#i also had a dream recently about this Charon

[no-to-noto]

This started as a doodle, but I just love him too much not to give him a pretty sunset.

This is Charon based off of the Styx Beach AU by @jacqcrisis !

He is looking at Hermes. Of course.

[noro-noro-noro]

i don't remember these in as much detail i slept a lot

- this one was the first one from a while ago. it was about the bg3 companions, sort ofz & I was also there. I remember there was gale, very ooc laezel, reynauld darkest dungeon. everyone owed a huge debt to wario & was surreptitiously checking their phones to try to convince him to hold off a little longer. wario also wtked for "the big bad", whoeevr he was.

it started off with us trying to run on foot through an empty city. raining lots of fast food restaurants around. there was a giant thing or smth else that picked up laezel & was trying to talk to her but she was mad and started stabbing him in the hands and went to cut his eyes out but she recognized him at the last second? it was some guy she'd known in the past, before ????? a curse was placed on him that made everyone forget ? idk. anyway suddenly she was ectremely nice to him & everyone else. that was weird and unsettling.

we went to the guy's underground safe place. it was prttu nice, & moderately well defended, which was good bc we'd have to defend this area. wario texted somebody that he was displeased with how he generously extended the repayment window and they still hadn't paid him a cent, so now he was only going to sccept domeone in thr party betrayig the other two and selling tjem to him.

- riding the limbus company bus on some kind of cross country trip. first it was about my sister & dad stopping off at a big convenience store. some of the people in the store approached and said something weird to us that put me on edge and I shouted for everyone to run. it turned out they were definitely some kind of agent thing they grabbed us & our travelling companions & held guns, but if you knocked thr gun iht of someone's hand you unlocked the ability to stun the persob who had selected you as their taeget.

anyway it was now framed like a strategy game wherebwe had to get all the children back onto the bus. the baddies had some kind of mind control band that we didn't know about & the first time we were almost able to get all the children to the bus - then the agents became not stunned and all the kids turned around to walk back up the Hill like in a dream.

I was stuck on this fight a lot and kept coming back to it across different dreams so the cast of characters kept getting switched up. I wanted a perfect clear. I didn't want any of the children to die. the more I reset the worse it all became until there was a huge chasm owned by the rat king, who was callous and very flighty, but he decided to ally with us after all . the main ossue is that the enemy agents had their own elites - a woman who was fire aligned and could dig through dirt at high speeds, the poisons weed gnome, several others. my soldiers had no such things, and the rat king did lay several tricks and trapsbin the chasm sbd orchestrated some sleeper assassination of agents, but je was more of a tricks guy than a confrontation guy.

at one point the baddies got to the truck & got charon, so virgil was about to destroy them all like a heat seeking missile.

- school (?) art class (?) taughtbby my high school civics teacher mr. N that everybody really liked bc he was a really chill guy. hopebhes still doing well anyway it wasthe last class of the day. I was trying to befriend the person bext to me, who was constantly shifting in appearance, but I think he was based off of scara grnshin impaxt. koga kengan Omega was also there like ooo don't trust him... & I was like well you haven't given me a reason.. & continued working on my art project collsge thing. at the end of class nr N was writint down some on thr board explain the recent surge of drama and even the students that had gone missing due to administrator actions, and a lotnof ys weee staying behind to watch even tho we were worried we'd miss the bus, but I didn't know the initial context

[scolek]

HELLO!????!!?!?!

wait so is it a continuation or not....

i ended up google translating the entire article. so its under here now

The sound of the bell began the story of the fairy tale "Cinderella." Cinderella, played by the beautiful girl Matsuri, dreams of attending a ball held at a castle, but her mother and sisters, played by Hina, Milky, and Mega-nee, are ordered to watch her at home. There, a ``great wizard'' played by Myamu appears and uses his magical powers to prepare a dress, glass shoes, and a carriage, and they decide to go to the castle. Then, the 12 o'clock bell rings, and just when you think the spell will be broken, the castle disappears...

At this point, the story of "Cinderella" is temporarily interrupted, and the stage returns to the original world of Matsuri and the others. It depicts an online tea party that connects the magical world and the human world. Matsuri and Myamu are from the magical world, and Hina, Chimumu, Lemon, Charon, Amane, Patano, Miruki, Jennifer, Auru, and Meganee are from the human world. It is said that Auru's invention made it possible to make video calls.

Festivals blooming after a long time of recent updates. A festival to show the results of half a year of studying abroad. What I showed everyone was a mysterious book I found at the library. The book talks about the phantom theater ``Theatre Moonlight,'' which is said to have existed in the world of Manamana for a long time, but for some reason important parts such as the location are completely white. Everyone had a great time solving the mystery. Suddenly, the book is surrounded by a mysterious light, and the tea party participants find themselves in the world of books. Matsuri and others are so happy to be able to actually meet each other again. While exploring the world of books in an attempt to escape back to their original world, they arrive at ``Theatre Moonlight.'' For some reason, the theater has everything necessary for various plays, including scripts, dresses, and costumes for the waiters. So, all 12 of us decided to perform ``Cinderella.''

Amane becomes the chairperson and things progress smoothly, but it is the main character, Cinderella, that everyone admires. There, a game corner will be held where you can play the role of Cinderella. The game chosen for this year's division was "Isshin Doshin! Duo Magic Picture Matching!" From here, we move on to a chaotic corner where the characters and their personalities are mixed together. Draw half on the right side and half on the left side of the theme illustration, and combine the illustrations in pairs selected by lottery. The judge will be the number of applause from the audience. The winning prize, of course, is Cinderella's right. The theme was the familiar character "Tanto-chan." Myamu & Amane pair received a lot of tsukkomi such as "Who and who!?" "Angel and devil?" "Did you draw a cat?" They are full of confidence because they are playing Tanto (Kanae Ito) While there was a close competition between the pairs such as Gaanee and Hina, the winner was Jennifer and Remon, who both drew Tanto-chan who looked like a ``Teruteru Bozu''.

The cast has been decided for this time: Matsuri is Cinderella, Megane is the stepmother, Hinata and Miruki are the older sisters, Myamu is the great wizard, Chimu is her friend the mouse, Patano is the carriage jockey, Jennifer is the princess, Lemon became the butler, Charon the servant, Amane the prince, and Auru the storyteller. In this way, the festivals played the role of Cinderella perfectly. In the ending talk that followed, Ohara, who was participating in a ``Primagi'' event for the first time, said that he was enthusiastic. In addition, Hirose is overwhelmed with emotion as he was able to gather at this event, as the dubbing for the main part of ``Primagi'' was recorded separately, so not everyone could participate. She was moved by the applause she received from the audience.

Uchida also said with a smile, ``I'm happy to have a variety corner like this.'' Here's a sudden mega-nee quiz. Among the accessories she wears, how many red glasses does she have? The correct answer is hair ornaments, rings, and nail accessories, all of which are homemade. She revealed that the vertical stitching she was wearing was made by Fujitera, and in return she wore matching rings that resembled hair accessories and a choker. . Yoshikawa also said that this was his first time participating in a reading drama, and said, ``What should I do when I don't have my own lines?'' commented.

At the end, Hirose said, ``This is the first ``Primaji'' solo event.Would you like to end the event with a little more chatter with everyone here? He then called out to the audience, "Please stand up! If you have a penlight, you can wave it! You can also shout!", and everyone chanted, "Watch! Please! Magic! -What's your “Please” Magic?" The event came to a close amidst great excitement.

----

ok so in summary. its canon but not necessarily consequential????

I STILL WANT TO SEE IT. I WILL SCOUR THE EARTH.

[fireemblems24]

Dimitri's Supports

I have waited FOREVER for this. Let's go. And I decided to put my patience to the test, saving Dedue for last.

Since it's Dimitri and I love him, and like Dedue who I also love, he's the only one unlocking all his A-Supports, I'm going to blog all my reactions to them like I did with Dedue. Part of me wishes I thought of this for the other characters, but honestly it would've taken forever lol. Plus Dimitri and Dedue get special treatment because I said so.

Raphael

Starting off with something light hearted, I hope. I do wonder if I'm going to regret not saving this one for the inevitably heavy-handed stuff coming later.

I'm seriously betting this is a support you're supposed to get in part 1 lol. Dimitri sounds young (or maybe I'm just haven't heard non-growl part 2 Dimitri enough yet?)

Dimitri's training made Raphael think he was dying lol. Dimitri's strength is really meme tier.

I need fanart of Dimitri and Chrom co-miserating their mishandled strength breaking something. And Lucina.

Lamo, Raphael has never felt a cramp before. Lucky bastard.

Raphael is a sweetie, going to apologize to his muscles. I really wish they gave him something else to talk about other than muscles and food. Not everyone needs Dimitri tier development, but I think I'd like Raphael a lot more if he just got a smidge more depth.

Got to say, it's a bit jarring to go from "moments away from a suicide charge in the rain" to "lol, Raphael, it's muscle pain." As glad as I am that I got this support, I do think some should've been locked to part 1.

And this isn't just for Dimitri's development. I also saw Marianne and Raphael's B before this support and she reverted back to her part 1 self too.

Catherine

Maybe it's just me, but he does sound a bit older.

OMG - Dimitri's back. 😭😭😭

Sorry, it didn't really hit in that first one since that seemed like a part 1 support.

Oh, cool! I was wondering if anyone would bring up Catherine returning to Faerghus. My bets is she's too loyal to Rhea. (I guessed right)

Catherine be simpin. That's ok, I get it.

So it's not because Catherine dislikes Dimitri, or that she's absolutely needed to rule House Charon, so I think Dimitri just likes her. She's cool though. I get it.

Lamo, she told him he'd better get his sleep like he's a kid.

Curious how the A+ support will play out.

Mercedes

Team Mom's support!

Oh, no, this one's taking a serious turn isn't it? But their initial supports were so light and cute.

Mercedes just told Dimitri that he's kind to a fault. Somehow I know he's going to deny that.

Annnnnd I'm right 😭😭😭He's still calling himself a killer and disgusting monster 😭😭😭

OK - so THIS seems perfectly in tone with his recent character development. But it's so sad hearing him still talk about himself that way.

Mercedes is such a therapist. I can't. She's too pure. But savage. I saw that Lorenz support.

"I am scared . . . so scared that I will forget their faces." 😭😭😭😭😭😭 Dimitri why????

Mercedes telling Dimitri to live in the present. Her supports are always so good. I legit think she's easily a top 10 favorite in this game.

Wow, Dimitri saying if someone told him that 5 years ago, he'd be different. DID NO ONE EVER GIVE HIM ANY HELP AT ALL???

I love how she's talking to him as a classmate, and equal, and not talking up to him. He's always wanted that.

Dimitri's never given his own dreams any thought 😭😭😭He really was just 100% living for other people most of the time. 😭😭😭

Awww MERCEDES, I can't. She says she just wants to keep being his friend. This is so damn sweet. And heavy. But still sweet.

It just hits super hard knowing how badly Dimitri just wanted friends in part 1. And looking back, Mercedes and Sylvain were really the only two who were pretty casual with him.

Aww, yeah, Mercedes not putting up with the bullshit, Dimitri. Telling him to quit the self-deprecation! God, I love her.

Oh, God, they both said the old FE code for "we're married" i.e. I want to "stay by your side."

Ok, @garlandgerard, I totally get why you ship this. Mercedes loves to nurture people, and Dimitri's emotionally needy, so they match pretty well. She also didn't put up with the constant self-put-downs, but stayed gentle about it. And they talked like equals too, like friends, which is what Dimitri always wanted. It's all very sweet.

Annette

Yeah, see, this one starts off with "your highness," but Mercedes it was just Dimitri. No hate for Annette. She's my girl.

These two always give me sibling vibes.

Haha, Annette "I thought I already knew you, but I'm not sure I really do." Hmmmm wonder what Dimitri did that made her think that maybe there's parts of him she didn't know. No. idea.

Hey, Annette, no one blames you for not knowing what to say to Dimitri when they reunited lol.

Annette too pure too, wanting to cheer Dimitri up with his favorite food.

Her not knowing what he likes to eat is 100% that moment when you realize you don't know someone's favorite color.

HOW can Dimitri have no strong feelings about food. I'm having pizza right now. Let me tell you, I have strong feelings about some food.

I love how easily Dimitri deflected from talking about himself lol.

Awwww, Annette wants to live with her family again. I'll make that happen, Annette. Don't worry.

Haha, they're conspiring together behind Gilbert's back.

They still have an A+ support, which is weird, because that seemed pretty well ended? Like I see why Catherine's needed more, but not this one. Still, not going to say no. I like their dynamic.

Ingrid

OCF they're training. God I love all the Faerghus childhood group though.

Oh, fuck, here comes Glenn again. My heart's not ready for this with Rodrigue dead. Poor Felix.

Ingrid being Dimitri's knight 😊😊😊 as it should be.

Haha, Dimitri asks her for an interpretation. Just make her your knight.

Glad he hasn't started saying "I'm not worthy!" Because right now it's about Ingrid's feelings.

Wow, there, Ingrid. "However you please, Your Highness." That . . . that sounds like an invitation. To "staying by your side."

Dimitri laughed. 😊😊😊

Oh, God, this is so cute. His pause asking her to support and defend him as his knight. 😊😊😊 OMG. I'm not sure that's all she had in mind though, good Sir, have you LOOKED in the mirror?

Seriously though, Ingrid's just surrounded by studs, isn't she?

Oh, God, I'm right. She didn't just mean knight. But Dimitri's too dense in that area to notice. She crushing hard. Girl, I get you.

She blushing, saying "for the Kingdom," naw, she just like him. Me too, Ingrid. Me too.

Dimitri always makes people promise not to die on him. It's so sad considering . . .

Flayn

With Flayn it's always a toss up. Sometimes things are super light hearted, and other times it's way heavy.

On a random note, does no one wonder why Flayn hasn't aged a day in 5 years?

Flayn having nightmares. Not allowed. I bet it's fucking Jeritza's fault. I'm glad you get to rip him a new one so many times in this game.

Why is Flayn apologizing?? She's never done a thing wrong in her life.

Right, Flayn's other support with Dimitri was pretty heavy. And it started so funny with him stomaching her food.

Oh, good grief, what's he apologizing for? Ok - so Dimitri did do some things wrong. But not to Flayn.

He lied. Let me guess. Her food actually sucks.

Aw, got it. He went right to the meal. Is he really going to come out and say, well it actually sucked 😂

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE MEALS???? AND THE TEA an embarrassing amount of tea.

Wait. He can't taste ANYTHING??? Like. How? Did he hide that????

Ok - I need to look at his team and dining dialogue.

OMG. He really never says a word about how anything tastes? He always just talks about smells????

OMG. How did I NOT NOTICE. I've taken Dimitri to dinner a million times. And tea timed him too many times to admit too.

AND I NEVER NOTICED HE NEVER ONCE SAID HOW ANYTHING TASTED. HOW.

OMG that support with Annette hits different now 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

OMG and Dedue's support with Flayn hits different now. Since he wanted to badly to find food Dimitri loves 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Does Dedue know? Is that why he's so dedicated to cooking??

Can I headcannon that?

OMG, I feel so awful about that jab about pizza. Dimitri CAN'T TASTE pizza or anything 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Please someone tell me there isn't any more "this awful thing also happened to Dimitri and he's failed to tell you" like learning he almost fucking died at Duscur. And now this. Dimitri needs to learn how to fucking complain.

The writers are so fucking mean to Dimitri. OMG. OMG, how am I supposed to take him to dinner and tea now, knowing this?

Why does everything hit so differently now? And so many Blue Lions supports are about food - but Dimitri can't relate

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

This game needs to stop bullying Dimitri.

But like, God, can you imagine? Not tasting anything? I'd starve. I'd actually starve. I never really get hungry. I really would starve.

On the flip side, he's good for Flayn then, since someone can eat her cooking I guess.

"I was just saying what I thought you would want to hear . . ." Dimitri - a summary.

Naw, that's a kind lie. That kind of lie doesn't really hurt anyone.

Oh - dear God. Flayn. Stop. No sampling pungent food.

Oh, she blushing. Dimitri got her blushing

Please tell me in their paired ending Dimitri gets his taste back.

Oh, there's an A+, does he taste something. Please tell me he tastes something.

This support though. It wasn't really one on my radar but

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Gilbert

Oh, man, this one right after Flayn's. God, I'm going to need the Alois one after this. Gilbert and Dimitri are two of the most somber characters in the franchise.

And I haven't forgotten that heartbreaking B support.

Haha Lambert sucked at lying too. Dimitri too pure. Weirdly, despite everything, it's still pretty true.

Oh, shit, oh shit, we're back to Dimitri's demand that Gilbert kill him. I'm betting you usually get that in part 2.

God, imagine seeing Dimitri recover only to see him beg for death again 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I need alcohol.

I need the Alois support.

OMG, shit, Dimitri. No. Don't. Stop.

Like, I know Gilbert won't really kill him, but damn. This support is heavy.

No, Dimitri, no Gilbert is not cruel for not killing you. God.

Oh, not sure about this. I get what Gilbert's going at here, but telling Dimitri that he's not allowed to die because he's got a duty is . . . I think Rodrigue's and Mercedes' live for what you want/the present is a LOT healthier.

At the same time, this is a pretty effective way to make sure Dimitri won't go and try this again, because he really takes duty seriously.

Dimitri doesn't wish to die? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh, thank God.

"Many times I have felt that I cannot afford to die . . . But this was the first time I truly feared the prospect." 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

"Is it really right for me to live?" Oh, dear God. I'm so soft for Dimitri. I can't.

Gilbert answered that one right. 100%.

Damn, these supports.

Alois

OK. I need this one. I really need this one.

I really hope Alois' inspiration is bad puns. I need bad puns right now.

Pretty sure this is a part 1 support though. I love how Alois, not Dimitri, is leading this. And that the person the Kingdom NEEDS is running around and getting attacked by monsters lol

Ok, bad puns. Bring them.

There we go. Thank you, thank you, Alois.

OMG no one's laughing 😂😂😂

Dimitri's laughing 😭😭😭😭😭😭

That's it. This is always getting saved for part 2. I need to hear part 2 Dimitri laugh.

I'm also so glad someone finds Alois funny. Dimitri and Petra need to start a club.

OMG I love the two other confused soldiers. I needed this 😂😂😂

Marianne

These two were so sweet in their C and B supports.

I swear I'm going to end up shipping Dimitri with everyone. Except maybe Annette, no hate, they just seem so much like brother and sister to me.

And Felix x Annette 100%

Survivor's Guilt - the pairing. Both wondering why they survived 😭😭😭

"There are so many others who are much more deserving of life . . ." - who said it? Marianne or Dimitri?

These two just understand how each other feels so well. It hits so different compared to Marianne's other romantic possible supports where they just try to make her smile.

Instead these two take comfort in finding someone who understands how they feel so well and feel relieved they can share that with someone.

Haha - "I must go on living. I cannot give in to death so readily." This coming right after his support with Gilbert. Good job, Gilbert.

They've both had it so rough 😭😭😭😭😭😭

"There is no need to force yourself to smile as your soul bleeds." Dimitri always gives such good advice that he never follows.

Aww, now at least it's getting cute instead of just heavy. Marianne laughed too 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Yesss, Girl, preach. I got a little sick of her other supports all being "cheer up!" Like I know it's all in good faith, but I'm so glad this chain exists. It just hits different.

Dimitri doesn't think he's strong enough to live his life. 😭😭😭 this game. I swear.

ohhhh - ohhh, Dimitri blushing now. And all she needed to say was they've been brought closer together. Congrats Marianne!

OHHHH tables have been turned. Now someone's making Dimitri promise he needs to live!

"I don't know what I'd do with myself if we lost you . . ."

"I promise to the goddess of Fodlan that I will never give you cause for despair."

OMG these two are being so sweet, I can't. 😭😭😭😊😊😊

Felix

Oh, boy, here we go. This should be . . . interesting.

Oh, we're starting off good I see. Felix telling Dimitri he needs to answer quickly or get cut in half 😔Felix. No.

Dimitri sounds so somber 😭

Dimitri admitting both are him - the vengeful "boar" and the friendly good person. And this is why I love him.

Dimitri feels the need to shoulder all the regret the dead feel, please don't. They wouldn't want that 😭😭😭😭😭

"The dead won't acknowledge your loyalty, they don't care." - Felix not wrong there.

I partly agree with the idea Dimitri is "serving his own ego" by claiming he's acting for the dead. I think it's a bit more complicated than that, but I think that's part of it.

Felix saying some good stuff here about the dead being dead and the living being living.

"If you keep stringing gravestones around your neck, you'll snap." - Felix, I don't know if you noticed but . . . uh . . . he sort of did.

Felix telling Dimitri to become a grave keeper is a bit funny. Not going to lie.

"I'm not immune to emotion you know." - just tsunderes things

Aw, Felix is upset his father died 😭😭 after all that shit-talking about Rodrigue 😭😭

Wish Felix didn't cut Dimitri off when he said "more than anyone you-" (care about other people, unless he joins CF and just kills everyone)

Oh, God, Felix is such a tsundere. "I couldn't stand the pathetic look on your face. That's all." Sure, Felix.

Kinda wish these two had an A+ though. Seems like there's more to do than the A+ with Annette and Flayn.

Really curious to see what their paired ending is like after that. Seems they're still learning to learn about each other. Well, Felix is. Dimitri didn't seem too upset lol.

Dedue

Ok guys. Here we go. I can't believe I managed to wait for this for last. Everyone hyped this one, so let's hope.

Really? We open with Dimitri having scars on his back? 😭

From 9 years ago? So scars from Duscur then?

Images of shirtless Dimitri now. though Not bad images.

He got scars protecting Dedue?

"It makes me think that is was worthwhile that someone like me survived." 😭😭😭 he's talking about protecting Dedue? 😭😭😭

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

"But I saved someone - saved you. That and that alone has been my crutch." 😭😭😭😭😭

I always knew these two were co-dependent.

Dimitri really out here saying that saving Dedue helped him "justify" surviving. 😭😭😭😊😊😊

OMG THAT'S THEIR STORY

OMG, poor Dedue. And Dimitri 😭😭😭did he literally "take a bullet" to save Dedue 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 and still has scars? No wonder Dedue's so loyal. Some kid he didn't know did that. That's one hell of an introduction.

And picturing little Dedue just resigned and angry and waiting to die and just 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh, Dedue, you've repaid that debt ten-fold I'm sure.

Ahaha, Dimitri's doing the "you'd better accept your worth!" discussion this time lol.

Dear God these two. Now Dimitri's bringing up that Dedue busted him out of the jail.

I swear, these two have more of a plot off screen than some routes do on screen.

And now picturing Dimitri resigned and just ready to die. And then Dedue busts in. 😭😭😭

"That was nothing more than my duty as your vassal." Stop that Dedue. Dimitri doesn't want you to be his vassal. He wants more.

Holy shit.

"You are irreplaceable. Cherished." 😭😭😭😊😊😊😭😭😭😊😊😊😭😭😭😊😊😊😭😭😭😊😊😊

Not to be that person - but I tell all my "friends" that.

Yes, Dedue, stop saying insisting you're just a "vassal" - that's a worse joke than Alois' puns from earlier.

"Please . . . do not look at me that way." What way, like you're about to make Dimitri cry, or like . . .

"You promised me you would build a Kingdom that is proud to boast of Duscur blood." - shit, man, these two. I just . . .

OMG so much emotion from Dedue. The only time I ever heard that before was in VW when he learned Dimitri died. But let's not remember that right now 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh shit. He called him "Dimitri." 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

And it made him blush.

OMG.

Guys, these two.

Aww, Dimitri looks so surprised. 😊😊😊😊😊😊

Oh, these two are so soft for each other. I can't. I just can't.

"To be your friend . . . is what I have always wanted." You're going to get it.

Man, I feel almost guilty S-Supporting Dimitri. He needs to pair up with Dedue pronto.

Dimitri sounds chocked up. OMG.

"So please call upon me when you walk alone at night." Ok. Dedue. Ok. Yes. Guys. This is all very straight.

I'm not saying it's - you know - cannon, but there's some big feels here.

Oh, Dimitri, stop it. You like Dedue's overprotectiveness. Don't lie.

Man, you guys were so right. Dimitri really just came out and said Dedue was "cherished" and "irreplaceable." Like, I'm not making this stuff up. And Dedue blushing hardcore just saying Dimitri's name.

They're both just so soft. I can't. I literally cannot. This support was gold. It was worth all they hype.

And learning more about how they meant. Dimitri really taking a bullet for Dedue there. I just . . .

I just want all the happiness for both of them. They're really something special towards each other. Like I legitimately think this is one of the most two-way loyal relationships in the whole franchise, and definitely the tightest bond in this game.

Like in past games you had Seth for Ephraim and Erikia and Soren for Ike and it's not like Ike, Ephraim and Erikia and etc don't care, but it wasn't the same level, you know? But this is such a two way street.

And I'm so weak for bodyguard with a crush. Like Seth/Eirika? Yes. Geoffrey/Elincia? 100%. Riza/Roy (Fullmetal Alchemist) there again. I'm sure there's more, but those are my top ones. Even Merlin/Arthur sort of counts even if Arthur doesn't know Merlin's his bodyguard lol.

I need to read fanfic for these two. I really don't want to spoil anything, but I'm dying. They're both just so sweet, and I just really love their dynamic. I really want to do a write up on it once I get to the end of the game.

[ashketchup119]

Four Years To Get There

If you or a loved one remember when I used to write regularly for hypzag/zagnos, you may be entitled to a senior citizen discount-

I didn’t want to post all of my hades stuff, but I think this one is really cute. My fanfiction writing and my original story writing are two different styles, because fanfic is my domain to go crazy go wild.

“So, four years stuck with my brother? I don’t envy you.” Thanatos commented airily as he made coffee.

Zagreus, who had woken up ten minutes prior and was staring morosely at the countertop, looked up when Than started speaking, and frowned. “Hypnos isn’t that bad, Than. He’s actually nice to be around. And he hasn’t made ‘morning person’ into a personality trait, unlike other people.” He smiled after saying this, in a teasing manner aimed in the direction of Than’s back.

Than hmph-ed and said nothing more. 

The rest of the morning passed by as usual- Than went to work, Zag went to the gym and to walk Cerberus, Than came back for an early lunch, and the two of them exchanged pleasantries at the junction between their personal schedules- Than half out the door, Zag on his way in. The two of them had been roommates for two years, and had become comfortable with this routine.

Earlier that week, though, Zag had gotten an email saying he’d been chosen to work as a bodyguard for a diplomat headed on a mission to a planet where rumors of attack had been swirling, with instructions on how to get to the port and what to bring. In total, it was meant to last about nine years- four years to get there, a year on the planet, and four years to get back. It was quite the commitment, but he didn’t mind overmuch. It’s not like there was much waiting for him on the planet he lived on currently- just his friends, who assured him they’d text and video call, and his dog, who had already been approved to come with him.

The evening before, Zag had found out the name of the diplomat he was supposed to work for. It was Hypnos! His roommate's twin brother! The two of them weren’t very close, but he was kinda relieved to know there’d be another friendly face on the ship.

After greeting Than on the way in, he began packing, using the sheet he’d been sent. He put music on in the background, and hardly noticed the passing of time, only breaking out of his reverie when Than came to remind him to eat.

A couple days later, he was ready to leave, Cerberus waiting patiently at the door. He gave a quick goodbye to his friends and his father, the former of whom gave promises to contact and the latter of whom just hmm-ed under his breath.

After the ship had taken off, he sat on his bed for a while, taking it all in. He was going somewhere new- how exciting!- but he knew he was going to miss his friends and family.

A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts.

“Coming!” He said as he went to get the door.

On the other side of the door stood Hypnos, in full regalia. His departure had been much larger and more public, and Zag hoped that his brothers and mother had shown up. Charon he was almost certain of, and made a mental note to check his social media for pictures Hermes had most likely posted about his “almost-little-brother-in-law leaving us behind!! 😭😭.” Nyx and Than, though, were a little colder, and Than had made no move to leave when Zag had gotten on the ship.

“Hi!” Hypnos chirped, trying not to show the exhaustion he felt. It had been nothing but endless briefings for months prior to this, and the next four years were sure to be a nice, long break before doing it again for a whole year.

“Hi!” Zag replied, feeling slightly awkward in his far less formal tank top and shorts.

Cerberus came up between them and nosed at Hypnos’ cloak.

“Hi to you too!” Hypnos bent down and pet Cerberus to the best of his ability, mentally thanking the powers that be that he was a rather tall Doberman and not a small dog. 

Zag knew that Hypnos was his friend and his roommate’s brother, but he still was at a loss of how to act. Hypnos was, for all intents and purposes, his boss now, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he’d be expected to act accordingly.

Hypnos ended all pretenses of formality by stepping into Zag’s room and quickly shedding all jewelry and reminders of his station, leaving him in a long, elegant dress that crumpled beneath him when he flopped on Zag’s bed.

Hypnos yawned widely, and shifted to where he had a view of Zag still awkwardly standing in the doorway to his own room. Cerberus climbed on the bed next to him, and laid his head on Hypnos’ stomach.

It was a scene which made Zag vaguely want to join in and rest, but he was too wired to do so. Instead, he pulled the chair out from the desk facing the bed, and sat down with the back of the chair pressed to his chest.

“You excited?” Zag asked Hypnos, lightly drumming his fingers against the cool plastic.

Hypnos made a noncommittal noise and seemed to settle into the bed more. “You don’t mind if I nap here, do you?”

Zag shook his head, and Hypnos nodded slightly before falling asleep so quickly it startled Zag. He waited a few minutes before beginning to unpack, trying his hardest to remain quiet so as not to disrupt Hypnos. After dropping an exercise weight rather loudly and realizing that Hypnos hadn’t even stirred, he abandoned all attempts at noiselessness and just began placing things, noise be damned. 

He was so wrapped up in it he failed to notice when Hypnos woke up, studied him from behind for a few seconds (it was a nice view! sue him!), then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Zag was in the middle of organizing the desk when his communicator pinged, alerting him that dinner was being served in the cafeteria. 

“What time is it?” Hypnos mumbled from the bed.

Zag tilted the communicator to turn the screen on and told him.

Hypnos sighed and sat up, yawning as he stretched. He sat and blinked for a couple of seconds, then said, “We have to go to a special dinner with the other politicians and stuff. After today we’ll be able to go to the cafeteria, though.”

“When does it start?” Zag asked, trying to remember where he’d put his formal clothes.

Hypnos smiled guiltily and responded, “Five minutes ago?”

Zag’s eyes widened and he sprung into action, grabbing his clothes from the drawer and stumbling slightly as he went into the bathroom to change. Hypnos began to reluctantly put his own uniform on. By the time Zag came out, striking quite the figure in the fitted vestments, Hypnos had managed to pull everything on, and was fiddling with the clasp of the cloak.

“Here, let me get that for you.” Zag offered, and went to stand in front of Hypnos, where he reached up slightly and fastened the cloak.

The two stood in front of each other for a couple of seconds, Hypnos mentally preparing himself for human interaction and Zag trying to recall his training. Then, Hypnos sighed and moved around Zag to get to the door, and Zag fell into position beside him.

A week passed with Zag at Hypnos’ side almost constantly (even in sleep, to an extent, as their rooms were next to each other) before Hypnos once again came to his room for a nap. Then, over time, this became a regular occurrence. Hypnos would nap on Zag’s bed almost every day, and when he wasn’t napping, the two of them talked. Zag told Hypnos about growing up with a father who simultaneously ignored and expected everything from his son; his mother, who he had only met again recently, who used to worked as a diplomat but had retired to a small, idyllic, relatively unknown planet; the important people in his life, like his mentor Achilles and his friends. In return, Hypnos told Zag about growing up in a family that seemed to excel at everything; days spent sleeping because he couldn’t disappoint people in his dreams; going to school to learn how to talk to people and accidentally gaining importance. They talked about loneliness and happiness, highs and lows. 

It brought them closer together, and as weeks turned to months, Hypnos found himself looking forward to talks with Zagreus. He would wake up, giddy for their next interaction, and anticipate what he might say today. Maybe he’d make a comment about Zag’s haircut or a joke about how Cerberus like him better than Zag. Thinking about Zag made him smile involuntarily, and when the two of them talked, Hypnos sometimes felt his cheeks warm at Zag’s laugh and demeanor.

About four months into their voyage, he realized what this meant.

Oh.

Oh no.

It’s not like he hadn’t talked to Zag before- he did live with his brother- but the close quarters made everything… different. It felt like it was just the two of them, an island floating in a ship of 200 people. Maybe that was it- he just wanted to feel close to only other person on board he interacted with regularly. It couldn’t possibly be like, an actual crush, right? Yeah, no. It wasn’t.

That’s what he told himself, at least.

Zag, on the other hand, was oblivious to Hypnos’ internal struggle. He liked hanging out with Hypnos. They’d gone from acquaintances to best friends quickly, and Zag came to treasure their (many) moments together. He liked the teasing and jokes, and came to find his little yawn-stretches after a good nap rather cute. 

He had a crush on Hypnos.

He didn’t try to deny it or push it out of his mind, but he also didn’t really acknowledge it either. Hypnos was funny and adorable and really, really disliked tomatoes but always got an extra helping of pasta or whatever food with tomatoes was being served so he could give it to Zag, who he knew loved tomatoes. Zag couldn’t imagine not having a bit of a crush on Hypnos. He figured most people who met him did, because how could they not? With his unruly curls and dimples he was classic crush material.

So the first year passed. 

The second year began with a party, a celebration of “making it one year without any major incidents” (the ship captain’s words). Hypnos and Zag attended, once again in their stuffy formal wear, but ditched halfway through in favor of grabbing any food they could stuff in their pockets and talking in Zag’s room until long after the partygoers had trickled back into their rooms.

With the second year came new responsibilities. Hypnos’ monthly meetings turned into two, and he began to attend refresher courses on the language he’d be expected to use once the ship landed. Zag found himself standing outside rooms more often than not, and poor Cerberus’ walks went from three times a day to two. Their hang out time was cut in half virtually overnight.

So… why did Hypnos’ crush on Zagreus only worsen? 

They were both interacting with other people, and he had work to do. Why couldn’t he seem to pry Zag from his mind? He had to focus! But all he could focus on was Zag’s smile, playing on repeat in some sadistic part of his brain, and he wondered idly if someone had invented some sort of “cure” for a crush. Zag was his brother’s roommate! Than probably had a crush on him or something, because there’s no other way he’d let anyone live with him. He’d barely tolerated Hypnos when they’d shared a room as children!

(Than did have a small crush on Zagreus, but was finding out quickly that distance did not, in fact, make the heart fonder.)

Hypnos didn’t sleep a lot at night. Normally, sleep wasn’t a problem for him; he’d always been one to fall asleep easily and deeply. Now, though, his thoughts played on an endless loop, and he only really slept when he was in Zag’s room, surrounded by the noises of Zagreus and Cerberus.

Zag found that his crush on Hypnos was quickly blossoming into something much deeper, and didn’t really mind it. He wondered, idly, if there was a chance of Hypnos feeling the same, but didn’t want to jeopardize the mission (they still had eight more years together!) or their friendship. Besides, there was something beautiful in just the feeling of spending time with someone you l- cared for. Cared for, and he figured it was better to enjoy it.

For a short while, anyway.

It was difficult to deny the dreams he had of holding hands with Hypnos and going on dates (among other, less wholesome things), and he began to wonder more and more often if those dreams had a chance of becoming a reality.

Probably not. Hypnos was busy and important; he probably didn’t think about Zag half as much as Zag thought about him.

Three years came and went, with the budding feelings between the two only deepening. It caused some slight frustration, but neither of them was willing to talk about it, and behind their backs, the rest of the ship began to take bets on when they were going to get together. 

It didn’t happen in Year Three, when they were shoved into a closet “on accident” and spent the time talking about the things they had to finish that day.

It didn’t happen in Year Four, when Cerberus got sick and the two of them squished themselves into the same chair with Hypnos’ formal cloak draped on top of them like a blanket. It had been a cute scene, and was trending with #zagnos on social media for an hour before another diplomat had requested it get taken down. 

Finally, the day came for them to land. The whole ship was abuzz with people hurrying to and fro in anxious attempts to make sure they and their belongings were ready to depart. They’d been told to leave the bulk of their belongings on the ship, as it was the same one they’d be returning to and they would still have access to it, but this left people unsure as to whether they should over or underpack. 

Zag had decided that one backpack would probably be enough, seeing as they’d been told that decorations in the rooms they were to be provided were forbidden. He also had a tote bag with Cerberus’ things packed, and was more or less just waiting for the ship to be cleared to unload.

Hypnos, on the other hand, had three pre-packed, unopened suitcases filled with various clothes of the local fashion (enough to make sure they wouldn’t repeat; the higher-ups wanted to make an impression of their wealth); a bag of cosmetics and hair products (no longer would the unruly mess of curls reign); five briefcases with information he’d studied front to back multiple times during the trip; another duffle bag with sleep clothes; and a bag with all of his electronics. 

Zag picked up as much as he could, and the rest was carried by an envoy sent from the local government, leaving Hypnos free to smile and shake hands and generally do the job he’d been sent there to do. 

It was a stark difference from the Hypnos Zag had gotten to know, and it shocked him somewhat to see how quickly he’d changed from Hypnos, Zag’s best friend and the guy he’s in love with, to a charming diplomat with a winning smile that anyone would be hard-pressed to dislike.

Zag must’ve been hard-pressed, then, because he found himself disliking this version of Hypnos. There was something… insincere about it. It was all fake, a show put on to help Hypnos do his job better.

Well, he was only here to help Hypnos do his job, right? It wasn’t for him to like or dislike things. 

There was to be a party for those who had finally touched down on solid ground, and as Zag changed into a less formal outfit for the event, he heard a knock at the door. He opened it, then frowned, realizing that there was no one there. He turned to go back to getting ready, but not even five seconds later, the knock sounded again. Again, he opened the door, only to find no one there. He went outside and walked around a little, but didn’t see anyone. He went back to his room, where the knocking sounded again, and realized that the knocking was coming from somewhere not the front door. 

Five minutes later, he found a shallow dip in the wall, and when he touched it, a smooth voice asked, “Name?”

“Uh, Zagreus?” He answered.

A beep sounded, and the voice once again asked, “Name?”

“Zagreus… Plutonic?” He replied again, questioningly.

A ding sounded, and a portion of the wall swung outward to reveal Hypnos, still in the same outfit he’d been wearing earlier. Hypnos smiled widely at him- that same smile that he wore during their hang out sessions, not the one he wore as a diplomatic mask- but quickly flushed purple.

Zag raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“You’re uh, you-“ Hypnos stammered. “You’re not wearing a shirt, silly!”

Zag looked down and realized Hypnos was right. He smiled as he teased, “And? Do you like what you see?”

Hypnos just giggled, a high-pitched, somewhat frantic noise. 

Zagreus put on a shirt as Hypnos moved into the room, sitting daintily on the edge of the bed because his ornate clothing stopped him from doing anything else. Cerberus came up to him and wagged his tail expectantly, and Hypnos reached out and pet his head, making sure to scratch the area behind his ears that he knew he liked.

Zag watched them fondly. He’d always taken it as a good sign that Hypnos and Cerberus got along so well, and had told his mom such. She’d agreed with him, with that bright look in her eyes that hinted she knew more than she let on. 

When Zag was ready, the two of them left together, Cerberus asleep on the bed. 

At the party itself, the two of them basically stuck to the edges, chatting with other people occasionally. Eventually, an alcoholic drink was thrust into their hands. Zag looked questioningly at Hypnos, who nodded slightly as he put his own drink down. Zag grinned and drank it all down in one gulp, to the cheers of the other partygoers. He began to mingle with the crowd, leaving Hypnos standing awkwardly in the corner. Some other diplomats joined him, and they spent time murmuring about upcoming responsibilities and travel memories.

About an hour later, Hypnos felt a tug on his arm, and looked up to see Zagreus, cheeks flushed, smiling widely as he pulled him to the dancefloor. Hypnos made half-hearted excuses to the other diplomats before turning and anxiously following Zag to the dancefloor, leaving several knowing faces in his wake.

The two of them danced for a while, laughing wildly and holding each other’s hands in turn, high on the music and each other’s company. Eventually, the two of them ended up in a different corner than they’d started off in, smiling widely, faces flushed with exertion. 

It seemed to happen in slow motion. Hypnos was smiling widely and giggling breathlessly, staring down at Zag. Zag was looking up at him brightly, fondness crinkling the corners of his eyes. Zag pushed up, slightly, onto the tips of his toes. Hypnos leaned down, unconsciously. 

Their lips met.

After a second, Hypnos jerked back. Zag was drunk, and Hypnos felt like he was taking advantage of the situation. 

He cleared his throat and turned around, mood suddenly soured. “Let’s go back to the rooms, I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

Zag wrinkled his nose and slurred, “Nuh I haven’t.”

Hypnos grabbed his arm and led him out anyway, exchanging goodbyes with those who came to talk to them. When they got to Zag’s room, he watched him go inside, then went to his own room.

He slept, exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.

When he woke up, he was still tired, but he got out of bed and forced himself to get ready for the day, even though he felt like sleeping for the next decade at least. 

Zag woke up with a slight headache and a feeling of embarrassment. He really just… HAD to go and kiss Hypnos, huh? And Hypnos had clearly not felt the same and what HAPPENED to “I technically work for him so this is a bad idea”?

He really should’ve just… stayed sober.

“I fucked up, Cerberus.” He told his dog morosely, who just stared back at him.

He sighed, took some medicine, fed his dog, and put on his uniform, feeling slight dread as he exited his room. Hypnos was standing outside, and didn’t look at him as he began to walk to his first appointment of the day. 

It was hard for Hypnos to muster up his usual charm, but nothing went sideways, so he took that as a win. Meals were awkward, what with Zagreus sitting in front of him but neither of them talking. 

It continued like this for a week before one of them decided to break the silence.

Zag knocked on the door separating their rooms late one night, and opened it after hearing a returning knock. He walked into Hypnos’ room, noting the fact that it was messier than he’d ever seen it.

“I,” He began, then paused slightly. “I just wanted to apologize. It was wrong of me, and I can only-”

“Apologize for what?” Hypnos butted in, confused.

“Well… the kiss?” Zagreus responded, just as confused.

“Wait.” Hypnos said, eyes narrowing slightly as he continued, “I’m the one who should apologize to you, I took advantage of the fact tha-”

“Why are you apologizing to me? I’m the one with the-” Zag made a vague hand motion, “feelings.”

Hypnos stared at him. “I thought… I was the one with feelings?”

The two of them stared at each other for a while before breaking into laughter.

“We’re so stupid!” Hypnos exclaimed between fits of laughter, and Zag just laughed as he sat on the bed so as to not fall down. 

After a while, their laughter ceased. 

Hypnos leaned into Zag’s shoulder, and Zag put an arm loosely around Hypnos waist. Then he pulled away slightly, and asked, “Should we try this again?”

Hypnos nodded, purple flush rising in his cheeks, and the two of them kissed.

[its-a-humanriot]

Common Language, pt. II

Charon realises very quickly that he doesn’t understand his new employer very well.

In the first instance, this is very literal.

(pt. I) / (pt. II)

---

The two of them head out scavenging initially, hoping to replenish some of his employer’s lost caps. Their interactions remain stilted. She is clearly unused to having a travelling companion - much less one who she has command over - and is clearly avoiding using that ability as much as she can, wincing if she forgets to word her sentences carefully. Somehow, this only serves to make Charon more uneasy – at least with direct orders he knows what to expect from it. The rapid derailing of their first interaction means that he doesn’t even really know why she had spent all those caps on his contract in the first place.

His confusion at her only increases as they spend more time together over the course of the day. She has taken to speaking the same way she did after his outburst, slightly slower and obviously selecting her words more carefully. His initial reaction is resentment - that he is being patronised or pandered to somehow, that since he lost his composure she is walking on eggshells trying to preserve his feelings. The fact she saw him in such a state at all makes him uncomfortable beyond measure, never mind the fact that it happened less than an hour after their first proper meeting.

However, this conclusion is rapidly cast aside when (on many occasions) she slips up - she rapidly becomes less comprehensible as she falls into her natural speech patterns. On seeing his blank expression, she has to backtrack and rephrase or repeat herself more slowly, usually accompanied with a deep sigh and a furrowed brow followed by an apology. Her frustration only ever appeared to be directed towards herself, along with a kind of embarrassment at her difficulty in expressing herself. A couple hours after setting out she makes a comment about needing to ‘hit the jacks’ as they head into a house to loot. When she turns to see him looking back at her with confusion, instead of re-wording her sentence she just averts her eyes, clears her throat, and mutters “be right back” before darting up the stairs and into one of the rooms. He almost starts up the stairs after her until he hears the sound of water on porcelain and the situation becomes painfully clear, and he does a rapid about-turn to start his search for valuables on the far side of the ground floor.

It also does not take long for Charon to notice his new employer’s hoarding tendencies. This in itself is not unusual. Most wastelanders kept an eye out of any scrap of resources they could lay their hands on - you tended to live longer that way. Otherwise, useful odds and ends picked up could be sold on for caps, and some of the more daring wasteland folk earned a living by sneaking under the noses of super mutants and feral ghouls to obtain more valuable items. Charon considers this as the young woman pokes at the swaying figurine of a woman in a grass skirt on a wrecked bus dashboard, smiling to herself as it appears to dance, and tucks it into a side pouch of her pack.

No, the strangeness is not that she hoards or even how much, but what she takes. She clearly has at least some capability of evaluating what goods are worth taking – prioritising high-value low-weight items, only going for the heavier pieces when they are really worth it (and after he has insisted that yes, he can carry a few more fission batteries despite her reluctance to use him as a pack brahmin) But for every carton of cigarettes or sensor module she picks up she scoops a handful of screws into a pocket and thread nuts onto a string like jewellery to carry with her. A few carefully selected tin cans that aren’t too bent are filled with old buttons and beads, padded out with scraps of printed pre-war fabric to stop the clattering noise from drawing too much unwanted attention. Even once today her own spent bullet casings got swept up off the floor, bundled into a rag and tied into a neat little parcel before tucking it away.

 “Charon, what chow do you want?”

He pauses in counting his ammunition in the spot by the fireplace. The house they have selected for their camp tonight still has an intact chimney. As long as they keep the fire small it shouldn’t draw too much attention, and they get the luxury of cooking their food indoors while getting to stay warm through the night. When he looks up towards the young woman, she is waving food containers at him. With a small amount of effort, his expression remains blank.

“I will eat whatever is available.” Previous employers have never paused to ask such trivial questions of him. His impartial answer earns a little furrow in his employer’s brow, but her disposition is otherwise cheerful.

“Well, there’s both o’ these, plus all the other stuff we salvaged today. What would you prefer?”

“I have no preference.”

She looks oddly disappointed, like she wasn’t just asking about food options, but doesn’t press him further. Charon looks between the containers in her hands – a box of Blanco mac and cheese, a tin of Cram, and what looks like a few squirrel-on-a-stick skewers wrapped in pieces of old newspaper. He thinks about how long it has been since he had fresh, hot food and not whatever scraps Ahzrukhal let him scrape off a plate or whatever leftovers Carol would smuggle to him. He looks back down at his pile of bullets and keeps counting.

“I have no preference. You should eat the squirrel before it goes bad.” Charon says placatingly. He hears a small, terse sigh from his employer’s direction, and then she sits down by the fire. But when he looks at her out of the corner of his eye (and he is so used to watching his employers, constantly gauging moods like he’s listening to a ticking Geiger counter) she just unwraps the squirrel kebabs and props them in front of the grate of the fireplace to heat up, then unboxes the mac and cheese and places the foil tray directly on the smouldering coals.

“Then we’ll share.” This time she catches him looking at her, and returns the look with a small smile before she turns away to start cleaning her rifle. If she notices that he is still looking at her after that, she doesn’t let on.

If he has to turn the kebabs a few times to stop them getting too crispy while she is distracted, it’s of no consequence. He doesn’t quite save the mac and cheese, which gets a little blackened around the edges before he snatches it off the fire, scorching his fingertips. Divided between the two of them in front of the fire over a slightly awkward silence, it is still the best meal he has had in a long time.

 His employer insists on taking first watch despite his protestations, saying that she has something to work on while the fire is still alight, and he grumbles to himself as he begrudgingly lays down to rest. The combined powers of his training and the soothing noises of ammunition being counted lulls him to sleep quickly.

His sleep is not peaceful – his episode from earlier that day bleeds into his dreams and he wakes up flat on his back and tense as a compressed spring and lost in time, eyes wide open and watching and listening and waiting for the scientists to release him from the sim pod, for Ahzrukhal to curse him out of bed, for a mother whose face he can no longer recall, for someone –

 No one comes. The strange swimming lights and shadows slowly resolve into the peeling patches on the dilapidated ceiling in the dregs of the firelight and a dim glow of electric light. The only noises are a rustle of paper, faint clinks of metal on metal, a sigh and the mumbling of a woman’s voice. His new employer, the kid – what was her name? He forces his shaking hands into fists, and sits up.

 His employer – Billie, he remembers now - is sitting by the fireplace as she was when he went to sleep, but with a hooded homemade lantern sat on top of some kind of scheme that she is pouring over as she tinkers with what appears to be something like a crossbow. Muttering words under her breath with enough vehemence that they can only be cursing, she measures the flight groove against a syringe then a dart, before dropping both in annoyance and scrubbing her fingers through her mass of dark curly hair. At this point she finally seems to notice him, and the pursed look of frustrated concentration on her face drops.

“Agh – sorry. Did I wake you?” Her recently mussed curls only served to make her look even more startled. Charon finds his jaw still clenched after his nightmare, and it takes a moment to loosen it enough to speak.

“No.” At least she doesn’t seem to have noticed anything strange about while he was sleeping. “You should rest. I will keep watch.” She frowns, and checks her Pip-Boy.

“But it’s only been a few hours-”

“I require less rest than most. I will keep watch the rest of the night.”

She looks unconvinced, but packs away her schemes and lantern without further protest and curls up on the mattress, and it is not long before her breaths lengthen as she drifts into sleep.

 The next few hours pass without incident – Charon finishes re-counting his ammunition and counts their supplies to keep his hands and his mind busy – bottles of water, packaged food, stimpaks. They are well enough provisioned for now, and should be well able to make it to Rivet City as his employer had indicated without running short as long as they don’t run into too much trouble. They had chosen a house for tonight as far as they could manage from a supermutant camp, and the nearest passing footsteps don’t seem to come closer than the end of the street. He sits in the dim light of the fire’s embers, and waits.

The young woman mutters in her sleep, curling in on herself. Though it is obscured by her speech patterns and the nonsense of sleep-talk, some of it sounds like names. All of it sounds distressed. He pauses, waiting to see if she will wake while he traces one, two holes in the bottom of his boot, but eventually she settles, nuzzling her head down under the edge of the one thin blanket she had pulled down from the upstairs bedroom. He has not counted another among their packs – once they get to Rivet City he may need to suggest that they acquire the essentials of a proper bedroll. It will be much easier for them to stay alive out in the open wasteland without the risk of hypothermia, especially if they don’t get the luxury of having an intact roof and walls around them.

Sometime after her breaths even out again in slumber, Charon finally runs out of things to keep his hands busy. The last of the embers in the grate have died, and daybreak is still an hour or so away. He hesitates, then lays down on the bare floor an arm’s length or so from the mattress and he counts his breaths, his heartbeats as he watches the pale morning light reveal the patterns of the tattered ceiling.

[tinystinkyman]

I guess I should make a post about the beings I work with, in case you're curious.

Some history first. When I was about six I had an egyptology special interest (typical lol) so I wanted desperately to work with Bast. She turned me down cold. I tried an Abrahamic god after that but he never responded, so from there although I researched greek and roman gods extensively I gave up on response. When I was about 18, starting college, that changed.

I began working closely with the greek gods, through dream and prayer. Hades and Charon, Hermes, Athena, and Aphrodite were some of the main ones. Since then, Hades has adopted me as his child. Hermes is something of a mentor or older cousin to me. And many other of the pantheon are some form of extended family.

At that time, I also believed myself to be working with Thanatos and never questioned why he appeared to me as a tall black man in ancient egyptian dress. I'm sure you can see the blindingly obvious result: It was Anubis all along, colluding with Thanatos to get to know me since he was aware of my trepidation regarding his pantheon. Absolute fucking bitch move, and it worked. The doggy ass bitch is now effectively my brother. What an ass. (I love him.)

Recently, I have also been recieving dreams from a norse god I believe may be Odin. The dreams are extraordinarily vague and woo-y, which apparently is just Odin's style. I must say I'm not a fan, really wish he'd just TELL me what he's on about. I'm not as familiar with the norse gods so if anyone knows good resources, hit me up!

Also, very gently, I have had some talks with dearest Luci-Lu. He seems to think I'm some kind of funny little creacher he likes to watch for entertainment and like.... listen. He's not wrong. And he's also really not bothering me so I'm not gonna spurn him for no reason.

As for other beings, I do work a little with the local fair folk and with other such naturey spirits. I also get a lot of ghostly walk-ins because, well-- I'm a witch, my sister is a witch, my dad comes from a long line of mediums, my parents are ghost hunters-- you get the picture. My mother attracts spiritual nasties like a damned magnet. They don't really bother me, because my room is warded Literally to hell and back, and our family has a reputation among both living and dead as being neutral ground. But it's a thing, so.

I think that's about it. I'd really like to learn more about kemetic, norse, and demonological stuff so please hit me up if you know things!!!

[angelanimedesaray]

Persephone’s Garden

AN:  Brace Yourself for a Long Author’s Note--Yesssss, here is Part 2 of A Quest for Gods.  Also, the entire piece is from Levi’s POV this time, and this time it is pairing CENTERED.  Now, let me clarify on some stuff real quick:  Years have passed.  Also, I have NOT read the manga and am admittedly waiting for the anime with plans to eventually read the manga when I can get my hands on it/have the time to sit down and read for pleasure again (RIP my reader life thanks to college life).  THAT BEING SAID, I am aware of SOME events in the manga, but also my brain is a wee bit strained with things going on right now so I do NOT wish to, on one hand drown myself in spoilers by having to dig into information on events post what we have in the anime by looking at the wiki for the manga, but also break my brain trying to think of all the ways Erwin’s presence would change events after his death, even though usually I absolutely LOVE doing that kind of thing.  SO I’m gonna be SUPER VAGUE (and admittedly lazy) about what’s happened since Erwin was brought back to life and we’ll just leave it at “Tactically, things have been #MuchBetter, with maybe a version of some events still unfolding, though (One in particular will be quite obvious, eventually), the end.”

THERE WILL BE A PART THREE BECAUSE PART 2 ENDED UP BEING SO F’ING BIG I HAD TO SPLIT IT!

Characters:  Levi, Demi-God!Reader, Persephone, Charon, Erwin, And A Surprise Guest

Pairing:  Levi x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Language, some canon typical violence/flashbacks to violence.

Word Count: 9557

<--- Part 1

(Once again, I failed to find the owner of the gif, kept getting “This page no longer exists” messages)

Years passed after your deal had been struck, years that found Paradis entrenched in another war against people instead of Titans.  Waist high in shit with less light in the world, even if the Scouts leadership was fairly secure thanks to the trade for that said light.

Many times in the silent, dark corners when he was truly alone, Levi found himself digging through the pouch you’d given him, namely to run his fingers over one of the medallions that allowed you to enter the Underworld.  Ever since he realized what you’d done, after reaching the surface just to discover you’d stayed behind in order to keep the balance Hades had been talking about, Levi had been trying to figure out what you’d been thinking when you’d given him your pouch.  What had been your intent, what had you wanted from him?

If you’d wanted to keep Levi and the others from coming back for you, all you would have needed to do was keep the pouch with the one way into the Underworld they knew about to yourself.  But you hadn’t kept the pouch, you’d given it to him specifically, suggesting that you wanted them to have a way back to you, a way for him to go back down and find you.  But if you’d wanted to be pulled out of the Underworld, you wouldn’t have stayed so silent on the matter as all of you had climbed to the surface, you would have said something, surely.  And after all the trouble you went through to retrieve Erwin, turning around and undoing it all by pulling you out of the Underworld couldn’t be what you had wanted.

So why?

Considering Levi kept the small pouch on him at all times, there had been moments when Levi found himself standing near a smooth rock formation, hand drifting near wherever he’d secured the pouch that day.  And he would stare, mind recalling how the stone had crumbled into a tunnel to the realm you were still trapped in.  Yet every time, he stopped himself from acting impulsively; he turned away each time.

He wanted to go back for you.  Every day, as the world grew darker and darker around him, he longed more and more to bring you back.  Your absence was glaring to him, and with the possibility that you had wanted him to come back for you hanging over him, the weight of your absence could be crushing.

But he stopped himself every time because the Scouts needed Erwin.  He knew that.  You had known that.  He couldn’t risk Erwin to get you back.

And yet...at times…

Times like this, as he stood in Erwin’s office with the dim light of dusk filtering through the windows, Levi’s head bowed so his face was hidden in darkness as his inner conflict tipped and started to spill over.  The weight of his admission to Erwin about his recent thoughts hung in the air between them.

“I’ve thought about it myself.”

Levi stiffened, looking up sharply with lips parted slightly in shock as he stared at Erwin’s back, the other man currently staring out the windows.  Levi had been expecting Erwin to finally convince him otherwise, not feed the thought that had been growing and gnawing at him every day.

Erwin turned, leaning over to light the lantern on his desk before it grew too dark.  His expression would have seemed grim even if they’d been standing in broad daylight next to the sea instead of in the darkening room as night fell.

“Sometimes it seems like no more than a fading dream, what was down there.  But I still remember the discussion before the deal was struck as clearly as if it was more real than the world we’re in now,” Erwin said steadily.  Levi listened with rapt attention, having not heard this part of what happened in the Underworld in all these years.  “After the situation up here was explained to me, and I was told it was an option to come back, I was asked what I wanted.  Admittedly, I wasn’t that keen on returning,” Erwin said with a small, bittersweet smile, pausing just long enough to let that admission hang between them, heavy and impossible to ignore even as he pushed on with his explanation.

“And I didn’t like the thought of what kind of price had to be paid to cheat death.  But Y/N simply said that the price was nothing compared to what the Survey Corps would gain, especially with the situation at the time.  The way they said it, the look on their face...I had an idea of what the price was,” Erwin said carefully.  “But they didn’t utter a word of complaint, seemed determined to pay it...and had quite the convincing argument after I’d expressed my reluctance to return.  So I agreed.”

Erwin let out a long, tired sigh.  “It’s not the same as before.  Before, I knew exactly what I wanted, why I did what I did:  there was a need that I chased.  Now it’s been satisfied, we know what’s beyond the walls--beyond the sea.  I know he was right, and whatever purpose I try to find next...won’t match what was.  The only reason I’m here now...well, I keep asking myself if I’ve done what they made the sacrifice for, yet.  And if I’ve done what was needed of me, then perhaps the deal has run its course.”

Levi stiffened, Erwin closing the distance between them to lay a hand on his shoulder.  “This isn’t a choice for me to make, it's yours.  I know what it means for me if you decide to go back for Y/N.  I’m content either way, but considering you came here tonight to talk about this...I think we both know which choice you need to make.”

Why do they keep leaving these kinds of decisions to me? Levi thought, watching as Erwin turned to head for his quarters.  The sight briefly echoed of another day, a similar, mostly one sided conversation, and Levi’s teeth clenched.

If you let others decide for you, all that’s left then is to lay down and die.

“Erwin…”  Levi’s fist clenched, the other man pausing in the doorway to his room but not turning around to face him.  “Are you asking me to decide for you...whether you continue to live, or die again?”

There was a long pause, one Levi spent staring intently at the back of Erwin’s head.

“It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

It was the dead of winter, and a nasty one at that, with the snow outside coming up to Levi’s knees, and his breath billowing out in front of him as he adjusted the collar of his military coat to try and give himself a little more protection from the biting cold.  As he lowered his gloved hands, he glanced back towards the soft light he could still see through the window in Erwin’s office, the shadow of the man passing in front of the window.  Levi looked away before any doubts could try and rise inside him, fixing his determined gaze forward instead, into the wintery night that stretched out in front of him as he started to cut his way through the snow.

Going off the assumption that any smooth rock surface would do, Levi only walked until he found a smooth surface, ignoring the biting cold in his legs along the way.  Once there, Levi fished in the pouch tied to his belt for one of the medallions, praying that there was nothing else he needed to do in order to get this to work as he pressed the small symbol against the stone.

It sank into the solid surface smoothly beneath his fingertips, a soft, relieved breath escaping him at the sensation while he pulled his hand back.  It was easier to see what was happening now that he was up close, only taking one step back because he remembered the rock crumbling last time.  The medallion melted into the thin onyx line of a doorway with a hellish red glow, the rock fracturing within the line and crumbling away with a blast of steamy air that burned after walking through the winter air.

Through the darkness there emerged the old ferryman from last time.  Now that he thought about it, Levi hadn’t heard you say the man’s name last time, and the ferryman didn’t speak besides the brief exchange with you before heading down into the Underworld.

The white haired man came to a stop, leaning on his staff as he studied Levi with sharp eyes that didn’t seem to match with his withered appearance.  “It’s a steep price for living mortals who wish to enter the land of the dead,” he rasped.

One Levi was already prepared to pay, wordlessly handing over the two gold coins from inside the back to the old man, who took them without any debate.  Levi had remembered how you’d handed over two of the gold pieces and six of the silver once he and Hange had joined you on the way down, and with how easily the ferryman accepted the coins now, it made Levi wonder if he’d still managed to overpay the man.

“I already know why you’re here.  Come,” the ferryman said as he pocketed the coins, already starting to melt into the darkness of the tunnel.  Levi followed close behind, the darkness quickly swallowing the moonlight of the surface that had guided him so far.  Now he simply had to rely on the ferryman to get him the rest of the way in.

This trip was far quieter, neither Levi nor the ferryman speaking to one another as they descended the tunnel and came to the cavern that housed the mouth of the River of Forgetfulness.  He was still hesitant to step into the boat when it reached them, still not liking the thought of being suspended above a seemingly bottomless chasm when he was forced to rely on some unknown force and didn’t have his gear if something went wrong.  He was also even more mindful of the waters this time, going out of his way to avoid them as he climbed into the boat.

Gazing at the ethereal blue waters, Levi thought of how fortunate they’d been that Erwin hadn’t drank from this river.  Apparently, it wasn’t a requirement--just strongly suggested.  For a moment, Levi also worried over whether or not you had drank from the waters.  Maybe you had wanted him to come back for you, but it had been years.  What if you’d given up, and…

Levi shook his thoughts away.  There was no use dwelling on that, now.  If that proved to be the case, then he’d handle it when he got there.

A growing snarl behind him made Levi stiffen, though he resolutely held his place in the boat.  Last time they’d passed by the hound without incident.  However, last time there had been a child of Hades the hound had a soft spot for in the boat, this time there wasn’t.

Steady, you had said; you had wanted them calm and still.  He would keep to your advice for now, but if the hound wanted to try and make a meal of him, he wouldn’t allow it.

All three heads lowered into the boat, the middle snarling head coming to a halt right in front of Levi’s face.  Its jaw was agape as its hot breath billowed into him, making his nose wrinkle from the stench and eying the trickle of drool that was trying to escape between its razor-sharp teeth.  One of its other heads was starting to get just as close from the side, the snarls growing louder and more threatening as the boat came to a stop in front of the hound.

Levi’s body was taught and ready for a fight, meeting the gaze of the middle head directly even as he saw fire flash in its eyes and its snarl turned feral.  His left hand slowly started to reach for his concealed weapon as its jaws opened wider--

The third head practically shoved its snout into his side, breaking the tense moment as it buried its sniffing nose relentlessly at his waist.  He didn’t want to look away from the jaws in front of him, but he wanted to know what the hell that third head was doing.

Glancing down, Levi saw the third head sniffing intently at your pouch, still tied securely to his waist.  Was there even still a trace of your scent on it?  Was the hound’s nose really that good?  Was it even remotely possible it recognized the pouch?  Either way, the hound knew that Levi had something of yours, the attention of the other two heads also drawn to the pouch.  He had a foothold.

I must have lost my damn mind, Levi thought briefly before he--slowly--reached a hand out towards the head that was sniffling the pouch.  The opposite head snarled in warning and Levi briefly stopped, waiting until the snarl was a rumble before he closed the rest of the distance.

The third head jerked up at the unexpected touch, Levi’s hand carefully placed on the side of his face and starting to give gentle rubs from jaw to halfway down its neck, giving it a few scratches along the way.  The hound seemed startled by the show of affection and the overall lack of outward fear Levi was showing, going still and allowing the pets as the ferryman slowly started to push the boat forward again.  Levi let his hand run gently along the other two heads before sitting back down with a deep sigh, still shocked himself that had worked as he watched the hound disappear from sight, all three heads turned towards him and watching tensely as if it hadn’t made up its mind if Levi was really going to be allowed in.

Too late to change its mind, now, Levi was already disappearing around the bend with the fields of the Underworld stretching out around him.  That color-drained field that seemed to go on endlessly when first entering the Underworld sprawled below, masses of souls wandering aimlessly among the flat plains with not many retaining some faded form of color.  The ferryman was continuing down the same inky river they’d traveled before, the waters dipping low every now and then to come close to the ground.  After two dips so close to the ground the river almost seemed like a normal stream of water cutting through the ground, Levi finally spoke up, since the ferryman didn’t seem to be stopping until Levi said something.

“This is good enough,” he said when the river ran along the ground again, the boat coming to an abrupt yet somehow still smooth halt.  If you hadn’t even been sure of where Erwin would be placed in the Underworld, and you’d traded places with him, then this was going to be the place to start looking for you...even if it was going to take a while simply to search the first mass of souls.

“So be it,” the ferryman said indifferently, leaning on his staff and watching as Levi carefully climbed out of the boat, going out of his way to avoid the waters.

The river of pain and suffering, if he remembered correctly.  Best not to come any closer to it than absolutely necessary.

Once Levi’s feet were firmly planted on the ground again, the ferryman pushed away, the boat starting its way back towards the entrance.  That was that, then--he had to find his own way through the Underworld from here on out.  Adjusting the collar of his coat once more, Levi started forward, the long grass of the meadow brushing against his arms and legs like faint whispers, like they were hardly there.  There was no breeze, just still air, and the only thing that caused the grass to sway were the souls that wandered through the meadow.  Curiously enough, the grass moved more when the dead wandered through it than when Levi did…

It only took him a few steps to find himself in the middle of the throng of souls.  Every face around him was drained of all color and stared forward unseeing, never noticing him even if he walked right in front of them.  Those that still had some sort of faded color to them had some kind of reaction to his presence, glancing his way or stepping out of his path as he went by, but otherwise ignoring him as well.  The colorless souls made no sound, and those of faded color only made faint, indiscernible whispers if they made any noise at all.

Levi walked among them longer than he could keep track, the meadows seeming endless now that he stood in the midst of the throng.  The longer he wandered, he noticed a weariness seeping into his very bones, a currently faint weakness that wasn’t quite enough to make him worry yet, but enough that he knew he wasn’t at his best.  Had he really walked that long?  There was no sense of time here, just a mass of whispers of what once had been people with the occasional flash of color, and if he looked up…

That shitty cavernous roof.  Was this really what he had to ‘look forward to’?  That peaceful forever rest everyone talked about hopefully when death was being discussed...was this?  Endless wanderings in a skyless place, reduced to nothing but echoes and drained of all signs of vitality for the rest of eternity?  The weakness he could feel creeping up on him seemed to grow heavier the longer those thoughts slithered through his mind, invasive and depressing as he was faced with this grim reality once more, just another disappointment, another dashed hope to add to the growing list--

“Levi-bro?”

Levi went rigid, eyes widening as they snapped away from the ceiling, a jolt like lightning running down his spine as he turned towards the familiar voice from a time long passed.

There she was, in brighter color than anything in this shitty meadow besides himself, hair still reddish brown and in pigtails, green eyes wide and inquisitive as she bounded straight up to him without any hesitation.  Her gaze did a quick sweep, taking in how much he’d changed since the last time they’d seen each other, eyes brightening as she assured herself that it was indeed him.

“What do you think you’re doing in a dump like this?  You don’t even look like you should be down here yet!”

“Isabel…”

Levi blinked, half expecting her to disappear and prove she was just some cruel trick of the light in this forsaken place, but she was still there, standing right in front of him.

“You’re not down here on purpose, are you Levi-bro?  I didn’t expect you to be down here even if you were supposed to!  You’d probably knock out the first person who was stupid enough to try to drag you down here.”

The shock of seeing her faded, and the sudden reality that Isabel really was right in front of him--talking to him--settled in his chest like a light that burned too hot.  It was a sudden and intense sensation made up of raw feelings and faded but deep running scars torn to the surface in a split second.  He opened his mouth to speak again, but his throat was closed up, and the words he wanted to say slipped through his fingers like a feather blown away in the wind.

Isabel noticed when Levi’s silence stretched beyond the usual for him, and her bouncing questions stuttered to a halt as she peered worriedly at him.  “Even you should have said something by now.  What, not happy to see me?”

He was.  By the walls, if there was any emotion he could catch right now as it all flashed through his system, it was the raw positive...energy he felt seeing her again.  Even if she wasn’t...if she was still dead.

The sobering thought helped soothe the mess of emotions he was inwardly, enough to think again, to figure out at least something to say.  “You actually remember me?” he finally managed to ask.  Part of him still wanted to reach out and touch her to make sure she was real, but he overcame the urge and stayed in place, letting logic and the task at hand dictate what to say for the time being.  He’d try at...everything else, once he adjusted to the surprise of seeing Isabel again.

Isable looked at him in confusion for a few seconds before realization struck.  “Oh, that glowing river water they tell you to drink when you come down here.  Forget you, and all the awesome things we did?  Hell no, I wasn’t about to do that, I have no reason to!  I’m keeping every one of my memories, even with that reincarnation pitch of theirs.”  Isabel placed her hands behind her head like she might fall down and relax in the grass of the meadow any moment, narrowing her eyes at him.  “That still doesn’t tell me why you’re here, though.  You look a little worse for wear, yeah, but you don’t look dead like everyone else here.”

“I’m not,” Levi said, looking up and around them once more at the sea of souls passing by them like they were nothing more than a boulder in the path, splitting like an indifferent stream around them.  “I’m here looking for someone who shouldn’t be here.”

Isabel dropped her hands, frowning thoughtfully.  “Considering how much you stick out to anyone still looking around this place, I’m sure I would have noticed someone not dead wandering around by now.”

“I’m not sure if they’re technically dead or not, or even if it makes any difference.  They traded places with someone who was dead a few years ago.”

Isabel’s eyes widened.  “Wait, people can do that?”

“Hades is Y/N’s father, so it was a special case.”

After Levi said who you were, recognition made Isabel pop to full attention, leaning into Levi’s personal space.  “Wait, you don’t mean that new person who’s been running around the past few years, do you?” Isabel asked suddenly, rattling off your basic description.

“You know where they are?”

Isabel hesitated.  “Well...they could be anywhere, really.  From what I’ve seen, they’re one of the few people allowed to go anywhere they want in this place.  I’ve seen them come and go from the big guy’s place a few times, though.  Usually to visit that really nice place on the other side of that black river.  That might be where you want to check--from what I’ve heard, there’s some kind of fancy garden over there the big guy’s wife owns.  They’re probably going there, and there’s less of a chance to run into the big guy there than at his fancy palace.  Not to mention, it’s in the nicer part of town--nothing like the rest of this depressing place.”

“Then that’s where I’ll go,” Levi murmured, looking up at the winding black river he’d left the ferryman on.  If he followed it, he’d eventually reach Hades’ palace, and he knew those fields...the Elysian Fields, were just beyond the palace.

Before he could start moving, Isabel’s hand suddenly wrapped around his forearm and pulled him forward eagerly.  “Great--then I’ll take you there!” she said brightly.

And he let her.  Only because...because it had been so long, because he’d thought she’d be gone forever, and because it was Isabel...and this way, he could feel something of a weight on his arm that told him she was really here, that she was tangible in front of him, that she still existed in some way.  The hand felt lighter than it should have, almost like the weight wasn’t really there, but it was present enough for her to pull him forward while he was willing.

For a moment, his mind flashed back to the weight of Erwin’s hand on his shoulder as Hange and he had led Erwin out of the Underworld.  It had grown heavier the more alive Erwin became.  At first, though, Levi had felt next to nothing weight-wise.  With Isabel, he felt a bit more weight than that, but it wasn’t because she was more alive in a sense...could it?  Or was it something else?

Isabel released his arm once it was clear Levi was following, and Levi shook off the curious thought.  The two of them cut through the sea of souls with relative ease, Isabel chatting brightly at him about whatever came to mind, from talking about a handful of other souls who seemed to have retained some of their vitality like she had to exaggerated critiques on the arrangement for the masses of the dead in these fields.  Levi simply listened to her speak in silence, a bittersweet comfort wrapping around his heart at being in her presence, all the things he wanted to say and ask still stuck in his throat, the right words to get them across failing him for the time being.

He hadn’t even said anything along the lines of how good it was to see her, or...or said anything even closely resembling the apology he owed her and Furlan, even if it would never be enough.

Speaking of Furlan…

“Is Furlan here, too?” Levi asked the first chance he had as Isabel paused in her current topic.  She suddenly grew quiet, keeping her gaze fixed forward towards their destination that was growing steadily closer.

“He is, but...he chose to drink from the river when he came down here.”

Levi’s gaze moved from Isabel out over the sea of wandering, color drained souls, beings who were hardly even shadows of who they’d once been.  Now that Levi knew that Furlan was somewhere in that mass of souls too far gone to even realize their surroundings, there wasn’t much point to go looking for Furlan before he left, was there?

“I see.”

The bend in the river before the Elysian Fields was coming up.  If he wanted to say something, now was the time to find those words.  Isabel, however, was leaning in again, this time to look thoughtfully at one of the patches sewn onto his military coat.

“Looks like you stayed in the Scouts...So, what about that Erwin guy?”

It was rather obvious that if he was still in the Scouts, he hadn’t killed Erwin...or at least gotten caught doing so.

“He became the Commander,” Levi said quietly.  He could feel Isabel’s gaze on him, but she didn’t ask any more questions about Erwin, and Levi didn’t supply any more commentary.  There was enough lingering between them that was already strongly implied in their words.  He hadn’t done the job they’d been there to do in the first place, he hadn’t killed Erwin...instead he’d served under him.

Not to mention that drained feeling was only getting stronger, and part of him felt too tired to have that conversation.  If Isabel wasn’t going to ask him why he hadn’t killed Erwin and had decided to follow Erwin instead, then Levi wasn’t going to get into it.

Up ahead, the divide between these colorless fields and the Elysian Fields became tangible, a milky white and silver barrier that seemed like a heavy curtain stretching from within the ground, through the river, and all the way up to the ceiling.  It rippled like the waters of the hellish rivers that weaved through this place, but billowed like a curtain higher up, as if restraining the winds that were absent from the field where he and Isabel stood.

“They really like to make it clear that we’re not welcome over there, don’t they?” Isabel scoffed, coming to a stop right before the black river and turning to face Levi.  “I can’t get through--believe me, I’ve tried--but since you’re still, y’know, breathing, you’ll probably be able to.  I’d tell you where the garden itself was, but I haven’t gotten that far,” she finished with a small pout before it morphed into a sheepish smile.

Well, she’d clearly gotten used to the idea that she was dead.  He hated the thought of where she’d ended up, but...she seemed like she was doing okay.  It put at ease a little piece of him he hadn’t realized felt so disquiet.

Levi finally reached out and threaded his fingers through her hair in an action that was still embedded into his muscle memory, ruffling her hair affectionately and giving her the faintest smile.  “Thank you, Isabel.”

Isabel ducked her head like she used to as he ruffled her hair, and Levi noticed she felt a little more tangible underneath his fingers than earlier when she’d grabbed his wrist.  He wasn’t imagining it, then.  The dead were becoming more tangible to him, and he was feeling weaker the longer he stayed in these fields.  Last time when he’d stayed with you, he hadn’t felt this gradual weakening, but now that he was wandering in the actual realms where the dead were kept…

He couldn’t linger.  He couldn’t afford to stay any longer than absolutely necessary, he had to find you and get out before he ran out of time, however much time that was.

Levi let go, starting to turn away and bracing himself to cross the waters he’d been trying to avoid before he paused, aware of the fact Isabel hadn’t moved from her spot behind him.  No...whether he was short on time or not, he couldn’t leave it like this.  Not again.  Even if he didn’t have the words--

“Isabel,” he already found himself saying, starting to turn around again, but Isabel’s voice cut him off before he could continue.

“We don’t blame you,” she said quietly, head still tilted down from Levi ruffling her hair.  “Furlan and I--we don’t blame you for what happened, and neither should you, Levi-bro.  You didn’t let us down.”

She finally tilted her head back up, a bright smile on her face and eyes closed, even if there was the tiniest bit of moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes.  “From the looks of it, you’ve been showin’ the world who’s boss ever since.  Why wouldn’t we be proud of you after that?”  She frowned, putting on her best serious intimidation face, which had never managed to make it past a cute attempt to Levi, pointing a finger at him.  “But I better not see you down here again, Levi-bro, cause I’ll except nothing less than you making it to the other side of this stupid barrier.  It’d be pretty messed up if you ended up here, instead.”

Isabel turned away, hands folded behind her back.  “So just...take care of yourself, Levi-bro.  That’s all we want from you, now.”

Before Levi could say a word, Isabel had already stepped back into the throng of souls, disappearing from his sights in a matter of seconds.  He took a step forward to follow her, eyes set in the general direction she’d disappeared in, hand partially outstretched as if to catch her before she disappeared again, but he stopped himself, turning back to the river he now needed to cross to find you.  He spared the direction of the fields Isabel had disappeared in one last look, closed his eyes against the burn that had built up inside him at her words, and moved forward after a single steadying breath.

You had launched yourself at Hange to keep her from touching the waters the first time around, but now Levi was going to have to cross right through this river of sorrow and pain in order to get to you.  It was wider here than it had been near the entrance of the Underworld--taller than him, and far wider, twisting in the air like a fracture in reality that he was going to have to find his way through.  It might look like he could cross it in a few steps, but he hadn’t forgotten what the river was called, and he worried about its effects.

No, no matter what it did, he was going to cut right through it, get to the other side, find this garden, and find you.  He wasn’t leaving this place without you.

Before any other reasons to hesitate crossed his mind, Levi held his breath and took the first step into the black waters…

Instantly a flood of feelings and memories swept through him like a stormy current of razor-sharp blades, targeting his weakest points as if they were perfectly attuned to every aspect of his innermost self.

He was barely alive, on the cusp of starvation, curled up next to his mother’s body and trying to will her back into existence, will her to open her eyes and hold him in return, will her not to leave him behind--

The pain of true starvation stabbed through his abdomen, twisted his insides and made his limbs weak and shaky as he stuttered to a halt.

He watched as Kenny suddenly turned and simply walked away, disappearing into the crowd and leaving him behind.  But why?  Why did he just leave--

The sensation of blows and cuts from countless fights in the Underground, especially ones that happened before he was strong enough to fight back, came in perfect clarity at each precise location he’d received them, even the ones he didn’t remember on a normal day.

He stood in the rain, soaked through to the bone with the tears that streamed down his face disappearing amongst the flurry of drops from the sky.  He was staring down at Isabel’s head still frozen in that last look of terror before she’d died, what remained of Furlan’s body only a few paces away, their words circling in his mind that they trusted him, they were counting on him, they’d convinced him to let them come with him on the expedition, and he’d been too late--

Bruises and beatings, either from pushing the maneuver gear tightly secured against his body to its limits or from the titans themselves managing to get a few hits on him, knocked the breath out of him all over again as he tried to get his feet moving forward, hoping he was still moving despite every one of his senses being seized by the river.

Shadows loomed over the forest floor as he glided past the carnage, a harsh glow of sunset making the scene all the more garish as he discovered the dark stains and crumpled remains of his squad, every last one of them killed before he could regroup with them--

“My daughter’s on your squad.”

Something snapped in his leg like when he’d faced Annie in her titan form and had to knock Mikasa out of the way, and he could no longer be sure he was even on his feet in reality.

The fight had taken everything out of him, an exhaustion seeping into every cell of his body as he sat on the roof, staring down at Erwin’s body, unsure if he’d made the right decision as he had to accept that Erwin was dead, he’d given everything for the dream he wouldn’t see fulfilled, one of the very few he’d respected in this world snuffed out like everyone else trying to give Levi the chance to fulfill a promise he’d failed to keep--

He had to keep moving, had to keep moving forward despite all of this, even if he couldn’t retain a sense of direction through this constant onslaught.

Red tainted his vision--it was a fine mist, a spray, a pool, a rain of blood all around him as countless died around him, most at the hands of titans, some at the hands of other humans.  A constant river of blood that drenched his clothes and stained his skin as one after another after another of soldiers died around him--

Keep going, keep going, keep going...

You’d disappeared right underneath him--you hadn’t asked anyone what they thought, you’d simply done it, hoping to give humanity a better chance.  As a result, as the realization dawned over Levi, he stoically supported a shaky Erwin even while inside the growing emptiness caused by your absence became too glaring, to painful to ignore.  It wasn’t until after you were gone and the pain became too much to ignore did he realize just how important you’d come to be.  Knowing why you’d done it didn’t make it any easier--it just made the burning, growing desire to tear through the Underworld to find you all the more maddening because he couldn’t do anything--

Blazing heat scorched his skin as shards of flaming metal cut into his face, the explosion happening too fast for even Levi to react, pain piercing through his body as he flew backwards through the air with the force of the blast.  There was simply blood and heat and lancing pain--

It all came to an abrupt end as Levi suddenly fell to the ground, gasping in air as he fell out of the black waters and into a field of lush, soft grass.  His eyes were cast down, his breathing shallow as he tried to re-orient himself, still reeling from what he’d just re-lived.  His arms shook beneath him from the effort simply to hold himself up, the exhaustion and weakness that had been gradually seeping into his bones now intense and impossible to ignore, his entire body feeling drained of its vitality after such a taxing trip through the river.  Had those waters sped up the process of what he thought might be happening to him the longer he was down here?  How much time did he have left before it was too late, before he couldn’t even find the strength to take another step?

Once his breathing evened out and the ground felt stable beneath him once again, Levi pushed himself back up to his feet, shielding his eyes from the sudden onslaught of color and brightness that surrounded him.  It was a stark contrast from the realm he’d just passed through...and something far closer to the haven everyone always hoped the afterlife would be.

A smooth meadow of lush green grass rolled in a valley of hills in front of him.  To his left, he could see homes of white stone in the distance, and to his right was a forest, an archway marking a stone path that wound naturally into the woods.  But the truly startling thing was that there was a bright, clear sky above him instead of a rock ceiling.  It looked like he was on the surface, no trace of the fact that this was actually underground.  Bright moonlight bathed the field in light and made the white stone houses glimmer in the distance.  The stars weren’t hidden by a single cloud, blazing in bright brilliance across the dark sky.  He knew outside, back on the surface, there had been clouds in the winter sky, so was this a false sky?  It looked undeniably real, but logic was insisting it had to be otherwise.

He might as well just stop trying to make sense of this place.

Since he was looking for some kind of garden, Levi started towards the forest, specifically the marked path.  It was under the trees, moonlight filtering down through the canopy of leaves to light his way along the pine-needle and maple leaf littered path winding around trees deeper and deeper into the forest.  Eventually, Levi turned a corner created by a thick patch of trees and bushes, the sight of a wall of hedges in the middle of the forest coming into view.  The stone path he had been following wound its way to a large wooden gate door that broke the constant wall of tall hedges.

This must be the entrance to the garden Isabel had told him about, right?

Cautiously, Levi undid the latch on the door and slipped inside, eyes widening at the sight of what was on the other side of the hedges.  The dull humming buzz of insects and the occasional hoot of an owl filled the space around him, the stone path continuing forward as it spiderwebbed through a much more intricate landscape.  All around him were trees and bushes of different kinds, most in full bloom with flowers, others bearing ripe and rich looking fruits, including many that were strange and unrecognizable to him.  Flowers lined the path, vines crisscrossing above him from the trees, hedges, and bushes, heavy with leaves and in some cases more, small berries or flowers.  The aroma of the mass of different plants was almost overwhelming as he quietly stepped forward, winding his way deeper into the garden.  He didn’t see a single plant that looked like it wasn’t doing well--everything was colorful and healthy, some of the plants glimmering with dew in the moonlight.  Following the sound of what he thought might be a bubbling brook, he managed to find his way to what he thought was the center, the stone path sprouting in all different directions but encircling the centerpiece of a small rock waterfall at the center of a clear pool of water.  He inched closer to the edge of the pool, gaze flickering around the garden for any movement or other presences before he let his gaze drop down to the waters, wondering if they were as dangerous as the other waters in this place.  The pool did seem to glimmer in the night, something about it drawing him in with a promise to sooth the weakness and heaviness that cut to his very soul, to wash them all away like a forgotten memory...

“Quite impressive, that you’ve made it so far on your own.”

Levi whipped around at the sound of the steady, lilting tone that pierced through the quiet darkness, wondering how the hell someone had managed to sneak up on him.  There hadn’t been a sound besides the bubble of the waterfall, not even the whisper of a disturbed leaf or the softest breath.

Behind him there stood a woman in a loose layered, sheer cream dress with a plunging neckline and straps instead of sleeves, the dress exposing quite a bit of her bronzed skin.  Long hair the color of rich red soil cascaded and coiled freely past her shoulders, eyes the green of newly arrived spring fixed steadily on him while her dark red stained lips pursed thoughtfully, slightly tilted upwards in sly amusement.  The sandals on her feet looked fragile with straps that coiled around her legs like vines, and freckles dusted across her skin like the stars in the sky above them.  Everything about her made it seem like she’d been fashioned to perfection by nature itself, somehow seeming fragile beautiful with undercurrents wildness and a threat if one was to mistake the fragile beauty for weakness.

The woman started to come towards him, but once she got within two steps of him, Levi stepped aside, not about to trust anything or anyone new he came across in this place.  Neither of them were taking their eyes off the other, and while the woman seemed perfectly relaxed and not in the least bit concerned about his presence in the garden, neither of them were turning their backs to the other.

She tried to draw closer, studying Levi rather intensely.  “Though, getting here has certainly taken its toll.  You feel it, right?  The drain on your very soul from spending too long in a place you should not be.  That weakness you feel is no simple side-effect.  It’s the life leaving your body.”  Her hand suddenly reached out to tilt his chin as she examined him, Levi’s jaw clenching in the process.  He was surprised by how firm her grip was despite her outward appearance, and how trying to turn his head or pull free didn’t seem to affect her or her grip at all.  “It would be such a shame to see a handsome one such as yourself wither away before its time.”

As her thumb tried to brush over his lips, Levi caught her wrist in his hand, pulling free of her grasp with more effort than he cared to admit in his increasingly weakened state, leaning away as he narrowed his eyes at her.  “Who are you?”

An icy look flashed in her eyes at his grip on her wrist, but he didn’t let go, not wanting to give her another chance to try and touch him like that again.  “Ah, yes...it’s easy to forget mortals hardly remember us anymore,” she said in a cool tone, the regal air about her suddenly becoming that much stronger.  “I am Persephone, Goddess of Fertility and Queen of the Underworld.”

Levi immediately released her wrist, that familiar ‘well, shit’ sensation settling in his gut.  Of course it was Hades’ wife here in the middle of the night.  He would have thought she would have been in the palace, and yet, who else was going to be here in the middle of the night besides himself and--he had hoped--you?  Some part of him had wondered, but between expecting her to be at the palace and her not-so-subtle advances, he hadn’t been sure.

“Now that the proper respect is being paid, back to the important things,” Persephone said, her disposition calming down once more now that he’d released her and was standing still directly in front of her.  Once more she invaded his personal space, her hand splaying on his chest as he leaned back, trying to get himself to move backwards but finding himself held in place by some invisible force.  Was it her?  

“You’re not much longer for the world of the living if you stay,” Persephone said pensively before she finally removed her hand, turning her back to him for the first time as she faced the small waterfall and pool centerpiece.  “I could arrange for your passage back, and you could rest here until then...for a price,” she said, glancing at him with a clear ‘come-hither’ look over her shoulder.  Levi ignored it, eyes darkening.

“I’m not leaving without Y/N.”

Persephone looked back at the fountain, kneeling down in front of the pool.  “Of course...then you must be the great Levi Ackerman.”  She stood up again, a small stone cup in her hands that was now filled to the brim with water from the pool.  “Aren’t you a few years late for a rescue attempt?”

She might look like beauty sculpted by nature itself, but there was venom in her bite.

“There’s a time for everything.  And I had to respect Y/N’s choice, as well as the deal with Hades.  It was too important.”

No matter how much I wanted to come back all this time, I couldn’t until now.

“Yet you’re here to break it?” Persephone pointed out, coming closer again with that cup still in hand.

“No...the deal has simply run its course.”

Persephone came to a stop directly in front of him, leaning in so close her breath whispered against his lips, the smell of the earth and freshly bloomed flowers surrounding her in rich waves that managed not to be overpowering.

“If you stay where you don’t belong any longer, Levi Ackerman, you will die, fated to spend eternity trapped between life and death.  The price to be paid for daring to intrude upon the land of the dead while you still lived.”

Levi stood his ground, meeting the goddess’ gaze head on.  “Then let me see Y/N.  If I die before I can leave, so be it.  But I still won’t leave until the deal is finished and Y/N is back on the surface where they belong.”

Persephone offered Levi the stone cup in her hand, almost pressing it into his chest when he didn’t immediately take it.  As soon as his fingers curled around the cup and Persephone removed her own, water slipped over the rim and trickled down his hands thanks to a slight shake he hadn’t realized was there.  Was he really already in that bad of shape that he couldn’t keep his hands steady any longer?

Persephone leaned into him, her hand on his arm to physically restrain him as she came onto him again, leaning in to murmur in his ear.  “A goddess’ favor could buy you more time.”

Somehow, despite the fact her grip was as strong as a vice, it exuded a warmth that seemed to seep through his being little at a time, driving away the weakness, but coaxing in a haze that coiled around his mind like a thick fog.  The exhaustion looming over him was somehow magnified, making his movements feel sluggish and detached, sensory details the only thing that really broke through the haze.  For example, he wasn’t standing anymore, he’d been sat down on some stone bench, and Persephone’s warm breath was still whispering across the skin of his neck and his ear, her hand gently trailing along his jaw to coax him to face her.

A distant light ignited in his mind of what she was about to try, and he used some of the reservoirs of his remaining strength to reach through the fog and shake himself out of his daze enough to knock the hand that was on his arm aside, freeing him from her grip.  The warm haze receded, reality depicted in sharp detail around him once again as he brought his heavy breathing back under control, trying to put as much distance between himself and Persephone without standing since he suddenly found he lacked the strength to do even that.

“...I’ll take my chances, if that’s your price,” he said stiffly, setting the cup down at his side so she couldn’t see his hand shaking, gripping the edge of the stone bench instead to both hide the action and try to give himself some stability.  Persephone was still alarmingly close, apparently she’d been only seconds away from trying to kiss him.  As he watched, a knowing glint appeared in her eyes, an assured, satisfied smile curling the corners of her lips upwards.

“Hmm...loyal, indeed,” she said thoughtfully, rising gracefully to her feet.  Levi didn’t dare take his eyes off of the woman as she moved, worried she might try again.  Instead, she moved indifferently past Levi and towards one of the many paths that spiderwebbed outward through the garden.  “All right then, I’ll bring Y/N here.  I suggest you don’t move from that spot--frankly, you shouldn’t use any more of your strength than absolutely necessary.”

Levi held his guarded position on the bench until Persephone disappeared from view, leaving him alone in the nigh silence of the garden.  Once he was alone, he leaned forward with a quiet groan, eyes squeezing shut.  How long had he even been down here?  How long had he wandered in that colorless field before Isabel found him?  How long had he been trapped in that river that seemed to have sucked life right out of him?  And had Persephone intensified or sped up the process, or had she simply brought it to the forefront of his mind instead of allowing him to try and put it to the back as he fought to ignore it.

Focusing on his breathing, Levi tried to once again force the fact he was slowly dying the longer he stayed down here to the back of his mind.  Namely, he wanted to be able to muscle past the symptoms, the overall weakness and exhaustion that even now found him unable to stand, a tremble in the hands he stared down at, and the beginnings of a lightheaded dizziness starting to settle in.  His breaths were shallow, his throat parched, mouth dry, and he felt a strange detachment from everything around him.

His gaze slid over to the cup of water at his side, some of its contents having spilled around all of Persephone’s advances, but some still in the cup.  He could at least alleviate some of the symptoms, then.

His hand paused just above the cup, trembling in the air as Levi frowned.  But did he trust the water any more than all the other waters he’d seen down here?  After having to walk through that black river, knowing the ethereal blue river caused forgetfulness, and considering the way the pool had drawn him in when he’d first seen it, did he really trust the water enough to drink it?

Still contemplating, Levi carefully picked up the smooth stone glass again, gazing at the water inside and trying to decide if it was worth the risk.  It did seem to promise comfort, and at the very least would give him some relief from his parched throat.  This water wasn’t glowing blue, so he was confident it wasn’t going to make him forget anything...though there was plenty of other things it could do.  Persephone had handed it to him as she was making her advances…

Before he could decide, the glass held just in front of his lips, a sharp pain suddenly sliced through him, outwards from his chest to the tips of his fingers.  With a gasp of pain that was cut off in a grunt, the cup slipped from his fingers, rolling across the stone pathway and scattering the water all around.

“Shit!” Levi gasped, doubled over, clutching at his chest as the slicing pain subsided to a still strong burn through his veins, eyes squeezed shut with breaths coming in quick, sharp bursts as he tried to figure out what the hell was happening.

Don’t fucking tell me I’m dying now, right before I finally see…

But what if it was a lie?  What if Persephone had no intention of bringing you to him?  It wasn’t like he was able to do anything about it in his current state, but still.  Whether or not she was bringing you back looked like it was going to affect whether he was going to die believing in vain that his goal was just within reach, or he was going to die possibly before he could even lay eyes on you again.

The burning intensified, and Levi tried to push to his feet, the vague idea coaxing him forward that he would drag himself to Hades’ palace if he had to.  He was not going to die in the middle of this garden, so close to getting you back--he was at least going to lay eyes on you before--

He collided with the stone and grass covered ground, eyes opening weakly as his hand splayed against the cold rock in front of his face as he attempted to push himself back up, only able to get halfway there on shaking limbs with what remained of his strength.  He closed his eyes, feeling the last of his strength fading away as his head rested against the stone, breathing slowing down…

Racing footsteps suddenly sounded, in the distance at first, but growing gradually closer and louder.  When they sounded like whoever was running was almost on top of him, he opened his eyes blearily, fingers twitching against the stone.  Whatever strength he had left was focused on clinging to whatever life was left in him, but this little morsel he could spare in case the one running towards him was…

“Levi!”

It was, in fact, you who turned the corner, hair disheveled, eyes wide, looking like you were only half-dressed in your rush to get down here, but you were here.  In a way...he’d made it.

Good...Good…

He was being lifted off the ground, the movements of the outside world lagging around him as darkness was encroaching on his vision, his upper body coming to a rest in your lap, your hands cusped on both sides of his face and tilting his head upwards.

“Did you drink the water?” you asked hurriedly, the words coming out muffled to him as you smacked his face to try and keep him awake and get him to answer you.  “Levi!  Did you--”

“No…” he breathed, feeling a strange surge of gratitude that he had, in fact, not drank any of the suspicious Underworld water.

“Persephone--I know you can help him, it’s not too late, I know you can give him more time.  Please, it can’t end like this.”

He found it oddly comforting that he was the one to die this time, not the other way around…

Your hand suddenly disappeared from his cheek, replaced with the warm hand of Persephone’s instead, tilting his head as far upwards as it would go as the darkness closed in and started to drag him under.  He felt a strangers lips lock with his own, swallowing the meager wisps of air that remained of his breaths before that intrusive warm haze started to chase the empty cold away, a strong current of life suddenly breathed into his lungs once, twice, three times…

Those lips finally released him, and Levi gasped in air of his own accord, falling back into a warmer darkness with a soft exhale.

Tags: @mysteriousmagicx​ @humanitys-hottestsoldier​ @final-fantasy-xv-nut​ @regalillegal​

[a-silent-symphony]

INTERVIEW – MARKO HIETALA OF NIGHTWISH

Like any band, Nightwish has a story to tell. Full of ups, downs, frustrations, and triumphs, in reality, few can tell a tale quite like these Fins. Coming at a crossroad at the peak of their success, they made a bold decision, yet landed on their feet. Then a few years later they were faced with yet another difficult choice, and still righted the ship. A testament to comradery between the key members of the band, one of the steadying forces through it all has been Marko Hietala.

Joining up just prior to their 2002 Century Child album, Hietala has become a cornerstone in Nightwish not only on the bass, but also as a leading voice. A signature part of the band’s success over the last two decades, Hietala recently sat down to chat about his time with Nightwish, weathering the storm of challenging times, his other projects, plus a whole lot more.

Cryptic Rock – You have been an intricate part of the Nightwish family for nearly two decades now. Before going any further, tell us, what has your time in Nightwish been like?

Marko Hietala – Woah man! It will actually be two decades next year. It’s probably been the biggest, lasting part of my life that there has been. Of course, there is my older band, Tarot, which we started in the late ’80s and still did things in the 2000s. That was a long lasting thing, but as life goes, Nightwish has made my living. There has been ups and downs as well as joys and sorrows.

Cryptic Rock – You have certainly accomplished a lot with Nightwish. When you came on, you became a very big part of the band right off the bat, particularly with your voice. That addition of your voice added a new dynamic to Nightwish’s music. What was it like initially working with the band and utilizing your voice to the music’s advantage?

Marko Hietala – We started from a pretty good common background; the guys are Karelian and I’m Savonian. There was already that kind of country boy attitude with us. Then when we started, rehearsing and swapping ideas for Century Child (2002), it became really comfortable really fast. We just got along.

Of course, when you have humans, you get drama occasionally, and of course we’ve had those times. In the end we have been pretty honest about troubles and being understanding, and if need be, forgiving. We have a great personal chemistry with this bunch.

Cryptic Rock – It shows. The band has faced adversity and overcome it. Let’s look back for a moment. In 2004, Nightwish released the Once album, which launched the band into a new stratosphere of success. However, shortly after that release, the band parted ways with Tarja Turunen. Looking back 15 years after, was that a stressful time?

Marko Hietala – Yes, it was. Everyone was anxious, restless, and troubled all the time already. We had no connection and we decided, just as the band started to get bigger, we needed to take back our voice in the band. That’s why it happened. It was scary, but it was a thing where we were already eating so much of our own spine; in order to survive we had to amputate. We were already feeling bad about so many things, it was something that had to be done.

We survived until the next few years of troubles, and we still got through it. I said this already in the documentary, but I think we showed an exceptional persistence and group spirit through a lot of times. God damn, I cherish it!

Cryptic Rock – That unity is evident. It all just adds more to the story of Nightwish. The band has settled in nicely in recent years with Floor Jansen. A fantastic addition, what has it been like working with her?

Marko Hietala – She’s brilliant! She’s a powerhouse vocalist who wants to perform, sing, and loves doing shows. I’m pleased with how things are now. Of course some people have been complaining that I’m hanging a little bit more in the shadows now that she is there, but I’m not. I’m doing a shitload of vocals and background harmonies; there are just a good bunch of songs and we do them the best way they will sound.

Cryptic Rock – Understandable. It is about what the music calls for. If the music calls for you to be more upfront and center, then you will be.

Marko Hietala – Indeed. It’s not like I don’t have things to do. I have bass playing, which on some nights with hot lighting, is compared to shoveling in its calorie consummation. (Laughs)

Cryptic Rock – (Laughs) Well you have done a great job. Speaking of new music, Nightwish recently released the epic new album Human. :II: Nature. What was it like putting this record together?

Marko Hietala – There are certain ways we have gotten used to doing things. We had a month and a half of summer camp rehearsal sessions and then started recording. Kai (Hahto) went to a different studio to record the drum bottom tracks because our summer camp didn’t have the space with the proper ambiances for that to be recorded. We then put up the amps/vocal mics and we laid down all the other stuff for the album pretty fast and comfortably.

Of course there was this thing that we started to do, which is apparent on the album, where we had some pretty nice harmony vocal sessions. I have spoke about this a few times, but when we did the Decades Tour, we wanted to do something different for the oldies – so we figured with Troy, me, and Floor that we could do a bunch of live harmonies to beef them up. It sounded so nice that we figured that we could do them more on the album. Tuomas (Holopainen) wrote stuff so we could do those harmonies, and we ended up doing quite a lot of them.

A lot of our barbecue sessions at our summer camp there would be an acoustic guitar or battery-operated keyboard; we would try some lines out, figure out ideas and swap them. I would say Troy and I were writing that stuff mostly, but Tuomas and Floor were also always around so we could test things and see how they went. It was nice.

Cryptic Rock – The end result is quite good. It is a very well-balanced collection of heavier and more somber tracks. What can you tell us about the concept behind the album?

Marko Hietala – I guess if you take human nature, and either two words, separate or combined, the theme is a bit loose. All the songs on the album connect to those things – human or nature, or human nature.

Cryptic Rock – Very interesting. Then there is the second disc, which is predominately all instrumental. Were you apart of the second half of the album at all?

Marko Hietala – I didn’t really work on it. When Tuomas was writing it, he did ask the rest of the band if it was okay to have a classical orchestra for the second half of the album. Basically, the only people who worked there was (Troy Donockley) with some piping and Floor with some vocals.

Cryptic Rock – It is a great addition to the first half of Human. :II: Nature. You also released your solo album, Pyre of the Black Heart, earlier this year. What was the process behind that album?

Marko Hietala – It was a long time dream for a guy like me who writes a lot. When Nightwish had a sabbatical, I called a couple of friends of mine to work on the album; there was Tuomas Wäinölä on guitar and Vili Oillila on keyboards, who I have known 10-15 years. I had this idea this album was not going to drop into a straight Heavy Metal box, but that it was going to be more Prog Rock or Hard Rock with Metal in between. They helped me finalize the arrangements.

Tuomas Wäinölä also ended up recording and producing most of the album. It turned out to be an inside project with me and those guys. Then we ended up hiring a drummer who we also knew, Anssi Nykänen. As a result of the making of the album it started to grow into a band. We actually had a little tour in February before everything closed out. It was really great, a lot of people liked it and we had a lot of wide grins in the audience.

We also did a Finnish version of the album. About half and half of the songs were written in Finish or English. I just had to crisscross translating them to get both albums out.

Cryptic Rock – Very cool! It really turned out well. You have offered your talents to many other bands through the years. To name a few, you have worked with Eternal Tears of Sorrow, To/Die/For, Charon, etc. Do you enjoy collaborating with others?

Marko Hietala – Yea. When I was in my twenties I got to be an apprentice recording engineer. That is why I was sitting in the studio and helping people out. I was also doing a lot of studio vocal work; both coaching, arranging, and singing harmonies. It had been an interest of mine, but I do have to say lately I have been putting the brakes down. (Laughs) At some point in time I was doing so much work it started to lose its point. These days, I try to very basically keep it to projects who I am friends with and whose music interests me.

Cryptic Rock – Understandable, you do not want to spread yourself too thin.

Marko Hietala – Yes, but also, interesting things are interesting. A couple of years back, for the first time, I did a Modern Classical thing with Ayreon. There were a lot of words, melodies, keys, tempo, and time signature that was changing all the time. I have to say before the premier I was crapping my pants, but I pulled myself together and it went well.

Cryptic Rock – It sounds like that was an exciting new challenge. Obviously we are in the midst of this worldwide pandemic. It is hard to tell what tomorrow will bring, but is Nightwish going to resume touring when they can?

Marko Hietala – We have had cancellations for the summer festival. We were also supposed to go to China in April. We are trying to move some things to 2021. The Central European tour, it should be sometime next fall, it’s still open. With the summer festivals, it seems like we are watching dominoes fall.

Cryptic Rock – It is unfortunate. Hopefully we can return to some sense of normalcy soon.

Marko Hietala – I agree, but what can you do? It’s a god damn virus, you cannot reason with it. This is the situation. Although, we have the album out and hopefully people are getting to listen to it. Hopefully we get to see each other some time in the future. I love doing shows and I’m really bummed out that we have no shows. It would have been really great to go out there and start doing it together. After all, there are vibes involved when you build up that bubble for people, yourself, and your bandmates. When you do it together, it’s a vibe that you are hooked to… at least I am.

Cryptic Rock – Yes, a lot of people are hooked to those vibes. Last question. If you are a fan of Horror and Sci-Fi films, what are some of your favorites?

Marko Hietala – In Science Fiction, a film that went kind of under the radar was Predestination (2014). It has a brilliant time travel story. Of course everyone knows Interstellar (2014), which was big and great. Europa Report (2013) was also great as well.

Horror is more problematic for me, because I can’t be scared anymore. Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House was pretty good.

[therookieking412]

Friday Spin Class II

Alright let’s get into it. 

Fair warning, this is a theory, a very far-fetched theory but one I kind of enjoy. In my last Friday Spin Class, I made a slight mention to Paulo and I am going to be writing an essay about him, however not the typical character analysis I have been promising, oh no. This is a theory I have cooked up about Paulo, Drosselmeyer, Fakir and Rue, buckle your seat belts, you ready?

Paulo is Fakir’s uncle.

Crazy, right? Well, not to crazy, I’ve scraped together some evidence that will hopefully bring some of you into my favor, or it may just not be strong enough proof for some of you, but here we go! 

First, let’s talk about the Drosselmeyer family tree, specifically the one Autor made. 

There are three rules he has made up for his tree, first: that descendants are connected through a line, if anyone doesn’t have children, the spot under their name is left bare, and if someone had a child, but they died or disappeared, they are crossed off with an X. 

I will not acknowledge the dotted lines because those are either uncertainties or Autor’s personally theories about who some of the most recent generation are and how he’s connected. 

Drosselmeyer is at the top, he has three children - the middle children having no children themselves - we’ll just follow the line of the youngest, since that’s Fakir’s line. This child had two themselves, the eldest had two children, the eldest had two children, Fakir’s aunt/uncle and then his father (and as we all know, Rue was taken by the crows).

Now all this is to show that Fakir does have an uncle/aunt, so this isn’t entirely out of nowhere, ‘kay.

I’m not sure why Autor has Rue listed first before Fakir, but that might have just been a mistake. 

That does lead to my next bit of evidence - why Fakir went to Charon, the family friend, instead of his next closest relative. 

Out of all the characters on Princess Tutu, Paulo is the only one that is apart of a traveling troupe, meaning he can’t stay in one place to give a child a good home. 

It’s possible that Paulo wasn’t even there when any of this happened, when Fakir was born, when Rue was, and when she was taken, when their parents died, that he was away with his troupe writing ballets, and given that Kinkan is kind of trapped, it wouldn’t be easy to communicate with the outside world, no matter how advanced or modern the world is. 

This is the first time Paulo has come back to his hometown. 

Also why come to Kinkan? How would he have found out about it? 

It’s a small, strange little town, and obviously people can walk in and find it, “Was mom always an India Rhinoceros?” but what business does this bring? If you’re going to Germany with your ballet troupe, you’re going to Berlin, not some backwater town. 

And yes, Kinkan does have a ballet academy that seems rather prestigious, so maybe in the ballet world there’s Kinkan is a more respectable town. But I doubt it. 

Next, I want to talk about his face. 

Like full offence, but that’s the exact same nose. 

And my friend made the excellent point that that’s just the stereotype they have for white men in Japan. 

(Not to mention their eyes; they’re both this weird bubble eye shape.)

This guy’s nose is slimmer than both Paulo’s and Drosselmeyer’s, and it’s hard to tell here, but it’s not the straight nose both Paulo and Drosselmeyer sport. 

And Charon’s nose is perfect, look at it, ugh. I love big noses. 

Three of these noses are different noses, and two are the same. 

Maybe a coincidence, I don’t know, I mean Fakir has a regular anime nose, but Drosselmeyer telling Fakir that he looks like a younger version of Drosselmeyer sounds like a bold faced lie when I see Paulo and Drosselmeyer next to each other. 

I also realize that Paulo would be fourth generation, so unless every single kid got that nose (except Fakir) it might not be the strong connection I think it is. 

Now, let’s move on to what I think is the main event.

Paulo realizes his wife is upset, and he knows how to comfort her. 

In my previous essay, I made it known that Paulamoni is stepping into the wrong role. 

And what, pray tell is Paulo’s dream? 

“Sure, there are some dreams that can’t come true, but there is no rule that says you can have one dream. My dream is this: to enthrall people all over the world with your dancing. And to do that, I even thought up the perfect program for you.”

Not saying he’s a story spinner… but your boy’s a story spinner.

Okay, so let’s consider this logically, in my very first essay, I stated that the story spinners don’t start stories themselves, but stories happen, and it’s their job to finish them, the start of a story is a happy accident. 

Paulamoni’s perfect program has already started, this is the beginning of her story, her program, she has found her role and now Paulo with finish it for her, create for her a ballet and let her be the main character.  

So, the way, let’s say a novel, and a ballet are written are very different, a novel contains more words and uses those only to captivate an audience, while a program would have music, and stage directions, steps to take, etc. 

But, both are a story, but written and ended by someone. 

Whatever her program is, it will still be a story, just like the Prince and the Raven is a story, just like what Fakir writes for Ahiru is a story. 

Paulo is a story spinner, and Fakir has an uncle, out of both of them, Paulo looks a lot more like Drosselmeyer than Fakir ever has (thank you, Fakir’s mom), so whether Paulo is related to Fakir or not, if he is but from a different one of Drosselmeyer’s kids, or if he’s just his own story spinner, unrelated to all of this, these are the facts, presented to us by the show, I don’t think it’s so far fetched to string it all together. 

(Also, Paulo and Paulamoni definitely don’t want kids, and that’s fine, it’s also probably why they didn’t fight for custody over Fakir.)

So… ta-da.

Don’t kill me.

[fellkrieger123]

Character Name: Charon Greystone (Title: The Undaunted)

Race: Half Wildwood Elezen, half Midlander Hyur

Nationality: Ishgardian

Gender: Male

Occupation: Blacksmith, formally served as a knight under House Hallienarte

Age: 48

Appearance details: Charon stands a bit shorter than the average Wildwood Elezen male. He has a slender build but is all lean, hard muscle from his days in the forge. He has short, black hair and one blue eye and one pale, milky blind eye that he keeps covered with an eyepatch.

Personality: Charon is a bit different from his fellow Ishgardians- A carefree man who is, frankly, a bit of a workaholic. Having really no sense of time (unless it involves a business prospect), he’s habitually late to almost every event he gets invited to. He sees the best in people and truly believes that people are inherently good. He has a tendency to pry into other people’s business and is cheerful to the point of annoyance. He’s a bit of a perfectionist- when he becomes interested in something or is involved in a project, he doesn’t stop until everything meets his high standards. He’s naturally good at almost everything he does- whether it be his craft, cooking, singing, or whatever. So, when he finds something that he isn’t good at, or can’t figure out, he grows extremely frustrated and focuses all his energy to master said craft.

The prospect of family is very important to Charon, and he’ll make any sacrifices he needs in order to help someone he deems as family. Whether they need money, or even a shoulder to cry on, one can always rely on Charon being there to help. He is also a loyal friend and comrade, and even though he has pretty much retired from knighthood, he’s been known to aid House Hallienarte when they call for his blade.

Religious beliefs/philosophy: Charon was born and raise in Ishgard and was raised under the Holy See. He worships Halone the Fury as his patron diety. He is a believer in the Twelve, but he really doesn’t practice his faith too often, preferring to keep any real worship in a more private, personal setting.

Childhood: Charon was born the bastard son of Nathaniel Beaumont, a knight of House Hallienarte. When he was born, his mother, a Midlander Hyur, abandoned him on his father’s doorstep with a note- “Do what you want with him. I want nothing to do with a bastard.” No one but Nathaniel knows who Charon’s mother is. Nathaniel originally wanted to leave Charon in an orphanage, for he was ashamed of his infidelity, but his wife, Esther, was a kind, forgiving woman. She insisted that they keep the baby- after all, the circumstances of his birth were hardly his fault. So, he was raised as an equal with his older half brother, Kylar, and his cousin, Cain.

As Charon grew older, he dreamed of becoming a Knight and serving House Hallienarte, just as his father, brother, and cousin did. Most wanted little to do with a bastard, but Kylar encouraged Charon to follow his dreams. He was naturally talented with a blade, and stood out among his peers. He officially became a knight at the tender age of 17 summers old.

Kylar left the knighthood after an incident took Cain’s sight and left Charon scarred. His brother ran off with a Gridanian woman by the name of Morgana, leaving his prized lance with Charon. Charon never saw his brother alive again.

Recent history: After years of service to House Hallienarte, Charon retired at 34 summers old and opened a forge. Blacksmithing had always been a passion for him, and he became known throughout Ishgard for his quality weapons (and occasional decoration, when it was commissioned.) When the Calamity happened, he was all but forced to stay in Ishgard to continue forging weapons to support the Dragonsong War. When the Warrior of Light came to Ishgard and ended the war, Charon ventured a bit more out into the open world for wider business prospects. 

He now frequents Gridania and Limsa Lominsa, where his family lives. You can find him mostly in his Forge when he is in Ishgard.

Notable relationships:

Cain Beaumont- Charon’s cousin, he sees the man as more of a brother. He blames himself for Cain’s blindness and will jump at every opportunity to help the older Elezen, even though Cain doesn’t blame Charon for his lack of sight. The two are very close, and Cain is always the first person Charon goes to when he needs advice or a sympathetic ear.

Kylar Beaumont: Charon’s older brother by five summers, there was no person in the word that he was closest to. Kylar always encouraged Charon, and was always there for him when he needed him most. Charon loved his older brother very much, and was inconsolable for moons after he figured out about his death. Kylar actually received his nickname from Charon- Kylar not being his actual name- and no one knows why he called him this, other than Cain and the brothers.

Nathaniel and Esther Beaumont: Charon has a decent relationship with his parents, if a bit of a strained one. Esther always treated Charon kindly and fairly, and Charon loves her very much for it. He has a bit more of a distant relationship with his father, who cares for Charon but sees him as proof of his one digression. The two became a bit overbearing after Kylar’s death, babying their only remaining son and often trying to set him up with other women so he could give them heirs to the family name. Charon hates this, and it’s caused a bit of strain with their relationship as of late.

Fell Krieger: Charon’s nephew, he didn’t meet Raise until recently, but he had always known of his existence. He’s a bit more overprotective of Fell than his other siblings,since Fell is a bit smaller and weaker than the other two. Although he enjoys teasing Fell, being around him is a bit hard for Charon, since Fell are both the spitting image of their father and his deceased brother. He insists that Fell come to him for new weapons and for repairing his old ones, not trusting any other blacksmith with the fate of his nephew.

Raise Krieger: Charon gets along best with his oldest nephew, since the two are so similar in personality. Charon actually gave Raise Kylar’s lance, Ascalon. He’ll occasionally spar with Raise, and the two are pretty evenly matched as far as skill and strength. He enjoys going out to drink and having fun with his nephew.

Larka Krieger: Charon isn’t as close to his niece as he is with Fell and Raise, mostly due to Larka’s busy lifestyle. He enjoys her cooking, and the two like to talk and exchange recipes. He admires and respects Larka’s healing abilities, actually asking for lessons on how to use conjury. He’s alright at it, but not nearly at the skill level of his niece.

Adele Krieger: Charon’s great niece, he absolutely loves spoiling this child rotten. She has him wrapped around her little finger, and he knows it. He will go out of his way to buy her gifts, ranging from toys to expensive clothing. The two bond over their mutual love for Chocobos. He adores his little niece and would be more than happy to give her the world.

Strengths, talents, and points of pride:

A skilled swordsman, his skills lie in lances, daggers, swords and bows. He has a tendency to favor Daggers over anything

A Master Blacksmith

A pretty good chef

 Loyal, chivalrous and brave

Weaknesses, detriments:

Easily discouraged when things don’t work out as he planned

Overly trusting

Reckless

Over idealistic

Perfectionist

Ambitions/Goals:

Nowadays, Charon simply goes with the flow. He doesn’t really have any immediate goals that he’s striving for at the moment, perfectly content with the lot he has been given in life. His parents insist that they find no shame in him inheriting the family name and estate, but he’d rather be in his Forge than run a family estate.

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.86

“I’ll Dream a Nation of You”

A/N: We remain in episode 13, "What's Past Is Prologue."

Considering the circumstances of the Mirror Universe and all the available pieces, I think this plan is one actually worthy of Lorca. As a bonus it ties together some details in the show's rendition of events. The redacted Defiant files being on the Shenzhou (why are they on that ship and so heavily redacted to boot), the fact Burnham and Tyler aren't immediately murdered by Sarek and Voq's guards on Harlak... It also reconciles the interactions between Lorca and his interspecies crew (not to mention various actions he took throughout the series which he had no real cause to) with everything he suddenly starts spouting to his followers.

I'm also attempting to answer why Lorca suddenly went from zero to warp speed with what I feel is an entirely plausible explanation of his behavior that fits the facts established in the show. In a weird way, Lorca showed me the answer, because I lived the circumstance described myself while writing this story. It turns out, Lorca really does give everyone what they need. Even this humble writer.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 85 - I Could Never Be Your Woman 87 - Captain Lorca >>

Luckily, there was a perfectly serviceable alternative to Petrellovitz already on Lorca's itinerary: this universe's Paul Stamets. Lorca wondered if that was part of the reason Petrellovitz had vanished. She and Stamets hated each other. Petrellovitz thought Stamets was a narrow-minded cretin and Stamets hated that she had stolen his life's work and co-opted it for her own endeavors. In this, they were entirely equal their Discovery counterparts. Mischkelovitz had attempted to steal Stamets' mushrooms there, too, after an entertaining little rant about the limits of his knowledge.

Lorca and Landry burst into Stamets' private laboratory aboard the Charon with rifles at the ready, as tactically in sync as they had always been, but found the place seemingly empty.

"Stamets is gone," concluded Landry. "Coward probably left at the first sign of trouble."

As Lorca scanned the room, he did not think that to be the case.

He had made one crucial misjudgment about Discovery's Paul Stamets. That Stamets had something he valued more than mushrooms: Hugh Culber. If not for that, Stamets might have been convinced to travel with Lorca to the ends of that universe, neurological changes and all. Instead he had issued Lorca an ultimatum, "only one more jump," and sealed all their fates.

In this universe, Culber and Stamets had never met. That meant Stamets was entirely the predictable quality Lorca had expected the other Stamets to be.

"All his research is still here," observed Lorca. "I've known more than one Stamets and they both have one thing in common: they love their work too much..."

Lorca's eyes scanned the room, certain something felt off, and then he spotted it. A holographic flicker.

"To leave any of it... Behind!"

He reached through the hologram and found Stamets' neck easily, pulling him out and shoving him up against the bulkhead. "Hello, Paul."

"Gabriel," whined Stamets, in that annoyingly high-pitched tone he had when nervous. "I really hoped you were dead."

"Well you can't always get what you want," said Lorca.

Landry sidled up beside Lorca. "Hi, doc," she said suggestively. She hated eggheads as much as her counterpart in the other universe.

With Landry covering Stamets, Lorca was free to stride across the room as he spoke. "Ironically, I have to thank you for helping me finish what I started. After you sold me out and ruined our coup attempt, I was down on Priors World recruiting allies when the emperor caught up with the Buran. As I beamed back to join the fight, her torpedoes hit. And luckily, so did an ion storm, which caused a transporter malfunction, and... know where I ended up?"

"Frankly, I'm still stuck on the 'not dead' part," said Stamets, shrugging almost comically.

"A parallel universe."

Stamets eyes flicked back and forth as he put it together. "The ion storm must have swapped your transporter signatures." (Stamets still could not see the full extent of what Petrellovitz had done. That was probably for the best.)

"To me, it was physics acting as the hand of destiny. My destiny." He arrived at a spot directly in front of Stamets once more. "The bioweapon you were developing for the emperor. Show it to me."

"Happily, sir," said Stamets.

Months ago, Burnham had stood in front of Lorca on Discovery and accused him of manufacturing biological weapons with the forest of Prototaxites stellaviatori in the cultivation bay. Lorca had never been interested in that line of research at all, but someone else had: Emperor Georgiou.

Georgiou loved biological weapons. The incompatible DNA that had rendered Kerrigan a balloon of gruesome ichor was but one of her many biological toys. The only thing she liked better than bioweapons were blades wielded in her own two hands. Her philosophy, so far as Lorca could tell, was that she liked things which were tactile. If the contact could not be made by a weapon she held, then it ought to be the result of a teeming horde of microscopic things crawling over someone's skin.

It seemed only fitting to wipe out Georgiou's forces with one of her own preferred weapons.

Stamets studied the Charon schematics. Petrellovitz's intervention had given him access to a good deal of the ship. "Looks like we can deploy here, here, and... here. Clear this whole area out." He waved his hands across a large swathe of the ship's midsection.

Lorca nodded. "Get to it."

Stamets was entirely gleeful at the opportunity to finally put his research to work. His spores, seemingly harmless, bypassed the environmental filters and within minutes, two whole battalions headed towards them were rendered a twitching mass of corpses on the ground as the spores ate away at them. Stamets giggled at the sight of it.

Lorca did not linger to watch the display. He had somewhere else he needed to be.

In the throne room, Emperor Georgiou stood on her dais with arms crossed. The loss of Captain Maddox and the recent deaths of her council left chief operational officer Commander Owosekun in charge of the Charon. (On Discovery, Owosekun was a lieutenant junior grade, several steps removed from command of the ship. Georgiou's habit of killing senior members of her staff tended to allow for rapid advancement. That it also provided Georgiou with the frequent companionship of young, ambitious women was probably no accident.)

Standing to the side, Burnham watched the deployment of the biological spore weapon and felt her every instinct about Lorca back on day one confirmed.

Owosekun deftly summarized unfolding events using what computer access she had. "Sensors have detected mass casualties on decks one through seventeen."

"He's come back from the grave to stage a revolution and that's the best he's got?" sneered Georgiou. "If he keeps doing that, he'll reveal his location. Then he's mine."

Burnham approached Georgiou. "Emperor, I've seen firsthand how he operates. He can get inside your head, manipulate you."

"You think I don't know that?" said Georgiou, insulted. This Michael Burnham seemed to have little to no understanding or respect for Georgiou's years of experience.

"He is baiting you, he wants you to come to him," explained Burnham. "Let me contact my ship again. They have no idea they're flying into a battle zone."

It was the third time she had requested this courtesy and Georgiou was entirely tired of it.

"Please, Philippa," begged Burnham.

Georgiou turned towards Burnham with a look of disgust. "I'm not Philippa to you. But you are right about one thing. He preyed on my sentiment, my weakness for your face. It will not happen again. Take her to the brig."

Imperial guards moved to either side of Burnham, grabbing her arms.

"Your choices have determined your fate," decreed Georgiou.

The guards walked Burnham towards the door. They did not make it far. Burnham kicked out the knees of one, sending him to the floor, and grabbed the rifle of the other, so when the guard fired, it hit another guard nearby. She wrenched the rifle away and slammed the butt of it into the guard's face. The guard on the floor rose and Burnham disabled him with the electrical rod in his own hand, then swung the rifle she was holding so it struck a third guard across the jaw and sent him careening away.

The guards across the room fired at her and Burnham fired back, red bolts of energy throwing sparks. Outnumbered, outgunned, her only chance was to escape somewhere they could not easily follow. Launching into a run, she vaporized a hole into a vent along the floor she had spotted earlier and slid across the polished surface of the Charon's decks into the hole, vanishing into its darkness.

"They'll find her, emperor," promised Owosekun.

Given the maze of access passageways that ran through the walls and floors of the Charon and the systems disabled by Petrellovitz, they did not.

Landry and her men remained behind with Stamets while Lorca ran his little errand. He found Larsson waiting alone. "Where is she," Lorca asked on approach.

Larsson pointed at a vent along the floor.

"Einar," came Lalana's voice from within as she pushed the vent panel outwards, "you were supposed to say I remained as instructed and did not leave with you." She was colored black like the shadows but rippled to a dusky gold to match the corridor as she emerged.

"And I said this is no time for jokes!" shouted Larsson, exasperated. "Now what the hell is going on, captain."

"The emperor has Burnham captive and we're assisting in the revival of a coup against the emperor to get her back," announced Lorca, having had more than sufficient time to cook up a story.

Larsson looked for a moment like a caveman getting his first glimpse of fire. "What?"

"I'm not repeating myself," said Lorca, leading them down the corridor towards their destination. Lalana loped alongside him.

Larsson shook his head but followed. "Only you would go to another universe and decide to upend a political system."

Lorca shrugged, waving his rifle irreverently. "It's a corrupt system!" he declared, as if that excused this massive, massive overstepping of the spirit of General Order 1, because surely whatever non-interference protocols were to be followed for pre-warp societies also applied to societies that existed outside the known universe and in whose natural development Starfleet ought not to meddle. (They were far, far beyond this, of course. They had been ever since the Defiant crossed over into this world. Its presence had altered history.)

"In the ten years I have known you, this is the most ridiculously convoluted plan you have ever had. Makes me think it might actually work."

Lorca smiled at that.

They arrived at a communication station. Lorca hit the door controls and fired upon the technician inside. She slumped over her console. "Guard the hall," he ordered Larsson.

"Aye, sir," grumbled Larsson, thoroughly annoyed to think he had left a perfectly good retirement of fishing to spend the past several months guarding doors, which was even worse than the brig and armory duties he had been assigned during his first tour of service.

Lorca kicked the technician's corpse out of her chair and began to key in commands. Lalana watched him disable several security protocols and key in a subspace band. "What precisely are we doing here?"

"It isn't enough to cut the head off the snake," said Lorca. "We have to flay her alive."

Now that he knew the full extent of the pieces on the gameboard, the time had come to gather them in one place.

More than that, as he revived this element of the plan they had built together, it felt like she was with him again.

They sat in the privacy of Michael's quarters with the lights comfortably dim around them. Lorca could scarcely believe his ears. Some part of him hoped he had misheard because if he had heard correctly, it was doom for them both. His voice was a gently lilting admonishment, but more amused than anything else. "Michael. That's treason."

"My loyalty," she said, her eyes fixed on his with a dark fire so bright it really was threatening to destroy them both, "is to the empire."

There was really something impossible about her, he decided, staring at her across the coffee table. "The emperor is the empire."

Her head tilted to the side, a smile on her lips. "The emperor is entirely too shortsighted."

Lorca closed his eyes a moment and shook his head. With anyone else, this action could have been a deadly folly, but Michael was the one person he could close his eyes on and not worry what he would find when he opened them because when he opened them, he saw the same ready smile, the same cocky confidence, and the same wildness he had always known—and not a trace of malice towards him in any of it. Well, maybe the slightest trace of malice, but only enough as to make things interesting between them where it counted.

He was only questioning her because he had to be sure. Not of her loyalty—he was sure of that—but of her thoughtfulness. This was not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly. He needed her to prove to him that she had considered it as thoroughly as he had. She had fifteen years of catchup to do in that regard.

"Here," said Michael, and tipped more scotch into his cup. She pushed it towards him across the surface of the table, clinking her own glass against his commandingly.

"There's no amount of alcohol's gonna make this sound a good idea," he warned her, but took the drink anyway.

"Be honest," she said. "I know you see it just like I do. The empire is stagnant. The emperor hasn't done anything important in half a decade. Twenty more years of this and the empire will be shot to shit."

Being almost twice as old as her, he had a much better concept of what twenty years meant, not to mention an idea of how short a time period five years was. Twenty was almost how old he had been when she was born. Twenty and five was a birthday she had enjoyed very recently. That she was unwilling to wait twenty years when he had spent nearly that many setting this all up was chock full of the abominable irony of her youth. Did she realize how ridiculous her time frames might sound from his perspective? Of course not, because when he was her age, twenty years had seemed like the number of years between then and the end of life as he knew it. Back then, he had known that people over forty were old as surely as he knew anything. Only having lived through those twenty years did he gain the perspective to know twenty was an entirely doable number for someone her age and probably an overestimate of the emperor's longevity on her part.

He also knew what she was talking about because he had played no small part in putting these very ideas in her head. He loved the way she phrased it. There was a lot of him in her sentiments, but the words were her own. He smiled despite the danger. "Let's say I agree with you—"

"Because you do."

He chuckled faintly. She was right, of course, there was no hiding it. "Then what would you have us do about it? And be realistic, I've taught you that much." Among many other things.

As she outlined her idea—based on a theory he was not sure he accepted—he had to admit it was at the very least ambitious. Startlingly so.

"They would never expect it," she grinned, "from the Butcher of the Binary Stars."

"The question is if you can sell them on this little theory of yours. Or sell them on anything. Let's not forget you are the Butcher of the Binary Stars." The title was so recently earned he could not imagine it would go down well at all with her intended allies of convenience.

Her eyes were like the depths of space, tiny reflections from the lights in the room twinkling as stars upon their glassy surface. "I don't have to sell them on anything. That's your job."

"Oh, I have a job in this little future of yours!" he went, a little too loudly because half that bottle of scotch was already in his bloodstream.

Michael came shooting across the table at him, her hands pressing down on his kneecaps as she leaned her face in so close to his he could smell the scotch on her breath. Every bit of this amazing him. To think this was the same child that had been hiding beneath the table at the banquet eighteen years ago. She never hid now. She was utterly brazen in everything she did. "The Graysons," she said.

That made perfect sense. The Graysons were wealthy and powerful and it was no secret the daughter of the family, Amanda, had certain proclivities where aliens were concerned. Her half-Vulcan son Spock was proof of that. That Spock still lived was a favor Lorca still held in his back pocket, ready for the right moment to cash it in.

But was this that moment? "What is your obsession with that half-breed," Lorca sneered, intending it in jest, but his face showed more jealousy than he wanted to admit. (Her obsession with Spock had begun as jealousy for his attention. Now he was the jealous one.)

"That half-breed," said Michael, sliding her hands up his thighs, "has more potential in his pointy ears than half the fleet combined. I will not have him take what is rightfully mine." Whatever barrier Spock's Vulcan blood offered could be offset by the wealth and power of his relations under the right circumstances. "All you have to do is bring my proposal to the Graysons and ensure that it reaches the right pointy ears."

That shifted Lorca into a smug smile. The Graysons were a perfect idea. His perfect idea. He had steered her towards it with such care she thought it her own. His existing relationship with the family gave him the clout to make introductions and sell this proposal both because of and despite Michael's own reputation.

He could also recognize a threat to himself when he heard one. "Phrased like that, makes me worry you might replace me with your pointy-eared rival when it turns out your little theory's no good."

"Oh, it's beyond good," she said. The Defiant was legendary in the empire. That ship, fallen through time from another universe, had given Hoshi Sato the power to conquer the empire a century ago. It would, under the right circumstances, give Lorca and Michael that power, too. "Just imagine it. A world bursting with potential." (The place her hand went with this particular word choice was entirely distracting.) "This is how we use it. And once we've separated the wheat from the chaff, this world will be ours for the taking."

He could hear some of his own words in that, and he had certainly planted the seeds of this whole undertaking, but he had to admit the particulars of Michael's approach were entirely novel and unexpected. She surprised him so often. Always somehow in a good way.

He was doomed, he decided, and glad for it. He traced a hand up the side of her body and down her arm to her wrist, fingers stroking gentle circles. She made the impossible seem possible. That was important because the task ahead of them was as impossible as they came.

"You could always just wait twenty years," he whispered to her. He said it not because he believed it but because he wanted to hear her say what followed.

"Why spend twenty years waiting when we can spend twenty ruling," she countered. That was the word he loved the most. We. She was the only person who ever said it and made him believe it. "And when you're short on time, the answer is to look for space."

She was, in a very real sense, trying to do just that. When you have no time, look to space, and when you have no space, look to time. It was an odd little conflation of some scientific explanation which Michael had taken as her personal mantra.

"It's gonna take a miracle," he said after a long, thoughtful, self-satisfied moment. It was as much an offer as a counterpoint. She accepted that offer and sealed it with her lips.

Luckily, miracles were his specialty. She was living proof of that. A child under a table turned into something worthy of her name, a name that mirrored his own. They were the pair of them archangels, though what they did next was anything but heavenly.

Lalana watched Lorca with patient curiosity. There was something written on his face right now, something bitter and regretful, but equally something that was hopeful and beautiful. A memory. She marveled at how such a simple palette could convey so many things at once and with such constant intensity that even she, a nonhuman, could see the colors. There was no one else who equaled him in this regard. Some humans expressed with the same intensity, some with the same breadth of range, but none of them, so far as she could tell, with both these things always, the way he did. He was the one human whose emotions were never a mystery to her.

The beep of a response took Lorca out of his momentary daze. "Finally," he hissed at the console, and accepted the transmission.

"Gabriel Lorca," said a calm, flat, almost toneless voice.

Lorca smiled in confident satisfaction. "Sarek."

That was the extent of the pleasantries between them.

"You are lucky this subspace band was still being monitored. It was slated for decommission." It was among the subspace bands the rebels had turned over to Burnham to supply the emperor as proof of her success. "It may not be safe."

"It doesn't have to be," said Lorca. "I'm sending you the coordinates of the Charon."

Sarek stared at Lorca. There was something frustrating about the stare of a fully cold-blooded Vulcan. Intensely dispassionate. "We are in no position to launch an assault. Our base on Harlak was recently destroyed, or did you not realize that when you sent us Michael Burnham?"

"I don't need you to attack the Charon," said Lorca, "because by the time you get here, the ship will be mine. I just need you to help me clean up the mess."

The same impassive stare. "You have been gone for too long, Gabriel. Many things have changed in your absence."

Lorca leaned forward on the console, fixing Sarek with a look of intensity that would have melted anyone else. He was simultaneously cold and furious as he said through gritted teeth, "Don't you dare. I didn't endure that goddamn mind rape for you to back out now that I've given you proof." His fingers gripped the console's edge so tightly his arms shook slightly.

"A bold plan," said Sarek, "if it is indeed true."

"Oh, it's true," assured Lorca. "You can take my word for it."

Lorca, Sarek, and Voq were standing in a single pressurized chamber aboard an abandoned asteroid mining facility. Of the two parties, Lorca was by far the more exposed. He was here without any backup, his ship out of transporter and weapons range, while their cruiser hovered above with the capacity to blow the meeting place to kingdom come and kidnap or send him with it. It was entirely intentional: Lorca potentially had the might of a whole empire behind him, so he was negotiating from a position of power, while Voq and Sarek represented a scattered mass of disenfranchised species. For Lorca to come alone and unarmed was merely balancing those factors out and proving the sincerity of his intent.

Voq sniffed disdainfully. "Take the word of a human?" he said. His voice had a honking quality to it.

"Or don't. You have the files Michael sent. That's proof enough."

"They were heavily redacted," said Sarek.

The files they referred to were the Defiant reports. Michael had secreted copies away aboard her ship, the Shenzhou, and transmitted them to the rebels alongside the promise of her plan. Minus any incriminating details, of course. Minus any useful details. The files were only intended to demonstrate the existence of Michael's conceit and get the rebels to the table.

"If we gave you everything, you wouldn't need us," countered Lorca easily.

Sarek was unmoved. "And yet, it remains possible that this is all a subterfuge on your part."

Lorca crossed his arms and glared at Sarek. "After everything I've done for your son?" There was a reason the half-breed progeny of Amanda Grayson and Sarek still drew breath and Lorca was part of it. As far as he was concerned, Sarek owed him a lot for that particular favor, even if it had been done more for the Graysons' sake than the Vulcan's.

To any of a dozen other races, such a personal gesture would have meant something, but Vulcans were not known for their sentimentality. "Be that as it may, we must confirm your intentions personally." Sarek raised his hands and stepped towards Lorca.

Lorca uncrossed his arms and stepped back, one hand going to where his phaser would have been. Of course, he had no phaser with him, and going for the knife in his boot was too obvious and would destroy the entire pretense of this meeting.

"If you consent willingly, this will be much easier," said Sarek. "But if you will not, there are ways around this."

Voq drew a Klingon blade from his hip, an ancient relic scavenged from the ruins of Qo'noS that still looked deathly sharp despite its dusty origins.

"Do not fight us, Gabriel," warned Sarek. "If you truly desire this union of our interests, then this is our price."

Lorca's back pressed against the wall of the chamber as Sarek's hands pressed against his head. His hands closed around Sarek's wrists because he could not totally escape the instinct to flee or to take hold of a weapon during a moment of perceived weakness and neither option was available, so all he could do was find something, anything to hold on to.

"My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts."

Sarek slipped into Lorca's mind. It felt like a million tiny little needles were pressing into his brain and splaying the memories out as a scientist spreads out a specimen for dissection. Lorca could feel himself being turned inside-out and was half-aware of a yell in his throat, but then all awareness was gone and he felt only Sarek everywhere—inside and outside, upon him and within him. He could not tell where he began and ended because there was no him, only Sarek. He was drowning in a Vulcan consciousness. He could see and feel his memories unspooling like ribbons in the darkness. He reached for them and they eluded him, slipped away into Sarek's waiting embrace.

Sarek released him and Lorca slid down along the wall, yell replaced by a wordless gasp. He knew instinctively that Sarek had seen it all: every truth, every lie, every secret, including the ones Lorca kept from himself. He felt stripped of everything. He was nothing in the aftermath of it.

"He is sincere," said Sarek, "and the Defiant is no lie, but he also does not believe the deal he has offered is possible."

"The usual human treachery," Voq concluded, looking angry enough to spit.

Sarek considered that. "Not quite. He does not believe it possible, but the one who sent the information, Michael Burnham, does believe it, and they have a scientist who is working on making it possible."

Lorca closed his eyes and took deep breaths to steady himself. He was better than this. He was stronger than it. He slowly rose to his feet, finding himself physically steady even if his mind remained unbalanced.

"What they believe is of no consequence," said Voq. "If they cannot provide what they offer, it is as good as a lie."

"I'll prove it," Lorca gasped at them. "If I can prove it, then we have a deal?"

"You will prove something which you believe to be impossible?" queried Sarek.

Lorca inhaled deeply and was entirely resolute as he said, "I've done more with less."

Sarek looked to Voq. "Then I believe this deal is in our best interests. If you prove the barrier between the worlds may be safely pierced and allow us this... 'world bursting with potential,' then we will help you supplant the emperor."

Voq extended his arm to Lorca. Lorca swallowed and clasped Voq's forearm. A warrior's pact. For better or worse, their destinies were now tied.

A world bursting with potential. The words had been Michael's, but they had come to Sarek through Lorca, stripped out of his consciousness by a mind meld so thorough it had, for a moment, made the two of them seem one. That Sarek still held those words was both damning and propitious.

Lorca hated that memory more than almost anything. What was supposed to be a mere confirmation of his and Michael's intentions had instead become a brutal exposure of everything he was. It was not acceptable to Lorca that this event should have been for nothing. Not now that he had given Sarek the very proof requested in the form of the other universe's Michael Burnham and in his own return here.

"I held up my end of the bargain," said Lorca through clenched teeth, "now you hold up yours."

"In your long absence, I find myself doubtful as to the enduring sincerity of your intentions. Now that you have this power, what is to stop you from claiming both universes for your own?"

Lorca was taken momentarily aback by the accusation. The thought had crossed his mind. At this point, a lot of thoughts had, many of them in conflict with one another, and his end game had changed a few times over the past year, but circumstances had forced him back on track and he was resolved to his original course of action. With a few adjustments. Even if he had ended up with a slightly different set of goals, the fact remained none of it conflicted with Michael’s offer to Sarek and the rebels.

"If you submit to another mind meld—"

"Absolutely not," said Lorca, hating Sarek for even suggesting it. "You've seen what I did over there, Sarek. I saved the other you. That has to count for something."

"I suspect because it felt like saving yourself."

Lorca's mouth twitched. This was true. Something the Vulcan had done during that mind meld made Lorca unable to stomach the idea of Sarek in distress because some part of him still felt like Sarek. The kinship was unwanted, but it was there. An intentionally implanted extra failsafe against the dissolution of their intended union. Some part of Lorca wondered if it was somehow part of Sarek's katra, but the larger part of him said no. Simple subliminal manipulation on Sarek's part. There might be some way to escape it, but seeking help would mean admitting the link's existence, and if word of it got out, Lorca would be finished on far too many fronts.

Besides, when he had learned Sarek raised Michael Burnham in the other universe, it had seemed like proof of something else. That Lorca and Sarek, the men who raised Michael Burnham, would be reflected across the two universes by such a bond suggested the two universes were united by a thread of shared destiny.

"Or maybe I'm just not the xenophobe you think," said Lorca, moving aside. "Lalana, get up here."

She hopped onto the seat into view of the transmission. Anyone else and the transmission would have been automatically framing her in the whole time, but since the computer did not register her as a life form, she had to rely on being in front of Lorca for Sarek to see her.

"What is that?" went Sarek, cold Vulcan façade letting slip some small bit of surprise mingled with the faintest affront or disgust at the two giant eyes.

"I am a lului. My name is Lalana."

Lorca looked entirely pleased with himself for putting this together. "She's my ally. That's proof I'm not lying. I have no problem working with aliens."

"You are from the other universe?" asked Sarek, because certainly he had never seen her like here.

"Yes, that is correct."

Sarek already knew from his mind meld with Burnham that the other universe had the potential to offer safe haven to anyone who wished it and had seen some glimmer of Lorca's involvement with Discovery's interspecies crew, but nowhere in Burnham's mind had he seen this creature. "What are you to Captain Lorca? In what way do you prove his intent?"

"I am his friend. As for his intent, what is it you wish of him?"

"He has promised to provide safe passage for non-humans to your universe."

Lalana tilted her head up at Lorca. "You said we were going to stop the war with the Klingons by bringing reinforcements from the Empire."

Sarek's glare looked entirely unamused. Lorca realized immediately where the problem lay. The first night here, when Lalana had approached him in his quarters, he had outlined a perfectly plausible plan involving killing Georgiou, taking over the Empire, and using Terran ships to fight the Klingons. While the Terran Empire and Starfleet were fundamentally incompatible, the prospect of a mutual alien enemy could have rallied the bloodthirsty Terrans to answer the call to war. They were as glory-hungry as the Klingons in Lalana's universe.

Nowhere in that plan had Lorca mentioned Sarek, Voq, and the rebels. To be honest, he was a little surprised they were still in play. He had expected to find them largely quashed by Georgiou at this point. That they endured was a testament to their value and made them worth adding back into his plan as participants rather than face them as a later adversary.

Lorca grimaced in disappointment at Lalana. Mentioning this in front of Sarek felt like a public betrayal. (In actuality, he was learning something the other Lorca had learned long ago: Lalana had no sense of propriety and did not distinguish between conversations in an official and informal context. She spoke whatever came into her mind.) "When we arrived here, I didn't know Sarek and Voq were still alive. Terrans or rebels, a gun is a gun."

Lalana's tail flicked. "Sometimes I think you are making this up as you go along."

That was entirely a betrayal. "Circumstance changed and I'm adjusting, restoring part of the original plan. That's not the same as making it up."

"It is almost. And what if the Klingons here wish to join the Klingons over there?"

Was she trying to screw this up for him? "Then we don't send the Klingons until after the war's won. If we have to send a few Terrans to clear a few battles, we do that. The important thing is we get Georgiou out of the way right now. Trust me, Sarek, I've thought of everything."

Lalana continued her dissension. "No one can think of everything, not even me, and I have trillions more brain cells than you do, Gabriel."

Lorca pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. She was talking about her undifferentiated tissues, which he knew from the lului medical report tended to be memory-focused, not cognitive. While the cells could provide cognitive function, they were sluggish compared to the specialized cortex cells that comprised the lului "brain" and infrequently used in such a capacity. He pulled his hand away and practically exploded at her. "This isn't the time for discussion! We have a chance right now to rid ourselves of Georgiou once and for all. The emperor's on her knees, and when she's gone, we all get what we want. But we need to do this now. Before someone else comes in to fill the power vacuum I'm about to create."

"Hm, that is a fair point," went Lalana, entirely unperturbed by Lorca's frustration. She turned back to the screen. "Sarek, will you please bring your ships to assist in this endeavor, for the benefit of your universe and mine?"

Sarek got the distinct impression there was something in this argument between Lorca and Lalana that was wholly domestic, which was more telling than anything Lorca could have actually said. He still needed more. In a measured tone, he said, "And who would you have replace the emperor? You?"

"I can't think of a better candidate," said Lorca as if he were congratulating Sarek for suggesting he take on this role rather than confirming an obvious bit of hubris.

"What of Michael Burnham?"

Lorca dismissed this suggestion outright. "It can't be Burnham. She doesn't know this universe. Her idealism will lead us nowhere. The minute they realize who and what she is, she's done for."

"And yet, it is in her idealism that I find hope for this plan, not yours."

Lorca glowered, thinking they were at an impasse.

Then Sarek said, "I was able to convince Voq of the sincerity of Burnham's intentions, even with the destruction of Harlak. I equally understand the validity of your concerns. I have seen into this Michael Burnham." That was a misleadingly innocuous description of a mind meld as far as Lorca was concerned. "She is not from this world and she cannot lead your people effectively. A new emperor is not worth the trouble if she is dead within a year. I suggest an alternative. I will back you, Voq will back you, if she stands by your side."

Lorca took a deep breath. That was, in fact, the best thing he could have hoped for. "Agreed." In a way, this Burnham was even better, because she would be sincere in a way his Michael could never have been. Lorca would have Sarek eating out of the palm of his hand.

"Then we will proceed to your coordinates."

Lorca leaned his hands against the back of the chair, feeling a great weight lift from his shoulders.

Lalana put her hands on the edge of the console and leaned forward. "Gabriel and I thank you, Sarek."

"I have only one question remaining. What of the Michael Burnham from our world?" asked Sarek.

A long pause. "Dead," said Lorca.

"Then you have my condolences," said Sarek, because he knew exactly how much Michael Burnham meant to Lorca. He knew it better than anyone.

The channel closed. Lorca exhaled, then erupted, "What the hell was that? You torpedoed me!"

"Vulcans are more easily convinced when they watch a successful defense of a position. I forced you to defend."

He blinked. That hardly seemed to excuse it. "Maybe next time a little warning?"

"You might have said we were contacting a Vulcan. As it was, you did not mention any part of this to me."

"I've been a little busy," he pointed out. He meant to tell her, but between Discovery and here, he had not had much chance to. Moving between the torture chamber and the aft hangar bay, they had been too busy ducking security, and in the brief minute before the transmission started, he had forgotten.

"It turned out well in the end," said Lalana. "Sarek is coming. I think he was reassured that you had me as an ally, and I think it is a very good plan." Now, not only was he uniting forces against a shared enemy, he was offering a chance for something better to the teeming masses of the oppressed.

That it would simultaneously remove what Terrans saw as an alien scourge on their claim of galactic supremacy was an additional windfall from Lorca's perspective. They would keep some quantity of aliens, because the Empire still had uses for many, but the rebels at least would be gone, and any species that fulfilled no Imperial purpose along with them. Best of all, they would go willingly.

"Thank you." Holding her up as a reassurance for Sarek was not the main reason he had summoned Lalana to the Charon, but it had been an entirely intentional move on his part and worked beautifully despite them both.

"Though, I should have cleaned your face before we contacted Sarek. You look quite a mess." There was still blood caked down the side of his cheek from the wounds he had given himself smashing his head against the wall of the ready room on Discovery. They had not healed much in the ensuing days of torture. Her tail drifted up towards him to clean them now.

Lorca grabbed her tail, stopping her. "Don't. People might notice."

Lalana's tail twisted slightly in his grasp. "What do you mean? They will notice there is less blood on your face?"

"Exactly, and if they figure out how..."

"They will think you cleaned your face."

"Yes, but how!" he exclaimed, voice rising. "I can't have them figuring out you're here. They'll shoot you. You understand?"

She did understand, but what she understood was not the point he thought he was trying to make. She would have blinked in confusion if only she could. Instead she stared at him and realized exactly how bad this situation was.

She had seen it, back in the torture chamber, with Maddox and Allan both. The same manic delight that had consumed him during null time, the sort of delight that overwhelmed people when they were forced to operate for far too long on far too little: a combination of sleep deprivation and adrenaline that induced a state of mind where suddenly everything in the universe seemed to make perfect sense. That point where you see all the patterns and feel you are suspended in something approaching total clarity.

A dangerous clarity, because often the patterns you saw in this state were not the sort of stable connections that made sense in the light of a more well-rested day.

She asked him the same question she had asked almost two hours ago.

"Gabriel, when was the last time you slept?"

They had been on the Charon for about half a day now, and before that, on the Shenzhou for over three. During that time, while Burnham had endured fitful but uninterrupted sleep in the relative comfort of the captain's quarters, Lorca had slept at most a handful of hours between being tortured in the agonizer booth. Four days on perhaps that many hours of sleep.

"I'm fine."

"I think you need to sleep."

Now she was being annoying. "Lalana, there's no time. We need to finish what we started. We're so close now."

"I also have a question about the conclusion of this."

There were a thousand other things he had to worry about right now, an entire coup he needed to attend to, but still he asked, "What?"

"Is it your intent that you remain here while nonhumans are sent to my universe?"

"That is the gist of it, yeah." He sounded enduringly proud about it.

"Including me?"

Lorca froze.

The main reason he had called Lalana to the Charon was that he knew he needed backup in order to reach Georgiou and kill her. Lalana's unique properties meant she could infiltrate any corner of the vessel and help him at a moment's notice. She had done exactly that.

Problem was, when he called her with those two little words, "lab rats," he had not known there existed an entire hangar of people loyal to him in need of rescue. He knew some of his people were aboard—Petrellovitz, for example, had been listed as such in the recovered data core—but an entire hangar full of them? It was too good to be true.

Once he knew they were on the Charon, freeing them became his top priority.

There was a reason his people were loyal to him after two hundred days of torture, a reason they loved him and said he loved them in return.

He did.

Not in the way he loved Michael, there was no one he loved like Michael, but in a way that made them feel valued. While Georgiou constantly culled from the top, Lorca kept people around. (Even in the other universe. It was why he let Tyler remain on Discovery.) Maybe he was not always kind, maybe he could be a tyrant, but he was a tyrant who kept them safe. So long as they were loyal to him, he was loyal to them. His people did not fear him the way Georgiou's people feared her. In this universe, that was as close to love as most people ever got.

He knew firsthand what it was like to exist as part of Georgiou's high command, to never be certain from one day to the next whether this was the day you would die or not, sometimes for no crime beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong moment. For years he stood by her side and watched her pick people off one by one and in sudden clusters. The dance it took to avoid falling victim to Georgiou's wrath was exhausting. The longer he lasted, the more exhausting it became. That his number would eventually come up seemed inevitable. Each new death brought him one step closer to his own.

Once Michael entered the picture, there were two of them to worry about. He did not think Georgiou would ever hurt Michael given her feelings for Michael's mother, but so many people had made the mistake of thinking Georgiou would not hurt them and paid the ultimate price, Michael's mother among them. Lorca had even made that mistake once himself. His price had not been fatal, but it had given him a dark and festering wound for which Michael had proven to be the only salve. If not Michael herself, then the role she offered him, which had allowed him to lose himself and become someone else completely.

In the wake of Michael’s death, his only thought had been to destroy the woman who had driven them both down this awful path together. It remained a central aim, but little by little, other desires had found him again. The desire to travel the stars, the desire to win a war, the desire to be a captain, the desire to save his people. The desire to live on as a testament to his Michael Burnham.

His people needed him and he needed them.

His people would not understand Lalana. They were Terrans through and through. They hated nonhumans. Not only would they not understand Lalana, her very presence undermined his credibility with them.

It was bad enough he had been secretly enlisting the rebels against Georgiou. He could sell this fact to his followers in the context of his long-term goals so long as he always seemed to keep the rebels at a distance in an antiseptic alliance of convenience.

There was nothing antiseptic about Lalana.

"Yes," he said. "Especially you."

"That is not acceptable."

"Well I'm sorry you feel that way," he drawled at her, "but fact is, you've done what I needed you to, so take Larsson and head on back to Discovery."

"But we have not yet killed the emperor."

"Lalana. This is the end of the road for you and me. It's time to say goodbye."

Part 87

[asktemmie-frisk]

Back to Normalcy (Lost and Found Arc)

Everyone brought Frisk and Chara out of the hospital and back home. Frisk and Chara weren't very happy with the terms they had to take to leave, but at least they were with their family.

After 30 minutes of driving, they all arived at Toriel's house, where Sans, Papyrus and Gaster were waiting for them. They went inside and saw the skeletons waiting for them in the living room.

"Hey, Sans, Papy, we're back!" Frisk declared.

All three of them immediately dropped what they were doing to see Frisk and Chara. All of them were so happy to see that glowing smile of Frisk's face, their eyesockets flooded with enough green energy to give them a flame-like aura.

"BRO! YOU'RE OKAY!" Sans said, crying tears of joy.

"You came back to us after all! I knew my greatness rubbed off on you!" Confirmed an estatic Papyrus.

Frisk wagged his tail happily and licked his brothers in the face.

"Yeah. Sure did." Agreed Frisk.

The brothers shared a hug as Erica and Soichiro approached them.

"Hey, mom, sorry I was so hard on Frisk earlier." Said a guilty Sans.

"It's fine. Your brother just needs some help. That's all." Replied Erica.

"Yeah. And we're really sorry. Chara and I fucked up real bad." Admitted a guilty Frisk, who tucked his tail between his legs.

"But, we're ready now, you guys." Chara said as she stepped forward.

"Hmm? What do you mean, Chara and Frisk?" Asked Gaster.

"To go to a therapist to talk about our problems. WITHOUT JUDGMENT."

"What? Why?" Questioned Sans.

"Big bro, you know why." Said Frisk.

"You've made it way more than obvious that we can't tell you anything without you being so judgmental."

"Frisk, come on. Go easy on me. I ju-"

"Stop. Just stop. You're just trying to make up for what you said earlier. I get it, Sans. But you're just too judgmental of everyone. I still love you, but you can't be such a prick when it comes to people doing those types of things. The world isn't black and white, it's all just different shades of gray. Some shades are brighter than others, but that's just how the world is sometimes. Even you have some dark spots in your special shade of gray, Sans. But that's okay because it's your shade. And the best thing is you get to choose what to do with it. The only problem: what you've done with it so far is use it to judge how dark other people's shades are."

"Yeah. I know. I'm still sorry, though. But I get it if you don't wanna tell me anymore. I wouldn't either."

"Sans. I can still tell you. Just please don't be so harsh with the judgment anymore."

"Sure. You made up for it, so I guess I can work that out."

"Thanks."

Sans and Frisk shared an awkward sibling hug. Papyrus joined in on it, happy they settled their differences.

"I knew you had it in you both! This is a family after all! All we had to do was talk it out!" Said the proud, younger skeleton.

"Thank you both! And as for you, Frisk and Chara, we'll all be there to support you one-hundred percent of the way!"

"Wow. Thanks, you guys. I guess we owe you one."

"You and Chara helped save the world twice AND bring equality to both monsters! I think we owe you. And even if we didn't, I'd say we're even now."

Frisk and Chara looked at each other happily, relieved that they would finally get the help they needed. And the best part was they wouldn't be judged by their family for asking for it in the first place.

Suddenly, Frisk and Chara remembered the lessons they missed out on.

"Hey. Ms. Toriel? Do you still have those homeschooling assignments?" Asked Chara.

"Oh! Yes, they are upstairs. Why?" Toriel replied, also forgetting their educational priorities.

"Give us the ones we missed out on, and we'll get started."

Yikes. Well, Toriel certainly wasn't expecting Frisk and Chara to remember their work. Thankfully, thanks to simply being homeschooled, they could make up what they missed out on easily.

"Come upstairs."

Toriel led them to her room. She went to a file cabinet with their homeschooling subjects. She swiftly gave them to the students, and they made quick work on getting started.

They looked determined to catch up on what they missed out on. They didn't look up from their papers and writing utensils for a while.

Five hours later, they brought every last assignment they missed out on to Toriel's room, completed. It was almost 8pm, and they had finished a massive amount of work in a small amount of time. It was incredible, but it was done. They knocked on Toriel's door.

"Hey, mom! We got the paperwork done!" Said Chara.

She heard a faint conversation through the door. It was between Asriel and Toriel.

"Do you really think Flowey might want that, mom?" Asked Asriel.

"I mean, think about it. He killed you a whole bunch of times. He only thinks you're his mom because you're mine."

"Asriel, Flowey had your dust and memories. Nothing more." Replied Toriel.

"If Flowey comes out, he and I are not related. He is not my son. You are."

"So what you're saying is-"

Chara barged in to hand Toriel her paperwork with Frisk in tow.

"HEY! CHARA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I'M PRACTICALLY NAKED!"

"You call wearing a t-shirt and boxers naked?" Chara asked, mimicking Frisk's signature blank face, who was also doing it at that moment.

"I said 'practically', Chara! Sure, it doesn't count, but I'm still not decent!"

"Right. Well, you and mom can back to what you were doing beforehand -wear a condom, by the way- because Frisk and I just wanted to say we're all caught up."

"Yes, that's great, Chara." Toriel said, trying to rush them out.

"I'll get to them later. But first, let 'Phoebe' and 'Dante' have some fun, okay? They have been stressed out, and they need a break from it."

"If you two wanna fuck, that's fine, but just remember we still have to look for a therapist, please."

"Your brother's the only one I need, for his 'sessions' work for about 8 'hours', if you know what I mean."

"Are you using units of time to describe Asriel's size? That's weird. I'm leaving."

Chara set down her assignments and turned tail before she could ask anything else to her mother. Frisk dropped his paperwork off and promptly went to his room.

Once Chara got in her room and closed the door, her parents asked her something.

"Chara, why were they in the same room with each other with such little clothing?" Asked Charon.

"I'm sorry for saying this, but it's not a pretty story." Chara replied, feeling a little nauseous.

"We're inside your head and your soul; we're taking a look."

"Okay dad, but you're not going to like it."

Charon and Laura ran through her thoughts and memeories to find why Toriel and Asriel were like that. They regretted not heeding their daughter's word, for she was right after all, and they didn't like it. Good thing they were simply souls at this point, or they would puke. It made matters worse that Chara already had the urge, however.

"Chara, we're sorry your father and I didn't listen to you." Laura asked, somewhat disgusted.

"Apology accepted."

"Why would they do that? They are mother and son. They shouldn't be doing that."

"Mom was thinking about having sex with my brother for a while, and vice versa. They just recently did, and they enjoyed it. I told them they won't have to worry about me telling people, but if anything were to happen, I would call mom 'Phoebe', and I would call Asriel 'Dante'. However, all they want is sex from each other. Nothing more. They love each other, but they're not IN love with each other."

"That's...a very unorthodox way of solidifying a familial bond. But if that's what they wish to practice, then I can't say anything about it."

"What? Why not?"

"Sweetie. It's sex. They are both adults, and they both want it. Even then, I'm not sure whether that would be acceptable with monsters or not. But whatever the case, we won't say anything about it anymore."

"Okay. Thanks, mom and dad. Now let's get some sleep. Maybe the nightmares will stop with you two around."

"Well, maybe not stop, but lessen over time."

Chara finally retired for the evening, sleeping the same way she usually did.

"Chara, are you sleeping naked?" Laura asked, feeling her daughter's lack of clothing.

"Oh, yeah. Something you should know. I sleep naked. Unless it's chilly, then I wear something light to bed. And I...well, I've...learned how...I'm sorry. I can't. It's too weird."

"Sweetie, it's okay. You can tell us."

"I learned how to masturbate, and it feels so good."

"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting you to say that. But that's good. And before we go any further, it's perfectly natural. And so is blood-letting from between your legs."

"Mom! I know! I-Toriel had to....you know, buy a book on the human reproductive system. Apparently, once a month, I get something called a 'period'? That's what it's called, right?"

"Yes. But let's get some sleep. I can feel how tired you are."

"Yeah. Good night, mom. Good night, dad."

And so, Chara went to sleep completely. She could finally slumber in peace with the help of her parents.

The next day, Frisk and Chara went to the kitchen to get something else to eat. They were feeling a lot better than they were before all of this happened.

"Hey, Chara? How did it feel sleeping last night?" Frisk asked as he got himself some salad.

"I don't know how to describe it." Replied a fully-refreshed Chara.

"It felt...nice? I mean, I had that nightmare again, but it stopped midway before my mom got hurt. Like she tried to alter the memory or something."

"I think your parents were trying to protect you from that nightmare again."

"Again? Why again?"

"Well, I meant to say 'this time', but 'again' came out of my mouth. I dunno why."

Suddenly, Charon took over Chara.

"That's right." He confirmed through Chara.

"We saw and felt Chara having that dream again about us. We decided to help her sleep better by making the dream a good one."

"Charon, you and Laura really are good parents, despite the circumstances you were placed in."

"Thanks...son."

"No problem. Now let Chara eat something. She didn't come in here for nothing."

"Yes, and then we'll be looking for a therapist, or whatever it's called."

Charon gave back control to Chara, letting her eat her breakfast.

"Finally. I need food now."

About 15 minutes later, after they finished eating, they went to Toriel's door, waiting for their next lesson.

"Hey mom, we're ready for the homeschooling session." Chara said, knocking on the door.

The bathroom door opened with Toriel draped in a towel.

"Well, that is-"

Chara screamed, not expecting Toriel to be behind her; Frisk's tail frizzed out from the unexpected boss monster fresh out of the shower.

"Oh! It's just you, mom. Thank God."

"Yes. Well, just give me a moment to dry off. No, you cannot watch. I remember your kisses from yesterday. I must admit, you do have a good technique, but you are lacking in experience. In addition, I am not into women, Chara. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, mom. Just let me enjoy wa-"

"No. Move. Now."

Chara blushed and obeyed, ready to let a blood vessel burst as Toriel walked into her room and locked the door.

"I'm attracted to my mom." She shamefully admitted.

"Chara, that's gross." Frisk said, putting his two cents in.

"Your mom is inside you, and she's-"

"Wrong. Mom."

"Oops. Let's go downstairs."

They went to the living room with pencils and pens, ready to get started. It took about 20 minutes, but Toriel and Asriel made it down the stairs to Frisk and Chara.

"Asriel? What are you doing here?" Frisk asked, forgetting about the night before.

"Dude. Remember? Mom." Replied an annoyed Asriel.

"Oh. But wait. Why is Ms. Toriel all dressed up to go out in public?"

"We will not be doing lessons today, Frisk." Responded a placcid Toriel.

"Instead, we will be looking for a therapist for you and Chara. Your birth parents will be assisting us in the endeavor."

"You're actually letting my parents get involved?"

A knock on the door was heard from the hall.

"Excuse me. It should be your parents."

Frisk's eyes instantly shined yellow brightly enough to attract his parents attention when they came inside.

"Frisk, it's okay, son. It's just us." Soichiro said, noticing the color of Frisk's eyes as he and Erica walked inside.

"Dad, how do you know I was scared?"

"Frisk, your father and I have always known." Answered Erica.

"Your eyes act like mood rings. The only time in which they don't act like that is if you don't feel anything. At that moment, they default to your true eye color."

Asriel and Toriel's interest was piqued.

"True eye color?" Inquired Asriel.

"What is it?"

"Frisk, show them."

Frisk closed his eyes and turned to Asriel and Toriel. He slowly opened his eyes back up to reveal that his eyes were actually gray. Asriel and Toriel immediately became scared.

"They look so empty. So devoid of life."

Frisk's eyes then became completely empty as he approached Asriel.

"I'm gonna get serious with you for a moment." He said.

"Sometimes when my eyes are gray like that, people are only mildly unsettled. But when my eyes look completely empty...boy, do they get scared. You should probably never fuck with me again. Unless you don't mind the look of death, that is."

"Don't speak like that, young man." Erica said, noticing that Asriel looked ready to run away screaming.

"Sorry, mom. Let's go."

Asriel trembled alongside Toriel as they all went into the living room to help find a therapist. It was difficult to know how long the trauma of seeing Frisk's eyes in their truest state would last, but Asriel would likely be unable to forget for a long time.

[lsgingasblog]

Of Happy Coincidences and Fated Connections Chapter 7

Final Act

“Honey, remember behave. Keep it decent”

My dad seriously knew how to embarrass me, but also I didn’t want to particularly keep it decent.

“Don’t worry we will Mr & Mrs Kagari”

Aww man Diana why’d you have to be liked that and ‘we’ geez, it sucks having such a proper girlfriend sometimes. Well….not always proper, as I briefly eye the barely concealed hickeys I gave her just yesterday before we flew to Japan from Russia.

Geez both of our lives are hectic nowadays.

Mom might’ve noticed me eyeing Diana’s neck.

“Please dear how many times do we have to tell you to call us by our names? How did you get such a polite girl honey” And she glances at me. Goodness mom.

“We love you like our own daughter dear, so no need for such formalities and she gives Diana a cheek on the kiss and gives me a big old hug and kiss as well. “And honey don’t worry they behave” she winks at Diana. Goodness she did notice. Oops.

And so the door was closed and my parents went on a date night.

Diana scowls at me “I’m going to make the popcorn. Turn on the tv for Chariot’s show. Croix told us to watch the pre-show as well. Stay in the living room”

I’m not an unruly pet, geez. As much as I love having the house to myself and Diana. I don’t think I could seduce Diana tonight. It worked yesterday night, but I think that had a lot to do with a long time without skin-ship.

You see our graduation from luna nova is in 1 week, but graduation requirements have changed.

After passing tests and everything you have to spend you summer interning at your field of profession/expertise and only then after the end of summer break after getting a good evaluation will you graduate.

I decided sometime last year when staying with diana & Andrew and the Cavendish mansion and hearing them talk about politics and Diana’s plan for wanting to improve the quality, health and access to health care around the world.

I pondered about my future apart from putting on show, because I’m definitely going through with that for at least a few years. Except for that I actually like teaching people, like the club I started for no magic family student like me, or the club activities that the green, red & blue team alongside others helped manage. Additionally I was amazing in learning new languages, I didn’t really notice it until I joined other linguistic classes and I picked up on the language fairly fast enough. I now proudly know 12 languages including magical creature’s dialects.

So I went around putting on small shows while having interned as a magical linguistics/translator liaison. Personally not big into politics, but one of andrew’s division he is interning for himself deals with the one I worked for so it makes it more manageable.

It’s amazing though the various places I go and the different people I meet as much as the technicalities of the subject matter and some affairs they do still bogs me down, I do find helping others smoothing over conflicts important. It still doesn’t make me change my mind about putting on shows to show everyone how amazing magic is. With everything going on with a resurgence of magic extremists and malicious magical creatures, it makes you think magic being a lesser known town was not that bad, because it was considered harmless, but now it’s considered a threat.

I want to bring that joy and pure love back at least a bit.

I might be a teacher later on too, but who knows personally I’m more a plan as I go person, but diana’s proximity these last 3 years, close to 2 of which we have been dating has been transformative for both of us. Trying and life changing as well. I can’t imagine my life without Diana and I’m fairly certain she feels the same about me, but this is one discussion we cannot avoid.

I have been travelling all around for summer break and so has Diana. Her project that go approved last year has been finally been put into motion. Red tape is horrible that it took 1 year, but Andrew says that’s amazing time considering some projects take much longer. Diana had been independently starting up the program in Britain because a smaller scale got green lit sometime in the beginning of the 3rd year and it’s been showing marked improvement and the modern medicine discipline will still skeptical they have told Diana thank you for her help in more overworked times.

Third year was hell. I loved every single moment with my friends and sad to have seen it end, but that’s life and personally I’m not planning on just letting us drift away that easily. It might not be easy and we might fall to the wayside at times, but we’ll find our way back. I suppose that’s also diana and I. The problem is that our dream has become so much bigger than our relationship or us as people and it terrifies me to address it, but I’m also aware if we don’t it will blow up that much more poorly in our face.

“Is it on yet?”

I stare at the screen for the first time arguably because I’ve had a million thoughts around in my head.

“No” I’m half tempted to jump Diana’s bones but spilled popcorn on top of being a ticking time bomb means that action will not be met favorably.

She sits down next from me. She is literally all the way the end of the couch, just enough to be able to share the popcorn.

I hate this tension. I want to talk about how she’s been. Or how much I missed her or how beautiful I think she is. How the situation was at her side. How is the project in the various places going? But then I think more distressing thoughts like are we doing even worth it, the way the world is going? Can we stay together? Will we still love each other after having commit ourselves to our respective dreams? What does the future hold? I know deep-down it’s silly to ponder all of these things so much, but a future without Diana feels bleaker for me. I feel my throat close up. Ooh god no, not right now. I start crying.

Diana’s cold mask is immediately dropped and she puts the popcorn down on the counter nearby and puts her hand around me in an embrace. She starts silently sobbing too. I suppose our worries would be the same.

“I can’t imagine my life without you Diana, please don’t leave me”

Goodness I sound pathetic.

Diana pulls away and I was afraid my fears would come true for a moment, but Diana puts both hands on my cheeks and reassures me that she has the same sentiment.

So we finally talk it out she tells me her plan of only doing this for a 1 to 2 years longer just to get the ball rolling and then they can manage themselves. She says she will most likely take on as the Cavendish head while starting a health clinic of sorts nearby after that she might think of becoming a luna nova teacher and try to do both, since as certain energetic witch told her so some years back. Of course she’s talking about me.

I tell her I wanted to perform for 2-3 years while doing magical liaison stuff. Later on I wanted to do something else and teaching would be the last I do after that.

She’s a bit surprised I thought it out so much, but I tell her being around her tends to have that effect and I call her out and back then the very same girl wanted to give up everything to just become Cavendish head. Diana admits we have both affected each other and she wants that to keep happening. She also wants us to be open about anything that might be bothering us, communication is very important for all relationships after all.

I tell her we even might have a solution for the first 3 years or so. We can ask for placement at same place, it might be selfish, but given how we have saved the world so many times since the missile we could probably get a bit leeway. She doesn’t feel all too comfortable with it, but she agrees.

It’s amazing what talking things out could really do on top of that we both admitted we needed other’s people help to make our dreams come true, because our dream doesn’t have to be solely our dream and especially one as big as either of us has, we need people to help carry that burden, whether a lover, friend, ally, coworker, stranger, just people who have a lot of the same sentiments and goals as you.

We were then reminded of Charon the fish and the newest book that came out recently by Ursula Calisits. In there she had the proper end for Charon’s journey in the dessert and it was a magical one and moving one.

Both Diana and I are visibly more relaxed now that we’ve talked it out and told each other how we feel about adult life and following our respective goals.

As we talked a bit more I told her about Professor Ursula wanted me to write a book with her about all 88 constellations. I tell her Ursula is in no hurry though. She thinks it’s a great idea. I even showed her the draft that Professor Ursula is working on concerning Chinese signs crossing over with zodiac signs.

Diana finally tells me a bit about the factions and organization that are directly fighting against dark forces in the magic world, the one that Ursula asked her to join in the summer break of the first year. You know that explains a lot a few of the disappearances or weird scars and bruises.

Of course I knew it had something to do with that because having been all around it would be hard not to pick up on stuff.

She tells me she can’t share too much and that Ursula was with this faction before coming to Luna Nova and a lot of her other combative powers were learned through being in that organization.

Of course while I don’t appreciate my girlfriend not being completely open about this I will accept this for now. I will find out more myself from Ursula and a few other places. I asked Diana if I could join. She prefers I didn’t, but she won’t stop me if I tried and I should talk to Ursula for that.

It is then Diana tells me about where she went and I proceeded to catch her up as well, because we had a whole month to catch up and the big world ending disaster last week did not count as properly catching up. We started talking about our friends and where they are planning to go, their respective relationships etc.

I was after a while though that I start noticing Diana’s chest rise and fall too much during a funny skit I told her about one of the places I was at. So I kissed her.

Truthfully I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to take advantage of my parents being away. My parents do date night like once a week. We will not get another night.

“Akko, no, remember what your parents asked”

I kiss her roughly “Speak for yourself then, because I sure as heck didn’t make that promise”

She glares at me, but that was a wrong move, that only made her hotter if I’m honest.

So I kiss her and Diana isn’t all too annoyed anymore when I start raking my hand up and down her back as we are impossibly close together with our bodies grinding against each other.

We start taking of each other’s shirt and tank top for me and we continue with the touching and the kissing. That was until I move Diana higher up on the couch and I accidentally drop her and the tv is unmuted. Ooh that explains the lack of noise before.

And the pre-show is on…..wait……why is Croix there instead of Chariot?

I decided as interesting as this development was a half-naked hot girlfriend all hot and bothered seemed much more interesting. As I tried to continue my ministrations however Diana pushes me away and says we promised Croix we would see this.

“Atsuko….”

Darn she’s serious. This is so unfair though. I can count the amount of time professor and Croix interrupted our racier moments, but then again I suppose it’s only fair considering the amounts of time we have walked in on them.

Diana was about the grab her shirt though. Oh no. Not letting it end here though so I start kissing her again, diana huffs. I know she enjoys this though. So I go behind her and start massaging her instead. I tell her she can relax and I still watch Croix performance. Win-win. She relents.

I was just about getting Diana back into the mood to discard the show and head up to my room for some much needed intimate happy times, when I glanced at the screen. I shouldn’t have. “Oh my God Croix”

And that broke Diana’s trance, but truth be told I doubt it I would’ve ever been forgiven if I had missed this moment.

Croix just proposed on live television to professor Ursula and she’s doing this sappy speech and both Diana and I are completely moved. Croix very rarely shows her more romantic side, she strangely enough comes to me to plan her random dates etc and I’m younger.

There’s fireworks and signs at the end and then Chariot performs and it’s just amazing.

The mood is a more relaxed one so I put on my shirt and hand Diana her that I threw a bit further away. We’ll have a lifetime of sexy times to be fair and right now more than sex I just want her close to me and hold her. I suppose diana feels the same. We lie on the couch and she’s half next to half on top, but I can’t say I mind.

We kiss a bit and we cuddle. This feels right. On the tv Andrew is talking about our projects alongside other endeavors he is doing to promote healthy relationship between magic and non-magic world. Truly Andrew does not have an easy job, then again none of us have with the world as crazy as it tends to get now.

“Adult world huh” I mumbled out. Diana stays with her face buried in my neck. Just listening to Andrew really. So I barely didn’t hear the “Yeah” mumbled back.

No long formal reply to that. Truly. We have both come a long way. We just bask in each other’s presence and content we had smoothed out our issues for now. They are not done permanently with them and obstacles will always arise, but as long as we are willing to work on it we should be fine. I just realized Andrew has long finished talking and instead it’s that idiot friend of andrew’s father.

No wonder. If there’s anything that guy is good at it’s boring someone to death. Diana’s already drifted off to sleep. No wonder. She had to deal with my insatiable self yesterday not letting her sleep and she already came from half around the world so double jet-lagged. I am too now that I think about……my eyes are getting very heavy……

This is a story of a cancer and a Taurus two animals that are nothing alike but found the perfect complements in each other……

Bonus:

“Honey are they decent?”

Mrs Kagari tskd at her husband’s bluntness.

They walked into the living room and saw the television on and the two girl snuggled together but the cover fell off.

The mother turned off the tv.

The parents smiled and the father proceeded to lift the cover and cover both in it, while snugging them in a bit and he proceeded to give his wife a quick peck and proceeded to go upstairs.

The mother gave both of them a kiss on top of their heads.

The mother whispered near Diana ‘thank you for everything’. Diana smiles although there is no way she could’ve possibly tell in her sleep.

“Good night my angels” and the lights were out.

Two little girls are playing chariot card game.

“Here, take my Cancer card and I take your Taurus card. That way whenever we are apart we’ll always find each other no matter what”

“Promise?”

“Of course! This is our fated meeting!”

“It can just be us meeting this one time and then never again.”

“Then it’s a happy coincidence!”

“So which one is it?”

“Both!”

****

In any case this is my contribution for dianakko week sorry if it’s mostly late. Was incredibly busier than I thought I would be and sorry I combined a bunch of prompts together in various days. Hope you guys liked my extremely long and random story xD.

I’m planning to do a multiverse/dream scenario for most of the members for the mushroom fiasco maybe. Apart from that I have a few drabbles in mind, they won’t be only for diana & akko, actually most of them will focus on other characters and the lwa world and world-building aspects. Might do a main story connected to this particular dianakko week universe, who knows.

I was really happy to be part of this and despite being late. Thank you for making this week. I love this pairing, but most importantly I love lwa in general and would love to see more of this adorable show with these bae girls.

[wavervelvett]

fakiru, 9?

fakiru + things you said when i was crying

There are a thousand reasons to leave and only one to stay, but that one is the one he vowed to live his life with, so he’ll just have to suck up everything else and take it because she’s worth it all a thousand times over and more.

He’s dealt with a lot worse, anyway, Fakir reasons. And Ahiru is spending the rest of her life as a duck. He has no right to complain.

Still. That doesn’t make it easy.

He pulls himself out of the academy. He doesn’t see much point in it now, with Mytho and Ahiru both absent from its ranks. And of course he regrets it within a week. Ballet had always been something he had to pick up in order to stay close to Mytho. He hadn’t had a passion for it. But without it, his limbs are full of anxious energy and he finds himself dancing in bare feet late at night in his bedroom while Ahiru sleeps on her designated pillow, just trying to alleviate some stress. He misses the full practice room to lose himself in, the snug fit of his shoes, the music pumping in his blood. But it would be ridiculous now to try to get readmitted to the program when he’s so close to graduation age and just left two weeks ago. So he dances at night while Ahiru sleeps and never complains during the day, because of course she must miss it as well. Talking about ballet will probably just make her feel bad, and he’s done enough of that in his life.

He moves out of Charon’s house about a month after everyone forgets. Fakir had hoped that maybe some people would retain their memories of before, but Charon is just like every other townsperson. He’d bound Fakir’s wounds from that day while giving him a lecture on getting into fights, and then wondered why Fakir had a duck with him. He doesn’t remember Ahiru. He doesn’t remember Uzura. Fakir’s parents died in an accident out of town, not an attack of crows. That would be ridiculous. The sort of thing that only happens in stories.

It’s slightly ironic that Fakir would suppress his memories regarding his parents for so long only for Charon and everyone else to forget as well so soon. But either way, living with Charon while Charon continues to simply not understand is frustrating, and then simply depressing. Plus, he’s sick of explaining to everyone why he carries a duck with him everywhere. After a month of helping Charon in the shop, he goes and gets a job carrying heavy loads at a bakery and pays the landlord for a rundown cottage near the edge of the lake. Ahiru seems very content to bob in the water, so Fakir makes sure she has plenty of food before leaving for work. His time off he spends fixing up the cottage. It’s an exhausting few weeks where all the days seem to blend together, but by the end of summer the cottage has a new roof, a fireplace, sturdy walls, a serviceable kitchen, and the rotten beams in the pier have been replaced. Now, Fakir can carry a chair out to the pier right beside where Ahiru sleeps and spend the day there. He reduces his hours at the bakery a little so he has time in the afternoons now to sit by the lake with his quill and paper, and things are a little better after that. Besides his writing, all they can really communicate with is quacking and vigorous wing pointing, so it’s a relief to begin to scrawl the story of the town across his various journals and hear her voice in his head once more, feel how she feels, that strange and intimate connection he’s still getting used to. Even if what they talk about is mostly gossip, he’s missed it so much.

Fakir pleads with Ahiru to stay safe in her lake while he’s away, and she grants him that. Maybe she understands that Fakir has almost lost her too many times recently to feel at ease knowing she’s wandering about alone where there are carts and oxen and horses and even people who eat ducks and really Fakir can work himself into a panic just thinking about it. So, for now at least, Ahiru’s trips into town are done from the safety of a basket, and the shopping gets packed around her as Fakir moves from shop to shop. He gets quacked at if he doesn’t buy enough corn or bread and quacked at if he doesn’t include milk.

“You don’t even drink milk!” he whispers with exasperation, holding the basket up to his face while the amused clerk looks on. She gives him a look that is amazingly nuanced for a duck, and he sighs before coughing up the coins to pay for milk as well. Fine. If she wants him to drink milk, he can drink milk. After a few weeks, some of the shops begin offering him bread for free. Apparently his devotion to his pet is ‘charming’. That’s embarrassing, but alright in the end.

What’s not alright in the end is when he runs into Ahiru’s old friends from school. He doesn’t have a clue what their names are and they’re so friendly with him he’s rather scared to ask. One of them seems to be trying to have a normal conversation, but the blonde one won’t stop crying about his ‘bad boy charm’ or whatever that’s supposed to be, and then the semi-sane one is staring at Ahiru and asking way too many questions and it’s all Fakir can do to get them both out of there without the blonde one clinging to his leg.

Ahiru barely moves the whole way home. Fakir gets out a quill and paper, but even then, she doesn’t want to talk. He understands. Her two best friends, and neither recognized her.

She saved the whole town, and he’s the only one who remembers.

Autumn chill comes tumbling in, and Fakir can spend less and less time down by the lake before his hand begins to ache. He keeps that from Ahiru. The self-inflicted stab wound that he’d never really properly taken care of might not have healed itself as well as he wanted. There are ways he can’t move his fingers without intense pain, and the hand itself has a tendency to hurt and go numb. He works on improving his coordination with his left hand, but between the strain he puts on his hand at work and the cold weather, he’s lucky to get a few hours a week in writing, and then most of that time has to be devoted to recording the town’s history, instead of talking with Ahiru. She might not understand all the reasons behind why he has less and less time for her, but she doesn’t confront him over it. She stays out of the lake by the fire and doesn’t move for hours on end. Entire days can pass where the most they exchange are glances.

She sleeps right next to him every night on her own little pillow, but he misses Ahiru. He misses her smile, and her freckles, and her bright eyes. He misses the stubborn pout of her lip and her clumsiness and the feel of her safe in his arms. He dreams of waking up to her turned human once more. One night he comes home to see her little duck form attempting to dance by the fire.

“Do you miss it?” he asks, hanging his coat behind the door. She stares into the fire for a moment and then nods, very slowly.

“Just dancing or being human?”

Again, a nod. Both, then.

Fakir lies awake that night, watching Ahiru breathe steadily while she sleeps. Why did she even stay? He knows Mytho would have taken her along as well, to his kingdom of written word where surely Ahiru could have been a girl once more. She could have been happy there, with Rue and Mytho, people who actually remember what she did for them. Ahiru could have danced ballet again, and never had to see those friends who forgot her so easily. She could have laughed and smiled and been able to talk with people other than a moody writer whose hand doesn’t even work right. How long does he have anyway? He knows he should see a doctor but the wound has healed and it seems it’s the tricky stuff on the inside that’s making his hand hurt so. There’s nothing to heal that with. He’ll just slowly lose the use of that hand. And what then? Does he still write the town’s story? Keep on with this task assigned to him through his ancestry? What would happen if he just stopped writing? Would the town survive, or is it still trapped, in this small way, by Drosselmeyer’s machinations? He doesn’t want to test it. In that case, there is the serious problem of lineage. If the town will need writing, then who after Fakir? He stares at Ahiru and tries to imagine inviting someone else into his life, even if just for purpose of an heir. No, no, no, no. He would never do that to her. And there’s no one in this town except Ahiru who he could even imagine being with. Obviously not in duck form, but still. So does he track down Autor and try to get him to remember? He’d only seen Autor once, when he was at the academy gathering his things to leave, and for a moment he’d attempted a smile for someone who did pretty much save his life, but Autor’s eyes had passed right over him. How would he react to Fakir arriving at his doorstep and insisting he needs to ‘write’ the town and have lots of little babies to continue on with it?

Is there any way out of this for him? Or is Fakir stuck in this town forever?

But, and this is a big but, because he hasn’t even dared to think about it yet, he doesn’t know how much longer Ahiru is going to be around. Fakir flips over onto his back and covers his eyes with his arm. Yes, she’s a magic duck, but ducks only live so long, and Fakir knows that if Ahiru dies, there’s nothing that can keep him here, story or no story. Town be damned.

Why didn’t Ahiru leave with Mytho? She could have been happy and human and dancing, and lived a long, long human life. Mytho would have allowed it. She was Princess Tutu, after all. She belongs in the storybooks.

Why didn’t she leave?

Why didn’t she leave?

She’d felt so safe in his arms. He thought he could protect her. He should have been able to protect her.

Fakir sniffs and registers the slide of tears down his cheeks. Lucky he’s always been a silent type of crier. He’s also been a complete fool. Thinking that he could get some sort of fairytale ending as well, when it hasn’t even been six months since they defeated the Raven and already everything is falling apart. He’s falling apart. And how is he supposed to provide for Ahiru in this state?

He ends up sitting at the dining table, palms pressed against his eyes to try to stem the flow of tears. He bites down on his shirt to prevent any embarrassing noises from escaping. He can’t cry like this. He needs to be stronger.

The clunk of wood on wood has him halfway out of his seat, hand reaching for a sword at his hip that hasn’t been there for half a year. A quick succession of quacking makes him fumble for the windows and pull the curtains apart. The moonlight reveals Ahiru, standing by the fireplace with her foot on a log she just knocked out of the basket. She quacks again, a little impatiently.

Fakir wipes at his face with rough palms. “Bossy,” he says, trying to keep his tone light. Maybe she didn’t see him crying. Although Ahiru has the unfortunate habit of doing just that.

He makes the fire with practiced movements, and within a few minutes he leaves it to grow as he takes Ahiru with him back to the table. He offers her some corn kernels that are always left in a little bowl there, but she gives him another distinctive look that lets him know he hasn’t gotten away with anything. Fakir sighs and hides his face in his hands. He still has tears left in him, and that’s no good way to start a conversation. “It’s nothing.”

She nudges her head into his arm. Fakir gives Ahiru a pat, but she shakes her head vigorously and dislodges his hand.

“I said it was nothing!” Fakir snaps, and shoves his chair from the table. He goes to stand in front of the fireplace but he can feel her eyes on him. He casts his own eyes around the room, looking for something to distract himself with. The journals catch his eye, the completed ones stacked in the corner and stained with ink. He kneels beside the ever-growing pile and runs a finger down the spines. He’s doing the best he can, he really is, but…

“I should have been able to change it,” he whispers. “If I’m Drosselmeyer’s descendant, then I should have been able to change the end of the story to let you stay human. That way, you could have gone back to the school, and your friends, and ballet. Anything better than being stuck in this tiny hut with only a pond to entertain you, day after day because that’s…” He feels the tear slide hot down his cheek as his voice turns muddled. “Because that’s all I…all I can give you. I’m so sorry, Ahiru. I’m sorry.” He sniffs and turns away from the journals. Ahiru is still peering at him from the table. Fakir shrugs helplessly and swipes the tear from his chin. “You deserve much more than I can ever be.”

Since Ahiru can’t reply, all he gets are his words echoed back at him. Ahiru—sweet, clumsy, opinionated, compassionate Ahiru—is stuck with him for the rest of her short duck life. She wants to be a girl again. She wants to dance again. She wants to see her friends again. And she should be remembered by this town as a hero. And if that’s not possible in this world, then…

Fakir covers his eyes with one hand and sinks to the floor. There’s no hiding that he’s crying anymore, and now with no need to be silent, he loses all control. He stuffs both hands over his face to try to contain the tears, draws his knees to his chest, feels the ache in his throat and his lungs, tastes salt upon his lips.. “I don’t understand,” he manages to say between heaving breaths. “Mytho would have let you go with him. You are Princess Tutu. You should be living in his fairytale land, laughing and dancing instead of…instead of this.” He lowers one hand to gesture around the cottage. “I can’t give you the kind of life you deserve. Because you deserve so much more.” He dares peeking through his fingers at where Ahiru still regards him from the table. In the flickering light from the fireplace, it’s difficult to tell if she’s giving him one of her duck looks. “I didn’t need you to stay,” he rasps, slowly shaking his head. A lie, but she doesn’t call it on him. “We only needed me to keep writing the story. You don’t have to be here. So why…” He bites down hard on his lip, enough to taste blood, to keep his voice from wobbling. After a moment, he hides his face in his drawn-up legs. “Why did you stay?” he asks, shutting his eyes against an answer he doesn’t want to know. “W-why…?”

For a moment the only sound is the crackling of the fire, and then the distinctive whump of Ahiru half-falling, half-flying to the floor. She pecks at his bare foot.

“Ow!” Fakir complains, and lifts his head. “You don’t have to——” He stops talking. Actually, it’s more like everything about him stops. His brain, his lungs, his heart, his ability to do anything but stare. Ahiru must sense it, because she opens one eye to examine him as she stands there in position, wings curved gently upwards beneath her chest.

“You…you mean that?” She quacks a little frustratedly at him and improves her stance. It’s a little difficult for a duck, but Fakir knows the mime for love when he sees it.

“You’d stay here, in this world, where nobody remembers you and you’ll be a duck forever…” Well, he might as well remind her what she’s buying into. “Because you lo—because you—you love—because of me?”  

She lowers herself back down from the tips of her feet and nods.

Now, for him, it’s an obvious thing. He loves Ahiru. He loves her now and suspects he always will, no matter how long she is with him. Even if he never admits it in his life. Even if he could only try to express that love in a single dance at the bottom of a lake. It doesn’t matter. That love stays warm in his chest, protected by his ribcage and tucked beside his heart. So he knows he loves Ahiru, but with one thing and another and Mytho and Rue and the whole duck thing, he’d given in to never knowing if she felt the same, even if it was just an inkling of a feeling. Now he knows. But he never wanted to.

Not like this.

His hands drop to the floor and his feet slowly give out across the wooden planks, legs extending spread out so not to bother Ahiru. Fakir stares at the little duck lit up by the firelight. Shaking his head slightly, he manages to rasp, “So you’ll stay here, because of me. I…I…” He shuts his eyes tight and feels the tears really begin to flow. His nails scratch at the floors as he balls his hands to fists. “Why? Why would you…why would you do something…why would you love me? I’m just…” He clutches both hands right to his chest. “I’m just a hopeless, loner writer whose hand doesn’t even work right anymore! I can’t…” His hands fly back up to his eyes. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep writing. I don’t even know if I’m doing it right! You should have gone with Mytho and been happy with him. Found someone better to love.” His voice cracks along the words. “Not me. I can’t give you enough. I can’t give you anything! Just a tiny cottage and a slice of a pond. That’s all.”

Hands back down to floor, out of exhaustion more than anything, which means his eyes are free to see Ahiru consider the problem for a moment and then, slowly, gesture to him with her wing before gracefully transitioning into the mime for love once more. Fakir frowns and peers closer. “I…I lo-lo-love…” Ahiru settles back onto her feet and tilts her head to the side, waiting. “Do I love you? Is that it? Is that—?” She shakes her head and completely throws him off. “B-because I…do…what do you mean ‘no’?”

This wasn’t at all how he’d dreamed of these confessions.

She quacks and flaps her wings in annoyance, and then sets off waddling down the room to Fakir’s desk. She flies up onto his chair, and then scrambles up to where he’d last abandoned his journal and quill. Fakir uses his shirt to wipe his face clean and follows obediently, sitting down and reaching for the quill. Her wings snap out and stop him. She moves with more strength he knew she had, flipping his hand over and nosing over the scar there. She looks up at him, tilts her head, and makes a quiet peeping sound. Fakir breathes in deep and tries to prevent his voice from cracking. “It…it didn’t heal right. I can feel something wrong when I move my fingers…” He flexes them for example. “And it hurts to write for more than ten minutes at a time.” Ahiru just stares for a long moment, and then slowly butts her head into his palm, smoothing her feathers over the scar. Maybe, Fakir thinks, this could have been a kiss, if Ahiru had lips with which to do that. “I can write now, though,” he tells her softly, and takes his quill in hand. The ink blots on the first few words he writes, but he’s gotten used to how he needs to write the town, and how to write his and Ahiru’s story.

“Late at night, the writer lay awake…”

He’s still not used to how writing about himself and Ahiru gives him a strange omniscient feeling, like all her thoughts and feelings are flowing straight into him to be jotted out upon the paper. The moment the quill touches down, he can sense her emotions as if they were his own, almost overwhelming in their sincerity. Concern for his hand, a deep sadness for not being able to comfort him better when he cries, and…well, it’s not exactly anger, but frustration that Fakir doesn’t understand what she’s trying to say. Resignation that there’s nothing they can do right now to change that situation, but frustration just the same.

Fakir rubs his free hand over his face again, trying to erase the tear tracks. She doesn’t need to be able to comfort him. He needs to be stable, to not break down like this in the middle of the night.

Wait, shit, he’d written those thoughts out. He can’t even rely on the privacy of his head when there seems to be no filter in between what happens and what he writes. Ahiru turns to read before he can scratch it out and quacks in quick protest.

“Well, I should be! Better!” Fakir protests. “And you! You should be a girl again and dancing with Mytho and Rue and their fairytale life!” He pushes his chair back. “You love me, and I love you back, but, b-but…” Damn it. Once he starts crying he’s never able to get it to stop. “But sometimes that isn’t enough, Ahiru! Sometimes life is just too complicated and not a fairytale, not in this world. Which is why you should have gone. I don’t know how long I’ll have to write the town’s story for, I don’t know what to do if I need to find someone else with Drosselmeyer’s bloodline to continue for me and I don’t know how I could force that sort of burden on anyone anyway. And everyone thinks you’re just a duck, and nobody remembers! They don’t remember…” He covers his eyes again, like that’s fooling anyone. “Charon, Autor, everyone at the school. They’ve all forgotten. You and Mytho and Rue and everything that happened. They see me, and I’m just the odd orphan kid who carries a duck around. Is that what you want for the rest of your life? To be stuck with me?”

There’s no response. After a minute, he lowers his hand.

She’s crying. Oh God, he made her cry too. Those big blue eyes that remind him the most of when she was a girl. All filled with tears.

“Ahiru…” He dives out of his seat and lands on his knees before the desk. She shakes her head and turns away. Fakir bites hard down on his lip, but then her foot sends the quill rolling down the desk right to the edge. She wants to talk.

Fakir wipes his face on his shirt again and raises himself so he can fill the quill with ink. He touches back down to the paper.

“The duck could only remember what the writer had told her, deep within the lake. That it didn’t matter to him if she was a bird or not, because that’s who she truly was.”

“I don’t care that you’re a duck!” Fakir yelps, wrenching his hand away before it can give anything away. “It’s just…you’ve told me you miss being human. So…do you care that you’re a duck?”

Ahiru turns back to him, not meeting his eyes as she taps her foot against the paper. Fakir sighs and puts the pen down once more, lets the words run free.

“Of course the duck had understood what staying with the writer meant. Leaving with the prince and princess would allow her to remain as Princess Tutu, and live happily within their realm of fantasy. But staying with the writer meant staying beside the boy she loved, and feeling his love in return, and that was worth everything.”

Fakir stops and his eyes flicker over to her. He can feel the sincerity of the words he’s scribbling, can feel the bravery she needed to summon them, the determination to make Fakir understand, because he’s such a stubborn dolt at times. That last part is definitely directed at him.

“A stubborn dolt? Thanks.”

She quacks loudly and taps her foot incessantly against the paper.

“The writer might lose use of his hand, the town might forget all about her existence, they might be known as the strange boy and his duck who live out on the lake, but that didn’t matter to the duck. She would not ever trade it for the fantasy world. Because she had promised…”

Ahiru watches him write out the final words and then waddles over to stand right in front of him. Like this, they are beak to nose.

“You mean that,” Fakir says. There’s no question. Not when he felt the words like that. She nods.

Fakir turns his face away and wipes his nose on his sleeve. He sighs and tries to steady his breath, and then pushes up off the floor. He holds his hands cupped near the desk. “May I?”

Ahiru quacks, content and soft, and steps into his hands. She doesn’t protest when he draws her to his breast, and instead he feels her wings embracing him in return. He can feel her cold little beak against his neck. Always so tiny, no matter what form.

Eventually it feels natural to begin to rock back and forth, slowly turning in a circle. It’s not ballet, and by no means a proper sort of dance, but for now, he can’t stand to let her go.

Nothing is fixed. Real life doesn’t work like that. The problems of tonight will still be here in the morning. But maybe they’ll look better in the dawn. For now, they keep dancing.

The final words on the paper trail off into a scribble, pen abandoned and leaking ink in a trail from the final period.

“I will stay by your side forever.”

[makingscipub]

Rogues and resistance

Over the last few weeks, when I could tear myself away from my twitter maelstrom of doom, I have been reading Anthony Gottlieb’s The Dream of Enlightenment. On pp. 198-190 I came across Adam Smith’s eulogy of David Hume (1711–1776) in which he recounts a visit to the dying philosopher. During that visit Hume told Smith about how he distracted himself by engaging in an imaginary dialogue with Charon, the ferryman in Greek myth who carries the dead across the river Styx. Here is how Hume imagined his conversation with Charon, pleading with him not to let him die so soon: “’Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.’ But Charon would then lose all temper and decency. ‘…[T]hat will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue.’”

Just before reading this passage, I had been thinking about writing a blog post about rogues and resistance and this got me into the mood of actually writing it. What would Hume have thought, had he come back across the river Styx to visit this modern world? He would have hoped that through the efforts of enlightened philosophers (and scientists) the eyes of the public might have been opened and all systems of superstition would have vanished. How surprised would this old rogue have been about the state of the modern world! He would however been heartened perhaps at finding a few ‘rogues’ carrying on the dream of the enlightenment and resisting the forces of darkness.

The rogue explosion

So what about ‘rogues’? I am not talking about rogue elephants, but unofficial twitter accounts! You will probably all have realised by now that: “’Rogue’ accounts that have the look of those by real [US] federal agencies are spreading like wildfire on Twitter.”

It all started, I believe, after President Trump threatened “the removal of scientific data from government websites”, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA now has (but the situation is changing daily) various ‘aliases’ and strap-lines, as listed here: AltEPA @ActualEPAFacts (He can take our official Twitter but he’ll never take our FREEDOM. UNOFFICIALLY resisting at the @EPA); altEPA @altUSEPA (The Unofficial “Resistance” team of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Not taxpayer subsidised! Environmental conditions may vary from alternative facts); Stuff EPA Would Say @EPAWouldSay (We post info that Donald Trump censors. We report what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would say); U.S. EPA – Ungagged @ungaggedEPA (Ungagged news, links, tips, and conversation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unable to tell you. Not directly affiliated with @EPA.)

Other scientific organisations followed suit, most famously perhaps various park rangers. There are numerous articles about this, which I won’t summarise here. One tweet encapsulates the situation quite well (and humorously): “First they came for the scientists… And the National Parks Services said, ‘lol, no’ and went rogue and we were all like, ‘I was not expecting the park rangers to lead the resistance, none of the dystopian novels I read prepared me for this but cool.’”

The AltUSNatParkService Twitter account calls itself “The Unofficial #Resistance team of U.S. National Park Service”. This account “appeared shortly after the Badlands National Park’s official account posted several unauthorized, but highly popular, tweets affirming climate change. The tweets were later deleted, but they can still be seen in the many screengrabs captured by Twitter users.” (see Scientific American).

Rogue twitter accounts started to mushroom and the list of these ‘twistance’ accounts is growing (and changing). Many use hash-tags, such as #resist or #resistance when tweeting. The rogue White House account has this striking twitter image (on 28 January, 2016).

It is interesting to note that @AltNatParkSer has now become @NotAltWorld, probably because the prefix ‘alt-‘ has become negatively connotated (alt-right, alternative facts and so on).

What this account and many others want to stand up for and preserve are ‘facts’, a diminishing currency in an increasingly fake world. On 26 January the account tweeted: “Several of us are environmental activists and two are journalists [our FACT checkers]. All of us are former scientists.” Responding to queries about this anonymous account and who is behind it, they tweeted on 25 January: “We are definitely real! Come visit us at Mt Rainer National Park.”

The rogue confusion

In principle this type of resistance by social media is a good thing. These are uncensored accounts telling people ‘the truth’ about things…. However, it’s also quite confusing, because now, alongside the rogue/alt-government accounts, we also have parody rogue/alt-government accounts and even fake rogue/alt-government accounts, as Karen James tweeted. For example Rogue NASA recently tweeted: “Warning: @NASAGoneRogue seems to be a fake anti-climate change troll account.” (To make sure whether you are dealing with facts or fakes, fact accounts or fake accounts, it might be good to read these guidelines and pin this poster on your door.)

This confusion is nicely discussed in an article by Kalev Leetaru for Forbes Magazine (28 January, 2017). He also points to something quite confusing about this confusion: “Indeed, the blind trust in such anonymous accounts was particularly striking coming just two months after issues with a similar anonymous source claiming to be a set of propaganda experts.”

Regarding science/climate change communication, there is also a danger highlighted by Leetary: “by combining discussion of climate change with political and personal attacks on the administration, the accounts have made it that much easier for opponents of climate change to argue that even supporters of climate change discuss it in the context of politics rather than as a non-partisan scientific topic”. The article is worth reading as a whole, as it raises issues around this rise of ‘anonymous science communication’ which need to be explored further.

And, of course, there are the eternal questions as to whether science should become political, is too political, should never be political, etc. In my view, these are the wrong questions though. ‘It’ (science) is and should never be political, but scientists can be and should be and are. In the US they are now standing for election for example.

Rogue voices and silences

It is noteworthy that while rogue science and politics accounts are vocal in their condemnation of various policies implemented by President Trump, official science and politics accounts are still relatively quiet. I haven’t checked many twitter accounts, but I haven’t seen anything much happening on the accounts of the British Sociological Association, the American Sociological Association, the Royal Society, the UK STS association AsSIST-UK, the various Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) community sites, and so on – I might be wrong, though and I’d love to hear from people who can point me in the right direction.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science tweeted a rather luke-warm condemnation of President Trump’s immigration policy. It says that “Scientific progress depends on openness, transparency, and the free flow of ideas. The United States has always attracted and benefited from international scientific talent because of these principles.” It’s certainly the case that the new presidency in the US and Brexit in the UK will do immense harm to openness and the free flow of ideas. The statement also says that a ‘balanced’ approach to immigration is needed. However, a rogue account would probably have condemned the immigration policy more strongly and said something about human rights and the law. Rogue accounts are also trying more decisively to keep the flow of ideas going and to keep science and politics open.

In contrast with such silences, some universities and many individual scientists and groups of scientists, science writers and science communicators, technology innovators and companies, and researchers and academics most broadly, are making their voices heard on twitter and beyond. Some scientists on twitter have even begun to apologise for the fact that their tweets are increasingly about politics rather than science.

Science and governments in exile

There might be some confusion about rogue accounts and parody accounts, but rogue twitter accounts are here to stay until the world has switched back to a state where discussions about science, culture and knowledge are officially valued again. In the meantime, as Leetaru said in another article: “These new accounts also raise the fascinating question of whether ‘alternative’ or ‘rogue’ or ‘resistance’ social media accounts will become a new norm even in Western nations that have not typically had a history of ‘governments in exile.’”

A long time ago as a child in the 1960s I saw the premier of the British film Fahrenheit 451, directed by François Truffaud and based on the 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The last scene still sticks in my mind, where Guy, the hero of the film, joins a group of outcasts in the woods, rogues one might call them, who each had memorised a book that had been burned. Are social media and the rogue twitter accounts our new outcasts in the woods? I bet David Hume would have opened a rogue twitter account, if he was still around. In a sense, we are all rogues now!

Image: Poster for Fahrenheit 451 (fair use)

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