#look at the long line of make believe kings! and the lord of the flies wants you to kiss his ring

[kingandfireheart]

YOUR MATING BOND IS SHOWING: Some underrated Nessian scenes pre-ACOFAS

alternatively titled: how did no one in the Inner Circle accidentally tell Nesta?

I didn't include the big moments (the Cauldron, the Bone Carver, Next Time, Emissary, I'll Come Say Hello, CASSIAN, and Hybern) because they are longer scenes, but these are some small and medium sized moments.

When Cassian can't stop staring at Human Nesta:

Cassian was sizing up Nesta, a gleam in his eyes that I could only interpret as a warrior finding himself faced with a new, interesting opponent.

...

Nesta didn’t bat an eyelash as she studied the handsome features, the muscled torso. Then turned to me. Dismissing him entirely.

Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe … only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.

...

Rhys gave me a warning look. I gripped Nesta’s arm, drawing her attention to me. “Can we just … start over?”

I could almost taste her pride roiling in her veins, barking to not back down.

Cassian, damn him, gave her a taunting grin.

But Nesta merely hissed, “Fine.” And went back to eating.

Cassian watched every bite she took, every bob of her throat as she swallowed.

...

“That’s very beautiful,” she said. “Is it not—frightening, though? To fly so high?”

“It is sometimes,” Azriel said. Cassian tore his relentless attention from Nesta long enough to nod his agreement.

When Nesta gives Cassian the finger:

He’d given Nesta a mocking bow, and she’d given him a vulgar gesture I hadn’t realized she knew how to make.

Cassian had merely laughed, his eyes snaking over Nesta’s ice-blue gown with a predatory intent that, given her hiss of rage, he knew would set her spitting. Then he was gone, leaving my sister on the broad doorstep, her brown-gold hair ruffled by the chill wind stirred by his mighty wings.

When Cassian comes back from Wings & Embers:

I assumed seeing Nesta went about as poorly as could be imagined, because my lesson the following morning was longer and harder than it’d been in previous days. I’d asked what, exactly, Nesta had said to him to get under his skin so easily. But Cassian had only snarled and told me to mind my own business, and that my family was full of bossy, know-it-all females.

When Cassian declares he'll defend the humans (ACOMAF version)

His voice was rough as he said, “Five hundred years ago, I fought on battlefields not far from this house. I fought beside human and faerie alike, bled beside them. I will stand on that battlefield again, Nesta Archeron, to protect this house—your people. I can think of no better way to end my existence than to defend those who need it most.”

I watched a tear slide down Nesta’s cheek. And I watched as Cassian reached up a hand to wipe it away. She did not flinch from his touch.

When Feyre notices the mating bond:

When I looked ahead, I found Cassian staring back at Nesta as well.

I wondered why no one had yet mentioned what now shone in Cassian’s eyes as he gazed at my sister.

The sorrow. And the longing.

When Cassian tells Nesta exactly what is going to happen to Briallyn:

“You come between a male and his mate, Nesta Archeron, and you’re going to learn about the consequences the hard way.”

When Cassian speaks of his own intentions:

I blew out a breath. “Who else thinks it’s a terrible idea to leave the three of them up at the House of Wind?”

Cassian raised his hand as Rhys and Mor chuckled. The High Lord’s general said, “I give him an hour before he tries to see her.”

...

Cassian’s hazel eyes shuttered as he crossed a booted ankle over another, stretching his muscled legs before him. “I go up there every other day. It’s good exercise for my wings.” Those wings shifted in emphasis. Not a scratch marred them.

When Cassian wants revenge:

Mor’s lips pressed into a thin line, as if she was trying her best not to say anything. Azriel was trying his best to shoot a warning stare at Mor to remind her to indeed keep her mouth shut. As if they’d already discussed this. Many times.

“I don’t blame her,” Cassian said, shrugging despite his words. “She was—violated. Her body stopped belonging wholly to her.” His jaw clenched. Even Amren didn’t dare say anything. “And I am going to peel the King of Hybern’s skin off his bones the next time I see him.”

His Siphons flickered in answer.

Rhys said casually, “I’m sure the king will thoroughly enjoy the experience.”

Cassian glowered. “I mean it.”

When Cassian realizes how beautiful his mate is:

Yes, devastating was a good word for how lovely she’d become as High Fae. And in a long-sleeved, dark blue gown that clung to her curves before falling gracefully to the ground in a spill of fabric …

Cassian looked like someone had punched him in the gut.

When Cassian got out of an uncomfortable situation:

Mor blinked, but confided to me with a wince, “I think we’re going to need a lot more wine.”

Nesta’s spine stiffened. But she said nothing.

“I’ll raid the collection,” Cassian offered, disappearing through the inner hall doors too quickly to be casual.

Nesta stiffened a bit more.

When Nesta wants revenge

“Were they made immortal?” This question went to Azriel.

Azriel’s Siphons smoldered. “Reports have been murky and inconsistent. Some say yes, others say no.”

Nesta examined her wineglass.

Cassian braced his forearms on the table. “Why?”

Nesta’s eyes shot right to his face. She spoke quietly to me, to all of us, even as she held Cassian’s gaze as if he were the only one in the room. “By the end of this war, I want them dead. The king, the queens—all of them. Promise me you’ll kill them all, and I’ll help you patch up the wall. I’ll train with her”—a jerk of her chin to Amren—“I’ll go to the Hewn City or whatever it is … I’ll do it. But only if you promise me that.”

When Cassian is mad at Feyre and lies:

I studied him, the wings tucked in tight, the shoulder-length dark hair. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He stalked past me to the ring.

“Is it Nesta?”

“Not everything in my life is about your sister, you know.”

I kept my mouth shut on that front.

When Nesta shows up to training:

Something drew Cassian’s attention behind me. And even as his body remained casual, a predatory gleam flickered in his eyes.

I didn’t need to turn to know who was standing there.

“Care to join?” Cassian purred.

Nesta said, “It doesn’t look like you’re exercising anything other than your mouths.”

I looked over my shoulder. My sister was in a dress of pale blue that turned her skin golden, her hair swept up, her back a stiff column. I scrambled to say something, to apologize, but … not in front of him. She wouldn’t want this conversation in front of Cassian.

Cassian extended a wrapped hand, his fingers curling in a come-hither motion. “Scared?”

I wisely kept my mouth shut as Nesta stepped from the open doorway into the blinding light of the courtyard. “Why should I be scared of an oversized bat who likes to throw temper tantrums?”

...

Cassian was saying to Nesta, “Seems like you’re a little on edge, Nesta. And you left so abruptly last night … Any way I can help ease that tension?”

When Cassian has manners: (and realizes his mate may never fly)

Mercifully, or perhaps not, Nesta’s retching filled the silence. Cassian gaped at Rhys. “What did you do?”

“I asked him the same thing,” I said, crossing my arms. “He said he ‘went fast.’ ”

Nesta vomited again—then silence.

Cassian sighed at the ceiling. “She’ll never fly again.”

The doorknob twisted, and we tried—or at least Cassian and I did—not to seem like we’d been listening to her. Nesta’s face was still greenish-pale, but … Her eyes burned.

When Cassian helps her calm down:

There was no way of describing that burning—and even painting it might have failed.

Her eyes remained the same blue-gray as my own. And yet … Molten ore was all I could think of. Quicksilver set aflame.

She advanced a step toward us. All her attention fixed on Rhys.

Cassian casually stepped in her path, wings folded in tight. Feet braced apart on the carpet. A fighting stance—casual, but … his Siphons glimmered.

“Do you know,” Cassian drawled to her, “that the last time I got into a brawl in this house, I was kicked out for a month?”

Nesta’s burning gaze slid to him, still outraged—but hinted with incredulity.

He just went on, “It was Amren’s fault, of course, but no one believed me. And no one dared banish her.”

She blinked slowly.

But the burning, molten gaze became mortal. Or as mortal as one of us could be.

When he calls her "Nes" for the first time:

Both males went a bit still. But Azriel sketched a bow—while Cassian stalked for the dining table, reached right over Nesta’s shoulder, and grabbed a muffin from its little basket. “Morning, Nesta,” he said around a mouth of blueberry-lemon. “Elain.”

---

Cassian finished the muffin, licking his fingers. I could have sworn Nesta watched the entire thing with a sidelong glance. He grinned at her as if he knew it, too. “Ready for some flying, Nes?”

“Don’t call me that.”

The wrong thing to say, from the way Cassian’s eyes lit up.

When she flies with him for the first time:

My sister’s face was wind-flushed as Cassian gently set her down. Then she strode for the glass doors without a single look back.

“You’re welcome,” Cassian called after her, more than a bite to his voice. His hands clenched and slackened at his sides—as if he were trying to loosen the feel of her from his palms.

When he rescues her and can't hide his disappointment the she didn't hug him:

He said nothing as Nesta launched herself toward him, her dress filthy and disheveled, her arms stretching for him. He opened his own for her, unable to stop his approach, his reaching— She gripped his leathers instead.

...

Cassian only stretched out an arm for her. As if in a trance, she walked right to his side. His arms tightened around both of us, Siphons flaring, gilding the darkness with bloodred light.

When Nesta is recovering from the library attack and he's an attentive mate:

Nesta looked like she was going to be sick. Cassian wordlessly refilled her glass.

When he's protective and we find out about their height difference

Cassian was staring at Nesta—hard enough that my sister at last twisted toward him. Met his gaze. His head tilted—slightly. A silent order.

Nesta, to my shock, obeyed. Drifted over to Cassian’s side as Amren replied to Rhys, “No.”

...

Cassian casually slid Nesta behind him, his fingers snagging in the skirts of her black gown. As if to reassure himself that she wasn’t in Amren’s direct path. Nesta only rose onto her toes to peer over his shoulder.

When Cassian still isn't back from Adriata:

Nesta was waiting at the breakfast table the next morning. Not for me, I realized as her gaze slipped over me as if I were no more than a servant. But for someone else. I kept my mouth shut, not bothering to tell her Cassian was still up at the war-camps. If she wouldn’t ask … I wasn’t getting in the middle of it.

When Cassian is proud of Nesta:

“I would.” Nesta surveyed us all, her gaze jumping past Cassian. Not to slight him, but … avoid answering the look he was giving her. Approval—more. “It was some distant thing,” she said. “War. Battle. It … it’s not anymore. I will help, if I can. If it means … telling them what happened.”

When Nesta defends Cassian for the first time:

Beron only sneered. “I don’t take orders from the bastards of lesser fae whores.”

...

“That bastard,” Nesta said with utter coolness, though her eyes began to burn, “may wind up being the only person standing in the way of Hybern’s forces and your people.”

She didn’t so much as look at Cassian as she said it. But he stared at her—as if he’d never seen her before.

When Feyre dismissed Nesta but Cassian doesn't:

The door opened, and Cassian stalked in, face grave. The sight of the wings, the Illyrian armor in this opulent, pink-filled room planted itself in my mind, the painting already taking form, as he said, “What’s wrong.”

He studied every inch of her. As if there were nothing and no one else here, anywhere.

But I said, “She senses something is off—says we need to leave right away.”

I waited for the dismissal, but Cassian angled his head. “What, precisely, feels wrong?”

When the Cauldron made Nesta barf and Cassian is an attentive mate

“What’s wrong?” Mor demanded, holding my sister upright as her face contorted in what looked to be—pain. Confusion and pain.

Sweat beaded on Nesta’s brow, though her face went deathly pale. “Something …” The word was cut off by a low groan. She sagged, and Mor caught her fully, scanning Nesta’s face. Cassian was instantly there, his hand at her back, teeth bared at the invisible threat.

“Nesta,” I said, reaching for her.

Nesta seized—then twisted past Cassian to empty her stomach into the reflection pool.

When he touches her forehead:

Cassian stepped in Nesta’s path when she tried to walk past him. Put a tan, callused hand on her forehead. She shook off the touch, but he gripped her wrist, forcing her to meet his stare. “Any one of those human pricks makes a move to hurt you,” he breathed, “and you kill them.”

He wouldn’t be coming—no, he’d be mustering the full might of the Illyrian legions. Azriel would be joining us, though.

Cassian pressed one of his knives into Nesta’s hand. “Ash can kill you now,” he said with lethal quiet as she stared down at the blade. “A scratch can make you queasy enough to be vulnerable. Remember where the exits are in every room, every fence and courtyard—mark them when you go in, and mark how many men are around you. Mark where Rhys and the others are. Don’t forget that you’re stronger and faster. Aim for the soft parts,” he added, folding her fingers around the hilt. “And if someone gets you into a hold …” My sister said nothing as Cassian showed her the sensitive areas on a man. Not just the groin, but the inside of the foot, pinching the thigh, using her elbow like a weapon. When he finished, he stepped back, his hazel eyes churning with some emotion I couldn’t place.

When Nesta watches Cassian in Battle:

Only Nesta strode toward the edge of the tents to watch the battle on the valley floor below. Mor joined her, then me.

Nesta did not flinch at the clash and din of battle. She only stared toward one black-armored figure, leading the lines, his occasional order to push or to hold that flank barking across the battle

...

Cassian was trying. Azriel had lunged into the fray, nothing more than shadows edged in blue light, battling his way toward where Cassian fought, utterly surrounded.

“Mother above,” Nesta said softly. Not in awe. No—no, that was dread in her voice.

...

By the time I strode away, Nesta had already faced the battle once more, rain plastering her hair to her head. Resuming her unending vigil of the general battling on the valley floor below.

When she wraps up his wrist (and when he's an idiot and focuses on Mor)

But Nesta had jolted to her feet, staring at Cassian....But she surveyed his seven Siphons, the dim red stones. And then she said, “You’re hurt.”

Cassian’s face was grim—his eyes glassy. “It’s fine.” Even the words were laced with exhaustion.

But she reached for his arm—his shield arm.

Cassian seemed to hesitate, but offered it to her, tapping the Siphon atop his palm. The armor slid back a fraction over his forearm, revealing—

“You know better than to walk around with an injury,” Rhys said a bit tensely.

“I was busy,” Cassian said, not taking his focus off Nesta as she studied the swollen wrist. How she’d detected it through the armor … She must have read it in his eyes, his stance.

I hadn’t realized she’d been observing the Illyrian general enough to notice his tells.

“And it’ll be fixed by morning,” Cassian added, daring Rhys to say otherwise.

But Nesta’s pale fingers gently probed his golden-brown skin, and he hissed through his teeth.

“How do I fix it?” she asked ...

Cassian slowly sat on the log where she’d been perched a moment before, groaning softly—as if even that movement taxed him. “Icing it usually helps, but wrapping it will just lock it in place long enough for the sprain to repair itself—”

She reached for the basket of bandages she’d been preparing, then for the pitcher at her feet.

I was too tired to do anything other than watch as she washed his wrist, his hand, her own fingers gentle... Cassian seemed too weary to speak as well while she wrapped bandages around his wrist, only grunting to confirm if it was too tight or too loose, if it helped at all. But he watched her—didn’t take his eyes off her face, the brows bunched and lips pursed in concentration.

And when she’d tied it neatly, his wrist wrapped in white, when Nesta made to pull back, Cassian gripped her fingers in his good hand. She lifted her gaze to his. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

Nesta did not yank her hand away. Did not open her mouth for some barbed retort.

She only stared and stared at him, at the breadth of his shoulders, even more powerful in that beautiful black armor, at the strong column of his tan neck above it, his wings. And then at his hazel eyes, still riveted to her face.

Cassian brushed a thumb down the back of her hand. Nesta opened her mouth at last, and I braced myself—

“You’re hurt?”

At the sound of Mor’s voice, Cassian snatched his hand back and pivoted toward Mor with a lazy smile. “Nothing for you to cry over, don’t worry.”

Nesta dragged her stare from his face—down to her now-empty hand, her fingers still curled as if his palm lay there. Cassian didn’t look at Nesta as she rose, snatching up the pitcher, and muttered something about getting more water from inside the tent.

Cassian and Mor fell into their banter, laughing and taunting each other about the battle and the ones ahead.

Nesta didn’t come back out again for some time.

When Cassian almost dies, and she's worried sick, and then she looks him over to make sure he's okay:

Nesta stood by the nearest tent, an empty water bucket between her feet. Her hair a damp mess atop her mud-flecked head. Watching us emerge, grim-faced—

“He’s fine. Healed and awake,” I said quickly.

Nesta’s shoulders sagged a bit.

...

Still coated in mud up to her shins, my sister paused on the other side—away from where Cassian now sat. Looked him over. Her face revealed nothing, yet her hands … I could have sworn a faint tremor rippled through her fingers before she balled them into fists and faced Amren. Cassian watched her for a moment longer before turning his head toward Amren as well.

...

Your sister came immediately when I explained what we needed, Rhys said. I think seeing Cassian hurt convinced her not to pick a fight today.

Or convinced my sister to pick a fight with someone else entirely.

When Nesta Scries: No harm no harm no harm

Nesta still didn’t move. She could not use the bathtub, she’d told me. Because the memories it dragged up—

Cassian said to her, “Nothing can harm you here.” He sucked in a breath, groaning softly, and rose to his feet. Azriel tried to stop him, but Cassian brushed him off and strode for my sister’s side. He braced a hand on the desk when he at last stopped. “Nothing can harm you,” he repeated.

Nesta was still looking at him when she finally shut her eyes. I shifted, and the angle allowed me to see what I hadn’t detected before.

Nesta stood before the map, a fist of bones and stones clenched over it. Cassian remained at her side—his other hand on her lower back.

...

With a gasp, Nesta’s fingers splayed wide, scattering stones and bones over the map. Cassian caught her with an arm around the waist as she swayed. He hissed in pain at the movement. “What the hell—”

When Cassian makes an offer most women would not refuse:

“Eat or bed?” Cassian had asked Nesta, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he’d meant it as some invitation. I debated telling him he was in no shape.

Nesta only said, “Bed.” And there was certainly no invitation in the exhausted reply.

When Elain is taken:

“We’ll get her back,” Cassian rasped from where he perched on the rolled arm of the chaise longue across the small sitting area, watching her carefully...

Nesta lowered her hands, lifting her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, lips thin. “No, you will not.” She pointed to the map on the table. “I saw that army. Its size, who is in it. I saw it, and there is no chance of any of you getting into its heart. Even you,” she added when Cassian opened his mouth again. “Especially not when you’re injured.”

When Cassian declares he'll defend the humans, pt. 2 (ACOWAR)

“Good,” Cassian said, glancing at Nesta. “If I end my life defending those who need it most, then I will consider it a death well spent.

When Cassian was going to say something before the last battle:

Rhys only asked, “How long do you think we have?”

Cassian clenched his jaw, glancing at my sisters. Nesta was watching him keenly; Elain monitored the army from our minor elevation, face white with dread....

Cassian took a step away, but looked back at Nesta. Her face was hard as granite. He opened his mouth, but seemed to decide against whatever he was about to say. My sister said nothing as Cassian shot into the sky with a powerful thrust of his wings. Yet she tracked his flight until he was hardly more than a dark speck.

When they decide to lure away Hybern:

Nesta stared toward that armada, toward our father fighting in it. “Use me. As bait.”

I blinked at the same moment Cassian said, “No.”

...

“He will kill you,” Cassian snarled.

Her hand clenched on his arm. “That’s—that’s where you come in.”

To guard her. Protect her. To lay a trap for the king.

...

Cassian said steadily, “It’s the only shot we have of a diversion. Luring him away from that Cauldron.” His hands tightened on Nesta.

...

But Cassian asked Nesta, “Do you have what you need?”

Nesta nodded. “Amren showed me enough. What to do to rally the power to me.”

And if Amren and I could control the Cauldron between us … That distraction they’d offer …

Nesta looked down to Elain—our sister monitoring the bloodbath ahead. Then to me. She said quietly, “Tell Father—thank you.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around Cassian, those gray-blue eyes bright, then they were gone.

[tossawary]

Some random favorite lines (with commentary) of Chapter 23: “Swallowing Your Heart” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” because I’m doing a re-read. Not a full list or full commentary.

-

Liu Qingge shoves him off his sword.

Plot twist! Betrayal! Shang Qinghua doesn’t have time to get over his shock at such an attack before Liu Qingge has caught the riderless sword in one hand and caught the swordless rider over his shoulder.

The Bai Zhan Peak War God flies on to Qian Cao Peak with his new cargo.

Shang Qinghua slaps the man on the back and wheezes.

“Have you done that move before?!” he demands, because that was so fucking smooth it’s offensive. It really does offend him! He’s super offended right now!

“Mingyan,” Liu Qingge says, like this explains everything. “And Fanli.”

It kind of does explain everything.

- 

AN: That LQG effortlessly manhandled SQH in the same way that he manhandles his sister. This is how LQG shows affection. LMY is not a fan of it either. 

-

“Ming Fan is a good sparring partner,” Binghe says as part of his tirade, like he’s confessing something. “But he needs sooooo many compliments to soothe his pride. ‘Oh, I knocked Shixiong over because he’s such a good teacher! Thank you, Shixiong, for helping me practice this move. Shixiong, I really admire how you don’t let the little things bother you because you’re so confident and skilled.’ I think he’s getting better now, but it’s still tiring sometimes. Uncle, some people really can’t take even a well-meaning criticism without falling apart.”

- 

AN: This conversation was definitely a jab at Shang Qinghua relationship with Mobei-Jun, but it also extends to Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu. 

- 

Binghe says that he also heard some Qiong Ding Peak people are here now, but he doesn’t know what they’re doing. Beyond that, not that much has apparently happened while Shang Qinghua was sleeping the day away! Liu Qingge came by, probably to report to his scheming wife, who was yet again totally and embarrassingly correct about Shang Qinghua’s state of being. Chen Xuan, whom Binghe embarrassingly correctly identified as Disciple Dumpling Thief’s Friend, dropped by, but only to say not to worry about the day-in-day-out of An Ding Peak.

- 

AN: Binghe knows Shang Qinghua’s nicknames for his favorite disciples. 

- 

Binghe curls up with his arms around and his head resting on Shang Qinghua’s stomach, while Shang Qinghua rubs his protagonist son’s back.

- 

AN: Either of these characters getting unconditional platonic affection is SO UNUSUAL that it hurts. People need hugs at all ages! 

- 

The kindest option here might be the demon lord coming back sometime in the next few days and pretending the entire interaction never happened. Shang Qinghua will tell the man that it was a human thing, some kind of nervous fit, and beg forgiveness for his lapse in presentation! Well, he probably should, except… he doesn’t really want to do that. He doesn’t really want to go, “My king, my apologies for the mess! Let me, ah, let me just swallow all of those words I threw out there, just chew them back up, gulp them down into some vital organ to rot there forever, so we can never talk about them ever again.”

Mobei-Jun seems to still be his Mobei-Jun, looking at that confrontation in hindsight, and not… not any other Mobei-Jun. People in general seem to have stayed the same, besides Peerless Cucumber being fitted into the picture as some mysterious intruder. All those years of service and loyalty and companionship Shang Qinghua remembers with Mobei-Jun haven’t vanished on him. “All current achievements have been preserved” and all that!

So, part of him wants to go, “So! Those things I said! What about them, huh? Do you have anything to say to any of that, my king? Anything at all?” 

- 

AN: Shang Qinghua wants to OPEN UP and he can’t make himself take that step when his nephew’s life is on the line. MBJ has not made himself explicitly safe yet. Unspoken understandings can only go so far here. 

- 

“Was it something really bad?” Luo Fanli presses, leaning back along his desk until she’s practically lying down on it.

Not in a sexy pose or anything, just in a put-upon flop, kind of like a tired child finding the oasis of a department store furniture display during a too-long shopping trip or a toddler denied candy pouting on the floor of the grocery store. His little sister-in-law is not greatly concerned with dignity, much to her sister’s dismay and the eternal frustration of Qi Qingqi. She says life is too short for it.

“No one died.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, it means that everyone lived through it,” Shang Qinghua explains.

-

AN: Shang Qinghua’s relationship with Luo Fanli is fun. I’m looking forward to putting Luo Fanli in a room with Shen Yuan. SY needs friends. Luo Fanli @ Shen Yuan: “Idk, he’s a weirdo, but he’s uncle-shaped, right?” 

- 

Except when Shang Qinghua opens the soup container, it’s still completely full. None of his disciples - who are very, very good at acting like they’ve never been fed ever in their life - have helped themselves to even a taste. It’s a big pot! There’s plenty to go around! More than Shang Qinghua could reasonably eat by himself! And yet…

His disciples have been way too nice to him lately. He feels like he should be checking his pockets for whatever they stole from him when he wasn’t looking. Did the System replace his bratty disciples with good alternate universe ones?! He hates it, thanks!

- 

AN: This is SUCH a low standard... and yet...! It’s very funny to me how much his disciples not stealing food from a sick man says here. 

SQH: “Why are all my disciples such sticky-fingered brats?!” 

LJH: “Because you think it’s funny.” 

SQH: “Oh, yeah.” 

- 

Wow, Peerless Cucumber doesn’t seem pleased to see him! Shang Qinghua hasn’t suffered a glare that venomous since… well, Shen Qingqiu, maybe? Okay, so maybe the switch would have worked a little bit! But Shang Qinghua is still glad it didn’t happen, even if the System fucked up the rest of reality (somehow, Shang Qinghua still hasn’t figured out how exactly) out of revenge for its own shitty choices falling through.

“Where have you been?” Peerless Cucumber demands.

“Busy?” Shang Qinghua answers, coming closer but not sitting down. “Look, the System just rewrote bits of reality on me because of your fumbled arrival tipping some invisible scales and it has not been forthcoming about the changes. I had things to check on and things have been a bit political. I sent you a message.”

“That message said a lot of nothing,” Peerless Cucumber says, but with less venom.

“Aha, yeah. Well, I’m here now.”

Peerless Cucumber looks frustrated, but finally scoots over so that Shang Qinghua can sit beside him on the bench. Shang Qinghua gingerly sits, giving the kid space.

Shang Qinghua is being super calm for the other transmigrator right now! He’s very calm here! The calmest!

- 

AN: SY really is a scared kid putting up a front. Which works out, because SQH is a dad here (and thinks SY’s insults are mostly just funny). 

- 

Out of the corner of his eye, Shang Qinghua can see a Qian Cao Peak cultivator standing impatiently by the Qiong Ding Peak guard. And… someone bouncing on their toes in a Qing Jing Peak uniform? Speak of the half-demon future tyrant of this world!

“Looks like we’ll have to continue this later,” Shang Qinghua says.

“My assisted meditation appointment,” Peerless Cucumber confirms glumly, looking as though he’s never experienced inner peace in his life and has no intention of willingly doing so. 

- 

AN: I took SY as genuinely having a knack for cultivating and that’s the interpretation I’m using for this fic, especially since I gave the Original Shen Qingqiu health problems that nearly killed him. In an earlier chapter, Mu Qingfang mentions needing to “replace Shen Qingqiu’s entire cultivation system”, which I planted for Shen Yuan getting a free, extremely stable highly developed cultivation system as part of his transmigration later. 

I mean, Shen Yuan manages to weather Liu Qingge’s qi deviation, a great deal of stress, Without-A-Cure, and etc., and he’s remarkably stable through most of it. So I’m leaning towards “a little bit of System assistance” here. The System was going to replace both Shen Qingqiu and SQQ’s unstable cultivation system out for Shen Yuan and a more stable cultivation system. 

SQQ still has a cultivation system. If he didn’t, it would have been mentioned by now. SQQ is repeatedly stated to be improving well in this chapter. I think Mu Qingfang would have noticed if SQQ didn’t have cultivation anymore. 

- 

“Then wouldn’t you be Luo-Shixiong to me?” Peerless Cucumber suggests wryly to the protagonist, who is both about five years younger than him and still shorter. (Mu Qingfang said that their guest seems to believe that he’s newly twenty. Whether or not the kid is editing his age up or down, Shang Qinghua has decided that he’s just not going to fucking think about this fact.)

“Uh,” Luo Binghe says, looking stunned and then to Shang Qinghua for help. Ha, he’s flustered, which doesn’t happen often. That’s adorable.. “...Maybe?”

Shang Qinghua snorts and remains unhelpful. Ning Yingying is actually about a year younger than Luo Binghe is, Shang Qinghua knows, but she’s been a member of the sect for significantly longer. Binghe might have some shidi and shimei soon with the next entrance test and he’s been very excited about that, but he clearly doesn’t know what to do with a “shidi” closer to his young auntie’s age than his own. Kind of weird seniors and juniors are just part of the sect experience, nephew! Get used to it!

“Thank you, regardless,” Peerless Cucumber says.

“Of course,” Binghe agrees quickly.

- 

AN: SQH is probably going to look back on this moment and go, “Hmm.” 

- 

‘You’re very resourceful,” his sister-in-law says slyly.

“I am very resourceful,” Shang Qinghua allows, and in a fit of affection reaches up to pinch Luo Jiahui’s cheek like she’s Binghe. “And I have the world’s wisest and least bossy sister-in-law, too! How fortunate I am!”

Luo Jiahui slaps his hand away with a giggle, turning slightly pink.

“At least you know it!” she says.

- 

AN: I’ve been wanting to make SQH pinch someone’s cheek for ages now. 

- 

“...You looked very scared that night,” Luo Jiahui says finally. “It might have seemed worse to you than it was. If your demon can’t be understanding of one bad night, then it’s… I don’t know if there’s a way forward with him at all.” She fixes a determined expression and says, “If any offers are retracted then we’ll manage just fine without him. We’ll tell Qingge and he’ll help. And so will Fanli. Our family won’t fall apart so easily. Hua-Ge doesn’t have to take care of everything and be everything at once to everyone.”

- 

AN: LJH channeling some “dump him! dump him! dump him!” energy. 

- 

Shang Qinghua has never been able to picture cutting ties after all this time. What would he even say? “My king, I think our arrangement has come to an end. I promised to serve you for the rest of my life, but that was when I didn’t think my life was worth very much.” He can’t see that going over well! It’s never really been an option, anyway, since Luo Binghe can’t not unlock his demonic powers and go to the Demon Realm. The System won’t have it.

- 

AN: If SQH said that to MBJ, that would be a one-hit KO, probably. 

Break the man’s heart, why don’t you?

[foulserpent]

only human

long character analysis + fan fiction hybrid involving critically acclaimed worst best game of all time The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion! martin is in a mental and emotional hell! ned and martin resolving unresolved sexual tension after like, 100000 false starts! being mentally ill with the bro’s! "fluffy" ending!

cw: brief depiction of violence, ptsd, implications of past relationship based trauma, borderline explicit but not really sexy sexual content (nothing p*rnographic but 18+ pls)

On some nights, Martin was in hell.

The world was on a slow death march towards ruin outside the walls, this much he knew. Not even the strongest fortification could shield him from it. Every night from his gilded cage, he heard the screams, breathed the foul smoke and burning flesh and disemboweled gut, see the daedra drag the near-dead into the shadows to be torn apart, still crying out as they were devoured. His hands wet with blood, shaking in vain as his healing failed him and the survivors were pulled apart by their own wounds. The long walk out of the doomed Kvatch, past swarming flies and hundreds of blank eyes looking into the unforgiving sun. The revelation that all this was for him.

On the worst of these nights, staring into the ceiling of Cloud Ruler Temple as the sun began to creep over the horizon, he would wish he had just died.

This time last year, he was on track to live out the rest of his days in obscurity. Probably in Kvatch, probably remaining a priest, where the only weight on his shoulders was giving people their assurances that the Divines would look out for them and hoping he would finally taste truth in these words. It would be better than this. Those who held the reigns of the Empire were even more deluded than he'd thought, if they believed that his noble blood would divinely grant understanding of what to do, some inborn ability to keep collected and strong and sane trapped here as his friends faced death at his behest.

He would be called "lord", shone and polished as a commodity, loved and utterly devoted to, and never, never known. His feelings did not matter. This message had been thoroughly beaten into him. None of it mattered to whatever hand kept him guarded as preciously as the helpless king on the chessboard, behind a line of pawns to the sacrifice. Xikeel bringing him little gifts from gods-know-where (some teeth, a ring, a few spoons), slithering down from the rafters to visit him in the late night hours. One of the blades- bewildered - walking in on them dancing, without rhythm or music.

Long conversations with Ned, who would never treat him like an emperor, who barely even seemed to want to be there but had become doggedly devoted to Xikeel and himself. Bringing him wine, face softened into a smile in anticipation of an evening sitting outside in comfortable, quiet company. Tired and spiteful, but so warm.

He did not know when his feelings had turned to want. There was never an astonished realization, no moment that had changed everything. The first time he consciously acknowledged it was not as a revelation, but as an observation. Ned had cut his hand, a simple, foolish mistake that left Martin wearily healing him, in spite of the bosmer’s protests. Martin had held onto his hand longer than the spell needed, feeling the pulse in his fingers and wanting to entwine him in his own. Wanting to pull him in closer. Noticing that he wanted this, and noticing that it did not surprise him.

It was one of many things to think about, significantly less distressing than every other aspect of his current existence to say the least. He wondered if it was the day he had returned from his nigh-suicidal mission to cheat a god, haggard and shirt bloodied and yet with the softest eyes Martin had seen in the man, cracking a weak smile (a flash of teeth) that said "I've done it, and I hope you can forgive me". He wondered if it was Ned's unwavering devotion to leaving his shirt half-unbuttoned, the burn tearing through his chest on display like a trophy. The necklace would fall across the older man's breast while he laughed and joked about stupid things with Martin as if they were old friends. He was not above simple things.

Perhaps this was a test of the temperance he had spent years cultivating, hollowing out a part of himself to nurture the seed. After all, he had not been with anyone for a long time.

---

He had loathed the existence of the arena in Kvatch, drawing in men and women from all around in what amounted to mass suicide. There was little honor in it, just desperate people consuming themselves for just to grasp a thread of glory, dying in the mud as the crowd roared.  But Martin was only human. He had found himself looking on the men as they passed through town, all muscle and scars and fiercely alive. He had found himself drawn to one who had come into the temple for a blessing of protection. The man never said why, though Martin knew where he was bound. It was never hard to tell.

The man was tall and rather handsome, with a muscular frame and dark hair and looking to be only a few years younger than himself, (this had to be around when he was forty-one or forty-two. Had it been that long?). They'd spoke first as strangers do, running through the motions of a blessing under a thick smoke of incense and flowers burnt in offering to the Dragon. Martin averted his gaze from the sword at the man's hip as he prepared the oil. Its hilt glittered in iron filigree and unmistakable rust of dried blood struck gold by the afternoon's dying light. His eyes wandered to the man's face instead, moving to begin the anointment. The dark haired man swiped his tongue over his lips and glanced away, and Martin's heartbeat spiked.

For gods sakes.

The man talked compulsively, glancing around as if something stalked him in the shadows between the stained-glass-light. Martin had silently hoped he would grow bored with the old priest and be on his way, if only so that he'd have time to himself to contemplate what the hell was wrong with him. So, naturally, the man kept talking long after the ritual was complete and the candles extinguished. About where he had come from, (all the way from High Rock, it turned out), the unusual rains lately, family. Partners. Lovers. The conversation turned here, and had fallen with such a speed that he barely realized what was happening. The man had found Martin beautiful, and Martin, exhausted with penitence and enthralled by the stranger and aching to just be human again, had found himself quietly slipping out with him.

Martin's home was truly tiny when occupied by two, an unfamiliar claustrophobia that was quickly dragged into the mire and drowned in a little too much wine. It was cheap and burned his throat with its sweetness, but he didn't care. They'd stumbled and fallen into his bed.

"For good luck," the man had said, as they kissed rough and far too clumsy.

"For good luck," Martin had kissed into the man's neck.

The man was a bit fumbling, all muscles and scars and fierceness. No matter how close their bodies pressed, no matter the grip Martin had - his fingers marking new trails over a scarred back -  there was that distance. Two magnets repelling, even as they forced themselves together. These men going to their deaths couldn't be touched. And neither could he, no matter how he tried. There weren't even the barest roots of love here. Just body on body, flesh on flesh. It wasn't bad, though. Martin was only human.

He didn't know what to say in the morning, as the man collected his belongings to go off to the fight. "Good luck," Martin said again, feeling stupid. The man had said "thank you" with his eyes distant. He bent down and out the door, and walked out into the humid morning air, leaving Martin with a strange emptiness in his gut. He never saw him again.

It shouldn't have impacted him so badly. He'd had a one-night stand that was, frankly, pretty good. He'd given another man some comfort, something above and beyond his duty as the Priest-Healer-Penitent. It wasn't really against any vows. His lungs still breathed the smoke of offerings to the Dragon, a shrine to Dibella was dutifully kept at the foot of his bed and given a clumsy offering before the main event. He had not fallen back into the snares of that damned daedra. It wasn't a betrayal of those he'd lost. So why was he guilty?

---

And yet here he was now, on the precipice yet again. Really, he was long into the fall.

Him and one-of-two Heroes of Kvatch had slept together for a week now. Nothing more than the sharing of a bed and body heat, their day to day lives much the same as the world crumbled around him. They had kissed a few days ago, slightly dizzy with wine and the memory returning only in a haze. They'd kissed again the night before, sober and beyond any deniability as the bosmer was making his way out on errand. Ned had blushed and flicked his ears back, leaving him with a soft smile and a quiet "See you," as he slipped into the night.

Now, Martin found himself kneeling as if in prayer at the foot of his bed, his companion sitting up before him. Ned was half naked, body all muscle and scars and an exhaustion that ran far deeper than that. Martin had been healing a wound on his stomach- sliced open by a nasty (and thankfully, poorly aimed) dagger. The Mythic Dawn long since knew what he looked like, though they had hardly been this bold before now. They stalked the base of the mountains like jackals at the edge of a kill, waiting for an opening to lunge in and tear off some scrap of flesh. Ned hadn't wanted to talk about this one. His hands shook as he'd taken off his bloodstained clothes, and he scoured them with a washcloth long after they were clean.

"I'm fine." He had said. "I'm just tired."

Martin was tired too. That first night together, he had this romantic notion that being held by his friend would keep away the nightmares. They had come as they did most nights, crawling out of the depths of his subconscious with the worst of him they could offer. He'd woken up, breathing hard as terror dripped down his body. There was one difference. There was a warmth pressed to his back, and it breathed a half-snore as it moved in closer, nuzzled into his trembling neck. Ned hadn't woken. He had just wrapped Martin up into strong arms, and settled back into a deep sleep. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but even as the last traces of the nightmare pulled out its spurs, Martin felt safe. All he wanted was to return the favor.

Now, Martin leaned to kissed the gash across Ned's chest, the one that the man would wake up in terror clutching at, eyes somewhere far away and breathing hard. He trailed kisses down the line of skin warped by fire and blade, and Ned laughed. "I can barely feel it."

"Really?" The sword and its burns had probably damaged a nerve. Or done something worse, something that cut deeper. It was a daedric weapon after all. Martin would later ask where exactly he had sensation, to see if anything could be done about it. Later, perhaps. Now, he was tired of being the Priest-Healer-Penitent.

He leaned back in, close but just out of reach. His lips hovered down over the soft hair down his middle, making a glancing contact below the wounds. Even there, the skin seemed to have been broken and healed many times over a long life. How could someone live like that?  He kissed him, just below the lower scar.

"How about here?"

"S'better"

Ned was definitely feeling something. The man's breath caught just slightly at the touch. He overcorrected, shifting in his seat a little and clearing his throat. Uncrossing his legs. Martin moved further down, just a little past his navel, laying another kiss on the recently healed wound. He wanted nothing more than to taste - touch the man before him, and to wake up with no guilt, no loneliness- he kissed him again.

"Or here?"

"Little better," the man's tone was flirtatious. "I mean, it'd be lot more sensation if you went just a bit low...er."

Ned had trailed off in the last word and froze at his own indiscretion. He was tensed like one with a hand raised against him, expecting a blow. As if he could have misinterpreted where this moment could go, alone and naked with his friend kneeling before him. As if Martin would be mad.

"Sorry, I didn't mean-uh." Ned flailed, pulling his knees shut.

"No, no, I'm sorry. I'd like to, if you would."

Ned's breath hitched. He looked utterly bewildered.

"OH- yeah, sure? Uh- Yes. Yeah." He sputtered.

They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment that lasted an eternity. Neither man dared to even take a breath. Ned cracked the tiniest fraction of a smile.

They both laughed, pulling apart. The tension had snapped, and the ache in his gut relented, put itself to the side. Martin hoisted himself back up onto the bed, sitting to his friend's side with a chaste several inches between them.

"It's... Been a while." Martin sighed. "Look at me, acting all nervous."

"Me too man, me too." Ned laughed, covering the blush on his face and utterly failing to hide the red of his ears. "’Promise I'm not usually like this, I have no friggin' idea what my problem is."

"Well, this'll just have to do." Martin made a show of shrugging and frowning in mock-resignation.

Ned let out a 'ha!' and leaned back, all muscles now relaxed as he smiled up at his companion. His words and smile were casual, but he was looking at Martin with such soft eyes, as if this tired old man was the damn moons and stars.

"Can I kiss you?" Martin asked.

Ned nodded.

He leaned over him, and went in for another kiss. And another. This time, it was as if a dam had burst. All lips and tongue and teeth and breath and hands moving on skin with a practiced clumsiness that spoke to years of experience, and spoke to one treading a ground that was brand new and wonderful for it.

As they pulled apart, Ned smiled and squeezed Martin's hands, and he squeezed back. They guided each other downward.

Now, Martin's lips were at a precipice below deniability. His hands held ready at the man's waist, a few fingers interwoven with his, beyond caring if their palms sweat or if their arms shook. He looked up to meet Ned's gaze, who cracked a smile and looked away, threading his other hand into Martin's hair in spite of his sheepishness.  

"Can I keep going?" Martin asked.

"Yeah," Ned answered, still smiling. Eyes closed. "Please."

Ned's thumb brushed his cheek, a gentle encouragement. A 'thank you'.

And he kissed him.

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: Towers of Midnight prologue (part 1)

I’m back, with as much verbosity and discussion of identity as ever, this time featuring Lan and Perrin.

Loial gets the epigraph this time. Good for you, Loial. Live your dreams.

Prologue: Distinctions

Wait a second. Hold on. Is this… are we… am I being greeted, upon my return to this series after several months, by a Lan POV? Is this possible?

Mandarb’s hooves beat a familiar rhythm on broken ground as Lan Mandragoran rode toward his death.

Because of course. Of course we get Lan’s POV, for the first time in the series, when he is riding at last to his private war with the Blight, to avenge the country that died decades ago and whose death he has always seen as his own, only delayed. Of course we get his POV now, when he is riding to what he believes is, at last, his death.

This has always been his purpose. He is a sword, a weapon, an oath, a fallen nation. A weapon doesn’t get to have a voice. A dead nation doesn’t get to speak. A sword can’t tell its own story. Especially because, all that time, he was held back from this, which he has always seen as his purpose. His only purpose. He let himself be bonded all those years ago but he never really gave up that sense of… I was about to say identity, but it’s both identity and total lack thereof. Identity, but not as a person, not as someone with agency and a story to tell. Just a weapon, forged for a single purpose.

And so, riding to his death, this is the closest he comes in the main series to feeling alive. Now that he is fulfilling that purpose, now that he is following the one path he has always considered his own. This, here, this ride to his death, is his entire identity.

So yes. In that sense it is beautifully fitting that we open with his POV for the first time in the main series, now as it draws towards its end. Now that he is freed, such as it is, to at last meet what he believes is his end, and his beginning, and the task that defined his entire… well. ‘Life’ sounds rather ironic there, but it’s the best I can do.

Anyway, we’re one line in and I’ve already written several hundred words, so I guess even after a hiatus nothing’s changed.

Turns out the earth is apparently quite literally salted here. So that’s a good start.

He’d turned away from it twenty years ago, agreeing to follow Moiraine, but he’d always known he would return. This was what it meant to bear the name of his fathers, the sword on his hip, and the hadori on his head.

All three representative of something dead, something lost, something gone. Something he accepts as lost. He doesn’t ride to revive Malkier, he rides to bury it (though I’m sure he wouldn’t mind praising it along the way). His entire life and self have been defined by this, by death and the past. The wheel of time turns, and stories fade and must ultimately be left in order to find a future, but Lan, for all his wisdom in some areas, has never really understood that. Or, perhaps more accurately, never felt it could apply to him.

I think in some way he did understand it, in that he bound himself to Moiraine even when it meant leaving his burned past and his private war in order to fight for the future of the world, but even then, it was only… temporary. Ultimately, he accepts the past as having a hold on him, accepts the idea the has never had and never will have a future.

It is, in a way, a parallel to or slight variant on Rand, on a different scale. Rand struggled (at least I think it’s past tense at this point) for so long to figure out how to accept Lews Therin as a part of himself without the terror of being bound to his past life’s fate. And on top of that there’s his whole he belongs to the Pattern, and to history. Moiraine saw that as future history – something that is not yet but will be history, but is future from where we stand. But Rand – and Lan – end up with a slightly different view of that. Rand fights against the memory of a doomed past and relinquishes all sense of freedom or choice or agency (until he gets better), and Lan lets the past own him and define him and guide him and kill him, all without ever dreaming to have a life of his own.

Riding to his death didn’t pain him

And why should it? Defined by death as he is. If you never think of yourself as someone who gets to be a person and have a life, what fear would death hold? He was only ever a… placeholder? A delayed strike, a remnant, a part of something dead that just hasn’t got around to lying down and stopping yet.

But knowing she feared for him… that did hurt. Very badly.

There’s a slightly bitter part of me that can’t quite get over the disappointment that the first Lan POV we get in the main series isn’t written by Jordan. Because Jordan’s writing of Lan in New Spring was beautiful. Spare but surprisingly lovely, and yet all threaded through with the idea and mention and thought of death, not in a morbid or even grim way but just as a part of the lens through which the story is told… it was so perfectly suited to Lan, and this feels… less so. It’s not bad; it’s just. I feel like I have a sense of what it could be and it’s not quite that.

Then again we’re still only like two paragraphs in, Great Lord of the Dark Lia would you get on with it already.

He hadn’t seen another person in days.

Too soon for a self-isolation joke?

Oh look, the first of his army has arrived!

Because the Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai’don. Man, that scene.

This kid’s like ‘hi! I’m here! I brought things, and supplies, and I’m just so excited, and and and’ and Lan is like ‘okay but who the fuck are you’.

Come on, Wheel of Time, let Lan Mandragoran say ‘fuck’.

Bulen? That sounds familiar, and he looks familiar to Lan…he’s definitely from New Spring. He was the errand boy, wasn’t he? Well, three cheers for conservation of characters.

“But when word spread in the palace that the Golden Crane was raised, I knew what I had to do.”

Really, Bulen? Do you not remember what happened last time someone tried to raise the Golden Crane in Lan’s name? I mean I’m all for it and Nynaeve is certainly a long way from Edeyn and that scene of the Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai’don still gives me at least two-thirds of an emotion when I think about it, but you’d think the kid would have grown a sense of self-preservation after what went down twenty years ago. Then again, no one in this series has a sense of self-preservation, so why change that now?

El’Nynaeve! She gets her title! She once had to fight so hard for people to respect her as Wisdom, and then as Aes Sedai, and now people who have barely met her give her a royal title! Because she’s out there raising an army and a nation from its grave!

(Yeah, yeah, you could point out that she has to fight for all the titles she earns, while this is one given to her by virtue of her marriage to a man, but honestly I’m just going to enjoy hearing this random kid call her El’Nynaeve because he already thinks of her as his queen because she’s just that cool. And you can’t stop me.)

Well, if she could play games with the truth, then so could he. Lan had said he’d take anyone who wished to ride with him. This man was not mounted. Therefore, Lan could refuse him. A petty distinction, but twenty years with Aes Sedai had taught him a few things about how to watch one’s words.

I’m dying. Sure, the prose is Sanderson, but the sentiment it expresses? Is absolutely Lan. It’s a slightly more grown up and jaded version of New Spring Lan, and it’s pretty much exactly what I imagine Lan’s internal monologue throughout the entirety of The Eye of the World looking like. He and Moiraine are well-matched in that for all their extreme competence, and wisdom, and ability to set everything aside for the sake of the world… they are also capable of great pettiness coated in a fine veneer of dry humour and presented as Done With Your Shit.

Lan’s just like ‘nope, no cranes to see here, golden or paper or otherwise, just denial as far as the eye can see.’

Lan would not call anyone ‘son’. He has an epithet for everyone but that is not one of them.

“My father was Malkieri,” Bulen said from behind.

Lan continued on.

“He died when I was five,” Bulen called.

Yes, well, that’s something you have in common, give or take a few years.

Lan’s not here for anyone’s tragic backstory but his own.

Except Bulen, for all that he never learned self-preservation, apparently learned how to tug on the heartstrings.

“I would wear the hadori of my father,” Bulen called, voice growing louder. “But I have nobody to ask if I may.”

Damn it, this kid. Was that me or Lan speaking just now? We may never know.

Lan’s still trying to send him away, because Lan Mandragoran does not need to adopt any more wayward children who are only trying to find their way, and Bulen’s just trying every angle of attack he can possibly find and this kid sure has an arsenal.

“I hardly knew who you were, though I know you lost someone dear to you among us.”

Because if appealing to your tragic past doesn’t work, maybe appealing to his will. I have to admire Bulen’s determination to make a slightly nostalgic nuisance of himself until the Uncrowned King of Malkier finally gives him a sticker.

“I spent years cursing myself for not serving you better. I swore that I would stand with you someday.” He walked up beside Lan. “I ask you because I have no father. May I wear the hadori and fight at your side, al’Lan Mandragoran? My King?”

I’m fine. This is fine. Everything is fine and I do not feel emotions.

And Lan’s cursing Nynaeve for the oath she made him swear but what a conflict this must be for him: to be confronted with the life of his nation, when all he wants is to avenge its death. To have someone look to him not as a sword or a reminder of what is gone but as a father, a king, a leader, a symbol of something returning, something renewed.

It is, in a way, not entirely unlike his conflict in New Spring. Only he’s already learned to crush that hope before it even makes itself known, because it can only end in pain. And yet, it doesn’t stop finding him.

Nynaeve, when I next see you… But he would not see her again. He tried not to dwell upon that.

Don’t say that where Nynaeve can hear you. But really, I think I’ve said this before, but Lan is one of the characters whose survival I am most confident in, largely because of this. Because to let him die… sure, it wouldn’t really be surprising, and in a way it would fulfil the ending he wants, but it wouldn’t… move his story anywhere. Whereas to take a character so certain of and accepting of his death, someone who never believed he should even have a life at all, whose every waking moment has been in waiting of his end, the truly satisfying ending would be for him to get to live. Not just in the sense of surviving, but actually living.

Because again, it’s not unlike a part of Rand’s story, recently: the rediscovery of life. Of the purpose of it all. On Dragonmount he saw it two ways: once as meaningless, pointless, because victory just brings another battle and every lifetime is pain and he has no freedom and why not just end it. But then as another chance, the possibility of life and love and something better. And I think there’s an element of that threaded through the series as a whole. This idea that yes, things fade and die and are lost, and yes there is pain and duty and a Pattern woven, but in amidst all of that the point is to live. Not to just survive until you can die for the cause, but to actually live along the way. It’s that question of what are you fighting for, what is the purpose of all of this? Rand has, at last, found that. Lan… still needs to.

“We ride anonymously,” Lan said.

Sure. As anonymously as Rand riding into Tear, pretending gloves could hide his identity. Whatever you say, Lan.

“You tell nobody who I am.”

There’s a whole Thing here about erasing his own identity, which is almost ironic in that the fact that he has a POV at all is a way of showing him embracing that identity, except that the identity he is embracing is the denial of self to all intents and purposes in favour of a duty and a dead nation that defined him before he could ever define himself.

I mean. It’s just a throwaway line. But I’m me, and so it’s not.

***

Oh hello Perrin, what are you doing in a prologue? Shouldn’t you be off in a real chapter with all your friends? Run along now.

He seems to be at a forge, though, so that’s a good look.

Some people found the clang of metal against metal grating. Not Perrin. That sound was soothing.

I like this, because especially without the surrounding context it plays so well into one of the central dualities of Perrin’s character: that of the gentle, careful one who wants to build things and work a forge and know peace versus the side of him that is terrifying in battle and feels alive when fighting and runs with wolves. Metal on metal, in a forge or a battlefield.

Oh it’s a dream. That works too. Rand dreams of his sworn and fated enemy and sits with him by the fire as they both take a moment away from the tasks neither of them truly want but cannot relinquish, and Perrin dreams of a forge.

He was making something important.

A nation? A decision? A bed to replace the one he ‘lost’ in the bushes? Tell us, Perrin.

Understand the pieces, Perrin.

Ah, and there it is. Such a crucial task for the ta’veren whose power manifests largely in the forging of nations, in bringing people to him and together, in binding. But to do that, you have to know what you’re binding. Which requires not denying it, but I think perhaps Perrin has finally moved beyond that.

Hi Hopper. Want a belly rub?

What am I making? Perrin picked up the length of glowing iron with his tongs. The air warped around it.

Well that is the question, Perrin, is it not? Time to let yourself answer it. Time to move past instinct, or exceptional ability in emergencies that lapses into denial once they’re over. He’s so good in those situations, but he struggles with the times in between, the times when his thoughts catch up to him. And now… he needs to push past that, and be able to truly accept it all, to not just swing the hammer but to know what he’s making, to plan it, to be deliberate and purposeful – which is so much a part of him in some ways, but there are areas he avoids.

Hopper’s like okay okay but can we get our symbolism by chasing things or something fun? You humans and your hammers, I swear.

Master Luhhan would be ashamed to see such shoddy work. Perrin needed to discover what he was making soon

I mean, there’s really nothing for me to even add to that.

More hammering, but he’s angry now.

It should all be better now! But it isn’t. It seems worse somehow.

He continued pounding. He hated those rumours that the men in camp whispered about him.

There’s a pun here to be made about hammers and pounding and Berelain but I am an adult and therefore I shall refrain.

More to the point, though… he’s directing his anger at the rumours but I think it’s rather more about that first part. That things should be ‘better’ now, but they aren’t, and he still doesn’t know what he’s making. He was driven, focused (too driven, too focused) and he had a task and so he could pursue it with single-minded determination, but as soon as he completed it… he was back with his thoughts and a nation following him and a role he has partway accepted but still hasn’t quite come to terms with. He still doesn’t fully accept what he is, who he is, what he can do, what he will have to do.

And so he’s doing what he can, and trying to forge those bonds and face what’s coming but there’s a part of him still holding back, still uncertain of what that means, or still reluctant to face it.

It’s an interesting scene because the framing is so similar to Perrin at the forge in The Dragon Reborn, and yet the tone is so utterly different. That was meditative, deliberate, beautiful; Perrin in his element, creating something perhaps not beautiful but well-made, functional, perfectly suited to its purpose. That was Perrin as he saw himself then, when he knew who he was – or at least, who he wanted to be. This… the work is sloppy and Perrin doesn’t even know what he’s making (whereas then, he decided almost immediately but without urgency; it was just an ease and comfort in knowing what the metal would be) but he’s pressing ahead; this is his identity but he’s still forcing it, and so it all feels wrong.

Hopper’s like okay well why don’t you just, you know, not, and ah, we’re back to the wolf thing. Just because Rand has perhaps finally figured out how to balance the different aspects of himself doesn’t mean all the characters have.

Perrin wasn’t nearly as in control as he’d assumed. The wolf within him could still reign.

But, like with the forging, trying to force it isn’t really the answer. Accept, Perrin. Look at the pieces you actually have. Understand them. Understand the different parts of yourself, and take them as they are, and then you can forge them and fit them together. But you can’t do it by ignoring what they are and just trying to force them into what you think they should be. Especially if you don’t even have a clear idea of what that is.

Problems are not amusing, Young Bull, Hopper agreed. But you are climbing back and forth over the same wall.

At least it’s not that damn garden wall in Caemlyn.

But I like how directly this is acknowledged, first with Tam last book and now with Hopper, here. That Perrin keeps wavering over this same conflict, keeps taking two steps forward and one step back, keeps doubting himself and questioning himself and fearing this aspect of himself that he taps into at need but then runs from again.

I like it, as a way to play out a character arc in a way that isn’t just linear growth. Sure, it’s frustrating as all hell sometimes, but it feels real. Because sometimes we don’t Learn The Important Lesson and then move on with our lives never having to face that problem again. Sometimes you overcome your doubts or fear of something once, or find your way past an obstacle, only to find that when it comes up again, hey, turns out it’s still pretty difficult. Not everything is conquered the first time, or the second, or…

PERRIN DO NOT ASK HOW TO REVERSE YOUR WOLFPOWERS. EMBRACE THE WOLFPOWERS. YOU’VE ONLY GOT TWO BOOKS LEFT.

Ah, Perrin, so much self-doubt. But then, his timeline is a bit behind Rand’s, I believe, so he is rather due for a last moment of crisis before the storm breaks.

The quenching barrel is boiling and Perrin doesn’t know what he’s forging and all his movements are almost…clumsy. Rushed and uncareful and the exact opposite of the spare economy of motion from that first forging scene. Because he’s no longer moving with the comfort of surety in who he is and what he’s doing; he’s doubting himself and his task and his capacity and his purpose, unsure and afraid and trying to force some things and ignore others and it doesn’t work that way.

Oh, I like this.

The glow faded. The chunk was actually a small steel figurine in the shape of a tall, thin man with a sword tied to his back. Each line of the figure was detailed, the ruffles of the shirt, the leather bands on the hilt of the tiny sword. But the face was distorted, the mouth open in a twisted scream.

Aram, Perrin thought. His name was Aram.

That is excellent. And it reminds me so strongly, with the twisted scream and the naming, of that scene that absolutely ruins me in the Rhuidean sequence, where Lewin veils his face and the wind rises and he screams ‘I am Aiel’, as those who call themselves Aiel turn from him and name him lost.

And that Aram is forged from steel, from Perrin’s forge, because Perrin as he sees it made him what he became (took him from a life of peace to one of violence), and it’s a perfectly formed piece; it’s not like a misshapen lump of metal, but it’s still wrong. Not what it should be. Not what it should have been.

Why had he created such a thing?

Oh, Perrin.

What a question. Because of course he holds himself responsible. But… while he may have been a catalyst of sorts, this was Aram’s choice. But that doesn’t make it hurt less. A child of peace, who lost everything and came to Perrin for permission to learn the sword, to fight and kill, and who eventually lost even that and died for it. A follower of the Way of the Leaf, brought to a life and death of violence at Perrin’s side. Perrin, who for all he argued with the Tuatha’an about their pacifism still wished for a world in which it could be true, and, I think, wished a little bit that he could have known something like that for himself.

Aw, we left Malden, do we have to go back in the dreamscape?

Did Perrin really look that imposing?

Yes. Next question?

A squat fortress of a man

I am dying. What a phrase. Who needs a brick shithouse when you can have a squat fortress.

And he’s holding the axe again in his dream. He made that choice, but like so many other things, it still occasionally wavers. He is still not sure of who he is. That, he still hasn’t truly decided and accepted and understood, for all that he’s grasped pieces of it around the edges.

A horn or a hoof, Young Bull, does it matter which one you use to hunt? Hopper was sitting in the sunlit street beside him.

“Yes. It matters. It does to me.”

And yet you use them the same way.

I like this exchange because Hopper is right… but so is Perrin. Because perception is absolutely a part of it. Perception, and choices, and a… claiming, of sorts, of his identity. Yes, he uses the hammer to destroy, just as he uses the axe. But to him, the fact that the hammer can be used for another purpose matters. It makes a difference because he chooses to see it that way. Which is, in its way, just as important as Rand choosing to see his fate not as inevitability and despair but as another chance. The smallest shift in perception, looking at the same thing from a slightly different angle, and yet it makes all the difference in the world.

I just like things like that, where these ideas can be simultaneously so close together and so far apart. These infinitesimal distinctions that alter an entire worldview. One small shift and everything falls into place, even if from the outside you’d never understand that there was a difference.

When Perrin fought, he came close to becoming someone else. And that was dangerous.

But is it someone else? Or is this like Rand and Lews Therin, where he fought so hard to hold to the distinction, because he was too afraid of what it might mean to let Lews Therin be a part of him. Perrin is so afraid of what accepting the wolf aspect of his nature might mean, that he sees it as a different person. As someone else. As something he could lose himself to, rather than as something he needs to find within himself and embrace as part of who he is.

Ah, identity.

“Why are you making me dream this?”

Yeah, sorry Perrin, but no.

Though for some reason this reminds me of that dream Rand and Moridin shared and Moridin finally being like ‘okay so what are you doing here’ and Rand thinking Moridin had brought him into the dream and really, boys, do I need to get Egwene in here to teach the lot of you how to dream responsibly?

Except wait, no, Egwene dreams about Gawyn so she’s not responsible in that regard either. Damn.

Anyway.

So Perrin’s re-living Aram’s death in his dreams.

Perrin stepped back. He refused to fight the boy again.

The shadowy version of himself split off, leaving the real Perrin in his blacksmith’s clothing. The shadow exchanged blows with Aram.

Because Perrin is fighting himself: the blacksmith who wants peace, and the warrior who runs with wolves. But he doesn’t see how they can reconcile, how he could possibly be both.

Also everything about Aram’s story is still rather beautifully sad. A lonely branching of the Aiel’s ongoing story, an offshoot of the main Rhuidean sequence, truncated before it could go anywhere, lost with who knows how many others.

Right before Aram would have killed Perrin.

The horn, the hoof, or the tooth […] Does it matter? The dead are dead.

[…]

“I should have taken that fool sword from him the moment he picked it up. I should have sent him back to his family.”

Does not a cub deserve his fangs? Hopper asked, genuinely confused. Why would you pull them?

“It is a thing of men,” Perrin said.

Things of two-legs, of men. Always, it is a thing of men to you. What of things of wolves?

“I am not a wolf.”

This whole argument with Hopper is excellent because again, Hopper is right. But so is Perrin. And it’s so perfectly… it’s Perrin’s dream, and whether Hopper is actually there or not is almost irrelevant, because it’s essentially Perrin arguing with himself. At war between the two sides of his nature, and he goes around and around because until he accepts that he can be both, that he does not have to be defined as the man or the wolf, he won’t be able to find answers that make sense. Because it’s an argument where both sides are right, but he’s trying to pick only one. And so he can never win, never progress.

Perrin in his dream is literally forging figures of the people from the Two Rivers. Just like in reality he is forging them, binding them together, making them into what they must be to face the Last Battle with him. It’s not subtle, but it is rather lovely.

Though lines like this:

The figurine continued to glow, faintly reddish

Still give me flashbacks to last book, and Rand, and a certain ter’angreal of mass destruction.

But figurines like this wouldn’t be forged; they’d be cast. “What does it mean?”

Hey, at least you know enough of dreams to understand that Here There Be Symbolism, even if you don’t quite understand what of. We’ll call that a solid B+.

Hopper doesn’t think much of symbolism unless he can eat it. That’s fair.

Laughter in the distance? Moridin, are you fucking with people’s dreams again? Though he doesn’t seem like much of one for laughter these days.

Either way, dreamtime’s over. Good night, Perrin.

Next (ToM prologue pt. 2) Previous (TGS final thoughts)

[unseelie-bitch]

Season 1 Episode 1: To the Waters and the Wild [Part One]

[I recognise I've written season 1 but please god don't let there be a season 2]

Dem SHEEPS

Cannot believe for the opening two lines they really thought repeating "fecking sheep" was the way to go

Oop magical barrier time okay

And there's a murdered sheep. Such winx vibes

And the man's getting murdered. Well. That happened.

That better not be a fucking werewolf because that's the vibes I got

Also maybe don't go through the magic barrier. Just a thought

The most winx thing about it so far is the lil title bit. I acc liked that

Sorry does Bloom just know about magic?????? WHY IS SHE JUST ROCKING UP WTF

Oh look. It's Terra. Give me Flora

Aisha just mysteriously walking. Fair enough

Stella is immediately popular and has a very deliberate shot to give us "popular bitch" vibes. A joke

There's Not Musa

There's a man and Bloom is IMMEDIATELY staring at him

Also Bloom looks way too old I'm sorry she just does I hate it

I don't know who any of these men are but they are clearly important

I think this man is Sky and I'm so thrown off by his accent. He's english but like... if you want the prince to be english he shouldn't be like... ordinary english. Where's the RP

Also Bloom is supposed to be an extrovert why is she so not into the conversation

Okay time skip because Bloom found out 3 months ago. I'll accept it but I'm not happy about it

And Stella's watching them from afar

That is NOT what mansplaining is clearly this writer is trying to be """"feminist"""" and ENTIRELY missed the fucking point

Bloom was looking for Stella alright

So um how the fuck would Stella know about American stereotypes

Also you IMMEDIATELY made her a bitch excuse you my girl is a ray of sunshine. LITERALLY

Sorry did they say "Miss Darling"? "Dalling"?? Why not Faragonda or Griselda????

THEY REPLACED FARAGONDA???????

At least Stella still has her ring

I'm going to pretend she was offering Bloom help instead of the obvious "if you can't make it" challenge

Okay Stella's kind of a babe but she ISN'T STELLA

Why the FUCK is Alfea in Solaria

#NotMyFaragonda

YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE DISSAPPOINTED IN THE LACK OF WINGS BLOOM

Oh they had wings in the past and lost them? Bullshit I hate it

TINKERBELL IS FUCKING REAL WHAT THE FUCK

Also they just all know about Bloom's magic. Really feel we need some backstory lads

I'm really hung up on "Tink was an air fairy" like WHAT

What's the tea lads who did Bloom burn

She's facetiming her parents, fair enough

Please fuck off with the narrative that girls can't live together without fighting like wtf. "Five girls in an enclosed space" are not going to "decend into a lord of the flies situation" NO REAL WOMAN WOULD SAY THAT. ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS RIGHT THERE

Bloom is not fucking anti-social what the FUCK

So her parents solidly don't know where she is. Right

Okay Aisha is a BABE she saw Bloom floudering and was like COMING IN TO DEFEND YOUR LIE

Oh so Bloom is no longer adopted. She has dormant fairy blood. Right. Why.

Bloom is NOT a Ravenclaw OR Slytherin she should be the most Griffindor Griffindor to ever Griffindor what the FUCK

Now watch them not write her as a Ravenclaw OR Slytherin

Why must you write Stella as a bitch. She could have simply been Baby

You've just turned Flora into Aunt Hilda from Sabrina. But like, written as the joke. What the fuck

...but also Terra you shouldn't take over a shared space

Why the fuck are they writing Terra as the outcast

MUSA I LIKED YOU UNTIL YOU WERE MEAN WHY

Also can they please make Terra less annoying

Hope Musa's okay

That better not be Riven he looks like such a dweeb

OH A RIVEN'S A MASSIVE DICK SUPRISE SUPRISE

The real question is why would a "nice" person like Sky have a misogynistc friend like Riven

Loving the shot of the singular woman they said is a specialist

OH THERE'S A SECOND WOMAN. THE FEMINISTS ARE TAKING OVER (🎶I'm an adult virgin🎶)

Sorry is Sky's dad dead??? Surely Sky is now... king??

Sky is good bean. I like it

Sorry can people get CONSCRIPTED to be specialists??? That sounded like they were getting conscripted

Ah the not werewolf was a Burned One

Some moronic specialist just went through the barrier and he's gonna get attacked isn't he

Oh they're magic zombies. Of course

He gonna die

Oh they found the sheep guy's corpse. Yikes

Ah so imma say Bloom is supposed to be 16 and that was how long ago the last sighting was

Is Rosalind going to be fake Daphne

Does that mean sheep man was the Alfea Shepard?? Why does Alfea have sheep???

"Before gossip starts" bro a student found the body. Gossip has started

"That old age decapitation really sneaks up on you" Musa BABE

"Happened to my nan right in the middle of bingo" AISHA BAAAAABE

Also Musa clearly has a thing for Aisha. Take this somewhere.

Why are they making Terra the joke AGAIN. Stop it. Stop it. Stop. It.

Why are Terra's only personality traits "nice" and "awkward"

Has the writer ever met a human women. Serious question. Because this is NOT how women act

"Happens a lot around me" this is the FIRST DAY oh my god it happened ONCE. I'm trying so hard to find any of the redeemable qualities that any half decent writer could have written in for Terra but they just. Aren't. There.

Musa is doing her best and I don't blame her

Is her dad the replacement for Palladium because that's a joke

Oh look it's the one girl who actually looks like a child because her actor actually was!! And I know they sexualised her and I am NOT looking forward to it

Beatrix is doing her best and is also clearly putting it on. I like her

Also NotFaragonda is a fucking joke

Also wtf was the office I thought this was supposed to be high fantasy. You took out the sci-fi for THAT backstreet office??

Why do Bloom's notes look like a 12 year old's diary wtf

Oop flashback

Who did Bloom set on fire?? This is probs in between The Incident and Alfea so... did she burn someone alive

Why can this man not write ANY female interactions??? Even mother/daugher interactions are bullshit because Vanessa was a GOOD MOTHER and this woman is NOT

Whom the fuck talks like that?? 0/10 unrealistic dialogue

Oop Bloom's eyes are g l o w i n g

Aww Sky is doing His Best

That really isn't what mansplaining is. Is the writer actually trying to mansplain mansplaining??

Stella and Sky clearly have history and Sky made a backhanded comment while Stella was being a bitch

Prediction time: last year Stella and Sky dated, Stella had a magic emotion blowup resulting in her having to repeat first year, hence why everyone's so preoccupied with what she says, does and looks like

Aisha is seeing Bloom leave like "oh shit"

I like the weird lightsnake

I love Bloom's outfit but Bloom should not be wearing it

Oh she's going to practise her magic in the middle of the forest. Excellent

It's going about as well as you'd expect

Why does she have so many pictures of her on her own, clearly taken by another person on her own phone, if she has no friends??? Sus writing

Oh did she burn their house down?

You should not be trying this with long sleeved, flamable clothes on and no control. In the middle of a likely very flamable forest. Just saying

Maybe instead of making them bigger, focus on putting a small flame out?

Oh and she can't. Shocker.

YES AISHA

And I'm writing way too much so imma split this into two parts

[vake-hunter]

Light Fingers Lore Post

Moon-Misers

Normal Moon-Milk is a poison they use to make their prey walk right into their mouth. It’s not meant to last for long.

Babies are rare, only born about once a decade! “A Moon-Miser can only be born when the stars align. It must also be coaxed from the womb with a Song of Birthing.” Once born it must be fed special nectar extracted from stalactites. Who knows what that’s made of! “At birth, Moon-Misers are wrapped in their mother's silk, forming a protective membrane while their carapaces develop.”

Here, have some NEAT Red Science quotes: “You are forging a new link of a great chain. This is the most impossible and unforgiving of occasions: the creation of something new. In this tent, you usher a brand new species from the vaults of possibility. You are spitting in the face of the gods. You are violating laws written in starlight before the world began.”

This is VERY important Lore: the baby has your eyes.

(If Baby is more human) As the zeppelin ascends, the Hybrid raises its voice in solemn song. As you listen, a thrill runs down your spine. For a moment, swept up in the song, you experience a vision: in your mind's eye, a blazing-bright king unites the tribes of the Starved Men under one banner, and harnesses the Moon-Misers as steeds. He leads his subjects on a crusade against the city below - a city that is no longer London, but that still harbours the Moon-King's greatest nemesis, now much embittered at the failure of its schemes. The resulting war will prove its final undoing.

Mr Fires

Is trying to bankrupt the Bazaar in a way. 

If it makes a bunch of fake love stories, that can trick Wines and Spices and the Bazaar, eventually the Bazaar won’t know what love is real and what isn’t, thus, hopefully, discouraging the Bazaar and the other Masters. 

“A bitter edge creeps into its sibilant voice. "Once a suitable love story is found, it’ll be the end of London. Can you imagine?" The lamp trembles in its hand. Its voice rises an octave. "The end of London! I couldn't bear it! I love this city. It's my sole comfort, the greatest joy I have discovered in all my centuries. I'd do anything to preserve it."

“In the longer term, the Hybrid's milk is the only thing that can save the city. Once seeded across the populace, all love stories will be rendered suspect. Any love, no matter how pure or moving, could simply be the symptoms of an aberration's venom. Love will be robbed of its allure. The Bazaar will not know which stories it can truly believe in."

"If my plan succeeds, the other Masters will abandon London as a failed venture." Mr Fires holds up its lamp; here at the bottom, the shelves are lined with leather-bound volumes. "They shall depart, and I shall make arrangements to preserve the city."

It is very defensive of what it did at the Orphanage, in a way that almost makes it sound like it's guilty. It does insist it would do it again, and it doesn’t care about the people, just London as a city. 

Confirmation Fires likes science. 

More evidence Masters can shapeshift to change their sizes and when they are upset, they have trouble staying small. 

Its very fucking excited to burn things down and upset Wines. 

(Giving the baby to Fires) "One day, London will be a city glutted with love," says Mr Fires, returning its gaze to the Hybrid. "Or at least, reliably-replicable facsimiles of it. The effect will be subtle. A modest adjustment, year on year. Wines won't suspect a thing until it is too late." It glances at you. "You and I, [Addressed As], have saved London today."

Boil of Calamities

Possibly the first Fingerking or at least a very very old and strong one.

Seven Heads like the statue at Irem. 

The Sun and the Spire that connects it are sacred places to the Fingerkings and the Boil protects them. “They may allow your kind to trespass across the rest of their kingdom, you slumbering oafs, you mortal morsels, but not here, not the hallowed spire. Insolence! Blasphemy!”

Huge coils that appear in the sky. Black scales, a knot of snakes or just one massive one. Like storm clouds with huge fangs. Tongues flicker like lightning.

It once took tributes and accepted people as servants but the the door to its Chamber seems long abandoned. 

The Chamber is found in the shadow of the Dome of Scales. “Inside is a cavern that smells faintly of spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon. Heavy silk banners hang from the walls, depicting battles between cats and serpents. Seven braziers burn merrily with viric fire. Plates of delicious-looking food have been set out: pomegranates, bloody steak, bunches of plump indigo grapes. At the centre sits a majestic basalt altar, carved with dozens of runes and symbols, a silver bowl waiting atop.”

If you make a Pact with the Boil, you must shed your skin. Don’t worry, there’s more skin under there. Better skin, you’re told. You peel yourself with a Ravenglass knife and it uses the same wording as in my Kingdom for A Pig and the Third City Deal :) 

“There is indeed new skin underneath. It is tender and dry, with the faintest silver sheen. The effect is subtle. Only a lover or a doctor would notice.”

“You look up to the Boil, your skin flashing silver, and bow deeply. The overbearing tangle of coils slips apart, separating, loosening. You find yourself breathing more easily.”

Court of Cats

The Duchess is capable of calling a meeting with the Court. 

They slew the seven daughters of the Boil. 

They have a spear made from a Fingerking’s fang that is capable of piercing the Skin of the Sun. However only cats are allowed to wield it. So if you want it you must become an Honorary Cat.

“The Lord High Seneschal pronounces you the 'Lyon Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary,' officially a cat, and thus entitled to take possession of one of the cats' greatest trophies.”

“As they fall quiet, you ask why they have never wielded this spear against their enemies in the past? "Because cats do not have thumbs," says the Knight Marshall, with a haughty look.”

“Hephaesta draws back her Herculean arm and hurls the spear of the Sleeping King, putting every hard-wrung ounce of her strength behind the throw. It flies, like a shell from a cannon, cracking the Skin of the Sun and sinking a foot deep. At the point of impact, the glass buckles and twists and shrieks. Hephaesta and the tiger roar in triumph.”

“A great, hollow crack rings across Parabola. A shadow mars the cosmogone sunlight passes over the sun.”

Parabolan Sun (Not strictly Lore just from Light Fingers but Important)

Parabola was not always bright. It seemed to be in perpetual twilight before the Second City Sisters rose the Sun. 

“This is a place that is not. It was not always light, though once it was brighter. The sisters found it in twilight and in dreams. The night was thus sacred to the Second City. They would not be pursued here. The ushabti were created to help in the construction of the Palace. The Second City could have lived here forever.”

This also seems to imply there was no moon either, as the moon is a cat. It probably came with the Second City as well. "Look, there are patterns there, just like the surface's moon. Only... these don't resemble a man, or anything else so much as a cat, curled up asleep."

The Sisters of the Pharaoh (minus the Duchess) fled to Parabola when the Third City fell to avoid being killed. “We four survivors fled. One remained with the City, while I retreated here.”

"The Palace of the Rising was to be a refuge from the Masters and the Bazaar. A new sun was raised in the sky so the citizens might walk in light again.”

The thing is. The Sun was built with the help of what appears to be the God of the Fingerkings. "the Boil of Calamities, Lord of the Seething Sky, wept a drop of shining glass..."

The Boil protects the Sun and the Cats hate the Fingerkings. It seems the Four Sisters betrayed the Cats and their other sister, the Duchess, in order to make the Sun. "It also is the mother-father of the egg that is the Parabolan sun," adds a dark-faced tabby. Its reflection is that of a snarling puma. "Though others played a part in that, too." The Duchess' lips tighten.”

Physically: A huge glass dome held to the land by a stone pillar. Even the sky around the dome appears to be glass. (Interesting given how the Second City imprisoned the Masters was to cover the Neath in glass. From The Mind Of A Long Dead God: “Glass Walls Everywhere! They surround me. They reflect one realm inwards and keep me from the other. These barriers should be fluid!” Note that the Neath IS Storm’s corpse.)

NORTH

Rubbery Men plan to fly north. “They take off again in an instant, heading North, waving you farewell. Where do they ultimately hope to go? Again, it's impossible to tell. Perhaps they hope to find their way home.”

If baby is more Moon-Miser: As the zeppelin ascends, the Hybrid raises its voice in solemn song. A thrill runs down your spine. For a moment, swept up by the song, you experience a vision: a blazing-bright king of Moon-Misers leading its glimmering subjects on a pilgrimage across the roof and through a door far to the North. Below, in a city that is not London, the citizens point and murmur in fear as their false-stars crawl into the distance and blink out one by one, leaving only darkness behind.

Item Rewards

Lyon Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary: For the purposes of having legal custody of a famous war trophy, you have been made an honorary cat, with the associated title, privileges, and dignities. [Affiliation; Shadowy +3, Persuasive +6, Dangerous +2, Respectable +1]

Tatterskin Shawl: Once, you offending the Boil of Calamities. To make amends you offered up your own skin as a gift. The Boil was thoughtful enough to return your old skin to you, though it no longer fits as snugly as it once did. [Clothing; Shadowy +6, Persuasive -2, Dreaded +1, Bizarre +1, Mithridacy +1]

A Loyal Nightmare of Poor Edward: You married what remained of Poor Edward. Now he is a nightmare, bound by the miser-milk to the dreams of the Orphanage. Sometimes, you visit him there. [Affiliation; Shadowy +2, Persuasive +1, Dreaded +1]

A Kitten-Sized Diamond, Liberated from the Mountain: It was torn from the Mountain that looms on the Elder Continent. If set near wounds, they heal. If left in one place for too long, flowers bloom around it. If left near lesser diamonds, they will hatch. [Home Comfort; Persuasive +10, Respectable +2, Artisan of the Red Science +1]

A False-Star of your Own: Above London, false-stars shine. One is your bastard child, a Hybrid, a diamond the size of a cow. It is a hundred times brighter than its fellows, a blazing pinpoint; every month or two, for just a few days, it passes directly over the city. For that brief period, London's gloom eases into a velvety twilight. (In addition to the stat advantages, this Companion allows you a unique opportunity while zailing.) [Companion; Watchful +6, Shadowy +12, Shapeling Arts +1, Bizarre +2]

[occasionalmemes]

SJ TUCKER SENTENCE STARTERS

          cheshire kitten.

“ i grew up seeing things a little differently, appearing, disappearing, hardly innocent, nor tied down to the ground. ” “ i learned to roll and tumble with the punches.” “ heavy is the crown that's always hidden. ” “ tender is the heart you never see. ” “ hard and fast shines the grin that we flash, but there's a vulnerable stripe or two on me. ” “ maybe any place outside of _____ is not for me, my friend. ” “ if i leave my grin behind, remind me that we're all mad here and it's okay. ” “ the shadows hide me down in _____. ” “ _____, nobody knows the way.” “ if you find it in your dreams, you can find it at your dayjob somewhere south of Hell. ” “ take the path to left or right with just your gut to guide you. ” “ the story is not for anyone else to tell. ” “ go down the rabbit hole and out the other side. ” “ you can't go home in the middle of the magic carpet ride. ” “ you gotta greet the sun before his lovely daughter moon. ” “ you can't forsake the journey for the safety of your room. ” “ learn your lesson well. ” “ i have learned to see and hear everybody loud and clear. ” “ the truth comes out in riddles that are safe enough to share. ” “ that's how it is in songs, you see.” “ heavy is the burden of the wise ones when no one understands a word they say. ” “ the Jabberwock never bothered anyone, but nobody believes him to this day.” “ and why should they? ” “ is it the stripes or the spots you see? ” “ was it hearts or diamonds, baby, brought you here to me? ” “ darling, you know better than to trust a pack of cards! ” “ what have we learned? ” “ the world is never as mad as it could be. ” “ we’re all mad here, and it’s okay. ”

          were-owl.

“ look long enough into the eyes of any creature, there's no knowing what you'll find. ” “ we all seek the light one way or another, mostly flying blind. ” “ everything flies at the mercy of the moonlight, lovers more than most at times. ” “ you've sought the light where few have ever found it. ” “ little one, seek and ye shall find. ” “ take care what you find in the tawny eyes of a hunter by night. ” “ who is it dares to find these feathers, stroke this skin? ” “ how can you dream of the night he spreads his wings to hold you, shows you all he knows and lets you in?” “ i've heard it said none but fools will ever count on shifting shapes and flying dreams. ” “ foolish the heart that lights upon a love who's never what he seems.” “ shows one face at dawn and another in the twilight. ” “ kings have worn his shape before. ” “ lord of the evening, so handsome in the sunlight, leaves you wanting so much more. ” “ child, death is a dance on the forest floor! ” “ shifting shapes and flying dreams, love is never what it seems. ” “ be his love and not his prey. ”

          love lies.

“ love lies downwind waiting patiently to be found. ” “ angel don't make a sound unless you are the one i have been waiting for. ” “ you are the one i have been waiting for. ” “ i've been downwind waiting for you to come around. ” “ there is no one soul that will swallow me whole and let me out shining and beautiful, no. ” “ in love there is loss of control, but like the rivers, i roll. are you in for the ride? ” “ where will you sleep tonight? ” “ love lies, downwind waiting, with the silence of tigers and a hunger burning bright with a heart song shining bright. ” “ desert star, shine a light. ”

          don’t get my hopes up.

“ lately I'm a little bit prickly. ” “ everything hurts when you fall in love hard enough, rock bottom doesn't feel so bad. ” “ i wouldn't quite call this bitchy. ” “ when I am on my best behavior I'll fool you like a grown-up little girl who didn't know how good she had it before. ” “ when desire walks through your door and all hell breaks loose times four, you'll understand and maybe you won't pull smooth maneuvers on your suitors anymore. ” “ when desire walks through your door and all hell breaks loose times four, you'll understand.” “ maybe you won't pull smooth maneuvers on your suitors anymore. ” “ don't you go getting my hopes up, girl. ” “ you'll be sorry and so will i. ” “ last thing either one of us needs is yet another reason to cry. ” “ i know that i'm your last in line. ” “ i oughtta know better than to call you mine. ” “ say a flat out "no" to my face, that's fine, but don't get my hopes up, girl. ” “ lately I'm a pretty good swimmer-- so far up the creek cuz I fell in love hard enough hot water doesn't seem so dire. ” “ i must've quit paying attention, baby, i have to tell you the line is blurred pretty bad between the frying pan and the fire. ” “ when love sneaks up on you and fries your circuits through and through, you'll understand and maybe forgive me my trespasses, for I know not what I do. ” “ when love sneaks up on you and fries your circuits through and through, you'll understand.” “ forgive me my trespasses, for I know not what I do. ” “ don't you go getting my hopes up, boy. ” “ i'm not one for second chances once you've made me cry. ” “ my dance card's full, my waiting list is too backed up for shit like this. ” “ go ahead and pretend that i don't exist, but don't get my hopes up, boy. ” “ when desire walks through your door and all hell breaks loose times four, you'll understand. ” “ maybe you won't demand good manners from your lovers anymore. ” “ don't you go getting my hopes up, love. ” “ you'll be sorry 'til the day you die. ” “ i see you wishing on your star and wishes cannot lie. ” “ i make 'em too, or haven't you heard? ” “ waste a few on you cuz i never did learn. ” “ i know courage is harder to show than concern. ” “ you can't steal fire and not get burned. ” “ i will try to hold out and wait my turn, but don't get my hopes up, love. ”

          neptune.

“ years ago i came to you, down beneath your ripples, submitting to the mystery of life beneath the waves. ” “ years i floated near you, swimming in your subterrain, rocked within the opium embrace of Triton's tomb. ” “ time i lost just fussing over every little thing you asked for. ” “ let myself keep fading, silver fishes through my skin. ” “ somewhere i stopped breathing, but i missed the kiss of air. ” “ someday in my castle keep, where rumors fly and questions creep they'll say to me, what of the lord of the deep? ” “ i'll say, i knew him once but he was asleep. ” “ there's no light where you are, my Neptune. ” “ to the mountains i will fly, away from you. ” “ free from the waves into new love's arms, back to the realm of the sky. ” “ years ago I came to you, in love and doomed to drowning, beholden to the mystery of life beneath the waves. ” “ years i floated near you, i will never see again. ” “ how i could tarry in the opium embrace of Triton's tomb. ” “ years ago i came to you, in love and doomed by what i knew. ” “ though i miss the mystery now of life beneath the waves, thin air's as sweet as water when your body begs to breathe. ” “ and so i leave when i must leave. ” “ don't weep for love i couldn't save. ” “ all of us who dare to love are brave! ”

          girl with the lion’s tail.

“ don't look for home in me between the lines of this, our fairytale. ” “ man cannot follow the monsters. ” “ it’s simple for you, love, but never for me. ” “ nothing can be as it once was. ” “ call me a beast as you've always done, but one which can no longer love you. ” “ look for me not, lover, i am long gone. how can you hope to follow? ” “ you're meant to crawl upon your knees, not steal my soul or talk to me. ” “ the last thing i would ever do. ” “ i am the place where air meets ice. ” “ i don't want to be the girl you tame, an oddity locked away somewhere safe. ” “ i don't want to be the girl you tame, your one-heart menagerie, lonely. ” “ give me back the girl i was, the beast i used to be, shedding the skin of this creature. ” “ you were never cage enough to keep the light inside. ” “ deny me the sky and i'm running. ” “ a lion must keep something back for her own if she's been let to live. ” “ i'd sooner run than waste away at home. ” " you already have all that I had to give. ” “ take away your holiness, your pleading and your crying eyes. ” “ bring me back the girl i was, untamed. ” “ cry me a river to hell. ” “ hell or home, it's all much the same. ”

          the truth about ninjas

“ paragon of dignity, untouchable and lethal. ” “ there's more to life than shuriken. ” “ sudden death comes easy when you practice every day. ” “ you'll think you're ten feet tall and bulletproof until you pass my way. ” “ you will never see it coming. ” “ no one's sad to see you go. ” “ within my eyes you'll glimpse a wisdom you were not prepared to know. ” “ in fearing what you cannot see, you fall beneath my hand. ” “ this is a ninja thing, you wouldn’t understand. ” “ you will never know i'm here until it's far too late. ” “ it is a ninja's way to pass unseen and not to storm the gate. ” “ moving quieter than kitten, circumnavigating law. ” “ you'll never hear a thing. ” “ the soul has always been corrupted, but the heart and hands are clean. ” “ the game is glory but I take my joy in leaving not a trace. ” “ my actions, quick as lightning, unintended to hurt you. ” “ i'm only doing what a ninja's gotta do. ” “ i won't say life is hard, but i must restrain my urges to run naked through my yard. ” “ my career would shrivel up and die, but damn would it be fun! ” “ i'd pirouette beneath the moonlight. ”

[disregardcanon]

i did some star wars sequels rewrites today! i’m not going to sit here and say they’re good enough to make a whole new trilogy of movies around or anything, but i like them.

a few major changes include: kylo has some more consistent characterization and is the big bad, rose tico is a former stormtrooper (insert fic rec), and the stormtrooper revolution.

So, one important sequels change is that Snoke is his own character. He was a Palpatine sycophant who was eighteen years old when the chancellor became the emperor, and watched from a close advising position, studying how Palpatine managed to manipulate those around him and his use of the force. Palpatine figured him out quickly, of course, but Snoke’s ability with the force was far beneath him and at the time, his primary goal was keeping Palpatine in power. 

He studied the best tactics for keeping storm-troopers in line, the best ways for lording power over those with some and those with none, and he undertook extensive study on Darth Vader. He was able to figure out exactly who Darth Vader was, and he studied all available information on Anakin Skywalker. He figured out exactly the ways that Palpatine manipulated this man into becoming his guard dog, and took notes. Someday, he would need one of his own. Snoke was never exceedingly powerful- only smart. If he was powerful enough, he might have struck the Emperor down himself to get that power. 

After the fall of the Empire, he tracks down imperial loyalists and sets himself up a stronghold far enough out in the outer rim that no one from the New Republic is going to come to its rescue. He offers a spot of honor to Brendol Hux for implementing a stormtrooper program with stolen children. 

Then, he starts bribing territories to join them. He starts conquering. The First Order is becoming a small, but mighty force. By the time that Luke Skywalker’s Jedi school is gaining traction, he has his own small country. He goes to visit, claiming that he will be on the look out for force sensitive youths in his area. Luke does not trust him, at all, but allows him to stay a few days out of curtesy for a fellow force sensitive who isn’t an enemy combatant. 

Snoke’s strongest force power, similar to Ahsoka Tano, is reading force signatures. He is able to pick up on the the frustration and entitlement radiating off of young Ben Organa-Solo in waves. He whispers in the boy’s ear about the good old days, when he could have had a place of honor and power instead of a life of living in his mother and uncle’s shadows, without being able to utilize the full power of the force. 

He comes from the line of Darth Vader, after all. Most powerful man in the galaxy- able to have whatever he wants. Why should he be restricted to a children’s summer camp where he is only allowed to wave around wooden sticks? 

Little Rey, daughter of no one of importance beyond the love they gave her, feels something is wrong. She runs to Master Luke’s room and says that Ben feels wrong. Luke follows her to the door of Ben’s room, and feels the anger and resentment radiating off of him in waves- strong enough to kill. Strong enough that it means he will kill. 

Luke tells Rey to run to the room with the other children and then run to the ship to fly away. Then, he opens the door quickly and quietly. Luke tries to kill his sleeping nephew who feels like murder, and is instead knocked out with a force choke. 

“Master Snoke warned me that you would try to kill me,” Ben says, clamping his hand down so hard that it nearly ruptures the arteries in Luke’s throat. 

Rey hears the sound of children’s dying screams so close behind her that she’s too afraid to try to wake the other children- she just runs. Runs and runs and runs towards the ship that Luke was helping to teach her how to fly recently, and she runs until she can run up the stairs. 

She hears heavy breathing coming from behind her, and turns around. 

“Little Rey,” Ben says, smile quirking on his lips, “it figures you’d be the one to survive. You were always stronger than the others.” She feels her breath hitch in her throat. 

“I don’t think that I’ll kill you,” he says, “I think I could use an apprentice.” She pushes sideways, hitting at the button that closes the hatch. He rips out his lightsaber with a hiss, crystal corrupted to a bright red, and slashes at the door of the Millenium Falcon. 

Rey hears the hissing as he grinds at the metal, and she rushes through the halls to the pilot’s chair, gearing up the ship. Then, she pushes the button forward. She flies and flies, adrenaline coursing through her veins- before she lands on the deserted planet of Jakku. 

She blocks out her memories of the temple, and makes a home of her ruined ship as she tries to get it flying again. 

She eventually gets it back to the point where it’s functional, but she’s afraid enough that she doesn’t fly it- until Finn shows up. 

That’s how they get the Falcon. The rest of the plot doesn’t change for the rest of the first movie. 

Cue Beginning of the Second Movie

Finn has been in a coma for three months, Page Tico is returning to the Resistance after a few months of shore-leave with a sister that no one knew existed, and Rey has been training with Luke and now is Good At Lightsaber Force Ways.

Kylo Ren is caught in a depressive, angry, tantrum funk because lo and behold, killing his dad didn’t magically make any feelings go away. It just made him feel gross and angry and it didn’t get him any closer to his goals. He monologues at his burnt to a crisp Darth Vader mask. He destroys First Order property. He force chokes some guys. 

Snoke is like. Okay. We gotta channel this into something productive. The goddamn primadonna is destroying all my plans. And he notices that Kylo is obsessing over this one girl and is like. Okay let’s channel that into a Padme Amidala thing. Sew the seeds of Darth Vader’s obsession with one woman who led him to the Dark Side and how this is a perfectly normal, dark side thing just as long as he GETS HER. This will keep Kylo focused on one, small side quest and away from that Maybe I Should Just Kill the Old Bastard And Be Done With It thoughts that Snoke has been feeling coming off of him. 

I don’t have the whole plot thing down, because I doing this for fun and free on the internet, but the main things are

1. Rose is a former storm trooper who was inspired by Finn to desert the First Order and help the Resistance. She just lost the girl who took her in and called her sister, and she is angry and frustrated with Finn that he’s not immediately the person that she wants him to be. 

2. Rey doesn’t believe that Kylo needs to be redeemed, but that he needs to be confronted. She goes with him to beat Snoke, then he tries to convince her to come with him because she is a “nobody” who was left with Luke to train, and if Luke had bothered to track her down after she escaped with the Falcon instead of fucking off to exile she wouldn’t have grown up alone. He is “the only one who understand her” and the “only one who loves her” and Rey doesn’t buy into it and gets tf out. 

3. One of the most important conversations in the film is between Rey and Luke, as he tells her the true story of Anakin Skywalker, and how his love for Luke finally brought him back from evil. 

4. As the newly appointed Supreme Leader, Kylo decides that his goal is to get rid of the people who still hold claims to the legacies he wants solely for him (his mom and uncle) need to die, and that he will get Rey and rule the galaxy. 

5. Rey and Finn reunite with the Resistance base, and they talk about some Revelations and hug tf out of each other. They lose the base and Luke dies, checking off one of Kylo’s to-do list. 

6. Leia moves the base to a new location, and says that soon, she will face her son herself. She brought this terror into the world, and she’ll take it out of it. 

The next one opens with Finn, Rose, and Poe leading an assault on a storm trooper training facility, where they free children and convince an older battalion led by Jannah to desert and join the cause. 

The climax comes when the protagonists break up into 2 groups- the ones who will infiltrate the ranks of the stormtroopers and turn them against the brass, and then Leia and Rey, who will allow themselves to be captured and take down Kylo Ren themselves. They allow themselves to be dragged to his new chambers and he like, shows off all the opulence of Rule ™. 

“Don’t you think that I’ve done well for myself, mother?” 

“You’ve certainly done something,” she mutters. 

“I am the heir to the legacies of Vader, Skywalker, Organa, and Amidala,” he says, haughty and entitled, “who better to rule the galaxy? With my own queen by my side, of course,” He sends Rey a look, and she rolls her eyes at him. 

“I taught you nothing, didn’t I?” Leia asks. 

“Considering that you were never around, yes,” he says. He goes onto claim that he was a self-made man, all the while calling claim to the legacies that he’s “entitled” to. 

“I wasn’t present enough, I will admit,” she says, “but you’ve outworn my sympathy. And my regret.” 

“Leaving me with an uncle who treated me just like any other student,” Kylo Ren seethes, “you only did what a mother should, right? Ignoring her child.” He was special; why didn’t anyone treat him that way?

“I wasn’t perfect,” she says, “but I didn’t cause this, Ben. You did this yourself. Just like your grandfather.” Kylo takes out his lightsaber, and he stabs. He twists it, and he brings the blade back in. Leia falls to the ground, dead.

Rey lets out a scream, because this monster- he thinks that he can just kill everyone because they didn’t treat him enough like a king. He’s killed both of his parents, people that Rey is sure she loves far more than he ever did.

Rey struggles against the hold of those stormtroopers and lets out a growl. 

“You are a monster,” she hisses. 

“One that you’ll come to love,” he says, and there’s a smile on his face. He’s run his mother through and he’s smiling. 

“I will never love you,” she spits. He shakes his head indulgently, and walks towards her. He puts a hand gently under chin, tilting it upwards to look him in the eyes. 

“Once I destroy that stormtrooper,” he says, “you’ll have no other choice. There will just be me, the only one who deserves your love.” Rey has been a feral, desert creature for most of her life, and she leans forward, mouth bumping against the fragile skin of his inner arm. 

Then, she leans in and chomps down in a devastating bite. This time, it’s Ren’s turn to howl in pain. 

He reaches in the force for her blue lightsaber, and clutches it in his hand. 

“This was my grandfather’s, you know,” he says, “it’s finally back in the right hands.” Rey smiles, big and wide and nasty. 

“He would hate the man that you’ve become,” she says, smashing the red blade into his blue one. Then, as they fight, she goes on to spin the story of Anakin Skywalker, a loving man who fell down a dark path to try to save the one person he felt hadn’t betrayed him and his unborn child, who spent years an emotionless husk before he finally saved Luke’s life, defying his master for love and love alone. 

“You killed the people who loved you for power,” she says, “Anakin Skywalker would be so disappointed in you.” Kylo hisses, and he misses her blow for one that cuts her along the arm. 

“I love you,” Kylo says. Rey shakes her head.

“You don’t know what love is,” she says. This is where the “team turn the stormtroopers against the brass” come in. Finn, Rose, Poe and their stormtrooper brigade has been working through the ship, culling the officers who were children of imperial officers who thought that it was alright to steal other people’s children to mold into the soldiers to fight the wars keeping them in power. 

Finn bursts open the door to the throne room, and Kylo and Rey both turn their heads to see him for a moment. 

“Oh,” Kylo Ren says, “it’s just your stormtrooper.” 

“His name is Finn,” Rey hisses, but Kylo just keeps laughing. How insignificant. Nothing but a stormtrooper- a nameless, worthless soldier designed to keep those worth more in power. Rey growls, and continues their fight. 

Finn can tell that he’s being completely ignored by Kylo, and runs in close. He sets off a blaster bolt in Ren’s direction. 

Though Ren is perfectly capable of stopping a bolt mid-air, he doesn’t even notice it coming until it cuts into his back. 

He falls to the ground in excruciating pain. He starts screaming, and tear-drops fall down his face. 

“The stormtrooper did this?” he squeals. Rey smiles down at him, and nods. Finn walks up beside her, and takes her hand in his. 

“But you’re nothing,” he says, “you’re not force sensitive, not royal-” Finn puts his boot to Kylo’s chest, and pushes him down. This stormtrooper doesn’t even have the gift of Kylo’s love that makes Rey special. He’s nothing.

“I’m not,” he says, “I’m just a stormtrooper.” He’s wearing a jacket that looks all too familiar- and Kylo’s breath hitches as he realizes that’s his father’s jacket. Nobody, smuggler Han Solo. 

The troopers that restrained Rey look between themselves, then they throw down their guns, and rip off their helmets. 

“We’re with you, FN-2187,” a woman with medium brown skin and black hair says, smiling widely. Finn nods at her, and smiles. 

“No,” Kylo says, shaking his head even as he feels the life leaving him, “this- this can’t be. I’m special. This was all supposed to be mine.” The new Empire- the legacy- the stormtroopers- the love and devotion of the most powerful force user of a generation. 

They were supposed to be his. How has this Finn taken everything from him?

What Kylo doesn’t understand is that Finn and Rey looked at each other, and decided that they were worth something; they were the first ones who ever did that for each other, and there’s a bond there too deep for anyone to wrest from their hands.

Rey smiles, and kisses Finn on the lips. Then, she kicks Kylo in the head. He doesn’t ever wake up. 

After that, Finn and Rose start a program that helps match former stormtroopers with job opportunities and lives in the new republic, that runs adjacent to Rey’s home for wayfaring force sensitives. Poe collaborates with both of them, flying new recruits back and forth from where they’re coming from to when they’re going and starts campaigning for the importance of a proper air force in the nascent new republic, and other people- politicians, start building it. 

The heroes of this war are going to work more from the ground to try to undo the damage that was already done. Someone else can try to make sure that governments happen and don’t collapse.

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation (Gen II) - Chapter 7

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Chapter 7 - Earth Lance Gáe Bolg

T/W: Mention of likely one-sided romantic feelings between adopted siblings.

Travant ordered both Coruta's dragon knight unit and Princess Altena to deploy. With the empire's presence gone completely from the Thracian Peninsula, he considered this to be the perfect chance.

"Start by seizing Munster. Do not hold back against anyone who turns against you, even the citizens. Kill them all."

"Wait, Father!" Altena called out.

Altena wore the uniform of the Thracian Dragon Knights, and held her long brown hair back with a bandana. Her almond shaped eyes gave a bit of an intimidating impression, but when she put on her military uniform, it highlighted how brave and honorable she looked.

"I'll happily fight if the imperial army is our enemy, but there's no meaning in killing powerless civilians. Even if you say we'll fight with the empire, we should be happy to work with the liberation army. Why must we fight them?"

Prince Arion, General Hannibal, and a few other people held the same opinion as her, but she was the only one who was open about it with the king. 

However, no matter what she said, Travant would not be swayed. "Altena! Are you trying to lecture me!? Do as I say! I will not allow you to talk back to me!"

"But…"

"Altena, do as Father says." Prince Arion said. He felt that their father would only get angrier the more they opposed him.

"Brother… I will." Altena said and bit her lip. Her dissatisfaction with her Father's orders did not go away, but she always believed in her brother's decisions.

'Big brother said he thinks the same as I do. He must have a reason for saying that.'

Deep down, the reason why she believed him was because of her love for him (though she did not realize it). And it was not just the love of a brother and sister, but something much more. Her feelings were simply locked away in the subconscious of her heart, so she did not notice them.

Travant watched her begin to leave the reception hall, and said, "Altena, have you finally agreed to deploy? You're a very strong-willed girl. Your mother was just as tough. Don't fight your blood."

"Altena means well, Father. Please be lenient with her." Arion interjected.

"I know that. You would speak the same words as her if you had the opportunity. Unifying with Northern Thracia has been our deepest wish for many long years. Our lands are barren, so the men are all hired as mercenaries, while being looked down upon as hyenas… And the women remain here to dig into the mountains' slopes, and must till their meager fields. If we continue to live here alone, then we will always be forced to live in poverty. Altena grew up in the palace, so she does not know what the people wish for."

-

The dragon knight unit lined up in front of Munster Castle.

"The liberation army that killed Bloom is still on the other side of the river. But only the citizens who revolted are currently at Munster Castle. And I've received reports that they know of our movements and are gradually running away. We should begin our attack straight away." Courta explained to Altena.

"Wait, Coruta. There's no reason for us to attack an enemy like that. I'll go and suggest to them that they surrender. Wait here for a bit."

"I can't do that. I was given specific orders by the king. No matter what you say to me, I cannot go easy on them.”

"I am your commanding officer. Are you going to ignore my order?"

"This is my unit, and I received my orders from His Majesty directly. If you disagree with that, then stay here and watch. We will attack on our own." 

Coruta flew off and delivered his order to his soldiers. "All units, we will ambush the enemy! Those who resist will be killed! Now charge!"

The dragon knights all flew into the sky at once.

As she watched them fly towards Munster Castle, all Altena could think about was the tragedy that was about to unfold, and how infinitely powerless she felt.

'Maybe my views are wrong. ...No, they couldn't be. Brother agrees with me. Father and Coruta are the ones in the wrong. Even in the event that they win, killing civilians will make the people hate us, and do the exact opposite of unifying us.

But are Father and Coruta the only ones to blame? I couldn't do anything to stop either of them. Am I just as guilty as they are?’

The first dragon knights to try to fly over the castle wall were suddenly hit by the strongest gust of wind they'd ever experienced. Their dragons' wings twisted, and their bones, usually able to withstand anything during flight, snapped in an instant. Without the ability to stay in the air, they all began to drop like flies.

And it didn't end there, with another guest of wind assaulting the next group of dragons.

"Dodge! Just dodge it!" Coruta shouted, realizing this was no force of nature.

They cautiously made their way around the castle, until they found a single man standing atop the castle tower.

'Dammit, he's using wind magic!'

Faced with an enemy stronger than he thought there'd be, Coruta decided to change course and go after the citizens fleeing from the castle.

'If it's just that group, we can kill them all before they make it to the river.'

However, Seliph and the liberation army had just crossed the river. And to make matters even worse for Coruta's unit, the liberation army was much larger than they'd ever imagined, and had archers amongst their ranks, which dragon knights were weak against.

Coruta was only lost about what to do for a second.

'If your only other option is to run away, then choose to die a glorious death.'

That was the pride of the Thracian dragon knights, and a legend that had been passed down for generations.

'Even if our bodies should perish, our tales of bravery will live on.'

"Chaaaaaarge!" Coruta shouted, and led his unit in a dive bomb maneuver.

The enemy army grew larger and larger with each passing moment.

The moment he saw a bow, Coruta knew that an arrow had been shot at him. 

As Altena watched Coruta's unit fight spectacularly yet tragically from a nearby mountain ridge, her feelings were very complicated. The regret of losing her allies, the blame she placed on herself for what she hadn't the chance to tell the unit, and the justification that made her sure this was not the way to fight, all swam around in her mind.

After watching the last dragon knight fall, Altena lightly pushed her knees into her dragon, signaling her mount to flap her wings and fly into the air.

She flew high into the air so that she would not be attacked, and slowly circled around the battlefield.

The liberation army had once again started marching towards Munster Castle.

'We weren't the only brave ones here.' Altena thought. 'What is the liberation army going to do next? Since we attacked them, they must now think of Thracia as their enemy. If they intend to march to Grannvale, then they'll travel through Thracia to get there. So they'll most likely attack Mease Castle next.'

There were only a few soldiers, led by General Maikov, stationed there.

'Maikov is a brave general, but there's no way he can defend the castle against an army as large as this one.' She turned her dragon towards Thracia Castle.

-

Meanwhile, from amongst the liberation army, Finn said to Prince Leif, "Lord Leif, please take a good look at that dragon knight."

"That one? I've looked up at them a few times already. They appear to be a woman, but I don't think that's uncommon in Thracia. And she seems to be bathed in light. Perhaps she's flying in a ray of sunlight?"

"Yes, that light is what I'm referring to. It looks just like the light of Crusader Njörun, which would also envelop your late father whenever he wielded Gáe Bolg. If I am correct, then she is wielding that lance right now. It id the one passed down through the Leonsterian royal family."

"What? Why would a female Thracian knight have Father's Gáe Bolg?"

"I don't know. The only thing I can think of is that she is your elder sister, who went missing when the Thracian Army attacked. Lady Altena seemed to be unharmed, but had gone missing with Gáe Bolg."

"But why would my older sister be with the Thracian Army?"

"My guess is that she was kidnapped by Travant, and he raised her as his own."

"I've heard that Travant is a coldhearted man, but he might have a small human heart inside him after all."

"No, I don't think that's it. Crusader Njörun's blood was passed down from Lord Quan to Lady Altena, so Travant must have wanted Gáe Bolg's power. It seems like something he would do."

"So he's tricked her, hasn't he? How could Travant be so horrible…? Finn, let's help her. I want to tell her the truth and team up to free Father and Mother of their regrets."

"You are the only one who can do that, Lord Leif. If her younger brother tries to persuade her, then she is likely to open her heart and listen to you. Please save the princess!"

"Of course I will! You always stop me from doing so, but when we fight with the dragon knights, I'll go on the front line. I'll risk my life, but try my hardest to persuade Big Sister! And if she's alive, that means…"

'That means I'm not alone anymore.’ Leif thought.

As a boy raised without any memory of his birth parents' love, he was starved to meet someone from his blood family.

He knew full well that Finn loved him. But that love was an extension of his loyalty to Quan and Ethlyn. Finn was a great guardian and teacher, but wasn't someone that Leif felt he could fully open up to about his troubles and worries.

Finn had said to Leif on countless occasions in the boy's youth, "Lord Leif, you are the next in line to become king of Leonster. You mustn't say such things."

Or sometimes it was, "You mustn't do such things." Other times it was, "You mustn't cry over such things."

"I understand, Finn. I won't say that ever again.” Leif would answer. 

But deep down in his heart, he always muttered to himself, ‘Mother, why did you die and leave me here all alone? Why…?’

He also had that thought when he was living in hiding, and saw parents or siblings expressing love towards one another.

'Why am I the only one who's all alone?'

When he became so sad that he couldn't bear it anymore, he would find a place where no one else would find him, and cried.

'Mother, why did you die and leave me here all alone?'

So the news that his sister was alive (even if he couldn't confirm if it was true yet), made him happier than anything else in the world.

As he marched together with his unit, he imagined what his sister might look like. Then, he imagined successfully persuading her, and how they would hug each other, and be so happy...

'I'm not alone anymore!'

-

Seliph lowered the gate and entered Munster Castle, then met Ced inside.

"Hero Ced, many of the citizens' lives have been saved because of you. Thank you."

"I've waited so long for this moment to come… Lord Seliph, please save not only Thracia, but the entire world. The people are living in despair. Even in Munster, many children have been kidnapped and taken to Miletos Shrine. I couldn't save them. I am no hero, but a mere coward."

"No you're not! I couldn’t do anything by myself! I've made it this far because of everyone else's power. Hero Ced, I want you to join us."

"Understood, Lord Seliph. I will follow you to the ends of the earth." Ced took a step forward to shake Seliph's hand, but when he saw Lewyn standing behind Seliph, his hand froze. "Lord Seliph, who is that behind you?"

"Huh? Oh, this is my advisor. His name is Lewyn. He is Silesse's King Lewyn. Oh, that's right, I heard you're from Silesse, too!"

Ced did not answer Seliph, instead walking up to Lewyn. "Father… It's you, isn't it, Father?"

"Ced, it's been a long time since I saw you last. How have you been?"

"'How have I been?' I've been looking for you this entire time! Do you have any idea how many years have passed since you left!?"

"Now that you mention it, I do wonder how long it's been. How is Erinys?"

"How could you be so… Mother passed away! All she wanted was to see you one more time, and watch you pass Forseti on to me! That's why I went on my journey, to find you!"

"I see, so she's… How unfortunate."

"You're so cold, Father! You're finally heard that Mother died, yet you won’t shed even a single tear!"

"Ced, I don't have a wife, nor any children. That's what I have decided. I want you to think so from now on as well." 

Ced glared at him in response.

Seliph knew very well that Lewyn was not a cold person, so he questioned his flippant response towards finally reuniting with Ced.

-

That night, the army held a modest celebration, where Ced and Fee realized they were brother and sister. That reunion was a happy one.

"Fee and Lewyn joined us in Isaach, so they've been face-to-face since then. Yet why haven't they called each other father and daughter?'

Though Seliph's trust in Lewyn did not change, the suspicion within his heart slowly began to grow.

[winterisfinallyhere]

Last episode...

Probably last ever Game of Thrones episode will begin with Dany’s trope marching into the city - the Unsullied lining up, etc. Her coming out to name herself Queen.

Possibly we then move onto Tyrion's trial. This was leaked a long time ago and I have a hard time believing word about Tyrion having let Jamie go (even if he & Cersei died in the end) won't reach Dany's ears quite quickly even in the chaos.

Imagine her first act as Queen being burning Tyrion. I don’t like him but I’d still hate for him to go out burning. 

Maybe that's even the reaction shot we get of Arya, looking up in disgust/ anger at something from the promo. Or maybe that's "only" of Dany declaring herself Queen. Or her looking at Drogon. 

But maybe there won't be a Tyrion trial until later (or at all if some leaks are to be believed, I firmly feel he needs to pay for enabling Dany for so long + betraying the Starks + Shae) BUT maybe he'll have a chance to do something about not siding with Varys (and Jon) earlier and somehow help Jon before being put on trial. They were friends of sorts once and that would be a bit of a call back to season 1. It’s clear we’ll be getting some of his POV as he walks through the city and realizes his mistake, in the promo. Maybe he’ll tell Jon to ride north before Dany decides to execute them both.

I wish I could predict Jon will have had some sense and taken his remaining men north but I’m not sure. He’s not in the trailer so it’s possible. But unlikely. But he's at least figured out he can't just sit back and let Dany be Queen. Not when she’s just gotten done killing thousands of civilians, in a city that had surrendered to her. I mean he has to have realized this! He just can’t keep walking around with his head in the sand.

But maybe we will get him killing Dany and going to the wall like some leaks suggested? I’d hate it but it’s a possibility. Especially if he’s staying in the city. But if they do that who is going to rule? Who is qualified? Is there anyone left (but Sansa, who has no claim). Would they really attempt the whole Bran & remaining folks rule together as a council? I feel like Bran as king would be the biggest let down ever. 

IDK, depends on the timeline. If after Dany’s initial “I’m the Queen bow down to me” as she takes control of King’s Land we get a time skip? Then things could be very different. If she calls all remaining lords to KL, including Bran and Sansa, and we get some politics...IDK. Then maybe a council of some sort could be believed.

But it doesn’t seem likely, does it? 

Besides, we don't have any conflict BUT Dany/ Jon left, all the other baddies are dead. Cersei, Euron, Golden Company. And Dany has won. She’s claimed the throne. She still has one dragon. All the dragon killing balistas are gone. She’s gonna be hard to beat. Especially in one ep.

I guess the real question is, what will she do now. How will she rule? 

What is her first course of action? Execute Tyrion? All remaining Lannister soldiers? Attempt to kill Jon? Exile him? We don’t know at this point, all we know is that she is officially the Queen of Ashes. We know she doesn't like mercy so she’s hardly going to pardon anyone, now is she?

My favorite theory (that I’m hopeful for and would enjoy would be) Arya killing Dany. That would mean she gets to kill the most bad guys (with her taking down Walder Frey and the Night King in the last few seasons) out of everyone which would be cool! Or even more interesting and useful would be Arya killing Drogon. Then Dany would execute her, or try to, making the Starks truly and fully her enemies. And the horse does foreshadow her going after DT, both with Dany’s own white horse, back in season 1 and the whole horsemen of the apocalypse and the Prince Charming on a white horse off to slay the dragon motif.

Behold a pale horse and he that sat upon him, his name was Death.

Arya taking down Dany or Drogon makes sense and would be satisfying. She’s seen the horror of what Dany and her dragon did up and close. This would also mean Jon would not have to kill Dany, which I’d prefer. We have enough of men killing women they’ve slept with/ “love”. I like this idea more and more and it feels in character and like it makes sense with what happened during episode 5. I don’t feel like this would be Arya backsliding into vengeance like some have mentioned. She decided to live when she talked to the hound but she also wants to live free. Killing Dany is not a personal vengeance it is justice and something that will contribute to a better future.

Arya taking out Dany or Drogon while Jon goes north, might also fit in with the Riverland clash we saw in the first trailer with the fire and ice meet in the middle of Westeros. Sansa could meet Jon halfway, having gathered the remaining men / the ones that have healed up enough to reinforce Jon’s army? Because Bran saw it in his visions or Vary’s little birds got word of things and decided they would prefer Jon.

Who else forgot all about this trailer? It still might have some foreshadowing...

If Jon doesn't go North and all we get is a cluster fuck in KL. Well, maybe once word that Dany is dead (maybe Arya kills her) reach them, the Northen Lords just decided to name Sansa Queen. Because f*ck those Targaryan bastards, Jon did side with D, gave up his crown and fought by her side in King’s Landing. They might not want him for King and who’d blame them at this point?

So we might simply get Queen Sansa in the north. I wouldn’t love this, but at this point, I’ll take anything I could get. But really Jonsa makes a lot more sense and is basically the only way for the story to have a tiny bit of a positive end. 

So let’s say Jon do go north, possibly to Riverrun and met up with Sansa and the remaining lords (are there any?), the north/whole of Westeros would be all “we don’t want a Targaryan ruler because they’re clearly into burning shit” and Sansa would be all “What about a Stark?” and a Jonsa political wedding could go down.

Jon would be re-named king (in the north or all of Westeros)? after this, with Sansa as his Queen (because if she’s not going to be Queen, what was the point of Sansa’s arch really? We need also succession and she is the only one that makes sense.)

 Dany targeting Sansa and Jon stepping in somehow would also be fun and could happen instead of a wedding but feels unlikely with how he’s been for the past two seasons. But maybe the reveal is in this ep.

Then maybe just as they have the wedding sorted out, news that Arya killed Drogon reach them (or she killed Dany herself, maybe she’ll wear Grey Worm’s face doing it? Feel like he’s the only character actually fully on D’s team left.) Dany and her remaining soldiers against Jon’s remaining ones? I don’t think we’ll get another big battle so not sure. Maybe Arya kills Dany and Drogon just flies off? Or goes crazy so the Unsuild have to kill him or something? 

Both Dany and Drogon should be dead by the end at least. Else they’re doing some good old dystopian shit. A terrible, history repeats itself and you can’t escape it. The big superpowers will always have the weapons of mass destruction and people in power will always be able to do what they want with the small people thing.

I do believe we will get dead Dany and Drogon and that the last scene is something reminiscent of Winterfell’s opening with the kids shooting arrows or Samwell Tarly reading to/telling the story of the Song of Ice and Fire the next generation.

Only how do they make even half of this happen in 80 minutes? Maybe they can, but really, I'm preparing for a very depressing ending. Something fitting with the whole "you can't escape your destiny" vibe that seems to be happening this season. Still, I have a little bit of hope we'll get some sort of "sweet" ending since 1/2 million people dying (or whatever the population of King’s Landing was) feels like enough bitterness.

[noisemakerreviews]

Game of Thrones, 8:3 “The Long Night”

It’s been a while! What better way to come back from the dark is to review an equally as dimly lit episode of our favourite TV show. 

So, let’s get right into it.

Also, needless to say, this post is dark and full of spoilers, so beware.

We won’t get into the mechanics of strategy on Dany’s part, because sending the Dothraki in head-first while everyone else stayed behind and waited didn’t seem like the best course of action, but nobody questions the Unburnt without getting torched themselves, so you do you, Khaleesi. Let’s dissect that scene a bit more, because what more could we have asked for within the first five minutes than the Dothraki wielding fire-swords into the night? (I guess better lighting... thanks, Melisandre.)

This episode was chock-full of haunting and powerful images. Firstly, the Dothraki slowly being extinguished, both literally and figuratively. This is a huge loss for Daenerys and her army, and the Night King is chuckling from the cloud’s with the late Robert Baratheon’s, “Only a fool would meet the Dothraki in an open field” line all the way back in season one. 

The battle commences and all the MVPs are charging: Brienne --- ahem, Ser Brienne --- Jaime, Podrick, Sam, Edd, Tormund, the Hound, Beric, Grey Worm, Jorah, the list goes on. I must have gone into cardiac arrest at least seven times during the episode. I didn’t know I could hold my breath for an hour and a half, but here we are. The Battle of Ice and Fire had a very Battle of the Bastards-esque feel to it, which worked, and was full of action --- sometimes to the point that I couldn’t even make out if someone was dying or not. (Looking at you, Brienne, Tormund, and Jaime...)

Let’s move on to Jon and Dany exploring a whole new world atop Rhaegal and Drogon. An airborne fight that severely stressed me out, the aunt-nephew duo went after the Night King to try and end the fight before it began. Essentially, the only thing that was accomplished was the Night King being thrown from Viserion and Rhaegal getting injured. This scene was frustrating because I think that they could have used the dragons far more effectively, i.e., lighting up Viserion at the very least. We find out later that dragon-fire doesn’t have any effect on the Night King, but there’s no reason to believe that it wouldn’t have fatally injured Viserion. 

The crypts were, shocker, unsafe. But let’s hone in on that chilling scene between Tyrion and Sansa. Did anyone else think that a murder-suicide was about to transpire, or was that just me? The once-married couple shared a funny, but slightly heartbreaking conversation earlier on, and Sansa deemed Tyrion “the best of” her list of husbands. We see them later huddled behind a likeness of a late Stark, Sansa clutching her dragonglass dagger that Arya gifted her, and Tyrion taking her hand and bestowing a kiss against it. It’s a glimpse into the humanity the show captures beautifully amidst the literal end of the world. 

Moving on, we have to talk about our queen, our lord and saviour, our absolute G.O.A.T. ... Lyanna Mormont. Move over, Arya, we get that you saved the world, but we all know who the true woman of the series is. From the beginning, Lady Mormont was a force to be reckoned with and an instant fan favourite. Though we knew her chances for survival were slim to none this episode, I couldn’t have imagined a better way for her to go out. She struck fear into the hearts of men twice, even three times her size, all while looking cute as a button. Rest in power, Killer of Giants. 

Speaking of powerful, tiny women who men underestimate, we’ll discuss our other queen, Arya Stark. From the beginning she’s been an outcast, proving that she will not succumb to societal norms expected of women in Westeros. The only people who seemingly nurtured this tendency were Jon, who gave her the strong advice, “Stick them with the pointy end,” --- a line repeated to Sansa just before the battle began --- and Ned, her late father who we all still dearly miss. Arya snuck her way through the halls of Winterfell, her kill count climbing faster than she could run. Stress levels were high and I worried that the Girl with No Name was going to be no more, but the Kill Bill sirens activated and the Hound and Beric Dondarrion came in with the assist. Though we lost Beric, his purpose was finally served, and Melisandre greeted the Hound and Arya to reassure them that the Lord of Light’s plan is still in action.

Plus, Syrio Forel totally came back to us through the Red Woman. 

Theon is one of the most rounded characters on the show, and his development is astounding. It rivals that of Jaime Lannister, and as much as I want to hate the last male Greyjoy heir, I just can’t. His real life began and ended within the walls of Winterfell. The downfall of his journey started when he overtook Winterfell back in season two and ‘burned’ Bran and Rickon alive to gain power and stock with his followers. Of course, the youngest Stark boys were unharmed, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that Theon murdered two innocent children. Bran has since forgiven him, calling him a “good man” before the fighting begins. Theon fights until the end, and suffers an honourable death at the hands of the Night King, protecting Bran and keeping his promise until his dying breath. 

Just when we think all hope is lost, in true Game of Thrones fashion, a twist flies through the air (literally) and Arya’s talented knife-work ends the Long Night. I’m sure you screamed as loud as I did when every second of A Girl’s training led up to this moment, and all prophecies were fulfilled. 

I thought this choice to give the kill to Arya was a smart one. The Night King directly and physically embodies Death, and Death isn’t concerned with a power struggle, kingdoms, or battles. As Bran stated, the Night King is only concerned about the Three-Eyed Raven, and cleansing the earth of the living --- has he been talking to Thanos?

A fight with Jon would have been exciting, but it was evident by his survival of dragon-fire that the Night King cannot be defeated by sheer force or strength. Arya was the only one who could outsmart him, and the Night King could have only been feasibly defeated by a game of wits. Also, who doesn’t like a badass, strong female lead killing the second coldest villain in the show? Behind Cersei, of course.

Speaking of whom, I am sincerely anxious (and excited) for the latter half of the final season. Dany’s army has faced serious losses, such as the Dothraki and the Unsullied, and essentially she just has the manpower that survived the inner walls of Winterfell. Both of her dragons have been injured, though we see in the preview that they are able to fly. Cersei has 20,000 fresh troops, dragon harpoons, a mind sadistic and strategic enough to blow up half the city, and presumably the wildfire to bring that possibility to life. 

There is still a lot to come in the last three episodes, but if the Night King subplot is over, then this episode made all the waiting and speculating worth it. All in all, a solid episode with a solid plot, and a twist that people will be talking about for weeks, months, maybe even years to come.

All images courtesy of HBO. 

[takerfoxx]

Gonna knock off some big ones here! The fav(s) of the day are...

BOBA FETT!

Okay guys, let’s get this out straight out of the gate. I grew up as a major Star Wars fan. My dad is an old-school sci-fi nerd and it really rubbed off on me. Classic science fiction was our bread and butter growing up, and the Star Wars movies were no exception. We must’ve watched those suckers a gazillion times.

And the expanded universe? Oh, I was all over that shit! And I mean the old stuff! The Truce at Bakura, the Heir to the Empire trilogy, the Kyp Durron trilogy, both the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian trilogies (there were a lot of trilogies), Darksaber, Planet of Twilight, Shadows of the Empire, The Courtship of Princess Leia, Young Han Solo, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the Young Jedi Knight series, all of the Tales books, Galaxy of Fear, even less well regarded stuff like The Crystal Star. All that and more filled my bookshelves.

But like many young Star Wars fans, my boy was the guy that got like four lines of dialogue and quickly gets killed off in the first half of the third film.

It’s hard to really articulate what made Boba Fett so appealing. I think it’s part of the air of mystery around him. In Empire, he strides in with a totally badass design, is the guy to track down and capture the heroes, backtalks Darth Vader and gets away with it, and escapes with one of the main characters in tow. I guess that caused people to become intrigued by him and want to see what he would do in the last film. And sure enough, he shows up looking all cool and mysterious, flies into a direct confrontation with both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, seems to get the upper hand...and is summarily dispatched by a fluke accident.

Lame.

So I guess many who would become Star Wars writers were, like myself, let down by this, and sought to “correct” this by giving ol’ Boba his own mythos, complex history, cast of closely-related characters, and make it so that he escaped the damn worm and would go on to cross paths with the heroes in every obligatory “The one with Boba Fett!” entry in every long-running Star Wars book series ever.

And boy, did I eat it up!

The Bounty Hunter Wars! An entry in both Tales From the Bounty Hunters and Tales From Jabba’s Palace! Endless comics! The aforementioned obligatory Boba Fett books! All of this created a character that became almost revered by the fandom, who cast a shadow over the whole multi-verse. I bought the books, played with the toys, and even wrote a short little Boba Fett story in sixth grade. I mean, this guy was just cool.

Needless to say, I’m not the Star Wars fan I once was. I mean, the only one of these movies since RotJ that I’ve actually liked is also one of the least popular, so that’s a thing. Hell, I was debating putting up a Star Wars entry to begin with. But man, even if I’m not all that into Star Wars anymore, it can’t be denied that for a time it reigned supreme, and Boba Fett was, in my world, the king.

(Though lowkey, it was kind of hilarious watching writers try to reconcile the already established Boba Fett origin with the one created by the prequels after Attack of the Clones dropped)

He’s no good to me dead.

Also...

DARTH REVAN!

So I went from almost not doing a Star Wars entry to doing one with multiple characters. Yeah, go figure.

All right. So, Knights of the Old Republic is probably my last great foray into Star Wars before sort of slipping out of the fandom. It was recommended to me by a work friend, so I popped over to EB Games (remember them?), grabbed up a used copy, popped it into my X-Box, and...

I think I averaged about eight hours a day on those games. Each of them.

It was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had, a wholly new Star Wars story taking place centuries before the films (and yet somehow still having the same technology level) that features none of the classic characters, but still felt very much Star Wars, but also its own thing: a sprawling space adventure as you, the apprentice Jedi, joins up with a ragtag group of companions and travel the galaxy trying to thwart a rogue Sith Lord from finding some long lost superweapon. The worlds you visit! The characters you meet! The quests, the leveling, the force powers, the plot, everything was just so fresh and so cool!

And then you get to the twist, a twist that is now notorious for being one of the best twists in gaming history: finding out that you aren’t just some new Jedi rising up to stop a Sith Lord: you are actually DARTH MOTHERFUCKING REVAN, the Sith Lord that was the master of the current Sith Lord, long thought dead but had actually been captured, mind-wiped and reprogrammed by the Jedi! What do you do with this new information? Well, that’s up to you!

Needless to say, when this was revealed in the game, I started screaming, and screaming loudly. What a twist! What a game-changer! 

Now granted, being the PC of an RPG means that Revan’s personality was decided by the player’s choices, so he didn’t get much of a canon personality of his own, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s the centerpoint of one of the coolest pieces of the Star Wars EU that there is, and that’s worth a lot in my opinion.

Also, Bastila was bae, just sayin’. Sort of a proto-Serana, if you ask me.

(note: yes, I know about his role in SWTOR and don’t care for it. No, I haven’t read the novels yet, but I do intend to)

Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead.

And finally...

GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN!

The Heir to the Empire is the granddaddy of the OG Expanded Universe. I mean, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye technically came first, but no one remembers that. No, it was all about Timothy Zahn’s epic follow-up to the original Star Wars trilogy, which set the gold standard for the series for years to come and also introduced several of its most iconic characters. Mara Jade? She came from here. Talon Kardde? Also here.

And then you have the trilogy’s centerpiece, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

It’s sort of interesting how iconic Thrawn has become as a Star Wars villain, given how different he is from all of them. I mean, he’s not a Sith. Hell, he’s not force sensitive at all. He’s a military officer, in a series where they tend to be treated as expendable underlings. But through actually using his brain, studying his opponents’ strategies and cultures, making use of the resources available to him, and actually being fair to his subordinates, he’s gone on to almost rival Darth Vader in popularity in some circles. A brilliant tactician who managed to (mostly) overcome the Empire’s prejudice against non-humans through sheer efficiency, he came incredibly close to bringing the New Republic to its knees simply by outplaying them at every turn. His knack for figuring out his opponents’ thought process simply through studying their cultures’ works of art was inspired, and those who tried to outsmart him often came to regret it. What was more, he also was surprisingly honorable, having a strict moral code. He simply believed that the Empire was the best way to run things, and acted accordingly. Though don’t let that fool you into thinking that he wasn’t just as ruthless as anyone else in the Empire. He was just smarter than most about it.

While there was admittedly a lot of crap in the EU that Disney was wise to get rid of, losing characters like Thrawn was a major blow, which was why it was so awesome to see him return in the Rebels tv show. I literally have seen videos of grown men crying with joy just through watching his reveal trailer. And while I don’t have the time or means to watch Rebels for myself, I do want to give it a go sometime in the future, and Thrawn is a big part of that.

But it was so artistically done.

[killthebxy]

a heap of headcanons, pt. 2:

the defenses of Winterfell + strategy for the battle

    ��     let it be known that i am writing these for a simple reason: i am greatly unsatisfied with how the battle was planned for episode 3. my portrayal is always book-based, even in show-only plots and threads, and book!Jon is a brilliant strategist --- he and Robb learned it all from Ned and, while it is true that Jon lacks real war experience when compared to Robb, it is no less true that this boy: 1) helped defend Castle Black from Styr’s attack, even if it meant risking to be the one to kill Ygritte, 2) was charged with the defense of the Wall, at age 16, by Donal Noye who believed him fully capable of such, 3) was named acting commander by maester Aemon, the sagest of men, and 4) held the Wall against Mance Rayder, 100,000 wildlings, mammoths, giants --- not because he had the numbers, but because of his exceptionally intelligent planning of their defenses. add to this the fact that Jaime Lannister, lord commander of the Kingsguard, a man able to battle Ned Stark eye on eye, is at Winterfell, and definitely there is no way i will ever accept how badly this battle was planned. i am no battle specialist myself, but i will try my best to make sense out of this. and also: i headcanon that these strategies were placed together by Jon and Jaime, with Tyrion’s supervision together with Jorah, Grey Worm, Dany’s bloodriders, Sandor, Beric, Tormund, Davos, Theon, and Brienne (i.e., characters with training and experience in battle strategy) --- and then shared, discussed, debated, and fixed as necessary together with everyone else in the castle. no one was left out, no matter their role.

first and foremost, while i do not personally agree with the suicidal plan of “let’s lure in the Night King and use Bran as bait”, i will accept it because otherwise i would have to change literally the entire episode and everyone’s own muses’ actions and this is obviously not my intention. the strategy is what will differ.

the Unsullied are the main line of defense and their purpose is to shield the castle --- if a single wight enters the castle, everything is lost. the Dothraki riders, on the other hand, are purely offensive and they need a vast field to perform their attacks. HOWEVER. whilst they are still the van, they are not pitched head-on towards the wights nor are they tossed carelessly like meat to be slaughtered. they will be placed on the sides of the field, so to speak, so that they can charge into the wights as the wights come forth. so, let’s envision it like this: there is Winterfell, right in front Winterfell the Unsullied legions are placed as a shield. the wights will charge right into this shield, as they are vicious and rely on ruthlessness only, therefore they attack in a block. this will allow, therefore, for the Dothraki to charge into them from the sides, supporting the shield this way and minimizing their deaths as much as possible.

regarding the dragons: this will build on my plotting with @zcldrizes and @perzyr. i write Jon as having no Targaryen blood (except for very few threads plotted otherwise), and he is able to ride Rhaegal only because of a bond they have built ever since Jon arrived at Dragonstone --- Rhaegal chooses Jon for his rider not because of blood, but because of the person Jon is. still, Jon is a much less experienced rider than Dany, and his initial plan is not to go fight in the air. for the initial part of the battle, Jon stays on the ground and supervises and commands from atop Winterfell’s walls, together with Arya and Sansa and Davos. Ghost is with him, because Jon knows his direwolf won’t make a difference in this sort of battlefield --- there is 99% chance Ghost will be butchered, and he will be much more useful within the castle walls, to help shielding from the inside out.

regarding the dragons, pt.2: again based on my plotting with Artie and Daisy --- while Jon stays on the ground for now, Dany flies off with Drogon and Rhaegal. considering everything i state above, too --- they begin burning the waves of wights, again as a way to keep casualties to a minimum, which allows the Dothraki riders to only charge in when it is safe --- and then retreat again, rinse and repeat. eventually, Dany spots the Others by the edge of the wolfswood and steers Drogon that way to go fight. Rhaegal stays behind and continues supporting the forces on the ground because 1) he refuses to fight Viserion (this is @perzyr‘s beautiful headcanon, with a lot more detail and depth to it than i am exploring here), and 2) he refuses to abandon Jon. after some moments of airborne fighting, Dany realizes she will be unable to bring down Viserion on her own and this is when she returns for Jon --- in this moment, Jon and Rhaegal together decide to go fight as well, and this is when everything else happens like we see unfolding in the episode.

on the other hand, this when the odds start becoming very tilted against everyone fighting on the ground. with the dragons gone off to fight Viserion, the armies do not have that protection anymore --- and they are greatly outnumbered by the wights. this is when the retreat begins.

unlike what we see in the episode, the walls are very well prepared to deal with wights trying to climb up --- this is literally what Jon had to face when defending the Wall, and he’ll put all this knowledge and experience to good use. atop the walls, there are boulders and scorpions and barrels filled with stone and ice and more barrels of oil and torches. everyone there is armed with longbow or crossbow, and fire arrows.

in the meanwhile, however, something else happens that definitely ruins all these preparations --- the moment when the Night King, after being knocked off Viserion and now face to face with Jon, rises all the dead soldiers. because this means there is now wights within the castle walls, no matter what.

regarding the crypts: i had a thought of headcanoning that, rather than the crypts, Jon would have everyone gathered at the great keep --- because he is not stupid, and he knows the crypts are an accident waiting to happen, as soon as the Night King brings up his arms. however i ultimately chose not to because 1) again, it is not my intention to change half the episode for everyone, and 2) in theory, the crypts ARE the safest place. not when the dead rise, yes, but at this point the entire castle is overrun and it will make little difference where you are. no place is safe anymore --- when the crypts fall, every other place is already gone before.

one final note regarding Ghost: as i said, he is NOT sent off to fight, as in my personal opinion this makes little sense. he stands by Jon for as long as Jon is on the ground. once Jon leaves with Rhaegal, he instructs Ghost to retreat to the crypts and guard everyone there --- exactly because he knows there is a real risk matters will go downhill. for this battle, Jon had a layer of armor made for Ghost, that covers his torso. around his neck, he wears a collar with spikes made of dragonglass, to both help him defend and attack against the wights. if anyone who writes the Staklings wants to join me in on this, i am more than glad to headcanon that Shaggy, Summer, and Nymeria (and Frost, ft. @clevrest) are also wearing similar armor.

          tl;dr: if you look at the outcome, it is pretty much the same as what happens in the episode. a similar number of persons died. HOWEVER. they died because the odds were severely against them and because it was impossible to have done much more --- not because anyone in Winterfell was too stupid to properly plan this battle.

[dragonloverdoran]

Struck to the Bone

~2k words, mentions of violence, smol Lief

There are ghosts in Del.

By now, Endon has lost count of the times he has caught a glimpse of familiar palace folk within the city's crowds: a shock of orange hair just like Lady Elisa’s, perhaps, or Captain Jessop’s crooked nose, or Min’s kindly smile.

Oh, he knows they cannot be real. Sharn never notices any of it, and she is much sharper than he is. Barda says that whoever he sees must be distant relatives at best. Neither of them ever manage to hide their concerned looks quite well enough.

Besides, in his dreams he watches his people sprawled out on the palace tiles, life draining out of them in rivers of red. He sees their shattered tools and instruments and weapons, and he hears their desperate warnings to a king who has already abandoned them. It is only when the warnings turn to curses that he can awake, a weight in his heart telling him his dreams are true to the bitter end. 

In this way, he reminds himself that these ghosts are nothing more than illusions, mere tricks of a guilty mind. It doesn’t stop them in the least.

An execution, the Grey Guards shout, their fists thundering against the forgehouse door. Come to the palace to witness our first midwinter execution! Entertainment for all the family!

A chill seeps into Endon's soul. Braced against the other side of the door, he waits until the raucous laughter fades down the street, reaching for his coat only when he is sure the Guards will not batter down the timbers. Sharn has already passed Lief his thick jacket and a knitted hat. 

Once the boy is bundled up, Endon places his hands on his son's shoulders. “Listen closely, Lief,” he says, willing his voice not to shake. If he panics, he cannot expect his son to stay calm either. “You have grown much since the last execution. You are now tall enough to be able to see the event without being on my shoulders. That means you must stand on your own, near the front, and the Grey Guards will hold you responsible if you happen to catch their eye.”

The words taste like ash in Endon’s mouth. No child should have to be told such things; no child should even know of the kind of evil that the Grey Guards wreak in the heart of the city. But having spent all nine years of his life under the reign of the Shadow Lord, Lief is already far too familiar with the process of public execution. He nods solemnly.

“Do you remember the rules?” asks Endon.

Lief begins to fidget. “Keep your head down,” he murmurs. “Face the platform. Stay silent, no matter what you see.” 

Three simple rules. Not unlike the ones in the forge, which Lief can rattle off with the speed of an auctioneer, and which are just as vital in keeping him safe. Endon breathes a sigh of relief and releases the boy.  

But after he takes the keys off the hook, Endon turns to see Lief’s cheeks flushed red, words tumbling out as quick and sudden as the tears in his eyes. “Father, I’m going to bring Monty along. I know I’m too old to play with him and he’s balding and needs repairs and I should have fixed him up ages ago, but no one will see, and no, I’m not going to say why I need him and I don’t care what you think about it.” Lief folds his arms, mouth turned sharply downward.

Endon pauses, not knowing how to reply. What has he done, he wonders, to make Lief think he would disapprove of a child’s fear, especially now? He wants to tell him that he is the last person who can demand bravery, but speaking of that would not help at all. Instead, he kneels down and embraces his son.

While Lief weeps into his collar, Endon looks around for Monty. A charming little thing despite its loose threads and rough patches, the toy kin has never been too far away. Sharn, ever-knowing, disappears into the bedroom, emerging a few seconds later with Monty in hand. Letting go of his father, Lief snatches up the furry creature and stuffs it awkwardly into his pocket, his cheeks still burning.

Sharn tuts gently, sounding almost calm. Endon knows better. Her rueful smile is tight, and as she does up her coat buttons he can see how white her knuckles are. He has learnt long ago that if his strong, courageous wife is afraid, then he has no chance at keeping the fear at bay.

“Soon it will be over,” he says. 

It is all the comfort he can offer. This time, he cannot keep the crack out of his voice.

In happier, more ignorant times, the stretch between the palace’s great hall and the garden wall was known as the Place of Peace. Magnificent feasts and parties had been held there every other month, weather permitting. Jesters and musicians brought laughter and joy to all in attendance, surrounded by candles so plentiful that it had seemed as though he and Sharn danced among the stars. 

Now, as they enter the Place of Punishment, he clutches at her hand once again. Truth be told, it is a far more apt name than the old one, for the word “peace” is a poor substitution for “easy manipulation of a foolish king”. The high platform that now stands before the people of Del makes no such pretenses about its nature. Adorned with rows of fang-like stakes, previous executions have patterned its wooden slats with layers of red-brown spatter. Bones old and new are strewn around the square, fragments crunching underfoot like gravel. Above it all, the Shadow Lord’s red mark flies high in the sickly air.

“If a tick is tall enough to gawk, they’re tall enough to squawk,” chortles a Grey Guard as they pass. “Hear that, Teak 7? Came up with that one myself. I sure hope someone refuses to watch the show.” He hefts a gigantic club in one hand, and Endon quickly averts his eyes.

All too soon, they are pressed against the backs of the crowd gathering at the foot of the platform. Endon takes a peek at Lief. The boy’s jaw is set, and he has a vice-like grip on Monty, hidden within his pocket. True to the rules, he stares straight ahead before pushing forward and disappearing into the crowd. Beside him, Endon feels Sharn squeeze his hand twice. Our son. She too has seen him go. 

Endon recognises neither the names nor the faces of the condemned. For others, perhaps, that could make it a little easier to watch the agonising deaths unfolding in front of them. They are able to believe that this cannot happen to them, as long as they keep their consciences clean and sufferings silent. It is too late for him. His people are here because of his failures, and a part of him goes with every poor soul slaughtered in his place.

Soon after the executions are complete, a tug at his sleeve announces Lief’s return. The poor boy looks about as ready to faint as Endon feels. “Mother, Father,” he whispers, “I dropped Monty somewhere near the front. I’m going back to get him, but you have to come with me. Please?”

Startled, Endon turns to Sharn.

“Well, let's go,” she says quietly, her mouth forming into a thin line. “Even the Guards have had their bloodlust sated for today.”

She is right, as always. Most of the Guards are busy directing cleanup and traffic. The rest are clumped in groups, discussing the details of the killings with schoolboy enthusiasm. Either way, none of them are paying real attention to the citizens, who are leaving as eagerly as they dare. He glances at Sharn again. She nods, so he takes a deep breath and follows their son. 

Pushing through the throng, Endon cannot help but feel like a fish swimming upstream through the River Del. Where Lief is able to squeeze between people with ease, and Sharn with only a little more effort, he is jostled left and right, his bulk hampering his progress. Using more force, he quickly finds, does nothing but yield him angry looks. With every second that passes, the others get further and further away.

He is midway through his umpteenth apology when a peculiar stillness draws his eye. A few paces away, the crowd ebbs and swirls around a lone man, standing nearly a span taller than his neighbours. His nose and mouth are covered with a dull green scarf, and a pale scar winds its way across his cheek from beneath the cloth. Where most have their heads bowed, his is held high and proud, the dark hair tangling about his shoulders his only sign of motion.

Endon blinks, half expecting the man to be seized before his eyes. Armed or not, boldness such as this is beyond foolish. Surely it was obvious that attracting attention here would be rewarded violently, yet the man makes no attempt to blend in. Still, there is something else odd about this man that gives him pause, a half-formed thought evaporating before Endon can properly seize hold of it. His chest tightens. Whatever he has forgotten, it is important. Trying to regain his line of thought, he finds himself pushing closer. At the very least, he should warn him of the danger.

The stranger, Endon surmises, is some kind of seasonal traveller. Besides the ill-informed attitude, the cut and fabric of his clothes are better suited to some thorny path than Del’s cobbled streets. Beneath the dense cloak, the man’s frame is as lean and strong as Endon’s own- fitness greater than the city’s hunger often allows. From this distance, he can guess at the features behind the scarf; a couple of steps more and he can speak to him, even reach out and touch him. 

And then Endon looks at the stranger’s eyes, and he thinks better of it. Dread darting suddenly through his nerves, he sees that there is neither touristic curiosity, nor sadness, nor even fear within them. Nothing but fury, bright and savage, fixated on the Guards as though they could combust with a stare. 

He had been mistaken. This was not the madness of ignorance, but of hate: all-consuming hate, hate that mattered more than love of home, of family, of life itself. Endon had felt echoes of it himself ever since the world ended nearly ten years ago. It was agonising and self-destructive, he knew, but it filled the void left when it seemed all else had been torn away. And even he had been fortunate, for whatever had befallen this man, there was nobody beside him to keep him grounded, as Sharn and Lief did. Nobody to tell him what had happened to the pottery workers, who had been possessed by the same feeling not too long ago. Nobody to prevent him from being a danger to himself and others, a spark waiting to set the forest around him alight.

Endon is backing away when the half-formed recognition returns to him complete. It is as good as a punch to the gut; in an instant, it buckles his knees and squeezes all the air out of his chest. No, it cannot be, he thinks numbly. No, he has never loved anyone who could possibly muster such rage. But, try as he might, he cannot deny that that hair, that build, that proud, stubborn stance, that curve of the nose and those dark, dark eyes are so very much like…

The dear name is on Endon’s lips before he remembers that it is he who wears it now. Heart thudding, he chokes it back. Calling out his own name in the Place of Punishment- what an absurdly stupid way to ensure the Shadow Lord’s eternal rule. He should know by now he cannot trust his own sight, not when it comes to those who had misguidedly cared for the king he had been. But of all the visions he had seen, this one was not so impossible, was it?

Trying to still his racing thoughts, he shuts his eyes and begins to count silently to ten.

“Jarred?”

Endon jolts at Sharn’s voice. The square is clearing, and for a moment he thinks she has seen the man too. But the stranger-who-was-not-a-stranger has vanished, and it is himself that she gazes worriedly at. Without another word, she loops her arm around him, steadying him as she has so many times before. Lief stands nervously behind her, clutching a dusty Monty like a long-lost friend.

Suddenly exhausted, Endon shakes his head and lets it drop.

“I promise I won't lose him again,” mumbles Lief, misunderstanding. He does not take his eyes off his beloved kin.

Endon swallows, trying to push away memories of similar promises he had made and broken a lifetime ago. “I am sure you will not,” he says, and takes Lief’s free hand in his own. 

[anagentinwriting]

To Catch a Thief - Part 6

Summary: Being an FBI field agent was your dream job but having been stuck behind a desk for most of your career you’ve almost given up. Fortunately, a series of robberies with minimal evidence forces you to assist a team in the field to help solve the case. But when the only thing left behind is a series of song lyrics, will you be able to find the perp? Or will the number of obstacles and lack of evidence keep you from solving the case?

Pairing: Peter Quill x Reader

Word Count: 4302

Warnings: Swearing

To Catch a Thief Masterlist / Main Masterlist

After seeing Peter in the red jacket, you went straight to the office to check his name in the database. Sure enough, Peter Jason Quill had a record including petty theft, fraud, and public intoxication. He even spent a few months in jail.

You ran another search to check for any notes left behind by Star-Lord. To your surprise, a few pages showed up and you clicked on the first case. It involved a convenience store robbery about 17 years ago, but the theft left behind a written note wedged between two boxes of candy bars. You opened the image attached to the file and inside was an IOU:

Bread

½ gal milk

peanut butter

candy bar

IOU $3.85

  -Sorry Star-Lord

Going back, you clicked on a few more realizing all the notes were from small retail stores 13 to 17 years ago. The IOU’s listed the stolen items with a signed apology from Star-Lord. All the stores dropped charges when they received money from Star-Lord along with a written thank you for keeping him fed. Forensics ran tests on the envelopes and notes, but no DNA was found.

Why would Star-Lord be stealing food and leaving behind IOU's? Isn’t the whole point of stealing not to get caught? If Peter was this Star-Lord it might’ve been the same time his mom got diagnosed with cancer. Did her treatments force her to stop working, leaving Peter/Star-Lord to fend for himself?

You scanned over the last page showing his most recent crimes. The last crime documented occurred a few years ago involving Halfworld Research and Sweet Dreams Cosmetics; this was the case Luis mentioned. Star-Lord exposed and shut down these companies for their involvement in illegal animal testing and animal cruelty.

Somehow, he got a hold of documents and recordings showing the mistreatment and the insane experiments happening to these animals.  It was graphic to look at the screenshots from the footage. One image had a raccoon with his back shaved and some sort of mechanism attached to his back. How could someone do this to a living thing? These companies also deceived their donors by putting on the front about how they were against animal testing. Luis was right, this was a complicated case, but the only connection this case had to Star-Lord was the note he sent both companies:

You know what you did A-holes.

    -Sorry Not Sorry, Star-Lord (SL)

“Whatcha doing?” Gamora asked, making you jump in your chair. She rested her chin on your shoulder staring at the computer screen. “Did you figure out what SL stands for?”

“Yes, I think I did,” you replied, staring at the signed note.

Oh, Mama I can hear you a-crying', you're so scared and all alone

Hangman is comin' down from the gallows and I don't have very long.

- Sorry SL

“Isn’t this renegade by Styx?” Kraglin asked you.

“It is. Gold star, Kraglin. Gold star.” You flashed him a warm smile giving him a high-five.

“Does this mean SL has mommy issues?”

“Or his mom could be in trouble?” You chewed on your bottom lip glancing over the written note. “SL steals for a reason, so if his mom is in trouble, he might be committing these robberies to keep her safe.”

“Hmm...” Kraglin nodded, squinting his eyes as he tried to put something together. “This doesn’t explain why he’s committing these crimes? What’s his motive? Why would his mother need protection?”

“My theory is someone put a price on his head. He’s not only running from the police but someone else like the hangman in the song. SL has to do what they say or they’ll kill him or his mother. He doesn’t want that to happen so he follows orders. His mother may be the only family he has left and he doesn’t want to lose her,” you said, pressing your lips into a tight line.

“Makes sense,” Kraglin agreed, following along as you continued.

“When he sings to his mother in the song it’s in a softer tone compared to the rest of the song. It’s almost like he’s apologizing to her. It’s like he knows his end is coming, but he isn’t afraid of his impending doom anymore.”

“He wants us to feel sorry for him, but not feel sorry for him?”

“I think it’s more like feel sorry for his mother like she’s innocent in all this.”

“He’s a criminal, YN. His mother raised a criminal. I don’t see how she would be innocent.”

“I just have this gut feeling she’s innocent,” you added as the door to the conference room flies open and in walks a bright-eyed Gamora.

“The lyrics aren’t the only thing we have this time.  We got a picture of a plate fleeing the scene. This could be our guy,” Gamora announced, kicking the door shut behind her.

Gamora pulls out the photo from her file.  The license plate reads PZM-569.  This was Peter’s car. This further proves the red jacket he was wearing links him to footage from the cameras, and his nickname Star-Lord connects him to SL signed at the bottom of the written notes.

Peter’s stealing the Infinity Stones necklaces, but why? Are him and his mom in that much trouble they have to commit these robberies? Were they in debt from Meredith’s medical bills? Was it about the money or was it something more? You were suspicious of Peter but you would’ve never pegged him for a thief.

“The car is a blue Ford Mustang II King Cobra with orange stripes.  It's registered to one Peter Jason Quill. The son of J’son and Meredith Quill.”

“That’s interesting because J’son Quill was the infamous Ego,” Kraglin informed, nodding his head at the random fact he blurted out.

“Wait, what? Is that true?”  Gamora inquired, raising a brow.

“Yeah, how could you possibly know that?” You stared at him stunned. If this was true, why weren’t you able to make this connection sooner? You lived right next door to Ego’s son.

“It was in my file I wrote up the other day. Did you two not read it?”

“Kraglin, you sourced it all from Wikipedia.”

“Your point is…” He gave a half shrug, holding his hands out in front of him like he didn’t know what he did wrong.

“Sometimes that site isn’t totally reliable.”

“But it’s true. I checked the database and public records to make sure.  J’son Quill and Meredith Quill are the parents of Peter Jason Quill.  Ego and J’son Quill are the same person. It was never disclosed to the public, but every crime with Ego’s River Lily trademark traced him back to J’son Quill after he was murdered. His fingerprints closed 53 unsolved cases.”

“Seriously,” you exclaimed. Holy crap! Ego was Peter’s dad. Peter was Ego’s son. This makes perfect sense why he was so close to his mother, and why he hated talking about his dad. Ego was with The Collectors crew, did that mean Peter was a part of it now?

“Nice work, Kraglin,” Gamora praised him with a pat on the back.  “That’s even better news because YN may have linked Peter Quill to SL!”

Gamora requested Peter Quill and his employer, Drax, to be brought in for questioning. Before they arrived, you briefed Gamora and Kraglin in on how you knew Peter. Starting with him being your neighbor before he turned into a close friend.

You stood on the other side of the mirror watching Peter twiddle his thumbs. He seemed calm showing no signs of distress at all. Does he know what he’s about to be accused of? You still couldn’t believe it, but the evidence pointed to him. He was behind this, but you wanted to believe he wasn’t. Fuck, why didn’t you put it together sooner? He matched the description, his nickname was similar, had the same taste in music, and he owns the red jacket.  Why didn’t you see it? You lost your trance when Gamora walked in.

“Are you doing okay? I mean, finding out one of your friends is involved in this must be hard to process,” Gamora speculated, squeezing your shoulder.

“Sure, I’m pissed off, but there isn’t anything I can do.” You shrugged. “He made his bed and now he has to lie in it.”

“Did he seem like the type of guy that would do something like this?"

“Honestly…..no. He’s a good, caring guy, and has grown to be one of my best friends. I mean, once you get past his ego and dirty gentleman like personality.”

“Is this the nameless boyfriend? The one you won’t tell us about because if you ask me it sounds like you have feelings for Quill.”

“WHAT? NO,” you scoffed, turning to her in shock. Yes, you may have developed some romantic feelings towards him, but you weren’t going to admit it to anyone now.

“Look, it’s okay, I’m not going to judge you for it.  You didn’t know what was happening, and clearly, he knew what he was doing. Besides, you said he’s a good guy and from what you’re building about SL’s profile, he’s been through hell and back. Do you think he will talk to us?”

“He loves to talk,” you breathed, earning a soft chuckle out of Gamora.

“You’re going to question Drax, then you can watch me interrogate your friend.  It’s good for him to squirm for a little while longer,” she smirked.

You entered the interrogation room to find a big muscular man sitting there staring at the two way mirror almost like he knew someone was on the other side. He had tattoos covering both his arms and looked pretty intimidating, but you’ve dealt with worse before.

“Good morning, Drax. I’m Agent LN. May I call you Drax?” you asked, sitting down across from him.

“Yes, I don’t know what else you would call me.”

“Right,” you cleared your throat, “do you know why you’re here?”

“Shouldn’t you know, you’re the ones who brought me here?” He asked, folding his arms across his chest.

“I do. It’s just routine questioning to see if you had a clue to why.” He glared at you not saying a word, so you continued. “How do you know Peter Quill?”

“Quill. He works for me. He’s a friend, but I like to call him family….sometimes.”

“You must know him pretty well then. Can you tell me anything else about him?” You knew a lot about Peter, but you wanted to see what others thought of him. Did they see him as a good guy like you did? Or did he come off different to other people?

“Quill mixes a mean drink, which keeps the customers happy. He’s a quick problem solver, which is nice to have on the job.  He’s a smart imbecile,” Drax stated with confidence. “Quill’s protective of his friends and those he considers family. He has been speaking highly about his female neighbor and believes he has a chance with her.” Drax let out a booming laughed as he shook his head. “But he has no chance with her.”

“Is that so?” You smirked, glancing back at the window with wide eyes. You shouldn’t continue this interview alone especially if he knew who you were. This could compromise everything.

“Can they see me through the mirror?” Drax pointed to the glass behind you, and you nodded. “What if I sit really still can they still see me?”

“Yessss,” you dragged out, narrowing your eyes at him. Drax comes off all brooding and serious, but underneath he seemed childish and lighthearted.

“Dammit,” He grumbled, folding his hands together on the table in front of him.

“Can you tell me anything about his female neighbor?”

“No. I stop listening and think about something else when he speaks of her. He needs to be with a woman that is pathetic like him. This woman is not.”

“At least Quill has you to keeping an eye on him.”

“He is hard to spot in a crowd sometimes, and I don’t follow him home. But, when he is at work my eyes are on him,” he nodded, forcing a smirk to your lips. Quill had some interesting friends, but behind Drax’s hard demeanor he was a big softy.

“Has Peter gone anywhere recently for work? Like to a conference?”

“Yes. He went to a mixology conference in Miami. I stayed home to care for my wife and daughter.”

“Of course. Do you remember what the conference was called?”

“Tales from the Galaxy,” he answered, waving his hands in front of him like a rainbow. You write down the name so you can look into it later.

“Thank you. I have a few more questions before you can leave.” Gamora told you to treat Drax like a suspect, but your gut was telling you he was innocent. Nothing he said made him come off guilty. He was an everyday working class man providing for his family. Simple, but your gut wasn’t enough to prove his innocence, you needed his alibi or his confession. “Drax, where were you last night?”

“Working, but then I went home to read my daughter a bedtime story before I went back to work till closing.”

“Do you have anyone who could verify this?”

“Yes. My employees. My wife. My daughter. Why do you need to know this information?”

“We have suspicions you may have involvement in a heist that happened last night, but since you have witnesses it’s likely your name will be cleared.” He gave you a stern nod. “Have you ever heard of the Infinity Stone necklaces?”

“Yes, Quill told me about them,” he blurted out without missing a beat.

“Really?” Your mouth dropped open at his confession.

“I mean no, I don’t know what those necklaces are, what a mystery this is?”

“But you just said you knew what they were,” you questioned as your face scrunched up.

“No need to get personal,” he huffed out, folding his arms back across his chest.

“I’m sorry.” You flipped through your notepad before closing it. He wasn’t going to tell you anything else, so might as well end it here. “I have everything I need right now but thank you for your time. You’re good to go.”

“This way,” Drax pointed to the only door in the room and you nodded with a kind smile.  He pushed the chair back as it skidded loudly across the floor and left the room. And he’s the dude who runs the most successful bar in the city. Interesting.

You returned to the other interrogation room and watched Gamora take a seat across from Peter. She introduced herself before setting up the camera beside her. Peter seemed confident and at ease showing no sign of any discomfort.

“State your name for the camera please,” She instructed, pointing to the camera lens.

“Peter Jason Quill. I enjoy listening to music, hot women, and watching Footloose, the greatest movie in history,” he grinned, shooting a wink at the camera. You rolled your eyes at him from behind the glass.

“That’s not necessary but we do need you to clear up a few things for us. Starting with what you were doing last night?”

“Last night, let’s see.” He scrunched his eyebrows together trying to think it over. “I was having dinner with a friend but ended up leaving early when my mom called with an emergency.  She needed a refill on her meds, so I had to go to the pharmacy for her,” Peter stated with a slight shrug.

“Did you get a receipt?”

“You bet, one second.” He held up his finger pulling out his wallet and handing it to her. She glanced it over before slipping it into the file on the table. It must’ve been timestamped for last night because she didn’t say anything else about it.

“Answer me this, if you had to go to the pharmacy for your mother. Then, why was your car spotted fleeing a scene of a crime last night?”

“Beats me, I needed to get the meds to my mom. She needs to take them at a certain time otherwise it could mess with her other meds and make her feel worse. She has cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He nodded as she pulls out four pictures of the Infinity Stone necklaces from the file and slides them over to him. “Quill, do you know what these are?”

He sat up in his chair, leaning over to look at the photos one by one. “Hmmm.….the president's rubies?”

“No, these are four of the six rarest necklaces in the world from the Infinity Stone Collection. Each is worth more than $300 million dollars but as a set of six the price skyrockets.”

‎Peter whistled, “Wow, that’s a huffy price tag. I can't afford them if you're selling them.”

“I’m not selling them. Someone stole them,” Gamora growled through clenched teeth, pointing at the photos. “All four of these.”

“Oh, and you think I had something to do with this?” Peter asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“I do.”

From the tension in Gamora’s back, she was getting annoyed with Peter. His answers were vague and it wasn’t getting her anywhere. Peter did this to you sometimes and it frustrated you, too.  He would only share the tip of the iceberg of information, but never what was hiding beneath the surface. You always read the situation before going any further with him. If he seemed content and calm you would continue to pester him until he broke.  If the situation felt uncomfortable you would stop and change the subject.  Right now, at this moment, he seemed almost too prepared to talk.

“Hate to break it to you, agent, but this wasn't me.” He twirled his fingers around the photos before pushing them in Gamora’s direction.

“Is that so?” She asked with pursed lips.

“Yes, what would I do with these necklaces? Wear them? They would look pretty ridiculous on me,” Peter chuckled, shaking his head.

Gamora starts to question him about his whereabouts when the other robberies happened. She started with the Las Vegas robbery, followed by the Norway heist, and ended with the break-in at Strange’s residence.

“What a weird coincidence? I was in Vegas at the time, but it was for a bachelor party. Check with my buddies, they’ll tell you I was with them the whole time.

“Ah...that week, I went to Florida for the Tales from the Galaxy mixology conference. You can ask my boss or look on their website or ask the other attendees they will prove my attendance.

“I had a lady friend over and we were participating in extracurricular activities, if you know what I mean,” he winked, flashing his signature smirk.“If you don’t believe me, ask my neighbor. She was banging on my door telling us to shut up because she could hear us through her walls.”

“I find it a little weird you remember the exact date you got laid. It’s almost like you were looking for an alibi,” Gamora scoffed, crossing her arms as she leaned back into her chair.

“I only remember because it’s the last time I brought a girl back to my place. Lately, I have been busy hanging out with my neighbor. She’s a lot of fun.” A grin graced his lips as he glanced at you through the two-way mirror before returning his eyes back on Gamora. Did he know you were behind the glass or was he just assuming you were?

“Who is this neighbor of yours? I may need to contact her to verify your alibi. Or if I could get the unlucky woman’s name who spent the evening with you.”

“I don’t remember the woman’s name per say--” Peter scratched his head with a tight smile“--but my neighbor is YN LN.  She works in the FBI, too, you might know her.”

“There’s a bunch of us. I don’t know every agent in the city,” she replied, writing down your name for show.

“Shame, she’s a pretty awesome woman,” he smirked at the tabletop, forcing a tingling feeling in the pit of your stomach.

“Seems like you might have a thing for this--” Gamora peeked at her notepad “--YN? Is she the reason you haven’t brought any woman home recently?” Gamora eyed him as he ran a hand through his hair, showing his first sign of distress.

“Too personal, Gamora. Get back to the real issues,” you said to yourself in the empty viewing room. You harbored a  small crush for him, but you’ll get over it at some point. You enjoyed his friendship too much and wouldn’t want to ruin it with your unspoken feelings given the current circumstances.

“That seems like a personal question don’t you think? Is it even relevant?” Peter questioned, sitting up in his chair and scratching the top of his head.

“I have to protect my fellow agents from a possible criminal,” she smirked, cocking her head to the side.

“Good thing I am no criminal.”

“Your record says otherwise.” She opened another file in front of her and slid it over to him.

He flipped through the file, rubbing the scruff on his chin. “Most of this was when I was in my rebellious years. I grew out of it. Got a mentor and went straight.” He shut the file and pushed it back to her.

“Hmm, okay.” Gamora remained silence for a couple minutes watching him crack under the pressure. “Your father was the infamous Ego, correct?”

“Yeah, so what? It’s not like he cared about me, I barely even liked the guy.”

“But, he did teach you a few things, am I right?”

His eyes shot to her before reverting back his hands resting on top of the table. He hunched his shoulders before nodding his head.  “Yes, a few, but like I said I don’t do that anymore.”

“Do the letters SL mean anything to you?”

“SL? No, why would they?”

“What about Star-Leader, Space-Legend, Sun-Lens, or Star-Lord?”

Peter’s eyes flickered to the window for a brief second after hearing the last name. The look on his face told you everything; he felt betrayed. You could see it in his eyes, even though it only lasted for a second. Did he figure it out? Did he know you were on the case?

“What? No! This is ridiculous,” he chuckled with his confidence slowly deteriorating. “What type of interrogation is this?”

“A pretty normal one compared to others I’ve been in.” Peter leaned in his chair crossing his arms in a defensive manner. “You see SL, whoever he is, calls himself a legendary outlaw. Every robbery he commits he leaves behind a note, and we suspect he used to go by the name Star-Lord. We came across this name when we discovered written IOU’s to convenience stores he stole from as well as a couple companies he exposed a few years ago.  On one of the notes, both names were written, so it was an easy connection to make. The only thing we don't have are photos of the assailant."

“Wow...this guy must be pret-tay good,” Peter replied, dragging out his words.

“Some would say so, I think he gets lucky, but his luck will run out.  And when it does, we will be there to catch him.  But, we can protect him if he decides to come clean, and  tell us what is going on and who else is behind this?”

“I will be sure to let him know if I ever run into the guy.”

“I want to cover all our bases, so would you be open to doing a polygraph test or are we going to need a warrant?” Gamora waited for him to answer and once Peter looked up all the worry in his eyes was gone.

“Not at all. I have nothing to hide,” he smirked, putting his hands behind his head and his feet on top of the table.

Gamora asked you to look into each of his alibis while Mantis gave Peter the polygraph test. You started with the first necklace and discovered he was in Vegas but he never left the group according to his friends. You knew he couldn’t have stolen the second necklace, because well you were there and heard everything.  When SL stole the Space Stone, he was in Florida at the conference. There was photo evidence of him every day on their website and his passport never left Florida until the day he came back to New York. Then you got to the latest theft, and like the others, Peter told the truth. He went to the pharmacy, which happened to be close to the museum, and the security camera was timestamped at the same time the necklace was stolen.  All his alibis were rock solid.

Results from the polygraph test came in and he passed. He was telling the truth. Mantis was one of the best forensic polygraphers in the country, and she would’ve known if he was lying if not mentally then by sheer body language.

You didn’t understand. Peter fit SL’s description perfectly.  He’s athletic, strong, and fit the age bracket. He can pick a lock like it’s his job, and bullshit his way out of anything in a moments notice. Peter’s music tastes were similar to SL’s, and he was even singing some of the songs left behind at the heists.  He even owns the same red jacket from the camera footage. Peter had to be the guy, even the nickname Meredith gave him connected him to SL.  His alibis were rocked solid, but what if they were staged to appear that way?

A/N: Thanks for reading :)