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vertanimeni · 4 years

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the ice will start to break, the day will fade away (5/18)

Summary:

“Have you heard? The Elephant of Caocin has committed high treason!”

From Trikru’s most reputable war hero to Trikru’s most wanted traitor, Kova found themselves stripped of their titles and trapped between a clan that wants them dead and a camp of invaders - the same ones who kidnapped and tortured their brother.

But Kova was willing to do anything to stay alive and keep their family together.

Pairing: Bellamy/Grounder OC

Word Count: 6,277

TW: Canon typical violence, injuries.

A/N: Hi hi! After some convincing from my friends, I decided to post this series here :D I’ve already finished with season 1 and half of season 2, I’m just in the middle of re-writing and editing. If you’re reading through my blog, the read more does not show up due to Tumblr’s new formatting, so please click on the post itself. I’ll be updating every other day at 12pm EST. Anyways, hope you enjoy it!

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v. intervention.

The sole fact that the Ankwon Bridge stood tall and proud despite the dry creek underneath, despite having gone through neglect, a nuclear war, renovation, and more neglect, was an impressive feat on its own. The debris scattered across the floor and the crumbling sides and edges made it quite obvious that it had been abandoned, or at the very least, hadn’t been used as often, for trading or otherwise. After all, there were faster routes to get to southwest Trikru, and with no villages or people for miles down this road, it became an unpopular course.

Which is why Kova couldn’t hide their surprise when they found someone casually leaning against the railings, as if she had been waiting there for a while now.

Knowing their tendency to accidentally sneak up on others, Kova made sure to step with a bit of extra pressure on a few dried leaves and twigs. Octavia turned at the noise. Her eyes landed on Kova, and she gave them a wry smile. They dipped their head in acknowledgment. Octavia might be Lincoln’s… interest, but that didn’t mean Kova would drop their guard just for—

“No sword to the throat? I thought you liked me?” Octavia couldn’t help but tease, a sly smile on her face.

The muscle underneath Kova’s eyes twitched. They blinked once. twice. Octavia could have sworn for a brief second she saw the corners of their lips twitch, too. Suddenly Kova’s chest spasmed as a light laugh tumbled out without restraint.

Alright. Maybe they could warm up to her.

Once they calmed down and cleared their throat (pointedly ignoring Octavia’s wide eyes), they held out their forearm. Without hesitation, Octavia gripped theirs with her own, and her smile was much more natural when they squeezed lightly.

“Wanna sit with me while we wait for the others?” She asked.

“…mn.”

Since they were early, the two sat on the edge of the bridge, legs hanging over the side and arms resting on top of the lower railings. And to Octavia’s shock, Kova easily plopped down by her side, letting their shoulders touch.

“Lincoln talked about you a lot.” There was no hint of malice in Octavia’s tone, just curiosity. “He mentioned why you can’t take off the mask. Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to make sure you can stay with us while everything clears up.”

“Mn. Thank you. I appreciate it.” They faced her and bowed their head slightly. “He talked about you as well.”

Well. More like gushed. A lot. He had been telling Kova as much as he could about Octavia, probably to put the woman in a favorable light. But she was doing just fine on her own.

Her cheeks flushed at their words.

After that, conversation flowed out naturally. After all, both sides were equally curious about the other. Octavia spoke about how difficult life was on the Ark. She spoke of the prison system, her trauma of being thrown in the sky box just for being born (and that added a whole new conversation topic on the Ark’s justice system — Octavia never thought she would see the day where she had to explain how the justice system worked and try to defend the justification behind her imprisonment, but here she was.)

But she also spoke of the parties, the view of the moon and stars and the sun with its solar flares, and how different and freeing it was to live here, with friends, clean fresh air, and the ticklish grass underneath her feet (although she had to admit, she hated the mosquitoes and bugs that tried to sneak in her tent.)

Octavia had to admit, she liked the way Kova listened intently while they watched the distant landscape, with a few hums of acknowledgments and agreements, a few frowns and worried glances when she mentioned the sky box and her “crimes.” Almost exactly like how Lincoln had reacted when she told him.

“What about you? What’s your sob story?” She couldn’t help but ask at the end of her history.

Seeing as Octavia laid out most, if not all her history and secrets and worries bare to them, Kova couldn’t help but want to do the same. Well, not all their secrets, maybe not even most, but more than anyone would know.

(Except for Lincoln, of course. He knew everything.)

So Kova explained what it was like to live on Earth. They spoke about Trikru, about how Trikruvians are expected to train in the militia for 20 years before they’re allowed to opt out, how they themselves so desperately wanted to opt out early and work full time in prosthetic handling, something they thoroughly enjoyed on the side. They spoke about how tired they were of training, of fighting battles after battles, wars after wars (Kova could tell Octavia sat up a little straighter, as if she wanted to delve more into that topic, but Kova sent her their most nicest glare and she thankfully didn’t press into that open wound.)

But they also spoke of the ceremonies and celebrations, the drinks and foods with spices so ferocious tears would bundle at the corners of their eyes, the delicate warmth of fire after a night of fishing in the river, the stars and moon twinkling above them, the smell of the earth after it rains, and the way the trees move with the winds.

(They told her they hated the bugs just as much, if not more, than she did. And if they get the chance to, they would show her which plants keep them away.)

A comfortable silence fell between them as the sun began to rise higher in the sky. Both of them needed a moment to gather their bearings. After all, two weeks ago they hadn’t known the other person even existed, and in Octavia’s case, she was getting used to the fact that she was practically an alien on a planet her ancestors were from.

Surprisingly (or maybe not, due to the nature of their question), Kova broke the silence with, “Can I ask what your intentions are with my brother?”

Octavia nearly choked on her spit. She leaned over the railing as she coughed, but eventually broke out into a laugh. “Are you giving me a shovel talk?”

Thumping her back, Kova couldn’t help but soften their eyes. “No. But I am curious.”

“Huh. Well, I’m interested in your brother.” Octavia’s cheeks flushed. She suddenly found her nails interesting and picked at them. “Really interested.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yeah.” She would have been more shocked at her quick answer if she hadn’t known her feelings already. “I do. A lot.”

Of course, this entire time Octavia knew she had been talking with Kova, Lincoln’s sibling. But it suddenly struck her as fast as a train that this was Lincoln’s sibling. As in the person closest to him in the entire world. Shouldn’t she be proving her feelings towards their brother? Shouldn’t she say more than ‘I like him a lot?’

“Mn.” Kova nodded slowly, unaware of Octavia’s sudden flustered panic. “Good.”

Octavia paused. “Good?”

“Good. As long as he’s happy, you don’t have to worry about me.”

A pause.

Ah.

So it was a shovel talk.

The two made eye contact. Octavia was the first to burst out into a light laugh, one that made the corners of Kova’s lips quirk up. Yeah. They could see where Lincoln’s infatuation came from.

Their conversation ended when Kova’s ears picked up the crunch of leaves and twigs in the forest closest to them. They snapped their head to the side, alerting Octavia. The two stood up just as three figures came out of the forest. Despite Kova’s mask in the way, Octavia understood the questioning look they gave her, and gave them a safe nod.

One girl, presumably Clarke, and two boys, one of which Kova easily recognized as Finn, the boy Lincoln had stabbed.

“So that’s how you set this up.” Clarke’s eyes glanced between the boys behind her and Octavia. “You helped that grounder escape, didn’t you?” An all too familiar accusatory tone laced her words.

That word didn’t seem nice. Hmm. She reminded Kova of General Tristan. That was already a bad sign. Before Octavia could respond, Kova stepped in between her and Clarke. “The ‘grounder’ you speak of is my brother,” Kova bit out, “and it was I who rescued him.”

“You? How?”

Kova dipped their head ever so slightly, locking eyes with Clark dead on. “If you truly do not know, then I believe you should update your security measures.”

To Octavia, Kova’s personality did a complete 180 compared to who she had been talking to a few moments beforehand. Now she understood what Lincoln had meant when he said, ‘They might be cold to you at first, maybe even sharp, but once you get to know them, they’ll warm up.’ They were neither of those things when they had started talking, but now…

Their straight and tall posture displayed for all the confidence of someone who had expertise of these situations, of someone who took no shit, of someone who had been there, done that. Kova’s presence certainly created a challenging atmosphere, one that Lincoln would find in handy.

Clarke, poor Clarke, grew both uncomfortable and seemingly irritated at the sudden switch in the situation, her face going tight and her eyebrows wrinkling. “I see. Who are you? Are you the one I’m meeting with today?”

Kova didn’t respond, they merely stared at her. The skin under their eyes twitched, a movement Octavia recognized from before. Ah. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead for not realizing, and she suddenly found herself in the same place as Kova, struggling to hold back her laugh.

Imagine? Imagine if Kova had been the Lieutenant? Imagine if the sky people had tortured the brother of the Lieutenant they were meeting with today? What a stroke of bad luck that would have been — the sky people wouldn’t even be able to negotiate a way out of their situation. Hell, they would be fortunate if they made it out of the bridge alive.

Oh, to most people Clarke’s face seemed stone cold, but Octavia could practically feel the panic thrumming in waves from the sky people’s leader. Taking pity, she took charge. “This is Kova.” Octavia placed a hand on their shoulder. “They’re the one helping us today with Lieutenant Anya.”

They raised an eyebrow at that. “The Lieutenant? Not the Chief?”

“Nope, Lincoln said it would be best to skip the Chief and went straight to the Lieutenant. I was shocked too.”

Octavia truly had intense whiplash from Kova’s sudden personality change, and didn’t know how to respond when they gave her a succinct nod. Thankfully, Octavia didn’t have time to over think it, because Kova started talking.

“My brother, despite everything, was kind enough to set up this meeting between you and the Lieutenant. You must provide her with good reasons why Trikru shouldn’t declare war. If she thinks it is sound, then she will pass the message on to the Commander. Did you prepare?”

“Naturally. I—” Clarke paused. Something caught her attention behind Kova. But just as Kova turned to look, something bright shined across their eyes for a brief moment. Their gaze turned to the tree line over the bridge. They switched their gaze to Octavia when her warm hand left their shoulder. She ran across the bridge to—

Lincoln.

He jogged towards them from the other side. He must have came after talking with the Lieutenant. Kova used the distraction to coax Clarke to the side of the bridge. She followed with little reluctance, as if knowing what Kova would say.

They jutted their chin towards the bank of the dry creek. Clarke’s back-up contrasted severely against the green bushes. Kova’s mere presence seemed to have forced Clarke’s back-up out of their hiding spot behind the bushes for a better view.

“Guns aren’t permitted. If the Lieutenant sees them, she’ll kill you on the spot.” Kova stated. “But seeing as you all seemed to have been taught to use them, you are allowed to have use them, so long as those three,” They jutted their chin once more. “can hide properly. I have to say, it is physically hurting me to see how careless they are.”

Flustered, Clarke turned around to face the trio. She signaled them to move back, to hide themselves lower in the thickets. Once they were concealed properly, Clarke gave Kova a silent nod of gratitude before heading back to the others waiting for her.

Kova remained where they stood. They stared silently into the distance before turning their sharp gaze on the trio. Based on the rustling of the bushes, Kova must have startled them. Satisfied with their coverage, they sent them a thumbs up before heading back to their position.

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It had been a struggle to set up the guns at the bank of the dried river, but Raven, Jasper, and Bellamy managed to make it work despite all the foliage around them. Jasper muttered under his breath in the background while Raven and Bellamy remained posted by the guns. The two figured it was best for him to let off some steam by organizing their water and snacks.

Raven looked through the optic of her rifle towards the bridge. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Hey, where did Octavia come from?”

The fear that shot throughout Bellamy was enough for him to grab his rifle and peep through the optic. Jasper followed suit and said, “Who’s the grounder next to her?”

Well, they certainly weren’t the grounder that escaped the camp not too long ago. That one was bald, brown skinned, and tall. This one had long dreads, dark skin, and although they were tall, they weren’t as tall as the other one. There wasn’t much else they could say about the new grounder, since an intricate mask covered the entirety of their face.

“Do you think that’s who Clarke’s supposed to meet?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Bellamy muttered before taking aim.

Raven immediately pushed his gun down by the muzzle, an appalled look on her face. “Bellamy, what do you think you’re doing?”

He pulled his gun back, his famous scowl back on his face. “Waiting for this shitshow to blow up.”

“What—?”

Before Raven could scold him, Jasper interrupted with, “Guys, somethings going on.”

The three of them looked through the opticals. There was movement in the trees opposite of their side of the bridge before someone came jogging out. It was the same grounder they had captured!

“What’s Octavia doing— Oh.”

Octavia had practically thrown herself into the grounder’s arms. The two embraced one another tightly. There was no question what their relationship could possibly be.

Jasper felt his heart sink deep into his chest, a pain strong enough to make the scar throb.

“Well, I guess we know how he got away now.” Raven remarked with a smirk, unaware of Jasper’s change in mood and purposefully ignoring the way Bellamy seethed with anger. Her eyes flickered back to their side of the bridge. “We got movement with Clarke and the new grounder.”

The trio watched carefully. To their shock, the grounder jutted their head directly towards them without sparing a glance. For a moment, the trio panicked, under the assumption that they had been caught by this grounder leader, and thus destroying the chance at a deal. But because of the mask, they couldn’t tell the grounder was still talking until, to their shock, Clarke turned and signaled for them to move farther back behind the foliage.

The trio did as told without hesitation.

Once Clarke felt satisfied, she nodded to the grounder, as if showing her thanks, and made her way back to Wells and Finn. Huh.

“What was that about?”

“Are both grounders helping us?”

The grounder hadn’t moved, even long after Clarke left their presence. Now that they were heavily covered by surrounding bushes, Bellamy knew there was little to no way the grounder could directly see them. But as he peered through his optical, the grounder seeemd to have looked straight at him. He hated the shudder that ran up his spine.

After a moment, as if scanning their area, the grounder sent them a discreet thumbs up before turning away and heading out of sight.

“It seems like we have a new friend?” Raven elbowed Bellamy’s side. Not wanting to decipher whatever look she was giving him, he turned away.

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Back on the bridge, Kova joined the rest of the group and clapped Lincoln’s shoulder. “How’s everything?”

He nodded briefly. “The Lieutenant is pissed, but she’s willing to—”

The bridge under their feet rumbled, followed by the sounds of hoofbeats. The two Trikruvians winced at the familiar noise, but the invaders had no idea what it was, and their eyes flickered across the bridge in a crazed panic.

Clarke looked past the group and towards the other side of the bridge. “Oh my god,” Her mouth dropped slightly in excited shock, “are those horses?”

“Don’t look too happy about it.” Kova muttered.

Three horses came into view, Anya in the lead with two warriors beside her. The two warriors carried swords, but it seemed the Lieutenant did not.

“Hey, we said no weapons.” Finn protested, placing him between Clarke and the other side.

“We were told there wouldn’t be.” Lincoln glanced at Kova, as if to say ‘guess you were right.’

“It’s too late now.” Clarke brushed past Finn and made her way to the middle of the bridge.

He and Wells sent each other a look before stepping forward, as if to follow her. Until Kova and Lincoln stuck their arms out, shaking their head. “No. She has to go alone.”

“But—”

“I’ll take responsibility. I won’t let anything happen to her — you have my word.” They placed a hand on Wells’ shoulder, as sturdy as their gaze. Wells and Finn glanced at one another, then to Octavia, who gave them a subtle nod. The two boys conceded and went to sit next to her.

Kova could feel the heavy weight of Lincoln’s worried gaze once the two boys were out of earshot. “Don’t stress.” They murmured and lightly bumped their shoulder against his. “You focus on making this crazy ass plan of yours work. I’ll focus on keeping the kids alive.”

Out of the corner of their eye they saw him practically break his neck to look at them in shock. They would have found his reaction hilarious if it weren’t for their situation.

“…kids.”

Kova nodded. “Kids. They’re only two or three years older than Artigas. So. They’re children to me. I feel like I should say be something about you and Octavia…”

Lincoln stiffened.

“…but I already had a talk with her earlier. It all seems good. Treat her well.”

“…of course.”

Their conversation fell off after that once Lieutenant Anya walked up to the meeting point, holding the confidence of someone with three decades of warrior and battle experience under her belt. Not once did she waver, nor did her expression change during her talk with Clarke. To Kova and Lincoln, this was a good sign, and the two of them relaxed their tense bodies ever so slightly, arms crossed, leaning against one another.

“They seem to be doing fine so far.” Kova commented quietly, as if their voice could carry across the bridge.

“Mn.”

“How does it seem like they’re doing fine?” Wells’ panicked voice would have surprised the two siblings if they hadn’t heard his feet snap what seemed like every twig littering the bridge. “Your Lieutenant looks like she’s about to kill her at any moment.”

“But the fact is, she hasn’t.” Kova pointed out. “She hasn’t even glanced at her weapons, if she has any. It’s a good sign that your leader isn’t completely incompetent, at least.”

Truthfully, Kova regretted the words as soon as they left their lips. Even they could tell when their words were too harsh, and it was quite obvious they had offended Wells, as well as Finn who came up to them. The two boys straightened to their full heights. But before they could defend their leader—

“They’re about to shoot! CLARKE!” A boy’s voice bellowed from the bank of the bridge. “RUN CLARKE! THERE'S GROUNDERS IN THE TREES!”

Everyone twisted their head towards the noise, but Lincoln was the one who ran up to the side of the bridge only to find a sky boy at the bank of the dried creek, still shouting to warn his leader. “Clarke brought back-up?”

“Mn—” Before Kova could elaborate, gunshots rang throughout the area. The leaves were still plenty and bountiful, but even the trees couldn’t hide the thumps! of bodies hitting the ground. Too many bodies, actually.

Heart hammering against their chest, breath hitched, Kova found themselves trapped in their thoughts until someone bumped into their shoulder running by them. Before they could react, Lincoln stepped in front of the runner. Wells barreled into Lincoln’s arm, calling out Clarke’s name in fear, but Lincoln was much stronger than the younger boy and dragged him away from the bridge. “Don’t! The scouts will shoot you down.”

Lincoln had only been expecting at least one of the three sky people to try and run across the bridge to save Clarke, which is how he had managed to catch Wells easily. Yet when he looked back to Octavia and Finn behind him, Wells in his arms, he caught a glimpse of someone sprinting past him.

He had almost called out their name. Almost. He managed to stop himself, thankfully. But with no way to help them, he felt useless.

His grip around Wells tightened.

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Clarke had heard of the flight, fight, and freeze response, but there were no predators in space, and she had no idea what it truly felt like until now. She had only looked away from Lieutenant Anya for a moment — just for a single moment — when a strong shiver ran up her back, her body stiffening, hair standing on end, a heavy pit forming deep in her gut.

On instinct she turned back, raising her arms to protect herself (from what?). She only managed to catch a glimpse of shiny silver and the screech of metal scraping against metal before she felt someone’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her away.

The sheer unexpected force of the defensive move sent the Lieutenant’s arm reeling back. She stumbled over the debris of the old bridge. Kova stood in Clarke’s place, one hand holding a dagger and the other a barrier between the two.

The Lieutenant gathered herself and stepped forward to attack. Everyone flinched at the sound of a loud bang! followed by the sound of a bullet hitting its mark. Kova looked only to find the Lieutenant on the floor, clutching her shoulder and roaring in pain.

Not one to waste an opportunity, they grabbed Clarke by the back of her arm, shouting, “Go, go!”

“Fire!”

Kova paled. They looked over their shoulder as the two ran. The two warriors the Lieutenant had brought were now at her side, two large shields across their back. From the forest, as if in slow motion, dozen arrows shot up in the air, followed by half a dozen more. They had practiced how to avoid the arrows in training by prediction, but not once did Kova consider they would actually have to use this information against their clan.

Their predictions found a safe zone up ahead. If they had been alone, they would have made it with ease. But Clarke had neither the stamina nor the speed to reach it in time.

‘Ah. I took responsibility.’

They jammed their dagger back into its sheath and tackled Clarke to the ground, using their own body as a shield.

The arrows darted around the two. They counted each sound of seventeen arrows embedding into the ground around them, wincing at #14 who landed just by their head. For a moment, Kova wondered what happened to #18 when they felt a scorching fire shooting up from the outside of their left calf.

They looked over. The arrow sliced their pant leg and barely nicked their skin, thankfully avoiding Clarke altogether, but the pain grew intense with every throb of their heartbeat to the point of sudden intense nausea. They groaned, pressing their forehead against the cement below and gritting their teeth, taking deep breaths, eyebrows scrunched together.

Ah, unfortunately this pain was all too familiar for Kova. Trikru’s archers could be quite deadly when they wanted to be, and it wasn’t below them to dip arrowheads into vials of fire ant venom. If potent enough and in the right place, it could kill a person. If this were another time, Kova could only thank the Gods for the luck they bestowed on them. 1, the arrow didn’t land in the right place. 2, the arrow only nicked them. 3, the venom was certainly not potent enough.

But as they rolled off of Clarke onto their back, facing the blue sky, their eyesight slowly going white, leg twitching in pain, they couldn’t bring themselves to even think, let alone thank the Gods.

The bridge rumbled with hoofbeats, and for a moment they thought they heard Clarke talking to them, but all they could manage was a quiet groan. Next thing they knew, they felt hands lifting them up and over someone’s shoulder. Their head lolled around, and in their haze, they thought Trikru might have captured them, and tried to fight back. Kova slammed tight fists into the person’s spine to let them go, only to be surprised that the person could take their hits without wavering. In reality, they were only lightly tapping the person’s lower back with loose, curled fingers.

“—they’ll be safer with you guys for now, so please take them with you. Run and don’t stop until you’re behind your walls.”

“…A-Lin?” Their question was barely audible, the cloudiness of both their head and vision intensifying. They waved a hand in his general direction. A pair of shoes popped into their vision, and a warm hand settled gently on the back of their head. “Good luck fixing all that.”

“Thanks.” Kova could hear the small smile in his voice. “Don’t worry. I’ll come and find you when it’s all clear.”

“Mn.” They only managed to give a weak nod before their body finally gave up on retaining consciousness. But before they knocked out, they sent a thumbs up towards their brother.

***

Reluctantly, Lincoln brought his hand away, releasing a heavy sigh. He thanked Wells, who had offered to carry Kova. Wells could only nod, his face scrunched up as if all his energy went into holding them. Lincoln then turned to Octavia to give her a light kiss on the forehead before jogging off to where the Lieutenant had retreated to.

He had a lot of work to settle.

Just as he left their sight, Raven, Jasper, and Bellamy arrived at the foot of the bridge. The group merged and ran through the forest. Halfway through Bellamy noticed Octavia and Wells lagging behind and waved at them, urging them to hurry up, but he paused halfway through his wave, his face falling from disbelief to anger. “Why are you carrying that g—!”

“Bellamy, not right now!” Octavia snapped. “We don’t have time, and they saved Clarke.”

He opened his mouth—

“She’s right.” To everyone’s surprise, Clarke agreed. “Let’s bring them back now and talk about it later.”

As much as Bellamy wanted to argue, even he knew this wasn’t the right time nor place. “Fine. But we don’t have time for this,” he gestured vaguely to Wells’ trembling form, “either. Pass them over.’

If they weren’t in a dangerous situation, Wells would have felt at least a little offended. Instead, he passed the unconscious grounder over, Octavia helping with the process. Once Bellamy settled the grounder on his back, both arms curled under their legs, the group ran back to camp.

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The group slowed to a quick-paced walk once they were near the camp, much to Bellamy’s dismay. The grounder was heavy — there were too many times where he had thought he would topple over a root and under their weight. Now that the group no longer rushed through the foliage of the forest and the momentum was lost, the grounder felt even more burdensome — physically and mentally. How the fuck were they gonna explain why they brought a groun—

A steady, warm breath enveloped the back of his neck.

He detested the shiver running up his spine to the top of his scalp.

As if that weren’t enough, the next breath made its way between his leather jacket and shirt, leaving behind an even stronger warmth across his upper back.

The walk also meant Bellamy noticed little things from the grounder, like the loose arms across perpendicular to his shoulders, bouncing with every step, the expanding of their chest against his back, the twitch of their fingers—

The stiffening of thighs and calves against the hands underneath the back of their knees.

A soft groan.

Twitching fingers clenching, forming tight fists.

Before he could alert the rest of the group of the grounder’s awakening, the thighs in his hands suddenly pushed down with all their weight, forcing him to drop their legs. The once loose arms suddenly wrapped across his abdomen—

Bellamy only caught a glimpse of Octavia and Wells turning towards him in shock before his world flipped. The trees and the sky streaked across his vision until his shoulder landed against the forest floor—

There was no pop, but something definitely shifted. He let out a loud groan and rolled to his front, leaning on his uninjured arm.

“Hey!”

“Wait!”

With everyone shouting, it was a wonder that Bellamy heard the sound of metal unsheathing. He fell back on his butt, narrowly avoiding the swipe of their dagger. He noticed the grounder stayed close to the ground, favoring their injured leg.

Unfortunately, taking note of this meant he couldn’t dodge the next swipe. He flinched with the cut to his cheekbone, warmth trailing down his face. In his panic, he scrambled back, trying to evade each strike until his back slammed against a tree.

Oh. Oh no.

The grounder reversed their grip on their knife, the butt of the blade against their thumb, and struck at his neck.

Bellamy might not have been the strongest in the Ark’s cadet force, but he certainly wasn’t weak. Yet when he blocked their attack, slamming his forearms into theirs, his other hand supporting and exerting more force, he found himself struggling under their strength. The dagger, shaking under the force of both sides, was far too close for comfort now.

His gaze rose from the pointed end to the grounder. He had expected the grounder’s eyes to be focused, sharp, merciless, piercing him just as the dagger would. Instead, he found wide eyes, shaky hazy pupils glazed over with pain and panic.

Blood rushed in his ears. He couldn’t hear the shouts and warnings from the others around them, except for one clear call.

“Kova!”

As if a spell broke, the grounder’s panicked eyes widened and looked to the side of the direction where the voice came from, breath hitching in their chest, the momentum of their strength trembling.

Bellamy struck the bottom of the grounder’s chin with the palm of his hand.

The mask clunked! against their face, the ribbons unraveling, and it slipped off, landing out of reach along with the dagger. The grounder fell back from their crouched position onto their butt, and for a brief moment, Bellamy thought he was safe. Until the grounder used the moment and rolled back, landing on their feet in fighting position, legs trembling, ready to strike with bare fists—

“Kova!”

The grounder’s dreads fell over their face, and before Bellamy could catch a clear look, Octavia stepped in between the two, holding her arms out in a placating manner. Briefly, Bellamy wondered when his little sister started growing up, and when did she start protecting him?

“It’s alright. You’re safe. This is my brother, the one I mentioned before. He helped us.”

The grounder didn’t respond. Fear spiked in Bellamy’s heart, but before he could move in front of Octavia, the grounder dropped their arms and fell to their knees, hunching over. Octavia cried out their name and rushed to their side without hesitation, pressing a hand against their chest to prevent them from falling over.

Using the tree behind him, Bellamy took the opportunity to stand and looked at his people. Clarke, Wells, Raven, and Jasper stood around, completely stunned. Whether by what just happened or because of Octavia, Bellamy couldn’t tell. “Thanks.” He grunted towards Jasper, the one closest to him.

“What, you expected me to go against that?”

“Are you okay?” Came Octavia’s hushed murmurs.

Bellamy turned to answer, only to find Octavia pressing the mask against the grounder’s face, helping them keep it on straight while the grounder reached behind their head and tied the ribbons firmly. Betrayal and anger bubbled slowly in his chest. “Shouldn’t you be asking me that?” He snapped.

Imagine his surprise when, while helping the grounder stand, Octavia sent him an annoyed look! Dumbfounded, he opened his mouth—

“Sorry, I’m sorry. Panicked.” The grounder murmured.

While Bellamy couldn’t catch a clear look of their face, he saw how they leaned heavily against his sister, head hanging, hunched over, one leg trembling worse than the other. How could one arrow cause so much damage? He wouldn’t have believed it for a second if not for the eyes he had seen behind the mask up close.

“Kova, you okay?” Octavia asked again. “What happened back there on the bridge? Lincoln didn’t tell us why you passed out like that.”

“Fire ant venom.” Kova gritted out. “Pretty common for Trikru to use in battle, not so common for them to use it during a negotiation meeting. Then again—” Full of resentment and anger, the single eye visible through their curtain of dreads landed on Jasper, who flinched and curled away from them. “—it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.” They glanced at Clarke before turning downcast, hiding away from the group. “They aimed for your leader’s heart. She would have died. I promised I would take responsibility.”

Wells and Finn startled ever so slightly at that. They sent each other a look Bellamy couldn’t decipher.

Suddenly, Finn turned to Clarke, an angry look with hints of betrayal flashed across his face. “I told you not to bring guns!”

“And I told you we couldn’t trust them, I was right!”

“You didn’t have to trust them, you just had to trust me.”

A bitter, weak laugh caught the two off guard. Everyone turned back to Kova. “Foolish boy. Take your fragile pride elsewhere.” They gritted out. “You should be praising your leader. It was smart to bring back-up.”

Before Finn could respond, he felt a hand grab his shoulder. He was face to face with a very angry Raven. “And why didn’t you tell me what you were up to?”

“I tried, but you were too busy making bullets for your guns!”

“The grounder’s right.” Hmm. That didn’t sit right in Bellamy’s mouth, but he continued. “You’re lucky she brought that. Those grounders came to kill you, Finn.”

“You don’t know that, Jasper fired the first shot!”

“A mix of both.” Said Kova. “Trikru, naturally, would be ready to kill, but not unprovoked. Just as your gunmen had their sights on the Lieutenant, the archers had their sights on Clarke. They only shot because of that one.” They jutted their head towards Jasper, who flinched and looked away, rubbing at his arms.

“Raven.” Octavia called gently. She noticed Kova’s words began slurring together gradually. “Help me bring them to my tent?”

“…sure.”

“Whoa,” Bellamy held Octavia’s free shoulder as she tried to pass him. “Who said they’re sleeping in your tent?”

“Where else would they sleep?”

“The dropship, obviously. What if they try to kill you?”

“That’s a stupid idea.” Octavia’s eyebrows scrunched into a frown. “Say we put them in the dropship. They wake up, can’t recognize their surroundings, and start panicking. Are you trying to get sliced up by them again?” Before Bellamy could respond, she kept going. “At least if they’re in my tent, they can recognize me, and recognize they’re safe, like they did now.”

“You don’t have to worry about Octavia.” Kova’s deep voice grew quieter and quieter every time they spoke, as if it took up all their energy to speak. “I’m not dangerous to anyone like this—”

‘My cheek says otherwise,’ Bellamy thought bitterly.

“—let alone to Lincoln’s… interest.”

“…interest.” Bellamy gritted out.

“Bellamy.” Clarke stood next to him, dropping a placating hand on his shoulder. “They saved my life. Twice, actually. Lincoln said it before — it’s not safe for them to return to the grounders since they helped us.” She turned to Raven and nodded. Raven returned the gesture and moved to Kova’s other side, swinging one of their arms around her shoulders. “We’re letting them stay. Bring them to Octavia’s.”

“Got it.”

With a sigh, fists on his hips, Bellamy had no choice but to reluctantly yield, stepping to the side. Octavia and Raven dragged Kova into the camp. Bellamy turned to Clarke, as if wanting to argue more, but before he could speak—

Boom!

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#bellamy blake x oc #bellamy blake x reader #bellamy blake imagine #bellamy blake imagines #the 100 fic #the 100 imagines #the night our stars aligned (and our breaths touched)#bellamy blake #the 100 #writeblr #wip fanfic

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naruwitch · 5 years

Text

Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron Chapter 8: Return of the Gladiator

Dark purple energy surrounded the occupants of the chamber — four at each corner with one in the middle. The quintessence seeped slowly into his ancient form as Haggar approached.

"Sire, the beast is almost to Arus." the witch announced as the Galran Leader stood slowly to his feet.

"This quintessence gives me so much power; I could fight the Paladins myself," Zarkon sneered, clenching his fists.

"There is no need," Haggar smirked darkly, "My creature will destroy them and capture the Voltron Lions for you. Then, the most powerful weapon in the universe will be ours."

o~o

"Great job training today, everyone! We're getting the hang of Voltron," Lelouch said as he and all the others except Rai entered the main dining hall.

"Seriously, how far do you think Rivalz and I kicked the broken alien ship?" Milly asked. cheerfully, "Must have been like a mile!"

"Yeah, that'll come in handy when the Galra challenges Voltron to a soccer match!" Kallen said, rolling her eyes. The training that morning had gone on reasonably smoothly. That is until Milly convinced Rivalz to help her kick some of the wreckage from Sendak's ship. The maneuver had overbalanced Voltron, and the giant Knightmare had landed flat on its back.

"Oh, come on, Kallen!" Rivalz said, exasperated, "You're just jealous that we did something cool, and you can't handle it. We get it!" The Blue Paladin and the other student council members were still trying to get used to the new, war-hardened, moody Kallen Stadtfeld. Not to say she wasn't moody before, but to compare her outbursts to each other, the old Kallen's was like a small firecracker, while this Kallen was a stick or two of dynamite!

"Your kick did kind of ruin our balance, you two," Suzaku commented, taking his helmet off and setting it at the table, "we fell."

"I think that was partially my fault Suzaku," Shirley admitted from her seat at the table, embarrassed, "I reacted too slow."

"Everyone enough!" Lelouch said, pulling up a chair himself, "Save your energy for fighting Zarkon!"

"Hello, Paladins!" Coran chirped as he strolled into the room, a large silver platter held proudly in his hands, "How was the Voltron workout?"

"We're getting there," Suzaku said, leaning back in his chair. Suzaku then placed an arm over the top, "Are you and Allura almost done fixing the Castle so we can leave this planet?"

"Yeah, I feel like we're sitting ducks here on Arus," Kallen added.

"Just about," Coran confirmed, putting the platter on the table. "In the meantime, to get your minds off those duck seats you're worried about, I made you guys an authentic, ancient Paladin Lunch!"

At first, the Paladins were excited about an authentic meal, that is until Coran lifted the lid. What was underneath looked more like a green, gooey, bug-like creature rather than a meal? And that didn't even account for the smell.

"Coran," Shirley whined, "I just got used to that goo stuff, and now you're switching it up?!"

"This is packed with nutrients," Coran replied, still smiling proudly.

Rivalz leaned forward, taking a whiff, then gagging, "It smells disgusting!"

"I know!" Coran chirped, "That's how you know it's healthy!"

"Coran," Milly crooned, holding up some plants she managed to snitch on the way in, "We're on a planet now with fresh herbs, spices, and whatever this thing is. A tuber? Now if you'll excuse me," she grabbed Rivalz's wrist, dragging him away, "Rivalz and I are going to head back to the kitchen and spice things up."

Suzaku and Lelouch chuckled slightly, good old Madam President.

"Hey, where's Rai?" Suzaku asked, finally noticing the blonde was missing.

"He's probably checking on those prisoners we rescued from Zarkon. They'll all be waking soon in the infirmary." Coran said between bites of the… bug?

"Very well, then we will join him," Lelouch said, standing up, Suzaku quick to follow after.

They didn't get far though as a fork was thrust into Lelouch's face, "Open the hatch. Food Lion is coming in!" Coran made airplane noises as the spork hovered in front of them.

Suzaku gulped down nausea as Lelouch scowled, "No, just… no!" Before Coran could make a second attempt, the two of them slipped out of the room.

"You don't know what you're missing!"

o~o

Rai breathed deeply, profoundly trying to slow his hammering heart. He twiddled his thumbs and swallowed to calm his churning stomach. These aliens were the only connection he had to find his mother and sister. The way those prisoners looked at him, though, and what they called him: Champion. He wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. He sincerely hoped the former. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he barely registered that the doors had opened.

"We're probably as anxious as you are," Suzaku said.

"These aliens that we saved know something about my family," Rai said, looking back at the fish-like one, "They have to!"

"We hope so too," Suzaku nodded sympathetically.

"They certainly seemed to recognize you," Lelouch said, "They called you 'Champion.' Any idea what that means?"

Rai bit his lip, his knees bouncing anxiously, "I don't know. I can't remember very much from that time. But the way those guys looked at me when we freed them... I don't know if I want to find out."

Further discussion of the topic was interrupted as one of the pods hissed, steam escaped from the device, freeing the fish-like alien from his frozen slumber. He let out a breath of icy air as he opened his eyes.

o~o

Bowls and plates full of colorful, delicious foods came sliding down the table, Rivalz quickly adding the finishing garnish to the front one. Shirley and Kallen's eyes widened, and their mouths watered.

"Well?" Milly asked expectantly.

No further encouragement was needed as the Red, and Orange Paladins swiftly dug into the food. Mouths were bulging with the delicacies. C.C. had joined the group about a minute ago and tried some herself.

"Hmm… not pizza, but not bad either."

"They like the Paladin Lunch," Allura observed as she entered the room. Coran, however, stood pouting at her side, arms crossed. He was a little peeved at the Paladins' rejection of his food.

"I don't want to talk about it." he sniffed in disdain.

"I just got the final nebulon booster working," Allura said, "We should be able to leave Planet Arus tomorrow and take the fight to Zarkon."

Before anyone could reply, however, the room was illuminated in red light as the alarm sounded in the room. The Paladins leaped to their feet, suddenly alert. C.C. got up slower, slurping up the alien spaghetti hanging from her mouth.

Allura swiped her hand in the air, the computer beeping to life. A camera from outside the Castle appeared above them. On it was the front entrance, and leaping, apparently trying to be stealthy, from the small rocks in the way was a little figure with ram-like horns and small, child-like face. The camera zoomed in closer.

"What is that?" Kallen asked.

"I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a local Arusian," Allura deduced. "He's approaching the Castle."

The Arusian native upon closer inspection had brown horns and appeared to be wearing small green pants. He was bare-chested with a brown strap over his shoulder, possibly for the small spear-knife it was carrying as he screamed like a drunk rabbit. He was running from rock to rock, peeking over them suspiciously.

"Oh!" Shirley gushed with a squeal, "He is so adorable!"

"He doesn't look too dangerous," Rivalz smirked confidently, hands on his hips.

"You never know," Kallen's eyes narrowed, her Bayard flashing to life in her hand.

"No," Allura chastised, turning towards the door, "Alteans believe in peace first. Let's go welcome them."

"Maybe we can knit him a little sweater!" Milly said as Shirley continued to gush happily.

C.C. smirked in amusement as she followed closely behind.

Kallen's brow furrowed, "I'm not taking any chances," she muttered, Bayard still tight in her grip as she ran after them.

o~o

The Castle doors opened slowly, dust and sand picking from the tension. The Arusian yelped and dived behind another rock. It wasn't too hard to find the creature as his heavy breathing gave away his position.

"Greetings," Allura said pleasantly, "We know you're there. No harm will come to you." The alien responded with a flip outward, and weapon held out at the ready.

"Aw!" Shirley cooed, absolutely smitten at how cute the alien was. If all alien species were like this, she didn't mind one bit!

"Wait!" Kallen exclaimed, stepping in front of them protectively, holding her Bayard up, though not activated, "He could be dangerous. Drop your weapon!"

"No one takes Klaizap's weapon!" the alien shot back, glaring at the Red Paladin.

"Kallen, put that away!" Allura scolded, before turning back to the Arusian, "Please, kind sir, accept my most humble apologies."

The alien blinked in surprise before he lowered his weapon, standing tall and proud. "I am Klaizap, bravest of our warriors. Our village is over Gazrel Hill," he gestured to his right, "I come seeking answers as to why the Lion Goddess is angered with her followers."

"Followers?" Coran asked, confused.

"Lion Goddess?" Rivalz asked, just as perplexed.

Klaizap pointed to a small carving next to him. It was an image of a divine being in long flowing robes, holding two staffs. A large Lion's head was in place on top, encircled with a sun. "The one the ancients spoke of."

Upon seeing the image, Allura smiled, "What makes you think she's angered?" Allura asked, kindly.

"Destruction is everywhere!" Klaizap exclaimed, "In the past few suns, fire has rained from the heavens, and a giant has danced in the sky."

Rivalz leaned over to Milly and whispered loudly, "I think he's talking about Voltron."

C.C. smirked, "Well, you know any other giant robots around here?"

"I think we got that, Rivalz," Milly replied a little dryly.

"You have not angered the Lion Goddess," Allura reassured the alien.

"How can you be certain?" Klaizap asked, still uneasy.

"Because I am Allura, this is my castle," the princess said, gesturing to her castle.

Klaizap looked between the Castle, all of the humans, and Alteans. He gasped.

"Lion Goddess!" he exclaimed, bowing before the princess in great reverence.

"Oh, well, look at that!" Milly said, smirking slightly.

"Please, bravest warrior, take us to your village so that my friends and I may meet our neighbors," Allura instructed gently.

"Wait!" Kallen protested, "What about our mission to get off the planet and fight Zarkon?!"

"Part of the Paladins' mission is to spread peace and diplomacy," Allura explained shortly, "Arus has been our host for 10,000 years. These people deserve our thanks."

o~o

"So, how long were you held captive by Zarkon?" Suzaku asked the fish alien as he carefully handed him a cup of tea. All of the aliens were out of the pods now. They each were wrapped in a blanket that they found in the infirmary right next door. Even before they started talking to them, though, it was evident from the looks on their faces that they had been through unspeakable terror.

"Some for years," the alien answered, "Decades, maybe. It's hard to tell. Time becomes a blur."

"Were there any other humans imprisoned with you?" Lelouch asked, "Ones that were close to Rai when he was also a captive?"

"Yes, my mother and sister," Rai said anxiously, "their names were Erina and Sophronia."

"I never knew their names, but I certainly remember the other two Earthlings that arrived with you, Champion."

The knot in Rai's stomach tightened. There was that title again, and the same haunted look in the alien's eyes as he looked at him. "'Champion.' Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Yeah, you called himself something else too," Suzaku said, "Zephyr or something?"

"You really don't remember? Unbelievable!" the alien gasped, "You were a legendary gladiator, undefeated in the ring. You defeated an infamous Galra gladiator known as Myzax. That was the day you earned the name 'Champion.' But 'Zephyr' was what you were called before that time by the other Earthlings."

Lelouch blinked, then looked at Rai, "So 'Rai' isn't your real name either… interesting."

"Anyway, what happened? When he defeated this Myzax guy?" asked Suzaku.

"I was there when it happened, as was the younger Earthling."

"Sophie?" Rai gasped. She was in the rings too?!

"We were all prisoners, forced to fight for the entertainment of Zarkon. That day, we were sent to fight Myzax, a vile beast many thought could never be defeated. Slaughter awaited us all. This 'Sophie' was the first of us sent to fight. But fate had other plans," The alien paused, the haunted look returned to his face. The three boys waited for him to gather his thoughts, "You were so thirsty for blood, you injured your fellow Earthling in a rage."

Lelouch's eyes widened as he heard Suzaku gasp. Lelouch's expression became murderous as he rounded on Rai.

"You attacked your sister?! WHY?!"

Rai's eyes widened in horror. "N-No!" he gasped, trembling, "Please! That can't be true! I-I would never hurt her!"

"I was there," the alien said, "We all were."

"After Sophronia was injured, where did they take her?" asked Suzaku calmly, assuming his military demeanor. The calmer you were, the more likely a straight answer would come.

"I know not," the alien looked down solemnly.

"No!" Rai exclaimed, shaking his head and beginning to hyperventilate, "Nononono! Th-there's got to be more to the story! I-I couldn't have hurt my sister!"

Lelouch's brow furrowed in thought, "Well, that ship you were held on crash-landed on this planet. They should have prisoner longs in the database. Information."

"Okay," Rai nodded, calming down, "Let's go then!"

o~o

The Red, Blue, Yellow, and Orange Lions sat perched over the village in the distance. The Arusian community was… small, just like its people. The construction design looked similar to old huts on Earth. Quite the primitive species it would seem.

Allura, Coran, Rivalz, Kallen, Milly, and Shirley were all gathered in the town square with the rest of the village. Rivalz and Milly were passing out some cookies they made (or whatever the equivalent to cookies was for Alteans) while Shirley and Coran had scooped two of them into their arms and were hugging them tightly. Kallen and C.C. both stood awkwardly in the middle of everything.

"Rustic," the immortal commented, looking around.

"Oh, Lion Goddess," the Arusian King proclaimed, "I, King of the Arusians, formally beg your forgiveness. Please have mercy on us and accept our traditional Dance of Apology as atonement for our wrongdoings."

The king clapped his hands twice, and a small pink Arusian scurried to the middle of the square, hands up in a pose.

"Commence Dance of Apology! Hoorah!" the king commanded. The other Arusians cheered around them as a group began to play a set of drums off to the side. The dancer started moving in a strange form. It certainly didn't look like any dance they'd ever seen. She was mostly waving her hands in odd directions.

"Please," Allura said politely, "there's no need for this."

"Moontow halt!" the king ordered as the Arusian paused in a pose again, this time on one leg, "The Goddess has refused the apology. Start the sacrificial fire," an Arusian lit a pile of logs upon an altar, and the other Arusians began screaming as the king turned to face it, "We must throw ourselves in."

Kallen was about to rush over and put the fire out herself when Allura quickly stopped them. "No! No sacrifices!"

The king turned back around in relief, whether it was to continue the ritual or not be burned to a crisp, "So, we may proceed with the dance?"

"That's a better alternative," Allura nodded. The king clapped his hands, and the music started again. The Arusian, Moontow, proceeded to finish the dance. Shirley then noticed that C.C. was giggling a little bit.

"What's so funny? Are you laughing that they were about to kill themselves?!"

The witch smirked, amused, "When you've lived as long as I have, you'd also have a morbid sense of humor as well, Shirley Fenette."

Shirley looked at her like she'd just grown a second head. 'Lelouch, WHERE in the WORLD did you find THIS chick?!'

It wasn't long until Moontow stopped and bowed to them, or Allura, the rest of the village following shortly.

"Oh my," Allura murmured, feeling a little overwhelmed, "Please, please, rise. Thank you for that, but I am not a great being worthy of your worship. I accidentally put you all in danger," the Arusians gasped in horror, "It is I who should be apologizing to you. I am Princess Allura, and these are the Voltron Paladins. Although we originally came from different worlds... and have very, very, very different traditions, we wish to live alongside you as friends."

"But the mighty, robotic angel," the King protested, "has it not come to destroy us because of our immoral ways?"

Rivalz looked like he was about to say something but was silenced by Milly, who elbowed him in the ribs.

"Voltron?" Allura asked a little shocked, "No. In fact, that mighty robot is here to protect you. Let it be known that Voltron will protect every innocent being throughout the universe!"

The Arusians cheered and jumped for joy. Rivalz and Milly soon had Arusians climbing all over them. Coran was throwing and catching an Arusian in the air. C.C. and Shirley had sat down while a couple of the Arusian children began playing with their hair. Kallen tried to walk away from the crowd with an Arusian leaped up and hugged her around the middle.

"I-I don't usually hug strangers, but…" Kallen blushed a little embarrassed as she awkwardly hugged back, "Man, you are cuddly."

"Thank you," the Arusian answered in a deep, baritone voice. Kallen blinked. She wasn't expecting that to come from such a small creature.

o~o

The Galra ship in question had landed in a small lake, half of it already submerged. Suzaku lead Lelouch and Rai deep into the ruined structure through an opening in the top, Bayard in sword form. They had no idea if anything survived the crash, so couldn't be too careful. The three leaped in, using their jet packs to slow their fall. Most of it had been destroyed.

Suzaku then noticed a computer looking device, "This looks like the master control board, but there's no power."

"All we need is power?" asked Lelouch.

"Yes, from the looks of it," Rai nodded, "but something compatible with Galra tech…"

Lelouch hummed in thought, remembering the fight on this Galra ship as the prisoners were escaping… maybe.

Lelouch activated his Geass and tried to picture the same feeling from the battle as he placed his hand on the console. His hand suddenly lit up with red energy, the console blinking to life.

"What the-" Suzaku gasped, "Lelouch, what are you doing?"

"I honestly don't know. I'd tell you if I did."

"Either way, I can't believe you got this thing to work!" Rai said in awe. He then tapped the armor on his forearm, a screen appearing in front of him, "My mom and Sophie's whereabouts must be logged in here somewhere. Once I download this information, I'll find some way to decode it back at the Castle." He pressed a few more buttons, and a downloading bar appeared in red as well as a coding sequence on the larger Galran screen.

Suzaku and Lelouch jumped as the sound of a sonic boom split the air. Looking up, the two gasped in horror as a giant fireball started plummeting towards the planet.

"What the-"

"Oh, no!"

"What? What is it?" Rai asked eyes, barely moving from the screen.

"Something just entered the atmosphere," Suzaku said, "Not sure what it is but it's big, it's Galra, and it's coming right for us!"

"We need to go!" Lelouch said, about to remove his hand, only for Rai to grab it and slam it back down.

"Lelouch, don't move! I'm only fifteen percent done. I'm not going anywhere!" he said stubbornly.

Lelouch hissed out through his teeth in frustration, Suzaku looking apprehensively between the UFO and them. It was coming closer and faster from the looks of it. The download bar was barely fifty percent full.

"Rai, I'm sorry!" Suzaku shouted, grabbing the Green Paladin and rocketing upward. Lelouch quickly followed after them.

"No!" Rai shouted in protest as he struggled against the Purple Paladin, but to no avail. For such a lanky guy, Suzaku was pretty strong!

"Team Voltron, come in!" Lelouch shouted over the comlink, "We need back up!"

"Hello! Is anyone there?!" Suzaku also shouted.

o~o

The rest of the team was still with the Arusians when they heard them.

"Lelouch? Suzaku?" Allura asked, alarmed.

"Where is everyone?!" the Black Paladin asked. He sounded scared, which was an emotion he rarely showed around anyone.

"What's going on?" Kallen asked. The question was answered for them as a rumbling sound erupted in the distance. Turning around, the two women saw the fireball heading straight towards them.

"Oh, no! We got to get to our Lions!" she shouted.

The Arusians started running for an underground shelter on the other side of the village, Allura, C.C., and Coran guiding and encouraging them.

"Everyone, get inside, and stay down!" Allura said, waving them onward.

"I'm on it!" Shirley said, running past her. Allura blinked in surprise as the Orange Paladin pasted her. Only for Milly to drag her back and away from safety.

"Not you, Shirley!" she scolded as her fellow Paladin began silently crying at her botched escape attempt.

o~o

Back at the crash site, Rai continued to struggle in Suzaku's grip, protesting loudly. "No, Suzaku, let me go! My mother!" He ceased, though, as he finally spotted the ship getting dangerously close.

"Run!" Lelouch cried as the trio dashed for safety, away from the wreckage. They barely got within a few yards when the ship crashed and destroyed the rest of the debris. Everything else around it was being blown away in a fiery shock wave that was heading towards them at a terrifying speed. They probably wouldn't have made it, had the Black, Green, and Purple Lions not jumped in between the trio and the blast.

The dust and debris were swept away with the wind as the landscape calmed for the moment. The three Lions stayed protectively hunched over their Paladins. Once it was deemed safe, they stood up to full size, rumbling in concern and relief.

"The Lions just saved us!" Suzaku exclaimed, astonished.

"I didn't know they could do that!" Rai said in equal awe.

A fascinated smile graced Lelouch's lips before catching a shape out of the corner of his eye, "I think the praise will have to wait guys. Look!" he pointed at the wreckage.

As the dust cleared, a large, coffin-like black ship stood towering over them; it was even taller than the Black Lion. With a hiss, the structure's outer walls fell apart to reveal the passenger. A giant, monstrous robot blinked to life in front of them. Its eyes glowed ominously, one yellow, the other purple, and slit. It zeroed in on the three Paladins.

"Get to your Lions!" Lelouch ordered as they rushed to obey. As they ran, the monster's right arm raised in the air and began to spin like a drill, producing a giant ball of purple energy. They had barely settled in their seats ready for the incoming attack when the monster swung the ball directly at it. The three instantly jumped out of the way as the ball collided with the ground, leaving a crater.

But the robot wasn't done. With another swoop of its hand, it directed the ball towards the Green Lion's position. Rai barely got out of the way in time before it slammed into the rock formation. The ball then swung back around to its master, who then flung it at the Purple Lion hovering above. Suzaku fired his Lion's laser beam to destroy the ball, but there was little to no effect as the energy just was absorbed by the orb. Suzaku didn't have time to react as the ball hit him and Purple square in the chest. He cried out as they rolled to the ground, skidding across the landscape.

He groaned as he lifted his head, his eyes widening as the monster was charging towards him. It didn't get far though as the Alpha of the Pride, the Black Lion, lunged at the robot, locking its jaws onto its shoulder. Despite the attempt to hang on, though, the robot grabbed the Black Lion and threw it off of him.

Before the robot could attack again, a barrage of lasers bombarded it, forcing it to shield itself.

"Lay down some covering fire so they can get out of there!" Kallen shouted from the Red Lion.

"I'm on it!" Rivalz called out, providing help.

"Got it!" Milly confirmed.

The Blue and Yellow Lion began firing beams from their tails as they aided the Red Lion in covering fire for the Black, Purple, and Green Lions. Soon, the Orange Lion was seen charging in as it ran across the earth torts the Beast.

"Take this!" Shirley shouted as she charged in from behind on the ground. "Battle Lion Head-Butt!" She rammed into it, causing the robot to lose its balance and fall on its knees. This tactic was enough of a distraction for the Paladins to regroup quickly.

"Guys, are you okay down there?" Kallen asked as she looked to her teammates from above, the Lions slowly backing away from the beast.

"Still alive for now," Suzaku said as they ascended into the sky with the others.

It didn't take long for the robot to get back on its feet, glaring up at the complete pride now.

"Are the Galra behind this?" Shirley asked, grimacing nervously.

"Since when do the Galra have a giant robot too?" Rivalz exclaimed.

"They must be. Who else would it be?" Lelouch confirmed.

"I've never seen them make a weapon like this before," Rai stated, answering Lelouch's unvoiced question.

"So, uh, what's the plan? Shoot at it with everything we got? Take out its weapons? Call it names?" Rivalz asked, sounding just as scared as Shirley.

"If we want to take this monster down there is it one way to can do it," Lelouch said, the other Paladins braced themselves, as they prepared to call forth their mighty friend.

The Lions then roared out as their eyes glowed, their bodies giving off the energy of their colors. They then flew in formation to the sky as they began to form up.

"Form Voltron!" Lelouch invoked as the colors clashed in the sky.

The Lions all roared in enthusiasm as their limbs and legs contracted and extended to form each part of the giant robot. The black head and body, the red and green arms, the purple and yellow shins, and blue and orange feet. Finally, Voltron's stern and battle-ready face appeared at the top, and the juggernaut was prepared for battle.

Voltron landed on the ground as it glared at the Ro-Beast, that glared right back at it.

"Remember, we are one unit, fighting with one goal!" Lelouch shouted as they prepared themselves for the fight.

The Ro-Beast's arm spun again, generating another energy orb, readying for another round against them. Voltron himself stepped forth with the orange Lion digging in the ground as Voltron leaped forward.

The Robeast swung its arm, sending the energy orb out towards Voltron in the air, but he expertly dodged it with a quick corkscrew.

Kallen screamed a battle cry and thrust forward the controls as the Red Lion plunged ahead, locked into the robot's arm. They stood there in a stalemate before Rai cried out and flung the Green Lion towards the robot's head, knocking him back against the mountains. Team Voltron didn't give it too much time to recover as the warrior leaped into the air, intent on smashing the robot's head further into the earth of Arus. The ro-beast was barely able to raise it's arm in time to block as they made contact, metal grinding against metal. In retaliation, the ro-beast called the energy ball back to him. Voltron noticed it too late and didn't have time to dodge before it impacted them from behind.

The ro-beast brought its arm down again, ready to hit them a second time, but the team recovered quickly and activated their thrusters, zipping out from underneath it just in time.

"I thought Voltron was the most powerful weapon in the universe!" Kallen screamed as they dodged another attack.

"Yeah, so how's this monster kicking our butts?!" Shirley shrieked in tandem. Keeping an eye the orb for another attack, they didn't notice that the ro-beast had run up behind them until they were punched upwards almost over the mountain. They landed only a couple of Voltron footsteps from the Arusian village.

"Oh, no, the village!" Suzaku gasped.

"We have to protect those people!" Lelouch said breathlessly.

From within the village itself, Allura, Coran, C.C., and the other Arusians had taken shelter in a cave. Even from their hiding place, they could feel the tremors in the ground from the two robots fighting furiously.

The ro-beast send another orb of energy at Voltron, hitting the Defender of the Universe in the face as it tried to block. They would've crushed the village had Milly, Suzaku, Shirley, and Rivalz not wrenched on their controls. The thrusters activated, allowing them to hover mere inches from the town below, before recovering and flying back towards the beast.

"That was way too close!" Milly said. This time they flew past and behind the Ro-beast, so if they did get hit again, they would be propelled away instead of towards the village.

"We got it away from the Arusians, but we can't take him down!" Suzaku said.

Rivalz suddenly had an idea, "I got it! I'm going to power kick that orb thing!"

"No way!" Kallen shouted, "the last time we did a kick, we fell!"

"Oh, come on! Stop living in the past, Kallen!" Rivalz fired back.

As Voltron turned back around and flew off. The Robeast matched them and sent the orb at Voltron as he leaped into the air, Rivalz crying out he made Voltron aim a kick at the orb...barely missing by a few inches.

"Oh, no!" the Blue Paladin cried as the orb, smacked Voltron clean in the chest, causing him to flip and land with a loud thud on the ground.

The ro-beast charged at them at full speed as the Defender of the Universe struggled to his feet.

Lelouch grit his teeth from the inside of Black, "Rai, fire lasers now!"

"Got it! Fire!" the Green Paladin exclaimed, the arm raised to attack… only for the two wings on Voltron's back to spring forward, and magnetize themselves to the Green Lion's maw.

"Oh, whoops!" he gasped, frantically hitting some buttons on his control panel to take the shield down.

"No, Rai! I said lasers! Lasers!" Lelouch ordered just as desperately as the ro-beast made contact with the shield. They were sent flying backward again, and with another hit from the energy ball followed, knocking them back further.

"Every time we focus on the orb, we're blindsided by the monster!" Suzaku said.

"Yeah, but every time we focus on the monster, the orb hits us!" Shirley added.

"Then what do we do?!" Rivalz asked, starting to sound a little panicked.

"ORB!" Milly screamed as the orb hit the robot again, slamming them into the side of the mountains.

"Lelouch, we've got to move!" Kallen shouted through the comms.

Lelouch wasn't paying attention to Kallen, though. Instead, his eyes were closed and focusing on the ro-beast. Or rather, what he heard coming from the ro-beast. He noticed that the mace that the beast was holding was making a strange sound like it was charging up. Now that he thought back to all the continuous attacks from the monster, the orb attacks came in counts of three before the orb regrouped with the wielder.

As Lelouch was making these observations, a light flashed before Rai's eyes. He was no longer in the Green Lion, facing a monster robot, but back in Galra captivity. In an arena. Fighting for his very life… against a monster that had a weapon almost identical to this one, making the same sound.

"That sound," he muttered, before his eyes widened in realization, "I recognize this monster, from my time in Zarkon's prison! I know how to beat him!"

"Watch the pattern of the orb's attacks correct?" Lelouch asked.

"Yes! That's right!" he nodded as Voltron quickly leaped back from the mountains just as Myzax's attack hit where they had been laying only a second before.

"Everyone, listen!" Lelouch shouted, "there's a loud sound when the orb returns to the base of the weapon. Can you hear it?"

The other Paladins quickly quieted down, straining their ears to hear. Lelouch was right; there was loud drilling like sounds coming from the mace right now, as the top of the weapon was spinning around the orb.

"And every third time," Rai continued, "that orb needs to charge up. That's this monster's weakest point. We need to attack within that time frame!"

"Okay, so what do we do in the meantime?" Shirley asked, worry still prominent in her tone.

"Defense!" Suzaku answered for Lelouch, catching on to his and Rai's strategy, "Rai, bring up that shield!"

"Way ahead of ya!" he shouted as the Green Lion brought the shield and landed it directly in front of them. And not a moment too soon as the orb crashed into it a second later. The sphere crashed into it, the Paladins grunting at the impact, and ricocheted off into the air.

"One. Two more to go!" Lelouch called out.

Myzax swung his arm around, sending the orb arcing right back at Voltron, impacting the shield. It bounced off of them as they cried out. Even with the protection, the ball was doing a massive amount of damage.

"We can't take much more of this!" Milly shouted through gritted teeth.

Myzax swung his weapon again and sent the orb down at Voltron once again as Voltron stood ready.

"Last one! Everyone brace for impact!" Lelouch ordered. The orb struck the shield, this time shattering it and knocking them off their feet once more. But just as Lelouch and Rai predicted, the globe returned to the base of the weapon, the drilling sound emanating as it charged back up.

Seeing their chance, Lelouch didn't waste another second. "NOW!"

Kallen swung her hand back on the controls and thrust it forward as hard as she could. The Red Lion's head shot up, a blue laser beam erupting from its mouth. The attack hit Myzax square in the chest, sending him tumbling backward in an explosion of fire and smoke. As it cleared though, Myzax quickly got to his feet, preparing his next attack, weapon now fully charged.

"It didn't work!" Milly cried, shocked that the attack didn't seem even to dent it.

"So now what?!" Rivalz said as Voltron took another hit to the chest, shield still torn in two on either side.

As Voltron tumbled backward, Rai's mind flashed back to his arena fight again; he plunged back from an impact form the orb. He rose up slowly, panting from exhaustion, holding the sword tightly in his hands.

Wait… a sword!

"When I attacked him before, I had a sword with me!" Rai exclaimed.

"ORB! ORB!" Shirley shrieked as the orb crashed into them again, this time Voltron blocking it with the Red and Green Lion's arms.

"We can't take another shot like that!" Kallen yelled. Voltron had taken too much damage. If another attack hit them, they probably wouldn't survive, much less win!

Suzaku groaned as he struggled to sit up straight again. Suddenly, a wave of what seemed like electricity raced through his being. He gasped as the Purple Lion's purr practically vibrated the cockpit, and a small panel to the right rose up from the control board.

"Wait a second, guys! I think my Lion's telling me what to do!" he informed them as the information was practically downloaded into his brain from the Lion.

"Whatever it is, hurry up and do!" Rivalz said, "He's about to fire his third shot!"

The Paladins all gasped as Myzax swung his arm around again, firing the orb at them once again. Having escaped from the ditch they were trapped in, Voltron lifted his arms in defense just as the sphere impacted them. They flew backward and rolled, tumbling several feet before stopping.

Suzaku grunted, regaining a sense of his surroundings as he looked at the foreign port again as Myzax charged at top speed and jumped into the air. He intended to crush them into the ground with the orb still attached to the weapon.

With a battle cry, Suzaku ripped his Bayard out of its magic pocket and jammed it into the port, cranking it to the right.

Suddenly, Voltron slammed his hands together, a bright flash of blue light illuminating their surroundings, then pulling apart with a thick strand of blue energy. And he swung right into Myzax. It was so fast that Myzak didn't have any time to react. The sword positioned sturdily in the Red Lion's jaws, slashed like butter through the ro-beast, Voltron landing on his other side with one leg crouched down, sword outward.

Myzax, in a spark of static energy, collapsed to his knees, before exploding in a fiery inferno. Voltron swung his sword twice more before proudly holding it at his side in victory. The Paladins all cheered in relief. They did it! The monster was defeated.

"How did you do that, Suzaku?" Milly asked enthusiastically.

Suzaku, being the only one that wasn't cheering, sat stunned still in his seat. Finally, after two seconds of processing what he did, he pulled his Bayard free from the port.

"Whoa, heheh, thanks Purple," he smiled graciously.

Meanwhile, in the distance by the original crash site, the camera attached to the shuttle caught sight of the column of smoke over the mountains.

o~o

"NO!" Haggar shrieked as she saw what happened through her link with the camera. She then a calm, deathly tone said, "I'll make another, more powerful."

"That won't be necessary. Sendak is still alive on Arus," Zarkon began as he looked away a bit, "I've given him instructions for how to proceed."

"Can he be trusted?" Haggar asked as she knew that Sendak was loyal, but you never knew if it was a ruse for something else.

"I trained him, and he has his mission. He fights in the name of Galra. Only success or death will stop him."

o~o

"Zarkon has challenged us to rise from the mud and prove our worth," Sendak informed the one surviving Galran with him, Haxus, "We will not let him down."

"Sir, how are we going to take the Castle with just the two of us and five damaged sentries?" Haxus asked.

"By exploiting our enemy's weaknesses."

"What weaknesses?" Haxus asked, still unsure of the situation.

"The worst weakness of all: they value the lives of others," Sendak said, looking down at the Arusian village, as the populace happily went about their day. None was the wiser on what was beyond the horizon.

o~o

The Paladins, minus Lelouch, Suzaku, and Rai were gathered in the hanger as the former prisoners of Zarkon were loading up in one of the Altean pods.

"Good luck out there," Rivalz said with a small wave.

"Thank you all for everything. We never dreamed we see our families again," the fish-like alien said, bowing slightly in respect, "But you gave us hope. You gave the universe hope."

A few minutes later, the pod was flying into the sky, away from the Castle and planet Arus, escorting its precious cargo home.

o~o

Meanwhile, outside the Castle, Rai was sitting on the bridge overlooking the ocean. Two of the mice were seated on his lap, Platt and Plachu. Rai smiled and scratched Platt's head as the larger mouse squeaked at him.

"Hey Rai, there you are!" Suzaku said, running over to join him. He sat next to the Green Paladin, placing a hand on his shoulder, trying his best to show support and cheer him up, "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," Rai nodded, "just thinking about stuff."

"Like what?"

"About the fight… I remember why I attacked Sophie."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah, the memory of what happened came back when we were fighting the monster. Mum was being sent off with the weaker prisoners to a work camp. Meanwhile, Sophie and I were forced to fight in the Gladiator Arena. She was going to fight first, but she was scared. We all were."

(Flashback)

Sophronia trembled as sentry lowered the shield, extending the sword towards her delicate hands. Sobbing, she ran into her brother's arms.

"I don't want to go out there!" she sobbed into Rai's abdomen, "Please, big brother, don't let them take me!"

"It's going to be okay, Sophie," Rai said in an equally terrified tone. He knew that whoever went out there was going to die. If Sophronia did, she would die in minutes. He glanced between her and the sword the sentry held. He made a decision and acted before he could change his mind.

With a wild roar, he threw his sister behind him, and charged the sentry, ripping the sword from its arms. With an animalistic snarl, he turned back to her and the other aliens.

"THIS IS MY FIGHT!" he snarled, swinging the sword down on Sophie's leg, leaving a large gash as she fell to the floor with a shriek of pain. She held her leg as tears streamed down her face. He growled as he landed on top of her. "I WANT BLOOD!"

His resolve almost wavered as he looked into his sister's eyes. Terror, and betrayal plain as day on her face. His face quickly softened as he whispered, "Take care of Mum," before they dragged him away. The last thing he saw was one of the aliens kneeling to examine Sophie's wound before the gate closed.

o~o

"...that was the last time I saw her," he whispered, a tear sliding down his cheek.

"You saved her," Suzaku said, eyes wide. "You attacked her, so they'd choose you instead."

"Yeah…" Rai said, but tears continued to roll down his face, "...but the look she gave me when they dragged me out… I don't know if that's her last memory of me or not…"

Suzaku suddenly pulled Rai into a hug, "We're going to find her. And your mom. I promise."

Rai stilled for a moment before returning it, sniffling, "Thank you…"

In the distance, Lelouch observed the two, having heard the entire conversation. Now that he knew the reasons, Lelouch understood why Rai acted the way he did, as Lelouch probably would've done the same thing if that had been him and Nunnally.

Speaking of Nunnally… Lelouch looked at the ground, guilt rising in his chest. Though it wasn't entirely his fault, he'd still left Nunnally alone on Earth. No note or message for Sayoko, no clue to where he was. It had already been about a week since their blast off from Earth. He did not doubt that by now, missing person reports were being made for the other student council members. Once their faces hit the media, he had little to no doubt that their cover would be blown sky-high. And if his face were one of them, someone in the military or royal family would see it, recognize him, and make the connection.

Not to mention the Black Knights. Without him as Zero, and even Kallen, there to assist them, how long would it be before the group did something stupid and got themselves caught? Whether by either Cornelia or the police?

He clenched his fists, gritting his teeth. This was slowly turning into a nightmare.

"So," C.C. said, walking up next to him, the small blue mouse and pink mouse mounted on her shoulders, "What's the great Prince Lelouch vi Britannia going to do now?"

"Don't call me that C.C.," he almost snarled. "You know I no longer answer to that name!"

C.C. shrugged, "Still, you should answer my question."

"...Britannia still needs to be stopped," Lelouch said. "If the Galra Empire is as close to Earth as Allura says, that goal is paramount now."

"But Lelouch, if you defeat Britannia and leave it in shambles, how do you expect for them to defend themselves against an alien invasion?"

"Once the Emperor is gone, and someone with better ideals takes the throne, we can make preparations for that. But that won't happen as long as the Earth remains divided."

"So you plan to return? Alone?"

"If I have to," Lelouch nodded. "There have to be others. Perhaps even the Princess can fill my place as Paladin."

"When do we leave?" C.C. smirked.

"...Tomorrow night."

o~o

"Hey, Ohgi, still no word from Zero or Kallen?" Tamaki asked from the upper floor of the Black Knight's hideout.

"No, nothing," he shook his head in frustration. The Black Knights had not had contact with Zero for over a week. It wasn't unusual as none of them knew where their masked leader disappeared to on days they weren't doing operations. What really worried him was that Kallen had vanished into thin air as well.

"Oh, come on! We usually hear from him by now, don't we?" Tamaki complained with an exaggerated groan.

Sugiyama was flipping through the channels on the television, seeing if any news stories would warrant their attention. He was about to press the up button again when the screen glitched out. The face of the Britannian news station suddenly appeared on the screen. The reporter was standing in front of the Ashford Academy.

"We interrupt this program to bring urgent breaking news," the news anchor said. "Seven students, all registered at Ashford Academy, have been reported missing today."

As soon as 'Ashford Academy' hit Ohgi's ears, he sprang to his feet, he and the rest of the Black Knights quickly gathering around the screen. That was the school Kallen was attending.

"Don't tell me…" Minami muttered in fear.

Seven student photos appeared on the screen a moment later, each with their names written at the bottom in alphabetical order: Milly Ashford, Rivalz Cardemonde, Shirley Fenette, Suzaku Kururugi, Lelouch Lamperouge, Rai... and Kallen Stadtfeld.

"No…" Ohgi muttered in horror as Kallen's face appeared at the bottom of the list.

o~o

"The group of students was last seen around the Lake Kawaguchi area."

"Sayoko?" Nunnally asked, fear in her voice. The Japanese maid only stared at the news report in horror.

o~o

"Records show the students boarded a train to the area, and witnesses have stated they spotted the students by the lake about a week prior."

"It can't be..." Viceroy Cornelia li Britannia muttered as she and sub-Viceroy Euphemia li Britannia locked eyes with the fifth name on the screen.

o~o

"Authorities and law-enforcement urge all citizens and numbers that if they have any additional information to contact them immediately."

"Prince Lelouch!" Jeremiah Gottwald exclaimed, springing from his seat at the bar, Villetta Nu staring in disbelief at his side.

o~o

"Charles," a female voice called out from behind him.

"Yes, Marianne, I know."

"It seems there are more unusual circumstances than we thought. I still have been unable to contact C.C."

"She remains with our son, that much is certain. We find Lelouch, and we find C.C. This is of the utmost importance. Summon the soldiers. They will find them and drag C.C. back here where she belongs."

"Right away."

#Fanfiction #AU #Code Geass #voltron #lelouch lamperouge #shirley fenette #kallen kozuki #rai (lost colors)#rivalz cardemonde #milly ashford #suzaku kururugi #princess allura #coran #c.c.

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trashpandaorigins · 5 years

Text

Understanding

After the events of Heaven Can Wait Groot must tell Bucky and Steve about Rocket....

*Contains Spoilers for Heaven Can Wait We’re Only Watching the Sky and other GRSB Scenes from a Life series*

…...In another hundred years this technology could be utilized in every country on earth. Bucky let out a small belch and took his gaze off the documentary and down to the empty ice cream container propped against his belly. Damn, all gone. He shrugged, turning back to the TV. There were many things in this century he was still getting used to, many things he didn’t like. But Netflix. Netflix was fantastic. He smiled to himself and licked the spook free of chocolate ice cream.

“Groot?” Bucky thought he heard Steve question from the other room.

“Steve is that…?”

“Yes, yes of course come on in,” Bucky knew that tone without seeing his face. He groaned, heaving himself to a sitting position on the couch as Groot lumbered in. He was taller, brown twigs stuck out of his limbs where leaves should have been. His eyes sunken and forlorn. Groot’s eyes slid to Bucky, then to the TV, narrowing. In a single motion the long wooden arm swiped up the remote and the screen clicked to black.

“Hey man, what gives?” Groot turned on his large feet and looked down at him with some unreadable look between remorse and a scowl.

“He said he had something to tell us,” Steve inferred, coming and standing beside him. Groot lifted his lithe fingers gesturing shortly with his hands in the ASL Steve had taught him.

“R….Rocket?” Bucky pieced out. “Where is the little fucker?” Groot signed again, this time slow deliberate.

“....d...dead?” Steve guessed with quite trepidation. The flora colossus nodded curtly.

“Yeah right,” Bucky scoffed, standing up and looking between the two of them. “I’m not buying it. He’s tried this before it’s not going to work.”

“Tried what?” Steve’s confusion redirected to him. Bucky only waved his good arm dismissively. “I’m not giving him anymore money”

“He faked his own death to get money off you?”

“Oh don’t worry I’ve done the same thing to him.” Bucky grinned impishly. “Only he falls for it every time!” Steve only raised a brow, folding his arms. “Ive been emotionally blackmailing Rocket to extort him for money and weapons for years!” He forced a laugh, “That’s like the basis of our friendship.”

“Dare I ask how many times the two of you have done that to each other?”

“What!? I have to channel my impulsive violence somehow!” Steve cracked a smile that quickly diminished by Groot’s furious words,

“I am GROOT.” Bucky huffed,

“Your not...you're not serious.” But the flora colossus only blinked, looking at him incredulously. It couldn’t be. He saw Rocket just a few months ago and the raccoonoid had been as scrappy as ever. Maybe a little worse for wear, some white fur encroaching on otherwise silky brown grey fur but that was to be expected. He was getting older, they were all gradually getting older.

“When?” Steve murmured, but Bucky hardly heard him. The severity of Groot’s words closing in on him. Rocket couldn’t be gone...that brash heat packing reckless thief had broken out of who knew how many prisons, (98 the last time Rocket bragged about it), he’d faced down a celestial, he helped defeat Thanos, he’d taken on baddies ten times his size! Hell he’d survived much the same torture Bucky himself had gone through. He couldn’t be...dead. Yet somehow looking at Groot, Bucky knew. No wonder the tree like creature looked miserable. His bark was flaking off in sloughs, his eyes not just sunken but exhausted and hollow. Bucky ran a hand over his face,

“Was he alone?” Bucky murmured, staring anywhere but those large dark eyes. Groot shook his head. “Was....was he in pain?” The flora’s frown deepened, large shoulders shrugging.

“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?!” Bucky accused, stepping dangerously close. He shook with indignation, jaw clenched. So that was how it was going to be? Had Rocket had died in pain...trying to claw the metal out of his flesh? Was that to be his fate then too? A sharp throbbing at the stump of his shoulder where his own skin met metal was the only answer.

“I...a...am Groot,” Groot breathed, holding his arms out helplessly.

“How?” Bucky suppressed the growl in his voice. He watched Groot’s now trembling hands, slowly bending and forming the words.

“Age?” Steve guessed before Bucky could. No that isn’t right. If Rocket is going go down it should be fighting the biggest scariest space demon, going down in a blaze of gunfire pulling the largest heist the galaxy has ever scenes or tail deep in Asgardian whiskey in his room full of gold coins and units...anything but age. Age was too typical to calm for the thievish ringtail. Too mundane.

“I want to see him,” Bucky managed, still trying to grasp the news.

“I am Groot?” Groot signed with guarded rigidity.

“I don’t care,” Bucky bit his tongue before he could shout. “I want to see him.” Steve’s warm hand gripped his shoulder, steadying him.

“Buck...now might not be the best time to….”

“He was my friend too,” He measured Groot’s look of shielded sorrow with his own. Dark and challenging and righteous. The flora said nothing, but nodded, motioning for the two of them to follow.

---

Bucky marveled up at the Benatar’s arching iron ribs, so huge and yet graceful? Or at least it would be if there wasn’t trash thrown about, wires and exposed pipes in bad need of repair. Had Rocket really been gone that long? The sharp scent of too much axe mixed with the ichor of engine grease and weaponry and candy of all things. Groot guided them through the echoing halls to the main bridge.

“I am Groot,” he announced as Gamora, Quill, the bug lady, Nebula and the tattooed guy, turned to face them. Steve’s smile was almost as strained as his voice,

“Groot was kind enough to let us aboard...he told us...about Rocket. We were hoping to see him...to say goodbye.” Most of the time Steve’s running mouth got the two of them into a host of troubles but it was times like this Bucky was grateful for it. Quill planted his hands on his hips,

“Well, seeing as this is my ship. He really should have asked me first.But I’m feeling generous today so,”

Bucky tossed his hair from his face, instinctively reaching for his pistol. The man’s arrogance was unending.

“Cut the bullshit,” he hissed. “we’re here for Rocket. Not you. Get this ship the air and take us to him and we’ll be on our way. It’s thanks to Rocket this thing is even flying at all” Quill’s mouth gaped like a fish, blinking mutely.

“We cannot take you to Rocket,” the tattooed man who’s name Bucky could not and did not really care to remember intoned, “There is nothing left of him. Besides his cybernetics. Fur and flesh will have rotted away by now.” Nothing left of him besides his cybernetics. Sour churning bile rose within Bucky at the thought, he fought the urge to gag and redirected his murderous glare to the muscular alien.

“Planet X2 four systems away,” Gamora intervened before Quill could come up with some lame comeback. “It won’t take long. But you’ll want to find something to hold on to when we announce the jumps.”

“Thank you,” Steve answered for the two of them. Groot slid around the tattooed man and Mantis, taking a seat in the pilot’s chair and punching in the codes.

---

Bucky fiddled with the odd package in his hands, is this supposed to be food? It was impossible to tell what time it was from the endless void of space. The ship drifted forward with the similar movement of the naval ships he’d been aboard during the war. Smooth, with the occasional pitch and throw. Steve had sought out Nebula, the two of them not having seen each other since the battle with Thanos. Bucky thought he heard Steve mention Tony, thus he and cyborg woman had fell into a somber but good natured enough conversation. He found himself wandering the ship alone until coming upon the kitchen area. He gazed at the symbols on the metallic wrapped package and shrugged, sliding into the diner style booth against the wall.

Footsteps alerted him to someone’s presence a few moments later. He craned his neck and watched the green woman stride in. She instantly looked at him with a passing curiosity and finally walked over to the table, sitting down on the opposite side.

“What happened?” Bucky broached the inevitable subject with what he hopped was sensitive respect. It was the elephant in the room and his morbid curiosity would not abate. Gamora kneaded her hands together. “Please, I can’t ask Groot,”

“Nor should you,” she quipped sharply, her eyes meeting his with a fierce protectiveness he knew too well. She held him there in that gaze for a moment before looking away, shoulders dropping. “There’s not much to tell. He just got old. It’s not like he took good care of himself. With the biology of a terran animal that only lives a few years...combined with the injuries he suffered and the untold volumes of alcohol...a history of insomnia…..it caught up with him.” Bucky bit his tongue, he could only imagine the aches and pains that were going to get his goat one day. Too many fights in too many narrow stairwells. Too many falls from too many heights.

“He...died….in pain…?” He repeated, clearing his throat.

“Yes.” Gamora answered, clinically. “Won’t we all?” She scrutinized him, the silver metal webbing etched into her flesh gleamed in the passing stars. Bucky looked at his own vibranium arm, rubbing it unconsciously with his good hand.

“Guess so,” he forced through the sudden lump in his throat. The confirmation of Rocket’s suffering riled in his stomach. “Why didn’t you take him to a medic?” He challenged, anger was easier than grief. “Your the Guardians of the fucking Galaxy, one of you must have known someone, someplace that could have fxed him!” His fists clenched, leaning forward against the table. “You could’ve taken him to Wakanda!” His voice rose in rage and helplessness.

“We did everything we could,” Gamora answered calmly. “And nothing that he didn’t want us to do.” Her eyes landed on Bucky’s arm. “He didn’t want to go to Wakanda,” she finished with a breath. Bucky watched her facade momentarily betray her. Like an expert, she hid it instantly, clearing her throat and looking down to fiddle with her rings.

“Who cares what he wants! It’s not like he had a choice at that point….” the words died in his throat and he covered his face with his good hand, forcing himself to breathe. You know what sentience means Barnes?! Choices! I could make my own dast choices! The memory of Rocket’s words rang loudly in his ears.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed, the fight gone from him. It was a stale sorry, forced and awkward and both of them knew it. But that was what you said didn’t you? When someone died and you didn’t know what else to say? It was sircumcript. Gamora’s frown only deepened. Her observation of him uncomfortably impeccable, scrutinizing him further with the eyes of a trained killer. Looking for any signs of hostility, identifying the places where he concealed his knives and the one gun he’d brought along just in case. Old habits die hard.

“Don’t let Groot bother you,” she continued as if she weren’t sizing him up. “He hasn’t been the same since…”

“Ahh,” Bucky leaned back, stretching his arms above his head. “I’m used to people treating me with contemptuous resentment. It’s better than the alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Murderous unadulterated loathing.” He smirked, “I have that effect on people. It’s a gift.” Gamora flashed a smile with a satisfied huff to boot. Bucky returned the grin, sharing the levity for a moment. She had a nice smile, rare but genuine.

“We don’t have much extra space,” she stood after a moment, back into her distant severity. “But you and Captain Rogers can settle down wherever.”

“Thanks,” Bucky nodded to her as she turned to go, halting in the doorway

“We’ll be on X2 in 10 hours terran time.”

---

Maybe it was because he was sleeping in a new place, surrounded by new people. Maybe it was because it had been a long time since he’d last had night terrors this bad and the universe just liked to fuck with him. Or maybe it was because the only other person to have nightmares like these was no longer dreaming at all. Whatever the reason, Bucky jolted awake in a sweaty daze, chest heaving, trying to shake away the feeling of prying gloved hands poking into his flesh.

“Buck,” Steve’s quiet voice beckoned him from the terrors, one arm sliding up his back, rubbing between his shoulders in small smooth circles.

“He didn’t deserve it Steve,” Bucky’s voice trembled. His fingers curled around the metal bench on which they’d squeezed themselves. “R...Rocket he didn’t deserve what they did to him.” He tried to suck air between words as if he was drowning. “he shouldn’t have died Steve, not like he did. Not...not with metal festering in his insides.” Bucky’s breath came in ragged gasps no matter how hard he tried to settle himself.

“Bucky...shhh….” Steve tried, but the man continued.

“He didn’t deserve what happened to him...but...I, I did.” Bucky shut his eyes against it, trying to concentrate on Steve’s steady touch.

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked softly, Bucky lifted his head from his hands, meeting Steve’s steady gaze with his own.

“I killed those people Steve,” he choked.

“That wasn’t you James, Hydra made you do those things,” the fervor in Steve’s face spoke for itself but Bucky only let out a shuddering sigh.

“Not Hydra,” Bucky cut him off with more vitriol then he intended. “Before that,” he ran a clammy hand over his brow, silently praying none of the Guardians were awake. “I killed those men in the war...and when Hydra took me,” he leaned against Steve’s chest. “It wasn’t just brainwashing. They took that violence and just...enhanced it.” Bucky turned over his shoulder to look at Steve’s determined face. Still seeing the best in him, even after all he’d done. After everything the two of them had done. “Rocket was a little animal before they...c..created him...he was innocent. But...me...I…” he swallowed. “I was already a killer.” Steve opened his mouth to continue but Bucky leaned forward, kissing him roughly.

“I’ve killed more men than you,” Steve breathed, hoarse. “What does that make me?”

“I have killed more men than either of you. And women too. I am not sexist. I hold enormous respect for women.” Steve and Bucky leapt up from their cot to see the large tattooed man emerge from the shadows.

“D...Drax!” Steve stepped between the Destroyer and Bucky. “That’s not what sexism….wait...how long have you been standing there?!” The muscled man only looked between the two of them.

“Groot sent me to get you. We are approaching X2.” Without further assurance Drax turned on his heel, motioning for them to follow.

Out the window of the cockpit, still trying to calm his racing heart, Bucky gapped at the teeming planet before them. Enormous alone in the galaxy but for the stars and colored in a thousand shades of green.

“Hold onto your butts,” Quill smirked, slamming on the controls sending the ship speeding forward.

Steve hissed in shock, slamming his hand on a fake break,

“Fuck!” Bucky let out a small laugh, catching Steve around the waist as they plummeted closer to the surface.

---

Bucky did not know what to expect, but this certainly wasn’t it. Trees of every shape and size covered the planet in a rainforest like density. Streams of clear water gilded around trunks and through spindly roots. He arched his neck to look upward at one of the four suns circling the planet, their rays of light streaming in gilded brilliance through the canopy. Flowers bloomed fragrant and bright along their path, giving of sweet scents the likes of which he had never smelled. Bucky looked over his shoulder to where Steve was gazing in wonderment, he knew the man well enough by now to know when he was suppressing the urge to whip out a sketchbook or notebook. Steve’s unfettered curiosity made Bucky grin despite their somber destination.

“Too bad you left your khaki shorts at home,” he couldn’t resist teasing, brushing a large fanned leaf out of the way. Steve smirked, stepping over a large low lying root. Bucky looked forward again, making out the top of Groot’s head through the dense foliage. Gamora followed him, then Drax and Mantis, who remained close to Nebula, clinging on the bionic woman’s arm. Pointedly, Peter had refused to go no matter how much Gamora had pressed him. The last place Bucky had seen the man before they set off was the main corridor, down which Quill lumbered, headphones on, going to brood no doubt. Bucky knew it was wrong to hate him for it, but something about the cowardice, set him smoldering.

Bucky ducked his head under a low hanging branch, stooping over and then stood.

“We’re here,” Gamora gestured to the clearing before them. A sloping hill arched upward to the edge of a drop off overlooking the vast vista of forest and pools beyond. On the crest of the hill a noble sprawling tree grew strong and taunt, its large crown wide and full. The thick roots bore deep into the earth and spilling off the edge of the cliff.

“I am Groot,” Groot pointed towards the tree stoically. His face un-readable. He looked to Gamora who only nodded in confirmation, turning on her heel and walking towards the large tree. Bucky swallowed, mouth dry and turned to Steve.

“You still want to do this? No one will judge you if you don’t.” Bucky could feel Groot’s narrow gaze on him.

“Oh I know someone who will,” he smirked sarcastically and followed Gamora up the hill.

---

“There,” Gamora breathed now that they stood before the large tree. Something about the place made Bucky feel small and quiet, a hallowed ground of its own kind. The tree itself was no distinct species as far as Bucky could tell. He followed her eyes to a notch in the tree dark and perfect size for a small creature to curl up inside. He stood there a moment, frozen in what to do. Not dissimilar to after he’d gone on a spree, after he’d murdered someone, taken someone out. Head in a fog, on the verge of running in a panic, fueled by nightmares and whatever else Hydra had pumped into his veins. This time however, he did not run away. Bucky reached out, fingers brushing the rough bark of the tree with the same hesitant tenderness he had used to touch Rocket’s fur. In their years of friendship Bucky had stroked Rocket’s fur a total of three times. (Besides the handful of occasions on which he’d grabbed hold of that ringed tail to yank Rocket out a jam in the heat of some drunken brawl or the target of some enemy five times his size). Once shortly after they met and it was revealed how alike the two of them were. The second time when he’d had to save the raccoon’s life by re-assembling his cybernetics, using the howling voices in his head to guide him and lastly when he had told Rocket the true nature of his creation. A prototype made by Hydra as a test run for making howlies.

Bucky willed himself to take a deep breath, resting his palm flat against the tree. What had Rocket done after this violent discovery? He’d curled up in the man’s lap, and fallen asleep. It was a trust Bucky had not earned, had done nothing to deserve and yet, Rocket snored and slept content and Bucky hadn’t shut his eyes a wink that night in the dimly lit apartment. Instead he ran his hand over the raccoonoid’s side rhythmically, letting the warm soft fur calm his mind and ease his fears.Watching as with each little breath of the sleeping creature, skin pulled tight across metal. Yet Rocket curled in his lap, not unlike an abused dog who finally came to rest content by your feet.

Bucky looked up, into the leafy crown of the tree, squinting his eyes against the sunlight. He swallowed, hand still resting against the tree. Stop being such a sap Barnes, Rocket’s husky voice mocked in his mind, laced with irritation. If only the raccoonoid would reprimand him now. A hundred different sarcastic cutting remarks ran through the man’s imagination. How Rocket would tease him if he could see the tears pressing against the back of Bucky’s eyes. He waited for it...for any grating laughter or flick of the tail. But no, he’d never hear that sarcastic voice again. Rocket would never make fun of him. They’d never spend another night at some dive bar getting increasingly drunk and daring each other into dumber and dumber acts of brazen stupidity. They’d never exchange weapons or old tales of battle. Rocket would never perch up on Groot’s shoulders or scream over a hail of gunfire in blood thirsty joy. They’d never look warily at each other, knowing the other had spent the night in a terrorizing nightmare. They’d never steal a sympathetic glance when they thought the other wasn’t looking especially during the drizzly days when the metal in their skin ached particularly bad, or during the sweltering heat and frigid cold. They would never share the shame of the things they’d become, the things they’d done. Guess I’m the only monster left. But if the little abomination could drift off peacefully...surrounded by a family he’d found in the arms of the person he loved most in all the world, then well, maybe there was some hope for Bucky after all. He could only hope for as much.

The spell broke after a moment, his hand slipped away and he stepped back gazing at the lush grass. Gamora, Drax, Mantis and Nebula stood some distance away lost in their own thoughts. Steve gave him a sad smile, squeezing his shoulder before stepping up to say his own goodbye. Bucky looked out across the immense forest, his gaze gliding in a haze over it’s beauty until he saw Groot. Back turned to the tree, form rigid and away from the others.

“I’m sorry I shoved you earlier,” he tried approaching the flora slowly. “If there’s anything you need or want….just...let me know.”

There’s nothing I need or want that you can give.

Bucky nodded, “I know...I just mean...well...if you ever want to…” his heart tried to find the words, muddling through the thick black tar of grief. “He was my friend too and….I know it’s obvious but...he really loved you.”

He loved you too.

“Ha, I don’t think….wait,” Bucky turned to the flora in slow comprehension. “Groot, I think I….I think I understood you. Wait say something again!” Groot turned to him, face still drawn but no longer contemptuous.

It’s about time,

“Ha! No shit! I’ve been trying to understand you for years!” A laugh broke through Bucky’s melancholy. How many hours had Rocket tried and subsequently failed to teach him?

Only when you truly listen do you begin to understand.

“Is that some zen buddhist saying or what? Shit,” he shook his head in disbelief. “I guess you're right!”

What is zen?

“Ask Quill later,” Bucky waved a dismissive hand and the two of them resumed their silence, gradually turning around to face the large tree where Rocket lay.

I guess he was right about one thing

“What’s that?”

He promised not to go until someone else could understand. I thought he meant them, Groot gestured to the other Guardians. It seems I was wrong. But Rocket was right after all. Those large eyes looked at Bucky with renewed appreciation. Bucky felt something inside him inflate, joy or sorrow or something in between he couldn’t quite tell. Maybe it was one in the same. He rubbed his eyes, watching the suns set against the magnificent tree casting a glowing golden light upon them all.

“Guess he was.”

#rocket raccoon #groot #my writing #stucky #steve #bucky #grsb scenes from a life

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julibf · 6 years

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ARYA AS A QUEEN.....PART 1

So, I have been talking a lot about the story foreshadowing Sansa being queen and I feel I am leaving Arya storyline behind, so I want to make good to my other girl. I mentioned before that I believe the fact Arya named her wolf Nymeria to be a big hint about her future as a queen.

Nymeria nipped eagerly at her hand as Arya untied her. She had yellow eyes. When they caught the sunlight, they gleamed like two golden coins. Arya had named her after the warrior queen of the Rhoyne, who had led her people across the narrow sea. That had been a great scandal too.

A Game of Thrones - Arya I

He was still trying to decide on a name. Robb was calling his Grey Wind, because he ran so fast. Sansa had named hers Lady, and Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs….

A Game of Thrones - Bran II

And in A FEAST FOR CROWS when Arya is forced on invent a story for “CAT” the new character she is pretending to be, she chooses Nymeria as the name of the ship who brought her to Braavos. I thought it was interesting that a “Queen” is taking her to Braavos where she is receiving her education in the Game of Faces”

"Just so. Your father was oarmaster on a galley. When your mother died, he took you off to sea with him. Then he died as well, and his captain had no use for you, so he put you off the ship in Braavos. And what was the name of the ship?"

"Nymeria," she said at once.

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

________________________________________________________________

(art by Karla Ortiz)

NYMERIA THE QUEEN..........

According to A WIKI OF ICE AND FIRE, Nymerias was described as a witch queen, which is very interesting since Arya does have magic in her storyline as a Faceless Men assassin. If Arya end up as Queen in the North, she will probably be know in future songs as a Witch Queen too….

George is trying to connect Arya with the role of a queen a few times during the story. So, yes. I do believe this was the first of many of hints that George have left us about Arya ending.

________________________________________________________________

(art by Steamey on Deviant Art)

ARYA AND AEGON CONNECTION.....

Another point that always got my attention was the fact that Arya fit into a glove the description of the perfect King that Varys used to describe FAegon:

“He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them.”

(EPILOGUE) ADWD

Now, lets pay attention in the way Varys described Prince Aegon and the points he mentions that makes for a good king in his idea.....

“He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry”…..

Arya was born in Winterfell and received a proper High born Lady education. She was educated in history and poetry, just like FAegon. And while she was in Braavos she was forced to learn different languages, she was told she needed to improve her Braavosi and High Valyrian, and the languages from Lys and Pentos.

“A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them.”…..

Because her father, Ned Stark, followed the Old Gods and her mother, Catelyn Stark, followed the New Gods, Arya was educated in both Westerosis religions. She knows the Faith of the Seven but its also fully educated about the Old Gods.

“He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound…..

This has been Arya storyline pretty much after book 1. Arya escaped the city by joining the Nights Watch prisoners. She traveled Westeros by foot, having to hunt her own meals, cook her own meals, she looked for shelter among the common people in the scene where her and the Hound receive help from the old farmer and his daughter. She saw with her own eyes the destruction and misery the war of the 5 Kings brought to the people of Westeros and she understand how devastading war can be for the weak and poor.

“he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid…….

From up here, she could see a small wooded island off to the northeast. Thirty yards from shore, three black swans were gliding over the water, so serene . . . no one had told them that war had come, and they cared nothing for burning towns and butchered men. She stared at them with yearning. Part of her wanted to be a swan. The other part wanted to eat one. She had broken her fast on some acorn paste and a handful of bugs. Bugs weren't so bad when you got used to them. Worms were worse, but still not as bad as the pain in your belly after days without food.

A Clash of Kings - Arya V

Fear cuts deeper than swords, Arya would tell herself, but that did not make the fear go away. It was as much a part of her days as stale bread and the blisters on her toes after a long day of walking the hard, rutted road.

She had thought she had known what it meant to be afraid, but she learned better in that storehouse beside the Gods Eye. Eight days she had lingered there before the Mountain gave the command to march, and every day she had seen someone die.

A Clash of Kings - Arya VI

“Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them……

This has been the case of ALL Stark children, which is why we never hear them refer about the North as “mine”. They always call their kingdom “THE North” never “MINE North” or “OUR North”, this is a little detail that George puts in his writing that demonstrates the Stark respect for the Land. They see the North as their duty, not their right.

So, by matching Aegon’s description perfectly with Arya storyline, I believe the author was giving us a hint about Arya final destiny.

I will continue later about how I believe this idea of two queens, one in the south and one in the North can happen. But for now I wanted to present that, in a unconvenciomal way, George may have been preparing Arya to be Queen in a very sneak way.

#arya stark #got #ending game #asoiaf #season8

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ketsuekki · 5 years

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NINE YEARS PRIOR TO THE KYUUBI’S RAMPAGE, Keumi Minami and Keumi Kiseki are born, bottom caste members of Kirigakure. Like all mistbound children, their early years were spent among violence, war and the cruelties of shinobi.

Minami was the second born daughter, only three minutes behind her twin sister. Her parents were photographers, a civilian couple so struck by wanderlust that they hardly paid attention to their infant children. Minami, the most affected by this neglect, struggled with learning speech, developing a slurred stutter (one that would last until her teenage years) as a result.

Severely attached to Kiseki, Minami also developed separation anxiety, often crying to the point of vomiting should her sister be taken away. In a village like Kiri, it didn’t take long for this attachment to turn a shy, sweet little toddler vicious. By the time they turned five, she had already gained a reputation as a bully, a true budding sadist among her peers. Tales of mangled animals, broken bones and scratched eyes became commonplace when the name ‘Minami’ was concerned.

When the twins became old enough to enter school, their parents left home almost indefinitely, sending sporadic bits of money home every few months, meaning the girls had to fend and support themselves. This was not easy for a pair of clueless five year olds.

The Academy did nothing but worsen her apathy, giving her validation in place of punishment for her violence towards other children. Bullying turned to downright terrorizing her classmates; she may not have known how to read or do sums, but Minami knew that there was no place for weakness in her home, and when the sharks smelt blood in the water, it would not be hers.

Plus, as time came to pass, it became increasingly obvious that Minami (and, less obviously, Kiseki) was a sadist, although this trait was so normalized, even encouraged, within Kiri society, that very few people ever considered it a thing to worry about.

During this period, Minami also witnessed a kekkei genkai motivated murder. This became the first of her many traumas, only intensifying her obsession about Kiseki’s safety, and creating a fear of adults. She began to have nightmares following the incident, although these only disturbed her sleep pattern a few months before disappearing.

Through sheer willpower, endless training and observation, Minami eventually rose to the top of the class in ninjutsu. She remained in third in genjutsu, and dead last in taijutsu. Due to the Third Shinobi War demanding more and more fodder, the Academy rushed her education, skipping over ‘less important’ aspects such as literacy, mathematics and science. Minami and Kiseki both graduated at age nine, killing a leftover prisoner of war to prove their ability as shinobi.

NOTEWORTHY POINTS;

Age range of this verse is 0 - 9 years old.

Minami’s personality is a mixture of shy, anxious, spiteful, persevering, and violent. She struggles to interact with adults, although she is very receptive to kindness/affirmation. When interacting with children, she is far more aggressive and assertive.

Minami and Kiseki live in poverty, both due to their existing caste circumstances and parental neglect. They are underweight, poorly clothed, and Minami is usually forced to hunt things such as alligators, fish and various bugs to feed themselves. The winter is especially difficult to endure.

On that topic, Minami is very food motivated. This remains true till the day she dies.

Minami enjoys and actively seeks out to hurt others, including both animals and humans. This, however, is not an extreme, uncontrolled desire. She is capable of withholding from violence and making friends if prompted enough, becoming deeply upset if she hurts those she has deemed “friendlies”.

She is very dependent on validation from others. If someone she likes says something even mildly disapproving of her, Minami can and will burst into tears.

Radio shows?? Classical music?? She loves them so much!!

Is unaware of her Inoue blood, or the kekkei genkai waiting to be awakened within her.

Please give her love. She needs it.

#*sticks and stones #look at me!! im being organised!!#*verse information

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hectic-pride · 5 years

Text

I just wanna have a job i like and a decent apartment with my partner and not have to worry about food or healthcare or student loans or affording basic goods/services or racism or sexism or homophobia or transphobia or paying for top surgery or global warming or mass extinction or plastic or guns or mental health crises or mass shootings or abortion or trump or war or genocide or loan sharks or private prisons or the death penalty or torture or terrorism or genocide or female genital mutilation or access to education or the school-to-prison pipeline or infant mortality rates or maternal mortality rates or gendered division of labor or the wage gap or urban outfitters or walmart or amazon or the minimum wage or drilling or fracking or oil pipelines or lead in the water or super bugs or alex jones or the muller report or the red pill or video game representation or online harrasment or doxxing or people hacking credit card companies and releasing everyones information or the opioid epidemic or the war on drugs or false imprisonment or people not being able to pay bail or child abuse or the foster care system or the violence in rowanda iran pakistan saudia arabia armenia palestine mexico brazil venezuela. I dont want to worry about brexit or islamophobia or the kkk or the alt right or white supremacy or gang violence or authoritarianism or the police state or the student debt crisis or brett kavanaugh or facebook privacy or ad targeting or voting rights or vaccinations or measles or malaria nets or affirmitive action or trade deals or whatever the fuck china is up to or north korea or russia or prescription drug prices or sexual harassment or immigration courts or refugees or asylum seekers or child seperation or water shortages or pesticides or factory farms or food shortages or famine or droughts or desertification or notre damn burning down or bees or the other 1M animals on the verge of extinction or the amazon rain forest or paper or plastic or whether compostable products are 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 as compostable as they claim or staws or the great pacific garbage patch or the other garbage patches or space junk or elon musk or coral reef bleaching or algae blooms or russia hacking the election or the iran deal or the paris accord or school segregation or property tax funding for schools or standardized testing or common core or crisis pregnancy centers or gay conversion therapy or the cost of therapy or the nra or lobbiests or super pacs or floods or confederate statues or evolution or sex ed or neuclear waste or concentration camps or isis or the electoral college or automation or the morality of self driving cars or gerrymandering or transgender people in the military or the government just deciding to shut down or the affordable care act or medicare or medicaid or disability or snap or sick leave or maternaty leave or paternity leave or charter schools or teachers having guns or 911 not being able to locate people accurately or wage theft or workers rights or unions or the border wall or white washing or pedophilia or teen suicide rates or pennies or manditory minimums or food waste or that thing where we give poor people too much rice or shoes or whatever and it hurts the economy putting people further into poverty or microloans or how difficult it is to recycle fabrics or microplastics or chemical dumping or air pollution or mercury in fish or overfishing or farming fish or shark fin soup or feral cats harmin bird populations or propaganda filled textbooks or whether or not you can technically indict a sitting president or the overton window or drug patenting or daylight savings time or us territory rights or christopher columbus or native american reservations or food labels or that weird thing where alcohol isnt regulated by the fda so they dont have to list any of the ingredients or ayn rand or the miss america pagent or corporate consolidation or water treatment or “flushable” things not actually being flushable or migrant workers or the working conditions of factory workers in developing nations

Or literally any of the hundreds of thousands of terrible things that i know a lot about and yet am mostly incredibly powerless to stop, or even lessen a tiny, tiny bit.

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distant-rose · 6 years

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Seal of Fate Ch. 3 (4/8)

Notes: Alright before anyone of you read this chapter, I feel the need to remind you that Emma Swan is not a bitch. Emma Swan is an amazing character with some flaws and whose life has been filled with all sorts of trauma. She has trust issues and most certainly PTSD. If you think someone with that background is going to have no issue trusting people, especially a magical seal man whom she’s known for like two weeks, without some issue then this story isn’t for you. This is a kind reminder that the canon events of Emma being abandoned, put in foster care and being pregnant with Henry in prison after the bullshit Neal pulled with her when she was 17 years old are canon in the Seal of Fate universe. So, with that being said, this chapter is mainly about Emma’s trauma and how it’s lead to her having a lot of trust issues. Do not come into my comments section and tell me that Emma Swan is a bitch for pushing away a seal man who she met two weeks ago. I will fight you. End of story. With that being said, there will be pay off for all the angst, anger and frustration here in the next chapter. I promise. I’m not pulling the rug out from underneath you. A special thanks to @aerica13 for being an amazing beta and for pushing me through this difficult chapter. I literally couldn’t have done with this without you. Thank you to @cssns and @drowned-dreamer for making my event experience so far amazing. Another big thank you to @katie-dub and @shireness-says for being my cheerleaders. Even though this story isn’t attracting a lot of traffic and it’s been a bit demoralizing, you make every word of this story worth it. Summary: Emma Swan is looking for only one thing - answers. Abandoned outside a police station in Menemsha, Martha’s Vineyard, Emma has dedicated her life to finding out where she comes from and why she was given away. She finds an unlikely partner in Killian, a selkie she inadvertently summons in a fit of frustration over her cold case. Word Count: 4,600+ AO3: [LINK] Chapters: Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Epilogue Rating: T+

Emma Swan’s life was regulated by series of long, self-imposed rules. She always filled her gas tank whenever she hit the quarter ‘til empty mark. She didn’t trust food that didn’t come prepackaged. She always wore bike shorts under her dresses because of that punk kid in her fifth group home that skirted her. On top of that proverbial list of rules, written in bold red ink and underlined three times, was that Emma Swan did not ever, under any circumstances, sleep with men.

She didn’t sleep with men. Period.

Well, she slept with men but a purely utilitarian fuck-and-run way that satisfied occasional itches and abated the loneliness for awhile. She didn’t spend the night and she absolutely did not cuddle. Those sort of things led to issues. It meant conversations that were best not had. It meant being completely vulnerable with someone who was more likely than not a stranger she picked up in a bar.

Hence why she went into a full meltdown mode when she awoke the next morning still on the beach, sand in her pants and Killian curled around her like a clingy octopus. The very sight of him drooling on her shoulder sent off vaguely Kill Bill sounding sirens in her head.

So Emma did what she did best.

She ran.

And she didn’t look back. Not even for her shoes.

She went back into her house, grabbed her cell phone and keys, then got in the Bug and drove all the way to Oak Bluffs. Never before had Emma been so happy with the lack of a real police force on the island because she was sure to be have been pulled over with how fast she drove. The drive had been tense. She hadn’t been able to relax and no amount of tinkering with the radio assuaged her chaotic thoughts.

Killian was getting under her skin. He had been barely been in her life for more than two weeks but he had already gotten closer to her than anyone had in the past decade. It was something she needed to rectify and fast.

“He’s going to leave,” she mumbled to herself, slapping her hands against the steering wheel. “Once this is over, he’s going to leave and everything is going to go back to normal.”

The switch from West Tisbury to Oak Bluffs was a noticeable one. Where Chilmark blended in the West Tisbury almost seamlessly with the long line of white oak trees and the overgrown shrubbery that guided the poorly paved roads, the boundary leading to Oak Bluffs was noticeably more populated with houses and stores. The Cape Cod style that dominated Menemsha and Chilmark wasn’t so common and Emma was surprised to see some of the buildings actually looked like they had been built after 1970. Where the majority of the houses Emma had previously encountered tended to stick to the gray scale, these buildings were flamboyant shades of flamingo pink, soft orange and lime green. They reminded her of the elaborate gingerbread houses she had seen in the windows of bakeries as a child. It was fresh and new side to the island that she not yet explored and she allowed her curiosity to overtake the anxious energy that had dominated her mind since she had awoke.

As she got further into town, the scenery became more settled and more urban in its demeanor. If it weren’t for the occasional gingerbread house, she wouldn’t have known that she was still stuck in the Vineyard. It felt good be somewhat back in civilisation again.

It wasn’t until she was washing up in the bathroom of the infamous Black Dog bakery that she finally took notice of her unkempt appearance. She had mascara lines running down her cheeks, her hair looked like a rat’s nest and her clothes were rumpled. No wonder the cashier had given her an odd look when she had bought a bear claw. She looked like hell.

After running her fingers through her hair and washing her face, Emma tried to make herself look somewhat presentable. Her attempts were met with limited success but there was only so much that she could do given the circumstances.

As she walked over to the hospital, she couldn’t help but feel bereft. Over the past week and half, she had gotten used to Killian’s persistent commentary and suggestions on how to proceed. His absence sat heavy in her chest, pressing down on her ribs like a stone.

She didn’t want to but Emma couldn’t help how much she missed him. The realisation made her angry. She hated herself for growing so fond and so dependent on his company. He was merely a temporary fixture in her life, just like everyone else.

She didn’t need him and was probably better off without his help anyway.

The thought became a mantra, a mental war cry, as she straightened out her shoulders and walked towards the reception desk with the same dread and determination of a gladiator entering an battle arena.

The receptionist was a surly looking woman who eyed her with an expression that made it clear she was less than impressed with Emma’s appearance.

“This isn’t a recovery center. If you’re looking for one, you’ll have to take the ferry over to Hyannis. There’s a pamphlet for it on your left.”

Emma bristled at the comment, self consciously smoothing over the wrinkles in her shirt.

“My name is Emma Swan, I’m private investigator. I was hoping to look at your birth records.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no,” she repeated, this time with a hint of an edge to voice.

Emma sighed, fishing out her wallet and handing over her identification and investigator’s permit. The woman didn’t even in look at them, merely looked up at her with the same disapproving scowl.

“That’s my private investigator’s licens-” “I know what it is,” the woman cut her off. “If it’s not a court ordered document, I’m not letting you look at our database. I don’t know if you’re aware, Little Miss Investigator, but there is such a thing called HIPAA which means those documents are protected.”

“HIPAA does not cover birth and death certificates,” Emma replied through gritted teeth. “Those are a matter of public record.”

“Oh goody,” the woman replied in a sarcastic tone, “then go bother the Registry of Vital Records like everyone else.”

“I can’t do that. I don’t know exactly the specific person I’m looking for. Only that I’m looking for a female born in October 1983. This is related to a police investigation of an abandoned child out in Memensha.”

“You’re wasting your time,” she snorted. “The police probably looked at it in the 80s. You honestly think you’re better than a bunch of cops?”

“Yes,” Emma replied bluntly, bracing her hands against the desk and staring down at the woman with a look just barely short of contempt. “Because they didn’t investigate it. Now, I would like to look at your October 1983 birth records please.”

“HIPAA says-” “I give zero shits what HIPAA says. Please get me your supervisor.”

“No.”

Emma let out a frustrated sound, yanking her hands off the table and running through her hair. Killian wouldn’t have run into this kind of trouble. He would have just smiled and made a comment about how pretty her disgusting hair looked and that woman would have been willing to hand over her own social security number. The very thought made her even more angry.

She pulled out her phone and immediately looked up the number for the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, specifically for the medical records department. When she found the correct number, she punched it and stared the receptionist directly in the eye as she held the phone up to her ear.

“Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, Department of Records, this is Astrid speaking,” a woman on the other end of the line stated pleasantly.

“Hello Astrid, my name is Emma Swan, I’m a private investigator who is licensed in the states of Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York and Florida. I’m investigating a cold case involving abandoned child in Menemsha October 1983. I was hoping I could look at your birth record files…”

There was a pause on the other end and Emma could hear the faint sound of conversation on the other end as she continued her staring contest with the nasty receptionist. A few moments passed before Astrid came back on the line.

“You wanted to look at the birth records during October in 1983?”

“Yes.”

There was another long pause. Emma counted the seconds in her head.

“Do you have a court order?”

“No,” she admitted. “But birth certificates are a matter of public record and as stated previously, I’m a licensed private investigator in the state of Massachusetts.”

“When did you plan on looking at the records?”

“Now, if that’s possible.”

There was a loud coughing noise on the other end followed by even more muffled conversation.

“Miss Swan, we need a little more time to get the records prepared for you. Give us a few hours, say after lunch around 2:30 and you can come down to the Records Department and have supervised access to the requested documents. Do you have more specific dates in mind or just the month of October?”

“Let’s keep it at the entire month of October just to be safe…”

“Okay. We will meet you at reception then and bring you down to Records at 2:30 then.”

“Thank you,” Emma replied, smirking at the receptionist. If she was feeling a little more immature, she would have fist pumped in her face. “I will see you then.”

After leaving the hospital, Emma wandered the streets of Oak Bluffs. She couldn’t help but feel that she was Martin Brody walking the streets of Amity Island. Everywhere she looked, it seemed to be tourist shops and ice cream places that had shut down for the winter. The only things that seemed to be open were the few restaurants like Sharky’s Cantina and Nancy’s. A large arcade on Main Street was also open despite the fact that there were only five kids inside, all of them crowding around some obnoxious game that involved loud shooting.

As she reached the docks, her phone buzzed. She frowned as she looked down at the screen, not recognising the number. She hit the ignore button as she began to examine the large yachts and fishing boats that were lined up. Some of them had clever names such as “The Codfather” and “The Aqua-holic.” Though the ship names held some amusement, she was shocked to see how far some were from home. Many of the ships docked were from Florida and South Carolina but there were a few from Jamaica and Bermuda. She couldn’t fathom why anyone from such sunny places would want to be in Martha’s Vineyard, especially in October.

It wasn’t until she was eating lunch at Dockside Marketplace that she realised whoever called her had left a message. Curious, she went to her voicemail and punched in her password.

It was Killian.

“Swan! Where are you! I woke up and you were gone! Your yellow death trap is gone! Are you alri-” Emma didn’t wait to hear what else he had to say. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. In a fit of pettiness, she turned off her phone and spent the rest of her lunch in petulant silence, listening to Top 40s pop music as she munched unhappily on her onion rings.

When she returned to the hospital, the receptionist from before was gone and replaced by a young blonde with tired eyes and a kind smile. She was chatting with a brunette in scrubs that was leaning against the desk. They looked up as soon as she came in and gave her cautious smiles.

“Are you Emma Swan?” the brunette asked politely.

“Yes.”

“I’m Astrid Acker, I work in the Records Department. Do you mind showing me your ID and private detective’s license?”

Emma fished them out of her pocket and handed them over. Astrid looked at them both for a moment before nodding satisfaction and handing them back. She motioned for Emma to follow her down a long hallway. They reached a stairwell and descended down into the basement levels. It had a cold industrial feel to it, with exposed pipes lining the walls and sterile colored tiles. Astrid led her down another hallway before taking her into a sparsely decorated office. It was cluttered as hell and it immediately made her feel claustrophobic. There were three oversized desks, two that were covered in sprawling documents and dated computers while the other was completely clear save for a single case box.

Astrid pulled two chairs over to the clear desk. She held the first chair out to Emma before sitting in the other one. She pulled the lid off the box and glanced back at Emma.

“Martha’s Vineyard sees an average of 176 births per year,” she said quietly. “In 1983, there was a total of 216 births. 23 of those were born in the month of October. All of them are in that box.”

“23?”

“23,” she confirmed. “You can look at the records but you cannot take them, make copies or photos of them.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Emma’s hands shook as she pulled the files from the box. Immediately she separated the males from the females, heart hammering in her chest as the number of files dropped from twenty-three to eight.

Six were born in the beginning of October. Only two fell into the potential time period that Emma was looking for. One was named Jennifer Cameron and the other was Julia Wright. She glanced up from the documents and back at Astrid.

“What’s the population size of Martha’s Vineyard?”

“Roughly 15,000 people.”

“Small.”

“I guess you can say that.”

Emma moved the eight files towards Astrid, every single atom of her being vibrating with tension. “Out of these eight files, do you know any of them personally?”

Astrid looked startled by the question. She gave Emma a long inquisitive look before opening each file and rattling off what she knew about each one.

“I don’t know Teresa...I don’t know Kayla either...or Laura….but I know Brenda. She dated my brother. They have two kids named Tony and Alana. Alison….if it’s the Alison I know, she left the Vineyard back in the tenth grade. Jen used to be friends with my brother but something happened and I don’t know what. Julia and Sarah were the mean girls growing up. Julia is married and owns a bed and breakfast in Chilmark and Veronica owns Vineyard Scoops in Edgartown.”

And just like that, all the energy, all the hope that Emma had, died. She felt like a popped balloon, scattered and deflated. Another dead end. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to be sad. She wanted to feel something but all she felt was numb.

“Thank you for your time,” Emma said after a moment before gathering all the strength she had left and standing up.

“I’m sorry.” Astrid was confused.

“None of these women are who I’m looking for.”

It wasn’t until she felt the hospital and was back by the docks that Emma felt something. A powerful and raw rage burned in her veins. She wanted to scream but she settled to for kicking a trash can and startling a small colony of seagulls.

Drawing a heavy breath, she turned her phone back on. She regretted the decision almost instantly. Twenty missed calls and nine messages left for her. All from the same number.

“Jesus Killian,” she mumbled under her breath as she called her voicemail.

“You have nine new messages…first message received today at 12:05pm...Swan! Where are you! I woke up and you were gone! Your yellow death trap is-” Emma deleted the message before it finished.

“Next new message received today at 12:34pm...Swan! Where are you! I’ve been looking everywhere-” She hit the delete button again.

“Next new message received today at 12:46pm...Swan, it’s me. I’m hoping you just went into town and got Granny’s or something...I’m going to go down and meet you. Call me back when you get this.”

“Next new message received today at 1:13pm...I just stopped by Granny’s...Ruby said she hasn’t seen you...Where are you? Please call me back.”

“Next new message received today at 1:19pm...Swan! I’m worried now! Where are you? I don’t understand what’s going on or why you won’t answer your talking phone.”

“Next new message received today at 1:27pm...Swan...please just answer me...I want to know what’s going on…Just talk to me…”

“Next new message received today at 1:31pm…I don’t know where you are but please just call me. I just want to know you’re okay.”

“Next new message received today at 1:45pm...You left me...”

She dropped her phone. All the emotion she thought she would feel after her latest failure came at the broken and defeated tone of Killian’s voice. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes and she held her hand up to her face in order to stifle the cry that desperately wanted escape her lips. She felt like the world’s biggest asshole.

She took a moment to try and gather herself, wiping at her sniffling nose as she stared out into the marina, watching seagulls dive at the water in search of fresh prey. She almost forgot to listen to the final voice message that Killian had left her.

“...End of new message. To listen to it again...press one...To save it...press two...to erase it...press three…”

She pressed down on the first option, knowing it would be unpleasant and Killian would more than likely be screaming at her but there was a part of her, the self-loathing part, that felt she deserved it.

“New message received today at 2:56pm…Emma…” The way he said her name wasn’t angry. It was strained and filled with an emotion that words could not identify but she knew it on a fundamental level. Her blood went cold in her veins.

Something was wrong.

“Emma…” Killian repeated again and his time his voice wavered a bit. “The pelts...The pelts on Gold’s property...they’re...They’re selkie pelts.”

“Oh shit,” she whispered as the color drained from her face.

She had left Killian alone in Menemsha with a man who more likely than not hunted his kind. And more than that, she had left him without any means to defend himself; her taser and pistol were in the glove compartment of her car. Now, she was officially the world’s biggest asshole.

In the long list of self-imposed rules that Emma Swan had, near the top of the list was that she didn’t push the Bug faster than sixty miles per hour. There were practical reasons for this, mainly because the Bug was nearly two decades old and she didn’t fancy replacing it any time soon. She pressed the pedal to the floor as she raced down State Road and North Road on her way back to Menemsha, the needle on her speedometer jumping between seventy-five and eighty miles per hour.

She may have nearly killed more than a dozen rabbits on her way.

The Bug made its grievances known, sputtering and whining as she came to a grinding halt in front of the beach house. Emma barely acknowledged it over the thundering of her heart ramming against her chest as her eyes scanned the property, hoping against hope to see any sign that Killian was in the house and that he was alright.

There were no lights on in the house, but she didn’t expect any. Killian was practically an old man and had an almost amusing dislike for electricity. He had a habit of leaving the lights off as long as possible until he couldn’t read without them. It made Emma privately question a lot of what happened while he was stuck with Cora and her daughter during his five years stuck on land.

“Killian?” She called almost tentatively when she stepped into the house.

Only silence came to greet her. The stillness of the house unnerved her and she could feel her anxiety skyrocket in response.

“Killian!”

Various scenarios flashed into her mind but at the forefront was seeing his pelt hanging from the blood soaked rack on the front lawn of Gold’s property. Immediately, she scrambled up the stairs and into the guest bedroom. She didn’t bother with any pretenses. She knew exactly what she was looking for and where it was. She made a beeline for the large white dresser and pulled open the third drawer.

The sight of Killian’s pelt caused her to let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Without thinking, she pulled it out of the drawer and brought it to her face. She buried her nose in the thick fur, trying to take comfort in the fact that it was still in the house and not on the rack up the road.

She was almost surprised at how soft it was. Emma didn’t have much experience with fur, let alone seal fur but it felt incredibly silky and all she wanted to do was keep it against her skin.

“Swan?”

Emma froze, her cheek still rubbed against his pelt as she craned her head towards the doorway. He was looking at her with a guarded expression, shoulders tense and hands curled into tight fists. If she didn’t know any better, she would say that he was preparing himself for a fight.

“Where the fuck were you?” she hissed. “I got your message and I was scared out of my mind!”

“Got my messages, did you?” he asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest and raising his eyebrows at her. The coolness of his tone nearly made her flinch.

“Yes. I freaked out! You can’t leave messages like that and just run off! You could have been hurt! You could have been killed! I was fucking terrified that I was going to come home and see your pelt out there on that fucking rack!”

“I could say the same to you, love.”

“This isn’t a game, Killian!”

“I never said it was. I’m merely pointing out the hypocrisy as I’m seeing it.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to quell the chaotic squall of emotions that wanted to bubble up to the surface. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to lash out but she couldn’t necessarily deny the truth in his words.

“I should have called you back, I’m so-” “No, it shouldn’t even have gotten to that point,” he cut her off. “You should have woken me up, Emma! We’re supposed to be partners!”

“We’re not supposed to be anything.” The words leapt from her throat before she could stop them.

As soon as she said them, Killian reared back as if her words had hit him with physical force. He stared at her as if he had never seen her before in his life. They stood there for a brief moment in tense silence. The distance between them was only about eight feet but it felt much larger than that. It felt like a canyon that Emma wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to bridge.

“Where were you?” she asked again, this time in a softer tone.

Killian looked somewhat bereft, swallowing his words and looking away from her. For a moment, Emma wasn’t sure he was going to answer her.

“I went into the house.”

She gasped at his explanation, staring at him in disbelief. “You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t, Killian.”

“Considering all of today’s revelations, I’m shocked you care.”

“Of course I care! You could have been killed!”

“He wasn’t there,” he replied, still not looking at her. “He...I...He doesn’t just keep the pelts, Emma. There was a jar on the mantle...It was full of teeth...”

A cold shiver went down Emma’s spine. Ruby’s warning from her first day in Menemsha echoed in her head and a part of her wished she had given it more thought.

“How many?”

“I didn’t count,” Killian laughed humorously. A brittle smile crossed his lips and it made Emma feel sick. “I didn’t get close enough. I didn’t want to but countless...That whole place reeks of blood.”

“You shouldn’t have gone in there, Killian.”

His eyes cut to her. “And what should I have done, Swan? Waited for you? You cut out of here so swiftly, I wasn’t sure you were even going to come back.”

“Of course I was coming back. Don’t be an idiot. But Killian, think about this. Gold owns this town. No one knows who you are. You technically don’t exist here. He could have gotten to you and no one except me would have known something happened to you.”

“I’m very much aware of that, Swan.”

“Are you?”

“Yes, despite what you think, I’m not just a dumb animal. I’m quite intelligent despite your constant willingness to overlook that fact.”

“I know you’re smart-” “Yet you insist on treating me as I’m nothing more than dumb pet, not even worthy of leaving a note or even communicating with. Are you going to get me a ball to play with next? Make me eat out of a bowl?”

“You’re making a bigger deal of this than it actually it is,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“No. I’m just seeing the clear picture. You don’t trust me, or anyone for that matter! You would rather be alone than let yourself get burned again! Whoever he is, he must have done quite the number on you that you would rather be unhappy and alone than take any risks and let anyone in. Being alone is a bitter existence, take it from someone who knows.”

“Oh! Because you know everything!” Emma jeered.

“When it comes to being alone? Yes! I told you what happened to me. I told you about losing my family, losing Milah. I’m not unsympathetic to your plight, Emma, but you need to get it through your head that you’re not alone.”

She wanted to punch him; wanted nothing more than to break his nose. He was so full of shit and she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“Oh fuck you,” she snarled. “Stop the bullshit. You don’t actually care. The only reason you’re still standing here is because you’re trapped. As soon as this is over, you’re just going to back. You won’t even blink.”

“If you honestly still believe that then I can’t help you,” he said softly with a disappointed look on his face. He ran his fingers through his hair before looking back at her with a beseeching expression. “Look, I can’t do this right now. Just give me back my pelt.”

Emma froze. Her mind went blank at his request and she stared down at the pelt in her hands. Her fingers were curled into it so tightly that her skin was stretched white over her knuckles. She knew that the appropriate response was to give it back to him and let him go on his merry way but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of it. Without thinking, she instead tightened her own hold on it.

Killian stared at her, absolutely stunned. There was no mistaking the look of betrayal in his eyes. He stretched out his hand and Emma couldn’t help but notice that it was trembling.

“Emma…” He sounded broken.

Reluctantly, she let go of his pelt; depositing it in his hand before she could think more on her hesitation. She practically ran past him and took sanctuary in her room, trying to put as much distance as she could between them.

The tears didn’t come until she closed the door and it was firmly against her back.

#captain swan #cs ff #cs fic #cs fanfiction #cs fanfic #cssns #seal of fate #my fic #my shit

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jorelassicpark · 6 years

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Imagine Being Thanos (AU, spoilers, duh)

Something I wrote really quickly.

Apologies for turning Titan into Man of Steel’s Krypton.

Imagine this: you're young, you're optimistic, you're among the brightest and best of your planet. Your family loved you. You're among friends who'd die for you. You've had one of the best upbringings you could ask for. You never go to bed hungry and you've got a job lined up for you once you complete your well-earned education.

But outside of your circle, what your family and friends ignore, is strife - poverty, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, nationalism, us vs. them, politics vs. politics, riots, hunger. Resources are dwindling while the population rises. Your hometown was once quiet, even if it was big - now it's stuffed to the gills with the rich getting richer while the middle class can't afford a house now because all the jobs are being taken by either the overqualified or the rich, while criminals prey on the poor and rich alike who're moving in hoping to snatch up a job. The schools are stuffed to bursting and the teachers get paid for shit. Your friends who start families have to start homeschooling them or scrape up money to send them to a private school to get a quality education, or keep them away from gangs that are popping up. You're assaulted twice, and criminals looking to start fights with you because you were born big break your bones. Even your family can't afford the bills anymore. You're followed by beggars - some you recognize as your old classmate from high school, hit by another recession. Some are completely out of their minds, talking to Gods that aren't there and screaming and hollering. One nearly slashes your throat open with a rusty blade because he thinks you're recording him with your phone.

You notice the summers getting warmer, earlier. Winter doesn't feel like winter anymore. Everyone knows it's the factories struggling to keep up demand spewing smoke into the air. The leaders of each country repeal the fragile environmental laws in place. Your dad used to take the family jetskiing and fishing. You can't do that anymore - the fish are completely gone and the last person who took a swim is dying in the hospital from Gods-know-how-many chemicals. Last week, it hit

In your lifetime, one war after another pops up, in one way or another. Nation A accuses Nation B of meddling in their politics. Nation B invades Nation C that used to be a part of it. Nation A's citizens argue back and forth about Nation B. The right is cleaved in half, one finding Nation B a right-wing aliy, while the other half can't forgive the shadow war waged for the last century. The left fares no better - one half despises its lack of free speech, its own bigotry, while the other half believes it to be an ally against Nation A's own longstanding issues with hatred - slavery in the past, subtle racism that keeps minorities in ghettos now, police brutality. Your nation elects a bigot who seethes against the other every day. Your university shuts down several times. You're tear-gassed by police as you try to make your way to the laboratories. You're mistaken for the Other by one faction or another and you barely escape with your health more than once.

You try to help. You donate to charity, and find the board has been stealing what should be cancer research funds to go party on their yachts. You give blood, only to read that 99% of it goes unused because the collection methods spoil it before it can be used. You

Then it hits. War comes home. Half your family is dead. Half your friends go missing, disappeared into prisons to never be seen again or simply *gone*. You used to share a room with your brother and it takes a long time for you to stop coming home and start talking until you realize the bed above yours is empty. You don't see the sun for days because there's so much thick smoke choking the air from all the bombings. What's left of your family huddles in candlelight after the power shuts down for the nth time, hoping the rifle cracks don't get closer.

The war doesn't get better. Nations are gone overnight. Another half of what remains of your family is drafted to die in a land they don't know. Half of your university is gone, also drafted into the war. In the break room, the professor of philosophy - a man you respect, a man who taught you how to debate, to question what you see, to make sense of other people's suffering - watches the news. The damage is catastrophic. Nuclear weapons poison lands irreversibly. Another scientist is quoted that out of a once roiling planet of one trillion, five billion are left, and dropping *nightly*.

The city mayor calls an emergency meeting. The food supplies are dwindling. Medicine is zero. The remaining hospitals had to put the old, the terminally ill, the critically wounded in palliative care and lie to them that they'll make it.

Something inside you snaps. Maybe it's the fact you barely made it out of an artillery shelling last night. Maybe you're so hungry that you've considered eating the bugs coming out of the rubble. Maybe you're tired of the arguments on who to banish next for some petty thing - banish him because he looks fat and maybe was hoarding food. Banish him because he used to be a racist. Banish that guy because he voted for the party that got us into this war.

You suggest everyone draw straws. One half with the tallest straws get to stay. The other half... you want to say banishment, but you've seen the girl down the street die of radiation poisoning in the gaping crater when she took the wrong path out of town.

Everyone - even your own family - stares at you like you're pure evil.

You work alone, now. Trying to find a cure, and it's hard without anyone to help you move isotopes or work the microscopes or bring you raw materials. But what you can do is math. Prove that your plan, as evil as it is, is right. You draw up statistics. You call on census records and the remaining orbital satellites to determine who is left. You sample soil and watch the clouds and orbit and temperature and all the food sources - animal, plant, and otherwise. Math is simple and easy to understand - it didn't make fun of you for being different, it didn't care if it couldn't understand you.

You have your final plea to save the world. There isn't much time to execute it, and a shred of you hopes you are wrong.

You broadcast your plea. End this. Save what we have left.

You find nothing but mockery. Your plans are broadcasted to other nations to prove yours is an evil, genocidal one when you meant nothing like it.

Another half of your city is destroyed in a bombing sweep trying to target you. The cowards didn't even spare one of their foot soldiers to do the job personally.

One night, your father wakes you up. His eyes are red, and there is something other than hollow shock in his eyes. He leads you to what is left of the laboratories. The readings are getting worse - the tremors are shaking continents apart. The oceans will evaporate in a year, no matter what anyone does. Soon, everyone who survives the quakes will have their lungs collapse into a poison sludge - if the last leaders of every 'great' nation just finally settle for Mutually-Assured Destruction.

He used to be a rocket scientist. He helped Titan meet other worlds, trade peacefully, explore the stars - and that technology is now used to deliver more missiles to nations no longer there.

His personal ship can only fit one. He says he was trying to modify it to fit the family, but that's moot now. It's just you and him.

You're not going, you say. You don't want another hole in your heart. You don't want another ghost haunting this world. You tell him he's older and wiser and he can orate and argue and that he was a diplomat. They'll listen.

You know you screamed at each other, begging not to go. You don't remember much of the exact details - but you remember one. You remember the strength you inherited from him picking you up and tossing you bodily into the cockpit.

You are in orbit when your father is proven right. Nuclear strikes scour light into your eyes. For days, you can't see anything but the memory of your planet turning to the sickest pitch black for a second is burned into your eyes forever.

You drift through space. Your father had set coordinates for the nearest friendly planet. You hope and pray for a diplomatic mission to meet you, to have some kind of shelter. You look forward to a bed and clean food, even though you know they'll probably ignore you at best.

You're beset upon by pirates, beaten to an inch of your life, your ship scrapped for parts. But you live. You manage a living doing hard labor. You work your way into the sciences. You hope this planet avoids another war.

And this world repeats what your world did.

Once again, you escape with your life on a one-man ship. And this time, war has spread through the system - into the next one. You see ships burning unnatural fires into colonies. You see planetary rings formed from endless dead fleets.

It is here, alone in the galaxy, utterly, completely alone, that you decide you will make them listen.

#avengers #avengers 3 #avengers infinity war #avengers; infinity war #marvel #thanos #thanos did nothing wrong

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softsoup642 · 1 year

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regarding the tags on my last post, which read: there's this auroch-boar-lynx-eagle society based around strength. its kind of like furry sparta. and this is my first example i've created of an inter-diet society and the way this particular one works is that the carnivores who joined have a mutual respect (and fear which really is what caused the respect) of the aurochs, and so these particular lynx and eagle groups ended up allying with then joining because of the benefits aurochs promised them, like food (fish, bugs, and prisoners of war) and POWER. there's this cultural philosophy that these carnivores were convinced of about rather than it being about predator and prey, it was the strong and the weak. and aurochs, boars, lynxes, and eagles were the strong, while chamois and foxes and such were the weak ones. i shall connect this to the ‘tender is the flesh’ moment i spoke of in another recent post. so, this auroch-boar-lynx-eagle society are speciesist against all species they deem to be physically weak, right? this civilisation grew and grew and when invading some weird insular wolf nation they discovered people farms, where they farmed people, for meat, fur, and milk.. the people in question were a selectively bred species descendant from the powerful auroch (cows they were cows this is how i explain cows.) basically what happened was centuries ago this group of iberian wolves stole children from aurochs in secret, children who were presumed missing and/or eaten by predators. these cows were raised and bred to be products. i will get into a bit of detail here under the cut. CONTENT WARNING: abuse, including s/a. basically, think about what goes on in factory farms (except with the injection of hormones only because this civilisation did not have the technology) except now make the cows sentient and anthropomorphic and you get the gist.

everyone was kept in very small, separate stables and they were monitored and punished for suspicious activity, like trying to break out or communicate with each other. if one was particularly unruly, they were tied down. the stables were small as hell anyway so it isn't like they lost much here is the worst part: female cows were forcefully inseminated with the genetic material of a male (that she was not related to, usually, they had things to keep track of this.) if the cow did not manage to purposefully kill her offspring before it was born (hmmm i wonder why she would do that hmmm it caaan't be because she is sentient and does not want to subject another being to her same fate) then when it was born, it was taken away from her. when she could no longer be impregnated over and over again, she was killed for meat. if they were a male, he would be rasied to have his sperm taken and then killed for meat. they were usually used and killed before they turned 20.

#abuse mention #my posts #world info #this is. grim.#but the opportunity was there what am i going to do not try to make furry dystopias

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travelingtheusa · 4 years

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NORTH CAROLINA

2020 Nov 19 (Thu) –Bonnie had a bout of diarrhea and we were getting up every two to three hours to take her out. Poor thing. At one point, she was also throwing up. She got a bad bug this time!

A brisk, cold wind was blowing in from the ocean. The temperature didn’t get much into the 50s today. We stayed around the camper most of the day except to run out to the post office to mail off some post cards. We also did the laundry. The machines were only $.75. That was a delight. Getting ready to move on tomorrow.

2020 Nov 18 (Wed) – It was a cold and blustery day. At 4 p.m. we ran out to the store to pick up some rice. Bonnie started in with diarrhea and we didn’t have any rice to mix with her chicken. While we were out, we stopped at Michael’s Seafood Restaurant and had dinner. Paul enjoyed black drum, a flaky white fish. I had salmon. The meal was delicious and they gave us a military discount to boot! Always, always ask. You never know who gives a discount and who doesn’t.

2020 Nov 17 (Tue) – It was a beautiful day today but we did not go anywhere. I think it was because there is not much to see in this area and we have been to all the tourist stops. It is disappointing to think that you have seen everything and nothing else interests you. I certainly hope we are not at that point.

2020 Nov 16 (Mon) – We drove to Wilmington today to tour the Battleship North Carolina. When we arrived, there was water flooding the road and the parking lot. We slowly drove through several inches of water only to find that we couldn’t get onto the ship without walking through water. So I called the desk to see if they were open. The clerk said they were flooded out with high tide. It would go down and they would be open around 12-ish. We think they could have built up their parking area a little.

We left and picked up pet food at PetCo, then went to the historic part of town on the Cape Fear River to have lunch. The Fork & Cork was a small bar and café. We both got the specials. Mine was a mac & cheese carbonara. Sounded good but didn’t taste good. Paul had some kind of burger with bacon jam and spicy mayo. He seemed to enjoy it.

Heading back to the battleship, we found that the water level had gone down and we were able to park and go into the place. We spent about 2 hours crawling around the ship. I learned a couple of new things and we had fun exploring 5 decks below and 2 decks above the main deck although we couldn’t go into the engine room. The coding machine they used during WWII was top secret. When a repairman came to fix it, everyone had to leave the room. Different parts were done by different people so very few understood the entire system and how it worked. When radio messages were sent, they were entirely encoded – even the name of the ship the message was going to. So radiomen had to decode every message that was sent out in order to sort out their messages.

After the battleship, we stopped at Publix to pick up groceries. After dinner, we walked over to the beach to watch the Leonid Meteor shower. We brought a sheet so we could lie down on the sand. It was cold, the sand was hard, and we couldn’t see any meteors even though the circumstances were unusually excellent. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the moon was nearly invisible; had just the barest fingernail of a shape. We were very disappointed.

2020 Nov 15 (Sun) – The day was overcast and threatening all day. We tried to walk down to the beach but it started sprinkling, so we turned around and went back home. We spent the day hanging around the camper. Bob & Holly left without ever coming over to visit.

2020 Nov 14 (Sat) – We went into town to pick up a few groceries. Drove through Carolina Beach. It is a very beachy community. Although there are many people here, it is no where near what it usually is in the summer time when all the beach houses and condos are rented.

We took a walk across the street to the ocean with Bonnie. The beach front is very open and expansive. You can see the Kure Beach Pier in the distance. The beach is deserted at this time of year and you can see forever.

2020 Nov 13 (Fri) – We packed up and left Elizabeth City at 9 a.m. It was an easy drive to Fort Fisher AF Rec Area in Kure Beach. The campground is right off the main road that runs through town along a row of beach houses. It reminds me of beach row in the Hamptons with all the 3-story pastel houses on stilts fronting the ocean. Although it belongs to the military and you have to show ID to get a campsite, the campground is open. It’s not on a base.

There are about 25 sites here. They are concrete and very, very long with full hookups. There is a decent amount of space between the sites with trees along the back of the perimeter. Our window looks out at the ocean side and all the pastel homes and cottages built adjacent to the roadway.

Fort Fisher must have made a lot of money selling the property to beach goers. If you don’t turn into the campground and just drive straight down the road, you go into the Fort itself. It was a civil war fort and there are breastworks that visitors can wander around. There is also an aquarium on the beach side. When we toured it last year, there were Christmas trees all over the building.

We were here last year just after the area had been hit with a hurricane. Buildings were under repair and the reception office was temporarily set up in another building.

We are on a narrow spit of land, like Fire Island back home. They call this area the Crystal Coast – 80 some miles of outer islands that protect the main coastline. On one side of us is a bay. On the other side is the Atlantic Ocean. We can hear the waves breaking on the shore all day long.

After we set up, we went to the office to check in. When we got back, we spotted an orange Class A Motor Home setting up. It turned out to be Bob & Holly from our Utah caravan last year. They were the couple that had trouble with their rig. While they were in Las Vegas waiting for it to be repaired, they got married. We said “Hi” to Bob and promised to get together later when Holly returned.

2020 Nov 12 (Thu) – It was an overcast and rainy day. We just hung around the campground all day, getting ready to move tomorrow.

2020 Nov 11 (Wed – Vets Day) – It was a rainy, overcast, nasty day today. We stayed in the campground. Did laundry this afternoon. I began work on my book about my time in Iraq. It’s been 15 years since I was sent to the Middle East. It’s about time I got that damn book written.

2020 Nov 10 (Tue) – We started a new diet today so we stayed close to home to get ourselves into the groove. While I was cooking, we turned on the Magic Fan to help exhaust the heat in the kitchen. Weirdly, the fan would not turn off. We flipped switches, checked fuses, and shut the DC-12 volt system – all to no avail. Paul finally just cut the wire to the fan.

2020 Nov 9 (Mon) – It rained all morning. The insulation in our rig is really good. I couldn’t hear any rain. I didn’t know it was raining until I looked out the window. Our pop-up camper used to sound like corn popping on the roof when it rained. This is much quieter.

We had lunch then drove to WalMart to pick up groceries. We’re starting a new diet tomorrow. Trying Keto this time. We’ll see how things go.

2020 Nov 8 (Sun) – We drove into New Bern today. We had been there last year when we drove through here but the North Caroline History Center was closed then. The historical houses in the complex were closed. There was a small museum inside the visitor center that covered the history of the state and city. At 1:30 p.m., we went to the Tryone Palace. It was and the first capitol of North Carolina from 1770 to 1794. The original palace kitchen burned down in 1798, leaving only the stable intact. In 1952, two ladies from the historical society found the original architectural plans for the property. They bought it, raised money, and rebuilt the palace and kitchen according to the original plans. With the Revolutionary War looming on the horizon, the governor fled to New York, fearing for his personal safety. There were docents in every room on the first floor and in the basement (we weren’t allowed to tour the upper floors).

We walked down the Main Street and stopped at a café for lunch. I had tuna on a croissant and Paul had a gyro sandwich. Everything was tasty.

On the drive back to the base, we stopped at the Junkyard Market. It was an intriguing place with lots of odds and ends out on the street to attract visitors. We walked through the building, looking at all the knick-knacks.

Back in the car, we drove through a nearby development when Paul spotted a sign there were new homes for sale. We thought we would go through a couple of model homes but there weren’t any. So after driving around the neighborhood, we returned to the campground.

2020 Nov 7 (Sat) – It was a very delightful day. After letting the animals have outdoor time, we headed out to the Crystal Coast to tour Fort Macon. It was a small but very neat confederate fort built on the Atlantic coast. We realized how big some of the other forts were that we have toured after seeing this one. There were 3 forts built on the site. The first was Fort Dobbs in 1756. It was never completed and allowed to fall into disrepair. The second fort (Fort Hampton) was built in 1808. It defended Beaufort Harbor during the War of 1812. A hurricane eroded the inlet in 1825 so Fort Macon was built between 1826 and 1834. In 1862, union forces attacked and captured the fort. The fort was used during the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War II. It served as a military prison from 1862 to 1877. The property was purchased by the state and became the first state park in North Carolina in 1936.

We then drove into Beaufort and explored the Old Burying Ground. The historical society normally conducts tours of the site but because of the coronavirus, nobody was giving any tours. There are graves of confederate and union soldiers as well as slaves and freemen. It was such a mish mash of gravesites. It looked like a lot of them had concrete coverings over the bodies. The large cemetery had graves laying every which way. It’s like they came in, looked around, and said, “There’s a spot.” It was crazy!

We then walked around the block and explored the historic site where there were many houses that had been built in the 1700s. Most of the houses had plaques on them stating the year they were built and who lived there. We stopped at the marina to ogle the boats and yachts. I picked up two kites for our grandsons who we will be seeing over Thanksgiving.

We stopped at the Crabs Claw for lunch. There was an outside deck overlooking the ocean. We both had the lobster salad. It was quite good. Next door was an interesting looking rental. We asked the waitress about it. It was 5 units attached as one building, each one with 4 floors with balconies looking out over the ocean. In the backyard were a barbecue, a hot tub, and a pool. She said it was rental condos that cost (she thought) about $3,500 a week. Wow.

The drive back to the base went over several bridges and past some interesting places – Radio Island, Morehead City, Atlantic Beach.

2020 Nov 6 (Fri - Paul’s Birthday) - We packed up and left the USCG base in Elizabeth City at 9 a.m. With only one stop at a rest area along the way, we arrived at the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point in Havelock at noon. The campground is called Pelican Pointe RV Park. It is very nice. There are 30 sites arrayed in 4 rows within an oval. One row (the one we are in) has pull-thru sites; all the rest are back-in. All the sites are concrete with a nicely graveled area holding the electric, water and sewer hookups. Trees surround the campground and there is a water body nearby – called Slocum Creek but looking like a river. We went out to Del Patron for a Mexican dinner and margaritas.

2020 Nov 5 (Thu) – We hung around the campground this morning. At noon, we went out to do some errands – get fuel for tomorrow’s drive, pick up pet food, and get lunch. We ate at the City Grille, a diner type café. The food was good and the place was doing a good business. Sheba certainly enjoyed this campground. She had lots of space to run and play in with a tree to climb on. It’s been nice with the river right outside our window and the USCG aircraft flying into and out of the airport.

2020 Nov 4 (Wed) – I have returned from a week in New York. The time went fast. The visit with the oncologist went very well. All bloodwork is normal. I don’t have to go back until January. I also got to visit with my daughter, Gina; my sister and her husband, Susan and Bill; and my grandson, Caiden. I got to go trick-or-treating with Caiden and his parents. He was able to hook up with a friend and the two boys had a great time together. Caiden came to stay two nights with me at the hotel. We drove out to Sue’s for lunch and swam in the pool at the hotel. He had a great time and was sorry to see it end. So was I. I went over to his house and helped his father put together an electric car, which was a gift from Aunt Susan and Uncle Bill. It was Caiden’s 7th birthday on October 30th.

It was good to get back home and see Paul and the girls again. Bonnie actually seemed glad to see me.

2020 Oct 27 (Tue) – We went to WalMart to pick up a suitcase for me. While looking for my duffel, we couldn’t find it. Paul thought we might have thrown it out after my last trip. We wound up buying two rolling duffels with the hope that we can take a trip to Australia next year for our 50th anniversary.

We then stopped at Currituck BBQ for lunch. Paul had pulled pork and I had beef brisket. It was a lot of BBQ. Next stop was at Enterprise Car Rental where I picked up a Nissan Kicks SUV. I will be driving to New York tomorrow. Because of the coronavirus and all the quarantine stuff going on in New York, we felt it would be better for me to drive home rather than fly. It’s going to be a very long drive – 9 to 10 hours. Last stop was at Ford where we dropped the truck off for a diagnostic. The AC stopped working about 2 weeks ago. You definitely don’t want a non-working AC down here in the south! Paul thinks it’s the compressor. We’ll see.

Finally, we returned to the camper. It has remained overcast and cool all day. This is such a nice campground. It was great the first two days before the weather turned foul. Hope it clears up – for Paul, at least. I think I’m driving into some bad weather up north.

2020 Oct 26 (Mon) – It was another overcast and dreary day. We walked over to the Navy Federal Credit Union to use my debit card. I had gotten an email from them saying I hadn’t used my debit card in the last year and if I did not use it, they would not send me a new one. What kind of bank cancels a debit card because you don’t use it? So I took the debit card for the SMART Nomads account and my own account, walked over to the ATM, and used both cards. I withdrew $20 then redeposited the $20. How stupid is that?

We gathered up the dirty clothes and did the wash. They have a small shack with two washers and two dryers. The cost was better than the last one – only $1.50 per washer and $1.00 for the dryers.

Once we had the clothes put away, we drove into town to Lowe’s. Paul needed to pick up a few things for the RV. Next, we stopped at CVS to pick up some Halloween candy. Neither of us thinks there will be any trick-or-treaters here in the campground but I thought it would be a good idea to have something on hand, just in case. A family was here this past weekend. They came in on Friday night and left Sunday afternoon. They had three children and a dog. Since Halloween will be on Saturday, it’s possible a family might come in to camp.

2020 Oct 25 (Sun) – It was a dreary, overcast day with rain on and off. Every morning, we wake up to fog that slowly burns off as the sun rises. The weather during the day has been decent even though it starts out cool in the 50s. We stayed in all day. Had soup and grilled cheese for lunch. Attended church via Facebook. Watched the crappy weather out the window. Didn’t go anywhere, except to walk the dog.

2020 Oct 24 (Sat) – We drove to Great Dismal Swamp State Park today. On the way there, we tried to stop at a Cracker Barrel for lunch but they were crowded and the wait time was 45 minutes. We left and wound up stopping at a Wendy’s for lunch. Poor choice but it was lunch time and everything was full.

When we arrived at the park, we happily found the visitor center open. After poking through it, we took a short hike on a trail. It was a raised wooden walkway that wandered in a big loop through the woods. A bridge passed over the intracoastal waterway. It is a 22 mile canal that passes through the swamp. It was very straight and disappeared on the horizon either way you looked.

We then drove over an hour to Mattaponi in Virginia. I lived there as a child in the summer of 1963. It was a 12-room farm on a farm. I wanted to try and find the place. I found the town. I found the river that used to run in back of the house where we fished. And I found the paper mill that always seemed to stink up the air. But I could not find the house. Although the area is still pretty rural with farms, there were more houses in the area than I remember. I guess 57 years makes a difference. Lol.

2020 Oct 23 (Fri) – We drove into town for lunch at Groupers Seafood Restaurant. We ate out on the deck looking out over the water. It was a very pleasant day. I got the lunch special – fried flounder, cole slaw, and hush puppies. I tried to swap out the hush puppies but the waitress said there were no substitutions. I also tried a red corn soup but it was too spicy. Paul had clam chowder with a shrimp and scallop casserole.

I had our mail forwarded to a UPS package store. I had tried to call three days ago to make sure they would accept the package but the number on their website was wrong. It turned out to be some guy’s cell phone. Their site said they accepted packages so I took a chance and had the mail forwarded there. When I went in to pick the package up, they charged me an additional $5 because I didn’t let them know the package was coming. WTH? First, I paid to have the package mailed already. Second, I couldn’t let them know it was coming because their number was no good. And third, I was SAVING them money by their not having to put the package on a truck and bring it to me. Boy, was I furious! I was more angry with myself because I didn’t fight the charge and refuse to pay. I groused and the guy gave me a business card with their correct phone number on it. A lot of good that did me then!

2020 Oct 22 (Thu) – We packed up and left Blackstone, VA at 9:30 a.m. The weather was good. The RV GPS had us driving 40 miles more than what my iPhone GPS said so we followed my phone. It took us along a lot of local routes but we had no difficulty and arrived at the US Coast Guard station in Elizabeth City at 12:45 p.m. In addition to checking our IDs, they took our temperature. That was a new thing. Since I had registered by phone, we already knew our campsite assignment. We set up then I called to see if we had to come in to pay. The clerk said no; that she had my card information and would run the charge.

After giving the animals outside time, we went to the supermarket – Food Lion – to get some groceries. They had the rows marked one way but nobody but us seemed to be paying attention to them. It’s funny. When we first pulled up into the parking lot at Food Lion, I saw several people with no masks. For a second, that always fuels some kind of crazy hope that we stepped out of the nightmare and finally found a place where no one has heard about the corona virus. Then another person steps into the picture wearing a face mask and the bubble pops.

When we got back, we found a business card from a fellow SMART member on the door. Allen & Judy are also staying in the campground. They are in another part of the base in the same area we stayed in last year. We were here for Thanksgiving and because the campground was full, we had been assigned to a dirt lot in back of the BX. We drove over and visited for an hour. We met Allen & Judy during the Canadian Maritimes caravan in 2016.

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anthropologyarda · 7 years

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The Machinery of Evil: Angband

In comparison to the more ragtag, disorganized orc led armies of the later Ages, Angband is an impressively effective force that is strong enough to withstand centuries of near isolation and self-sufficiency under constant siege. This suggests to me an extremely organized and structured system acting as its backbone.

I don’t think there were the modern kind of taxes or wages because I doubt there was a free market economy that needed those things to drive it. Angband is essentially a state built to fuel an army and I doubt that dark lords care much about the desire of their minions for luxury goods. So I think the most likely system was a command economy, where central planning makes all the economic decisions about how to use and distribute resources. For example, your orc will never have to worry about the cost of his helmet, because the dark lords arrange the production and delivery of all his equipment in exchange for labor at mining, farming, soldiering etc. as a specialist. Higher ranking orcs or beings probably get a bigger share of the resources and better stuff as an incentive to move up the ranks as much a possible. So there’s still a definite status system and ‘wealthier’ orcs.

Of course this opens up a host of problems too. This system takes an incredible amount of knowledge and planning to carry out, and if you don’t get the right number of helmets or chickens you need, you may end up executing rioters or having poorly equipped soldiers who lose battles. Not to mention you have to police the system rigorously for graft, theft, cheating, corruption, misreporting surplus, plain incompetence etc. Having a command economy also requires the creation of an enormous entrenched bureaucracy to organize and implement decisions made at the top.

Naturally this means that no currency is necessary, eliminating the cost in wasted metals and labor. I think that they might have created a currency later on for the sole purpose of trade with the Evil Men of the East, but I find it equally likely that Angband adopted one of their Eastern allies’ currency as long as the standard was valuable metal weights. Their chief trade goods were probably knowledge and high quality processed goods rather than raw materials anyway. This eliminates the problem of inflation internally, but not of scarcity.

Now, if you’re an orc and want a bit more than your regular rations or a nice present for your mother’s birthday, you’re going to have to barter for it. Your options for getting trade goods are limited. You can steal a little extra from what you produce as a farmer, smith, miner etc. but this might get your head chopped off. You can save some of your rations and trade that, but this can be dangerous if you don’t have enough left for yourself or trade away vital items like armor, underwear etc. You can trade services for goods like ‘I’ll sharpen your knives if you give me your shiny stone.’ But your best option for getting trade-able items is loot taken from enemies. Angband didn’t have taxes, but you probably had to tithe a portion of your plunder to the dark lords and possibly your commander. I’m thinking that a footsoldier got to keep one-tenth, a general one-third or some kind of system like that was in place but there was probably a lot of fighting over the best items between individual orcs too.

How do you keep a vast underground army supplied with food and materials? I think Angband’s production and food problems are solvable with a truly ridiculous amount of forethought and planning, pinpoint precise control of workers and a healthy amount of magic. The dark lords would need a huge amount of food, far more than could be gained through raiding; somehow crops had to be grown to feed armies, and animals had to be raised for meat and goods. Angband must have had enormous underground farms for surface plants created through the laborious process of building plant beds, bringing in soil, and creating light and air shafts. But they also might have cultivated fungi, mushrooms, moss, roots and other edible plants that naturally grow in or near caves. Pre-siege they might have had some small scale agriculture on mountain terraces and foothills and pastured sheep or goats on the side of mountains.

Post siege they had to rely on animals that could be raised underground. Orcs probably ate little meat. Those animals would have been far more valuable for the other products they could provide, like hides, fat, or horn. Eggs or milk would be more likely, depending on availability. Bats, bugs, worms, larva, spiders, proteus salamanders, and cave crabs are natural cave creatures that might be deliberately raised as food. Fish in underground lakes would yield the double benefit of food and vital water reservoirs. Their primary meat animal would probably be pigs because they eat anything and can be intensively farmed. Dogs are also scavengers so they might also be eaten for food or raised for fur. Chickens can be cage-raised in battery farms, and they also eat almost anything, so they seem likely. Sheep and goats come from wild mountain dwelling ancestors, and would have been valuable for wool and hair and milk, but I’m doubtful they could be fed enough from Angband’s resources to be worthwhile to keep. Cows are a definite no; they just are too big for underground living and not efficient enough to be regular food animals. Horses are valuable as riding animals and it is seems likely a small number were kept for commanders, messengers and scouts.

Outbreaks of disease and contamination have an easy answer: never ever ever keep all of your animals/crops/drinking water in one place/field/reservoir. If you loose one herd to disease you can isolate it and save the rest; the more separate herds you have the smaller the loss. Potential disease vectors, like corpses, have to be disposed of immediately. Genetic bottleneck is no problem if you carefully manage your herds; scientists estimate the entire population of founding taurine (non-humped) cattle was around eighty for example; low genetic variation does not necessarily mean low fitness. If stores dropped catastrophically low, trade with Evil Men or raiding could have filled the shortfall until production could be restored.

Waste management and containment would have been vital for the health of Angband’s occupants and the viability of its economy. Mines and farms are kept running though forced labor by prisoners; no one lives who does not work. Everything has to be recycled - food and metals especially. Even the corpses of prisoners and orcs are eaten. Water supplies may not have been easy to find and would have to be kept clean and uncontaminated by mineral leeching. They would have to find ways to get rid of toxic trash that couldn’t be recycled. Environmental contamination would have been a real problem, given the volcanic atmosphere and the amount of volatile metals around. Some types of environmental contamination could have been avoided through good, ruthlessly enforced waste containment measures as well. Magic may also be a good option here.

Were Angband’s ore deposits rich enough to support centuries of war? I’m honestly a little fuzzy on the geologic requirements for the creation of metals, but I’m going to handwave this one. If Melkor can make entire mountain ranges, then I’m going to guess he can guarantee an ample supply of minerals and metals for Angband’s forges. (Plus volcanic soils are incredibly fertile which helps with the food problem. The Polynesian islands are capable of supporting agriculture only because of soils made of volcanic ash deposited by wind, fun fact.)

My general explanation for the ability of Melkor’s war machine to support itself actually relies on a bit of headcanon. Sauron managed to escape the ruin of Utumno because of an extensive underground tunnel system that existed underneath it. I like to think that this is something Melkor and Sauron continued and expanded in their next stronghold once they saw how useful it was. However tall the mountains towered above the plain, below them Angband lay many times greater and deeper. Perhaps not just the entire plain, but whole mountain ranges were honeycombed with tunnels that stretched their fingers all the way back to Utumno’s vaults.

They may be evil, but Melkor and Sauron must have been terrifyingly competent.

#Tolkien #Silmarillion #silmweek #Angband #Melkor #meta #text post #Places #Beleriand #First Age #my writing

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formerhorticulturist · 7 years

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BOLD any which apply to your muse!

remember to REPOST! feel free to add to the list!

tagged by: no one, i sorta stole it

tagging: @tobeblamed, @sometimes-on-a-sunday, @noprodigalson, @soulsaved, @swcllowthis, @somekindcfhero, and @thegingerwhcre

[ COLORS ]

red. brown. orange. yellow. green. blue. purple. pink. black. white. teal. silver. gold. gray. lilac. metallic. matte. royal blue. charcoal grey. forest green. apple red. navy blue. crimson. cream. mint green. blood red. maroon.

[ ELEMENTAL ]

fire. ice. water. air. earth. rain. snow. wind. moon. stars. sun. heat. cold. steam. frost. lightning. sunlight. moonlih. dawn. dusk. twilight. midnight. sunrise. sunset. dewdrops. umbra. penumbra. char. darkness. ash

[ BODY ]

claws. long fingers. fangs. teeth. wings. tails. bare feet. freckles. burises. canine. scares. scratches. wounds. burns. spikes. feathers. webs. hands. tears. feline. chubby. curvy. short. tall. normal height. muscular. beards. piercings. tattoos. slender. trained. birdlike. shapeshifting. junoesque. svelte. long hair. short hair. horns. wolfish.. frightening. ethereal (well she likes to pretend that she is). angelic. demonic.

[ WEAPONS ]

fists. sword. dagger. spear. arrow. hammer. shield. poison. guns. axes. throwing axes. whips. knives. machetes. throwing knives. pepper sprays. tasers. machine guns. shotguns. slingshots. katanas. maces. stakes. staves. wands. powers. molotovs. magical items. magic. rocks. mud balls. kitchenware.

[ MATERIALS ]

gold. silver. platinum. titanium. diamonds. pearls. rubies. sapphires. emeralds. amethyst. metal. iron. rust. steel. glass. wood. porcelain. paper. wool. fur. lace. leather. silk. velvet. denim. linen. cotton. charcoal. clay. stone. asphalt. brick. marble. dust. glitter. blood. soil. mud. smoke. ash. shadow. carbonate. rubber. synthetics. moonstone. osmium. sand.

[ NATURE ]

PLANTS. grass. leaves. tress. bark. thorns. seeds. hay. sand. rocks. roots. flowers. ocean. river. lake. meadow. forest. desert. tundra. savanna. rain forest. caves. underwater. coral reef. beach. waves. space. clouds. mountains. palm trees.

[ ANIMALS ]

lions. wolves. eagles. owls. falcons. hawks. swans. snakes. turtles. ducks. bugs. spiders. birds. whales. dolphins. fish. foxes. horses. cats. dogs. foxes. bunnies. praying mantises. crows. ravens. mice. lizards. werewolves. unicorns. pegasi. dragons. rats. doves.

[ FOODS/DRINKS ]

mashed potatoes and gravy. sugar. candy. sun chips. bubblegum. wine. champagne. vodka. beer. ale. cider. coffee. tea. spices. herbs. apples. cream cheese bagel. orange. lemon. cherry. eggnog. strawberry. pasta. watermelon. vegetables. fruits. meats. fish. desserts. chocolate. cream. caramel. berries. nuts. vanilla. cinnamon. burgers. tacos. burritos. pizza. ambrosia. soup. cheese. fast food. meat pie. chex mix.

[ HOBBIES ]

music. art. watercolors. gardening. smithing. sculpting. painting sketching. fighting. writing. composing. cooking. sewing. training. dancing. acting. singing (she’s not any good at it though). martial arts. self-defense. electronics. technology. cameras. video cameras. video games. computer. phone. movies. theater. libraries. books. magazines. cds. records. vinyls. cassettes. piano. violin. guitar. cello. electronic guitar. bass guitar. harmonica. harp. woodwinds. brass. bells. hiking. playing cards. poker chips. pool. chess. dice. motorcycle riding. eating. climbing. tree climbing. running. parkour. spinning. walking. magic.

[ STYLE ]

lingerie. dress. vest. shirt. boots. heels. leggings. trousers. jeans. skirt. jewelry. earings. necklace. bracelet. ring(s). pendant. hat. crown. circlet. helmet. scarf. brocade. cloaks. corsets. ball cap. coat. jacket. hood. gloves. socks. masks. cowls. braces. watches. glasses. sun glasses. visor. eye contacts. makeup. cane. suit. leather pants. stockings. thigh highs. body jewelry.

[FEARS]

porcelain dolls. the dark. fire. open water. deep water. being alone. crowded spaces. confined spaces. change. failure. war. loss of control. powerlessness. prison. blood. drowning. suffocation. public speaking. natural animals. the supernatural. heights. death. dying. intimacy. rejection. abandonment. loss. the unknown. the future. not being good enough. scary stories. speaking to new people. poverty. loud noises. being touched.

[ MISC ]

balloons. bubbles. cityscape. landscape. diligence. light. dark. plants. candles. war. peace. money. power. percussion. clocks. photos. mirrors. pets. diary. fairy lights. madness. sanity. sadness. happiness. optimism. pessimism. loneliness. anger. family. friends. assistants. co-workers. enemies. kindness. love. hugs. ferocity. danger. automatons. metallic. allure. value. intelligent. revolutionary. defiant. dreaming. nightmares. daydreaming. plants.

#i know i have plants on here three times but y’all she loves plants #which is surprising bc she comes across as someone who doesn’t care about anything but hunting #but her love of gardening sorta makes sense when you consider she likes having control over things #and not just flowers but also non-flowering plant and ones that look ‘creepy’#you need some help identifying a plant or a plant-related question? caidyn is your go-to person #she has a degree in horticulture and used to work at a botanical garden #she steals plants from the side of the highway (which might be illegal idk but lbr as a hunter that’s the least serious thing she does)#she steals dying plants from the houses where she works a case #which prob has other hunters looking at her like ??? at first and then over time they just stop caring and let her do it #she doesn’t like florists shops bc they sell cut/dying flowers #her room in the bunker is filled with plants- there are lightbulbs you can use for plants #(well once she actually starts seeing the bunker as a home and not feeling like she’s betraying abby’s memory but that’s a whole different s #about caidyn #long post #sorry this got really long #i could go on all day about her love of plants

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j0hnnyb0y-0 · 5 years

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Maus 2 questions

MAUS II Chapter 1 questions

NOTE: the portion highlighted in grey was messed up, somehow I pulled the wrong questions, however I am going to leave it because I’m not going to waste that time for nothing.

1. Look at the title page for the chapter. What do you think the words and images foreshadow?

I don’t see a foreshadoment but a statement we already know that Vladek and Anja are in Auschwitz so it is no surprise for the new chapter to be labeled Auschwitz with a picture of Jews inside the camp.

2. List 5 events from chapter 1.

· Mala left vladek. This is important because it will be a base for dra when the author switches from Vladeks stories to the at the time the book was written, present.

· Entering Auschwitz. This was very important due to it showing the process one went through in the beginning.

· Vladek helping the pole prisoner with learning English which helped him avoid death for such a long time.

· Vladek getting mandelbaum new clothes. This was important because extra clothed were practically impossible to find.

3. How does Artie feel about his brother Richieu?

He can’t help but feel jealous since his parents seemed to think higher of Richieu.

4. How does the Polish priest try to cheer Vladek up when he finds Vladek crying?

He does a sort of fortune telling with the numbers on his arm. He said that artie had luck on his side.

5. Describe Mandelbaum.

He is a big man however his clothes were too big and one shoe too small which made it hard for him to use both hands when working.

6. How has Vladek changed in this chapter? List two specific examples of him displaying this new trait.

· In real time his health has gotten much worse.

· He also has seemed to open up a little more.

7. What is symbolic about the names “Mauschwitz” and “The Catskills”?

Mauschwits is a play on words with maus and Auschwitz. However “the catskills” I cannot tell. Possibly because it sounds like “the cats kill” or “the cats kills”.

MAUS II Chapter 2 questions

1. Describe pages 40- 47. How does Artie portray himself? What is the importance of this section? Be thoughtful! There is a lot to talk about with these pages. (5 sentences)

He portrays himself as a child. This is due to constant stress making him want to revert to a kid. In a childish sense he wants to cry and not have so many big decisions and responsibilities. The stress is coming from business opportunities that he is uninterested in and deadlines. However, his therapist helps him get through it.

2. Summarize the war part of the story Vladek tells in this chapter. (3-5 sentences)

The only war part I remember and can find is the man claiming to be a German whose son fought in the great war, now commonly called world war one.

3. What is ironic about the last few panels of this chapter?

I cannot see much irony very visibly. It could possibly be that Art says it’s a nice night then goes back inside because there are so many bugs.

MAUS II Chapter 3 questions

1. List 5 events from chapter 3.

· Vladek uses the victim card to return used groceries to get new ones. This is important to Vladeks character. Ever since the holocaust he saves all the money he possibly can and is very stubborn about it.

· The small revolt at Auschwitz. This was important because many small revolts like this go unmentioned in history lessons.

· Vladek almost escaped Auschwitz however, his party heard rumors of the Germans planning to firebomb the area so they didn’t think they could stay, however the bombing never happened. If they had stayed they all would have been free sooner.

· The train cab was very cramped and these panels were very important to show how the conditions for Jews were on the trains.

· Vladek being able to trade food for an extra shirt without lice helped him get more rations which is one of the many ways he survived in such terrible conditions.

2. Artie shares with Vladek a story about Jews revolting and killing 3 SS guards. How does Vladek feel about the story? Explain why Vladek may have this type of reaction. (3-5 sentences)

He didn’t talk long so it is hard to determine. Due to his moan at the end of the explanation he seemed sad that they had to die. He also seemed sad that such good friends of Anja died.

3. How is Vladek able to survive being locked in the cattle car?

With his hammock, he was able to eat snow off of the roof of the train. However in my studies I’ve found eating snow doesn’t work. It takes more energy to melt it than you get in return so to properly use snow for hydration one must melt it first. So in my opinion he wasn’t able to do much of anything he just got lucky.

4. What attitude of Vladek’s disgusts Franciose? Why do you think Spiegelman includes this incident? (5 sentences)

His ironic racism toward black people is what disgusts her. He seems to think of them how Nazis thought of Jews. I think he added it due to the irony of the situation.

5. In this chapter, Vladek can’t remember things from the day before but can recall events from the Holocaust. What does this tell us about his experience?

What I’ve seen in elderly people is that the far past is more clear than the near past so this isn’t surprising. However he probably remembers in so much more detail due to it being so dramatic.

6. Why does Artie use the photograph of Vladek at the end of the book? Why not put the picture at the beginning?

This isn’t a chapter 3 question but I fear moving it there will make you think I didn’t do it. I think he put it there as dramatic effect. Once you put a face to a person only described in words and cartoons, it becomes much more real.

7. What does Spiegelman draw on his parents’ gravestone and why (names and dates are a given)?

MAUS 1 Chapter 4 Questions

1. Look at the title page for the chapter. What do you think the words and images foreshadow?

With the American flag hanging in the background and the title “saved” I believe the American’s will save vladek and anyone with him.

2. Why does Spiegelman introduce us to his family by “panning” around the dining table for close-ups of each? What does this technique accomplish that a simple “mug shot” would not?

3. Why does Vladek lie to his family about the amount of money he makes from his under the table deals? What does this lie reveal about Vladek?

4. What does Spiegelman include in the background of a panel on page 76/82 that tells us that the Germans gave the Poles incentives to expose the Jews?

Those pages for me are chapter 3. I think what is meant is the page where the farmer informs of vladek hiding in his trench. Normally he would have been rewarded and that’s why he exposed them.

5. When did Vladek first hear about Auschwitz, and what was his reaction when he did?

6. Why is deciding whether or not to register at the stadium such a difficult choice for Vladek and his family.

7. List 5 events from chapter 4. Explain their significance.

MAUS Book 2 Chapter 4 questions

1. Look at the title page for the chapter. What do you think the words and images foreshadow?

With the American flag hanging in the background and the title “saved” I believe the American’s will save vladek and anyone with him.

2. List 5 events from chapter 4.

· The Germans rounding up Jews never hurt them, they just left them and ran off both times. This is important because in normal circumstances the Jews would have been murdered however due to the Germans losing the war, they were all too scared to worry about antisemeticism.

· The farmer ratting out Vladek and his friend to the Germans was a great memory that shows how poles and Germans could report Jews for rewards. However, The Germans were too busy fleeing to care.

· One important aspect I would like to point out is the different animals. First there are American’s depicted as dogs which I find fit. When it comes to war American’s are nice until they’re drug into it. Don’t kick the dog, it’ll bite. Also I find it interesting that the Brit’s are fish. I believe this is due to the UK being an island.

· The hospitality of the American’s was another great development. In exchange for easy work the American’s took care of vladek.

· The photo panels were very interesting. It was like taking a time machine through the book, being reminded of all the people who were lost and what happened to them. If only it showed the real pictures.

3. What animal is used to represent the Americans? Why? (go deeper than dogs kill cats, there are other reasons too).

Dogs unlike cats have a great connection with humans so we see them as good rather than evil. Dogs give us attention while (stereotypical) cats ignore us. Also, Tom and Jerry has a similar set up, which isn’t very relevant but worth mentioning.

4. What is symbolic about the scattering of the photographs on pgs. 115-116? (pdf pages 110-111).

I’m not sure. Maybe it wasn’t symbolic and that’s the way they were laid out when they had the conversation. Maybe it’s to draw attention to other more important photos but I cannot be sure.

MAUS Book 2 Chapter 5 questions

1. Look at the title page for the chapter. What do you think the words and images foreshadow?

“The second honeymoon” made me think Art and his wife were going on a trip however I now see that it’s because Vladek I going to Florida.

2. List 5 events from chapter 5.

· Vladek getting typhoid fever wasn’t a total curse, he found out that he had something wrong with him and a year later he found out it was diabetes.

· The war caused damage to train tracks which delayed travel. Luckily he was delayed from his home, which was still full of Nazi sympathizers.

· Toward the end of the book the reader sees the real picture of Vladek which makes the events seem much more real.

· On the last few pages Vladek and Anja finally find each other again. This was a good way to the book, even though we know Anja commits suicide a decade a couple of decades later.

· Besides the past the only other major events in this chapter is Vladeks deteriorating health and Art helping his father the best he can even though his father angers him.

3. In this chapter, Vladek can’t remember things from the day before but can recall events from the Holocaust. What does this tell us about his experience?

NOTE: when I first wrote this is when I messed up my files, I now see he has memory loss however, my statement on remembering dramatic events still stands.

What I’ve seen in elderly people is that the far past is more clear than the near past so this isn’t surprising. However he probably remembers in so much more detail due to it being so dramatic.

4. Why does Artie use the photograph of Vladek at the end of the book? Why not put the picture at the beginning?

. I think he put it there as dramatic effect. Once you put a face to a person only described in words and cartoons, it becomes much more real.

5. What does Spiegelman draw on his parents gravestone and why (do not speak of the names and dates – they are a given)?

The only interesting thing I see is the Star of David which is custom for Jewish graves.

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newstfionline · 8 years

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When a Foreign Government Interfered in a U.S. Election—to Reelect FDR

By Steve Usdin, Politico, January 16, 2017

Covert intelligence operations, propaganda, fake news stories, dirty tricks--all were used in a foreign government’s audacious attempt to influence U.S. elections. It wasn’t 2016; it was 1940, and the operations were employed not by a hostile adversary, but by America’s closest ally, the United Kingdom.

Though technology has advanced, and the two nations’ motives could not have been more different, critical aspects of Russia’s alleged covert efforts to bolster the campaign of Donald Trump echo the tactics that Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service pioneered seven decades ago. In 1940, as war raged in Europe, British intel officers in New York and Washington worked to elect candidates who favored U.S. intervention, defeat those who advocated neutrality, and silence or destroy the reputations of American isolationists they deemed a menace to British security. Scores--perhaps hundreds--of Americans who believed that fighting fascism justified unethical and, at times, illegal behavior, worked for British intelligence or cooperated with London’s efforts.

Winston Churchill’s goals were as clear Vladimir Putin’s motives are murky. Churchill, the U.K.’s savvy wartime prime minister, knew that Britain could survive and repel an anticipated German invasion only if it received massive amounts of aid from the U.S., and that ultimate victory over the Nazis would require American military involvement. He also knew that decisions to send food, fuel and weapons across the Atlantic, and to dispatch troop ships to follow in their wake, lay in the hands of the president and a hostile Congress. To pull the U.S. into Britain’s efforts would require first winning public opinion--making newspapers and radio programs the front lines in the battle to persuade Americans to elect politicians willing to back Britain over those who promoted an “America First” agenda. SIS, the British intelligence agency, flooded American newspapers with fake stories, leaked the results of illegal electronic surveillance and deployed October surprises against political candidates.

Over the 18 months between Britain’s humiliation at Dunkirk and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the scale and intensity of the SIS’s efforts in the United States were without parallel in the history of relations between allied democracies.

The SIS and its American collaborators went to great lengths to obscure the ties between their activities and the British government. These links have since come to light largely because William Stephenson, the Canadian businessman who headed British Security Coordination (BSC), the official front for SIS operations in North and South America from 1941–1945, commissioned a history of the organization’s operation. Declassified in 1999, that history provides a remarkably candid picture of London’s espionage and propaganda activities. Alongside other documents available in the U.K. National Archives, this history shows that, as it sought to shift America out of neutrality, British intelligence was restrained only by the certainty that the blowback from public exposure would have been disastrous.

American communists, fascists and isolationists complained bitterly and loudly in 1940 and 1941 that Britain was secretly manipulating the U.S. media as part of a campaign to pull America into the war. These accusations, confidently dismissed by liberal politicians and newspapers as paranoid ravings, were inaccurate only in that they were understated. Even the most alarmist commentators and conspiracy-mongers underestimated the depth and effectiveness of British covert activity.

British intelligence employed the full range of cloak-and-dagger techniques in America in 1940 and 1941: forgeries, seductions, burglaries, electoral dirty tricks, physical surveillance, intercepting and reading letters sent under diplomatic seal, illegally bugging offices and tapping phones. British intelligence even listened in on a telephone call in June 1940 between President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House and his ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. A report on the call was quickly relayed to Churchill, alerting him that the U.S. was making contingency plans in case the U.K. fell to the Nazis.

While the British government strongly backed Roosevelt, it hedged its bets by working behind the scenes to increase the chances that Republicans would pick a presidential candidate in 1940 who would join the fight against fascism.

The Republican Party, lacking a consensus about a standard-bearer or platform, was in disarray in June 1940 as its national convention approached. BSC worked behind the scenes to smooth the path for a nominee who favored intervention. One element of the BSC’s operations surfaced on June 25, when the New York Herald reported on a poll of convention delegates. Surprisingly, given the isolationist positions espoused by GOP stalwarts like Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft and Herbert Hoover, the poll--which the Herald wrote was “conducted by Market Analysts, Inc., an independent research organization”--found that three-fifths of GOP delegates supported helping the allies “with everything short of war.” In fact, Market Analysts, Inc., was anything but independent. Its head, Sanford Griffith, was an American who had secretly been working for British intelligence since the 1930s, and regardless of the population surveyed, its polls consistently advocated U.S. interventionism in Europe.

Among Market Analysts’ clients was the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, a group led by William Allen White, a nationally syndicated columnist influential among liberal Republicans. In his column, White wrote that the GOP delegate poll demonstrated that leading Republican isolationists were out of touch with the party’s members, and that Wendell Willkie--who had not run in the presidential primaries and had switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican only a few months ahead of the national convention--best represented Republicans’ views. While all of the other Republican contenders advocated steering clear of the war in Europe, Willkie argued that “America’s first line of defense is Great Britain.” It is impossible to determine exactly how influential BSC’s assistance was, but Willkie went into the convention an underdog and--to London’s delight, and the astonishment of the Republican establishment--emerged as the GOP candidate.

In addition to Griffith’s operation, BSC funded and coordinated the activities and messaging of a number of American anti-fascist organizations. One of these, an informal group of wealthy businessmen and journalists called the Century Group, operated during the campaign as a liaison between the British government, the White House and the Willkie campaign. It brokered an agreement from Willkie to refrain from criticizing a proposal that allowed Roosevelt to unilaterally authorize the transfer of scores of mothballed destroyers to Britain. As the first president to snub George Washington’s precedent of voluntarily stepping down after two terms, FDR was acutely aware of the threat posed by accusations that he was behaving like a dictator, so even the hint of such an accusation from the Republican candidate may have scuttled the deal. On August 30, 1940, BSC’s agents secured Willkie’s commitment to acquiesce to the transfer. Assured that he wouldn’t pay a devastating political price, Roosevelt announced the deal at a press conference four days later.

The BSC’s work on Willkie’s behalf was an exception. For the most part, it focused not on promoting candidates, but rather on defeating elected officials who opposed American intervention in the war.

Among those opponents was Rep. Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish III, a Republican and leading isolationist who had represented New York’s Hudson Valley in Congress since 1920. By picking a high-profile target, the campaign against Fish was intended to “put the fear of God into every isolationist senator and congressman in the country,” according to a letter a BSC agent sent in fall 1940.

To do this, the BSC created, funded and operated the Non-Partisan Committee to Defeat Hamilton Fish, which among other activities, circulated a pamphlet juxtaposing Fish, Adolf Hitler and Nazis. Another photo appeared to show Fish meeting with Fritz Kuhn, the “American Hitler” who led the German-American Bund and was, at the time, serving a prison sentence for embezzlement. Contrary to the caption--”Hamilton Fish inspecting documents with Fritz Kuhn”--the Republican congressman had never met privately with Bund leader. The photo had been taken at a 1938 public hearing that Congressman Fish had organized to discuss a proposed ban on paramilitary groups like the Bund.

Another bit of British-engineered fake news had an ironic twist, accusing Fish of being a pawn of a foreign power. They alleged that Nazis funneled money to Fish by renting his properties at inflated high rates as a means of subsidizing pro-German propaganda efforts. On October 21, Drew Pearson and Robert Allen reported the story in their hugely influential Washington Merry-go-Round column--a true October surprise.

Though Fish won reelection, his margin of victory was just 9,000 votes, half the size of his win in 1938. In an after-action report to BSC and since archived at FDR’s presidential library, Griffith stated that the local Democratic Party had put practically no effort into defeating Fish, and that an additional “$2,000 or $3,000 … a week or two ahead would have been sufficient to put it over.” Even after the U.S. entered the war, the BSC stayed on Fish’s case, planting scurrilous stories in 1942 that helped cut his margin of victory to 4,000 votes. In 1944, they finally beat him. Fish claimed it had taken “most of the New Deal Administration, half of Moscow, $400,000, and Governor Dewey to defeat me.” As the BSC history later crowed: “He might--with more accuracy--have blamed BSC.”

In addition to secretly intervening in campaigns, BSC funded and coordinated the efforts of pro-intervention American political organizations and of associations of emigres from Nazi-occupied countries that lobbied Congress and the public for a muscular U.S. response to Hitler.

BSC also tried to shape public opinion by feeding a stream of true, partially true and completely fabricated stories to sympathetic reporters and columnists. Some--like Edgar Ansel Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News and Ulric Bell of the Louisville Courier-Journal--worked directly with British intelligence officers, but most of the journalists who cooperated with BSC did so through American intermediaries. Among them was Walter Winchell, one of the most widely read columnists of the time, who routinely ran BSC items supplied by an intermediary.

Although few of the American reporters and editors who disseminated BSC propaganda were on the British payroll, it is not an exaggeration to characterize them as British agents or “subagents,” the latter being operatives directed by individuals who communicated with professional intelligence officers. In fact, this is precisely how the BSC thought about them. “The conduct of political warfare was entirely dependent on secrecy,” notes the BSC history. “For that reason, the press and radio men with whom BSC maintained contact were comparable with subagents and the intermediaries with agents. They were thus regarded.” In 1991, Edmond Taylor, an American journalist and active collaborator with the Brits during World War II, told a historian that British intelligence agents “connived” with “Americans like myself who were willing to go out of regular (or even legal) channels to try to bend U.S. policy towards objectives that the British, as well as the Americans in question, considered desirable.”

One of the journalists in charge of BSC’s propaganda efforts described his unit’s activities in a 1942 memo to the British Foreign Office without mincing words. He wrote that his remit included “subversive propaganda in the United States for the exposure and destruction of enemy propaganda … [and] countering isolationist and appeasement propaganda which is rapidly taking on the shape of a Fascist movement, conscious or unconscious.” Weekly reports to London from British agents in New York tallied the number of stories that had been planted in American newspapers.

The BSC history draws a straight line from planting pro-British stories in American newspapers to Roosevelt’s decision to send destroyers to England. The transfer happened, according to BSC, because Stephenson had “means at his disposal for influencing American public opinion in favour of aid to Britain. In fact, covert propaganda, one of the most potent weapons which BSC employed against the enemy, was harnessed directly to this task.”

The British government had a well-oiled, coordinated, worldwide strategy during World War II for generating and disseminating rumors, which it called “sibs,” short for sibilare, the Latin word for whisper or hiss. Many of the sibs were silly or outlandish--for example, rumors that man-eating sharks from Australia had been deposited in the English Channel to consume downed German aviators--but British intelligence took them extraordinarily seriously. “The object of propaganda rumours is in no sense to convey the official or semi-official views of H.M.G. [His Majesty’s Government] by covert means to officials in the countries concerned,” read one classified wartime report. “It is rather to induce alarm, despondency and bewilderment among the enemies, and hope and confidence among the friends, to whose ears it comes.”

New sibs were approved by an organization called the Underground Propaganda Committee (UPC), which met weekly in London during the war. While rumors spread in Europe by word of mouth, in the U.S., they were disseminated through a network of friendly reporters and, starting in the spring of 1941, by the Overseas News Agency, a news service that received subsidies from, and was controlled by, the BSC. ONA articles appeared in newspapers around the country. Especially prior to Pearl Harbor, these stories were picked up by newspapers in Germany, Japan and occupied countries.

To cite a typical example, at a meeting of the UPC on August 8, 1941, a decision was made to release a series of sibs that, according to the meeting minutes, were “intended to suggest that the Fuehrer, who is alone responsible in the face of a good deal of opposition for the Russian campaign, is becoming more and more unbalanced as he realises that the vast gamble is miscarrying.” Eight days later, the New York Post ran an article supplied by ONA citing “circumstantial evidence for a belief that Hitler is not at the Russian front, but at Berchtesgaden suffering from a severe nervous breakdown.” The article went on to assert that the Fuehrer’s personal physician had recently traveled to Switzerland to consult with the famed psychiatrist Carl Jung to discuss “the rapid deterioration of Hitler’s mental condition,” which ONA asserted was characterized by delusional rages in which he confused the contemporary battle for Smolensk with a World War I battle in France.

On July 11, 1941, the UPC approved a sib for distribution in the U.S. newspapers, where Japanese diplomats would read it, indicating that if Tokyo attacked Indochina, the Soviet Union would attack Japan by air. The next day, the New York Times and other American newspapers ran an AP story that cited “reliable persons” reporting that Japan was poised to “make a move against French Indo-China soon.” The story noted that “Russia has a large air force within easy range of Japan’s vulnerable centers of population.”

In August 1941, the New York Times published ONA’s report that the death of a 130-year-old Bedouin soothsayer was seen in the Middle East as “a sign of a coming defeat for Hitler.” Also in the soothsaying business, the BSC sponsored a U.S. tour for Louis de Wohl, a Hungarian “astro-philosopher.” In press conferences and an appearance at the annual convention of the American Federation of Scientific Astrologers, de Wohl announced that the stars predicted doom for Hitler and success for Roosevelt. Newspapers credulously reported his statement that a “yogi once told me a man born on the date Hitler came into power would cause his downfall. Hitler rose to power on Jan. 30, and that is Roosevelt’s birth date.”

The BSC operations in the U.S. weren’t all frivolity and fake news; many were much more serious.

The BSC targeted the embassy used by the Vichy French, illegally tapping its phones, burglarizing embassy property and deploying a female operative to seduce Vichy officials. That intel was then used as the basis for a series of newspaper articles revealing Vichy diplomats’ efforts to help Nazi Germany--stories that the BSC then arranged to be printed under the byline of an American journalist. The resulting public furor severely curtailed the Vichy government’s American activities.

With the clarity of hindsight, some may write off as a historical curiosity the extraordinary efforts by Britain to influence American public opinion and the results of elections, arguing that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s impetuous declaration of war vaporized notions of neutrality, rendering efforts to propel America into the war superfluous. But in fact, given the depth and strength of the opposition to FDR’s efforts to support Britain in 1940 and 1941--and the importance of that lifeline, which pro-British propaganda made possible--it is clear that the efforts of British intelligence officers and their American recruits helped change history.

In the summer of 1941, the Roosevelt administration strained its political muscles in an all-out push to persuade Congress to amend an emergency military conscription law and extend mandatory service from one year to 2½ years. After the White House exerted all its strength, on August 12, the House passed the extension by a one-vote margin. It is easy to imagine, though impossible to prove, that the efforts of the BSC’s operatives to bend the public and bully politicians away from isolationism, tipped the balance in favor of the law. If it had not squeaked through Congress, the U.S. military would have had to send tens of thousands of men home, substantially weakening the position of American forces on the verge of war.

Steve Usdin is the author of Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley. This article is adapted from Usdin’s forthcoming book, Spying Between the Lines.

#Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service #World War II #British Security Coordination #FDR #Steve Usdin #Spying Between the Lines

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