easily stressed hríd gets and how much he lets his emotions dirve his attitude and actions (which makes sense with the part where he tells fjorm she should be the one wielding leiptr and not him, he's too emotional despite how much he tries not to be)

in these parts we also see some level of deattachment from gunnthrá, on english he goes "sister..." by the end of the opening conversation

in the jp, however, he stays silent, he doesn't even call her name

idk if it's just me overanalyzing it, but from my experience with animoo and vidya, it feels a little weird that he says nothing there, like he's thinking (this is probably foreshadowing hríd's inner feelings oof)

something that i particularily like about this event is that hríd seems so at ease when he's on the dreams, even in the english translation it seems like that he mentions it might be because he feels at ease with kiran but i feel like it also has to do with the fact they're just a dream, it's not the real world, there's nothing to worry in a world where there's no war

at least, that's the feeling his dialogues give me

the closest thing to that hríd is his lvl40 speech and ny hríd (who's happier)

the only quote where hríd mentions some type of concern for his mother btw

from here on it only gets worse when it comes to hríd, though

he speaks about the invasion and such he talks in a way that implies he's probably taking the role of a commander (same as how it is implied he trains the soldier, or that he trains with them, though since he's been training alone with fjorm for so long, it's most likely the former) aside from that, he's weighting on himself the responsibility of what happens to nifl and what happens to his family

and since he's doing so, here's when it comes the part of hríd not being able to care about himself

this young man is carrying a heavy weight, the hopes and dreams and lives of many innocent and PEACEFUL people who barely even know how to fight, on top of those of his loved ones

it doesn't seem like anyone asked him to, not even his mother or sisters

he just decided it on his own that he needed to be "the perfect prince/king" in order to "protect" them

/even if it costs him his life/

he prepared his sisters for that moment (which, might give an insight that hríd knew more than he says, but let's leave my conspiracy theories aside lol)

and to THAT PART, we can add this from the mainstory

in english, when he's rescued, he thanks them for doing so

but in the jp text he actually apologizes for it

not sure how to exactly translate it, but it's something along the lines of "my apologies...for having to be saved..."

idk you guys, but it sounds like what someone who just failed to commit suicide would say, instead of someone who's grateful to be alive

and it makes sense, with how obsessed hríd seems to be about "dying for his loved ones" despite it not being entirely necessary

i mean, look at that, he survived surtr and was aided by bruno as he escaped (probably? they never say what exactly happened, but since they're looking for hríd and not for bruno, it's most likely that they just found each other by accident)

and yes, even though he seems to calm down with those thoughts during the sequence, it is only a dream and we know he has no recolection of them

he forgets completely about that motivation to keep living, which leads him into further down the path of death  (whichinnorsemythologymightbecalledhríd,,,,,,orgjöll,,,ykow?)

im still not done, havent even gotten to his unit quotes lmao

hríd still did his best to survive for as long as he could, but it feels more like his strategic "i'm making time for fjorm and the askrans to make their moves" purely, out of the fact he didn't seem too happy to survive until he saw fjorm and ylgr

hat's all of hríd's quotes from that event, i can finally move on to his unit quotes

let's start with this one, luckily it is practically the same quote in both languages

this immediatelly counters any "hríd is boring" comment

though that is subjective, in my case what drove me even further into loving hríd was how different he was from usual characters related to ice

he might come off as cold sometimes, but it's purely because he's actually really dense/has a really bad sense of humor

in jp he tries to make an ice joke, but says "it's not suitable for him" (which is funny because in english he does have ice puns and i hate it)

1. he doesn't mention his mother 2. hríd blaming himself and being kinda gloomy part 1 

"I should have protected my people and sisters, I couldn't play that role... I can never forget that." 

this part hurts a lot (it's a little more poetic than the og one, i like it lol)

he could be talking about himself, about his sisters, his people, or all together, since the four of them have expressed desire for peace, and all four ended hurt by such thing

this part is scary, though it's not as much in english

NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSLATION, but because of his battle lines in eng (i'll get to that first and then come back to this one)

the most shockingly different skill trigger is the second one

the first one is exactly the same the third one in jp is "this is the last blow" (or smth like that) the fourth one is a little weird to translate (ice upon you works, but "freeze your life" sounds a little scary??)

OKAY BUT THE SECOND ONE ALONG WITH THE VOICE CLIP

IT KINDA SCARES ME A LITTLE FOR MY CUTE SWEET MOCHI BOY

it literally says "no mercy for the enemy"

IT'S LITERALLY SUGAR COATED, hríd went from a gentle giant to a merciless killer (who knows how many muspellians he's killed???) thanks to surtr and his fucking ass

hríd blaming himself and being gloomy part 2

the fact that he has not one, not two, not three, but about 5 to 6 lines that imply he's still dueling over everything that happened during the war is hurtful, he really can't forgive himself for that

he also sounds a little dead to me here (it’s one of the voiced quotes from his status page!)

which brings me back to the initial scary one

hríd is obsessed with earning his peace no matter what

and for that, he wants to get stronger

for that, he's willing to even perish, for everyone's sake

it's so sickening for me since i can kinda relate???? it reminds me a lot of the kind of wording they use for depression-themed japanese works, with the "peace" part and his willingness to just die anytime (which, is actually pretty normal for a warrior outside of FE. outside)

iT MAKES ME FEEL BAD BUT AT THE SAME TIME i kinda like he's written this way

AND EVEN WHEN HE'S LIKE THAT, hríd is still a gentle sweetheart who speaks so kindly you kinda forgets how merciless he is in the battlefield

like, the audio where he holds kiran's hands???? where he speaks about how the order of heroes saved nifl????? EVEN WHEN HE GETS STARTLED

he's always such a gentle and kind person

it makes me hate surtr even more because they didn't deserve this

hríd didn't deserve going through all of this fucking shit HE. DESERVED. HAPPINESS. AND PEACE.

then there's the ny hríd

he's an angel

a happy angel who makes me a little sad bc og hríd is not as happy

From here on everything was written like 2 weeks after the previous stuff :’) i’m sowwy

he's a resolute prince, he has the resolution of saving even at least one person,,,,,instead of being a "king", instead of being a "brother", or a "prince", he just wants to be "a hero",,,

hello, this is my opening statement of why ny hríd makes me cry with just existing

welcome

let us start with something that makes his quotes even better, particularily the previous quote and his lvl40 speech, which is the powerful meaning of this alt itself for a character such as hríd

in japan, new year used to be celebrated not at the end of the year, but at the end of winter, which is where geishun comes into the scheme, as it currently means "new years greetings" but in those old times, it was actually "welcoming spring" (or something along those lines i suck for precise translations)

and that's where our next quote comes into the picture

hríd speaks about nifl's winter, about how it practically symbolizes the nifleans' strength and will power

the alt itself is a more positive hríd, one who's willing to try his hardest for everyone, who doesn't regret his past, but looks into the future and has the purpose of being even better than before

of course, this hríd didn't suffer the same fate as the OG hríd, as he still has all 3 sisters (i want to believe ylgr was with them, just not shown bc of the lack of space for a sixth character) and now also 2 new allies to power their search for peace and strength to defend that peace

so, while our normal hríd is desparate to become stronger and suffers, this hríd is like his pole opposite, it's like the sun and the moon (too bad this hríd has no default special, sol would've fit him so well)

can we talk about how he feels so comfortable wearing the celebratory outfit?

the obi (the.....thing that acts as a belt) should be tied strongly enough so the hakama (the pants) doesnt fall down while he fights, yet he feels comfortable with it

i mean, it isn't as constrictive as a kimono as it doesn't prevent him from moving around freely, but he still shouldn't normally feel as comfortable with it as he is, he's never even worn something like that (it is implied, at least) yet he's loving it, isn't it adorable???

one time i joked about hríd being able to feel when winter is coming or when snow will start falling but

i think this quote pretty much confirmed it (YOU CAN'T SAY IT'S BECAUSE IT'S WARM, IT DOES SNOW IN ASKR WE'VE SEEN IT)

blessed boy munchs a whole fucking piece of mixed flour with FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF FUCKING SUGAR 

he's got a sweet tooth i know it, i know my people when i see them

it's just that he doesn't seem disgusted, and he also only mentions the mochi so we can assume he didn't drink sake or matcha with it

he ate the fucking thing alone and apparently liked it

we have a sweet angel, guys

i just think this quote is cute, he loves cold just as much as i love him

t HIS IS SUCH AN IMPROVEMENT FROM OUR NORMAL HRÍD HE'S SO POSITIVE AND DETERMINED I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

though in japanese, the last quote is a little more gloomy

im not entirely sure of how to properly translate it *looks at the jisho page of the kanji he cant understand* it's certainly a word

but it could be something like "to be in such a predicament from so early in the year... I'm unable to say it's pathetic..."

i???? imagine he says he "can't say it" because he's trying to be positive?????? or something along those lines, but saying it proves he's taking it way to the extreme

nasakenai can also be shameful or miserable, pitable, disgraceful stuff like that

i'm not sure how to describe this quote?

this time it's the english localisation that kinda throws me off, i don't understand what he's trying to say lmao

in japenese he's saying something about having been graced this early in the new year

7 years speaking english and i still can't break down complex phrases the only reason i've survived this long is through the power of deduction abilities

pray for me

u know hríd's damaged quotes in english are all grunts, right?

in japanese, this hríd has a peculiar quote i find adorable when he gets damaged

he says "as expected from you...!"

hE'S COMPLIMENTING HIS ENEMY, THIS IS THE SAME MAN WHO SAYS NO MERCY AS HE KILLS THE FOE

btw listening to his english quotes is so funny

he sounds so damn cool in japanese and in english he

he sounds like a fucking nerd

I THINK IM TAKING A LIKING TO HIS ENGLISH VOICE ACTING PURELY BECAUSE HE SOUNDS STUPID

compare this (JP) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/1/12/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2_jp.wav

to this (ENG) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/6/6a/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2.wav

it's the exact same quote by the two different VAs

HE SOUNDS LIKE A NERD IN THE ENGLISH VERSION I CAN'T

back to translations and analysis

i hate this one

his eng quote is more positive while the japanese one is something along the lines of "I was useless... I'm sorry..."

I

HATE

IT

look, say whatever you want, but hríd is such a sweet man

he cares for people and he tries his best to be the perfect prince everyone thinks he is

AND FOR HIS *MORE POSITIVE VERSION* TO SAY THIS AS HE IS DEFEATED IS JUST

WHAT DID HE DO TO U INTSYS TO MAKE HIM SUFFER THIS MUCH??

despite how "im so useless...!" his japanese version is

he way he says these two quotes sounds way more positive in japanese lmao it's the same translation, only that he's more "I'll repay you!!!!!!" in jp ( https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/3/34/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_MAP_3_jp.wav )

adorable

can’t use emojis on this pc so i’ll just leave the whole screenshot here

you see this quote here?

this is what it actually says

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY CHANGED IT BUT I THINK IT'S CUTE BECAUSE I THINK HE DIDN'T JUST SWALLOW THE WHOLE MOCHI

HE ATE IT NORMALLY AND THINKS HE'S GOT SOME ON HIS CLOTHES BC PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT HIM LGHDSKLGSDFKS

why are u so cute aaaaaaa///////////

this is probably the translation of hríd's quotes i hate the most  in english it just...sounds so rude

in japanese it's more like "could you please tell me if i'm wearing these clothes wrong? i'll fix it fast"

he's trying to be respectful to the hoshidans sobs

THESE TWO QUOTES ARE SO DIFFERENT BUT SO EQUALLY ADORABLE AND POWERFUL

THIS 180~195CM OR SO MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE PERSON IN THIS WHOLE PUTRID PLANET AND IM GOING TO TELL YOU WHY

first, this is my fave quote on english

he sounds so confused as to why people think the hoshidan clothes suit him

HE'S. NOT. AWARE. OF HOW FUCKING GOOD HE LOOKS.

TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE CUTEST SHIT EVER HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT

to make it more adorable, in japanese, the original quote is something like "I wonder what makes a type of clothing 'suit' you..."

HE'S GOING ALL PHYLOSOFICAL ON THAT SHIT probably because people keep telling him he looks good in that kind of clothing

this man's density is so powerful that he can't even begin to understand people find him attractive and that the attire literally makes him go from a 10 to a 1000000000000000000

he doesn't get it and he wants to know if it's really true so he goes out of his way TO ASK KIRAN

i love hríd so much he's so adorabl e

i want to give him a hug

with this i finish my thread for now

for now

hopefully we will get another alt for hríd and i can come back to spam about how adorable his quotes are

please stan hríd he's literally an angel

[fuzziekins]

The Post-Frozen II Dream You May or May Not Have Asked For

After seeing Frozen II again last weekend i had a dream about some potential events post-movie. This is my attempt at writing a more detailed story version of that dream based off my thread of tweets. It’s actually not as long as i thought it was gonna be and is in less detail than usual for me and while it differs slightly from my typical writing, for the most part it’s still pretty a pretty simplified idea. And just that - an idea. Not really any spoilers for the movie unless you count the subtle mentioning of how the movie ends with where Anna and Elsa are. And maybe one other brief scene. I can’t speak for how accurate the potential of this sequence even is let alone if i was true enough to any of the characters but here’s hoping you enjoy it! ❄️❄️

Autumn in Northuldra was so different from Arendelle. Arendellians had their own process of transitioning from summer to fall. Fashions changed. Decorations went up. But in Northuldra, before Elsa’s eyes she could see the season change. It was steadier. And, perhaps to the naked eye, the change could occur in the blink of an eye. But the Northuldra were in tune with nature; they could sense and see the little things. And slowly but surely, so could Elsa. The leaves began to change their hues and the breezes were beginning to return, slowly putting an end to summer’s humidity. It was relaxing. The peace that Elsa felt living in the forest could no longer compare to what it was like living in Arandelle.

“Enjoying the view?”

Elsa tilted her head, watching Yelena approach from behind. A soft smile crossed her face in response.

“As are many of my people,” Yelena commented. “Some still cannot believe the clear sky. I myself had almost forgotten what it looked like.”

“A lot has certainly changed in a year,” Elsa observed. “Oh! And I must thank you for helping to teach me the ways of the Northuldra. I know it’s been...a process.”

That wasn’t to say it as a negative; there were things that made both Arendelle and Northuldra unique. Still, once in a while something came up in which Elsa had to relearn. Something that was perhaps more prominent in Arendelle compared to Northuldra. Or that meant something completely different.

“It was also a process dealing with the soldiers for over thirty years,” the elder reminded her. “However that was during a time of darkness. There is no comparison.”

Elsa furrowed her brows slightly. “May...may I ask you something?”

To that, Yelena nodded.

“When we first arrived here, you nor the soldiers could stand the sight of each other. Yet when the Earth Giants came or the fire raged, it was the people that mattered rather than from where they hailed. Why was that, if there was such hatred?” she inquired.

“We have had our differences. And yes, the war has brought out the worst that we saw in each other,” Yelena acknowledged. “But in moments of crisis such as that, our goal was the same - to survive. For that brief moment our feelings did not matter. Because in nature there is no hatred. It does not dictate who thrives and who suffers because of who we are or where we come from. That, we determine on our own. The Northuldra work with nature; we try our best to remain in tune with it. And that is why we try to follow such thinking.” She gestured behind her, taking note of a pair of men with a reindeer. They were grooming it while occasionally stealing glances from each other. One appeared to say something, causing the other to laugh in response. “Nature knows no judgment, nor do the spirits. We may live as we desire, love as we desire. So long as our connection to the forest and the spirits remain in tact and we are respectful of them, as well as each other, that is all that matters.”

And yet no matter how short or long Elsa has referred to Northuldra as her home, the beauty of it and its people never ceased to amaze her. She could not help but bask in the moment, continuing to feel such acceptance in a way that had always seemed to be lacking in Arendelle.

The winds increased slightly, resulting in Elsa’s locks lifting from her shoulders. Blinking, she ran her fingers through them and then turned her head. A folded paper crane began descending in front of her. That could only mean one thing - Anna. Elsa’s smile grew; though they no longer resided together it seemed as though they were never truly apart.

“Thank you, Gale.”

She gently removed the note from Gale’s hold, allowing the spirit to continue on her way. Gently unfolding the sides, Elsa began reading.

“Anna and Kristoff are hosting a family dinner and game night,” she summarized. “It’s tomorrow night. I suppose they wanted to do something before the wedding planning became overwhelming. Anna says I should bring someone along; you are all family after all.”

“How thoughtful,” Yelena complimented. “You will leave in the morning, I presume?”

“Yes. And only for a couple of days,” she promised.

“Why don’t you invite Ryder and Honeymaren?” Yelena suggested.

“I would not ask Nokk to carry more than one other person. That would not be fair to it,” she answered. “Nor would it be fair for any one of the reindeer to leave you or their home even for a short amount of time. The next time they go, that everyone goes is, at least I believe, for Anna’s wedding.”

The leader nodded in understanding. “Very well. But, if memory serves, Anna and Kristoff got on nicely with the siblings. They might enjoy seeing one another again. I recommend at least asking. I believe Ryder is with a group of the reindeer.” Yelena turned to return to her people, rolling her eyes in the process. “After all, where else would he possibly be.”

---

“Ok. Ok. You can do this.”

“Of course you can.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I believe in you Ryder!”

“But what if I mess up? Again?”

“Maybe you’ll get her to laugh this time.”

Honeymaren shook her head. Watching her brother converse with the reindeer, especially in such ridiculous voices, was typically either entertaining or frustrating. In this particular case it was certainly the latter.

“Maybe you should quit while you’re behind,” she suggested.

Ryder scoffed. “No way! This time I’m really gonna follow through! Even Walter thinks so!”

Honeymaren sighed. “I’m not sure what’s more painful. The fact that that you actually think you have a chance with Elsa or that you named the reindeer Walter.”

He held up a finger. “Hey! Walter wanted something unique and different, ok? And at least he actually believes in me, unlike my own sister.”

“I’m just saying, all of these so-called grand gestures of yours either seem to go over Elsa’s head or they fail miserably,” she commented. “What about the time-”

“We don’t talk about that.”

“Or the time that-”

“Or that.”

“Or when you got your foot stuck in the-”

“Never speak of that again!”

To that, the reindeer rolled his eyes.

Honeymaren sighed. “You’re a romantic. You mean well. I get it. But with all the times you failed miserably beyond belief with every other woman you ever remotely came into contact with...”

“Appreciate the sugar coating,” he commented sarcastically.

Still, Honeymaren continued. “What makes you think you have any sort of chance with Elsa? She’s the fifth spirit. She’s incredible. She’s powerful. She’s caring. She’s a protector. Not to mention she’s beautiful...”

“Yeah, ok, I’m gonna stop you right there,” Ryder decided.

Honeymaren bit her tongue as if that would help fight off the blush that she was sure was rising to her cheeks. There was no way Ryder possibly caught on.... Could he?

“You obviously know nothing about the inner workings of women,” he scoffed.

Was that a relief or an insult?

“I think I know more than you,” she responded in attempt to brush it off.

Ryder sighed. “You only say that because you hang out with her so much. I don’t know how you do it. Whatever you say to her or do with her, it’s like when you guys get together there’s no one else.” He leaned against Walter in disappointment. “I just...wish that could be me, you know?”

Honeymaren bit her lip. He wasn’t wrong...she and Elsa did hang out a lot...they had gotten close...they enjoyed each others’ company...but did Ryder have to say it that way? Like it was such a bad thing? Like it meant nothing? Unless...it did mean something?

Fortunately, the sound of footsteps approaching would get both of them off the subject.

Honeymaren shook the feeling off. Whether Elsa was coming or not, it was the perfect opportunity to end this uncomfortable conversation. “Maybe this is your chance.”

“Yes! Let’s do it!” Ryder cheered. “Walter, get ready!”

Walter knelt down, allowing Ryder to climb on him. Signaling for Walter to remain steady, Ryder attempted to hold his balance. He wobbled a bit, as he opted to stand on his back rather than sit. Once Walter was standing straight up Ryder puffed out his chest. He cleared his throat, doing a few tests to make it sound deeper. He placed his hands on his hips as if to strike a power pose. He closed his eyes, seeming to embrace the feeling as well as the anticipation of his next action.

“Elsa! Wielder of ice! Oh powerful spirit! Protector of our land! Goddess of my heart!” he declared.

Honeymaren hit her head, closing her eyes in embarrassment. “Oh my god.”

“Please! Weill you do me the honor of going ooooo-ooooo-aaaaaaah!”

Midway through his question Walter knelt down and Ryder took a step forward. However instead of stepping forward as if to put on the guise of a pungent reindeer king, Ryder lost his balance. Specifically, he somehow tripped over one of Walter’s antlers. The action caused the reindeer to jump back in shock which, in turn, resulted in Ryder tumbling forward with a scream. He ended up sliding through the dirt head first, landing at Elsa’s feet. The Ice Queen took a step back, bringing her arms up towards her chest as a defense mechanism. Certainly an improvement over using ice first, in her opinion. She bit her lip, staring at her now unconscious friend. There was a pause before she allowed anything to escape her lips.

“Is he alright...?”

Honeymaren rose to her feet. “He has a thick skull. He’ll be fine.” She approached Elsa, though took a brief detour at Walter. She rubbed his head gently. “Keep an eye on him and don’t try that again.”

Wasn’t that obvious? Walter grunted in response.

“So what’s up?”

“I’ll be leaving for Arendelle in the morning for a few days. Anna wants to have a family dinner,” Elsa explained. She paused briefly before shrugging her shoulders. “She has also extended the invitation. Would you like to come?”

Honeymaren blinked. “Me?”

“Oh, only if you want to of course,” Elsa responded quickly.

“No...I mean, no, not no. Of course I...don’t want to...not come....” Honeymaren paused, pondering over her choice of words. That didn’t sound right. She shook her head. “What I mean to say is, I’d love to.”

However, shortly after she answered her face fell. Honeymaren’s gaze tilted down towards her brother, who was still out cold. She couldn’t do that to him...could she? No, probably not.

“But...are you sure you don’t want to ask Ryder?” she asked.

Elsa scoffed lightly, almost as if she were responding to a joke. “I don’t need another Kristoff around. One is plenty.”

“But Ryder does get along with him and Anna. Actually he...” Honeymaren scrunched her nose. “He seems to idolize Kristoff for some reason.”

Elsa giggled. “I know. I don’t understand it either. But I’d rather take you. So?”

Honeymaren bit her lip. She stole a glance away from Elsa and placed her hands behind her back. A break from Ryder...just the two of them....

“Then I guess I can’t say no.”

---

“ELSA ELSA ELSA ELSA ELSA!”

Anna’s excited screams echoed through the streets of Arendelle as she rushed to greet her sister. Her hands clasped her dress tightly, lifting it up just enough so her feet could pound against the cobble. Passersby nearly jumped out of the queen’s way to allow her through. Once in a while Anna did manage to get out a “hi” or “excuse me” to someone she ran past, but as soon as the question escaped her lips her eyes darted straight ahead to the water. Sure she could see Elsa on Nokk approaching she returned to excitedly screaming for her sister. Once Anna reached her, Elsa had barely descended from the water spirit before the sisters were reunited in a tight embrace.

“ELSA ELSA ELSA ELSA ELSA! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I’VE SEEN YOU I’M SO EXCITED I MISSED YOU!” Anna exclaimed.

Elsa giggled. “I missed you, too, sis.” She pulled out of the hug, though only slightly. “But it’s only been a couple of weeks.”

Anna blinked. “Wait, what? No! There’s no way it’s been that quick. It was definitely way more time than that. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Elsa promised.

Anna bit her lip. “Huh....” She paused, eyes darting at the nearby surroundings before returning to Elsa. “Let’s never go that long again. Promise?”

“I promise,” she nodded. Elsa turned to Nokk, gently rubbing its snout. “Thank you for the ride. Keep an eye on everyone.”

With a soft neigh, the water spirit liquidized and galloped back into the water, slowly descending into its depths.

Honeymaren exhaled. “That was everything I imagined it would be.”

Anna excitedly grabbed her arm. “What was it like, riding a water horse? Or was it an ice horse? Or is it both? Was it wet? Cold? Magical? Dreamy?”

“What about riding me?”

The deep voice could have only belonged to Sven - or rather, Kristoff speaking for Sven. The two finally reached the women, Sven wasting no time in rubbing his snout against Anna followed by a petting from Elsa while Kristoff took a moment to catch his breath.

“You know...you could’ve just, I don’t know, waited? For me to get Sven? Instead of rushing ahead like that,” Kristoff said. He exhaled, toying with his shirt collar. “Man is it hot out here?”

“Sorry Kristoff,” Anna apologized innocently. “I just couldn’t wait to see my sister again.”

He narrowed his gaze. “Yeah, never would’ve guessed that.” 

“Nice to see you, too, Kristoff,” Elsa stated.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He climbed down from Sven and, once Elsa opened her arms, he gave her a hug. “Hi Elsa.” He followed the same suit with Honeymaren. “Good to see you again Honeymaren.” He then stepped back and went to hug a third person - only to nearly fall into the water in front of him. “Hey Ry....WHOA!” He stumbled briefly, waving his arms in attempt to regain his balance. He managed to bend his body back just enough to allow one foot flat on the solid ground. “Where’s Ryder?”

“He’s back home,” Honeymaren answered.

“Wait he’s where?” Kristoff’s face fell. He looked to his fiancee. “I thought you told Elsa she could bring anyone.”

“I did,” Anna nodded.

“But then where’s Ryder?”

“He’s not here.”

“So he wasn’t invited.”

“I don’t make the rules.”

“Who’s fault is that?”

Honeymaren sighed. “I should’ve fought more for him to come.”

“No, I made the choice who to invite,” Elsa replied.

“It’s fine. We’re all going to have a great time!” Anna promised. “Oh, you have to see what Oaken did with his shop! He remodeled, got new inventory, his family all started working there with him, oh and last week he told the funniest story! We have so much to catch up on while you’re here!” Squealing with glee, she led Elsa and Honeymaren towards the castle. Once again, Kristoff and Sven were left behind.

Sven let out a moan.

“I know,” Kristoff pet his friend’s head, “I miss him, too.”

“It was just so nice to have someone who understood me,” Sven replied.

“Yeah I...” Kristoff started but cut himself off. “Oh, and I don’t?”

---

“And the Snowgies are still working on repairing that barn window!” Anna laughed. “Sometimes I think they just end up falling asleep there. One of the stable boys was afraid he stepped in something no one wants to step in!” She quickly straightened her posture and then lifted her fork to continue eating. Anna may have still been quirky as ever, but she was still the queen. “True story.”

“I knew you would be perfect for Arendelle. I could have never made it this lively,” Elsa complimented.

“Yeah but we knew you would protect us from anything when you were queen,” Anna stated. “I could never do that.”

“Being queen isn’t all about being protective or in charge. Sometimes it’s just giving people hope. You do that every day,” Elsa assured her.

Anna’s smile grew. “Really?”

Elsa shrugged. “You did that for me every day when I was here. I was able to rule for as long as I did because I had you by my side.”

Anna’s hands jumped to her face. “Awwww Elsa!” she squeaked.

Beside her, Kristoff sniffled. He picked up his napkin and rubbed his eyes. “I promised I wouldn’t cry at dinner. It was just so sweet.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet,” Anna grinned, pecking his cheek. She sat back up in her chair. “Are there family game nights in Northuldra, too?”

“We’ve tried a few nights,” Honeymaren admitted, “but truth be told there are moments were many of us forget we’re not trapped anymore. So there’s still the expectation of the Earth Giants attacking.”

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” Anna gasped. “I didn’t realize...”

“It’s fine,” Honeymaren assured her. “Some changes just still take some getting used to.”

“Is there anything we can do to make you feel more at home while you’re here?” Anna wondered.

“You’re letting me share this with you. That’s plenty for tonight,” she answered.

“But you are going to let me win at Charades, right?” Kristoff asked hopefully. “I mean let’s face it, with Olaf visiting Marshmallow and the Snowgies I’m at a horrible disadvantage.”

“Serves you right for letting Olaf rearrange,” Anna commented. Her gaze returned to her sister, who was delicately moving part of her salad onto her fork before indulging. It really was almost as if Elsa had never left. The way she was when she entered the castle again it was exactly like old times. Almost too much so. The way she remained poised. How she spoke so politely or elegantly, at times almost softly. The way she carried herself, almost as if she had so much to prove with all of Arendelle relying on her. The way her braid rested on her shoulder....

Wait.

Anna blinked. She hadn’t realized until now. The last time they saw each other, when it was just the two of them, Elsa kept her hair down. The way she had since becoming the fifth spirit. Why did she change it?

“Oh, Elsa...”

Elsa’s blue pools reached up and across the table. “Yes?”

“Your hair...”

“Is there something wrong?” Her hand reached up, gently caressing her braid.

“No, not at all. Just that....” What was a good way to word this? Was there a good way to word this? She didn’t want her to feel self conscious. Still though, it was almost like...like looking at a past Elsa. The Elsa that kept to herself. The Elsa that had so much to live up to. The Elsa that was still learning to control her powers. The Elsa that was Queen of Arendelle. “You...you can let your hair down.... I mean if you wanted to, of course. But it...it suits you.”

Elsa’s hand moved down, towards the bottom of her hair where the final knot was tied. “Thank you. I suppose it’s....” She stopped, furrowing her brows in the process. It was almost as if she, too, was unable to find the correct words. Ultimately, she shook it off. “Alright then.” She gently untied the bottom knot, her touch light as she began to undo the ones that followed. A few later, Elsa looked to Honeymaren. “Could you? Please...?”

“Oh...sure,” she nodded, a bit taken aback. Shifting her seat back slightly, Honeymaren turned her body so she was facing Elsa’s back. Almost as delicately as Elsa undid the first knots, Honeymaren began untangling the rest. And in front of her Elsa sat with her eyes closed, still poised as always, and yet almost at ease.

Anna watched the interaction between the two of them. She tilted her head, eyes following Honeymaren’s motions. How she was careful not to pull too hard. How she gently caressed Elsa’s blonde locks after undoing them. How her eyes were glued to them, focusing on every inch, every detail, every motion. Almost like she was taking in the moment to last. And not once during any of that did Elsa flinch. The woman who was once so guarded, who kept herself so apart from everyone else, who was once even nervous to hug her own sister. She, too, was at ease. When was the last time Anna had seen Elsa like that? Was there a time where anyone had ever seen Elsa like that? Let alone with anyone? She raised an eyebrow, thinking back. But nothing came to her. That is, until....

“OOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

Elsa’s head darted to Anna immediately with wide eyes. The action caused Honeymaren to let go of Elsa’s hair and jerk back. Even Kristoff stared at his fiancee wide eyed, holding his hands up in defense and dropping his fork.

“Anna what’s wrong?” Elsa gasped.

“Nothing,” the redhead squeaked.

And though her voice implied one thing, most likely a lie, her wide lit up eyes spoke nothing short of pure delight.

“But you’re making that face,” Elsa observed.

“What face?”

“The one that you do when...”

“I don’t make a face.”

“Yes, your excited face that...”

“No don’t have that.”

“Oh how does Olaf describe it...?”

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. “Like she’s about to explode because she has to go to the bathroom so bad?”

There was a moment of silence.

Then Elsa scrunched her nose. “Yes...that’s the one.”

“Nope don’t know what you’re talking about hey Kristoff can I see you in the other room for a sec kay thanks let’s go we’ll be right back!” Anna breathed out as fast as she could. She grabbed Kristoff’s arm, pulled him out of his chair and dragged him out of the dining hall. Once they were in the next room, enough out of eyesight and earshot, Anna began excitedly jumping up and down.

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!”

“Uhh....” the blond stared at the queen, taking in her sudden burst of glee. “Can you...maybe...stop making that face?”

Anna folded her arms, narrowing her gaze. “Ok first of all, I do not make a face like that and you also said my face is adorable no matter what. Now that we’ve got that covered....” Letting out another squeal, she tightened her grip on Kristoff’s arm. “OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT?”

“See what?” he shrugged.

“THAT! Them! Her!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t follow,” he shook his head.

Anna exhaled. “Ok maybe you haven’t noticed because it has been a while, but Elsa NEVER lets anyone gets close to her.”

“Uh yeah, I knew that,” Kristoff replied as-a-matter-of-factly. “She has to be the one to initiate for anything. Why do you think I always wait for her first? As much I love ice, I don’t want her to actually make me ice.”

“Ok yeah, fine, she has to be comfortable enough around someone to even want to invite them,” she acknowledged. “But do you know what this means? Elsa is comfortable! With another person!”

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. “And....?”

Anna groaned. “Kristoff you don’t understand Elsa like I do. She doesn’t let anyone get close to her. No one really ever stood a chance of being anything to her. And now, just now, she was sitting in there, in that dining hall, asking someone else to touch her hair and actually letting her do it! No reaction. No nerves. No hesitation. No...no.... Nothing!”

“Are you jealous?” he smirked.

Anna furrowed her brows. “What? No. Of course not! It’s just....” Her eyes wandered back in the direction of the dining hall. “I know this is going to sound crazy but...I think...I think maybe Elsa likes her. And...I don’t know, maybe...maybe Honeymaren does, too.”

Kristoff stared at her blankly. There was a lull. He gave no other reaction save for standing in front of her like a statue, arms folded and empty stare.

“So what are you, like a love expert now?” he asked half joking.

Anna grinned proudly. “Yes. Yes I am.”

He moaned. “Have you been hanging with my friends again?”

“Yes but that’s not the point,” she brushed him off. “The point is, I know my sister better than anyone. I’m the only one she lets come close to her. No restrictions. No hesitations. No questions. I’m there and she...she just lets me. And I think....” Cautiously, she poked her head around the corner hoping to even for a moment steal a glance at them. It didn’t look like they were saying anything, at least not verbally. But Honeymaren did look to her side at Elsa. However when Elsa reached for her glass of water, her brown eyes darted back to her food. And for a brief moment, one that should have lasted longer, Elsa seemed to gaze at Honeymaren from the corner or her own eye. “I think Elsa should have that with someone else, too.”

Kristoff’s face softened. He gently placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder, turning her back to face him. He meant no ill will nor to seem like he didn’t believe Anna. That much she could see in his face. But there was still doubt. Why should there be when Anna had to be right?

“Look, I’m not trying to put you down. I would never. And I know you mean well and that you’d do anything for Elsa. She’s the most important person to you. I know that, I accept that, and I would never question it,” he explained. Pausing, he softly exhaled. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up is all. Your intentions may be out of love, but that doesn’t mean they’re what Elsa wants or needs. Or that it’s true.”

Anna smiled softly. She knew she could count on Kristoff to tell it to her like it was. He trusted her and he believed her. He just didn’t see everything from her perspective, and sometimes Anna needed that. And it was ok.

She placed her hand over his, giving it a light squeeze. “I know. And that’s why...” her tone quickly shifted from loving to confident, “I am going to talk to my sister!”

To that, Kristoff chuckled. “Yeah, since that worked out so well the first time.”

---

Before anyone knew it, the time for playing games as a family passed and it was time for bed. Elsa retreated to the room she once called hers. She took in all of her surroundings; nothing seemed to change at all. It was just as she had left it. Without a doubt, Anna had kept it exactly as it was for when Elsa visited. Though, the bed sheets were not completely made. Elsa covered her mouth, holding in a faint laugh. Of course Anna must have slept in Elsa’s bed once in a while. It was as close as they could get to each other without being under the same roof. But then, at the same time, it also relaxed Elsa. It meant that no matter how far apart they were, they were still sisters. They would always have something of each others’. Be a part of each other.

Stepping quietly towards the vanity, Elsa picked up her hairbrush. She ran it lightly through her hair, softly singing the song of the north in the process.

Aaaaah aaaaah

Aaaah aaaaah

The doorknob turned. Elsa’s body shifted, one hand lifting but releasing no ice. Anna poked her head inside.

“Am I interrupting?”

Elsa exhaled. She should have known. “Of course not.” She set her brush down as Anna walked in, holding something close in her arms.

“I brought you something.” Holding out her arms, Anna revealed Iduna’s scarf. The fabric unfolded slightly as Anna presented it, yet still it appeared as though little time had passed. Its condition had barely shifted since the passing.

“Mother’s scarf....” Elsa breathed.

Anna nodded. “It’s your turn to have it.”

Elsa shook her head. “Oh no, I couldn’t.”

“Yes you could. You can and you will. I want you to have it,” she replied.

“Anna I really can’t,” she insisted.

“Yes you can. No exchanges. No refunds. No take backs. This is yours to hold onto until I have a baby and then I get to pass this down and wrap her or him or them in it so they can always have a piece of Mother,” Anna said. She blinked. “Oh wow, what if I have a them?”

“Anna...”

“Sorry, getting ahead of myself.”

“It’s not that.”

“Oh good because I’m so not ready for a them!”

“About the scarf-”

“You should absolutely have it.”

“But I can’t take it from you.”

“It’s both of ours to give and take.”

“That may be so. But....” Elsa stepped closer. She placed her hands on the fabric and then gently pushed it back towards her sister. “This is all we have left of Mother. I’m reminded of her every day in Northuldra. It was her home. Where she came from. It was a part of her and now a part of us. I want you to be able to have her, too.”

“I do. Because I have you,” Anna promised. “You’re part of her. And I love you for that. For you.”

Leave it to Anna to always know the right thing to say. Even when they were kept apart, not once had Elsa felt a judging glance from Anna behind her back. When Elsa’s powers were revealed Anna showed no fear; she never once thought ill of Elsa. There was immediate acceptance. And there had been love, support, and admiration ever since.

But that couldn’t be all there was.

“This isn’t just about the scarf is it?”

Anna shook her head. She sat at the edge of the bed, patting the empty space next to her. Elsa obliged and sat beside her sister. “You were a gift to Mother and Father. And to me, because you got to be my big sister. And everything you did was for them. For me. You kept yourself away from us to protect us, because you never wanted to hurt us. You’ve spent so much time trying to be who you thought they wanted or needed you to be for Arendelle. Because it’s their home, our home. What it means. You’ve tried your best to stand for everything they believed in, to keep their traditions going. You’re the fifth spirit of the Enchanted Forest! You’re the bridge between us and the other spirits so basically you’re like the sworn protector of everything and everyone in it! You do so much for everyone around you. I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” she assured her. Elsa reached across, placing her hand on Anna’s. “I have you. Believing in me, encouraging me, and standing by me every step of the way. You are a gift to me, too, Anna. Because there was once a time when I feared we would never have this.”

Anna squeezed her sister’s hand. “But you don’t just have me anymore. It doesn’t just have to be me. You can let anyone else in, anyone that you want.”

As well as Anna meant, she didn’t understand. But then again, much as she tried or wanted to, she would probably never fully understand.

“It’s easier said than done. Not everyone looks at me the way that you do.”

Anna shrugged. “I...think I know of at least one other person.”

Elsa tilted her head. There was only one Anna. “Who?”

“Oh...you know....” Anna’s tone increasingly became more sly with each description. “Long, thick, brown hair. Usually in a braid. Doesn’t like to fight. Has a brother that talks to and for reindeer.”

Elsa blinked. There was only one person like that who could possibly fit the description. “Honeymaren?” But where did Anna get an idea like that? Where was any of this coming from? It wasn’t like Elsa had said or done anything. She never lead her on. She didn’t recall ever seeing such a look from her. Unless...had Elsa been giving off a vibe? One that she didn’t even realize? Just because they enjoyed each others’ company? Because they spent so much time together? Because when she was around her, Elsa was never the snow queen or the fifth spirit; she was just...Elsa. “I.... I’m not sure I understand. When...? How...?” She could almost feel her heart rate increasing, her powers reacting in response to her emotions. Elsa tried to think back; to something, to anything, that she could have missed. Had she even been that way with anyone else before? What did it mean? Was she...? Could she...? What if she was thinking too much into it? That had to be it. There was no chance that any other way would work let alone be allowed.... Would there? After all Elsa spent so much time alone; isolated from the people she cared about most. Maybe it no longer had to be that way but.... But what if on some level that’s how it had to be? How could she....?

But as quickly as the fear and nerves rose, they sunk. Any ice that was ready t stem from her hand practically melted away. Her powers calmed. Because there beside her was still Anna. Squeezing her hand. Supporting her. Loving her.

“You don’t have to be scared of letting someone else in,” Anna said softly. “You’ve spent your whole life doing what’s best for everyone else. You’re allowed to do something for you now.”

Elsa shook her head. “It is not that simple. Everything I knew growing up, so much of it I’ve had to unlearn. There are times where I have to remind myself not to shut you out. Some things are easier said than done.”

“But you have a choice now,” Anna said. “And if you’re not gonna say it then I will. You can’t possibly choose worse than Hans.”

“Oh!” Elsa gasped, covering her mouth with her free hand as if it would stop a laugh.

“See, I knew that’d get you,” Anna teased.

“Yes, that’s exactly why I’ve avoided men,” Elsa commented half sarcastically.

Though it was debatable if her statement was true or not, what Anna said was true - she knew exactly how to bring a smile to her sister’s face. But if only it were so simple to explain to Anna what a difference it was. How Anna made a choice with the best of intentions while Elsa’s decisions were out of fear. And though it could have been interpreted as coming from a positive place, it was also from a selfish one. Though Elsa wanted to protect those that meant the most to her, she also chose to allow her fears to consume her rather than letting others lift her up. It brought her to a place of darkness, one that she at times still fought against. As quickly as the Hans came and went, Anna rose with both Elsa and Kristoff. It was not the same. Perhaps there was a simpler way to show Anna.

Moving her hand and holding it out in front of her, Elsa began twisting her fingers. A few flurries began to fall, ultimately creating scenes with snow. The first was Elsa’s battle against the Wesleton minions at her ice palace. “Remember when my powers were first revealed? This is what they caused. People reacted from fear. They had never seen my magic before; and because I could not control it nor did they understand it, I was unwelcome. As the Queen of Arendelle, even as an Arendellian. Rather, I was a monster.” 

The next scene she created was one she saw at Ahtohallan, from the water’s memories. The snow showed silhouettes of King Runeard and one of the soldiers, specifically when he was explaining the meaning of his so-called gift. “Grandfather himself even stated that people who trust magic, who use it, who wield or support it in anyway, are a danger and cannot be trusted. That was why the war began. He could not accept what was different from what he knew, because he did not understand. What people don’t understand, they fear.”

Anna squinted, taking in the flashbacks. It was almost unbelievable that they were even real events because they were from so long ago. But then, Anna was also the kind of person who didn’t have a bad bone in her body. How could she accept, even knowing the facts, that these were true?

“I don’t get it. That was the past. That was....” She shook her head. “But if people can accept magic now then what would be so wrong or weird about accepting you with someone? Anyone?”

“Some people are closed-minded. It’s how they are,” Elsa sighed. 

“Is it like that in Northuldra?” Anna wondered.

Elsa reversed the movement of her fingers, forming a miniature Enchanted Forest in her palm. Within the miniature snowy trees there were faint hints of the other spirits as well as a few humans. “Yelena described part of their culture as following that of nature. Nature does not judge. The primary rule may be survival. But as long as the people respect nature, respect the land and the creatures in it, then we are free to live and love as we desire.”

“But Arendelle...” Anna started.

“Stands for many positive things,” she acknowledged. Elsa closed her palm, causing the snow to disappear into thin air. “But it is also a place where, if one does not ask then one does not tell. It’s like with my powers. People didn’t ask, so they weren’t told.”

The confused look on Anna’s face remained. “But....” She shook her head. “But I can change that. I can make it a rule that everyone can decide for themselves. They can say or show or do whatever they want. As long as they represent everything good that Arendelle stands for, as long as they’re not hurting anyone then why should what they do or look like or love matter?”

Elsa smiled softly, admiring her sister’s good intentions. “If only it were that easy.” Exhaling, she looked away. “But a rule does not change how people think. Not everyone would be accepting.”

Anna reached over, taking Elsa’s other hand. “They accepted you as their queen once. They still welcome you here with open arms. If they can accept you for your magic and love and admire you the way I do, then it won’t matter who you’re with or not with. You don’t have to live by our rules or for anyone. Just yourself. Whatever that is.” She then wrapped her arms around her sister, squeezing her in a tight hug. “You’re still the most incredible person I know. I love you.”

Elsa smiled, returning the embrace. Once again Anna was there for her when she needed her. Whatever it meant for Elsa, at least she had the most important person in her corner.

“What would I do without you? I love you, too, sis.”

---

What time was it?

Late.

And no matter what Honeymaren did, she couldn’t seem to get to sleep. Not that it should be a surprise. She was so used to sleeping outside, at least in some capacity. Even when the sky was covered somehow she always felt it above her. She knew that somewhere, deep in that mist, it was there. She just couldn’t get that same feeling in Arendelle. She felt...blocked, in a way.

But she was invited there. How would it look if she showed any discomfort? Acted as ungrateful for the invitation? She was welcomed with open arms. Some reaction.

Maybe she needed to wander. Tire herself out some more. Then it wouldn’t matter where she slept. So Honeymaren quietly exited the bedroom. She glanced briefly back and forth down the halls. No one appeared to be up. She hoped they wouldn’t mind her exploring.

It was huge. There were so many decorations, so many things, so many portraits.... Eventually Honeymaren found herself stopping in front of a pair. One of a young Anna and Elsa with their parents, and the one beside it representing the sisters, Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf. Honeymaren took in the latter first. Everyone looked so happy. At peace. Even if, for that brief moment in time, there was nothing wrong with the world. They were together. Then there was the former. It represented simpler times. It was before everything became so...how did Anna describe it once...? Crazy?

Honeymaren’s eyes followed up the portrait, starting with Anna whose eyes led her to Elsa, then to King Agnarr, and finally Queen Iduna. Her gaze stood.

Iduna of Northuldra.

What must that have been like, Honeymaren wondered? For Iduna to have escaped the trapping and ending up in Arendelle? Secretly living all that time as one of them? Being separated from her people? From nature? Learning to be someone completely different?

But she wasn’t, not really. Because she and Agnarr fell in love. He knew that she hailed from Northuldra. That their people had become enemies. That there’d been no interaction between them for so long. Yet he still chose her. But in the end she had to hide who she really was. From her people. From her own daughters. Was that how Elsa felt for so long as well? Knowing she was so different but could never truly speak out about it? Always having to fear for fitting in? For acceptance? Truly neither Elsa nor Iduna should have experienced such a pain.

“Hi.”

The soft whisper came from out of nowhere. Honeymaren gasped quietly before turning to her right and seeing Elsa. Honeymaren exhaled.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I’m alright,” Elsa promised. “What about you?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted. “I hope you don’t mind; I was just looking around.”

“Not at all,” Elsa said.

The two returned their gazes toward the portraits. Neither spoke another word. There was complete silence. But it was comfortable. Though there were a couple of instances in which Honeymaren wondered if she should say anything, she didn’t want to break it. Still, she pondered what could be going on in Elsa’s head. Did she maybe want to speak as well? What was there for either of them to say? But then again, were words even necessary? It was just the two of them. Nothing else mattered or even existed.

Eventually, however, the silence was broken.

“Come with me,” Elsa encouraged. She began down the hallway, and Honeymaren trailed behind her. They retreated into Elsa’s room. Honeymaren carefully closed the door behind her as to not wake anyone else. Elsa approached the door leading towards the balcony. After unlocking it, she opened the doors wide. A gentle breeze blew into the room. There was the faintest chill to it. Was that because it was so late? Or was it for another reason?

“I hope this helps,” Elsa spoke, “so you don’t feel cut off from the outside at all.”

“I’m sorry you have to go through the trouble,” she apologized. “Imagine if you brought Ryder instead. You wouldn’t have to worry about him at all. He would be completely amazed by everything here.” She then bit her tongue, “Of course then he wouldn’t shut up about it so you probably wouldn’t get any sleep.”

Elsa scoffed softly. “This is no trouble at all. Besides,” she sat on her bed and leaned her back against the soft pillows, “then we wouldn’t be able to continue our own family night traditions.”

Honeymaren folded her arms. “You really think I’m going to fall asleep just like that because you sing?”

“Why not? It works every other time,” Elsa shrugged.

Honeymaren shook her head, but obliged and sat next to Elsa. “I don’t know if I would exactly call it a family night tradition though. It’s not game night like you and Anna have.”

“No...but it has helped me,” the blonde confessed. “When I first settled in Northuldra it took a while for me to get comfortable and fall asleep. Then you sang the lullaby to me. And it made me think about my family. I felt connected to both my homes. And it’s been working ever since.”

“That doesn’t mean I fall for it every time,” Honeymaren stated.

Elsa gave her the faintest of smirks. “It worked well the other night.”

Honeymaren blushed and averted her gaze. “Well then...I guess we could give it a try....” She turned her stare back to Elsa, though her eyes moved down towards her shoulder. “May I...?”

Elsa nodded. Honeymaren waited for her to straighten her posture into a more comfortable position before tilting her head. She was sure she felt a slight flinch from her before making full contact, though that was no surprise. It was just like the first few times they did this. But as Honeymaren fully pressed her head against Elsa’s shoulder, she could feel it lighting and sinking slightly with every breath. Elsa was at ease. And so was Honeymaren. The brunette closed her eyes and focused on Elsa’s beautiful voice.

Where the north wind meets the sea

There’s a river full of memory

Sleep my darling, safe and sound

For in this river all is found

This must have been what Elsa meant. To feel out of place and far from the place she called home for so long, but there was this one thing that reminded her of both. The song that came from Northuldra, but the song that also gave her memories from the happier times of her childhood in Arendelle.

In her waters deep and true

Lie the answers and a path for you

Dive down deep into her sound

But not too far or you’ll be drowned

Seriously what was it with the dark, depressing warnings in lullabies?

Yes she will sing to those who’ll hear

And in her song all magic flows

But can you brave what you most fear?

Can you face what the river knows?

It really did remind Honeymaren of Northuldra. She could imagine herself gazing up at the sky. Watching the leaves blow through the wind. Eyes following the stars twinkling in the night sky. The soft ground beneath her, admittedly, with the occasional rocks or pebbles against her. Though her eyes were closed, she could feel the walls of the castle dropping. She concentrated on the wind. Maybe that was what was brushing up against her hand. Except it was warm. Welcoming. Protective.

And before she knew it, Honeymaren drifted off into a deep slumber.

---

Elsa’s fingers gently clasped the blanket beneath her. Her brows furrowed at the heat of the sun escaping into her room. It must have been morning. But she didn’t want to get up; at least not yet. She was so comfortable. Maybe it was being in her room...?

No. She had felt like this in the morning before, few if any at all from her time in Arendelle. This was a more recent sensation, something that was still a bit new to her. One that she didn’t want to shake. Why was that?

Elsa’s eyes fluttered. She squinted, adjusting to the sudden light. Across the room she could see her balcony. Standing there, staring out into the distance was Honeymaren. The first person she saw in the morning.

Elsa turned onto her back, focusing on the ceiling. Another good, sound sleep. She felt calm. Relaxed. Refreshed. She always did after nights like that. But it couldn’t have possibly been because of moments like that. Just because the two of them confided in each other, talked to each other, sang to each other. Anna had to have been so far off in her assumption.

But....

She placed her hand over her heart. It was steady. There were no nerves. No fear. No discomfort. Anna was the only other person who could make Elsa feel such a way. After all, who could she possibly have a stronger connection with than her own sister? Anna was the most important person to her. No one could ever take that place. No one understood or knew Elsa better than Anna.

Huh.

No one understood or knew Elsa better than Anna.

Did Anna see something that Elsa didn’t? Pick up on something? Notice anything at all? Elsa was so guarded; at times she continued to be. Was it possible that she had let someone else in without even realizing? But Anna was also an optimist. And a bit of a romantic. Was she simply overcompensating? Looking into something that might not even be there so that when Anna eventually started her own family Elsa would also have someone? Or was it because Anna balanced her out? She was able to see what Elsa couldn’t? What Elsa closed herself off to for so long to the point where she truly wouldn’t be able to recognize something right in front of her?

She turned her head, focus returning to Honeymaren. What would I do without you, she couldn’t help but think.

It was a thought that so often crossed her mind with Anna. She had just asked her that last night. It was the first time Elsa allowed herself to ask that of someone else. To realize that, at least to some extent, she had opened her heart to someone. Someone that now she couldn’t picture her life without.

Sitting up, Elsa tucked a few locks behind her ear. She stepped lightly towards the balcony, ultimately leaning forward on the banister. She kept some distance between her and Honeymaren if, for no other reason, because of the wind blowing through Elsa’s hair. She didn’t want it to hit Honeymaren.

“Good morning.”

“Oh...morning,” Honeymaren responded almost suddenly. She must have not heard Elsa approaching. “I got up with the sun. Force of habit.”

“I know that feeling,” she nodded in agreement. Elsa ran a hand through her hair. She proceeded to lift her other one, ready to tie her hair back into a braid, or even a ponytail. Then she stopped. She no longer had to present in a particular way. She didn’t have to keep a face nor represent the kingdom. She wasn’t someone who had to stand so poised, put together, and to an extent, stiff. She could be free.

Free as whoever she desired. Whether it was as the fifth spirit or simply as Elsa.

Realizing that, she released her hair to the wind and placed her hands back on the banister. “Did you sleep well?”

Honeymaren scoffed. “Are you asking permission to say ‘I told you so’?”

Elsa raised an eyebrow, fighting back a smirk.

At the unspoken response, Honeymaren let out a laugh. “Ok, fine. You were right. It worked, just like always.”

“Now I will say I told you so,” Elsa commented. Her head tilted, implying she was looking out towards Arendelle. However, the corner of her eyes was still on Honeymaren. Watching her stand so still. Probably basking in the breeze. Feeling the heat of the sun against her cheeks. Her bangs flapping gently against her forehead. Yet she didn’t lift a finger to even try to stop or fix them. What must that have been like, to not play with her hair? Had anyone ever...?

“Actually I was wondering...”

Honeymaren’s sudden inquiry caused Elsa’s grasp to tighten on the banister. She let out a faint gasp. The next thing she knew, she had frozen part of the railing. Icicles sprang from it, attaching Elsa’s hands in the process. That...almost never happened.

“Oh!”

“I’m sorry...”

“It’s alright.”

“I didn’t mean to...”

“I’ve got it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I just need to...”

“Is there anything I can...”

“No, I got it.”

Elsa managed to pull her hands out, cracking off a few pieces of ice in the process. She took a small step back, rubbing her hands. It was just a sudden burst of nerves, she told herself, you didn’t expect her to speak suddenly.

“I’m sorry. I surprised you,” Honeymaren apologized.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Elsa replied. “It’s not like the cold bothers me anyway.”

Not like anything suddenly became awkward at all.

“So...you were about to say something?”

Honeymaren blinked and shook her head. “Right.... I...I didn’t just get up to see the sun rise. Or because of habit. I was also thinking. About last night. The lullaby.”

Elsa blinked. Was it different because they were in Arendelle? Did she sing off key? Did it really not help Honeymaren sleep better? Many other questions ran through Elsa’s mind. Why could she possibly want to talk about that right now? Today of all days? 

There were likely a few responses Elsa could have conjured. Yet somehow the only one that seemed to escape her lips was, “Oh...?”

Honeymaren’s look softened. Her teeth clenched lightly. She was hesitant to continue. Was she fearful of hurting Elsa’s feelings? It wasn’t like she was going to suddenly launch a burst of ice because of her increasingly powerful emotions which almost completely dictated how strong her powers were as well as the way they were used in the first place.

Again.

She had control of them now.

Complete control.

She was fine.

“I just...I think...I mean, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now....” She looked at Elsa apologetically before closing her eyes. “I don’t think we should do that anymore.”

There was a heaviness in the Snow Queen’s chest. “Is...is everything alright? Was it something I did? Or said?”

“No. No, nothing like that at all. You...you’re amazing,” Honeymaren promised.

Elsa attempted to ignore the heat she felt in her cheeks.

“I just...” Honeymaren paused, biting her tongue. “I need to tell you something...”

Elsa’s heart pounded. She needed to tell her something. That sounded an awful like a confession. Was this...? Was she going to...? Was Anna right?

“Is everything alright...?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes...? I think so....” 

That didn’t sound very encouraging. It came across more as...conflicted. But there was no way she was going to say what Anna thought she was going to say. There was no way.

Unless Anna was right. And Honeymaren wasn’t sure if she should say anything. She must have thought Elsa wouldn’t respond. Or might, but negatively.

“I’m actually not completely sure if I should be saying this...but I think you should know,” Honeymaren admitted. She took a long, deep breath, leaving Elsa waiting in anticipation. “Ryder’s in love with you.”

Elsa’s head jerked back. Her arms went up in front of her. Her nose scrunched. She stared with almost a complete blank gaze. What did Honeymaren just say?

“I’m sorry.... What?”

Now it was Honeymaren’s turn to be confused. “Ryder’s in love with you...?” she repeated, though that time it sounded more of a question than a confession.

Elsa blinked. A long pause ensued.

“Since when?”

Honeymaren tilted her head. “You mean you had absolutely no idea?”

“No. No!” Elsa gasped. “Why would I?”

“He’s only been trying to impress you with these grand gestures for the better part of the year,” she explained.

“What gestures?” Elsa asked.

Her friend scoffed. “Where should I start?”

Apparently with the obvious ones?

Instead Elsa merely shrugged.

“Well there was that one time he rode in on one of the reindeer with a huge flower crown to present to you but you sneezed snow onto him, freezing him and the reindeer in place. He claimed he couldn’t feel his fingers for a week.”

“I only sneezed on him because I was getting over a cold. I had no idea he was doing anything.”

“He tried to invite you on a magical reindeer ride complete with a blanket on the reindeer for you that was supposed to remind you of your mother’s which would lead you to a sunset picnic on one of the ledges.”

“Why would I ride on a reindeer when I ride with Nokk?”

“He created a whole musical number involving multiple voices for almost all of the reindeer each describing something he loves about you and was only trying to serenade you with it at dinner.”

“That was singing?”

“The last time you came back after seeing the Earth Giants he welcomed you with a spectacle of tricks he spent two weeks training his reindeer for. But he ended up tripping, getting knocked down by one of their butts, falling into a bush and ended up scratching every part of him like a monkey for the next week.”

“I thought he was training to be a clown.”

“Then there was time he got his foot stuck in the-”

“No need to finish that sentence.”

Honeymaren held her hands up, waving them back and forth. “Ok wait, so you’re telling me that every single attempt Ryder made to impress you you just thought he was being a clown?”

Elsa bit her lower lip. How should she ask this without coming across as ill intentioned? “Wasn’t he...?”

Honeymaren paused.

“Ok, yes, he can definitely be a clown,” she admitted with a laugh.

“It’s just that everything he does with the reindeer...” Elsa started.

“Screams clowning?” she finished.

Elsa covered her mouth, attempting and failing to hold back her own laughter. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re not wrong,” Honeymaren assured her, laughter slowly fading. She let out a breath, taking another pause. She appeared ready to open her mouth to speak again.

But Elsa got the chance first, albeit with confusion in her tone. “But then...why would that make us stop what we do? The....” What was a proper word? “...Tradition?”

Honeymaren rubbed her arm. “Sometimes it just felt like...like I was betraying him, in a way. I saw how hard he was trying for you and...and I didn’t say or do anything. I just took up all of your time with us. What we do. I...I guess I liked having that time with you to myself.”

The admission brought a blush to Elsa’s cheeks. “I like it, too,” she confessed softly.

Now it was Honeymaren’t turn to blush.

And for that brief moment, despite how much they both wanted to, they couldn’t seem to make eye contact.

“And it’s...it’s not. A betrayal,” Elsa spoke. “You’re not being disloyal to Ryder. You’re not taking any time away from me that I’d rather spend elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with us doing our thing together. Or anything together. It’s just....” What was a good word? How could Elsa remotely describe the sensation? Not even just the nights where she or Honeymaren couldn’t sleep? The time they spent together? The connection they had?

Huh.

The connection.

Them.

Together.

“....Us.”

That time, the two of them were able to make eye contact. It remained brief yet somehow felt like hours.

Finally, Honeymaren’s shoulders dropped in comfort as she exhaled. “So...you...don’t...like Ryder....?”

For the first time since returning to Arendelle, Elsa was asked a question she could easily answer.

“No.”

She glanced at Honeymaren softly and then made her way back towards her room. However, when she reached the door, she stopped. ‘No.’ Somehow that answer didn’t seem like enough. It was only part of the answer. Elsa took a moment, recalling what Anna had said to her the night before.

She can let anyone else in.

She can do something for herself.

She had a choice.

There was nothing wrong with who she was.

She didn’t have to live by anyone else’s rules or standards; just her own.

Finally, she recalled the latest lesson she learned from Yelena.

That everyone is allowed to live and love as they desire.

Maybe Elsa still wasn’t entirely sure of what that meant. If she couldn’t see for herself, if she still needed Anna to interpret for her, how could Elsa openly admit to something - her own feelings - beyond a shadow of a doubt? How could she undoubtedly fully give her all, anything and everything that she was, to someone else?

Despite all that, she was sure of two things. She was sure that she felt something. That Anna may have still been the most important person in her life, but she didn’t have to be the only one. That she was slowly but surely letting someone else share that title.

And that was why she was so certain of her correction. Or, rather a declaration. And why she was able to turn on her heel and face Honeymaren with such a confident stare. As their gazes met one final time, Elsa flashed her a coy smile and raised an eyebrow. Even if she was questioning anything else, if she still had anything else to learn about herself, there was one thing she could say with such assurance, ease, and just a hint of sass.

“I do not like men.”

[fydk-translations]

Cine21, Jan ‘19 issue: Kyungsoo interview

[mild spoilers for swing kids]

Q. Let’s start from Swing Kids (2018), your latest. Ro Kisoo goes about ruffling feathers, and his flashiness stands out from the rest of your filmography.  I had a lot of discussions with the director on what was best for Kisoo. There was [a boy in] an old reference picture almost exactly like Kisoo’s character. He was in an old school uniform and wore his army cap tilted; even his pants were wide and baggy. He seemed trendy for the time and I drew a lot of direction from the picture. 

Q. Ro Kisoo expresses himself through dance. What sort of experience was it for you, as his actor?  When I stand on stage as an EXO member, our choreography and formations are already determined. It was harder as Kisoo because there needed to be emotion in every one of his movements and expressions. I was especially worried about conveying the scene where he dances to David Bowie’s Modern Love in a way that the viewers would find refreshing and freeing. It reminded me of my first time trying to dance - frustration because my body wouldn’t listen to me, how good it felt to get each move down. Also, I could dance as I pleased because the director would capture the whole routine and the big emotions. Big movements for happiness, fast ones for frustration. To be honest, I was surprised by the final cut of that sequence. I didn’t realize how brightly I had been smiling. That dancing is something happy and to be enjoyed is what I’d felt as a musician too, but I had felt this so strongly that the smile came naturally. 

Q. It wasn’t something you planned to act out, but constant dancing is of course tiring, and that starts to show on your face. I’ve seen other actors say that actors who also know how to dance are better at filming action scenes, so it seems that your music career helps your acting one. All that happens when you try to put emotion into motions you aren’t comfortable making is that you ruin the movements and expressions. So for scenes where they’re both important, like the Modern Love one, I made myself familiar. When my body can move without my input, it’s possible to be expressive. All I could do was practice. Action scenes and dancing do have a lot in common, so I did have a little know-how from applying what I had already learned.

Q. The first and second halves of Swing Kids have totally different tones. As its leading actor, you must have put a lot of thought into handling the clash well. There was a part that I worried over for a while, without straying too far from how Kisoo would feel. The film’s tone shifts after the arrival of a supposed friend, Kwang-guk, to the prison camp. Kisoo’s mood worsens, but a sour face would have thrown off the intended tone. Kisoo wasn’t supposed to get too caught up in the atmosphere of that scene, and I kept his expression flat.

Q. It also seems like acting dryly ties in with your own disposition.  I wonder all the time why, in acting, anger has to be obvious, why there needs to be yelling. Because I’ve never expressed my anger that way. I usually try not to let my emotions complicate issues. Of course, I have to adjust because characters have their own personalities, but I went with what felt natural to me for Kisoo. 

Q. Swing Kids features both snappy cuts and long takes. Did you worry about how the editing room would preserve the rhythm of the scenes? I found it interesting rather than worrying. I liked the long takes because those let me get immersed in a location. I had so much fun with the scenes like the one where Kisoo keeps thinking about tap-dancing even in his sleep, and it would cut away each time with a tak-tak-tak! I really wondered how the end result would turn out. The Modern Love scene in particular, because (Park) Hyesoo and I had practiced and filmed for it separately. I was curious about what kind of picture that would make after editing, and I’m very happy with how it turned out. (laughs)

Q. There were a lot of iconic lines from the tvN drama 100 Days My Prince (2018). Bad delivery for the funny ones like “am I the only one uncomfortable?” and “the feeling you feel” would have weakened a sageuk, but you did really well with them. I don’t really dwell over how my lines should be said. The lines with the potential to become popular might have been funnier if their deliveries were lighter. But that wouldn’t make sense for a crown prince who had just lost his memory. To be honest, I did have some concern over making them more palatable. In the end, the answer was that I should just speak as the character would speak. That’s how I decided on the delivery.

Q. Conventional wisdom says that, for TV dramas, one must act in a way that the viewer will know what your character is feeling even if they’re not paying full attention. It seems your acting in 100 Days My Prince ran contrary to that. In the first half, you didn’t look at Hong Shim like you were in love. I think I just did what felt right. It would have been more romantic to look at each other like honey could fall from our eyes, as the saying goes, but that was unrealistic and wouldn’t have felt natural.

Q. Actor Sung Dongil said in an interview once that when he acts, he thinks of meeting the number 100 when acting with another. If the other is acting at a 70, he acts at 30. I think you make a good case for this with My Annoying Brother (2016) and Room No. 7 (2017) - in Room No. 7, actor Shin Hakyun made much larger actions than you, and in Brother, actor Jo Jungseok put much more flare into his character. I totally get what you’re saying. If there’s a character who brings the energy up, it’s good for watchability and tone and manner to have another who brings the energy down. I also learned how to lend realism to characters from Hakyun sunbae and about Jungseok hyung’s acting style.

Q. You’re the type of person who works diligently outside of the spotlight. I found that, in Room No. 7, you were constantly moving about in the background of some scenes, without distracting the viewer. Some of those parts came from talking with the director, but I wanted to fill up the space too. I found it fun to find things to do as my character that wouldn’t get in the way of the other actors. Even if the camera angle would barely catch a finger and I could honestly relax, I’d rather be doing something. 

Q. The two most disparate pieces in your filmography are director Lee Byunghun’s Be Positive (2017) and the movie series Along with the Gods. Your acting as the problem soldier Private Won was especially convincing in Along with the Gods: Two Worlds (2017). I thought there was nothing smooth about acting as Won Dongyeon, and that was reflected in-universe with the film. I have yet to serve in the military, and I’d never put a noose around my neck over the guilt of causing another’s death. The director helped me a lot. We talked about his personal experiences, as well as the characters. Much of my base [for Private Won] were films and other indirect experiences.

Q. In a previous interview, you said that Private Won was the most saddening of your characters and that you probably wouldn’t act as someone that pitiable again. I found it amusing how he was introduced as a problem soldier who kills an innocent and thus might get hate. Right, that’s not wrong... (with a seeking gaze) but doesn’t he make you feel sorry for him? He made a mistake that killed someone, wasn’t able to defend himself to anyone - I felt so bad for how much he suffered from circumstance. I understand why some would hate him, but I still think of him as the most saddening of my roles. 

Q. To be honest, while your acting as Private Won can be commended, the character himself is not admirable at all. People might misunderstand the actor because of the character. Many of your previous roles were of troubled, depressed youths let down by society. Did you not worry as an actor? Not at all. It’s not like all my roles have been dark, and I try to express a part of myself with each character anyway. I think, as long as I keep trying new things, the people who think that way will stop misunderstanding me. 

Q. Then in that regard, Swing Kids’ Ro Kisoo is an important point for you. Very. He’s a very dear figure to me. I wonder what will come next? What do I have left to show? It’s exciting to think about. 

Q. I can’t help but wish to see you a character with a lot of aegyo, maybe because you dislike it so much that even variety programs comment on it. (laughs) I think it’d be a fun role. I don’t hate the thought. (laughs)

Q. When you appeared on Naver’s Actor Chatter, you mentioned that if you could film a drama with actress Kim Hyesoo, you’d like it to be an introspective office drama where you’re a new recruit to her team. Then Park Kyunglim said, “And not a rom com? Kim Hyesoo might have a word with you!” To which you said, “With me? How could I (dare)...” Why do you think it’s so impossible? How would that even happen! I’d be incredibly honored, but there’s no chance of it happening. 

Q. Maybe if your character was like Jung Haein’s in JTBC’s Something in the Rain (2018), where noonas dote on his cuteness... That’d be really nice. I’d like to try being in a drama like Secret Affair (2014) too. I look forward to melodramas in the future, and trying out thrillers...

Q. Yeah, you were good in I Remember You (2015). Really? (laughs) Someone like him is good too, but I’d like to try acting as a completely average person. I’d rather embrace a variety of characters, not just one type.

Q. It’s Okay, It’s Love (2014) and Cart (2014) were your first and second released projects, respectively. You had to act as a victim of ALS; I wonder how you prepared for it when you’d never even gotten acting lessons before that point. For that, I had watched documentaries for indirect experience that I could use with my imagination to make [it seem believable].

Q. I heard that writer No Heekyung helped you a lot as you were starting out? It’s a given that she taught me skills, like how recounting things in staccato will help me with my pronunciation, but she talked with me about the characters too. I absolutely want to work with her again. I really enjoyed Live (2018) and its focus on daily life; my favorite of her projects is the film The Most Beautiful Goodbye (2011). I related to it a lot.

Q. I’m curious about how you figure out characters when aspects of them don’t overlap with you. Right now, are you more the type to conduct deep research, or the type to think it out? I look inside a lot. Of course I do my research too, but I leave the next step to my imagination. Sometimes seeing the actual props on set help, but the more I think through my character’s personality and mentality and how he would act or speak, the more the set seems to build itself. That’s what I’ve been doing so far.

Q. There are actors who write diaries in-character, or go through the day performing their character’s routines, or make exhaustive notes on their role. Mm, I don’t write anything down. My favorite scripts are clean and light, and I just keep it all in my head. My memory isn’t great, so I think trying to be exact would make acting too complicated for me. It’s easier for me to play things out mentally and then concentrate hard on set. 

Q. Didn’t you say that yelling at your mom in Cart was very hard for you, because it’s something you’d never done? How did you resolve it back then, and what do you do with similar impasses now? I played everything out in my head then, too. I just did it on set. How would I get angry when I’m by myself? I’m too shy to practice being angry in my room all alone or with the EXO members helping. (laughs)

Q. So you’re the type who just needs to be on set. I’m still not good at yelling. During Cart, I just said to myself (makes a sad face) “I’ll just do it when I get there,” but acting it out was actually thrilling. It was a huge thrill to feel what I’d never felt and to do what I hadn’t done. 

Q. When I view your filmography, I get the sense that directors love your eyes. You get unique close-ups that show off the fleeting emotions in your gaze. Is there anything in particular you do to act with your eyes? Uh... (thinks for a long time) I don’t do anything except stay in-character. My eyes are a bit weak. Whenever my immune system drops or I get too much sun, they dry out quickly and turn bloodshot. It would bother the viewer if I blink too much during a touching moment, so I put a lot of focus on my health. My eyesight is honestly really bad. I can’t monitor well on set, so watching the fully produced release, when I can have glasses on, will be my first time properly viewing myself. I can’t wear contact lenses either. I’m told it’s because the surface of my corneas aren’t curved like normal. When I put in lenses, my eyelids will push them down. So I wear glasses.

Q. There must be a certain comfort to live with the other EXO members, who also have their own acting projects. It’s closer to gratitude from their support than comfort. We don’t talk about our acting. Like I mentioned earlier, I get too embarrassed to practice acting with them.

Q. Have you ever given advice they took? I don’t. They’ve pointed out to me when I was slouching or hanging my head before, but we’ve never given each other acting advice. It’s not like I have any seniority. So how could I, when we’re all in the same boat? (laughs)

Q. There are people who police what it means to be a man - including in terms of physical build - and like to suggest actors who fit their mold for certain genres [over other actors who don’t]. It was very gratifying for me to watch you find success in 100 Days My Prince, maybe because you defy those definitions.  I don’t think much of their advice either. The admiration you feel from someone’s abilities, personality, or mentality is what matters. And I act for myself - I just want to figure out my own path, and to give my best in order to show my best. 

Q. Every time, without fail, you seem unsure whenever someone compliments on your ability or charm. Yet, no matter how I look at it, you have high self-esteem. How would you reconcile this? When someone keeps complimenting me, I feel embarrassed. Like I’m seriously going crazy (laughs). Even by my own judgment, I think I have a pretty high self-esteem; it’s important to have self-esteem. Except it might not be connected to my abilities, but with my well-being instead. I have to stay firm so that I’m not ruined by stress, so that I can keep going.

Q. During last year’s appearance on Knowing Brothers, I saw you say you hoped to be a farmer one day. You like cooking too, so I was wondering if you wanted a life like you’d see in Little Forest (2018)? (laughs) The Little Forest series (2014) from Japan is a big influence for me. I’d like to cook with what I grow, and to live in good health in a small, quiet home. I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I hope it’s possible by my late thirties or early forties. 

source: @wallnuut | translation: fydk 

[buttercookie-art]

Disclaimer: I’m just a fan. Not a critic or a reporter, this is not my job.

Here’s the review, enjoy! 

This is the End and you can perceive it from the very first second. Forget Infinity War and its mood, this is a totally different ride.  It’s the end of a journey that began eleven years ago and it feels like it. You can see and feel all these years in just 3 hours. The Russos are bloody good at it, the shots, the sequences, everything is a masterpiece.  There’s hope, there are funny scenes and jokes, but what sets the mood it’s the grieving. We see the Avengers grieve and blame themselves for what happened, this is what fuels them and keeps them going. This is also one of the flaws of the movie: we see their pain, but the movie doesn’t show us how ordinary people are coping -except for one scene, maybe. I think that if we could’ve got a glimpse at what ordinary people did to survive we could’ve appreciated this movie even more. This movie is a love letter to the original six, from the first to the last second. Even the mid-credits are for and about them. Ans so it should be. This journey was possible because of them and I’ll be forever grateful. It just ended, this is -was, if you’ve already seen it- the end. That’s why there is no post-credit scene, not because there won’t be new adventures, but because there is nothing left to say. It’s the ending and the beginning.  I’ve got emotional plenty of times because of it and in the end my tissues weren’t enough. This movie is the cherry on top of a story that kept company to more than one generation. From six years olds, now teenagers; to adults; passing through young adults now adults. The Russo bros were able to direct something that at some points was spectacular, with a narration flow not always perfect but very effective. Like any other movie, even Endgame has its flaws. Some characters were written kinda badly, one in particular for my taste. Of course, with all those characters it was impossible not to make mistakes.  I’ve seen people complain about plot holes, to be honest, except for a couple of things -of which one only time can give me an answer- there aren’t really any. I mean, if you rewind the movie in your head you’ll notice it’s not a hole at all. Everything is explained so well during the course of action, that there’s no need to reiterate over it. The first hour it’s the one that maybe feels a little bit slower than the other two. It’s not my case because when lights were switched on for the short break I was almost complaining. During the first hour you’ll see most of the characters development and the reasons and whys behind what they’re doing. It was impossible not to get invested. The last two hours were the ones that brought all the people in the theatre together. There were scenes in which we laughed, gasped, made some standing ovations and, of course, cried. And when I say “cried”, what I mean is: the only things you could hear were the movie and the people sobbing. I swear I’m not being dramatic, I’ve heard grown up men cry alongside my friends and I and it was beautiful. Sorta. You’ll understand when you’ll see it yourself.  To end this non-spoiler part, it’s a very emotional movie. Heart beats fast most of the time, you’ll wish you were dead but you’ll enjoy it in the end. ... Or so I hope!

                                     Spoilers under the cut!

I really don’t know where to start. It was a rollercoaster start to finish. My brain was so caught up that last night I dreamt I was still in the theatre watching 29 more minutes of it. 29 minutes that included the dead forever back among the living. Quill got back his Gamora, Clint his best friend, Thor and I, our fave trickster, the whole world got back their belove Tony. 

I loved how they got back in time but at their own conditions, it was no Back to the future, but I’d lie if I didn’t like the references to no end. 

Thor is that one character I didn’t like. He was... not him. Thank god Rocket was there to slap him. 

Cap Falcon!!! (but I would love Bucky wearing the stars and stripes even for five minutes only)

He’s worthy. We been knew, no big deal... But guys how powerful that move was bloody hell!

The Winter Soldier elevator scene but with “Hail Hydra”

Steve getting to know how annoying he can be

jARVIS OH MY GOD I ALMOST SCREAMED

Tony and Steve casually walking to the most important people in their life in 1970.

Tony and Morgan and we deserved more of them

Avengers ASSEMBLE!

Steve and Peggy they finally got their happily ever after, it doesn’t make much sense but who the hell cares when you know they’re probably Tony’s godparents??

Peter is unable to have uncles

I’m mad at Carol because she could’ve saved Tony if only she was on time. But I guess Captains like to be late

Pepper assuring Tony her and Morgan were going to be okay

Morgan has two godfathers, no way Tony chose between Happy and Rhodey

ThE GIRLS standing ready to fuck the shit out of anyone who dared to get close to Carol. The goosebumps I got, oh boy

Frigga being the best mum

Steve calling Peter “Queens” it’s what gets me going

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back” “How can I? You’re taking all the stupidity with you” I cried here too. Deep down I k n e w.

“Love you 3000″ what keeps me staring at the ceiling at night

And lastly, but I could go on and on for hours really, the phrase that started and ended this decade: I am Iron Man.

[tomeandflickcorner]

OUAT Episode Analysis- Leaving Storybrooke

Well, folks, here it is.  We’ve come to the final episode of Once Upon a Time. In spite of everything, regardless of which characters and ships you liked or disliked, regardless of which plotlines or seasons you might have felt were bad, I think we can all agree that this was an experience.  One that has probably changed us forever.

The final episode ends where the last one left off.  Robyn and Alice have traveled to Storybrooke to try and gather up some reinforcements to help Henry and company in Wish World.  And the first people they run into are the Dwarfs, Granny and Archie. Of course, there’s the slight issue that, as far as the people in Storybrooke are concerned, Henry has only just graduated High School, which means Alice and Robyn have to explain that they’re from the future and have traveled back in time via Gothel’s curse. However, their explanation results in the Dwarfs and Granny acting with hostility, with Granny even aiming her crossbow at the two young women, forcing them to run for their lives.  To be honest, this part really bothered me.  While I can appreciate how the people of Storybrooke have had a long history of a new Big Bad popping up every other week and all, Alice and Robyn were clearly trying to ask for their help.  And it wasn’t as if villains were the only people coming into Storybrooke.  Remember that when Ariel first appeared in town, she was there asking for help.  And Elsa also was not a threat when she arrived, either.  So their less-than-gracious welcome was rather uncalled for.  While I get that the notion that Alice and Robyn had come from the future when Henry was an adult with a wife and daughter might have been a big pill to swallow, it wasn’t that unheard off.  I’m sure everyone in town has heard of Emma and Killian Prime’s time traveling adventure by now.  So what was their deal with trying to attack Alice and Robyn?

Fortunately, after they’ve escaped the angry mob, Robyn spots Past!Regina’s car driving by. Speculating that Regina would believe their story if they told her Henry was in trouble, they approach the car. Only to find that the car was being borrowed by Past!Zelena, who was in the process of driving a much younger Robyn to daycare.  Past!Zelena explains that Regina was out of town, as she and Emma had taken Henry on a post-graduation trip.  (So, Henry didn’t immediately leave on his soul-searching quest after he graduated?) Not deterred by this, Robyn proceeds to try and convince Past!Zelena that she’s an older version of the five-year-old sitting in the car, using her knowledge of her mother’s quirks to back up her claim.  This seems to convince Past!Zelena, as she digs out the old magic bean she had stored away for a rainy day.

Incidentally, isn’t brining Past!Zelena into this going to create a significant timeline issue down the road? Because this means the Zelena we’ve seen throughout the season already knew that all of this was going to happen. Unless she drinks a forgetting potion like the way Past!Rumpelstiltskin did during the CS movie.

Back in the Wish World, Henry Prime, Rumpelstiltskin Prime and Wish Killian have found themselves within the Snowglobe prison, where Henry Prime is reunited with Parallel Ella and Lucy.  As the three try to figure out how to stay warm, Rumpelstiltskin Prime admits that when Wish Henry used the Author’s pen to strip Alice of her mantle of Guardian, it somehow ended up taking away Rumpelstiltskin Prime’s powers as well.  Not sure how that worked, but at this point, there’s no point in questioning it. Either way, it means that Rumpelstiltskin Prime is just as susceptible to the cold as the rest of them, and has no way of freeing them from their snowy prison.  Wish Killian, however, refuses to give up and insists on continuing to try and find a way to break out of the Snow Globe by testing different areas of the glass siding periodically for weak points.

It’s here that Wish Killian and Rumpelstiltskin Prime have a moment of some sort.  Rumpelstiltskin Prime basically admits he’s always secretly admired his former advisory’s unwavering determination and good heart, stating that that’s why he kept Wish Killian as his partner in the Hyperion Heights police force even after waking up.  He even states that he feels that Wish Killian was the closest thing he ever had to a friend.  Which is kinda nice, if not for the fact that he tried to kill Killian Prime and the people he cared about on more than one occasion. Then again, maybe the only reason why this scene is even believable is because this isn’t Killian Prime.  It’s rather convenient that they can use that detail to brush over everything that went down between S4-6.

At that moment, out of nowhere, Maui’s fishhook appears in front of them.  When Wish Killian uses it to free them all from the Snowglobe, it’s revealed that Alice and Robyn were responsible for its appearance.  Not sure how they managed to locate Maui’s fishhook, because I seem to remember Gothel confiscated that particular item.  So how were they able to find where she stashed the thing?  It’s also shown that Past!Zelena ended up tagging along when they portal jumped to Wish World.   However, there’s no time to celebrate their escape, as Robyn, Alice and Past!Zelena had found a notice posted on a tree outside, announcing that Wish Henry plans to execute Regina at dawn.

Meanwhile, Regina was being confronted by Wish Henry, who makes it very clear that he intends to make sure she pays for murdering Wish Snowing.  Regina tries to explain that it was all a mistake and that she didn’t mean to kill them, which is rather stupid.  What, she just accidentally crushed their hearts?  Even if she hadn’t figured out at the time that Wish Snowing were real people (which was extremely moronic to begin with), she still knew exactly what she was doing. Just saying, Regina.  Instead of trying to make excuses, maybe you should try and own up to what you did and apologize to Wish Henry.

Regardless, Regina goes on to try and beseech Wish Henry to look inside himself and find the brave and kind person she knows him to be.  She even states that, in another version of reality, she is Henry’s adoptive mother. And because of that, she doesn’t want to see anything happen to Wish Henry.  As one would expect, Wish Henry isn’t swayed by Regina’s words and announces that she will die in the morning for what she’s done.

Later on, Regina is, I guess, having some sort of dream sequence where she’s visited by the spirit of Robin. In the dream, Spirit Robin gives Regina a bit of a pep talk, stating that perhaps she can find a way to convince Wish Henry that no one’s path is set and that he can let go of his desire for vengeance.  The topic then turns to the sorrow that their lives together was so short.  Now for the record, I was overall okay with Outlaw Queen. At least when Robin wasn’t being reduced to Regina’s glorified arm candy.  But this scene seemed to come out of nowhere.  I might have forgotten, but I don’t think Regina mentioned Robin once during this whole season.  Not even when she was starting to get into that whole quasi-relationship with Facilier.  Not that Regina seemed all that upset upon learning that Facilier died, of course. (How did those two even meet again? They never explained.) Personally, I think it would have made more sense for Robin’s spirit to come to Robyn.  After all, we’d already seen her discussing how much she wished she’d gotten to know her namesake in 7x14.  So why couldn’t Spirit Robin drop in to say hello to the daughter he never got the chance to know?  It’s a bit annoying how Robin is once again being reduced to being nothing more than Regina’s love interest.  Not to mention I’m kinda miffed how we never got to see Roland again.  Why can’t Robyn get the chance to meet her half-brother?

Anyway, Henry and the rest of the New Nevengers come up with a plan to rescue Regina from Wish Henry’s dungeons. The plan involves Wish Killian and Robyn creating a diversion so Henry can sneak in and free Regina.  During this scene, we get a rather endearing interaction between Wish Killian and Robyn.  It seems that the curse on Wish Killian’s heart is getting worse, leading him to think that his time is almost up.  So he asks Robyn to look after Alice for him after he dies.  This leads to Robyn admitting that she’s planning on marrying Alice when the time is right, and she asks for Wish Killian’s blessing to propose, with Wish Killian gladly granting it.   In gratitude, Robyn informs Wish Kilian that she refuses to accept that he’ll die, stating that no matter what, he’s going to be around to walk Alice down the aisle.  With that said, Wish Killian and Robyn initiate the distraction, with Wish Killian charging at Wish Henry’s soldiers with his sword drawn and Robyn firing off a few arrows.

Down in the dungeons, Henry manages to locate Regina’s cell, but before he can get her out, they’re discovered by more of Wish Henry’s guards.  For a few tense moments, it looks as if Henry is in a real pickle. But then, out of nowhere, Snow and Charming appear.  I guess they were told about Robyn and Alice’s brief appearance in Storybrooke and, unlike Granny and the Dwarfs, weren’t so quick to dismiss their claims. And as such, have come to provide some backup.  Although, this brings up another issue.  Because Snow and Charming now know that Henry and company will eventually wind up here after Young Henry leaves on his soul-searching quest.  If that’s the case, how come Emma, Killian Prime, Regina and Zelena were caught unawares by all the stuff that went down throughout the season?  Just saying, Snow doesn’t have the best track record in keeping her mouth shut.

Time Travel Paradoxes aside, Snow and Charming convene with the New Nevengers in the Wish World equivalent of their old war room, where they discuss the matter of how to defeat Wish Rumpelstiltskin and figure out how to free Wish Henry from his grip.  It’s here that Wish Rumpelstiltskin’s ultimate plan is revealed.  Basically, he’s taking advantage of the fact that Wish Henry also holds the position of the Author.  Apparently, if the Author’s heart is filled with enough anger and malice, it can trigger some kind of spell that can trap people within their own personal Prison Book. Once inside the Prison Book, the captured person is doomed to an eternity of isolation.  And Wish Rumpelstiltskin has a Prison Book for everyone.  (I wonder.  Were A&E making an intentional reference to the Myst game series here, or is this just a coincidence?)  There’s also a scene when Wish Rumpelstiltskin tests out this Prison Book spell on Wish Blue Fairy.  Because, yeah, Rumpelstiltskin is racist against fairies no matter which version it is. Once Snowing and the New Nevengers learn of this plan, they set off to find a way to stop him.  Snowing decide to go off and try and inspire the people of the surrounding villages to not lose hope.  Not sure what that would accomplish, to be honest.  Maybe they felt that, if the New Nevengers couldn’t find a way to prevent everyone from getting trapped, then the trapped people would still have hope that they could escape and therefore not give into despair. Either way, I can’t help but think this might have resulted in a lot of confused villagers.  After all, in Wish World, Snow and Charming were not only dead, but had also been considerably older.  Wouldn’t seeing a younger version of the dead monarchs lead to a lot of confusion?  

Regardless, Wish Killian, Henry, Alice and Robyn head off to try and find Rumpelstiltskin Prime, who has been off doing his own thing (which involved him revisiting his memories of Belle via dreamcatcher and being morose over the fact that he probably won’t be able to rejoin her in the afterlife now that the Guardian no longer exists).  And Regina goes off to face Wish Henry, in the hopes that she can convince him to let go of his anger so the Prison Book spell couldn’t be cast.  Can’t remember where Parallel Ella, Lucy and Past!Zelena went during this whole thing. They just kinda disappeared from the episode at this point.  Maybe they went with Snow and Charming?  Who knows?

When they locate Rumpelstiltskin Prime, he reveals that he’s discovered Wish Rumpelstiltskin has managed to squirrel away a bit of backup magic in case he ever found himself of need of it.  Rumpelstiltskin Prime decides to utilize that bit of magic in order to rip out Wish Rumpelstiltskin’s heart.  If he can do that, then it will all be over.  (Wasn’t that what they tried to do with Evil Queenie Poo when Regina drank the Jekyll Juice? Look how well that one went over.)  However, it doesn’t matter, because Wish Rumpelstiltskin makes his appearance known at that point and proceeds to gloat that he’s already succeeded in corrupting Wish Henry’s heart.  To prove his statement, he conjures up the Prison Books for Henry, Wish Killian, Robyn and Alice.  And because Wish Henry is, at that very moment, engaged in a duel with Regina, the Prison Book spell begins to activate, with the five of them getting sucked towards their individual Prison Books.

This scene gets rather nail biting, as Henry, Robyn, Alice, Wish Killian and Rumpelstiltskin Prime are all trying to hold on to a nearby long table for dear life, but it’s clear that they won’t be able to hold on forever.  This is driven home when Alice starts to lose her grip, much to Robyn and Wish Killian’s horror.  In desperation, Wish Killian, disregarding his cursed heart, maneuvers himself close enough to Alice to grab hold of her just as her grip on the long table fails.

However, in the nick of time, Regina manages to get through to Wish Henry, stating that he isn’t alone that his life means everything to her, etc. etc.  This apparently works, as Wish Henry relents, allowing Regina to embrace him. To be honest, this seemed a bit anticlimactic, but I guess Wish Henry was already starting to second guess himself, since he’d realized Regina willingly approached him despite knowing that he probably wouldn’t have listened to what she had to tell him. But the moment he gives up on getting revenge on Regina, the Prison Book spell stops.

Unfortunately, it seems like it’s too late for Wish Killian, as the effort involved in keeping Alice from getting sucked up into her Prison Book resulted in his cursed heart completely giving out.  As a devastated Alice cradles his body in her arms, Rumpelstiltskin Prime has a final confrontation with Wish Rumpelstiltskin.  They pretty much go back and forth for a bit over which version of them is the strong one, with Wish Rumpelstiltskin stating that Rumpelstiltskin Prime has become a pathetic shell of his former self and Rumpelstiltskin Prime stating that he’s actually evolved into the strongest form of himself. Eventually, Rumpelstiltskin Prime reveals he’s finally learned the moral of the story- that doing good doesn’t count if you’re only doing it for the reward.  You have to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing.  With those words, he uses the magic he got from Wish Rumpelstiltskin’s backup stock to rip out his own heart so he can place it within Wish Killian’s body. This ends up killing not just Rumpelstiltskin Prime but Wish Rumpelstiltskin as well.  Okay, that’s great and all.  But I’m still scratching my head over how Wish Rumpelstiltskin’s life was somehow tethered to Rumpelstiltskin Prime.  It’s not as if they were connected through Jekyll Juice the way Regina and Evil Queenie Poo were in S6.  Just saying, it’s not as if Wish Killian would die if Killian Prime died.

Also, how would this magical transplant thing help bring Wish Killian back to life?  It didn’t exactly help Victor Frankenstein’s brother.  Or Daniel.  The only known case of this working was with Snow and Charming, when they performed the heart spilt.  And it was pretty much stated that this only worked because Snow and Charming were True Love. So how exactly would Rumpelstiltskin Prime’s heart bring Wish Killian back to life?

Regardless of how it doesn’t make a lot of sense, it still works.  Not that I’m complaining, of course.  Especially since it means that Wish Killian is no longer affected by the Curse of the Poisoned Heart, which enables him to properly hug Alice at last. And because Rumpelstiltskin Prime died doing the right thing for the right reasons, and without caring about the reward, he ends up being granted a reprieve.  Which allows him to reunite with Belle in the afterlife.  Those of you who know me know that I’ve been more or less opposed to Rumbelle since the start of S4.  But to be honest, I guess I can live with this.  After all, it really seems as if Rumpelstiltskin FINALLY learned his lesson this time and realized that good deeds don’t count if you’re only doing them to earn brownie points.  That’s kinda on par with Christian teachings.  Even someone who repents of their sins at the last minute is granted forgiveness.  The ONLY thing that bothers me about how this turned out is the fact that we’re told Rumpelstiltskin’s happy ending doesn’t in any way include his LIVING SON! What’s poor Gideon supposed to do now? He’s completely alone in the world now.

Also, I noticed something during this episode.  Wish Henry seems to have a scar above his eyebrow.  And in that scene when Young Henry was fighting the dragon at the start of the last episode, he ended up getting a nasty cut in the same place. Does that mean that was actually supposed to be Wish Henry in the opening scene of last episode?  If so, why was Wish Rumpelstiltskin saying he came all the way from the Wish Realm?  Wouldn’t the fact that we were looking at Wish Henry mean we were IN Wish World?  I’m so confused.

And now, we’ve come to the aftermath. An undetermined amount of time later, Henry Prime and Wish Henry both approach Regina, who has been off on her own reflecting on everything that has happened.  It’s here that Regina reveals she’s got an idea.  She’s found the Wish World version of the scroll she’d used to cast the original Dark Curse (because Wish Regina never got the chance to utilize it.)  She states she plans on using it, but with some drastic alterations.  Instead of crushing the heart of the thing she loves the most, she plans to combine the love of all the people she cares about to turn the Dark Curse into something else.  Basically, instead of bringing people into the Land Without Magic and separating everyone, this new twist on the Dark Curse will essentially merge all of the magical realms together.  In other words, all the different realms in the entire multiverse will be joined together into one gigantic realm tucked away inside a pocket dimension located in a secluded corner of Maine.

Okay, to be perfectly honest, I’m still unsure how I feel about this.  I mean, at face value, I can see how that might be cool.  As Regina points out, it would mean that nobody would be separated from one another by dimensional barriers anymore.  And you wouldn’t have to worry about locating a magic bean anymore to realm jump.  (Though I suppose that’s going to put Anton out of a job.)  Not to mention the obvious pros.  This would mean that Emma would now be able to visit her friend, Elsa, at any time.  And it’ll be that much easier for Ruby to swing by with Dorothy to see Granny and her BFF, Snow, during certain weekends. 

But there are some pretty significant problems that I don’t think they bothered to address before they came up with this idea:

1) What if the people who lived in the different realms didn’t want to be directly linked to Storybrooke?  Granted I got the impression during, that whole flyby of the newly established United Realms, it still looks like each realm is still granted their own designated area.  They’re not made an actual part of Storybrooke.  I guess it could be compared to the United States, in a way. Texas and California are technically part of the same county, but they’re still able to be treated as separate from one another.  But even so, it’s rather presumptuous of Regina to make the decision to combine all the realms together without bothering to see how the people in all the different realms felt about it.  Considering the way Grumpy and the others greeted Alice and Robyn when they first arrived in Storybrooke, I can see the people in the other realms wanting as much distance between them and that town as possible.

2) Wouldn’t this introduce a lot of new dangers to Storybrooke and the other realms?  If you’re going to connect all the realms together, you’re kinda making it easier for ogres, the Jabberwocky, and people like Blackbeard to have limitless access to areas they didn’t have before.  Not to mention the fact that there might be certain diseases that could now spread rampant, leading to possible epidemics.  Just saying, think of how many Native Americans died from things like smallpox when the Europeans brought the disease over with them.  In much the same way, there might be a particular illness that the people of Oz have developed a natural immunity to while denizens of Wonderland might have never been exposed to it before.

3) The fact that Wish World is being included in this whole plan is going to potentially lead to a lot of confusion.  Because there’s now going to be two versions of practiclly everybody. We’re talking two Grannys, two Augusts, two sets of Dwarfs etc.  The only people in Storybrooke who won’t have a doppelganger are Snowing and Geppetto, since Wish Snowing and Wish Geppetto are dead.  And of course Emma, because I think we’re now supposed to conclude Wish World and its entire history was created around Emma.  On the other hand, there’s probably going to be THREE Reginas running around- Regina Prime, Evil Queenie Poo (who had settled into Enchanted Forest Prime with Wish Robin) and the now elderly Wish Regina.  I’m sorry, but do we really need that many Reginas? To quote Killian Prime from 3x05:  ‘I can barely stomach one.’

4) The obvious time paradox going on right now.  If this whole ordeal in Hyperion Heights and Wish World have been taken place in the past, around the time when Young Henry left home in 7x01, then wouldn’t this mess around with the timeline?  So, you’re telling me that Henry Prime was off adventuring in Parallel Enchanted Forest at the same time that Post-Adventure Regina was merging all the realms together?  If that was the case, shouldn’t Pre-Adventure Regina have already known everything was going to happen?  Not to mention that this probably means Robyn has to share legroom with her five-year-old self.  Show, you’re not Doctor Who!  You don’t get to throw this Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey crap at me!

Regardless, this plan of Regina is put into effect.  And in the big fly-by over the new United Realms, we see quite a few cameos.  While I’m sure I’m missing some, I believe I spotted the Nautilus, Tinkerbell, the Queen’s Castle from the Enchanted Forest, Camelot (I think), Oz, Arendelle, the Beanstalk, Agrabah, and the Land of Untold Stories.  We also catch a glimpse of a dragon.  According to an off-camera conversation between Regina and Zelena, the dragon we see is Lily.  Indecently, we FINALLY get acknowledgement that Lily tracked down her Dragon Daddy. Turns out that the mystery father was Zorro.  Because apparently Zorro can turn into a dragon in this universe.  Interesting choice.

But that brings us to the final epilogue.  Zelena is bringing Regina to Snow and Charming’s castle in the Enchanted Forest Prime sector.  (Wonder where Chad was during this scene.  Didn’t Zelena end up marrying him?)  It’s revealed that they plan on crowning Regina as the supreme ruler of the United Realms.  Ugh, yeah. Don’t get me wrong, because as I’ve said before, I’ve mostly been okay with Regina throughout this season.  But why should she get to be the Supreme Ruler?  Why does there even need to be a Supreme Ruler in the first place?  You can’t tell me all the other royals were okay with this.  People like Tiana & Naveen, Elsa, Jasmine, Rapunzel Prime, Guinevere, Merida, Thomas & Ella Prime, Abigail & Fredrick, and Anastasia and Will from Wonderland Prime.  Are they all supposed to defer to Regina now?   You can’t seriously tell me that they all were okay with that.  But that’s what Snow is claiming, so whatever.  Which reminds me- we get a brief appearance of Little Neal during this scene.  He’s actually stopped being a baby.  It looks like he’s now….maybe five or six?  I’m not really good at guessing the ages of little kids simply by sight.  But the point is that he’s actually not stuck as a baby anymore.  So kudos to him.

And so Regina gets crowned as Supreme Ruler of the United Realms.  Although, there is a much welcome interruption to the proceedings.  Namely Emma and Killian Prime, who come bursting in after arriving late.  (With Emma announcing that she’s sorry that she’s late, which was obviously meant to be a callback to how Regina crashed Snow and Charming’s wedding in the Pilot.) The explanation is that their newborn daughter was being fussy and that’s what had delayed them.  Even though I knew it was coming, it was still such a joy to see Emma again, looking as gorgeous as ever.  She even was wearing her trademark red leather jacket over the pretty pink dress she wore for the occasion.  And Killian Prime (who apparently still has his pirate regalia) really did look like a slightly disheveled first-time father.  Even though there were moments when the baby he was carrying was so obviously a doll.  Also, I can’t tell you how thrilling it was to hear Emma actually refer to Killian Prime as Henry’s stepfather.  Yeah, I realize that’s what he was all along, but to just hear it verbalized was wonderful.  And yes, we learn the CS baby was named Hope.  While it’s not the name I would have picked, since I think that’s a bit too flowery, I guess it makes sense.  Especially considering the lives Emma and Killian Prime led before they found each other, and how their love story unfolded.

Once the excitement of Emma, Killian Prime and Baby Hope’s arrival has died down, the coronation of Supreme Ruler Regina continues.  Again, why was Regina picked for this role?  Wouldn’t Emma have been the better choice?  Not only was she the one who originally brought everyone together through her role as the Savior, but she was also the one who was robbed of her royal birthright.  Wouldn’t it have been more satisfying to see Emma finally being recognized as the ruler she was always meant to be?  Look, I get that Regina was the one who came up with this whole idea of the United Realms and all.  But as much as select Regina fans would like to think otherwise, Regina wasn’t the main character.  Emma was. So why is the final episode so focused on Regina?  For crying out loud, she wasn’t even the focus of this final season.  This season was supposed to be predominantly about Henry, and he barely did anything in this series finale.  But I guess it’s pointless to harp on it, as it’s already said and done.  At least the ending montage was beautifully done.  Yeah, during Supreme Ruler Regina’s coronation speech, in which she talks about how there are sure to be many more adventures, we get an amazing montage sequence that exhibits various moments from the show’s entire run.  I won’t deny that I LOVED that moment.  It was so nice to be able to look back on how far this show has come.  At the same time, this montage really drove home that this was it.  This was the final episode of Once Upon a Time.  And if that wasn’t enough, the episode even ends with one final glimpse of Storybrooke, including the Yellow Bug (which is thankfully not encased in stone along with Stone Troll), ending with a shot of the green road sign that reads ‘Leaving Storybrooke.’

And that’s it, folks.  Our show has come to an end.  While I knew this day would come eventually, and I’m glad it came when it did, it still feels surreal.  We’re never going to see our favorite characters again.  This will be the last time we see them grace our TV screens. Sure, we still have the novelizations, which I will probably read at some point.  And I believe Jen and Colin said they would not be opposed to making a Captain Swan movie at some point.  But even if that movie never gets greenlighted, I think it’s safe to say that this is a show that will live on in my heart, in spite of the issues that sprung up throughout the years.  And I will always be grateful to the show’s seven years, and the friends I made within the fandom.

(Click here to read more Episode Analyses)

[violent-optimism]

My Ranking of all the MCU films so far

Hey guys! So now that I have finally caught up and watched every single film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (to date) I will now rank them from worst to best!

Just an FYI: Some of you will probably not agree with some of my choices, and that is perfectly fine. This is just my personal opinion.

Here we go!

#19: The Incredible Hulk (2008)

The Hulk has always been one of my favourite superheroes, and as far as I am concerned this movie completely ruined him. The CGI looked like a video game, the narrative was terrible. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. Just not a good movie at all in my opinion.

#18: Iron Man 2 (2010)

I actually saw this one in the theater, and I kinda wish I hadn’t. However, unlike the previous entry I wouldn’t say it’s a completely awful film. There are a couple decent/funny moments. But for the most part, it’s not great and I don’t think I’d watch it again.

#17: Thor: The Dark World (2013)

I seriously cannot believe I wasted my money TWICE to see this in the theater. I was pretty disappointed by this movie. The villain had no clear motivation. The romance was so awkward and the majority of the humor just didn’t work. The only redeeming qualities are the performances of Hemsworth and Hiddleston.

 #16: Iron Man 3 (2013)

Now, I don’t think this movie is actually that bad, but it’s just not quite as good as some of the other high caliber MCU films. I liked that they addressed Tony’s mental health issues and the film has a pretty good ending. This movie won’t exactly waste your time, but there are other films more worthy of it.

#15: Thor (2011)

While not NEARLY as bad as its sequel, the first Thor film is a bit cheesy, clunky and predictable. That being said, it’s a visually impressive movie with some pretty fun and hilarious moments. At this point I feel kind of neutral about it. It ain’t no Ragnarok but it’s not as terrible as the second installment.

#14: Iron Man (2008)

For the very first film in the MCU line-up, this one is pretty good. Right away we know exactly what kind of person Tony Stark is, and the first half of the movie is surprisingly suspenseful and emotionally charged. It has a few humorous and bad-ass sequences. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really stand up in comparison to some of the later MCU films. That being said, it’s still a pretty good time.

#13: Ant-Man (2015)

Now the only reason I put this above Iron Man is because of how much it exceeded my expectations. I really didn’t think it was going to be that good, but it was. Not a perfect film by any means, but I was surprised at how entertaining and funny it was. I suppose my only complaint would be that unless you are really into Ant-Man as a character, it’s not that memorable of a film.

#12: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Don’t get me wrong, I did think this film was very enjoyable for the most part, I just don’t think it was as good as the first one. I think what I liked most was the development of the relationship between Gamora and Nebula. I did think most of the humor was good, but there was so much of it that it ended up feeling more like a comedy rather than a super-hero flick.

#11: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

There is no denying that Chris Evans was cast perfectly as Captain America/Steve Rogers. He is someone you can really root for, which is what makes this movie so successful. However, the film is very cheesy at parts, and some sequences are slowly paced, but overall it’s a very entertaining movie and a great introduction to one of the MCU’s most important characters.

#10: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Personally, I do think this one is better than the sequel. All of the characters are introduced perfectly, and their interactions are written in such a clever way. I also think this movie has the better soundtrack when compared the sequel, and the humor is not as overblown. I guess my only complaint would be that it kind of feels like the film makers were trying to copy the Avengers with the whole “team doesn’t get along at first but then they do” scenario. It definitely works, but it’s not the most original idea. Overall, very well done.

#9: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Although the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films (excluding the 3rd one) will always be close to my heart, I have to admit that this movie was really good. I really enjoy Tom Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker. He has an innocence about him that makes him so likeable, and you really want him to succeed. I also thought the humor in this movie was perfect, and Michael Keaton was not just another boring Marvel villain. Overall, I would definitely see it again.

#8: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

To be honest, I don’t think this movie is QUITE as good as the Tumblr community thinks it is. However, it is pretty darn good. Some of the action and fight choreography is absolutely stunning. I love how it feels like a spy/espionage film while also displaying themes that the MCU is known for. I love the developing relationship between Steve and Natasha, and how this film exposes their true colours. Really well done.

#7: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Again, I don’t think this movie is as incredible as the Tumblr fans say it is, but overall I did enjoy it quite a bit. A lot of the issues I had with the previous Thor films are not in this one.The Director must have realized that the previous Thor films just weren’t working, and decided to give this one a fun, energetic spin that I think was the perfect choice. Of course, I have to talk about my favourite actress, Cate Blanchett, who KILLS IT in this role (no pun intended). With a brilliant aesthetic and motivation that makes sense, she might just be my favourite MCU villain yet. In my opinion, this is the best Thor film so far.

#6: Black Panther (2018)

Alright, now we’re getting to the really good stuff! This movie took the world by storm, and it’s not hard to understand why. With a cast full of talented and diverse actors, Black Panther is unlike any Marvel movie we’ve ever seen before. I can’t tell you how unbelievably refreshing it is to see a film that is not 90% white people, it’s the other way around! Although the story is a tad predictable if you’ve seen The Lion King, the action is superb, the visuals are beautiful, and the script is very well written. Wakanda forever!

#5: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Without getting too much into spoiler territory, I will say that this film is probably the most ambitious cross-over I have ever seen in all of cinema. The crazy part is that the directors actually managed to tell a clear and concise story despite the fact that they were dealing with something like 30 characters in one film. Emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking and hilarious, this one hits all the marks that it should in the most surprising ways.

Still not sure what to think about that ending though....

#4: The Avengers (2012)

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I first saw this movie it totally blew my mind! It truly is an epic movie with some of the best writing I’ve ever heard/seen. While I feel that fans obsessed over Loki a little too much, he is a fun villain with a pretty clear motivation. This movie also introduces Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner who I think is by far the best actor to portray the character. I feel like this is the movie that started the trend of MCU films that were actually really good. It’s a really entertaining ride from beginning to end.

#3: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

I know exactly what some of you are thinking: “Oh my god she thinks Age of Ultron is better than the first one are you freaking kidding me”. Yes, you are correct. I do think that Age of Ultron is better than the first Avengers, and I seem to be very very alone in that opinion for some reason. Basically I think that this film has everything that made the first Avengers film good with a couple things that make it even better:

1) The character interactions are more complex and interesting

2) The stakes are a lot higher and the heroes suffer more

In a nutshell, that is why I think it’s better than the first one. To be perfectly honest I’m not really sure why Tumblr hates this movie so much. I get that nobody really likes the Bruce/Natasha pairing but is that really a valid reason to hate the entire movie? I guess I’ll never know.

#2: Doctor Strange (2016)

Unless you’ve been counting, I doubt you saw this one coming up so high on my list. It wasn’t until I started thinking about my ranking that I thought: “Wow, I LOVE Doctor Strange!” Not only is Benedict Cumberbatch an incredibly talented actor, I always liked this film because it was a marvel film that didn’t feel like a stereotypical “marvel” film (if that makes sense). Aside from having a visual style I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, I think my favourite part about this movie is the progressive character arc that Stephen Strange goes through. By the end of the film he’s not a completely different person, but his priorities have shifted and he wants to help make the world a safer place. Also I can’t talk about this movie without mentioning the SOUNDTRACK, oh my goodness the soundtrack. Here’s the link, listen and be amazed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc0KNrpFka8

#1: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

It took me a little while to figure it out, but I definitely feel that this movie is my favourite in the MCU so far. Sort of a scaled-down version of Infinity War, this movie has a lot of characters, but the story is balanced so well that you barely notice. The comedy is really good, and is countered with scenes of irreversible emotion. Everything ties together so wonderfully, and despite the long run time, the movie is extremely well paced. Although it has one of the more darker endings in a marvel movie, it still manages to end on fairly positive note, which I love. I don’t know what else I can say to praise this movie, so I’ll end it right there.

Wow, that took a while! There you have it folks, my personal ranking of all 19 MCU films so far. If you took the time to read all of this, thank you so much for doing so. Hope you guys enjoyed it!

[etcwrites]

Wait for me at your Fingertips

Lancelot Week Day 3

Prompt: earth/space

Rating: Explicit

Status: Ongoing ( 2 / ? )

Summary:

In which Lotor dances, Lance insists and both of them decide to be stubborn. Also! There are sparks and a healthy amount of groping! (Dancing!AU)

AO3 Link    //     Chapter 1: New Event and a Stranger

Chapter 2: Desire and an Acquaintance

Lotor didn’t see Lance for two weeks, not that he kept a score, not that it mattered…

Altea Ballet and Dance Studios was a big place, with at least hundred students and dancers. Without the common goal of a project or a rehearsal, which wouldn’t be present until the choreographers got their plans in order and produced something more than a few scenes; it was only natural to have different practice sessions.

Still, he liked to think it as a sign, a good sign that Lance had finally took the hint and decided to move on to something different.

Something..better…

It wasn’t as if Lotor was self-depreciating in any way but he wasn’t blind either.

He knew he had to keep his head down. He knew he had to work hard or he would never get back on his feet, never land a solo. He was still on thin ice and the only way to solidify his feet was to get Allura by his side and only way to do that was through hard work...

and possibly by not getting involved with other dancers...

no matter how pretty their blue eyes were...

Letting all other thoughts fade from his mind, Lotor exhaled in a measured pace, the studio quiet at lunch hour. Pushing on the player, he let the music fill the room, his mind already following the expected pattern of movement prior to the sequence’s starting point.

This was one of the first pieces finished by the choreographers, probably because it needed too little to be added, when the original was already good.

Closing his eyes he tried to imagine the scene, involuntarily Honevra's figure flashing before his eyes, long legs on pointe, elegantly poised fingers, sunshine and the way her hand fit-

Hearing the queue tone, Lotor raised on his fingertips, his movement a second late but easily compensated with a quicker arm movement as he moved into the next step, his body turning and moving, turning and moving, his leg opening a bit wider with each turn as the music got more upbeat.

At the next exaggerated turn, he controlled his breath, muscles turning taut in concentration as he made a full turn on toes, arms stretched to his sides, fingers poised and leg opening towards the ceiling in a movement designed to look out of control but forced his body to stay sharp, and absolutely on point.

Vaguely Lotor could feel his hair band falling, long hair pooling down his shoulders. He landed on his feet with more speed than needed, compensating with an outward smaller turn on his toes before suddenly stopping, his mind immediately conjuring up an image of a partner to move in synch with the next pattern.

Still on his toes he took a few steps back, his mind counting with the music, before moving forward then turning, his leg opening wide and up, almost touching his fingers before turning and turning across the studio, each movement becoming a smaller echo of the previous one to finally...stop.

He looked back over his shoulder, mind focusing on the faceless partner while he let his arm reach backwards before pulling it quickly and taking another step forward, and –

He was out of the stage.

Taking a few deep breaths, Lotor turned, feet moving towards his water bottle, mind identifying the weak spots in his performance, trying to resolve how to get it better before his brain finally caught up to realize the music had stopped all together.

Raising his head, he was faced with an all too familiar figure.

"Heyy" Lance smiled, leaning against the wall.

At the sight of that disarming smile, Lotor's stomach gave an embarrassing somersault. "No pick-up lines?" He goaded hoping to distract the boy.

Lance's smile only turned into a smug smirk. "Awwww, did you miss them?"

Lotor raised his eyebrows, hoping he looked bored and unimpressed before stopping before the other and taking his towel to wipe away at his neck.

Lance's eyes tracked the movement, gaze slowly taking in his chest, his hands, before finally focusing on his face. "You know there’s a lot where they came from" he continued taking a step forward.

Lotor turned his side to him, desire rising from his stomach but body literally giving the other dancer the cold shoulder. "I appreciate it, " he drawled. "but I think I'll pass"

"Hey!" Lance exclaimed his expression sobering up. "Ok..ok..I think we might have gotten on the wrong foot." His eyes darted downwards, a sudden nervous energy settling into his hands. "Look, uh Lotor- Can I call you Lotor?"

At his neutral look Lance continued. " First, let me just say, that was one of the sickest first contact dances I've ever seen! You- I mean- you would make an amazing Space Emperor!"

Lotor couldn’t help the satisfied smirk on his lips. It was so good to hear that, and to see the wonder in Lance’s eyes.

"Uh.." Lance must have gained some confidence from his expression because he continued faster. "And I just want to gain some experience. I want to dance to this, man. I know it's probably a long shot for me to be chosen for Earth Soldier but I still want to learn!"

Lotor took a sip from his water bottle, expression closing off as he guessed where this conversation was going.

"And I thought it would be good to-"

"No" Lotor cut him off before Lance could finish the sentence. At the crestfallen expression on the other dancer's face he put his bottle down. "Look...Lance" he started, fingers clasping around the edge of his towel and pulling it off his neck. "I think it would be beneficial for you to find another partner."

"But you also need a partner to practice this dance!"

Lotor hid his face by turning his back and moving across the studio to take his hairband of the floor. "I'm doing fine on my own. And you should get someone else to be your pair. I’m sure you can find many who will be willing." Schooling his features into a neutral expression, he turned towards Lance, arms rising up to tie his long hair.  "Besides, I don't need a partner right now, I think it will be a waste of time."

For a few seconds hurt flashed through Lance's eyes, causing Lotor's heart to squeeze painfully but soon a neutral mask had settled over his face.

His voice, on the other hand, did nothing to hide his feelings.

"Ok-uh..that's- that's cool" Lance turned his back to him, a single finger rising to scratch at the back of his neck.  "I understand..well- I-uh.. I guess, I’ll see you around."

Lotor almost opened his mouth to call him back, wishing for a way to comfort him, but just in a few heart beats Lance was out of the studio. Voices of lively dancers fleeted in with his movement, only to die out as the door closed behind him.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Lotor has always been proud of his ability and resolve to move forward. He learned and he adapted, foreseeing difficulties, pushing on and never looking back...

So, he wasn't feeling guilty. He didn't feel guilty! At least not for this…

"How does this feel?" A deep calm voice asked, strong fingers pushing into his tense thigh muscles.

Lotor inhaled and exhaled, trying to return to the moment because physical checks were actually important.

Dwelling on his feelings...not so much.

"Not too bad, " he concluded. "There is a bit of strain but nothing I can't handle."

Without a word the other changed sides, finding and pushing on Lotor's muscles on his right leg this time. Sudden sharp pain shot down his muscles, body jerking before he could control himself.

"You are pushing yourself" the other man stated, pushing his fringe out of his face and sitting on the chair near the examination station.

"It's fine," Lotor breathed tight, waiting for the pain to subside. "I can handle it, Shirogane."

The other gave him an unimpressed look but turned on his chair to pick up a tube from one of the cabinets. "I didn't say you couldn't" he soothed even though his eyes were hard with determination, or maybe it was regret. "But resting your muscles from time to time would actually help"

For a second Lotor felt treacherous guilt trying to make its way up to his heart, chest going tight with the clear concern in Shiro's eyes. He wondered if the man missed dancing, if it pained him to be this close but still unable to reach what he wanted...to see other dancers get close to his mistakes but still find a way to get back on their feet.

Working of the tube Shiro gave him a look. "Anytime you are ready," he teased gesturing towards Lotor's tights, an open, amused expression on his face.

Lotor pushed his lips together, trying to keep a neutral expression. He stepped of the table and without much fuss pulled off his tights, only leaving his briefs before pulling himself on the table once again. The minute his ass touched the cold surface, Shiro pushed him down with his injured arm, before moving to spread the ointment down his right leg.

For a few seconds Lotor's eyes lingered across the scars over Shiro's shoulder, white lines engulfing the area and especially looking striking beside the black sleeveless shirt. Of course, that was before inscrutable pain shot down his leg, effectively distracting him. "Shit!" he breathed.

"No," Shiro commented with a flippant tone. "It’s almost a month worth of rest."

Lotor tried to frown but pain was still there, clawing at his muscles but Shiro didn’t yield, pushing right into his thigh, massaging, kneading and pulling without mercy. Lotor breathed through the pain the best he could, tense fingers pulling at the sides of the table.

"You are pushing yourself too hard" Shiro commented once again, this time his voice softer.

Lotor huffed but before he could reply Shiro had pulled his leg up and over his shoulder, hands going up and fingers digging into his upper thigh. Lotor almost bit his lip with pain. “Nnnghh!...”

"From what I hear, the project is still a work in progress and you are pushing yourself this hard for an unknown."

"I think-" Lotor forced out, his voice tight with agony. "ugh- I think I can do without the commentary."

Not a single muscle in Shiro's face moved, his grip staying the same but still, Lotor felt dissatisfaction diffusing from the man. "Lotor," he called, slowly moving down the leg.

The urge to apologize churned deep in Lotor’s stomach, almost tempting him. Being one of the few people in the studio with whom Lotor could actually have a decent conversation with, he knew he should be more careful not to offend Shiro but-

There was something dangerous about the man and it was not just his murderous fingers. It was-

"You are trying on the Space Emperor's role."

It was his scary and annoying skills in observation.

Lotor forced himself to face Shiro, keeping his eyes direct but soft, unchallenging even when panic and anger burned under his skin, motivating him to lash out. "I am," he agreed, "Is there anything wrong with being ambitious?"

Shiro looked at him in silence for a few seconds before gently placing Lotor's leg on the table. "If this is what you believe you must do, I will understand" Spreading more ointment on his fingers he moved on to Lotor's left leg which was a breeze compared to the other. "However,you don't need it." Kneading the muscles Shiro once again pulled Lotor's leg over his shoulder, fingers pushing in his upper thigh. "If you think you need the solo to prove yourself, to atone...you are mistaken."

This time Lotor couldn’t hold the other's gaze, eyes moving down and to the side, as words cut too deep.

"I know you feel guilty because of what happened with Narti, but-"

"Stop!" Lotor gritted his teeth, turning to Shiro with a fierce glint in his eyes. "I don't need your advice, Shirogane!  I'm not some young doe eyed dancer who has to be coddled. I know what I am doing! And it is not your place-"

"Uhhhhh..."

At the extra voice both of them turned towards the door, only to be greeted by pretty blue eyes. "Is it bad timing? I figured with all the yelli-"

Then suddenly the boy fell quiet, his eyes moving from Lotor's face to his leg which was still thrown over Shiro's shoulder then to Shiro's fingers digging into his upper thigh, dangerously close to his crotch. A pretty blush spread over Lance's cheeks, eyes opening wider.

"Hey, Lance" Shiro greeted easily, fingers massaging and pushing on a tight spot with a healthy portion of vengeance.

Lotor threw his head back, pain then relief spreading down his leg. "Seriously!" he breathed, voice hoarse.

At the door he could almost feel Lance shifting from one leg to another. "I'll come back if-"

"No, it's fine" Shiro said all professional and prim as he carefully put down Lotor's leg, his face staying suspiciously pleasant. "We are done." Then turning to Lotor he gave him a fake smile. "No practice for a full day" he stated, entirely too pleased with Lotor's frown. "If I see you in any way dancing, I will send Holt after you"

Shit...not that.

Giving Shiro an indignant look he swiftly pulled on his tights, and got down the table. "I'll help," he heard at his right but before he could refuse Lance had already taken his arm, ushering him out of the door and down the corridor.

Muscles still quivering from the massage, Lotor let him be, silence slowly unravelling between them. He knew he didn’t have to speak. From what he had seen so far he guessed Lance liked to talk.

"Sooo..." the boy blurted like clockwork, fingers momentarily getting tighter around Lotor's body. "You and Shiro, huh? I gotta say, you sure know how to pick them. I mean...those muscles! Seriously! Take me home and lay me -" Lance must have noticed the way Lotor was looking at him because he faltered, a faint blush covering his cheeks.

"You are certainly imaginative," Lotor commented, a weird hollow feeling of panic churning at his stomach. He wanted to squish it down, wanted to eradicate any and every variation because no, he could not accept being jealous of Shiro nor he could accept his need to have this guy’s attention. "But no, I cannot say my type fits his. For one, I am not a beautiful authoritative dance school owner."

"Shiro has a crush on Allura?!” Lance gasped then made a cute contemplative noise at the back of his throat. “Well, I can't say I blame him, she is gorgeous and I don't say this because she is my friend but yeah..." He trailed off for a few seconds, letting Lotor guide them towards the lockers.

With each step his body started to feel better, stronger even though his heart felt like it was hanging in free fall. He was just about to send Lance to his way when the other curled his fingers around his wrist, body spreading against Lotor's side. "Sooo.." he said again, changing the simple word with his flirtatious tone. “What is your type?"

What?!...

Lotor turned his head to look into those blue eyes, his breath almost hitching at finding Lance's lips so close.

The boy felt nice and warm against him, fingers drawing lazy circles around Lotor's inner arm. A pleasant fuzzy feeling curled around Lotor's heart and with their proximity it took a while before he could remember their previous conversation. Blinking, he inhaled a controlled breath, then with a quick look down at Lance's lips, cleared his throat.

He couldn’t do this…

"I can handle from this point."

Lance only smiled wider and like a shark that smelled blood, pounced. "Ohh I'm sure," he cooed, taking a step forward and pushing their bodies against the wall. His hands moved over Lotor's body, one settling at his hip while the other brushed against his shoulder blades to settle on the wall. "But won't you like me to handle something else as well?" Resting his body on Lotor's he whispered. "I'll let you.."

At the sudden forwardness Lotor's eyes opened up in surprise and before he could control himself, his treacherous breath was hitching, sudden heat burning up his spine.

And he wasn't going to deny it! He wanted to! He wanted to take Lance and drive him against the wall, taking his mouth, pulling his hair, letting fingers explore his skin, hands sneaking under that soft shirt.

Could he though? Should he?  

He almost expected Allura to turn around the corner and yell at them and yet...the corridor stayed quiet, only their loaded breaths mingling, and their eyes linking.

Maybe he could...

Leaning against the wall Lotor couldn’t help the way his lips turned up, a pleased expression settling across his face and tension slowly bleeding out.  "Is that so now? How forward of you, Lance"

Lance looked like he wanted to have him right then and there, eyes turning darker. He got even closer, leaving no space between their bodies as he snuggled against Lotor, a thigh between his legs, chest to chest.

Lotor arched his back, holding on to Lance's bicep, as the hand at his hip got even more daring, slipping down to be splayed over his tailbone.

"You don't know me that well yet, but I can be as forward as you want me to be.”

Feeling Lance's erection against his stomach, his playful voice whispering at his ear, Lotor had to control his breathing before he did something stupid, like moan... "How cheesy" he murmured instead, hips getting restless as desire pooled at his stomach, breaths getting tight with need. His head fell forward, long hair falling and hiding his face from Lance.

"Is this you complaining?" Lance's voice was amused, still playful as he shifted his leg and slowly rubbed his thigh against Lotor's half erect cock.

Pleasure shoot up his spine, fingers getting tight around Lance's arm as he pulled the boy closer, breath turning into a small whimper when their mouths met in a loaded kiss.

Immediately Lance adapted, the hand over the wall cupping Lotor's cheek, cold fingers feeling amazing on his overheated skin while his other hand grew bolder, slipping down Lotor's ass to pull and squeeze.

Lotor jerked, this time a moan slipping, only to be smothered by that intense kiss. His heart beat forcefully, cock turning painfully hard, as Lance’s tongue moved against his, fingers curling into his hair and shifting their grip to turn the kiss even deeper.

Fuck, he thought, legs trembling, fingers digging into Lance's skin. I have to stop…

With short breath Lotor pulled back, cutting off the kiss, the wet noise immediately going to his groin. A moan got stuck at his throat as he turned his head to the side to put some distance. "Lance" he panted, voice wavering.

Lance made an unsatisfied noise at the back of his throat, his mouth immediately moving down Lotor's neck. "No, no, no, no" he chanted against his skin, mouth leaving a burning trail and breaths teasing against sensitive skin.

Lotor shivered, head leaning against the wall and leaving his neck vulnerable to Lance’s kisses.

"You are going to say something negative or worse...logical"  With a vengeance Lance gave a small bite at his collarbone, successfully pulling a shameless whimper from Lotor.

"Don't" he continued, hand dragging down Lotor's chest.

“I can’t-“

It fell from his lips, unrestricted but true.

He couldn’t…he couldn’t take the risk.

Silence filled the space between them, slowly growing as Lance leaned back with a pained sigh, lips and hands dragging against Lotor's skin, almost unwilling to let go.

“I knew you were going to say this…”

A sigh...

“I can't be your practice partner, I can't be your - " Lance moved his fingers between them. Then he fixed his eyes on Lotor. "Anything else I should know about?"

Vaguely Lotor realized when done right, either situation would have been a perfect opportunity get into Allura's good graces. But he didn’t… he didn't want to use Lance like that. For an unfantomable and scary reason he didn’t think he even could.

"Lance," he started, grateful that his voice stayed in control. "Let it go."

He hoped he was not too harsh, though the sad frustrated look on the other's face said otherwise. Pushing himself of the wall, Lotor brushed against Lance to move down the corridor.

He had to do this, he had to keep him away.

But even if that was true, Lotor couldn’t shake the disappointed drop down his stomach, the horrible feeling of panic squeezing at his throat.

It only took two steps for his body to grow cold, Lance's warmth seeping off.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

"Ok! First of, hold your salvos and just listen, yes?

Lotor wasn't sure if he understood the situation.

It had been two weeks (and four days) since the incident, since he had blatantly rejected those pretty blue eyes, pushed him off and sent him on his way.

Never mind the quick stolen glances, tense silences, awkward meetings in the hallways...

Never mind the uncomfortable churning in his stomach, the warm tingling at the back of his neck…

Never mind the way his mind still lingered, unable to forget that kiss, the warmth of that body, the way those fingers felt against his cheeks…and the heartbroken look on the boy’s face…

Now though...

Lance looked absolutely fine, no nasty glare, no glower, no pout… He was relaxed, hand cocked up on one hip and a new light in his eyes.

Inherently suspicious, Lotor waited, mouth closing and lips turning into a tight line.

So the boy was over it. Then was it about revenge? Reconciliation?...

"I get it, man." Lance said at last, determined and completely accepting with a cute little crease between his brows.

Lotor felt his eyes opening wider.

“You don't want a practice partner, ok. You don't want...anything else. That's fine, it's cool! Let's just...let's just stay friends? There is no harm in that, yes?" By this point, Lance was clearly trying to look carefree but Lotor only needed to look into his eyes to see hope burning.

He swallowed his sigh, same hope burning in his stomach as well, desire squeezing around his heart.

Friends, huh? No harm in staying friends... right?

Lotor barely kept himself from shaking his head. He knew he shouldn't do it... he really shouldn't.

“I guess it can't be too bad" he replied, before he could stop, before he could convince himself that it would be unwise. And although he kept his tone teasing, his heart beat hard in his ribcage.

And just like that Lance was grinning brightly, eyes shining in the afternoon light. "Oh, thank you, your Highness!"

Your Highness?... This boy was ridiculous…

Lotor rewarded him with a small smile, excitement running under his skin. Turning and crouching down to zip his duffle bag, he threw a look over his shoulder. "You are most welcome"

Then rising to his feet, he took in Lance's practice clothes, where sweat had already settled at the corners of his t-shirt, hair looking matted, tousled, and cheeks slightly flushed.

Tempting...

"You shouldn't leave the practice in the middle, your muscles will get cold"

Lance's grin only got wider, his attitude turning flirty in just a few seconds. "Awww, are you worried about me?"

Lotor chose to give him his amusedly unimpressed look. "Just common sense, Lance." Then turning his back to the other dancer, he moved down to the door. "Get back to your practice."

A genuine laugh, then...

“Yes, your Highness!"

Lotor couldn't phantom the sudden change, his innate suspicious mind trying to find a focal point of difference in their interactions to feed this occurrence and coming up empty handed.

But...

…for the first time in two weeks Lotor was able to take in a relaxed breath, warm satisfaction settling into his bones.

For now, he was going to take what he can.