#lilliana makes me so mad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ahungeringknife · 1 year ago

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Fire and Hibiscus

February 4-12

Around February I said to myself 'I don't have NEARLY enough lesbians in Entropy' and I had in the back of my head that Chandra and Brilliant were an item. So I decided I needed to write them. It's more about Chandra becoming the head of the Praxic Order but BOY does she think about the fact that her gf is covered in flowers so much. So much 'flowers are vaginas' symbolism in this fic.

Chandra stormed out of Lilliana-8’s office furious, her head ablaze in a very unbecoming way for a powerful Sunsinger like herself. She’d been trying to advocate for Von again but Lilliana wasn’t hearing any of it. She and the heads of the other Warlock Orders wouldn’t hear a word about what Chandra was saying. She’d hoped that Lilliana, as the head of her Order, would listen to her. No dice.

Von was waiting down the hall from the Praxic Order’s office. Like Chandra he was young looking for a Guardian but still not a child. “I take it it didn’t go well?” he asked, leaning against the wall. His fluffy blond hair and big blue eyes did him no favors in making him look like a kid.

Chandra stopped, took a deep breath to master herself, and snuffed out her scalp. “No,” she said in annoyance.

Von folded his arms. “What’d happen if I just left though?” he asked.

“I imagine they’d send Legion members to bring you home,” Chandra said, furious even to have to tell her friend that. Von frowned, blue eyes casting down.

“So now what?” he asked quietly.

“Either ask Ikora to intervene, which she hates doing to the Orders, or get in with the Legion somehow.”

“Yeah right. You, friends with Hunters? That’s a joke, right, Cherry?” he asked.

“You could do it too,” Chandra said.

“I don’t know how to talk too Hunters are you kidding me,” he said, sky blue eyes wide as he looked at her.

Chandra made an annoyed noise but didn’t disagree. Von was not really a people person when it came to not-Warlocks. Titans, Hunters, and Lightless tended to just not be able to keep up. Or they found him annoying. “You’re right.”

“Not like this is my fault,” he reminded her.

“I know. Which is why it pisses me off so much,” she said, angry again, Solar Light licking at her stomach. “Lilliana said she couldn’t on the grounds you’ve never been cleared for live fire but no one wants to get you there and I’m not authorized,” she folded her arms.

“Let’s worry about it later,” Von said helpfully. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It’s humiliating,” Chandra said.

“Only if you know. Let’s go down to the City and do something. No use getting mad about this,” he suggested.

Chandra released her Light and it simmered away. “Okay.” She felt bad she couldn’t help her friend more. It was hard being Guardians who looked young. No one took you seriously. Especially when all the Orders were very protective of Von. It was suffocating just to be around she knew it was worse for him. “Let’s go,” and she put an arm around his shoulders as they headed for the top of the Tower.

Being a Warlock made it weird making Hunter friends. They were always usually friendly but there was an unspoken thing that left Warlocks and Titans as Outsiders among Hunter friends. But Chandra was stubborn and after a few weeks had weaseled her way into being a small gang’s token Warlock. Wasn’t too hard really. She just was a good sport about their antics and laughed along with the dumb things they did. She knew she was in when she was invited over for a game of cards.

It was just a small get together where her new friends were eating chips and drinking way too much soda. She thought it was just a hang out then Vella said, ‘Let’s play cards’ and Chandra was still there. She knew they usually played when she wasn’t around or they finished up a game when she came around. Hunter cards were a very In the Know sort of game. Not secretive so much as Hunters were just very coy with who they invited to their table. She’d seen Hunters play it but she’d never been at the table and never been invited. She had looked up the cards in the game and was boggled by the sheer volume of them.

“Oh! We should play my deck first. I got some new ones,” Echo-9 said as they cleared the table.

“Yeah from the bargain bin at Cardestry?” Vella teased her.

“Nooo. I saved up. I got a whole suite from Brilliant-

“No fucking way!”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah right you saved up for a whole suite from Brilliant.”

“Cough ‘em up and lets see. I don’t believe you,” Chandra’s friends all talked over Echo.

“I did so!” Echo cried. “Here,” and they flipped through their deck and pulled out six cards. “My friend has an entire deck of Brilliant so I went and got some for myself,” she said proudly.

The Hunters all grabbed one of the cards leaving one behind. Chandra carefully reached out and picked it up as the Hunters inspected the cards. “They are Brilliant,” Vella said softly.

“Told you!”

“Why’d you pick the Blades suite? They’re a bad suite.”

“No way. They’re so cool,” Echo said.

“Probably cheapest,” Haji teased.

“Shut up you!”

Chandra looked at the card she’d picked up. It had a Hunter in shader and in their hand were a fan of three knives in contrast to the dark. The card itself looked like it’d been painted and finished. The picture was framed in intricate lines and along the bottom was the name of the card ‘Three of Blades’. It was a beautiful card. Despite being in shadow the Hunter figure was beautifully rendered and Chandra could make out intricate details done in the tiniest of brushes. Chandra remembered seeing the Blades suite when looking up the cards but all the images she’d seen looked nothing like this.

“Okay okay everyone give them back and we can play,” Echo said.

Chandra handed the card back. “I don’t know how to play,” she said sheepishly.

“We’ll teach you!” Vella said.

“Yeah. It’s not hard,” Haji said.

“Especially not for a big brain Warlock,” Cal grinned.

“I did look up cards before. Those don’t look like the ones I’ve seen.”

“Hell no,” Haji said as Echo shuffled. “They’re custom.”

“Cards can be custom?”

“Pffft. Yeah girl. So long as they got the name on them they can look like anything.”

“So you got your cards from a Brilliant store-“ Chandra hated when they all laughed at her and her cheeks burned.

“Store. Nah. Brilliant’s a card artist,” Cal said.

“The best,” Vella said.

“No like actually the best,” Echo said.

“You said you have a friend with a deck of Brilliant?” Vella asked.

“Bullshit.”

“No it’s true! Her boyfriend got it for her. He convinced Brilliant somehow. I have no idea. I was playing with her the other day and some friends and they’re insaaane,” Echo said glowingly as she dealt everyone some cards.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Haji scoffed.

“I’ll invite her next time. If she’s not busy. She’s a big shot Legion Scout-

“Uggghh.”

“Jealous,” Vella whined.

“Not me,” Haji said. “Scouts get shit missions.” And Chandra looked at the cards she’d been dealt and felt so lost while the others bantered and put down cards seemingly at random.

Lukas leaned over where he was sitting next to her and very obviously looked at her cards. She didn’t mind she didn’t know what to do with them. “The card in play is part of the SUROS suite, see there,” he pointed at a symbol she’d missed in the upper corner of the card. “That’s the suite, and then its order,” it was a couple of triangles stacked on top of each other. “You can only play up or down in the suite and order unless you have a switch card.”

“… What’s that?” She had no SUROS cards.

“Light card. You don’t have one. Draw,” he said. The others were all sitting and waiting quietly and patiently while Lukas told Chandra how to play. She drew. Not SUROS or a Light.

“Pass?” Chandra asked and Lukas gave her a thumbs up. Her friends played more cards and talked cheerfully. By the time it got back to her it was a different suite but she had no idea how it’d changed suite because no Light cards had been played. But she did have a card for this new suite but it wasn’t in the right order. Her card was lower.

Lukas leaned over again. “So draw and then pick up,” he said. She drew.

“Pick up? How many?” she asked.

“However many you want,” he said, testing her. She picked up enough cards to be the bottom of the stack. “Now you can still play.” She played her original card and then a few pieces of the suite but kept back the top of the stack on instinct. “And that’s the basic rules,” he said and sat back.

They went a few more rotations but Chandra couldn’t keep up. She quickly accumulated way too many cards and couldn’t put them down in an orderly or timely fashion. It was incredibly frustrating. Then before she’d done much the game was over. “You flashy fucker,” Echo complained to Haji who’d last card was almost a pure purple color that just said ‘Void’ on the bottom.

“How’d you do, Chandra?” Lukas asked her.

She put her cards down in frustration. “This game is bullshit!” That made them all laugh.

After another meeting with Lilliana-8 Chandra was about at the end of her ability to deal with annoying, self important, older Warlocks. She never had a problem listening to authority, especially in a Solar Order but she hated them talking down to her. She wasn’t even young! She just looked young. Another meeting of Lilliana telling her her stance on Von hadn’t changed and in the most diplomatic way possible had told Chandra to let it go or she’d earn no friends amid the Praxic Order. Right. As if being annoying got you demerits in the Praxic. If that was the case Aunor would have been thrown out decades ago.

She was heading to go blow off some Light in a constructive way, crafting Everlight, when Phoenix came out and chirped at her indicating she had a call. “Yes?” she asked, a step away from irritation.

“You busy?” it was Echo-9.

“… No,” she allowed swallowing her anger at Lilliana.

“Great! Will you come with me and Vella? We’re going to play cards with my friend.”

“I don’t like playing cards,” Chandra said. The game had deceptively simple rules but it seemed like they could be broken for any reason!

“I knoooooow. But she’s got a Warlock friend who plays and Vella said we couldn’t be shown up.”

Chandra almost said no but she knew how important it was to Hunters to appear to be on the same level as their peers even if they weren’t. “Is it important to show off?” Chandra sighed.

“Yes,” Echo said. “It’s going to be some Legion.”

“Fine,” Chandra rolled her eyes. If it was Legion then it was important to her friends to at least look like they were on the same level. She was in the know enough to know her friends were middling Guardians when it came to the Light or combat. Not the best but by no means the worst. They were just average. Average for Guardians was still on the level of demi-gods compared to Lightless but that was besides the point. Legion Scouts were cream of the crop for Hunters. An extremely exclusive gang hand picked by their Commander. “Where is it?”

“I’ll send the coords,” Echo said brightly. “Come now. We’re meeting soon.”

“Do I need to dress up?”

“If you want,” and she could imagine Echo’s shrug. She hung up.

She didn’t change her robes out and let Phoenix guide her to where this Hunter meet up was happening. It was a rec room of some sort with a big table. She recognized Echo and Vella and three other cloaks and the Warlock Echo mentioned. It was a sort of blue Awoken woman, a tanned skin human man, and another human with hooded eyes. The EXO had an oilslick paint job. “There you are!” Echo called brightly as she came up to the table.

“I came as soon as you called,” Chandra said. There was a chair open and she sat next to Vella.

“This is Chandra,” Echo said introducing her. “Chandra this is Savant-3, Eric, Guppy, and Cho,” she pointed at each of the Scouts and Warlock in turn. Savant was the non Scout.

“Oh good I don’t get to be the only token Warlock for once,” Savant said and the Scouts chuckled. “I might even have an intelligent conversation for once,” he grinned.

Chandra side eyed her friends, “If you can get a word in edgewise with these guys.”

“Booo,” Echo jeered and Vella sputtered her tongue at Chandra making her grin. The other Hunters thought that was funny too.

“Who we playing first?” Cho asked.

“Like that’s a question,” Guppy rolled his eyes.

“So sorry not everyone wants to play with your beat up cards,” Eric giggled and pulled out a deck box.

“Your deck also sucks,” Savant said.

“You just are bad at playing it,” Guppy grumbled.

Eric shuffled amid her friends bantering and dealt the cards around the table. Chandra picked up her hand and felt her breath leave her for a moment. She’d seen some other custom cards in her friends’ decks but they weren’t like this. The only cards she’d seen like this in person or on the net were Echo’s Blade suite. They were beautiful and perfectly detailed and done in immaculate watercolor in rich hues and even though they were watercolor the bleed was minimal and where it wasn’t was on purpose. They were single handedly the most beautiful things she’d ever held.

On Vella’s other side Echo groaned. “I still can’t believe you have a whole deck of Brilliant,” she lamented.

“Trust me; me too,” Eric grinned as Guppy played the first card as being on her left.

Chandra was so invested in looking at the cards she didn’t hear most of the conversation around the table and she just drew a card and passed without even looking at the game. She did that two more times before she finally pulled her head above water and realized the game had progressed quickly and everyone was having a conversation or banter around her while she’d had her head in the art. She drew and played two cards that were sequenced properly.

Then it was Savant’s turn and after squinting at his cards picked up half the play pile. “Fuck,” she heard someone mutter from the Scout side of the table.

“Oh fuck indeed,” Savant said and laid down six cards smugly.

“Wait your Warlock actually know how to play? No fair!” Echo cried.

Eric laughed. “Well duh he knows how to play. Doesn’t Chandra?”

Vella and Echo both looked at Chandra guiltily. “No,” Vella said.

“I can sort of play,” Chandra said.

“Oops. Well sorry. We’re playing for keeps on this side,” Cho said.

“I’m… used to losing,” Chandra said with a tight smile.

“Me too!” Savant said cheerfully. He offered her a hand to high five and she stared at it a moment before engaging. “The real trick isn’t even winning, it’s just not being the one with the worst hand at the end.”

“That’s right,” Eric told him and drew her card.

“You didn’t tell me he actually knew how to play,” Echo complained.

“Why would I invite him if he couldn’t?” Eric asked and played six cards as well.

“Oi! No cheating,” Guppy suddenly leaned around and pointed accusingly at Savant.

“I’m not cheating.”

“You fucking are,” Guppy said, dark eyes narrowed.

“I don’t even know how to do card tricks,” Savant waved him away.

“Setting up for Eric is cheating you shit,” he growled.

“Yeah no eating the deck,” Cho said.

Eric batted him back into his seat. “Deck eating’s a legal move if you don’t catch it in the act. Now sit down and play your card.”

Chandra leaned over to Vella. “What’s deck eating?” she asked her quietly.

“It’s where you play a move that doesn’t benefit your own game but benefits someone else instead,” Vella said back quietly while the Scouts and Savant were bickering over if it was cheating or not. “If you’re caught on your turn doing it it’s an illegal move but if the next person has made a move already it’s totally legal. It’s really hard to pull off more than once.”

Chandra didn’t understand how it’d be hard more than once. There were so many cards. Surely they couldn’t know what Savant and Eric had. This was play above her head. Everyone eventually played a round and it got back to Savant. Guppy and Cho leaned across the table watching him and Savant just drew. “Pass.”

“Bullshit!” Cho banged on the table.

“I can pass, fuck you,” Savant said.

“Passing isn’t illegal, by the Traveler,” Eric said, picking up. “Also be careful. Don’t bend my cards,” she scolded Cho. She placed four cards. All the Hunters except Eric were now glaring at Savant who had a blissfully pleased look on his face.

“… What just happened?” Chandra asked. She hated not knowing what was going on.

“Savant didn’t play a card he could play so Eric could play more cards,” Echo said.

“I didn’t have a card,” Savant said.

“You got a damn Ruby Ghost I don’t want to hear that shit,” Guppy grumbled.

“Who knows,” Savant said with a cheerful smile.

“So that’s not… eating the deck?” Chandra asked.

“Fucking barely. Prick,” Cho grumbled. “This is why I hate playing with couples. They always do this shit.”

“Tanner and Fern don’t,” Eric said.

“That’s because the only person who likes knocking Tanner down a peg than Guppy is Fern,” Cho scoffed. Guppy snorted as he played his own cards.

“He likes it,” Guppy said as Cho played now.

“Who’s that?” Echo asked.

“Scout. He’s a real idiot. Almost as much as Savant,” he jerked a thumb at Savant.

“He’s a sore loser,” Savant said to explain. “I bet he wouldn’t be so high strung if Fern just bent him over once or twice-“ That made Cho and Guppy roar with laughter.

Chandra was totally confused by the conversation and then it got into talking about Hunter stuff. Chandra knew very little about Hunter things. She also did note that while they were talking they’d add a hand sign in now and then and Echo and Cho had an entire side conversation in sign while Vella and Chandra were taking their turns to not add to the cacophony.

The game went around the table a few more times before Eric won on a beautifully painted Eclipse card. Guppy and Cho complained the entire time it was because Savant had eaten half the deck for her but they’d never caught him doing it. They shuffled and played again and this time Guppy and Cho were on Savant like hawks. Eric didn’t win that game, Vella managed to scrape one out. They played another three games and by the time they were done Chandra had a pounding headache.

She was glad when it was over and she could get up. The others all kept talking and Chandra went to get something to drink in the rec room’s little kitchen area. It was a fridge, some counter space, and a water cooler. Phoenix fabricated a cup for her and she took a much needed drink.

She looked over when she heard someone come around. “Oh, Savant,” she said.

“You played pretty well for having no idea what was happening,” Savant said cheerfully.

“Thanks. I don’t know how you handle it.”

“It’s easier when you just play along with their hyjinx,” he smiled.

“Is Eric your girlfriend?” she asked because Echo said Eric’s deck had been given to her by a boyfriend.

“More or less,” Savant shrugged.

“So you talked to this Brilliant person?”

“Yeap,” he said brightly.

“Could you introduce me?”

Savant cocked his head to the side. “Why? You not getting cards are you?”

“Fuck no,” she said with such disdain he laughed. “They’re just… beautiful. Echo has a Blades by her and Eric’s entire deck is by her?” Savant nodded. “I just want to tell her how beautiful her work is really and maybe buy some for myself. Not to use. I just want to put it up on my wall.”

“Oooh. Yeah she does that too if that’s your speed.”

“Really?”

“Mhm! She has them already in shadow boxes in everything. And they come in bigger than card sized.”

“That’s amazing. How have I never heard of her?”

“She’s really shy and Hunters are pretty protective of her. They know she’s shy and doesn’t want to be bothered except to sell her cards so they don’t usually tell Warlocks or Titans where they can find her studio. Which is a shame because I think a lot more Hunters would have her cards if they told their partners about her,” Savant explained.

“Oh. Well could you still introduce me? She might be less shy if someone she knew was around. And she must like you if she made Eric a whole deck. Echo’s been gushing about her Blades and Brilliant for days and they must be pretty special,” Chandra said.

“Hmmm. Yeah I guess I could introduce you,” Savant said thoughtfully. “Give me your Ghost link. I’ll contact you when I have some spare time.”

“Great!” Chandra said excitedly and Phoenix came out to share links with Savant’s ringed Ghost.

“Savant,” Eric called and they both looked. “I’m going. You coming?” Eric asked, she was by the door now.

“Yeah! See ya, Chandra,” he waved and joined Eric. They left together.

Chandra went back to the table where her friends were talking to Guppy and Cho about different types of knives. “I think I’m also going to head out,” she said.

“Oh?! Really. Okay. Thanks for coming and hanging out,” Echo said.

“We had a lot of fun,” Vella beamed at her.

“Don’t invite me next time,” Chandra said, deadpan. That made her friends giggle and she grinned.

“Nice meeting you,” Cho waved.

“Don’t feel too bad about your play,” Guppy said. “I’ve been with my partner who’s a Warlock for like six centuries. He can’t play for shit.”

“Thanks-

“Whaaaat, I didn’t know your partner was a Warlock,” Echo said. “Shameful,” she said sarcastically. Chandra rolled her eyes and headed out.

“What can I say? I’m a simple guy. He’s got a pretty face and a nice ass-“ and they all laughed. Chandra was glad when she could put the door between them and her. She needed a nap after that.

When Chandra met Savant it was in a part of the Wall she’d never been. He was waiting at an unmarked door humming to himself. “There you are,” he said brightly when she came up to him.

“This is it?”

“Yeap,” and Savant knocked on the door.

The door opened just enough to reveal the glowing white eye set in a sunshine yellow face plate. “Savant,” Brilliant looked at Savant and then at Chandra nervously. Then she looked back at Savant. “Is something wrong with your cards?”

“Hey! And no no, nothing like that. This is my friend Chandra, can we come in?” he asked cheerfully. Chandra would be pressed to call Savant her friend but whatever.

Slowly Brilliant opened the door and Savant stepped in. Chandra did after him and Brilliant quietly closed the door. She was the same height as Chandra but stood with a slouch so looked shorter and had a white scarf wrapped around her neck and the back of her head so you could see the amazing magenta hibiscus painted on the side of her metal scalp like the most beautiful tattoo.

“Did you need something?” Brilliant asked in a soft spoken way that made the hair on the back of Chandra’s neck prickle with delight. She had such a sweet and soft voice with just the slightest hint of electrical fry.

“Chandra wanted to buy one of your art cards,” Savant said when Chandra found she’d swallowed her tongue.

“Oh! Really? Oh… well which one did you have in mind?” Brilliant asked.

Everything Chandra wanted to say went out the window. Chandra had heard her friends say they sometimes couldn’t talk to people they had crushes on and Chandra always thought that was silly. It just wasn’t reasonable or logical to be an idiot around someone just because you thought they were attractive.

She was eating her words today.

Savant elbowed her in the ribs and she nearly spat out a little gout of flame in surprise. “I don’t know I’ve not seen all your cards. Just the ones in Eric’s deck and some Blade cards,” she said in a rush.

“Oh. Are you friends with Echo?” Brilliant asked.

“Y-yes,” she nodded stiffly.

“Echo’s so nice. I’m glad she finally has a new friend,” Brilliant said and her eyes shuttered in a way to look like crescents or drawn happy eyes. “I have finished cards over here,” she said and moved around the two Warlocks to a small sitting area. Chandra had been completely oblivious to anything except Brilliant before so she’d missing the sitting area and the neat boxes filled with cards or even her work station on the other side of the room. On one wall she also had framed and shadow boxed cards and larger pieces of art. They were so beautiful and Chandra felt herself drawn to them. She looked at the framed pieces before sitting on the sofa next to Savant. “So what class are you?” Brilliant asked her after writing something on a notebook.

“Solar,” Chandra said.

“Uh-huh,” and Brilliant wrote that in her notebook she had balanced on the arm of the chair with a light but quick hand. “What’s your Ghost’s name?”

“Phoenix. She’s real quiet though so don’t expect a look at her,” she added quickly.

“That’s okay,” Brilliant said with a slight smile to her EXO face, writing that down too. “And are you in an Order?”

“Yeah. I’m a Praxic Warlock.”

“Really? That’s cool,” Brilliant said.

“I didn’t know that,” Savant said. “You’re way too cool to be a Praxic Warlock. They’re all so fucking stuffy and up their own asses-

“I know!” Chandra cried making Savant chuckle.

Brilliant looked through her card box and Chandra was drawn to the delicate way her lithe fingers moved the cards. The metal on her hands was painted white and there was more plants painted on the top of her hands and up the inner part of her arm but that was hidden behind a loose fitting sweatshirt she was wearing. She eventually picked out a card. “Here,” she handed two cards to Chandra.

For a moment Chandra couldn’t breathe. They were so beautiful and done in oil pastel but at their size Brilliant would have had to control them with her mind or maybe the Light to make them so fine and perfect. One was simply The Sun. A radiant card of a stylized sun that almost felt warm. The other was Osiris but it didn’t depict the man. Rather it was a Dark Age style phoenix which looked like the cross between a cardinal and an American road runner with the tail feathers of a peacock. Each of the false eyes was a spectacular color of fire and the bird was displayed freshly born from its own ashes as it eclipsed the sun.

“They’re amazing,” Chandra said softly.

“Thank you.”

“No I mean it. I’ve seen some other Guardians who take up art but I’ve never seen anyone who can make something so small and perfect,” she insisted.

Brilliant tugged on her scarf in what was clearly a nervous habit. “I just do what I enjoy,” she said.

“The Hunters better appreciate your work or I’ll set them on fire personally,” Chandra said. Next to her Savant snorted.

“They do,” Brilliant said.

“I’ll take both these. How much?” Chandra asked.

“You can have them.”

“What? No you should be compensated,” Chandra insisted.

“It’s okay. You can just have them,” Brilliant said with those happy curved eyes of hers. “I charge Hunters when they come looking for something specific. I don’t charge for gifts.”

“But-

“Just take ‘em,” Savant said. “She’s not going to take your glimmer. Trust me I tried when she made Eric’s deck after I learned how expensive they were. Girl won’t take an ounce.”

Chandra looked at Savant, “You didn’t buy that deck?”

“Nope,” Savant said cheerfully. “Do not tell anyone that either,” he added.

Chandra didn’t like that she was getting something so beautiful for nothing. “Do you do commissions?” Chandra asked Brilliant.

“Sometimes. If I like the project,” she said and thumped the end of her pen on the open notebook.

“Can I commission you?”

Brilliant blinked at her a few times. “Maybe. What do you want?”

“I’m not sure yet. Can I come back when I figure it out?”

“Sure.”

Chandra stood up abruptly, already thinking about it. “Thank you,” and then she walked out and as soon as she did she realized she looked like an absolute freak.

Savant came out a moment later while Chandra had her head against the wall feeling like an idiot. “You good? You left your cards,” he offered her the beautiful Sun and Osiris cards.

She took them miserably. “I’m an idiot,” she groaned.

“No you’re not. I’m an idiot,” Savant said helpfully. Chandra just thumped her head on the wall a few times lightly. “Ohhhh, it’s one of those ‘I’m an idiot’, moments,” he said in an understanding way.

Chandra didn’t know any other Warlocks who dated Hunters. Everyone in the Praxic Order either dated other Warlocks or Titans. “How’d you start dating Eric?”

“Oh we’re not dating,” Savant said. “I’m just her best friend. I like guys,” he said very unhelpfully.

Chandra narrowed her brown eyes at him. “Echo said you were her boyfriend and so did Cho and Guppy that other day,” she said.

“It’s complicated but I won’t get it into,” Savant said at a strain. “But I just started hanging out around her,” he shrugged. “Hunters like having not Hunter friends even if they’ll never admit it. Me and Eric met on a strike and then after just hung out on Venus for like three days.”

“So… what? Just make a fool of myself and bother her?” Chandra asked, annoyed.

“Sure! That sounds like a great idea. Hunters have a high tolerance for bullshit,” he said cheerfully. “Hunters also like gifts, especially food. Even if Brilliant is an EXO I bet she still drinks coffee or tea. Probably what would be an unhealthy amount for an organic,” he said thoughtfully. “But I’ve never met a Hunter who couldn’t be won over with flattery and gifts. Even Jaxon and he’s super against other classes. Some Dark Age trauma or something,” he waved it away before Chandra could ask.

“So make a fool of myself until she likes me,” Chandra said and wasn’t looking forward to that but she knew that delicate EXO face would be on her mind all day and so would that beautiful hibiscus on the side of her face.

“Basically.”

Chandra gave Savant a look. “This advice sucks but thanks,” and she left. Savant laughed after her.

Chandra stood outside Lilliana-8’s office with her heart in her throat. But she had no other choice at this point. No concession was being made and she hated seeing her friend being constantly denied his own autonomy. It wasn’t the way Guardians should behave and yet…

She knocked and Lilliana called her in. “Chandra,” Lilliana said, already tired of seeing her. She knew what argument they were about to have. Or so she thought. “My dear do we have to do this again? I still haven’t changed my mind.”

“I know,” Chandra said standing at her full height. It was customary to sit when you entered Lilliana’s office so you were on the same level as her but Chandra would not be doing that today. “And your stalwart decision, a wrong decision, is why I’m here now. I am no longer asking you to consider changing your stance on allowing Von to become live fire ready.”

“Oh. That’s wonderful-

“I am here to arrest the leadership of the Praxic Order from you because I can no longer watch you or the other Order leaders commit wrongful imprisonment of Von,” Chandra said and her heart was beating so loudly in her ears.

Lilliana blinked slowly. “Think about what you’re saying, girl,” Lilliana said and there was very little kindness in her voice.

“I am. And my friend is worth more than you. So you can step down peacefully or I will fight you as you are no longer fit to lead our Order-

Lilliana got to her feet and Chandra swallowed. “You’re a smart girl, Chandra. Think carefully,” she said quietly. Solar Light flickered in Lilliana’s yellow EXO eyes.

“I have received approval by the Vanguard to bring this to a natural conclusion. I have also received signatures of all major Warlock Order Leaders that my desire for a change in our Order is sanctioned. You are no longer fit to lead the Praxic Order,” Chandra said and was so proud of herself that her voice didn’t shake.

Lilliana’s eyes narrowed. “You want a dangerous path, Chandra. You sound like Eriana-3 when I didn’t give her permission to lead a small strike team to the Moon. And look where it got her.”

“You are so concerned with maintaining your own power and authority you do not allow members of our Orders to follow their calling to disrupt the forces of the Darkness, wherever they may be.”

“I value Guardian lives, fool girl!” Lilliana cried.

“You value controlling Guardian lives!” Chandra cried back. “Now do you surrender peacefully or will it be a trial?” she demanded.

“I have been head of the Praxic Order for a long time, girl. I will not give it up to some child in a long coat.”

Chandra’s eyes narrowed. “I am not a child. You are old and afraid. That is no way for the leader of the Praxic Order to behave. I will schedule a private arena with Shaxx for tomorrow. No weapons. We begin promptly at noon. If you don’t appear it will be an automatic forfeit,” Chandra said like she’d practiced.

“I will be there. And when this is over you will no longer be a Praxic, girl,” Lilliana said and pointed at her aggressively.

“An indignity I will not force upon you when I win,” Chandra said and bowed stiffly. “Good day, Lilliana. May the Light be Eternal,” and she left without another word. When she left the office she realized how stiffing hot it was because of how cool the hallway was. She swallowed and kept her head up as she walked from the office. She’d do this.

Brilliant answered the door when she knocked. “Oh, Chandra,” she said looking up at her with a look of great fondness.

“Can I come in?” Chandra asked.

“Of course,” Brilliant let her in. Chandra immediately went and slumped in the sitting area. “What’s wrong?”

“I am doing something foolish and dangerous,” Chandra said.

“Ah. So like a typical Guardian,” Brilliant said and sat at her plush chair with her notebook as usual.

“I challenged my Order leader to the leadership position, to be determined via combat; tomorrow,” Chandra said.

“Oh. That’s a thing you Warlocks do huh?”

“Yeah. How do Hunters settle those disputes?”

“We leave,” and Chandra looked at her. “If there an issue of leadership in a gang the person who thinks they can do better leaves. Those who agree with them join the new gang,” Brilliant said. “But we do not fight among ourselves.”

“Never thought I’d hear that from a Hunter,” Chandra said.

“There’s nothing to prove,” Brilliant said. “If you don’t like it, you leave. Often your friends or supporters leave with you. If everyone leaves except for the old leader that gang is gone and that leader might even join the new gang. It happens fairly often,” she added thoughtfully.

“I never hear about it,” Chandra said but she absolutely heard about the transfer of power in Warlock Orders or Titan Hosts. It didn’t happen often but it did happen.

“It’s nothing to talk about so we don’t talk about it,” Brilliant said. “Why are you challenging your leader anyway?”

“My friend Von is forbidden from leaving the City.”

“Why?”

“He’s not live fire ready and no one’s allowed to train him.”

“Why?”

“He’s a got a… different connection to the Light than a typical Guardian. The Orders are worried he’ll go out and get himself killed.”

“And what’s that?” Brilliant asked and Chandra didn’t miss her making a note.

“So you know how there’s only so much Light you can channel before you get overloaded?” Brilliant nodded. “He doesn’t get that. He has no upper limit to how much Light he can transfer. Which is really helpful in a lot of research about the Light and stuff if you have someone who can just have Light dumped into him. And when he’s got enough he can produce really large motes of Light. That’s the only thing I’ve seen that tires him out. He can make maybe two or three and then he’s tapped.”

“How interesting,” Brilliant said, making more notes. “Well you’re a good friend if you want to help him,” she smiled brightly as her name at Chandra and it was the first time this meeting she forgot how to talk. Usually she was so flustered and awkward around Brilliant. The looming fight with Lilliana made her less flustered.

“So you don’t think it’s dumb?”

“Oh absolutely,” Brilliant giggled. “But you Warlocks take everything so serious. Its a nice change of pace.”

Chandra looked at her cheerful face and for not the first time imagined holding it between her hands and seeing if EXOs were as warm as everyone insisted. She had taken Savant’s suggestion to heart and had just made herself a bothersome pest to Brilliant for several weeks but she never seemed to mind and if anything she was very comfortable with Chandra. She certainly loved whenever Chandra came with coffee or treats and they’d spend a while talking while eating the snacks.

“Brilliant,” she said, sitting up straight.

“Yeah?” Brilliant asked, white eyes doing that half circle thing to show she was happy.

“Do you want to have dinner together?” Because if she was going to fight Lilliana this might be the last night she was a Praxic and Praxics were the bravest Warlocks. She could be brave and ask the girl she liked on a date. Right?

Brilliant was taken by surprise. “Oh… really? Like as friends?”

“No.”

Brilliant didn’t say anything. She just got up from her chair and went over to her working desk where she kept all her art supplies and cards she was working on. She moved some things around and then brought back over three cards she handed to Chandra without saying anything. Chandra look them in confusion before looking at them.

They were all from the Solar suite and very obviously were her. Each one had the name of the card on the bottom in gold: Solar Nova, Solar Grace, and Solar Star. The first one was just a beautifully painted portrait of her surrounded by beautiful yellow and magenta hibiscus. The second was another of her and she wore a coat of hibiscus petals of the same colors that turned into fire at the ends in full radiant but her wings were also flowers. The last was, by symbology standards, absolutely graphic of her once more wearing the hibiscus petals coat but she had her face practically in a yellow hibiscus flower smelling it, the long red stamen detailed enough to leave pollen on her cheek.

She looked up at Brilliant who despite having a robotic face looked absolutely bashful and Chandra could see some vents on her neck had slid open. She’d seen some of her EXO friends do that when they were overheated and been told it was akin to ‘blushing’. That made Chandra’s entire face hot.

Chandra got up and Brilliant was wringing her hands nervously. “I guess you want to do something other than dinner,” Chandra said and the short EXO jumped when she did something very brave and just kissed her. Brilliant’s delicate white hands grabbed the front of her coat as she kissed Chandra back. She didn’t know what she expected from kissing an EXO but Brilliant had a mouth plate not unlike a normal mouth so it wasn’t much different than other girls Chandra had kissed except at first her lips were cold. But the longer Chandra kissed her the warmer they became.

Burn marks criss crossed Chandra’s face from the scorch ray Lilliana had shot at her. No Ghosts for this fight so Phoenix couldn’t come heal her. Whoever dropped first and succumb to their wounds was the loser. Her coat was scorched and tattered but she was still alive. Most of the Order had come to watch and they did so in silent interest from the sidelines. A group of Redjacks oversaw the match in the otherwise empty Crucible arena.

She was hiding behind a bit of cover catching her breath but couldn’t linger as she heard the sound of Solar flame crackling. She twisted out of the way with a spray of fire from her hand towards where she thought Lilliana was but she wasn’t there. Instead Lilliana was in full radiant and flying above her raining down grenades and launching swords like javelins down at Chandra. This was her final gambit after a twenty minute fight. There was nowhere to hide from the erupting Solar grenades that splashed searing plasma against her robes and flesh. She attempted to drop a rift but she just plunged her hand into a pool of lava.

Chandra didn’t give Lilliana to satisfaction of screaming as the fire and lava consumed her and turned her flesh into flaking black charcoal.

But death never lingered with Chandra. She had spoken with Thanatonauts about it but they always likened it to what they did. Chandra didn’t have visions when she died. She was just not… completely dead. She was like a Light ghost that often tucked itself into Phoenix before she had time to bring her back. She was dead but she wasn’t that dead. Like at any moment she could burst into Light and be wreathed in flames. Without Phoenix around she was just there, a thought among the flames as Lilliana landed and seemed hardly excited about her victory and held her side in pain.

“So Lilliana wins,” someone said Chandra couldn’t see and that inflamed her Light. No! She wouldn’t get another chance of this. She couldn’t let Lilliana win.

“Looks like unless Chandra’s got some trick up her sleeve.”

“Ha! Would be some trick if she could come back to life without a Ghost,” and she heard the Warlocks laugh.

The whisper of her Light hated that. She hated being laughed at. She hated being looked down on. She just looked young! It wasn’t her fault Phoenix had brought her back looking barely in her twenties! But all these Guardians always looked at her face and saw a child even if she was older than them all because her face wasn’t that of someone in her thirties or older.

Her Light absorbed the lingering heat of the plasma remaining that had killed her becoming hotter and hotter like the core of the sun. Then with a whoosh of flames the Light itself reconstructed her from bones, ash, and melted skin into a flaming fury of Solar Might. “I am not dead!” Chandra yelled as fire consumed her and became her as radiant wings of pure Light fanned out of her back and in her hand she called a sword made of pure flame. What came to her hand was a solid construct more like a Golden Gun than a wavering flame of a Dawnblade’s swords.

Lilliana was caught off guard for the first parry but it was Chandra who was radiant now and she coated the ground in a sea of plasma even as she skimmed across the top, her toes barely skimming the plasma. Unlike Lilliana throwing swords Chandra didn’t throw her sword and instead engaged her in melee combat which Lilliana wasn’t prepared for as much as the plasma or even Chandra somehow being reborn.

Lilliana was able to parry some of her attacks but between the sword and the Light she fell. She stumbled back and landed across an old automobile Guardians would use for cover. Chandra was on her in an instant and sliced through the car and Lilliana in one fell swing. It bisected the Praxic leader at a diagonal and the heat was such that she didn’t even bleed as the wounds were instantly cauterized.

“Oh. That’s it,” Lilliana said with what remained of the breath in her lungs before her upper body slid of her lower half and onto the ground.

Chandra was panting as she looked at the stump of her former leader. Then she stepped back from Lilliana’s body and realized she was absolutely naked. But she didn’t call for Phoenix yet. She waited. “How the fuck did you do that?” someone asked.

“I thought only Osiris could do that?”

“She could have learned? Ikora’s mentioned it.”

“She was risen after Osiris was banished.”

“Girl put on some clothes!”

“But how’d she do that? Never seen a Dawnblade of Sunsinger ressurect-

“Other than Osiris.”

“He’s a freak that doesn’t matter.”

Only when enough time had passed with Chandra feel comfortable stepping away from Lilliana’s corpse. “Phoenix,” she said and her red and orange Ghost appeared instantly and reconstructed her coat and clothes. “Where’s Lilliana’s Ghost?” she called. “The fight is over,” and she walked towards the other Praxic Warlocks.

“How’d you do that?” was intermingled amid the congratulations on a well fought fight.

“I couldn’t let her win. So I didn’t,” was what she said each time someone asked her. Which didn’t answer the question for anyone but Chandra.

Lilliana approached her and she half expected a scolding. Instead the EXO woman hugged her. “That was a well fought victory,” Lilliana said, hand on Chandra’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you could self resurrect. That’s something we’ve only seen Osiris do.”

“So I’ve heard. I don’t know how I did it. I just could,” she said unhelpfully.

“Something to discover in your own time now that you’re Praxic leader,” Lilliana said. Chandra smiled faintly. “Now shall we all go home?” she asked both Chandra and the other Warlocks.

“Yeah!”

“As great as it was watching you two kill each other-“ that made everyone, even Chandra and Lilliana, laugh.

Chandra nervously tugged on her sleeves and her collar standing in front of the door. After the fight Lilliana had been gracious in her loss and you’d believe they’d been the best of friends for decades with how much time they spent together in the past week. Lilliana had shown Chandra everything and had her given higher levels of clearance in the Tower. In a week she’d learned more secrets than she’d even dreamed of. Things not even the Hidden knew and things Ikora, Zavala, and Andal kept secret even from each other. But as the head of a Warlock Order like the Praxic she now had to know certain things others wouldn’t to keep the Praxic from falling astray. They’d also completely changed out the office of the Praxic to suit Chandra. Lilliana had liked things but Chandra wasn’t like that. Her mind was always so full she needed peace, order, and quiet for her office or she’d stress herself into flame.

The last thing they’d discussed was her appearance and maintaining it. Lilliana, despite being a Solar Warlock, always wore black and gray. Long robes that looked like charred wood or charcoal embroidered with the thinnest of metallic strings. She’d changed some of her robes now but still wore black and gray. Chandra didn’t want that.

Neither of them had expected the solution to come when Chandra had told Brilliant, more to keep her up to date than anything, and the EXO had exploded out of her seat and shown her an entire sketch book filled with Chandra in a thousand different outfits. Some were absolutely not for anyone’s eyes but Brilliant or Chandra herself but others were just beautiful and intricate robe ideas. That was how they’d arrived at the off white robe that was so long the front panels almost touched the toe of her boots with the long full sleeves. The end of the sleeves and bottoms of the robe had a pattern printed on it that was Brilliant’s design and then etched in Light by an armory foundry in the City.

Taking a breath to steady herself Chandra opened the door. It opened onto the small stage that showed for a small auditorium. The audience was all Warlocks, both of the Praxic and other Orders, and also the Vanguard- who were sitting up front. When she stepped through the door there was a beat of silence and then at least half of the assembled Warlocks burst into applause. She smiled slightly as she stepped up onto the stage. There were no stage lights so she could see them and they could see her.

The speech she had wasn’t long. It was only about three minutes. But as she stood there she couldn’t think of it at all and she’d memorized the entire thing to the point she could say it in her sleep. She knew she could as Brilliant said she’d been mumbling it while passed out on her couch.

She stood there. Frozen. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck as the clapping subsided. She knew this was a formal thing. This was the way it’d always been done. This was the time she made her first official statement as leader of the Praxic Order, one of the largest, most well known, most respected, Warlock Orders in the entire City.

“Speech or get off the stage, I got shit to do!” someone she didn’t know who heckled her from a few rows back.

That got her flared up instantly and where normally a person would have hair fire erupted from Chandra’s scalp. She wasn’t even full radiant when the huge long sword of fire and Light she’d bicleaved Lilliana with appeared in her hand. She pointed it in the general direction of the heckler. “This is my meeting. Sit down and shut up.” There was some soft laughter but that did break her tension. Also holding a sword tended to make you feel more confidant.

She gave her speech with the sword point between her feet and she felt immense relief when it was over and she didn’t even stumble at all. She stayed on the stage after everyone clapped and filed out of the room. The only person in the small auditorium was soon Chandra… and Brilliant, who was sitting a few rows back but now without the full room was very obvious with her bright yellow paint job.

Chandra stared. Brilliant never left her studio except to go home. She didn’t like going out. Chandra had only ever met up with her at her studio and the one time between them kissing and now she’d gone over to Brilliant’s for dinner. But here she was.

“You didn’t have to come,” Chandra said as she stepped off the stage.

Brilliant jumped over the chairs to meet her at the front. “Of course I did,” she said, smiling. “What sort of girlfriend would I be if I missed it?”

Chandra softened and finally the fire pretending to be her hair went out. “Thank you,” she said and kissed Brilliant softly. “Does this mean we can go out to lunch somewhere?”

“Mmm,” Brilliant looked unsure.

“To celebrate,” Chandra said.

“I— yes. But I don’t want to be out too long,” Brilliant said.

“Thank you,” Chandra kissed her again. “That is very brave of you.”

“Ha! No. What you did was brave. I could nevvvver do what you just did.”

Chandra smiled faintly, “Well I almost didn’t so that makes both of us,” she said and Brilliant laughed. “Let’s go have lunch and then I’ll take you home. Okay?”

“Okay,” Brilliant said, grabbing her hand. “You going to go like that?”

“Absolutely. I didn’t spend way too much glimmer to buy a bunch of these style robes not to wear them everywhere!” Brilliant blushed and Chandra could feel it as a bit of warm air against her own neck. “Lets go,” she said and dispelled the sword to lead her girlfriend out of the auditorium.

Chandra was good as displaying a calm inner peace but inside she was often an inferno ready to explode outwards. Today was one of those days. It shouldn’t have been this frustrating to find someone to help Von get live fire ready. But not a single Warlock would touch him. Everyone knew the other Order leaders didn’t agree but Chandra was the one who’d signed the report that allowed it. That was the entire reason she’d challenged Lilliana in the first place! What good was she as the leader of an Order if she couldn’t help her fellow Warlocks?

After almost three weeks she’d just done as some of her friends suggested, and every Warlock she talked to disagreed with, and opened the trainer to Titans and Hunters. She’d been visited by a few Hunters, they knew she hung out with their kind, but they were all… Too Much. Von was a shy guy and while not as much as a shut in as Brilliant- her mind wandered briefly thinking about her. Her delicate white painted hands with the careful and delicate green vines that crawled up the underside of her arms and the way her chassis was painted both yellow, orange, and white like a sunset filled with blooming tropical flowers. Chandra adjusted the stiff collar of her robe thinking about the orange and fuchsia clivia painted so elegantly on her pelvis and along the inside of her thighs and-

Chandra jumped when there was a polite knocking on her door. She adjusted her robe despite it not needing adjusting. “Come in,” she called.

She was surprised when a Titan came in. Helmet on. Classic Vanguard armor but from many years ago, all in black. Oh this wasn’t some edgy asshole was it? “Ms. Chandra,” he inclined his head after closing the door.

“Hello. I didn’t have a meeting with you, how can I help you?” she said.

“There was a posting by Xander 99-40 in the main Courtyard. A Warlock needs to be made live fire ready?”

“Oh! Yes,” she said. “What’s your name?” and she pushed open the wall that hid her desk.

“Spayar, ma’am.”

“Are you Pilgrim Guard?”

“No, ma’am,” he said but she’d not heard a name like that before so he wasn’t hard to find on the computer on her desk. And indeed there he was. Had good commendations, was friends with a variety of people, had never been written up, and most importantly; had helped other Titans get live fire ready themselves.

“What made you want to take this?” Chandra asked him. “Says here you have experience but usually the classes don’t mix like this.”

Spayar shrugged. “Bored?” he said, not bullshitting her at all which she appreciated. “It’s been real quiet last few months for jobs I usually take and this one seemed interesting enough.”

“And what do you usually do?”

“Bunker busting mostly. Tag along with Hunters who need someone to smash through walls or doors and I’ve yet to hear someone say no to a Ward when it’s offered,” he said calmly, casually.

“I see. May I see your face?”

“I’d rather not, ma’am,” he said.

“What? Pretending to be Shaxx?” she teased him.

“No. I’m sure you know what it’s like to have people treat you a certain way because your face isn’t old,” Spayar said.

Ah. So he was also a young looking Guardian. “Well you seem like a decent fit to me. Von’s never had any sort of live fire training at all. Phoenix, give Spayar’s Ghost the contacts to get in touch with Von. Just tell him I sent you. He won’t argue. He’s actually very excited to have someone get him live fire ready,” she said with a small smile.

“I’ll be gentle with him,” was all Spayar said as his black and gold painted Ghost shaped almost like a spider came out of his pauldron to interact with Phoenix and share information. “That all we needed?” Spayar asked.

“Yes. Thank you. If there’s any problems don’t hesitate to reach out.”

“Of course,” he nodded and left the office. Well that was a mildly anticlimactic end to an issue she’d been dealing with for several years on Von’s behalf. If only everything went so smoothly!

#365 #writeblr #writblr #destiny 2 #destiny the game #destiny #Warlock #Praxic Order #Hunter #Entropy

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marveledheroines · 1 year ago

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“HOW DID YOU PUT YOURSELF UNDER WONDER WOMAN’S CROSSHAIRS, LITTLE GIRL?!”

“YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T BE MAD!”

“Lilliana...what did you do...?”

“Promise you won’t be mad first....”

“Lilianna Marie Parker...”

“What did you do....?”

“I was doing my rounds and noticed the lasso of truth. I touched it and it kinda stuck to my hand. And when I tried to pull it off, it got stuck to the other one and I ended up getting tangled up.”

“Miss Diana was asking me stuff, but I couldn’t flip on the filter so it was my usual chiding and joking mostly when she was not in the mood to hear it...”

“She said I was not an evil child, just a foolish one. And that she’d be keeping an eye on me to make sure I’m good...”

“Now was that so hard...?”

“...Nope...just horrifying...you didn’t even give me the first and last name grace period...I would’ve talked with that one, Miss Green....”

#Spider-Dork 2.0||Lilianna Parker #The Unbeatable Squirrel||Squirrel Girl #Was goofing off with the chat AI and that little exchange stuck out to me the most. XD

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ziracona · 2 years ago

Note

youre playing dai? what do you think of the characters and which ones youre favorite so far?

Uhmmmm let me see. I��m not super far. Been in Skyhold a little but not suuuper long. My favorite is probably Cole? I love and would die for the little ghost boy. He’s so odd but so GOOD and kind and very interesting. My little brother now.

Uhhh my Inquisitor and I don’t have the exact same opinions/I play as and make decisions as my inquisitor, not myself, because I like to create in depth characters when I play games like this (though we share an opinion on Cole more or less), but I’ll give my answers.

I like Cole the most, then Harding, Solas, Josephine, and Cullen. I like Varric a lot so far but I haven’t spent as much /time/ with him so far, but I expect he will rapidly climb the ladder. He’s a good dude and he loves Hawke and I love people loyal to their friends. Also he and Solas have both casually dropped into conversation Cassandra has threatened to torture them like wtf is wrong with that woman & I need to start a support group for my friends Cassandra is threatening to tie to a chair and take apart apparently. Varric 🤝 Solas: one thing in common and unfortunately it’s being kidnapped by Cassandra and threatened with bodily harm.

Uhhhh I hate the Chantry/that whole government, so I have reservations about people deep into that faith, but aside from that, I like Josephine a lot and she’s invaluable to the team. Level headed and funny, very smart, and weirdly chill. Cullen I didn’t like at first, but he’s serious about feeling awful about all he did and wanting to change and never be who he was again, and I deeply love characters who actually put in work to improve and face what they did. He’s like unlearning 18 toxic behaviors bc he was a horrible person, but he’s genuinely trying and you can see the effort. I appreciate he’s chill about Mages not trusting/hating him on principle instead of resentful, and he is also invaluable to the team. He and Josephine have /way/ too much asked of them, but deliver, and I respect that. Lilliana is cool too, but I don’t know her as well. I like that she’s friendly to the Mage cause.

Hmmm oh Solas. I thought he was super weird at first but he’s also got a lot of useful information, and he’s the only one who was nice to me for the first 30 hours of this game and that carried his ass a long way. I like he’s a weird ghost protector. Uhhh he did say something super mean to my boy like an hour ago so I’m waiting to see where that goes but almost everyone in this damn game has been xenophobic to me, even—actually weirdly /especially/—my only fellow Qunari. Anyway Solas. He’s nice to me 95% of the time and one of the only ones who shares my politics, and he’s very useful. Like ghosts too.

Speaking of my fellow Qunari. I don’t know tbh how I feel about Iron Bull. He’s cool, and I love how he treats his gang, but every time I really start to like him he calls my parents savages or something so you can imagine the distress I’m under.

Dorian I liked a lot in the quest he was introduced in, but then he got bitchy with me about saying the slave trade is bad and apparently thinks it’s no worse than just having poverty exist, and his family has slaves, so….

Vivienne I want dead in a ditch. She’s got the best fucking design of any companion and it makes me SO mad they gave her the worst imaginable personality I want to hit her with a blunt object until she ceases to be. She won’t even call Cole ‘he’, she’s specist, she’s terrible to mages, and a massive hypocrite who holds her kind to rules she doesn’t impose on her perfect self. She’s also smug and sanctimonious and self important and petty and hateful. Literally the only nice thing I can say about her life is she’s good at magic. I want her OUT of my fucking house.

Sera I like. She’s weird as fuck and kind of mean about elves or like, Dalish elves though?? Despite being an elf?? Don’t love that, but I do enjoy her general ‘I’m for the little guy’ attitude and she’s funny and she hasn’t been xenophobic to me so that puts her in a very small category of ‘I really appreciate that fam’.

Harding is very cool and nice and pretty and smart and mostly as far as she’s expressed solid politics too so like damn guys the whole package…

Blackwall I don’t know enough yet to have a real opinion except I’m very concerned by how ready he seems to be to throw himself on a grenade for the cause. It’s like he /wants/ to.

Cassandra…. : /. she has some traits in common w Cullen but instead of actively trying to improve she keeps saying she will and not and threatening other companions. I don’t despise her but she needs to get her shit together.

As far as non-companion/advisors go, I like Krem a whole lot, and Fiona is nice to me. I like the artificer but I haven’t known her long. I’m probably forgetting someone important. :’-) but there you go. That’s me so far. We shall see beyond. Thanks for asking!

#ask #anonymous #dragon age inquisition

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honeypwark · 4 years ago

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[ Missing ]

↳ Roller Coaster era (late Jan-early Mar 2019)

↳ Lily goes missing. All hell brakes loose. Every idol ever tries to find Lily.

m.list

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

There’s a kind of contentment that comes with being absolutely exhausted. When you’re that tired, you know you’ve done your best and pushed yourself yet you’ve withstood the tiredness and given it your all. That’s usually how Lily feels after a long day of practicing. She’d be extremely tired, ready to drag herself home and flop into bed and start over the next day. But not today.

The exhaustion is there, wearing well into her bones but instead of feeling content, she just feels tired. She’s not even supposed to finish practicing for another hour and yet she is just so tired. Usually she pushes on through, telling herself the pain now is worth it in the end. But this doesn’t feel like the tired she’s used to. It’s so much concentrated, seeping into mind and making her just want to sleep.

She stumbles over her own feet again as she tries to work through the dance break at the end of her solo comeback song for the nth time. She takes a breath and bends over, coughing as she braces herself on her knees. She just feels completely wiped out; maybe she’s been pushing herself too hard? She wobbles over to the couch on the side of the room and sits down with a sigh.

“Okay, Lily. Take ten then we’re back,” she says to herself.

She coughs again, clearing her throat before settling further back into the couch and leaning her head back. All it takes is a few deep breaths with her eyes closed and she’s out like a light.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“Lily Lee~ Unnie made you breakfast,” Nayeon sings gently as she enters the maknae line’s room.

The eldest member carries a plate of blueberry pancakes, Lily’s favorite. All of the members are well aware of how hard Lily is pushing herself to make her solo comeback go nothing less than perfect. They know she feels guilty for being given so many individual opportunities over her members despite all nine of their reassurances that they’re nothing but proud of her. Nayeon decided to surprise Lily with her favorite breakfast in bed.

“Li...ly?”

Nayeon doesn’t think she’s heard Lily get up this morning. Tzuyu and Dahyun are still asleep in their bunks and Chaeyoung is out to brunch with a friend. Lily’s bunk, however, is empty, save for Blue curled up in his usual spot at the foot of the bed. Nayeon leaves the room and her eyebrows only knit together further when she checks and finds the bathroom empty.

“Jihyo, do you know where Lily is?” Nayeon asks.

Jihyo, Sana, and Momo sit in the living room eating the extra pancakes Nayeon had made. (The best ones, of course, had been puts on Lily’s plate.) All three of them look up at Nayeon’s question.

“Is she not in her room?” Jihyo asks.

“No.”

“Bathroom?”

“Just checked.”

“She didn’t stay at Jisung’s dorm last night, did she?”

“No, she was practicing until late,” Momo reminds the leader.

“Did anyone hear her come in?”

“We all went to bed before her but maybe?” Sana says.

Jihyo glances around at the growing worry on her members’ faces.

“Okay, um, Sana. Go ask the others if they know where Lily is and whether or not they know she came home. Nayeon, put Lily’s plate in the microwave and finish cleaning up the kitchen. Momo, call Lily’s cell and see if she’ll pick up. I’ll call Jisung and see if she’s with him.”

The other three girls set off to do as they were told and Jihyo pulls out her phone. She quickly finds the right contact and calls Jisung. NCT Dream’s dorm is practically Lily’s second home. She is constantly spending the night there, the other group’s maknae never complaining to give up his bed to Lily for the night if it means getting to joke around while eating cereal together the next morning. If not for their endlessly busy idol lives, they would be attached at the hip.

“Uhhh... Jihyo sunbaenim? Hello.”

The boy who answers the phone is not Jisung.

“Hello, who is this?”

“I’m Jaemin, one of Jisung’s members.”

“Where is Jisung?”

“He’s showering but he should be out soon- oh, he’s right here.”

Muffled, Jihyo hears, “Hyung, why are using my phone?”

Louder and closer to the phone, Jaemin answers, “It’s Lily’s leader.”

“Jihyo?”

“Yeah.”

Jaemin presumably hands the phone to Jisung.

“Noona?”

“Jisung. Is Lily with you?”

“With me? No.”

“Oh, okay.”

“W-Why? Is she okay? Did something happen?”

Jaemin says something Jihyo can’t understand. The sound that follows sounds suspiciously like Jisung hitting his older member.

“We’re not sure where she is right now,” Jihyo answers.

She looks up as Sana, Nayeon, and Momo return to the living room, several of the other girls coming with them, all looking worried.

“Do you need help finding her? I can call her,” Jisung offers.

“No, it’s alright, Jisung. Thank you, though. Bye-”

“Wait! Will you let me know when you find her?” Jisung says quickly before she can hang up. “Or ask her to text me when she’s home?”

Jihyo blinks, “Uh, yeah. I’ll tell her to text you. Bye, Jisung.”

“Goodbye...”

Jihyo hangs up.

“She’s not with Jisung,” Jihyo announces to the others.

“My call went straight to voicemail,” Momo says, “Her phone’s either off or dead.”

“I don’t like this,” Mina says. “Lily always tells us when she’s staying with someone.”

“Yeah,” Tzuyu agrees quietly.

“What if something happened to her?”

“She might just be at ITZY’s dorm. They live a little closer to the company.”

“But what if something did happen to her?”

“She was walking home late at night; someone should have gone to get her.”

“She’s so little.”

“If someone tried to grab her in an empty street she wouldn’t be able to do much.”

“What if someone recognized her?”

“What if she got kidnapped?!”

“What if she got followed by a sasaeng!?”

“Guys... GUYS!” Jihyo calls to get everyone’s attention. “Worrying like this isn’t going to help anyone. I’ll stay here with Sana in case she comes back. You all split up and start trying to find her.“

While the others hurry to pull on coats and shoes and throw their hair up into ponytails, Sana walks over to Jihyo.

“What are we going to do?” Sana asks.

“We’re going to start calling people,” Jihyo answers. “Anyone Lily knows and we don’t, we’re going to figure out their phone number and call them.”

“How are we going to do that? Like, I don’t have any of Blackpink’s phone numbers.”

“Well... okay. But you know Nayeon. And Nayeon knows Jisoo. Find connections like that.”

A few minutes later, Jihyo has gotten Blackpink’s eldest’s phone number and been told she’s not with them. Nonetheless, Jihyo tries to remember another one of Lily’s countless idol friends to try and call.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

What had gone from a ten minute break to a nearly nine hour night of sleep leaves Lily still fast asleep on the couch of a practice room that morning. She’s shifted onto her side, curled up and sleeping soundly. She wakes slowly, blinking and groaning at the bright overhead lights still shining from the night before. She eventually sits up and rubs the final remnants of sleep from her eyes. Her phone is dead, she realizes, getting the time from the clock on the wall instead.

10:13AM? Really? She was asleep that long? She’s almost surprised her body let her sleep for so long; she usually can’t make it past seven hours of consecutive sleep. She knows her members must be worried sick about her not being home after being alone the night before. She should head home right away to let them know she’s okay. As she pulls her coat on, she hopes her members aren’t worrying too bad.

Unbeknownst to her, the members of Day6 and Stray Kids are scouring the entire company building for her. Nearly the entire kpop idol community has become aware of Twice’s missing maknae as Jihyo and Sana have continued calling more and more people. If there was ever a day to run into an idol somewhere in Seoul, today would be that day as anyone who is able to is out looking for Lily.

“Come on, idiot, don’t actually be missing,” Jae mutters to himself as he starts checking in and out of practice rooms.

Despite Jae’s mean older brother act, it’s obvious and impossible to deny that he cares about the younger American. He’s always teasing her about her height but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how easily someone bigger than her could grab her and force her into a car or down an alleyway or-

“Lily!”

Jae spots Lily leaving a practice room further down the hall. The girl turns toward him.

“Oh, hey-“

Jae crashes into Lily in a hug, squeezing her tightly.

“Okay. Hi, there.” She pats his back as she hugs him back, confused as he usually only briefly hugs her in parting, “Is today a special occasion or...?”

“You are an absolute dumbass, Lilliana Lee!” Jae yells at her, smacking the side of her head.

“OW! What was that for?!” she whines.

“Your members have no idea where you are!” Jae exclaims. “They think you’ve been kidnapped or killed or something and have everyone you’ve ever even looked at for more than five seconds looking for you.”

“W-What?“

“They woke up and you weren’t at the dorm and you weren’t answering their calls so they started calling people to see if you were with them and now every idol ever is searching the entirety of Seoul for you but you’ve just been in a practice room?!!”

“I fell asleep! I didn’t mean to!”

“You can’t just disappear like that!” Jae continues to scold her. “You’ve got so many people worried over nothing and- shit.”

Jae turns away from Lily and covers his eyes.

“Are you-,” Lily steps around him to look at his face, “Are you crying?”

“No,” he says firmly.

“I think you are.”

He glares at her, “I’m still mad at you.”

She steps back with her hands raised, “My bad.”

He sighs, “Alright. Let’s get you home.”

“Okay,” Lily agrees softly.

She lets Jae lead her down the hall, coughing into her elbow before entering the elevator. Jae already has his phone out, texting his members to stop their search because he’s found her.

“Are you sick?” he asks.

“I just think I need some water,” she says.

“You should take some medicine when you get home, just in case.”

“Aw, you do care about me. The only tsundere I know is Jae Park.”

Jae shoves his phone into her hands, “Shut up and call Jeongyeon. You get to deal with her wrath.”

Lily looks at Jeongyeon’s contact that has been pulled up on Jae’s phone and gulps.

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reviewsbytomsatrekkie · 4 years ago

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16. Reawakened - Colleen Houck - 1 STAR

Reading this book felt wrong, I was drawn into the story but also felt completely devoid of any feelings for the characters and I couldn’t help but feel that it was misrepresenting an entire culture/history.

17-year-old Lilliana Young is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, trying to decide which college to go to, when she discovers an Egyptian prince named Amon, who has reawakened after a thousand years of mummification. He chooses her to aid him in a quest to find his brothers and complete a grand ceremony that will keep mankind safe from the evil, shape-shifting god, Seth, for another thousand years.

I’m going to start with our terrible cookie cutter characters. Lilliana is awful, in the first few pages I could tell I wasn’t going to like her, especially after reading this:

Even though I was very picky, wore only designer clothes, and had a monthly allowance bigger than what most people my age earned in a year, I was by no means a snob.

She is rich, beautiful and perfect. She gets straight A’s and apparently has complete freedom to do whatever she wants. She also lives in an amazing Manhattan apartment that never feels like home because it’s just too perfect. The author makes out that your meant to feel sorry for poor Lilliana and her perfect life, which just made me mad as anybody who has ever struggled would kill for that life. She is also written with no flaws, which makes her completely unbelievable as a character.

Amon’s only character traits are handsome, “exotic” (so many issues with that word) and magic. The author describes him as a perfect Egyptian stereotype and uses the word exotic multiple times while describing him. Making a character “exotic” can be extremely offensive and racist especially when the author does not respect the culture they are writing about, all it serves to do is sexualise an entire race of people and reduces them down to a stereotype. He can manipulate the people around him to do what he wants so he comes across as abusive and creepy because of the way he forces Lilliana to “bond” with him, just to save his own skin, then he forces her to go on their quest while showing many other controlling habits. This is a toxic relationship and nothing about it says beautiful love story (seriously, other reviewers are even saying Twilight is a better love story, which I must agree with).

So, we start off with terrible characters and it pretty much goes down hill from there. The storyline I will say does grab you in quite quickly and makes you want to find out what’s going to happen next but its sloppy and unresearched. The only reason your drawn in is because of how quick we jump into the quest. Houck tries to drop small hints about what’s going to happen down the line, but they come across more like great big whopping signs. Everything is obvious and nothing gives you that surprise “OH MY GOD” moment, I picked out our bad guy as soon as he was introduced. Also, the cliff-hanger ending was extremely underwhelming it did not make me want to read the next books at all.

While reading it, I got this vague feeling that the myths and legends used were being portrayed wrong, it all felt patched together, nothing felt correct, but I didn’t have enough knowledge on ancient Egypt to know for sure. I had to refer to my fellow, more knowledgeable reviewers to find out just how bad the accuracy of this book was. According to them, Houck almost destroys the real stories behind her narrative. Her apparent methods for research included some Wikipedia searching and using google maps, and that’s it! She even gets key timelining wrong. Egypt has such an amazing, rich history, it was really upsetting to read reviews by people who loved this book thinking they were getting a real education into Egypt. You can tell the Houck has zero respect or even interest in her subject matter and that is absolutely horrifying.

Just don’t read this book, its not worth it, its not accurate and its characters are awful.

1 star

#Reviews #book #Books #book review #bookworm #review #Reading #Read #colleen houck #Reawakened

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elfrootaddict · 4 years ago

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HERALD OF ANDRASTE - Chapter 1/4

DESCRIPTION: El'lana’s entire world is turned upside down when she, a proud Dalish elf, is bestowed the title “Herald of Andraste”. SERIES: Halla & Wolf VOLUME: 3

It was only yesterday that Lana woke up to find herself on a large bed, in a warm cabin - instead of lying outside on the cold stone floor of the temple’s ruins.

Confused by her surroundings, Lana abruptly sits up and frightens an unexpected young elven woman who immediately drops her supply box as she falls to her knees, plants her hands on the floor and exclaims, “I beg your forgiveness and your blessing. I am but a humble servant.”

Lana’s heart leapt when she saw a fellow elf kneel before her, “Creators lethallan, what are you doing?”

The elf only bowed lower as her forehead almost touched the floor, “You are back in Haven, my lady. They say you saved us. The Breach stopped growing, just like the mark on your hand,”

Lana looked down at her hand and noticed the magic subduedly illuminating underneath her skin. It felt suppressed and dormant.

“It’s all anyone has talked about for the last three days.”

“Three days?!” shrieked Lana as she looked up from her hand.

To Lana, it felt as if she had merely fainted for a brief moment. However, instead of a minute or two, it had been days. And instead of waking up at the temple, she was back in Haven, in a cabin, and with an elf claiming to be her humble servant.

To say Lana was wholly confused would have been the understatement of her lifetime.

Lana stared out the window of the cabin, watching the snow slowly trickle down as she tried to make sense of her rapidly evolving situation. While deep into her thoughts, the elven woman rose to her feet and nervously headed for the door, “...she said, ‘At once’.” and left the cabin in a great hurry.

Desperate for answers, Lana decided to get dressed and find Cassandra. Once changed out of the night dress, someone had put her in, and back into her old, filthy human clothes, Lana opened the door of the cabin and found herself standing in front of a horde of humans. One by one, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared with mouths agape.

As she slowly walked through the crowd of gawkers, she heard many whispering, “The Herald of Andraste! That’s her! That’s the Herald!”

Lana felt she needed to do a few double-takes to make sure she had heard them correctly, and to her astonishment it seemed there was no denying what she had heard.

The Herald of Andraste? Mythal, ar halani lasa ghilan. I fear I may need it now more than ever before.

After awkwardly walking her way through the crowd and into the Chantry, Lana eventually reached the closed internal door within and immediately overheard people shouting on the other side. One voice she recognized to be Cassandra, and the other belonging to the senior Chantry gentlemen on the bridge days before.

“Have you gone completely mad?” cried the Chancellor. “She should be taken to Val Royeaux immediately and be tried by whomever becomes Divine!”

“I do not believe she is guilty.” Cassandra insisted.

“The elf failed, Seeker. The Breach is still in the sky! For you all know, she intended it this way.”

“I do not believe that.”

“That is not for you to decide,” demanded the Chancellor. “Your duty is to serve the Chantry.”

“My duty is to serve the principles on which the Chantry was founded, Chancellor. As is yours.”

Deciding that was as good of a time as any, Lana opened the door to find Cassandra, the Chancellor and Liliana standing around a large, wooden table. If they were going to be talking about her, she might as well be part of it. She was not going to allow these humans decide her fate. That’s what Lhoris would have done.

“Chain her!” cried the Chancellor to the two Templars situated on either side of the door. “I want her prepared for travel to the capital, for trial.”

“Disregard that,” Cassandra ordered. “And leave us.”

And, so they did.

Lana stood awkwardly as Cassandra and Lilliana fought with the Chancellor over who had authority to do what. It was a dual, where their weapons of choice were their words. Each sentence cutting their opponent down precisely where they knew it would cause the most pain.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, a loud bang filled the room and Lana noticed Cassandra pointing to a thick, ancient book on the wooden table between them.

“You know what this is, Chancellor. A writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to act,” Cassandra paused as she looked about the room. “As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn,” and walked towards the Chancellor threateningly. “We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or without your approval.”

Cassandra, having clearly won their verbal-duel, left the Chancellor with no other option but for him to leave the room defeated. Although she had been victorious, Cassandra did not look happy about it.

Liliana turned to Lana and explained, “This is the Divine’s directive: rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos,” and then sighed with a heavy heart. “We aren’t ready. We have no leader, no numbers, and now... no Chantry support.”

As a Dalish elf, Lana's knowledge was understandably focused on elvhen culture, history, and magic. Up until recently, she never had any reason to know about human history. However, considering the situation, this had needed to be rectified.

Lana was pleasantly surprised to find that, despite her numerous questions, Cassandra and Liliana seemed more than happy to divulge their understanding of the ancient writ and answer all of Lana’s immediate questions as best they could.

“The Chantry will take time to find a new Divine, and then it will wait for her direction.” advised Liliana.

“But we cannot wait,” insisted Cassandra. “So many grand clerics died at the Conclave,” looking fiercely towards Lana. “No, we are on our own. Perhaps forever.” and then Cassandra turned her glare from Lana’s eyes to the dormant magical mark on her hand.

With her hand extended, like equals, Cassandra regarded Lana as she asked a heavy question with ease, “Help us fix this Mistress Lavellan, before it’s too late.”

The moment had demanded an immediate response, and with no time given to mull-over the decision or to find some way to escape this madness, Lana looked down at the Seeker’s hand and took a deep breath as she stepped forward, and shook Cassandra’s hand in agreement.

Cassandra and Liliana then excused themselves so that they could inform the others, which meant leaving Lana alone in the room.

Immediately, Lana regretted her decision.

What. The. Fuck. Have. You. Done?!

When Cassandra asked her to help seal the Breach days before, Lana naively assumed her responsibility would end then and there.

But now, Lana had agreed to become apart of this human ��Inquisition’.

You fool! Why are you like this? You should be heading back home so the Keeper can find a way to remove this damn magic from your hand! Not keep helping these shems!

Lana then looked down at her hand as her heart thrashed around inside her chest, and fear roared in her eyes.

As each moment passed with Lana staring into her palm, she slowly realised the full weight of her responsibility and the true reality of the situation. Her responsibility and role in this mess was far too great to ignore, no matter how hard she willed it away. No matter how nauseous her decision made her feel. No matter how harshly she scolded herself for the decision she made just now.

This Breach threatens not just these shems, but the whole of Thedas… which includes everyone back home. The Keeper. Tamara. Lhoris. Everyone.

And with this mark…

This mark is the only thing that is able to seal these tears in the Veil. So what choice do I really have? If I run, what does that say about me? Could I honestly leave knowing I’m the only one capable of sealing these tears? What would the Keeper say?

Lana closed her eyes, took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and walked out the room closing the door behind her.

She would tell me to stay. She would tell me to take this as an opportunity to mend the bridge between the shems and the elvhen. Show the shems that the Dalish are capable of helping others beyond our kin.

As Lana slowly walked through the Chantry, she began admiring the peacefulness within. The Chantry sisters praying quietly in front of the dimly lit candles, the hushed ambiance, and the small trickle of sunlight creeping through the windows above its great doors.

She would tell me that I can do this. That I have the fire of mamae and the caution of papae. That if I’ve made it this far, then I can do what comes next. Helping these shems is the right thing to do.

Once Lana exited the Chantry, she found herself once again in front of a crowd of on-lookers. However, this time Cassandra, Liliana, Josephine Montilyet and Commander Cullen immediately turned and gestured for her to join them in formation as they officially announced the rebirth of the Inquisition.

Okay, Keeper. Then that is what I’ll do. For you and for the People. I will help fix this mess. For I am a proud, Dalish, elf. Arlathvhen, Mythal ar lasa ghilan.

Elvish to English Translation:

“Mythal, ar halani lasa ghilan” = Mythal, help me and guide me

“Arlathvhen, Mythal ar lasa ghilan” = For the love of the People, Mythal guide me.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

READ ON AO3

Halla & Wolf Series

#ElfrootAddict's Halla & Wolf Series #ElfrootAddict's Herald of Andraste #ElfrootAddict's El'lana Aemma Lavellan #Cassandra Pentaghast #liliana #fanfic #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #Dalish #herald of andraste

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sassaetcie · 4 years ago

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Twisted Wonderland characters as Umineko OSTs cuz i can

(of course this is just speculation since I’m tired and not omniscent at all, please don’t get mad at me if I’m wrong abt something :D)

Floyd Leech: Busy Devils (the baroque and jazz influence really give off a feeling of energy mixed up with a quite chaotic rythm, right? And the leitmotif is pretty much the same, and the same vibe as Deep Blue Jeer, the one I chose for Azul, since Floyd and Azul are probably closer than Jade is with Azul, somehow? The jazz and baroque mood also fit better Floyd since he wants to be seen as a different person from Jade, etc...)

Azul Ashengrotto: Deep Blue Jeer (again, baroque influence, but a rythm a bit simpler than Floyd, since Azul is somehow a bit more foreseeable than Floyd... you know what I mean. The leitmotif is yet still the same than Floyd and Jade, and the one between baroque and the original leitmotif, so Azul is actually the one somehow connecting them?)

Jade Leech: Golden Sneer? Lot more quiet yet more ominous than Floyd, and yet more classy and simpler. I think it fits him somehow...?

Riddle Rosehearts (especially Overblot form oops): Fake Red Shoes. An actually pretty simple melody (especially in the first part) that gets heavier and heavier with instruments as the music goes on. As rules overwhelming him and yet somehow leading him since he got nothing else at the beginning. I actually wondered a lot about him sinceeee... Infant Queen Bee and Patchwork Chimera would probably fit him quite well (for obvious reasons, I mean, the songs’s titles...)...?

Kalim Al-Asim: Sakutarou’s Adventure. Lighter than other themes, cheerful and pretty simple (even if there are actually different leitmotives hidden inside this one...), even though Kalim changes quite a bit during Scarabia’s chapter. sunshine boi ;v;

Idia Shroud: 7 weights. Since he comes from a noble family but seems to run away from it and actually built Ortho (out of loneliness and fear?), I guess we can imagine something huge looming over him, and yet he seems quite simple at first sight, so a pretty repetitive melody can make sense, even if intruments get more and more numerous as the music goes on (as Riddle’s one, oops.). Sad instruments, yet pretty neutral at first. (Yo I’m also impatient for his chapter since I’m curious about how his character will be developped...)

Lilia Vanrouge: Black Lilliana. sry abt this one but it was tempting and I think... it’s actually quite fitting? A pretty waltz-like song (Lillia and his need of entertainment, heey) but the waltz gets darker and darker. Don’t fuck with the tiny 400 yo dragon or he will beat you to the ground.wav?

Jamil Viper: Mirage Coordinator? Since the music has different phases, it can be seen as Jamil “caring” about Kalim then just going his way as he wanted? I don’t really know about this one, just felt it, sry :v

maybe I’ll do others another day cuz I’m tired

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland shitpost

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domoz · 6 years ago

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I read War of the Spark last night (yes all of it, all last night.... its like that when you get into a book sometimes)

Thoughts, musings, gripes and spoilers under the cut.

I feel like I should start off by saying that I really liked the book. Like, enough to keep me reading through to 7 am kinda.... but it... suffers quite a few issues.

I have always been very negative on how theyve handled releasing their stories for mtg. One would think that if they’re changing how the story is gonna be released from online to book form they would give a little more context in what the hell is going for people who are just jumping in here, but it feels like everything the gatewatch has ever been involved in is required reading to get a picture of whats going on.That and the fact that so much of what the hell is going on depends on stuff that happened in a prologue that hasn’t even been released yet. And when they do exposit its just ‘oh heres a summary of what happened, moving on’. Not super engaging.

Yeah... Kaya (who... I don’t even know much about but shes a main character in this) and Ral and Vraska and Lavnia and some other character i dont even remember the name of were all buds and then shit went down and blah blah. Why didn’t they include that in the book? Why did they decide to go the route of making the book very confusing and spoiling the future story that has yet to be released?? its such a puzzling decision and i hate it.

The story itself was uh... very much an avengers/smash bros “everyone is here!” situation ... to the point where its not clear whos supposed to be important? like the gatewatch is, and the people in named chapters are but they make a big deal about kiora showing up and she’s mentioned once. Meanwhile Angrath gets a bunch of scenes and basically does nothing with them besides fight some zombies.

I dunno, if youre wondering if you should read it, wait until this prologue thing comes out in june and hopefully you'll be a little less lost then i was when reading it.

It does really feel like just a story you read to see what the gatewatch and your faves are doing. But you know, if you like tamiyo or tibalt then too bad youre out of luck.

I got lucky in that a lot of mine were IN, so.... reactions on that (more heavy spoilers):

Ral - I am ... so happy with him in this. He written SO much better than he was in the original ravnica novels, he turns out not to be a villain like I was worried about but hes still kinda the bastard we love. Also he has a boyfriend? Its like.. a major sort of plot point but not really explained because its in that fucking prologue i assume. He seems nice though.

Lavnia - powerful , all of her drama, is not explained at all within the book itself.

Vraska - She also suffers from “everything important in my character arc happened in a story thats not out yet” syndrome. But shes still vraska, who I adore and shes in the story. And she and Jace hook up at the end which considering that Ixalan was actually well written and made that seem Good for both of them, I’m fine with.

Sarkhan - I dont even think his story will be covered much in this unreleased prologue but hes like... not evil or mind controlled by bolas now and hes works with ugin instead (which i also dont trust but at least he doesn’t make him lose his mind). Ugins little quip at the end about “you must have done something to make him very mad was... real good. I hope he gets a little chance to be redeemed and be less an asshole

Domri - i always kinda knew that the way i had him in my head probably didn’t line up much with wizards canon. but uh... awfully bold of wizards to go “here’s the youngest planeswalker! he’s like 16! lets kill him brutally!” They didn’t really make it clear in the text that hes like... very young (younger than Teyo) and his stupid actions are probably the result of being a dumb teen, so he just comes off like an asshole.

Teyo - new, obviously meant to be an audience surrogate but he has a crush on a girl named rat and hes trying so hard so I like him.

Niv Mizzet - horrid bastard man who i love. if he messes up ravnica i will destroy him.

Honorable shutout to Ob Nixilis for being just the right amount of villianous asshole, and to Dack Fayden (who i did not care about before because again with how they release stuff... i dont even know how to get a hold of the comics/books hes in) who got a lot of the book time being built up as someone who was getting willing to actually help and be a hero and then just fuckin dies.

Also honorable shout out to Maree, Arlinn and Narset who didn’t do much but were at least mentioned.

As for some less favorite moments:

Nissa comes back to do nothing but destroy vitu-gazi. (And then profess her love for chandra which i think does make it worth it in the end, so). But does anyone feel like they don’t know what to do with mono green characters? garruk is just fucking Gone, Nissa only just showed back up and viven was similarly not super relevant except to say to people that Nicol Bolas is Real Bad Guys!

Lilliana just spent the whole story going “i can’t betray bolas or ill die so i wont but i hate him :)”, and then when she decides that she actually would rather die than have him win and maybe redeem herself gideon takes the bullet for her. It was made clear that shes Genuinely Upset about but ... with her its too little too late all the time. At the very least she’ll probably be dealt with soon-ish?

And gideon... I kinda went into it expecting that someone in the gatewatch would die, either him or jace. There were all sorts of ways they could have just as easily not killed him but they decided to do it so they wanted him written out for.. some reason? Like I said, at least Lilli feels bad about it, not that it will stop her from doing future villainous things.

They seeded their future villains a little obviously (3 of them being literally named dropped at the end of the book and Ob literally doing an evil laugh and leaving as soon as he got the chance) but I think it’ll be nice to not have a “one big evil villain is responsible for everything bad that ever happens ever” scenario for a little while.

#mtg blog for mtg things #war of the spark

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randomly-random-jen · 6 years ago

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Uncalled For Actions (9/?)

A Girl Genius fanfic

When Gilgamesh Holzfäller is fourteen, he’s taken on as an apprentice to Baron Wulfenbach as part of a program to produce the next generation of leaders in the Empire–a group that will hopefully get along (although most see this as wishful thinking on the Baron’s part). He’s learned a lot over the months of shadowing the Baron, but nothing has prepared him for his most challenging assignment: confronting the skeletons in his closet.

[Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Part 10 ]

Part 9

"This one time my f-" Gil started to say but snapped his jaw shut at the same moment Tarvek said, "what would you know about it? You don't even have any parents."

"Tarvek!" Anevka said with a gasp then smacked his arm.

Gil only blinked back, the fog in his head clearing just enough to realize his near-fatal mistake--had he really been about to name the Baron as his father?

His hand came up to rub at the sore spot on his neck. That damn Smoke Knight, he thought, brow furrowing, what did she do to me?

"What?" Tarvek said, glaring at his sister. "He's an orphan--everyone already knows that."

He shot Gil a challenging look--almost as if begging Gil to prove him wrong, and just like that, Gil was eight-years-old, digging through files in the Baron's vault on a stormy night with the lightning making gruesome shadows in dark corners. They'd thought themselves clever, but they had no idea how that one adventure would change their lives forever.

The story they'd found in his file that night had been a sucker punch to an already broken boy, but Tarvek hadn't believed a word of it.

It was days or weeks later when Gil finally processed everything that had happened from the moment they concocted their ill-fated and obviously fool-hearty plan to the crushing despair of learning about his supposed embarrassing past to Tarvek being hauled into the office where the Baron had just informed Gil that his best friend was just using him to gather information for his duplicitous family.

Gil didn't even know what duplicitous meant, but the Baron was mad and Gil was scared so he did the only thing he could--he saved himself at the cost of his friendship with the one person that had ever shown him a smidgen of respect. He'd been so caught up in his own fear that he didn't hear Tarvek's hastily whispered reassurances to find the truth.

Tarvek had to have known he was in a lot of trouble but his first instinct was to protect Gil and Gil had-

He swallowed hard, finally meeting Tarvek's hard eyes across the table.

-he had betrayed him while Tarvek was still trying to protect him.

He quickly looked away, mouth dry because if he had just listened maybe things would have been different.

Then again, maybe not. It was months later when the Baron actually told him the truth about who he was and what his life was going to be about from that point forward. There had never been any room for Tarvek in it no matter who Tarvek thought he was--the Baron would have found a way to get rid of him eventually.

"Tarvek, apologize," Anevka demanded, giving her brother a shove.

"I thought you were on my side," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Anevka growled under her breath. "You are being rude and callous--apologize this instant or I'll tell Father about you and Lilliana-"

"Shut up," he said hastily, bringing Seffie's attention to the conversation.

"Ooh," she said, leaning forward, "who's Lilliana? Wait, isn't that the maid at Uncle Rutger's summer place?"

Gil looked between the three of them as Seffie practically drooled with the scandal brewing. This was so messed up and his head felt like it was melting and his neck hurt and he just wanted to eat some food that actually tasted like food and get some sleep.

"It's been a long day," he said suddenly, louder than he'd intended.

"It has," Tarvek said, slumping uncharacteristically in his chair.

A moment later, the speech thankfully ended and the chime sounded the beginning of dessert which happened to be cake but Gil had no appetite if he even could taste the chocolate. He just needed to make it through this and coffee and probably idle chit-chat with people he cared nothing about to look good for his father and then maybe he could get some rest before he had to do it all again.

"Is this torture ever going to end?" Gil frowned, his heart suddenly racing and the room swimming just a little more. "Did I just say that out loud?" he asked, voice shaky. "Did I just say that out loud?"

He tried to focus his eyes on Tarvek, but all he could see were glimmers of red and purple no matter how hard he blinked.

"Holzfäller," Tarvek said, sounding miles away, "what is wrong with you?"

"Are you ill?" asked Seffie except she sounded like she was screaming inside Gil's head.

He started, scrambling away and knocking into the person sitting on his other side.

"Really, Gil, you don't look well," added Anevka--her voice sounded normal if a little wobbly. "You know, there's some contagion going around the castle; maybe you should see Dr. Edelweiss."

"Yes," Gil shouted then bit his tongue, "no, I mean, no doctor, I'm fine, I've been inoculated, no clucking for me, I swear, I-" The words tumbled out of his mouth unfiltered as he tried to collect his thoughts that bounced everywhere and seemed to float off into the ether. Something was definitely wrong with him and he knew what.

"No, I don't."

"Don't what?" asked Seffie, brow furrowed as she inched farther away from him.

"You could be contagious," whispered Avenka.

"Not contagious, not sick, just-" Just what? Something, something, something, what is it? He tore at his hair trying to remember something important as he was sure his brain was melting and dribbling out of his ears. "That can't be healthy," he mumbled, touching his ears and finding nothing amiss, but there was a sharp sting to his jaw as his hand slid down his neck. "Wait!"

[ Part 10 ]

#girl genius #girl genius fanfic #gilgamesh wulfenbach #tarvek sturmvoraus #anevka sturmvoraus #seffie von blitzengaard #sentences #days 64-70 #story: uncalled for actions

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maddiehstar · 6 years ago

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Ready To Comply

Prologue

New York City, 31st August 1942

“I can do this all day”. James was walking down the street when he passed a small alley and heard a voice he all too well recognised. He stopped and looked in, there his best friend was, Steve Rogers, getting beat up by some guy. ‘What the hell did he get into this time’ thought James, walking towards the two men. “Hey, pick on someone your own size”. James grabbed the guy, pulling him away from Steve. James dodges a punch from the man before landing one of his own, right in the jaw. A swift kick in the butt and the man was off. “Sometimes I think you like getting punched,” said James, walking toward his friend. “I had him on the ropes”. “How many times is this now?” asked James while he picked up a small paper from the ground. “Oh, you’re from Paramus now? You know it’s illegal to lie on the enlistment form. And seriously, Jersey?” James took a good look at the man in front of him. The two men were almost the opposite of each other. Steve was scrawny, barely reached 5’7”; James was athletic, strong and reached 6’0”. Steve had to look up when speaking to him. Steve’s clothes hung on him, slightly too big, and dirty from him falling to the ground, multiple times, and he was currently bleeding from his lip, his hair ruffled. His blue eyes met James’ while he got on his feet. Steve let his gaze fall, noticing his friend’s uniform. “You got your orders?” Hesitating for a second, cocking up his head James met his friend’s eyes once again. “The one-o-seventh. Sergeant James Barnes. Shipping out for England first thing tomorrow”. “Huh...”, Steve looked down, “I should be going”. James could see that Steve was hurting. He felt sorry for him; he knew all Steve wanted was to do his part in the war. The taller of the two let out a chuckle. “Come on man!” He grinned and grabbed Steve around the shoulders. They started to head out. “It’s my last night, gotta get you cleaned up”. “Why? Where we going?”. His voice was annoyed rather than curious. “The future”. Steve was handed a newspaper James has been holding onto. ‘The Stark Expo, of course’.

---

James had arranged for him and Steve to have a double date with two lovely girls that evening. However, Steve wasn’t in the mood, as usual. James remembered, the same week as America joined the war Steve had gone and tried to get enlisted, but with all his problems they didn’t even give him a chance. A scrawny man with asthma, heart problems and more so would never be considered. Steve had always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a soldier. Joseph Rogers had served in the 107th infantry regiment during the First World War and was tragically killed in battle. It had been hard for Steve’s mother, Sarah, to raise her son on her own and when she passed, it hit Steve very hard.

James was however slightly annoyed that Steve couldn’t cheer up for the night. After all, it was the last time they were going to see each other for quite some time, God forbid but maybe even ever. He understood that it had hurt Steve and once again reminded him of his rejection when he learned that James had gotten his orders, and even worse, gotten drafted in the same regiment as his father. The world could indeed be both funny and cruel at the same time.

“I did say a few years didn’t I folks?” said Howard Stark from the stage. James, Steve and the girls were watching his presentation of a levitating car. James had always been fascinated by technology and loved going to the Stark Expo every year. He turned around to say something to Steve, but the man was gone. James was confused at first until his eyes scanned the crowd and saw the “I want YOU” poster on a pillar at the back. He instantly knew where his friend had gone.

James had found Steve exactly where he expected to, the enlistment centre at the edge of the Expo. They had a heated conversation, not because either of them was mad, but because they both knew this was the last one they’d have in a while. James was worried about Steve; he didn’t want his friend in the war. He’d be dead before he even sat food on the battlefield. Steve wanted to serve his country, not by sitting in a factory making bullets, but on enemy soil.

“Don’t win the war 'till I get there”. James looked at his friend and saluted him. There was a sudden pain in his chest; it was first now that it hit him that this was goodbye to Steve. He let his gaze sweep over the blonde one last time, trying to imprint the way Steve looked into his brain. James took a deep breath, collected himself before he turned around.

“Come on girls! They're playing our song”, said James and walked towards the two girls. He laid his arms around their shoulders and started to walk off. Steve stood there as if frozen in place and watched his best friend walk away. James felt an extreme need to look back and take one last look, but he couldn’t. It hurt too much. For some reason, he felt like this was the last time he’d see the Steve he knew, and that was just too painful to process.

__________________________

London, 18th August 1942

“Lilliana Rose Nikolayevna Raskolnikov, welcome to the Special Operations Executive”. The older man, Major Clarke, smiled as he shook the young woman’s hand. She smiled back and straightened her spine. This was the moment she had been waiting for, what three years of hard training had gotten her. Lilliana was now a member of the SOE, a secret division of the British secret service, MI6, who spied behind the enemy lines. “Thank you, Sir”. “Please, miss Raskolnikov, walk with me”. “Certainly, sir”. “I’ve read your file; you seem to be a brilliant young woman”. The Major looked at her. He was indeed right. Lilliana had been studying at Cambridge University for five years before joining the army in 1939. “Well, I have studied yes, but one can always learn more”. Answered Lilliana and looked down. “There’s no need to be humble, a woman with a joint Master’s degree isn’t something you see every day”. Clarke chuckled and padded her on the back. “Well, neither Psychology nor Classical Arts are very academic subjects”. During her time at the university, she had had a hard time getting the respect she deserved. Most of the students and all professors were men and didn’t think a woman could succeed in academia. On top of that, both her subjects were still somewhat new and didn’t have the same credibility as Chemistry, Mathematics or Physics in the eyes of scholars.

The Major showed Lilliana to her quarters where she would stay for two weeks, preparing for deployment behind enemy lines. Her room was rather small, containing a single bed, a small wardrobe and a desk, all in matching wood. There was a small bathroom in connection to the bedroom. It was also plain with a toilet, sink and shower. “I hope this shall be satisfactory. First briefing at 0700 hours, sleep well” said Major Clarke, and with a nod, left Lilliana alone in her room. She sat her bags down on the floor and walked over to the small window. Below her, the street was almost empty. Baker Street was ordinarily quiet, and with the hour nearing midnight, it was deserted. Lilliana turned around and let her gaze go around the room. It was the right opposite of the bedroom in her apartment in Cambridge. Growing up as the daughter of a Russian diplomat, money was never a problem, even during the Great Depression with three children. Her apartment wasn’t anything special, but had the best view in town, overlooking King’s College, and was filled with beautiful oak furniture. Her new room was, however, better than her accommodation at the training camp. There Lilliana had shared a cabin with nine other women, and the only storage they had was a nightstand where they could keep personal belongings.

Lilliana decided to unpack her bags before going to bed. Not that it was much, but she’d prefer to do it now instead of in the morning. The next two weeks were going to be hectic. She’d have to learn everything about her new identity, who she’d be, where she’d be from, what her favourite food would be. She’d also have to memorise the mission, what do to, where to go. Two weeks wasn’t much when you were going to become a new person, but Lilliana would make it work.

---

The alarm clock rang and Lilliana bolted up from her bed. She quickly slammed her hand on top of it and picked it up.‘5:30 o’clock, lovely’. She put it down and fell back. It was incredibly tempting to go back to sleep, but Lilliana knew that she’d be late off she did. She dragged herself out of bed and looked out the window. The sun was rising and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. ‘Looks nice enough, maybe a quick run would wake me up’. Lilliana walked over to the wardrobe and changed into sweatpants, her Cambridge sweatshirt and put on her worn out Converse. She found a hair tie and tied her hair in a messy ponytail.

The air outside was crisp; you could feel that Autumn was on the doorstep. The leaves on the trees had started to change colour, and they were slowly but surely falling. There was a light breeze, which Lilliana was thankful for. Since the run was short, she had challenged herself and held a high tempo. When she came back to the office, she went up to her room and took a quick shower. When she was done she took a quick look at herself in the mirror. Her facial features were still the same, sharp and feminine, even after gaining muscle. Her long blond hair reached down to the end of her ribcage, now dripping with water. Her big grey eyes looked awake, the run had given her new energy. After drying her hair and putting on a simple dress, she sat on the bed and looked at the clock. It showed 6:40, which gave her just enough time to go down and get some breakfast before the meeting.

After downing some bread and a glass of water Lilliana made her way into what must have used to be the main living room, before the SOE moved in. Now it was the main meeting room where all major meetings were held. Lilliana sat down at the big table and looked around. A big map over Europe was spread out before her, with indications of where the allies and enemies currently resided. There was a few bookcases around the room, and in the corner a projector stood on a rolling cart. The room was filling up with people. Lilliana recognised Major Clarke from the night before, as well as two other women who she had had breakfast with. When all the chairs around the table was filled the Major spoke up. “Welcome everyone, to this first briefing of operation Heracles”.

____________________________

London, 1st September 1942

Two weeks had gone by way faster than Lilliana expected. Her days had been rather monotone, her activities didn’t vary much. She woke up at 5:30 o’clock, went for a run, got ready and had breakfast. After that she either worked with the adaption experts, making sure she’d be able to play her new role, or memorised the mission and key enemies. Lilliana also made sure to keep her fight training going, and sparred with the other women during the afternoons. Dinner was served at 19:00 and she was off to bed at ten o’clock.

At midnight Lilliana would leave England by airplane and before the crack of dawn she were to have landed deep into enemy territory. The SOE had arranged for her to see her family one last time before leaving, so around 5 o’clock Lilliana found herself outside of her childhood home in central London. She knocked on the door, and it didn’t even take a minute before her mother had opened the door and embraced her. “Mother, y-you’re crushing me” Lilliana gasped out. “I’m so sorry darling!”. Her mother let go and stepped back. “Please, Nicki, come in”. Lilliana’s family and closest friends had always used the nickname based on her middle name, Nikolayevna. No one could remember why, it had always been like that since she was a little girl. Lilliana walked inside the townhouse and took a good look, this could be the last time she ever saw it. It looked the same as always, oak floors and panelled walls, mahogany furniture, fine paintings and a flower in every corner. She made her way through the hallway into the living room where her father, two siblings and best friend waiting. “Nicki!” it was her brother, Victor, who first noticed her and got up from the sofa. He hugged her and lifted her up. “Vic, put me down!” “Nah-ah, this is the last time I see my little sister before she goes off to kick Nazi ass, I have the right to do this”. “Victor, let her go! We all want a piece of her”. This time it was Sophie who spoke, Lilliana’s closest and oldest friend. Victor let her down and the two women embraced in a hug. “I want a hug too!” Lilliana’s younger sister, Anastasia, squeaked. She was the youngest sibling, only just turned 20 earlier in the summer. “Calm down kids, Lilliana have time for all of us”. Her father, Nikolai, spoke with his Russian accent. “Elizabeth dear, can you please bring in the tea?”

Lilliana had a lovely time with her family and friend. They got to properly catch up; Lilliana learned that her sister-in-law was now pregnant, her younger sister had found herself a young suitor who against all odds got her father’s approval, and her goddaughter, Sophie’s girl, had learned how to walk and talk. They got to hear stories from training camp, about how Lilliana was picked to become a Special Operations Executive agent. She also told stories about how she was trained in everything from combat, to languages, to withstanding torture. Becoming a part of the SOE wasn’t an easy road, and everyone who was picked didn’t finish training, but Lilliana did. Women were needed as agents, since they could pass by the enemy easier and didn’t raise as much suspicion as men did. She was proud to have become and agent and to be able to serve her country, even if she were to lay down her life as she did so.

The time neared nine o’clock and it was time for Lilliana to leave. “Take care of yourself, I want Rose to have her godmother!” said Sophie. “Be careful Nicki, my child should grow up with two aunts, not just one”. Victor embraced her once again. “позаботьтесь о моей лилии” (“Take care of yourself my lily”). Her father usually didn’t speak Russian anymore, only in moments like these, when the situation was serious. “да отец” (“Yes, father”). “My love, do be cautious, we love you all too much too lose you”. Tears were trailing down Elizabeth’s face. “Of course”. Lilliana gave her mother another hug and saw her younger sister standing a few meters back. “Ana, come give me a hug! I’m going to miss you like crazy”. The younger girl made her way towards Lilliana and crashed into her as she started sobbing. “Aw, sis, it’s going to be okay, I will be fine”. Anastasia didn’t answer.

The group all hugged Lilliana a few times more before they let her go. She wiped her tears as she opened the door, turned around and saluted them. “God bless you, and God bless the Queen”. Lilliana lowered her hand, turned around and walked away.

#Winter Soldier fanfic #Winter Soldier #JamesBuchananBarnes #James Buchanan Barnes #Bucky Barnes #Bucky #Buck #Fanfiction #original female character #Bucky x OFC #Sebastian Stan #Sebby #SebStan #SebbyStan #SebastianStanFan #Captain America #civil war #infinity war

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