#i love the condors little face he is really :) shaped

[inkwell1013]

Birds of a Feather

Pairing: Futaba & Yusuke (platonic)

Genre: Fluff and Angst, Oneshot

Inspired by: The fic Lasting Impressions by @codenamegeek​. I lowkey stole the idea of Yusuke and Futaba watching anime together and angst happening but took it in a slightly different direction.

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Flashbacks, references to child abuse and disordered eating habits/unspecified eating disorders.

Summary: Futaba and Yusuke spend the night watching anime together, but Futaba makes a horrible mistake that effects Yusuke more than either of them expected and has to deal with the consequences.

Notes: This fic includes my hc about the Autism Squad (TM), which consists of Ren, Futaba, Yusuke and Makoto.

- - -

If you were to ask Futaba and Yusuke what they liked about each other, they wouldn’t be able to give you a real answer. On first appearances, they were as different as two people could be, but they shared a sense of kinship regardless.

The cumulation of their friendship was their weekly hang out sessions, where Futaba binged anime and ate snacks full of empty calories and Yusuke sketched quietly. They were both doing their own things, but at least they were doing it together.

“What do you wanna watch Inari?” asked Futaba, fetching another bag of snacks from the cupboard. Sojiro always kept little stashes of food around Le Blanc and their home. It made Futaba feel secure, knowing that the food kept there would always be available. She wouldn’t go hungry here.

“Can we watch Neo Featherman?” said Yusuke, pencil still in motion. “I find the actions scenes quite inspiring for anatomy practice.”

“Sure.” Futaba switched on the television and loaded the show. The familiar jingle burst from the speaker and Yusuke absentmindedly hummed along with the music. The title card flashed on screen: Death of a Condor.

“Wait, what’s going on?” he asked, looking up from his drawing. “Is Black Condor dead? I thought the feather of destiny made him invincible?”

“It does, but it was stolen by Purple Squirrel in episode eight,” explained Futaba. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

“Not really. I just watch it for the fight scenes.”

“And the cute boys.”

Yusuke blushed bright red. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Futaba giggled, throwing a bag of crisps at Yusuke, which smacked him square in the forehead. “Here,” she said. “Don’t forget to eat. You know what you’re like.”

“I was going to eat eventually,” he grumbled.

“Sure you were,” said Futaba, rolling her eyes. “Just remember to, okay? Sojiro will kill me if you collapse on the way home again.”

Yusuke nodded, his tongue still stuck out in concentration, as the pencil in his hand danced over the page. Futaba span back around in her chair. She was secretly pleased when she heard the sound of the bag being torn open, followed by a crunch.

What an achievement! She had gotten the starving artist to eat. The only other people who had succeeded at that herculean task were Sojiro and Ren.

She didn’t say anything though. Making a big deal about it would only upset him and he had a hard enough relationship with food as it was. Futaba was content to let him eat at his own pace and return to her show.

***

Futaba was furious. They couldn’t just wave away Black Condor’s death by bringing him back to life with Green Parakeet’s powers. Not only did it ruin the climax of the season, but it also made no sense lore wise. If Green Parakeet could bring people back to life, why didn’t she do that to save her lover in episode three? Futaba was going to write a deeply passionate blog post about it later that night.

“So… next episode?” she asked, spinning around in her chair.

Yusuke paused his sketching and nodded. “Just give me a moment,” he said. “I need to use the bathroom.” He stood up, leaving his sketchbook on Ren’s bed.

Once Yusuke’s footsteps had faded and she knew that he was gone, Futaba took a peek at Yusuke’s sketchbook. She couldn’t quell her curiosity, and who knew when she’d have this opportunity again. Yusuke was notoriously protective of his sketchbook – practically growling at anyone who so much as touched it.

The book was open at a sketch of a woman, done in careful, painstaking detail. Even with all the work Yusuke had put into it that evening, the piece still wasn’t quite finished. The woman was beautiful, with long dark hair and slender features. She looked like Yusuke; Futaba realised.

She turned the page, only to see another sketch of the same woman. Upon first glance, it looked identical to the previous sketch, but upon closer inspection she noticed a few slight differences. The nose and eyes were a different shape, and her hair seemed a deeper black.

There was another sketch on the next page. And the next. And the next. And the one after that. Each one was slightly different but still recognisable as the same person.

The door slammed open, and Futaba involuntarily jumped, tearing the fragile page in half.

“Futaba!” snapped Yusuke. “What the hell are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to touch that.”

His eyes fell upon the torn page and his mouth twitched halfway into a frown. Futaba dropped the sketchbook, which landed on the bed, with a thud.

“Inari I—"

Yusuke stared down at the ground, not wanting Futaba to see his expression. “Get out,” he said.

He couldn’t lose his temper with her. Not with Futaba, the girl who cried if people raised their voice at her, who jumped at every slam of the door, who was terrified of strangers, all because she had been hurt by someone who was supposed to love her, just like Yusuke had.

They were birds of a feather in that respect. They were two helpless fledglings who had been beaten and thrown from their nest before they were ready, doomed to suffer at the hand of fate.

He refused to do that to another person.

He refused to repeat history.

“I’m sorry,” mumbled Futaba.

“Please go. I need... I need you to go.” His voice broke, as he was barely holding back his angry tears. “I can’t… I don’t want to let myself be mad at you. Please, just give me some time alone.”

“Yusuke…”

“Please Futaba,” implored Yusuke. “Don’t force yourself to be around me while I’m like this.”

Futaba gave him one final worried look before slinking out the room, shutting the door behind her.

***

Futaba knocked on the door again fifteen minutes later, holding a plate of curry in her hands. After she had explained the situation, Sojiro served up a portion and told her to give it to Yusuke as a peace offering.

“Inari!” she called. “I come bearing gifts of curry.”

She received no response, and for a moment considered leaving the plate at the door for Yusuke to collect later. Then, the door slowly creaked open revealing the artist. He had been crying, she could tell. His eyes were bloodshot, and streaks of tears were left on his cheeks. He rubbed at his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Do you want it?” asked Futaba, offering out the curry. “You can say no.”

Yusuke looked a little apprehensive but nodded.

“Can I come in?” she added. Another nod.

They sat down on Ren’s bed, and Yusuke held the plate carefully in his hands, as if he were carrying a gift from a god.

“Are you okay?” asked Futaba. Yusuke set the plate down on his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he signed, hands trembling. “I can’t speak right now.”

Futaba had been teaching Yusuke and the rest of the Phantom Thieves sign language for a little while now. It was useful for giving commands in the metaverse and for when one of the party members went nonverbal, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, especially with four autistic party members.

Still, she knew that Yusuke wasn’t very fluent, and it would be difficult to carry a full conversation with him in sign. They would have to find another way to communicate. Then, she had an idea.

“Do you want to text?” she offered. Yusuke nodded, setting the curry on the desk and pulling out his phone. Futaba did the same.

Yusuke: I apologise.

Yusuke: It was wrong of me to snap at you like that.

Futaba glanced up at him, quickly typing in her response.

Futaba: I understand. You were upset.

Three dots hovered in place for a moment, as Yusuke typed.

Yusuke: Being upset is no excuse for how I acted. It was completely out of order.

Yusuke: It’s just hard.

Futaba: Do you want to talk about it?

Yusuke paused for a second.

Yusuke: Yes.

Yusuke: The painting downstairs is my mother. She died when I was young. I can’t quite remember her, no matter how hard I try. Her self-portrait, while beautiful, isn’t objective. No self portrait is.

Yusuke: I’ve been trying to piece her face together from the few bits I can remember but I can never get it right.

Yusuke: When I was younger, I tried to do the same thing, but I was caught.

There was a pause in the conversation and Futaba looked up. Yusuke’s eyes were watering. He looked like he was going to burst into tears all over again.

Yusuke: Madarame tore up every single sketch and burned them all in the fireplace. I cried for hours but he didn’t apologise. He wasn’t even sorry.

Futaba: That’s horrible! You did nothing wrong.

Yusuke: I’m sorry I yelled at you Futaba. I don’t know what came over me. It’s just when I saw that torn page, it was like I was back there again, having all my hard work destroyed.

Futaba: You were scared Yusuke. I understand.

She turned off her phone and fetched the curry from the table. “Here,” she said, passing it to Yusuke. “Crying takes it out of you.”

Yusuke accepted the offering, taking a bite of the curry. Futaba wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She eventually settled on sitting next to Yusuke and placing her hand on top of of his. He gave her a sceptical look, but made no move to pull away, taking another bite.

They were as different as two people could be, but they understood each other and that was enough.

[one-leaf-grimoire]

OC Profile: Lisa

I decided to do one of these like everyone else. Not everyone wants to read a 100 chapter fic so this should be a bit more digestible lol.

Anyway, here's Lisa!!! She's a mess but at the core of it all, she's babey.

Basics

Name: Lisa Ambrose Petalon

Ambrose- Greek “ambrosios” (immortal)

Petalon- Greek “butterfly”

Age: 26 (at time of canon)

Occupation: Currently a Royal Advisor, formerly a Magic Knight

Place of Birth: A small town at the edge of the common realm, near the border with the Diamond Kingdom.

Current Residence: Clover Caste

Social Class: Commoner by birth, Noble by marriage

Magic

Grimoire Appearance: Lisa’s Grimoire is a light blue color, matching her magic. It only has a little dark blue trim around the edges and a three-leaved clover in the middle, without any other decoration.

Magic: Lisa’s primary attribute is blue flame magic. However, she inherits Dyad magic from her father’s ancestors, which allows her to combine her magic with another person. Because of this, she now uses Time Magic as well.

Spells:

Solar Bolt- a super-heated, super fast bolt of fire that cauterizes the wound it creates as it moves through a person. The shock from the impact usually knocks the opponent off.

Solar Blitz- an explosion of Solar Bolts from every part of the users body, usually only one use at a time. More recently, Lisa can shoot other spells from its tip.

Flaming Condor- entity created by creation magic that can fly the user around and administer a powerful diving attack. However, it’s very clumsy and Lisa can’t ride on it for long.

Sun God's Leap- Creates winged shoes and a mana-amplifying aura that allows the user to fly.

Dyad- This spell, which only manifests once per generation, creates a magical link with another person, combining their mana into a never-ending, infinite loop that amplifies it to amazing levels. The Dyad is so potent that its mana lingers far after it’s over, and full separation is never possible. The users will carry a shard of each other’s souls within them for the rest of their lives.

Simulcian nonsense: The Simulcian civilization was a small, island nation off the coast of the diamond kingdom, who’s people had magic marks on their body. Each generation was lead by a Dyad, and all Simulcians could tap into the great mana they had. Simulcians believe very strongly in fate, as they also believe they are descended from a Goddess of Fate... the accuracy of this is debatable. However, the Simulcians were all killed in a “natural disaster” caused by a Dyad, who was being manipulated by their son. This son happened to be Mikal, Lisa’s uncle. Mikal relocated himself and his family to the Diamond Kingdom, where the Dyad were forced to fight for the DK while Mikal enacted his plan. Over 100 years, he artificially created his brothers and sisters to be synchronized into Tetrads, Triads, and Septads. His goal was to make seven Septads, who’s resonance would be enough to control humans as well. However, this was stopped by Lisa, who freed the rest of her family. Read Dyad for more details I guess lol. BTW: Simulcians claim to be a distinct species from Humans. This is still an unanswered question, but sometimes Lisa feels very detached from her humanity. 

Physical

Height: 5′6″ (~168 cm)

Weight: 126 lbs (~57 kg)

Race: White // Human-Simulcian Hybrid

Description: She has short, neck-length auburn hair that curls up pretty dramatically, and it’s usually a little messy. Her eyes are black, so dark black that you can’t see her pupils. She is fairly petite, lean, but surprisingly strong.

Clothing: She’s often seen wearing her short blue uniform dress over tights and a shirt with fringed wrists and neckline. She opts to just wear her red cape instead of the usual advisor cloak.

Scars/Tattoos/other marks: Her most distinguishing features is the mark on her forehead, in the shape of a stylized infinity sign. It constantly has a dull blue glow from both loops. She has one tattoo in the shape of an arrow that snakes around her arm. Julius wanted to get a matching one but he could only take about a minute of it-

Abnormalities: Lisa's magic mark constantly channels mana through her body, amplifying her magic and giving her some strange side effects. She no longer needs to eat, drink, or sleep (even though she still likes cooking and coffee). Also, any diseases that enter her body are immediately killed off. Her aging has slowed to almost a complete stop. Probably the most drastic side effect is that she is sterile (at least- for now-), and won't have any children.

Relationships

Family:

Easton Petalon (father/deceased): Owner of a Tavern in town, which he inherited from his father-in-law. A happy-go-lucky yet mysterious man who loved nothing more than his only daughter. He died in a Diamond Kingdom raid.

Arleth Petalon (mother/alive)- Waitress. She was a cheerful, energetic woman with a dream of having a large family. However, once it became obvious that dream was done for, she distanced herself from her husband and developed a bitter hatred of her daughter, who she irrationally blamed for her infertility.

Lyra Ambrose (cousin/alive)- despite being a bit of an airhead, she’s one of Lisa’s best friends.

Other cousins: Rocco and Patrick Ambrose

Aunt: Portia Ambrose

Friends:

Marx Francois- Lisa met Marx shortly after she started seeing Julius. They got along, which was good because Lisa eventually ended up working with him for many years. She considers him to be her best friend.

Fuegoleon Vermilion- Fuegoleon took Lisa under his wing when she first joined his squad. Then vice-captain, the two went on many missions together and became pretty good friends.

Yami Sukehiro- Lisa met Yami through William, and Yami quickly took a liking to her. He never misses the chance to tease her for something, usually her magic mark on her head or her “sugar baby” status.

William Vangeance- When Lisa was 15, she took the MK exam for the first time, and ended up going against William for the 1 on 1 portion. She lost and ended up failing the exam, but William encouraged her to keep trying. Years later, they met again, and their friendship resumed. 

Mereoleona Vermillion: When Lisa was 11, a certain royal stopped in town on her way back to the capitol. Mereoleona thought Lisa was a nosy kid, but encouraged her to try out for the MK so she could spite the other kids in her town. Years later, they meet again, and Lisa regularly visits her in the strong magic region to be trained.

Enemies:

Patri+the Eye of the Midnight Sun- Patri had been watching Lisa through William’s eyes for a long time. He recognized her to be the reincarnation of the elf Saida. Right after the MK exam one year, Lisa was abducted by the EMS, where Patri attempted to cast the evil eye spell. However, it was unsuccessful, and Lisa was able to escape. 

Augustus Kira- Yes, Lisa has her own feud with the King. Julius made the mistake of leaving her alone in the castle, where Augustus quickly showed up and tried to make a move. Lisa, of course, didn’t like this and ended up elbowing him in the face and breaking his nose. Soon after, Augustus realized that she and Julius were in a relationship, and decided that executing her would be a victory against Julius. Luckily, Lisa was able to get out of it, but ended up being stripped of her status as a MK.

Mikal- This is kind of a Dyad thing, but Mikal attempted to use Lisa to enact a plan that would pull many many humans under his control. Luckily, this plan was thwarted and Mikal was killed by Lisa and Julius.

Romantic Relationships:

Julius Novachrono (Dating/later married)- By some strange stroke of fate, Julius and the Grey Deer were close by when Lisa’s town was raided by the Diamond Kingdom. After it was over, Lisa’s magic was awakened, she had a weird mark on her head, and her father was dead. The newly-coronated Wizard King encouraged her to try out for the MK again, while he researched the strange magical presence that was now within her. Lisa found herself admiring him, and it quickly became clear that it was something more than just respect. As for Julius... well, she was cute, had really cool magic, and was a delight to be around. They both made points to spend lots of time together, growing closer and closer. However, things escalated after an assassination attempt, which Lisa thwarted herself. Lisa pushed past her limits once she realized that this desperation was love, and ended up getting gravely injured while fighting. Julius realized that she was special, more special than anyone else, and someone he had to have by his side. However, they faced a big problem when they found out that Lisa was sterile. Julius had confided in her before that he was excited to have a big family with her, and Lisa felt terribly guilty about it. She wouldn't have blamed him if he wanted to end things after that, but Julius, in true Julius fashion, pulled her from her lowest point and made it clear that he was never going to leave her. She was made for him, and he was made for her. The rest is history :))

Personality/Beliefs

Personality: At her core, Lisa strives to be a free-spirited, dependable, and energetic person. She devotes herself entirely to any task she sets for herself and never leaves anything unfinished. But even though she is genuinely interested, polite, and kind to others, there is a subtle distance to her that most people will never quite cross. Lisa’s true self is a closely guarded secret, something people only see in short glimpses. She’s very good at controlling her image, but Julius is the one person who knows her inside and out. Lisa’s very afraid of opening up any vulnerabilities and likes to feel like she’s in control. She is extremely devoted to Julius, the only person she believes would love her unconditionally. The two of them have shared more of themselves than any couple has, and it has gotten to the point that they are described as “so similar, it’s almost scary.”

Religion: Lisa doesn’t really consider herself religious, even though she was brought up worshiping whatever most Clover citizens worship.

Greatest fear: Being left alone in this life, disappointing others, being helpless

Morality: Lisa’s psychology and distance from her humanity have bred some very strange morals within her. She struggles with her individuality at times, stemming from the Dyad she formed with Julius. To be in a Dyad is to let part of your self be destroyed, and sometimes she feels like she’ll never quite be whole without Julius around. Because of this, her views on death, murder, even good and evil are skewed. Is she even human? That’s a question she struggles with every day. She wants to be patriotic and selfless, but deep down inside she knows that she would willingly let everything burn if it would make her feel just a little bit better. Evil is something she doesn’t believe even exists; all people are selfish, vengeful, and dishonest, but they can still be loving or, at the very least, useful to her. She has killed before, countless times in war, and she believes that death is necessary if she deems it so. Even Julius, the most wonderful, pure person she knows, has blood on his hands, after all.

Despite this, Lisa manages to overcome any base instincts she has, and devotes herself entirely for the good of the Kingdom and, more specifically, Julius. In Lisa’s eyes, her love for him, and all the friends she's made over the years, is what makes her human. This strength and resilience has allowed her to defeat the darker side of herself, and turned her into someone many people are ready to follow.

[a-whale-bone]

I decided to write some Chirrut/Baze backstory for my His Dark Materials AU, thinking it would be a fairly short one-off, but now it’s spiralled out of control. I have so many things I want to cover, and this is only the first bit. Their daemons are still unsettled, they don’t know about the alethiometer, and they need to grow up and fall in love -_-

Chirrut shimmied up to the top of the wall and lay on his belly to look over the edge. The drop down from the temple wall was dizzying: the height of the temple itself, and then the cliff. He wondered how long it would take for you to fall all the way to the mesa.

“Ages,” said his dæmon, in the form of a spider monkey for the climb. “Ages and ages, so you'd have time to realise it was a stupid idea to jump off in the first place.”

She swung herself over the side of the wall and climbed down a little way. Chirrut grinned as he watched her; he knew Shyli was a good climber, he wasn't scared that she'd fall, even with the wind blowing hard. They’d climbed up here a few times now; it was one of the last parts of the Temple to explore, except for that secretive locked room right at the top of the tower. Eventually he’d learn how to pick that lock, or climb to the top of the tower and get in through the window, but for now that strange room remained a mystery. Every time he asked a master or a guardian about it, they told him he needed to be patient.

Chirrut hated being patient. It was why he was so bad at meditating, and Master Lam always had to tell him off for fidgeting or daydreaming.

“Chirrut! Get down from there!”

Chirrut sighed at the shrieking voice and pushed himself back, feeling for toe holds in the wall. Shyli scampered back to the top and became a hummingbird, zipping around Chirrut's head as he climbed back down. Master Aylis, the arts master, was watching with his arms folded, a scowl on his face. His tree frog dæmon's expression was very similar, and Chirrut had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

“What have we told you about climbing the walls? If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times!”

“Sorry, Master,” Chirrut muttered to his feet, scuffing his toe against the dirt. “I just like looking, that's all.”

Master Aylis sighed. Chirrut knew the masters and guardians all liked him, even when they told him off. He had been at the Temple for almost as long as he could remember, left by his mother when he was only a few years old. He barely remembered her at all, though he sometimes wondered if she would come back for him. He wondered that less now; he was nearly eight, almost properly grown up, he didn’t need her to come back. The Temple of Dust was his home.

“Master Hara has been looking for you. She’s taking you for your appointment – but look at you, you’re filthy! Go and change into something clean, please.”

Chirrut pulled a face, and a small smile twitched Master Aylis’s mouth. “Come on, the sooner you go the sooner it’s done. And you can be back in time for movie night.”

Chirrut sighed. “Yes, Master.” He did like movie night, it was true. They were usually kung fu movies, which were Chirrut’s favourites. He was learning a few different martial arts and Master Lam said he was a natural. He was going to be the best fighter in the Temple one day, he’d decided. Then one day he’d be Guardian Îmwe. And if that didn’t work out, maybe he could be in kung fu movies. That would be fun.

You need more than fighting to be guardian, he was told on a regular basis. You need to understand Dust, child, and work to create and protect as much as possible.

Chirrut did care about Dust, and he knew that it was important, but it also wasn’t as fun as martial arts.

He and Shyli ran back to their shabby room, racing for no other reason than because they could. Chirrut was quick, but Shyli was faster, streaking to the door shaped as a cheetah. She licked her paws as Chirrut struggled into some clean (well, cleaner) robes. They were a bit short on him now; Master Hara kept complaining that he grew too fast. Chirrut didn’t know what he was meant to do about that; it wasn’t as though he could stop himself growing. He didn’t want to either, he was fed up of being the smallest in the class.

He left his old robes strewn over the floor for now. Luckily he didn’t have to share a room: there were only a few children who lived at the Temple all the time and Chirrut was the youngest of them, so he got his own room. It meant that he could stay up as long as he wanted, reading adventure stories and manhua under the covers with Shyli as a firefly. Master Yue, the master of the archives, told him he should read more widely, but still let him borrow the dog-eared copy of Legends of the Condor Heroes anytime he wanted.

Master Hara was waiting by the front gate, talking to Guardian Tseng. When she saw Chirrut she folded her arms and raised an eyebrow, and her sand fox dæmon showed his teeth a bit. “I told you to meet me at third bell, Îmwe.”

“Sorry, Master Hara!” Chirrut tried to sound contrite, though he knew she wasn’t really cross. She was the master of experimental theology and she was Chirrut’s favourite instructor, after Master Lam. “We were in the gardens and forgot what time it was.”

“You were climbing the walls you mean,” said Guardian Tseng, laughing at Chirrut’s sudden scowl. “Yeah, we saw you. Your dæmon’s definitely settling as a monkey, I’d put money on it.”

Shyli turned into a snub-nosed monkey as they headed out of the gates and screeched back at Guardian Tseng, who just laughed again, shaking his head.

Chirrut liked going out into the city. Nijedha was so busy and noisy compared to the Temple, full of all sorts of sounds and smells. The market was right outside the Temple gates, full of brightly-coloured stalls selling baked goods, fried noodles, fruit and vegetables, cheap clothing, bolts of fabric. People were sitting at long, crowded food counters, their dæmons sitting under tables or perching out of the way on stall roofs. Others were arguing with their companions, laughing, haggling over prices with stall owners. A group of children were playing nearby, kicking a ball back and forth, their dæmons chasing one another and flicking between shapes.

Chirrut stuck close to Master Hara, not wanting to get lost in the push of the crowds, though he looked back at the children with some longing. He’d quite like to join in; he could probably kick a ball pretty well. He had friends at the Temple of course, but the other children his age all went home to their parents at the end of each day, and the older kids treated him as though he was a nuisance. He and Shyli mostly made up their own games.

People sometimes stopped and bowed to Master Hara as they passed, out of respect for her Temple robes. The Temple of Dust was very important to Nijedha; there was nowhere else like it in the whole world, and Chirrut was very proud of it. Most other kids in Nijedha went to normal schools and only came to the Temple for festivals, but he was a part of it. Most people didn’t know about Dust and how important it was, not like the Temple.

Chirrut couldn’t sit still as they waited at the eye doctor’s office, and Master Hara put a hand on his shoulder to try to calm him. “You don’t need to be nervous,” she said gently.

“I’m not,” Chirrut muttered, but it was a lie. He was nervous. He’d had to see the eye doctor a lot recently, ever since he’d finally plucked up the courage to tell Master Aylis about his headaches, and that sometimes he had shadows all round the edge of his eyes. Every time he had an appointment people always started to look worried, and it gave him a hot, sick feeling in his stomach.

The eye doctor was a kindly little man with a ferret dæmon. He helped Chirrut climb into the big chair and asked him how his headaches had been. Chirrut tried to answer truthfully and politely, kicking his feet a bit out of nerves. Shyli became a mountain cat and he held her tight as the doctor shone lights into his eyes, and she growled so deep and low that he could feel it rumbling beneath his fingertips.

Master Hara was quiet on the walk home, and Chirrut could tell that the news wasn’t good. She even stopped at a market stall and bought him a steamed bun, which usually wasn’t allowed at all. Chirrut couldn’t really enjoy it though, not when he knew something bad was going on. His stomach was all twisted in knots and he could barely swallow, and Shyli took on her big leopard shape to reassure him, prowling alongside him and baring her teeth at other dæmons.

Back at the Temple he should have gone to meditation, but Master Hara took him to her study instead. She left him there for a few minutes, then returned with Master Aylis in tow. The knot in Chirrut’s stomach got worse, and he could feel his heart beating so fast it almost burst out of his chest. He held Shyli tightly and tried to breathe normally.

“Chirrut,” Master Hara began, her voice gentle and sympathetic. “I’m sorry, dear boy, but it’s not good news. The doctor says that your eyesight is probably going to keep getting worse. Now, there are medications we can try, to slow it down, but…” she trailed off, sending an appealing glance at Master Aylis.

“I’m going blind,” Chirrut mumbled, through the lump in his throat. He’d known, deep down, for quite a while.

“I’m afraid so,” said Master Aylis. “I am sorry, Chirrut.”

“When?”

“The doctor isn’t sure, and it depends on how much we can slow it down… but some years, probably. Maybe five, maybe more.”

Five years. He’d be twelve. That wasn’t very old at all. Shyli might not even have settled by then. What if he never got to see what she looked like?

“Will Shyli still be able to see?”

The Masters exchanged a glance. “Yes,” said Master Hara gently. “Yes, it won’t affect your dæmon, Chirrut. She’ll be able to be your eyes.”

He didn’t want Shyli to be his eyes. She was his dæmon, not a guide dog. He wanted his own eyes. In his lap, Shyli became a polecat and bared her sharp little teeth before burrowing into Chirrut’s robes.

The Masters kept talking, offering reassurances and kindness, but Chirrut barely heard them. There was a buzzing sort of feeling in his ears, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to throw up or cry or run away. Maybe all three.

Afterwards, he went and sat in the Temple garden. He wasn’t hungry, and suddenly he didn’t want to watch a movie either. The other Temple kids would all be laughing and noisy, and he couldn’t bear the thought of it. He was usually one of the noisiest, trying to be involved in all the jokes, but he had never felt less like laughing. He lay in the sparse grass under the stunted, knotted trees of the garden and stared up at the sky, which was slowly turning from blue to pink as the sun dipped behind the Temple walls.

“It’s not fair,” he whispered.

“I know,” said Shyli, turning into a butterfly and landing on his cheek. “But remember what the Masters say: everything happens for a reason.”

“What reason could there be for being blind?”

She flapped her beautiful wings. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t mean we can’t do everything we were going to do. We can still be a guardian.”

Chirrut scoffed. “No one’s gonna want a blind guardian. You need to see things to guard them.”

“Hmph. No one can see Dust, but the Temple guards and protects that.”

That was true.  Though sometimes, when Chirrut was trying to meditate (actually trying, as opposed to daydreaming), he thought he could sense something, like a little glow in his mind, around Shyli and some of the other people. Master Lam sometimes glowed a lot. He hadn’t told anyone else about it though, worried that they’d tell him he was imagining things.

“And… and just cos you can’t see doesn’t mean you can’t fight. We’ll work really hard, we’ll be better at fighting than all of them. And we can still learn everything else they want us to learn, we can learn music and theology and – and sculpture, or whatever. I bet there’s loads of blind people who did all those things. There’s that writing you can read with your hands, right? We can learn that. And we can practice sharing our eyes!”

Guardian Tseng had told them that hardly anyone could properly share their dæmon’s senses, but so what? Chirrut and Shyli would just be better than everyone else.

He sat up and scrubbed the tears from his cheeks. Shyli became a wild cat and let him hug her, nuzzling at his face. They sat in the garden and watched the sun slowly dip down below the Temple walls, watched the sky fade to purples and pinks and finally to an inky blue, the stars wheeling overhead. Master Hara had once told him that the stars were so far away that many of them had died before their lights could be seen from Earth.

Dust came from space, Chirrut knew. Maybe it was from the stars. Maybe if he closed his eyes and tried really hard he’d be able to sense its glow as it fell to Earth.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ  ੯ू❛ัू >

The next year, when Chirrut was eight, there was a fire in the city. Many of the guardians and masters went to help and to offer support to those affected, to help with the injured, to bring clothes and food and blankets to people who needed them. Chirrut and Shyli climbed to the top of the gatewall and watched the black smoke billowing up. Nijedha’s walls protected it from the worst of the desert’s harsh winds, but Chirrut could see that the smoke was being blown all across the city. There were sirens blaring from the streets, from the fire engines and ambulances converging on the scene.

That evening, Chirrut was called into Master Hara’s study. She was sitting behind her desk looking very tired. There was a smudge on her cheek, and the room smelled very strongly of smoke.

“Am I in trouble?” Chirrut asked as he sat down. He couldn’t think what he’d done, unless Master Hara had seen him climbing the wall again.

She shook her head, smiling a little. “No, you’re not in trouble. I need you to do something for us, Chirrut.”

He sat up straight, Shyli on his shoulder as a little bird, ready for whatever important task he was being given.

“The fire today began in a bakery in the East quarter,” Master Hara said, resting one hand on her dæmon’s head. “The baker and his wife both died in the blaze, but their son was at school. He has no other family and no one to take him in, so he has come to live at the Temple. He’s going to share your room, and we need you to look after him and show him around. Can you do that?”

Chirrut did not much like the idea of sharing his room, the only space that was really his, but he supposed he could put up with it for a bit. And maybe the new boy could be his friend. He nodded. “Yes, Master Hara.”

“Good. He’s had something very sad and scary happen, Chirrut, so you need to be kind.”

“I’m kind!” he exclaimed, a little offended. He wasn’t like Avan, who always made fun of people, or Jita, who did mean impressions.

Master Hara almost smiled, though she still looked tired and sad. “I know you are, but you need to be especially kind.”

“What’s his name? How old is he? Is he going to do lessons with us?”

“His name is Baze, and he’s eight, like you. He won’t start lessons straight away, but if he stays here then yes, he will. Shall we go and see him?”

Chirrut nodded eagerly, jumping from his chair. A new friend! Obviously he would be sad because of what had happened, but Chirrut could cheer him up. He could show him all the good places in the Temple, and teach him some wing chun, and all about Dust.

A second bed had been set up in Chirrut’s room, against the opposite wall. The boy was sitting on the edge of it, wearing old robes that were a bit too big for him. He was taller than Chirrut, and not so skinny, with thick wavy hair and sticking out ears. He was all hunched over, holding his mouse-shaped dæmon in both hands.

“Baze?” Master Hara said gently, kneeling in front of him. Her maned wolf daemon lay down, making herself look small and gentle. “This is Chirrut, who’ll share this room with you. He’s been at the Temple for a long time, he’ll be able to show you where everything is.” Chirrut bounced a little on his toes, and Shyli ruffled her feathers importantly.

The boy nodded a little bit, but he didn’t say anything. Master Hara laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk a little bit more tomorrow, when you’ve had some rest. You’ll be looked after here, I promise.”

As she left Master Hara rested her hand briefly on Chirrut’s head. “Be kind,” she whispered again, and he nodded urgently.

When she was gone he sat down on his bed opposite, smiling. “Hello!” he said brightly. “I’m Chirrut.” Shyli turned into a puppy, wagging her tail in eager friendliness.

The boy didn’t look up, curling into himself a little more. “‘Lo,” he said, so quietly that Chirrut almost didn’t hear him. His dæmon hid away inside the cup of his hands.

“My dæmon’s called Shyli. You’re Baze, right? That’s a good name. What’s your dæmon’s name? Don’t worry, the Temple’s really good, you’ll see. The masters and guardians are all really nice and we do lots of fun things. Do you know wing chun? I’m pretty good but I bet you can catch up really quickly. Master Lam’s a good teacher. Master Hara said you were eight, same as me. When’s your birthday?”

He stopped for breath and waited for Baze to answer. Eventually, he spoke in that same quiet voice. “Please stop talking.” He didn’t look up, his wavy hair falling forward so Chirrut couldn’t see his face properly.

Chirrut mentally kicked himself, and Shyli rolled onto her back. The masters were always telling him that he talked too much. “Sorry. I just wanted to be friends.”

The other boy tightened his grip on his dæmon. “I don’t,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Please just leave me alone.”

For a moment Chirrut was hurt, but he tried not to let it show. “Well, I sleep in here too, so I can’t go anywhere.”

Baze just shrugged, then lay down on top of the covers with his back to Chirrut. Well, fine. Maybe he’d be friendlier tomorrow.

Chirrut woke up when it was pitch black inside and outside, and for a moment was gripped with panic that his eyes had failed him already. Shyli nuzzled his face to reassure him and he realised that it was just the middle of the night. There was a funny noise in the room, and it took him a moment to remember that he wasn’t alone in here any more, and that the noise was coming from Baze. After a while Chirrut realised that Baze was crying.

His first instinct was to say something. It was mean to let someone cry without trying to make them feel better. But Baze thought Chirrut was asleep, and he might be embarrassed to know he’d woken someone up. Maybe he preferred to cry on his own. Chirrut agonised about it for long enough that eventually Baze’s sobs faded away to be replaced with the steady breathing of sleep.

Tomorrow, he told himself, he’d be really nice and make Baze feel better.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ  ੯ू❛ัू >

Baze didn’t know if he liked it at the Temple. He liked parts of it: he liked the lessons, and the martial arts, and meditating, and the library, and the idea of Dust, which no one had ever mentioned at his old school. He liked some of the masters and guardians, especially Master Yue who let him stay in the library even when he was meant to play outside.

He didn’t like the food much – it wasn’t like his dad’s food, and it tasted all wrong – and he didn’t like that they’d cut his hair so short, and he didn’t like the other children. They were all really loud, and they thought he was stupid because he didn’t know how to answer questions in lessons and he couldn’t speak any language except Cathay, and they made fun of his ears. The boy who shared his room was the loudest of them all, always making jokes and wanting to be the centre of attention, and sometimes Baze just wanted to put his hands over his ears and tell them all to shut up. The other kids’ dæmons all played together or fought one another constantly, all trying to take on the biggest or silliest shapes they could. Zin spent most of her time hiding in his pockets, overwhelmed by everything that was going on.

Baze wished he could go home. He missed his mum and his dad. He missed his old school, and he missed his books and his bed and the terrible soap operas his mum listened to on the radio. He wanted to cry all the time, but he tried to hold it in so the other kids wouldn’t see. He had bad dreams, usually vague and indistinct but always ending the same way, with his parents disappearing in a whirl of fire and smoke. One time he woke up to find Chirrut next to his bed, hand on his shoulder, narrow face full of concern.

“Are you alright?” the other boy asked.

Baze scrubbed his hand roughly over his face, trying to dash away the tears before Chirrut could see them. His heart was pounding, and Zin growled low in her chest. “I’m fine,” he muttered, trying to sound fine even though his voice was shaking. “Go back to sleep.”

Chirrut opened his mouth as though to say something else, and the last thing Baze wanted to do was talk about anything. He wrenched away from the hand of his shoulder. “Go back to sleep,” he said again. Chirrut frowned, but he did at least go back to his bed. Baze lay back down and turned to face the wall; Zin became a big, fluffy dog so he could hold onto her and bury his face in her fur to hide the tears.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ  ੯ू❛ัू >

They had been at the Temple for a month when it happened. Baze was in the courtyard, trying to read a book, and no one paid any attention to him. There were raised voices from the other side of the square, and they sounded more angry than amused.

A tall boy, a few years older than Baze himself, was with a gang of his friends – they were all city kids, ones who attended the Temple school during the day and went home to their families after lessons. The tall boy, who Baze vaguely remembered was called Avan, had a hard, jeering look on his face, his dæmon a snarling fox. The little group had surrounded someone, their hands balled into fists. Baze held very still and watched over the top of his book.

“You’re a cheat, you are,” said Avan. “No way you beat me, you little shrimp!”

“I’m just better than you!” snapped a voice from inside the circle of boys, and Baze recognised it as Chirrut’s voice. “Don’t be a bad loser.”

The four boys surged forward, and next thing Baze knew they had grabbed hold of Chirrut by the arms and shoulders. Avan had him by the front of his robes: he was much taller than Chirrut was. The younger boy didn’t seem scared though; he was grinning, though it looked more like he was baring his teeth. His dæmon was a wild dog, her hackles raised, crouched and ready.

“You want to say that again?” Avan said, his voice dangerous. His friends sniggered.

“You’re a bad loser,” Chirrut repeated, and promptly hooked one foot around Avan’s knee and knocked him to the dirt. It was only a momentary victory: Avan’s dæmon leapt at Chirrut’s, bowling her to the ground, and then the other boys were piling in and it was four against one.

Something hot and angry curled in Baze’s stomach, and he was on his feet before he could really think about it. Four against one, and all because Chirrut had beaten the older boy at practice! Baze hated it when things weren’t fair. Well, he may be younger than the bullies, but he was big for his age and he wasn’t scared about hitting someone if they deserved it. Zin, who had been on his shoulder as a moth, suddenly leapt forward in the form of a lioness, the biggest form she could take.

“Get off him!” Baze yelled, grabbing Avan and pulling him away from Chirrut. Avan, taken off guard, fell pretty easily and Baze gave him a solid kick for good measure. Another boy hit him then, hard, and Baze tasted blood but he didn’t especially care. He tackled the boy around the waist and pinned him to the ground: the other kid was taller but Baze had always been on the hefty side and now he could use that to his advantage.

“What is going on here?”

They all froze, then scrambled to their feet as Master Aylis strode across the courtyard, robes billowing, a scowl on his face.

“We do not teach you martial arts for you to use them in a brawl!” he exclaimed, hands on his hips. “Explain yourselves.”

There was some general muttering and shuffling of feet. Baze’s ears were burning, and Zin hid behind his ankles in puppy form.

“Avan called me a cheat,” Chirrut muttered eventually. “Cos I beat him earlier.”

“He did cheat,” Avan said hotly. “He’s just a little kid, and he can’t even see properly! No way he won fairly.”

“Shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for you - again!”

“That is enough, Îmwe. Avan Tan, I am ashamed. You do not accuse others of cheating, and you will accept defeat with some grace. If you have a problem with another student, you talk to one of the Masters. We do not solve problems with violence.”

Avan muttered something mutinously to his feet.

“And you, Malbus, why are you involved? I’d rather hoped you were better behaved than this.”

Baze’s face burned. He should have stayed out of it. Now he’d be in trouble, maybe they’d even tell him to leave and not come back. They’d taken him in when he had nowhere to go, and now—

“He helped me,” said Chirrut fiercely. “He saw it wasn’t a fair fight and he pulled Avan off me, then Bolen hit him. It’s not Baze’s fault.”

Shocked, Baze had to look up from his feet. Chirrut was staring up at Master Aylis in a determined sort of way, his dæmon a cat with lashing tail. Master Aylis considered them all for a moment, and then sighed.

“Right,” he said. “You four—” he pointed at Avan and his friends, “will be on lunchtime kitchen duty for the next week. And I will be speaking to your parents. You two—” he turned to Chirrut and Baze— “will sweep and mop the practice room after classes tomorrow. And do not let me catch any of you street fighting again, or Master Lam will hear about it. Do I make myself clear?”

There was a muttered chorus of, “Yes, Master Aylis,” and he swept away. Avan glared at Chirrut and Baze.

“Lucky big ears was here to help you, shrimp,” Avan said, shoving Chirrut’s shoulder as he walked past.

“Ugh,” said Chirrut when they’d gone. “He really needs to get better insults.” He turned to Baze. “Thanks,” he said, “but you didn’t need to help. I was fine.”

Baze stared at him. He had a bruise blooming across one cheek, and his lip was bleeding. “You didn’t look fine.”

“Well I was. I can take them, they’re rubbish.”

The anger that had stirred in Baze’s stomach had faded, replaced with embarrassment and shame. “Fine,” he muttered. “I don’t know why I helped anyway.”

He went and picked up his abandoned book, which was a bit dusty. Hopefully Master Yue wouldn’t mind too much. Zin jumped into his arms and became a small snake, winding herself around his wrist and tucking her head under his sleeve in embarrassment. His face hurt where he’d been hit by Avan’s crony, and when he touched his mouth his fingers came away bloody. He thought about what his mum would say if she found out he’d got into a fight, how disappointed she’d be, and his stomach hurt a bit.

He hid in the library for a while, and Master Yue didn’t ask about his bruised face, though she did make him a cup of tea and gave him a handkerchief to wipe away the blood. Baze helped her with the books, stacking the lower shelves that she had trouble with because of her bad knees, and tried to ignore the hurt in his chest whenever he thought about Chirrut telling him he didn’t need to help.

“Forget it,” Zin told him, monkey formed so she could help with the books. “We don’t need to be friends with any of them.”

“Yeah...” Baze had never been good at making friends. Even before the fire, when he’d been happy, he had never really known how to talk to other children. Now it seemed as impossible as flying. But underneath all his grief and anger he felt desperately lonely; he just wanted someone to talk to, or to spend time with, who didn’t mind that he didn’t know what to say or that his ears were too big. Master Yue was nice, but she was an old lady who was just being kind to a sad kid who liked books. And obviously he had Zin, but it was a bit pathetic to only have your dæmon as a friend. It wasn’t as though Zin had any choice in the matter.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ  ੯ू❛ัू >

That night Baze had one of his now recurring nightmares, of his parents being swallowed by a burning darkness while he struggled towards them, unable to help. He woke, shaking and breathing hard, and held Zin tight to his chest, their hearts racing together.

“Just a dream,” Zin murmured, nuzzling at his face. Chirrut, thankfully, was still breathing steadily in the next bed. They hadn’t spoken that evening, though at one point Baze had caught Chirrut watching him thoughtfully. He’d ignored him, and eventually Chirrut had turned to the wall and gone to sleep.

Baze didn’t want to go back to bed, scared of falling back into the nightmare. Instead, he got up and pulled on the old coat and shoes he’d been given, and crept out of the door. He was quietly amazed at his own daring; it had never explicitly been said, but he didn’t think he would be allowed to be out of bed in the middle of the night.

The Temple was eerie at night. He crept as quietly as possible down the steps to the kitchen courtyard, Zin padding beside him as a cat. Across the courtyard, through a tall archway, up winding staircase – pausing for a moment to duck behind a wall, heart in his mouth, as a Guardian strode towards the gate – and finally reaching the garden. It wasn’t much of a garden, to be honest, as so few things grew in Jedha’s cold, dry climate, but Baze liked it all the same. He sat back against the twisted tree trunk and Zin clambered into his lap to keep him warm. Together, they looked up at the clear sky, counting the stars, and the shreds of the nightmare faded away.

“There you are!”

Baze startled, knocking his head against the trunk of the tree. Chirrut had appeared from seemingly nowhere, his arms folded over his skinny chest, his dæmon bird-formed on his shoulder.

“What?”

“I woke up and you were gone. So I came to look for you.”

Baze glared at him. Zin became a hamster and buried inside his coat. “Why?”

Chirrut rolled his eyes and groaned dramatically. “Ugh. Because you helped me out today, and I know you don’t want to get in trouble because you’re good, and I thought you might want to be friends, even though you’ve just been really boring and grumpy since you got here.”

Baze stared at him, trying to sort out all those conflicting things. When he finally found his voice, what came out was, “I’m not grumpy.”

Chirrut actually laughed. “Yes you are! You never smile or laugh at anything!”

“I do when there’s something to smile about.”

“Hmph.” Chirrut flung himself to the ground next to Baze. He wasn’t wearing a coat or any shoes, but he didn’t seem to be cold. “I’m funny. You’re just boring.”

“Probably,” he shrugged. “So you don’t want to be friends.”

“We should be friends. I can show you how not to be boring. We have to share a room anyway, we may as well be friends. And I can show you how to fight better.”

“I’m fine.”

Chirrut scoffed. “No you’re not. You have bad dreams all the time, and you hide in the library when you’re sad.”

Baze felt his ears burn, shame twisting in his stomach. 

“It’s alright. Your parents died, it’s okay that you’re sad.” Baze didn’t have a reply to that, and they sat in silence for a bit until Chirrut, who seemed incapable of quiet, spoke again. “I’ve been here nearly all my life. My mum left me here when I was three. I don’t know why – sometimes I pretend she’s famous, or an adventurer or something, and that’s why she’s not around.”

“My mum and dad were bakers,” Baze said.

“Can you bake?”

“A bit. I was going to learn properly when I was older.” He drew a vague pattern in the dirt, not looking at Chirrut.

“Well that’s okay, you can still learn. I bet old Fazma in the kitchen will teach you.”

Baze didn’t want to learn any more, but he didn't want to tell Chirrut that. “Maybe.”

“Why is your dæmon always hiding?”

He shrugged, putting a hand over the lump that was Zin. She'd always been more retiring than other children's dæmons seemed to be. “She’s shy.”

“You’re shy, you mean. She was good earlier though, she got really big! Avan didn’t know what to do! I don’t think Shyli can get that big.”

“Bet I can,” said his dæmon from where she was perched in the tree branches above them. “I just don’t need to.”

“Prove it,” Chirrut challenged, and his dæmon flapped down from the tree before turning into a lionness. She wasn’t as big as Zin had been, her build lean and muscular, but she still looked fierce. She padded over and pushed her big golden head against Chirrut’s chest, knocking him over and making him laugh. Zin crept out of Baze’s coat to watch.

“Come on,” said Chirrut’s dæmon, switching from lioness to collie dog and wagging her tail, tongue lolling. Zin looked at Baze, who felt a little helpless under the attention of Chirrut and his dæmon. It was like being under a bright spotlight. After a moment of hesitation Zin jumped to the ground and turned into a spaniel, approaching Shyli a little tentatively. The two dæmons touched noses, and Shyli immediately pounced, rolling Zin to the ground.

“You do smile!” Chirrut said, and Baze realised that it was true. Zin wrestled with Shyli, and her playfulness seeped into Baze. He found himself smiling for the first time in weeks.

“I guess,” he said.

“Almost distracts from your ears,” said Chirrut and Baze, daringly, pushed his shoulder. Chirrut grinned.

Their dæmons flopped down at their feet and Shyli put her head on Zin’s neck in an affectionate manner. To his horror, Baze felt tears press against the back of his eyes, and he tried to rub them away discreetly. If Chirrut noticed he didn’t say anything. Instead he said, quite bluntly, “I’m going blind.”

“You’re – what?”

“I’m going blind. It’ll be a few years, but eventually I won’t be able to see at all.” He waved a hand in front of his eyes in demonstration. “The eye doctor said they can’t stop it. So… there. I know the bad thing that happened to you, and now you know the bad thing happening to me.”

Baze had no idea what to say. “That’s horrible.”

Chirrut shrugged, though there was something sad and lost in his face. “Yeah,” he said. “And so is what happened to you. So we should be friends, so there's something good too.”

Baze hadn't thought about it that way. He shuffled closer to Chirrut so their shoulders touched. At their feet Shyli licked Zin's ears. “Okay,” he said. “Let's be friends.”

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ  ੯ू❛ัू >

The masters did not really understand how, over night, Chirrut and the new boy had become almost inseparable, but they were glad of it. Chirrut was a boisterous boy who needed friends his own age, and young Baze needed someone to make him smile after everything that had happened.

And he did smile more, eventually. Chirrut soon learned that once he got through Baze’s wall of shyness his new friend was very funny, and they made each other laugh all the time, even without meaning to. Baze also told really good stories, and they would stay up late into the night, hiding under the covers and talking, sharing Chirrut’s favourite manhua and making up their own tales.

Baze slowly began to feel more at home at the Temple, and sometimes he even forgot his sadness. Then he would feel guilty for forgetting, but Chirrut always cheered him up again. Chirrut seemed to know so much about everything, and Baze found he even enjoyed some of his silly games. And Chirrut teased all the time, but he was never mean, and Baze learned to tease in return. When he had nightmares now Chirrut would steal into bed with him and hug him until he felt better, and sometimes when Chirrut was having a bad day with his eyes Baze would distract him with stories or extra wing shun practice. Chirrut usually felt better after he’d beaten Baze at something.

“We’ll both be guardians,” Chirrut whispered one night, his face lit up by Shyli’s firefly form as they hid under the covers.

“Yeah, the best guardians the Temple ever had!” Baze grinned, holding a fist in front of his face in a mock fighting pose.

As far as Chirrut was concerned, it was that simple. He might lose his sight, but he’d still be a guardian, and Baze would be a guardian too, and they’d be best friends forever. Easy as that.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ ੯ू❛ัू >

[ihaveonlymydreams]

Every now and then I come back to this opening of a story that I wrote some years ago and that I can hopefully return to writing soon now that I’m almost finished dissertating. I don’t really know anything about it except that it’s about a bandit with social anxiety who calls himself Stardust and a wordmage named Emiliana with a smartaleck magic book. I would love some feedback on it! 

Stardust adjusted his white mask with some care, checking his reflection in the perfectly polished surface of the dress saber he never used. He wore it more for the sake of fashion than for combat - a bandit was not a duelist, no matter what popular tales said. What the saber's feelings were, on the loss of dignity incurred by being relegated to the status of a lady's hand mirror, had not occurred either to Stardust or to his winged partner, who chose this moment to snort emphatically and stamp one heavy feathered hoof.

“You wouldn't have me rob the king's skyway without looking my best, would you, Silence?” Stardust protested, tugging the leather straps tight after making sure that the eyebrow ridges overshadowed his eyes, hiding their peculiar shade of blue. The mask fitted to his face as if it had been molded there, leaving only his eyes, mouth, and chin uncovered. The short white stubble on his face and the shaggy white pelt of his hair, combined with the subtle shapes and wrinkles of the mask, gave him the impression of being a good twenty years older than he was.

Silence, true to his name, said nothing, but tossed his pale mane scornfully and whinnied. Little shivers ran across his golden coat as he stretched his wings, nearly knocking Stardust off his feet with a gust of wind.

“Keep your feathers on!” the bandit exclaimed, sheathing his saber. “I'm coming.”

He double checked the pistols in his holsters, adjusted the bandoliers over both shoulders, and fitted both parts of his long rifle into their straps on Silence's saddle. He slipped into the leather harness that strapped around his chest and waist, making certain that the long ropes attaching him to Silence were secure and would bear his weight. Finally, he double-checked the short-barreled derringers in their waterproof sheaths at the top of his thigh-high boots. That bit of tech had cost him a good part of his savings, but it had been worth every cent.

Stardust vaulted easily up onto his companion's back and gathered the reins, taking one last fond look around him as he always did. His nest was the result of fifteen years' work, careful planning and execution, bargaining and haggling, having the right contacts and buying nothing that he and Silence could not carry themselves: soft carpets on the ground, walls of bookshelves, tapestries covering the cave's original stone walls, and gentle glowlamps that drew their power from nothing but the faint gleams of daylight that streamed down during the day, from the one and only entrance high above their heads. Several steel-bound chests held most of his profits, built as solidly as the other few pieces of furniture he had acquired. A hay-strewn nook on the other side of the cave was the only proof of non-human habitation—otherwise the room might have belonged in any of the world's finest castles. Stardust gave a little sigh of satisfaction and imagined the fine carved mantelpiece that he'd had an eye on recently, fitting neatly into the area between his favorite chair and his bed. If his contact had been right about today's transaction, he should have more than enough gold to buy it without having to dip into his emergency funds.

“Let's go make some money,” he told Silence, and slid his feet into the stirrups that connected to the wing harness. A sharp tug down with his heels told the pegasus to rise, and with one powerful downsweep of wings they were airborne, climbing almost vertically towards the narrow crack in the stone high above them. It seemed barely wide enough for Silence's wingspan, but he soared through without so much as brushing the sides of the crevice, then banked to avoid the pines that clung stubbornly to the bare jagged rocks. Weaving deftly through them, he stayed low to the ground until it fell away under them in a sheer cliff and he shot out, like some vast golden bird catching the reflection of the light, into a panorama that never failed to make Stardust catch his breath.

The vast sheer peaks of the Pillars stretched out beneath them, unutterably high and crowned with green, shooting up from the clouds as if some giant's towers, older than the ages, crumbled into disarray, had taken on the patina of nature but somehow had failed to hide their long-forgotten purpose. The rising sun shot out over the mists in rays of diffuse golden light, silhouetting the high narrow shapes, making of the cloud-cover a foaming white sea. Stardust knew that the clouds rarely, if ever, parted, and wondered again how far below them was the real sea—whether he would even be able to see the white tops of its waves, or the undulating shadows of the serpents under its blue skin. He knew they were too high for birds or wyverns here, in the thin bracing air that few creatures could breathe easily. He'd had to spend his first profits on a very discrete, very expensive corpmage who had increased his lung capacity and his blood's ability to carry oxygen. Now he could breathe easier in the high altitudes than on the sea level, so it was with some regret that he pointed his toes and gave Silence the signal to dip below the cloud surface.

This was Silence's native environment. In the gray-white world, his plumage almost disappeared, and the pale gold of his coat dimmed nearly to gray without the light to reflect it. Strands of mist swept away from his quiet velvet wings, which made him inaudible as well as invisible. He was little more than a cloud within a cloud, and Stardust, dressed all in white leather, was hardly a shadow on his back.

He didn't attempt to guide his companion's flight, apart from pointing him in the right general direction. Fingers of rock rose as pale shadows within the mist almost as they passed, and Silence banked between them as effortlessly as if he could see, his chest rising and falling under Stardust's knees as he sent out his inaudible calls. His ears flicked back and forth in a constant pattern, catching the echoes that bounced back to him, alerting him of obstacles ahead.

Stardust timed a half hour on his silver pocket watch and waited until he knew they had emerged from the wildest section of the Pillars. The peaks that rose on the outskirts were shorter, more suitable to human habitation, and the skies above them tended to be clearer. He pulled his telescope from a pocket—another expensive techmage modification—and sighted through it, lowering the lever on the side that activated the long-range sonar. After a noticeable pause, the shadowy image of a castle resolved to his right. They had come out nearly where he had predicted, over the skyroute that led from Castle Condor, on his right, to the more densely populated city of Tristan's Peak, about half a day's flight to the south. Few people traveled here, Castle Condor not being the most hospitable of locations due to the cold northern seas that surrounded it and the thick stone walls that protected it against the long winters. But it was a good place to store your treasure, if you wanted it safe from prying eyes and greedy hands. Stardust had never stormed the castle, and he did not mean to do so now. Skyway robbery was his game.

They shadowed the skyroute from above, barely out of sight in the cloud-cover, until Stardust caught the shadowy image of a carriage coming towards them.

“At last, praise the six wings of the archangel,” he muttered in Silence's ear. “I was starting to get cold up here.”

Silence snorted softly and plunged forward and up. They banked sharply and dropped down through the clouds, coming out silent and and precise behind the carriage.

At first Stardust was convinced he had the wrong travelers. A v-wing of merely five wyverns carried the square vehicle beneath them, their powerful muscular bodies barely straining at the weight suspended by powerful steel cords. There were no outriders, only one driver perched on the head wyvern. Stardust sighed, flipped the lever on his telescope back up, and peered through it at the insignia on the driver's livery: a condor in flight, surmounted by two stars.

“Well, this is the right one, after all,” he told Silence. “Maybe they think to disarm suspicion by transporting the treasure this way. Fools,” he judged, and leaned forward, unhooking his long rifle from beside his legs and fitting the parts together as he pointed his toes down.

Silence flapped his great wings once and then glided swiftly down, pulling back with quick but quiet wingstrokes just before dropping into the empty space inside the v-wing. The wyverns shied away, all but the first, whose rider went stiff as the barrel of Stardust's rifle touched the back of his neck.

“Pull out your weapons and drop them, if you don't want a bullet in your neck,” Stardust warned in a low growl.

The unfortunate man nodded frantically and pulled out his regulation shotgun, tossing it down. It fell a long way, and the splash was both invisible and inaudible. He gulped.

“If you try anything at all, my pegasus will pick you off your wyvern and send you down to join it, understand?” Stardust growled. The driver nodded again, putting his open hands up in the air. He didn't move a muscle when Stardust removed the rifle and slung it loosely by the saddle.

“I'll be back,” he told Silence, and launched himself off into the open air, his gloved hands sliding over the ropes that smoothly unspooled from the saddle. His aim was precise—a few feet directly above the carriage, his hands closed over the ropes. He twisted upward, executing a perfect flip before landing on both feet, knees slightly bent.

The carriage was large enough to hold several of him. A quick glance over the side showed him a simple windowed door, unlocked. Stardust paused for a moment—something was not right—but he had no time to wait and no choice but to continue. He swung down on one rope, twisted the handle, and swung into the carriage as the door opened.

He was greeted by a very female gasp.

Oh, not a person! was Stardust's first thought, followed quickly by, a woman?

He looked around him. He was standing in a passenger carriage, clearly built for comfort, with two plush seats, built into beautiful wooden cabinets for storing luggage, with clear glass windows on all four sides, and even patterned carpet on the floor. One of the seats was empty. The other contained a woman of indeterminate age, with untidily braided dark hair that was escaping in wild curls in all directions, and a pair of keen gray eyes enhanced by large spectacles. Those eyes were currently examining him, with a great deal of curiosity and very little fear.

“Are you a bandit?” she asked.

Obviously, lady, Stardust said inside his head. Why else would I be wearing a mask and dropping from the sky?

Outwardly, he choked slightly on the beginning of a word, gave it up as a bad job, and drew one of his pistols with a sigh. He hated holding people up, if only because it was human interaction, of a kind, and their eyes always made him self-conscious.

“T - Treasure,” he managed to say without stumbling too much over the word, and waved his pistol gently in her direction, trying not to meet her eyes.

“Surely you don't intend to threaten me with an uncocked pistol?” she asked, folding her hands primly over the book in her lap.

Stardust groaned inwardly. Now you decide to be perceptive. He cocked the pistol a little more aggressively than necessary, and pointed it in her general direction again.

“I'm sorry to have to say this, after you've gone to all the trouble,” said his irritatingly calm victim, “but I don't actually have any treasure. Other than a few books, some second-rate gowns, and myself, you're not going to find anything in here. You're welcome to search if you don't believe me.”

He was forced to meet her eyes. She looked completely harmless, and more to the point, entirely sincere—with a piercingly direct gaze that reminded him forcibly of an owl. On a sudden impulse, he uncocked the pistol again, holstered it, and then reached out to pull the too-large spectacles off her nose. She squinted, her eyes growing vague, and her face came into focus—a fairly young woman, too old to be marriageable but too young to be a spinster. Not exceptionally pretty, with a slightly crooked nose and a too-square chin, but her mouth was well-shaped. Something in her looks nagged at him, like the ghost of a memory trying to resurface, but he couldn't grasp it.

Then he heard the high-pitched scream of the gryphons, and his eyes shifted to the window behind her. There they were, mere dots in the sky, but he knew from experience that they would take minutes to arrive. He turned to look beside him, behind him—they were coming from all directions.

Either someone had set him up, or this girl was far more valuable than she seemed. He dropped the spectacles, fumbled for his telescope, and almost lost it out of the open door he had entered. Yes, he could see their livery—no bandits these, but King's Riders, in the flashy scarlet and gold that stood out against blue sky for all to see.

Stardust whistled for Silence and began to curse, quietly and fluently, as he put the telescope back into its pouch. He consigned his contact, the King's Riders, and the inhabitant of the carriage to the lords of every one of the seven flaming hells and their torturers. There must have been at least fifteen gryphons—a full wing. Why?

Silence swooped down past the door, and Stardust flung himself after, catching the saddle as the pegasus swung upward and began to climb. The sudden movement shook loose his rifle, and he cursed again as it fell past him into oblivion. There went the only chance he had of picking off the enemy before they closed on him. His feet couldn't find the stirrups, but that hardly mattered now—both of them had trained for this particular, if unlikely, eventuality, and Silence would simply do what any pegasus might, confronted by gryphons: climb. His huge wingbeats felt slow, too slow, as the Riders began to close in and up, stretched almost flat on their mounts. If there had been less of them, Stardust might have chosen to fight—gryphons were lighter-boned and frailer than pegasi, and their beaks and talons would make little immediate impression on Silence's tough hide—but in a flock, they were deadly because of their speed. Only one hope—to fly out of their altitude range and lose them in the cloud-cover.

“Climb, Silence,” Stardust entreated, and began to pray rather than curse. Surely at least one of the seven archangels would be willing to help him!

Then the Riders came into shooting range. He could almost reach up and touch the cloud-cover when the first shot hit him in the right shoulder. Long-range rifles were tricky to use in flight; they must have reached their highest altitude and stopped to hover in place.

“Almost there, boy,” he whispered, trying to ignore the pain and the blood that was beginning to ooze out onto his white coat.

Silence faltered, his left wing suddenly blooming red. For the space of a long wingbeat he held his course; then the wing crumpled, hanging useless. One of the Riders, either too lucky or too skilled, had shattered the joint with a single shot. Silence fell, twisting under Stardust as he corkscrewed, beating his one good wing in vain. The gryphons waited, circling. They'd swoop in and pluck him off as they fell, leaving the pegasus to strike the water too far below.

Stardust gritted his teeth. “Dive!” he barked, pulling himself up. As Silence obeyed, pulling in his wings and dropping like a stone, the bandit leaped off the saddle, his feet springboarding off the pegasus' back. He rose straight in the air, ropes unfurling beneath him as he pulled his pistols and cocked them in one smooth movement. They were close enough now, and they hadn't expected an attack. He shot two of them off their mounts, recocked, and shot again. They swooped in to grab him, regardless of the casualties, but the ropes had run their course, and he was jerked swiftly and painfully down. The empty talons closed over his head.

He had no time—the air was getting choked out of him as he was dragged down by Silence's swift descent, but he shot again and again. Six shots per pistol, and every one of them counted. The gryphons were scattering, disorganized, trying to save their riders, when he finally dropped the guns into their holsters and pulled the ropes on his harness. The parachute blossomed up behind him, and he cried out in sudden pain as he jerked to a stop, the harness around his torso tightening.

For a moment he thought the magic would fail and he would be crushed to a pulp. He had never actually tried carrying Silence before. Although the techmage had assured him the harness would carry well over a thousand pounds, they'd only ever used it for treasure before—and a thousand pounds of treasure was not something that you found every day. Stardust grunted in pain as the reinforced straps pressed into his chest and shoulders, nearly crushing his ribs. But the pressure did not increase—it remained constant, painful but bearably so. He peered down at Silence, hanging twenty yards below him, saw his good wing move, and breathed a careful sigh of relief. The other half of the harness had held too.

The parachute's open canopy obscured his view of the sky, though here and there gryphons were darting off, some with double loads, others riderless. Just in case, Stardust pulled one pistol out and started to reload it, ignoring the hot pain in his shoulder. There had to be some Riders left unwounded, and they were notoriously persistent, just like their fierce mounts. He knew he was right when he heard the whizz of a bullet over his head.

“Where are you?” he muttered, craning his neck. He felt singularly helpless, floating in the air with a thousand-pound weight hanging under him. If the Rider was smart, he'd be keeping his position behind Stardust's back and trying to pick him off with the rifle.

A second bullet struck him in the left leg, below the knee. He was right—the shot came from behind him. The next one would probably strike much closer to his heart. If only he could see behind him—then he almost laughed. The little-used saber came swiftly out of his sheath, and with a quick twist of his bleeding arm he found the enemy's reflection. The Rider was closing in, waiting until he was within pistol range, rather than waste a long shot on what he believed to be a helpless man. Stardust waited a long moment, until the saber showed him the rifle moving down, taking aim.

Then with one swift movement of his left hand, he flipped the pistol's muzzle over his shoulder and fired. The saber showed him the Rider as he slumped backwards over the saddle, dropping the rifle from lifeless fingers. The gryphon screamed, a sharp, defiant sound, and Stardust fired again, hating himself for it but knowing there was little choice. Most gryphons attacked in packs, but they would attack singly if the prey was helpless; he had to prove himself capable of fighting back. The gryphon screamed again, but this time in pain.

A moment later the sky was clear. He had to check in all directions, but no one seemed to be following him any longer. Stardust sheathed his sword, holstered his pistol, and breathed a short prayer of thanks to whichever archangel had decided to protect him. The wind changed, and below them the blue sea grew closer and closer, dotted with tiny islands. Now they had only to survive falling in the water and being attacked by sea-serpents.

Life is good, Stardust reminded himself. We're going to stay alive.

[toph-enough]

Get to know TOPH BEIFONG who’s TWENTY-TWO years old. She is from TEXAS and is often times mistaken for LANA CONDOR while others say she reminds them of TOPH from AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER.

Headcanons

Toph has light and shadow perception. If she’s inside, she can tell where the light sources are coming from, and can tell if something passes in front of a light and get sort of a blobby sense of its shape from the shadow.

Toph has a guide dog named Badger. He’s a black lab, and she’s had him for two years. She much prefers using him than a cane. It feels more freeing and independent, and looks less obvious at first.

She’ll tell people her favorite color is green, even though she’s never seen it. She likes what it stands for, though. And hearing that its the colors of grass and leaves makes it all the more intriguing to her.

Toph doesn’t mind people asking her questions about being blind, it’s just when they’re stupid questions that she gets a little annoyed. Like “if you’re blind, how do you do blank”. The answer is usually something like “I didn’t know you needed to see to be able to do that.”

She knows people forget she’s blind sometimes and honestly, that’s how she prefers it. If they make comments about how the look or they try to show her something, she’ll usually just make a joke about it. She doesn’t take any of it too seriously because she’s not really that serious of a person.

Young at heart, Toph can be seen as childish at times, not really thinking about the consequences of her actions or comments.

She loves being outside and around nature. She loves the sounds and the smell of it.

Growing up in Texas, her family owned a farm. Well, her grandparents did. But they’d visit a lot. She loved being around all the animals, and she would just play in the dirt when she was a kid. This always worried her parents, so instead she started to do it in secret. She got her grandmother in on it, too. So if her parents asked her what they’d been doing all day, her grandmother would say they were inside watching TV or reading.

Toph had an instructor growing up, someone who taught her how to do things on her own. She hated him. He coddled her more than her parents. He never let her go past basic things, even though Toph was much more advanced than that.

She can’t swim, she never had a reason to learn. That doesn’t mean she won’t go to the beach or pool with her friends, it just means if she gets in the water, she’s not going very deep. And she does know how to tread water, just enough so she doesn’t drown. Her parents made someone teacher her how to do that after a scare at a neighbor's pool when she fell in.

Growing up, her family was wealthy. They were able to hire the best tutors and helpers for her. They were able to buy all the little necessities for their home to keep Toph safe.

She doesn’t know what yet, but Toph wants to accomplish something big in her life. She wants to be remembered. Not as the Beifong’s blind daughter, but as Toph, the first blind something. Or, heck, maybe it doesn’t even have to do with the fact she’s blind. She just knows she’s going to do something. And whatever it is, it’s going to be big.

Fun Facts

Toph has a tattoo on her left arm that says “Fuck Off” in Braille. She just likes the idea of it. Some people ask her why she would get a tattoo if she can’t see it and she just holds up her arm in response.

She loves action movies and superhero movies.

She likes to fight and gets annoyed when people won’t fight her because she’s blind.

Toph is bisexual.

She loves food, she’ll eat almost anything. And the spicier the better. She loves it when something feels like it’s just kicked you in the face.

Toph wears shoes with thin soles since her earthbending powers help her sense (“see”) things. She has one pair of shoes that she ripped the bottom off of so she looks like shes wearing shoes. She does wear socks with those shoes though because she doesn’t want to step in something gross or have it be too obvious what she’s doing.

Earthbending

Toph practices often. She isn’t shy about her powers. She throws rocks at people for fun. She loves going to the park and sitting on the ground and just pressing her hands to the dirt. It’s like she can see everyone out there having fun.

She can feel the vibrations of people’s steps and movements. When she wears normal shoes she can only sense a persons footsteps very lightly. She can “see” about up to their ankle. If she’s wearing thin shoes, she can see a person walking up to almost their knee. If shes wearing only socks she can get a better sense of their height and weight and how heavy their steps are or what kind of shoes they’re wearing. But if it’s her hands she puts on the ground and focuses, she can practically “sees” the outline of a whole person. The positions of their arms and head. The heavier the object or the more vibrations it causes, the easier it is for her to see. So wearing normal shoes and walking down the street sometimes she barely sees children’s footsteps or animals hopping around.

She practices not only “seeing” with her earthbending, but also manipulating the earth as often as she can. When she’s really practicing, she’ll go into the middle of the woods with Badger and practice around there. However if she knows she wants to try more extreme things, she’ll just take her cane and leave Badger at home because she wouldn’t want to risk his safety.

Is always trying new techniques and ways to earthbend.

Connections

Sokka Hakoda - Someone she loves having around. He’s like one of her best friends and someone she really enjoys pulling pranks with. Toph doesn’t mind being a little more open with him about her emotions and such, but she always makes it clear if he tells anyone else, she’ll punch him. And even for all the teasing she does, Sokka is her favorite person and being a little mean to people is how she shows affection.

Zuko Ozai - She’s friends with him. He’s a little awkward at times but she does enjoy hanging out with him.

Badger - her service dog, a black lab, and her best friend. She always has him with her. He means the world to her and he’s not just her best friend and her pet, but he’s her freedom to walk around and go places without feeling like she’s going to get lost or need to ask people for help.

Wanted Connections

Fight club - people willing to spar with toph. She loves MMA and loves to fight. She would also love a teacher to help her get better.

Friends - Toph needs friends that can either be the opposite of her or a lot like her. They can cause trouble together or someone to balance out her chaotic nature. Honestly she just needs friends of any shape and sort.

Fling - just someone Toph has maybe messed around with. Doesn’t have to be serious and doesn’t have to be something that is still going on. It was/ is more about having fun than actual feelings.

Betrayal - Toph is slow to open up, but she found someone (either a friend or a romantic partner) that she almost immediately felt like she could trust. So she opened up. But then something happened and they used her vulnerability against her or they grew apart and fell apart. And because of this Toph always thinks of them as someone who broke her heart and broke her trust. And someone who she wishes to still be friends with/still has feelings for but can’t bring herself to trust again.

Crush/Romance - Someone who either has a crush on her or she has a crush on them. Feelings that are either requited or not. It could lead somewhere or just stay quiet between them. Toph is slow to romance—slow to trust and to love— but she would love to have someone who loves her. It’s always a fear in relationships that she’s being used by her partner to get pity points or that they’re going to baby her. Which she hates the thought of. So to find someone who loves her and doesn’t ask her to take it easy or be careful or treats her like she’s incapable of things, someone she feels safe trusting with all her vulnerable parts, is something that she secretly longs for.

Roommate - for somewhat obvious reasons, Toph doesn’t like living alone. Her roommate could be someone who she’s friends with or someone who she rarely sees but is tolerant enough to help her make dinner and make sure the lights go on and off at the right times.

[avalonianrising]

Fehin, Narcissus

Yeesh, I forgot how long these things took. Apologies for the delay, but I’ve got a nice list to work through now, and I’ll get to them as quick as I can!

—————————————————————–

Fehin

Headcanon voice: ??? He actually doesn’t talk. When he does, I imagine it would sound very…deep. And very imposing. Honestly though, it is so utterly rare that he talks, that I can’t properly formulate a good voice for the moment. Pretty raspy, too, I imagine, from not being used.

When imagining the Amber Temple like a dungeon, Fehin’s the boss you’d fight right before Ezhno. He’s insanely tall in humanoid form, as he seems to be a spirit…though this actually isn’t certain. Many would think it would be easy to tell, but with him, it is indeed uncertain. Not like you’re getting that out of him.

Is able to take the form of a Harpy, and also has a Harpy Prince as his companion. In no way, shape or form, does this very battle-capable male adhere to Harpy standards. He’ll pick you up, and drop you into the abyss faster than you can open your mouth to yell.

Fights with both arrows and daggers that he lights on fire with the multiple braziers on the pathway to the throne room. Hope you’re fireproof, because there’s a damn lot of it about to rain down on you.

In dragon form and Harpy form, looks quite similar to a California Condor.

Made his mask himself, painstakingly, with materials that Aharon procured from him from outside the Temple. He’s not exactly a…great craftsman, but with a little help from his Prince, managed to make it look rather lovely and almost masquerade-like.

Only enters the throne room sparingly, to make sure Ezhno hasn’t died (ha) of boredom, or something. He knows that he’s incredibly lonely, but for some reason, can’t bring himself to hang around for much longer than is necessary.

Looks up to the Amber Queen quite a bit, which may very well be the reason he decided to take the form of a Harpy himself. His shapeshifting ability took ages to perfect, it was definitely not an overnight thing. Takes his orders directly from her, which is a suspected reason he doesn’t hang around Ezhno a lot.

Has the great ability to stand perfectly still for very…very…long periods of time. Blinking doesn’t seem to be a thing…unless he gets some dust in his eye, or some shit.

The only other person he really, genuinely interacts with (other than his Prince) is Aharon, out of necessity. Hye is…too loud, and makes him sneeze…and Jaqen is…very strange. But Aharon keeps his weapons and armor looking fabulous. (Tuari is nice, at least. They have a quiet understanding.)

Narcissus

Headcanon Voice: Teemu Brunila (Studio Killers)

Is the only member of the Golden Fireflies who used to be directly associated with the Water Gardens (not like Skanda and Shesha, who were born into it as warriors)–as in, one of its leaders. A Flower of the Water Garden, he was in charge of a fairly large Water Garden of his own, in the Southern Icefield.

Flowers are typically female, but it’s not unheard of that male Flowers take the position if their mother dies. This is rare, as Flowers often do not have children of their own. Thus, male Flowers typically dress, speak, and act in feminine manners (especially if they’re raised by their mothers). They’re expected to uphold the same standards of their mothers, learning how to properly perform (singing, dancing, etiquette lessons, just like the Children) until they can be called pure perfection.

His mother was murdered when he was around 18, so he took the position only a day or so afterward. He had no time to mourn, and didn’t particularly want to, either. Never took the time to find out who did it, and doesn’t care.

Incredibly business and political-minded, has a poker-face unlike any you’ve ever seen in your life. Even his right-hand man had a hard time reading him, which suited him just fine.

Was cruel not to the point of getting his own hands dirty, but he was damn bad enough. Far more emotionally cruel, than physically, and seemed almost proud of it for a long time.

When a situation called for him to travel, was when he encountered the Fireflies. They intercepted his caravan, attacked and took out the vast majority of his men (including his assistant, and to this day, he hasn’t forgiven Haimah for it) so that they could take him hostage. The intent was to keep him for information on how to successfully infiltrate Water Gardens better than they had been.

For a while, he refused to cooperate in the slightest, and had to be kept in a room with damn near nothing in it to keep him from hurting himself. This was definitely not Hakon’s style, though, so he actually let him out. Knowing there was no use in running, he reluctantly started to hang around with the Fireflies.

When he actually met with former Children, and heard what they had to say, it didn’t really…change his mind, but he actually started to take it into consideration. After a bit of a longer period of time, he realized how horridly stifling his life was, and realized he didn’t have a damn chance, born into the position he was. Much like the Gardeners, he came to know. This was when he finally started to open up a little more.

Finally decided to help the Fireflies in their quest to take down to the Water Gardens, and became their ballet instructor. Gets along best with Gazsi, who was in a position nearly identical to his own (Gazsi having been born to a Flower, himself). Their faintly-similar personalities helped Narcissus to cope with his situation, and open him up to interacting with everyone else. Is still a little, uh. Cold, haha. But he’s getting a lot better.

[theconservativebrief]

Bad boys are over. Man-children are over. Lovable losers are over. The women of America are too busy being re-traumatized by the discourse of #MeToo over and over again to want to fantasize about doing the enormous emotional labor required to heal troubled men of their wounds and shape them from tortured frogs into perfect Prince Charmings.

No, instead, American pop culture has officially entered into the era of the wholesome bae. Which is to say that this is Noah Centineo’s universe now, and the rest of us are just living in it.

More accurately, it is Peter Kavinsky’s universe. Peter Kavinsky is the character played by Noah Centineo in Netflix’s breakout high school romantic comedy To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. He is the crush object of the summer, and like all great fictional crush objects before him — Jake Ryan, Jordan Catalano — he is known universally by his full name.

In the brief time since To All the Boys premiered, Peter Kavinsky has become iconic for his wholesomeness: his willingness to drive all the way across town to get Lara Jean her yogurt smoothies, his decision to drink kombucha at a house party because he’s driving and also it’s supposed to be good for your digestion, his instinct to keep the popcorn bowl from getting overturned in a middle of an impromptu pillow fight.

Peter Kavinsky is beloved because, unlike his predecessors, he is not actively a bad person, and that is still new and exciting in the world of teen movies. He is not performatively woke or intellectual or tortured or given to especially grand gestures, and that is what makes him appealing: He is most celebrated for reliably doing small things, for showing up, for exuding a sense of honest wholesomeness.

But Peter Kavinsky is fictional, and as such, his ability to spin out endless new content for the internet to sigh over is limited. Noah Centineo, on the other hand, is a real person who can fuel endless new GIFs, one who is taking full advantage of his rise to fame to energetically pursue the mantle of the internet’s most wholesome boyfriend. His media strategy since the premiere of To All the Boys seems to be pointed with military precision toward the archetype of the moment.

Like his most famous character, Centineo is not trying to be especially woke, or especially intellectual, or especially artistic, or especially cool. He’s going for a much more basic appeal, like a Tiger Beat cover star who is not entirely asexual: the emotionally healthy soft jock. The wholesome boyfriend. He is a hot guy who is also reliably nice. That is his whole thing, and it is damn effective.

When To All the Boys came out, Centineo picked up a million Instagram followers overnight. Within a month, he’d gone from 800,000 followers pre-To All the Boys to 9.5 million. Now he’s at 12.8 million. His fan base is so fervent that he had to devote part of an interview with Jimmy Kimmel to politely asking them to stop following him around in real life. “I love your love!” he said. “Just don’t follow me.”

Centineo’s rise to fame is a kind of case study in the appeal of the wholesome internet boyfriend, and why this archetype has taken on a particular urgency here in the draining final months of 2018. Here’s how you become the central crush object of the internet in record time, and where you go next.

The first stage in Centineo’s conquest of the internet’s collective heart was to create a certain slippage between himself and Peter Kavinsky. To All the Boys fans were all reliably swooning over the same three Peter Kavinsky moments — the time he has his hand in Lara Jean’s back pocket and then kind of twirls her around, the whole thing with the popcorn and the pillow fight, the time he bashfully splashes her from the hot tub — and within days of the movie’s release, director Susan Johnson had said in interviews that all three moments were Centineo’s idea. Peter Kavinsky might be fictional, the publicity narrative suggested, but the man behind his best moments was actually alive.

The To All the Boys press team also began to heavily imply that maybe Centineo and his co-star Lana Condor were in love in real life, too. (Lana Condor has been with her boyfriend for years and said so, but that didn’t stop a fun press narrative from building.) The adorable picture of Peter and Lara Jean cuddling that appeared in the movie was actually a behind-the-scenes picture of Centineo and Condor napping between takes, it was revealed. Centineo and Condor referred to each other as “the love of my life” all over social media.

“I love Noah. I think he’s the greatest guy in the world. I mean who wouldn’t?” said the prescient Condor to Elle. “He’s the internet’s boyfriend.”

BuzzFeed’s AM to DM morning show got to the heart of the question: Are people thirsting over Peter Kavinsky or Noah Centineo? “As a genius once said, ‘Why not both?’” responded internet thirst expert Nichole Perkins.

While the line between the Peter Kavinsky character and the Noah Centineo public persona became steadily blurrier, Centineo himself was busy on a press tour, giving interview answers that could have been mathematically calibrated in a lab as the perfect good-girl bait.

Asked to describe his perfect date, Centineo volunteered a story about a time he swapped books with a girl and just spent three hours reading with her.

how is this kid real??? like???? i mean???? i would die???????? someone take me on this date like today?????????????????? pic.twitter.com/jii46EQMPs

— Preeti Chhibber @ NYCC oh god too soon tho (@runwithskizzers) August 29, 2018

Asked how he got so good at flirting by Allison P. Davis for the Cut, he delivered this impromptu monologue on the nature of love:

“Am I flirting?” he laughs and leans and looks down at the floor. “I don’t know — I’m fucking so romantic. Like, such a romantic — it’s not even funny. I can’t help it. I swear to God, like, every day, the majority of my day is sentimental. You know, I’m thinking about past relationships I’ve been in, how I miss them so much or what I would do different, or why I wanna be with them again, or just moments I’d like to go back to or I know why I shouldn’t go back, and then you know, it’s just constantly love, love, love.”

Specific or even all that interesting? Not really. Kind of basic? Extremely. But that, after all, is part of the point: the wholesome boyfriend doesn’t have to rise above basicness. He just has to love love, without cynicism or irony. He’s the hot guy who is also consistently nice, who is aware of his emotions and unashamed of them.

Centineo kept hitting his wholesome boyfriend marks with the relentless force of someone who sees his route to superstardom and will not be stopped. He showed up shirtless to an interview and did it without coming off as a complete douche. He did a puppy interview for BuzzFeed, and a perfect boyfriend video for Elle that also had some puppies because look, why not. He became so relentlessly wholesome that not even a leaked nudes scandal could hold him back.

Currently, Centineo’s gone about as far as Peter Kavinsky can take him, and as with any star on the brink of overexposure, he’s facing a certain amount of backlash. The staff of Jezebel has formally dissolved their relationship with internet boyfriend Centineo — “Whatever we (the staff of Jezebel as a whole) had with Centineo (who has never met any of us, to the best of my knowledge), it’s OVER” — citing in part the extreme basicness of his social media presence (the boy loves an inspirational quote). In a recent New York Times profile, his single-minded push for attention was just on the verge of coming off as desperate rather than endearing.

At Lainey Gossip, Kathleen Newman-Bremang is reading the warning signs. “Internet Boyfriend is a designation you get on the come-up,” she writes, citing the previous examples of Michael B. Jordan and Tom Hiddleston. “You either leverage it in your favour (MBJ) or get so drunk off its power you try too hard and become a caricature of yourself (Hiddleston). Where will Noah Centineo fall?” Being the internet’s flavor of the month is not exactly a recipe for career longevity.

But for the moment, Centineo’s month is not over. He remains on top of the world, at the pinnacle of internet boyfriend-ness. The Cut has proclaimed him “the best thirst architect the internet’s ever seen,” lauding his “Stanislavski dedication” to playing “a simple, suburban-mall kind of crush.” GQ looked into what all the fuss was about and came to a simple conclusion: “America Is Horny for Wholesome.”

One of the side effects of the increasingly public gender struggles of the past few years is that they’ve made a lot of previously attractive romantic archetypes seem a lot less appealing than they used to.

How do you sigh over the Johnny Depp-like wounded bad boy when actual Johnny Depp maybe beat his wife? How do you swoon for the stalwart Mel Gibson-like action hero when actual Mel Gibson is on tape telling the mother of his child she deserves to be raped? How do you root for the sweet shy geek to get the hot girl to notice him when shy geeks are joining the incels because they can’t get hot girls to notice them?

In a time when the world is getting ever scarier, and a little romantic escapism would be a welcome refuge from thinking about whether we’re about to put a second man accused of sexual misconduct on the Supreme Court or we’re going to wake up to find that we are in a nuclear war with North Korea, it’s getting harder and harder to find a romantic fantasy that still feels safe.

That’s part of why To All the Boys, with its relentless tenderness and sincerity, became the kind of movie that people watch over and over again on a loop. (“I never rewatch movies,” people keep telling me, “but I watched it twice.”) Its entire ethos is that of nice, kind people working hard to be nice and kind to each other, and that atmosphere has immense currency in the Trump era; you want to live in it. And that’s the Peter Kavinsky fantasy: a boy who will never, ever do anything cruel and will always tell you that you look really pretty today. The hot guy who is reliably nice.

And that’s the fantasy around which Noah Centineo has relentlessly curated his public image. He has made an exact science out of being the internet’s most wholesome boyfriend, at a time when all people want is someone wholesome. So even if he isn’t able to parlay his current viral fame into career longevity, he’s still managed to be exactly what this moment in time needs.

Original Source -> Noah Centineo and the rise of the wholesome internet boyfriend, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[flauntpage]

Here are the NBA Fights We Desperately Want to See

It’s fight week in the NBA! Whether it was Michael Carter-Williams and Jason Smith falling over each other, Arron Afflalo trying in vain to decapitate Nemanja Bjelic, or Chris Paul leading a furtive strike against his former team's locker room, things are getting, as they say, chippy. Who knows the reason why, maybe it's the cold weather locking down most of the hemisphere, or maybe LeBron James has secretly been working behind the scenes to orchestrate a distraction big enough to get us to overlook his own personal struggles as the Cavaliers sink in the East. Who knows?!

What we do know is, we want more. We want all the bloodshed. Here are the fights we want to see in no particular order/proximity to reality.

The Plumlee Pummel

Much like the Highlander, there can only be one. More than that, this fight will serve to end the confusion once and for all. Mason? Marshall? Miles? Some other one we haven’t met yet? It doesn’t matter, after this battle royale style scrap only one Plumlee will be left alive and the survivor’s contract will go to the Nets for all time.

There Can Only Be Thon

This is one of the more existential feuds planned for NBA Fight Week. Given his wingspan, Thon quite often accidentally shoves himself from behind. No stranger to being an instigator and generally evil, Jason Kidd will wrongly inform Maker that he has been shoved by an opposing player. As the slaps and jabs continue, Thon will be forced to confront the truth that we are all our own worst instigators in this greatest melee called life.

Tunnel Tumult

Given the detractive success of Chris Paul’s raid on the Clippers locker room earlier this week, let's elevate the formula. This fight will feature the entire roster of the Denver Nuggets, dressed in old-timey miners gear circa the gold rush era. Instead of rushing into tunnels, they will be struggling to escape them. A veiled critique of the collapse of the American coal mining industry, this fight proves to have a moral purpose, plus Mason Plumlee—should he survive the Pummel—loses a tooth testing the rocks a stagehand gave him from the parking lot to pan as if they were real gold.

Coaches Corner

Given the eagerness Mike D’Antoni showed in wanting to punch Blake Griffin (we’ve all been there), this fight will take place in a ring shaped like a hexagon to represent each division in the league. Using the model of All-Star voting, a coach from one team within that division will be chosen and given a tool that best represents the historic nature of their geographical background. For example, the Atlantic division coach will be given a fishing net, the Southwest coach a lariat, and so on. They will be set loose in the Pentagram where the only escape is to execute their own plays.

Courtside Chair Challenge

Taking one of the most iconic—not to mention wasteful of a perfectly good chair—pro-wrestling prop set-ups, one lucky fan will be upgraded to courtside but then forced to smash every single chair within the inner and outer row upon the back of their favorite player. It shows the fans that sometimes, however well-intentioned, heckling can hurt.

Bigs and Littles

A battle of the bigs is something every basketball fan is familiar with, and rather than riff on this term in a totally literal way, we're taking it a step further. By pairing each big with a “little” we've got a more inclusive, tag-team event. In an unexpected twist, CP3 will lose his big, Nenê, in an early round and be forced to strike a deal with his ex-teammate, Blake Griffin, if he hopes to stand a chance. As huge fans of the book and television show, Big Little Lies, we originally wanted to name this match “Big Little Guys,” but HBO was quick with the cease and desist letter.

Afflalo Me To The Gates Of Hell

OK, these are getting dramatic. Anyway as far as I can tell from the playbook, this fight will be the entirety of Dante’s Inferno acted out by a beleaguered Arron Afflalo. LeBron James will narrate as Virgil, but radio in from another location with a vocoder so he’s unrecognizable. Not all of the nine circles have been cast yet, but I can tell you that Dwight Howard will play Gluttony in a nod to his candy addiction, Durant will play Treachery, and Tony Parker is apparently Limbo, but only because we've heard he's done it at a wedding and it's apparently incredible. This one is 72 hours long.

Tower of Power

Basically a chicken fight out of water, this event is a guy stacked on another’s shoulders but because each combatant’s combined height is over twelve feet it makes for a very long and awkward duel, because nobody can stay balanced. Kyrie uses it as proof gravity is a social construct.

The Stone Buddha Beatdown

Tim Duncan will come out of retirement for this, striding onto the court in his oversized silks, floating and luminous. He thought it was going to be a kickboxing demonstration, you see, and now realizes that someone tried to trick him into a fight. It is not noble. It is beneath him. He floats off the court, impervious.

Growing Pangs of New York

The Knicks and the Nets face off in a West Side Story style fight, led on one side by Nik Stauskas and the other by Enes Kanter. Porzingis has a piece of rebar strapped to his forehead and Allen Crabbe wields a tiny little crab fork that glints wildly in the oil drum fires scattered around the court. When it turns out nobody on either team knows how to snap OR whistle the whole thing sort of peters out.

Battle of Los Angeles: On Ice

This fight is primarily concerned with the Clippers battling the Lakers for rights to their bigger locker room, but to signal that they neither yield nor care to enter the fray the Kings have declared their neutrality by demanding the battle take place on ice. It’s only fair. However, some AV tech fears that they have bungled the Staples Center schedule and that it really is the night for Disney On Ice, so the entire fight is scored by some of Tim Rice’s most well-loved hits.

Rasheed William Wallace

Meant to be a historically accurate reenactment of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, this version goes awry when Rasheed decides to add a battlecry of his own devising, a rousing call-and-return of “BALL DON’T”, “LIE”. All the players in attendance, regardless of being cast as Scottish or British, get so fired up that they turn on the refs. Somebody finds an old trebuchet kicking around but Wallace stops everyone before they get out of hand with a speech in which he growls that in his day, even if you wanted to, you couldn’t just go launching officials from trebuchets, you had to confront your problems on the court.

Tormentor in the Smoothie King Center

Much like the Malice at the Palace, this one is a slow burn that sees tensions palpably rising throughout the game. However, that’s because known throat-pouched demon, Pierre the Pelican, has been turning up the heat as the quarters go on. It is a giveaway gone awry because cold smoothies were supposed to parachute from the rafters down to the sweating crowd and players, but everything launches at once and the entire arena is drenched in Açaí Adventure ®. Do you know what it feels like to have brain freeze while simultaneously sweating profusely? Awful. Boogie cries!

Mascot Mayhem

What everyone expects to be the lighthearted interlude of NBA Fight Week turns out to be the biggest bloodbath yet. Chuck the Condor, a flippant millennial unaccustomed to the ways of war, is the first to fall. Shortly after this, Slamson the Lion is skinned by Stuff the Magic Dragon, who is already wearing the bloodied pelt of Clutch the Bear. The G-Man makes a surprise appearance and is immediately stuffed into a t-shirt cannon and shot at Boomer, Jazz Bear, and Jack Nicholson. Champ's and Hooper's herd instincts kick in and they both make a run for it, but Moon Dog ends up harnessing them to a chariot with spikes on its wheels and having a Gladiator moment with Grizz, Pierre the Pelican, Rumble the Bison and the Coyote. Bango skewers Burnie on its horns and Rocky the Mountain Lion eats Moon Dog. Hugo the Hornet and Harry the Hawk are disemboweled by the Raptor while Go the Gorilla’s jumping-through-a-flaming-hoop trick backfires and it becomes a walking inferno with Franklin and Blaze the Trail Cat later huddling over the smoldering corpse for warmth. Tapping into the hunting techniques of it’s ancestors, Crunch the Wolf forces Benny the Bull off a cliff (the rafters) and Lucky the Leprechaun does a jig in the carnage.

Here are the NBA Fights We Desperately Want to See published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[thetinfoilhatlady]

In September of 2017 I traveled to the mysterious city of Cusco Peru. My intention was to continue into the sacred Valley to the Ayahuasca retreat called The Source. See my blog here.

Before I would continue I had made arrangements for a private guide to take me to some of the megalithic sites in and around Cusco. Wilco Apaza Pachamama Spirit, a local healer and Medicine guide, took me on the first day above the city to the megalithic wall and area around Saqsaywaman.

I had no idea how large this area was. I was still suffering from a bit of altitude sickness as we entered the park.

Entrance to Saqsaywaman

He walked me through many eroded areas and Temple sites I had no idea were there. We also saw many beautiful ancient Hi-Tech Rock cuts and nooks and crannies in the ancient eroded stones. He first took me to an area with seven Cuts representing the seven chakras. The flattened areas were obviously Hi-Tech and it culminated in a Condors beak under which one would stand to allow water to trickle on to the Head.

He allowed me a moment to stand in that spot. I was compelled to remove my shoes and allow the energy to race through my body. There was a small rope around the seven platforms so I didn’t feel okay walking upon them but I did feel the rush of energy standing under the Condors beak.

Next we wandered through an area that was very eroded. There were many labrynth like areas that were riddled with cuts and noooks and crannies. I am happy Wilko was with me because I would have had no idea what I was seeing.Then we reached a special entrance. Here he asked me to stand in front of a stone loooking like a hand. It had two peaks pointing outward. Like a thumb and fingers as you see in the first photo below. The ‘thumb’ point lined up with my third eye at my forehead and the ‘finger’ point touched my sternum where my heart chakra is.

Stone that touches your forhead and heart Chakra

After a moment standing like this he asked me to turn and then blew some sacred oil onto my head and body. Then he asked me to turn and enter into a small dark cave. I was a little bit nervous. He asked me to bend down and keep my head down as I walked through the corridor. Because I still had the altitude headache I really didn’t want to but I force myself to take this dark journey.

Entrance to the Dark Tunnel – Womb of Pachamama

I put my hand along the side of the wall and I could feel the rough wall give away to a smooth line where many before me had obviously placed their hands marked with sacred oil. Suddenly I became very reticent and I felt like a stubborn mule who didn’t want to go forward. I was very close to saying “No way! I’m not doing this!”, but then I thought how would I make it through the upcoming four Ayahuasca ceremonies if I couldn’t walk through a simple corridor in the rock no matter how dark it was.

.To make myself feel better I asked Wilko to touch my back as I continued on my way.  I kept my eyes closed and just kept moving forward with my head down I didn’t want to imagine what was above my head. eventually I decided to open my eyes and look forward. To my delight I could see the cave opening and light pouring in a short distance ahead. Upon seeing this beautiful site I was filled with pride and happiness at my accomplishment.

Once we emerged he took me to a small resting spot outside the exit. He then turned to me and said, “You are now Reborn”. We had gone through the birth canal, the womb of Pachamama. I was so relieved and happy. I was crying and crying before I even realized what was happening. Tears of joy streamed down my face and I felt very refreshed and nearly forgot about my altitude headache. I am glad he did not tell me what we were doing until it was over because I may never have done it ! Wilko is a great guide.

We then continued past many beautiful Hi-Tech Rock cuts.

Upside down staircase. Is this evidence of a cataclysm ?

High Tech rock shaping

Then arriving into a round area that he described as a calendar. He said there were many quartz crystals under the ground here and then it was a very ancient place. He also pointed to many rocks that looked like various animals. I wondered to myself if they actually turned into these animals at special occasions and moved around. It was a bit reminiscent of the stones at Avery in England as there are stories of these Stones moving as well.

Stone Animals

The wind was picking up but we decided to sit and look towards the zig zag wall that I had wanted to see for many years. I had only used Google Earth but now there it was right in front of us.

Me happy to be at this special place.

Machine cut platforms beside me in the background and behind that the great zig zag walls.

I decided to put my jacket back on as we walked towards this megalithic Wonder. I could see rain clouds all around but it hadn’t started to rain yet. he showed me the various temples associated with different Stone areas. Also a 7 segment snake carved into the Rock that again was associated with the chakra system.

7 Chakra Snake

It’s very hard to explain the construction of these walls. I was amazed how beautiful curvy squishy and loving the stones felt. Wilko explained that the ancient technology used to create this wall was something we had no idea about in our day. I laid into one of the corners it felt like I was being hugged.

The stones seemed to emit a wonderful caressing energy that welcome to you and loved you back. I think the technology used had to be something that connected with the consciousness of the Stone. Perhaps this technology asked the stones to bend and shape themselves and they complied. It’s a much different way than forcing with hard tools scrapers and saws. I really have no idea of course how they did it but I did not expect the loving energy I felt radiating from these wonderfully pillow like stones.

Wilko also pointed out the Triangular stones and told me they were the female stones. The polygonal construction allowed for anti-seismic strength and the wall had stood for many thousands of years if not millennia. It was spectacular to slowly walk along this giant zig zag wall.

It has three levels but we only walked along the middle level.

Knobbies as seen in Egypt as well. They are a mystery.

Inca construction beside the ancient builders construction.

Small patch of Inca construction atop the ancient megalirhs

More knobbies

My headache had returned and the wind was picking up. Though I didn’t want to leave I knew that my energy was dissipating  so we decided to drive back into Cusco and visit the Corricancha. Adventure continues in the next blog post.

    The Mysterious Stones of Saqsaywayman In September of 2017 I traveled to the mysterious city of Cusco Peru. My intention was to continue into the sacred Valley to the Ayahuasca retreat called The Source.