#i think i spent most of march in a fugue state

[greyias]

Me: Okay, my brain is free and work has lightened up enough to finally do that one WIP post I was tagged in, I'll do some of the other tagged stuff later. When was that? Let me just scroll back in my notifications menu--

Me: Oh no...

[regenderate-fic]

And Still I Will Live Here: Chapter 4

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: Teen Ship: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Tony Tyler Series: And We’re Not Out of the Tunnel Word Count (Chapter): 2,378 Other Tags: Pete’s World, Pete’s World Torchwood, Angst, Chronic Illness, Disability, Disabled Character Read on AO3 / Read in order

Summary: Rose has been tired for a couple years now. She thinks it’s from working so hard on the dimension cannon without a break, but then she gets a break and she doesn’t quite recover. Finally, she starts going to doctors, but they’re no help. At least John (the metacrisis Doctor) is with her every step of the way.

(Fic is COMPLETE with chapters posting Tuesdays and Fridays!)

NOTES: valentine's day is asleep post angst fic

uh cw for pregnancy in this one (in the sense that jackie has her baby. it's not detailed, just mentions). relatedly, i need to disclose that the baby is named after my dear friend gabe riptheh (who's lucky i can't remember his url to tag him), who was requesting to be put in people's creative works as himself but two inches taller and instead wound up an infant. this fic was not going to have a baby until he said that but honestly i think it adds a lot. if you want further lore please note that we have taken to calling this baby "the gaby." hopefully this does not prevent you from taking the fic seriously.

this is also sort of where some of rose's experiences/symptoms become more severe than my own (although. i suppose that's debatable) and specifically this is where she starts using a wheelchair, which i do not at this point. so. full disclosure if i've messed anything up horrifically, that's why. i'm still very much writing from experience for most of it, though.

ALSO you'll note that i've added a series tag to this. i've repurposed one of my previous wips into a sequel and i am SO EXCITED for it! it's thirteen/rose/yaz and it takes place on earth in march 2020 so i'm sure absolutely no one will read it but like. just believe me it's going to be so good

When Rose wakes up, she’s in bed, still fully dressed. John’s curled around her, holding her tight around the waist, and as she emerges a little further from sleep, she realizes his body is shaking. He’s crying, she realizes, his face buried in her shoulder, and she shifts to give him a moment to realize she’s awake before she rolls over. He doesn’t stop: he clings to her, and she to him, her head buried in his chest, her leg wrapped around his waist. The love and sadness she feels are too vast to process. She closes her eyes and lets them wash over her, tucked in John’s arms as he cries. Eventually, his breaths even out into sleep, but Rose doesn’t let go.

She wakes up again, sun streaming in, and she’s still clinging to John, his pajama shirt balled up in her hand. He’s snoring softly. She doesn’t dare move: not until he wakes up half an hour later, rubbing his eyes and saying nothing of his midnight tears.

The next few days pass in a sort of fugue state. They go to work, and Rose struggles to push through her grief on top of her exhaustion. Her coworkers gush over her engagement ring, and she tries to pass off her tears as happiness. John runs more tests on her, although they don’t really give them any new information. His most interesting finding is that Rose hasn’t technically aged— her body is frozen at twenty years old. All that time Rose spent wondering whether her body falling apart like this was a normal part of aging, and she hasn’t even gotten any older.

While John runs test after test, Rose fiddles with her old dimension cannon, trying to see past the haze in her mind to find a way to make it work again. It’s hard— the last time, it only worked because the walls between universes were growing thin. She doesn’t have that advantage, this time. Which is a good thing, in the grand, universal scheme of things, and a good thing for the part of her that’s desperate to stay with John, but a bad thing for the part of her that wants to stay alive.

And then the weekend comes, and they have to tell Jackie.

She already knows something is wrong— they’ve asked her, at eight months pregnant, to come over to their place for dinner. She shows up grumbling about the traffic and the weather, but Rose can feel the undercurrent of worry. And there’s not much Rose can do to sway that worry, because, well, it’s entirely warranted, under the circumstances. Rose is barely holding herself together as she ushers Jackie out of the entryway and into their little dining nook. They almost don’t have enough space for three people at their little table, but they manage, John’s chair jutting out at the side.

Jackie notices Rose’s ring right away, when Rose passes her the salad dressing.

“You’re engaged!” she exclaims, loud enough that their neighbors will be complaining.

Rose manages a smile, glancing at John. He’s looking at her with that incredible, unwavering, love in his eyes.

“That’s the first thing we wanted to tell you,” she says to Jackie.

“When did this happen?” Jackie shakes her head. “No, don’t tell me, you’ll just make me feel forgotten. Have you planned anything yet? You have to let me recommend a caterer, I know all the best—”

“Just happened a few days ago, promise.” If Rose didn’t interrupt, Jackie would be going on for hours. “No plans yet.”

“Well, how did he propose?” Jackie asks, her face aglow. Rose looks down at her plate. This is the part she doesn’t want to tell.

“We figured out why I’m sick,” she says, trying to meet her mother’s eyes.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re not dying, are you?” Jackie glances at John, then back to Rose. “What’s going on? Tell me.”

Rose sighs. “D’you remember how we pulled the TARDIS open that one time?”

“Of course I do,” Jackie says. “How could I forget?”

“Suppose you couldn’t.” Rose forges ahead, forcing herself to say the next bit. “When I looked into the TARDIS, it sort of… changed me. We think it was to protect me. But it made me feed on… time energy, sort of. And now I’m in this universe, it’s different energy. It’s all wrong. That’s why I’ve been sick.”

She watches as what she’s said registers with Jackie, her face going from mildly curious to horrified.

“What are you saying?”

Rose swallows. “If I want to get better,” she says, “I have to leave.” For once, the queasiness in her stomach has nothing to do with her sickness.

Jackie looks from Rose to John. “Both of you?”

John shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says, his voice quiet. “Just her.”

“After all you two have been through,” Jackie says. Her voice is quieter than Rose has ever heard it. “After all we’ve been through.”

“I’d rather stay here,” Rose says. “If I had the option. But this universe is killing me, Mum. It has been ever since we got here.”

Jackie takes it surprisingly well, although given that Rose and John meet the news with near-constant tears, their bar for “surprisingly well” is pretty much on the floor. But Jackie doesn’t break down. She doesn’t start crying at the table. She just says, “Oh, sweetheart. You were never going to stay with me, were you?”

Rose is trying so, so hard not to cry. “I really want to,” she says. “But if I stay, it’ll kill me. We lose each other no matter what.”

“How much time do you have?” Jackie asks.

“We don’t know,” John says.

“We have to get the dimension cannon back online,” Rose adds. “It’s going to take a while, if it’s even possible.”

“We’ll find a way,” John says, a quiet determination in his voice. Under the table, Rose covers his hand with hers.

After dinner, they wind up in the living room, watching telly, Jackie in an armchair, Rose with her head on John’s shoulder on the sofa: Jackie has joined John and Rose in their new hobby of resolutely distracting themselves from what comes next. They limit their conversation to the bad movies they’re watching and the mundanities of their days, as if small talk will make Rose well again.

Rose doesn’t know when she falls asleep— somewhere between the end of the first bad movie and the start of the third— but when she becomes conscious again, it’s with her head in John’s lap, his fingers moving through her hair. Her mum’s voice washes over her.

“It’s not fair,” she’s saying. “How am I supposed to say goodbye again?”

Rose is exhausted, emotionally and physically. It’s not that she doesn’t want to engage in the conversation: it’s just that she can’t, on really any level. So she stays still, her eyes closed.

“I’m sorry,” John says softly. “None of us wanted this.”

“How did you not know?” Jackie asks. “If your ship changed her—”

Rose can hear the pain in John’s voice. “You have to understand,” he says. “If I’d known— if I’d even thought of it— or if the Doctor— we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“And my daughter would be safe,” Jackie murmurs.

Rose is acutely aware of John’s hands in her hair, his body curved around her. She feels safe here, even if her head hurts and her limbs feel too heavy to lift.

“Jackie,” John says, “I promise you that I will do whatever it takes to keep her alive. I’ll do anything. But she can’t stay here. We have to send her away.”

“Either way, I lose my daughter.” The sadness in Jackie’s voice makes Rose’s heart ache.

“And I lose someone I love more than anything,” John says quietly. His touch on Rose’s scalp is so light and tender. She doesn’t know what she’ll do without him.

“And you can’t go through with her?” Jackie asks.

“We’ll be lucky if we can even send one person through. Two is too risky.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Finally, Jackie says, “Well, you’ll always be welcome at mine.”

“You’re a good mum,” John replies. Rose can hear him struggling against his tears.

She drifts off again. When she wakes up, she’s in bed, and it’s light outside. John is next to her, sitting up on his laptop.

“Did my mum leave?” Rose asks, sitting up.

John nods, closing the laptop to focus on her. “After you went to sleep last night.”

“Thanks for bringing me to bed.” Rose smiles, teasing. “I’m lucky to have such a strong fiance.”

John wraps an arm around her, pulling her close against his side. She rests her aching head on his shoulder.

“I’m lucky to have you,” John says, raw emotion seeping through. He kisses the top of her head, and she closes her eyes.

The next day, a Monday, they finally explain their situation to the higher-ups at Torchwood. Rose had Torchwood’s help in building her dimension cannon before, and so it stands to reason that they might get that help again— they do, and the higher-ups direct a lot of sympathy towards them. They tell Rose that if she needs anything to help accommodate or manage her illness at work, they’ll do their best, and she thanks them. She’s been getting weaker, she can feel it, her arms getting heavy, her legs shaking when she stands: she’ll need the help.

And so Rose and John and the good people of Torchwood start trying to build a new and improved dimension cannon. Rose isn’t all that much help, for all the cannon is for her— she tries her hardest to focus, keep track of what’s going on, but realistically speaking she just doesn’t have the mental energy for the high-level calculations and technical assembly that the cannon requires. She feels the loss acutely in her chest: there was a time when she lived for this sort of thing.

Whenever she’s not at work, her mum is pressuring her about wedding plans. Rose doesn’t much care how the wedding goes, as long as she can get herself down the aisle, but she’s Jackie’s only daughter, and the wedding might as well be a goodbye party. She finally lets John convince her to start using a wheelchair, a rickety, secondhand thing, only a week before they’re scheduled to go dress shopping, and the clerk doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Jackie suggests decorating the chair with tulle, and Rose chooses a dress that’s easy to get into and out of, that doesn’t have fabric that’ll get caught in her chair’s wheels, and tries to feel beautiful. (Jackie insists on getting her a new chair, after that— one that’s made to her measurements and for her needs.)

She’s started to fear death in a way she never has before. She’s only too acutely aware that if she doesn’t get to her old universe, this universe will kill her: she never realized how much she really, really doesn’t want to die. She used to take all sorts of risks, back with the Doctor, but she never thought they’d actually kill her, even when they were stuck on a planet orbiting a black hole with no TARDIS. She was safe with the Doctor. And she feels safe with John, but no safety can keep death away forever. Rose finds herself staying up well past when she should, afraid that if she lets her eyes slip closed, they won’t open again. And the worst part is, there’s nothing anyone can say to make her feel better, because she’s right to be afraid.

Jackie has the baby. It’s a boy, and she names him Gabriel. Rose and John visit her in the hospital, Jackie exhausted but glowing, Gabriel so, so small. Rose holds him in her lap, John close by in case her arms fail her, staring down at his tiny little face. He flails, crying out. There’s something about him that’s so very full of life. There’s so much ahead of him. Rose can’t help but love him immediately— he becomes yet another person she’ll miss when she leaves.

“He’s beautiful,” she tells Jackie, and means it. He’s still wailing, so Rose offers him to John, who hands him back to Jackie, his hand gently supporting Gabe’s head as he makes the transfer.

Rose and John spend two weeks living with the Tylers after Gabe is born. It’s at Jackie’s request— she wants to spend time with all three of her children together while she still can. Rose takes the time off work, and while John goes in every day, still working on the dimension cannon, Rose helps out where she can, distracting Tony, rocking Gabe to sleep, making bottles. Now she’s reliant on her wheelchair, she and John have to stay on the first floor, in a bed Pete’s set up for them in what’s normally the game room. She can still stand and walk around when she has to, but the energy it takes is no longer worth it, especially when the chair allows her to get from place to place without the effort.

She spends every second she can with her mum. Gabe is almost always there, and Pete comes in and out, helping as much as he can— he’s taken the time off work too. And Tony, too, is running around the place, asking Rose questions about her wheelchair, trying to get anyone to play with him, asking to hold the baby. Jackie takes a picture of Rose, Tony, and Gabe all together, Rose leaning back against the headboard of Jackie’s bed, Gabe in her arms, and Tony standing on the mattress, hovering over them both. She prints two copies and gives one to Rose, who tucks it away in her pocket, saving it for the day she has to leave.

The two weeks Rose is with her mum are dreamlike, each moment so laden with significance that Rose can’t quite process it. She knows she’s leaving soon, knows she will never get to see baby Gabe grow up— she’ll never know what becomes of him, or of Tony. She always thought she’d get to see Tony go from a chubby, energetic toddler to a full adult, with his own dreams and goals and sense of self. And now she knows she won’t, and she’s got another little brother who she won’t even see become a chubby, energetic toddler. But she’s with them both now, and her mum and dad, and John, and they all bring her such immense, if bittersweet, joy.

And then the two weeks are up. Rose goes back to Torchwood, where everyone’s in a flurry trying to build the dimension cannon. It hits her that they’re all doing this for her, because they want to see her survive, and she almost starts crying right there in the workshop, surrounded by her coworkers. She helps where she can, sorting pieces, recording readings. Some days are easier than others. John asks, at one point, whether she wants to stop working entirely, but she can’t stand the thought of sitting at home alone all day, thinking about her condition, while other people’s work determines her fate. Even if she can’t help much, even if she’s just sitting in the corner fending off the brain fog, she’d rather be at Torchwood. It’s a distraction, and she desperately needs to be distracted.

As her life returns to normal, though, she remembers that her “normal” is so very different from that of her coworkers. They come to work. They seem to be able to hold focus all day. And they keep talking about doing things in the evenings and on the weekends— all while standing up and walking around and exerting themselves in ways from which Rose would need days to recover.

She’s jealous, she thinks. But there’s nothing she can do about it. Not yet.

[setaripendragon]

Girl Genius - Role Swap???

This idea occurred to me last night, and I’m still trying to work out how all the pieces would fit together, but I’m really enjoying what I’ve got so far.

At first I just thought ‘what if one of the boys was the Heterodyne heir instead, and Agatha was either the Storm Queen or the Princess of Skifander?’ but then I thought ‘no, what if Agatha was still the Heterodyne, but either the daughter of an ‘illegitimate’ emperor or the daughter of a well-established noble family?’

What if Barry, on getting back from killing Lucrezia, took one look at the mess Europa was in and lost his temper in the most epically Sparky way: ‘I spent my entire life cleaning up your damned messes, and this is what you do when we disappear for a few years?! No. If you can’t be trusted to keep Europa clean yourselves, I will make you, and you will like it! No more nice Heterodyne!’ so he goes back to Mechanicsburg with bb!Agatha, and he’s travelworn and weary and grieving and has a massive case of PTSD (...if it can really be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when the stress hasn’t stopped yet), this little blonde toddler in breakthrough on his hip, and he goes straight to the Jagerhall, and they’re all stunned, and so relieved to see one of their boys home safe after so long, and to see him in their hall, when Bill and Barry always used to avoid the Jagers as much as they could...

And Barry just ‘Get everyone ready to march; we’re conquering Europa.’

The cheering probably did literally knock the roof off the jagerhall (they are jagers) and Gkika absolutely made Barry sit down and get a hot meal inside himself, and Agatha is completely doted on by every single jager ever, but then Barry goes off to war, taking most of the jagers with him, and Agatha gets left in Mechanicburg, with an honour guard of jagers, because the geisterdamen are probably still looking for her, and feeling really rather abandoned. I don’t think she’d have quite the same identity issues as Gil, because I don’t think there’s any way to hide her identity from her when she’s the Heterodyne Heir living in Mechanicsburg, but it may leave her similarly isolated from her peers. All the other kids would love to be her minion, but that’s not quite the same as having a friend who’s an equal.

Which is where Gil and/or Zeetha comes in. Of course, in this AU, Klaus is playing the role of Aaronev, although it’s his loyalty to Bill, rather than Lucrezia, that leads him to join Barry’s budding empire while secretly plotting to undermine it. Because, really, Barry is acting disturbingly like an Old Heterodyne, and Klaus doesn’t like it, and he’s pretty sure Bill wouldn’t like, and someone needs to be there to nudge Barry away from more despotic behaviour like ‘no, you can’t just kill anyone you think is incompetent, you think everyone’s incompetent’

I’m thinking that things in Skifander went differently from what little we know, and that Zantabraxus was killed, probably in some sort of civil war over her consort and/or kids and, since she’s taking the role of old Andronicus, maybe possibly was ressurected by Klaus into a terrible ravening monster that promptly had to be sealed away to protect the city. And of course with Zantabraxus dead, the main protection for Gil and Zeetha was gone, so Klaus scooped them up and ran, to give them a chance to grow up safely and then return to claim their birth-right.

In that sense, it would make sense for Zeetha to be the younger sibling (by a few minutes, because I’m too fond of them as twins to change that), because she would be the heir, being the girl, even if Gil was older than her, which matches better to the dynamic Tarvek and Anevka have. In which case it would be Zeetha, not Gil, who wound up visiting Mechanicsburg and becoming BFFs with Agatha, but perhaps it should be both of them... Because then, they’d end up discovering that Agatha’s mother was the Other, which distresses Agatha into a fugue, which would be even worse if she dragged Gil into it with her, that does enough damage that Barry comes home and has to explain about her parents to Agatha and sends Gil and Zeetha home. Maybe he does that because Agatha got them hurt during her fugue? I’m still trying to work out what could have happened to Gil to parallel the ‘abomination of science’ trait Anevka has.

Which brings me to the Sturmvoraus siblings. Tarvek gets to be the long lost heir to the Storm King, who honestly has no idea of his heritage, because he was too young when Barry Heterodyne smashed through the Storm King conspiracy and murdered most everyone involved, including Tarvek’s father, and probably Anevka too, and maybe it’s Margolotta who snatches up Tarvek and flees with him. She ends up running to Beetleburg, where Tarsus Beetle is more than happy to protect the heir to the Storm Kind legacy. After all, one day, Tarvek will have command of the Muses, and we all know that Beetle loved the Muses.

And I don’t know exactly how it would work, okay, but to parallel the whole ‘being left with constructs’ deal, I really, really want Tarvek to be raised by Eotain and Shrdlu while Margolotta goes off to see if she can discover if any remnants of the Smoke Knights or anyone survived. Of course, the geisters are still trying to get at Agatha, but Barry and the jagers have been hunting them pretty relentlessly, and they haven’t been able to get at her. (Actually, maybe Barry did try to hide Agatha’s identity? With the locket to suppress her Spark and orders to the jagers not to tell her... basically so the geisters are left thinking their holy child died.)

Huh. Maaaybe Margolotta (or Tarvek’s mother, even? Do we know her name?) actually got a copy of Lucrezia downloaded into her brain, and she was still trying to salvage the ‘Heterodyne girl marrying the Storm King’ plot, so she handed Tarvek off to a couple of trusted geisterdamen and then went to try and sabotage Barry and discover what happened to Agatha, only maybe that copy of her personality was corrupted, or a non-spark mind just can’t handle her consciousness for very long, and her sanity started degrading as time went on. Anyway, Tarvek grows up ignorant, with only vague memories of his family, and Eotain and Shrdlu as the only parents he’s ever really known. And he knows he’s a Spark, but he also knows that Eotain and Shrdlu are trying very hard to stay incognito, so he learns how to repress it himself.

Which brings us to the beginning of the comic. I’m pretty sure that Beetle would still try to hide the hive engine, because the geisterdamen can command Lucrezia’s ‘lesser servants’ which I assume includes revenants, and if he was going to try and use Agatha to command them, he might also try to use Eotain and Shrdlu. Either way, Barry isn’t quite as circumspect or subtle as Klaus, or willing to give people the benefit of the doubt anymore, so he just comes down on Beetleburg like a tonne of bricks.

And Tarvek gets to meet Agatha, who’s finally been allowed out of Mechanicsburg to help her Uncle purge her mother’s works, and maybe finally been allowed to break through, so she’s pretty furious and in full Sparky fugue (Barry has been in varying levels of a fugue state since he got back to Europa, it’s not very healthy at all, and it makes him a pretty terrible role model for Agatha), and severely intimidating to Tarvek. But when he goes home after Beetle’s dead, Eotain and Shrdlu are like ‘-gaaasp- The Holy Child!’ and are all set to go and try and kidnap her right away. But Tarvek, of course, loves his creepy ghost mums, and knows that they’d be worse than dead if the Heterodyne caught them, so he offers to go, instead. Get into Barry’s good graces (if he has any), charm Agatha, and maybe convince her to run away with him.

So, he probably courts Agatha, reveals himself as a Spark, and Agatha insists on him coming back to Mechanicsburg with her. At which point, Tarvek begins putting the pieces together of who the geisterdamen’s Lady really is, and he’s not morally against mind control to start with, because he’s still under the impression that the Lady is benign. But he’s actually falling in love with Agatha, and Agatha reveals that her mother was going to overwrite her brain, and it dawns on Tarvek that if he doesn’t like the idea of that happening to Agatha, it probably shouldn’t be done to anybody.

Buuut, just as he’s having this change of heart, Barry finds out he was raised by geisterdamen, and Tarvek is forced to flee. (Agatha is not happy about her Uncle scaring off her boyfriend, maybe she even counts it as the second time he’s done that, depending on what happened with Gil and Zeetha and discovering her identity.) And he flees right into the arms of Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure, where he meets Tinka and Moxana, who promptly recognises him as a direct descendant of old Andronicus Valois, and reveal his Storm King heritage to him.

He also meets a charming young actor who looks just like Bill Heterodyne, except for the rather impressive scars over the majority of his body, who was picked up by the Circus when he was very small somewhere near Mechanicsburg. His name is Klaus Barry.

Now, I have no idea how Klaus Barry would have survived the attack on the Castle, but I’ve got some vague ideas of maybe Von Pinn attempting to use some of the Sparky devices in Lucrezia’s lab or something to revive him, and whatever it was didn’t work quite right, so Klaus Barry is sort of... only half there, sometimes. Or maybe Von Pinn took him through the portal thingy? I don’t know. I’m also undecided on whether Von Pinn should have gone with him, or stayed in Mechanicsburg and wound up playing nursemaid to Agatha. But Klaus Barry is still a bit of a nascent hero (maybe he even blew up a pirate fortress once, by complete accident, he swears, he has no idea how that happened) and he helps Tarvek figure out his morals/political standpoint and totally accidentally starts training him to be King.

Either way, the Circus eventually ends up rolling through Wulfenburg, and I have no idea why they take an interest in Tarvek, maybe Gil has a clank limb or something after the Agatha incident, and Klaus (Wulfenbach) wants to study the muses to help him, and Tarvek is protective enough to be like ‘if you’re taking them, I’m staying too’, or maybe Gil just goes to have a look, and he and Tarvek end up geeking out over amazing clanks together, and Gil invites Tarvek back to his labs (you know, for coffee- or rather, science!) and then Klaus (Wulfenbach) recognises Tarvek as the boy Barry was hunting, and promptly imprisons him, though not with any intention of handing him over to Barry until he knows what the hell is going on.

Gil (and Zeetha, and Klaus Barry, and the Muses) help Tarvek escape, obviously, and after that...

Well, the whole ‘reclaiming his throne’ thing could either happen in Sturmhalten, which is where Tarvek’s family lived, but maybe it should happen in/around Paris, and whatever the GG equivalent of the palace of Versailles is. It could be fun to drag everyone to Paris early, where perhaps Seffie is hiding from the rampaging Heterodyne out to murder her family. (And you know, madly in love with Colette, but resentfully resigned to the need to marry a guy to continue the family line and produce an heir to the Storm King, but then Tarvek shows up, which not only means she doesn’t have to worry about continuing the bloodline, but also Tarvek is, given who he was raised by (and the fact that he’s falling pretty hard for Gil), very supportive of inverts, and encourages Seffie to follow her heart, because he’s actually a sappy romantic under all that plotting and pragmatism.) (And of course, Tarvek and even Gil and Zeetha and Klaus Barry get into Paris just fine (maybe Agatha sent Vanamonde to protect Tarvek when she heard about him being in Wulfenburg?) but the Master of Paris is just like NO HETERODYNES when Agatha and Barry try to get in, so Agatha convinces Barry to let her try and get in incognito, and she does manage it long enough to find Tarvek and Gil, but then there could be drama with the Master of Paris trying to kick her out, and Tarvek putting his foot down and excersizing his Kingly rights?)

I have no idea how things would all fall out in the end, but I really kind of love this AU so I thought I’d share.

[alchemisland]

Moors Mutt - II

Prefer Wattpad?

Rising early, if rising it was and not merely stirring from a wakened restive state, I left the tavern in secret and walked a barren stretch. At pale dawn birds like Aztec idols flighted at my stirring. Cold light stained the pasture either side. Sleepshod, the road to Cairn Cottage found me quiet company. Even the tinkers were not yet to the road in their triskeled wagons.

The air was heavy with lavender. A pebbled stretch stirred a reverie of my late father and a codex of heroic tales he had purchased for me, whose chronicles of high adventure stirred me like nothing prior. At six years old, tales of old Arabia appealed most. Kingdoms wrought of sunstones stark against a tangerine haze, swirling tarot star ever-visible, scorpions armoured like chargers; the sheer cloying madness of it all. I visited them in dreams, jumped from the paths of unruly camels, watced the impenetrable waves humbly part in the wake of royal palanquins.

Their heroes were unlike our knights. More often sulky boys preferring quill to falchion. Brooding teenagehood made me relish the stranger entries, tales without lessons existing solely to unnerve, speaking on the bleak lives of Tartarian wizards.

Into adulthood, I came to enjoy Greek tales best of all. The tragedy of Ajax in his lover's plate leaking on the golden sand. Waves, caressing the moored fleet in passing, bursting against the shale where his pyre burned. Always when I hear crunching pebbles, I think of soldiers marching on the strand near Troy.

Before long, a trap could be heard from the middle distance, the first in a network of wagons due to arrive at Cairn Cottage to transport the priceless contents of Lady Sizemore’s library back to Sperrin, where they would be carefully parcelled and carried by train to the Royal Academy Library. I waited astride the ditch until the crude plume atop the horses head appeared like the mantle of some deposed pagan lord. Ixion's disc four times divided had been fixed to bear this chariot. Its heavy trundle ground debris to powder. I hailed the driver, a wind being, every strand of hair or cloth lank enough to lift stood disarrayed. A peak stole his brow but a smile waved me aboard.

The driver never spoke. There was a sense of grim penitence about all I had met thus far. Their lines of deep regret boldened every jowl and furrowed brow. Each bore the weight of his forebears in full. A place without time and silent, where happiness and sadness could last all of forever. So silent were they, matched only by monks in their solemnity, I christened this ham the abbodrice of Sperrin.

Inside chaos reigned. Lady Sizemore's estate was measured first in paper above coin. Hundreds, thousands, of jaundiced sheets all in disorder busied every surface. Before a single penny changed hands, a great many hours I spent hauling boxes, within which were more boxes where spiders large as potatoes spun temporary wonders above the invoices.

I wonder what effect prolonged tedium has. Such thoughts are entertained in avoidance of work as should never be given lucid credence. An entire day dedicated solely to translating letters in incomprehensible cursive, it felt ridiculous. My mind, perhaps reflecting its surroundings, felt dulled, unfocused. So long I stared, when I pried my eyes I found feint margins plastered across reality.

The previous night's visitations I had pondered, ultimately chalking to anxiety. Nothing substantially portentous. Unfortunately, another day I required before I indulged  cryptozooligcal fancies.

Darkness in ravenfeather arrived premature. I ran to the track where the last impatient husbandman sat in stasis. 'Bound for Sperrin?' I called, already halfway inside.

I arrived at Lar's fiercely humoured. Tired, thirsty and caked in mud golemlike, my gladness at journey's end was quickly consumed by the fury of indignity, having endured the return trip atop a sewagesucker's swine van. Lar tended bar. I wondered had he stirred in my absence. Anticipating a thirst, two mugs were set.

I dropped my satchel and enjoyed relief akin to weightlessness by contrast. We drained tankards like soon-to-war Saxons, spoke of weather, I asked had anyone noteworthy visited, mostly from politeness. When asked had the room served, I replied it had done so more than adequately. Again, politeness.

Not wishing to appear overeager, I spared him details of my dream. If the tale was relayed to me, I should say how convenient the very man hoping to find the beast would experience a vision. Besides, in the unlikely event we found a mangy badger after I'd described a prehistoric horror.. perish the thought.

'Do we depart tomorrow?' Lar grunted as he pretended to dust.

'Short delay as it happens. I'd have said from the door, only for the ale calling. Alas, labour remains. My charges lust for satisfaction. They are at Rome's gates! Distant cousins write in droves. By air, land and sea their letters come, squeezing through grates, shimmying down chimneys. Forget the beast, if they find me I'm dead.' I said, picking at a heel of bread.

'We sank tankards enough last night. I've seen plenty pale on the dizzy morning after the night before. If this delay is to spite me, let me allay concerns, I'm the man for this job. We're the men for this job.' Lar shot a glance at Fergus. A pale lance cleft his brow through the slitted shutters.

I looked to my empty cup then longingly at his selection. Lar fingered a bottle, but reached further back and took another instead.

'My god, man. Boil a pot and toss it down your trousers. No such notions occurred to me. We're expedition mates! I didn't make a dent in the work, really.' I raised a silencing finger to hear the ale splash. 'There you have it. Mystery solved. If the mystery of the beast is this easy, we're laughing.' I inhaled its aroma. 'Listen, chap. There's something else I wanted to talk about before we go. I mean to publish an expedition diary. A chronicle of our adventures. Part scientific tome, part roaring adventure book. Your pub will be the busiest spot in the weald after this. Would you object to such?'

Lar's measured tone returned. Careful as a tiptoeing sinner, he asked 'You good?'

I smiled. 'Only Ben Adhem saw the book, ask him.'

Lar stove the ashen helm crowning his cigarette, plunging the embers into the cold bronze bowl. 'At writing.'

'You should say! I tease, I tease. To answer your question, yes. Humbly, in my hand the pen is like the master mason's chisel, from whence grand cathedrals spring forth from their less divine constituent parts.' Lar was fumbling for his tobacco already and I thought what small use that vice would be in peril.

'I'm convinced.' Lar spoke quickly, stumbling over the words to get them out. I took no offence at his zeal to change the subject. 'Do you have a manuscript at hand?' he asked.

'Not with me, unfortunately.' He stifled a sigh of relief. 'Upon returning home one story heavier, I'll ensure you receive signed copies of every one. I'll sing them My favourite tub of Lar. Yours literately, Beastman. That way you'll know it's me.'

Lar's ale, a home brew, was a swift agent, promising to travel from your mouth to the toilet's in twenty minutes. I joked he might patent it for a medicine. Call it the Midas touch. Everything it touched turns to gold: toilet seat, floor, shoes if you weren't careful.

I spied Fergus. His thumb led a blunt edge across the ribbed bark of a sprig, from which he had carved two lidded eyes and a pursed mouth.

Lar lit a cigarette from the flared end of another, then discarded it on the ashen pyre.

Lar had to raise the hatch for me, which spoiled any hope of a dramatic exit. 'Departure two days hence, on the strict proviso no unpleasant libel suit comes once my story hits print. Rest assured, I'll include nothing untoward, but I reserve the right to artistic licence. Print the myth.'

'Libel is a city crime.' Anticipating my desire, Lar walked while he spoke. I mirrored and slipped through the open portcullis to sleep, perchance to scream.

*

Lying in bed, I wondered what to include in my chronicle; exciting details only, or every charged exchange? Nobody asked how the shipwright felt constructing thousands of ships without prior notice. They only wanted Achilles. The reader will concede, I have included much of the mundane.

Well-oiled, I slept easily. Set like a star I saw things from the blind past, dark present and murky future, useless without chronology, stifling their prophetic nature. The beast came again, shaking the ground where it trod.

*

Lar, blackbird that he was, rose early. He emerged from the fugue state that best pleased his constitution and stretched, his wingspan filling the alcove. He found me in my linen cell, bewhaled as Jonah.

'Terrible day.' He drew the shutters. Groggily, I pulled the sheets down over my face to the sight of Lar's stocky silhouette in the dirty light. Tapping a cigarette loose on the sill, he plonked one cheek on the ledge and struck a match. 'Anything you want from town? I'm going to get supplies. I should be away most of the day. There won't be a return trip before we go. Speak now or forever hold your peace.'

'Ambulo in pace.' I tapped my journal, 'I have everything.'

'Do you have a mac?' he asked. The rain beat down harder.

'No, we're English, some Irish. Although I heard tell that a distant branch traded their roses for thistle stalks.' I smirked.

Lar shuddered, ill-humoured before midday despite protestations he needed no proper rest. 'I mean a waterproof.'

'Oh give me credit. That's humour.'

'We in the smiling countryside call it idiocy. There's a time for revels. Unless you've been up all night, dawn isn't it.' he said somewhat angrily.

'I don't have one and I'd like a loan if that's what you're asking, thank you. I didn't sleep well now you mention it' I tossed my feet onto the cold ground and felt for a sock.

Lar watched the rain spilling in romantic sheets. 'You'll need an ark to get back. It's like a bog when it rains. No one will be able to get you. Not me, not the constabulary, nor anyone else. If the weather worsens, make sure you get back in time. Otherwise, everything will be closed until further boatice.'

'Boatice?' I said.

'Now that is humour. Rain, boats, further notice. Get it?' Lar left, more spritely than when he entered.

[dailymusingsofamedic]

2nd April - Bartók

Kossuth (1903) - https://open.spotify.com/album/1y4W6EtrHuZtazuj4fqs9D Tracks 35-44

Although there are a wealth of composers beginning with ‘B’, I chose Bartók because I wanted a complete contrast to the Allegri from yesterday, and I’ve just seen the suite from his Miraculous Mandarin performed and wanted to explore more of this 20th Century Hungarian chappy’s music. I’d never heard of Kossuth before embarking on this tame adventure and having heard it for the first time I assumed it was steeped in Hungarian mythology (as most tone poems I’ve heard before are). Alas, no, it’s about a politician Lajos Kossuth. Let’s hope there’s no budding composers planning to write a tone poem called ‘Trump’…

Above -  Béla Bartók, originator of “Word Art”

The piece is continuous, but divided into 10 sections which I will take you through below.

1.       Kossuth – The very opening chords could be straight from Sibelius. Then the horns come in and for some reason, even before knowing what it was about I knew this must be a work with some nationalism involved. Maybe it’s a horn thing? It’s a great introductory section, I like it.

2.       Why are you so grieved, my dear husband? – Clarinet perhaps signifying this wife who only takes 1:10 to ask what’s wrong with her hubby. Perhaps it’s the looming Austrian takeover? I suppose we’ll never know. The end of the section he clearly starts getting a bit narked.

3.       The Fatherland is in danger – Oh, this is why he’s narked. This is Bartók (albeit quite a Straussian Bartók). The start of the section is exciting and like “THE FATHERLAND IS IN DANGER”. The section finishes more like “oh shit, we’re doomed”.

4.       Formerly we had a better life – a really beautiful string section, with some cheeky horn interjections to remind us that the fatherland probably is still in danger. The end of the section, really builds but the forte is very short-lived.

5.       Then our fate changed for the worse – I’m getting the sense this piece isn’t overall positive. Not entirely sure what the odd little flute and clarinet passages are here. The flute sounds like an accident, and then the clarinet does the same thing. Then the drama comes back with a thickly scored swell towards the end of the section which dies away to some solo woodwind trills which can only indicate nastiness afoot (in my experience anyway)

6.       Up and fight them! -  The tempo picks up and this section is rhythmically much more secure than the music so far. It certainly sounds like a fight, and the strings are working hard.

7.       Come, come! You splendid lads, you valiant Hungarian warriors! – A horn solo (maybe even a section solo, I can’t tell) that a few of my horn-ed colleagues would like to get stuck into I’m sure. Then a bit of Mahler 1 on the timpani. Then what is probably a Hungarian folk song (I’m just guessing here) goes through some development and suddenly it’s very loud. The Hungarian lads have come it would seem. This section is for me so much like the Bartók I’ve played before – really satisfying to listen to, my favourite part of the piece. By the end, the military references are strong, but the Hungarian lads seem rather spent after all that fighting. ☹

8.       Untitled – Lots of grumbly low stuff. Then SUCH a good little fugue starting off with the bassoon section. It’s so meaty and good; makes me want to play the bassoon. Then rather unexpectedly, the climax of the piece comes, in the untitled section. Big blow for the brass. Lots more of that main theme. Low brass and trumpets have a little fight of their own. This is all really beefy music. Until there’s an Eb clarinet that goes off the rails (as they so often do). Suddenly, we’re in a dreamy, British sounding section with harp, high strings and flute. Hold on. The tuba has the tune. You go tuba. For several bars. So proud. Another climax, this time seems like one of those moments where the strings are working their absolute arses off but you can’t hear it a jot because everyone else is honking away. Bet it looks impressive on stage though. The standout section of the piece I think. Lots of contrast; but wait, here comes sad oboe to ruin everything.

9.       All is over! – I presume Kossuth is dead? This is undeniably a funeral march. Some very interesting harmony going on in the trumpets though; not your usual funeral fanfare. You can tell it’s a state funeral…one would assume; it’s still pretty grand. I hate to say it but this section drags. The music’s not sad enough that I want to wallow in it, and not interesting enough that it requires this much repetitive development. It does have a sort of existential-crisis-at-a-funeral feel towards the end, but this only lasts about 20 seconds.

10.   Everything is quiet, very quiet – Yes it is. Again, such an unsatisfying end to what’s been a great listen. Arguably worse than yesterday’s. I’m sure it’s symbolic and sad but I want more. It just fizzles out to nothing. I guarantee nobody knows whether to clap or not at the end of this piece.

Overall – 7/10 – I was going to give it an 8 but had to take away 1.5 points for sections 9 &10. I then added on a cursory half point for the tuba having the tune. I can do what I want ok? A good listen, and I will be listening again, thoroughly enjoyable Bartók – nice job. Now going to read about Hungarian politics in the late 1800s.

Above - Lajos Kossuth looking dreamy