#land at the one in The Citadel its usually empty

[runn1ngn0se]

For the first time in what feels like forever I've managed to complete a set of weeklys on the first day

[fioreofthemarch]

Finding Her - Chapter 11

Link makes notes, takes photos and keeps time on his quest across Hyrule, in the hopes of finding Zelda and staying sane until he does. [ Previous | Next | First | AO3 ]

Log date: 15:00. 7th month, 8th day 104AC Location: Akkala Citadel Weather: Cloudy

I think it’s gone. I climbed up some ruins to escape it and haven’t moved since. What the hell was that? 

My skin’s blistered where it grabbed me, like a bad sunburn. Hurts to move. To breathe. 

Made a detour here before heading to Gerudo. Thought I’d find some Shrines, explore the sky or brave whatever’s going on down in the Depths. Robbie has a lab in Deep Akkala that he wanted me to check on. Tarrey Town isn’t far either. Seemed like a great idea at the time. 

Used to have fond memories of this place. This was the last stand of the Knights of Hyrule after all, and they were my brothers, once. I feel a responsibility to pay my respects. 

Zelda and I were here too, a year back. A rare holiday — no surveys, no official business. We were halfway to the top when the rain came pouring down. Completely soaked us through by the time we took shelter in the ruins. I made a fire and we hung up our clothes to dry, huddling together for warmth. (Won’t write down what happened next, but you can imagine.) Now, this place is tainted and the memory with it. 

I didn’t get a good look at the thing until it attacked. Thought I’d stumbled on a wounded animal, bleeding out on the stones. But then I noticed the blood was gurgling, boiling even, and knew something was wrong. 

Barely had a hand on my sword before its black mass exploded and congealed all at once. Half a dozen hands, half a dozen eyes, writhing, screaming. I tried to run but it was so fast. One of its arms grabbed me and squeezed, like wringing juice from a lemon, the worst feeling you can imagine. 

Some divine luck made me reach for a bomb flower. Not much can survive gunpowder. One bomb was enough for it to let go, and I bolted. Don’t remember climbing these ruins. I just found myself here, shaking from the pain and the tears and the panic. 

That thing… it must have been made of Gloom, somehow. I'd thought it was just a poisonous muck (like Malice was) but Gloom is alive, and it hates. 

The rain is easing. I was going to make camp here but, not anymore. Not for a long time. 

A photograph taken from Akkala Citadel of Tarrey Town, to the north. West of the town is a large open wetland that has been mostly cleared. Zonai ruins scattered across the ground. The sky is a dark grey, but the rain has stopped. 

Caption: Hopefully will have a better time down there. 

---

Log date: 11:45. 7th month, 10th day 104AC.  Location: Tarrey Town Race, Akkala Weather: Partly cloudy. 

Slow travels since the incident. Wanted to leave the area but, curiosity won out. Spent the morning in the sky, exploring the Sokkala Sky Archipelago. There’s a sphere-type island up there. Ended up completing a crystal Shrine and finding something called a ‘Sage’s Will’. Not sure what it does. Another doodad for the pile until I figure it out. 

Flew down to Tarrey Town on a wing. Looks like I’m not the only thing that’s fallen from the sky lately. So many Zonai parts have landed here that they’ve set up a research facility in an empty construction lot beside the town. 

Thought I’d say hello to Hudson and caught the railcar into town, but him and his wife Rhondson have closed business for the day. They were caught up in an argument about their daughter and I didn’t want to pry. Family matters — outside my area of expertise and usually left for Zelda to handle. 

Not that Zelda had much family either, come to think of it. Perhaps I’ll go back into town tomorrow, see what the trouble is.  

Anyway, taking a break down at the research site. (Lunch for one: meat and mushroom skewers). Overheard two Gerudo women arguing with one of the Zonai Survey Team members. Something about being promised a race course that uses the Zonai technology, but that they can’t get any of it to work. 

The right arm is tingling. Maybe it can sense the opportunity. Zonai Tech acting up? I know just the ancient magical limb for the job. 

A photograph of a Zonai contraption: a cart with a steering stick and two small wheels attached. There is a Zonai rocket attached to each wheel. The vehicle looks as fast as it is flimsy. 

Caption: The Speedster Mk CIV is ready to roll. 

---

Log date: 08:00. 7th month, 13th day.  Location: Tarrey Town, Akkala Weather: Clear skies.  

Have been in Tarrey Town a few days now. Time to leave soon but… feel like reminiscing a little. 

All my life, I’d never imagined a future for myself. Before the Calamity, my only duty was to fight for Hyrule, and die for it if needed. After the Calamity I lived day to day. Exploring, training, searching — building courage to face down the beast in the castle and save the princess within. Then after that, with Zelda, I guess I never got past the shock that we survived it all. I had no memories of peace. I did not know how to enjoy it. 

I thought about a future with her, of course I did, but it was more like telling myself a fairytale. The Princess and her Knight, their house, their children, their life. It wasn’t us in that story, it wasn’t me. But I wonder now… was that for the better? Was it better to simply wake up from a dream, rather than lose the real thing? 

Little Mattison has gone on her journey to Gerudo now. This was why Rhondson and Hudson were at odds, a few days ago. I can’t blame either of them. Rhondon wants what’s best for Mattison while Hudson just wants to spend more time with his daughter.  

I got to hang out with Matti on her last day here, and help her father build the balloon that would carry her across Hyrule. Remember Link, Sundelions! We used a dozen of those flowers to dye the balloon a bright yellow. Josha’s advice came in handy again. 

All of us, Mattison, Hudson, Rhondson and me, watched the sunrise while riding the balloon into town. It’s good that Matti was so captivated by the sun… she didn’t see the sadness on her parents' faces, or the tears in their eyes. I know it’s Gerudo custom for Mattison to leave home and I know it’ll be good for her to grow up with her people. But before today she and her parents were a family, with a house and a life together. And now… they aren’t. 

I had my own family, didn’t I? I must have, once. I must have had someone other than myself. 

Rhondson offered for me to buy a plot of land here. She said that their newest employee Grantéson (hmm) could help me build a dream home. But, I said no. I don’t really know why. It was a good deal. It just… didn’t feel like something I’d ever need. 

A photograph taken of the Akkala Sea, from high in the sky. A second photograph of Rhondson, Hudson and Mattison, huddled together in the basket of the yellow balloon. On the horizon, dawn breaks.

Caption: They seemed so happy. 

---

Incoming transmission… Processing… Transmission received. Downloading information packet and installing to the Purah Pad. Please stand by.

Upgraded Message Medallion installed.

Connection established. Audio transcription function activated. Standby to begin transcription…

RBB : C’mon, c’mon. [tapping noises] C’mon you piece of junk. Ah, it's working! Now to dial in the others… 

[Ringing lasting for ten seconds]

PRH: What? Hello!? Who is this? What is this!? 

RBB: Purah! Excellent, the medallion is working! It's Robbie!

PRH : Robbie… [Rumaging noises] Robbie it's six thirty in the morning!

RBB: Is it? …oh dear. Yes, the sun has indeed risen. 

JSH: Oh hey, this thing's flashing again. Hello, funny little message medallion!

LNK: H-Hello?

JSH: Ahh! It spoke!

RBB: Of course it spoke, I just finished the upgrades.

JSH : Aahh! Goggles!? How are you-- wait. I'm not here. I don't have this. [Crashing noises]  

PRH: We know you took the medallion again, Josha.

JSH : [far away] Do you? [closer] Let me first say how sorry I am—

RBB: Don’t bother—

JSH: And very sorry that I just threw it! 

RBB: Josha, I made two more. Now we all have one! Just ask next time.

JSH: Yes, sir! I will, I promise!

[A pause]

JSH: So what is happening right now? I just woke up.

PRH & LNK: [in unison] Me too.

RBB: As I have been trying to say, I've upgraded the message medallions. We can now talk as though we were all in the same room. This will make coordinating our efforts much easier, and as you can tell, each medallion can interface with the Purah Pad in Link’s possession. 

LNK: Cool. 

JSH: Awesome!

PRH : Yes. [Yawning] Wonderful.

RBB: Now then, Link. Tell me, did you make it to my lab in Akkala? 

LNK: Sure did. Just this morning. 

RBB: Was it beset by those Yiga scoundrels like I feared?

LNK: Sure was.

RBB: I see. Are they still there? 

LNK: Not anymore.

RBB: Good man, very good, thank you.

PRH: So, are you still there, Linky?

LNK: Still here. 

PRH: I mean at the lab in Akkala. 

LNK: Yes. 

PRH: Perfect. Any chance you can pick up my sunshades while you’re there? I left them in the loft the last time I visited, I think. But don’t get too nosey, there’s a lot of top secret research there! 

LNK: Sure. Roger that. 

RBB: And Link, don’t forget to pick up the Travel Medallion for me to add to your Purah Pad. 

LNK: And that. 

JSH: Oh, swordsman, if it’s not too much trouble, I left a TON of field notes on Malice there too, in the ground floor library I think? They could be super useful for dealing with Gloom.

LNK: Uh—

PRH: Tsch, listen to yourselves. Link isn’t our personal courier! 

RBB: Speak for yourself! 

PRH: Well you can’t expect him to do every little errand for us. 

RBB: You just asked him to please pick up your spare sunglasses! 

PRH: I need those sunglasses to relax. Guarding the Castle isn’t easy work! 

RBB: YOU guarding the Castle? 

JSH: If it’s too much trouble I really don’t need my notes actually. 

PRH : [loud] Someone has to lead the troops here. We’re not all workaholics like you!

RBB: [very loud] Goddess be good, I’M the workaholic? After you demanded we bring forward the Purah Pad launch by a whole year!?

JSH : I’m gonna leave you guys to it. Goddesses keep you and stuff, okay bye! [click]

PRH: We were already behind in develop—! Oh. Josha left. 

RBB: Hm. She did. What about Link? Are you still there, Link? [A pause]. I think he’s gone. 

PRH: That was probably our fault. 

RBB: Yes. Apologies, Dr. Purah.

PRH: Likewise, Dr. Robbie. Jerrin sends her love, by the way.

RBB: I appreciate you watching over her, though I’d feel a lot better if she joined me in Hateno. 

PRH: She feels her talents are best used looking after the soldiers here at Lookout. She says they all remind her of Granté. 

RBB: Every young man reminds her of Granté. I know because I’m the same way. 

PRH: The life of a parent, huh?

RBB: He’s my son no matter where he is. [A sigh] I meant to ask Link to check in on him for me. I heard he’s signed on with that construction company. 

PRH: Yes, in Tarrey Town. I’m sure he’s just fine, Robbie. Akkala is remote. It’s safe. 

RBB: I can’t help worrying. For him and Jerrin. 

PRH: You’ll be together again soon, you know that. We will sort this mess out and get the Princess home. Nothing is forever.

RBB: You’re right, thank you.

[A pause]

PRH: You know, I worry about Link, though. He’s alone out there. For the first time in a while.

RBB: Indeed. Poor boy. We miss our beloved Zelda, of course, but I couldn’t bear it, if it were me. If it were Jerrin missing like that, I could not bear it. 

PRH: Well it isn’t. Be glad for that. I just hope Link is okay. 

[A pause]

LNK: I’ll be alright, guys, thank you.  

PRH & RBB [in unison]: Aahh!

PRH: Link! You’re still there! 

LNK: Yep.

PRH: Well… it was nice talking to you both. Let’s do this again sometime. 

RBB: Likewise. Goddess keep and preserve you Purah, and you Link.

PRH: Back at you. Later, Robbie. 

RBB: Yes. ‘Later’. 

Connection terminated. Audio log saved the Purah Pad files.

---

Welcome to the Purah Pad! 

— Home Screen —

 Today’s Purah Pointer: Remember to take your Purah Pad to Hateno Ancient Technology Laboratory every six months or every 10,000 standard clicks travelled, whichever comes first!

> Camera

Camera selected.

> Scanner

Scanner sub-function selected. Please place text to be scanned in view of the Purah Pad camera.

Scanning… Processing… Scanned text uploaded.

Deed of Sale

Prepared By: 

President Hudson 1 Tarrey Way, Tarrey Town Akkala, Hyrule

Return To:

Link – 5 Wildflower Crossing, Hateno Village Necluda, Hyrule 

This deed certifies that, for the sum of one thousand and five hundred rupees (R 1,500), paid in hand to the “Grantor”, known as President Hudson, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the following real estate is conveyed to the “Grantee”, Link —: 

Lot HVD50N14, Akkala Highlands, Hyrule 

THE PROPERTY comprises a flat section of land exactly forty by forty standard units in dimension, located approximately forty standard units west of the nearest main thoroughfare (‘Sokkala-Tarrey Road’). 

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD the Property, the Grantee, their heirs, successors and executors forever, obtain a permanent and absolute tenure in land with freedom to dispose of at will

AND the Grantor, their heirs, successors and executors shall warrant and defend the Property unto the Grantee and assign forever against the lawful claims of all persons. 

P HUDSON  Grantor’s Signature Date: 16.07.0104

A note, appended to the transfer of ownership deed for Link’s new plot of land. 

Link,

Congratulations on the purchase of the land for your dream home! With overlooking views of Lake Akkala and firm but fertile soil, this lot is brimming with real estate potential!

President Hudson mentioned you had a change of heart after initially deciding against your purchase. I want to say I’m confident you have made the right decision!

I ordered the rooms you requested and should have them delivered to your plot in a week. Come back and assemble your dream home as soon as you can! 

Also, I have passed on your enquiry for custom rooms to President Hudson. I am certain we can build anything to your liking for a modest and reasonable additional fee.  

Son and done, 

Grantéson

P.S. Tell my father I am just fine and that he doesn’t have to send people to check up on me, thank you. But also please tell him that I miss him. And Mom and Auntie Purah as well. I promise I’ll visit the first moment I can. 

P.P.S When you said you’d want a ‘nursery’ do you mean for plants or babies?

[linksthoughtbrambles]

What Once Rang Hollow

A gift for @hyperphonic for Hestu's Gift Exchange! (Thank you so much for being patient with me)!

A huge thank-you to @bellecream for beta-reading this fic.

LoZ: Breath of the Wild - Canon Compliant - Post-Calamity - Zelink - Drama - Hurt/Comfort - ~9000 words - rated T - on ao3 if you prefer to read there.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

Fall swept through Akkala with such grace—a calm breath carried on northeastern winds.  The scent of the sea cooling with gentle patience met the chill which rolled across the chasm beyond its Wilds, stirring the mists between the jagged peaks.  Their moisture nourished; they soothed the heat and the dry, the mark of Death Mountain softened upon rich grasslands kept green even as the Sun approached its yearly rest at solstice.  The trees knew to rest, too, greens turned to wild marigolds, as though the land had lit itself warm in one final promise of the spring to come after their sleep.

This year, peace made itself clear in absence.  What once loomed bright, deadly, eyes searching even in the dead of night, exuding the perpetual buzz of red hornets, now stood silent sentinel as it once had before the Calamity, before the lifetimes of most who had made their homes within sight of its silhouette.

Its emptiness became a beacon.

Curious eyes led feet across the Akkala span, led strong planks to be laid across the gaps in the bridge leading to the citadel’s mouth, spurred a search for a way in, and brought Hudson to its gates, Greyson in tow to shift debris far quicker than a Hylian could.

Each day saw more feet, hands, and movement, and as autumn’s cool, crisp days began to threaten frost at night, a light shone blue high in the tallest tower, strands of luminescence coalescing to a shimmer of limbs and torsos.  Four shapes drifted down on gliders, landing at the edge of the tattered battlements looking over the sea.  They moved, two men and two women, two blond and two white-haired, scouring the ground, one sending flashes of light into the distance as she aimed the slate at features previously hidden by malice, surfaces laid bare in the aftermath of Ganon’s defeat.

The smaller of the two men approached the gap surrounding the bright pillar, stepping on upward-sloping stones.

“Link…” the woman said, lowering the slate to watch him instead.

“Uh-huh,” he responded, leaning to peer beyond the point of absent mortar.

“You ought to be careful,” she said.

A lopsided smile appeared on his face.  “I’m always careful.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, though it went unseen by Link.  Their white-haired counterparts circled the perimeter, pencils and notebooks in hand, a second glowing device on the other woman’s hip as she chattered.  The sound seemed swallowed by the hollow near their feet.

“You are not always careful,” the woman finally said.

“I have my glider,” Link responded, inching even closer to the edge, finally able to peer directly downward, his smile fading so completely it may as well have never existed.

“…What is it?” she asked with a small frown, her eyes on his profile, slate lowered, clutched at hip-height.

“Sorry, Zelda,” he said, quieter than usual.  “It’s… some hole.”

Zelda blinked.  “You don’t remember the citadel?”

Link’s head snapped up, turning to face her.  “No.  Not at all.  Not- not the inside.  I’ve been all over the outside of this mountain.”

She studied his eyes, a lengthy consideration playing on the muscles of her face.  “You were within it twice with me.  We stayed here on route to the Spring of Power.”

His face pinched, concentrating.  Zelda waited to see that far-off distant look—the surprise of suppressed memory bursting through some dam within him—ready to move in an instant, to grasp him should be become unsteady near that deadly edge.

She did not wait a century to return to Link’s arms only to have him taken from her by senseless chance.

The look did not arrive.

One corner of Link’s mouth twitched to the side, a near-grimace, and he shook his head.  “I don’t remember any of it.”

Zelda managed a tremulous smile.  It didn’t quite reach her eyes.  “Perhaps that’s for the best.”

He huffed a laugh.  “Was someone here a jerk to me?  Or-“ a bit of a fire lit in those startling eyes of his- “was someone a jerk to you?  Or- oh Goddess.  Was it the food?”

“The food?”

“Yeah, was the food bad?”

This time the smile became a grin of such force her eyes closed for a moment.  “Link- you’re not serious.”

“I’m always serious, too.  Serious…” he took one step away from the crumbling edge. “…And careful.”  He picked his way toward her, true to his supposed personality traits for the moment, and slid an arm around her waist, his forehead to hers.  “See?”

She rapped his chest with the Slate playfully.  “What I see now contradicts what I observed mere minutes ago.”

“Nah.”  He kissed her cheek—soft—pausing at her too-rapid pulse.  “…What-“

“HEY LOVEBIRDS!  SNAPPITY SNAP!”  The machine-click of Purah’s hand-built proto-Slate caught the two of them unprepared.

Zelda rolled her eyes as Link sniggered.  “Purah!”

“Ha-ha!  That’s what you get.  I warned you—we’re here to survey the place, not make hanky-panky.”

Link flashed his eyebrows at Zelda.  “Hankity-pankity,” he said.

Zelda sighed.  “Link… have I told you your plays on words have taken a turn for the worse?”

“You have.”  His smile turned distinctly mischievous.  “I’ve made up for it in other ways, haven’t I?”  The hand at her waist shifted down a few finger-widths, his nose brushing hers.

Another click.  “SNAP!”

Link sighed this time, craning his neck up to breathe his frustration to the sky.  “Yeah!  Yeah, we get it, thanks, Purah.”

“You’re welcome!  Symin, open that sample pouch, maybe there’s some malice left clinging somewhere.”

Zelda knew there wouldn’t be.  It had dissipated along with its master; yet a good scientist like Purah would check regardless.

Link moved to inspect the watchtower, unimpeded by pools of malice for the first time, but stopped at its entrance, turning once more toward her. “Zelda… you saw what I saw, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was traveling.  You said you… ‘watched my journey.  Every step.’”

A beat passed as Zelda swiped at the Slate’s screen with apparent efficiency.  “Yes.  I did.”

He nodded, his fist rising to press just beneath his nose as he considered the gaping maw in the citadel’s roof once more.  “So, you know that was full of malice.  Right?”

She kept her face carefully still.

“Completely full.  That whole shaft.  There’s… nothing down there to support it.  It had to be full for me to see it up here.”

“…Yes,” Zelda said.  “It was full of malice.”

Link’s head kept bobbing as he turned from the innocuous sign of a horror he’d been blind to at its peak.  Zelda followed him, continuing to image the wreckage, hoping that would be the worst realization to come of this.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

The consensus between the leaders of Hyrule’s scattered peoples became that Akkala Citadel’s clean-up and reconstruction was of paramount importance.  With the Calamity banished, Hyrule would appear a promising target for conquest, and the Citadel had once been a formidable deterrent to any army which would dare to land on the northeastern shores.

Link had noticed the dark circles beneath Zelda’s eyes.  The monarchy’s fall hadn’t dulled her sense of duty or righteousness.  She would work endlessly for her people with no thought for her own well-being if Link wasn’t there to pull her aside.  He’d warp them from Rito Village to that pleasant hillside near the Maritta Exchange ruins to rest on soft grass and watch Dinraal’s flaring passage from the east, and as the weather turned too cold they retreated more often to Hateno, Link’s house always waiting in welcome.  He’d build up a fire and make a hot meal while she read in a plush seat made especially for her.  He had plans to rent a seaside hut in Lurelin when winter hit full stride.  He’d keep her warm and safe and make sure she rested.  If Hyrule was hers to bear even with no crown, no castle, he would make sure that burden didn’t bury her.  She knew far more about running a kingdom than he did, but none of the old infrastructure remained in place; they kept climbing toward something but it would never be the Hyrule they’d known before.  Any glory to come would be of its people’s making, not of their memories’.

To be fair… Link didn’t really know the Hyrule from before—not like Zelda did.  He remembered snatches, most of it her: her sunshine hair flowing through his hands, her sweet whispers, her lips desperate on his, so much longing, and too much lost time in frustration and silence.

Even his own house remained elusive.  He’d remember a long plait of brown-river-stone and Hateno-rice-stalk colored hair as a young sister giggled, chasing frogs and fireflies beneath the apple tree, and he kept seeing the image of a woman he knew to be his mother standing at the hearth, retrieving fresh-baked bread from the hollowed stone to the fire’s side.  He could hear her voice, but he didn’t know her name.

He’d asked Zelda, once, if she knew.  She’d held his hands tight, sorry to say she didn’t.

All of this made her approach to the citadel strange.

Really strange.

“There’s no need for you to attend, Link.  I’m sure Bolson construction has the physical activities well in hand.”

“…But you’re going,” he said, a folded shirt in one hand and a jar of homemade wildberry jam in the other.

“Yes,” she said.  “I must mediate and keep an eye on Bolson and his obscenely over-inflated pricing.  That doesn’t mean you must go.”

“W- why wouldn’t I go?”

“Why should you?”

“That’s not an answer.”                      

“That’s not a question.”

“That- what?!” he thought for a moment. “You’re trying to confuse me.”

She smirked a little.  “I would never.”

She regretted it (sort of) as he hooked her over his shoulder and tossed her to the bed.

They finished packing a lot later than they’d intended.

Zelda made a few more attempts to assure Link she’d be fine alone, to the point at which he asked if she needed a few days away from him.

“No!  No, of course not.  Why should you think so?”

“It’s okay if you do.  I’d understand.” He smirked.  “Too many puns?”

She hooked an arm through his.  “Not at all.”

“Uh-huh.  So why don’t you want me to go?”

“It’s just…” her eyelids shut.  When they opened, her other hand cupped his cheek.  She studied his eyes, a worried crease appearing low on her forehead.

Link shook his head.  “What is it?”

She sighed.  “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“I’ll be careful,” he reminded her with a confused half-smile.  “I… did survive Calamity Ganon.  I have no intention to get taken out by falling rocks.”

“…I know,” she said.  “… Very well, I shall say no more of it.  Just… please… do be careful.  And please listen to me.”

“I always listen to you.”

This time, she smacked him right in the stomach.  “You insist on saying such things, and they’re never true.”

He snorted as she raised the Sheikah Slate, tapping the icon for Akkala Tower.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

Greyson had cleared the rubble and Bolson Construction’s Hateno crew had moved in, installing structural support beams and scaffolding to maximize safety as they cleared more debris from within.

The level of destruction within the tower belied its steadfast exterior.

The canons at the clifftop battery across the parade ground had taken out the bridge, tried to slow the approach of the guardians, tried to keep them out.  It seemed they’d caused the rubble at the entrances, too, forcing the guardians to either ascend the tower or punch through the walls of the citadel itself.  It appeared as though they’d chosen the former—the facade remained predominantly whole.  Yet the abundance of guardian parts which Purah and her team had already removed from the entrance hall demonstrated how thoroughly they had penetrated the citadel’s innards.

Link and Zelda passed beneath the arch of the citadel’s portcullis and stared, mute.

The entrance hall bore signs of its former grandeur: thick columns flanked by statues of soldiers which had once stood more than twice Link’s height, only one unbroken, a sword still in its hands, point-down, and a great shield emblazoned with the royal family’s crest, fallen, among banners so decayed as to be unrecognizable except having once been cloth: frayed nets of fabric ready to crumble to dust at the slightest touch.  Greyson had just lifted a heavy, jagged stone, the remnant of some sweeping ceiling architecture, and as he did the sound of scraping metal drew their eyes to the floor beneath it.

Armor.

Crushed.

Helmets.  Gauntlets.  Chain-mail and cuirasses.  Rust and tatter, and more cloth nets.

Everywhere in the room and down the halls to the left and right—scattered pieces, tiny glints, rust protruding from cracks and peeking through inanimate rot.  Link took ten steps toward the nearest column, crouching, rising again with a thin chain dangling from his fingers.

“What is it?” Zelda asked, the whispered quiet of a funeral.

“It’s… a bracelet,” Link said.  He turned it over in his hand.  It bore charms: a pair of wings, as though of the Goddess.  He swallowed, glancing around the chamber.  “No bones,” he said.

She shook her head.  No.  There were none.

“You’re… here to count the dead, too, aren’t you?” Link asked.

Zelda nodded, but not quick enough.  Link saw her hesitation.

His eyes widened.  “You knew them,” he said.

She clasped her hands before her, eyes on a series of tiny, scattered metal rings not far from her.    “Not all of them,” she said.

“But more than most... than almost anyone.  There might be some Zora…”  He turned to face her, crossing the distance between them, the bracelet in his fist near the bottom of his ribcage.

Zelda shook her head, certain what he wished to ask her.  “I… do not know who wore that bracelet,” she said, her voice soft.

Link’s hand tightened around it.  “It… doesn’t seem like something a soldier would’ve been wearing.”

Zelda shook her head.  “Probably not.”

Link’s other hand raised slowly to rest on her shoulder.  He thumbed her collarbone.  “How many people… I mean, it must’ve been like Hyrule Castle.  Cooks, launderers, maids, pages… families.  Right?  With all those open-air spaces, there must’ve been gardeners.”

“Yes,” Zelda said.  “All sorts made their lives here.  Some worked here with leaves to see home.”

“…And they all died,” Link said.

“Perhaps,” she responded softly.

“Is this why you wanted me to stay?  All this… death?  Zelda…” he shook his head, his hand moving to caress her cheek instead.  He ducked down, forcing her to meet his eyes.  They brimmed over with concern.

She had to steel herself against any change in her own expression, though it clutched at her heart.

“Zelda, I’ve… seen death.  I’ve seen so much of it.  I feel even more.  I know I lost… almost everyone I knew.  This place right here is… it’s- another unacceptable tomb.  We can’t leave what’s left of these people here.  We have to show them respect.  I wouldn’t want to sit by and ignore their passing.”

She wrapped her hand around the back of his, unsure whether reassuring him or herself.  “I know, Link.  It’s why I’m here.  These were my people.”  And I failed them.

The words hung unspoken, fully felt by each of them.  A moment later, Zelda’s arms had encircled Link’s neck with a desperate tightness, his likewise about her waist.

He knew.  “It is not your fault, Zelda.”

She disagreed, but to argue the point had proven fruitless—and a large part of her felt glad to have lost.  She’d have lost every argument to Link, given in on every point, if it meant she could still see his eyes, enraptured, turned to ebony on hers as he stoked the fires of their ecstasy between them.

Greyson returned and left with a massive stone statue’s torso, the sword in its grip still intact.  A group of builders passed beneath the entryway, the jovial ease in their speech diminished along with their footsteps.  They gave Link and Zelda a wide berth, moving down the left-hand hallway with many a cleared throat and a sniff.  Symin emerged from the hall to the right, his face brightening for a moment on seeing them—then he made a hasty retreat with pursed lips.  Others came and went, shifting rubble in wheelbarrows, bearing sketches and pads full of notes, carrying lumber to construct supports within the structure.

No one disturbed their silent embrace.

“I should begin,” Zelda whispered.

“Not if you need some time,” Link said.

“I don’t.  Do you?”

“No, Zelda.  If I remembered them, then maybe—but I don’t.”

Zelda kept her breathing as even as she could, refusing to let a catch in her rhythm betray her.

She would not wish to see Link hurt.

“Well, then,” she said, pulling away.  “I shall begin with the bracelet.”  She crossed toward the column where Link had picked it up, scanning the floor.  She removed the Slate from her hip and activated the camera, changing the focus and angle, sweeping the lens over the area.  Link watched over her shoulder, waiting for the telltale beeps and boxes to appear on the screen; they didn’t.

She saved an image of the floor anyway.  Her expectant look at Link made one side of his mouth pull back, and he opened his hand, holding the bracelet in his outstretched palm.  She snapped a picture, watching the screen for a long moment, then, visually tracing the shape of the chain hugging his creases.

He waited for her as he always did.

Zelda re-holstered the Slate in favor of her pencil and notebook.

“Hey… let me,” Link said.

She laughed a little.  “Your handwriting is terrible.”

“It’s not that bad,” he said with a halfhearted smile.  “But I can handle the Slate.”

She blinked.  “Right.  Yes… here.  Thank you, Link.”

His smile became much crinklier.  “You’re welcome, Princess.”

 “Why so formal, Sir Knight?” she asked with a double-take.

“Just to remind you how special you are.”

“One needn’t be formal to be special.”

“Yeahhh.  But you’re smiling, aren’t you?”

Indeed she was.

She didn’t smile again until well after nightfall.

Entrance Hall 1 bracelet – chain / charms (2 wings) – (bronze) 12 metal rings 24 35 57 bootlace anchors 71 89 106 (Link offered use of pouch – store and count when task complete). 587 18 belt buckles – 23 31 1 curved metal strip, sha belt fastening pin – 19 21 1 ring – large / ruby set in gold 17 soldiers’ helmets + 13 helmet fragments 87 chain mail fragments 3 chain mail shirts 3 cuirasses 9 soldiers’ greaves 8 soldiers’ pauldrons 11 soldiers’ gauntlets 18 swords broadswords (various 14 soldier’s broadswords, 3 knight’s broadswords, 1 royal broadsword) 13 shields (11 knight’s shields, 2 soldier’s shields) 3 soldier’s claymores - 2 knight’s claymores - 4 knight’s halberds 1 knight’s bow – 1 2 soldier’s bows 53 large metal splinters (remains of weapons / shields / other?) 1 ring – serpentine / silver / lavender quartz chips [Captain Thale’s wife – ‘Myrella’ I think]. Hundreds to thousands of small, flat metal fragments (armor/shield remains?  Other?). 18 chain fragments – bracelets / necklaces? 49 rupees [values vary], 30 of which in northwest corner. (Remains of cloth – much essentially unspun – breaks to dust easily when lifted – uncountable). 8 Wedding bands – gold [2 engraved: Bruun and Deena – Jayd and Povelle] 3 Wedding bands – silver [1 with cross-hatch pattern] 5 Wedding bands – bronze [1 engraved: Arra and Linne] 2 Wedding bands – tin [1 with etched joined hearts] 1 Wedding band – platinum [small / thin – General Relaigh’s wife – Briette] 8 promise bands – each unique – metal only (silver, platinum), silver/diamond, silver/diamond-chip, gold/diamond, gold/three diamonds, rose gold/diamond-chip.  (Rose gold ring - stewardess’ assistant, Jien.   The head stewardess was, as I recall, unmarried - Huryai.  I’d seen her wear buckled dresses.  Some buckles found are quite small as they were on those garments). 2 lockets (1 tin, 1 bronze) – contents dust.  (I recall a maid wearing a locket). 7 earrings (2 nickel, 1 gold, 4 bronze) 9 necklaces (1 bronze/charms, 1 bronze/opal, 1 silver/alexandrite, 1 silver/moonstone, 1 gold/fire agate, 1 tin/charms, 1 silver/charms and sodalite, 1 tin/white quartz, 1 bronze/turquoise [small]). (I do not recall these necklaces in particular).

Northwest Hall Soldiers’ helmets – 12 (helmet fragments – 7) Chain mail shirts – 4  (chain mail fragments – 23) Soldiers’ cuirasses - 2 Soldier’s greaves – 10 Soldier’s pauldrons – 7 Soldier’s gauntlets – 8 (Flat metal fragments – hundreds) Soldier’s broadswords – 7 Knights’ broadswords – 5 Royal broadswords – 3 Soldier’s claymores – 1 Knights’ claymores – 2 Knights’ halberds - 3 Knights’ bows – 1 Soldier’s bows – Knight’s shields – 4 Soldier’s shields - (Splintered metal fragments – 89) 6 ring-bracelets (gold) 9 earrings (2 gold/ruby, 2 gold/amber, 5 gold helix rings) 2 scimitars (1 standard Gerudo, 1 moonlight design) 1 Gerudo spear 2 belts – brass  (17 brass fragments – likely belt pieces) 3 brass chokers 3 brass chestplates 6 bracers – brass 3 Gerudo shields (2 standard, one ‘radiant’ design) Rupees – 93 3 Wedding bands – gold  [1 with etched leaflike pattern] 1 Wedding band – silver 1 chain – bronze – heavy (necklace) – medallion – House Torin’s family crest, Akkalan nobility (I believe the medallion had been gifted to the eldest son upon turning 18 years of age, approximately a year prior to the Calamity). 11 bootlace anchors (Less evidence of cloth remains than in entrance hall).

Guards’ Chamber (off Northwest Hall) Soldiers’ helmets – 31 (helmet fragments – 55) Chain mail shirts – 22  (chain mail fragments – 108) Soldier’s cuirasses – 18 Soldier’s greaves – 56 Soldier’s pauldrons – 51 Soldier’s gauntlets – 49 (Flat metal fragments – hundreds to thousands) Soldier’s broadswords – 34 Knights’ broadswords – 11 Royal broadswords – 7 Soldier’s claymores – 2 Knights’ claymores – 5 Knights’ halberds - 6 Knights’ bows – 4 Knight’s shields – 6 Soldier’s bows –  Royal bow - 1 Soldier’s shields – Royal halberds - 5 (Splintered metal fragments – thousands – Saiku and Shigoh counting / possible reconstruction?) Royal Guard’s Claymore Royal Guard’s Shield Full plate armor remains (not standard issue – darker metal – large 3-point-star-shaped hole in chestplate – backplate partially melted – presence of the Royal Guard’s Claymore and Shield suggest remains of General Relaigh, also house Torin – cannot determine what crest may have decorated it). Rupees – 229 6 Wedding bands – gold [2 engraved: Aurin and Mirrah - Eylin and Olinia] 8 Wedding bands – silver [1 engraved: Louessa and Pellan – 1 with cross-hatch pattern – 1 with ribbed edges] 2 Wedding bands – tin 3 Wedding bands – bronze [1 engraved: Arra and Linne] 1 Wedding band – steel 1 Wedding band – platinum – large (again suggests General Relaigh) 1 ring – three cut amber settings, Gerudo script – defensive magic (suggests wealth on behalf of wearer – identity unknown – not near the general’s remains). 1 ring – sealed bone, ancient Hylian script – offensive magic (again suggests wealth – identity unknown). (Less evidence of cloth remains than in entrance hall).

(I recall rings – other than wedding bands – on several captains’ hands.  Captain Werrush had a reputation for charging headlong into battle, and perhaps fits the mold for the bone ring, though I cannot be sure it belonged to her.  The ring’s size is large for most women, but she towered over me.  It could have been hers.  Captain Baran wore multiple rings and came from a wealthy family heavily invested in Ordorac Quarry.  I could see him bearing the amber ward).

Estimate a minimum of 150 soldiers of varying

“Hey,” Link said.

Zelda startled.  “Y-yes?”

“That’s… enough for today.”

She swallowed, holding her book a bit further from her face to counteract the blur, but Link folded it gently shut around her fingers.

“It’s late.  You need to eat and sleep.”

Her eyes, unoccupied by her notebook, returned to the rubble at their feet.

“No, no no no no,” he said, taking the book from her entirely, then the pencil, putting them in his Korok pouch.  “No more.  We’re going to the camp.  We’ll eat some food, and then we’ll crash.  We can stay in our tent right here if you like, but if you’d rather sleep in a bed I’ll warp us back to Hateno.  We can always return at the tower-top tomorrow morning.”

She allowed him to lead her down the L-shaped hallway and out the great citadel’s arch, talk and laughter from the camp on the plateau to their right a welcome interruption to her exhausted thoughts.

She accepted a bowl of hearty beef and vegetable stew and a cup of steaming hot liquid which turned out to be a tea brewed with cinnamon and orange rind.  She savored it, sipping it slowly, allowing its steam to open her sinuses with each deep inhale.  Link brought over a small boule of bread.  He tore it in half and they shared it, using it to scoop up every last drop of the savory liquid in their bowls.  It wasn’t quite as good as it would have been had Link made it, but the fact of needing neither to cook nor attend to most of the cleanup mattered a good deal (and Monari, while not Link, had a flair for filling and flavorful cooking).

“Ahh, you two could use more.  Neither of you has enough meat on your bones,” Monari said, ladling another portion into each of their bowls without asking.

Zelda blinked. “I-“

“No buts,” the older woman interrupted, though her smile remained kind.  “You’re about to blow away on the next winter wind, and I’m too old to do anything about it at that point.  More tea?”

(That smile of Zelda’s appeared—a small one, half-hearted, but there, and Link’s nose brushed her hair in the next moment).  “…Yes.  Thank you.  The tea is lovely.”

“Bark and orange skin.  Makes a damn fine chocolate truffle, too.  I’ll make you some.”

“O- oh, you needn’t-“

“Did I say I needed to?  Chocolate’ll weigh you down, not me.” Monari gave a bit of a cackle.  “Ahhh, you could use it though.”  She added more tea to Zelda’s cup.  “You too, skinny,” she said, pouring some in the empty cup Link had already set aside.

“I’m not that skinny.”

“You can lift a rock ten times heavier than you, I’ll grant you that, but you’re- still- skinny.”

Link smiled sheepishly as the old woman wandered toward the next group to heckle them instead.

They ate and drank their second helping in thoughtful quiet, brushing each other’s knees, thighs, shoulders, and elbows.  Zelda couldn’t finish her stew.  She stared into the crackling fire while Link made up the difference.

“…Ought I to have made my best guess at specifying alloys of the jewelry?” Zelda asked.

Link stopped mid-chew with one cheek stuffed to roundness.  He turned to study her features.

“Hardened gold is impure,” she continued.  “I wouldn’t wish to misrepresent these people.  A low-ranking soldier and their spouse would have been unlikely to carry high-karat gold on their ring-fingers.”

Link swallowed, an uncomfortably large-sounding gulp.

Zelda twirled her wooden teacup in her fingers. “Beyond those engravings… I ought to- to make my best effort to understand whose deaths I have accounted for.  The armor will be of little assistance as knights and soldiers wore essentially identical mail.”  She shook her head, one hand raking through her shortened hair.  “The Sheikah won’t mind if I inspect the jewelry again.  Perhaps Purah- no, she’s occupied with guardian remains.  Sudaishi and Kincama have packed and labeled each already, though perhaps they’d made note of the alloys with that remarkable device Robbie constructed-“

“Zel,” Link said, voice soft as deep thicket moss.

She stopped just as softly, trailing off, but it didn’t last.  “I may have misidentified some stones as well.  I’m certainly no expert.”

“I bet you got it right,” Link said, pulling her against him, his arm across her shoulders, his bowl set between his feet.

“I still don’t know whose they were,” she said, the words gravid in her mouth, “for the most part.”

They spent the night in Link’s bed at home, Zelda’s back pressed to Link’s chest, his arms secure around her.

It wasn’t until the following morning, as they emerged atop Akkala tower in a threaded burst of blue light, that Link reminded Zelda of the instance she feared.

“The gap’s right below us.  They did the roof already, right?”

Zelda nodded.  “A Sheikah team.  I shall still inspect the items for anything I can identify.”

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Link asked.  “I can keep an eye out.”

Zelda’s breath paused.

She didn’t dare look at him.

“Not in particular,” she said.

She made a show of unfolding her glider, but his still feet had pointed toward her, his total lack of effort to prepare for the flight down signaling suspicion.

He didn’t call her on it.

They glided beside the tower to pass through the shattered roof and land on the 3rd floor walkway of the cylindrical atrium—it provided an easier approach to the war room, thanks to a blockage on the stairs leading up from the living quarters.  Greyson would have that cleared soon, though not yet.

Zelda concentrated on her breathing, noting its pace when calm, vowing readiness.  She’d been surprised to find General Relaigh’s remains unaccompanied by the source of her dread.  Surely the citadel’s leadership had convened in the war room as the guardians approached.  She had to remain steadfast—watchful.

The scraped floor bore witness to the guardians’ entry here—so did marks upon the high walls.  They’d entered as Link and Zelda just had—through the roof—punched their claws into stone to skitter down the walls, to rip the barricade at the door.  Something had been thrust through the guardrail, leaving a four-foot breach to the doorway’s left.  The automatons’ clawmarks stood stark, having scraped the polished stone floor to white porosity; those alone would have revealed their presence a century past, but one look inside the adjoining hallway made the scene unavoidable in imagining.

Guardian upon guardian littered the hallway—stalkers, scouts, so many they would need to climb over them to reach the war room itself.

“Holy shit,” Link murmured. “Look at the ceiling.”

Long gouges ran the length of the hall, some punching deep.  “More guardians,” Zelda said.

“…Yeah.”

The scene in the war room staggered them.

The chamber dwarfed even the entrance hall.  Before the Calamity, it had boasted a great table nestled in a depression flanked by steps on all sides, high-backed chairs upholstered with rich velvet, massive bookshelves full of references one might need should central Hyrule fall, leaving Akkala to stand in its place, and two tall, narrow windows beside the seat at the far wall where the general would preside.

Only the windows could be seen.

All else had been overtaken by the fallen.  Mechanized bodies and empty suits of armor lay so thick no amount of floor could be seen.  The bookcases had fallen, disintegrated to dust, perhaps, beneath the malice which had permeated this place.

Zelda’s trachea contracted just above her stomach.

They ended up warping back up the tower to glide down and speak with Bolson and Purah instead.

It took days: days and an army’s worth of people gliding down into the atrium, installing rope ladders, lowering lumber in to begin a new layer of supports in this part of the citadel, and meeting Greyson’s efforts in the stairwell beyond the war room to allow free movement between the two; only after that could the work of shifting and accounting begin.

Zelda managed—she thought—to conceal her anxiety beneath a veneer of grim efficiency, while Link treated the entire matter with somber defiance of his typical mischief.  The war room and halls which led from it stood so laden with metal remains they decided to divide the space into gridded squares, each team assigned one at a time to identify items.  All non-standard remains were to be brought to Zelda’s attention, and for that reason she and Link had taken the room’s center as their assigned space.

“Master Link?” a Sheikah asked, approaching with a palm held out.  “Do you recognize this?”

Zelda dropped a gauntlet-fragment in the appropriate crate and sped to put herself between them, but too late.

“Nope, but I’m not the one to ask, anyway,” Link said.  “Zelda might know.”

“Indeed, I am,” Zelda said with a puff of breath which drew Link’s brows together and his head back.  “There is no call to request Sir Link’s assistance in this matter.  All personal affects for identification should be brought to me, not to him.  Is that clear?”

The silence which followed found Zelda’s eyes widening, as theirs already had at her.

“Yes, Princess,” the Sheikah said, holding a thick, brass chain in her palm out for inspection—a sturdy bracelet.

Zelda sighed, attempting to breathe normally.  “…I do recall-“ Zelda’s already wide eyes flew wider and she swallowed convulsively.  “A- soldier… being admonished by his superior for wearing such a thing on duty.”

“This doesn’t seem as bad as that medallion,” Link pointed out.

“Perhaps not,” Zelda said.  “Rank may have played a role there… though I suppose I could see how a chain rattling around within or around a bracer might be more detrimental than beneath a breastplate.”

“I think I’d’ve let the guy keep it,” Link said, “and let him learn his own lesson if it got caught on something or screwed up his grip.”

Zelda’s mouth twitched.  “Evidently that was not this commander’s style.”

The following days saw a plethora of personal effects marched beneath Zelda’s nose: jewelry, cases, and objects which would have been used within the room, likely not belonging to any particular person.  The third letter-opener brought to Zelda’s attention found her eyes rolling, though she closed her lids to disguise it.

“You need a break?” Link asked.

“I shall persevere,” she said, flashing a smile.

The room slowly emptied as did the living quarters downstairs, more and more gouged stone visible, the work dragging through to the following week, and as the final layer of debris became evident, Zelda’s average heart rate decreased.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

Link had finally opened that jar of wildberry jam in the wake of the war room standing empty.  They’d finished around noon, and everyone seemed to decide at once a celebratory lunch was the most appropriate course of action.

They’d gathered all at once on the plateau, the citadel’s great spiraling stairway looming behind them.

“Spiffy jam,” Purah said, taking a bite with her mouth wide enough to avoid making her cheeks sticky.

“Thanks,” Link said as he inhaled his second chunk of bread (buttered and jammed).

“It’s good to be done,” Shigoh said, her short white hair unkempt and sporadically glittering with the stone dust which also coated their shins—they’d stirred it often from the floor. 

“We’re not done yet,” Link said.  “The whole southwest wing on the first floor is still left.”

“You won’t find much there,” Symin said, wiping a stray drop of jam from his beard with some difficulty.  “We carted out all the guardian remains, but there wasn’t much else in the dining hall.”

Link huffed.  “What stopped the guardians then?!”

Symin cocked his head, shaking it as he chewed.  “A few knights, it seems.”

“… A few?!”

“Sounds weird, Linky, but it’s true.  There were only a few suits of armor in there.  We left ‘em for you, Princess.”

“…Wow.”

Zelda’s last bite of bread had lodged itself halfway between her mouth and her stomach.  She could breathe, but completing the swallow proved difficult.  She took her canteen, drinking metered sips of water, slowly coaxing the offending material downward.  She re-screwed the cap with supreme outward calm, returning it to her side, and turning to Symin with a casual smile.  “I’m finished.  I may as well look now.  Link, you needn’t come—this shall be brief and you’ve just prepared another slice.”

“Huh?” Link said as Symin rose.

“Certainly, Princess,” said Symin, stretching a bit.

Link looked at Symin, then back at Zelda, and then at Purah who had gone oddly pale.

“What-?” Link shook his head, rising, stuffing his entire slice of bread into his mouth at once and wiping his hands on his pants.  He swallowed faster than he’d any right to.  “I’m good.  I’ll go.”

Zelda’s heart sank.  She’d little choice.  He would know should she resist.

She followed Symin in the silence of her once-meditations at the springs, though no amount of prayer on her part had ever altered anything.

Link strode uncharacteristically quiet at her side, as well.

“We’re still pulling the guardians out from around the tower,” said Symin.  “The dining hall’s clear, though, and I’ll tell you what a chore that was.  The war room was bigger, but they were piled so thick in here we had to cut parts off to start getting them out.  The parts are on the grass near the second battery.” He sniffed, raising his glasses off the bridge of his nose and resettling them. “It’s clear they bottle-necked the guardians twice, once on the way into the hall and once on the way out.  I ah- don’t know how many got past them, but there wasn’t much space to get around the ones we found at the last door.”

Symin reached the door opening onto the dining hall and held his hands out as though encircling something.  “Right here—one of those big stalkers sat in the middle with two more on either side and some scouts on top.  The floor was loaded with them—and then another pile like it at the door to the atrium.”

Link blew air out his nose. “Smart.  Use them as shields.”

“Yes… they still… well…”  Symin lifted his hands before bringing them together in something that might have been regret, or reverence, or both.  “You can… can see for yourself.”  He all but crushed his lower lip against his teeth.

Zelda could not speak.

In the hallway, just before the dining hall itself, lay a royal claymore, beside it the mangled remains of a suit of armor.

“Holy shit,” Link breathed, crouching beside it.

Zelda could not move.

“This is… it’s melted,” Link said, lifting a piece of what had once been a cuirass.  It fell easily from the seam attaching it to the back, brittle from the abuse it had seen in the battle and a century spent in the enigmatic effects of malice.  He turned it over in his hand.

The imprint of stitching made itself easily visible where it would have faced its wearer – the thin criss-cross of threadlines and patches suddenly smoothed yet disfigured in form and color—pocked with bubbles and blackened patches appearing nearly as seafoam.

Symin made a sound deep in his throat, a fist over his mouth.

Link also appeared grim.

Zelda imagined it had to do with the heat of the guardians’ lasers, though she’d not seen this precise effect first-hand.  She could easily understand the heat had softened, nearly liquefied the metal to join it with the fibers of a shirt beneath it-

-and then it struck that she’d never seen what occurred when liquid steel met skin.

Bile rose in her throat.

Link replaced the metal in the embrace of its backplate, face stony.

Quiet breaths passed, the slow ebb and flow of waves.  Zelda opened her notebook, beginning her dutiful notations.

Dining Hall 1 Royal Claymore 1 cuirass (melted – indistinguishable) 2 pauldrons (melted) 2 gauntlets (full – 1 melted) 2 greaves (1 melted) 1 helmet (non-standard – heavy)

(This is a suit of full plate armor – all pieces appear present – many melted).

It seemed suddenly useless to list each component part.  The floor appeared relatively barren but for these.  Zelda supposed the knight’s shield had already been spent before he fell.  Of course it had—thus the state of his armor, inundated with blazing heat.

Link stood, asking Symin if he needed air.  Symin shook his head.

Zelda’s racing heart gave a hopeful leap.

Link took a step toward the large hall and stopped, peering down.

He crouched and retrieved something from a crack in the stone, turning it over in his fingers.

Zelda took two steps toward him.  “Let me-“

Link flinched, gasping.

“Link- no, no- Link?!” she cried, her hand outstretched, but too late.  That look had already arrived: a far-off distance—the surprise of suppressed memory bursting to the present.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

The knight strode, his gait swift despite his heavy armor, his cape conformed to the turbulent wind, blinding Link as he caught up to grasp an armored bicep.

“Father-“

“Enough!” the knight spat, spinning to face Link, not quite meeting his eyes, teeth grinding so hard the muscles in his cheeks pulsed outward.  “You are not my son.”

“How can you say that?!” Link asked, reeling, blindsided—so bewildered his blood had abandoned his face to cocoon his chilling core. “After… all this-“

“This?” The knight asked, eyeing the glaring blue of the pommel above Link’s shoulder.  “This is why.”

Link’s face bunched.  He floundered, images of sparring with a younger version of the man before him—smiling, with stripped oak branches—rendered in bright watercolors on his eyelids, squeezed shut.  “I don’t understand.”  Link counted three breaths. Dry wind whipped moisture from his eyes as he fastened them on his father once more.  “Aren’t you… proud I pulled the sword?”

His father barked a laugh, an instantaneous incredulity too complete to be feigned.  “Proud?”  He shook his head and kept shaking it, a quiver at his mouth fascinating Link for a moment, for he’d never once seen his father weep.  He’d heard it only once, as a small child.  He hadn’t seen his face.

The knight removed his arm from Link’s loosened grasp with a measured deliberation marking some shuttered emotion.  “I cannot be proud of a son I don’t have.”

“Wh- what?”

“I thought I did,” his father said, chin working, “but I- don’t.  You’re some-“ he looked Link up and down- “ancient spirit, reborn.  What did you do?  Did you… crawl into my son’s unborn body?  Devour him to make room for yourself?”

Link had no breath.

“SIR LYLE!” a voice called from the high watchtower.  “A SIGNAL FIRE!  THE MOUTH OF SHADOW PASS!”

“WORD TO THE GUARD CHAMBER!” Link’s father yelled.

“YES, SIR LYLE!” yelled a young soldier at the rooftop entry before disappearing below, metal rattling against his gauntlet.

Link’s father moved to follow him.

“Wait- wait-“ Link said.

“I attend my duty,” he responded, disappearing into the top floor of the atrium.

Link stood, dumbfounded, numb to the brutal wind battering his face and hair, the core of him gaping hollow, his blood’s heat spent.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

Link stared at the ring in his palm, the inscription engraved on its inner surface boring through whatever barriers the Shrine of Resurrection had erected within his mind.

Lyle and Junilla ~ Til in Hylia’s arms we meet

He kept hearing these sounds.  What were they?

“Link?”

Zelda’s voice.

Zelda’s hands on his shoulders.  One arm across his back.

“Link- Link.”

Gasps.

He kept hearing gasps.

His vision kept jumping in time with them.

He fisted that ring tight.

“Link…”

“Master Link, do you… need help?”

Link shook his head, bringing his fist to his mouth, his eyes shut against images he could never again erase.

“I’m so sorry.  I’m…” Zelda rubbed his bicep as though warming him.  He could feel her intensity on his face even without his sight.  “I take it… you recalled something.”

He nodded.

“…Everything?”

“No,” he said, raspy, “but… uhm…” he swallowed twice- “enough to know why you tried to leave me behind.”

She embraced him then in silence.  He welcomed it, returned it with a pressure like those first moments after she sealed the Calamity, like the first time they made love—but he released her sooner.

“I have to see,” he said.

She pulled back, squinting at him as though she didn’t understand, but she freed him from her arms all the same.

Link walked the path of his father’s final moments—from the hallway he died in to the other doorway he’d barricaded.  Remains of a few other knights lay within reach of it, even more within the dining room itself, but not nearly as many as the other rooms—yet they’d filled this one with the husks of their enemies.

The bottom floor of the cylindrical atrium still lay half-thick with guardian remains.  A few Sheikah teams stood working to remove one, speaking matter-of-factly with each other.  The entire shaft, all the way up, showed signs of the automotons’ clawed feet working their way down.

The War Room had been barricaded from the outside.  Now Link knew who’d done it.

His father, committing himself and his team to the shaft, defending the passage down into the great citadel’s heart.

Had he been on the roof, too, when the guardians overtook it, skywatchers swarming overhead?  That’s where he’d been in the one solid memory Link now had of him.

That, and a memory within a memory: sparring with stripped oak branches, his father smiling at him.

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

Winter arrived, plummeting on Akkala in the form of an unforgiving deluge of hailstones hammering the base of the citadel’s atrium with a roaring din—then snow blanketing it.  The work of accounting for the fallen had finished, scaffolding and reinforcements running through the entire structure as restoration began.  In light of Zelda’s slight frame and the cold, Link had begun to coax her toward a few weeks in Lurelin with its gentler cool season.

He wouldn’t mind leaving the citadel behind, either.  He had a hard time keeping his smiles from fading fast in its shadow, and he didn’t want Zelda to keep giving him those worried looks.  Even when they returned to Hateno, he’d end up standing in their little house tracing cracks in the stucco or pacing in a particular patch of grass on the little shelf of land holding the house, trying to find more stick-spars, more smiles somewhere. He needed a change of scenery, and soon; they both did.

Deliveries of fresh stone from Ordoroc Quarry had begun to arrive.  Once they’d repaired the roof and assured the flues clear, they could keep the inside warm and the indoor restoration could continue through the winter.

One delivery included a person straggling behind it, dressed in battered Hylian soldiers’ gear.  Link recognized him immediately.

“Hi, Nell,” Link said.

Nell stared up at the citadel in awe.  “Wow.”  Then he seemed to hear Link.  “Wow.  Hi, guy from the bridge.”

“Heh,” Link laughed.  “You came back.”

“Yeah,” Nell said.  “Once I found out it was safe again, I had to.”

“You wanted to pray here, didn’t you?”

Nell nodded.  “For my fallen family.  My grandma used to tell me about it, that I had family who died here.  I did at Fort Hateno, too, but I could get there to pray easily.  Here… not so much.”  He craned his neck up.

Link followed his gaze to the top of the Sheikah tower.  “It turns out… I had family here, too.”

“Yeah,” Nell said.  “A lot of us did.  My grandma made sure to tell us how lucky we were, and to thank our ancestors every day for what they did for us, so we could live.  Now that I’m here, I can finally do that for my great-grandfather.”  Nell walked toward the entrance, pulling the pack off his back and setting it on the ground just in front of it.  He looked around.  “If I put something here, it won’t be in the way, will it?” 

“I don’t think so,” Link said.

Nell nodded.  He opened the pack and pulled a stone from it, setting it a few feet to the right of the archway.  Once he leaned back, Link could see it was an offering statue, so much like the ones the little Koroks enjoyed hiding in, but smaller—small enough that Nell could carry it and not tire too much on his journey.  He took three apples from his bag and placed them in its basin.

Link half-expected a tree spirit to appear.  Maybe one would later—maybe one would make another little statue to rest beside this one and wait to surprise someone.

Nell pulled something from a leather drawstring bag at his waist, knelt on the grass, and bowed his head in prayer.

Link watched him breathe steadily, his sandy blond hair whipping in a sudden lash of wind.  Then he came up beside him and knelt, joining him.

A good while passed.

“Are you thanking your family, too?” Nell asked softly.

Link swallowed, his head bowing almost til his chin touched his chest.  “Not exactly.  I’m… asking questions.”

“I do that too, sometimes.  I wonder why I’m not more like them.  I’m fine traveling on my own, but to enlist in an army… to fight all those guardians…” he shook his head.  “I can’t even imagine it.  I turned tail when I saw those skywatchers here.”

“You were right to,” Link said.

“Maybe.  I don’t think my great-grandfather would be very happy to find out he died just so I could wander into his grave and join him.”

Link huffed.

“Or my great-uncle, for that matter,” Nell said.

“Is he the one who died at Fort Hateno?”

“Yeah.  My grandma was sadder about him, I think.  He was her brother.  I guess they were pretty close.”

The wind whipped at them again, Link’s hair flying almost straight upward.  Nell grabbed at his own instinctually with an irritated grunt followed by a gasp as his hands chased something small and shining.  It spun in the air a few times before he caught it.

“…Saved it.”

Link peered at Nell’s hands, curious.  “Was that a ring?”

Nell nodded.  “Yeah.  My great-grandmother’s wedding ring.  I was going to leave it here for my great-grandfather, but it’s hard to just let it go.  It’s kind of why I brought the extra apples.  I figured I’d make an offering, then camp… and see if I could manage it the next day.  I can’t help worrying someone will pick it up, though, even though you’re really not supposed to take offerings.  The spirits are supposed to keep them.”

Link tried not to give Nell the hard look he had coming.  Nell really didn’t deserve it… most people couldn’t see the Koroks to know what little menaces they were.  What would they even do with a wedding ring?

Instead, Link looked at Nell’s hand.

Then he froze.

“…You okay?” Nell asked.

Link just stared, reading the part of the inscription he could see over and over again.

nd Junilla ~ Til in Hylia’s

He read it again.

And again.

And again and again.

“Seriously, what is it?”  Nell shifted to partially face Link.

“You- this is your great-grandmother’s ring?”

“Yeah.”

Link stared at the ring, then at Nell.  He took in his sandy hair, his skin color, eye color… barely different from his own.  Then he reached into his Korok pouch, removed his father’s ring, and held it out in his own palm.

Nell’s shock now mirrored Link’s own.

“Holy shit, we’re related?!” Nell yelled.

It hit Link, then, as he used one of Link’s own favored expressions, one he suddenly knew his mother had told him off for when he said it in front of his little sister.

Something about Nell’s nose, sort of bird-beak like, on the face of a scampering little girl with a long plait of straw-brown hair, as she turned to make a face at him for no particular reason.

“What was she like?” Link blurted out, hands shaking.

“Huh?”

“Your- your grandmother.  What was she like?”

___¤__¤__¤__¤___

 Zelda felt Link smile against the back of her neck as they pressed warm to each other in an airy bed in Lurelin—a truly phenomenal idea on Link’s part, one she hadn’t appreciated properly until her body recognized how cold it had been for so long.

She smiled, too, reaching back to thread her fingers through his soft hair.  “Did you remember something?”

“Mm-hm,” he hummed half into her hair and half against her neck with a pressed kiss.

“What?”

“My mom hated the word ‘orange.’”

Zelda barked a laugh, her dozy state giving way in the face of such absurdity. “Why should she hate ‘orange’?”

“It’s my fault,” Link said.  “I showed my sister you could say ‘orange’ instead of ‘aren’t’ and it would be funny.”

Zelda gave him a look he couldn’t quite see in the dark.  “That is not funny.”

Link laughed with nasal absurdity.  “It so is.”

Zelda pulled her other hand from beneath the pillow to whack his bicep half-heartedly.

“Pff.  My mom agreed with you.  She thought it was awful.  My sister loved it though.”  Link dissolved into a fit of silent belly-laughter.  Zelda found it infectious, laughing along with him and turning in bed to face him.

“I’m glad,” she said, “that you’ve started to remember so much.  I’m sorry I tried to keep some things from you.”

He caught her hand in his and kissed its back, stopping to pay attention to each divot between her knuckles.  “I understand why you did, but…”  He shook his head.  “It’s worth it.  Especially now that I know… I know I have family.  They didn’t all die then.  It did all… mean something, what happened to us, even if it’s been too long for us to see their faces again.”  He smirked.  “And hey, I’m a great-uncle AND an uncle, and a great-great-uncle, too!”

“Indeed you are,” Zelda said, her hands becoming restless at Link’s collarbone.  She raised her eyes to his, moonlit sky reflected in them, so soft.  “What…” she swallowed, her fingertips tapping a sweeping rhythm along his clavicle.  “What would you think of perhaps… being a father, too?”

Link’s next breath drew deep.  The moonlit sky in him widened as his hand found her waist, traveling along it to her hip.  “Are you ready for that?”

“With you, my love?  Yes.  I’ve always been ready.”

Link’s next kiss delivered a smoldering heat to her body, ignited her from the inside out, burning her until the Moon had sunk once more in favor of Sun.

[sifinspace]

Sif rested her head back on her chair. It has been a routine mission, and now, one Specter is dead, and one is on the run.

‘Why can’t we have normal missions?’ She thought to herself as she watched the stars whirl by her in the darkness of space.

She knew why, when she signed up for flight school years ago, she signed up for adventure. That’s why her days are never normal. She punched a few buttons on her console.

“Sif prepare for jump.” Joker said to her.

“Aye.” She flipped a few more switches.

“I can’t wait to get out of here, this whole situation makes me nervous.” He said.

“Something’s going on, and I don’t want to be there to find out what.” She replied.

As she watched the speed of the stars increase, she took a deep breath. The mass effect relay shot them into darkness, then they emerged and saw it. The citadel, in all her galactic glory.

She could hear Joker talk to the docking personnel, and with a gently push of a button, she had handed him all controls for docking.

Sif was the co-pilot on the Normandy. A ship the first of its kind in all Alliance controlled space. She loved the Citadel, but she loved flying even more.

The Citadel had been her home since she graduated from flight school with Joker, and they rented an apartment there. However, since they spent so much time aboard the Normandy, they gave up their place and lived nearly full time on the ship.

“So what are your plans while we are in bay?” She asked him.

“Oh the usual, go get a drink, take a hot shower then sleep for a bit. You?”

“Probably the same. See you in the mess in a bit?” She asked getting up from her seat.

“As always.” He nodded.

Sif knew her duty as co-pilot was up until she was called back for the next mission. She didn’t mind, being second pilot meant less responsibility but same pay.

She and Joker had been working as co-pilots for years and they worked extremely well together. They had become friends during flight school and had stuck together ever since.

Sif stretched her muscles as she walked down the ramp to the mess. People were running around, collecting their things to take onto the Citadel. It was always slightly chaotic when they landed, but soon enough, the sea of people around her emptied out, and she was alone.

She looked around. Mess Sargent Gardner wasn’t where he should have been, but he must have disembarked too. She looked around then hopped over the bar and grabbed a couple beer. She sauntered over to the cushioned chairs at the dining table and settled in.

Sif cracked open a beer and kicked off her shoes. ‘Relief’ she thought as she put her feet up on the chair next to her. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She reflected on what was yet to come.

She liked Jenkins, he was a good man. He was terrible at cards, but at least he tried. She smiled at the thought of him loosing 25 credits the last time they played.

Her mind wandered around her brain, hopping from thought to thought until she heard feet shuffling towards her.

“Hey, I thought you’d be going shore side.” A deep voice broke the silence.

She slowly opened her left eye, and sitting across from her was Staff Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko.

“Nah, I don’t have anyone to see, or anywhere to go, so I’ll just stay put.” She smiled.

“Sounds familiar. Want some company? Everyone else is gone.”

“Of course, drinking alone is never fun.” She passed him one of the beer she had grabbed. “Sorry it’s not anything special, but it’ll do.”

Kaiden smiled, “It’s the thought that counts.”

She sat up, and looked into his eyes. “You okay?”

“Yea, thanks for asking.”

“I’m sorry about Jenkins. He was a good soldier, and a decent man too.” Sif said raising her beer to the air.

“I’ll drink to that.” Kaiden took a long swig. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. We were just playing poker and - I haven’t had the heart to move his cards yet.”

“Do you want help?”

“Moving some cards? That seems ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but finishing a game is closure. It can mean goodbye.” She said.

“That’s oddly - metaphoric.”

“I have lost enough to know when to put things away.” She sipped her beer. “Come on, where did you leave them?”

“Over in the observation deck.” He got up.

“Alright, let’s go.” She stood and picked up her shoes.

They walked to the observation deck and sure enough, there they were. Jenkins cards laying on the table, right beside an empty can of soda.

“Take your cards and I’ll take his.” She passed him another beer. “And drink, to Jenkins.”

Sif and Kaiden sat there finishing their game in near silence. The creaking and groaning the Normandy did in the background helped them concentrate.

She laid her hands down. “I fold, man his cards were bad.”

“They were.” Kaiden laid down his. Two pair.

“We’ll congrats Kaiden, you win this.” She smiled. “Now drink up. Jenkins wouldn’t want that beer going warm.”

Kaiden and Sif moved over to the couch in front of the window overlooking the citadel. In silence they sat, every now and then pointing to something moving on the docks.

They laughed about things, and Kaiden shared stories about Jenkins. They didn’t know each other very long, but soldiers always seemed to become fast friends.

“He was young, but he could shoot faster than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Did you guys duel or something?” She smiled at him.

Kaiden stretched his back and slid his arm on the back of her chair, “No, but we did go to the shooting range together. He outshot me so bad each time.”

They drank the rest of their beer and sat in enjoyable silence.

Time went by and Kaiden stood up.

“Thanks Sif, I - I needed this.”

“Always.” She paused “I should have eaten today - I forgot by the time I finished that first drink.”

“Why haven’t you eaten?” He asked concerned.

“I was waiting for Jeff, and I was too preoccupied with working under the cockpits deck to remember. Now, it’s anyone’s guess how long he’ll take.”

“The Normandy is Jokers baby that’s for sure.” Kaiden smiled, “you wanna go get a pizza or something?”

“Leave the ship? Sure. As long as I can walk straight.” She giggled.

“Great I’ll meet you at the air lock in ten.”

Kaiden smiled at her.

“Deal.”

Sif’s head buzzed while she walked back up to the cockpit, Joker hadn’t left his seat. He never did. She always expected him to be there. It was a constant in her life she enjoyed.

He was predictable, an talented pilot, and she was happy to be his number two. Even if that meant she wasn’t afforded small curtseys from him she wish he’d give her.

A simple ‘good job’, or ‘well done’ would have been enough.

The cockpit glowed around Joker. It reflected off every surface surrounding him. His red-brown beard looked blue, and his eyes were focused.

“You know if I ever had to wait on you for anything I’d probably die first.” She said standing inches from him.

“Nah, I was almost done.” He looked up at her. His green eyes reflecting the consoles shine.

“Kaiden and I are going off ship to get some food, you wanna come?”

“Ugh, leave the ship? Nah, bring me back something though will ya?”

“Always.” She patted him on the shoulder.

“And a beer! I could use one.” He shouted after her.

“Not while you’re in that seat!” She shouted back.

——

Joker made sure she was gone before he smiled. He didn’t want her to know he even could. She caught him a few times, but he liked to hide himself from everyone, even his best friend.

He liked she always watched out for him. Bringing him dinner, bottles of water, the little things.

She watched out for him more than anyone else ever had. He knew he was lucky to have someone like her around.

Since flight school they were inseparable. Everyone knew that where Joker was, Sif would be close by. She took care of him, not physically, but mentally. She was his ground. He appreciated that someone could stand his demeanor long enough to be his companion.

Joker stretched his arms and laid back in his seat, and lowered his hat over his eyes. He wished she didn’t go with Kaiden, and stayed with him instead.

Most of all, he just wish he could let her know.

——

“How are you feeling after seeing Shepard go down?” Sif asked taking a bite of her pizza.

“It was my fault. I always get too close to things.” Kaiden chugged his beer, “curiosity I guess.”

Sif nodded. “It gets the best of us. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine, he always is. Seems like you can’t keep him down no matter how hard some try.”

“Yea.” Kaiden grinned then took his last sip of beer.

“Thanks for wanting to grab something, don’t tell the mess sergeant but his cooking is terrible.”

“You have my word, I swear those rations they give us are from the First Contact War.”

“Jeff and I have a bunch of goods we pick up and heat when we are hungry. Kinda pays having your own cabin sometimes.” She grinned. “I also squirrel away other things. Wanna find out what I’ve got?”

“Are you asking me back to your cabin Lieutenant?”

“To come see my private stash? Yea that sounds bad, definitely not what I mean.”

Kaiden laughed and got up. “Never turn down a woman who asks you that.”.

Sif packed up the rest of the pizza for Joker, and a few other things along the way as she and Kaiden headed towards to Normandy.

The Citadel was large and glowing. She loved walking through the atriums looking at the plants and seeing the birds that lived there. They seemed at peace, like they had a place in this mass universe.

Something she longed to have.

“Back home in Vancouver, what was your favorite place to go and get lost in?”

“I’d have to say Stanly Park. It’s old, and well preserved. I’d walk around for hours in it.”

“That sounds beautiful. I’d like to see it.”

“I know you’d like it. I’ll take someday.”

——

Back on board, Sif gave Joker his pizza. He hadn’t moved from the pilots chair she left him in. She just smiled and said, “See you later I guess.”

“Maybe I found some coding I’m working on in her data base. I’ll let you know what I find.”

Then she made her way back to her room, and changed into her cabin clothes. An old tshirt nearly see through, and some shorts she kept as a memory of earth.

“Hey, can I come in?” Her door buzzer chimed.

“Yea totally.” She smiled.

Her perfect teeth shone.

Kaiden returned the gesture.

Sif walked over to her cupboard and pulled out two short glasses. “Make yourself at home. I do.”

He walked over and sat on the end of the bed and looked around curiously. Everything in perfect order.

“What?”

“There’s two of you? Why only one bed?” He asked confused.

“We rarely ever are here at the same time. When we are, we just share. Might seem strange, but after years of it, you get used to it - and we can have more room for other things.”

“Joker does seem to sleep in his chair a lot.” He grinned.

“Yea most nights, but sometimes we’ll watch a movie or something but he generally stays out. I think he does that because it’s more comfortable for him. Why do you think it’s got mostly my touches in here?” She smiled.

Kaiden looked around and could see Sif everywhere. It was subtle, but not without a hint of Jokers presence. A few bottles that looked ancient were on display, a picture frame with mountains and her in it. Another picture with Joker and her at graduation.

“If I was him, I’d be here every night.”

Sif could feel her stomach flutter as she got up and opened a drawer in her desk. She pulled out a brown paper bag.

“How much have we drank today?” She asked still buzzed.

“Enough to know I meant what I just said.”

“Do you mean that?” She said quietly, Her cheeks flushed bright pink. She changed the subject. “Here. Open this, it was something I picked up a while back. With all the activity today, I think we need it.”

Kaiden pulled the bottle out of the bag, and a look of excitement and admiration crossed his face.

“Canadian Club. I could kiss you!” He was elated.

“I mean, it would be nice, it’s been so long.” Sif poured two glasses. “To the fallen, and the unbreakable.”

She tilted her glass.

“To the ones who know how to make the hurt less.”

They took a hefty slug each of whiskey.

“I wanted to do that with you for a while, and today seemed most appropriate.” She sat next to him, one leg under her. “It’s always nice to share something a little special with someone from back home.”

“I appreciate it. I will forever be thankful. It’s not often I get to do this kind of thing with someone like you.”

“Kaiden, if you keep saying nice things to me, I’m libel to not let you walk out that door tonight.”

He shifted and smiled at her. “Is that a promise?”

She nodded - without making eye contact.

“I can’t help myself. It’s been a long time, since I’ve let my guard down, and you make it so damn easy.” He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re just so, you. So easy to let myself be me. No wonder the guys are all over you when they get assigned to the Normandy.”

“What?” She asked confused.

“You’ve never noticed?” He asked her, reaching for her hand.

Her heart raced as he touched her finger tips and intertwined their hands.

“I guess I hadn’t. I’m always preoccupied with other things to really notice I guess.”

“Or another person. Joker?”

She inhaled deeply then nodded.

“I should have asked this a long time ago. Are you two - together?”

“No. We are in a situation ship I guess, but not one that makes us…. A couple? Just best friends. That’s an awkward way to say it.”

“At least it doesn’t make me an ass trying to steal his girl.” He laughed, “So you two have never?”

Sif squeezed his hand then looked him in the eye. His handsome features made her melt inside. His kindness made her want to be vulnerable, to open up to someone. She shook her head.

“That must be hard.” Kaiden tightened his grip on her soft hand. “I don’t know how someone could share a bed with you and not even touch you.”

Her heart skipped and her stomach tightened with anticipation. “You really think? Would You?” She asked.

“I wouldn’t let a day go by without holding you if you shared my bed.” Kaiden said softly as he inched closer to her.

Sifs heart pounded so loud in her chest. She switched back to the previous subject. “I assumed I wasn’t… his type.”

“Does he likes women?”

“Oh yea - but maybe I’m not smart enough, not savvy, or attractive enough. It always slightly bothers me.”

Kaiden took his hand and raised her face to his. “You are absolutely smart enough. Don’t even joke about being attractive, you’re gorgeous. Never think or let anyone let you believe otherwise.”

“Thanks for saying it. It’s tough you know, when all you want to do is have sex with someone you feel completely safe with?”

“When was the last time?”

“Oh, it was several months before end of flight school - but that’s ancient history. I just don’t want people taking advantage.”

“Please never think these advances were that.” He said distressed. “But if someday you want to feel safe with someone, I’d love to be that person.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She blushed and turned away. “I’ve spent enough time with you to know you better than that.” She stood up and down the rest of her drink.

Kaiden finished his off and stood to leave. “I’m sorry I ruined this, I know this wasn’t your intention.”

“It was eye opening. It’s a nice reminder that someone might want this.” She pointed to her body with a grin.

Kaiden took his chance, he leaned in and kissed her.

It took her off guard, but she wanted more, she put her hands on his belt and pulled him closer. She started to go in for another kiss, then the com crackled.

“Sif you there?” Jokers voice buzzed.

He sighed, then smiled at her. “Night Sif.”

“See ya LT.”

Kaiden smiled and walked out the door.

“Yea, what?”

“Kaiden done hitting on you yet?” Jokers voice came over the rooms speaker.

“We’re you….eves dropping?”

“I just got the last second, I opened the com and then heard you guys talking.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What do you want?”

“I found the problem in the Normandy’s coding, and fixed it. It’s not too late, wanna grab a drink?”

“You want me to add to the ones I’ve already had?”

“Yea why not? We are parked for a while.”

“Sure, I’ve got the whiskey.”

“On my way.”

Sif was sure she could hear a smile in his voice.

——

He lied.

He had heard the whole thing.

——

Joker had been laying on his side of the bed for an hour, sipping his drink, and watching a movie they picked out.

Sif drank, but she was still surprised that he wanted to spend time with her.

“So what’s the occasion?” She asked.

“Huh?”

“Why spend time with me? Today?”

“I dunno, lots has happened. Shepard, Jenkins… Kaiden trying to hook up with you. Figured I should remind you I exist.”

“Jeff, are you…. Worried I might find someone to spend my Rec time with?”

He sat up straight. “Nah. We’re good. Just thought you might be sad about Jenkins. I am.”

She forced a grin. “Yea. Thanks. It definitely was a shock, but they are soldiers, it’s a hazard.” No

“I guess. That’s why I keep you in the helm. Gotta protect my girl.” Joker sipped his drink and tilted it to her.

“Thanks. I’m gonna hit the shower then go to sleep.” She paused, her arms tingling. “Wanna join me?”

Joker looked confused. “What?”

“I figured you wanted to be hit on, since you listened to Kaiden and I.”

“I’m good.” He sat back and let a grin play at the corner of his lips.

“Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like? One night of passionate sex with someone you trusted?”

“I’d rather wonder what it’s like not to break my pelvis.” He replied locking eyes with her.

“Alright, I’m sorry, just thought I’d ask.”

Joker shifted - “look we talked about this. This what we have works, why make it weird? Go sleep with Kaiden if you are so hard up.”

“Sorry, I just…never mind.” She said walking into the bathroom slightly hurt.

‘I am such an ass.’ Joker thought as he ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes.

——

“I’m not surprised.” Joker yawned as he rubbed his neck.

“I’m more surprised they have it to a human. Aliens don’t like us as much as gave think.” Chief Ashley Williams said as she took a bite of her protein bar.

“At least it’s someone we can trust. Giving that kind of freedom to anyone isn’t always the smartest move.” Kaiden replied.

“When men get privilege they often keep going for power. We know the Commander, he’ll use it wisely.” Joker said.

“I’m glad someone is, I wouldn’t want to be a Spectre.” Kaiden mentioned.

“Why not?” Ash asked.

“Too much responsibility. Too involved with intergalactic politics. You know how it is.” He shrugged.

“You’d make a find Spectre Alenko. As long as you gave the crew good brews after a tough mission you would never go wrong.” Sif smiled as she turned her attention back to the Normandy’s controls.

“All I’m saying is now we have a new set of eyes watching us. Ones that want us to fail everything.” Ash sighed.

“It’s always good to be cautious, but we’ll let it play out how Sheperd wants it to. Let’s just keep being the crew we’ve always been, but better.” Kaiden concluded.

“Spoken like a future Spectre.” Sif snorted.

“I won’t forget that.” He smiled as he rubbed his neck. “Come on Ash, we’ve gotta get our gear in order.”

“Aye LT.” She swallowed her final bite and left with him.

“What do you think?” Joker asked Sif.

“About what?” She poked at a control.

“Aliens verses us?”

“If we look at it that way, we will never play on the same team. I just look at it like, we are all vying for the same goal. Work together, get along.” She paused and smiled “you don’t have to lie everyone you work with, just tolerate it for the better ment of everyone else”

Joker leaned his head back. “I don’t care about aliens you know that, I just hope it doesn’t ruin how far we’ve come you know. One bad egg in the basket….”

“Yea, pilots and peace keepers. Apparently it’s our second duty”

“Glad we took that training program too eh?” Joker laughed.

Sif smiled. He was always free around her. Generally always happy, but his demeanor always changed the instant someone else came over.

“Joker, Sif - set a course for Knossos system.” A husky voice bled through the intercom.

“Aye Commander.” Joker replied and punched in the coordinates for their first destination.

———

The Knossos system was dark, dotted by planets and the rumble of new life. They had probed a few planets and after successfully finding an anomaly on Therum, Sheperd, Ashley and Kaiden were off.

Sif got up from her seat and stretched - “I’m going to go down to engineering and make sure everything’s tight.”

“Ask Tali if she noticed anything strange. There’s been a few hiccups I can feel in the probe launch. Then ask Garrus if he could recalibrate the guns. I know he would like that.” Joker ordered.

“No problem.”

Sif walked down to engineering. The halls were bright and illuminated with a blue hue. Calming. She always thought it felt, while the ship hummed away. It often helped lul her to sleep on difficult nights - even after the evening with Kaiden she used the sound to white wash her thoughts.

Engineering was louder than usual. She didn’t spent a lot of time down there, but Tali was more than happy to run diagnostics for Joker.

“I dont know why he didn’t call me over the intercom. Why did he have to send someone?” She asked.

“I was coming down here anyway to check on a few things. Figured I’d come say hi.”

Tali’s demeanor changed. “You’re not here to check on me?”

“Absolutely not. I wanted to say hi and ask an expect their opinion I mostly just fly the ship, I’m no engineer.” Sif smiled.

“Then - thank you. I’ll get in this right away.” She paused, “maybe we can all get a drink sometime. Get to know everyone.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let Jeff know.” She smiled.

“Jeff?” Tali asked

“Joker - sorry, I knew him before the nick name, and I can’t change it now.” She grinned.

“Understood. Alright I’ll talk to you later.”

Sif walked out of engineering with more questions than she at as started with about the ships function, but she wasn’t in a place to ask. Just as she was about to find Garrus, joker paged her back to the cockpit.

She made her way up to the helm and sat in her seat.

“Good timing, the Commander’s shuttle docked.” He said.

“Thanks.” Sif waited patiently for their next command over the intercom.

“Get out of here. Take us to Feros, hurry.” Rushed voice shouted.

Sif exchanged a look with Joker and they made the moves to hit the Mass effect relay.

Moments later the stars were nothing more than a streak of light beside the Normandy. They stopped suddenly - and there it was, Feros.

“Sif, Joker can you hear me?”

“Yes Commander.” They responded

“I need you to keep the ship close enough for coms. I’m taking Alenko, and Liara onto planet. When called we need immediate extraction. Well be leaving shortly - just finishing up prep.”

“Aye.”

“Shepard out.”

“He’s not taking Ash?” Sif asked.

“Yea, weird. They are connected at the hip. If you know what I mean.”

“Huh. I’m gonna run to the washroom really quick. I’ll be back in few.”

“Sure.”

She lied.

She got up and walked quickly to the elevator. She rode it down a few levels and found Alenko putting on his gear.

“Hey?” She said softly. No one else was around, Liara had got on the elevator as Sif had gotten off.

“Sif, are you okay?” He asked walking towards her worried.

“Yea, I just wanted to tell you one thing before you left.” She moved in closer to him. His armor looked heavy, she was glad she wasn’t a soldier.

“What’s that?” He asked, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her closer, tighter to him.

“Come back. Please.” She put her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“As long as you’re here to come back to I will.” He whispered into her ear. Her hair smelled like lavender, he loved it.

“Good. I’m glad that’s settled.” She let go and tried to turn to walk away.

“Sif?” Kaiden took her hand and pulled her in close. “Put a couple drinks in the fridge, we’ll have one when I get back. That’s a promise.”

He moved into her, and slid the tip of his nose down hers. He was wearing body armor but she could feel his heart race. She looked up to him, and he let his lips graze hers.

“Sif you okay? Why are you down in engineering?” Jokers voice buzzed over the com.

She rolled her eyes. “Wanted to check on the Mako. I had a thought when I was going asking to the washroom, I’ll explain in a minute.” She breathlessly called back, then silenced her Omni tool.

Kaiden didn’t let the interruption impede him. He kissed her lips firmly, and bit her bottom one. She returned the gesture. “For anticipation.” He whispered in her ear.

She walked with him to the elevator and they rode up together. He held her close the entire way up, allowing each other to be lost in the moment.

“What are we doing?” She asked him. Her head buried in his shoulder.

“Being human.” He kissed her hard again, this time backing her into the elevator wall.

The lift shopped.

They rearranged themselves and the doors opened.

“Good luck.” She said to him as he disembarked.

He rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb.

“This is all the luck I need.” He winked at her.

Sif blushed and walked away, finally she made it back to the helm.

“So what’s wrong with the Mako?” Joker asked.

“I was thinking when you felt something odd with the probe launcher I was wondering if the Mako had anything that could also be off with its launch units.” It was a stretch, but Joker bought it.

“Oh, I’ll get Tali to check it out.”

“Maybe ask Garrus to check its cannons too.”

“Good idea. He loves calibrating stuff.”

She let out a silent sigh.

——

Hours had passed. Zhu’s hope was secure and Shepard had taken on the exogene plant. All seemed to be going well.

The Normandy hummed in the docking bay and most everyone who wasn’t working the helm had taken to sleep. It was exhausting at times to sit in the cockpit awaiting orders, but someone had to do it.

Jokers head nodded up and down. Sif could see he was getting tired.

“Just close your eyes, I’m awake.” She told him.

“What? No. This is…”

“You don’t trust me?”

“-I do. Sorry okay just for a few minutes wake me if something happens.”

Joker leaned back in his chair and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Sif liked when he was quiet. It was the only time he wasn’t trying to defend himself from people.

She always figured he was over compensating for his disorder. She knew he felt like lesser of a man because of it.

He wasn’t. He was more of a man than anyone would ever know.

Sif sighed at the thought of them. She wished he could see what he is.

He was her best friend.

He was all she had, and the one thing she didn’t have.

Sadness filled her mouth. It tasted bitter. Sif missed having someone to love her back. She missed intimacy. She missed affection. She felt stupid. How could she want that from someone who wouldn’t give it to her?

She knew who would.

Sif punched some buttons on the consul and adjusted her ear piece. A soft song came through, and she let her thought’s drift to Kaiden and the passionate embraces he gave her was enough to satiate her loneliness for a while. It was the first time in years someone had touched her lips. She wanted more.

In her heart she longed for him. His tight body and black shirt crossed her mind. His dark eyes looking into her soul. His black hair in her fingers, her hand on his belt.

She grinned, then her lips danced into a frown. How could she let herself be torn so badly. It seemed obvious. Jeff wasn’t an option, but why couldn’t she let go of him?

The pit of her stomach punched her ribs. She wanted Kaiden, she wanted someone to appreciate her. Her mind was ripped in two.

“Normandy - Joker, Sif, prepare for extraction.” Her thoughts were broken by the sound of Shepards voice.

“Jeff let’s go.” She shook his chair.

He woke like he never really had been asleep.

“Great. Prepare for extraction.”

“See I told you I’d stay awake.”

“Yea sorry I shouldn’t have said … anyway, come

On let’s get them and get out of here this place gives me the creeps.” Joker said.

As the team boarded the Normandy, they went directly into the debriefing room. Joker went too, and left Sif in control.

“Okay well just leave it here, I’ll be back after the debriefing and fill you in.”

“As always.” She leaned back.

“Try not to crash my ship eh?” He smiled as he limped away.

They had parked just outside the mass relay - they never left the system unless something big happened.

Sif started playing her music again, and thinking about her situation. She wanted to justify being an interest to someone, and still have Jeff at her side. They’d been through so much together.

Would Kaiden even understand?

Sif stretched her tired back. She always asked Jeff before she would pursue something like this, a few dates in the past, nothing more.

Surely he wouldn’t have anything to say about Kaiden. He liked Kaiden. He didn’t like half the guys she wanted to go out with. Having a guardian was great, until it wasn’t she concluded.

Foot steps approached her. “Sif take some time to get some rest, it’s been a long day.” Shepard said to her.

“Where’s Jeff?”

“He’s coming, but I know you’ve been up the whole time.” He grinned.

“How?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I heard you listening to music again.”

“Again?”

“Oh yea, every time, you forget to close the com when you do it.” He smiled.

“Well - shit. Sorry if it’s not stuff you like.” Her cheeks flushed.

“It’s a change from what I usually listen to, but music tells you a lot of what’s in someone’s mind. Now, go get some rest, have a drink, and if Joker doesn’t tell you I will, you’re a hell of a pilot.” He smiled.

“Thanks, that means a lot Commander.”

Sif got to her feet. She appreciated someone telling her she was doing well. To rip the compliment from Jeff was too much effort these days, they weren’t something he readily doled out.

She made her way to the mess hall. She was looking forward to some left overs, but was met with nothing more than an old potato and coleslaw that had been sitting too long.

“Forget it.” She sighed. She walked back to her cabin and found something better. She ripped open the package of a pack of trail mix and laid down. She made sure to cut off coms to her room and turned on some music again.

The words flooded her mind - they reminded her of times before all the confusion, before wanting more of Jeff, before her feelings for Kaiden started to rise up in her.

If Jeff only had come after they were docked and spent time with her. Sif had been hanging out with the crew for weeks prior to any of this happening, they were pretty vocal in telling her how they felt bad Joker would ditch her for the Ship.

Then Kaiden started spending more time with her in their off hours. She wasn’t surprised this happened.

Her door buzzed.

“Come in.” She said, still laying in bed in her uniform. Her braided bun had fallen out, and was a mess of hair.

“Hey.” A smooth voice said to her.

“Kaiden?” She sat up. “You okay?”

“Yea, Joker said he was gonna stay up stairs all night and that they sent you to bed. I wasn’t sure how tired you really were, but I wanted to know if you’d like to have a drink with me?”

She smiled. “That would be nice, I was worried about you - you Guys down there.”

“I was worried about you too.” He grinned, as he moved in closer to her and gently kissed her. It was already familiar to her, the safe, warm, tender kind.

Sif blushed. “Here.” She grabbed two glasses from the shelf. “Ice?”

“Neat please, a whiskey like this you don’t ruin with ice.”

“Oh so that’s why you’re here! You want the good stuff.” She said as she poured a portion each.

“Obviously I use you for your connections in the whiskey world. Why else do I come poking around at night?” He took a sip.

“Good point, my years of bootlegging have paid off.” She tipped her glass at him.

“Nah, you know why I’m here.”

“We haven’t drank enough yet to be get cute.” She sipped her drink.

“I know, I want to - tell you how I feel before I do.”

Her stomach tightened. A ball of fireflies started to hit all sides of her.

“I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while, but things kept coming up, then Jenkins, Joker - but that moment before I left, I can’t stop thinking about it. Despite the circumstances, I have enjoyed every second with you.”

“I do too. You’re what I need right now.” She took a large swallow of whiskey - feeling as if she let too much be said on her part.

Kaiden blushed. “I - I want to spend more time with you. A lot more time. The kind of time where we fall asleep together and wake up beside each other. Time where I don’t feel like I have only minutes to be with you until we are interrupted.”

“Us interrupted? Never.” She teased.

“We’ve worked together for a while now, and I’ve watched you, for that long. I see you, I can see into your mind when you don’t expect it.”

“You can? Being a biotic allows that eh?”

“No, but your music does.” He reached over and turned up the song she had playing. “Your torn, torn between what you have and what you need. I could…” his words faded.

Sif looked at him sideways with eager eyes of anticipation. Kaiden stood and took her into his arms, he started to slowly dance with her as he searched for his next words.

“Last time I tried this, Joker got in the way. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a coincidence. I want to try this again, … I could be the one you need.” He said pulling her in squarely with his hips, her body pressed into him, she could feel his entire form.

Her stomach fired on all engines and started doing back flips. Just as it did earlier. She kissed him without even thinking. He didn’t hold back, he returned the gesture with force and breathlessness.

“Just let me try. Joker is a good guy, but he’s so blind to what he could have. I know you have feelings for him, but I could give you what you deserve, all of it.”

She pulled him towards her and let his arms wrap around her waist tighter. She rested her head on his chest. He smelled like whiskey and vanilla. He was comfort. He was protection. He wanted to make her feel like the woman she deserved to be.

She remained silent. Thinking. Contemplating a way to keep this moment from slipping from her grasp. She wanted Kaiden. She needed him. Dare she think she felt - love.

“I’m not afraid Sif, I need you, and living in his shadow has been so painful. Watching him ignore you, watching him just let you hang on to any hope he’ll change his mind. Let me help you take the pain away.”

Sif slowly raised her eyes towards his. His shirt was fit well and black with an Alliance logo on the front, his neck tanned, his chin strong, his lips full and slightly parted. Nose, perfectly pointed and his eyes, brown, closing gently almost as a sign of defeat.

She closed her eyes and let herself go. His lips touched hers and she ran her hands up his broad shoulders. He tasted like mint, and his beard stubble was rough on her skin.

Kaiden ran his hands up her back, and let one hand get tangled in her hair. He kissed her so intensely she lost all control of herself.

She let out a breathless moan, as he bit her lip gently, then her collar bone.

She pushed him onto the bed, and straddled him. She leaned over and kissed him. He flipped her on her back and rolled on top of her so swiftly, she returned the favor and wrestled him back to being underneath her.

She immediately stopped. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned back and had a wave of embarrassment flood her.

“For what?” He said looking up at her. His shirt half way up his chest.

“It’s been so long since, that. I just lost all control over my brain.” She turned away. “I finally feel safe, and all I want to do is rip your clothes off.”

Kaiden turned her back to face him. Her hair was messy, and her eyes look like they were holding back a cosmic force of emotion. He took his hands and cupped her face in them.

“It’s perfectly fine. I started it. I’m the one who should apologize.” He kissed her gently.

“No please don’t. I just, I don’t do things like this. I have been so lonely, and you’re so perfect for me. I - I can’t resist you. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that. We are human, and the one man that should be in here under you, has a deeper relationship with a ship.”

She smiled. “You believe that?”

“I know how Joker is. He should be the one kissing you, making love to you. You might not see it, but I can.”

Sif got to her feet, Kaiden started heading to the door.

“Wait.” She said, reaching for his arm. “Don’t leave. I’m sorry please.”

“Sif, it’s fine, this is something I don’t want to force.”

“It’s complicated with Jeff and I. Let me explain, and you can decide where to go from there.” She looked pained.

“I like the sound of that.” He adjusted his pants, and sat down again.

Sif poured Kaiden another drink and explained her entire life to him. He told her where she and Jeff stood, what was going on in her mind. He patiently sat there and listened, all while holding her hand.

“…and I want you to be the exception to my life. I just didn’t know how you’d take all that, and I wanted to make sure you knew what was what.” She finished.

“I like being an exception.” He smiled and kissed her gently again. “Joker is protective of you. There’s nothing wrong with that. He watches out for you. You need that. Have you seen you?”

“No.” She said flatly.

“I have. Shepard has. Hell, Joker has and he knows what he could have.”

“You know this how?”

“It might shock you, but men, do talk.”

“Do you need time to think this over?” She asked.

“Nah.” He said defeated. “I know how this will end, and as much as I’d like for it to be us, I think you underestimate Joker.”

He kissed her cheek.

“You really think so?”

“I do. Until then, I’ll be here to hold your hand and hug you whenever you need it. I can’t be him, even though I’d very much like to be.”

“I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“It’s okay, maybe I need you in my life in other ways.” He laid down and she curled up next to him. His body warm and his arms comforting.

“I’ll always be here for you.” He whispered as he kissed her head with a breath of sadness.

———

“Where to next?” Sif asked as she swiveled around in her chair.

“Noverra, there some sort of plant there a shepherd wants to check out. Says he has a lead.” Joker responded.

“I do, I’m extra confident we’ll find something.” Shepard confirmed in as he walked toward the two.

“What are you hoping to find?” Sif asked.

“Answers, figuring out what the Geth want.” He nodded.

“Too bad we couldn’t just run a program, infect their core and control them that way.” Sif shrugged.

“Nah THATS too easy, Shepard needs the challenge.” Joker said.

“Sure, always make it more difficult. Anyway once getting us there, keep yourselves in dock once we land, get some rest, and keep the coms open.” He instructed.

“Aye.” They said together.

Joker hit the mass effect relay and they were launched towards Noverra. It was a high security planet with little else that most knew about.

Secrets were heavy in the galaxy and it seemed everyone had them.

Sif looked towards her partner. Flying confidently, holding the helm steady. His sturdy jaw clenched and his eyes focused. His hands resting gently on the controls. He was handsome. He always had been since the moment she laid eyes on him at the beginning of flight school.

How she wished she was on his mind. Maybe she was. She doubted it though. He only thought of two things, flying and comebacks. She pined for him for so long that it always made her heart hurt when she remembered how he felt towards her, but she was torn when Kaiden stopped her from going any further with him. She wanted all of him. She was ready for it. She wanted to show him the way she’s been feeling about him. Her brain stopped her, it wouldn’t have been fair. She liked Kaiden, really liked him, but she didn’t want to loose him as a friend over something that could cause issues. She sighed, her mind shouted at her for not letting her go all the way.

She grinned to herself, almost as if she was trying to convince herself they made the right choice.

‘Kaiden is the man she needs right now, as a friend.’ She tried to reason.

“Sif, do you see what I see?” Joker asked her.

“Is that…”

“Snow.”

“No way, I haven’t seen snow since I left earth. This just got better.” She grinned.

“Yea if you like being cold and wet.”

“Come on, you never played in snow? Ever?”

“Once, then I realized I could slip and fall, break some bones. I was over it.” He brushed off.

“You’re missing the safe fun.”

“Which is?”

“Laying on the ground, in a snow suit, at night in the dark, watching the stars.” She smiled.

Joker turned to look at her. “That could be a lot of fun… as long as I’m warm.”

“Don’t worry, if we ever get the chance I’ll make sure you’re bundled up properly.”

As they docked, Sheperd and his team disembarked. He took Liara and Kaiden with him on this mission.

The rest of the crew were below deck, making sure their gear and their equipment was up to par. Ash had paged up to the helm twice asking for diagnostics and Garrus had come by to share terrible one liners with Joker.

As much time as they spent waiting for the crew to return, Sif used it to clean the helm, and working on her small project for Joker. Once she finished, she then headed to engineering to spend time with Tali.

Tali was running numbers on something mechanical and she showed Sif how to read the diagnostics.

Sif was impressed with her skill. Tali was young, but she was certainly more capable than most engineers she knew. She was confident, and willing to take risks. Tali made sure she checked and double checked her work before giving Sif her findings.

“Thanks, Jeff’s been looking forward to these since I asked you about them a while ago.”

“No problem, it took longer than expected. I wanted to make sure I did it right.” Tali responded.

Sif made her way to the kitchen and Mess Sargent Gardner gave her a plate to take back to Joker.

“What is it?” She asked Joker after handing it to him back in the helm.

“I think, it’s roast beef and potatoes.” He grimaced.

“Wanna come back to the cabin and have something with me?” She asked.

“Sure, I could use a rest while we wait.”

Sif grabbed the plate of left overs and helped Joker out of his seat.

“You’re always trying to take care of me.” He grinned.

“Someone has to.”

They made their way to their cabin and heated up some frozen food. The smell made anything the Mess Sargent made smell awful.

“I guess pot pie it is.” Sif said handing Joker a fork.

“Better than nothing.”

They ate in silence.

“Ok I’m done, you get some rest, I’ll wait up, once you’re awake, I’ll take a nap.” She said.

“Fair enough.” He laid down on his side of the bed. “You gonna stay here with me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah.” He said rolling onto his side.

“Alright, I’ll wait here.”

Sif sat in her comfy chair and put in her head phones. She turned on an audio book and listened to it as she watched the one man she desperately wanted fall asleep.

——

“How long was I out?” Joker asked her.

“4 hours.” She smiled.

“I needed that. Might sound weird but I always sleep better when you’re in the room.”

“Nah, I sleep better when you are next to me.” She grinned.

“Great, come lay down, you can get your shut-eye in too.”

Sif wandered over to her side of the bed, she crawled on top of the covers and faced Joker.

Joker laid his arm out. “Come on.”

“What?” She asked surprised.

“You can sleep on me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I kinda enjoyed that the other day. Don’t get too used to it, but I know you’ve been down, so come here before I change my mind.”

Sif crawled into Jeff’s arms and laid her hand on his chest. Her hair pulled back into a pony tail, fell along her neck and he tenderly moved it away.

“Sleep. I’ll listen for Shepard.”

Sif closed her eyes and left a grin on her face as she drifted to sleep.

——-

He really did like this. He liked how she laid in his arm, and how she fit perfectly into him. For once he felt like a strong man, someone who could protect her.

He watched her eyes flutter under her lids and the grin she fell asleep with still remain on her perfectly pale face.

He took his free hand and rubbed her arm tenderly.

He adored this woman.

She was his best friend.

Sif was the woman he vowed to take care of for his entire existence, protecting her from harm, and anyone who dared try to hurt her fragile heart.

It included Kaiden.

It included himself.

If Sif had ever found out he heard their conversation the other night, she’d never forgive him.

He always kept coms open when she was alone. Hoping to hear her sing her made up songs, and whatever she chose to watch on tv that night.

Hearing her tell Kaiden about her past wasn’t easy. Joker was a big part of it, and yet, he’d never allow himself to be anything more than what he already was.

Sif breathed in deep and let out a small snore.

He smiled, he kissed the side of her head as he did every time they slept together.

She never knew he did that. He didn’t want her to.

Instead, he played cold and distant.

‘She shouldn’t have told Kaiden anything, they should have hooked up. He could have been what she needed. He could have been the strong Lieutenant that gave her healthy kids, and a life outside of a cock pit.’

He sighed.

He didn’t do anything, and yet she was broken hearted - again.

He closed his eyes and waited for Shepard..

——

Jeff woke Sif up an hour after she had fallen asleep. It was time to prepare for extraction.

Once Shepard and his crew was on board everyone met for the debrief, even Sif.

Shepard explained the next step they would have to take. Going to Ilos for a pit stop then head to Vermire to finish off the attack.

Everyone was ordered to check over their equipment as well as their emergency packs.

Sif got up to leave.

“Leaving so soon?” Shepard asked her.

“Aye Commander. Going to go check over a few things before we make the jump.” She smiled.

“Sounds good. I like when people take that initiative.”

“I’ll join you, I had a question about the hyper drive, I was down in engineering and it was making some strange noise.” Kaiden walked to her.

“It was? Tali, you hear anything?” Joker asked.

[vivacissimx]

Daenerys & Bran: (another) Pact of Ice & Fire against the end of the world

for dany month day 21: ice & fire

This we do know: Cregan Stark and Jacaerys Velaryon reached an accord, and signed and sealed the agreement that Grand Maester Munkun calls “the Pact of Ice and Fire” in his True Telling. Like many such pacts, it was to be sealed with a marriage. (Fire & Blood)

-

"The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes."

-

"[...] everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King…"

-

"Symeon Star-Eyes," Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book. "When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool. A fable from the Age of Heroes." The maester tsked. "You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart."

The mention of dreams reminded him. "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes."

-

"I swear it by earth and water," said the boy in green.

"I swear it by bronze and iron," his sister said.

"We swear it by ice and fire," they finished together.

Bran groped for words. Was he supposed to swear something back to them? Their oath was not one he had been taught. "May your winters be short and your summers bountiful," he said. That was usually a good thing to say. "Rise. I'm Brandon Stark."

-

Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head.

-

"Some maesters say it was some other Brandon, not the Builder, but it's still Brandon's Gift. Thousands of years later, Good Queen Alysanne visited the Wall on her dragon Silverwing, and she thought the Night's Watch was so brave that she had the Old King double the size of their lands, to fifty leagues. So that was the New Gift." [Bran] waved a hand. "Here. All this."

-

[...]That's a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father's ships in grief. There's Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts. And that's Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt. He was the last King in the North and the first Lord of Winterfell, after he yielded to Aegon the Conqueror.

-

"Why shouldn't we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!"

[...]

"The King of Winter!" [Maege Mormont] declared, and laid her spiked mace beside the swords. And the river lords were rising too, Blackwood and Bracken and Mallister, houses who had never been ruled from Winterfell, yet Catelyn watched them rise and draw their blades, bending their knees and shouting the old words that had not been heard in the realm for more than three hundred years, since Aegon the Dragon had come to make the Seven Kingdoms one…"

-

As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

-

"Vhagar," Daenerys told him. "Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned."

[rumblelibrary]

Hello, it's me again, your friendly neighborhood... Hungarian?!...👀❤️

Can I request a Sebastian Zöllner fic, where he is a coworker of Reader, and there's an obvious sexual tension, attraction in the office, they sit opposite each other, legs touching sometimes, hands touching... Idunno... Things like this 👀🔥 but nothing happened... Yet...🔥🔥

Never an Enemy [Sebastian Zöllner x Fem!Reader]

Word count: 5k

Warnings: A bad mouthed journalist with strong opinions about art and performance that might offend

Author’s note: Did I let this idea simmer in me for ages? Yes. Did I ever stopped thinking about it? NO.

You hummed softly while the music blasted in your headphones as you made your way up the stairs to the headquarters of the Art Tribune, the art focused magazine you worked for since over a year.

You liked the job even if to deal with artists was hard and the pay check could really deserve an improvement, it was stimulating and surely kept you on the edge. That morning in particular you needed to revise some background stories and just loads of reading to do to work on a new article for an upcoming exhibition. Just the usual fact checking, but you just couldn’t do it at home the day before so you decided to come early and enjoy some peace and quiet at the office.

You arrived at the top of the stairs of the fourth floor with a groan, you told yourself you had to do the stairs because you spent 70% of your life sitting in front of a computer, kind of self care, but brutal. You groaned lightly going straight toward the little kitchen installed for the team when you noticed something in the empty shared room full of desks. It was actually a really nice place with big industrial style windows that let lots of light inside, a very smart environment to work in, with areas where you could relax, free Wifi and loads of facilities. Usually people were put in big desks together, facing each other, trying to push a sort of ‘community feeling’.

Inevitably most of the people created barricades with books, and pictures of their dogs or even empty coffee cups. Yes, all cute and artistic, but do not talk to me.

That’s what also the attitude of the man you shared your desk with on your first day. He whined like a child for twenty minutes, complained he was happy to work alone, followed the assistant of the editor around the office and created a barricade of catalogues between the two of you so thick that you wondered if it was also bulletproof, only to rest his elbows over it half an hour asking if you had the change for the vending machine. Yes, that random man was you colleague and friend, Sebastian Zöllner.

The same that you are witnessing now asleep on the desk, head resting on his crossed arms while a stand of saliva went down on his shirt, wild hair and shoes taken off.

He could be considered an attractive man if he wasn’t a bloody nightmare of a person. You actually worked a lot with him and enjoyed his presence most of the days, your characters folded nicely and you would bounce off his attitude. He was strong on biographies and annoying the shit out of others, so he was always nagging at someone, you included.

You smirked slowly tracing his hair with your fingers, he never looked so innocent and you were always surprised to learn how those messy hair were so soft. It wasn’t the first time you did that gesture, sometimes he did lean his head like this only to be touched like an annoying mewling cat that needs attentions. “Kaffee” He mumbled making you chuckle, such a an annoying brat and he didn’t even open his eyes.

You carried on walking to the little kitchen room to prepare some coffee for you and your desk partner. You shook your head aimlessly as you started wondering why the man is here at this hour and if it was really a good idea to wake him up. To have him awake means to be able to do little to zero.

You watched the coffee get ready, the comforting tune of your morning playlist getting you still on the good side of your mood as you poured the coffee in your mug.

Then you saw it, an arm sneaking in front of you and taking the mug from your hand, you jump scared in a second almost pouring the rest of the coffee on the whole kitchen counter only to encounter Sebastian sleepy figure behind you bringing the mug close to his nose and inhaling deeply the aroma before having a gulp, you stared at him as his jaw clenched, his eyes got a bit teary. “Fucking hot” he whined making you chuckle, he deserved it for stealing it, luckily you were already doing some more for him so he stole your favourite mug but you had some coffee for you left.

You pulled off your headphones leaning them on your neck “No idea you’d be sleeping at the office, weren’t you off on some interview ?”

He shrugged “yeah, well me neither, but interviewing sculptors is always annoying as shit and those are always supersensitive” he said opening the freezer and pulling out some ice cubes from their box and putting them in the coffee mug. “Scheiße!” He cursed as the ice cube landing in the mug caused the coffee to spill onto his white shirt. You pressed your lips tight against each other not to laugh into his face, but he was already pissed off and it wasn’t even proper work time. You watched him lean over the sink trying to wash it off somehow without even bothering to take it off, just adding chaos on chaos.

“Y/N! Do not laugh and try to help me! Beside, the heck are you doing here at this hour?” You rolled your eyes at that comment, but you didn’t indulge him in that request.

“I was just looking for silence”

He nodded like he didn’t believe a single word of it, he was just an asshole and you had to deal with it like it or not. You almost hated how he was so freaking good at writing and that’s probably why many people indulged him. Even you knew his pieces on the magazine and didn’t expect to find out he was so…so Sebastian.

You let out a breathy chuckle taking your mug and making your way to your joined desk letting him wrestle his balance over the kitchen sink trying to get the stain wet and not shower himself in the meanwhile.

You sat down at your spot leaning the mug on side, hands covering your face trying to keep a clear mind letting out a big breath “okay, let’s do this”

You turned on the lamplight on your desk pulling out your laptop from your backpack. As the computer was ‘waking up’ you stared at Sebastian side of the desk compared to yours.

You had like a little citadel of books around you, but it was pretty neat, a little succulent gifted by your friend for your first day at work with the name tag ‘Danny’ on it sitting beside the lamp, lots of pencils and pens of different colours and notebooks to no end. If you had something in common with that beast of a man was that you both still relied on paper for sketching ideas and write down impressions in the moment, then onto the typing.

His side, however, was like a contemporary artwork in itself. Half empty cigarettes packages everywhere, the ashtray filled up, paper inside books and books filled with more papers. Notes everywhere, the damn king of neon yellow post-its, stains of coffee and crumbles of food invert corner, his red laptop showing off like a punch in the eye and his satchel bag always hang or thrown around.

You often wondered if the cleaning stuff just gave up on him. Your lucky guess was that he would probably throw a fit if anything was moved, so everyone just played the blind eye.

He was good at throwing fits.

You watched him come back sitting in front of you, half of his shirt soaked in the attempt to clean it up, he licked his lips picking one empty package of cigarettes looking in it and throwing it away until he found one with still something in it and he lighted his cigarette as he turned on his laptop. You sighed opening the window to let the fresh air not getting you intoxicated.

You went back to sip your coffee and stare at the screen quietly, every now and then your eyes falling onto the little cloud of smoke in front of you.

Sebastian was an attractive man, that was undeniable and you were sure that made him also a successful interviewer even though he was so random and chaotic, when he was silent and collected in thoughts he was indeed a sight to be seen. The dark hair framing his face like he was some cherub, his deep eyes staring into the void of his own words as he typed. He had a sort of decadent look on him.

Slowly the office begun to get filled, people coming here and there to tease Seb about coming early and he just waving his cigarette around asking for silence.

“Zöllner””

The chief editor shouted getting into his office without even turning around. Seb rolled his eyes looking at you as he pushed the cigarette in the ashtray waving his hand around to dissipate the smoke around him before standing up.

“I wonder how he managed to survive few days without shouting my name” he smirked.

You looked at him and mimicked his smirk.

What a chaotic man.

You had finished your reading by then and started to make a first draft of the article you were meant to work on.

“Y/N!!!” Sebastian voice rang through the office making you jump on your seat and he gestured at you to go with him with a big wave of his arm.

You looked at your screen with an helpless sigh, it seems like you will not write that article anytime soon, you’d better just have slept an hour more.

You stood up following that incessant wave as Seb put his hand on your back to get you in a bit quicker.

“Good morning”

You said as the chief editor nodded quietly “Look Y/N, it is a big favour I have to ask you” he begun frankly as you were beginning to get worried “you did your time with silly articles, so I thought it could be interesting to pair you up with Sebastian to go to tonight’s exhibition of Evita Schnecke”

Your eyes went wide as you looked at Sebastian shrug his shoulders.

“I need somebody to keep the horse with tight rains” Mr Megelbach continued gesturing with his pen at Sebastian and then at you “and you will dip your toes in those big time artists environment, but we really need to make sure Sebastian won’t hurt anyone’s sensibility, her interview has been obtained with lots of hard work”

“Yeah, we all know that hard work” Sebastian whispered in your ear earning a glare from Mr Megelbach who handed you a couple of catalogues from that artist and the invitation.

“So, put on hold your current article for today, make a plan with this train wreck and please make sure he doesn’t show up dressed like that”

“That was unneeded”

“All precautions are always needed with you, and now get out of my office the both of you”

You nodded moving out of the office, you were a bit anxious. Those artists were unpredictable just as Sebastian.

You made your way back to your desk with him as you sat down looking at the invitation. “So, it begins at 9 pm” you said almost understanding why Sebastian shouldn’t be allowed to go unescorted because the invitation on the dress code had: Wear something that talks about your soul. Only that could bring Sebastian to have an aneurism.

“I hate that bitch”

“Seb, that’s not a good start for an article”

He smirked as you said so but shrugged

“I mean it, this woman was born into privilege, she portrayed herself to be this underground rebel, but her simple black dress was a Chanel and her everyday boot Balenciaga, so I don’t trust her for a reason”

You smirked as you could agree with that and showed him the two catalogues the boss gave you

“Choose your fighter”

He groaned so loud he could have stabbed his toe and he leaned over his side of the desk picking one from your hand giving a light pinch on your side “teacher’s pet”. You chuckled softly as he always said that.

“Tell me if you read something that it is not about the performer’s way of life” he mumbled opening it in front of him.

You begun your reading and it was indeed the hell pit of a vey spoiled kid who was told to be the greatest since the first day of life, you picked your notebook and opened it taking notes on things that you could ask about.

Sebastian in the meanwhile lighted up another cigarette rolling it between his fingers mindlessly, his eyes looking above the paper at you every now and then among the little curses in German about the stupid things written there.

After some time it was becoming really a torture to read and you leaned your back on your chair stretching your legs forward for Seb to catch one of them among his.

You smirked as you often joked to him he was like some bear trap with those legs always catching yours.

He put his hand under the table bringing your leg up onto his thigh as you shifted even lower on your seat, his hand touching your ankle mindlessly as he had a talent for little massages like that. He did it the first time a while aback, a summer day where it was so hot and humid that you couldn’t feel your own legs.

So it became a little ritual among the two of you. You had many of those rituals, it was like an unspoken collection of attentions. Like you making the coffee in the morning because he was a grumpy ass. Or him always buying you some chewing gum or little treat when he went to buy cigarettes.

“I guess I am not the only one that needs a restyle”

He said bringing you away by the tenderness those little actions brought to you when he pushed his finger in your Vans shoe deepening a hole that you were trying to ignore from months.

“Seb, don’t do it, I wanted to make them last another season”

“Another season? These can’t last the end of the month, no doubt why your sex life is a train wreck”

You frowned at him taking your ankle off his hand to push on his chair making him roll back thanks to the little wheels underneath it, but he held on the desk and pulled himself closer again.

“What do you even know about it”

He looked at you, eyebrows raising up on his forehead

“Y/N, if I was your boyfriend I wouldn’t allow you to leave the bed that early in the morning to go to the office and that’s a fact”

“Oh, and how on heaven could you detain my passion for this job?” “Well, I can write you a list about it, you can consider it a to do list on your next date” His smirk was so wide, he enjoyed to tease you like that, the bastard, he knew to be an hottie and he always acted like half of the world was up to fuck with him.

“Oh please, do it, I want to see”

You teased him and he leaned in elbows on the table staring at you.

Oh the sexual tension with him was too much, you always went down on this hurricane of remarks, always him mentioning how you need more orgasms or implying it, or even implying how good he is at giving them.

“But be careful, because any act should be performed and not only lived”

You said quoting the artist you were reading about and he whined so hard like you really stomped your foot on his balls.

“Horrid witch”

“Me?” “No, that one”

He huffed and puffed picking another cigarette. Sometimes cigarettes just died on his fingers as he forgot to actually enjoy them more than waving them around.

The artist herself wasn’t remarkable, she used themes seen over and over before, she had a background as performer/dancer and she added painting to that, but more than talent she had an amazing marketing squad. You read her story and her commentaries about living like in a poem, which always sounds pretty easy with a big bank account.

You did all you could to stay neutral even if Seb was going down to massacre the woman, you two shared a bundle of two sandwiches (or better say, your brought a package of two and he was skipping his lunch so you just handed it to him) until you decided to get parted and go get ready at home.

That evening you were waiting for him in front of your apartment, when a taxi stopped in front of you and his figure appeared waving at you to come in on the back. His eyes widened in surprise “Well, well, well, look who got all fancy here”

He smirked as his eyes travelled on you shamelessly, the dress was actually one of those you brought ages ago and never used, also to wear heels felt like new, last time you went to a fancy event almost hard to recollect.

“Just move and let me in”

You said chuckling as you looked at him being so elegant when you noticed it, the price tag on his shirt.

“Seb, did you just buy this shirt?”

“Yes, and I am going to take it back tomorrow”

You looked at him puzzled

“What?” He groaned “I suck at ironing stuff”

You looked at him as a little laugh escaped your lips as he told you not to, but it was too late for that, you shifted closer to him anyway helping him to hide that price tag better behind his neck. Nevertheless the white shirt was really fancy and fitted him perfectly.

As you arrived in front of the gallery you sighed and made your way inside.

The place wasn’t crowded but few eyes turned as you got in.

“Would you like some champagne?” A waiter asked and Seb picked two flutes immediately downing one in a gulp on his own as the other was still in his other hand, he put the empty glass on the tray and then picked a third one handing it to you.

“Drink Y/N or you won’t make it to the end of the evening”

You smirked as he was always over dramatic, but indeed the evening seemed to be made for posh people to show off how cool they are.

You spotted the artist pretty quickly wearing a Valentino bright red dress, she surely had the dancer figure and gestures which gave her some kind of an edge.

"She is all yours"

You looked at Sebastian already half way through his drink, giving you that cheshire cat smirk.

"Are you sure?"

"You know I will insult her in a second if she names her dancing background one more time, I saw the videos, she looked like a three ready to collapse on the ground" he chuckled as you smirked shaking your head at his metaphor, but he is probably right, he is too much biased.

"I didn't notice the open back before" he said referring to your dress as he caressed over your skin with his fingertips making goosebumps raise up your spine.

"What? Am I too sexy for your own good?"

"Probably" he commented not losing a beat to answer you. You were taken aback from a moment, his eyes still down on his hand touching your back before raising up to find yours.

Then he took his hand away and pressed the cold champagne glass against it making you hiss "Now go, I'll check this bourgeois art"

You frowned but you just moved away from him. He always did it, he teased you and then made it a joke. You gave it back to him too, it was your relationship, that's how you balanced it.

"Good evening " you said to her with a smile holding your glass in your left hand before offering your right hand to her "I am Y/N, from the Art Tribune"

She went from neutral to smiling in a second

"Oh, I was waiting to meet you" she said leaning to kiss your cheek, surely she was a woman with charm, with a degree of boldness that made her charming and also, you noticed, extremely touchy-feely with everyone.

"We can define this a sort of retrospective of your previous works, I liked to see the evolution of it" you lied, because you just saw the catalogue.

But that was fair enough to have her go on about her, guess what? Past as a dancer, about how she needed to express herself, how she was her own muse and all the stuff you already read.

"What is next for you then?"

"I want to follow my dream, I have always wanted to found a space with my name where people could rent the rooms to perform dances and arts"

You stared at her. For real? Like there weren't other hundreds in the whole city?

"What will keep you apart from all the others that did this before you?"

"Nobody is me" she smirked like it was clear and obvious.

You asked few more questions, but you were sad to admit Sebastian was right. There wasn't art there, there was just profit, selling a name, a brand.

This saddened you because you met many artists that had less than a chance to make it but double the talent of Miss Valentino Dress.

"Y/N" Sebastian warm hand was on your back as you were downing the last bit of champagne "Come, come ,come quick" he said pushing you away as the artist clearly recognised him but he dismissed her with some insult or whatever he just mumbled.

"Seb, I was working, what the hell?"

"Elke is here"

You still didn't understand, you were puzzled as the reason of that anxiety was still unknown to you.

"Like your girlfriend Elke?"

"Put an ex in front of it" he said looking around frantically

"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't know"

"No, me neither, I thought she was just bashing around, she always did" his arm sneaked around your waist pulling you closer "please, act sexy for once"

You were one second from hitting his guts with your elbow when Elke herself approached.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you here" she said waving her glass around

"Yeah, well I work for an important Art journal if you remember"

"How could I forget?" she groaned looking at you then as Sebastian's hand rested onto your hip. Really? Was he acting like you were his date?

"Hi, I am Y/N"

You said politely to her and she chuckled "Run when you can, this man is a leech and you don't even know it"

She mentioned it almost casually, but you could feel all the poison implied on your skin, Sebastian's hand giving you a soft squeeze, you had never seen him like this before. He looked like a dog that just got kicked, his back hunched over you lightly both trying to protect you and for protection.

"Well, thank you for your advice, I must be a real torment too because we actually have lot of fun together, I like his unpredictability"

You said it from your heart, you didn't want to insult her or anything, but you felt bad for him. Even if he probably deserved it, to be humiliated like this must be hard in any circumstance, in particular in a place where he is supposed to work and being known.

He looked at you a bit surprised, he leaned slowly pressing a kiss on your temple and you smiled because of that gesture so enveloped in that feeling of tenderness.

"Your shot" Elke said clearly a bit annoyed that you as she just moved along followed by a man that must be her date.

"Lets go out"

You suggested as Seb nodded and just followed for once, he held your hand as you guided him and for once he wasn't talking or commenting anything.

As you went out he sat down on the sidewalk pulling out his package of cigarettes taking out one immediately.

"Hey stand up" you said to him as he looked up at you and you snatched that cigarette off his lips "let's go away"

"Where? Don't we have to stay until she gets naked to dance?"

You smirked "No, we have all the material we need"

You took his cigarette away offering him your hand as he picked it and you guided him.

He was silent, which is rare, when he was silent it meant he was upset in some way, he always had a nice comeback line for everything usually.

His head leaned on side like a scolded child as he slowly laced your fingers together.

You walked across few streets, your heels clicking on the cement until you made it to your final location pulling him inside.

"Constatinopole?"

Seb asked looking at the sign, it was a kebab place, your favourite by the way.

"I am hungry" you just said making him lower his head and smile like a kid with cue breathy chuckles.

You ordered for the two of you as he went to sat down putting another cigarette between his lips when the man behind the counter glared at him and he just put it back in the package.

He sat down slouching as you did some small talks with the guys there, you clearly knew them. The soft music from the radio holding the place into a sort of magical aura as his eyes travelled over your naked back once more, the need for a cigarette becoming even more urgent.

You two dressed so elegantly really were so noticeable in the bright lightend place, he smiled to himself thinking it could be a nice painting by Hopper.

You came back offering him his kebab with a soft drink, very thoughtful because he was indeed already a bit high on champagne.

You ate quietly together, it wasn't uncomfortable, your silences were happening often at work and always filled with a sense of common understanding, you leaned your leg up like you always did at the office and rested it on his thigh as you sat sideways beside him. His hand flying naturally on your ankle to give his usual massage, his thumb tracing your skin with imaginary patterns as his other hand held the kebab close to his mouth.

The speaker at the radio announcing next song as Rocket Man by Elton John filled the room with a melancholic vibe. You couldn't help but think the song suited perfectly Sebastian, his being out of this word, out of control.

"Thank you" he said at some point as he tried his best not to ruin his shirt, you looked up at him as he was staring, his eyes telling you something on their own "You have been the best girlfriend I have ever had"

He added with a bitter smile diverting once more his gaze, you smiled back at him, he looked so resigned. Maybe it was the alcohol, but you have never seen him so fragile before.

"I could be"

His eyes darted up to you, his surprise evident as he put down the kebab, the soothing voice of the British singer still giving a dream edge to the moment as he moved closer. You slowly shifted your leg to give him room of movement as his right arm sneaked to rest on the back of your chair closing the space between the two of you.

His lips tasted still a bit of champagne as he pressed them against yours, you kissed him back slowly as his left hand travelled on your thigh pulling you closer to him probably staining your dress because of his greasy hand.

He pulled back almost immediately before leaning onto you again titling his head on the other side. This second time the kiss was more deep, more intense. Your hands slowly cradling his face before pulling back yourself.

He smiled against your lips and you smiled back.

Maybe tomorrow you will regret it like Elke said, maybe not.

Tagged @cazzyimagines @lieutenantn @handmaiden-of-mischief@thesunflowersutra @zemomybeloved@fictionlandslanddreams@charistory @greeneyedblondie44@apparrio @hb8301@whatawildone @rhymerhymerhyme  @thehuiabird @lilith-blackrose @unbeatablecurlgirl@obsidianlaszlo@alindeluce@zemosimp05 @baronesszemo-blackwood @nocapesdahlingLet me know if you want to get tagged to my publications too <3

[13atoms]

Cyberium [Dh!Master x Reader]

Post-Timeless Children, 2.8k :) fluff, angst, you know the drill.

*

You huffed, a little irritated you’d been left alone on the TARDIS.

The Master had been unusually adamant that you stay, and you knew him well enough to respect when his mood swung firmly to the realm of ‘serious’.

He’d kissed you properly before leaving the ship, all clasping hands and desperate lips against yours, rushing off to meet the Doctor at the boundary with the barest hesitation outside at the doors.

For days before he’d been getting more and more wound up. You could see the sleeplessness on his face, the desperation, ever since he’d started playing with the damn Matrix all those months ago. He didn’t like you being on Gallifrey – in fact he’d only let you sneak around with him once, giving you a tour one last time before it was destroyed.

Once the entire citadel sat in ruins, ash all around, he refused to let you see more than a glimpse of it. Perhaps, deep down, he worried you’d be horrified by the extent of the destruction he had caused. You had grown used to it, sneaking glances out of the door, watching live feeds from outside on the TARDIS monitors while he cooked up plans.

The night before he had finally snapped, dragged you into bed just to strip you both down to your skin and pull you to him so tightly you could feel the tremor in his bones and the double-beat in his chest.

“If I don’t come back, the TARDIS should dematerialise,” he had whispered in your ear, “she’ll protect herself, she should drop you back to Earth. You know how to land her, you’ll be fine.”

He had been convincing himself, hands toying with the ends of your hair as he forced himself to sound normal, casual. You wondered if there was doubt in his mind. Fear. Certainly, there was nervousness.

This was all so big, you wondered how he tackled the magnitude of what he was doing inside his own mind.

“You’d better come back,” you had insisted, planting a soft kiss to his sideburn, fingers wrapped in his hair.

“I’m sure I will.”

You could hear the shake in his voice, your heart aching at the thought he might not want to.

But he always came back. Always clawed his way back to life, even as parts of him seemed to be chipped away, his very sense of self shaken again and again for the entire time you’d known him.

His eyes had been bloodshot, deep eyebags plaguing his features as he left that morning. You’d spent hours and hours kicking around the ship, unable to focus on anything and yet far too sensible to ignore his warning and leave the ship.

You kept waiting onboard, trying to ignore the whispered words you’d heard from his lips. The whispers of resurrections and death particles and cybermen and maybe, finally, ending it all.

The tiny tremors of the TARDIS’ living floor felt seismic, each minute passing with the threat of a dematerialisation without him. As the hours grew longer you gave up on trying to do anything but sit perched by the door, begging the universe for the Master to stride back through that door, victorious.

You somehow dozed off.

The metallic crunching of feet woke you up, huge metal soldiers ducking to enter the TARDIS, making you shrink back and look around frantically, until you saw the figure of the Master instructing a few of them.

He was shouting, commanding them.

You watched in shock.

“Here! Inside!”

The Master stumbled, and you grasped for purchase on your seat, as the TARDIS suddenly dematerialised. Through the open door you could see the metal creatures outside disappear, fire engulfing them and licking at the doorframe of the ship before the doors slammed closed and the time vortex appeared outside the windows.

You gasped, your breathing suddenly ragged as you realised how close the Master and yourself had been to death. You could feel the ghost of the flames on your face, that split second of their heat enough to make your cheeks feel warm and dried out.

Those blank, soulless creatures stood unmoving as the Master looked around, pushing through the crowd of them to get to you.

“You’re here,” he smiled, the tears in his eyes amplifying their redness. His skin was palid, oily, dust settled visibly across his features. His hair was mussed up in a distinctly unintentional way, greasy, and you pulled away instinctively as his scuffed hands reached for you.

He searched your eyes as desperately as you searched his, trying to figure out what happened.

“I’m so glad you’re safe. That you stayed,” he laughed, baring his teeth, mania coursing through his veins.

He hadn’t won. That much was obvious. If he had won, he wouldn’t be on the verge of breaking down in your eyes, concealing his sadness with that shark-like grin that made you wince.

There was something else. Something lurking at the edge of the whites of his eyes, making his fingers shake as they dried to cup your face, a silvery hue to his sweaty face.

The creatures behind him remained unmoving, even in the harsh rock of TARDIS-travel, and you caught yourself watching them suspiciously. They were creepy, too tall, their half-moon headpieces making the small group of them look more numerous, more threatening.

“It’s okay,” he Master told you, his words wheezed out on a hysterical laugh. His fingers were still reaching for your face, and you found your whole body tensing as their rough grasp met your skin. You could feel the dusting of ash he left on your jaw as he clutched your face between his hands, crouched over you.

For once, you felt intimidated by him. The slight tremble of his body made him clench you more harshly than was comfortable.

“We’re okay,” he told you, demanding and firm in his tone as the creatures behind him all stomped at once, the small legion of them turning to face him.

You looked to the creatures with obvious fear, eyes wide. Something about them was unnerving, beside their obvious intimidating build. They seemed… empty. Haunting.

“What are they?” you managed, your tongue feeling unnaturally heavy in your mouth.

He looked over his shoulder with a glare at the creatures, barking to them wish distain as he continued his tight grip on your face.

“First room. Left.”

The creatures followed his command, marching in a military unison which made you tremble. The Master looked back to you with an attempt at a gentle smile, crouching and then kneeling in front of you.

He refused to let go of your face.

You brought your hands up to dislodge his, gently pulling them from your cheeks, and he let you. His hands didn’t drop far, only to your lap, but that was a little better. His unnerving smile doing nothing to comfort you as it stayed plastered across his features, completely bizarre in its poor imitation of ‘comforting’.

The was something so wrong. Even without the creatures in the room, there was something else here. Something unsettling you and making you want to run from the man you trusted so deeply.

You caught a glimpse of it.

Flashing across his eyes.

As fast and intangible as a shape beneath dark water, just as menacing as silver darted across his dulled irises.

It was like you were finally seeing what you had suspected all along. The deep brown of his eyes was muted, strangely lightened by the silvery film which seemed to sit over his gaze.

“Master…” you began carefully, the name making his hands clench to fists in your lap. “Is there something wrong?”

He blinked slowly, the flutter of his dark eyelashes strangely different than usual, the sheen of sweat on his cheek reflecting an impossible whitish-grey under the warm TARDIS lights.

“Nothing’s wrong, love.”

“Something’s wrong,” you pushed, watching as he shifted his weight, his knees no doubt aching from the bare floor of the ship beneath them.

“Something’s… different,” he conceded, looking away from a moment, hands shifting on your knees.

“What?”

“There’s… those are Cybermen. Sort of. Give or take. I took their consciousness from their leader,” he was smiling, but those eyes. It was unnerving you, the mistiness which had started to swirl across them. The sweat on his brow made him look feverish, the trembling in his hand had worsened. His whole body was shivering. “Cyberium. I took it into my own consciousness, and now it’s mine. All of Cyberman knowledge, control, it’s all mine.”

He was struggling for breath, and you sank to the floor beside him, letting him sit back and pant as his pride started to falter.

“What the hell were you thinking?” you demanded, and he raised his eyebrows in shock, looking up at you.

“Excuse me, love?”

“Why would you do that?”

You were worried. The Master’s jaw clenched, whether from irritation or pain you weren’t sure. His clothes rumpled as he fought to stay sat up on the ground, his coat buttons strained as the dusty material tugged across his chest. He looked sick. Worryingly so, his fringe plastered to his forehead with sweat. You thought of those monsters in the next room, and wondered why on earth he would want to be more like them.

“Are you telling me what to do?” he argued, but it was half-hearted. You could see concern starting to creep into his expression as your worry grew.

“I’m telling you I’m worried about you! And I don’t understand why you’d let this… parasite, or whatever, into your body willingly!”

With a roar of pain, the Master writhed, his head thud-ding against the floor as the Cyberium fought against him. Your anger was instantly forgotten. You surged forwards, one hand bruising behind his head as you protected his skull from hitting the floor again, your hands useless trying to find purchase on his body to offer comfort or... or something.

“I can see why you’re angry, in hindsight,” he ground out, doing his best at offering an award winning smile as you leant over his thrashing body.

“What’s happening?”

The silveriness of his eyes was swirling now, less settled, like it was fighting his own deep brown eyes for dominance. You wondered what war was going in that incredible mind of his.

“Taking over… it’s taking over my mind.”

“What can I –”

“There’s nothing you can do,” he panted out.

One of his hands had found your waist, a tragic imitation of the possessive hold you liked to keep on one another in public as he grasped for you. You found his hand and held it against your body, a clumsy mess of fingers as you tried to comfort him.

“It’s telepathic. It must be strong, to be a match for a time lord. I’ll give it that.”

You didn’t believe his desperate attempt to sound jovial for a second. Each word left his body in a huff of frantic breath, like he might not make it to say the next. You swallowed down tears as his legs kicked out in pain, a deep roar emerging from deep in his chest. Your hand behind his head took a beating as he writhed forwards again, only to seem possessed to throw himself back into the floor.

Not for the first time, you suspected he was cursing your humanity. Whatever was happening required a kind of telepathy your species just didn’t possess. The TARDIS hummed around you, and you gasped, staring up at the ceiling as the Master’s eyes fell closed.

His body was suddenly eerily quiet, and it scared you.

“Can you help him?” you asked the ship, forcing your ragged breath quiet and straining your ears for any sign from the ship.

A weird feeling of calm overtook you, and you understood her.

The console was lit up, a small door beneath it quietly clicking open, and you threw a ‘thank you’ to the universe that the Master had a ship as crazy as he was.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” you called to her, scurrying over to the cubbyhole she’d opened, spotting a hose with a football-sized sphere at the end.

She must have sensed your confusion, because the TARDIS made the ball glow green in your hands.

“I can give him this?” you tried, still frowning as you saw his body begin to writhe again, another round of fighting starting.

You wondered how long he could hold out, he seemed exhausted. The ship around you hummed, a vague sense of ‘affirmative’ washing over you.

“Thank you,” you muttered, tugging the cable back to his body, forcing his clammy hands onto the white light of the sphere.

“Please work,” you begged, not sure who you were asking, stepping back from the connection between the Master and his ship.

He seemed semi-conscious, eyelashes fluttering but so deep within his own mind that his body had been forgotten. You could only sit back and watch.

*

It felt like hours passed before the Master roused, the ball in his hands an angry, pulsing chrome when he finally discarded it beside him. It slowly returned to white as the TARDIS absorbed the AI which had left his body.

“It’s gone. Well, not gone, trapped in the TARDIS systems. She’ll keep it locked away,” he seemed genuinely thrilled, and you caught yourself smiling in bemusement, “so I can reference it. But not… be it.”

“Good,” you cut him off, “I prefer you one-hundred percent time lord.”

He beamed as you planted a sweet kiss against his forehead, pulling you onto his lap, your legs bracing yourself either side of his thighs. He was still weak, exhausted. You didn’t want to risk hurting him.

“Are you sure you’re not time lord?” he teased, “You are far too clever to be a human.”

With a shrug of your shoulders, you laughed, giddy with the relief of saving him.

“I think you underestimate humans.”

He wrinkled his nose in mock disgust, and you stuck your tongue out at him. You watched his face morph into a smirk as you leant forwards to kiss him instead, eyes closing.

Distantly you registered the metallic footsteps of those creatures behind you, wondered when the Master had time to call them, but you were preoccupied. There was a time lord kissing you and you were incredibly glad he was still alive to do it.

His hands snaked behind you, one pulling you closer to him against your back, the other making its way up your spine to gently cup your neck. The touch felt like him again, none of the hostility he’d had with the cyberium in his mind.

You took a moment to be grateful for the TARDIS again, projecting the thought, and felt the Master laugh against your lips.

“She’s the real genius between us,” you mumbled against the corner of his mouth, tasting the ash and sweat of his skin and not caring in the slightest.

How could you care, with him laughing and smiling beneath your lips?

“Don’t say that, it’ll go to her time rotor.”

“Ew.”

His body was soft beneath you, the colour returning to his face, and you were beyond glad to look into his eyes and see nothing but their usual blood-shot appearance.

“You are so stupid for doing that,” you chided jokingly, knowing he would roll his eyes before he did it.

“I got caught up in the moment,” he argued, never one to concede a mistake. You smirked.

“Idiot.”

A squeal of shock left you as he flipped both of you, pining you underneath him, careful not to hurt you as he feigned irritation.

“I’ll have to punish you for that, I’ve burned planets for less.”

“Scary,” you jabbed sarcastically, pulling a face at him.

As he laughed, too exhausted to follow through on any kind of ‘threat’, you froze.

The Master knew something was wrong immediately, as he saw you staring over his shoulder at the huge, metallic creature staring blindly down at you. The void behind those eyes was chilling, even the Master’s body over yours doing nothing to stifle your shiver.

“Did you tell it to do that?” you whispered to him, your stomach plummeting as the creature’s head tilted slightly to the side in comprehension.

The Master shook his head, hands guiding you to stay behind him as he slowly moved to stand, a sudden silence settling over the console room.

The creature stepped forwards, arm outstretched, the metallic ring of five others following it. The lights of the TARDIS had turned a deep, unpleasant silver, the ship dark and shadows shifting. The time rotor was red.

The Master’s fingers trembled as his left hand reached for his TCE, his right hand making its way behind his back. His sleeve slipped to reveal a vortex manipulator on his wrist, and you felt your stomach plummeting at the thought of what those creatures might do with a TARDIS at their disposal.

You took a deep breath, holding onto him tightly. A shot rang out across the room, and you felt the ground whipped from beneath your feet, the Master’s victorious cheer following you through the teleport.

[talesofnovembria]

😴 (I can't remember if I already sent in because but !!!)

send me 😴 to see how YOUR MUSE appears in my muse’s GOOD DREAMS

Where she expected there to be the familiar colors of blue and white were replaced with silver and orange. This was a strange turn of events. Her nightmares usually had some hint of memory added to it, even if played out the same, or twisted in some manner. If that was the case, then why was it different? To mess with her head? To present her with something she would not expect?

Stone could still be felt under her feet, but smoother than the surfaces of Icecrown… or really most places in Northrend for that matter. The orange glow seemed to throw off her sense of placement as well. The silver was metal… but not the harsh, dark spires of the Citadel. Intricate carved stone structures… the metal a decorative touch rather than the foundation. Red and orange banners hung along the tall buildings, the orange coming from the walkways around her.

Ironforge? Why here?

Nothing ever tied her back to this place. She came for short periods of time after everything was said and done, the dwarves masters of the metal craft… and natural masters to gather ore and materials. Granted, the Ebon Blade already had their own means to gather, but she couldn’t always rely on their works… not when her head had been such a mess trying to figure out rights and wrongs.

Strength… weakness… all of it was subjective… trying to undo the damage done seemed impossible… at least until he came along.

Quiet surrounded her as she walked, the usual busy ‘streets’ of the mighty city empty. Of course they would be empty in her own head. No doubt if anyone was here, they’d never take their eyes off her. It was as if anyone could see through the mask, knowing that she was one of the ones serving under the King… not the Highlord.

She’d wandered through one of the tunnels leading to the central room, lava pouring down from the peaks to the heart of the mountain. She’d chanced a glance to where the molten material sank, passageways along the metal wall to keep the lava from rising any higher.

Eyes narrowed for a brief moment. Something caught her eye… something of a muted gold.

There! Hidden among the river was a flat surface, stone clinging to the bottom, unmoving against the molten heat and waves. It looked big enough to fit someone standing along the surface… but that’s not what struck her. To the far side of the surface was a golden flower with dark orange accented petals. It looked somewhat like a sunflower…

But how was it growing there? The heat didn’t seem to burn it… and the lack of soil did nothing to hinder its growth…

Even though no one appeared to be around, her gaze still shifted from side to side. No one… of course… Hands moved to her side, runeblades hanging at her hips. One hand gripped the blade, as the other helped to throw herself over the side of the barrier. The heat grew the closer she fell, free hand moving below her.

A platform to catch her fall, the blade to slow her descent.

And now only a jump away from the tiny thing.

Feet landed against the stone, kneeling in front of the flower. She hadn’t noticed it from a distance, but the petals closer to the lava were starting to wilt. Damaged… but still alive… like her in a way. Against such impossible odds… but how? It didn’t make any sense…

The heat sank into her fur, bringing her rear down to sit. Her hands cupped around the flower, one finger gently moving over a petal. A gentle voice seemed to come from the center, “Hardships are around all of us. How do you handle the heat?”

She blinked, head lowering, “Endure… always endure…” Endure… Endure…

----

Salena blinked, her face full of a singular color. It was so strange… to not be trapped in a nightmare for a change. But how… she had taken no potion, and frankly she hadn’t recalled even falling asleep. Had the sleepless nights finally caught up with her once more? She tried to wrap her brain around what she could remember.

Arthur… right she had been visiting him… from there, so much just seemed a blur. Had she ended up passing out on him?

Her head rose, noticing the color in front of her face was of some kind of fabric. Pushing herself up to sit, she found herself along a couch. Was this Arthur’s? She’d seen his place before, but never got the chance to see much of his home. That would be an invasion of his privacy. Granted… she had kind of come in without his permission before, but that was more out of worry than her own curiosity.

A voice gained her attention. Was that Arthur’s? Tiredness seemed to still grip her eyes. She could see his blond hair forming, dark along the chest? Yeah, that had to be him. Was he telling her to rest?

Rest… it seemed like that never came to her…

But maybe just this once…

She laid back down along the couch, closing her eyes. Her chest began a slow rise and fall. For once, she looked forward to the heat in her head rather than the bitter cold.

[majorshiraharu]

Echoes In My Mind; Chapter 1 - Icy Alliance - EchoxReader Fic

Echo x (Female) Reader fic 

---------------------------------------------------- Content Rating: Mature/18+ Eventual NSFW Smut Warnings:  Swearing Violence Anxiety Mention of violent canon events

-Trigger Warnings for future chapters:  Torture Injuries Recovery Nightmares PTSD (rather warn you now before you become invested, after this warnings will only be labeled for individual chapters at the start of each) 

-This fic will be added to my ao3 account and to the masterlist, if you want to be added to a taglist please let me know. Y/N = Your name  Y/O/N = Your original name (since your character is going under an alias for most of the fic, before later on revealing her real name)

----------------------------------------------------

Intro: After order 66 you escape the Empires grips and go on back to your bounty hunting ways, your ship was damaged in a mission gone wrong and you’ve been stranded on a cold icy planet doing whatever jobs you can to fix your ship and finally get out of here. Along the way, you run into some guys with familiar faces, one who reminds you of the man you loved that died years ago at the Citadel 

-You're collecting your reward for a bounty you just turned in - just then a male Gotarite comes up behind you grabbing your shoulder - you whip around pulling your blaster out of its holster as you use your elbow to push away the hand, now with your blaster pointed directly at his face - "Vegree?!" you shout, lowering your blaster. "I thought you were going to blast my head off, what the kriff were you thinking Y/N?" he spits out angrily both of his offset green beady eyes staring at you. "Man I'm sorry but that's what you get for grabbing me from behind like that, you're lucky I recognized your stench so quickly" you said as smugly as you could manage. 

"Whaaat didd youu jusst saayy?!" Oh great you thought, you know shits about to go down when he starts stuttering like that.   "I'm just teasing you old man, stop getting your teeth in a twist, you might bite your tongue off" you said trying to cool the tension rising. 

"Wellll listten heere Y/N, iff yoouuu ssso mucch aas pooinnt thhatt tthiingg att mme aggainn wwe'rre gonnnaa hhavve mooree prrobblemmms!" he shouts, clearly not taking your jokes well.  "More problems than we already have, haha, I find that hard to believe, well anyway what did you want?" hoping that changing the subject might make his mood better. 

He lets out a big snort as he swallows his anger with you to finally move on to his point for being there, "I got a mission for ya, pays well, might get ya out of this dump." 

"Well, what is it, who's asking, how much, who I gotta kill, or capture, anything to get out of here with my sanity."  "Can't tell ya who from, it'll pay ya enough to fix your ship, but no killing, it's purely a spy mission" he says looking around for anyone listening. 

"A spy mission, urgh, fine, who or what is my target and what do I need to get" you scoff out, you've always hated spy missions because they usually involved you getting found at some point, the last spy mission ended with you running to your ship under heavy fire, that mission was also the reason you were stuck on this godforsaken trash pile of a planet. 

"Stop complaining, ya want in or not?!" he asks pulling out a datapad  "Fine" you growl reaching out for the datapad.  He waits for a moment before handing it to you, "Ya will find all ya need on that, just make sure to deliver what they want by the deadline, I ain't the middle man on this one so ya better not get snippy with da wrong people" he says in an almost worried way as he gets up and walks off into the crowd of people in the cantina. 

What's that supposed to mean you think to yourself, he's never been so worried or secretive about a mission before. You turn on the datapad looking over the words and images on the screen, seems easy enough, you'll just have to steal another ship to get to the location, which was on a nearby planet, great, good luck finding a decent ship in this place. You would just take a ship and run, but being a bounty hunter that wouldn't help you get any jobs and would probably end with someone putting a bounty on your head, so best to just borrow one for a few hours so you can complete this mission and then fix your own ship.

You get up and walk outside, breaking the datapad in two and discarding it as it instructed, it's cold outside, your face feels like it's already starting to freeze, you head towards the landing pads and the shipyard - it's pretty empty today. Then you spot an all-black ship, it looks strange among the rest, almost like it could be an imperial transport shuttle, but you've never seen one like this, sadly imperial or not it would have to do, there was nothing else nearby and not to mention you wanted out of the cold so bad you'd gladly pick a fight with some imperials right now if it meant getting out of this cold. -You hack the control panel on the outside gaining you access to the inside of the ship, where you notice a skull painted on the side and a bunch of posters, eww this ship must belong to some lonely strange guys by the look of this messy place and the different things scattered about.   You walk to the front of the ship working on hacking the panel so you can fly out of here, this is harder than you thought, normally you were pretty good at this stuff, but someone has heavily modified this ship, no wonder it didn't look familiar, whoever these people were they knew how to modify a ship that's for sure.

-Suddenly you hear people talking, and it's getting closer, oh kriff you think, with your luck, it's probably the people who own this ship, and by the sound of it there are 5 men, you could probably take them as long as you got the jump on them. -You put the cover over the control panel trying to be as quiet as possible as you hear the door to the ship open "kriff" you let slip out as you try to duck into a hiding spot behind part of the wall near the door. "So boys now that we've delivered this bounty and finally gotten some grub where do you all want to go?" asks one of the men, he has a distinctive accent, they all start talking, making it hard to tell what they're saying, especially over the sound of the one guy shouting about wanting to beat up some clankers. You try to take advantage of their babbling to sneak a peak for how you might get out of this predicament. 

 Well, there's no way out, they're all standing right by the door, and there's no way to sneak by them or - your thoughts are cut off by the sudden realization that the cover you had hastily placed back on slid off the console and crashed hard onto the floor, stopping their bickering. 

"We really need to fix this thing, Tech, Echo, get over there and patch that back up will ya" the one with the accent says, causing you to shake with anxiety, knowing that in any second two of those guys would be walking right by you, should I attack them, or should I try to explain myself, you think quickly unsure of your choices as your anxiety swallows you up, hearing their footsteps coming closer, you close your eyes. -You try and dart out from your hiding spot to hopefully catch them off guard giving you enough time to get out and into the snowstorm outside, but instead, you just run right into the guy who was just around the corner crashing to the ground as you land right on top of him with a grunt. "What the heck" you hear the rest around you yell, as the one below you lets out a small grunt before looking up at you, right into your eyes, both of you just kinda stare at each other, unsure of what's going on. 

"Echo" the one to the left of you shouts, grabbing you and pulling you back locking your arms behind you. Did he say Echo? you think,  "Let me go" you shout cracking the back of your head into his helmet and kicking him back, freeing yourself, you try to run, but the one called Echo gets up quickly stepping in front of you and grabbing both your wrists as you try to push him away,  "I said let go" you yell kicking his leg, "OW!!" you scream out realizing you just kicked your shin into a leg that was metal. "Are you okay?" he asks instantly letting go of your wrists, as you bend down to hold your aching shin, you look up to see a worried look on his face,  "Why do you care?" you said coldly as you stood up, still in pain, making him frown.  "I care because you just kick my solid metal leg." he says in a joking way, making you look away, feeling guilty for being such a jerk.  "I'm sorry" you say while staring at the floor, "I'm just trying to finish this mission so I can fix my ship and get off this damn planet." "So you were going to steal our ship?" he says raising an eyebrow with a smirk crawling across his face.   "Just to get to the mission location, I was gonna bring it back" you basically shout, now getting flustered by the way he's looking at you. 

"Well, where are you headed maybe we can take you."  "Wait now hold on there" one with the gray hair and bad attitude says  "We aren't seriously going to let this little girl hitch a ride to some bounty on our ship, are we?" he spits out.

"HEY, I'm not a little girl, I'm a bounty hunter" you shout at him, causing him to roll his eyes and cross his arms.  "I think we are" says the one with the accent grinning at the displeasure these words brought to the face of his comrade.  "Sorry about that, Crosshair here doesn't trust easily, my name is Hunter, this is Wrecker, over there is Tech and well you've just met Echo" he says pointing out his comrades to you. 

As he does this you notice they all look kinda similar, the one called Echo looks a lot like the clones you use to fight alongside.  "You're clones?" you say hesitantly,  "Yes" said Echo,  "Well actually we've all been altered in some way to enhance specific skills" says Tech in a way that was almost too fast for you to understand. "It's good to meet you, umm..."  "Y/N" you blurt out nervously,  "Y/N" Hunter says finishing his sentence.  You notice Echo smiling at you after you just blurted out your name, causing you to slightly blush, trying to look away from him in a way that wasn't obvious. 

"Well Y/N, where are you headed?" asks Echo.   “I'm headed to Luminues, the planet not too far from here, it's just a simple mission to get some information from a warehouse for someone."

"Hmm, for a mission that sounds so simple I'm surprised they'd pay enough to fix your ship, who's asking for this information?" Hunter asks looking concerned,  "I know, they didn't give me much information on the job and I don't know who they are, but I promise it will just be a simple in and out and then I'll be out of your hair" you say trying to sound convincing.  "LET'S GO THEN" shouts Wrecker,   "All right" says Hunter sternly, "but we can't help you and if our ship gets damaged we'll need some of that bounty in return",   "No problem, I'd be happy to share whatever I have left after I repair my ship" you say thankful that they are willing to even take you in the first place. They all take their spots, standing or sitting around as Tech starts the ship and sets it on a course to Luminues, you awkwardly stand near the wall staring out into space until you notice Echo walking up to you. "Umm...so you know clones?" he says unsure of how to phrase his question, "Yeah, I use to...." you cut yourself off, remembering that despite not being a Jedi you were still labeled as an enemy of the Empire and you didn't want to give yourself away, "umm, I um I...I worked on ships for the Republic" you said pretty unconvincingly, Echo looks at you tilting his head and raising a brow, he seems to understand that you can't say exactly who you are and accepts your lame answer.  "Well then Y/N, I guess if you mostly worked on ships we probably never met, I was on the front lines a lot, fighting with the...” - suddenly he gets cut off by Crosshair who hits him in the shoulder,  "She doesn't care Echo and remember we're trying to stay low key" he says jabbing him with his elbow,    "Eh, sorry" Echo says with a sad look on his face as he turns away to walk towards Tech.  "We'll be landing shortly" Tech says while pressing a bunch of buttons,  "You might want to hold on to something" Crosshair teases, making you let out a snort as you walk closer to the front of the ship, at that moment the ship makes a hard turn before it jumps back to just barely make a landing on the small landing pad causing you to grab onto Echo to stay on your feet, he grabs your waist trying to steady you before looking up at you, both of you blush before letting go of each other. - Tech opens the door leading outside. "Okay, we got you here, Echo can give you our com channel so you can contact us when you need a pickup, otherwise we'll be here waiting." Hunter says walking toward the open door, Echo softly grabs your arm typing their com channel into your comlink  "Thank you" you say quietly smiling at Echo, causing him to let go of your arm and look away,  "Uh, no problem" he says quietly in return. -You walk out the door as they wish you good luck, let's get this over with you think to yourself finally setting off for your bounty.

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-Notes: Hope you all enjoyed this, I haven't written a fic like this in a while so it's nice to do this again, Chapter 2 will probably be out sometime next week, I will post updates. If you want to be added to a taglist just send me an ask or request so in a comment <3 uwu 

[wyrmdust]

A New Spark

Standing on the edge of the now-floating city, Dalaran, Ilrygon gazed out upon the new lands around him. Below was a sea of glowing, crystal trees with ancient elven ruins scattered between. In the distance, there were snow-covered mountains that seemed to stretch forever and beyond those, he could faintly see a large spire in the south. Wyrmrest Temple, his master had told him just the other day, an ancient meeting place for the five dragonflights. Turning around, he would come to face the ever-glowing beauty of the city of magi. But between the towers and beyond the Violet Citadel, one couldn’t help but be drawn to the ominous threat that loomed over them all. The dark spires of Icecrown Citadel stood far taller than the tops of the mountains, and seemed to look directly down upon Dalaran, despite their distance...

Ilrygon was slowly making his way back across Krasus’ Landing under the evening sun, in silent contemplation, when a squadron of dragonhawks came zooming just over his head, landing on the opposite side of the platform.

‘Sunreavers...’ he thought snidely to himself, watching the group of crimson-clad elves climb down from their mounts. As the group seemed to approach him, the young mage straightened his back in an attempt to appear maybe just as tall as them. But just like they didn’t notice him upon their landing, they hardly noticed him now, and they waltzed right on by keeping among themselves with chatter.

Ilrygon’s posture fell with a deep sigh. Perhaps he was relieved there was no confrontation, however, this wasn’t his first problem with the Sin’dorei of Dalaran. Nevertheless, he followed suit, leaving the landing with his peace.

The streets of the city were crowded, as they usually seemed to be, though even more so now with adventurers from the Alliance and the Horde arriving daily. Maneuvering his way through the people like some sort of ever-changing, flesh maze, Ilrygon finally made it back to the safety of the Citadel. 

The large doors closed behind him, creating an echo throughout the near-empty chamber. A few studious magi looked up from their books to regard him briefly. Ilrygon silently made his way through the lobby and ascended the stairs to the teleportation nexus, which would take him to his tower and floor. 

Stepping onto the platform, he mutters a few words... Then-

Fwhoosh!

He opens his eyes to the familiar violet hall before him and lets out a soft sigh before exiting the chamber. Passing door after door, he finally comes to stop at one. He places one hand on the center of the door, while his other hand grips the doorknob. As he turned the knob, his other hand had begun to twist in the opposite direction, and a web of blue lines began to grow in brightness upon the entirety of the door. Then as the doorknob clicks, the spell fades, and he quickly enters his room, slamming it closed behind him.

Meow.

Ilrygon glanced down to see Ratthief already there to greet him, rubbing upon his leg. He smiled down to the cat before giving him a quick scratch on the head. Standing up, he begins to move to his desk, throwing his satchel and wizard hat onto his bed along the way.

The desk was organized, though it was covered in paperwork, books, and reagents. Three small bowls sat at the center of the workspace. Two of them contained a different type of dust each, while the third held a pile of golden flower petals. As he sits down, Ratthief leaps up onto the desk, demanding attention.

“Not now.” he simply states as he picks up the cat and sets him on the ground beside him.

Ilrygon begins to look over his notes once more before taking a pinch of each reagent before him and combining them into one hand. He begins to quietly chant an incantation...

“Balamore shanal.”

His clenched fist begins to glow a bright lavender before the arcana appears to seep through his fingers. It failed. As he sits there briefly, in disappointment, Ratthief once again joins him upon the desk, rubbing himself against Ilrygon’s fist.

“C’mon now, Ratthief..” he grumbles before once more ushering the cat off the desk.

Again, he gathers the reagents into his hand. Clenching a fist, he begins the incantation once more, this time a little louder.

“Balamore shanal.”

His hand glows the familiar color before completely fading, and just above him at his desk, a faint orb of arcane began to form. His eyes brighten as the object begins to move slowly. Success! Or so he thought.. Suddenly, the familiar dissipates in the air.

“Damn it all!” he growls with a stomp of his foot.

Once again, he gathers his reagents. Feeling Ratthief rub against his leg, he gives him a light nudge out of the way with his foot. Ilrygon closes his eyes and slowly clenches his fist before reciting the incantation one more time.

“Balamore shanal!” he exclaims this time.

In a quick, purple flash, Ilrygon was once again face-to-face with the orb of arcane he managed to create. This time, it appeared stronger. The color was thicker and it was slightly larger this time. The familiar immediately begins to float around the room, as if it were inspecting things. 

Ratthief, who was now resting on his master’s bed, was quite intrigued by this ball of light. Naturally, he began to chase it around the room. The cat dashed about, leaping off of any surface he could in an attempt to catch the arcane familiar. Ilrygon watched in slight amusement, clearly Ratthief couldn’t reach the heights the orb could.

Perching himself atop a bookshelf, Ratthief patiently waited for the moment to strike as the familiar began to make its rounds again. Then, as the orb began to hover about the books, the cat dove upon it, wrestling it to the ground. As they hit, there’s a flash of a bright violet light, which causes all of the candles in the room to go out.

Ilrygon carefully felt his way around the darkened room, trying to find the cat and his familiar, as they made no sound. With a snap of his fingers, the candles lit up once again, though the two were nowhere to be seen. He crouched down and checked under his bed. Nothing. He pulled out every drawer in his room, just in case. Nothing.

Finally, he turns around to see Ratthief laying on his desk next to the candlelight. Ilrygon could sense the same magical aura pulsing within the cat, and as he simply looked at him in curiosity.. Ratthief looked back to his master, with a new spark in his eyes.

[aboveallarescuer]

Dany longing for a home, people to belong to and peace and safety in general

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and smart) or aspects of hers that are usually overstated (e.g. that she's ambitious and prophecy-driven).  Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take. (and that's not even considering the double standards and the contradictions with what had been shown from show!Dany up until then, but that's obviously out of the scope of these lists)

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend (or even simply explore different facets of) Dany's character in metas or conversations.

 *Well, at least all the passages that I could find in her chapters, which is no guarantee that the effort was perfectly executed, but I did my best.

Also, people could interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages if they ever attempted to make one, so I'm not saying that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books and use asearchoficeandfire). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully referenced, sometimes not.

I listed the passages back to front because I felt doing so highlighted Dany's evolution better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To justify the existence of this list, let's see examples of widespread opinions that I feel misrepresent Daenerys Targaryen:

Power is what Daenerys wants and that's really all she wants. She lusts after the Iron Throne with a hunger that is truly baffling. She's not from Westeros, or at least she's never really lived there her entire life. (x)

~

Why does she want to be queen so badly? Is it to bring a more just era of rule to the land? [...]

Why? What will she do with this power? Will she be a good and just monarch or will she be more like her father, the Mad King? More and more I suspect that she will be a very bad queen, only interested in doing what is right only if it helps her secure the Iron Throne. (x)

~

Her ruthlessness can't just mean nothing. She's far too power-hungry and far too cold to end up as a good person, ruling magnanimously over a peaceful land. (x)

Never mind that demanding that Dany asks herself why she wants to be queen is not understanding how the Westerosi pseudofeudalistic system works (or that she outright states that "justice ... that’s what kings are for" in ASOS Dany III).

Is power really all Dany wants, to the point of "lust[ing] after the Iron Throne" (particularly gross wording)? Is Dany "only interested in doing what is right only if it helps her secure the Iron Throne"? Is Dany "far too power-hungry and far too cold to end up as a good person"?

I would argue these claims certainly cannot be made after reading the books (some can't even after watching the show's first 71 episodes, but the show can be all over the place and ... I digress), so take a look at these passages.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

The hill loomed larger down here. Dany had taken to calling it Dragonstone, after the ancient citadel where she’d been born. She had no memories of that Dragonstone, but she would not soon forget this one. Scrub grass and thorny bushes covered its lower slopes; higher up a jagged tangle of bare rock thrust steep and sudden into the sky. There, amidst broken boulders, razor-sharp ridges, and needle spires, Drogon made his lair inside a shallow cave. He had dwelt there for some time, Dany had realized when she first saw the hill. The air smelled of ash, every rock and tree in sight was scorched and blackened, the ground strewn with burned and broken bones, yet it had been home to him.

Dany knew the lure of home.

~

Daenerys Targaryen was no stranger to the Dothraki sea, the great ocean of grass that stretched from the forest of Qohor to the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. She had seen it first when she was still a girl, newly wed to Khal Drogo and on her way to Vaes Dothrak to be presented to the crones of the dosh khaleen. The sight of all that grass stretching out before her had taken her breath away. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and I was full of hope. Ser Jorah had been with her then, her gruff old bear. She’d had Irri and Jhiqui and Doreah to care for her, her sun-and-stars to hold her in the night, his child growing inside her. Rhaego. I was going to name him Rhaego, and the dosh khaleen said he would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Not since those half-remembered days in Braavos when she lived in the house with the red door had she been as happy.

~

No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to. So once again she turned her back upon the distant hill and closed her ears to the song of flight and freedom that the wind sang as it played amongst the hill’s stony ridges. The stream was trickling south by southeast, as near as she could tell. She followed it. Take me to the river, that is all I ask of you. Take me to the river, and I will do the rest.

The hours passed slowly. The stream bent this way and that, and Dany followed, beating time upon her leg with the whip, trying not to think about how far she had to go, or the pounding in her head, or her empty belly. Take one step. Take the next. Another step. Another. What else could she do?

~

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was ... her name ...” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”

~

In the stream or out of it, I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home.

Except it wouldn’t, not truly.

Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy’s city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

ADWD Daenerys IX

She pushed herself to her feet, splashing softly. Water ran down her legs and beaded on her breasts. The sun was climbing up the sky, and her people would soon be gathering. She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself.

~

Treachery on treachery, the queen thought wearily. Is there no end to it?

~

In Westeros the septons spoke of seven hells and seven heavens, but the Seven Kingdoms and their gods were far away. If she died here, Dany wondered, would the horse god of the Dothraki part the grass and claim her for his starry khalasar, so she might ride the nightlands beside her sun-and-stars? Or would the angry gods of Ghis send their harpies to seize her soul and drag her down to torment?

ADWD Daenerys VIII

Every child knows its mother, Dany thought. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves … “They call to me. Come.”

~

Dany slid her arms around him and let him have his way. Drunk as he was, she knew he would not be inside her long.

Nor was he. Afterward he nuzzled at her ear and whispered, “Gods grant that we have made a son tonight.”

The words of Mirri Maz Duur rang in her head. When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before. The meaning was plain enough; Khal Drogo was as like to return from the dead as she was to bear a living child. But there are some secrets she could not bring herself to share, even with a husband, so she let Hizdahr zo Loraq keep his hopes.

Her noble husband was soon fast asleep. Daenerys could only twist and turn beside him. She wanted to shake him, wake him, make him hold her, kiss her, fuck her again, but even if he did, he would fall back to sleep again afterward, leaving her alone in the darkness. She wondered what Daario was doing. Was he restless as well? Was he thinking about her? Did he love her, truly? Did he hate her for marrying Hizdahr? I should never have taken him into my bed. He was only a sellsword, no fit consort for a queen, and yet …

I knew that all along, but I did it anyway.

“My queen?” said a soft voice in the darkness.

Dany flinched. “Who is there?”

“Only Missandei.” The Naathi scribe moved closer to the bed. “This one heard you crying.”

“Crying? I was not crying. Why would I cry? I have my peace, I have my king, I have everything a queen might wish for. You had a bad dream, that was all.”

“As you say, Your Grace.” She bowed and made to go.

“Stay,” said Dany. “I do not wish to be alone.”

“His Grace is with you,” Missandei pointed out.

“His Grace is dreaming, but I cannot sleep. On the morrow I must bathe in blood. The price of peace.” She smiled wanly and patted the bed. “Come. Sit. Talk with me.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

If she had been some ordinary woman, she would gladly have spent her whole life touching Daario, tracing his scars and making him tell her how he’d come by every one. I would give up my crown if he asked it of me, Dany thought … but he had not asked it, and never would.

~

Khal Drogo had been her sun-and-stars, but he had been dead so long that Daenerys had almost forgotten how it felt to love and be loved. Daario had helped her to remember. I was dead and he brought me back to life. I was asleep and he woke me. My brave captain.

~

“...Bring your frog to court tomorrow. The others too. The Westerosi.” It would be nice to hear the Common Tongue from someone besides Ser Barristan.

~

She went to the parapet and stood there gazing down upon the city as she had done a hundred times before. It will never be my city. It will never be my home.

~

It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown. Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on. These are my people. I am their rightful queen. They seemed a scruffy bunch, but that was only to be expected of sellswords. The youngest could not have been more than a year older than her; the oldest must have seen sixty namedays. A few sported signs of wealth: gold arm rings, silken tunics, silverstudded sword belts. Plunder. For the most part, their clothes were plainly made and showed signs of hard wear.

~

When she saw the name Ser Willem Darry, her heart beat a little faster.

~

This was done in Braavos, while we were living in the house with the red door. Why did that make her feel so strange?

ADWD Daenerys VI

Dany tried to speak and found no words. She remembered Ben’s face the last time she had seen it. It was a warm face, a face I trusted. Dark skin and white hair, the broken nose, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Even the dragons had been fond of old Brown Ben, who liked to boast that he had a drop of dragon blood himself. Three treasons will you know. Once for gold and once for blood and once for love. Was Plumm the third treason, or the second? And what did that make Ser Jorah, her gruff old bear? Would she never have a friend that she could trust? What good are prophecies if you cannot make sense of them? If I marry Hizdahr before the sun comes up, will all these armies melt away like morning dew and let me rule in peace? Daario’s announcement had sparked an uproar. [...] “Be quiet! I have heard enough.”

[...] She wanted to scream, to gnash her teeth and tear her clothes and beat upon the floor. Instead she said, “Close the gates. Will you make me say it thrice?” They were her children, but she could not help them now. “Leave me. Daario, remain. That cut should be washed, and I have more questions for you.”

[...] He kissed her.

[...] “I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”

ADWD Daenerys III

Dany could feel the warmth of his fingers. He was warm in Qarth as well, she recalled, until the day he had no more use for me.

~

That only made him chuckle. “The Dothraki horselords call the Lhazarene the Lamb Men. When you shear them, all they do is bleat. They are not a martial people.”

Even a sheepish friend is better than none.

~

Dany had never known a home. In Braavos, there had been a house with a red door, but that was all.

~

Westeros. Home. But if she left, what would happen to her city?

~

The next morning Dany woke as full of hope as she had been since first she came to Slaver’s Bay. Daario would soon be at her side once more, and together they would sail for Westeros. For home.

~

Take these ships and sail away, or you will surely die screaming. You cannot know how many enemies you have made.”

I know one stands before me now, weeping mummer’s tears. The realization made her sad.

~

Dany seated herself upon her bench again to gaze across the blue silk sea, toward distant Westeros. One day, she promised herself.

ADWD Daenerys I

She had been dreaming of a house with a red door when Missandei woke her. There had been no time to dress.

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.

Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. Missandei had told her of the Lord of Harmony, worshiped by the Peaceful People of Naath; he was the only true god, her little scribe said, the god who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and earth, and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of Harmony. Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone for all time, attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or unmake at a word. Westeros had seven gods at least, though Viserys had told her that some septons said the seven were only aspects of a single god, seven facets of a single crystal. That was just confusing. The red priests believed in two gods, she had heard, but two who were eternally at war. Dany liked that even less. She would not want to be eternally at war.

~

The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.

~

She looked away until she heard the doors open and close. Then she sank back onto the ebony bench. He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers, Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died inside me, and now Ser Jorah ...

~

She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.

ASOS Daenerys V

“Khaleesi, it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love ...”

“Do not say that word!” She backed away from him. “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The Undying had said she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised?”

“Varys said ... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

I was going to take you home! [...] Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe?

ASOS Daenerys IV

Dany found herself wondering whether he was right about Daario. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.”

~

Dany looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?”

“It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.’”

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. “Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!” They were all smiling at her, reaching for her, kneeling before her.

ASOS Daenerys I

Across the still blue water came the slow steady beat of drums and the soft swish of oars from the galleys. The great cog groaned in their wake, the heavy lines stretched taut between. Balerion’s sails hung limp, drooping forlorn from the masts. Yet even so, as she stood upon the forecastle watching her dragons chase each other across a cloudless blue sky, Daenerys Targaryen was as happy as she could ever remember being.

~

The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives. She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well. She liked the dolphins that sometimes swam along beside Balerion, slicing through the waves like silvery spears, and the flying fish they glimpsed now and again. She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she’d watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor.

~

They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am ever like to have.

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

It was not by choice that she sought the waterfront. She was fleeing again. Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother’s womb, and never once stopped. How often had she and Viserys stolen away in the black of night, a bare step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives? But it was run or die. Xaro had learned that Pyat Pree was gathering the surviving warlocks together to work ill on her.

~

Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to their great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again. Dany herself had toyed with the idea of settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong.

~

It was good to hear men speaking Valyrian once more, and even the Common Tongue, Dany thought as they approached the first ship.

ACOK Daenerys III

Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference.

~

“...The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied.”

“One thing,” she repeated. “And it may not be denied?”

“With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little.”

Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men.

ACOK Daenerys II

She wondered whether Aegon’s Red Keep had a pool like this, and fragrant gardens full of lavender and mint. It must, surely. Viserys always said the Seven Kingdoms were more beautiful than any other place in the world.

The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

But before she could do that she must conquer.

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys VIII

Dany did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak and live the rest of her life among those terrible old women, yet she knew that the knight spoke the truth. Drogo had been more than her sun-and-stars; he had been the shield that kept her safe. “I will not leave him,” she said stubbornly, miserably. She took his hand again. “I will not.”

~

“All I can do now is ease the dark road before him, so he might ride painless to the night lands. He will be gone by morning.”

Her words were a knife through Dany’s breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope. She was finally going home. And now to lose it all ... “No,” she pleaded. “Save him, and I will free you, I swear it. You must know a way ... some magic, some ...”

AGOT Daenerys VI

“The stallion who mounts the world has no need of iron chairs.”

[...] “It was prophesied that the stallion will ride to the ends of the earth,” she said.

“The earth ends at the black salt sea,” Drogo answered at once. He wet a cloth in a basin of warm water to wipe the sweat and oil from his skin. “No horse can cross the poison water.”

“In the Free Cities, there are ships by the thousand,” Dany told him, as she had told him before. “Wooden horses with a hundred legs, that fly across the sea on wings full of wind.”

Khal Drogo did not want to hear it. “We will speak no more of wooden horses and iron chairs.” [...]

Savage beasts he did not fear, nor any man who had ever drawn breath, but the sea was a different matter. To the Dothraki, water that a horse could not drink was something foul; the heaving grey-green plains of the ocean filled them with superstitious loathing. Drogo was a bolder man than the other horselords in half a hundred ways, she had found ... but not in this. If only she could get him onto a ship ...

~

“My princess. How may I serve you?”

“You must talk to my lord husband,” Dany said. “Drogo says the stallion who mounts the world will have all the lands of the earth to rule, and no need to cross the poison water. He talks of leading his khalasar east after Rhaego is born, to plunder the lands around the Jade Sea.”

[...] “The khal has never seen the Seven Kingdoms,” he said. [...]

“But he must ride west,” Dany said, despairing. “Please, help me make him understand.” She had never seen the Seven Kingdoms either, no more than Drogo, yet she felt as though she knew them from all the tales her brother had told her. Viserys had promised her a thousand times that he would take her back one day, but he was dead now and his promises had died with him.

“The Dothraki do things in their own time, for their own reasons,” the knight answered. “Have patience, Princess. Do not make your brother’s mistake. We will go home, I promise you.”

Home? The word made her feel sad. Ser Jorah had his Bear Island, but what was home to her? A few tales, names recited as solemnly as the words of a prayer, the fading memory of a red door ... was Vaes Dothrak to be her home forever? When she looked at the crones of the dosh khaleen, was she looking at her future?

~

You could never tell what treasures the traders might bring this time, and it would be good to hear men speaking Valyrian again, as they did in the Free Cities.

~

If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home. She was khaleesi, she had a strong man and a swift horse, handmaids to serve her, warriors to keep her safe, an honored place in the dosh khaleen awaiting her when she grew old ... and in her womb grew a son who would one day bestride the world. That should be enough for any woman ... but not for the dragon. With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget.

~

But the Western Market smelled of home.

As Irri and Jhiqui helped her from her litter, she sniffed, and recognized the sharp odors of garlic and pepper, scents that reminded Dany of days long gone in the alleys of Tyrosh and Myr and brought a fond smile to her face. Under that she smelled the heady sweet perfumes of Lys. She saw slaves carrying bolts of intricate Myrish lace and fine wools in a dozen rich colors. Caravan guards wandered among the aisles in copper helmets and knee-length tunics of quilted yellow cotton, empty scabbards swinging from their woven leather belts. Behind one stall an armorer displayed steel breastplates worked with gold and silver in ornate patterns, and helms hammered in the shapes of fanciful beasts. Next to him was a pretty young woman selling Lannisport goldwork, rings and brooches and torcs and exquisitely wrought medallions suitable for belting. A huge eunuch guarded her stall, mute and hairless, dressed in sweat-stained velvets and scowling at anyone who came close. Across the aisle, a fat cloth trader from Yi Ti was haggling with a Pentoshi over the price of some green dye, the monkey tail on his hat swaying back and forth as he shook his head.

“When I was a little girl, I loved to play in the bazaar,” Dany told Ser Jorah as they wandered down the shady aisle between the stalls. “It was so alive there, all the people shouting and laughing, so many wonderful things to look at ... though we seldom had enough coin to buy anything ... well, except for a sausage now and again, or honeyfingers ... do they have honeyfingers in the Seven Kingdoms, the kind they bake in Tyrosh?”

[...] Her handmaids trailed along as Dany resumed her stroll through the market. “Oh, look,” she exclaimed to Doreah, “those are the kind of sausages I meant.” She pointed to a stall where a wizened little woman was grilling meat and onions on a hot firestone. “They make them with lots of garlic and hot peppers.” Delighted with her discovery, Dany insisted the others join her for a sausage. Her handmaids wolfed theirs down giggling and grinning, though the men of her khas sniffed at the grilled meat suspiciously. “They taste different than I remember,” Dany said after her first few bites.

“In Pentos, I make them with pork,” the old woman said, “but all my pigs died on the Dothraki sea. These are made of horsemeat, Khaleesi, but I spice them the same.”

“Oh.” Dany felt disappointed, but Quaro liked his sausage so well he decided to have another one, and Rakharo had to outdo him and eat three more, belching loudly. Dany giggled.

“You have not laughed since your brother the Khal Rhaggat was crowned by Drogo,” said Irri. “It is good to see, Khaleesi.”

Dany smiled shyly. It was sweet to laugh. She felt half a girl again.

~

She did take a dozen flasks of scented oils, the perfumes of her childhood; she had only to close her eyes and sniff them and she could see the big house with the red door once more.

AGOT Daenerys IV

Every khal had his bloodriders. At first Dany had thought of them as a kind of Dothraki Kingsguard, sworn to protect their lord, but it went further than that. Jhiqui had taught her that a bloodrider was more than a guard; they were the khal’s brothers, his shadows, his fiercest friends. “Blood of my blood,” Drogo called them, and so it was; they shared a single life. The ancient traditions of the horselords demanded that when the khal died, his bloodriders died with him, to ride at his side in the night lands. If the khal died at the hands of some enemy, they lived only long enough to avenge him, and then followed him joyfully into the grave. In some khalasars, Jhiqui said, the bloodriders shared the khal’s wine, his tent, and even his wives, though never his horses. A man’s mount was his own.

Daenerys was glad that Khal Drogo did not hold to those ancient ways. She should not have liked being shared. And while old Cohollo treated her kindly enough, the others frightened her; Haggo, huge and silent, often glowered as if he had forgotten who she was, and Qotho had cruel eyes and quick hands that liked to hurt. He left bruises on Doreah’s soft white skin whenever he touched her, and sometimes made Irri sob in the night. Even his horses seemed to fear him.

Yet they were bound to Drogo for life and death, so Daenerys had no choice but to accept them. And sometimes she found herself wishing her father had been protected by such men. In the songs, the white knights of the Kingsguard were ever noble, valiant, and true, and yet King Aerys had been murdered by one of them, the handsome boy they now called the Kingslayer, and a second, Ser Barristan the Bold, had gone over to the Usurper. She wondered if all men were as false in the Seven Kingdoms. When her son sat the Iron Throne, she would see that he had bloodriders of his own to protect him against treachery in his Kingsguard. ~

“Please, bring me one of the dragon’s eggs.”

Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her ... as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. “You are the dragon,” Dany whispered to him, “the true dragon. I know it. I know it.” And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

AGOT Daenerys III

“Have you forgotten who you are? Look at you. Look at you!”

Dany did not need to look. She was barefoot, with oiled hair, wearing Dothraki riding leathers and a painted vest given her as a bride gift. She looked as though she belonged here. Viserys was soiled and stained in city silks and ringmail.

~

“What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?” she asked him.

“Home,” he said. His voice was thick with longing.

“I pray for home too,” she told him, believing it.

Ser Jorah laughed. “Look around you then, Khaleesi.”

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red.

AGOT Daenerys II

Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and sweetgrass stews and delicate pastries from the kitchens of Pentos, but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she could keep none of it down.

There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to hear her.

So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talking silently to herself.

AGOT Daenerys I

When he was gone, Dany went to her window and looked out wistfully on the waters of the bay. The square brick towers of Pentos were black silhouettes outlined against the setting sun. Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo’s manse.

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. The Dothraki called that land Rhaesh Andahli, the land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. “Our land,” he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. “Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.”

And perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not. She had never seen this land her brother said was theirs, this realm beyond the narrow sea. These places he talked of, Casterly Rock and the Eyrie, Highgarden and the Vale of Arryn, Dorne and the Isle of Faces, they were just words to her. Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King’s Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper, but Daenerys had been only a quickening in their mother’s womb.

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship’s black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King’s Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper’s dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father’s throat with a golden sword.

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper’s brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her “Little Princess” and sometimes “My Lady,” and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

 [...] “We will have it all back someday, sweet sister,” he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. “The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back.” Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

~

“Those three are Drogo’s bloodriders, there,” he said. “By the pillar is Khal Moro, with his son Rhogoro. The man with the green beard is brother to the Archon of Tyrosh, and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont.”

The last name caught Daenerys. “A knight?”

“No less.” Illyrio smiled through his beard. “Anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself.”

“What is he doing here?” she blurted.

“The Usurper wanted his head,” Illyrio told them. “Some trifling affront. He sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night’s Watch. Absurd law. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel.”

“I shall wish to speak with Ser Jorah before the night is done,” her brother said. Dany found herself looking at the knight curiously. He was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. Instead of silks and cottons, he wore wool and leather. His tunic was a dark green, embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs.

She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder.

~

“I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”

“Home?” He kept his voice low, but she could hear the fury in his tone. “How are we to go home, sweet sister? They took our home from us!” He drew her into the shadows, out of sight, his fingers digging into her skin. “How are we to go home?” he repeated, meaning King’s Landing, and Dragonstone, and all the realm they had lost.

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio’s estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him. His fingers dug hard into her arm, demanding an answer. “I don’t know ...” she said at last, her voice breaking. Tears welled in her eyes.

[secret-engima]

Ever since you mentioned Ace and Nox meeting I literally cannot stop thinking about it because Ace would just. Be so confused about Nox existing. (Also I'm just seeing Tredd or Luche introducing Nox to Ace's cooking)

OHHHH OH YES THAT. I’ve been meaning to do something with that *rolls up sleeves* HERE WE GO THEN:

IN CANON, Noctis has something of a …. Talent for either stumbling into other dimensions of meeting them (the hiso hiso and the miqo’te lady side quests, as well as Dissidia NT if you wanna count that which I DO) and Ace has something of a penchant for running to trouble because honestly the Astrals need entertainment from somewhere and apparently they don’t get cable or streaming in that blue Void of theirs. So the way I see it- either Nox accidentally goes to Ace’s universe for a few days, or Ace accidentally goes to Nox’s for a few days.

Because I love both ideas, I shall do both. This is gonna get Very Long™ (edit: It’s almost 3k words WHAT IN THE WORLD ME-).

Option One: In Which Nox Really Needs To Watch His Step More and Axis and Fem!Nyx Get Dragged Into Things.

-It starts when Nox trips. Seriously. That’s how it starts. Nox trips and Something Happens in the split second his best friend and his girlfriend/wife grab his arms to steady him and then- they’re falling. Like- seriously falling. Falling from 10+ stories up kinda falling and Axis is cursing the entire time Nyx grabs Axis and warps to the relative safety of one rooftop, expecting Nox to do the same. He does, but he misjudges the threshold of Impact Resistance that the roof he lands on holds (that or the Astrals are laughing at him again). It breaks under him and he topples down in a crash of magic and debris onto a slightly cushy landing of broken crates (hey better than concrete or solid ice) and … glass?

-Why are his clothes soaked with what looks but does not smell or feel like blood?

-He is just pondering this quandary (is this whiskey? It smells like whiskey did he just crash through the roof of a bar?) when the door to the storeroom in which he’s landed slams open and in rushes a very unhappy looking Galahdian with a very large knife and braids in a style he doesn’t recognize. The Galahdian stares at him with wide, vaguely disbelieving eyes, Nox barely refrains from summoning a knife of his own (he’s not a threat, he’s a Galahdian twice-over now and Axis insists that means no Galahdian in their right mind will try to hurt him without due provocation).

-(He really hopes accidentally falling through the ceiling and ruining who knows how much whiskey/wine/whatever doesn’t count as due provocation.)

-Thankfully, all the stranger does is slowly sheath his knife and look both exasperated and amused, “Care to explain what just happened?” He says and something inside Nox … jolts.

-Nox swears he hears the low whispers of thunder and magic in the man’s voice, buried as it is under a veil of humanity and normalcy. But surely that’s his imagination.

-Nox pries himself free of the rubble and ruined alcohol, inwardly mourning his no-doubt ruined clothes (they’d been so comfy too) and the stranger looks sympathetic as Nox futilely tries to wring a bit of the alcohol out of his sleeves as he answers, “I have … honestly no idea.” Because weird as his life is, even he usually doesn’t take a step forward, trip and somehow go from inside the Citadel to somewhere in the … he’s going to assume he’s in the Galahdian district because this is a bar with a Galahdian worker (owner?). The last time he blinked and went from one place to somewhere drastically different had been-.

-Dissidia. The Hiso Hiso.

-Astrals please no.

-Nox looks up and can hear the slight beg in his voice as he says, “Please tell me I’m still in Insomnia during the reign of King Regis Lucis Caelum.”

-The stranger’s eyebrows go up almost to his hairline (which is a fair reaction to his question) but answers, “….Yes?”

-Oh good. Now to figure out if he was in his Insomnia or some kind of parallel dimension because at this point he’s not very optimistic on his odds.

-He opens his mouth to make his excuses and get out of there when the stranger cuts him off with a bemused, “Need a new shirt? You can borrow one of mine.”

-He blinks, narrows his eyes in instinctive suspicion, “Why would you help me?”

-“You’re a kid,” points out the amused man, “and a Galahdian.”

-Nox refrains from pointing out that he’s nineteen and technically married, because a new shirt sounds nice and this is the one day he didn’t pack a spare outfit in his armiger. The man takes him to a different room of the definitely-a-bar and produces a spare shirt (short-sleeved unfortunately but Nox will take what he can get) from somewhere, which Nox takes gratefully. His pants are still a mess, but at least he doesn’t smell so strongly of whiskey. He’s thanks the man (who introduces himself simply as Ace) profusely and offers to try to pay for the damages (not like he can’t afford it with a prince’s allowance). Ace turns him down with a shake of his head, reaches out to lightly touch Nox’s elbow (the man hasn’t commented on the scars the t-shirt reveals, Nox is grateful for that too).

-The moment they make contact, the world turns blue and violet. Nox can feel the other man’s magic, pulsing under his skin like the tooth-shaking rumble of thunder and the flicker of lightning in the far distance, taste the ozone on his tongue and feel the jungle rains Nyx speaks of so fondly. Ace’s magic feels like the jungle and the wilds and yet also like the soft snows that settle over a battlefield after the bodies have cooled and Nox’s gaze snaps around in astonishment. He can’t stop himself from reaching out with his own magic in greeting-curiosity-shock toward this- this other Lucis Caelum (sibling? Is he in his home dimension or another’s? Is this man his brother or someone who was never born in Nox’s world?).

-(To Ace, the teen he’s just touched suddenly seems to burn like a star barely captured in flesh, his eyes glow red and Ace can taste blood on his tongue, feel it drip down his chest from the gaping sword wound he knows isn’t there. He can feel the teen’s magic, like crushing ocean depths and the broken, too-deep hush of old ruins. He can feel ash caking his skin like being back in the rubble of his home village. In the back of his mind he recoils, because soul is magic and magic is soul and this teenager’s is a blood-stained, centuries old battlefield).

-They both stare at each other for what feels like too long and not enough before Ace jerks his hand away like he’s been burned (maybe he has, Nox’s magic is still too much for his skin sometimes, still lashes out when he’s too startled to stop it). Ace cradles his hand and curls his magic so tight into his soul Nox can barely feel it (wouldn’t feel it if he didn’t already know it was there). “Well,” Ace manages after several more seconds of mutual staring, “I wasn’t … expecting that.”

-Nox blinks twice, feels realization settle in his bones, “You don’t want anyone else to know.” He can feel it in the way Ace is hiding himself, see it in the wary glint of silver eyes. He understands perfectly. He hid from Regis too for as long as he could.

-Ace laughs a little breathlessly, “You don’t?”

-Nox isn’t given a chance to answer, because that’s right when Nyx and Axis finally figure out where he is and how to get there without jumping through the hole he left in the bar roof.

-He can hear Axis flinging open the door to the bar and Nox is instantly grateful that it’s empty of everyone but him and Ace because his Shield almost bellows through the empty building, “Nox. Izunia. Lucis. Caelum. Arra. Ulric.” Nox hunches his shoulders, hears Ace sputter beside him in confusion at the ridiculous number of last names Axis used.

-“In here, Axis.”

-Axis and Nyx poke their heads in the back and Ace’s sputtering gets louder, then quiets as Axis storms over and slaps Nox across the back of his head and snarls, “What did you just do?”

-“Fell through the roof of a bar and made a new friend,” Nox snarks back past the sting in the back of his head, “Axis, Nyx, this is Ace, Ace, this is my friend and my wife, Axis Arra and Nyx Ulric.”

-Ace definitely makes a strangled, confused noise, silver eyes wide before he takes a deep breath, exhales slowly, and announces, “I’m getting everyone a drink. Go sit at the bar.”

-Ten minutes later, the bar’s sign reads “closed”, Ace has gotten everyone drinks and served up some kind of Galahdian dish too spicy to be healthy (but one Nox loves anyway, this guy is a great cook), and they’ve all concluded that Nox straight up tripped into a parallel dimension and dragged Axis and Nyx along with him. Because Ace is certain that he knows Axis Arra and Nyx Ulric and they should know him (he also gives Nyx several looks that are a mix of horrified, confused, and extremely amused, which Nox doesn’t get at all).

-Apparently, Ace is the result of Regis and a Galahdian woman having a night, no, he has not told anyone else, and yes, he really would like that to stay a secret. Nox has no qualms with that, Axis just smacks Nox over the head again because parallel dimension and Nyx stares maybe too intently at Ace’s braids.

-Because apparently braid meanings and symbols are a bit different in this dimension. Or something. And it’s confusing Nyx to no end.

-“So,” Axis sighs finally once his temper has been settled, “what do we do now?”

-Nox shrugs, “Don’t get killed, don’t make trouble, and wait for either one of our Astrals to come fix it or for it to wear off on its own. These things never usually last long.”

-Axis, Nyx, and Ace all stare at him before Nyx sighs into her hands, “Nox. Babe. Love of my life. Tell me you did not just imply that this is a normal thing for you.”

-“Well- I wouldn’t say normal but….” Axis turns to look Ace straight in the eye, without a word, Ace passes over something much stronger than before. Nox feels vaguely insulted. He’s not that bad is he?

-It takes three days and one very annoyed Shiva (apparently the Astrals of this universe barring Ramuh are jerks?) for the “Trip” to wear off, during which Nox, Axis, and Nyx all lie low at Ace’s place. And by “laying low” what Nox really means is stay well away from the Citadel and any potential Dad Confusion and get gawked at by the various glaives that visit Ace’s bar. There’s no hiding that Axis is from another dimension, though Nox takes care not to go by Lucis Caelum or Izunia around them, just Ulric (which, of course, gets him stared at even more than being an LC, though not as much as his Nyx gets stared at, because Nyx is a guy here and apparently seeing a female Nyx is breaking everyone’s brain. The Libertus of this world just about has a heart attack when he comes in and sees two Nyx’s of opposite sexes staring each other down with trouble-making grins).

-(Nox was the only one who didn’t choke on his drink when his Nyx cheerfully announced to all and sundry that her counterpart was hot and clearly anyone would be lucky to land a date with him. Axis dryly pointed out that it still counted as narcissism if you complemented your counterpart, Nyx just laughed and flopped onto Nox’s legs like she was queen and he was her throne, which made the male Nyx stare and Ace crack up laughing).

-Eventually though, the Trip wears off and they find themselves back in the Citadel with an adventure to tell and a bunch of Very Panicked Adults who want to know how they disappeared for a week and why (and a list of names to check because Nyx might never have met an Ace in her childhood, but that didn’t mean one might not exist and Nox is nothing but thorough about his family).

Option Two: In Which Ace Has A Very Strange Week

-Ace has gotten used to the fact that life (the Astrals) like to mess with him. It’s just- it’s a thing. It’s a thing he hates but there it is.

-But he’s still not used to the entire world glitching out around him like a video game, tripping on air and then landing not in his apartment where he was standing five seconds ago but on the marble floors of-

-The Citadel.

-Great.

-Ace scrambles to his feet, hoping against hope he can sneak out before whatever trouble is coming next can find him, only to hear someone order him to hold still and explain his arrival, look up and see-

-Nyx?

-No wait. This was a woman. A woman who could have been Nyx’s twin, but a woman.

-W h a t ?

-The woman appears to be of similar opinion, eyeing him in confusion before glancing at the other person in the room, “Friend of yours, Nox?”

-Magic swells over him as Ace turns to look at the “Nox” person and he has maybe five seconds to register the inhumanly old gaze and the angry claws of magic sinking into his skin before his own magic reacts against his will, shoves outward in a flicker of violet and ghostly royal arms. It’s not, creepily enough, enough to shake off the foreign magic, but it is enough to startle the Lucis Caelum he doesn’t recognize into backing down. Red eyes turn blue and blink at him while Ace struggles not to swear a blue streak at revealing himself in the Citadel, then the strange Lucis Caelum says, “Oh. You’re not from around here. Let me guess, the world glitched out, or you tripped on thin air, or something happened and now you’re not where you were a few seconds ago?”

-Ace decides he both does and doesn’t want to know how this guy knows that and stiffly nods. The teen (Nox? He was pretty sure this guy’s name was Nox) nodded back, looking far to calm for the situation, and turns to the Nyx look-alike, “Come on then. He can slum at your place until we sort this out.”

-The woman raises her eyebrows in a miffed expression that Ace … knows (oh no. Oh no-no-no this better not be what he thinks this is, his life is not a sci-fi show and this better not be that one episode those kinds of stupid dramas always throw in-), “I’m sorry, when did we agree on that?”

-“The alternative is to stand here and get caught and then explain to my father that no, he doesn’t actually have yet another illegitimate son running around. What’s your preference?”

-They go to the woman’s apartment.

-It’s Nyx’s apartment.

-Same address and nicknacks and everything. Just … missing all traces of Selena or Ace himself. There’s only a few traces of Lib and some scattered objects that clearly represent someone, but Ace doesn’t know who (he has a nasty suspicion its the teen in charge of this escape, the one with long black hair and strong magic and several braids that look a lot like Arra and Ulric braids but … off somehow).

-In the safety of the apartment that is Nyx’s but not, Nox introduces himself, then introduces the woman as … Nyx Ulric.

-Ace maybe gets weird looks from them when he gives into the urge to swear. Because really? REALLY? This is his life now.

-Nox gives him a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder and promises to have Shiva sort things out (then shrugs off the stares Nyx and Ace give him at the casual implication that he can boss around an Astral or three). Nyx shrugs and says Ace is free to take the couch, but only if he tells her stories about his world, once Nox and Ace convince her that yes Ace is from another world.

-Naturally, because fate hates Ace, the Libertus of this world walks in on them in the middle of their plotting. Libertus is even more skeptical about a “Lucis Caelum from another world” but Ace has pictures of him and Nyx and Lib and those plus his braids (which are similar but also not to the Galahdian braids they are used to) is enough to sway him.

-It takes a week for Nox and apparently the rest of this dimension’s Astrals to sort everything out (Nox comes back to the apartment at one point snarling about wanting to kick dragon tail and roast fish innards, Ace can relate), during which Libertus and Fem!Nyx alternate between tiptoeing around him and pestering for information (Nyx goes … very, very quiet when Ace asks about her Selena. Ace doesn’t ask again, and is grateful when Nyx lets herself be distracted with pictures of her counterpart)

-(“I’m hot,” she announces smugly, “Lib you owe me twenty gil.” To which Lib sputters, because apparently that bet had been made five years ago when drunk and could not be expected to be valid because really what are the chances of running into an alternate dimension Lucis Caelum that knows a male Nyx? Fem!Nyx gets her money anyway with a mischievous grin that makes Ace ache a little inside).

-Nox, who is far more entertaining to be around than Ace expected another Lucis Caelum to be, finally gets things sorted out and arranged for his return. Ace shows up at his proper apartment a week after tripping into another world and is instantly mobbed by a frantic Lib, Nyx, and Selena who do not believe him about parallel worlds until Ace whips out the photos and phone recordings he got.

-(“Huh,” Nyx breaches the silence after they’ve all seen the video other!Libertus took for him of Fem!Nyx and Nox kicking each other around a training ground, “I’m hot.” Ace laughs, Lib just groans and slaps Nyx on the back of the head because that’s not the issue here, Nyx.)

[joachimnapoleon]

“He had nonetheless ceased to reign”

[Monument of General Belliard in Brussels]

General Belliard, former chief of staff of Murat, recounts the final, sad days of Murat’s reign in Naples. (Mémoires du Comte Belliard, Vol I, 1842; pages 235-242). (Any translation errors are mine.)

[Part 2/2] (Part 1 can be found here.)

***

I sought to console him by showing him France soon victorious under the sword of the Emperor Napoleon. I urged him to retire at once behind the Volturno, to fortify Capua, in order to be able, behind his ramparts, to win time and to work to re-raise the morale of his troops. Unfortunately, this council was followed too late: the king wanted, he said, before taking his lines, to go give a lesson to the Austrian division which advanced against his guard, at San-Germano. This guard was surprised and dispersed even before his arrival, and from this moment all hope was lost. In vain, seconded by the clergy who showed him a great devotion, he tried by proclamations to bring forth courage into this weakened body: the army disbanded; it was no longer possible to travel with impunity; the officers carrying orders were assassinated; disorder had reached its height. At headquarters, at Caserta, a thousand plans were formed, without any being adopted. They wanted to gather the parliament and give a constitution. I was entirely opposed to these ideas: first, I said it was ridiculous to give a constitution on the eve of his departure, because the king could remain no longer, and for the moment his reign was finished; then, he would close the most splendid gate for a return, since this constitution given and received would be necessarily accepted by the arriving sovereign: then the country finding all well would no longer desire anything; whereas in leaving things in the status quo, there would be no fear of Ferdinand wanting to augment the sum of liberty for his good people (his ideas on that were well known). I added only that I would find the the gathering of parliament convenient, in the sense that the king would expose to it the state of things, and, immolating his interests to those of the nation, would leave to this parliament the care of treating with the enemy; then he would make a beautiful sacrifice and retire in an honorable manner without abdicating: that he would conserve as well his rights and arrange all the means of vindicating himself one day. As usually happens in such cases, there was deliberation but no action; a firm will was lacking. During this time, the Austrians proposed to General Carascosa to treat with him and the other Neapolitan generals, urging him to abandon the king, and assuring him that they would be putting on the throne a man who would better suit the nation, even General Carascosa himself, if the Neapolitans demanded it; but they refused all participation of the king, whom they no longer recognized.

On the day of the 18th, the enemy made a movement from the left to threaten Caserta, where the king had only a regiment of his guard. It made one equally from the right, by approaching from the Volturno, over which it tried to throw up a bridge. The king then had to return to Naples, where he arrived at nine o'clock in the evening. He was received with enthusiasm on the Toledo Road, and when he descended from his carriage at the door of the palace, the national guard lifted him up and carried him to his apartments. He had nonetheless ceased to reign.

In effect, the English like the Austrians no longer wanted to hear the king spoken of, recognizing only the power of the queen for all that might relate to special arrangements. At midnight, General Carascosa, to whom the king had entrusted the command of all the troops, told H. M. what had happened, and returned immediately to Capua, bearing the tacit authorization, for himself and the other generals, to treat with the Austrians.

The day of the 19th was employed in taking measure to maintain order, and to assure the departure of all persons who could no longer remain in Naples.

The king had decided that he would go shut himself up in Gaeta, in order to defend it to the last extremity. That same day of the 19th, a nine o'clock in the evening, disguised as a sailor, he travelled to Pozzuoli with the people who would accompany him, and throwing himself into a fishing boat, he directed it towards Gaeta; but at the heights of Conegliano, he met an English brick and frigate which barred his passage, and forced him to disembark at Ischia. The next day he boarded a vessel which bore an English flag and which conducted him and General Manhes to France.

After a long interview with the queen, this same night of the 19th to the 20th of May, I embarked on the schooner l'Etoile, which had parted from the Emperor's flotilla, and which he had sent, after his disembarkation, to the coasts of Naples, awaiting events.

On the 20th, in the morning, at the moment when we were going to put to sail, an English fleet, six vessels strong, made its entry into the harbor and insolently anchored under the palace. This unexpected apparition urged me to return to the queen anew, who initially seemed to want to show some energy, but who, soon, ceded to the deceptive offers of Admirial Pelew, consenting to everything these former and dear allies wanted. She embarked on board the Tremendous, which should have transported her to France. There was some agitation in the city; the customs house was burned; but the national guard having deployed a great firmness, Naples was saved from pillage. The English landed some soldiers, and spent all day emptying the magazines to refill their vessels. What noble allies!... Because they could not be enemies of both Murat and Ferdinand.

The queen was on board an English vessel; everything was consummated. I could do nothing more, either for her or for France; I was going to take leave of Her Majesty and prepare to depart. But the admiral pretended, before my departure, to inspect the schooner, in order to know if Murat was on board. I gave my word of honor that the king was not on my vessel; but I declared that no one would inspect me; that I would not suffer a similar injury to my flag, and that I would defend it to the death. I had no response, and despite my role as ambassador, I had to await the pleasure of Monsieur the admiral.

In the morning we received the convention made between the Austrian and Neapolitan generals. The principal articles were that all remaining troops would return to Naples; that all the plazas, citadels, forts, magazines, etc, would be remitted to the coalition army, in order to be then given to His Majesty Ferdinand; that all titles, grades and honors accorded by King Joachim would be maintained; that all French or foreigners, civilian and military, would be free to retire, and would be furnished their passports, etc.

After twenty-four hours of waiting, I sent anew an aide-de-camp to the admiral, with a letter in which I protested against his conduct in my regard; he refused still, and only when he perceived that I had given the order to set sail, did he authorize our departure on the 21st, at night. On the 22nd, at the heights of Conegliano, an English brick sent us three rounds, and we were forced to heave to, our vessel not being armed. An officer presented himself and renewed the pretention of inspecting us. I received him so well that after having hesitated a long time and having regarded me quite a bit, he took his leave and returned to his vessel; we continued on our route. Welcomed by a storm that lasted for eleven hours, at the height of Piombino, we had to rest on the island of Elba in order to repair our damage. I arrived in Toulon on the 29th, in the evening, recalling from my journey only the regret of not being able to be useful either to my country or to the prince who had, on every occasion, shown me so much kindness and affection.

[lawrenceop]

Holy Land Retrospective - Day 1

A JOURNEY OF FAITH: INTRODUCTION

One year ago, on the feast of Divine Mercy, I made my way to Heathrow airport after Mass, for my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This journey, organised by 206 Tours, was an answer to my prayers. Until recently I did not feel ready nor worthy to walk in that place where “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14). But shortly after I returned from studies in Washington DC, I felt this yearning to see the Holy Land, and so I prayed for the opportunity to go, and I left it in God’s hands. Two weeks later, an email arrived inviting me to serve as one of a team of spiritual directors on a unique pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the company of Jim Caviezel, and led by the wonderful Fr Donald Calloway MIC. Truly, God is provident, and his generosity exceeds our asking! 

Divine Mercy Sunday 2020 was the 28th of April, and I flew out on a night flight after a rather gruelling round of questions at the airport. At one point, I did not think I would be allowed to board but I kept clutching my Rosary and saying prayers silently. I entrusted all to Jesus who, it seemed to me, had arranged this pilgrimage for me at this opportune time, just after the Easter Octave.

On this nine-day pilgrimage, I took 1453 photos on my phone, and I shared the best of these on Facebook as we went. I often find that this is the best way to share my experiences with my family and friends. I also had my DSLR camera with me, and I took 1416 photos with my camera. I have been sharing these photos on my Flickr page, posting on liturgically appropriate days. For example, on the feast of the Annunciation (25 March) I shared this photo of the site of Mary’s house in Nazareth where the Word became incarnate in Our Lady’s womb.

Now as the liturgical anniversary of this wonderful pilgrimage comes round, I wanted to relive those days; to give thanks to God and Our Lady for this trip; to remember the places we saw, and the people I met; and to reflect theologically and spiritually on this pilgrimage with the aide-memoire of the photos I took. It shall be a novena of sorts. 

For, in what follows, for the next nine days, I will post no more than nine photos a day (sometimes fewer), and I will choose photos taken on my camera only, and which I have not already uploaded to Flickr. Clicking on the link for each photo (links are all in red text) will take you to the Flickr page where you can see the photo in larger sizes. This exercise is meant to help challenge me to look at the entire photo collection again with fresh eyes. I hope it will help you, too, to see the places associated with Christ and the mysteries of our salvation. Thank you for joining me on this journey of faith.

ARRIVAL IN THE HOLY LAND

I arrived at daybreak in Israel, on the Monday of ‘Low Week’. The drive to Jerusalem took about an hour, and my eyes soaked in the landscape before me, the topography that Jesus had also looked upon; the dusky green foliage; a field heavy with wheat and ripe for the harvesting (cf Lk 10:2). And we went across hills and through rocky ravines, going from the seaside city of Tel Aviv to the ancient hill-top citadel of Jerusalem. As we approached the words of Psalm 48 resounded in my mind: “His holy mountain rises in beauty, the joy of all the earth.Mount Zion, true pole of the earth, the Great King’s city! God, in the midst of its citadels, has shown himself its stronghold.”

Green wooded hills gave way to white stone as various dwellings and buildings were perched on the hills, and soon, I saw banners with the lion of Judah on them: we had arrived in the Holy City of Jerusalem. But, above all, that first morning in the Holy Land, I noticed the light, as photographers are wont to do: as the sun rose, the skies turned pale blue, and the light grey clouds were tinged with gold and orange; it seemed to me a divine light, full of promise.

We didn’t have anything planned until the evening, so I had the whole day to explore. Tired from the flight, but too excited to sleep, I went and had breakfast in the hotel – the food, throughout this pilgrimage, was delicious and healthily Mediterranean, with many salads, fresh produce, and honey from the comb. And then, I went to explore this most ancient and unique of cities: Jerusalem, the abode of peace! My first stop was the Holy Sepulchre, and I went without any cameras. It’s important, where possible, to just be present in a place, to look and observe, and take in the experience through every sense. Only on subsequent visits would I use my camera to transmit what I had first contemplated. 

PHOTO 1: This was taken from the rooftop of the Christian Information Centre, just within the Jaffa Gate, which was about 10 minutes walk from our hotel. From here, one has a panoramic view from the edge of the Christian Quarter. We are looking at the complex that constitutes the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and beneath the large dome is the Aedicule, which is the structure that enclosed both the Empty Tomb of Christ as well as the spot where the angel had sat upon the stone which had been rolled away from the opening of the tomb. 

Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. (Mt 28:1-2)

Looking at the Holy Sepulchre from this angle, I notice that the church is flanked by two minarets, and to the right of this shot, the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock is prominently visible. As always, the three Faiths which regard Jerusalem to be a sacred site, are always present and very evident; the three photos I have chosen for this day demonstrate this. And yet, here, in this photo, beneath this dome that crowns the Holy Sepulchre, is the centre of the world. For here, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and universal Saviour, all creation was redeemed and is for ever transformed. 

He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1:18-20).

PHOTO 2: I met some of my fellow pilgrims from this large group (we were about 240 in total!) in the Holy Sepulchre, and they wanted to visit the Western Wall next so I went with them. Here, the monumental stones impress upon us the grandeur and antiquity of Jerusalem. In fact, everywhere, we walked upon ancient slabs of stone, and I was always aware of the history of the city, and I wondered how many millions had walked those same paths as I was now on; who else had seen these buildings and pilgrimaged to these place? In places like Jerusalem it seems like all of humanity has passed through it, and I am humbled – aware of my paucity in the face of the enormous procession of people who have been here over the millennia. The stones of the Western Wall were already here when Jesus came to the Temple; when he came here as a boy and was found teaching in the Temple they were just a few decades old. Looking upon these walls, and indeed, upon the walls and gates of Jerusalem, such as the Jaffa Gate which I entered every day, I would think of these lines from Psalm 122: “I rejoiced when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” And now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem... For the peace of Jerusalem pray, “May they prosper, those who love you.” May peace abide in your walls...”

PHOTO 3: The various ‘Quarters’ of Jerusalem run into each other, and although we approached the Western Wall through the Jewish Quarter, we returned to the Jaffa Gate through the Muslim Quarter and via the Holy Sepulchre at the heart of the Christian Quarter once more. Here is a typical street scene taken in the Muslim Quarter, although it was less crowded than usual. Shops line the street, with shopkeepers calling out like sirens to entice you in. But what caught my eye was the texture and size of the stones beneath our feet, and the way the bright sunlight was filtered through the awnings above, and the patterns of shade and dappled light on the ground. 

The Lord is your guard and your shade; at your right side he stands. By day the sun shall not smite you nor the moon in the night. (Ps 121:5-6)

"For love of my brethren and friends I say: "Peace upon you." For love of the house of the Lord I will ask for your good." Amen. (Psalm 122:8-9) Tomorrow: DAY 2 - Gethsemane and Ein Kerem.

[barbariccia]

IT’S MAKO TIME BAYBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

now that we’re free to jettison across the galaxy, we’re able to access the galaxy map:

the first image shows whereabouts we are within the milky way, still at the citadel; the blue circles expand into the second image, which shows a solar system not dissimilar to ours: a sun at the centre, and planets in orbit of varying sizes and colours.

you can’t land on every planet, but they all have, at the very least, informative text about them, usually discussing the atmosphere, what the planet is used for (if possible, typically either colony or mining where possible), and then some additional information concerning the orbital period, day length, temperature, etc.

when you access a planet you’re able to land on with something Of Note on its surface, joker hails you over comms.

on-planet maps are typically pretty small, with only three or four points of interest within the landscape. you’re shuttled down in the M35 Mako, a turreted vehicle capable of driving on most terrain, with booster jets. the controls are pretty simply, but the way the mako actually controls is, some have said, akin to hot garbage, and i love every second i’m in this chaotic vehicle. it’s fairly bouncy, and you can get some serious air driving off the top off cliffs even without the boosters.

i’ll only bring up planet-side missions if i feel they’re of particular import, but there’s a couple of ways those missions are brought up to you: either joker sends you a message when you’re scanning a planet initially, or you find some information in a city location like the citadel (or any other area like it) that hints that there’s something happening on Planet X; you go to that planet, find whatever the mission requires of you, bring it back, gain xp and credits. simple enough.

for this one, however-

the distress beacon is surrounded by another vehicle and plenty of alliance soldier bodies. as you approach, a thresher maw bursts from the earth and starts shooting gozz at you. get too close and it’ll take you out with one hit: your only recourse is to shoot at it with your turret and rockets. getting out of the mako is the biggest mistake you’ll make because boy these things actually take a bit of time even with a turret-gun.

solitary creatures, thresher maws live underground, spending their entire lives looking for something to eat, and appear on many worlds since they reproduce via spores that can survive deep space and atmospheric entry.

a shepard with the sole survivor background was the only one of their 50-man squad to live through a thresher maw attack on akuze. how they survived isn’t elaborated on, but i can’t imagine being comfortable on any planet knowing they could be there lurking beneath the ground after a traumatic incident like that.

(they look passing similar to bobbit or bristle worms, latin name eunice aphroditois. i can’t help but laugh considering my first shepard’s name was eunice.)

another point of interest on a different map was a base filled within and without with snipers and mercenaries; you battle the asari within and find this message in the back room. there’s lots of little bits and pieces like this that you can pick up here and there that have no real bearing on the plot, but that add flavour to otherwise fairly empty worlds, which is a delight as far as gameplay goes.

sadly, the planetside maps are fairly small and filled with bullshit terrain that our bullshit vehicle has trouble working its way over in a straightforward manner. me2 and 3 got rid of the planetside stuff in this capacity and replaced them with different mechanics. if nothing else, they’re a good chance to get some shüt in and grab some xp here and there, though none of the planets except the labelled ones (noveria, feros) are essential to the plot and can be totally bypassed if you want.

[ramheavenandhell]

The Lines Between Ricks And Mortys – Chapter 6: "Never more than five Mortys, huh?" / "I hate you!!"

AN: This is it now people. The last chapter. It's the one that I'm actually most excited about and I hope that you'll like it :) Also sorry for posting slightly late, but stuff came up yesterday. Warnings: more Morty battles, so violence

The Lines Between Ricks And Mortys – Chapter 6: "Never more than five Mortys, huh?" / "I hate you!!" "So, why are we doing this again?" Rick C-133 asked his Morty, as they stood hidden behind the Morty Day Care. "We're trying to follow that corrupt Guard Rick to find out where the brothel is located at." The boy replied irritated. "Yeah, I got that part. But tell me again why WE are the ones doing that? Shouldn't K-4872 be the one to do this espionage bit since he was the one that wanted to find the culprit behind those illegal activities?" "Well, he's busy investigating something or someone else right now and asked us if we could do this." "You do realize that we're also busy trying to find a certain culprit. Do I really have to remind you of that?!" "No, but maybe we find our Morty there, too. What better hiding place would there be for him?" Rick didn't have a comeback to that. It was probably true that their mysterious Morty would be able to blend in best in a place that was full of Mortys, but still had limited access. Yet, he wanted to argue back that it might be too much of a coincidence to find the one they're looking for like that. Not that their current search all over the Citadel had yielded much better results so far. Just as he was about to open his mouth to make another comment, Rick was shushed by his Morty. The boy was peeking around the corner and saw the Rick that they had been waiting for standing at the otherwise empty counter. He really was dressed in civil now – better said, he was sporting the standard lab coat and blue sweater that most dimensions' Ricks seemed to prefer. It was really a surprise that he still continued to do this after he had seen and overheard how they had cornered Storage Rick today. Maybe Storage Rick was really good at convincing him that everything was still good and he really didn't rat anyone out. Whatever it was, Morty tried to keep an eye on the Rick's actions while trying to not be noticed, staying hidden behind the corner and having to be careful if they wanted to follow him stealthily to wherever he was going to deliver the five Mortys that he was getting handed…

Rick C-137 and his group of Mortys meanwhile were on their way to the building where the "Council of Dicks" resided in. He finally had enough badges together to fight them. It was actually ridiculous how many you needed just to be allowed to kick all of their asses. However, he finally had collected enough and was also pretty confident in his team of Mortys that he had gathered. Not that he really needed to worry about that anyways, since he knew the council enough to know that those Ricks were all talk, but had no bite behind it. The only thing that they could do was to abuse their position to enforce stupid stuff on other Ricks, but if you were to strip them of that power, they would be absolutely nothing. "Well, c'mon, Morty. This finally starts to feel like we're getting somewhere in this story. If we win this, we're finally going to get my portal gun back. And hey, you even managed to clear up your little side-quest-thing there—that big thing that you were playing detective for and now all of those Mortys will be saved and everyone's gonna get a happy end. Well, as long as you don't lose against the Mortys from the Council Dicks that we're going to face now." Rick drawled to his original grandson on their way there. "It's not solved yet, but you're right. C-133 should be able to find the location now and then they can report it to the Citadel police so that they can arrest everyone involved…" Morty didn't sound as enthusiastic as he should. His Rick was right. Things were finally starting to look up. They would be clearing up the whole Morty-trafficking affair and when they defeated the Council they would get their portal gun back so that his grandpa could concentrate on hunting Mysterious Rick down. And he should have no doubt that his Rick would find him – he'd probably made some sort of tracking gadget again to find the other. The only one that they couldn't help with resolving their problem now was the C-133 duo (and Rick P-78 and his Morty who were only here to help those two). It was certainly worrisome to know that there was a Morty out there who was willing to kill other Mortys and try to turn Ricks into mindless puppets. In a way it reminded him a little of that event with Evil Rick who also kidnapped Mortys and tried to download the contents of his Rick's brain. He wondered why that Morty was doing that – what could be his endgame? However, there was no time to worry about that for him now. The entrance of the government building came already in sight and the only thing he would have to worry about now was winning their next battles. Actually, he felt a little pumped up about this and more motivated than in the beginning. Maybe he was just getting used to fighting? Whatever it was, he felt ready for it. As they ventured up the small flight of steps, it struck Morty as odd that the Guard Ricks that were usually positioned next to the doors weren't there, but he didn't dwell too much on it. However, he probably should have thought about that because once they walked inside, he saw what had happened to them: The Guard Ricks (who were unconscious) as well as all of the Council members had been beaten and tied up. And the Rick who was responsible for it stood right in the middle of it all… "That's it. You Council of Idiots have fucked up so much that I will take matters into my own hands now. I will take all of the Mortys on the Citadel with me!" Mysterious Rick declared with an insane glint in his eyes. "What? That's Rickdiculous!" Riq VI said. "Wait! Could that mean that Mysterious Rick is the one behind the Morty kidnappings?! And the t-thing with the illegal brothels?!" Morty C-137 blurted out and directed the attention of everyone inside the room to them now. The new voice made Mysterious Rick also spin around in surprise. He grinned lecherously as his eyes landed on Morty C-137 and he seemed to instantly recognize him. "Oh, it's you, my lovely. I'm really glad to see you." He said. Morty felt chills running down his spine and he was surprised, but also relieved as his Rick stepped in front of him and shielded him with his body. As Mysterious Rick's eyes fell on Rick C-137, his grin dropped and was replaced with a scowl that matched the other's face. "Not too happy about seeing you again though." He seethed. "The feeling is mutual, but we still have some unfinished business left to discuss." "Well, unfortunately you picked a really bad timing. It's still a little too early for our confrontation." Mysterious Rick smiled evilly and threw an object at him. Rick's eyes widened and he yelled at his Mortys "Duck!" before also getting down and covering his face as the bomb landed on the ground. However, instead of exploding, it only released smoke. As Rick looked up again, he could see the tail end a familiar red cape fluttering right past him. "Quick! He's trying to escape!" Rick shouted and he and his Mortys gave chase. "H-Hey! What about us?" yelled the still tied up council members after the retreating team. Mysterious Rick ran. That C-137 had really picked a bad timing there. This wasn't how he had planned it, dammit!

The C-133 duo meanwhile had been able to follow Rick T-42 without getting detected. "Aw fuck! You gotta be shitting me!!" The Rick groaned out loudly. It made the pair wonder what was up since they were not able to see what he was seeing right now. "Don't worry about that, T-42." A voice suddenly rang out through the small alley. It came from a person that stood on the roof. The C-133 duo flinched, not sure if the mysterious person had seen them from where he stood. "Just bring them to the other one in sector 3 for now." The boy who could only be a Morty continued to instruct. "Got ya." The Rick replied and ventured off to the opposite direction with all five Mortys still trailing obediently behind him. Morty C-133 wondered if they should continue to follow T-42 or concentrate on the ominous Morty on the roof who seemed to have a much higher rank in this trafficking organization. Besides, if they walked after the Rick, he would surely see them. That is if he hadn't already… "I haven't really expected you two to show up here so fast." The Morty directed at them now. Okay, so he had already seen them. "Holy crap! Morty, that's him! That's the zany Morty that we're looking for!" Rick suddenly blurted out. It took a few moments to recognize the other since he wore such a weird outfit: a black uniform with a red 'M' on its front, matching hat and mask and a red cape. However, there was no mistaking that this was the weird Morty that had hired those Mercenary Ricks to kidnap his Morty and tried to manipulate him! He could just tell from that voice and attitude.

Said Morty didn't seem to be bothered that he was found out since he only grinned at Rick C-133's outburst. Then he suddenly began to bolt. "Quick, Morty! Don't lose him!" Rick bellowed and instantly ran after the culprit. As they dashed out of the alleyway, Morty vaguely noticed that the building that T-42 had led them to was surrounded by police vehicles and Guard Ricks were swarming the place. Looks like the police forces and/or militia of the Citadel had already found one of the brothels and was busting the place. So at least that was a problem that was getting resolved already. Good for K-4872. Now if they would only be able to catch this Morty, they would have also accomplished their own mission.

"Damn, did we lose him?" Rick C-137 turned in every direction, trying to figure out which way Mysterious Rick had run. He and his troupe of Mortys were panting heavily, having chased the weirdo Rick up until this point, but apparently lost sight of him as they came to this cross-section. Rick was pissed, not believing that the other just got away like that when he was so goddamn close to catching him. He was almost ready to give up when he suddenly caught sight of a red cape that just vanished around a corner. "There he is! C'mon, Mortys!" The group continued to chase after their suspect, however, after a while of following this guy, they noticed that something was off. "Wait a second, Rick. This guy isn't Mysterious Rick. Doesn't he look like a Morty?" Morty C-137 began to ask midrun. Indeed, the figure that they were chasing after now looked too short to be a Rick, so it could obviously only be a Morty. Of course, his grandfather had already noticed that, too. "Yeah, Morty, but see that outfit that he wears? It's the same as that weirdo has and I doubt that it's coincidence. Chances are high that this Morty is his acquaintance or at least somehow connected to him and this time we won't lose him." What Morty hadn't noticed was that the scientist had pulled out his handy Mortytector. With the help of the device they would be able find him again even if he would manage to outrun team C-137. Rick had already read his dimension number and would be able to track him anywhere now.

"Goddamnit!" Rick C-133 cursed as he looked around the cross-section. They had just lost the Morty that they had been chasing after. And he still hadn't bothered to build a Mortypad with which he would have been able to trace him. Just his luck. "Oh man. What do we do now, Rick?" Morty wondered, looking at the surrounding streets in confusion as he tried to figure out where his evil counterpart went. "We lost him, Morty. So there's nothing we can do now. I have no way to track the little shit…" They could only admit defeat now as much as Rick hated to do it. Back to square one, though not entirely stuck as before since they at least knew now that the little psycho seemed to have to do something with that illegal brothel ring… "Hey, Rick! There!" Morty pointed to a figure that just disappeared around a corner. Immediately the duo chased after them, but Morty quickly realized his mistake. "Oh, that's not that Morty. It's actually a Rick." The boy was about to stop, but his Rick kept running, so he started to jog after his grandfather again. "Maybe. But this Rick wears the same weird uniform as our Morty, so he might lead us to the little shit." "Wha-what are you doing?" Morty asked as he saw that the scientist pulled his mobile phone from his lab coat. "I'm calling P-78, so he can cut off the guy's escape route. Otherwise it's stupid just trying to chase and risk losing him again." The other replied while he quick-dialed the aforementioned Rick's number. There was no way that Rick C-133 would make the same mistake twice…

Mysterious Rick was getting pretty annoyed that he couldn't shake off his pursuer. For a moment, he had actually thought that he managed to lose them, but suddenly they were right behind him again. Of course, in his haste he didn't notice that the duo that was following him now were not Rick and Morty C-137, but C-133 even though it was probably weird that the other Mortys weren't there anymore, but for all he knew they had decided to split up in search for him. Since he was too busy to come up with an idea how he could get away – using his portal gun was out of the question since they were close enough to follow him through it and he didn't want his precious Legendary Morty end up getting stranded in a dangerous place – and too focused on the Rick and Morty behind him, he didn't pay attention to where exactly he ran. So, he only noticed too late when he ran into someone else. As he looked at the person that he had crashed into, he was confused because it was a Morty who had copied his get-up. Considering that escape was of higher priority to him, he got up again and tried to continue running. However, that didn't work out very well because his escape route was suddenly blocked off by another Rick and Morty pair – P-78 and A22ß6. He also quickly noticed that escaping to his right was not possible since Team C-137 which had been chasing after the weird Morty had also caught up now. That left him with only one way, but that was surprisingly quickly blocked off as well as Rick and Morty K-4872 showed up – wherever those two had suddenly come from. Mysterious Rick groaned, seeing as he wouldn't be able to simply get out of this now. With narrowed eyes, he looked at the mysterious Morty who he was going to blame for his failed escape now. His eyes widened for a moment, as he seemed to recognize the boy. "Oh, great. Not you of all people." He murmured sarcastically. The Morty only humphed in recognition. "Wow, guys! What are you doing here?" Morty C-137 asked while trying to catch his breath. "Yeah, I also wanted to ask you that." Morty C-133 retorted. "We were following Rick T-42 as agreed and then we ran into this Morty, who is the same Morty that we have been looking for, but then we lost him and saw this Rick and then we followed him." "We went to the Council and Mysterious Rick was there and we've been chasing him, lost him and then we found this Morty who wears the same clothes as him, so we followed him instead." C-137 also explained. "A-an-and we're ju-just here be-because C-133 called u-us." Morty A22ß6 said. His Rick added, "Yeah, because we were supposed to cut this Rick's escape route off." All eyes turned to the K-4872 duo. "And we're here because we were tracking Mysterious Rick. I know that this is the Rick that C-137 was looking for now, but that isn't the only reason why we were after him." "It's because he has to do with the Morty kidnappings, right?" Morty C-137 threw in now. "He said something like wanting to take all the Mortys of the Citadel when he was in the Council building." "Not quite." Morty K-4872 corrected him. "Mysterious Rick or better said Rick C-777 is actually the owner and CEO of Morty Inc. which is handling all Pocket Mortys related facilities like the Day Care and the Morty Games Coliseum. But that doesn't mean that he's all innocent since he's known for having an obsession with collecting Mortys and it's pretty obvious that these facilities were just used as a means to broaden his collection." The mysterious Morty scoffed as he listened to that. Mysterious Rick threw in evil glare in the boy's direction. Morty K-4872 continued with what he had found out during his investigation, "What is even more interesting to note is that he is actually the one who had hired us to assassinate Rick S-121 because the Morty brothel ring is hindering his Morty collecting obsession." "Oh, I should have known that you were behind that!" The evil Morty spoke up again and looked angrily at Mysterious Rick. "What did you think you were doing, you asshole?!" "Oh, I know what you were doing, trying to steal these Mortys away and making my search for the Legendary Morty unnecessarily harder!" The culprit Rick retorted. "Wait? So does that mean that the Morty that C-133 was looking for is behind that Morty brothel ring now?" Morty C-137 threw in, getting more confused by the minute. "Yes, it seems that way." Morty K-4872 confirmed. "This Morty has been manipulating Ricks and Mortys alike to build up his whole crime organization. And he had been stealing from Rick C-777's facilities the entire time." The revelation brought Mysterious Rick to sprout another tirade at the Morty who had no scruple using Ricks and Mortys to get what he wanted. "You, little fuck! You stole from me! All those precious Mortys! And if that wasn't bad enough you had to dirty them! You've ruined everything, absolutely everything that I spent so much time on to build up!!" Rick C-777 seethed. "Dirtying them? And what do you think it is that you were doing or trying to do to those Mortys?" Morty C-777 shot back, apparently feeling not even an ounce of regret for the things that he had done. "I'm not like those Ricks. I'm different and I was only trying to find the perfect Morty." Saying that, Mysterious Rick looked straight at Morty C-137, who couldn't stop himself from shuddering. Gulping soundly, he stepped up and with a lightly unstable voice, he forced out, "Y-you're both horrible people! And even if you—" he pointed at Mysterious Rick at that. "—have been fighting against that brothel ring, it was only so that you could go and rape all the Mortys instead, which is in no way better than what he had been doing!!" Completely ignoring what the other Morty had just said, the evil brunet asked his fittingly-dressed counterpart, "So, did you finally get the Morty that you had wanted?" "Well, I've caught a few Mortys, but none of them were good enough for me yet, just like my original Morty." He stressed those last two words as he looked sharply at the boy. "However, despite your worst efforts, I was finally able to find the Legendary Morty and I only want him – Morty C-137 – because he is the purest Morty of them all. Unlike the little shit that I had been cursed with!!" "Wait! Does that mean that this Morty is actually your original Morty?" For Morty C-137 the pieces of the puzzle finally started to fall into place – somewhat at least. "Yep, it is." His grandfather confirmed, looking at his Mortytector. "Dimension C-777. That's his." "That one is no Morty of mine. He is so impure – the most impure Morty there is. I don't want him or want anything to do with him." Rick C-777 shouted and looked clearly disgusted at even being brought in connection with the boy who still stood next to him. "I'm just interested in pure and innocent Mortys. And I'm going to make them all mine." Before anyone could even say something else, Morty C-137 stepped forward. "That's it! I've had enough of this! Let me at him, Rick. I'm gonna beat that bastard for good now." Rick C-137 wore a proud grin on his face. "Sure, Morty. If that's what you want, be my guest." If the boy was finally getting into it, then by all means… Mysterious Rick blinked in confusion, but saw that there was obviously no other way out of this situation than to battle it out. So he grabbed his portal gun and opened a portal, so he could summon his own Mortys to fight for him. "Come, my Mortys." He called and not soon after a few Mortys departed from the open vortex. "What? Where is the rest of you guys?" "Do you know how late it is, Rick? Most of us have already gone to bed." One sleepy Morty answered and rubbed one of his eyes. "Then go back and wake them up! I need all of you for this battle." "Okay." The Morty trotted back into the portal, which closed again. He would just have to do in the meantime with the Mortys that he had here. The first wave consisted of eight Mortys in total – of course, the cheater had to summon more than was allowed according to the official rules. "Never more than five Mortys, huh?" Morty C-137 complained about that. "I guess there are just some Ricks who don't like to play by the rules, Morty." His grandpa replied to that. Unfortunate as it was, his team really only consisted of five Mortys in total, which was going to place them at a disadvantage now. Or at least that was what Rick C-137 had thought, completely forgetting that they weren't entirely alone right now. "C'mon, Morty. Get in there and help them." Rick K-4872 suddenly spoke up. "What?! Why?!" His Morty instantly protested. "What? Y-you think that they can—they can do it alone? Just look at how many Mortys he has." "He's right, Morty." Rick C-133 said now. "You go in there and help them out, too." While Morty C-133 sounded anything but pleased at the prospect, he obediently walked over towards the other Mortys, who were getting ready for the battle. He couldn't deny that C-137's Mortys alone wouldn't be able to do it. Rick P-78 looked at his own Morty, but instead of ordering to also get into the fight, as the other Ricks had, he asked, "You wanna join in, too?" He certainly wasn't going to "force" his Morty into this if he didn't want to. Morty A-22β6 looked at him for a moment as if to contemplate, but then resolution showed on his face as he nodded. "Y-y-yeah because—" and then he turned to Mysterious Rick and yelled clear and without stuttering "—because Ricks like you give nice Ricks like Q-89 a bad reputation!" A disappointed groan could be heard and Rick P-78 slapped a hand on his face and dragged it down in annoyance. "Really, Morty? Really? That's your reasoning here?" he asked and looked at his Morty, his face showing that he was questioning him, but not angry. "What's wrong, P-78? Getting jealous?" Rick C-133 couldn't help, but mock him. "As if! Why should I be jealous?!" Rick P-78 fired back. He really wasn't. Even if his Morty was attracted to Rick Q-89, he had already told him that he wanted to stay with him and be his Morty. Only his. The thought made him almost blush, but Ricks don't blush, so he was able to fight the face coloration down before anyone could take notice of it. The Mortys were now facing off against each other, as each seemed to pick their opponent. Morty C-137 was standing opposite to the Rick Morty that they had met in the dungeon who was still clad in the self-made wig and the stolen shirt and lab coat from his original Rick as well as holding said Rick's well preserved brain firmly in his small hands as it was still leaking fluid onto the ground. His opponent's bloodshot eyes were staring directly into his own. However, Morty didn't shudder or react otherwise to it. While he still thought that the other Morty was creepy, he wasn't scared of this battle. He had been more than ready to fight when they were on their way to the Council and his confidence and will to brawl hadn't lessened one bit over the entire chase. Morty C-133 meanwhile was faced with the Super Rick Fan Morty. However, he instantly noticed that his opponent was barely paying attention to him. No, instead the fan seemed much more interested in Rick C-133. And it was pissing Morty off. This was already the second time that a Morty was awfully interested in his Rick. What was the deal with that? Morty wasn't willing to share – he had already had a hard time accepted Summer to join in on their "Rick and Morty adventures" – and least of all was he willing to hand his Rick over to anyone else. That was his grandpa! Morty A-22β6 looked at his opponent who was none other than a Mermaid Morty, who looked a little out of his element, balancing with his tail on the concrete. The shy brunet swallowed heavily while mentally telling himself that he shouldn't be scared now. After all, he had been able to defeat the nightmarish version of his original Rick and he had the support of his new Rick as well as Rick Q-89 (even if he wasn't present right now) and that was all that he truly needed to face off in this battle. Morty K-4872 was facing Crazy Cat Morty and couldn't help but instantly feel really bad as he stared into the innocent eyes of the other. Unlike Team C-137 he wasn't seasoned in Morty battles, so he acted as he always had to on his missions - pointing his laser gun at the enemy. Of course, it only made him feel more miserable because he knew that he shouldn't really shoot the other Morty. It wasn't the boy's fault. He was just being controlled and the one who was actually at fault here was obviously Rick C-777. It was always a Rick. And it's also always a Rick that he shoots down in the end, so he began to think that it's just the best if they take the short route and aimed with his pistol at Mysterious Rick now. What he didn't notice in time was that at that exact moment the Cat Morty's eyes changed and he hissed as he noticed that his Rick was in danger. The crazy Morty instantly leapt to attack K-4872, biting and scratching at him like a wild animal and managing to topple him over, so that he accidentally dropped his gun in the process. Judge Morty meanwhile looked in confusion at the one that would be his opponent. It was a Colossal Head Morty who looked equally confused back at the former. The judge was pretty sure that he had never seen anything crazy like this before in his life. Ironically, the Morty that consistent of nothing more than a giant head, thought the exact same thing as he looked at the judiciary executioner. Shadow Morty was the one who looked the most unsure with his enemy, yet there was no doubt that he picked the most fitting one for himself – he was staring at the Phantom Morty. The other ghost-like Morty looked at him with sorrowful eyes and it was hard to tell who he was pitying more – himself or the specter. Morticia couldn't help but cringed at the enemy that she was stuck with. The strong stench of urine could be smelled from all the way where she stood and she was totally grossed out from seeing how dirty that Hobo Morty was. While she usually wasn't as squeamish as most girls, she thought that she found her master for sure this time… Super Morty Fan Morty looked downright delighted at the opponent that he got. But also confused. "Are you actually a Morty in there?" he asked as he stared at Mascot Morty. His enemy sighed, looking anything but pleased at having to battle now. As if a silent signal fell, the Mortys started to jump at each other – minus Morty K-4872 and the Crazy Cat Morty who were already wrestling with each other on the ground. Morty C-137 tackled the Rick Morty to the ground who in turn let his Rick's brain drop. In slight shock he stared at the pinkish mass that laid on the ground and C-137 also look towards it, but rather with badly hidden disgust. The next moment, he was suddenly pushed off, as Rick Morty seemed to have snapped. The cosplaying Morty attacked him relentlessly, clearly in a rage for what had just happened. Morticia meanwhile was still trying to keep an even distance from her enemy. She just couldn't shake off the disgust that she felt from even having to look at the hygiene-lacking Morty. Ironically, her enemy didn't try anything on her, just standing there and looking at her. "Do you like dogs?" he suddenly asked. Morticia stopped where she stood and questioningly looked back at him. "Uh…actually, not really. I'm more of a cat person." Hobo Morty looked displeased at the answer. K-4872 was naturally still busy wrestling with the crazy Morty with the fake cat ears. It was a real struggle for him since the other fought literally back with nails and teeth, scratching and biting him. "Ow! What the heck is wrong with you?" K-4872 yelled. "Quit acting like you're a feral animal! Is your Rick seriously making you act like this?!" Even if the other boy was remote controlled via the manipulator chip, it didn't really make sense to him. Maybe it wasn't entirely Mysterious Rick's doing, but this Morty seriously believed himself to be a cat and was therefore acting like this. A-22β6 gulped heavily as he looked at his opponent, who still hadn't done anything yet. The mermaid just tilted his head and looked curiously at him. "Are you a new friend?" he asked eventually. "U-uh… no. We-we're enemies. We're sup-supposed to f-fight a-against each other." The Shy Morty replied, a little confused that the mermaid even had to ask. "Oh." His opponent only replied and looked disappointed. A-22β6 was clearly confused and didn't know what to do now. Was he supposed to attack first or something? 'Here goes nothing.' He thought as he readied himself and advanced on his opponent. Super Morty Fan Morty meanwhile was already in the middle of his attack – though he didn't view it as such. He hung around the neck of the Mascot Morty and still tried to figure out what – or better said, who – was really underneath that mask. "C'mon! Are you a Morty wearing a Morty costume or are you someone else? I need to know!!" "Cut that out! Let go of me!!" Mascot Morty was clearly getting frustrated with the clingy Morty and tried to shake him off of himself again. Unfortunately, for him, to no avail… The showdown between the two ghostly Mortys looked anything but spectacular at the moment. They were just staring at each other with sad and lonely eyes. If you were close enough to them, you would actually be able to hear them communicate with each other, using pitiful wails and moans. Looks like this was a battle that wouldn't take off very soon… Judge Morty meanwhile was still looking in irritation at the Colossal Head Morty. The bodiless Morty meanwhile floated around, looking like he was searching for an opening to attack the other Morty, but also looking as if he was scared getting to close to him. Still the Morty in the black robes didn't leave his enemy out of his eyes and his stare was intense enough that it might as well be an attack on its own – and it was clearly causing damage to his opponent. C-133 on his end was currently still being ignored by his opponent. "You're Rick C-133, aren't you? C-dimension Ricks are so incredible." The fanboy fawned. Rick C-133 looked anything but pleased by the attention that he received and tried to inch further away. "Uh, Morty? How about you start attacking this little lunatic? Any time now?" "I would if he would finally start looking at me!" Morty replied, getting more and more frustrated by the minute as he just kept being ignored. His Rick looked at him as if asking if he was really serious. Being fed up with it, Morty decided that he just would make the other look at him. Even while this whole fight was like another battle royal again, Mysterious Rick was very focused on it and with his longstanding experience as a Morty trainer – how long had Pocket Mortys been a thing anyway? – he was able to evenly order his Mortys to attack. At his Rick's command, Super Rick Fan Morty forced himself to turn away from Rick C-133 and eagerly went to attack Morty C-133. The boy in the yellow shirt was actually hit by surprise since he had been convinced that he needed to land the first hit to get the attention. So, the fanboy's attack came out of nowhere for him since he had just suddenly turned around and clogged him straight in the face. The force of the punch was enough to knock C-133 on the ground and he looked up in shock as the other didn't even give him time to recover from it and just pounced on him to continue with what he had started now. "Don't be scared now and just attack him!" was the order that Colossal Head Morty received from his Rick. It was as if that simple sentence drained all the fear from him and before Judge Morty could react, the floating head came charging right at him. The bodiless Morty rammed with his full weight into the public officer who was swept off his feet by the force. Judge Morty coughed and rolled on the ground in order to get up again, clearly struggling with this usually easy task. The hit really took it out of him. Phantom Morty finally also went into action and stopped fraternizing with the enemy as he heard his Rick's voice. The glowing ghost Morty floated towards the specter and grabbed his neck, attempting to strangle the other. While it would have been normally impossible for that to work since Shadow Morty had no physical form the ectoplasmic creature was in the same state as him and therefore something akin to physical contact between them was possible. Feeling the other Morty was so surprising for the shade that he had no idea what to do. His shadowy hands just wrapped around the ghostly ones of his opponent and tried to pry them off again. "I've had it with you!" Mascot Morty finally snapped and managed to throw the attached fanboy to the ground. Not wasting any precious time, he used the moment of surprise to pummel his enemy who still needed to recover from falling on the ground. Super Fan Morty squeaked as his enemy really began to lay into him. A-22β6 made the mistake that he was inching slowly towards his opponent instead of just lunging at him. Because if he had done that he might have been able to land the first hit. As it was though, the Mermaid Morty was the one, who beat him to it now. At Mysterious Rick's command, he quickly slipped over the ground like a sea snake through water and whacked the shy boy with his tail. The fishy Morty kept attacking with his fin unrelenting even if his opponent squealed and whimpered in pain from the onslaught. K-4872 still tried to wrestle his opponent to the ground, who didn't let up in his ferociousness – quite the opposite actually. As soon as Mysterious Rick told him to keep going, the animal-like Morty only continued to bite harder. K-4872 was getting convinced that this wasn't entirely Rick C-777's doing. There really was something wrong with this whacky Morty and it didn't just had to do with the chip. The Morty in the green vest growled as he fought back harder than ever now. As if he would get defeated by a lunatic! The Hobo Morty may have only looked angry at the female Mortys response, but he seemed to have gotten really enraged as soon as his Rick gave him the order to quit stalling and finally attack. Morticia squeaked and tried her best to evade as her opponent finally got in gear and tried to attack her. Normally she would have already countered, but her stinking counterpart was still grossing her out too much. However, it was probably also a good think because it kept her motivated to dodge all of his oncoming attacks. C-137's predicament meanwhile hadn't gotten any better. The initial rage of the insane Morty had turned into some obligation to follow whatever his genius grandfather ordered him to do. And if he was ordered to destroy his opponent then that was what he would do. Of course, he had no idea that Mysterious Rick didn't want C-137 getting hurt too much – really just enough so that he could take him with him without a fight after this whole battle was over – and so he was ready to kill his counterpart. Morty C-137 could feel that intention in every one of his enemy's blows – and that was really scary! "See that?" Mysterious Rick asked as he pushed with his elbow in his original Morty's side. "My Mortys are great! Nothing like you." Morty C-777 snorted. "How would you know? It's not like you have ever used me in a Morty battle. You have no frame of reference how good I really am!" Now it was his Rick's turn to snort. "What-what is that? A straight invitation to your bedroom, you little whore?" The way that Mysterious Rick had phrased it made the Morty look clearly upset again. "That bullshit might work on other Ricks, but not on me, you slut!" This was setting off a huge argument and before long, the two were bickering like an old married couple. Of course, this in turn took Mysterious Rick's attention from the ongoing battles, which probably wasn't his wisest decision. Especially since team C-137 had already proven after their battle against Shibuya Rick that they were pretty good at managing on their own and without their Ricks' orders. Morty C-137 had no intention to die at the hands of a crazy, scary Morty – well, he didn't have the intention to die by the hands of anyone, as long as he still had a say in the matter – so, he mobilized all the strength that he found in his body and pushed his opponent off again. Apparently, it was quite a lot of strength, he noticed, since the force had sent his enemy practically flying. He looked down at his own hands and wondered if the Morty battles that he went through in the past days had really been such a good training for him to become this strong. Deciding that now wasn't really the time to ponder on that – and it doesn't really matter anyways – he focused back on his opponent, who finally got up again. He charged at Rick Morty again and exchanged blows with him. While it looked like the damage that they dealt was evenly at first, it soon showed that the weird Morty was the one whose energy was quickly depleting. He looked helplessly up at Mysterious Rick who unfortunately didn't have any eyes for him since he was still arguing with his original Morty. With his Rick being blind to his plight, it didn't take much longer until he was drained and collapsed. Morticia was still busy whining and evading Hobo Morty as if he was a spider, not having made much progress in her own battle. It was only when he finally managed to grab her wrist that she completely snapped and lashed out at him. She repeatedly kept bashing on his head with her free hand until he let go while screaming loudly all the while. However, even after he released her, she didn't calm down again. Morticia was getting on the offensive and repeatedly punched him till he stumbled on the ground. Then she continued to kick him all the while yelling about how gross he is and to never touch her again. By the time that she had calmed down again, the Hobo Morty was already passed out. She flushed in embarrassment as she realized what kind of scene she must have made. Well, she won the fight. That was all that mattered, wasn't it? Morty K-4872 was still struggling against his opponent. However, fueled by his determination he finally managed to get slowly the upper hand. After pushing the other far enough off that he could use his legs, he kicked Crazy Cat Morty off of himself and got on his feet. He winced and held his wounded arm, convinced that the cat-eared brunet had actually teared a chunk of his flesh out. The feline-like Morty was even quicker up on his feet now and looked truly horrifying with all the blood around his mouth. He leapt at K-4872 again, but this time he saw the attack coming and managed to evade it. Morty K-4872 used this short time frame to scramble for his dropped gun again. After picking it up, he didn't aim at his enemy though. Instead, he decided to use the handle of his weapon to whack him in the head – every ounce of mercy was gone from him after the stunts that his counterpart had pulled on him. Crazy Cat Morty began to stagger from the injury to his head. However, K-4872 didn't give him a break to recover and hit him again. It only took three more well-placed hits until his opponent was down. K-4872 only huffed, being fed up with these Morty battles already and feeling suddenly much less sympathy for his brethren. It was just impossible for him to blame this completely on Mysterious Rick and somehow this only infatuated him more now… A-22β6 was still under attack from the merboy. The fishy tail kept whacking him repeatedly and trying to shield himself with his arms from the onslaught didn't work out very well as the hits were still very painful. For a moment, he contemplated to forfeit the fight just to end this torture. His eyes fell on his Rick's face who looked worriedly back at him, looking like he just might intervene and jump in any moment now. If Morty wasn't going to give up on his own P-78 would stop the fight, meaning that it would be a loss for them either way. His eyes then fell on his fellow Mortys who all fought against their own opponents still. He took notice that they had also been injured, but nonetheless none of them looked like they were even considering giving up. No, they kept on going with the determination to win. Inspired by that, A-22β6 found heart again. He didn't want to be a weakling and the only one who gave up in this battle! Heck, he'd been probably through so much worse stuff than all of his counterparts combined, so it would be more than just shameful if he gave up now just because of some tail-wags. At the mental image of his original grandfather, he felt anger boiling up inside of him instead of the fear that he had always felt before. He had been through that and he had defeated his nightmares. He would also be able to defeat this Morty who was practically disabled on the dry ground that he currently was on! Unwrapping his arms, instead of trying to shield himself against the oncoming attacks, he grabbed the tail and stopped the other mid-whack from continuing. Mermaid blinked at him in irritation. "Hey! Let go of my tail!" he complained. Letting go of his enemy was the last thing on A-22β6's mind. Instead, he began to twist and pull on the fishy appendage. Despite the flexibility of the fin, he managed to manipulate it in such a way that it was getting painful for his opponent. "Ouch! Ouch! Stop that!!" But he didn't stop, only twisted harder. Mermaid Morty emitted a long drawn out wail, as he was sure that something was starting to break. It was only short before the merboy passed out that A-22β6 stopped again. However, the opponent's relief was very short-lived as Morty lifted him up by his tail and finished him off by slamming him into the ground. A-22β6 panted heavily and looked quite worn out, but after looking over to his Rick and seeing that he was clearly impressed, he knew that it had been worth it. Mascot Morty was still laying into the fanboy who had gotten into a fetal position on the ground to shield himself from greater damage. This continued on until the Morty in the costume stopped again, panting and in need for a break. "Are you done now?" Super Morty Fan asked from the ground, looking like the beating hadn't fazed him at all and surprising his opponent. "You're really strong!" In his fanboyish nature, the fan sprang up and fawned over his enemy again, glomp-hugging him. The force and surprise coupled with Mascot Morty's fatigue lead to him falling backwards. Now both were laying on the ground, Super Fan Morty on top and nuzzling against his opponent, not even thinking of releasing him from his hug. "You're so strong and so cool! And since you're a Morty and wearing a Morty costume it's like you're two Mortys in one!!" His arms wound tighter and tighter around the other in his excitement. "You-you-you're like the ultimate Morty!!" Mascot Morty could only choke as the other literally squeezed all the air out of him. And frighteningly his grip only kept tightening. Caught in a literal choke-hold and with no way to free his arms or himself in any way, it was just a matter of a few short minutes until the costume-wearing Morty lost consciousness. Unfortunately, for him – even though he wasn't really awake to notice – the fanboy still didn't release him even after that. Shadow Morty still felt the tightening sensation of Phantom Morty's hand squeezing his short neck. While it was almost ridiculous since he already was dead, he still feared for his life. Even if he couldn't clearly remember his last living moments, he was sure that he didn't want to die again. He choked out a screech like the ones that he usually let lose before he went into a full-scale attack on his opponent and as always the white of his eyes turned red. It certainly confused Phantom Morty since this behavior wasn't like his own. He never had felt such a deep rage as his counterpart, only sadness after his death. However, he still refused to let go of his opponent. That soon proved to be a mistake however, since this close range just made the battle end all much quicker. Shadowy tendrils erupted from the shade's body and twined around the ghost. In shock, the phantom let go now, but it was already too late. He was slowly being encased by something like a dark cloud and unable to see anything beyond the pitch-blackness. Next, the only thing that he knew was pain. Even before the dark cloud that had surrounded both Mortys had cleared up, the bluish ghost dropped to the ground and ceased moving. Before the Colossal Head Morty had another chance to ram into him again, Judge Morty whacked him with his trusty gavel the next time that he charged straight at him. The impact made the bodiless Morty wobble through the air, who looked clearly disoriented now. Judge Morty finally got up from the ground and kept attacking his opponent. However, he wasn't using his gavel again, but attacked him verbally, listing off how many laws he had just broken by attacking an enforcer of the law and what kind of penalties he would get for that. The verbal assault combined with the strong hit to his enormous head, caused the enemy a major headache that got worse enough to the point that he eventually fainted and collapsed on the ground. C-133 was also still under the attack from the lunatic fanboy. Now that he finally got his attention, he wished that he hadn't been so eager for it. Instead of aiming to shield his face, he tried to catch his opponent's wrists to keep him from attacking further. After a few tries, he actually managed to get a hold on both of them. Locked in a stalemate now, the two Mortys looked at each other, both panting and wondering where to go from here on. The Rick fan was the first to lose his patience and struggled in the hopes that the other would let go of him again. However, C-133 was unyielding and held on tight. "Let go already!!" The fan whined. "I don't wanna be touchy with you! If I'm gonna be touchy with anyone then it's gonna be with your Rick." "What the hell are you saying?!" C-133 sounded clearly frustrated but still refused to relent on his grip. Super Rick Fan's attitude switched from annoyed to mischievous in a second. "Oh, you know exactly what I mean." He leaned over the other, his face getting so close that their noses almost touched and he wore a smug grin on his face while his eyes were half-lidded. "…and I'm sure that I'm a much better lay for your Rick than you are." He whispered in a sinister tone. C-133 was flooded by a wave of emotions at that moment. He felt disgusted by this crazy Morty who was so eager to get into those sort of activities with Ricks. Appalled by the mere suggestion that his Rick would also be into that sort of thing. Anger at the sort of Ricks who were in fact into that. And also the humiliation of having been at the hands of such Ricks and having been used in such a way. A small part of him also still felt jealous that this Morty was vying for his grandfather's rarely given attention. With a swift movement of his legs, he threw the Rick fan off of himself, who tumbled disoriented over the ground. The disorientation didn't last for long though and both Mortys were quickly on their feet again and facing each other. However, C-133 was seeing red right now, still fueled by that whirlwind of emotions and he quickly lunged at the other. The fanboy squeaked as he was the one that was thrown on the ground and pummeled now. He tried to defend himself, even tried to fight back and stop his opponent in the same way that C-133 had done to him before, but he was being completely overpowered. Super Rick Fan stood no chance at Morty's rage and was eventually beaten into submission and unconsciousness. "Looks like your precious Mortys aren't so great now, are they?" Mysterious Morty mocked as he noticed that they were getting knocked out one after the other. Mysterious Rick made a frustrated growl and opened up another portal to summon more Mortys. Another wave of eight Mortys emerged, the sleepy Morty from before informing him that these were the only ones that he could motivate to get up at this hour. Rick C-777 growled again. "Are you kidding me?! Just you wait till I get home!" "Not very loyal, your precious little darlings, huh?" Mysterious Morty was immediately at it again. And again Mysterious Rick's entire attention went to the argument. Needless to say that his backup Mortys didn't fare much better and were defeated even quicker than the other Mortys before them. Being confused by the lack of orders and not able to defend themselves against the rapid attacks of team C-137 and the others, they really stood no chance. "Looks like you're actually losing this battle." Morty C-777 said smugly. Mysterious Rick finally noticed it, too. His eyes widened as he looked at the battlefield and saw that all of his Mortys were knocked out while his opponent's Mortys stood strong and fixed him with a hardened look that equaled the look on their Ricks' faces. "No! My Mortys! Do you see what you have done?" He turned back to his original Morty again. "This is all your fault!! You fucking ruined everything again! The least you can do now is to go out there and fight them for me!" "Oh, now that you are losing, you suddenly want something from me!" The Morty instantly argued back. "You're the one who wants to be my Morty and belong to me so badly, so start becoming useful and get into the battle!" The Rick argued back. "Forget it! You made your own bed, so you have to lay in it now!" Mysterious Rick could see the other Ricks advancing on him now and since his Morty still refused to budge, he knew that this was the end of the line for him. Trying to escape was practically impossible for him even if he would try to use his portal gun. How could everything just have gone so wrong? After all of his planning. "Not such a big shot now that you can't hide behind your Mortys anymore, huh?" Rick C-137 commented as he came to a stop right in front of his villainous counterpart. Then he proceeded to beat the ever-loving crap out of Mysterious Rick. Kidnapping and raping his Morty. Stealing his portal gun and then handing it over to the Council so they would be stuck in this stupid game. Rick was sure that he was letting him feel all of the hate that he had stored up in every single blow. Morty C-777 just stood there and watched his Rick getting beaten to a pulp – not even thinking of helping his grandfather. Of course, he had completely forgotten that there was also someone present, who had a grudge against him, but he remembered as soon as Rick C-133 and P-78 were towering over him. "Well, you little shit. I hope this was all worth it." In similar fashion to C-137, C-133 began to punch and kick the Morty. No one felt even an ounce of mercy for the boy – neither the Ricks nor the Mortys who watched. The scene was suddenly interrupted by a loud shout: "Everyone freeze and hands in the air!" Three Guard Ricks and one Guard Morty quickly advanced with their weapons drawn. "Great. Now of all times the Council's puppets have to show up." C-137 muttered as he reluctantly followed the order. His Rick comrades looked likewise enthusiastic about this, but also obeyed. "This Rick and his Morty started it! They are the bad guys! We were just defending ourselves!" Morty C-137 tried to explain, not wanting them all to get into trouble for this. Sure, he understood what they did was self-justice and they should have called the police or something as soon as they had cornered the mysterious duo, but even he had to admit that what they did felt right. "We know." The Guard Morty replied, much to Morty C-137's surprise. The guard – Morty F-396 – and his Rick went over to the Mysterious Morty and handcuffed him. Likewise, the two other Ricks began to handcuff Mysterious Rick. "You are under arrest for illegal activities that fall under article 3 paragraph 4b of the Citadel Law Code as well as for kidnapping Mortys, which is article 9." The Morty began to list the crimes that the captured boy had committed against several Ricks and Mortys and also told him his rights. "Hey! Why are you arresting me?! I have nothing to do with the bullshit that this little psycho had done! If anything, I tried to stop him!" Mysterious Rick protested. "Most of the Mortys that he had kidnapped where stolen from me! I'm the victim here!!" "Oh, you've got your own bunch of crimes that you are getting arrested for now, buddy. We have just gotten a call and a direct order from the Council to catch you after what you had just tried to pull with them." Rick M-28 Δ5, who stood to his right said. As Morty F-396 looked around at the surrounding Ricks and Mortys, his eyes fell on A-22β6 and he immediately recognized him as the shy Morty back from Morty Academy. Morty A-22β6 noticed that he was staring at him and looked back at him with confusion, probably wondering if they knew each other. Of course, he couldn't recognize F-396 because of his uniform and the fact that they had met at the academy when he had been working undercover. The Guard Morty's eyes fell on P-78 now, who was standing right next to the Shy Morty. The man put his hand on his Morty's shoulder, who then looked up at his Rick and smiled and Morty F-396 had to smile, too. Even if this Rick looked kind of scary, he seemed to be nice enough to Morty A-22β6, which he was really glad for. The boy had really deserved a Rick, who would actually care for him. Rick F-396 spoke up now. "We will have to get testimonies from all of you who are currently present. So please follow us back. And don't worry, you are not in trouble or anything. As soon as we are done with the questioning you are free to go again." Morty K-4872 stood up at that. "I have done a lot of research on both of these two and gathered a lot of evidence and other material. I'm happy to share all of that with you to ensure that they will receive the proper punishment that they'll deserve." His Rick groaned at that. It was so stupid of his grandson to put this much work into all of his research without getting anything out of it. The least he could have done was to offer to sell the information that he had to them. If the Council was desperate enough – and with how much shit had went down, they must be pretty desperate right now – they would have even paid a nice sum for it. His Morty still needed to learn a lot… "Your help is very much appreciated and we would like to hear and see all of that during the hearing." Rick F-396 replied. The guards then began to lead the two culprits off. And of course, the duo had to start bickering again. "See what you got us into now, you dumb little shit?!" Mysterious Rick seethed. "Just because of the shit that you pulled, I'm going to get dragged down, too." His Morty scoffed at that. "Don't act like you're an innocent." Morty C-137 had to budge into the conversation again, still feeling pissed off from this Rick's attitude after everything that he had done to him – and most likely done to other Mortys, too. "How can you still think that what you have done was okay? In which fucked up dimension is it okay to rape someone? And not just someone, but your own grandson?!" "He's right! You old sick bastard, you do nothing but sleeping around with all of these other Mortys! What about me? You never even asked me." Mysterious Morty quickly jumped on that. "I've got no interest in you. Mortys are cute and pure, but you are impure and not cute at all. Just take a look at yourself, you little psycho!" "So, what? You don't even want me in your creepy little collection?!" "No, thank you." "I hate you!!" Everyone else practically ignored those two at this point. They were clearly both not in their right mind. "Hey! Wait a second now! I still have a few more questions before we start rolling the credits on this one." Rick C-137 dashed up to walk on the same height as the guards. "I need to know if I'm getting my portal gun back now. I mean, I have defeated this asshole who got me stuck in this stupid Pocket Morty craze. And since he defeated the Council before I got my chance, this must count, too, right?" "We'll put in a good word for you." Rick F-396 replied, not being in the position to make any promises. Of course, C-137 didn't like that answer, but was forced to follow along anyways. Which didn't mean that he couldn't harass the guards on the entire way, insisting that he really should get his portal gun back.

After the hearing was over and the Ricks and Mortys were free to go their separate ways again, the Mortys bid goodbye to each other, not sure if they would ever meet again after all of this was over now, but they still had each other's' numbers and would surely stay in contact. Rick C-137 could convince the Council to give his portal gun back and they could finally return home, too. Morty C-137 was really exhausted from their adventure and needed some time to think. He reminisced briefly over everything that had happened within the last few days as he laid in his bed. The sudden appearance of Mysterious Rick, right as he had walked out of his room. The kidnapping that followed and then the humiliation that even his own Rick hadn't been able to safe him from. Then being stuck in the dungeon since his grandpa had his portal gun stolen and then Mysterious Rick luring them on the Citadel where the Council confiscated their portal gun and forced them to participate in the Morty battles. The hunt for Mortys – first the stoic Morticia, then the weird Shadow Morty, the crazy fanboy Super Morty Fan Morty and lastly the cool and collected Judge Morty – and all of the battles against other Ricks and trainers. Well, against their Mortys, to be more precise. Also the whole investigation to find the culprit behind the illegal Morty brothels, which they also managed to solve. And lastly, the final battle against Mysterious Rick. So much had happened in such a short time and he wanted to think that he had also grown a lot over that time span. He had made new friends – even if they were other Mortys – and had become stronger and smarter and maybe a little less dependent on Rick in their adventures. But even through all of that, he was still left to deal with the aftermath of Mysterious Rick's actions. And these would appear in the form of nightmares as he would find out as soon as he fell asleep. It was kind of like King Jellybean all over again, just that it felt like it was worse this time. However, that was something that will have to be resolved at another time…

AN: And that's it! Another 10k chapter, but this is the finale, so it's only natural, right? …I have to admit though that I was really tempted to just skip over the whole battle at the end, but at this point, it feels like it's just a part of the story that shouldn't be missing. And sorry if switching between the single Morty fights back there was getting confusing or something, I just wanted to make it feel a little dynamic. So, I'm sure that you can already see that there will be more (couldn't have hinted it better at the end). So yeah, keep a look out for the aftermath story if you're interested and still want more. And yes, I am aware that there is a hole in the F-396 storyline, but I will cover the missing part in a future installment…probably… I'm nowhere near done with the "Entricked Fates" series and this was such a fun project for me. I hope that you liked it as well and found it as exciting as I did. Also my muse is still refusing to cooperate with me and my stories are a bit slow-going still (I'm just going through my folder of mostly finished stuff right now and see what I can post at the moment). By the way, I normally never ask this directly for critique, but to those of you who read the whole story without skipping over the fighting scenes: did you think that I improved on it over the course of the story a little? I mean, yes, I know that I'm still shit at writing action scenes and I will try to spare you from that in the future (…at least for a while), but I was just really curious if you got the impression that I slowly got better on it. I like to think that I improved at least a little bit, but it's probably easier for others to tell (and I know for sure that I'm not just imagining things). Many thanks in advance for letting me know what you thought of it :)

Part 11 of Entricked Fates

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part 1 of Entricked Fates: Gotta Catch Me Some Morty

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Part 2 of Entricked Fates: Mortyfied and Rickfused

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Part 3 of Entricked Fates: Ricking the Routine

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Part 4 of Entricked Fates: Ricks will always be Ricks

oneshot

Part 5 of Entricked Fates: The Morty-Lover

oneshot

Part 6 of Entricked Fates: Second Chances AKA The Rick One For Me

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part 7 of Entricked Fates: Rickvestigating the Morty Disappearances

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part 8 of Entricked Fates: When the Morty’s away, the Rick will play

oneshot

Part 9 of Entricked Fates: It’s Not His Ricking Fault!

oneshot

Part 10 of Entricked Fates: I Ricking Hate My Life!

oneshot

Part 12 of Entricked Fates: The Mortys and their Stories

Chapter 1

Chapter 2