#i remember hearing 'oh brother i am home in the fires of our youth

[plusultraetc]

Putting the funny Todoroki fam story here like a little ticket stub in a journal bc I was suddenly reminded of it:

So, back in late 2022 (before I started watching MHA again, but I credit this experience with putting the show back on my radar even if it was not the final full-body shove), I was listening to some playlist on Spotify, and this song came on. To me, it was stunning, and poignant, and compelling--the vocals, the imagery, the story it told. I thought this was a song about a narrator with the world's most complicated relationship with her family and her home I had ever heard. I said to myself 'I simply must know more. I must know what inspired such lyricism.'

The song was "Brother" by Madds Buckley. It's an MHA fan song about Dabi. I learned this in a Barnes & Noble parking lot and almost broke something laughing while simultaneously texting my sister because HEY THAT DABI GUY WAS A TODOROKI AFTER ALL AND YOU'LL NEVER GUESS HOW I FOUND OUT.

[queenxxxsupreme]

A/N: This was an ask from I believe @creatingstuffinpeace but I accidentally deleted the ask right as I was about to post it. I am going to probably make this into a little series with at least one more part because I have an idea, it's just a matter of when I have time to write it out :)

***

Thunder rumbled outside.

You moved around the bookshop, tidying things up.

“But momma! What about Gunnar?” Your son, Cas, tugged at your skirt.

“He’s probably just outback chasing a cat, love.” You brushed your fingers over his hair momentarily before picking up a small stack of books. “Will you help me with putting these back, Cas?”

He took two of the books from you and began to follow you to the other side of the little store.

“But momma! It’s about to storm! Gunnar doesn’t like storms!”

“Cas–,”

“What if he’s hurt? What if someone’s taken him or something’s happened to him? What if he’s lost!” The more the six-year-old thought about all the things that could have happened to his pup, the more frantic he became.

“Casimir.” You placed the books down on a table and knelt down to his level. You took the books from him and put them aside.

Tears welled in his eyes as he gazed at you. His bottom lip quivered.

You cupped his face and brushed your thumb over his cheek.

“I don’t want to take you out in the storm. But if you promise me to stay upstairs until I return, I will go look for Gunnar.”

“You will?”

You nodded.

“Okay.” He sniffled.

You wiped the tears away and leaned in to kiss his forehead.

“Let’s get these books put away. Then I’ll take you upstairs.”

As you stood up, Cas grabbed four of the books and tried to hurry towards the bookshelf they belonged on.

The front door creaked open and the bell above the door chimed, signaling someone was entering.

You glanced to your son once more before turning to greet the customer.

It was a tall figure with broad shoulders and a hood over his head. Something underneath his cloak moved and out poked Gunnar’s head.

“Gunnar!” Cas squealed in delight, running towards you.

The man put Gunnar down and the pup ran to meet Cas.

“I was just about to go searching for him.” You smiled at the stranger, taking little note of his vibrant golden eyes with catlike pupils.

“I found him clear on the other side of town.” His voice was deep but quiet. He gave a tight smile before turning to leave.

“Have you got a hunt to tend to at the moment, Master Witcher?” You asked, messing nervously with your hands. You hoped you weren’t crossing any boundaries by asking this.

“Not with the storm outside.”

“Would you want to stay for dinner? As a thank you for bringing my son’s dog back?”

The man hesitated to answer.

“I don’t want to impose.”

“It wouldn’t be imposing if I invited you.” You smiled just a little. “The rain seems to be coming down awfully heavy out there. And we’d like the company, wouldn’t we, Cas?”

Cas held Gunnar in his lap but was watching the witcher curiously.

“Yeah.” He answered quietly, a shy smile tugging at his lips.

“Your manners, son.” You lightly chided. The witcher turned back to you.

“Yes.” Your son repeated, this time lifting his head a bit.

“You don’t have to do this, m’lady.” The witcher insisted, his voice quiet and a bit on edge.

You could see with the way the poor lighting caught his face that there was something…. unnatural about his features.

“If you feel uncomfortable with the matter, my apologies.” You murmured softly, smiling. “I just wanted to thank you for your kindness. Not many people would bring the dog back, especially not in such weather.”

The man said nothing.

“Please stay, s-sir.” Cas spoke from behind you, his voice timid. “You brought-brought Gunnar back h-home. Let-Let us thank you.”

The witcher looked past you to your son briefly, before nodding his head.

“I am Y/N. This is my son Casimir.”

“Eskel.”

***

You took Eskel upstairs to your home located above the bookstore.

As you prepared dinner, you made conversation with the witcher. He was very polite and well-spoken, though he remained silent unless you asked him a question.

Your son sat by the hearth, watching Gunnar as he ate his dinner. You happened to be looking at your son when he looked into the kitchen. His eyes were focused on Eskel.

The witcher’s eyes flickered over to Cas, shifting ever so slightly in his seat. Was your son making him uncomfortable?

You moved around the table to place a mug of tea in front of the witcher. Golden eyes found you once more, taking in your every move. He turned his head just slightly away from you as if he was trying to keep his right side from you. But you had already seen the scars, the mangled lines that pulled at his face.

“You’ll have to forgive Casimir.” You lowered your voice so that only Eskel could hear you. “He’s young and just a curious boy. He means no harm, I promise you.”

Eskel’s brows furrowed together just slightly. Had he given you the illusion that something was wrong?

“Cas?” You looked up, smiling as your eyes landed on your boy. He perked up and raised his head. “Is everything alright, love?”

“Yes…. Can I get the book about daddy?”

“Of course, love.”

Cas shot up to his feet and ran to his room. Without finishing all of his food, Gunnar followed the boy.

“Your boy did nothing wrong.” Eskel spoke as you moved away from him. His eyes followed you. “There’s no need for any apologies.”

“But I know how cruel children can be, Master Eskel.” You focused on the pot of soup over the fire, stirring the contents steadily. “They are mean and cold because they are raised to be that way by their parents. They see it in the ones they look up to. They see fathers calling women in the streets filthy slurs and mothers degrading anyone who looks different from them or from their idea of what is normal and what is right….”

You trailed off, only realizing with the silence that followed that you had started to ramble.

You turned your head to Eskel, completely embarrassed that you had let yourself start down that path.

“I’m so sorry, Master Eskel. I didn’t mean to lecture you on my views of society.”

“Don’t apologize.” He shook his head, holding a hand up just slightly. A little smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “What you said is true. Children learn from their parents.”

You nodded, turning to check the bread in the oven.

“Momma, here!” Cas ran into the kitchen. He held a thin book high above his head. Gunnar was on his heels, happily wagging his tail.

“Set the book down on the table, Cas.”

Cas chose to stand at the table directly to Eskel’s right. He placed the book down on the wood and opened it up.

“Tell Master Eskel what the book is about, Casimir.” You took the bread out of the stone oven and placed it on the counter top.

Cas turned his head to look at Eskel but only for a split second. He didn’t want to stare for too long. Staring was rude and Casimir was better than that.

“It’s about the tales of a witcher!”

Eskel read some of the words over Cas’s shoulder, but the six year old seemed to just want to flip through the book.

“Momma?”

“Yes, my love?”

“May I ask Master Eskel a question?”

“He’s right beside you, Casimir. Go right ahead.” You paused what you were doing, placing one hand on your hip as you watched your son.

“Master Eskel?” Cas closed his book and rubbed his fingers over the wording on the front cover.

“Yes?” Eskel looked down at him.

“How many witchers do you know?”

“I suppose a handful. There aren’t too many of us left.”

Cas nodded his head. A furrow formed between his brows. You could tell he was deep in thought.

“Casimir? What else would you like to ask Master Eskel?” You moved towards the table, kneeling down so that you were at your son’s level.

“Do you think he knows the one who knew daddy? The one who gave me this?” Cas tapped on the book.

“Oh, love.” You gave him a sad little smile, brushing your fingers over his hair. “The one who gave you that wasn’t a witcher. It was a man who travels with a witcher. A Witcher’s barker or bard. I don’t think Master Eskel knows him. That happened so far away.”

Cas nodded understandingly.

“May I ask who it was?” Eskel asked almost hesitantly.

Your eyes met his. You weren’t sure if you wanted to keep talking about the matter knowing that it would upset Cas, but Eskel was just curious.

“It happened when we lived in Cintra years ago. The witcher’s name was Geralt.” You explained.

“And we had to move far, far away from home.” Cas nodded his head, taking a deep breath. His voice was sad and made your heart break. “Now we live here.”

“This is home.” You leaned forward to kiss his head.

“I’m going to put my book back.”

You watched him leave the kitchen.

“I do know that witcher.” Eskel spoke. He didn’t want to say anything loud enough for Casimir to hear him. He wasn’t sure if you wanted your son to hear what he was saying. “He’s my brother.”

You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came out at first. You weren’t sure what to say. You were surprised. What was the chance that this witcher sitting here at the table knew your dear friend Geralt?

You pulled out the chair directly across from him and sat down. Your eyes fell to the wedding band on your left hand.

“Geralt was great friends with my husband. Geralt saved him on more than one occasion.” A fond smile came to your lips at the memories. “My husband, rest his soul, could never stay out of trouble in his youth.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Your eyes flickered up to Eskel, offering him a smile.

“Do you know Geralt’s bard, Jaskier? He wrote stories of Geralt and my husband’s journeys together for our son and had a book created so that Cas would have a book to always remember him by. He clings to it.”

“That was very thoughtful of Jaskier.”

“It was. Brought me to tears for nearly a month afterwards.”

Eskel watched as you tapped your fingers absentmindedly against the table. Your eyes were stuck on the hallway but you weren’t watching the hallway. Your mind was elsewhere. You were absent. He knew that look. The look of someone who had lost someone, a part of them.

Silently, the witcher wondered how long ago your husband had passed. Time never made things better, but it did help to numb the ache of a loss. He had plenty of experience with time and with loss.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen Geralt?”

You blinked and straightened your posture, no longer lost in your mind. The sound of Cas coming back to the kitchen made you remember what was happening, where you were, and what you were supposed to be doing.

You stood to your feet and began to finish the last bits of dinner.

“Um, oh…. I’m not sure…. He, um, I think he came to visit just after….” You trailed off, looking at your son then at Eskel. “Just after it happened.”

Eskel nodded understandingly.

Casimir returned to his seat directly next to Eskel.

“Alright, gentleman. Thank you for your patience tonight.” You placed two bowls down in front of them then turned to get yours.

“Thank you for joining us, Master Eskel.” Cas picked up his spoon and began to eat.

“Thank you for having me.” Eskel smiled, golden eyes flickering over to you.

You met his gaze. Your eyes lingered on him for a few heartbeats before finding your soup.

Taglist: @pressedinthepages @mishafaye @whitewolfandthefox @wolfyland07 @belalugosisdead @persephonehemingway @keira-hulmaster @dinonuggs69 @greatestauthorofmygeneration @shadow-hunters-lover @dancingwith-thesunflowers @tedi-fach-las @thecomfortofoldstorries @natkowaa @weathervanes-my-oneandlonely @onlyhenrys @wackylurker @criminaly-supernatural @magpie343 @permanently-exhausted-witcher @genderfluid-ho @the-space-between-heartbeats @havenoffandoms @carriebee1 @ger-bearofrivia @naominami @writingawaymylife @reaganjenelle @theawkwardpedestrian @scarlettwitcher @badassspaceprincess @just-a-sad-donut @summersong69 @an--actual--human--disaster @rubyqueen819 @omgkatinka @vonxcon @mazakeen @bravelittlesunflower @thereagles @Awkward-Turtles-World @menalliha @cotton_mo @maan24 @thefirelordm @monkeymo @krenee1drful @nympha-door-a @unadulteratedtreecrusade @Aquarius-pisces-rose @mentallyscreamingsincebirth @fl0ating @sometimesiwrite @you-fxcking-wish-bish @thanks-bruh-for-nothing @maan2442 @thegaydeath @creatingstuffinpeace @wellthisstinks @andyrazzledazzle @ameliasmistake @winterwolf @caraqas @bluscryn @thefirelordm @y-napotat @henrycavillbesty @ta-ka-shi-ma @sulkyshengshou @spaced-out-state @thecollection @mayday1284 @babietrain @wandering-poetess @redneckstrash

If your name is in italics, it wouldn't let me tag you :(

[theleakypen]

For the H/C prompt: Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, any order, Gotta Stay Quiet To Avoid Discovery (add in Loopy/Forgetful/Over-Affectionate On Pain Meds if you want)

(Thank you so much for this prompt, friend! This did not go at all where I was expecting, but I hope it fulfills your wishes anyway!)

“Ah!” Wei Wuxian yelps as Jiang Cheng starts applying ointment to his burns. “It hurts, Jiang Cheng, it really hurts.” 

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Jiang Cheng hisses, not ceasing his activity. “Maybe next time you won’t jump in front of a fire-breathing yao, you absolute cretin.”

Wei Wuxian hisses in a sharp breath as Jiang Cheng’s fingers hit a particularly tender spot. Jiang Cheng continues his tirade. “‘Oh, don’t worry, Sizhui, it didn’t even touch me. How about you, a-Ling?’” he mimics mercilessly. He gestures broadly at Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and chest, now covered in burns. Wei Wuxian spares a moment to be impressed at how well Jiang Cheng gives off the impression of shouting even when he’s speaking barely above a whisper. “Didn’t even touch you? What do you call this?”

“It’s nothing to write home about,” Wei Wuxian protests, wincing between words. They’re both keeping their voices low, mindful of the teenagers sleeping in the adjacent tent. “A-Yuan has this terrible habit of telling Hanguang-jun when I’ve been injured. Really, I didn’t raise him to be such a snitch; that was all Lan Zhan.”

“Maybe because he has absolutely no reason to trust you not to lie about your health?” Jiang Cheng demands. He finishes applying the ointment and takes out a roll of bandages. “I don’t know why I’m even helping you keep this a secret.”

“Because you, like me, want to avoid the wrath of Hanguang-ju—ah!” Wei Wuxian begins cheerfully only to be cut off with a yelp as Jiang Cheng tightens the bandage around his shoulder.

“I’m not fucking scared of Lan Wangji,” he growls. “And keep your voice down—a-Ling is sleeping.”

“Who said anything about being scared?” Wei Wuxian replies in a murmur. “It’s just such a hassle when Lan Zhan gets protective—you don’t want to deal with it any more than I do.”

“Damn right I don’t,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “I can protect you just fine without his interference. Here, done.” He ties off the bandages and sits back on his heels to look over his handiwork.

“You can protect—” Wei Wuxian sputters with indignation. “I don’t need your protection. What the hell, Jiang Cheng?”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t dignify that with a response, just raises his eyebrows meaningfully at the fresh bandages.

“Ah, that doesn’t count, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian replies in the wheedling tone of voice Jiang Cheng remembers from their youth. “Besides, better me than a-Ling, no?” Jiang Cheng punches him in the uninjured right shoulder. “Ouch!”

“That! That right there is why you can’t be trusted!” Jiang Cheng whisper-shouts, his entire face contorted with rage. “Wei Wuxian, don’t you— don’t you dare say things like that.”

Wei Wuxian’s face goes blank with surprise. His mouth moves, but he doesn’t reply. Jiang Cheng is too angry to find satisfaction in rendering Wei Wuxian speechless for once. He wants to grab Wei Wuxian by the shoulders and shake him, but that would mean undoing the good work Jiang Cheng just did bandaging him up.

Instead, he sits forward on his knees to get right up in Wei Wuxian's personal space again. "You need to get it through your thick skull that you're not"—he grinds out the words through a throat suddenly gone thick with emotion, less than a handspan away from Wei Wuxian's nose—"fucking replaceable."

Wei Wuxian knows his eyes must be huge in his face; he has stopped breathing in the face of Jiang Cheng's fury. This is… this is not his usual anger, which Wei Wuxian would know how to deal with. This is different and new. "Jiang Cheng, I—" he has no idea how to continue, which is fine, because Jiang Cheng rolls right over anything he might have been about to say.

"No, you listen to me, Wei Wuxian," he snarls. "All our lives, you've been trying to be a martyr. Well, I won't have it! You have this precious second chance at a life and if you're going to fucking throw it away again for anybody else, I'll kill you myself."

"Jiujiu?" 

For a moment, they sit there in tableau: Jiang Cheng breathing heavily from his outburst, Wei Wuxian frozen before him. 

Then Jiang Cheng turns around and sticks his head out of the tent. "What's going on, a-Ling? Why aren't you asleep?"

"I thought you were keeping watch," Jin Ling says, instead of answering. His hair is down, but otherwise he's fully dressed, Suihua held loosely in his hand. 

"I was. I am." Jiang Cheng sticks his head back in the tent to cast another furious glance at the still silent Wei Wuxian, then steps awkwardly out of the tent. "Just needed to have a word with your shishu. We didn't wake you up, did we?"

"No, I—" Jin Ling looks away. "I couldn't sleep," he mutters.

"Sit with me, then," Jiang Cheng says. He takes a stick and pokes at the fire, building it up again. Jin Ling sighs gratefully and sits down next to him. 

Wei Wuxian stares at the flap covering the tent opening for a long time after Jiang Cheng has left. He can hear Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng talking quietly outside. Jiang Cheng's words echo in his head, you're not fucking replaceable, bouncing around and not making any sense. 

"Come on a night hunt with us," Jin Ling had said. "It'll be fun," he had said. "You and jiujiu need to talk," he had said. Well, they'd talked, all right, or Jiang Cheng had, at any rate. 

Wei Wuxian carefully makes his way onto his pallet, moving gingerly so as not to aggravate his burns or dislodge his bandages. He breathes deeply and slowly and eventually falls asleep.

The next day, Jiang Cheng helps him dress, holding the sleeve of every successive layer of robes for Wei Wuxian to slide his injured arm into. "I'm sorry," Wei Wuxian says softly, looking at the cow print fabric of his outer robe instead of at Jiang Cheng's face. "What you said last night… you're right. I was reckless."

Jiang Cheng steps back to let Wei Wuxian finish dressing himself. "Your life doesn't matter any less than anyone else's," he says, equally quiet. He turns away to start rolling up bedding, hiding his face in the task. "You know that, right?"

Wei Wuxian can't help the sudden sob, though he tries to gulp it down. Jiang Cheng turns back around at the sound, face going pained and open at Wei Wuxian's tears. The next thing Wei Wuxian knows, he's enfolded in his brother's arms. The embrace is loose, Jiang Cheng minding his injured side, but Wei Wuxian feels Jiang Cheng's chin come to rest on his uninjured shoulder, and the warmth of Jiang Cheng's hands on his back. Wei Wuxian tips his head forward to rest on Jiang Cheng's shoulder and lets himself take advantage of this unexpected grace, lets himself weep, hiccuping like a child.

"I'm only going to say this once," Jiang Cheng says gruffly; his voice sounds especially loud in Wei Wuxian’s right ear. "So don't forget it. You matter to me, Wei Wuxian. Stay alive."

[veliseraptor]

Hey I was watching Thor 1 again last night and when I got to the part where Odin found Loki for the first time on Jotunheim I just thought of you since the canon we got was so short I was like, “you know what, I think Lise could actually describe this in a more detailed description,” so I was wondering if you could maybe give us a short baby! Loki and Odin headcanon where Odin found him as a frost giant baby in that temple, decided to take him in and how Frigga reacted when she first met Loki?

Foundling, 3.1k, odin pov, pre-canon, content warning for infant death, not sure if this is my definitive headcanon or not but it was fun to write, thanks to this fic for breaking up at least a little of the writing block I’ve been fighting for the last month, this is almost completely unedited just throwing it out there

The Jotun babe stopped crying almost immediately when Odin lifted him. He blinked, wide eyed, and went quiet. Blue skin changed to Aesir pink, and Odin almost dropped him.

He did not, and several things occurred to him at once.

Firstly, Odin did not know why Laufey would have abandoned his own son to die, but in doing so he had handed Odin an heir to Jotunheim.

Secondly, he was an heir who was a natural shapeshifter and, unless Odin was greatly mistaken, had the makings of a mage as well.

Thirdly, Odin had received word not two weeks past that Frigga had lost the baby she had been carrying and was suffering under the weight of her grief. Their unnamed child could not be replaced, but perhaps...

Fourthly, left alone, this babe would die, either of exposure - so young, he was not made to endure the cold of his native land for too long - or of hunger, or even at the hand of one of Odin’s own soldiers who would not care for his youth, only his blood.

And finally: Odin was, after this long and grueling war, very tired of death.

The decision was made.

“There you have it,” Odin murmured to the baby in his arms. “You are returning home with me.”

The baby closed his eyes and went to sleep. His empty eye socket throbbed, but a small smile tugged at the corner of Odin’s mouth.

It was possible, he considered ruefully, that he had made his decision the moment he’d lifted a crying baby from the ice, and worked backwards from there. But he could live with that.

**

Odin wrestled for a while over how to bring the babe back to Asgard unnoticed. There was no question that it needed to be unnoticed. Asking his people to accept their king adopting a Jotun child before a formal peace was even made would be too much.

In the end, he swaddled the babe (Loki, he already had a name unspoken in Odin’s mind) in some scraps of a banner, tucked him in a knapsack, and called the Bifrost to bring them home. The young watchman’s eyebrows twitched slightly as he watched Odin pass, but he said nothing. Good lad, Odin thought, and made a note to ensure that he was clear on the need to say nothing in the future, either.

It wasn’t until he had reached the palace and was standing outside the door to the room where Frigga was lying in that it occurred to him that Frigga might not accept a new baby so readily, even - or perhaps especially - after losing her own. What would he do if she rejected him? There were too few he could trust to care for a Jotun baby, and it was imperative for his future plans that he be kept close by.

Odin grimaced. He would just have to find some way to convince her. This would only work with her assent.

He tapped lightly on the door and waited until it opened. It was the new chief healer, who looked awfully young in comparison with Gudrun her predecessor, but by all accounts she was capable. Eir, he thought he remembered.

She seemed surprised to see him. “All-Father,” she said. “I did not hear word of your return. Your eye-”

“I have not returned, officially,” Odin said. “I wished to see Frigga with some privacy, first.” He paused, then lowered his voice and asked, “how is she?”

Eir pressed her lips together, then said, “physically, she is recovering well. But her heart is sore grieved.”

“And Thor?”

“Is well,” Eir said. “With his nurses, since Frigga took to her bed. She has been...reluctant to see him.”

That did not seem to bode well. Odin hesitated, wondering if there was some way of waiting to introduce the baby until Frigga was better.

With a truly spectacular sense of timing, Loki let out a gurgle and began to cry.

Eir’s eyes widened, going to the knapsack he was carefully cradling, and Odin cursed, shoving past her and into the room, pulling her in before closing the door firmly.

“What,” Eir began.

“You must say nothing of what you see here,” Odin interrupted. “Swear secrecy to me.”

“I swear,” she said immediately, without hesitation. Odin did not relax, waiting, and she added, “on the World Tree itself. Is there a baby in your bag, All-Father?”

Odin saw the knob on the inner door turn and could have cursed again. It opened and Frigga stood there in her dressing-gown, pale with dark-circles around her eyes, their usual brightness dulled. “Eir, I thought I heard…”

She trailed off, looking at him. He could see her taking in his eye, still swathed only in a field dressing, and then the knapsack cradled in his arms

“My husband,” she said, and did not sound entirely pleased. Odin glanced at Eir, who looked back at him with an expression of helpless confusion. Loki was still crying.

Odin set the bag down and drew out Loki, who, apparently now awake and indignant at having been transported thus, howled his displeasure. Eir gasped, and Frigga took a step back, her eyes widening as though he held a serpent.

“I found him abandoned on Jotunheim,” Odin said, before either of them could speak. “He would have died if I left him there.”

“So you…” Frigga trailed off, her eyes still fixed on the crying baby.

“Why was he there to begin with?” Eir asked. “An Aesir baby on Jotunheim-”

“He isn’t,” Odin said, trying to rock Loki as he’d rocked Thor, to soothe him. When both women looked at him, frowning, he said, “he isn’t Aesir. He is a shapeshifter. And Laufey’s son.”

Frigga continued to stare, though her blankness was rapidly turning toward something else. Toward anger. “And you want us - want me - to raise him as ours?”

“There is no one else,” Odin said, deciding that mention of his more political thoughts could wait until later.

“Our daughter is scarcely buried,” Frigga hissed, tears springing to her eyes, and green fire twisted around her clenched fists. “Did you know she was a daughter? She will never even receive her name. And you bring this, this foundling to me, as though she was a bauble to be replaced-”

“No,” Odin said. “I didn’t think-”

“Frigga turned her head away. “I hear her,” she said. “I hear her crying when I am half-asleep, somewhere close by. That is what I thought I heard when you came in.”

Odin cringed. “My love-”

“No,” she said. “No. Do not try to-” She took in a gulping breath, and turned on her heel, fleeing back into the room she had just emerged from and slamming the door. And Loki was still crying.

“Let me take him,” Eir said after a few moments of silence. Odin handed him wordlessly over and in her hands he settled, though not entirely. He still seemed agitated, anxious - or perhaps it was just Odin who was agitated and anxious.

“You will need that eye seen to,” Eir said, when he said nothing. “I will look after the babe-”

“Loki,” Odin said automatically, and did not react to Eir’s glance in his direction.

“After Loki,” she said smoothly. “For now.”

Odin sighed. “Thank you,” he said. It was not a permanent solution. Not even close. But until he could work out something more permanent...it was what he had.

**

He let the healers tend to his eye, covering it with a modest black patch for now, though he would have to have something more grand made to match his armor. He washed, changed his clothes, and went to find his son.

Thor seemed bigger than when Odin had last seen him even a few months before. He was on his feet and toddling toward Odin the moment he saw him with an enthusiastic “Pabbi!” and Odin knelt to lift him up into his arms.

“Have you been good to your nurses, my boy?” he asked.

“I have!” Thor said, and then reached out toward Odin’s face. “What happened to your eye? Did you hurt it?”

“Yes,” Odin said. “I’m afraid so.” Thor frowned, and Odin added, “A Frost Giant took it.” Thor’s eyes went wide, and Odin added, “he can have it! I only need one, anyway.”

Thor didn’t look wholly mollified, but his attention moved on quickly. “Can I see Amma now? And my baby brother?”

So he hadn’t been told, Odin thought unhappily. “Thor,” he began, and then stopped. If Frigga changed her mind - and she still might, he told himself insistently, she still might - Thor needed to believe that Loki was his natural born brother. A child his age would not be able to keep such a secret - and might be less likely to accept him knowing the truth. “Not yet,” he said. “Soon.”

Thor sulked, but not seriously, and not for long. He was young, and resilient, and his exuberance did Odin’s heart good. This war had brought back too many memories, none of them fond.

Thor tugged on his arm. “Did we win?” he asked, bright blue eyes wide. “Did we beat the Frost Giants?”

“Yes,” Odin said. “The fighting’s over. I’m home for good, now.”

Thor beamed. “Did you kill all of them?” he asked brightly, and Odin stopped dead for a moment. His thoughts flashed to the baby and he cleared his throat.

“No,” he said. “That wasn’t what we were trying to do. We just wanted them to go back to their Realm and stop attacking Midgard. And we did that. They’ve learned their lesson, and won’t do it again.”

Thor seemed a bit disappointed. “Oh,” he said. “All right.”

“Tell me what you’ve been up to,” Odin said as he set Thor down, eager to change the subject. “I’ve missed you, my boy.”

As Thor began to chatter, Odin imagined leaving Thor out in the cold, exposed to the elements, and felt a flash of anger. Laufey was a father undeserving of his son. Loki would be better off in Asgard.

**

When Thor began to flag, Odin turned him over to his nurse and went to find Eir. She had deposited Loki in a cradle in one of the birthing rooms, where he appeared to be asleep.

“How is he,” Odin asked, keeping his voice low.

“To all intents and purposes he appears to be Aesir, albeit with a temperature lower than normal for us,” she said. “But he won’t take formula, and I can’t exactly request a wet-nurse without raising questions.” She paused. “He is weak, and getting weaker.”

Odin blinked. “He seemed fine.”

“It may be the exposure catching up with him,” Eir said, “or the shock of a journey between worlds. Or simply hunger; we have no way of knowing how long he had been left there.” Odin moved over to the cradle and frowned down at him.

“What can be done?”

Eir shrugged. “I know nothing about Jotun infants, and however he appears, I fear that treating him like an Aesir baby might do more harm than good. I would say the most pressing issue right now is nutrition. We could force him to take it, but that has its own risks, and if he is refusing it might be for a reason.”

Odin rubbed his eyepatch where the socket was beginning to ache. “Could you try ordinary breastmilk? Make some excuse…”

Eir pressed her lips together and said, “I’ll see what I can do.” She went out, leaving Odin alone with Loki. After a moment, Odin picked him up, frowning down at him. He stirred with a small, sleepy noise.

“What’s to be done with you,” Odin asked him. “What do you need of us?”

Loki, naturally, didn’t reply. He really did look just like any Aesir baby. If Odin had to give him up to some other family...perhaps he wouldn’t have to tell them anything. Could simply claim that he was a war orphan, and…

No. The entire point of taking the baby in was to provide for a future in which Asgard and Jotunheim need not be at war. That wouldn’t work if he gave him over to be raised as an ordinary, anonymous Asgardian. And besides, Odin did not really want to give him up. He had brought Loki home; that made him Odin’s responsibility.

Of course, none of this would be relevant if he didn’t survive.

He sighed out and set Loki carefully back down. There wasn’t much he could do here. For now, he would just have to trust Eir to manage what could be managed. He set a light spell before leaving, though, that would alert him if anything changed. Just in case.

**

Odin went back to speak to Frigga, apprehension bubbling in his gut. He knocked softly on her door and waited for her to come and open it. His queen looked far from her usually composed self, and her expression was cool.

“Frigga,” he said. “I must apologize. I was tactless-”

“Is that what you would call it?”

Odin managed to contain his wince. “I didn’t think.”

“That much was obvious.” Frigga moved away from him, her usual grace diminished. “Our daughter is dead, and your first thought is to offer me another’s son?”

Odin faltered. “That wasn’t…” He’d thought it, though, hadn’t he? ‘Tactless’ was the kindest word he could have used. “I am sorry.” Norns, but he hated saying that. Especially when he knew he needed to.

Frigga regarded him. “Do you grieve for her at all?” she asked.

Odin bowed his head. “Of course I do,” he said. “I grieve for a daughter I will never know. But-”

“But,” Frigga hissed. “You grieve, but. I carried her. She lived with me, and I with her, for most of a year. And before she took her first breath, she was gone. And now - and now-” Her voice broke and she took an unsteady breath. Odin reached out and she pulled away. “You do not understand. You cannot. And you were not here.”

“I would have been,” Odin said. “If I could have-”

“But you could not,” Frigga said, “because you were busy fighting for another Realm and plucking strange babies from the ice.”

“That is unfair,” Odin objected.

“Is it? What of it is untrue?” She turned away from him, her hands twisting together.

“My love, I am only asking you to consider - this is a baby. Alone, and abandoned, and helpless. He needs a family. A mother.”

“And that must be me?”

“I…”

“Go,” Frigga said, gesturing toward the door. “Get out. If you will not respect my grief, then leave me to it.”

“Frigga.”

“Go.”

Odin knew when it was not wise to disobey. He left, though he stood outside the door a moment, hearing her start to cry, and wondered if he shouldn’t go back in. In the end, he decided against it, and retreated into the easier world of governance.

**

Odin fell asleep in his office and woke to the soft chime of the spell he’d set on Loki’s cradle. He sat up, groaned at his protesting back muscles (Norns, when had he gotten old) and hurried toward the room where Odin had left him sleeping. Already preparing himself for the worst. Telling himself that if Loki died - well, better here than abandoned on the ice, surely.

He took a breath before letting himself in. He expected Eir to be there, but she was not.

“Frigga,” he said.

“I sent Eir away,” she said, her back to him where she stood in front of the cradle. “I did notice your spell. Keeping an eye on your investment?”

Odin grimaced. “I wanted to know if anything changed.”

“Changed,” Frigga said. “Do you mean, if he died? Eir said he was weak.” While Odin was still figuring out how to answer, she turned, and Odin realized that she was holding him. Holding Loki, her expression difficult to read. “I wanted to see him. This baby you plucked from another Realm and brought into our house.”

“And?” Odin said cautiously.

“He is what I might have expected: small, and helpless, and innocent of all that you or I would place on him.”

“That is so,” Odin said carefully.

Frigga looked down at Loki in her arms, her expression solemn. “You said he was left there,” she said. “Just...left.”

“Yes,” Odin said. “Abandoned. Because of his size, I imagine. It is also possible he is half-blooded on his mother’s side, whoever she was. Vanir, perhaps.”

“Who would just throw away a baby to die,” Frigga murmured, eyebrows knitting together.

“I cannot explain it,” Odin said.

Frigga swayed back and forth. “There is no one else, is there,” she said. “He has no one else.”

“No,” Odin said. “He hasn’t.”

Frigga sighed, something aching in her expression. At long last, she sighed. “You would claim, then, that I didn’t - lose the baby after all,” she said, sounding nothing so much as resigned. “That it was a rumor, and a difficult birth, but the child survived. You would use our tragedy to mask your lie.”

Odin winced. “They will not accept him with the truth,” he said. “The outcry...frost giants are not well thought of, here. Especially not now. He would be hated just for being what he is, even if he doesn’t look it.”

“I understand,” Frigga said. “It is convenient timing, I suppose.” The bitterness in her voice was thick enough to cut.

“My love…”

“I know.” Frigga sighed and stopped swaying, shifting her hold on Loki. “Fine. I’ll do it. But not for you, husband. For him. An unintended casualty of this war. And I will try to love him for what he is, and not hate him for what he is not.”

Odin bowed his head. “Thank you.”

“And will you?” Frigga asked. Odin looked up, and she said, “love him for what he is? I know you, my husband. You do nothing for only sentimental reasons.”

“Not only,” Odin said after a brief pause, “but partially.”

“And for the rest? No, I can guess.” Frigga was still looking down at Loki, brushing a finger against his cheek. “A father is not the same thing as a tactician, Odin. You should remember that.”

Odin frowned at what felt like a rebuke, but said only, “I understand.”

Loki roused with a faint and fragile cry. Frigga turned away from Odin, though he saw her face soften. “He hasn’t eaten,” Odin volunteered. “Not since I brought him back.”

Frigga sighed. “Well,” she said, “let’s start with that. Has he a name?”

“Loki,” Odin said.

Frigga made a bit of a ‘hm’ sound. “Loki,” she repeated. “It’ll do.”

[godsporncollection]

Sunday GC Sessions Summary

(long version) (personal commentary in parenthesis)

M Russell Ballard

List of how the second coming is described followed by a huge list of the very obvious things wrong with the world right now. 

We pray for you. 

Remember to pray. Pray lots, and for lots of people, because the leaders of the world need divine inspiration. 

Quotes the lord's prayer. 

Pray for everyone, even people you don't like. 

(Do deaf people sign their prayers, when praying alone? What about when they pray in small, maybe family, groups?) 

Prayer will help us by making feel better. 

Pray everywhere you go. 

Personal story of being in pain from a surgery on the hand; prayer helped the pain.

Lisa L Harkness

Story of a child jumping into a lake and feeling she needed help, even though she was safe. Sometimes we do this too, because we can't see that we are safe with god. 

Biblical story of JC falling asleep in the boat that entered a storm and the disciples got scared and asked him to save them. 

Recent events can leave us feeling lost and afraid, but we should have faith in god.

Ulisses Soares

Seek JC in every thought and follow him with all our heart. 

Metaphor of magnet + metal object. Magnetic force holds objects tightly, but looses that power when the object is far away. 

Temptation will fade when we continue to resist it. 

JC told JS when in prison "let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men and women, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughths unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of god. The holy ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth." 

If you fall into temptation, there is hope. 

Story of friend who fell into temptation. He was sad. 

Prodigal son story.

Carlos A Godoy

I believe in angels. They're important. Some are here on earth. I'm gonna talk about those. 

I converted at 16, after two angels (sister missionaries) introduced me to the gospel at a church activity. 

I met another angel at youth conference. Her squad became my squad. 

Then I met two other angels; my seminary teacher and young men president. 

"Thanks to all these angels and many others I encountered during those important early years, I received enough srength to remain on the covenant path as I gained a spiritual witness of the truth." 

"Please, please do not give up on your efforts to be part of this big family. It is the true church of JC. When it comes to your happiness and salvation, it is always worth the effort to keep trying. It is worth the effort to adjust your lifestyle and traditions. The lord is aware of the challenges you face. He knows you, he loves you, and I promise he will send angels to help you."

Neil L Andersen

Jc's resume. 

"A recent study revealed that in the last 10 years, 30 million people in the US have stepped away from believing in the divinity of JC. Looking worldwide, another study predicts that in the decades ahead, more than twice as many will leave christianity than those who will embrace it." 

Use the correct name of the church and talk about JC more. We have to talk more about JC because the world is talking about him less.

Russell M Nelson

'Israel' means 'let god prevail'. 

Israel's descendants stoned the prophets. (...) 

My grandkid's wife was sad that her father was dying, but I told her she was being near-sighted. She felt better after looking at the big picture of god's plan. 

I greive for black people. 

(I can't listen to any more of this asshole, sorry.)

AFTERNOON SESSION 

Henry B Eyring

"My hope is to give encouragement when life seems especially difficult and uncertain. For some of you, that time is now. If not, such a time will come." 

Personal story of pulling weeds as a child and the frustration of the weeds breaking instead of coming out. Mother said "oh, Hal, of course it's hard; it's supposed to be. Life is a test." 

Story of us choosing to come to earth and satan disagreeing and getting followers. "Now, he tries to cause as many as he can to turn away from god during this mortal life." In the spirit world, we must have decided that whatever hardships we were going to face, "the forces of good would be overwhelmingly greater." 

Two quotes that say that god will be with us, and will help us, even in our darkest hours. 

God occasionally shows me the next couple of steps, but never a glimpse of the far future. 

Also, we need to help others. 

Another story of mother, who "all her life, she felt effects of the trials of illness. In her last 10 years of life, she required multiple operations. But through all, she proved faithful to the lord." "The last speaker [at her funeral] was elder Spencer W Kimball. After saying something of her trials and her faithfulness, he said essentially this: 'some of you may wonder why Mildred had to suffer so much and so long. I will tell you why. It was because the lord wanted to polish her a little more."

Jeremy R Jaggi

My youngest brother died two years ago. "We found comfort in the words of elder Neil L Anderson in general conference the week before Chad died: 'In the crucible of earthly trials, patiently move forward, and the savior's healing power will bring you light, understanding, peace, and hope.'" We'll be with him again, but losing him hurt. 

James 1:2. 

We thought 2020 would be all joy. Shit happened, but we're determined to see joy in this year anyway. 

Chapter 6 of 'Preach My Gospel'. 

"Blessed are the meek (etc)". 

Many unsourced quotes saying that the more you seek/follow/believe in JC, the happier you will be. 

Daughter, Emma, is a missionary. "[Emma] asked us to connect [online] with friends she was teaching [in the Netherlands]... We invited them to join our weekly online... study... All have become our friends." They've all converted. 

Nelson recently said "Voluntary fast offerings from our members have increased, as well as voluntary contributions to our humanitarian funds." 

"My brother Chad's passing came just a few months after our release from presiding over the Utah Ogden mission... Of all the 417 missions we could have been assigned to, we were assigned to... a 30-minute drive to Chad's home. Chad's cancer was diagnosed after we received our mission assignment. Even in the most trying circumstance, we knew that our heavenly father was mindful of us."

Gary E Stevenson

I was serving a mission in Japan. Kimball was speaking in Tokyo. I wanted to go. It was a long commute, so the mission president said no, but the rest of the branch went, so we were alone. Kimball announced a temple in Tokyo. I was disappointed to miss it. 

This is like the even deeper disappointment people today experience due to covid. 

How do we move forward? Consider the first verse of the BoM. 

Wife and I met online with many missionaries who still managed to do lots of ministering, despite covid restrictions. 

Think of "JS, languishing in Liberty Jail, feeling abandoned and forsaken, then hearing the words of the lord: 'these things shall be for thy good' and 'god shall be with you forever.'" 

"We, too, can draw parallels, as individual members and as a church, in the way in which we have been highly favored of the lord during the challenging times we have encountered during the past several months." 

"Let [these examples] strengthen your testimony of the seership of our living prophet, who prepared us with adjustments before any hint of a pandemic, enabling us to endure the challenges that have come." 

List of ways that we have been told to prepare. 

Story of a young woman who was just barely able to go to the temple right before leaving for her mission.

Milton Da Rocha Camargo

Gave his entire backstory before getting around to the topic: prayer. 

"An important part of heavenly father's plan is the opportunity to communicate with him anytime we want." 

"Every one that asketh, receiveth (etc)." 

"Recording our impressions is an important part of receiving. It helps us recall, review, and re-feel what the lord is teaching us." 

I like it when I have strong feelings after praying, but, more often, we're likely to hear the "still, small voice of the lord whispering to our mind and heart, 'I am here. I love you.'" 

"Revelation often comes when we are in the act of doing good."

Dale G Renlund

Can I be a better person? 

And "how can I, as a flawed person, qualify to 'dwell with god in a state of never-ending happiness'?" 

"Good deeds are not sufficient. Salvation is not earned... Left to our own devices, the prospect of returning to live in god's presence is hopeless. Without the blessings that come from heavenly father and JC, we can never do enough or be enough by ourselves... Because of and through JC, we can become enough." 

"We can be redeemed and stand clean and pure before god" by the ordinances of the gospel. 

"Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy god." 

*Jewish appropriation* 

Story of someone who had to remind someone "Dr. Jones, you became a physician to care for people and work to heal them. You didn't become a physician to judge them [on a self-infilcted wound]. If you don't understand the difference, you have no right to train at [Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD]." 

Don't think you're above others. 

"To be christlike, a person loves mercy... gracious, kind and honorable. These individuals treat everyone with love and understanding, regardless of characteristics such as race, gender, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and tribal, clan, or national differences."

Kelly R Johnson

Story of daughter who set the microwave to cook [instead of timer] for 30 min. It caught on fire. This is because microwaves need something in them to absorb the energy. 

"Our entire microwave went up in flames and burned because there was nothing on the inside. Likewise, those who have faith and the word of god deep in their hearts will be able to absorb and overcome the fiery darts which the adversary will surely send to destroy us." 

(As someone raised with a fire extiniguisher in the kichen, I feel the sudden urge to suggest this to anyone with children) 

(I have no idea what else he said because he used the word 'power' 34 times in his short talk, and it lost all meaning)

Jeffrey R Holland

Covid sucks and it's going on too long. 

We want to know when our struggles will be over. 

I'm now speaking about "those who would like to be married and aren't or who are married and with their marriage were a little more celestial. I speak of those who have to deal with the unwanted appearance of a serious medical condition, perhaps an uncurable one. Or face a life long battle with a genetic defect that has no remedy. I speak of the continuing struggle with emotional and mental health challenges that weigh heavily on the souls of so many who suffer with them and on the hearts of those who suffer with them. I speak of the poor, whom the savior told us never to forget. I speak of you, waiting for the return of a child no matter what the age, who has chosen a path different from the one you prayed he or she would take." Plus economic, political,and social concerns. 

Your prayers "are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way that we wanted." They'll be answered when and how god thinks they should be. 

We shouldn't ask for a stress-free life; struggles make us worthy to live with god.

Russell M Nelson

"We live in a glorious age, foreseen by prophets for centuries... Despite the world's commotion, the lord would have us look toward the future with joyful anticipation... The gathering of Israel moves forward. The lord JC directs the affairs of his church and it will achieve it's divine objectives. The challenge for you and me is to make certain that each of us will achieve his or her divine potential." 

Let JC be your 'new normal' by "repenting daily. Seek to be increasingly pure in thought, word, and deed. Minister to others. Keep an eternal perspective. Magnify your callings. And... live each day so that you are more prepared to meet your maker." 

Six new temples: Tarawa, Kiribati; Port Vila, Vanuato; Lindon, Utah; Greater Guatamala; Sao Paulo East, Brazil; and Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

[gellavonhamster]

journeys end in lovers’ meeting

Dark || Aleksander Tiedemann/Regina Tiedemann Boris Niewald/Regina Doppler || post-canon

ao3 link eng || ao3 link rus

There hasn’t been such a heavy thunderstorm in a long time – even the power went out for a while. As they raise their glasses to the world without Winden, the rain outside is beating down in slant lashes, and the black silhouettes of trees are bending menacingly against the evening sky. Regina doesn’t have the heart to let the guests out into the storm; driving in such weather and with such state of local roads is a suicide, and Peter and Bernadette even came by feet. So she offers everyone to stay over. No one is really discontented with such turn of events – everyone’s cracking jokes as they share out the places available for sleeping. It feels like they’re all kids again, and this is an adventure.        

Peter and Bernadette get the couch in the living room, and some armchairs put together make a quite comfortable improvised bed for Katharina. Wishing for her pregnant friend to have the most comfort for the night, Regina gives her own bedroom to Hannah and Torben, takes all the necessary things, and moves to her mother’s room. Claudia has retired early, having told “the young” that she’s going to bed, but when Regina steps quietly into her room with a heap of bedclothes in her arms, the light there is on, and her mother is working on her laptop – no doubt writing another post for her blog on the history of Winden or taking part in a meeting of the members of Anonymous or whatever else the seniors who are more tech-savvy than most twenty-somethings might do on their computers.    

“There’s a raincoat on the chair in the living room. A yellow one,” Regina says, settling her pillow on her mother’s wide bed. “Where did it come from?”

“A yellow one, you say?” Claudia echoes, her eyes glued to the screen. “I found it in the attic. I put it aside to think which neighbourhood kid to give it to, and forgot about it.”

“How come we have it? I don’t recall myself or Peter wearing it.”

“My dear, how long have we been living in this house? Do you remember thoroughly all the junk we have? Because I don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if your father bought that raincoat forever ago to give it to you, then stuffed it somewhere and forgot.”    

“Maybe,” Regina muses. For some reason she’s dying to know where the raincoat came from. Or it might rather be the wine she has drunk that’s dying to know that.  

Later, when her mother is already asleep, when everyone in the house must already be asleep, Regina is standing by the window, listening to the cacophony of rain, staring at the pool of light that keeps dancing under the swinging lantern. It’s weird, about that raincoat, and she feels weird, too. Hannah’s words about the end of the world come to her mind, but that’s not it, not really – it is more like something is about to start, but there is no knowing what.    

When she’s already in bed, it suddenly dawns on her what this is reminding her of: she used to feel something of the kind in her youth when she sensed she was about to dream about that boy again.    

 ***

 The first time it happens, she’s fifteen, and the boy is not a boy at all – more like a young man, two or three years older than she in appearance. It’s her classmates that are boys, but this one looks almost an adult, almost a bad guy from a movie, wearing a leather jacket, dark hair falling on his face. That is what Regina thinks when she sees him in the woods that night. Not “What am I doing in the woods, actually?” of something like that, because you don’t ask yourself that kind of questions in a dream. If you are in the woods, then you are meant to be in the woods.  

“Hey,” Regina says gingerly. The young man, who was looking around, gives a start, turns around, and finally notices her.

“Hey,” he says. Anyone would expect such a guy to have a haughty smirk and a contemptuous look, but he just smiles at her when he sees her, calmly and friendly. “Where on earth am I?”      

“In Winden,” Regina approaches him. Again, it does not occur to her in a dream that talking to a stranger in the woods might be a bad idea. “Are you lost?”  

He shrugs. “I guess. I, uh, came here from the highway? Can’t remember clearly. I just left home and came here somehow.”    

“Sounds like you’ve hit your head,” Regina remarks, which is yet another proof that she’s dreaming: in waking life she would never get smart like that with a strange guy who looks older and stronger than she. It doesn’t look, however, like the strange guy in question has taken any offence, because he just grins in response.    

“Perhaps I have. And what are you doing here, robbing the lone travellers?”

“Perhaps I am,” Regina fires back, and smiles hastily to make it clear she actually isn’t. Heavens, she doesn’t know how to talk to boys at all. If Hannah and Katharina saw her now, they’d die on the spot – if not of shame, then of laughter. “If you don’t remember how you got here, then maybe you should go to the hospital? I can lead you there.”  

“What about taking a walk first, since I’m already here, and then hospital or whatever? It’s nice here. Back where I’m from they’ve chopped all the woods down.”

The latest in the series of proofs that this is a dream: in real life such words would only have persuaded Regina further that he has to go to the hospital.  

But all of this is not real, so she says, “Then let’s go, I’ll show you the caves.”

And they head for the caves, and Regina tells her new acquaintance about Winden – how dreary and dull it is, with mostly nothing to do and nowhere to go, but at least the air is fresh and the trees are tall and ancient. Then they talk about school and music and some other nonsense, until Regina finally realizes that she forgot to ask a very important question.

“Wait,” she stops at the very entrance to the cave and grabs the young man’s hand, and blushes at once, but doesn’t let go. “What is your name?”

He opens his mouth to reply – and she wakes up.

 ***

 The feeling is so similar that the next morning she is even a little disappointed that the night had passed without any dreams. That’s silly, of course – she hasn’t dreamed about him for what, thirty years? And there have been enough men of flesh and blood in her life for her not to worry about the one who never really existed.  

But the slight disappointment doesn’t disappear, and the feeling that something important is about to begin doesn’t go away either, and that Monday Regina brings them along to work.

Waldhotel Winden is facing hard times – frankly speaking, Regina cannot remember if there have ever been any other times. Father converted his estate into a hotel when his young new wife, Regina’s mother, refused to live there. Claudia has never elaborated why she rejected that elegant old building, but the older Regina gets, the more often it crosses her mind that deep down her mother didn’t want to live under the same roof with ghosts – not just Bernd Doppler’s late first wife, but also the memory of herself as a child coming there to tutor little Helge. Sweet shy Helge who, according to age, should have rather been Regina’s uncle not her half-brother; who also refused to live in that mansion that smelled of ancientness and dignity with his equally sweet shy wife. Memories had driven the former residents out of the house, leaving it fit only for the strangers who come and go without any trace other than the payment for the room. Unfortunately, there have always been few such strangers: the comparatively pristine nature and the caves steeped in legend are not enough to turn an otherwise ordinary underdeveloped small town like Winden into a popular tourist destination. Presently, for instance, the only guests at the hotel are an elderly couple who checked in three days ago.                                                                          

It makes no sense to keep a lot of personnel in such situation, so it is Regina herself who is at the reception, while looking through the depressing financial statement for the last half-year. The only guests have gone out, the maid is cleaning upstairs, and when the bell rings above the front door, Regina looks up in involuntary annoyance – she has grown so unaccustomed to visitors that she has almost forgotten their arrival is supposed to make her glad.  

“Hello,” she says, having quickly collected herself.

“Good afternoon,” says the newcomer, a man about her age, broad-shouldered and imposing, in an unbuttoned black coat. “I’d like a single room, please. Surely there are any available at the moment?”  

“Oh, more than enough,” Regina can’t help commenting, smiling unhappily. “Your name?”

“Boris Niewald.”

Regina cannot explain why, upon hearing this, she immediately thinks there must be some sort of mistake. It is a name like any other – why couldn’t he be called that? And it is not that she was expecting him to have some other particular name – yet still she cannot fight the feeling that he was supposed to be called differently. That would have been explainable if she had met this man before, but she is sure it is the first time she sees him.

…almost sure. Something in his features seems vaguely familiar. But that must be just déjà vu – nothing unusual for her and most of the people she knows. She remembers being extremely surprised back in the day that her friends from the university could not recall ever experiencing it. Maybe Winden has some special aura. Ley lines, geopathogenic zones, that sort of thing.  

Maybe it’s just some collective mental health issues.

“I can offer you several rooms to choose from,” she tells him. “You may leave your suitcase in the luggage room for now, so as not to carry it with you.”    

 ***

 “You know what I think?” Hannah begins in a sing-song voice. “I think,” she glances at Regina over the history notebook, while wearing her signature sly smile, “that our Regina has a crush.”  

“What?!” Regina frowns in confusion. That’s so unrelated to what they were just discussing, where did this even come from? “I think you’re thinking wrong.”

“And I think Hannah’s right,” Katharina declares. Great, now it’s two against one. It would have been an option to stand up pointedly and go to the kitchen to grab more cookies, but, firstly, then the girls would definitely decide they’re on the right track, and secondly, Katharina is currently painting Regina’s nails vibrant dark red – how would she leave with her nails not dried yet, and just with three of them to boot? “Spit it out, girl. Who is he?”  

Sometimes Regina cannot believe she’s really friends with these girls. They couldn’t be more different from her in their nature: the rebellious Katharina, quick-tempered and defiant, with bruises under the layers of face powder and sharp words for everyone who dares to look at her the wrong way; the elfin Hannah with her fox face, ambitious and perceptive, prone to imitating the older and more badass Katharina. And then there’s she – so… ordinary. The only remarkable thing about Regina is her good marks, but no one ever likes exemplary students, not even when in need of their help – especially when in need of their help. If it was not for her friends who are more adjusted for survival at school, it would have probably been tough for her, particularly in her childhood and early teenage years, when she used to wear thick-rimmed glasses.        

Regina loves her friends, but there are some things she prefers not to tell them.

“I don’t understand what makes you think I have a crush,” she tries to fight back weakly.  

“It’s just that every time I look at you at the lessons lately, you’re always up in the clouds with such cute zoned-out little face,” Katharina says, and tries to demonstrate at once just what kind of little face that is. Hannah giggles. “Come on, it’s not like it’s bad. On the contrary, we’re happy for you. Who is he? Does he know?”  

He must know, Regina thinks. We see each other once a month or two, go on walks, talk, hold hands, but all of this doesn’t matter because he disappears every time I try to ask him what his name is or tell him my own. Besides, there’s a tiny problem: I only dream about him, and he doesn’t actually exist.  

“There’s no one to know,” she tells them with an apologetic smile. Katharina and Hannah hang out with real guys after school, real guys who buy them ice cream and let them wear their jackets when it gets cold, so they don’t need to know that silly Regina (yes, it’s alright to be silly at sixteen, but not sillier than her peers, after all) is in love with someone who only exists in her head. “And I’m up in the clouds because… I keep thinking that school will be over soon, and I’ll be able to leave. We all will be able to leave. And there’ll be no more Winden for us.”    

“No more Winden for us,” Hannah repeats dreamily, and Katharina nods in agreement. It’s a perfect way to change the subject – the next instant they’re already sharing plans for the future, discussing where they’re going to enrol, where they want to go on holidays. Indeed, no crush looks as attractive as the prospect of leaving their native shithole for good.    

None of them will ever leave Winden for long, but at the time they do not know it yet.

 ***

 Boris Niewald has come to their town as a representative of the company that is building a new shopping centre in Winden. He stays in Waldhotel Winden for a week, and as he comes back every evening that week, he and Regina spend some time talking before the night porter arrives and she goes home. Regina is not in the habit of making close acquaintance with the guests, but when he returns on the evening of the first day, she cannot help asking what his first impressions of Winden are, and then it all happens as if by itself. On the third day, they switch from Sie to du. On the fourth day, she unlocks the liquor cabinet to take out a bottle of expensive brandy given a few years ago by her father’s friend, and offers him a glass on the house.    

On the seventh day, when he was supposed to check out, he asks her if it is possible to extend the reservation.  

“I still have some three days free,” he tells Regina. They’re sitting in the armchairs in the lobby; the elderly couple has already checked out, the maid has a day off, and it seems as if they’re not at the hotel at all, but at home. Her home or his; possibly theirs. “With all this construction I never got a chance to see the town.”  

“I’m afraid this town hardly has anything to offer you,” Regina laughs, toying with the glass in her hand. “We don’t even have a museum. Except the caves, perhaps.”

“The caves? I’ve heard something about them. The ones where someone is said to disappear every year?”

“Well, not every year, but there have been several cases. Usually these poor things get found after a day or two, however – dirty, hungry. Apparently there’s an entire labyrinth of natural origin, and the walls cave in sometimes. There are some weirdos who believe that there is the way to…”  

“The centre of the Earth?”

“More like the other dimensions. About ten years ago, some TV people even came to make a documentary, God. I don’t think it was ever released.”                

“That sounds appealing,” Boris chuckles. Regina likes his smile, his silver beard, his striking blue eyes. Perhaps she has a type, and her new acquaintance is the perfect match. Both of her husbands looked similarly – both the one who married her, as it quickly came to light, hoping to make a career at the publishing house of the only Winden newspaper, which was headed by her mother back then, and the one that cheated on her a year and a half after their wedding. In other words, both the one that she still never says hello to and the one she still exchanges birthday and Christmas greetings with. The latter and his wife had some kind of unprecedented abundance of currant in their garden last year, and they gave Regina two jars of currant jam; oh the small towns where everyone knows each other in many different senses.      

Perhaps her type was shaped by the fact that at the age of fifteen to approximately twenty she frequently dreamed about a handsome boy with precisely such beautiful blue eyes. What of it.                            

“You don’t hurry home lately, I see” Claudia observes in the morning while Regina is making breakfast. Her mother is reading a fresh newspaper – undoubtedly thinking that without her being editor-in-chief, that newspaper has gone to shit. “Is he trustworthy?”  

“He? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Regina replies flatly as she puts oatmeal and dried fruit into the bowls.

“What, a she? Didn’t think you’d take after your grandmother, but it’s never too late to get to know yourself, I guess.”

“There’s no one, Mama,” Regina says determinedly. In two days Boris returns to Marburg. There is no point in starting anything.  

There is no point in starting anything – yet when on her day off Boris asks her out for dinner, she says yes.

There is no point in starting anything – yet when he kisses her in the hotel corridor it takes her some time to make herself pull away.

“Forgive me,” Boris says when he sees her face. “I suppose I shouldn’t have done this.”

“That’s right,” Regina says and forces a smile. Tomorrow he’s leaving.

There is no point in starting anything – yet when he closes the door after himself and she takes a few steps down the corridor, she realizes suddenly that she doesn’t care. Then she turns around and goes back before letting herself change her mind and knocks on the door of his room. He opens at once.  

That night she feels madly young, young and loving and loved.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Boris promises her when he puts the key to the room in her hand the next morning.

There is no point in starting anything, yet she thinks: come back to me.  

And, for some reason: come home.

 ***

 At the high school graduation party, the girls from Regina’s class dance with their boyfriends or with the boys they hope to make their boyfriends, lay their heads on their partners’ shoulders, bodies pressed together, hearts full of excitement. As to Regina, she gets asked to a dance by Peter, her nephew-who-looks-rather-like-her-cousin, which is very nice of him. They keep stepping on each other’s feet and laughing about it, and then Take My Breath Away gives way to lively disco, and Regina dances with Katharina and Hannah and then with Peter again and then with some kids who she hasn’t exchanged a word with throughout the entire school year. There are no more couples, just a single happy crowd, and they spin and throw their hands up in the air, like a record, baby, right round, round round.

Officially alcohol at the graduation party is banned. Unofficially, part of the parents and teachers who are chaperoning them all in the festively decorated gym does not care and another part is sneakily sipping something from thermos bottles and flasks themselves. Regina drinks a couple of glasses of the wine that Katharina brought with her in a juice carton. She doesn’t drink often enough to know much about such things, but two glasses mustn’t be too much. It mustn’t be enough to explain why, when she steps out to the porch to take the air and raises her eyes up to the sky, she sees what she sees and stumbles and almost falls down, taken by surprise.      

“You all right?” she hears a voice behind her back. Charlotte Tannhaus approaches her, looking rather curious than worried. “Are you going to be sick?”  

“N-no,” Regina tells her, with something that should ideally pass for a reassuring smile. “It just seemed like…”  

“Like?”

She and Charlotte Tannhaus have never been close, but now both of them are drunk, and besides, Regina is going to leave for the university soon, and whether anyone in Winden thinks her crazy shall lose all importance.

“Like there were two moons in the sky,” she says. ‘Then they merged into one.”

Charlotte nods pensively, as if Regina has just said something extraordinarily deep.  

“Maybe that was a vision,” she points out. “Like… we’re all at the crossroads now, right? School is over, life is beginning? Maybe the two moons are like two different paths.”

“That merge into one because they’re actually one and the same?”

“Possible. Or it might even be the third path, another one. Maybe.”  

Yeah, Regina thinks, they’re definitely drunk.

“I thought I’d be just leaning up against the wall for half the evening, but it turned out quite great. I wish you were there,” she tells her stranger in a dream that night.

“Yeah, I’d love to go with you,” he says, and then adds something strange:

“It’s a shame you’re not real.”

 ***

 A month later – a month of phone calls and Skype calls, a month when Regina keeps reminding herself not to hope too much and still hopes more and more with each day – Boris comes back.

“I have to tell you something which will make you think that I’m not quite right in the head,” he tells her on the first evening after his arrival. This time he isn’t staying in Waldhotel – he’s staying at her place. “Or that I am lying and being incredibly bad at it.”

“Try me,” she suggests merrily.

“When I was young, I would often see the same dream. Or rather, different dreams about the same girl,” Boris comes up to her writing desk, picks up a framed photo – Regina with her mother and grandfather – and looks at it thoughtfully. In the picture, Regina is sixteen, she has voluminous curls and bright eye shadow in the true spirit of the eighties, and, in the opinion of adult Regina, she’s very small, funny, and good. Better than she thought herself back then, probably. “I wouldn’t say I used to be lonely at that time – I had friends, I had everything, basically – but every time I woke up hoping I’d see her again. I believe I was a little bit in love with her – as if with a singer or a teacher, you know, without any hope that my feelings might be returned. What kind of return might be there if she didn’t really exist, after all?”          

He puts the photo back on the desk, and turns to Regina.

“At least I was sure she didn’t exist. And now we’ve come to the part that will make you think me either a liar or crazy,” he smiles at her, but eyes her earnestly, clearly preparing to say something important, clearly wishing for it to be taken seriously despite all the jokes. “You look like her. Judging by this photo, you’re spitting images of each other.”

“What was her name?” Regina asks with bated breath. Boris frowns; he must have been expecting anything but such question.  

“I don’t know. I woke up each time I tried to ask her.”

Regina gets up off the bed and comes up to him.

“I think I also have something to tell you,” she says, “that will make you think me either a liar or crazy.”

Now, as luck would have it, it would be the time for the dream to end – but they are really there, really together, and what has started will not end at the crack of dawn, will not end if they let it go on, will not ever end.

[v-thinks-on]

A Social Visit

Part 2 of Jeeves and the Amateur Cracksman

Previous | Next

“Mr. Manders,” Jeeves announced, waving the aforementioned into the flat.

“What ho!” I exclaimed, jumping up to greet him.

While A.J. Raffles came closer to Jeeves in height, Bunny Manders, though dwarfed by Jeeves and even by myself, upon examination in the light of day, seemed to have some family resemblance in the set of his features that, combined with his youthful appearance, made it easy to believe he was Jeeves’s kid brother or young cousin, not that Jeeves gave any indication they had ever so much as exchanged a passing how-do-you-do.

“Hello,”  Bunny said with a sidelong glance up at Jeeves. “I’m sorry Raffles couldn’t make it, but he told me to convey his regards.”

“Not at all! I’m sure a famous cricketer like him has all sorts of places to be and things to go to and what not. Tell him I say, ‘What ho!’”

I waved it off genially enough, but I confess I was more than a tad disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to rub elbows with the acclaimed A.J. Raffles. Still, we Woosters are nothing if not gracious hosts, and if I was to be entrusted with his pal Bunny, then it was the least I could do.

I waved Bunny into the sitting room. “Have a seat, make yourself at home! Jeeves, drinks all around, what?”

“Sir?”

Jeeves had drifted over to fiddle with the window while I had been preoccupied with our guest, but now he resumed his place at attention. Jeeves had been on the frosty side for the past couple days - I couldn’t say why, having thoroughly rearranged the wardrobe, I had just about ascertained it didn’t have anything to do with my costume - and now was no different.

Bunny jumped a little at his sudden appearance, clearly unaccustomed to how Jeeves has a way of flickering in and out of the presence rather than walking like any ordinary fellow.

“Care to join us for a spot?” I asked. “Bunny’s your cousin after all.”

“That is very kind, sir, but Mr. Manders is your guest.”

I shrugged - that’s the only thing to do when the man is in such a state, though there was something in his tone that grated more than a little. “Have it your way, Jeeves.”

While Jeeves biffed off to prepare the drinks, I turned my attention to playing the gregarious host. “Lovely afternoon, what?”

Bunny tore his eyes away from Jeeves. “Oh, yes, it is, isn’t it?”

“Do you play cricket?”

“No, not really. Do you?”

“Hardly - I’ve never gone in for sports myself except for a touch of golf or tennis. I did try rowing once, but it didn’t last long. The coach, an old pal of mine, Stilton Cheesewright, was a real terror; I’ve never stood so much rapid fire abuse. But I throw a mean dart. My club, the Drones, has a competition every year and I would be a shoe-in if not for Horace Pendlebury-Davenport!”

“Really?” Bunny said, with the air of a man who had gotten rather lost along the way.

I was about to endeavor to explain when Jeeves shimmered over with a pair of glasses.

Bunny leaped like he had been stuck with a pin, nearly knocking the proffered glass out of Jeeves’s hand. For a moment, he just sat there, looking like a chap who had just seen a ghost, which I supposed wasn’t such a strange response to Jeeves appearing and disappearing like a genie out of a lamp, especially not for a fellow called Bunny. I’d only just grown accustomed to the man’s mysterious ways myself.

Finally, Bunny took the glass, though he kept an eye on Jeeves, as though he expected him to vanish into thin air at any moment, which I could have told him was sure to happen sooner or later.

“I don’t suppose you could walk a little louder, Jeeves? Tie a bell around your wrist or somesuch?” I suggested.

“I will endeavor to make my presence known, sir.”

You may know that Jeeves sometimes takes on an expression, or rather a lack of expression, altogether reminiscent of a stuffed frog or other such specimen, typically when he’s present and wants to give the impression of not being so. There’s something of a wax statue in the chap, absolutely silent with no presence at all. Well, I’ll tell you that Jeeves could have passed for a stuffed Jeeves then. I reflexively glanced down at my raiment, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing offensive in the lot, and it’s unusual for Jeeves to stay silent on such matters.

When I glanced back up, he was gone.

Bunny and I sipped at our drinks in a companionable silence for a tick or two before I remembered; “Say, you grew up with Jeeves, didn’t you?”

Bunny hesitated on the reply. “Yes... You could say that.”

“Has he always been like this?”

“I suppose so... How do you mean?”

“Oh, all brainy and whatnot. Ate a lot of fish, I expect.”

Bunny seemed to take a moment to process the question. “I don’t think we ever had fish,” he said at last. “But he’s always been intelligent, just like Raffles. I was the only- well, compared to them...” he struggled with the words.

“Oh, rather! I mean, you should hear my Aunt Dahlia - or worse, my Aunt Agatha - talking about how much of a lost cause I am, negligible intelligence, waste of space, you’d think I’d run away to live a life of crime the way they put it. I’m just lucky my cousins Claude and Eustace are worse. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like if they had a real paragon like Jeeves to compare me with.”

“It’s not much of a comparison.”

I gave a sad shake of my head. “No, and I couldn’t tell you why he’s stuck around as long as he has. I would’ve thought he’d have left as soon as another posish. opened up, but he’s still here biffing around.”

“You don’t know why he’s working for you?” Bunny asked, sounding truly intrigued for the first time since he arrived.

“Not a clue. Did he always want to be a valet? With a brain like his, he could give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money. I assumed he went in to support his family and what not, but that was before I knew he was related to a fellow like A.J. Raffles, though really I should have known Jeeves couldn’t just be any ordinary chap.”

Bunny nodded thoughtfully at the comparison. “No, I wondered why he went into service. He did stay and help when the rest of us went our separate ways, but-”

Jeeves gave a quiet cough, like a polite sheep on a distant mountaintop, to announce his presence - Bunny jumped at the sudden interjection, but not nearly as much as before. “I could not help but overhear, sir - if I may.”

“Do enlighten us, Jeeves. Why did you decide to become a valet?”

“Life is too short, sir. To spend that shortness basely were too long.”

“Well, there you have it,” I declared, though I wasn’t at all sure what it was that I had.

Bunny frowned, seemingly intent upon deciphering it himself as Jeeves shimmered off.

Our conversation wandered off to other subjects until Bunny made his excuses and got up to leave. I followed him to the door, still expounding on whatever the latest topic was.

Jeeves coughed softly to announce his presence as he brought in Bunny’s jacket. He gave the jacket to Bunny and then took a step toward me.

“Sir, I took the liberty of liberating your cigarette case from Mr. Manders’s jacket pocket.” He held out the now unfettered case.

“I can explain!” Bunny burst out, looking rather like his namesake, as he glanced nervously between Jeeves and myself - mostly looking at Jeeves, to tell the truth.

“Another one of your pranks?” I asked - nothing else seemed to make sense.

He rather jumped on it. “Yes! It’s a competition. We’ve always tried taking things from each other, and, well, since Raffles failed, I had to try.”

The scales seemed to fall from my eyes, if you get my meaning. “Jeeves, I never would have expected you playing a game like this. Do you try to steal things too?”

“No, sir,” Jeeves said with some disdain.

“But you did?”

“Well-” Bunny attempted.

“I have not in many years, sir.”

I could nearly imagine it, Jeeves in miniature and all his cousins sneaking around an old manor house in the dead of night, trying to get away with a toy or book in a clandestine game of cops and robbers. I only wished I’d thought of it in my formative years.

“I say, Jeeves, you’re full of surprises! And Bunny, you’re welcome ‘round any time, though I’d rather you didn’t run off with my cigarette case.” I took a cigarette out for good measure. “I’m sure we can find you something else - I wouldn’t want to break a family tradition.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Bunny stammered, still looking rather beet-like.

“Anything for a chum. I have an old cigar box I never use, if you like.”

I had been hoping to get the bally thing off my hands ever since my engagement with the girl who gave it to me ended, but Bunny was having none of it, and so I dropped the case, or box as it were.

“I really must be going,” he insisted.

So, I bid him, “Toodle-pip!” and saw him on his way.

“A very amiable chap,” I proclaimed as I meandered back into the sitting room.

I had a mind to settle on the sofa and return to the tale of suspense I had been reading earlier that afternoon - they were just about to discover the second body - when I noticed that Jeeves had materialized by the window and was peering down into the street below.

“Something catch your eye, what? I hope we didn’t send Bunny straight into the fray.”

“Not exactly, sir.”

I meandered over to the window to see what it was Jeeves was making such a fuss about - by Jeevesian standards at least - but his powers of perception must have been much greater than mine if he saw anything more than Bunny making his way around the square.

“It’s a nice day for a stroll, but nothing to write home about,” I remarked.

“I was merely observing the unkempt gentleman with a pronounced limp following Mr. Manders.”

“Oh!” I spotted the fellow, sure enough trailing a bit behind Bunny, but gaining ground despite his awkward gait. “Do you think Bunny’s in trouble?”

“I expect not, sir.”

“If you’re sure, Jeeves.”

“Quite confident, sir.”

“Right-o, then!”

I tossed myself down on the sofa and not a few moments later Jeeves rippled in with the tea.

Part of The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves

[thaisibir]

La Vie en Rose (Bede and young!Opal time travel fic)

La Vie en Rose (Life in Pink)       Rating: T (for character deaths and language)       Chapter 10/10 - Inheritance (length: ~5k words)       Summary: Bede doesn’t get why that loony old bat Opal wants him to be the next Fairy-type Gym Leader. To help him understand, Opal has Celebi take Bede back to the time of her youth.

(For other chapters, look up the tag “pokemon la vie en rose” or go to my profile)

Social media exploded when Diantha publicized her resignation as the Champion of Kalos and announced that she would move to Galar.

“Even on better days, I have no time to look through all the inquiries and comments,” she said to Bede as she shut off her phone and stuffed it firmly to the bottom of her purse. “I insisted that I won’t be taking interviews any time soon. I hope everyone respects my need for privacy.”

Bede rolled up his sleeve. “Don’t worry, my Pokemon and I will take care of anyone who won’t.”

She smiled. “That’s so kind of you, but I hope you’re not too serious about that. You need time with Opal as much as I do.”

While the former Champion of Kalos had resolved to set aside her phone for a while, Bede busied over his. “I’ll tell my fellow Gym Leaders to keep an eye out for anyone nosing into our business.”

He had all of their phone numbers now. They were just a call or a text away, as they had promised, and the thought of them having his back comforted him. As the days of the last week ticked by, Bede was bracing himself for the last day, for the time that he would have to say good-bye.

He and Diantha strived to make Opal as comfortable as possible. Halfway through the week, she couldn’t get out of bed even with support from the two of them.

At that point, Professor Magnolia was the only visitor allowed inside the house, because Opal would ask for her company during teatime.

Because her hand was too shaky to handle hot tea, Bede stuck around to help her guide the cup to her mouth. “Lately there’s been a fog over my memory, like a soft thick blanket I can’t see through,” Opal told Magnolia. “Sometimes, though, there would be rays of sun shining down, so I could see. Like the day we had met, when we had a Gym match, and I showed you the Impidimps, and you came up with the name for my son.” The stroke kept Opal from curling up both corners of her lips when she tried to smile. “I’ll always remember times like that. You were there for a lot of those sunny spots, Mag. Thank you.”

The teacup trembled in Magnolia’s hand, though not from a stroke. The professor’s eyes watered behind her thick spectacles. “It’s an honor to have been your friend for so long.”

Opal rested her good hand over Magnolia’s, and the two elderly woman said nothing for a while. As quietly as he could, Bede took the empty cups of tea from them and drew back into the kitchen.

#

Bede and Diantha’s routine to make Opal comfortable in her home was interrupted by Opal herself.

“My dears, would be so kind to help me outside to the living room?” she asked them. “Park me right by the fireplace.”

Bede frowned. “Are you cold, Ms. Opal?” She couldn’t be. She always had a fluffy coat around her, and blankets never too far out of reach.

“Oh no, my boy, I’m as snug as a Charjabug. I’d like to be by the fireplace nevertheless.”

When they did as she had asked, she motioned with her good hand to the shelf near the kitchen. “Diantha, please bring me that unlabeled binder by my mum’s manual.”

“What’s in here, Auntie?” the former Champion asked as she brought it over.

“Scripts for plays that my husband never finished,” Opal murmured. “Sometimes, when I was younger, I’d pull it out of the shelf and try to finish them myself.” She chuckled. “I couldn’t even get through reading them without crying, though. I couldn’t bring myself to touch his work. So I left them tucked away in that shelf for years and years.”

“You’ve decided what to do with them now?” Bede asked.

“Yes. Burn them.”

He gasped, and Diantha said, “But Auntie...”

“You heard me right.” Opal kept her voice low and calm. “I haven’t gone off my rocker. I know what I’m doing, and I want them burned. I don’t think of it so much as destroying my husband’s work, but sending it up to him, so we can work on them together when I see him again. And I’ll be seeing him soon.”

Bede tried to blink mist out of his eyes as he started up the fire. Then he helped Diantha strip the binder of its contents, taking turns with her to carefully toss small stacks of paper into the flames. Roger’s incomplete stories blackened, curled, and crumbled away. Bede watched this along with Opal, figuring that she could be seeing words go up in smoke somehow.

It took visible effort for Opal to then turn her gaze toward Diantha kneeling beside her. “As for the scripts he did finish, I trust that you will do a good job bringing them to life on stage, in my place.”

Diantha clasped her great-aunt’s thin, withered hand. “You can leave it to me. The show at Ballonlea Theatre will go on. That’s a solemn promise, from actress to actress.”

Bede felt a surge of gratitude towards the former Champion of Kalos. The theatre could not ask for a better successor. He couldn’t make that same promise to Opal. What he could do was become the Gym Leader Opal wanted him to be.

#

He became an expert at tucking Opal into bed. He didn’t need Diantha’s help for that. On a rainy night, the night before her time to go tomorrow as Celebi predicted, he fought to get the words “good night” out of his mouth. His throat closed up and the words felt dammed up behind it.

Before he could get them out, Opal said, “Bede, I need ask of you an important favor.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Be a dear and fetch the letter from the drawer in my nightstand, will you?”

He did as she asked, but she didn’t stop there. He handed Opal the letter, but with a raised trembling hand, she gently pushed it back toward him and said, “Would you mind reading it out loud to me? My sight’s been spotty lately.”

Bede opened up the folded paper, and the name he saw scrawled at the end made his breath hitch in his throat. The note from Kestrel. His last words before he had taken his own life in prison. For decades that note sat unopened.

He looked up at her. “Are you sure you want to—“

“Yes, I’m sure.” Opal closed her eyes and leaned back into her pillows. “I think I’m finally ready to hear what my little brother wanted to tell me all those years ago.”

She looked like she was about to go to sleep, but Bede knew that she would listen with rapt attention as he edged near the glow of the nightstand lamp and dropped his gaze back to the letter.

“Dear Opal,

I don’t know where to begin. I don’t even know if you’ll ever read this. I have to say something, nonetheless. My sentence is almost up, but done as it may almost be in the eyes of the law, I know that it wouldn’t ever be done in your eyes.

In the isolation of my cell, I try to think back to happier times: sharing stories of wanderlust and adventure with my brother in-law, and letting my nephew fly on the wings of my Pidgeot. It’s my fault that I dashed all of those to the ground, that I destroyed every chance to make more of those happy times. Most of my fellow prisoners look forward to the day they’re released. Not me. I dread it. Actually, I wish I could stay locked up in here forever. I wish for that, because I know that when I’m a free man, I would never be able to look at you in the eye. Would you be able to look at me in the eye, Opal? Speak to me again? Let me back into Ballonlea Town, back into your life? I don’t know, and I won’t ask. I’m afraid to find out your answers to these questions.

There isn’t enough space in this paper, in this whole world, really, to tell you just how sorry I am for everything I have done. I’m sorry, Roger. I’m sorry, Jasper. I’m sorry, Randall. And I’m sorry, Opal. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. This is good-bye.

All my love, regrets, and sympathies,

Kestrel”

Bede set the letter aside on the nightstand. Opal didn’t move or say anything. The only sign of life from her were tears welling in her eyes and running down her cheeks. Bede pulled out the corner of a blanket and reached over to dab her face dry.

“I forgive you, Kes,” she whispered. “After all these years, I finally forgive you.” She smiled up at Bede. “Thank you for reading that letter to me. I think I’m ready to call it a night now.”

“Good night, Ms. Opal.” He bent down to peck her cheek. “See you tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, see you tomorrow,” she assured him.

With that, Bede went to bed sleeping easier than he had thought.

#

He roamed the house to throw open all the curtains. Morning in the canopy-covered Ballonlea Town wasn’t streaming in sunlight, but the rain from last night had stopped to leave fat drops all over the windows. Several light taps sounded from the front door. Bede jumped. Mightyena and Obstagoon stirred from their sleeping places in the living room, then they quickly joined Bede as he trudged up to the door with a frown. An unwanted visitor? He braced himself for the obligation to chase away whoever had the nerve to stick their nose where they shouldn’t.

He cracked the door open, then stepped back in disbelief. “Celebi? You came!”

“Bi.” The time-traveling Pokemon hovered before him at eye level.

Bede drew back to let Celebi inside while patting Mightyena and Obstagoon. “It’s okay, Celebi’s a friend,” he told the Dark type Pokemon. “It’s here to—“ He choked up, then went on in a small voice, “It’s here to say goodbye to Opal.”

“Who’s that at the door?” Diantha stumbled out of her bedroom in her nightgown. Her eyes, heavily lidded from just waking up, went wide at the sight. “Je n’y crois pas,” she breathed.

“I couldn’t believe it, either,” Bede replied. “But Celebi’s really here.” He had picked up a decent amount of Kalosian from Diantha since she’d been staying in Opal’s house.

He led Celebi into Opal’s room. To his relief, the old woman was blinking sleepiness out of her eyes. She didn’t sit up, though.

“Celebi, so lovely to see you.” The cheerfulness in her voice outweighed the recent weakness for a moment.

Celebi wouldn’t be the only Pokemon in the room. Mightyena and Obstagoon came in behind Bede and Diantha, and he released his entire team from their balls so they could surround the bed.

Opal let out a laugh that sounded more like a cough. “What a delightful crowd. You’re all making me feel like a celebrity again.” The merriment faded from her face as she schooled her features to a serious expression. “I didn’t want to leave you all without a few words first.” She paused before she went on, “People always wanted to know the secret behind how I lasted on earth for this long. For a while, I didn’t know the answer myself. It’s not like I’ve been the best at looking after my health. You’ve seen me over the years, Bede...I smoked like a chimney in Motostoke and love to eat my weight’s worth of sugary stuff. It’s not because of Fairy type Pokemon magic, either, as most people like to believe.” She reached out with a trembling hand to rest it over Bede’s. “It’s because of you. I waited for you to come along. I had to wait for a bloody long time. At one point, I feared that I would never find the Gym Leader to succeed me, but you came after all, like a burst of bright pink after years and years of darkness. That was worth the wait.” Opal tried to smile up at him. “When I’m gone, and people still wonder how I had lived for as long as I did, tell them that the reason is you.”

With a huge lump in his throat, Bede managed a wordless nod.

“Now I need to give you some last-minute life lessons, in case you didn’t get them the first time around from your trip with Celebi.”

He already knew, but he wanted to keep hearing her talk. He couldn’t bear to think of her being forever silent and still within minutes, or hours, or however long it took for death to come for people her age.

“Diantha, you may have not traveled with Celebi through time, but you need to hear this, too.”

Bede gently squeezed Opal’s hand, silently prompting her to go on.

“Don’t be like me and let anger and loneliness eat up your life. Surround yourself with people and Pokemon you love and trust. Accept kindness and friendship when they’re offered to you. You two are still so young, with your whole lives ahead of you. Or maybe you don’t, like Roger and Jasper. You never know. Either way, if you cut yourself off from the world, you either don’t live long enough to have that chance to turn around, or you live long enough to regret it.”

Bede and Diantha shared gazes glittering with wetness before they turned back to Opal and nodded. He had seen how Opal’s vindictive rage had led to the destruction of her younger brother, and the near-destruction of herself. He was determined not to follow Opal down that kind of dark path.

The old woman sighed and closed her eyes. “I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say. I will leave this world in peace, knowing that the Gym and theatre of Ballonlea Town are in good hands.”

Tears that had welled up ran down Bede’s cheeks as he squeezed his eyes shut. He knew he had to let her go. There was nothing he could do to stop that. So he had better get this out before it was too late. Bede leaned in to wrap his arms around Opal as tenderly and delicately as he could. “I love you,” he croaked.

“I love you too,” she murmured.

Bede couldn’t stop his shoulders from shaking as he kept his arms around Opal and wept into  the pillow. Diantha rested a hand on his back, and when he turned his head to peek over his shoulder, he saw that she had the other hand pressed over her eyes. Mightyena pressed its nose against Opal’s palm with a whine. Obstagoon placed a big dark paw over her arm. Togekiss, the only one light enough to sit on the mattress, snuggled at Opal’s side. The other Pokemon who couldn’t get on the bed huddled up beside each other, mourning quietly with Bede and Diantha.

Only Celebi didn’t have its head down. Instead it was looking up at something no one else could see.

#

Opal felt herself leave her own body with the last breath that left her lips. Her heart didn’t have to beat anymore, yet it ached as she looked down at her grieving family. Bede, the poor boy, cried the hardest of them all. She joined Diantha in resting a comforting hand on him, even if he couldn’t feel it.

He would be all right, she told herself. He won’t be alone. He has a family now.

Celebi was the only one who could see her in her new body. She smiled at it. “Thank you so much for bringing me and Bede together in the way only you know how.”

Making no sound to avoid alarming the others, Celebi silently acknowledged Opal’s gratitude with a smile of its own and a nod.

Suddenly laughter drifted into Opal’s ears. A child’s laughter. But not just any child. Startled, she straightened up her back, which she hadn’t done in years. “Celebi, did you hear that?”

Celebi gestured with its small green hand to the door, clearly encouraging Opal to follow the sound. She stepped away from her bedroom, the guilt of leaving Bede and Diantha behind eclipsed only by the drawing pull of laughter she hadn’t heard in so long. In her new body, Opal didn’t need to open the door to her house. She went straight through it. Who she saw just outside her door, laughing and skipping around in her front yard, sent the same thrilling bolt of wild joy that came with seeing Bede in Hammerlocke.

The little boy before her, dressed in the same suit he’d been buried with, stopped flapping his arms around like a bird Pokemon and smiled up at her. “Hello, Mummy.”

Opal trembled from head to toe and blinked hard. “Jasper, is that really you?” He jumped into her arms, and she enveloped him in a tight, fierce hug. “My darling, my baby boy,” she whispered into his dark curls. And she broke down as she held him. Jasper clung onto her firmly yet patiently, never squirming around to be let go. Finally she put him down and looked at her hands, her bony, thin 88 year-old hands. “I-I’ve changed so much since you last saw me. It’s been so long. How did you know I’m your mum?”

“I just know,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ll always be my mummy.” Jasper reached up to hold her hand. “Come on, I’ll take you to Daddy.”

Opal gasped. “You know where your daddy is?”

“Uh-huh. He isn’t far.”

Opal let her son take the lead. For a little five year-old in the woods filled with Fairy type Pokemon that liked to lead travelers astray, he really knew his way around. He skipped by her side and didn’t stop to look around like he was lost. In their past lives, Opal would be the one to hold her son firmly by the hand and lead him down the scenic trails, to make sure that he didn’t wander out of her sight.

Now it was Jasper guiding her, and she realized that he was taking the route to the Ballonlea Cemetery. They had to cross a bridge over a brook along the way, and as they did, Opal looked down to find her reflection no longer elderly and white-haired, but young and dark-haired again.

Jasper looked over his shoulder and beamed at her new appearance. “That’s the mummy I remember.”

She smiled back at him. “Just like old times.”

The Ballonlea Cemetery was livelier than she had known it during all her prior visits. That was because she had only known it when she was alive. Now she saw departed spirits, just like herself, loitering around their headstones and enjoying the morning shade. Winston, the former butler at her family’s estate, bowed at her when she and Jasper passed by his headstone. Opal couldn’t help smiling at that. Old habits were hard to break, even in the afterlife.

Farther into the cemetery, Jasper broke away from Opal to run ahead. “Daddy, I’m back,” he called. “Look who I brought!”

Out of sight, a familiar voice called back, “Jasper, you had me worried, running off on your own like that!” The owner of the voice stepped into view from behind a headstone.

Opal stopped right in her tracks, and though her heart could no longer skip beats, she found that she couldn’t speak. All she could manage to get out was the name of the man she had married for five years, and loved for many, many more. “Roger?”

“Opal.” He made a wide smile underneath his beard. “Welcome home.”

She ran up to her husband and threw her arms around him. Like their son, Roger wore the suit that went down with his body during the funeral, though there was no smell of dust and decay to either of them. Instead they were bright and brimming with second life.

Opal realized that Roger didn’t return her hug with both arms, but with only one. He was holding something in the other. She pulled back from his embrace. “What do you have there, Roger?”

Amusement twinkled in his eyes. “Not what. Who.”

The swaddled blankets in his arm stirred, and Opal gasped. “A baby!” She reached out with a trembling hand. “Could...could this be...”

“Yes, dear, she’s ours.” He rested a hand on the small of her back. “You were carrying a baby girl.”

“Oh.” Opal felt on the verge of tears as Roger handed over their second child to her. “Oh, Roger, Jasper, she’s lovely. Absolutely gorgeous. I can’t believe it. A daughter...”

The baby responded to her mother’s breathless disbelief and adoration with a toothless smile. She broke out laughing when Jasper, being the silly big brother, made funny faces at her. Opal found herself laughing along while crying at once.

“This feels like a dream, a dream come true to be a family together again.”

Roger kissed her cheek. “It’s not a dream, dear. This is real.”

“What’s our daughter’s name? I imagine she has to have a name by now.” Opal felt some of her old humor return as she glanced over at Roger. “Heaven forbid if she’s been nameless for this long.”

He laughed. “She has a name, all right, although I admit I felt bad for naming her without you.”

“Don’t be, darling. You didn’t know when I’d be joining you, and I was the one who named Jasper. Remember how we agreed on taking turns to name our children?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So what’s our baby girl’s name?”

“Pearl. But do feel free to voice any suggestions or objections—“

“No, I think Pearl is perfect.” Opal leaned back into Roger’s embrace while keeping their daughter cradled in her arms.

He murmured into her ear, “Thank you for sending up my unfinished scripts, by the way. Much appreciated.”

She smiled up at him. “Of course. I figured you’d be itching to work on them again.”

“And you’ll help me finish them, as you’ve always done. We’ll be ghostwriters. How about that?”

Opal rolled her eyes. “Ha ha.” Her smirk widened when Pearl gurgled as if laughing along, and she bounced her daughter in her arms. “Your daddy just had to slip in a dad joke, huh?”

“There’s so much we can do, not just finish writing the plays together,” Roger said. “We can visit the other departed in their resting places. If you want, Opal, we could go all the way to Kalos to see Randall, or...”

Her husband trailed off, but Opal knew where he was getting at. “I’d love to do that, dear. Yes, I’d like to see Kestrel too, where the Wynwall correctional facility used to be.” She looked back at the path she and Jasper had taken to reach the cemetery. “But first, before we travel far and wide for that, there’s someone we should visit right here.”

#

Diantha called for the paramedics to collect Opal.

Bede stayed out of the way and couldn’t bring himself to watch her being taken away from the house. Though it was morning, he curled up back in his bed like a Shuckle hiding in its shell, wanting nothing more than to sleep. He’d been given plenty of instruction from Opal and Diantha on how to make funeral arrangements, all the legalese on claiming ownership of a deceased person’s Pokemon, getting registered as an official member of the Pokemon League, and so on. He was prepared, but he wasn’t ready. Right now he just wanted to sleep.

After much tossing and turning, Bede slipped beyond consciousness. He was still in bed, and even in his dreams he didn’t want to climb out of it. Someone from behind gently shook his shoulder. He turned in his bed, expecting to see Diantha, but who he saw instead made his heart almost stop.

“Ms. Opal?” he breathed.

“Long time no see, my boy.”

The Opal who stood before him was young, glowing, and beautiful, her short hair dark as the night sky and her eyes twinkling like bright blue stars. Bede sat up in bed and rubbed at his eyes, astonished beyond words. She didn’t come to him alone. Beside her were the man and boy Bede recognized from his journey through time.

The boy, Opal’s five year-old son, threw himself on the bed and at Bede to hug him. “Thank you for taking care of my mummy.”

Bede patted the top of Jasper’s dark messy hair. “O-of course. More like she’s been taking care of me.”

“You took care of each other,” Roger said warmly. He was holding a baby in his arms.

Bede looked between the reunited couple. “Is that...is that who I think it is?”

Opal smiled and nodded. “Bede, meet our daughter, Pearl.”

Like Jasper, Pearl took after her mother with the vivid blue eyes and dark, curly hair. Bede raised his hand to wave at the cooing baby, then he raised both frantically as Roger leaned in to hand her over. “Oh no, I-I don’t know how to hold a baby—“

“It’s okay, it’s not that hard,” Jasper said.

Bede found himself getting an armful of Pearl despite his flustered protests. The baby girl wiggled in his arms, as if to settle in, not out of fussiness. He smiled down at her. “Hi, there. Crazy to think that I’ve been under your mum’s care for longer than you have. But you’ve got her, now. You’re so lucky to have such a great mum.” He tapped at her button nose with a light, playful finger. “Yes, you.”

She giggled at his touch, and Opal extended her arms to relieve Bede of the baby.

“I thought we might visit you as soon as we could,” she told him. “Roger and Jasper wanted to say thanks, we wanted you to see Pearl, and you were crying so hard when I had left.”

Bede’s cheeks grew warm and he looked down at his hands. “I-I’m going to miss you so much, Ms. Opal.”

“She won’t be far,” Roger assured him. “You can always come talk to her at the cemetery. You might not know it, but she’ll hear you.”

“We’ll be flitting out and about sometimes, but look hard enough and you’ll find us by your side,” Opal said.

Knowing that she was never really gone gave Bede joy and peace he had never known before in his life. For much of his life he was used to being alone. Now he would have to get used to being surrounded by loved ones. Not that he was complaining.

Opal handed Pearl over to her husband. “Well, dear, let’s get going to visit Kes over at Wyndon. You’ve got to see how much it has changed over the years! And this time we don’t need a car or Flying Taxi to get there.”

With one arm Roger held his daughter, and with the other he took her hand. “First family trip in decades. Looking forward to it.”

Jasper bounced in place as his mother held his hand. “We’re going to see Uncle Kes! We’re going to see Uncle Kes!”

It seemed that the whole family had forgiven Kestrel, and knowing that made Bede happy for the poor man, wherever he was now.

Opal looked back to him. “This is good-bye, Bede my boy, but not forever. We’ll be back.”

He nodded. “Enjoy your next life,” he said softly.

The family turned to leave, and Bede ran outside of Opal’s house to find her, hand-in-hand with her spouse and son, flitting among the giant mushrooms of Ballonlea Town, weightless and soaring despite having no wings, and filling the air with tinkering laughter. Bede smiled through his tears, his heart overcoming how crushed it had been from losing Opal, so it can soar with them. He thought that they would leave without looking back, but then Opal briefly let go of Jasper’s hand to wave at Bede. He waved back at her and, like fairy dust, they shimmered out of sight.

#

Gone were the days that Bede had to wear Opal’s oversized Gym jerseys. Now he had his own that fit him. It felt strange no longer having to tie the extra length behind his back. He used to hate looking at himself in the mirror, finding the bright pink and blue ridiculous on him. But now, on the first day back to the Gym since Opal was laid to rest, Bede saw glowing, shameless pride in his reflection.

He emerged from the changing room, bypassing the clamor of the lobby to head backstage. Voices from Diantha, the stage crew, and actors drifted into his ears. Pen and clipboard in hand, the Kalos Champion-turned-theatre manager asked for another lighting test when Bede walked in.

She waved at him. “Leader Bede, you’re ready for your match with the newest challenger?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied. “And how’s preparation for the play coming along?”

“So far so good. Everyone’s excited to have an audience fill the theatre again.”

“Count me in that crowd.”

Both the Gym and theatre had to close during the days following Opal’s death. The backdrop behind him and Diantha switched colors as the lighting was being tested. Bede noticed that Diantha, with her stylish white blouse, pale blue eyes, and short brown hair darkened by distorted lighting, didn’t look too different from Opal in her younger days. His chest twinged at the nostalgia.

“You’re coming to the premiere later tonight, mon cheri?”

Diantha’s Kalosian accent brought Bede back to the present day, and he shot a broad grin at the young woman he came to know and love as a big sister. “You bet I am.”

“Glad to hear it.” She gave him a good-hearted pat on the back. “Now go break a leg out there, Gym Leader!”

Bede left backstage to make his way to the other side of the Gym. He never got a direct answer out of Opal on what pink meant to her. Not that she would just hand him the answer so easily, anyway. He spent his walk mulling it over. The last time she had seen the most pink in anyone before him was in her son, Jasper. He had seen what that boy was like before his life was cut short, and what he was like if his life had been allowed to run its course. That bright, bouncing little boy had charmed everyone around him, much like a Fairy type Pokemon, and had charmed his mother most of all. Bede then considered himself: not exactly steeped in charm, but brimming with promise and potential that Opal was able to spot before he could. Yes, that must be what pink had meant to her. Promise and potential to inherit her legacy. Jasper couldn’t live long enough to fulfill it, but Bede would take his place.

“Keep thinking about the right answer,” Opal liked to say, “and eventually you’ll create the right answer.”

That cryptic favorite saying of hers would make people throw up their hands in frustration, because no one could make heads or tails of her impish ways. But Bede knew what she had meant, and remembering that saying stirred in him such warm fondness for her that he stopped at the entrance to the stadium to wipe at his eyes before being noticed by the audience or the Rotom camera.

He squared his shoulders and drew in a deep breath before striding into the spotlight. Cheers flooded the stadium. Bede soaked it in and let it wash away any performance anxiety that might’ve built up from his walk. He approached the Gym challenger, a girl he guessed to be thirteen or fourteen, in the middle of the arena. She was decked out in dark, studded clothes. A local from Spikemuth, maybe?

She opened her mouth, and the rough way of talking confirmed his guess. “All this cotton candy Fairy type aesthetic is makin’ me sick, y’know. I’ll kick your soft, pink, sissy team to the curb!”

A saucy Fairy-bashing lass, Opal would call her. Probably smug from the string of Gym victories up to this point, too. Bede kept his cool and only gave the challenger a jaunty Opal-esque smile. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss Fairy type Pokemon.”

After that brief obligatory exchange at the center of the arena, Bede turned away to reach his side of the stadium. The Gym holding its first match since Opal’s funeral resulted in a massive turnout. Shots from the Rotom camera projected on the big screens revealed familiar faces among the audience: Professor Magnolia, Sonia, Victor, Gloria, Hop, the current Champion Leon and the former one, Mustard. And of course, Bede’s fellow Gym Leaders. They all showed up to give him their support for his first steps taken without Opal’s guidance. His heart swelled in appreciation for all of them.

Bede glanced up at the audience on his way, and nearly stopped in disbelief. Standing by the rails, seemingly invisible to the crowd sitting behind them, was Opal and her family. She carried her baby daughter while Roger had Jasper propped on his shoulders.

“Put on a good show, my boy,” Opal called down to him.

Somehow, despite the roar of the audience, Opal and her family cheered for Bede the loudest. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he blinked hard. The tears went away, and with them, Opal’s family. His wide, confused gaze lingered where they had vanished, but they didn’t reappear. Was it just his imagination? Bede shook his head. He turned to face the challenger and close his fingers around the first Poke ball in his belt. No, they were there, even if he couldn’t see and hear them all the time. Opal promised that she would never be too far.

That sent a surge of comfort and confidence through him. The new Gym Leader of Ballonlea Town, Opal’s successor, extended the ball of his first Pokemon with a flourish at his challenger. “I’ll show you how marvelous Fairy type Pokemon can be!”

Notes: Musical inspiration for this chapter/epilogue: “The Place Where Wishes Come True” from Clannad.

That’s it for La Vie en Rose! I really enjoyed writing about Opal and Bede. There’s just something really sweet and poignant about the old and young forging a strong friendship. I wrote this story shortly after my dad died in January 2020. I invested a lot more emotional energy into this than I thought I would. I’m grateful that I did. This is the 1st multi-chapter fic I’ve completed in a very long time (I’m talking years), so I came away feeling victorious. Thank you for following this story to the end.

[somstory]

Chapter 32 of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

There was the day, during our first trip—our first circle of paradise—when in order to enjoy my phantasms in peace I firmly decided to ignore what I could not help perceiving, the fact that I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not a pal, not even a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn—to mention only mentionable matters. There was the day when having withdrawn the functional promise I had made her on the eve (whatever she had set her funny little heart on—a roller rink with some special plastic floor or a movie matinee to which she wanted to go alone), I happened to glimpse from the bathroom, through a chance combination of mirror aslant and door ajar, a look on her face . . . that look I cannot exactly describe . . . an expression of helplessness so perfect that it seemed to grade into one of rather comfortable inanity just because this was the very limit of injustice and frustration—and every limit presupposes something beyond it—hence the neutral illumination. And when you bear in mind that these were the raised eyebrows and parted lips of a child, you may better appreciate what depths of calculated carnality, what reflected despair, restrained me from falling at her dear feet and dissolving in human tears, and sacrificing my jealousy to whatever pleasure Lolita might hope to derive from mixing with dirty and dangerous children in an outside world that was real to her. 

And I have still other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, on a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked: 

“You know, what’s so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own”; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling’s mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile clichés, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate—cim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsion; for I often noticed that living as we did, she and I, in a world of total evil, we would become strangely embarrassed whenever I tried to discuss something she and an older friend, she and a parent, she and a real healthy sweetheart, I and Annabel, Lolita and a sublime, purified, analyzed, defied Harold Haze, might have discussed—an abstract idea, a painting, stippled Hopkins or shorn Baudelaire, God or Shakespeare, anything of a genuine kind. Good will! She would mail her vulnerability in trite bashness and boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge, provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible, oh my poor, bruised child. 

I loved you. i was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller. 

I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her—after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred—I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever—for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)—and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again—and “oh, no” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure—all would be shattered. 

Mid-twentieth century ideas concerning child-parent relationship have been considerably tainted by the scholastic rigmarole and standardized symbols of the psychoanalytic racket, but I have hope I am addressing myself to unbiased readers. Once when Avis’s father had honked outside to signal papa had come to take his pet home, I felt obliged to invite him to the parlor, and he sat down for a minute, and while we conversed, Avis, a heavy, unattractive, affectionate child, drew up to him and eventually perched plumply on his knee. Now, I do not remember if I have mentioned that Lolita always had an absolutely enchanting smile for strangers, a tender furry slitting of the eyes, a dreamy sweet radiance of all her features which did not mean a thing of course, but was so beautiful, so endearing that one found it hard to reduce such sweetness to but a magic gene automatically lighting up her face in atavistic token of some ancient rite of welcome—hospitable prostitution, the coarse reader may say. Well, there she stood while Mr. Byrd twirled his hat and talked, and—yes, look at how stupid of me, I have left out the main characteristic of the famous Lolita smile, namely: while the tender, nectared, dimpled brightness played, it was never directed at the stranger in the room but hung in its own remote flowered void, so to speak, or wandered with myopic softness over chance objects—and this is what was happening now: while fat Avis sidled up to her papa, Lolita gently beamed at a fruit knife that she fingered on the edge of the table, whereon she leaned, many miles away from me. Suddenly, as Avis clung to her father’s neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man enveloped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita’s smile lose all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself, and the fruit knife slipped off the table and struck her with its silver handle a freak blow on the ankle which made her gasp, and crouch head forward, and then, jumping on one leg, her face awful with the preparatory grimace which children hold till the tears gush, she was gone—to be followed at once and consoled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had nothing. And I have a neat pendant to that little scene—also in a Beardsley setting. Lolita, who had been reading near the fire, stretched herself, and then inquired, her elbow up, with a grunt: “Where is she buried anyway?” “Who?” “Oh, you know, my murdered mummy.” “And you know where her grave is,” I said controlling myself, whereupon I named the cemetery—just outside Ramsdale, between the railway tracks and Lakeview Hill. “Moreover,” I added, “the tragedy of such an accident is somewhat cheapened by the epithet you saw fit to apply to it. If you really wish to triumph in your mind over the idea of death—” “Ray,” said Lo for hurray, and languidly left the room, and for a long while I stared with smarting eyes into the fire. Then I picked up her book. It was some trash for young people. There was a gloomy girl Marion, and there was her stepmother who turned out to be, against all expectations, a young, gay, understanding redhead who explained to Marion that Marion’s dead mother had really been a heroic woman since she had deliberately dissimulated her great love for Marion because she was dying, and did not want her child to miss her. I did not rush up to her room with cries. I always preferred the mental hygiene of noninterference. Now, squirming and pleading with my own memory, I recall that on this and similar occasions, it was always my habit and method to ignore Lolita’s states of mind while comforting my own base self. When my mother, in a livid wet dress, under the tumbling mist (so I vividly imagined her), had run panting ecstatically up that ridge above Moulinet to be felled there by a thunderbolt, I was but an infant, and in retrospect no yearnings of the accepted kind could I ever graft upon any moment of my youth, no matter how savagely psychotherapists heckled me in my later periods of depression. But I admit that a man of my power of imagination cannot plead personal ignorance of universal emotions. I may also have relied too much on the abnormally chill relations between Charlotte and her daughter. But the awful point of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif. 

[thegoldenyears-memories]

         ☆ MISCHIEF MANAGED, a the marauders mix ☆

“i solemnly swear that i am up to no good.”

                                                                     ( listen )

01. ORPHANS de coldplay ( i want to know when i can go back and get drunk with my friends. i want to know when i can go back and be young again. )

02. THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT de fall out boy ( and in the end, i'll do it all again. i think you're my best friend. don't you know that the kids aren't, kids aren't alright? )

03. THE RECKLESS AND THE BRAVE de all time low ( long live the reckless and the brave. i don't think i want to be saved, my song has not been sung. long live us. )

04. NEW GOLDEN AGE de keane ( we were young, now we wake from the dream, stumble blurry-eyed, find ourselves at the gates of a new golden age. )

05. THE GREAT ESCAPE de boys like girls ( throw it away, forget yesterday. we'll make the great escape. we won't hear a word they say, they don't know us anyway. )

06. 1979 de the smashing pumpkins ( we were sure we'd never see an end to it all. )

07. TIME TO PRETEND de mgmt ( this is our decision to live fast and die young. we've got the vision, now let's have some fun. )

08. RIBS de lorde ( this dream isn't feeling sweet, we're reeling through the midnight streets. it feels so scary getting old. you're the only friend i need, sharing beds like little kids, and laughing 'til our ribs get tough, but that will never be enough. )

09. ENGLAND de the national ( you must be somewhere in london, you must be loving your life in the rain. )

10. HIGH HOPES de panic! at the disco ( mama said fulfill the prophecy, be something greater, go make a legacy, manifest destiny. back in the days we wanted everything. )

11. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS de the beatles ( i get by with a little help from my friends. )

12. SKY’S STILL BLUE de andrew belle ( oh, if you’re hearing this, i must have made it through. oh, when the clouds above open up through my window, I'll see the sky’s still blue. )

13. AND THE BOYS de angus & julia stone ( and the boys go on and on and on and on. and there's gold falling from the ceiling of this world, falling from the things we should have learned, falling from the things we could have heard, falling from the people that we heard, falling from the love we never earned, falling from the sky that should have burned, falling fom my heart. )

14. WE WILL ROCK YOU de queen ( buddy you're a young man hard man, shoutin' in the street gonna take on the world some day. you got blood on yo' face, you big disgrace. wavin' your banner all over the place. we will, we will rock you. )

15. FRIENDS de band of skulls ( i need love 'cause only love is true. i need every waking hour with you, and my friends 'cause they're so beautiful. yeah, my friends they are so beautiful. they're my friends. )

16. WE ARE YOUNG de fun. ft. janelle monáe ( so if by the time the bar closes, and you feel like falling down, i'll carry you home. tonight we are young, so let's set the world on fire, we can burn brighter than the sun. )

17. INVINCIBLE de muse ( during the struggle they will pull us down. please, please, let's use this chance to turn things around. and tonight we can truly say together we're invincible. )

18. DON’T STOP ME NOW de queen ( don't stop me now 'cause i'm having a good time. don't stop me now, yes i'm having a good time, i don't want to stop at all, yeah! )

19. BREAK THE RULES de charli xcx ( i don't wanna go to school, i just wanna break the rules. )

20. KEEPING YOUR HEAD UP de birdy ( don't you know your pain is mine? and i would die a thousand times to ease your mind. hold tight; you're slowly coming back to life. i'll be keeping your head up. )

21. WE’LL BE ALRIGHT de travie mccoy ( we are young, we run free, stay up late, we don’t sleep, got our friends, got the night, we’ll be alright. )

22. YOUNG VOLCANOES de fall out boy ( we are wild, we are like young volcanoes. )

23. A.M. de one direction ( won't you stay 'til the a.m.? all my favourite conversations, always made in the a.m. cause we don't know what we're saying. we're just swimming round in our glasses, and talking out of our asses, like we're all gonna make it. )

24. NEVER GOING BACK de the score ( i'm never gonna follow just because they say so. )

25. US AGAINST THE WORLD de coldplay ( through chaos as it swirls, it's us against the world. )

26. PRINCES OF THE UNIVERSE de queen ( here we are, born to be kings, we're the princes of the universe. here we belong, fighting to survive in a war with the darkest powers. )

27. TIMSHEL de mumford & sons ( but you are not alone in this, and you are not alone in this, as brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand, hold your hand. )

28. CARRY ON de fun. ( 'cause we are, we are shining stars, we are invincible. we are who we are on our darkest day, when we’re miles away, so we'll come, we will find our way home. )

29. RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES de aurora ( i'm running with the wolves tonight. )

30. MY BLOOD de twenty one pilots ( when everyone you thought you knew deserts your fight, i'll go with you. you're facin' down a dark hall, i'll grab my light and go with you. )

31. LEGENDARY de welshly arms ( yeah, we're gonna be legends. gonna teach 'em all a lesson. got this feeling in our souls we carry that it's about to be legendary. )

32. LIVE LIKE LEGENDS de ruelle ( this is our time, no turning back. we could live, we could live like legends. )

33. LANDSLIDE de fleetwood mac ( well, i've been afraid of changing, 'cause i've built my life around you. but time makes you bolder, even children get older, and i'm getting older too. )

34. VIVA LA VIDA de coldplay ( i used to rule the world, seas would rise when i gave the word. now in the morning i sleep alone, sweep the streets i used to own. )

35. WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS de queen ( we are the champions, my friends. and we'll keep on fighting 'til the end. we are the champions, we are the champions. no time for losers, 'cause we are the champions of the world. )

36. MARCHIN ON de one republic ( there's so many wars we fought, there's so many things we're not, but with what we have, i promise you that we're marching on. )

37. FOREVER YOUNG de youth group ( forever young, i want to be forever young. do you really want to live forever? forever young. )

38. THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE de bastille ( do you understand that we will never be the same again? the future's in our hands and we will never be the same again. )

39. HEROES NEVER DIE de unsecret & krigarè ( don't give up the fight, 'cause heroes never die. )

40. GOLDEN DAYS de panic! at the disco ( oh don't you wonder when the light begins to fade? and the clock just makes the colors turn to grey. forever younger growing older just the same, all the mem'ries that we make will never change. and i swear that i'll always paint you golden days. )

41. HOW FAR WE’VE COME de matchbox twenty ( i believe the world is burning to the ground, oh well i guess we're gonna find out. let's see how far we've come. well i believe it all is coming to an end. oh well, i guess, we're gonna pretend. let's see how far we've come. )

42. WAY DOWN WE GO de kaleo ( oh, father tell me, do we get what we deserve? )

43. RUNNING UP THAT HILL de placebo ( and if i only could make a deal with god and get him to swap our places. be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that building, if i only could. )

44. GOOD OLD DAYS de macklemore ft. kesha ( i wish somebody would have told me, babe, that someday these will be the good old days. all the love you won't forget and all these reckless nights you won't regret. 'cause someday soon, your whole life's gonna change. you'll miss the magic of the good old days. )

45. OH BROTHER de saint raymond ( who are you to say we can't stand up to face it all again. show me where you hide, bring this back to life, who will hear us cry, oh, brother. )

46. CHARLIE BROWN de coldplay ( we'll run wild, we'll be glowing in the dark. )

47. TIME OF OUR LIVES de tyrone wells ( it's hard to walk away from the best of days, but if it has to end, i'm glad you have been my friend in the time of our lives. )

48. HEROES de david bowie ( we can be heroes, for ever and ever. what d'you say? )

49. ALL THESE THINGS THAT I’VE DONE de the killers ( when there's nowhere else to run, is there room for one more son? )

50. DON’T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME de panic! at the disco ( this night is heating up, raise hell and turn it up. oh yeah, don't threaten me with a good time. )

51. CENTURIES de fall out boy ( some legends are told, some turn to dust or to gold. but you will remember me, remember me for centuries. )

52. I LIVED de one republic ( hope when the moment comes, you'll say... i, i did it all. i, i did it all. i owned every second that this world could give. i saw so many places, the things that i did. with every broken bone, i swear i lived. )

53. CASTLE ON THE HILL de ed sheeran ( i still remember these old country lanes, when we did not know the answers. and i miss the way you make me feel, and it's real, when we watched the sunset over the castle on the hill. )

54. HEY JUDE de the beatles ( and anytime you feel the pain, hey, jude, refrain. don't carry the world upon your shoulders. )

55. MY OLD FRIEND de sam amidon ( my old friend, i recall, times we had are hanging on my wall. i wouldn't trade them for gold. they laughed and they cried me, and somehow sanctified me. my old friend, this song's for you, 'cause a few simple verses was the least that i could do, to tell the world that you were here. the love and the laughter will live on long after all of the sadness and the tears. we'll meet again, my old friend. )

56. I WAS HERE de beyoncé ( i was here. i lived, i loved, i was here. i did, i've done everything that i wanted, and it was more than i thought it would be. i will leave my mark so everyone will know i was here. )

57. SEE YOU AGAIN de wiz khalifa ft. charlie puth ( it's been a long day without you, my friend. and i'll tell you all about it when i see you again. we've come a long way from where we began, oh, i'll tell you all about it when i see you again. )

58. DEATH WILL NEVER CONQUER de coldplay ( if sweet death should ever come for me, let me know, boys, let me know. if you hear him coming, won't you let me flee. let me go, boys, let me go. )

59. TO BUILD A HOME de the cinematic orchestra ( there is a house built out of stone. wooden floors, walls and window sills. tables and chairs worn by all of the dust. this is a place where i don't feel alone, this is a place where i feel at home. and i built a home for you, for me. until it disappeared from me, from you. )

60. A WINDOW TO THE PAST de john williams

╰  ❄  feliz navidad y año nuevo, tiff.

—; de: andy ( @thelonelyykitty​ )

—; para: tiff ( @canut0​ )

Querida Tiffany (HEH):

Primero que nada, perdón por el regalo de Agatha shjGDJSDSDSD. Ya sabes que odia a Sirius con su alma. Perdón DSHSJDSDSDDS. 

Segundo, para compensar eso te armé este hermoso mix de nuestros bebés favoritos. Siempre quise hacerles uno, ¡y esta fue mi oportunidad! Fui muy feliz, la verdad. Los amo muchísimo desde siempre y tienen un lugar muy especial en mi corazoncito, así que hacerlo fue very divertido y emotivo. Lloré unas cinco veces. Te aconsejo y te pido que escuches cada canción y leas cada letra, porque sólo coloqué las frases más significativas, cuando hay mucho más (esto es porque son 60 canciones y si ponía todo, iba a tardar una eternidad). Spotify no tenía una canción but puse un link a youtube para que la escuches, hehehe. Espero te guste mucho, mucho. Definitivamente busqué ir desde sus tiempos más inocentes y bonitos, hasta cuando todo se va a la… A un lugar muy triste. Creo que existe una reticencia a crecer de parte de ellos, porque de pronto fueron lanzados a una guerra y se vieron obligados a lidiar con un asunto de adultos cuando eran aún niños, a pesar de escogerlo, y de sentirse heroicos... Fue demasiado para ellos. Intenté involucrar ese tema también, cómo se fueron perdiendo los años dorados y terminaron en... Lo que es, ya sabes. Su historia me parece sumamente triste, so... Hice algo muy triste también HSSDGDSSD. Like primero fueron muy felices y tenían esa amistad tan inquebrantable y real, y después ALGUIEN peter decidió mandar todo a un lugar nada agradable y bueno, se rompió todo eso y se magulló la historia. Al menos vivieron la locura al full, supongo hdjssdsdjsd. Creyeron que todos iban a salir vivos e igual de la guerra *sigue llorando*, al final fueron... *llora más fuerte*... Legendarios *llora demasiado*. Ojalá llores con Landslide como yo, digo que. Así que ten una playlist muy feliz y al mismo tiempo muy triste, justo como ellos. Disfrútala, llora como lo hice yo con la última canción, pregúntate porque Rowling nos quitó todo, y lo más importante: sé feliz. 

Soy muy mala en estas cartas, porque literal siento que nunca me expreso totalmente, pero lo intento. Espero sepas que te quiero mucho y me alegra que sigamos en contacto después de conocernos por tanto tiempo. Siempre has sido bien linda conmigo y MUY, MUY DIVERTIDA, en verdad me has hecho reír demasido. Eres mi bebé *peina su cabello y la mente en una mantita*. Gracias por continuar aquí y por todos los bonitos momentos de nuestra amistad, eres de lo más linda. Espero hayas tenido una hermosa Navidad y Año nuevo, y que este año sea muy bueno para ti en todos los aspectos, porque mereces ser muy feliz. Mis mejores deseos para ti, bebé, nunca olvides lo linda que eres y cuanto vales. Sabes que aquí estamos cualquier cosa y ojalá sepas lo importante que eres. ¡Te quiero muuuuucho! Te dejo un abracito fuerte y cariñoso. Gracias por todo, todito. 

P.D.: No sé si era “a marauders mix” o “a the marauders mix”, pero le dejé el segundo porque tenía más sentimiento, siono.

Con musho amors, 

                                                 — andy ♡. 🎅

[boarix]

Wraith in the Ruins: A Fallout 4 Story Part XVII

Personality Conflict

Trigger warnings: Canon language/violence/gun, drug and alcohol use. Drug addiction/intervention.

Game spoilers

Please enjoy!

 “I should have known better when you wouldn’t charge me for your services. After all, you get what you pay for.”

“Our services are for Atom’s benefit, Sister Marie. Not yours.”

She folded her arms and glared at the ghoul, “You wouldn’t have even known of Wraith’s existence were it not for me! I would say the destruction of a false profit and her network of infidels is to Atom’s…”

Infamy’s high, psychotic laughter cut her short, “You have strayed from Atom’s path and you lust for her ruin for your own satisfaction, yes? He he he!”

“SHE IS AN ENEMY OF ALL OF ATOMS CHILDREN!” She spat her words and threw her arms wide, “I have given you all the information you should have needed! I see no results.”

“No?” The glowing one moved uncomfortably close to look directly into her eyes, “Then you are blind. We have seen her people scurry and scramble in desperate confusion; like mole rats when their queen’s gone rabid. We struck low one of her most powerful fighters. We have better information now. We know how her network functions. How quickly they come to each other’s aid and the total weight of her fist.” Looking self-satisfied they leaned away and ran their eyes from her toes to her crown, “We’ve a clear picture of you as well; still wandering The Fog, looking for visions with eyes firmly shut…”

Fury colored her face scarlet, “You… how DARE YOU!”

They turned their back to her and walked away, unconcerned for her wrath, “We do not see Atom’s Plan lay before us like a smoothly-paved road, but we will walk the trail that’s there for those who dare to look for it.”

   “Looking rough, man. You sick?”

“Say something?” MacCready’s mumbled query took form around an enormous yawn. He had been taking the third watch so that he could have dinner with his son and put him to bed, get him up and have breakfast, have playtime, have lunch and then put him down for nap. Shaun, Marcy or Carol Peabody would watch Duncan in the afternoon so Mac could either teach lessons or attended to various projects. Ultimately he was getting precious few hours of sleep and despite his youth, his fatigue was starting to show. Happy to see the sun rise, he was fantasizing about grabbing a nap before his child woke up, and fought the urge to pretend he didn’t hear the other man.

“I said you look like shit.” Lloyd smiled blithely, “Your beard is out of control and your bags are so big, your eyes look pregnant. Don’t sleep well when the General or Mayor ain’t here to snuggle you? Cause the lack of beauty rest is glaring.”

“Well, we all can’t be as beautiful as you, Mr. Lloyd.”

“Mr. Garvey, actually.”

“Garvey? Like Preston Garvey?”

“I knew it! Fucker! Don’t even know my last name… Bossy owes me twenty caps.” He made a great show of turning his back to MacCready while flourishing his binoculars, “Just cause you all use your last names like they’re titles…”

“Wait, wait, wait… you’re related to Preston? How… how, did I not know that?!”

“I’m his older cousin… or maybe once removed on his mother’s side… I’m his aunt’s kid with her second husband, but she kept the last name and ditched… you know what? Doesn’t matter. Point is, I am Lieutenant Lloyd Harvest Jeremiah Garvey and you can take that to the bank!”

MacCready tried to look as unimpressed as possible, “Since when are you a Lieutenant? Wraith handing out pity promotions again?”

“Fuck you too!” His laugher softened his harsh words, “No, she recognizes my impeccable aim and stalwart reliability.” Humor fled from his face, “I would fall on a grenade for her, although I know she’d never ask me too.”

“Naw, she eats ‘em for breakfast.”

“Ha, true! She’s the most bad-assed… you don’t need me telling you the kind of loyalty she inspires!”

“Actually, have you heard anything from any of the ghoul Minutemen?” MacCready felt bad for even asking, “This whole Infamy sh… fiasco has me paranoid.”

There had been reports of missing settlers as well as feral ghoul horde attacks on provisioner caravans. The frequency and precision seemed to indicate there was an insider informant. Wraith had been on the road with Preston and Dogmeat for the better part of a month and with Hancock back in Goodneighbor, MacCready’s irritation and loneliness had reached its peak. He just wanted it to be over.

“I know everybody and if they aren’t ready to die for her cause they love her, than they are too terrified of her to even try stabbing her in the back.”

He stuck out his lower lip, “Their scared of her? I don’t think half of them have ever even seen her fight. She’s not really frightening when she’s just… walkin’ around, is she?”

“Oh man… wait, wait, hold up! You’re askin’ me to tell you about your lady?” Lloyd shook his head violently enough his neck made popping sounds, “No, no you’re asking me to talk about my General? Cause all you’re getting from me is ‘she’s great’ and ‘fuck you sideways’.”

MacCready blew an exceptionally loud raspberry.

“I see you tryin’ to get me fired, man. I thought we were close.”

Turning his back with finality, MacCready waved over his head as he went down the stairs, “I’m close enough to smell you. I’ll see you in a few hours. Do me a favor and have a really boring day, okay?”

“You got it, MacBeardy. Why don’t you go trim that shit? Looking like that, it’s a wonder anybody wants to kiss you.”

Too tired to fight back, he was grateful for gravity’s help down the stairs. Once his feet were back on the ground he stopped to let his eyes adjust to the dim light before sweeping them along the street and in-between the nearest homes.

Yawning aggressively, he clicked his teeth, “…really should have a patrol going inside the walls too… don’t know who might be creepin’ around…”

As if on cue, a small, shadowy figure left the clinic and made its way toward Wraith’s house.

Tiredness forgotten, MacCready raised his rifle, “HEY! STOP RIGHT THERE!”

“Don’t shoot! It’s me!” Shaun all but fell to the ground, “I’m sorry!”

“Did you spend the night in the clinic?!” Torn between sympathy and anger, he opened and shut his mouth wordlessly; fighting with his impulse to tear into the child.

“I’m sorry! Yes, but…”

“Shaun, I… understand that you’re worried about Danse, but I… I trust you to help me with Duncan…”

“I know! That’s why…”

“DON’T INTTERUPT ME, MAN!” Instantly regretting raising his voice, he took a deep breath, “He shouldn’t be in the house by himself.”

Shaun squared his shoulders and set his jaw. Thrusting his right hand into the air, his voice was filled with righteous indignation as he shook an item at the heavens, “BABY MONITOR!”

“WELL, I DIDN’T KNOW THAT AND I’M SORRY! DID YOU MAKE THAT YOURSELF?!”

“NO! I JUST FIXED IT AND BOOSTED ITS RANGE!”

“WOW THAT’S REALLY COOL!”

“OKAY, BUT WHY ARE WE STILL YELLING?!”

“I DON’T KNOW YOU STARTED IT!”

“NOOOOOOO WAY, RJ!”

A settler opened a nearby window and stuck her head out, “Boys, it is too early in the morning for you to be yelling like that!”

Laughing now, Shaun apologized while the other flipped her off by pretending to itch his eye. MacCready patted the kid’s shoulder as they crossed the yard to their door. Just as he touched the doorknob, Lloyd’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.

“MacCready, I got a new face at the gate.”

He ushered Shaun through the door and walked back to the street before responding, “I thought we agreed you were going to have a boring day. Besides, there are Minutemen at the gate checking on newbies. What’s the big deal?”

“He’s a big deal; six feet plus. Dark hair and light eyes… looks like you and Capt’n Danse had a baby… oh, shit. Sorry, man. That was a stupid…”

“It’s fine…” MacCready pinched the bridge of his nose, “That could literally be anybody…”

“He’s probably not Infamy, right? They’re all ghouls?”

“I don’t think we know who they all are...” He really just wanted to go and sleep for two seconds, “Lloyd, I am really tired…”

“MacCready, I know everybody, remember? I don’t know this guy!”

A chill ran down his back and the hairs on his nape stood up. He jogged down the street toward the gate, “Where are they exactly?”

“He’s standing behind Carla’s brahmin… hold on… shit!”

“Lloyd?!”

“I lost him! I’m going to the open channel!”

Swallowing hard and fighting the urge to sprint to the gate, MacCready turned back toward the house he shared with his new family. It was obvious that Shaun would be a primary target to anyone looking to damage Wraith. Switching his walkie to the open channel, he listened to the Minutemen as they searched for this mysterious stranger.

I’ll take the boys through the river to the Rocket. Ain’t no way Strong will let anything happen to his little brothers. Then I’ll go hunt this bastard down.

“Robert Joseph MacCready?”

The disembodied voice came from a shadow just to his right. Preoccupied with the safety of the children; he cursed himself internally for allowing the threat to get so close.

His rifle seemed to materialize in his hands as he spun away. As fast as he was, it was a surprise when his intended target had already breached his circle of defense; placing a hand on the weapon and forcing it skyward. An immediate tug of war began as both men tried to secure the gun.

Despite the difference in overall size, MacCready was well able to hold his own. In a last-ditch effort to dislodge his large foe, he deliberately fell backward, hooking a boot into his opponent’s midsection and flipping them over his head. Vaulting to his feet he quickly turned, once again making an attempt to pin the other man with the barrel of his gun.

The enemy activated a Stealth-boy and vanished before his eyes.

   Croup Manor was all but lost. The horde of ferals, shepherd by Infamy, washed over the settlement like a tidal wave. Wraith, Dogmeat, Preston and their small troop of Minutemen were hard pressed waiting for Dragoon reinforcements.

“WRAITH!” Knocked to the ground by an enormous bloated glowing one, Preston’s cry reverberated through the ruins.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” She had gathered what soldiers she could find in an attempt to preserve what was left of their group, and had guided them to the platform that surrounded the remains of the roundabout’s fountain, “Keep the high ground! Dogmeat stay here.” Wraith popped a Buffout and leaped into the mass of gyrating ghouls. Keeping her weapons holstered, she punched, ducked and dodged as she tried her best to not get hung up with one opponent for any longer than it was necessary to move them out of her way.

Out of her peripheral, she could see that the one feral that had turned friendly was pacing her. They had a tattered, red-plaid shirt and like her seemed to be heading toward Preston’s voice.

That’s lucky!

The ally feral reached Preston first and threw itself bodily at the bloated ghoul. The green-glowing monster seemed taken aback and the look of betrayal on its twisted face was almost comical. Recovering quickly, it back-handed its smaller, plaid-clad attacker, sending it flying.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Wraith hefted Preston into a fireman’s carry and zigzagged her way back to the rally point.

“Preston, are you alive?”

“Uhhhhh.”

“Oh, good.” She laid him down gently, “Medic, I need RadAway right away! Ha-ha!” She patted Preston on the shoulder, “Hang in there Colonel.” Turning away she adopted her General’s voice and addressed her frightened soldiers, “The Calvary will be here very soon! They know I’ve an appointment in Diamond city, and I cannot be late! Stay calm and pick you’re targets. Aim for the legs! And don’t hit me or I’ll be extremely vexed!” So saying she unsheathed her Shem Drowne sword and unholstered her revolver, and took a swan dive right back into the sea of feral ghouls.

  “Philippa Lynn Keita-Johnson, kindly get off of my case!”

“Val…”

“I am fine. I am recovered. I am well.”

“I know you say that but…”

“I am… I need backup…” Turning his head slightly, Nick Valentine called over his shoulder, “Ellie, please tell Wraith to leave me be!”

Laughing, Mrs. Valentine came into the living room brandishing a file folder, “I will do no such thing! You tell me I should take it easy, well, same goes for you. It hasn’t been that long since you were moo-lightening as squirrel-on-a-stick… what’s so funny, Wraith?”

Giggling, she made the mistake of making eye-contact with Valentine and then fell to laughing so hard she stopped making any sounds at all.

He smiled indulgently at his wife, “I think you meant ‘moonlighting’, my dear.”

“Oh… Wraith… Honey, you must be really tired; it wasn’t that funny.”

“Mooooo! Hahahaha!”

“At any rate; I am more than well enough to go with you to Sanctuary,” Valentine was becoming increasingly irritated at being handled like glass, “and for anything else, for that matter. I will not miss this just because of a minor intestinal perforation!”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“For the last time, my guts are one hundred percent fully healed and operational.”

“Prove it.”

“Alas, to my great shame, I cannot break wind on cue.”

   “ALLY, ALLY, ALLY! FRIENDLY!”

MacCready struck a dramatic figure; rifle at the ready and backlit by the dawn, tracking an invisible enemy by sound alone, “Show me some raised and empty hands, then we can talk about being friendly.”

“I’ve no guarantee that you won’t shoot as soon as you get a glimpse. No offence meant, but I’d prefer to remain alive.”

“Have we met? You seem vaguely familiar...”

A low whistle to his left was all the warning he got before some unknown liquid came flying through the air. Able to step out of its path, MacCready watched in confused fascination as his opponent was momentarily outlined before the Stealth-Boy compensated and they once again shimmered out of existence.

“That was motor oil and kerosene.” Shaun was outwardly calm as he flicked the sparkwheel on the lighter in his hand, “Don’t worry RJ, Duncan is with Strong…” His smile was almost pitying as he addressed the air, “I’m sure I hit you with enough to ignite. I wonder if the Stealth-Boy will hide you as you burn.”

“OKAY! Okay, I’ll show myself. Please believe me when I say that I’m a friend to Nyx Morningstar and an ally to General Wraith in her fight against Infamy.”

MacCready moved close to Shaun and whispered harshly in his ear, “Not your name.”

Phasing into view, the large man held his hands aloft, palms forward as he favored Shaun with a raised brow, “You are a terrifying young man.”

“HEY! You don’t get to talk to Peter! You talk to me. Got it?”

“Yes… MacCready. Or do you prefer RJ?”

“Might as well call me the Grim Reaper.” Stepping close, he held his weapon level with the other man’s eyes, “Name.”

“We’ve actually met…”

“If you know me then you know of my short, short fuse.” His voice was steel.

“Harkness! My name is Harkness and Nyx told me that if you give me too much trouble… to… to call you ‘Buttface’?”

Lowering his rifle, MacCready cocked his head to the side, “I do know you. Huh.”

“May I put my arms down now?”

“Nope. Keep ‘em high and walk back to the gate.” He turned to Shaun, “Squirrel, you have a sidearm?” He knew the answer, but the question was more for Harkness’ benefit.

“Uh… yeah. Yes!”

“Good. If he makes a run for it shoot his left knee. We are heading to the storage shed next to Bear’s place.” He motioned Harkness forward with his rifle, “Nice and easy. Just a lovely, morning stroll.”

As they walked, Shaun whispered out of the side of his mouth, “I thought my name was ‘Peter’.”

“Same kid.”

  Some few days later Wraith returned to Sanctuary with the Valentines in tow. Notified at the Rocket of the captured intruder, she called a meeting and had Harkness brought to her office under heavy guard. MacCready, Sofie, Lloyd and Cait arranged themselves on Wraith’s furniture and collectively glared at him.

“I would prefer to speak with you privately, if that’s alright with you, General Wraith.”

“No. That is not alright with me.” Weary and road dirty, she hoped that she at least looked impressive and authoritative, “Nyx has never mentioned a ‘Harkness’ to me, nor has she written an introductory letter on your behalf.” Arms folded she let some iron creep into her voice, “With all that has happened I think you might forgive me if I keep you under as many eyes as possible.”

“Do you have a Geiger counter?”

MacCready popped to his feet and clapped his hands before opening the door to the street, “Okay, everybody out!” He stuck his head out the door and gave a shrill whistle, “Dogmeat!” He favored Wraith with a forced smile, “His eyes are as good as anyone’s, right?”

As the grumbling group filed out, every single one of them gave the canine a pat as he trotted inside. The last to leave, MacCready gave a small cry of surprise as Panther dashed between his legs just as he was shutting the door.

Dogmeat immediately came to greet Harkness; tail wagging and tongue lolling leisurely. Taking their cue from their canine friend, Panther hopped atop Wraith’s desk and sat next to her. Whiskers extended toward the stranger, they made the chuffing sounds that were the great cat’s purr.

“I can’t believe it!” He patted the dog as best he could with bound hands, “I’m convinced, now more than ever, that you’re an immortal!”

“If he vouches for you, then I suppose I have no choice…” Unlocking his cuffs she offered him water and then flopped into her chair. There she sat, eyes trained at the ceiling and completely silent for several seconds.

“Do you have…?”

“I’m retired.”

“Hardly.” He leaned forward, left brow raised over an ice-blue eye.

“I can’t believe you are still using that pass phrase…”

“Do you have…?”

“Fucking sake! Mine’s in the motherfuckin’ shop!” She slapped her palm onto the tabletop, “I am officially retired and if you are still using that, you probably should fucking stop. MacCready never even…”

“We don’t. Harley told me it’s the one you’d recognize though.” He made note of the flash of pain that crossed her face, “He also told me that you and MacCready would give me the most hassle and that you were both, ‘monstrously terrifying’.” Giving Dogmeat another pat he matched Wraith’s glare with a smug smirk, “If he vouches for you, then I suppose I have no choice.”

“Cute. Why does the Railroad care about Infamy in Boston?”

Making a show of taking a long, slow drink, Harkness stalled; trying to find a delicate selection of words to hide the truth, “The Railroad cares deeply for all liberated synths. The loss of Danse is distressing, not just for the Minutemen and…”

Wraith rocketed to her feet and grabbed him by the collar. Easily lifting Harkness, she slammed him into the wall, “ENOUGH! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR DE… HARLEY’S LIES FROM YOU!” Letting him drop she backed away. Her voice turned terrifyingly emotionless but her eyes promised death, “I want the truth. Otherwise, I’ll go with my first instinct; consider you my enemy and rip you in half.”

He glared at her from the floor, “We have highly valued agents who could be compromised or killed if your struggle with Infamy goes to shit!”

Wraith’s expression softened, “Ah. People I know. People I’d miss if they were to suddenly relocate. People I wouldn’t stop looking for if they were to suddenly disappear.”

That was not tactful at all. I just… I almost killed him. Deacon and Morningstar sent him and I almost took him through the wall! What the hell is wrong with me?!

“May I stand, or will that get me bifurcated too?” Failing to hide his anger, he couldn’t help but take a jab at her, “I can see where Shaun gets it…”

That was a mistake.

Lost in a flash of rage, she aimed a punch at Harkness’ face.

Dogmeat saved his life: his sharp bark cut through Wraith’s wrath-filled haze and at the last second she altered her aim and slammed her fist through the wall.

Both breathing heavily, the two stared into each other’s eyes. Her regret showed clearly and a sudden revelation filled his blue orbs with understanding.

“You… you have lost so much. Father and the Institute were just the tip of the iceberg. You understand what it’s like to have your past and future manipulated by an uncaring puppet master. You know what it’s like… to not feel real…”

“I… I’m…” Slowly removing her hand, she backed away, eyes fixed on his, “I think that I can’t properly apologies to you for what just happened… but I am sorry.”

“I know you’ll find this hard to believe but I trust you more now.”

“You can’t trust…”

“…everybody. I know. I know.” He laid a hand gently over-top her blooded fist, pushing it down toward the floor, “Both Nyx and Harley are very important to me. They say you are one of the greatest allies the Railroad has ever known. So whatever just happened, let’s chalk it up to, you’re over-taxed and I’m an asshole.”

Motioning to him to take a more comfortable seat on her couch, Wraith went to her office first aid kit. Resuming her seat next to Panther, she began a deep breathing exercise while treated her injuries with a dermo-fuse.

Gotta calm. In, two, three. Calm. Out, two, three.

“So, you have all the intel on me from Harley. You know Shaun, you know… everything?”

“Actually, the dossier came from Nyx. So, I probably don’t know as much as you might fear.” Tenting his fingers, he briefly touched their tips to his lips before leaning toward her, “I would really like it if we could start over. Hello, I’m Harkness. I’m a Railroad heavy from the Capital Wasteland. I’ve known Nyx for over ten years. I was sent by our new leadership to protect our interests in the Commonwealth by offering you informational aid in your conflict with the organization known as Infamy.”

She offered him a wan smile, “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?

Laughing, he shook his head, “I tried. No, really! MacCready and Shaun just about turned me inside-out!”

“Do you know Mac too?”

“I only met him a couple of times. He didn’t recognize me and I hardly even recognize him; he’s way healthier looking now.”

She frowned, thinking that he actually looked a little haggard, “He eats better these days. Speaking of which, have they offered you food recently?”

“I could eat.”

Radioing Codsworth, she put in a request. Having finished repairing the lacerations on her hand, she returned the knitter to the first aid kit and once again flopped into her chair. Not sure how to begin, or if she should even start, an awkward silence hung in the air.

Harkness was watching Panther groom itself with a child-like fascination. When the cat jumped down and came over to rub on his legs his face beamed with joy. “She’s a synth, isn’t she? Incredible!”

“Technically speaking, Panther isn’t a ‘she’ or ‘he’. Although Danse…” She swallowed hard and looked at her hands in her lap.

Pretty sure my finger’s dislocated… ouch. Why am I having such a hard time? I used to be really good with people! Part of the reason I became a lawyer…

Harkness misunderstood her reaction, “I am very sorry that Danse was killed. I… met… him. He definitely wouldn’t have remembered me though.”

“How did you find out?”

“Nyx told me when she asked if I would come up here.”

“Asked, huh? Okay, how did Morningstar find out?”

A flicker of realization crossed his face, “We have a network of tourists… but you’d know that… he’s still alive, isn’t he?”

Wraith rose at Codsworth’s polite knock, “Food’s here.” She patted one of the robots eye stalks, “Thanks, sweetheart.”

“No trouble at all, mum!” He made happy whistling noises as he left.

While chewing his first, enormous bite, Harkness offered a morsel to Panther. His face broadcasting his delight when the cat oh-so-delicately accepted it. His smile became that much broader when Dogmeat also partook of his charity. When Wraith cleared her throat to bring him back to their conversation his cheeks momentarily reddened with guilt.

“Ah-hem, that’s interesting. Our information has him being killed outright. A sniper shot to the head.”

“He’s in a coma and has been for some time. He’ll have another scar on his brow… when he wakes up.” Stirring her vegetables distractedly, she stared at the wall in the direction of the clinic. “I have almost no information on Infamy. Mac and Hancock told me that they were a mercenary faction of the Children of Atom and that Morningstar had some dealings with them, but that’s about it. Islode had only so much more to add.” Setting her now completely forgotten meal on her desk, she stood up and began to pace, “I need to find them. I need to wrap this up. I can’t have another war of attrition, like with the Gunners!”

“I’m not familiar enough with this area to pinpoint them for you, but they would probably take up residence in the Glowing Sea, or similar sites that would be considered holy to Atom worshippers.”

“I’m not going to send the Dragoons into the Sea to wander around aimlessly. I did send my radioactive-resistant Hound pair to get a sitrep on Quincy Quarries. There’s a empty Vault-Tec installation there…”

“And what will you do when you find them?”

That gave Wraith pause: her first response was for a very percussive, terminal encounter.

You told Islode that you weren’t a conqueror. And that the Children were your neighbors. They are being fed false information from Marie. She is the real enemy.

“I don’t suppose they’d listen to reason, would they?”

“Are you suggesting you can be reasonable?” He waved his hands and laughed at the face she made, “I’m sorry! I’m joking!”

“Lay it out for me, Harkness! I’m obviously struggling. Normally I would attempt diplomacy immediately, but they never even gave me an ultimatum. I can’t bargain with a group who wants nothing I have!”

“Sister Marie wants some things though; your status as a profit discredited. Then your happiness. And then your life.”

Bringing her right hand up she began running it back and forth across her close-cropped hair, “I never once claimed to be a profit! If they want me to stand in front of the entire Atom nation and declare myself…”

“It wouldn’t be enough for Marie, but it might be enough for Infamy,” Harkness set his plate on the floor and leaned toward her, “and she is powerless without their backing.”

“Who are they?”

“When Nyx declined to detonate the warhead at Megaton, it shattered the hopes of the Children who lived and worshipped there. Denied their ‘Day of Division’, some of the members endeavored to become closer to Atom by taking a rare chem, that would either transform them into ghouls or…”

“Or kill them.”

He nodded, “Infamy developed soon after Nyx helped the BOS destroy the Enclave. My guess is that the glowing one that acts as the leader is the former Brother Gerard, from that Megaton sect.”

“And how would I use this information to begin peace talks?”

“One of our agents has suggested that you have some small control over feral ghouls, perhaps…”

“You can just say ‘Hancock’.” She made a dismissive gesture at his attempt at mock confusion, “I suppose you stopped in Goodneighbor before you came here. He has seen that ferals will… become docile around me… occasionally. It happened in front of him again, just a short while ago, so it would be fresh in his mind.”

“He told you he was an agent.”

She dropped her shoulders and rolled her eyes, “Yes, of course. We are very much intertwined in each other’s lives. And with me being a former agent; he can trust me with sensitive information. So please, let it go.”

“Very well.” He leaned back on the couch and smiled as Panther draped its self across his lap, “What is it like? Are you able to direct the actions of these ferals?”

“Nope.”

A flicker of irritation crossed his face, “Have you tried?”

She felt her face heat, “No! I would never! They have suffered enough. I wouldn’t presume to make them my puppets.”

“If you were able to command feral ghouls, or even pull some away from Infamy’s hoard, your clout as a profit in good standing would be beyond repute.”

“You’re asking me to win them over by masquerading as one of their most important religious figures.”

“No, I’m asking you to prove to them that you are the Mother’s Favored One.”

“But, Harkness that would be lying. And as you know, falsehoods make a poor foundation on which to build peace.”

He held his hands out and looked to the ceiling, appealing to some higher power for strength, “Why are you so adamant that it’s a lie?”

Wraith sputtered and scoffed, “… I wouldn’t… I’m not, I’m… well, okay maybe I’m not normal but…”

He knew he had her on the ropes and began tallying off his bullet points on his hands, “One, you are highly resistant to radiation, much like the Children’s Gift. This combined with pre-war experimentation has turned you into what could be described as a smooth-skin ghoul. Two, you have experienced visions in which the Mother appeared and seemed to guide you. Three, you have a charming effect on feral ghouls to the point that they will come to your aid, and apparently, follow you around like puppy dogs!”

Wraith quickly crossed the room, “Okay, how the fuck… There should only be three people, aside from myself who know I’m ghoulish…” She struck her forehead with the heel of her palm, “Oh, I’m so dumb! Of course he would know. And what he knows, you do. That asshole.”

Who I miss terribly and would really like to talk to…

“I’m guessing that even though Nyx handed me your information, it might have been from Harley after all… Sorry.” Harkness at least had the decency to look abashed.

“Okay, if I were to explore this, how would I even begin?”

“I brought someone with me. His name is Sun of Atom, and he’s a glowing one who’s also a member of the Megaton sect. I left him in Goodneighbor in the off chance that I was met with… let’s say, extreme resistance, to my idea.” He gave her a mocking smile.

“So, what? This Sun is going to teach me to…”

“Fine tune your obvious ability to command feral ghouls.”

She was running her hand over her hair again, “If I hadn’t just recently fought a super villain, possessed by alien technology, who was able to manipulate objects with her mind, I’d really think this was crazy…”

Then again, all I could think of at Croup was ‘gotta help Preston’ and that plaid shirt feral went right to him…

“I can go pick up Sun and be back here…”

“Oh, no; I’m not bringing ferals here. I would never do that to MacCready. How about you meet me at Wicked Shipping in a week.”

“It won’t take me a week…”

“Okay, look, I just got back. I would like to visit with my people, my kids and my beloved, feisty boyfriend as well as be there for the Valentine’s first ultrasound, before I fuck-off again to do whoever-the-fuck-knows!”

He held up his hands, “Okay, okay. That’s fair.”

“I’ll send you with an escort.”

“No thank you. That won’t be necessary…”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“Wraith,” He held his hands out pleadingly, “I’ve already garnered way more attention than is healthy! Please just, trust in my abilities. Harley wouldn’t have sent me if he didn’t think I could get it done.”

   Wraith met with Sofie and then joined the Valentines for their ultrasound before returning to her house. She could tell MacCready had been napping as one side of his now ample beard and his hair were pressed flat to the side of his head. They held each other tightly in a hug that was almost desperate. When she felt the tears start, she buried her face into his shoulder. It had the potential to carry on through the evening, so Shaun cleared his throat and that made Duncan giggle. Doing her best to ignore the subtle protests of her pre-teen grandson, she laughed at Mac’s hair and gave her lover a huge kiss.

“I don’t know how you can stand to kiss all that hair…”

She reached out and scratched the former merc’s chin, not unlike how she would for Dogmeat, “I don’t know, Shaun; I kinda dig it.”

MacCready lifted his chin and cocked his head to the side, apparently appreciating the sensation, “Thanks, knockout.”

“Gross.”

“Daddy’s beard is not gross!” Duncan shook a finger at his adopted brother, “It’s purdy! It’s got nice red in it; jus like Miss. Cait’s nice hair. And it tickles fun.”

Scooping his son from the floor, Mac kissed his cheek and Duncan squealed with laughter. Favoring Shaun with a superior look, he batted his eyelashes at him, “See? Dunk says it’s purdy.”

“Yeah, it’s purdy gross.”

Wraith watched MacCready chase the boys around the couch, trying to allow their joy to erase all of her recent worry and grief.

 Later that evening, Shaun and Wraith were playing Go Fish while MacCready gave his son his bath. She could tell he was trying to work up the nerve to ask her something, but didn’t want to put him off by asking outright.

“Hey, grandma?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you… umm… been to the clinic?”

“I went with the Valentines today.”

“Did you talk to Danse?”

Wraith very slowly lowered her cards, “He’s awake?!”

He waved his hands, “No! No, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hear you. Dr. Curie says that coma patients respond to their loved one’s voices.” He dropped his eyes to the tabletop, “I know you haven’t been to see him. You should go talk to him. I think… you might need to.”

It was true. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to go. Something about standing at Danse’s bedside, and seeing him in that condition, reminded her too much of her one-sided conversations with Nate at the gravesite.

“I think you’re right.” She stood and came around to hug him, “I’ll go right now.”

 Wraith started to cry when Curie hugged her.

“Oh! Oh, madame! What is the matter?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Do not apologies! Please tell me how I can help you.”

Wraith sniffled and dropped into a chair, “I know I’ve never been a pillar of emotional stability, but lately… I’m as bad as I think I’ve ever been.”

“What do you mean?”

Wraith laughed humorlessly, “I can’t hug anyone without bawling all over them. I keep giggling like a drunkard over stupid crap and I almost just killed our visitor over a mild insult.”

“Buffout.”

“Wha…”

“You take it quite a bit, no?”

“I… guess…”

“It is quite unnecessary regardless.” Curie pulled her desk chair around so she could sit facing her. Reaching forward, she took Wraith’s hands in hers, “I have been meaning to speak to you on this matter for some time, but it has been difficult for me. I think you have been upping your usage lately; taking some before every possible confrontation. Of which there seems to be a never-ending supply.” She patted her hands as Wraith’s face turned red, “Monsieur Hancock has expressed his concern to you on this, oui? He came to me only because you have dismissed his warnings. You are already shockingly strong Madame, in spirit as well as muscle. It’s possible the Buffout lost its effectiveness long ago; you use it now as a habit rather than a tool.”

It was like getting slapped in the face by a deathclaw gauntlet.

I took some just before the meeting today… Hancock’s been telling me to take it easy? Damn, I don’t even remember…

“I… I think I’m going to cry some more…” She slid out of her chair and onto the floor.

“I will cry too.”

Wraith held out her arms and the two held each other for a time. When the sniffling began to subside, Curie got up to go and get them some water.

“I must apologies for my poor bedside manner; I had wanted to be much more delicate with this and possibly have messieurs Hancock and MacCready here with you.” She sat next to Wraith on the floor and offered her an Addictol inhaler as well, “You didn’t come in here to be ambushed by me. No doubt you’ve come to see mon amour, oui?”

“You’re not ambushing me, Baby Bird. I’m sorry I made you worry.” She nodded toward the ICU room, “How has he been?”

It took a while before she could answer. Her face transitioned from extreme grief to a hopeful smile and back again. “He is… alive. His heartbeat remains strong.” She suddenly stood, “I will leave you two your privacy. Monsieur Sturges has invited me to play cards to ‘get me out of the house’.”

Wraith sat on the floor for several minutes, trying to do breathing exercises, staring at the door to Danse’s room. She had wanted Curie to stay with her but couldn’t find the words to stop her from leaving. Working up the nerve to simply walk to the door and reach out for the knob, took a herculean effort.

He’s not dead, just sleeping. Not dead. He’s sleeping.

He was not sleeping.

Shockingly thin, his breath coming in shallow pants, Danse stood next to his bed, tangled in a mass of IV lines. He was covered in blood and worse from having ripped out as many of the said lines and tubes as he could reach.

He attempted to take a step toward her but stumbled and nearly fell. Holding his arms wrist-up at her, he shook them side to side before gesturing around the room, “Where is this?! Who are you! What...” Momentarily overcome by a coughing fit he lost the energy to stand and collapsed heavily onto the bed, “What happened to me?”

Wraith opened and shut her mouth like a dying fish. She felt the tears streaming down her face as well as a stab of guilt when Danse shot her a look of concern.

He’s reacting to my crying when he doesn’t even… wait…

“You don’t know me?” She grabbed a towel and some gauze, “Please stop pulling out your IVs!”

He studied her face, “You… your eyes… Please tell me…”

“Wraith. I’m Wraith. I’m your friend.” She figured she’d start small. “We have known each other for a couple of years now.”

“Are you a knight?” His voice was weak, gravely and slightly slurred.

“I was. You recruited me. Technically I was a paladin.” She rolled her eyes.

“Was? Why aren’t we in the infirmary on the Prydwen?” He moved the arm she was attempting to bandage out of her reach and attempted, without success, to stand, “Did we lose the police station? You aren’t Brotherhood?”

“No Danse…”

“Paladin Danse.”

“Actually it’s ‘captain’ now.” She wasn’t sure how far she could push it, “You are no longer with the BOS either.”

“Utter nonsense!” This time, his attempt to gain his feet landed him on his backside on the floor, “I demand you return my armor to me immediately!” Overcome yet again by a racking cough, he tried without much success to crawl under the bed.

“Stop hurting yourself!” She was starting to panic, “Look at your arms! Aren’t you feeling that?!”

There was a brief, flickering of recognition in his eyes, “Pain… is inconsequential…” He stared hard into her eyes, “It’s not real… just a damage prevention signal.”

Wraith remembered, “That’s what pain is, you fucking asshole.”

“Wraith!” He held his arms out to her like a small, scared child asking to be picked up.

Easily lifting him back onto the bed, she went to pull away but Danse’s grip around her shoulders tightened. She returned the embrace despite the mess; lying herself next to him. His body shook slightly as his memories returned and the tears fell down his cheeks.

“I’m so glad you’re awake!”

“I feel so foggy…”

“That’d be the meds. And possibly the fact you suffered acute neurotrauma due to a gunshot wound.”

“… explains the headache…”

“Look on the bright side, not many people can brag about having a cranioplasty.”

He chuckled, “Great, even more metal in my head. MacCready’s going to be insufferable.” He squeezed her tighter, his voice soft, “I can always count on you to guide me back to who I truly am. You… you are my sister, Wraith and I love you.”

“I love you too, tin can.”

Thank you so much for reading! Like what you’ve read? Looking for more? Please see my Wraith in the Ruins master link in my tags. As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns my ask is open. Anon too! I will try to answer promptly and would love to hear from you. More to come. =^..^=

[efrmellifer]

Wondrous Tails Twelve

Prompt: Alpha and Omega/Going Into a Heat (NS.FW), 2,174 words (...whoops)

Etien rolled onto her side, stretching, and when she felt the twinge, deflated with a sighing “oh, gods.”

“Is aught amiss, kitten?” Aymeric asked her, pulling her closer by her middle. “Oh, you’re positively burning.”

“Let me go for a moment, please,” she answered, voice low in pitch and volume.

He drew his arms back and Etien scooted away, sitting up on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through her hair to gather it all back toward her frayed braid.

Her whole body was too sensitive, and her skin was hot, like Aymeric had said.

She had been dreading this moment. How she had avoided it in the autumn, when it should have happened, she had no idea.

Maybe it was because there had been no “autumn,” because there weren’t really seasons in this part of the world.

Either way, it was happening now. She flopped back onto her side of the bed, star-fishing as much as she could so her limbs didn’t touch, or touch Aymeric.

He sat up, leaned over her. “Etien?”

Gods, she loved looking at him. He was so… beautiful. She wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to have him hold her, pressing her against him until she whined because she--

She blinked, snapping herself out of it. “Don’t touch me. I’m not mad, just… don’t touch me.”

“Are you well?”

“I’m a healthy female Miqo’te of breeding age,” she said by way of answer. “I’m perfectly fine, but ‘well’ is not the word I would use for how I am right now.” She rolled away so she stopped looking at him, curling up into a ball. “I know you’re about to put your hand on my shoulder. Please… don’t.”

He pulled it back as if he’d been burnt. “Etien. This is beginning to worry me. Are you sure you are well?”

She rolled onto her back again, flinging her arm over her eyes. “Go to work, Aymeric. We can talk about this when you get home.”

He couldn’t stop himself from running a finger along the edge of her face, and she leaned into it the way she might a stream of warm water or a particularly pleasant patch of sunshine. “Do you think you should be better by then?”

“Even if I’m not, I’ll at least be more prepared to explain myself.”

He sighed, just a little. “If something is wrong, I would rather--”

Her voice was soft when she told him “Later. Go. I love you.”

He sat back, slid from the bed. Eventually, he got ready for the day and left.

When Etien heard the door close, she rose from bed, stretching her arms above her head, her tail out behind her, rolling her neck as she lengthened her body and limbs as much as she could, joints cracking.

She shook her head, trying to clear what little fog there was still floating around in it.

It was completely understandable, but still strange to her, that once he was gone, she was able to focus better.

But honestly, why wouldn’t it be that way? When she couldn’t see him, his thick, gently curling hair falling into those beautiful blue eyes, couldn’t hear his wonderful voice that could get her to do anything, smell that wonderful mix of vanillin and birch syrup, and those things she couldn’t name that made up his scent, couldn’t feel that soft skin so near and begging to be touched and bitten and—she was going to work herself into a lather again. She cleared her throat, even though no one was there to see her flushing cheeks and shifting hips and tried to get on with her day.

She put on her least exciting dress and started drifting around the house, trying to keep her mind on bland things.

She knew it wasn’t going to work, but it was worth a shot. If she stayed away from the bedroom, she wouldn’t think about making it the perfect den of love. She could deny the nesting instincts, the call of some vague sense of motherhood, if she didn’t stay put, if she read and cooked and made tea, and-- she needed some cold air in her lungs. She put on an outer thick enough she wouldn’t get sick or die of exposure, but that she would feel the wind’s bite as she walked, and she set out. She didn’t make it as far as she might have wanted, having passed Dzemael Manor with the requisite polite wave, raised a shaky hand to the people outside the Athenaeum Astrologicum, scurrying along the stones until she got to Fortemps Manor.

She had intended to speed up, to keep going and hopefully make it to Saint Reymanaud’s before she was spotted, but it was already too late.

“Mistress Mellifer!” The knight called. She wanted to ignore him, but if she didn’t turn around-- “Lady Borel!” Gods damn it.

Even worse was apparently all three Fortemps men had heard the knight shouting and now Edmont was looking out the window, Emmanellain was in the doorway, and Artoirel was already coming to her side.

“Etien, you may catch your death of cold, so unsuitably attired,” he chastised her gently.

All she could think was oh thank the Twelve, I really do see him as my brother, which wasn’t the most helpful thing to run through her mind when she was being lectured on not endangering herself in such frivolous ways, and “What would we ever do without you? Eorzea losing her hero, and us our sweet little Etien—think of Aymeric, won’t you?” but it could have been so much worse.

“I had to run a quick errand,” she fibbed, though now she wondered if there might be herbs at the Crozier to help her, “I’ll do it and run right home for a bath, Artoirel.”

“Good.” He rubbed her arms and let her go.

When she’d returned from the Crozier, it was mostly empty-handed, though one merchant who had just come from the border of Coerthas and the Twelveswood had some calming herbal blend.

Etien recognized it, from days in her youth, so at least she knew it was safe and effective, and now she was settling into a hot bath full of the stuff.

It wasn’t going to make the fire go away, but at least… it would keep her calmer until Aymeric got home.

She luxuriated in the tub as the frustration began to melt away, but even so, she was wishing a certain someone was enjoying the water with her.

She didn’t wash her hair, though she did rub a little soap into the thick fur of her tail, being careful to avoid too much pressure on the base, lest she make this whole soothing ritual be all for nothing, and then, the door opened.

She was dried and dressed before Aymeric had made it all the way to the back of the house, a little more attractively dressed than she had been in the morning, ready to greet him (and hoping to plant an idea in his mind).

She gave him a chaste kiss, and he practically collapsed in relief.

“You had me afraid I would never again get so sweet a kiss, my dearest.”

“Oh, you can have more than that.”

Aymeric cocked his head, curious but unwilling to press.

“...how much do you remember of your research about Miqo’te, Aymeric?”

He blinked. “A fair amount.” A hand came to his mouth, almost as if he were going to chew his nails. “Am I… not pleasing you? I wish you had spoken up, you deserve nothing but sheer rapture at every--”

“Aymeric. Aymeric.”

“...yes?”

“You’re doing, uh, fine. Better than. More like,” she huffed quietly, shoulders deflating when she realized subtlety wouldn’t get the job done. “Do you remember reading anything about heats?”

His eyes widened. “I thought those were usually in the autumn.”

Etien shrugged. “Well, yes.”

“Ah. Did the eternal frosts…?” His eyebrows rose now.

Almost blushing, Etien nodded. “Also yes.”

“You could have said!”

Now she looked away, hugging her arms to herself. “I could have. But if you had given me an ilm this morning, I would have taken a malm.”

“Take all of me you need, my dearest.”

Her hands balled to fists in the front of his shirt as she pulled him to her for a much more passionate kiss.

“Am I to assume--”

“Shh,” she soothed as she started heading back toward the bedroom.

“So what do I do?” Aymeric asked when he was more suitably undressed. “I am more than eager to help you, my love, but I remain as clueless now as I was the day we met.”

Etien laughed, flopping onto the bed unceremoniously, her skirt rising up her legs as she did. She beckoned him closer. “This is more like our days in the Shroud than the nights we spend here, do you understand?”

At the recollection of the memory, Aymeric nodded, swallowing thickly. “Are you sure?”

The fiery look in Etien’s eyes cooled to a soft glow. “Darling. Yes. I wouldn’t trust anyone but you to do with me as we did, as I’m asking you to do.”

“Well…”

“Please,” she pleaded, and the desperate tone spurred him to action.

“Guide me,” he begged. “I want to do this correctly.”

Etien took a deep breath, rising from where she reclined and getting into a more… usual position on her hands and knees, skirt lifted and then the whole dress gone. “The only instruction I have for you is to act like you want me bearing your kits by your nameday.”

Aymeric tried to stifle his shock, grabbing her hips as if he were any kind of prepared for this (but oh, he did want to help her, to please her).

He pulled her closer, pressing himself against her and feeling her spine straighten, then feeling her press back even further. Oh, the poor thing. Had she been like this all day? No wonder she hadn’t wanted to be touched. “Have you no more instructions for me?”

She nodded once. “If you feel the urge to bite me, do it.”

He sank into her like it was the only place he belonged, and the way she arced under his hands, her voice turning to a caterwaul the likes of which he had never heard had him stilling in worry until she said, breathlessly, “oh, all day, I’ve wanted you here, wanted us like this.” That gave him the assurance he needed, and what had been hesitant motions turned to an unrelenting yet smooth rhythm.

No moan after that first ever fully left her throat, and Aymeric was worried that was somehow his doing, that perhaps he was doing this wrong. However, when he ran a hand down her back, curling it around her tail with just enough pressure, he pulled the first fully-realized sound from her.

The second came just as easily on its heels. He bent, covering Etien more fully, and bit her like she had asked, just near the junction of her shoulder and neck (close to the same place, now that he thought about it, as he had last time they had done this), and got an emphatic, “gods, yes,” from her.

“How… how does this usually end?” he asked her, feeling that coil within him ready to snap, but worried she wasn’t quite so near to fulfillment.

“If you’re close, good,” she panted. “You should rest.”

“Not until you have been satisfied.”

“Oh, Aymeric, you sweet thing. We don’t have that kind of time.”

He withdrew from her. “Can I at least… see you during this?”

“Would it please you?” She asked, already turning around.

He laid a hand on her cheek, and she leaned into it, starting to purr. “I’m not your Nuhn, dear-heart. I’m your husband.”

Etien lay back against the pillows, completely open to him and gleeful when he dove into her arms, kissing along her collarbone and nipping at the spot where the swell of her breasts began.

His hand trailed down her stomach, lower and over her mons veneris, until he pressed against the bundle of nerves below. He wanted to ask if that was any good for her, but he didn’t have the words.

He was astounded at his own sudden bashfulness.

Luckily, Etien let out a soft moan that encouraged him, and he kept at that until her breathing was hitching in that way he loved.

When she had settled, when he had pulled her close to him and the covers over both of them, she sighed. “Well, we survived day one.”

“Shh,” he soothed. “I will be here to ease you through however many more follow.”

She gave a sleepy smile. “I know. This is the first time I’ve--” she yawned-- “looked forward to this.”

“I pray you will whenever it next comes as well,” he murmured, petting her hair, “because I will take this much care of you every time.”

[graaaaceeliz]

BruceBat and Clark-man

I put up (finally) a second chapter of my fic where Bruce and Clark have made a Thing out of their resemblances to Batman and Superman. I'm linking chapter one, but it isn't entirely necessary to read it to understand the principle behind chapter two.

Chapter Two: Where have all the good men gone? (<1500 words)

Days like this were the best, thought Bruce. He’d never admit to that aloud, nobody wants to tempt the fates, but it was true. His children filled the home with noise and joy (and arguments and temper, but who was he to complain?) and Alfred’s eyes glimmered with theirs, whilst Bruce laughed more than he had since he was a troubled teenager with an adrenaline issue and the absolute chaos of Tony and Lex as his brothers. The rift between Lex and Clark saddened him, because they should have all been together, united against threats to Earth. They had plenty of those. But he was a united front with LexCorp most of the time, and people knew that Batman and Superman had as close a shield-bond as had existed. The Bats themselves were a clan, a colony, symbols of the end for evil and of hope for good. He couldn’t have ever dreamed this.

Clark nudged his shoulder into his. “Good day, huh? And I am coming with you to the dance tonight. I don’t want to go home just yet,” he trailed off slightly as his eyes glazed over. “B, I will be right back.” Bruce sighed. He truly sympathised with families linked to the emergency services. Alfred’s friend had called from England last night, and they’d sat around the kitchen table with the phone on loudspeaker as she talked about the mountains and the sea and the surprisingly good winter, which had led onto the topic of emergency responses and various light tales of their exploits. Bruce had missed her, actually, because she’d been around a lot when he was a kid (hardly any older than Tony, she’d introduced him as her baby brother in New York a few times in clubs) but he had only seen her three times since he became Batman. Jason’s funeral, when he came back to life, and seven months ago when she finally got out of MI-whatever. He didn’t know. Wasn’t sure he wanted to – she was quite possibly an assassin.

A sudden swish of the air to his left indicated Clark’s return. He seemed a bit flustered, collar crumpled and hair tossed by the impossible speeds he achieved when it was necessary. Bruce turned to him, wondering vaguely what that had been about. He hadn’t been gone long enough to have saved the planet, barely long enough to save a kitten. Bruce was well aware of how long it could take to save a world. It usually involved violence, subterfuge, and injuries. And payouts. And payoffs. Besides the point. Clark gradually quietened under Bruce’s steady patient gaze, as everyone eventually did. It was so human, for Clark to be soothed by his trusted brother, for Bruce to feel the urge to punch whatever upset Clark so. They were neither of them human as most imagined them to be. Grudges could be held for eternity.

“I went to a group of firefighters. There was a big fire a couple of days ago, remember I told you about it? The one in Boston that they told to me leave to them and go save those boys in the cave in Madagascar. That one. Well, they called for me, because they wanted to show me the exhibition they made. It’s about us, Bruce. The League, other known heroes, the Avengers too. And ordinary people. Doctors, nurses, grandparents, big sisters, teachers. Local heroes. And – Bruce, the exhibition is as large as the one we’re going to tonight at the Gallery. Heroes. Ordinary, brilliant humans, who save people.”

Bruce grunted into the warm evening light, keeping a close eye on the wrestling match between Damian and Tim that was getting dangerously close to his prize roses. He looked out to the pale blue sky, “You cried.”

“....Yeah. I couldn’t help it.”

“Quick back.”

Clark smiled slightly. “I want to show you,” he murmured, “it’s so full of wonderful people.”

Bruce quirked a smile. That would be good. Perhaps he should suggest that as the next exhibit in the Gallery or maybe the Precinct – local heroes. Hopefully it would boost the city’s morale without the necessity of drugs or alcohol. He’d make sure Jim got recognised. But going with Clark to this special one also sounded good. “Tomorrow.”

Clark smiled.

*~°~*~°~*

“Mr Wayne! Over here! Is this your friend? A reporter! Oh my!”

Hello, I’m Clark. A smile as innocent as a child’s. Hello Clark. I’m Bruce.

“Hello, Pietr. Bruce and I would like to talk to the curator of the museum, so we’ll have to talk at a later date.”

Sorry, but Superman and I have things to do, Señor Domingo. Adiós. What kind of a name is Lord Sunday? A stupid one.

“Well handled, Clark.”

“Eh. I hate the act you put on, so I’m trying to avoid it. Is that the curator?”

“Hm.”

Clark, that’s him, isn’t it? Yeah. Oh good, we can all go home soon. Shut up, I’m sarcastic all the time. A Hm can be sarcastic.

“Excuse me, Mr Hammerstein! Excuse me, ma’am, sir, excuse us, thanks. Mr Hammerstein, Mr Wayne and I- oh for goodness’ sake. Bruce! Come on, I need to interview some visiting rich folk and if you take all night I won’t get it done. Thank you. Anyways, Mr Hammerstein, we have an exhibit idea...”

*~°~*~°~*

“Please, call me Brucie.”

“Okay, Brucie. Now, we all saw the last time you pretended to be Batman. Tonight I heard that you have a friend who looks like Superman – oh, the crowd are excited tonight!”

“Haha, it seems so. Clark and myself do bear a resemblance to the famous heroes, yes. It gets pointed out to us periodically.”

We’re supposed to be undercover! We’re in our suits! What, so we pretend to be Brucie and Clark in our actual suits in an attempt to infiltrate Lex’s party?? That’s insane, Clark, absolutely insane. What – well, yeah, it might work... Lex won’t call us out on it, no.

“I have heard that at one of Lex Luthor’s famed Metropolis Galas you did an act?”

“Well, not an act, no. I had had rather a lot to drink, shall we say, but I was dressed up as Batman.”

“And yourself, Mr Kent is it? Yes – you make a strikingly good Superman. I’ve heard that you’re known in your office at Perry White’s Metropolis ‘paper for your impressions. Any chance the pair of you would do an act for us tonight?”

We have to go along with it just pretend, Clark, call it an act and just pretend like I do with Brucie, won’t be easy but you have to try Clark we have to try

“I’m afraid Brucie and I would rather not. However, we would like to talk some about our new venture, the Gotham branch of which is named: Where have all the good men gone? As you may recognise, we’ve taken the name from Bonnie Tyler’s song I Need a Hero. We’re aiming to put together an exhibition here in Gotham about our unrecognised street-level heroes. My nomination is the guy who does late night door duties on the hotel building I have often stayed at not far from here. He prevents people accessing the tower when they don’t have appropriate ID, opens the foyer to those waiting for taxis home, and has interrupted no less than five incidents in the last six months at the cost of his health. So here’s to you, doorman.”

There will always be hope as long as one man or child or woman is willing to stand up painpainpain and say no there will always be hope and that’s why I do this I am bringing hope despite blood and I refuse to give up and you are hope you embody it we are hope so don’t give up ignore the pain we get up it hurts so much but we get up

“My personal nominee is Jim Gordon. He’s always been supportive of my family and myself, has dedicated his life to cleaning up the police force and has really given hope to the youth of Gotham. The nomination process will be described in an interview tomorrow night, which will also be published in local papers. We would love for you all to nominate an unrecognised person who you see as a hero. Of course, our costumed vigilantes each get a photo in the exhibit, so there’s no need to nominate them unless you have a particular inspiring story.”

“All proceeds will go to soup kitchens and hostels, to help people get off the streets. Next month we hope to launch the Metropolis branch of the campaign, named in honour of our own superhero: Where are all the gods? It will run off exactly the same principle, with people nominating personal heroes. The Waynes and myself hope to establish skills centres in both of our cities to help people get off the streets and into jobs, and to teach transferable skills to as many people as possible. But please, please partake in this I Need a Hero campaign. The more we raise, the more people we can help.”

“Certainly the most admirable project I have had the joy of hearing about in several years. Well, folks, remember what these two have said to us tonight. Thank you both for agreeing to this conversation.”

“It’s been a real pleasure.”

[luv4fandoms]

Of Wood and Steel-CH1.

So this story was originally inspired by this post from @tolkien-fantasy that I agree 100% with lol.

So here is chapter 1 of my story, you can also find it on ao3 if you prefer reading there.

I do not own the canon characters, but I do own Elizabeth, Abby, Benjamin, and Thistle.

Part 2

Chapter 1- Coming home again.

Warnings- None

Word count-2,078

The song used in the story can be found here

“Go Belstram I'll hold them off!” I yelled to the young man beside me, though we were so close, our voices were faint amongst the roar of our enemies.

“I can't leave you here Elizabeth!” He yelled back, stabbing yet another foe.

“You have to! I'll hold them off, you complete our mission! Now go!” I yelled, pushing further into the throw of enemies, if their attention was on me, Belstram could escape easily. My axe came in contact with enemy after enemy, one blow after another as I watched the crowd begin to thin, but it was not without price. My body began to tire of blocking blows from every angle, and just as I sidestepped one sword, I had to block another. But alas...A sweet sound rang through the air, one louder than the roar of enemies I found myself amongst...The victory horn.

“Not again!” One of the men cried out, all of our weapons lowering, the ones who had “died” stood from their fallen places upon the ground, some mumbling curses, some patting my shoulder and saying “good game”, yes, good game.

“Who knew capture the flag could be so brutal” my friend Abby or “Ava” as she was known in our larp group, said as she walked up to me, water bottle in hand.

“Well when we both want to win,I suppose it can get competitive” I laughed, nodding my thanks as I took the bottle and drank.

Benjamin or “Belstram” soon came jogging up to us while we made our way back to our camp.

“You did it!” Abby cheered, jumping into her boyfriend's arms.

“I had to protect my queen, if they would have gotten our flag, they would have gotten you” He replied before leaning down to kiss her.

“Please excuse me, your majesty, I must go before I lose my lunch” I laughed while making my way to the woods for our next game.

“Are we 23 or just 5 Elizabeth?” Abby called after me, laughter in her voice.

“I don't know, are we 23 or 15?” I called back before disappearing into the brush. Abby and I had been friends for several years, but it's only the past three years that I have been part of her LARP scene. The factions that usually partook in the event were the Orcs, Humans, Dwarves, and Elves…Abby, or rather, “Ava” is the Elvish queen, and though my character is only human, I am in the Elvish faction, though you will find other races scattered amongst the other factions, except the Orcs...Nor will you find any Elves on the Dwarf faction and vice-versa.

Games usually consisted of all out battles, Capture the flag, Raids, and my favorite...Quest of Glory. A game where the brave follow quests given to them by “NPCs” where they must battle a tiered party member before advancing...Why is this my favorite? Simple, as a high ranking party member, I'm the last they battle before going to Abby, and it's rare that people get that far, So I get to rest.   

Climbing into my claimed spot, aka a 100 year old tree that resided on the oldest trail in our state park, I made myself comfortable and waited...Maybe drifting off into a light sleep.

“The journey's over; another's just begun

Beneath moonlight, but by the warming sun

I seek to hold you in sunshine or rain

Beneath the heavens, I'm coming home again”

The soft tune drifted along the wind that blew past, and though I hadn't heard the voice or song before, I chalked it up to just another player singing.

“So far we drifted, like ships upon the sea

Horizons fading, we lost to destiny

Storm clouds hover; our vanity like pain

Which held back the winds that bring us home again”

The song struck a strange cord within me, it was almost...familiar...and yet I knew that I had never heard it before. I watched as scenery flashed behind my eyelids, an open field of lush green grass, small mounds adorning it, and upon closer inspection, the mounds had windows to the houses that resided inside. Next a beautiful waterfall that ran alongside a breathtaking city, finely sculptured architecture making it stand out from the trees that dotted the land...And lastly...A mountain, tall and intimidating, yet the face of it showed detailed and beautiful stonework, two large statues of dwarves flanked the entrance.

“What are these places?” my mind wondered as I stared at the scenery in my mind, but my vision was soon disrupted by another voice, this one male, a soft sweet tone that spoke in only a whisper.

“amrâlimê”  the voice was so quiet, almost as if the person didn't want to be heard, or hadn't meant to say it. But the tone was so full of longing, and a promise of happiness.

“ Could I see, now, the swallows in their flight

Watch the moon dance on oceans in the night

The trees reach upward to help the birds to fly

And of the creatures who'll hear them when they cry”

The scene changed once more, to that of a deep and dark forest, a forest that seemed old as if time itself never touched it...And yet it felt very...Alive.

“We walk the hillside like lost souls in the night

And in the darkness, we're searching for the light

And in the morning, like freshly fallen dew

Much like a moon's breath, I'm coming home to you”

From the dark of the forest a soft orange glow took over, the crackle of a fire could be heard before I swear I felt a light kiss being pressed to my cheek.

“amrâlimê”  the voice whispered again, so sincere, so full of admiration, a tone that would be reserved for a lover.

“This journey's over; another's just begun

Beneath moonlight or by the warming sun

For I remember that if my heart be true

Just like an eagle, I'm coming home to you”

A snow covered landscape came into view, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. Not from the cold scenery, but from the dread that made my stomach uneasy.

“amrâlimê” The voice whispered one last time, the tone stained and faded at the end, as if spoke with a final breath.

“NO!” I yelled, bolting upward into a sitting position amongst the tree limbs.

“What?” I reached up and felt my cheek and the hot tears that rolled down it.

“No” I whispered, unable to fathom why a simple voice made my heart feel like it had been torn from my chest.

“Interesting...You saw it too” A female voice spoke, startling me and causing me to turn my head towards the voice.

“Who's there?” I asked upon not seeing anyone anywhere.

“I wonder...If you could be the one?” The voice spoke again, this time the voice came from the other side. Upon looking around, I was only met with the same forest I had been in...alone.

“Show yourself!” I demanded, standing up and balancing on the branches.

“Feisty one aren't you?” The woman giggled, the voice now in front of me as a woman stepped out from between the trees. Her pale skin was covered loosely by sheer green fabric that pooled around her bare feet, her smile and face were youthful, but the wisdom in her Lilac eyes made her appear older. Her short green hair did nothing to hide the long pointed ears, and I wondered how I hadn't seen this girl on the battlefield earlier, surely she couldn't fight much with that long of a dress.

“Who are you?” I asked, her smile only grew, and in a blink...she was in front of me. I stepped back, my hand grabbing at a branch to steady myself.

“W-What? How?”

“My name is Thistle, and I'm a forest Nymph, on a mission from Yavanna to find the one, and I think you are who I am looking for” the girl smiled.

“A forest...Yav….what?” The girl simply rolled her eyes at my confusion, as if everything she just said was the simplest thing that I should be able to grasp.

“You saw the visions did you not?” she asked, my mind flashing back to the different scenery.

“The different landscapes?” I asked, to which she happily nodded.

“Those are places in my world, if you were able to see them that means that you are connected to my world, and so far, you are the only one of your world that I have found that has seen them.

“How long have you been looking?” I asked, Thistle stopped for a moment, her finger resting on her chin while she thought.

“How old is your world again? I've honestly lost count of the years” she replied.

“Holy hell” I breathed, was this really happening? Or was I dreaming right now.

Wait.

“Whose voice was that?” I asked, remembering the soft whispers.

“Singing? That was me” she beamed before adding.

“I know, I have an enchanting voice don't I?”

“Well yes” I laughed

“But I meant the man's voice”

“Man's voice?” She asked, her expression just as confused as mine.

“Yes the man whispering that word...Am...Amra-lime...I'm not sure how to say it right.” I told her now beaming face.

“I don't know to be honest, but if you also heard a voice that surely confirms that you are indeed who I am looking for!”

“To do what?” I asked

“You have told me nothing besides your name, who sent you, and that you are here to find someone” I added.

“I...I don't know” she confessed, her smile falling.

“I was simply told to find the one and bring them to our world, that it was very important for our future” she replied, looking like a small child who had been reprimanded by a parent.

“Our?” I asked

“The forest”

“Oh”

“Please come with me, I know that you are who I have been searching for!” Thistle begged. I looked into her pleading Lilac eyes for a moment before looking around. Go to another world? My family, my home was here though...My parents...Who were always visiting family that lived out of state...My brothers who...Had their own families and lives...My friends who...I really only saw during our larp events...Oh…

“amrâlimê” That sweet whisper rang in my head, a promise that perhaps...perhaps there was a reason I always felt off in this world, perhaps my happiness was somewhere else.

“When would you like to leave?” I asked, turning back to Thistle, her pleading expression turned into one of pure glee.

“Right now would be good, just try not to scream” she replied.

“Scream? Why would I scREAM?!” I yelled as I felt the branch move out from under my feet causing me to fall backwards. I waited to hit the hard ground, but I just kept falling..Surely I should have hit the ground by now shouldn't I? So why hadn't...Suddenly a hard impact struck my back and I felt the air leave my lungs...Ah..There was the ground.

Opening my eyes I gasped for breath and noticed that I was next to the tree I had been sitting in...But I was not alone, nor was I in the same forest.

“Thistle...Who is this?” A large tree...creature spoke, his golden eyes bore into mine and as I found my lungs filling with air, I tried not to scream.

“I finally found the one!” Thistle beamed as she stood beside me.

“This is the one?” The tree asked.

“Yes Treebeard, I know she doesn't look like much, but she saw the visions..and also...she heard a voice from this world” she replied, whispering the last bit rather loudly.

“Hmm” the tree hummed as he reached out and grabbed me, the scream escaped me before I even thought about it...well..looks like I couldn't keep it in.

“Loud one isn't she?” He asked sitting me upright.

“Yeah she is” Thistle giggled before looking at the tree she called Treebeard.

“So, should we start her training now?”

“It would be wise” Treebeard stated

“After all, we only have a couple of years as of now according to Yavanna” he added

“Training?” I asked, finally finding my voice

“For what?”

“Your destiny!” Thistle smiled.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you all enjoyed the story, let me know what you think 😊

[madscientistjournal]

Old Mother Shudders

An essay by Old Mother Shudders, as provided by Tom McGee Art by Leigh Legler

There was a time when everyone knew to come to me for advice … but then my hair began to grey, my back began to stoop, my hands, once so strong, so capable, became frail and wrinkled. I began to shake, to tremble as my joints seized up one-by-one. Needed my ancient cane to prop myself up.

In a word, I got old.

“Old Mother Shudders” they began to call me. The kids at first, then the adults … then even I accepted it. If you live as long as I have, you carry many names: daughter, mother, wife … you come to realize that perhaps names don’t mean as much as we think.

What does matter is what we do.

I tell you all this, because I want you to understand what happened the night the women and children stayed home.

The night the lycanthropes returned.

~

The evening was bitterly cold, the kind of cold that gets deep into your bones no matter how much you bundle up, no matter how close you sit to the fire. There was an air of panic and agitation in our village. For years the mayor and the “elders” (a pack of ninnies several years my junior and very self-important) were convinced that the lycanthropes were gone for good. The last werewolf we’d seen had been in my youth, long enough ago that the hunters and village councilmen could pretend we were safe.

You live long enough, you come to realize we’re never really safe.

You learn to be ready.

When the first little girl went missing, the village councilmen were happy to concoct all manner of excuses and justifications, anything to avoid facing the truth: the monsters had returned.

Little girls don’t just go missing without reason on the night of the full moon around these parts.

Of course, when I told them that, they all ignored me.

“Crazy Old Mother Shudders,” they laughed, “Wants to live in the superstitious past. We’re modern people. All that unpleasantness is behind us.”

It took four more deaths before the word “lycanthrope” was even mentioned by anyone other than me.

We could hear them, stalking the woods. Howling. Waiting for the coming of the Long Night when the full moon would hang in the sky for hours and hours. It only happens once every seventy years … how could there be any doubt that the lycanthropes were just biding their time?

But now, of course, it was too late: they had claimed too many of our number, turned them. The remaining able-bodied men decided they had to take the fight to the monsters, before the Long Night began.

I offered advice on hunting the beasts as given to me by my grandmother, passed down from generation to generation, but of course they didn’t have time for me.

“Not now, Old Mother Shudders! The time for fables and fairy tales is over. Now is a time for steel and fire!” They declared, arming themselves and setting out to end the threat “once and for all.”

“The women and children stay home,” the lead huntsman declared and then they were gone, off into the woods.

The Long Night began early that year.

But where the men of the village had not the time nor care for the stories of an old woman, the women and the children listened. And listened well.

And so when the lycanthropes came for us, we were ready.

~

“Like this, Mother Shudders?” The little girl with flaxen hair handled the herb carefully, wearing gloves and placing it into the small stone basin. I nodded to her mother, who began grinding the herb with the pestle, into a fine powder–fine enough to be inhaled. We should have enough wolfsbane powder to defeat the creatures, but a little more can’t hurt.

“Just be ready to throw when you can smell the rot of their breath,” I told them. “It’s vital you wait until they are that close before you throw.”

The little girl nodded very solemnly. She would do well tonight.

We could hear them, in the woods, getting closer. The wolves had seen the hated fire leave held aloft in the hands of our clueless husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers. Fire is effective, to be sure, but it’s too obvious: every creature, living and undead knows inherently to avoid flame, why rely on something we fundamentally know to fear?

Better to hit them with the things do not yet know they should fear.

Amongst the sewing, weaving, and leatherwork the women of the village do, I’ve been having them make these pouches out of scraps. They’ve been doing it since the first little girl went missing, and now we have plenty. The powder bombs will buy us vital time to close the distance.

Then comes the silver.

~

The night is long, The wolves are fierce, Hands be strong, Their hearts to pierce.

When the children came to me and asked to hear the old tales, the ones that about monsters and genies and witches and faeries … the tales that actually teach you the important things in life, I made sure to always stress the importance of silver. Their parents would covet silver for status and vanity–mirrors and utensils, mostly. Nary a dagger or sword left amongst them–nothing so practical left unsold since the olden days.

And so, I told the children: when the day comes, when the monsters step out of myth and onto our doorstep, you must run and bring all the silver you can, no matter how unlikely its shape, for it is the silver that will save us all.

The children listened.

When the Long Night arrived, they brought it: spoons, forks, mirrors, combs, and best of all, knifes. We made a grand pile, and each person in the village took one. The one they’d use, when the time came.

I had already showed them how to use it, how to press it to the heart of the wolf and say the rhyme the whole way through. The one I’d taught them as it had been taught to me. As I had taught it to their parents, not that they’d remember it now.

The night is long, The wolves are fierce, Hands be strong, Their hearts to pierce.

It was the exact length of time it took silver to burn through a lycanthrope’s chest and into its heart. Decapitation works too, but takes more work than is strictly necessary.

And so, armed with powder bombs, silver, and tales of monsters defeated and vanquished through valour and bravery by clever little people just like them, the children stood side-by-side with their mothers, grandmothers, and a little old lady, who shook gently and leaned on her ancient cane. My ancient cane.

Made entirely of silver.

In our lives, we carry many names–I am told that the monsters still have many for me. To the lycanthropes, I am Wolfsbane. They made a mistake, coming back here; I have killed hundreds of their kind.

It would seem that the lycanthropes have forgotten that their monsters, too, are real.

Together, we spend the Long Night reminding them.

~

The men returned in the morning, having gotten lost in the woods, to find their women and children enjoying breakfast, telling tales of our heroic exploits, and drying dozens of wolf pelts by the fire.

To say our heroic huntsman and the village council were humbled would be an understatement, but true nevertheless.

They were eying our food hungrily and our wolf pelts sheepishly. We’d made enough for them, of course.

We’re good at planning ahead.

As we ate, I agreed to tell them the stories they had forgotten if they vowed never again to disregard the lessons of age and the wisdom of stories.

Gathering at my feet as they did when they were young, we defenders of the village shared our stories and laughed and cried.

Together.

~

So that, little ones, is why you must carry garlic in your pockets tonight and help your parents sharpen the stakes. You know the story of the night the women and children saved home, but now it will be up to you. When the Long Night comes, the undead will follow. Wrap yourself tight in your wolf cloaks, they will keep you warm and make you brave.

Oh, do be a dear and bring the silver.

It works on vampyrs, too.

Once a feared and fearsome monster hunter, Old Mother Shudders now spends her times teaching the children of her village the important stories (which is, of course, to say the ones about monsters, genies, ghosts, and faeries), ensuring that whenever evil rears its head, her people will be ready. If you were to ask any of the monsters of the realm their thoughts, you’d hear all manner of fables about Old Mother Shudders as well … after all, even monsters have a boogeyman.

Tom McGee is a Toronto-based writer, playwright, producer, dramaturge, and puppeteer. If you enjoyed this story, check out Tom’s first novel, The Bloody Lullaby, on Wattpad! He is the co-founder of Theatre Brouhaha and Shakey-Shake and Friends Puppet Shakespeare Company in Toronto. He is also the show runner and Game Master for Dumb-Dumbs and Dragons and Star Trek: Redundancy, two narrative podcasts where comedians play RPGs for the first time with hilarious, disastrous, and occasionally heartbreaking results. Both podcasts are available at GarbageProductions.net and on iTunes. For more of Tom’s writing, go to WhaHappen.ca.

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

“Old Mother Shudders” is © 2018 Tom McGee Art accompanying story is © 2018 Leigh Legler

Old Mother Shudders was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[moczothe1st]

Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 28:  Eddafication

Part 27

Welcome back to FEIV! For those who have been following us all this way, you’re about to be rewarded. Last week we avenged Seliph’s dad, and this week we get to avenge his mother and save his sister (PLATONICALLY).  That’s right, the invasion of Grannvale is about to come to its inevitable conclusion with the Second Battle of Belhalla. Seliph vs. Julius, prince vs. prince, brother vs. brother (though Julius would insist we say ‘alleged brother’). Without further ado, let’s rock this!

His army’s victories are a beacon of hope to the Empire’s victims, and a wave of further rebellions sweeps across Jugdral.  First, Silesse was wrestled back from Imperial control by its citizens, and soon after Agustria’s people flocked to arms, burning to fight for their country.

(Convenient!)

But Grannvale itself yet stands.

(If you’re having trouble keeping track, and I don’t blame you, Dozel is the house of Lex, Johan, and good old dead Langbalt. Brian here is Johan’s oldest brother and the current holder of their house’s Holy Weapon, the Helswath axe.)

(Oh God, not these idiots again.  Yes, Scorpius is the son of good old uber-douche Andre, making him cousin to Patty, Faval, Lana, and Lester.)  

… and the capital. Belhalla itself is shrouded under and eerie silence,

(It says something that I’ve beaten Ishtar without any problems twice now, and yet my stomach still falls at the sight of her.  As for the Deadlords, they’re a recurring FE miniboss squad; twelve undead warriors animated to serve the cult of the week. I believe this is their first appearance. They’ll be dropping in this map to make Julius just that much more of a bastard.)

Over a year has passed since the fateful first battle in Isaach. The tragic struggle pitting kin against kin wears on, splitting the heirs of the Twelve Crusaders between the light and dark…

So begins the final holy war.

Julius: Feh. I almost feel sorry for him. All his life he was your tool, Manfroy, only to be thrown away so casually.

(I agree. Arvis was definitely a tool.)

Manfroy: All in your empire’s name, Your Majesty. Arvis was a lost cause. To think he, a man of Loptyr’s bloodline, dared to challenge the revival of your empire! The heart of the Crusader Vala burned too fiercely within him. It was only a matter of time until he turned on you.

Julius: I know, I know… now then, I hear those rebels have stumbled as far as Chalphy. Are our defenses really that pathetic?

Manfroy: Rest assured. I’ve already tasked Edda’s Bishop Rodan and Brian of Dozel with purging Chalphy of those vermin. You’ve no need to worry, Your Majesty.

Julius: Don’t I, now.  

(Julius stands strong in the absolute contempt he holds for his own minions, at least.)

Julius:  Now, where is Julia?

Manfroy: She awaits your whim in the dungeon… you there! Bring us Princess Julia!

Julius: Oho! So you do remember me! I can hardly believe seven long years have passed since you slipped away.

Julia: I… that night is seared in my memory now, as if it was only yesterday.

Julius: Fehehehe… good. I trust you remember your mother’s final kindness as well?

Julia: Who… no what are you? That night… the night Manfroy came bearing that eerie black tome… nothing was ever the same again. My brother, the kind and caring boy I loved so, died that night. In his place stood a demon of terrifying power… my brother in name only. You… you monster… you’ve taken my mother and my brother from me!  Who are you? WHAT are you?!  Why… why do you torment us all so?!

Julius: I am the heir to Loptyr’s blood, and the inheritor of his limitless power. This world rightfully belongs to me.

(Remember this moment, because it’s very, very important.)

Julius: Using Naga’s power to serve me? Interesting. Very interesting! Very well. I must return to Belhalla, Julia is yours, Manfroy. But be warned. Be extremely careful! Even a single mistake with her could cost me dearly.

Bishop Disposable: Cavalry unit, move in on Chalphy! Reclaim our land from the rebels!

Lewyn: That’s what this is. Julius is descended from Loptyrian royalty, and he’s been working to revive the dark empire. No matter what, we must stop him.

Seliph: It feels as if you know everything, Lewyn. I’m beginning to feel left out… please, what in the world are you talking about?

(Well, about ten chapters too late, but he at least finally asked.)

Lewyn: Yeah, sorry about that, Seliph. I know there’s a lot I haven’t been telling you.

(“And what I do tell you tends to be rambling and obnoxious.”)

Lewyn: I’ve spent over a decade on a journey to figure out the truth behind all this, and I’m finally onto a hidden bigger picture here.

Seliph: The bigger picture…?

Lewyn: The founder of the old Loptyr Empire, Bishop Galle, dedicated his youth to a world-exploring voyage across the sea. He desired nothing less than to drink the blood of a legendary beast. Even a single drop, he believed, would bestow upon any human limitless power.

(How… … … … evil?)

Seliph: Do… do you mean the dragonkin of old? It couldn’t be… is that not a myth?

(“I mean, dark gods and holy weapons of divinity, sure, but dragons? Let’s not get weird here, Lewyn.”)

Lewyn: I thought so too, but… when Galle returned home, he bore bizarre powers nobody else understood. With these powers, he set to work swaying youths across the land to aid his ambitions.

(Wait, he swayed them? He didn’t kill them for funsies? Because that doesn’t sound like Loptyr.)

Lewyn: Before anyone realized, he’d raised a fell legion unflinchingly loyal to his cause.

(Okay, that sounds like Loptyr.)

Seliph: Where, then, does Loptyr enter the tale?

(………… It’s so frustrating to always be twenty steps ahead of the main character in following the plot.)

Lewyn: I believe that Loptyr is the dragon Galle bonded with. All of his heirs since then have inherited the dragon’s blood, and the dark powers Loptyr’s kin command are nothing more than the dragonkin’s powers.

Seliph: And what of the Crusaders?

Lewyn: You know the legend. The gods descended upon twelve warriors of the old liberators at the fortress of Darna. But…

Seliph: But?

Lewyn: Sorry, Seliph, but this will have to wait. The enemy’s approaching.

(LEWYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYN!)

All right.  Since Lewyn couldn’t take ten more seconds to finish up the story, and since I’m gonna guess you can probably make some safe assumptions as to where this is going.  Let’s deal with the whole ‘war’ thing first. First, of course, it’s time to see who makes the cut. This is probably the hardest chapter in the game, so dead weight will not be tolerated. Anyone who disappoints me in the arena is fucking out, you guys. You get to stay in the castle with Hannibal, hiding while the awesome people solve the problems. Do not fail me.

Seliph: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Strength, +1 Speed, +1 Magic, +1 Luck, +1 Resistance

Shanan:  Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Magic, +1 Luck, +2 Defense

Oifey: Six wins, gained three levels: +3 HP, +2 Luck, +1 Defense. Hmmm… not amazing, but also not bad. And when I gave you a pass last week you surprised me with quality, so hey, I’ll allow it. You can always defend a different castle if you don’t pan out.

Ulster: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Speed, +2 Defense

Larcei: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Speed, +1 Luck, +2 Defense

Lana: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +2 Skill, +2 Luck

Lester: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +2 Skill, +1 Magic

Dermott: Seven wins, gained three levels: +3 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Luck, +1 Defense, +2 Resistance

Nanna: Seven wins, gained one level: +1 HP, +1 Luck, +1 Defense, +1 Resistance

Fee: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Skill, +2 Strength, +1 Magic, +1 Luck, +1 Defense

Ced: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +2 Skill

Arthur: Seven wins, gained three levels: +4 HP, +1 Luck, +1 Defense

Tinni: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Luck

Patty: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Magic, +1 Luck, +1 Defense, +1 Resistance

Faval: Seven wins, gained two levels: +4 HP, +2 Luck, +1 Resistance

Leif: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Speed, +1 Luck

Altena: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP.  Altena, if you didn’t already have generally great stats and a golden spear of the gods, I would drop you right now.  

Johan: Five wins, gained one level: +1 HP. Yeah, see, Johan? The difference between you and Altena is that she’s amazing and you’re just kind of okay. You’re benched, and Leif is going to put that Brave Axe to better use than you literally ever have.  

Finn: Seven wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Luck, +1 Defense

Ares: Seven wins, gained one level: +1 HP, +1 Skill, +1 Luck

Hannibal: Six wins, gained two levels: +2 HP, +1 Strength. Oh, Hannibal.  I honestly am rather shocked you did better than Johan, but I’m afraid you didn’t do better enough.  Patty and Ulster will enjoy your swords quite a bit.

Welp, those weren’t great levels in many unfortunate cases, but we’re approaching the point a lot of people can’t get good levels anymore, I guess. Let’s take a look at the map!

It’s a big one, but we’re locked out of a large chunk of it, as usual. We start off in Chalphy on the far south, and our final goal will be Belhalla to the far north; the reason the map looks different from our last assault on Belhalla is that we’re approaching it from the opposite direction.  For right now, we can only proceed east from our starting location to Edda (formerly the duchy run by our old buddy Bishop Claude). Let’s try and give it to his kids!  But before that, we start off with Loptyrian dark mages on the cliffs above us on both sides, armed with siege tomes and our old friend status effect staves. There’s two villages on the map and I think no bandits ever go for them, so no need to rush anywhere; let’s make ourselves safe above all else.  

Good start. Of the eight mages surrounding us, we killed six, severely hurting their ability to bombard us. In particular I got all the staff users, meaning it will all be nicely healable damage, and I’ve got like seven high-tier healers running at this point. End turn!

Not bad again! Fee cripples another mage on the counterattack, and Lester somehow dodges an infinite blue void. The Edda cavalry force also comes close to us, but we aren’t in anyone’s range on their end, and we are in a great position to make them regret approaching us. First step, though, is to clear out the last two mages.

… I can’t reach the last one. I’m a dumbass, I should have sent one flier to each group of mages, but I didn’t. Altena runs over in his direction to break him in half next turn, while everyone else takes their shot at the main enemy army.  

…. Shit.  Finn, what was that, exactly? *sigh* Ares, clean up his mess.

I hate you, Ares.

Okay, not great. Finn is in serious trouble here, and while I have him surrounded, I do think there’s someone who can take a shot at him.  God, if I have to reset on the second turn I will be so ticked off, Finn. I will send you to the bench and give your lance to Altena, Finn. She’s a beautiful flying death machine.

End turn.

*phew*

I always love watching someone dodge a siege tome. They’re just this huge screen-filling doom effect and the target just kind of lightly steps back, and then they miss.

Now then, time to end this before Finn can fail me again. Guys, finish off the first wave!

Larcei, if you’re going to get a completely weird unlikely stat, make it Resistance instead of Magic. You can actually use Resistance.

Still, Edda is now open to attack. Of course it has its own issues, in the form of just… just every fuckin’ mage.

God, just look at that mess. And the worst part is that every single one of those magical jerks? Has a long distance option, either a siege tome or a… ugh… sleep staff. So really, the best strategy I have is to send Ares and Seliph in to be anti-magic gods and shrug off magic whilst killing the staff guys.  Fee could go in without worrying about magic too, but those three snipers in the front row who could shoot her down like a stray duck have other ideas.  Oh, and Nanna gains a staff level to top her off at 30.

Yeah, that’s about what I expect from her. I am not sure but I suspect her strength, defense, and speed at her cap, at least. Maybe? I should look that up but I’m tired and I’d rather just end my turn and destroy the enemy.

And after that, insert about fifteen more shots of people missing Ares with siege tomes. Ares gives precisely zero shits about your Bolting, guys.  Everyone takes the shot and nobody comes close. It’s almost sad. Almost.

On my turn, I have the Horse Boys move slightly up and kill two of the snipers, with eventual intent to let Fee help their dumb horse faces out.

Seliph also got one but I wasn’t paying attention and saved over it, whoops. So one archer left to deal with next turn. I also have Cairpre start moving up, and he wakes Ulster up so he can move back. Then Lene dances her brother to send him another run forward to join in too.

End turn! Enjoy some more scenes of Ares and Seliph just rocking the shit out for awhile.

… Who even are you…?

Well, nobody threatening, anyway.  

*Insert 20 shots of horses lightly backstepping out of the way of fireballs and lightning bolts*

That was nice. Now, Seliph moves up and takes out one of the staff guys, Fee and Patty step up to clear out things for our air force, and Ares kills whats-his-name.  

…. Wait, what?

FUCK. Reset.  

Okay. This ass is way more dangerous than I remembered or gave him credit for, clearly. So let’s try the cautious approach. Lana, care to spend some of your boyfriend’s money?

See, that’s a little more what I was aiming for. Honestly, hiding a Swordmaster with Sol, Pursuit, Critical, and Adept in among everyone else? That’s just mean.  

… In other words, I feel like I’m playing Fire Emblem again!  The last few maps were just too nice, barring Julius’s crazy psycho games and Arvis being Arvis. Fun times. Cairpre runs up and grabs Patty out of horrible murder range with his Rescue staff, and: end turn!

Yeah, Ares, you better succeed here. You’re on thin ice, buddy.

At this point, the staff dudes are mostly in range, so it’s time to start moving up a little and purging them.

Be-au-ti-ful!  Though like, half of them are still alive, even if I took away some leadership stars by removing Bishop Not Paying Attention to Morals. I may regret this. *sob* End turn…

Well, that was ugly, but nobody died. Still quite a few people have taken heavy hits… shame there’s not like, a huge HP reset button that can undo it all immediately.

Hehehehehehehe.

Okee dokee!  That’s the first army down. There’s…. *sigh* there’s more armies.  This is gonna get worse before it gets better, folks, so let’s just take Edda and end-a the update. (And I’m not just cutting this short because Red Dead 2 and Hitman 2 came out back to back, why would you even say that.  … Also this wasn’t actually very short, between the six-thousand enemies and Ares getting mangled.)

*sob*

Lewyn: Oh, of course. Cairpre and Lene. They’re going to be great rulers for Edda.

(… … … Are they?)

Lewyn: And after all they’ve been through, I know that’ll bring a smile to the people’s faces.

(Well, Lene is basically a stripper, so that part is probably true.)

All right, Homeland One, liberated! Join us next week when we continue our tour of the nation with Dozel and Freege, homeland of some of Grannvale’s greatest and most beloved nobles.

Yeah, it may be best to just burn those ones down.  

See you next week!  

Total Resets: 28. And I was doing so well, damn it.

Part 29