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webnovel-deluxe · 1 year ago

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Isn't Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? Side Story Chapter 17

i also upload this chapter in my YT, feel free to read there to support my effort, click👉Link

***

“I didn't expect you to get your diploma so soon.”

What a summer semester graduation!

The dean of the Academy's Faculty of Magic, my uncle, the Marquis of Wert, puts down his teacup and grinned.

He seems cold and cynical at first glance, but seeing the same face often, he knew he wasn't in a bad mood today.

“To be honest, the picture is strange for a single magician to teach the saint who saved the empire. ”

“But it is true that graduating too early according to the school rules… I thought the dean would be against it.”

“Do I not look so inflexible like your father?”

Addition adds more, but it doesn't look less.

I swallowed the hard words that came to my throat.

“Honestly, I didn't want to make an exception either, but I can't help it. Because of you, my work is almost paralyzed.”

“.....”

“I’m going to see you, and even the graduates come to the undergraduate building from time to time, and I feel like I’m going to die.”

He shakes his head with a rather troubled face.

In fact, when the academy started, it was much more serious than it is now. The formula lectures I was giving were like taking a break.

“I respect you! Lady! Sign it!”

“Call my name just once!”

“Lady! Just say one word that you will pass your graduation thesis!”

“I feel like I will be able to pass the matriculation exam after receiving the saint from afar!”

There were people who didn't listen to lectures telling me to listen, and treated me as a totem of ups and downs.

'Of course, even if you only open your eyes wildly, you close your mouth right away.'

In the past, when I appeared, everyone was busy bowing their heads and politely giving way... .

‘I don’t really want to go back to the days of a villainess, but there were definitely things I was comfortable with.'

Still, it seems that some polarizing fans were in school, It seems that he was finally able to escape from the space called the school thanks to the trouble he made to the dean and president of the Academy.

The long compulsory education period, 5 years of undergraduate life, and hard work at the academy passed like a lantern.

“… It’s too long.”

While relieving, Marquis Berthe suddenly murmured.

“What?”

“I thought you were good at teaching. If possible, I was thinking of making a teaching assistant. Because that's the fastest way to become a professor.”

'Hey, it's not too harsh, oh!'

With the creepy remark that he wanted to pamper me like a grad student, he casually pushed the cake in front of me. with a small box.

“This… .”

When I opened the box, it contained a rose-shaped brooch, and his scar trembled for a moment.

“When I see you, I think of Marien. She was the junior she wore. She was a good lecturer, so she was going to be a teaching assistant, but I don't think my younger brother would run away with her.”

“...?”

Surely, not a love triangle, but a favorite graduate student No. 1?

Having written several chijeong novels in my head, I erased the questions that came to mind. Sometimes it's better to just leave it unaware.

“Your mother was a beautiful bride to match May. Marriage, congratulations.”

“Thank you, dean.”

“What dean when you get your diploma? Call me uncle.”

Uncle...

At the name that came out a little awkwardly, he smiled softly, incomparably with the previous one.

“I’ll see you at the wedding, Deborah.”

***

Upon hearing the news of Isidor's marriage, the Marquis of Jaba Slein hurried up to the capital with her family. It was to help her nephew's wedding preparations.

In the Empire, instead of the bride bringing the dowry, the groom prepared the wedding preparations, so Isidor would have a lot to worry about.

“Originally, this kind of preparation has to be led by an adult in the family… ”

In the mind of the Marquis, the childhood image of Isidore, who was like an angel from the past, was etched in her mind. Perhaps that's why his nephew, who had to carry out all the preparations alone, felt pity for him.

But after a while, instead of sticking her tongue out in pity, she sticks it out in exasperation.

To put it bluntly, perfectionism is a long one... … .'

He is a person with a reputation for being meticulous, but his nephew is a bit more sophisticated.

'I don't think there's a way to skip something.'

Isidor, who visited the wedding venue in advance, not only looked at the seating arrangement, but also the banquet room curtain decorations, candle holders, wine glasses, carpets, and even cutlery used by guests.

“This tableware is a trendy style?”

The vassal quickly responded to Isidor's point.

“Yes. There are a lot of nobles in the capital who prefer this kind of tableware these days, so I prepared it.”

“But it’s a formal place, but you don’t feel too heavy. Also, it’s not a flower pattern that suits the season, is it?”

“I will change it right now.”

The Marquis of Vaslein approached Isidor, watching closely the number placed on the tablecloth.

“May I give you a heartfelt message to the Duke of Visconti?”

Isidor, who had even taken off his gloves and checked the texture of the tablecloth, lifted his head at his aunt's call.

“Speak at ease, Auntie.”

“Yeah, don’t be shy. It would be a headache just to sort out the guest list, but if you look at every little thing like this, your nerves won't be left behind.”

“As soon as this place, which you rented for a dinner party, became known, the empire was turned upside down. If it had been this way, Seymour's first headmaster would have been satisfied.”

“The little things make the best quality. Visconti’s invitation.”

“… The invitation left such a saying?”

“Yes, I remember.”

Seeing his nephew, who said he was only following the laws of the Visconti, to stop nagging, the Duchess of Vaslain shook her head as if she couldn't do it.

“You really remember everything.”

“aunt also has a good memory. I want you to forget about my immature childhood... .”

She often glorified Isidore as a child. Little Isidor, with rosy cheeks, dazzling blonde hair, and big eyes, was as real as her face, like an angel who had just descended from the earth.

“Isidor, when have you been immature? You grew up too early for needlessly because of your rude father.”

“I did the exact opposite because my father didn’t like it, but I look like I’m mature.”

“… Well, on the other hand, he was a perfect guy to be a teacher.”

I say it lightly now, but what the former Visconti owner, Albert Visconti did, was beyond my imagination.

As the only son was a mess, the former family's affection for the genius grandson grew and the conflict between the father and son deepened.

'It was terrible... .'

As she recalled the past, her eyes fell deeply.

***

In the long past, the Visconti Castle was always noisy due to the clamor of Bardo Visconti, the former headmaster. Even the sound of the rough waves crashing into the Alea Strait could not sweep away his shouts of force.

“There are drug dealers in the castle. Albert, are you crazy!?”

“Ah, father… !”

“Aren’t you ashamed to look at Isidor!? While you marred Visconti's impeccable prestige and defiled the stature of a noble bloodline, your son has awakened the talent of a magic swordsman! whopping! At the age of eight when you hid in an underground warehouse and stole alcohol!”

When Bardo Visconti provoked Isidor, Albert Visconti, who was trembling, suddenly bubbled like a mad dog.

“father! Where the hell is my son?”

“What?”

“I know it all. Isidore is actually my younger brother, so I'm wearing it like my own son, right?”

“this… this guy! What nonsense are you talking about now?”

“Also. If you are stabbed, you are revolting.”

Albert rubbed his eyes like a madman and teasing his tongue.

“Anyway, Olga, I’ll have to pull the girl’s hair out and let Chidogon go. I'm playing with my sister-in-law, how dare I take a sip of my behavior on the topic of an affair?! The person who will receive the huge alimony is me!! dare! Dirty bitch!”

Olga, a victim of an arranged marriage, was fed up with Albert's Visconti's chaos and divorced after giving birth to Isidor.

After the divorce, the news that she died of an illness had been heard five years ago, and Bardo Visconti could not overcome his anger and drew a decorative sword, seeing his son tarnishing the honor of the deceased.

“After hanging out with the backstreets, every time I open my mouth, the smell of stinking vibrates! I will rip off your tongue today.”

“Hey, hey!”

Albert, who drank too much and couldn't even use his sword properly, was frozen by the blood of his father, the sword master.

“You poor bastard! The spirit is not as strong as that of a ten-year-old Isidor. I don't know if you are really my son!”

Just as Bardo Visconti was fed up and was about to cut his tongue with a knife, Agat broke in and stopped them.

After staying in the Bar Slaine estate, she stopped by the Visconti Castle after a long time and had no choice but to become a flagship at the sight unfolding before her eyes.

“Agat, go away!”

“father! Isidor is watching!”

Why is it that the father slaps his brother so loudly at the place where the child sees it? Isn't it too harsh to show that young child the cruel sight of his grandfather cutting off Jea's tongue?

“Ugh! Huh”

“Albert, you just owe your sister a tongue.”

The sharp blade that had dug into his shabby lips slowly fell away.

“ugh… uh... ”

Blood cascades from Albert Visconti's long slit lips and chin.

”.....“

“Isidor! Don't stand here and go to your room.“

“Agat, you are the older sister who only looks at that child too young. My grandchildren don't even blink an eye at this. He's a bold guy like a Visconti.”

Little Isidor, who was standing loudly beyond the chaotic door, thought as he watched his father's tears, runny noses, and blood.

it's dirty.

The thick bloody smell and the smell of man's dung pee mixed together, and his nasal passages throbbed. It was tens of times more disgusting than the smell from the barn.

“Ugh...”

When I met my father's hazy eyes, I suddenly felt an insect crawling all over my body. Goosebumps rose from the forearms and the nape of the neck.

No matter how many times I wiped and wiped, the unpleasant sensation never went away. Bardo Visconti sighed briefly as he watched Isidor wiping his hands all day with an expressionless face.

“You are truly a Visconti even in this respect.”

Most of the Visconti's who ran away had a chronic tuberculosis. So Bardo Visconti was rather happy to see the child's fingertips that had been split and had blood on them.

A natural perfectionist temperament, the talent of a magic swordsman, a superhuman memory, and even the habit of raking gold by any means. Even if it was called the reincarnation of the invitation, it was not strange.

Target is 20 Likes and i will upload the next chapter if you all complete the target.

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skzsauce01 · 2 years ago

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Morning Glory

Synopsis: Jisung has writer’s block and seeks a cure for it from the village witch.

Warning: none

Word Count: 2.5k

Pairing: gn!reader x Han Jisung

He normally hates wasting ink and paper, but he would rather toss away crumpled paper balls than stare at the blank sheet in front of him. The view from his writing desk is beautiful—a cerulean sky dappled with clouds, sprawling green fields that come alive with the wind. Red-roofed houses cluster at the bottom of the hill, and smoke wisps from the chimneys as lunch time approaches. As he closes his eyes and breathes in the crisp, country air, he can almost taste the grilled beef being prepared in the kitchens of the village.

Yes, this is good.

His hands hover over the typewriter keys, poised to craft the story brewing inside him. His fingers twitch in anticipation. They hang in the air for several minutes while Jisung tries to gather his thoughts, which slip through his mind like fish. At the end of it all, he has nothing.

This retreat is not working.

He sinks into his wooden chair, balancing on the back two legs, as he studies the ceiling. Six months is not enough time for a completed manuscript. He has already spent a month wasting away in this little cottage, reassuring himself that inspiration would arrive at his doorstep like deliveries of milk. Five months is too short, but that’s all has left if he still wants to publish with the prestigious Ginseng Press. He supposes three years after his successful debut is too long for his sophomore novel. He’ll be dropped soon if he doesn’t churn out something.

The old clock on the wall ticks. A bird sings an afternoon ditty. The breeze rustles the blank sheet of paper stuck into his typewriter.

He sighs. He really didn’t want to do it, but he has no choice now.

It’s time to visit the village witch.

Your ivy-shrouded stone house is visible from Jisung’s rental cottage. He has never gone to your home before, only having made polite conversation with you at the market stall in the village. If the villagers hadn’t pointed you out during the first meeting, he would have never guessed you were the witch, though it makes perfect sense. His city’s council of witches are old and experienced; for a small population like this, a single young, green witch is sufficient.

He follows the worn dirt path to your property. The weathered signs posted along the road confirm that yes, your residence is this way. He can’t tell if his heart is beating with excitement or with worry. Although the village has nothing but good things to say about you, how you’ll treat an outsider is unknown. You seem kind enough, if a little curt. A bead of sweat forms on his brow. Hopefully that is because of the high sun.

In the many moments when he is supposed to be writing, he often sees you tending to your garden on the terraced hillside. He scans the large variety of colorful plants, hoping to see your signature brimmed straw hat peeking out above the leaves. You aren’t here now. Wooden stairs and pathways snake around the hill in a haphazard fashion, and he slowly climbs them. How you organized the garden is a mystery to him. The lack of a central stairway from the bottom of the hill to your doorstep is even more baffling.

Nonetheless, he finds himself standing in front of your cherry red door. A large brass knocker in the shape of bumblebee ornaments the large piece of wood, daring him to announce his presence. After a moment, he does. He hears the click of a lock on the other side, and to his surprise, just the top half of the door swings opens.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“Hello,” he says after he’s recovered from his initial shock. You don’t look displeased to see him, but you aren’t ecstatic either. “I’m Jisung, the writer who’s been staying here. We’ve met a few times already and—”

A peach-colored cat leaps onto the ledge dividing the two sections of the door, breaking all of the momentum he had. The cat surveys Jisung for a moment before turning her attention to the butterflies by the bushes. You absentmindedly stroke the cat’s tail. “Don’t mind Apricot. What were you saying?”

“I have writer’s block,” he blurts out.

“And how is that my problem?”

His mouth falls open. You aren’t green at all—you’re jaded. You lazily flick away the fly buzzing around and slide your bored eyes back to him, waiting for him to retort a reply. Even Apricot glances at Jisung to see what he’ll do.

He stutters an incoherent mess of words before landing on, “Isn’t this your job?”

“I deal with municipal issues and illnesses. Your lack of creativity, responsibility, or motivation isn’t something I can fix with a spell. Is there perhaps an underlying cause of your writer’s block that I can remedy?”

You say this all very matter-of-factly, so much so that Jisung feels mortified for visiting you under such trivial circumstances. Barely audible over the heavy silence, he says, “I… I guess not. Thank you for your time.”

However, before he can turn around and speed back to the cottage, you ask, “Would you like to join me for lunch? I made a cheesecake.”

Minutes later, he’s sitting on yet another wooden chair, only this one has a gingham seat cover. You’re busy at the stove, frying something that smells absolutely delicious. The oil in the pan crackles delightfully as you add in more beef, and Jisung’s stomach rumbles. He has been surviving on fried eggs and toast for the past week. When he first came, he made himself actual meals, but his desire to do so dwindled soon after. What was the point of spending all of that time preparing and cooking and cleaning when he could have been writing? Or, trying to write. The thought of having to work on his manuscript makes him feel heavy.

He looks around your house, searching for inspiration. Sage green curtains tied with fraying ribbons. Old books stacked on top of the coffee table. Pressed flowers framed to the faded walls. Everything is so inviting, so warm—it’s exactly what he envisions fairy tale witches would live in. He imagines you sitting cross-legged on the crochet rug at night, checking off items from your agenda with an inky pen as you scratch behind Apricot’s ears. The glow of the tulip-shaped lamp would burnish her fur golden.

As if on cue, Apricot saunters into the kitchen. She blinks at Jisung, almost surprised that he’s still here, and then curls up at his feet. When he reaches down to pet her, she lets him.

“Ready,” you announce, making him snap back up. You set down a dish of stir-fried udon on his placemat and turn to the antique-looking refrigerator in the corner. “Let me pour you some lemonade.”

The lemonade is light purple. Dark blue ice cubes float at the top, and when the color leaches into the rest of the drink, it dyes the lemonade a darker shade of purple. It’s magical.

“People always think so,” you remark, a smile building on your lips, “but it’s just the tea. Butterfly pea flower, if you’re interested.”

There’s a subtle earthiness to the flavor, and it’s refreshing when paired with the udon. He tries to mind his manners and eat at a normal pace, but his hunger wins out. The food is divine, and he wonders what you added to make it so phenomenal. He suspects that much like the drink, there is no magic involved. Throughout the meal, you place more beef into his dish, observing him with a placid expression. Do you find him pitiful? A nuisance?

“Thank you,” he finally says when he’s able to find his voice again. “This is wonderful.”

“Of course.” When you take his dish to the sink along with yours, you gesture for him to sit back down. As you turn on the faucet, you ask, “How are you finding our village? You’ve been here for a month, correct?”

Jisung only means to talk about how much he’s enjoyed his stay thus far—the beautiful scenery, the kind villagers, the tranquility—but his writing progress inevitably comes up. It always does. He lives in words, creates whole people and worlds with them. Years ago, the words used to come easily to him, he confesses. He could look at a mundane object and a story would materialize in minutes. Prose would spill out of him so quickly, he took to carrying a notebook with him at all times lest he forget his thoughts. He could type for hours, building and refining his work without needing to eat or sleep.

“I loved it,” breathes Jisung. “I loved it, but I don’t find myself loving it anymore. I want to write so desperately, but nothing comes to me. And when I do write, the words feel dead.”

“What’s changed?”

“My novel got published, but it may have been the worst thing to happen to me.” He tilts his head back and stares at the wood beams on your ceiling. “So many people loved the novel. I got letters about how happy reading it made them, how excited they are to read what I’m working on next, and I don’t know if I can do it again. What if I just got lucky? Or what if they don’t like the next one? Then I’m a failure.”

“So this pressure is the source of your writer’s block?”

He sighs and wishes he could see his breath rising from his mouth like smoke. “I guess. I suppose you don’t have any spells for that.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s alright.” He lolls his head forward and straightens up so that he can see you again. You have an unreadable expression as usual, which is a skill he assumes you have mastered over your years of working here. “I thought that might be the case.”

You reach for a knife from the wooden block on the counter. “Cheesecake?”

Your cheesecake is astounding. Even Apricot leaves her spot at Jisung’s feet to look at your marvelous creation. The strawberry sauce on top glistens in the afternoon light, and the filling looks smooth and creamy. When he lets out an involuntary gasp at his first taste, you smile and tell him that the strawberries are from your own garden, fresh from the summer harvest.

“Would you like more?”

He politely declines. Instead, he carves out small bites with his fork to prolong the experience. You cut a slice for yourself and hum approvingly at the sauce. Another silence follows as the two of you eat. When Jisung glances around your kitchen, his eyes land on the ivy vines dangling from the top of a cabinet, curling around the brass knob like it intends to open the door. The glass panes of the cabinet reveal that there are only plates inside, nothing desirable for a plant. Another ivy plant hanging from the ceiling reaches for the dishes in the drying rack.

“You really like ivy,” he remarks, nodding at the two plants. “I noticed that your house is covered with it, too.”

Amused, you reply, “The ones in my home are pothos plants, and the ‘ivy’ covering my house is morning glory. They haven’t bloomed yet.”

He blushes at his mistake and apologizes, which you wave off. The conversation devolves into silence again, and Jisung finishes his cheesecake shortly after.

“I can wash,” he says. Not ‘offers’ because you’ll sit him down again. “My thanks for the meal.”

“You’re my guest, there’s no need.”

“Please. It wouldn’t sit right with me.”

You eventually relent and watch him closely as he handles your porcelain plates. He didn’t notice it before, but there’s gilding on the edges and a wreath of flowers decorating the center. The sponge he uses is in the shape of a cat that looks similar to Apricot, and the dish soap is lavender-scented. You are indeed a fairy tale witch come to life.

A loud knock comes from the front door, and you reluctantly leave Jisung to attend to those matters. Apricot follows. As he places the plates onto the metal drying rack, he hears you fiddle with the locks before greeting your patron. It’s the same business-like tone you used with him, but it softens quickly. He peers into the living room, hiding himself behind the wooden archway. A child sits himself on the ledge of the half-opened door, and Apricot joins him up there. Her tail flicks back and forth as she eyes the odd angle of the boy’s arm. When he reaches out to pet her, she tucks herself under his other arm.

“Hold your breath,” you tell him as you wrap a bundle of leaves around the broken arm.

The vibrant color of the leaves slowly turn milky white, and your fingertips glow with green light. As you recite a spell, your voice as clear as river water, Jisung discovers that he’s holding his breath as well. He has had healing spells performed on him before, yet his heart beats in suspense as the bone shifts itself back into place with a crunch, as your magic binds and strengthens the sections.

“All better. Be more careful next time.” After the boy hops off the ledge, you turn around and say, “You can come out, Jisung.”

With flushed cheeks, he steps out from the archway. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but that was truly amazing to see. I should get going anyway. Thank you again for lunch and the chat. It was… really nice.”

“Of course.” You motion Apricot to come down and unlock the bottom half of the door. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to come by. It’s my job.”

“Thanks again.”

He doesn’t want to leave, or rather, he doesn’t want to return to his typewriter. The empty pages inspire nothing but dread. Nonetheless, he has to.

He’ll follow the winding pathway of your hillside garden down to the dusty path that leads away from your fairy tale home. Fish will swim in the rice paddies along the side of the road, and he’ll wish to plunge his hand into the water to catch one. The boy at your door will be in the distance, dragging a long stick in the dirt, whistling to the birds flying above. A rabbit will dash past him, and he’ll chase it while Jisung watches with contentment.

When Jisung walks through his simple white door, he’ll collapse onto his chair and stare at the void in front of him. He’ll think about his time with you and try to carve a story about the young witch of a small village in the countryside. He won’t cry. He’ll do his absolute best not to cry.

Before he can begin his journey back to his cottage, you place a gentle hand on his arm. “You came for a remedy, but will you accept some words of comfort?”

“I’ll take whatever words I can have.”

“The flowers of the morning glory only last for a day, but the vine itself produces countless flowers and keeps producing them. So remember this: you are the vine, not the flower. The morning will come, and you will bloom again.”

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mayaketu · 7 months ago

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Could Edo Tensei be used in Boruto TBV?

So the anime and manga tend to plant hints that later get expanded on but with a twist! I saw posts theorizing if edo tensei might be used and had some theories of my own about it.

I feel that if they do use it, it would be on people who haven’t already been brought back. Or if a current character dies and they bring them back. It’s possible sasukes novel being turned into a manga & anime arc could hint at it being used in the future. 1, the entire arc depended on edo tensei reviving dead animals. & 2, bc the question Jiji asks; sasuke didn’t respond though Sakura did. The moment was very noticeably tense and lasted several pages, hinting at importance.

I don’t think characters that have already been revived should come back. & I doubt they would for the most part. Everyone revived got conclusions in shippudden. Bringing them back again is kinda overkill and cheapens the emotional value of them finding peace after death in shippudden. (At least imo)

Characters I would like to see return & why it could work:

Fugaku. Naruto got to meet up with his dead parents again so maybe sasuke can? Also we never saw Fugaku’s MS ability and kishi could write something for him that would make him crucial to the situation in boruto; Teach Sarada about her MS. As well as explain the massacre to Sarada & give closure & love to both her & sasuke.

Shisui. Shisui also feels like a good uchiha candidate for revival bc his eyes could be extremely helpful against omnipotence. Also, he could explain things to Sarada about the uchiha, politics & humanize itachi & her family. Bc overall I don’t think we need a literal rehash of all the ins and outs of the massacre, Sarada is not attached to the clan like sasuke was

I think Sarada needs the clan and her family humanized for her, more than she needs to know every detail of what happened the way sasuke did. So she can better understand her dad, her legacy & the politics of Konoha since she wants to be Hokage.

Kushina. Since Himawari hosts Kurama and has such special power/connection with him, I think a kushina reemergence would be perfect. She was never revived before & she could help hima adjust to hosting a tailed beast & hone her powers. Not to mention, her & hima share a special trait, they both had very standout chakra and more affinity to Kurama than most ppl. It would also be nice for revived Kushina to meet Naruto

Kushina would also be a good revival for Boruto. With Boruto being turned into full otutsuki & being called that by ppl + his life being stolen, it would be really powerful for Kushina to tell him what it means being an uzumaki and affirming him.

*the anime likes to sneak in hints at the future but with a twist. Hima was infatuated with Shukaku in the anime, and ppl assumed she could become his jinchuriki. But she wound up being Kuramas host instead. She also played Minato in the anime, & a classmate was Kushina.

Past 9 tailed jinchuriki. Hima is not a jinchuriki & has powers beyond one. She is akin to a tailed beast according to Jura. So I think the door is definitely open to her meeting at least one past jinchuriki of Kurama, kushina or otherwise. Either through their chakra remnants or edo tensei. They could help her master her power, adjust to ‘jinchuriki’ life, and possibly fight alongside her if revived.

**i think sasuke leaving Jiji’s question open ended could hint at someone he cares for possibly being revived. But it’s all hypothetical, don’t take it too serious I just enjoy theorizing!

#edo tensei #boruto #boruto TBV #kushina uzumaki #himawari uzumaki #fugaku uchiha #shisui uchiha #jinchuriki #mine #theory

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flowercrowngods · 11 months ago

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17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

hmm i don’t know about reading, but writing i can tell you: a the rest of us just live here-esque wayne munson/scott clarke story of how they find each other through the years of canon events

for context, the rest of us just live here is a beautiful YA novel by patrick ness in which the protagonists live in a city where The Chosen Ones kinda wreak havoc every now and then and they’re really just kids who don’t have special powers and who are just dealing with teenage angst and stuff, essentially shining a light on the lives of those who don’t get to change the world but have to live in a world that’s changed

all the canon events still happen, except we get an outsider pov that’s unaware of everything at best, and ignorant of it at worst.

for the sake of ✨hyper specificity✨ let me paint you a picture

the story would start in a little corner café, early enough in the day for scott to stop and grab a coffee because it’s something he used to do in university and then later as a teacher student and then when he started out, and he can’t shake the habit and at this point he doesn’t want to anymore, appreciating the extra bit of time in the morning taken to read up on the news or latest scientific breakthroughs or work on his children’s book series about a bunch of kids who investigate supernatural phenomena in their rural town and get help from their science teacher (he’s a sillyman and i love him)

wayne frequents the same cafe, either in the morning after he worked the graveyard shift and he just wants some good fucking coffee before going home and passing out just as eddie leaves for school, or in the mornings before he has to work the day shift. he almost always runs into scott, but it’s more of a polite nod situation than anything else because they never really have anything to say to each other and scott is always preoccupied while wayne is just dead to the world and here to enjoy the silence

but then one day will goes missing, and they both hear about it. when hawkins PD organises and mobilises the whole town to comb the forest for any traces of will, scott and wayne end up finding each other, spending the search together, and they get talking about will — whether scott knew him, whether he was a good kid, whether scott thinks the kid just up and left or if something terrible must have happened. they also talk about eddie, after an hour or two, about why wayne is here if he doesn’t even know will.

“that kid is someone’s boy. if anything were to happen to my boy, i’d want the whole town on its damn feet looking for him.��

they don’t find will, but with that first instance of talking, the two of them don’t really stop. they gravitate toward each other in the mornings; wayne finding a table with two chairs, inviting scott to take a seat even if they sit in silence as scott reads or writes or grades some tests. they instantly fall into a comfortable dynamic that shouldn’t work but it does.

at some point they like really get talking and sometimes when scott has a free first period wayne will stay as long as he can and they’ll just talk the whole time and scott finds that wayne is super smart but more in a practical way and wayne finds that scott is obviously smart in the hypotheticals and the natural sciences and explains things in a way that doesn’t feel too draining or too much. and sometimes when scott is writing or stuck at a particular scene or plot point, wayne helps him out. because eddie gets his storytelling ways from wayne actually. the man’s an avid storyteller if he wants to be; he just usually has a deadpan way about it now that eddie’s a teen, doesn’t make a big deal of the vivid imagination he has, but scott learns to appreciate it anyway.

and wayne tells stories about mysterious monster dogs living in the junkyard (bc the man sees shit that man is aware that man is nocturnal by trade and this town can’t fool him!!!!) — and it’s fine while it stays like that, but soon they’re talking about will again; about kids and teenagers dying in this town. first the holland girl, then so many others. scott knew them all, is haunted by it, gets oddly quiet and wayne wants to change the topic, but he knows something’s wrong in this town.

he talks about moving, too, wants to take eddie with him and leave, but then he ends up not doing it when things calm down in the summer of ‘85 and the mayor resigns and the police is more present. even though the chief is dead. and that hargrove boy. still he decides he’ll stay, knows eddie wants to try one more time even though wayne doesn’t care about shit like that, knows that eddie’ll fall through the system and still find his way — scott agrees every time, speaks of eddie in the highest praise, adoring the way he thinks and the strategies he has to turn everything he learns into some sort of story setting. scott feels for both eddie and wayne every time he hears that the boy flunked a test again, failed his finals, skipped school for a week. he knows how cruel it is, this system, to boys like eddie munson.

things are fine when eddie starts senior year again, wayne says the boy is determined that this time it’ll work out, this time he’ll make him proud and stick it to the rest of hawkins. scott believes him. believes in eddie. lays his hand on wayne’s and smiles, and wayne smiles back.

and then kids are dying again. one of them in his home. and eddie is gone and people don’t talk to wayne anymore because he’s the Devil’s blood, but scott finds him anyway and holds him and tells him that “i’m here.” and “i’m sorry.” and “let’s go look for your eddie.”

and then eddie is dead but not really, and then there are so many kids in that tiny hospital room who didn’t die but look like they’ve looked death in the eye anyway, and maybe this town is cursed, but eddie is back and he’s alive and scott never left wayne’s side, not even in this claustrophobic hospital room that’s posing a fire hazard — but they’ve learned that a fire hazard is the least of their problems, especially when it’s caused by people caring for his boy.

and when that harrington boy is holding eddie’s hand in the hospital bed and on the living room couch like he’s afraid the boy will disappear if he looks away, wayne reaches for scott’s hand, too, because he doesn’t want the man to disappear either. ever again.

and he keeps holding that hand when his kids disappear again to save the world, leaving him with haunted looks that pull up into teary-eyed smiles and the pale promise to come back. and he keeps holding that hand when they come back, when it’s the harrington boy who needs his hand held in a hospital room with eddie refusing to let go. and he keeps holding that hand when scott joins eddie by steve’s bed and takes over with the storytelling. and he keeps holding that hand when he joins in. and he keeps holding that hand when the kids start crying because it’s scott’s tale that makes them realise that they’ve won. that it’s over.

he pulls scott out of the hospital room into the dark and empty hallway and tells him, “i love you.”

because the man is more than ridiculous sweater vests and wholesome funny quirky stories and an ever sunny disposition and scientific tangents about aliens and their existence over his fifth cup of coffee that afternoon that makes wayne contemplate whether he should consider grabbing decaf the next time he’s out for groceries.

the man also makes him dinner and lunch and breakfast and coffee when his nephew is missing and presumed dead. the man massages his shoulders and scalp when wayne’s been on the brink of tears for too many hours now. the man will talk in quiet hushed tones when the police sirens are too loud, and he will shut up when wayne needs nothing but silence.

they have become attuned to each other over the course of 3 years without realising it.

and they can hold hands about it if they want to because the world ended and children died and the government screwed them all over, so maybe it doesn’t matter if two men in their late forties or early fifties decide that each other is what they want next in life.

scott kisses him for the first time in that dark hallway outside that hospital room, holding wayne to his chest as they wait for the kids to trail out of the room one by one so they can drive them home.

the world ended and then it didn’t, and scott and wayne fell in love along the way.

🤍🌷 come ask me questions for writers

#scott clarke #wayne munson #scott clarke/wayne munson #clarkson #steddie #it’s always background steddie for my clarkson fics what do you meaannnnnn #i think this post is the epitome of ‘hyperspecific au i am the only audience for’ hdhdhd #ask game answered

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canmom · 1 year ago

Text

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere: 013-032

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy [all Flower posts]

Time for more flower...

youtube

...no, not that flower!

Unless...?

Welcome back to my liveblog of sorts for web novel The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere by @lurinatftbn! Shout out to the Flower discord for giving me such a kind welcome. You're making me want to go all out on this liveblog, but, I musn't...! So I'm going to try to just comment on things that jumped out as especially noteworthy rather than write down everything that went down.

Especially since... a lot happened in these chapters. We have a perfect androgyne tree thing! Magical duels! Questionable student/teacher relationships! Steamed hams! Intense political arguments at dinner! Metafictional assurance of fair play! Prosognostic events! Transgender AIs! And of course........

a murder!!!!!

...ok that one was kinda obvious. But the first body has hit the floor! I don't feel like I have nearly enough information yet to start speculating about who might have dunnit.

That's a lie. It was definitely Kinzo Ushiromiya. That bastard.

So, from the top!

We're introduced to a few of the members of the Order, with by far the most screen time going to Su's mentor and ah, kinda-girlfriend? Neferuaten. And like, damn, lot going on there!

Before I get into the meat of that - first the bit where I search a character's name on Wikipedia. Neferuaten's name is most likely a reference to an Egyptian female king/pharaoh (a rank that's apparently distinct, conceptually, from a queen) variously called Ankhkheperure-Merit-Neferkheperure, Waenre, and Aten Neferneferuaten. Most often shortened to just Neferneferuaten.

Her exact historical identity seems to be a little unclear - she may or may not be the same person as Nefertiti for example. Whoever she was, she apparently reigned for a couple of years around 1334–1332 BCE, and was then succeeded by the famous child king Tutankhamun. Or maybe Smenkhkare came in between them? Seems to be a matter of some debate. Girl really needed to leave a few more vast and trunkless legs of stone so we can figure this stuff out.

In any case, this version of Neferuaten goes way back with Su. Her introduction is to launch a magical attack on our poor girl while she's contemplating the 'everblossom'. One of those classic 'master surprise attacks the student to see how much they've learned' deals. This servers as a fine exposition for the exact mechanics of magical duels.

Zettai! Ummei! Mokushiroku!

Let's briefly note how magical duels and magic works here, since it seems like it will be very relevant later.

The more we learn about magic, the more explicit is that this system is not some natural property of the universe, but something that's designed by the mysterious Ironworkers. It seems like it's kind of an API to the Ironworker admin console. The Ironworkers wanted to make it difficult to do magic on human bodies, and therefore they designed a system for detecting what is 'human', based on three heuristics - anatomical, motion and neurological.

Humans, being the freaky little hackers that we are, of course set about figuring out how to bypass this system, and created standardised means, consisting of three spells, termed [x]-beguiling arcana. In a sense the three criteria are something like three 'hitpoints': the primary way to win a duel is to get all three spells off, thus making your opponent vulnerable to magic.

To achieve this, you can either speak the words of a spell or sign them by drawing them with your fingers - i.e. one way or the other express the appropriate string of symbols. This is risky because if you're interrupted at the wrong time, your spell can backfire and blow up, and getting a spell right requires precise pronunciation and also rapid mental maths. So the general 'gameplay' of magical duels involves attempting to disrupt the opponent's focus and aim, while fast-casting the spells that are most familiar to you.

We're introduced to a few spells that could be useful in battle, such as

Matter-Shifting (telekinesis spell with a geometric bent, used to move a cube of dirt to act as a smokescreen),

Matter-Annihilating (deletes stuff),

Entropy-Denying (essentially a shield that freezes objects and fluids in relative motion),

Air-Thrusting (creates a shockwave air blast),

Light-Warping (fucks up the light for visual cover),

World-Deafening (mutes all sound, which can interrupt casts)

Entropy-Accelerating (disrupts coherency, causing rapid aging-like effects - can be used on a 'higher plane' to disrupt all magic in an area)

Entropy-Reversing (rewinds matter along its path of motion - reference to entropy here seems a tad dubious but w/e)

It's clearly a pretty carefully thought out system - I appreciate that it's approached from the point of view of someone trying to exploit the shit out of the system and figure out what the real meta would be. It does kinda seem like if you got the drop on a wizard and shot them with a sniper rifle they'd be toast, but we'll see later that much more powerful weapons than mere chemical firearms exist in this world, and presumably in a combat situation everyone would have entropy-denying (or equivalent) shields up, so maybe that's a moot point.

Anyway, we are later informed by the closest thing to authorial voice that everything we're told here about magic can be assumed to be axiomatically true, similar to the red text in Umineko. Which pretty heavily foreshadows that this is going to be on the test, if you like!

the magical metaphysics

With apologies to Neferuaten, who will get more detailed comments shortly, there are some other big revelations about magic and the nature of this world that I should talk about while we're on the subject of magic!

In the last post I wondered whether casting magic is an innate quality or a 'skill issue' situation. It turns out the answer is sorta 'neither'. In fact, it's something that has to be unlocked, using special equipment and a particular ritual. The cost of this ritual is not yet entirely spelled out, but we definitely get an inkling. It's rather ominously implied by this exchange in chapter 22:

"We're supposed to want to save people, to make the world better. To defend a bunch of people who practically committed murder--" "You're a murderer too, dour girl." I stopped, and blinked. It took me some moments to process the words. They'd come from Lilith, who now seemed to have finished with her dessert. Now she was just slowly swirling her spoon around in the last remnants of the chocolate sludge on the plate and, occasionally, dipping a finger into her cream bowl and licking little bits of it up. Her expression was irritated, but disconnected. "All arcanists are," she said. "It's how it happens. So having fights over moral high ground like this is very stupid and annoying. Please stop."

In the same chapter, Su uses something called an 'acclimation log', in which she records her 'association' with a series of diary entries from her childhood self. It all suggests that Su's present consciousness has somehow taken over the body of another character, who we could maybe call original!Su.

A few chapters later, we find out what's the deal with prosognostic events. In fact we get a pretty extensive exposition. It turns out that iron is magical in this universe, providing access to higher dimensions, FTL and all sorts of shit. However, because the Mimikos and other worlds are running on a 'substrate' of iron - sort of like a simulation - we are told this is why they can't recursively include iron within. And since the human body includes a certain amount of iron (most notably, in the haemoglobin protein in red blood cells), it is not possible to fully realise the human body inside these artificial worlds.

a self-referential quibble

Here's how Su puts it:

A substrate cannot exist within itself. That sounds awkward when I put it so directly, but it's not too hard to understand if you think about it in abstract-- A foundation obviously can't support another foundation of equal weight and nature, because… Well, it would make nonsense of the whole premise. A book is a device for storing information, but it cannot contain within its letters everything about itself and what it contains, because that is already more than it contains. A box cannot hold another box of equal size, unless it is bent or otherwise changed. A mind cannot hold another mind…

On the face of it, this seems on the face of it... not entirely true, at least in some domains? You can run a virtual machine program on a computer, representing any particular combination of hardware and software, which is from the perspective of software 'on the inside', essentially indistinguishable from a computer running on 'bare metal' hardware. The only real difference is that operating the virtual machine has some computational overhead, so it will be slower. The more virtual machines you nest, the slower it gets.

But 'from the inside', the only way to tell which layer of virtual machine you're on would be to refer to some kind of external clock signal (which can trivially be spoofed) and notice that it's running slower than it should!

We could also mention here the subject of quines, which are programs which print their own source code.

Let's consider Su's examples. The book that completely describes its contents might be able to get around this problem in a similar fashion to a quine, by exploiting redundancy and self-reference.

For example, let's try creating a string that completely describes its own content, using a quine-style technique.

This string begins with a sentence followed by its quotation, and then 100 letter ws; the sentence is: "This string begins with a sentence followed by its quotation, and then 100 letter ws; the sentence is: " wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

In fact the '100 letter ws' could literally be the entire string that follows. Suppose the length of the 'real content' of the book is S, and the length of the rest of the 'metadata sentence' describing properties of the book is M; then the total length of the book is 2M+3S.

You can add as much additional information to the 'metadata' string as you like, provided you quote it again afterwards. If you don't like having a book be three times the length it needs to be, you could compress the 'real content' string using an algorithm like DEFLATE, and include instructions in the 'metadata' on how to decompress it. (Text tends to compress really well.) This is where we run up into notions probably all too familiar to rats, or indeed anyone who recently read Seth Dickinson's new novel Exordia, such as Kolmogorov complexity.

But... I think this might well be intentional. Given how common notions like 'stacks of simulations' and 'self-reference' are in rat space, I suspect we may be being misled! The 'rules' of the game - more on that in a moment - say that Su won't deliberately lie to us, and won't withold information without saying so, but her perceptions could be mistaken. Maybe she's been given a false explanation of why the world works the way it does.

It's also totally possible that while the general point (you can't contain a thing in itself) may have some edge cases, the specific instance - you can't build a universe on a giant higher-dimensional iron spike and still have that universe contain iron - may still be true. We don't know the first thing about building universes using magic iron after all.

anyway... the Deal with Prosognisia!

The Ironworkers had a hacky workaround to the 'no iron' rule: they had a few tens of thousands of preserved human bodies on board their Tower of Asphodel. Asphodel, incidentally, is a genus of flower, said to carpet the Asphodel Meadows, one of the three divisions of the realm of Hades. (In their game, Supergiant decided to convert it into a lava zone.) It looks rather pretty actually!

So, they were able to instantiate these bodies in their rebuilt worlds by sort of making them into a reference to one of these stored human bodies. Here's Su again, chapter 26:

Some human bodies, or at least the impression of them and the iron within, had been preserved as part of the Tower, frozen in a timeless place. And because of that, it was eventually discovered it was possible for them to exist in the artificed planes as a sort of stable paradox. After all, while a book can't exist within itself, it can still reference other stuff it does contain internally, even if it makes for somewhat awkward reading. A few tweaks and workarounds solved the problem of the iron associated with that human body staying a part of it, and just like that, human beings were walking something at least akin to the earth once again. However, this only permitted replicas of those bodies within the Tower to exist. The creation of new ones remained impossible, and births not incubated by anima taken by the same mechanism would inevitably fail. And there were far fewer preserved bodies than minds; scarcely more than ten thousand or so for each party.

So every human born in the Mimikos is forked from one of these human bodies. For... mysterious reasons, if you recognise that someone nearby is forked from the same body as you, you both straight up die. If you touch such a person (a 'contact paradox') it's even worse, and all the iron in your body disappears, leaving behind a 'greenish sludge', which seems to be a severe enough disaster to cause deaths of nearby people as well.

(This is a little surprising given that the iron in the human body is only about 60 parts per million by mass, but it would kinda destroy your blood's ability to carry oxygen, so it would definitely be pretty fatal.)

The 'distinction treatment' we heard about is able to mitigate the risks somewhat - with quick medical intervention and time magic, it's possible to allow the people involved to make a full recovery. An interesting wrinkle is that it's implied either Ophelia or new character Balthazar is trans, because normally people of the same gender can't share an upstream body.

That definitely leads to a very fascinating fucked up medical emergency scene, but the reason I'm discussing it now is because it's got bearing on this big-deal question of 'what's so fucked up about arcanists anyway'...

so what's so fucked up about arcanists anyway?

Having finally answered one of the major questions, we can start zeroing in on another. In a flashback scene in chapter 30, we learn that the 'original' bodies have innate access to the magic API, but when you're given a distinct identity at birth you quickly lose it. To have your sv_cheats 1 restored, you have to go through a process that, it would seem, downloads a new mind into your head from one of those original bodies...

The man sat back a little in his chair, crossing his legs idly. "It's intimidating in concept, but please do understand that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, there are no observable effects whatsoever. Around half of the individuals who go through it don't even lose consciousness, and of the other, four out of five don't report any abnormalities when they reawaken. And even of the remaining 10%, the symptoms are negligible for nine out of ten-- Fleeting false memories, minor alterations in temperament that self correct, usually in under a day..." "And the others?" I inquired. "The remaining one percent." He considered this question for a few moments, obviously choosing his words carefully. "The technical term for the rare cases where confusion persists in the longer term is pneumaic assimilation failure. We have a program for treatment, using a combination of various phychological and medical means. It's time-tested. It brings people back to themselves quickly, usually within only only a few months at most." 'Confusion.' 'Brings people back to themselves.' I wasn't feeling fond of the way he couched everything in euphemism. It wasn't helping. "What do you mean by 'it brings people back to themselves'..?" I furrowed my brow. "They just... Forget everything?" "Not immediately," he said. "But they lose a sense of association with... Well, with anything that shouldn't be there, and that leads those memories and feelings to fade over time." He smiled. "The human mind is very adept at excising anything it judges to be out of place. All it needs is a push in the right direction."

The new mind tends to rapidly adjust to its new context, connecting to the memories stored in the body and assuming continuity of identity. But in rare cases it fails! Nuts! And we can infer poor Su appears to be one such case.

Presumably this is what Lilith is referring to when she says that all arcanists are murderers. It's not clear if there is continuity of consciousness when you get /mode +o'd - since you (usually) inherit the memories it is perhaps hard to say whether such a thing is meaningful.

In any case, Su's mega-guilt complex, the reason she seems to want to visit the mysterious egomancer Samium, seems to be at least partly that she's evicted the previous consciousness to inhabit this body. I don't think that's the whole story though! Her grandad seems to be involved somehow too. I don't think Su is literally the reincarnation of her grandad, because it seems unlikely that he'd be motivated to carry out ego suicide like this.

introducing teacher mommy

All those major revelations aside, let's get back to the subject of Neferuaten, aka 'Grandmaster', Su's old mentor in entropic thanatomancy. She quickly establishes herself as one of the most likeable of the inner circle of the Order - she's funny, understanding, generally affable and a little self-effacing. Su definitely puts her on a massive pedestal - though other characters such as Ran find her a little more sussy.

I gotta say, the author is really good at writing old academics. Each one of them comes across as strongly believable, distinctive, motivated and flawed characters. I'll talk a bit about the others in a bit but first let's talk age gap yuri! lmao

Anyway, at the end of chapter 20 we get this:

Then she leaned over and, in an impulsive, almost casual gesture, kissed me on the lips. Before turning, heading to the exit.

'Huh!' thinks the reader. 'That sure is an unusual thing for someone's teacher to do.'

It is quite a few chapters later before Su gets round to telling us a bit more about what's going on...

After that, we met outside of the university more and more often, her becoming sort of a source of emotional support. At some point, I became aware that what was happening was probably quite inappropriate. It's not like I was underage, having turned 25 two years prior, but she was my professor. But I'd been bad at making friends in both of... Well, in both my past contexts, and I'd felt so lonely living in Tem-Aphat, away from Ran and any reminders of the resolutions we'd made. And it all somehow felt so natural. Things got out of hand. One day, I'd had a fight with my father over the logic bridge, and had got a little drunk when I was due to see her. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I did something uncharacteristic of me. Inappropriate. But she didn't respond in the way I'd expected. To my shock, she didn't act like it was inappropriate at all. It wasn't as if we ended up dating. That would never have worked, and I was pretty sure she was past wanting that sort of thing anyway. On some levels, she always kept her distance. But it became something we did together, an avenue of private expression that became part of her support for me - and mine, eventually for her.

Su then expresses a bunch of guilt over the whole thing. (Not least because it's a 'selfish' thing she's doing in a body that, implicitly, she doesn't think of as hers.)

The issue of age here is interesting lol. Definitely my gut reaction, and probably the one the story is aiming to elicit, is to be a bit 'wuh oh' by all this, maybe think of Makima wrapping Denji round her finger. That said, by vastly expanding the range of human ages, it's definitely poking pretty hard at our intuitions about what's 'appropriate'. The vibes are like... the students are constantly referred to as 'the kids' by the hundreds-year-old wizards. I don't think we're told Su's current age, but if she was 27 in this flashback, and in the present she says a 29 year old computer is close in age to her, so I would guess currently early 30s. Neferuaten's age is not stated at this point but given her position she's def a few hundred years up there.

The vibe though is that Su is infatuated with someone who has vastly more emotional maturity and experience of the world, not to mention social power over her, and that person is all too happy to encourage it.

The way Su tells it, it sounds like this fling went pretty ok for them? But I definitely feel like things are probably not gonna stay ok, given how clearly the 'inappropriate' nature of this relationship has been foregrounded!

Dark yuri is literally one of the things I'm here for, so I'm looking forward to the fireworks lmao.

Anyway, besides that, we get a bit of a sense of Neferuaten's ideology. She actually shares a lot of Su's skepticism about the viability of the whole immortality project. She makes a big point of making sure the gang get a sense of the order's culture and rituals, apparently viewing this as a chance for their project to be judged by outsiders for the first time. On a personal level, she raises the issue of if the project might be able to save only the young - whether they might be the last humans to not become immortal. Nef's attitude seems to be that she'd be good with that - something she clashes with Kam over.

Otherwise, she's kinda... world-weary, I suppose you could say. She seems to look at the firey youngsters with an attitude along the lines of 'wish I still had that'. She does love to perform to an audience, asking leading questions to set up some lesson or another.

She's a fun character, I enjoy reading her a lot.

Also she seems to have made a sapient AI in the basement! Only everyone says it's definitely not sapient - it is in some sense not agentic, it can't change its motivation, allegedly. Still, it definitely has a 'passing the Turing test' sorta vibe.

don't mention the war

Besides Nef, we get introduced to a few of the remaining members of the class, and also the masters of the Order. Of note is Bardiya, the former revolutionary. He's a very 'speak his mind without preamble' sort of character, which can land him in hot water.

So, returning to Chapter 22, we have a really juicy scene in which a dinner conversation gets very heated after Bardiya mentions his role in the war, provoking a political row with Durvasa, a member of the order. It's a really well observed social dynamics scene - the characters dancing around the topic and the way a row is almost avoided, and then it isn't - Bard's determination, Kam's brown-nosing, Su getting drawn in against her better judgement in a deeply relatable way.

Thanks to this convo, we get a sense of the events of the revolution! So, as @nightpool helpfully informed me, I actually got things a bit mixed up in my rough timeline last time. The 'gerontocrats' were not a feature of the distant-past imperial era - rather it's a figure identified as an oppressor class by a very recent movement, still within living memory for even the youngsters.

The events broadly seem to reflect something like the Paris Commune. There was a famine under the hand of a 'Meritist' city council, killing thousands, which led to a popular uprising let by a 'paritist' movement. The paritists executed a handful of people and redistributed property based primarily on age, intending to break the power of the 'gerontocrats' who had neglected the 'younger generations' by hoarding resources. The Administration overseeing the whole world alliance then cracked down hard - deploying a poison gas that, though it was intended to be nonlethal, turned out to have unexpected lethal side effects.

In the aftermath of the revolution, it seems many reforms were made - besides relaxing the rules on what magic is banned, they changed the equation of scarcity so that food could be replicated more readily? Little unclear on this part. Su mentions that the situation is different now than it was when the Alliance was built, with the material scarcity mostly gone, but clearly there was a famine in recent memory.

Anyway, there is naturally a big generational divide over this. The older generations lived through some pretty fucked-up sounding wars, called things like the 'Great Interplanar War', and in the aftermath built a political system that was supposed to secure peace. (c.f. League of Nations, UN). Although she broadly sympathises with the revolutionaries, Su seems to extends the older generation a fair bit of understanding for having built this system and fearing what would happen if it were destroyed. Though the most relativist view comes from the mouth of Neferuaten:

"I think a common problem with inter-generational communication is an inability to really convey context and scope," Neferuaten said. I noted she didn't actually convey if Kam's understanding of what her point had been was correct or not. "Someone who lived through the Interluminary Strife might tell a young person from the modern day that they have no understanding of hunger, only for the latter to stubbornly retort that they lived through that Ikaryonic famine that preluded the civil dispute… Except that one was a catastrophe that lasted decades and killed tens of millions, while the other slew less than a thousand." She sighed. "People try to relate the experiences of others to their own lives in order to contextualize their understanding of the world and how it might be bettered, but those second-hand experiences inevitably become caricatures, conveying no useful truths. It makes me wonder if human beings, both young and old, are capable of learning from history at all."

Around here is raised the question of a person's political development - the arc from a young person's anger at the state of the world and determination to tear it aside for something better, against the resignation of an older person who fears losing what is already there, however flawed. (We might note of course that there exist young conservatives and old radicals. Circumstances have a lot to do with it.)

Of course, with this whole 'gerontocrat' business at stake already, the mission of the Order hoping to achieve immortality is naturally cast in a dubious light. Fun conflict. On the one hand we have 'can immortality be achieved, and what will it cost', on the other 'who will benefit from it, if it is'! So much narrative force is obtained by politicising this, attaching it to characters with personal motivations and histories, instead of leaving it up to an abstract 'living forever good/bad'.

But it's not all political debates and shagging your teacher...

Over the course of these chapters we get a sense of what the order's been up to!

Let's talk flowers. Just prior to the meeting with Nef, Su comes across an enormous freaky plantlike thing. This turns out to be an experiment to create a being that can survive in even the most extreme environments, like the bottom of the ocean - an attempt to demonstrate that immortality is possible at least in principle. This lifeform is termed the Nittaimalaru or 'Everblossom'. It seems like a pretty good candidate for being the story's eponymous Flower - symbolically, the underwater immortality-granting plant that appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

It's worth noting here that 'indefinite lifespan' is actually not entirely impossible in our natural world. I was talking about this with a friend who raised some interesting points:

reading the first post i wanna bring up that while the concept of cancer is fundamental to any multicellular organism the presence of cancer as a problem is actually pretty niche. same with telomere degradation, which is a purposeful anti-cancer measurement. like pretty much all perennial plant life is capable of absolute immortality. while the lobster grows forever until it can no longer use its legs to push its great weight along the sand towards food, if a tree overshoots its growth it's more than happy to break off its unnecessaries, though with both of them at a certain point it's always good to have help after a while. as mammals we're very obsessed with the concept of like ending death as this sort of ultimate goal, prime directive, whatever, when that shit was deliberately turned on in the first place (assigning intent to evolution sue me), because in terms of cost benefit it gave us something in return that we as students of medicine or biology are still not fully grasping.

After a little more discussion:

@play-now-my-lord wrote:

even if humans weren't causing climate change, climactic fluctuations over centuries upend a lot of what is normal in specific areas. if the people on a farmstead in bronze age sweden lived 500 years, the methods and habits they internalized when they were young would habitually be incorrect for the conditions as they existed, the weather, the soil

other friend:

that's how most trees die in the end the root system operates as a weak parallel to the tree's neurons, with a more physiological bent than say our chemical one. patterns around balance, nutrient access, hydrology, and wind are ingrained and learned over centuries and the more regular/consistent that cycle is the more a root will grow. if a tree's roots are built around buttressing from a wind tunnel due to forest conditions and the trees around it fall for whatever reason, it has to relearn what used to be a hundred year old certainty that it needs to lean against the westerly gale every winter, etc. - this is generally a pretty brittle process altogether when it comes to the base of the plant n stuff

some caveats:

should be noted i overlooked a lot of nuance about perennial mortality, like, some plants are more used to investing into survival than others i'm thinking of like how beech bark disease doesn't affect the roots of the beech, so the trunk dies but new shoots continue to grow out and eventually catch the disease and repeat, so the plant is essentially still immortal but forced into a perpetual state of adolescence. but i think for a great number of trees if the tree falls it just goes "eh the rot consumes us all " and dies

Among mammals, we could also note the cancer resistance of the naked mole rat, which loves to defy all sorts of generalisations (also one of the only non-arthropod eusocial animals). They're not exactly immortal, living around 37 years on average, but their chance of dying at any given year is pretty much flat rather than increasing with age.

Of course, longevity and resilience are different things. Nef mentions the resilience of tardigrades as an inspiration. As far as their experiment goes, the 'everblossom' is not an entirely successful experiment, requiring twice-yearly maintenance to address an imbalance.

Given how prominently it features, and the invocation of Gilgamesh, it seems pretty damn likely that the everblossom will in fact be a key to immortality, or something like it.

Religion exists after all!

Other parts of the facility are also pretty funky. We learn that it was patterned after the old headquarters of the Order, which was destroyed when they got found out; that headquarters was built in an old church compound. What sort of thing does a church worship in this world? Actually it's kinda goffic as fuck. Makes Catholicism look downright tame. It's a polytheistic religion and the deities involved are figures like this...

In the center of the circle was a statue, about 8 feet high, and of the kind of ornate-but-formulaic design that characterized art from the Second Resurrection. It depicted a tall, skinny woman, though her two sides, left and right, were very different in nature. The left was beautiful and youthful in a generic, almost ethnicity-less way, dressed in the most delicate of silk peploi, with long and unrealistically tidy curls falling elegantly over her shoulders. Her lip was curled into a gentle half-smile, kind but slightly mysterious, teasing. Her right... Well, her right, to say the least, was very different. On that side, she appeared to be skinless, although it was hard to tell with a statue; I recalled it being a matter of hot debate among the boys in my class back in secondary school. It was possible she was simply incredibly emaciated, or that there were supposed to be growths - like scales - erupting from her flesh. Her hair was made up of hateful, eyeless wyrms, biting and hissing at each other, and her flesh, which was naked save for a tasteful rag covering one area in particular, was covered in numerous stab wounds, bleeding openly. As for her face, it was grim and wide eyed. Mournful and contemptful both. I recognized the figure depicted at once; I passed one of her temples whenever I went to the distribution hall to pick up groceries. This was Phui, Dying Goddess of Love Given Way To Anguish, one of the eleven deities of the now largely defunct Ysaran-Inotian Pantheon.

In the stories, Phui was the third-to-last of the gods to fall during the end of the world, who attempted to take her own life after the death of her lover. But the breaking of the heavens had left her unable to die, meaning that no matter how she much she cut into her flesh, how much she starved herself of food and drink, reprieve would never come. Only relentless, unceasing pain, and grief for that which she had lost.

Metal album cover ass-religion, I'm into it.

The mysterious Ironworkers seem to have really drummed into the population of their new Mimikos that there was a very nice world once, and they'd better be damn sad about what happened to it. However, religion has waned in the present day, and it seems most characters are atheists of some sort.

What did happen to it, anyway? It's referred to as 'the collapse' with a lowercase c; I noticed an author's comment where the author says it's not a case of just a name for the apocalypse. A few people in the comments started speculating about false vacuum collapse. This is a physics thing. Basically, a remote possibility exists in the standard model of particle physics that the existence of matter in our universe could be in a kind of local energy minimum, but it would be possible for it to locally fall into a true minimum, creating a kind of bubble that expands at the speed of light and just deletes everything. We're pretty sure that isn't true though. If it did happen we literally would not be able to do anything... at least in a universe without FTL.

(Curiously, Su mentions special relativity at one point. With all the funky cosmology stuff I kinda wondered if special relativity is still real, but apparently it is! Electromagnetism has been mentioned as still being a thing a couple of times now, so rather than being totally absent it seems like the physics is a bit different, with an electric shock being sufficient to cause radiation poisoning.)

The fair play interlude

In between chapters 22 and 24 we get a curious little interlude called Intermission ∞ 1. The introduction presents it as something that is happening on one of the 'higher planes', translated into terms we can understand, which is grounds for it to get metafictional.

Two entities, calling themselves the Playwright and the Director, discuss the direction of the story so far before laying out the version of fair-play mystery rules this story will be operating under. They are as follows:

THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PROTAGONIST IS ALWAYS TRUTHFUL

ALL EVENTS FOLLOW THE RULES OF CONVENTIONAL REALITY, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

ALL SYSTEMS INTRODUCED CANNOT BREAK THEIR OWN RULES AS DEFINED WITHIN THE NARRATIVE, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

I made them red because it feels like they would be red in Umineko.

Further clarifications and caveats allow that Su can withold information (for dramatic tension or whatever I guess) but she'll always tell us when she does, and an example of 'system introduced' is the magic duel sequence: the characters know accurately how magic duels work.

The two entities are performing this story for some sort of audience, and during their double-act credit themselves with control over the direction of the scenario, sometimes disagreeing. (Another one, the chorus, enters at the end.) Probably best not to think too hard about what that implies for our characters on the 'main' level of the story being 'real', it's probably just a cute bit to take the audience aside without completely breaking the fourth wall. Then again... who knows!

What this means is that my concerns about professed liar Su being an unreliable narrator are unfounded. It's still a limited POV, so Su could fail to notice things or be deceived, but she's not trying to pull one over on us.

I bring this up because...

There's been a mordah!

So, in the last chapter I read - strictly the beginning of a new arc - we find someone dead!

Well, this was kinda foreshadowed earlier. The chef disappeared, the assistant chef was knocked out by magic, and some kinda crazy time magic happened in the pantry - with the heavy implication that someone was trapped in some kinda hyperbolic time pantry for many years. At least they'd have plenty to eat..? The characters don't pick up on the implication of the tally marks and write it off as a stasis field malfunction.

So, it was natural to suspect the cook is dead. Indeed they are: Su finds a mysterious note in the book given to her by an academic at the school as a parting gift, warning her not to trust the inner council - inexplicably written two years prior and warning her to check the archive in a certain position. Investigating this, she and Kam find a secret armoury room. In there is a tunnel, and at the bottom, the cook appears to have committed suicide, leaving a suicide note vaguely implying the Order is up to some seriously sussy shit.

Of course, Kam and Su immediately suspect foul play. But they also both have ulterior motives for coming to this conference, so they agree to keep it hush-hush. This is definitely a great idea that won't get everyone killed by Beatrice... I mean uh. Whoever the murderer is.

The obvious question is, who dunnit? And why? Unfortunately, we don't really have alibis for most of the characters. Many of the inner circle haven't even shown up on screen yet. So there's a lot of people who it might have been.

More suspects! More suspects!

I haven't even mentioned several of the characters. We also have Sacnicte, steward of the house - she's an arcanist, and Su is kinda insanely horny for her aesthetically appreciative, in a way that the other characters notice and are literally like 'I don't see it'... which makes me wonder if we have a situation where someone has fucked with her perceptions. She's very down to earth and casual.

Her name is probably a reference to the Maya princess Sac Nicté, meaning 'white flower', who according to legend was involved in the migration of the Itza people from the Chichen Itza. Mind you the article I'm getting this from is kinda horrendous; the sole source is in Spanish and appears to be some random website from 2004.

Among the older generation, we have Theo's dad, Linos. He is a generally affable chap, kinda socially awkward (he's responsible for prolonging the political discussion by a botched apology) but otherwise not particularly standing out among the Order members.

Linos or Linus is another Greek name with a few referents.

The Order member who really does stand out is Anna, or in full, Amtu-hedu-anna. She's the one who's properly old, having dodged many of the 'kills people around 500' bullets of this setting, and not especially inclined to make nice. Very 'straight to the point' kinda lady. We meet her fairly briefly - Ran seems to have landed in her good books.

This one really took some digging! It seems to be based on Enheduanna, who was a Sumerian high priestess of Nanna and the oldest named author in history, credited for tablets like The Exaltation of Inanna, although it seems there's some debate over whether she definitely wrote them. Her rank in Sumerian was Entu, and I could fully believe 'amtu hedu anna' is a different transliteration of 'Entu Hedu Anna'.

As mentioned above, we're introduced to two logic engines, Sekhmet and Eshmun, built respectively by Neferuaten and (the as yet unseen) Hamilcar. Sekhmet has more biological components and wants to be a human. She wants to be human, and she's also expressed a distinct pronoun preference and gender id, which I suppose makes her trans. Eshmun is a more traditional logic engine with a lot of cogs; Sekhmet calls him 'big brother', so I guess he gets he pronouns from that.

Sekhmet is of course named for the Egyptian lion-headed warrior/medicine goddess. Eshmun is a Phoenician god of healing. Hamilcar was a name used by a number of Carthaginians, mostly generals.

Ezekiel is another one of the student gang. We haven't seen much of him yet, so I don't have a lot to say about him. Abrahamic prophet.

Balthazar is a student from another school - another thanatomancer in fact. He's something like the protégé of Zeno, and his presence is Zeno's condition for having this whole affair go ahead. He's got the same eyes as Ophelia, and Zeno failing to do his paperwork and allowing to happen is a big deal. But Zeno's kind of a bigshot so it might not come to anything. Anyway, Su is kind of suspicious towards Balthazar, but he takes it all in good humour.

Balthazar was one of the three magi in Christian mythology. There were a few Zenos, but the best known is surely Zeno of Elea, who came up with his famous "we need to invent calculus to solve this" paradoxes around infinite sums.

Yantho is a member of the Order staff, who was cooking when whoever did shenanigans in the kitchen... did shenanigans in the kitchen. His roast was ruined, but sadly he was too unconscious to order fast food and pass it off as his cooking. He can't speak and communicates by writing on his tablet.

The name crops up as an obscure Maya deity, part of a trio of brothers with Usukun and Uyitzin, but I can't find any source that seems particularly definitive.

Samium is an old egomancer, whose presence is a secret that only Su and Ran are in on. Su wants to speak to him, for reasons that are probably to do with finding out if he can restore 'original!Su' into her body, or maybe resurrecting her grandfather, or something?

...is that everyone? I think that's everyone. At some point I probably need to make an Umineko-style character screen lol.

can we solve anything yet?

Since this chapter is the beginning of the arc, I suspect there's more info to divulge before we can think about trying to solve this one. And, given the Umineko inspo, the problem to solve probably isn't simply 'whodunnit' but something more fundamental to the nature of this world.

Still, it seems all but spelled out explicitly that current!Su failed to properly assimilate into her body after she became an arcanist. Her grandfather's final 'kindness' is less clear. Her intentions with Samium... I've mentioned the obvious theories about already. She's mega guilty about overwriting this poor girl and has decided the only course of action is to try and restore the mind that inhabited her body originally. But I don't think we have the whole picture just yet, because I still can't figure out what her granddad did.

Given her discussion of 'dragon' vs 'phoenix' resurrection, and of how her meeting with Samium might change the order, I also theorised - before I really twigged the arcanist thing - that she was here to resurrect her grandfather in her own body. Body-hopping is like, the classic immortality strat after all. But... I'm less convinced of that one now? It doesn't seem like Su particularly liked the old man, she definitely doesn't want to follow in his footsteps, and 'saw him die unexpectedly during the revolution' does not seem like it would inspire the same sort of guilt.

Still, he surely did something to her, she's definitely cryptically alluded to that enough times.

Besides that?

Obviously really digging this story! Honestly, this one rules. It helps that the author is clearly into a lot of the same shit I am. All the long discussions and beat by beat narration could potentially feel a little dry, but honestly, I'm pretty hooked, it's definitely pulling me forwards. It's a fascinating, conflict-rich setting, that raises all sorts of interesting concepts. It's confident in knowing what it wants to be. Umineko is a hell of a tough act to follow, but this one has a distinct identity of its own. Can't wait to see what happens now the mystery seems to be about to kick off for real.

With that in mind, I'm sure it won't be long until the next one of these. I may have to dial back the detail a bit, this is kinda having a bad effect on my work right now. There's just so many fascinating corners to follow up ^^'

Anyway, I realise these posts are kinda massive for tumblr, so I'm gonna start copying them over to canmom.art soon. <See you next time>.

#the flower that bloomed nowhere #tftbn #sff #novels #fiction

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eccentric-nucleus · 4 months ago

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the only story in the progression fantasy/litrpg/etc space that i've really enjoyed and kept up with has been super supportive, tho that's with the caveat that the first sixty chapters are basically a self-contained novel that is pretty good, and then the next uh hundred and thirty chapters spend a lot of time defusing a lot of the setup. it's not just the slice-of-life stuff that predominates, it's the part where the story slowly picks away at the setup

like so, this is gonna have spoilers for the first chunk of super supportive. i've already made a post about this before i think but this will be post #2 i guess.

so super supportive introduces the state of the world: it's like 2040, and aliens contacted earth in the 1960s and brought with them all sorts of cool technology, intergalactic communication, and also the system. magic is real and aliens can do it and now with the system some people will get selected to have superpowers and get to go on quests to alien planets and get fabulous quest rewards (further superhero powers!) for doing so! wow everybody wants to be a superhero because it's so cool!

oh yeah so the technical term for the system is 'the interdimensional warriors contract', and earth is tithed to submit people to it. the aliens get to choose who. and if they choose you, you can't refuse. you also can't really refuse a summons. one of the most popular, to the aliens, classes is the one where you're just a personal assistant. classes with actual superpowers also sometimes get summoned away on some quest and are never heard from again. sometimes they get death notifications, months or years later, but sometimes not. you don't get to pick your class either; those get assigned to you, though you can swap classes with somebody else during a brief provisional period after you've been selected but before your superpowers come due. also, humans have no clue how to really use the system; the aliens make a big point of not telling anybody anything about how it's put together or even things like "these skills are good and these other skills suck". part of the 'appeal' stat involves mental changes to make you more sociable and agreeable.

they do pay superheroes for their work. but they can't really say no to a job, or control what they do. one early example of 'tasks superheroes get summoned to do' is 'help evacuate a dangerous research station' 'but only our contracted employees; explicitly do not allow the other staff who have not contracted to our corporation to leave'.

also, a major character early on is: literally an imprisoned slave who's chained to his desk and has a geas over him such that he's not able to do things like 'express preferences'. some alien wizard just dropped him down at the embassy and he's been stuck working there for decades now. i'm sure it's fine.

so as it goes through the early chapters and these things get revealed there's a lot of tension between how everybody in-universe thinks about this ("superheroes cool") and the out-of-universe information, in which it's clear this is something more like indentured labor. there's a lot of ominous weight about the power differential there. this is a world where magic is real, the universe runs on magic, aliens can use magic, but humans can't. and the magical system aliens have put in place on earth is one that is explicitly gamified with pretty tokens and prebuilt skills and nothing even approaching, like, information on how it works.

so that's interesting! and then the first 'book' ends and the main character gets back to earth and it seems like there's a lot of backing-off of those implications. all the aliens we meet are super cool and nice and honorable. despite some gesturing at various factions of aliens, there hasn't really been a lot of followthrough on, like, the alien politics involved or how they're set up. so i'm still reading because i think it definitely still has promise, & it's written in a fairly engaging fashion, but all of this is basically contingent on it actually having a good payoff for all the buildup, & i'm not really sure that the author really cares about that stuff specifically.

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lizisshortforlizard · 22 days ago

Text

Living Dangerously - Chapter 36

Jurassic Park’s animal handlers: none of them ever mentioned by name in Michael Crichton’s original novel. Who were they? What were their lives like on Isla Nublar? Did any of them survive the disaster?

A year in the life of those responsible for the care of the dinosaurs. Many people would kill to have their jobs.

But would they die for it?

Jurassic Park novel/Jurassic Park film (1993)

Viewpoint: 3rd person female oc

Warnings: swears, one brief description of gore

Tagging: @heresthefanfiction @ocappreciation @wordspin-shares @howlingmadlady @arrthurpendragon @themaradwrites @starryeyes2000 @kmc1989 (please lmk if you would like informed of my sporadic updates)

Read on Ao3

Chapter 35 | Chapter 37

20th Century Boy - T. Rex

“They’ll be fine-” Richardson simply brushed off any and all concerns the Carnivores team presented of how to integrate the seven juvenile raptors with the much larger version. “…overthinking this.”

“Will not be fine.” Muldoon insisted. “Not with her.”

“You worry too much.” The portly man fielded.

“They are completely different animals from 2308, you may as well stick them in with the damn Rex.” The game warden complained. “I fancy their chances better.”

“Could we…?“ Richardson actually seemed to be entertaining the idea.

“No.” Kathy and Muldoon said in one voice, looking equally horrified.

“As far as terrible ideas go, you’ve excelled yourself.” Lizzy murmured.

The Animal Supervisor scowled in her direction. “Rubbish, they’ll just avoid each other.” “It’s alright to have more than one apex predator in a game reserve.” Muldoon explained very slowly, as if he were talking to a pre-schooler. “But the paddock is the equivalent of a goldfish pond. You can’t cram a barracuda and a shark in a pond together and expect things to just work out.”

“Fine. But I’m telling you, they’ll either avoid each other or sort it out amongst themselves.”

“There’s several million dollars worth of animal at risk if they sort it out themselves.” The game warden was losing his patience. “Who do you think InGen will blame if it goes horribly wrong?”

”Whoever’s in charge of Carnivores.” Richardson gestured at him. “Therefore it’s not really my problem, is it?”

“Best leave this to the experts then, eh?” Muldoon, astoundingly, managed to reply without sarcasm. It was his polite way of saying ‘bugger off’.

Richardson finally got the hint and swanned out of the office after a cursory nod to Tom, who merely raised an eyebrow. The animal handlers watched him exit with relief.

“Doesn’t change the fact that after thirty years working directly with wildlife, I’m actually a bit stumped.” Muldoon admitted. “And I’m already in the bad books with Hammond.”

Lizzy remembered. His threat of leaving and going to the press had not been well received.

”It’ll be alright. I’ve known that man nearly as long.” He must have noticed the worried look on her face. “He does this sort of thing rather a lot.”

“Guess I’m not too used to hanging around with millionaires.” “Armstrong, you are getting on my nerves today.” The game warden announced, then without changing tone, followed with: “Can I borrow you for a bit?”

“Oh, look how that worked out.” Kathy muttered in mock-surprise.

Tom blinked. ”I don’t get it.”

I’ll explain later Kathy muttered to him.

“Where are you going?” Lizzy asked Muldoon, who already was in the process of leaving.

“Hammond’s bungalow.” He held up a hand when she automatically went to follow him. “Had an idea. I’ll be back.”

”Can I-“

“Won’t be long.” He stopped her again, lowering his voice this time. “Armstrong, I’m fed up of Richardson, don’t give him an excuse.”

Lizzy’s eyes flicked to Tom, who was also preparing to leave the room with Kathy.

Her former arch-rival had kept his word, for now. She had to trust him, and he was yet to let her down.

He hadn’t told anyone he’d seen her leaving a certain game warden’s room early one morning. And if he’d told Kathy, she didn’t show it.

As if he’d read her mind, Tom glanced back over his shoulder while Kathy wasn’t looking and winked at her.

***

“What’s all this?” Lizzy’s expression was barely visible as she peered over a stack of books Muldoon had unceremoniously dropped on his desk in front of her.

”You’ll remember that Hammond owns a game reserve in Kenya. It’s very important to dress for the occasion.”

She took a closer look at the lettering on the pristine spines. It felt like her game warden had lifted every title that had anything remotely to do with wildlife management.

“Jeez, they haven’t been opened, ever.” Lizzy exclaimed, the book in her hands creaking as she opened it gently, the pages still crisp, though starting to wilt from the constant moisture in the air. They’d be yellowed soon enough. “And they’re all first editions.”

Muldoon cracked the spine on his book a little more forcefully. “S’good, isn’t it? Books he’ll never read, in a house he doesn’t live in.” “Why me?” Lizzy wondered aloud. “Payback for something?”

”You know how to research properly, and you’re the fastest reader.” He said simply. “In other words, reliably focused.You honestly think Kennedy has the attention span for something like this?”

“Good point.” She noted with pride he had placed her own thesis amongst the reading material in front of her. “I think Kathy and Tom are…busy, anyway.”

He looked up sharply. “That’s still going on?”

She smiled at his response. Muldoon never could deny how protective he was of his Team Leader.

“Getting kind of serious, possibly…” She turned the end of the sentence into an unintelligible grumble. It was still monumentally weird for Lizzy. She would never have put money on her remaining teammates ending up a couple. Not that she hated it, just that it put her slightly on edge, being a third wheel. Things had changed, and she wasn’t sure it was for the better, at least not yet.

Damn. Was that how everyone else felt around her?

“-Hey, isn’t it your day off tomorrow?” She wanted to talk about something else. “We might be here for a while.”

“No such thing anymore.” He pointed out. “Never made use of them anyway.”

True enough. Day off or not, Muldoon was usually always up at the arse crack of dawn, doing god-knew-what in the far reaches of the island, and would often only reappear at sundown.

Lizzy had asked once or twice where he went but he’d given a vague answer followed by a pressing excuse to be somewhere else.

His business. As long as he wasn’t drinking, she’d have to be content with not knowing. But it buzzed in the back of her mind like an angry hornet.

“Anyway, this isn’t exactly terrible.” He added, turning a page. “You’re here.”

Lizzy focused even harder on the sentence she was currently reading to keep the idiotic grin that was brewing under wraps.

They continued in mostly silence for a while, interspersed with several passionate - relatively, for Muldoon - discussions about enclosure design. Lizzy finally let loose her smile, a year ago she would never have thought she’d be in the same part of the world as Robert Muldoon, never mind the same office, discussing his specialist subject.

It didn’t change the fact they were still facing a dead end.

“Do I need to call Sarah again?” Lizzy threatened eventually.

“Don’t you touch that bloody phone!” Muldoon snapped yet another book shut and tossed it back on his desk. “We’ll have no distress signals to Africa this time, thank you very much.”

“Gennaro calls the consultants in Montana with the real-life things.” She complained. “All the time. I have their books, too. What they eat-“

“And what do they know, Lizzy?” He cut in. “The dinosaurs they study are dead and gone. We have living articles here, on the island. Let’s face it, nobody on this Earth knows those animals better than you and I do.”

“Better than Richardson does, anyway…” She muttered viciously.

“We have a problem we need to solve, let’s buckle down.”

Just then Kathy walked past the open door, paused and shook her head, pursing her lips as she made eye contact with the ethologist. It was obvious she disapproved of something.

Kathy was all dolled up. She was effortlessly beautiful day-to-day, even covered in mud and wiping sweat from her brow after a tough shift, but she had really knocked it out of the park.

“You look-“ Lizzy called, but Kathy was already gone. She sighed. “Amazing.”

Their friendship had a slightly tense edge recently. On the surface the two women were carrying on just fine, but Lizzy felt the tug of the undercurrent every time they spoke. Something wasn’t quite right. Kathy was still leaving the island soon, and besides, she had Tom now. She didn’t need Lizzy like she did during the early days, where it felt like the two of them against the world.

Muldoon was right, maybe this wasn’t so bad.

As if to prove a point, his next words came as a complete surprise. “Do you know, you’re very beautiful when you’re concentrating?”

“Hm?” Lizzy made a distracted noise, trying hard to re-focus on the pages in front of her.

“Longest you’ve ever stayed quiet for.” He continued. “Bloody lovely.”

She raised her book higher to hide how fixated she was on chewing her lip. Pleased at the results, Muldoon reached for Lizzy’s thesis next, just in case there was something, anything he’d missed the first three times. He made the mistake of glancing at the dedication on the inside page to her almost-husband and the words were burned on his brain before he could do anything about it.

Why did it still pain him so terribly? They were broken up, had been for months.

And yet, the words didn’t even sound like her. To my darling Simon. He could barely imagine her saying such a thing without sarcasm evident, it just wasn’t Lizzy.

Not his Lizzy, at any rate.

It was ruined. Muldoon was no longer thinking about the task at hand, this was going to gnaw at him for hours, days. He closed the thesis without reading any further. “You agree, we’re off the clock?”

Lizzy nodded, haltingly, as she continued to trace her finger along the lines of text. She was hoping against hope he wasn’t about to suggest they call it a night. Looming, terrible deadline aside, she was in her element, pushing exhaustion aside and speed-reading chapter after chapter. “I want to ask you something.” He hesitated. “Not as a colleague.”

Uh-oh.

This wasn’t what we agreed.

But Lizzy was drawn in.

”Shoot.”

“You went back to the States often?” He held up her work so she could see. “While you were writing this?”

“At first.” Lizzy paused her scanning and tried to remember her university days, wondering what Muldoon was getting at. It felt like another life, a completely different geological period. “Every couple months, for a week at a time…ish. Why?” ”Get much work done in those weeks?”

”Loads.”

”Hm.”

Good? Bad?

She waited for him to explain, but he had nothing further to add. “Uh, hello?”

”It’s fine.” He shrugged. “Just curious.”

”About what?”

”Doesn’t matter.”

Lizzy finally shut her book with a sigh and gave him the look over the frame of her glasses, raising her eyebrows. “If it didn’t matter then you wouldn’t have asked me. I’m not gonna let it go-oooo…-“

“Alright. How’d he ever leave you alone?” He fixed her with an equally intense stare. “That man of yours.”

“Leave me-? You’re serious?” That threw her. “I dunno…we’d been together a long time by that point.”

”That’s a piss-poor excuse.” He sat back, not satisfied with her answer. “The entire street should have known you were back in town. The entire damn borough.”

Lizzy did an excellent impression of a fire hydrant, she flushed such a deep shade at what he was implying.

“Not really his style.” She barely managed to croak out.

”Fucking his wife-to-be isn’t his style?” Every trace of breath left her body and Lizzy just sat there, dumbfounded. No, apparently it wasn’t his style. Hadn’t been.

Simon would buy her things she would never wear, or had little use for in Africa. Jewellery, perfume, nice clothes. All of it still packed away in their apartment to that day, gathering dust. He was forever despairing she wasn’t above tying her hair back with a used shoelace before talking a walk around Central Park, passing the 5th Avenue shoppers who looked at her sun-bleached curls and loose-fitting clothes with disdain. She’d never cared. Simon had.

She’d come from so little, it was just nice to have enough. Lizzy hadn’t wanted or needed extra.

Why hadn’t she realised together forever probably wasn’t the best idea, the way things had been going? Why hadn’t she called it off sooner?

For God’s sake, why hadn’t he wanted her? Why hadn’t she been enough, as she was? Without tailoring to his idea of what she should be?

“I…-“ Lizzy floundered.

”Thought you looked nice, that’s all.”

”Stop doing that.” She abruptly ground out in a flash of anger. “Catching me off guard. It’s not fair.”

”I’m the last person you should be talking to about not fair.” Muldoon sounded infuriated too, though maybe not necessarily at her. “Not fair is knowing how we both feel and pretending this is enough. It’s not.”

She frowned at him in concern. What was going on? Had Rico’s accident also made him worried about things left unsaid?

“Anyway, when’d you get so squeamish, Armstrong?” He smirked at her.

“I’m not.” Lizzy bristled. “Because…-“

“Because what?”

“Because if I was trying to wind you up, these books would be on the floor and this desk would be getting used for something else entirely.” She slammed her hand down flat to drive her point home.

Muldoon paused before answering, and his words were extremely measured and even.

“You’re probably right.”

The silence practically rang in their ears as they both glanced to the door, still ajar.

Lizzy eventually cleared her throat and opened her book again. “But I can’t. Wind you up. Because we’re supposed to be behaving aren’t we? Anyway…who’s to say the raptors want to live in groups? In such a small paddock, it could turn into a turf war.”

”We, hm…-“ He shifted his weight. “We can’t do anything about that. There’s only one paddock big enough.”

“Can’t we generalise and say herbivores are social, carnivores are solitary?”

”No.” He said gravely, looking at her as if she’d just insulted his family name. “Koala, giant panda, moose, leopard-“

“Alright then, Field Guide-“

“Lions, wolves, killer whales…” Muldoon was still listing species, paying her no heed.

“Okay, okay, but if they hunt alone here then they probably won’t die!” Lizzy slumped back in defeat and frustration. “They can’t possibly starve, we plonk their food right in front of them!”

“Hm, hunting…” Muldoon visibly brightened. “You could be on to something there, Armstrong.”

“Why do I feel I won’t like this?”

“Maybe…we feed her early in the day, before they arrive.” He explained, the plan still taking shape. “Make her slower, the bottomless pit that she is. She’s like Kennedy in the morning, set your alarm early if you want eggs, you’ve got no chance after he’s been in the canteen-“

“Feed her, and…” Lizzy redirected masterfully. “Good start. You know how to treat a woman.”

“Then we dart her while she’s resting, and when she comes to, the younger animals scent is all over her patch.”

“And she just…accepts them?” “We can gauge her reaction and intervene if necessary while she’s still coming around.” He shrugged. “Hopefully she won’t be too hopping mad.”

”What if they group up and attack her while she’s drowsy?”

”I’ll look after her. Don’t you worry.”

She paused. “How does hunting come into this?”

”I’m going to let you get close. Very close.”

Lizzy mouth twitched at his choice of the words let you. As if she hadn’t been sneaking ever closer to the fence for weeks.

But not recently she reminded herself.

”Because I’m hoping she’ll dislike your presence more than that of the other raptors.” Muldoon explained. “It’s not unusual to bond over a common enemy. Same goes for animals.”

“I’m the distraction.” Lizzy understood. “Got it.”

“Aren’t you just.” He agreed. “Good work tonight, Armstrong.”

“Hey-“ She caught his attention as they were tidying up. “How long has it been?”

“Long enough.” He knew what she was referring to. “I haven’t, if that’s what you’re asking. Not once. Though I’ve been awfully tempted lately.”

“Is it any easier?”

”No. But it’s a conscious choice I make. You, or…that.” He shrugged. “Simple, really.”

”I know.” Lizzy said simply. “Thank you.”

“No need for thanks…” He tailed off, muttering something else as he turned away that sounded a lot like you utter pain in the arse.

Lizzy’s shoulder ached, but she didn’t care.

***

The plan was off to a bad start. The raptor shipment was delayed by rough seas, and now the shadows were growing long. Muldoon was getting increasingly twitchy, he was worried about losing the light. “That damn dock-“ He kept repeating. “It’s not good enough.”

Lori Ruso hadn’t accompanied the dinosaurs, but that didn’t surprise Lizzy at all. She’d done her part, they weren’t her animals anymore.

Kathy sidled into Muldoon’s field of vision as the container was manoeuvred towards the paddock gate. “Are you getting Lizzy a Valentine’s present?” She whispered.

“A what now?” Shamefully, it hadn’t ever crossed his mind. It hadn’t been a concern of his for many years.

“Tom gave me this last night.” She proudly showed him the thin gold chain around her neck. The same one Kennedy usually always wore. “He remembered.”

”Hm.” He frowned, trying to think of a good response. “I let her have seven more of those ruddy animals, that’s all she’s getting for a very long time.”

”Ah, so you do like her!” Kathy retorted cheerfully, chuckling at the confused look Muldoon shot her way.

The park warden reminded Kathy of her dad, with the abandoned kitten she’d presented to him when she was a child, and she was moodily told one night only. Ten years later, the cat still curled up to sleep on her dad’s shoulder in front of the TV every single night.

Here he is, with the eight lethal carnivores he said he didn’t want. They always come around.

The big raptor had already been darted, though too early in the day, before they knew the ship would be delayed. They couldn’t give her another dose, Harding advised, it could tip her over threshold.

It was intended to be just enough to make her a bit wobbly, to lower her guard and make her less vigilant.

It seemed to have just made her more irritable. She kept on tossing her head and rumbling at the visitors lined up near the fence.

“Am I doing it?” Tom was on top of the transport container, ready to man the gate. He looked around anxiously when he didn’t get an answer. “Uh, guys? This thing is really heavy.”

“Muldoon?” Kathy asked timidly. “We’re waiting for the go-ahead.”

When he didn’t answer, Lizzy couldn’t resist glancing his way.

He looked uncertain. If she knew him at all, he was no doubt running through every possible scenario in his head. What he’d do to get them out if she attacked. How far he’d go to protect them from 2308. If Hammond would consider it a personal debt owed this time and Muldoon would be making amends very slowly from his own funds with high interest.

“If we were in Kenya, you know you’d just go for it.” Lizzy stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm. “Forget about the money situation. We trust you. Let’s try.”

Her words seemed to snap him out of his indecision.

“Alright. Do it, Kennedy.” He called up to the Texan, who saluted and began to lift the gate. “Armstrong, you go over there and keep her busy.”

Nothing happened for a second, then the first juvenile raptor poked their head forward into their enclosure, scanning the environment. They didn’t seem fearful of their new cagemate at all.

The younger, smaller animals were curious of the larger, chirping and moving forward in a group. They reminded Lizzy of guinea fowl, investigating something novel, the way their heads kept bobbing back and forth. There was nothing aggressive about their movements.

“Armstrong?”

“All good.” She signalled. “They’re coming out now.”

She heard a series of clicks as another tranquiliser dart was loaded. Over threshold or not, Muldoon was still prepared.

Lizzy had a good view, she was closer to the fence than she’d been in a long time. Far closer than she was comfortable with, to be perfectly honest.

“This isn’t right.” Kathy was watching beside the park warden, tense. “Thought you said 2308 would go for her.”

“I did.” The big raptor wasn’t hunting Armstrong. Watching her constantly, yes. Keeping her body between the human and the younger animals, stance defensive.

But not protecting her.

It was almost as if it were-

…guarding her? Armstrong was high value. Muldoon understood now, the way the raptor was prowling closer to Lizzy, claws tapping erractically. He knew what the dinosaur had to be thinking, because he often thought it too.

This one’s mine. That sent a chill through him.

He really didn’t like the way more of the big raptor’s teeth were becoming visible as the juveniles pottered closer. Her pupils narrowed into slits as they flicked towards him, warning him off.

“Armstrong, move away.” “It’s okay.” She reassured.

”It’s really not.” He tried not to sound too alarmed, but his heart was in his mouth. “Move. Carefully.”

Didn’t she realise that she was being sized up?

He could almost see it playing out, a freak accident, the ground was spongy under her feet, if Armstrong was startled and slipped to within grabbing distance-

The raptor nearly had Regis, and she was miniscule then. She got Esteves not so long ago.

I shouldn’t have used her, this is just reinforcing behaviour we don’t want.

”Talk to me.” Lizzy, confused, turned her attention away from the raptor, spinning around so that she was side-on to the animal. Had he spotted something she hadn’t?

Christ, watch where you stand.

“Move a-“ He started to order.

The raptor slammed her entire weight into the fence next to Lizzy with juggernaut force, throwing off a shower of sparks and screeching in pain at the shock.

She was close enough to feel how hot her breath was, the saliva splattering her in the face, causing the white-hot sparks to sizzle on her skin as the dinosaur screamed loud enough to make her eardrums wobble at close range.

Fuck! Lizzy froze, rooted to the spot, shrinking down in the face of death. Her raptor was even bigger now than only a few weeks ago. She was vicious. She was terrifying.

And now 2308 associated Lizzy with the pain of a sizeable electric shock.

The big raptor vocalised, a sound Lizzy hadn’t ever heard her make. A low, rattling whistle.

She did it again, and most of the smaller raptors charged the fence. They stopped short of the wire, hopping and snapping in her direction as well as at each other.

”What the-“ Lizzy froze for a second time, frowning.

That’s not right.

“O-kay, time to go!” Next thing Lizzy knew she was flung upside-down over Tom’s shoulder and ended up closer to the back of his jeans than she’d care to be, at eye-level with his belt as he carried her to safety. “The things you’ll do to get a good look at my butt.”

“You wish.” She had the wits to retort despite her teeth chattering. “Nearly as hideous as your face.”

”No!” Kathy’s alarmed voice rang out. “Mike, stop!”

Tom dumped Lizzy right-side up with her feet in the jungle stream.

“Ugh, idiot-“ The cool water flowed over the tops of her socks and into her boots as she brushed her hair out of her eyes to get a better look at the newest commotion.

“The Hell are you playing at, dude?” Kennedy demanded. “Seriously?”

Richardson feigned innocence, a chunk of bloodied meat dangling in his hand. ”We’re feeding them extra, yes?”

The big raptor snatched up the first piece he’d lobbed over the fence and disappeared into the paddock’s undergrowth with a growl.

”Yes, but-“ Kathy rubbed her forehead, jostling her glasses out of place. “-not right now! Give it a sec-“

”Why?” The Animal Supervisor clearly thought they were being ridiculous. “It’s a distraction, no?”

“You just rewarded her for attacking Armstrong.” Muldoon was struggling to keep his voice even. “If that weren’t incredibly obvious.”

The implied you idiot was clear.

Kathy took a slow step back. She’d never seen her boss this angry.

The smaller raptors chirped in chorus, and one-by-one, sprinted away, following the bigger animal out of sight.

The animal handlers stood still, nobody daring to blink, waiting to hear screams of terror as the young ones were inevitably torn to shreds.

Nothing, only sounds.

“See? It’s fine!” Richardson bemoaned loudly. “You were worrying over nothing. As usual.”

”No, it’s not fine.” Muldoon argued, clipping his words harshly. “But we can’t separate them now. Cover’s too thick to catch the youngsters, they can easily hide, and the light’s going.”

“I’m calling it-“ Tom added, trying to diffuse the tension. “-but dibs on not going in there with the big girl.”

”This enclosure is not ideal.” The game warden continued, paying him no attention. “If I’d been involved from the beginning-“

“For Christ’s sake, Robert! Enough complaining about the bleeding enclosure.” Richardson was also getting agitated. “We’re stuck with it now!”

”What do we do?” Kathy asked timidly.

”Pray to whichever God does it for you.” Muldoon shrugged. “Check back first thing in the morning. Christ. Are you alright?”

He turned back to Lizzy, voice hard but eyes betraying his concern.

“Yeah.” She shoved her hands into her back pockets to conceal how much they were still shaking. “She’s just…a lot bigger than when I saw her last.”

Bigger than me Lizzy thought nervously as she shuffled closer to Muldoon.

”In hindsight, probably shouldn’t have done that.” He admitted. “Involved you. She’s just taught the others a new trick.”

Attack her.

“I got it wrong.” Muldoon sighed resignedly.

”We got it wrong.” Lizzy corrected. “Should have moved away when you told me. Thought I was getting through to her-“

”Shake you up a bit, Elizabeth?” Richardson swaggered back into earshot. “Finally come across something more feral than yourself?”

Lizzy scowled at him. Clearly, no apology was coming her way.

Because he’s not sorry at all.

“Remember: she doesn’t need to run fast, Richardson.” Muldoon was still furious. “She just needs to run faster than you.”

The colour leached from the Animal Supervisor’s hammy face and he made himself scarce, roaring off in his own Jeep now that the spectacle was over.

“So far so good.” Lizzy said wearily.

“Or the calm before the storm.” The park warden deliberated. “We’ll find out which when her sedative fully wears off.”

“So pessimistic.”

“I am never disappointed if I assume the worst.” He gravely informed her. “Just get to say I told you so.”

“Guys, it’s dark. We can’t do anything more tonight.” Kathy pointed out. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

They crammed themselves into Muldoon’s Jeep, trying not to think about arriving to the worst the next morning, where VM2308 had defended her territory to the death. Lizzy wondered if it was unreasonable to camp out in front of Arnold’s monitors, and wait for the Velociraptor population count to tick slowly downwards.

***

By the time they got back to the visitor centre, the scaffolding was lit up by the quartz beams in the darkness. And the silhouette of Richardson was blocking the road, waiting for them.

Can’t escape this guy…

“What’s he got in his hand?” Kathy craned forward to see.

The headlights picked up the object he was holding. Lizzy leaned forward and stifled a gasp when she realised what it was.

Someone had vandalised one of the lunchboxes in the newly stocked gift shop area with a black marker pen, to read Ass Park.

”Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Muldoon thumped the steering wheel, making the other three jump.

“Robert!” Kathy was horrified enough to first-name him. “Honestly-“

”Christ, Baker! Can’t I do anything I like around here?”

“You can do Lizzy.” Tom muttered under his breath. Lizzy whipped around so fast to scowl at him she cricked her neck.

“Who did this?” Richardson boomed through the windscreen. Nobody answered, of course. “A replacement will be coming out of someone’s paycheck!”

”Oh, sure. This he cares about.” Kathy muttered.

”I will not be made a mockery of!” Even in the gloom, Richardson was a ridiculous shade of puce. “Get your staff under control!”

He threw the lunchbox into a puddle at the side of the road, and in a fit of pique absolutely nobody was expecting, actually stamped on it before trundling away.

They rolled around to the parking garage in silence, the animal handlers afraid to say a single word in case it was what finally tipped their boss over the edge. Muldoon cut the engine and they sat in silence, the Jeep ticked quietly as it cooled.

Was he too angry to speak? Having an aneurysm? It was hard to tell.

“I will neither confirm nor deny to him it was one of my staff-“ He finally said. “But, Kenned-“

”Yeah, yeah, boss. I’ll fix it.” Tom was apologetic.

“You’d better.” Was the stern response. “It’s not funny.”

”No. Not at all. Sorry.”

“Good, as long as we’re clear.” Muldoon sounded like he was trying his very best not to laugh. “Not funny. Not in the slightest.”

Lizzy couldn’t look at him and stared resolutely at her own boots. She daren’t make eye contact, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop herself laughing if she did. Kathy was still trembling with fear in the backseat.

“Armstrong. Baker.” Muldoon nodded curtly at the two women before making a hasty exit from the garage, leaving the keys behind in the ignition. Lizzy had a feeling he was headed straight to find Arnold and Harding. An if you don’t laugh you’ll cry kind of situation.

“Now that was priceless.” Tom announced proudly. “Did that break the tension in here or what?”

“You’re a real asshole, you know what?” Kathy lightly smacked his arm. “This is only the most stressful day of his darn career.”

”The most stressful day so far.” Lizzy added, reflecting that she was turning into a pessimist herself, and that Muldoon was right. Again. It was oddly liberating.

“I got him.” Tom beamed happily. “Worth it.”

“You know folks, I think I’m going to get him a swear jar.” Kathy nodded thoughtfully. “He’s terrible these days.”

***

Thanks for reading!!

I love writing Wildlife Expert Muldoon.

Not on hiatus, just slow to update atm. But we’re getting there. Still the fic of my life <3

#jurassic park oc #living dangerously #welcome to jurassic park #oc: dr lizzy armstrong #jurassic park female oc #jurassic park #lizisshortforlizard #jurassic park ocs #jurassic park fanfiction #jurassic park fic #jurassic park 1993 #robert muldoon x ofc #robert muldoon #kathy #my writing #my fanfiction

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whump-me · 1 year ago

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Conquest, Chapter 28: Perfectly Defeated

Chapter 28 of Conquest, a novel-length fantasy whump story about a timid royal clerk captured by the disgraced prince who needs their help to rule their newly conquered country. This series is best read in order. Masterpost here.

Contains: fantasy setting, nonbinary whumpee, male whumper, broken whumpee, royal whumper, reluctant whumper, emotional whump, fantasy politics

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Miranelis

When Kezul brought Miranelis back to the stable that night, Miranelis sank onto the straw with their legs folded messily under them. They sat slumped against the wall like a discarded toy. They didn’t bother wondering why Kezul had brought them back to the stable himself, instead of assigning the task to one of his Wolves. Or why he stood in silence and watched them for a long moment before leaving. Maybe, if they had looked into Kezul’s face, they might have been able to gather some kind of clue. But why would they bother? It didn’t matter. And they weren’t supposed to look Kezul in the eye anyway.

They knew these things now. There were a lot of things they understood now that they hadn’t before. Like how all their fear had been pointless in the end. Whether they lived or died, there was no real difference. Either way, their life had ended the day the Wolves had invaded. The day they had been defeated.

They sat in the straw, not thinking, not feeling. Finally, their control was perfect. They weren’t able to show any emotions—they wouldn’t have been able to if they had wanted to. Because they finally felt none.

They knew they should be angry at the thought of Kezul. Or maybe they should have been afraid. But they felt neither one. They certainly didn’t feel any hope.

They might have slept. They weren’t sure. There no longer seemed to be any difference between sleeping and waking. There was darkness, and then there was light. There were periods of more awareness, and periods of less. But there were no real thoughts in their mind, nothing that went beyond a vague consciousness of their surroundings. There were no feelings. Not even when heavy footsteps echoed outside the stall. Not even when the rusted stall door squealed open and Kezul stood on the other side.

Kezul was talking. Miranelis shook their head and tried to focus. They didn’t know how long Kezul had been speaking, or why he was addressing Miranelis in the first place.

“It will have to be all the noble houses at once,” Kezul was saying. “That will make as big a spectacle as possible, and that way, none of them will have any advance warning. I’ll have them all brought here, under some pretext or other. For the ones who are on my side, or think they are, it will be easier. I can get them here with the prospect of… oh, I don’t know, some kind of negotiations. That would work, wouldn’t it? Do you think they would believe it?”

When Miranelis didn’t answer, Kezul went on. “The ones who are already planning to rebel, I’ll have to arrest out right,” Kezul continued. “Of course, the problem there is that it could spark the rebellion all on its own. That’s not what I want.”

But killing them all will spark the rebellion anyway, Miranelis thought, and wondered why some corner of their mind was bothering to engage at all. Better to sit quietly and think of nothing.

“But killing them all will spark the rebellion anyway,” said Kezul, and Miranelis’s head jerked up with a start. Kezul looked at them sharply, a question in his eyes.

Miranelis’s head slumped back down again. They didn’t say anything.

After a moment, Kezul spoke again. “It’s not what I want,” he sighed. “But it’s necessary. The rebellion will come one way or another. This way, it will happen on my terms. I’ll strike the first blow. I’ll control when the war begins. I’ll be ready.”

It’s not what’s necessary. Miranelis’s mind echoed with the words some part of them wanted to speak aloud, even though they knew there was no point. What you mean is that it’s what your father wants.

They half-expected Kezul to echo their thoughts again. But this time he didn’t. “I’ll need another pretext to get them here,” he said instead. “Something more subtle.” He looked at Miranelis.

That distant part of Miranelis’s mind, the part that still cared about all this for some reason, wanted to laugh in Kezul’s face. Did Kezul really think Miranelis would help him with this? If so, he should have asked for that help before he had shoved Miranelis into that pit and burned all the fear out of them.

“You’re good at subtle,” Kezul pressed. “Better than I am, at least.”

There was no resentment in his voice at having to ask a prisoner for something, no shame at admitting a prisoner might be better than him at anything. He certainly had come a long way. Under other circumstances, Miranelis might have found it funny.

Under other circumstances, Miranelis might have been proud of him.

“Well?” Kezul prompted. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

Miranelis stared down at the straw. They didn’t answer. It should have been obvious that they didn’t have anything to say, so they didn’t know why Kezul was still here, demanding advice. Whatever they said, it would make no difference; Kezul had made that clear.

If they didn’t give Kezul what he wanted, maybe he would beat them. Maybe he would force them to fight him again, place a knife in their hand and make them stand there while he went through the motions, until he claimed his inevitable victory. Maybe he would kill them. What did it matter? Miranelis knew the truth now—there was nothing to be afraid of. They were already dead.

Kezul took a step closer. He leaned down into Miranelis’s face. “Aren’t you going to call me a coward for not standing up to him?” He crossed the rest of the distance between them and tilted Miranelis’s chin up to meet his eyes.

For an instant, Miranelis was reminded of the first time they had ever stared into those eyes. As had happened that day, he seemed to fall forward into their black depths as they stretched to fill the entirety of their vision. But this time, there was no fear. This time, they welcomed it. They wished those eyes would yawn wider and swallow them whole.

“Well?” Kezul’s voice rose, filling their hearing the way his eyes filled their vision. “Say something.” Maybe Kezul was shouting. Maybe he was whispering. Miranelis couldn’t tell the difference. The sound was all-consuming either way.

If they gave Kezul what he wanted, maybe he would leave them to their silence.

“As the ruler of Danelor, you know what is best,” Miranelis said, in a voice of perfect neutrality, perfect control.

Kezul made a furious noise deep in his throat. “Don’t give me that. Tell me what you think. You were honest with my father the other day—you can’t be honest with me?”

“I have no advice to offer you,” said Miranelis. It was true. Once, they might have tried to figure out how to dig Kezul out of this hole and salvage what the two of them had built together. But there was no chance of that anymore. Maybe they had never had a chance. Maybe, like Miranelis, all of Danelor had been dead from the time the Wolves had marched over the mountains.

“If you have no advice, then what about your opinions?” Kezul demanded. “You certainly had enough of them before. Don’t you have anything to say about me doing exactly what my father wants?”

“You will do what is best,” Miranelis said, and closed their eyes. What they meant was that Kezul would do what he wanted, and nothing else mattered. Not Miranelis’s advice. Not what would help Danelor. Not even what Vorhullin the Unmaker demanded.

For Danelor now, there was no best. There was only what Kezul wanted. His will had scoured Miranelis clean, and soon it would scour Danelor, leaving it a ruin of famine and fire. Miranelis knew, now, that there had never been any point in fighting for themselves. Maybe there had never been any point in fighting for Danelor, either.

Kezul stood. He paced restlessly back and forth across the filthy straw. “I have to do it,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Miranelis. Miranelis didn’t know if he was talking to them anymore. “I have to do it, because otherwise they’ll rebel.”

He paced back and forth, back and forth. “They’ll rebel no matter what I do.”

Back and forth. “But this way, it will be my choice. It’s the only thing I can control. I can’t put things back the way they were. I can’t go on ruling the way we started off—it would never have worked.” He stopped in front of Miranelis. “Do you understand? We never had a chance.”

Miranelis said nothing. They hoped Kezul wouldn’t insist on an answer this time.

He didn’t. He resumed his pacing. “They never really respected me. The noble houses, Danelor—it was never real. They were afraid of me, that was all. I saw it in the eyes of that man at the Poets’ Academy, before it burned.”

Who had he spoken to before the academy had burned, and what words have been exchanged? And what had become of that man afterward? Miranelis knew the answer to that last question—he had burned like all the rest. But what did it matter? Like the rest of Danelor, the man had been dead already—he just hadn’t known it.

Miranelis took a breath and tried to smother the faint spark that flared to life inside them. There was no point. Like the fire that had destroyed the academy, the fire in them was long dead. There was nothing left but cold ash.

“They feared me,” said Kezul. “They hated me. And why shouldn’t they?” Back and forth. Back and forth. “And that was when I was helping them! Why did we ever think they would trust me enough to help me rebuild their country? That idea of ours, that we could do all this peacefully… it was always an illusion.”

Kezul’s restless footsteps paused. Their feet stopped in front of Miranelis. Miranelis didn’t look up, but they felt Kezul’s eyes on them.

Miranelis didn’t react. They didn’t even know what Kezul wanted from them. Agreement? Argument? Absolution?

Miranelis had nothing to give. They had left it all behind in the pit of bodies.

“I have to do it,” Kezul repeated. “If I don’t, my father will. And when I fail his test, there will be no more second chances. I’ll be dead, and you’ll be worse than dead. Do you understand?”

Miranelis said nothing.

Kezul leaned down and grasped Miranelis’s chin between his fingers. “If you think I’m bad, you don’t know what he would do to you. You’re lucky you’re with me. You’re lucky I broke you before he could. You know that, right?” He shook Miranelis’s head back and forth once, sharply, as if in emphasis.

“I understand,” said Miranelis in the same perfectly controlled voice, before Kezul could decide to shake them again.

Kezul’s fingers dug in tighter. They growled. “Don’t fawn at my feet like them. You don’t fear me like they do—not anymore. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t fear you,” Miranelis echoed. It was the truth. What did they have to fear now?

“You’re smart enough to understand why I have to do this.” The fingers dug in still tighter, Kezul’s nails pressing painfully into Miranelis’s skin. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” Miranelis repeated obediently.

Abruptly, Kezul let go. Miranelis didn’t look up, but out of the corner of their eye, they saw Kezul shake his head, his brows drawn furiously down. “You’re just telling me what I want to hear. You’re not afraid, so stop acting like you’re afraid. Stop acting like all the rest!”

What did Kezul want? Miranelis had no fear left in them because they had nothing much of anything left in them. What was Kezul looking for, then, if not the echo that was all they had to give?

Miranelis glanced up, just long enough to get a look into Kezul’s eyes. Kezul’s eyes shone with fury, but there was something else buried deeply there. Not the hidden fear Miranelis had grown used to seeing. This was shame.

It was easy enough for Miranelis to recognize. They had felt enough of it themselves in the days since the conquest. Every time they proved themselves once again to be a coward.

Forgiveness, Miranelis realized with a sharp shock that briefly brought a flicker of fire back to life inside them. It hit them like the first prickles of a limb coming back to life after having fallen asleep. Like hunger pangs after a long illness. Like the first painful rays of sunlight interrupting a long sleep.

It was anger, Miranelis realized.

Kezul wanted forgiveness from them? After all this?

They didn’t want to be angry. They wanted to stay numb and empty. It was easier that way. It was easier to be dead, to be cold ashes. Anger would bring their inner fire back to life, and fire meant pain. Fire meant dying all over again.

“Tell me you understand,” Kezul was saying. “Tell me you know why I have to do this. Don’t pretend. Don’t act afraid. Tell me the truth, the way you used to. Give me your advice. Tell me I have to do this.”

Miranelis couldn’t give him what he wanted. Not if he wanted it to be real. If they succeeded in killing the fire inside them, they would have nothing to give. If they didn’t succeed, all they would have was anger. Either way, it wasn’t what Kezul wanted.

So they said nothing.

Kezul crouched down and leaned in toward Miranelis. He grabbed the side of Miranelis’s head and forced Miranelis’s eyes to him. “Tell me I have to do this!”

At the touch of Kezul’s hot breath on their face, their anger flared again. It felt like fire on bare skin, burning and bubbling until the flesh was gone. They didn’t want it. They tried to push it away. But like that day with the torch held against their arm, they were helpless to pull away. The burning grew, and it grew, and it grew.

They didn’t even know if they were angrier at Kezul or at themselves.

They had trusted Kezul when they shouldn’t have. They had trusted him despite all evidence. They had helped the man who had stolen the murdered queen’s throne.

They were worse than a coward. They were a traitor.

And then, in the end, Kezul had done what Miranelis should have always known he would do. He had rolled over for his father. He had done what Kyollen Naskor always did—he had destroyed in the name of Vorhullin the Unmaker.

Unexpectedly, Kezul sat down heavily in the straw. He heaved a sigh and leaned sideways against the wall. Miranelis found enough life within themselves to shrink back—not in fear, not this time, but in revulsion. Why was Kezul sitting with them like they were friends? They would have preferred it if he had screamed in their face.

“I wish we could have made it work,” Kezul said with a sigh. His voice took on a sharper edge again; so did his eyes. “But it was never possible.”

Miranelis’s revulsion turned to anger. Their hands clenched around the spiky bits of straw, driving it painfully into their palms. It was the least of their pains. They wanted to shove Kezul away as hard as they could. For one dizzying second, they thought they actually might.

What was Kezul doing? Did he actually think Miranelis would offer him reassurance? The way he was looking at Miranelis, the weariness in the set of his shoulders that he never would have dared showed one of his Wolves… it was like he thought Miranelis was his friend. No, not even that—it was like Miranelis wasn’t real, wasn’t a person to him. Like they were a dog whose head he stroked when he felt sad, someone to lick his hand and curl up at his feet. Not one of the conquered people whose countrymen he was feeling bad about murdering.

Their time of conspiring together was officially gone. Now Miranelis wasn’t even human to him.

The feel of him so close, the heat of his body, the smell of his breath and his furs… it was sickening. The look on his face, even more so.

He was less than an arm’s length away. Close enough to kill. Just the thought made Miranelis’s face flush and their heart speed up. They were too much of a coward to do that, and they knew it. That had the chance before, and they…

They had taken it, in the end. And it hadn’t worked. But Kezul had been prepared for a fight then. Right now, he didn’t look prepared for anything. He had finally let his guard down, showing vulnerability he would never have shown to someone he considered human.

And what did Miranelis have to fear? They knew the secret now: they were already dead.

But they didn’t have a weapon. No matter how little fear they had left in them, they knew better than to think they could strangle the life from Kezul with their own spindly hands.

Kezul was wearing a knife, though. And it was close enough to grab. Miranelis knew where the knife was. In those early days, they had often watched the spot midway up Kezul’s side where the knife lay hidden, strapped to his side. He had been afraid to look away, afraid the knife would come out at any moment to rest at their throat again. Those days felt like so long ago.

Kezul wasn’t expecting a threat. And Miranelis’s hands weren’t bound. They could—

Kezul stood. Inwardly, Miranelis cursed. They had waited too long.

It was just as well. They would have been too slow again, no match for Kezul’s combat-honed instincts. They would have failed, and then Kezul would have…

Would have what? Killed them? They were already dead.

Even as Kezul resumed his pacing, the thought wouldn’t leave Miranelis. Every time they imagined the knife slicing across Kezul’s throat or sinking into his heart, their blood heated more. The fire within them was painful. Unwanted life surged back into their limbs, into their empty heart. They didn’t want it. They wanted to go back to being numb. They didn’t want to think about something they could never pull off.

They didn’t want to have hope.

Once, they would have found it unbearably sad that the only thing they could think to hope for anymore was the chance to kill Kezul and die in the attempt. Now they just longed for the return of despair.

But hadn’t they wished they could do something for Danelor? Hadn’t they tried to find an answer when Kezul had begged them, even after Kezul had burned the academy? They had wanted to help Danelor badly enough to put Kezul’s sins behind them.

Maybe this was the answer. Maybe this was the one thing they could still do for Danelor.

They eyed the place where they knew Kezul’s knife hid. They imagined surging to their feet, lunging for it, fumbling with their clumsy fingers. No—they couldn’t move fast enough, not with their injuries, and their muscles that ached from sitting in the same position for hours on end. Kezul would have to get closer.

Could they coax him closer?

They opened their mouth to speak, unsure of what they planned to say.

But Kezul was already turning away, reaching for the stall door. “My fears were right the first time I saw you,” he said. “You’re useless. Even for this.”

He stalked out of the stall, locking the door behind him with a heavy clang.

With that, Miranelis was alone—alone with the idea that wouldn’t leave them be.

They had tried to help Danelor. They had failed. But perhaps they could still do this one last thing.

And they had Kezul to thank for it. Kezul had shown them they had nothing left to fear. Because of Kezul, they were no longer a coward.

---

Tagged: @suspicious-whumping-egg @halloiambored @whump-in-the-closet @whump-cravings @sunshiline-writes @annablogsposts @whither-wander-whump @seaweed-is-cool @bloodinkandashes @sonder35 @cakeinthevoid @looptheloup

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#whump #whump writing #whump story #whump novel #my writing #my writing: Conquest #fantasy whump #royal whump #nonbinary whumpee #reluctant whumper #emotional whump

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waltwhitmansbeard · 2 years ago

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oh my god, you're covered in blood. In Vamp Machina? ^_^

oh my god, you're covered in blood. this is the au. based on this ask.

Keyleth doesn't normally make deliveries, but Zahra is worth the exception. She's become quite the loyal customer since her move to Emon, and she enjoys her dry sense of humor. It's worth the twenty minute detour on her walk home to deliver her usual dried aconite and Keyleth's signature calming tea blend of chamomile, peppermint, and rosehips.

She follows someone into his building, then take the stairs to the second floor, where she knocks on the door labeled 2D. "Delivery!"

There's some shuffling inside, a chaotic fumbling, and then a familiar, "Uh, not a great time!"

She frowns. That's Kash's voice, she's sure of it. He's come in with Zahra a handful of times, and he's peppered Keyleth with quite a few questions about her work. "Kash, it's Keyleth! From the herbalist's? Zahra didn't pick up her order today, so I just thought I'd drop it off for her."

There's a pregnant pause, followed by a strained, "Leave it at the door, please."

Something's not right. He's an odd one, Kash, but he's not usually this...cagey. She bends down to set the paper bag just up against the door, but she knows this nagging feeling isn't ever going to leave her alone, so she tries the doorknob. "Kash?"

It's unlocked, which is weird in and of itself, so she pushes inside, hoping to help a friend in distress.

At this point, slipping in through Keyleth's bedroom window is old hat for Vax. He'd prefer to walk in through the front door—it's degrading, sneaking around like he's a teenager and not well into his second century—but an encounter with her bitchy vampire hunter roommate is not what he needs right now. He stretches out on her bed, thumbing through a trashy romance novel she checked out from the library as he waits for her to get home.

He's so engrossed in the surprisingly complex political plot line of this bodice ripper that he almost doesn't hear her enter the room. It's the soft snick of the door shutting behind her that pulls his attention away from the book. "Hey, this is actually pretty good once you get past—holy fucking shit."

Her face scrunches up as her hands start to flap in his direction. "Quiet! I don't want Percy to hear."

Vax launches himself to to his feet. "You're worried about Percy? Keyleth, you're covered in blood."

She sighs, as if his pointing it out is an inconvenience for her. "Yes, I am." She shuffles over to her closet and begins rummaging around.

He feels like the back of his head is going to explode. It's all over her, caked onto her arms, splashed up into her hair. He can smell it, rich and warm and sweet and hers. He swallows thickly. "Do you care to share why?"

She pauses, her back to him. "No." She continues to pull out a change of clothes.

Well into his second century, and he's never met someone as inscrutable as her. "Keyleth, fuck, are you hurt?"

He knows the quiet no is a lie before she says it. There's a stiffness to her movements, a tenderness clearly borne of pain. He comes up behind her, put his hands over hers to stop their movement. "Keyleth." She looks at him, exhaustion seeping into every corner of her face. "Please, talk to me."

He can see them now, a few slash marks through the sleeves of her denim jacket, the source of all of the blood. His heart hasn't beat in many decades but he swears he can feel it racing now, feel its roaring fury in his chest. "Who did this to you?" He tries to keep the trembling rage from his voice, but he knows he fails.

"It was an accident."

"That's not an answer."

"Look, it looks a lot worse than it is, okay? I promise." She puts her hands on either side of his face, and for a moment, he must hold his breath to keep out the delicious aroma of her blood on her skin. "You trust me to keep your secret, yeah?" He nods; he trusts her with every dead bone in his body. "Then trust that other secrets are just as worth keeping."

His teeth long to tear into something, to rend someone's flesh for this. "Are you saying another vampire did this?"

She snorts. "Definitely not." She presses her lips to his, and fuck, she tastes divine. "I'm going to get cleaned up, put some of my healing poultice on this. I'll be fine by morning, I promise." She gathers up her clothes and disappears into her bathroom, leaving Vax stunned and seething. He may not yet know who harmed her, who spilled her blood and left her to limp home, but when he does, he will become every bit the ruthless monster the man in the other room of this apartment knows him to be.

#ask #ravendruid #vamp machina au #critical role au #cr au #tlovm au #vox machina au #critical role #critical role fic #cr fic #my fic #vox machina #vox machina fic #vaxleth fic #vaxleth #vaxleth au

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bedofthistles · 1 year ago

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The Little White Horse: A Complete Summary

So! I finally read TLWH, and man do I have thoughts and opinions! So many... so... many....

However, before I get into those opinions, I wanted to share my summary of TLWH, since I don't think a lot of people have read the book who enjoyed the movie.

Unfortunately, my thots and opinions are too wide and vast, resulting in what is more or less a 16 page dissertation, which may grow depending on if I think I covered all the topics I wanted to cover. So, to makes things a bit easier, I'm going to be splitting them up into more readable sections.

So, if you haven't read the book, if it's been a while since you've read the book, here is a summary of the novel.

Alright friends, the time has come.

After undertaking the laborious task of consuming all Moonacre content possible (movie, minie-series and novel) I have come to some unfortunate conclusions. The book sucks. But before you go too far, especially the weird amount of you who like the book, I would like to preface that each person is allotted their opinions. I am not aiming to dis the book, it’s a classic, but it’s not perfect, no book or work of art is. No one should get so offended by another’s opinion to the point where it sparks a deep, roiling anger inside of them.

(Rachel Zeglar may be wrong about the Snow White movie from the 1930s, but I took her side, everyone got real upset about a girl having opinions, not that’s her opinion and she’s allowed it.)

I want to start out by saying there are some issues in regards to race, incest, pedophilia, grooming and sexism in the novel, if that surprises and shocks you, I’m sorry but its in there, and just because you didn’t notice it doesn’t erase the fact that it was there. I also don’t want this to be about me comparing the book to the movie, because one that would just be a rant, and as much as I love that, that wouldn’t be fair to either works, and honestly? Besides the names and setting, the book and movie could almost fully be divorced from one another.

In case you don’t know the plot to the book, I will try to surmise it as best I can:

Maria Merryweather is a recently orphaned girl, she leaves London with her governess (Miss Heliotrope) and her dog (Wiggins) arriving to live with her first cousin once removed, Sir Benjamin, lord over Moonacre Valley (and if you’re not up to snuff about what that means, he’s a landlord, more or less). While driving, Maria occupies herself by staring at her small feet, her one attribute and attractive characteristic.

While en route, Maria sees the beautiful valley lit up like silver in the moonlight, and between the trees she spots a luminescent white horse. When she tries to tell her governess this, Ms. Heliotrope tells her to stop her overactive imagination, she has always had an overactive imagination, especially back in London, when she made up a playmate named Robin (yes, that one).

When they arrive, they learn that no woman has stepped foot inside of the house in 20 years - yes, Sir Benjamin is proud of this - and, very importantly, there is no pink within the house. While there, Sir Benjamin is a very happy, polite gentleman, who calls Maria your highness, and refers to Moonacre Valley as her dominion. There are also this weird thing about Sun Merryweathers and Moon Merryweathers.

“The brave soul and the pure spirit shall with a merry and a loving heart inherit the kingdom together," quoted Sir Benjamin. “That's our family motto, my dear. It's been our motto since the days of the first Sir Wrolf. It refers, I think, to the two sorts of Merryweathers, the sun and the moon Merryweathers, who are always merry when they love each other. It is also, perhaps, a device for linking together those four qualities that go to make up perfection --courage, purity, love, and joy."

While giving her a tour of the manor, he shows her a well (this will be important later) and Maria thinks to herself if I were a medieval lady, this is where I would hide my jewels in time of war.

Weird, but okay.

The one place Maria is not shown, is the kitchen.

They go to church, while the Parson is preaching, Maria brushes her skirt to smooth out some wrinkles, and there’s a noise that captures her attention for a bit. Then, once the service is over, everyone lines up and goes up to the Parson to get absolutely read to shreds. He literally tells them their sins of the week, and when it’s Maria’s turn, despite only being there for a day, she’s scolded for her vanity and curiosity.

One of the things Sir Benjamin gets scolded for is allowing the (and I’m so sorry for this) “Black Men” to stop hunting in Merryweather park. And that’s kind of all they do, and from here on out I will be referring to them as the De Noirs because that is technically their name, but Elizabeth Goudge just keeps calling them “the Black Men”.

And yes, that is as bad as it sounds, but more on that later.

Let’s just speed run some facts.

Every morning, Maria wakes up to cookies, milk, a stroked fire, and an outfit placed out for her. Maria feels so loved by these small acts, and feels as if she loves whoever is putting out these clothes.

“[Maria] had a queer feeling, as she fastened the coat of the habit and pinned the bunch of snowdrops to the front of it, that L.M. - whoever she was - put loving arms around her; almost as her mother might have done, had she not died.”

When she is out in the forest with Periwinkle and Wrolf, she hears the shrill, shrieking rabbit, and goes to save it. As she does, she realizes that the De Noirs have come for the rabbit as well. She and Robin save the rabbit from the De Noirs and bring her to safety. Robin tells her it's actually a moonacre hare, and then upon her asking too many questions, leaves.

“Maria choked down her curiosity, for Robin had always hated being asked questions, and if she asked too many would disappear, and she did not want him to disappear just yet.”

“There was no answer, and looking up she saw that Robin had disappeared, even though as far as she knew she had not asked a single question.”

She knows this because she would dream about Robin in London, and when she asked him questions, he would just leave the dream.

Maria learns about Sir Wrolf (who was arrogant, rude, and planned on marrying the Moon Princess to steal Black William’s land), the Moon Princess (who was just pale, and kind, I think?) with her dowry of pearls, and Monsieur Cocque De noir, otherwise known as Coeur De Noir because his heart was so black (it’s a common french last name, not to mention the black cock that rides on the current De Noir’s shoulder).

“[Sir Wrolf had] got Paradise Hill but there remained the pine woods behind his manor house, that run right down to the sea, to what is now called Merryweather Bay, which were the property of Sir William Cocq de Noir, called Black William because of the black cock that was his family crest, and because of his lashing dark eyes, black hair and beard and sallow French skin. And also because of his black heart. Coeur de Noir, men sometimes called him, instead of Cocq de Noir. For he was a bad man, was Black William, cruel to wild creatures, domineering with his servants, morose and ungenerous.”

Black William remarries, has a son, and that son becomes his heir. Because of this, Sir Wrolf can’t inherit the whole of the Valley through his wife, and gets super angry. Because of his rage, the De Noir’s think Sir Wrolf killed Black William, the Moon Princess ran away, and Black William’s son, who was believed to have died from sickness, returned twenty years later with his band of men who would become the wicked, evil, ‘Black Men’ who plague the valley. Sir Wrolf is described to have died heartbroken (good) and damned to ride around Paradise Hill in a sort of purgatory for his ill-deeds.

The Parson also tells Maria that every Moon Princess is destined to leave the Valley after fighting with her love. That it won’t be until the Moon Princess humbles herself and marries a poor man she will never be allowed to stay.

“She always has gone away," said Old Parson. “Not necessarily from the valley, but from the manor. Yet the old folks in the village vow and declare that one day there will come a Moon Princess who will have the courage to deliver the valley from the wickedness of the Black Men. But like the princesses in all the nicest fairy tales she will have to humble her pride to love not a prince but a poor man, a shepherd or ploughman or some such country lad, and to effect the deliverance with his help, and that's a thing which no Moon Princess has yet done, so proud are they.”

At this point, Maria meets Loveday Minette, the lady who had been leaving her clothes, she is kind and beautiful, and cleans the Parson’s house.

Then again, while out with her animals and Ms. Heliotrope, Maria goes to Paradise Hill, which is the monastery Sir Wrolf stole from the monks because he was covetous. While there she meets the shepherd and guess who it is? That’s right, Robin, no surprise there. While the two are there, the De Noirs attempt to steal the sheep.

Robin, Maria, and the Ghost of Sir Wrolf -

“And then, through the noise of the thunder and the rain, she distinctly heard the hoofs of a galloping horse pounding upon the turf. As the horseman was behind her she could not herself see anything, but whoever he was the Black Men seemed to see him, for with faces blanched by terror they turned and fled.”

they manage to scare them off.

Maria and Robin have a fight, but they deal with it, because Maria knows if she doesn’t forgive him, she’ll have to leave the Valley. This will be handled in more depth later. Likewise, Loveday and Sir Benjamin had a fight twenty years ago, Loveday leaves the Valley, marries a lawyer, sires Robin, and then comes back after her husband dies. Because of their stubborness, neither would return to the other and apologize. More detail on this later.

After dealing with the De Noirs, however. Maria decides that she must save the valley from their wickedness.

She, Robin, and the Parson return Paradise Hill to god, Sir Benjamin no longer profits off the sheep, and that’s it. It was a really long boring chapter about all the children of Silverydew cleaning it up and decorating it again with the statue of their Lady. They sing, and I think Sir Wrolf’s soul is released from the hell that is Moonacre Valley.

Once this is done, Maria and Robin sneak into the Castle in the pine woods, ask Mr. Cock to pretty please stop stealing and he says: not until you give me back the pearls, and also your ancestor murdered my ancestor.

Robin and Maria are chased, they find the tree hollow, with evidence that someone once lived there including a knife with a carved cock as the handle-

“Once upon a time this cave had been lived in. A hollow place in the wall was blackened, as though a fire had been lit there, and standing on a flat rock beside it was an iron pot that must have been used to cook stew in. And lying on the rock beside the pot was a huntsman's knife in a metal sheath, and a tarnished silver mug. Maria and Robin picked them up and looked at them, holding them close to their eyes in the dim light, and lo and behold, the sheath that held the knife was beautifully made in the shape of a cock, and upon the silver mug also there was traced the outline of a cock."

They also run through the tunnels that go through Moonacre Valley until they reach Merryweather Bay, where Maria finds a boat that belonged to Sir William.

For Maria, this is enough evidence that Black William left on his own accord, and the magical sea unicorns brought the boat back to Merryweather Bay as proof.

Once they’re home safe, Marmaduke asks Maria for butter kept in the well, because it's cold in there, and while Maria is more or less rifling through the Merryweather fridge, she finds an old box that has the pearls in them.

Maria decides that she doesn’t want to give the pearls to the De Noirs, because they are wicked, and will just give them to the moon instead. Then, through a gold medal mental gymnastic routine, decides that she will give them over.

“And yet Maria did not want to give those pearls away. She loved them far too much. She did not want to give them even to the moon, and as for giving them to the Black Men--well--she just couldn't do it. And yet she had to do it. Monsieur Cocq de Noir had promised that they would stop being wicked if she could give him proof that Black William had not been murdered by Sir Wrolf, but had withdrawn to a hermit's life by his own choice, and if she would give him the pearls. “That first condition was already fulfilled, for when he was pursuing her and Robin he would have seen Black William's hermitage with his own eyes, and the pearls he would have too if she could bring herself to give them to him. And then he would not be wicked any more and complete happiness would come to the Moonacre Valley. Somehow Maria did not doubt that if she kept her part of the bargain Monsieur Cocq de Noir would keep his. The wickedest of men have good in them somewhere, and remembering the direct look in his eyes she felt quite sure that he was not a man who would break his word. Yet she felt she could not give him these pearls, that she had found herself and that seemed already a part of her. “And then it struck her suddenly that if she gave her pearls to Monsieur Cocq de Noir she would, in a way, be giving them to the moon. For the moon belongs to the night, and what was more like night than Monsieur Cocq de Noir and his black pine forest? And the first Moon Princess had come out of the night-dark pine wood, bringing the pearls with her. The pearls belonged far more to the Black Men than they did to the Merryweathers.”

However, when she goes to the Castle, Mr. Cock takes the pearls, but doesn’t believe her about the boat. Then she hits him with the old “magic unicorns brought him into shore”, and he doesn’t believe that, but Maria is able to convince him to come out with her to the forest where she is sure the Little White Horse will appear, despite being rather elusive this whole time. They go out together, they see not only the Little White Horse, but a whole tidal wave of Sea Unicorn, and he’s like oh! You were telling the truth.

But! That’s not the end!

Maria still has to get Loveday and Sir Benjamin back together, and that is a whole other thing that deserves its own post and I will go into full detail on later. As well as some issues that I have with Robin Minette.

The story ends with Loveday and Benjamin getting married, Robin and Maria getting married A YEAR LATER, and going on to have ten kids. While the book does not tell us Robin’s age, we know Maria is thirteen, meaning she is at least fourteen when she gets married, and who knows when they start having kids. Again, I will talk about this more later. However, despite common belief, this getting married at 12-14 was not common.

The book ends, however, with one of the most lovely quotes.

“For sometimes in her dreams at night she stood beneath the branches of a mysterious wood, and looked down a moonlit glade, her eyes straining after something that she could not see. And when she woke up there would be tears on her cheeks because her longing had been unsatisfied. “Yet she was not unhappy because of this dream. “She knew that one day, when she was a very old woman, she would dream this dream for the last time, and in this last dream of all she would see the little white horse and he would not go away from her. He would come towards her, and she would run towards him, and he would carry her upon his back away and away, she did not quite know where, but to a good place, a place where she wanted to be.”

To keep things brief (too late) I will be making other posts to complete my analysis of book, movie, and small mentions of the miniseries.

And if you were thinking about reading the book: don’t.

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#the secret of moonacre #the little white horse #TLWH dissertation #I'll figure out how to link the parts #i know you can #thots and opinions #i know I'm gonna make someone mad

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