#most of her more modern angst is the fact that she was forced into leadership against her will

[arolesbianism]

Thinks oh so hard abt the spiraling upwards clan founders, especially the birchclan founders. Silly lil kitties who's pasts are drenched in blood with the primary regret of not drawing it sooner

[xtruss]

The Pending Collapse of The ‘Rules-based International Order’ is An Existential Threat to The United States

— March 30, 2021 | RT

The sun sets behind the Statue of Liberty in New York, May 26, 2013 © Reuters/Gary Hershorn

For decades, America styled itself the ‘indispensable nation’ that led the world & it’s now seeking to sustain that role by emphasizing a new Cold War-style battle against ‘authoritarianism’. But it's a dangerous fantasy.

It seems a week cannot go by without US Secretary of State Antony Blinken bringing up the specter of the ‘rules-based international order’ as an excuse for meddling in the affairs of another state or region.

The most recent crisis revolves around allegations that China has dispatched a fleet of more than 200 ships, part of a so-called ‘maritime militia’, into waters of the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines. China says that these vessels are simply fishing boats seeking shelter from a storm. The Philippines has responded by dispatching military ships and aircraft to investigate. Enter Antony Blinken, stage right:

“The United States stands with our ally, the Philippines, in the face of the PRC's maritime militia amassing at WhitsunReef,” Blinken tweeted. “We will always stand by our allies and stand up for the rules-based international order.”

Blinken’s message came a mere 18 hours after he tweeted about his meeting in Brussels with NATO. “Our alliances were created to defend shared values,” he wrote. “Renewing our commitment requires reaffirming those values and the foundation of international relations we vow to protect: a free and open rules-based order.”

Our Rules, Our Order

What this actually means, of course, is that the order is rules-based so long as it is the nation called America that sets these rules and is accepted as the world’s undisputed leader.

Blinken’s fervent embrace of the ‘rules-based international order’ puts action behind the words set forth in the recently published ‘Interim National Security Strategy Guidance’, a White House document which outlines President Joe Biden’s vision “for how America will engage with the world.”

While the specific term ‘rules-based international order’ does not appear in the body of the document, the precepts it represents are spelled out in considerable detail, and conform with the five pillars of the “liberal international order” as set forth by the noted international relations scholars, Daniel Duedney and G. John Ikenberry, in their ground-breaking essay, ‘The nature and sources of liberal international order’, published by the Review of International Studies in 1999.

The origins of this “liberal international order” can be traced back to the end of the Second World War and the onset of a Cold War between Western liberal democracies, helmed by the United States, and the communist bloc nations, led by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The purpose of this order was simple – to maintain a balance of power between the US-led liberal democracies and their communist adversaries, and to maintain and sustain US hegemony over its liberal democratic allies. This was accomplished through five basic policy ‘pillars’: Security co-binding; the embrace of US hegemony; self-limitation on the part of US allies; the politicization of global economic institutions for the gain of liberal democracies; and Western “civil identity.”

All five are emphasized in Biden’s interim guidance, in which the president openly advocates for “a stable and open international system.” It notes that “the alliances, institutions, agreements, and norms underwriting the international order the United States helped to establish are being tested.”

The Faltering Empire’s Flaws and Inequities

Biden also observed that the restoration of this international order “rests on a core strategic proposition: The United States must renew its enduring advantages so that we can meet today’s challenges from a position of strength. We will build back better our economic foundations; reclaim our place in international institutions; lift up our values at home and speak out to defend them around the world; modernize our military capabilities, while leading first with diplomacy; and revitalize America’s unmatched network of alliances and partnerships.”

All five of Duedney’s and Ikenberry’s policy ‘pillars’ can be found embedded in these – and other – statements contained in the guidance.

There is a defensive tone to Biden’s guidance, which notes that “rapid change and mounting crisis” have exposed “flaws and inequities” in the US-dominated international system which “have caused many around the world – including many Americans – to question its continued relevance.”

Here Biden runs into the fundamental problem of trying to justify and sustain a model of economic-based global hegemony which was founded at a time when the existence of a Western liberal democratic “order” could be justified as a counter to the Soviet-led communist bloc. The Cold War ended in 1990. The ‘international rules-based order’ that was created at the behest of the US to prevail in this conflict continued, however. It seems that the US wasn’t simply satisfied with preventing the spread of communism; its raison d’être instead transitioned from being the leader of an alliance of liberal democracies, to being the global hegemon, using the very system devised to confront communism to instead install and sustain the US as the undisputed dominant power in the world.

This trend began in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War, where the US had the opportunity to pass the baton of global leadership to the United Nations, an act that would have given legitimacy to the notion of an ‘international order’.

This, however, proved a bridge too far for the neo-liberal tendencies of the administration of President Bill Clinton, who continued the Cold War-era practice of using the UN as a vehicle to promote US policy prerogatives at the expense of the international ‘order’. Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright helped coin the term “indispensable nation” when defining America’s post-Cold War role in the world (it is notable that Blinken recently praised Albright in a tweet, noting that “her tenacity & effectiveness left the US stronger & more respected globally,” and adding “she’s a role model for me & so many of our diplomats.”)

The arrogance and hubris contained in any notion of a single nation being “indispensable” to the global order is mind-boggling and is reflective of a disconnect with both reality and history on the part of those embracing it.

The Myth of Indispensability

The unsustainability of the premise of American ‘indispensability’ was demonstrated by both the events of September 11, 2001, and the inability of the US to deal with its aftermath. Had the US embraced and acted on President George H. W. Bush’s notion of a “new world order” in the aftermath of the Cold War, it would have found itself as a vital world leader working in concert with a global community of nations to confront the scourge of Islamic fundamentalist-based terrorism. But this was not to be.

Instead, the ‘indispensable nation’ was exposed as a fraud, with many in the world recognizing the US not as a power worthy of emulation, but rather as the source of global angst. This rejection of America’s self-anointed role as global savior extended to many Americans too, who were tired of the costs associated with serving as the world’s police force.

Indeed, this exhaustion with global intervention, and the costs accrued, helped create the foundation of electoral support for Donald Trump’s rejection of the “rules-based international order” in favor of a more distinct “America first” approach to global governance. What gave Trump’s policy so much “punch” was the fact that not only did many American citizens reject the “rules-based international order,” but so did much of the rest of the world.

Repairing the damage done by four years of Trump has become the number one priority of the Biden administration. To do this, both Biden and Blinken recognize that they simply cannot return to the policy formulations that existed before Trump took office; that ship has sailed, and trying to sell the American people and the rest of the world on what many viewed as a failed policy construct (i.e., unilateral, uncontested American hegemony) was seen as an impossible task.

Instead, the Biden administration is seeking to reinvent the original premise of the ‘rules-based international order’ by substituting Russian and Chinese ‘authoritarianism’ in place of Soviet-led communism as a threat which liberal democracies around the world willingly and enthusiastically rally around the US to confront.

“Authoritarianism is on the global march,” Biden’s guidance observed, “and we must join with like minded allies and partners to revitalize democracy the world over. We will work alongside fellow democracies across the globe to deter and defend against aggression from hostile adversaries. We will stand with our allies and partners to combat new threats aimed at our democracies” and which “undermine the rules and values at the heart of an open and stable international system.”

Biden concluded his essay in dramatic fashion. “This moment is an inflection point,” he noted. “We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future direction of our world. No nation is better positioned to navigate this future than America. Doing so requires us to embrace and reclaim our enduring advantages, and to approach the world from a position of confidence and strength. If we do this, working with our democratic partners, we will meet every challenge and outpace every challenger. Together, we can and will build back better.”

No Longer The World’s Undisputed No.1

While postulated as a statement of American strength, Biden’s concluding remarks actually project not only the inherent insecurity of the US today, but also its root causes. The fact that the US needs to “reclaim our enduring advantages” implies that we lost them, and illustrates that these so-called advantages are not nearly as enduring as Biden would like to think. “Building back better” is an admission of weakness, a recognition that the notion of an ‘indispensable nation’ is an artificial construct; most nations no longer accept America as the world leader.

The reality is that the US is one of the most powerful nations in the world. That position, however, is no longer uncontested; China has emerged as the equal of the US in many metrics used to measure global power and influence, and superior in some. Moreover, China operates effectively in a multi-polar global reality, recognizing that the era of the American singularity is over. Russia, India, Brazil, and the European collective all represent polar realities whose existence and influence exists independent of the US.

The US, however, cannot function in such a world. While there is a growing recognition among American politicians that the post-Cold War notion of the US being the sole-remaining superpower has run its course, the only alternative these politicians can offer is the attempt to return to a bi-polar world which has the US at the head of its liberal democratic ‘partners’, facing off against the forces of ‘authoritarianism’. This vision, however, is unrealistic, if for no other reason that the world no longer views Western liberal democracy as ‘good’, and authoritarianism as ‘evil’.

This reality is evident to much of the rest of the world. Why, then, would US policy makers embrace a formulation doomed to fail? The answer is simple – the US, as it exists today, needs the ‘rules-based international order’ to remain relevant. Relevant, as used here, means globally dominant.

US politicians who operate on the national level cannot get elected on platforms that reject the ‘indispensable’ role of the country, even if many Americans and most of the world have. US economic dominance is in large part sustained by the very systems that underpin the ‘rules-based international order’ – the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. US geopolitical relevance is sustained by Cold War-era military alliances.

An Unviable, Unsustainable Future

An American retreat from being the ‘indispensable’ power, and a corresponding embrace of a leadership role based upon a more collegial notion of shared authorities, would not mean the physical demise of the US – the nation would continue to exist as a sovereign entity. But it would mean an end to the psychological reality of America as we know it today – a quasi-imperial power whose relevance is founded on compelled global hegemony. This model is no longer viable. The fact that the Biden administration has chosen to define its administration through an ardent embrace of this failed system is proof positive that the survival of post-Cold War American is existentially connected to its ability to function as the world’s ‘indispensable nation’.

American exceptionalism is a narcotic that fuels the country’s domestic politics more than global geo-political reality. The ‘rules-based international order’ that underpins this fantasy is unsustainable in the modern era and makes the collapse of the “exceptional” United States inevitable.

Watching the Biden administration throw its weight behind a US-dominated ‘rules-based international order’ is like watching the Titanic set sail; it is big, bold, and beautiful, and its fate pre-ordained.

— By Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

[katalyna-rose]

A Noble Proposition

General Audiences

Solavellan

Tags: Arlathan AU, Young Solas, Fluff and Angst

Summary: In the days of Arlathan, Fen'Harel was not alone in his desire for freedom. In fact, there was one who had worked toward the same goals for far longer than him, one who pointed him down the path he desired. Fen'Harel was not one person, but two. 

Set after the end of Vhenan

Read on AO3!

Lyna was warm in Solas’s arms, their blankets tangled around their legs and a dozen pillows cushioning them. His big, calloused hands were running over her back in soothing strokes. Spirits of Joy and Serenity were flitting around by the ceiling while curious wisps played in the crystal windows, sparking off the energy there. Majesty was floating in a corner, seeming to observe the dark forest around the castle. A contented smile on her face, Lyna watched them and the dark sky above them, the nearly full moons peeking out from behind the clouds every few moments.

“Was it like this before?” she asked her husband, pressing a gentle kiss against his shoulder and skimming a hand up his chest to touch the blade of his ear. “In the days of ancient Elvhenan, was it like this?”

He hummed in thought, considering as he gently tugged at her wrist to make her stop torturing the sensitive tip of his ear, his amusement at her antics and contentment with the night thrumming through their marriage bond. “The spirits were older then and they understood the world,” he finally said. “Most of these spirits are comparatively young. Very few remember a time before the Veil and so they have little concept of how to exist here. They are managing well, but it is not quite the same. They do not interact with us as they did before.”

“I remember,” Majesty interjected, turning from its vigil of the forest, its whispery voice sweeping through the room.

“Do you?” Joy asked, its shapeless form vibrating with excitement and turning pink with glee. It swooped around Majesty as the ancient spirit regarded it stoically.

“Joy, ma falon, please settle,” Lyna said with a grin and her friend from before the Veil fell turned blue as it returned to its place beside Serenity. Majesty turned its attention back to Lyna and Solas.

“I was young then,” it told them. “I’d only existed for a few centuries when the Veil sealed us away. I belonged to Elgar’nan in those days, though I left his service as he became more and more crazed and no longer embodied Majesty in any sense. In those days, we were much closer to the People. Spirits of Prudence would often help run shops and spirits of Love officiated weddings. Spirits of Justice and Fortitude fought in battles and spirits of Compassion tended to the sick and injured in hospitals. We were very much integrated into the People’s lives. For now, we are separate here. Though seeing us no longer causes panic that threatens to corrupt us, we are not a part of society.”

“That will change slowly,” Serenity added, its soft voice as soothing as a slow-running creek in the woods. “As the People remember our usefulness and overcome the centuries of fear, we will become a part of their society again. Already you have officiated the coronation of our monarchs.” It bowed respectfully to Lyna and Solas, its silvery form condensing from its usual mist into something vaguely person-shaped long enough to perform the act. “Acceptance will come slowly, but it will come.”

Lyna turned her attention to Solas. “If I had been alive then, do you think you would have loved me?” she asked. It was a question that had been on her mind for some time, mostly as a point of curiosity. “Are your feelings for me possible only because of the specific circumstances in which we met?” He stiffened in her arms, then set her away as he sat up, a complicated string of emotions that she couldn’t untangle reverberating between them. She frowned as he turned his back to her and sat with his head in his hands for long moments. She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, but he flinched from her touch. “Solas?” she asked, trying to understand what was wrong. He sighed heavily.

“I admit it is something I have wondered as well,” he said at last. “For you, I believe there would have been two possibilities. The first, and more likely, is that you would have been a slave. In such circumstances… No, I do not believe we would have had the opportunity to fall in love, even if it were possible.”

“Why not?” she asked. He sighed again, something like guilt coloring their bond.

“Slavery changes a person,” he told her. “And you… You are beautiful. Your features are classically lovely and your coloring is unique. As a slave, you would have been trained as a courtesan and you would undoubtedly have brought your master untold riches. But it is not likely that you would still be the woman I know and love.” They were silent for a while as she processed that.

“I would have been forced to become a prostitute?” she finally asked, unable to really believe it.

“No,” he said, still turned away from her. “A prostitute in a modern brothel sells her flesh to whoever has the coin to purchase her company for a few hours. She might have chosen that life because she had nothing else and it was a way to sleep in a bed every night rather than on the streets, or she might have chosen it to pay a debt. But she would have chosen. A courtesan in Elvhenan was not a prostitute. She would be trained for entertainment as well as pleasure. In your case, with your long legs and flexibility and natural grace, you would likely have been a dancer. You would perform at banquets or parties and your master would accept the highest bid for your company for a night. Likely, the bidding would start at your weight in diamonds, and your master would feel slighted if he had to accept such a paltry sum.”

“My weight in diamonds?” she repeated, disbelieving. “That could feed a family for years!” Solas laughed without humor.

“Courtesans were a rare and highly sought after commodity,” he said. “You would have been worth whatever cost to someone who wished to purchase your company. Since I was a slave in Mythal’s service until I rebelled, I would not have had the means to purchase your company and thus it is unlikely that we would have met. As high as I had risen in Mythal’s service, until I was afforded all the luxuries of her favorite nobles, I was still a slave and not allowed to own property or have money. So no, I do not think we would have found each other then.” They were silent again.

“You said there were two options,” she reminded him after a moment, needing to stop thinking about life as a courtesan as Solas described it.

“If you were not a slave, you would have been a noble,” he said. “With your strength of will and natural leadership abilities, you would have risen to nobility even if you were born a commoner, I have no doubt. It would only take time, a virtually unlimited resource in those days.” He finally turned to her, and though he wouldn’t meet her eyes he seemed calm enough, his tumultuous emotions turned to gentle contemplation. “As a noble, we would have had a much better chance of meeting, though I cannot say for sure if anything would have developed between us.” He was quiet for a moment, considering something as he looked at her. She didn’t interrupt. “We could find out,” he finally said.

“How?” she asked him, startled. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Immediately she felt sleep taking hold on her mind. “Ah,” she murmured as she allowed herself to succumb. The sound of his light chuckle followed her into sleep.

***

Mythal’s palace is not nearly as grand as Sylaise’s, Lyna thought with disdain as she wandered the gardens, the sound of the celebrations preceding the feast dimming as she walked. Though flowering plants from all across Elvhenan grew beside the path, it was a simple garden without the arches and covered pathways and subtle grandeur Sylaise preferred. In truth, Lyna preferred it as well. Mythal’s palace was a little too pragmatic. It was supposed to be a palace but it was more of a fortress.

She settled herself on a bench out of sight of the celebrations and further away than the couples necking in shadowed corners and sighed heavily, resenting the need to transfer to Mythal’s court. She had reached the highest tier she could within Sylaise’s nobility and she had needed to move on to bigger things. She was playing to win and complacency wouldn’t do. She had a responsibility, after all…

Leaves rustled nearby and she knew it was not an animal approaching. She called magic into her hands as she narrowed her eyes in the direction of the sound, then dispelled it when she saw who stepped out. Mythal’s Wolf was resplendent in royal blue silk, the long ends of his tunic swaying in the breeze and a pelt wrapped around one shoulder and across his chest. His long hair, confined in many braids, was pulled into a tie at the base of his neck and an animal skull rested on his forehead as a sort of headdress. His Vallaslin was the same color as his eyes, and she found it oddly compelling despite the fact that she’d never been attracted to slaves before.

He smiled when he saw her and sketched a lazy bow. “I thought I saw someone wandering away from all the fun,” he said with a cocky grin. “Do you tire of our hospitality so quickly?” She returned his grin with a smirk and a raised brow.

“Do you make a habit of stalking members of Mythal’s court?” she asked him. He sketched another bow, this one flourishing and graceful to the point of sarcasm.

“Only when they are as beautiful as you,” he purred, looking up through his lashes at her. His gaze raked her form, from her bare toes up her legs, covered by her undyed silk dress, to the ornate silver necklace that drew attention to the shadow between her breasts, to her eyes, lined with silver paint and violet powder on her lids, to the complicated braids of her white-blonde hair. “And there are few in this world, let alone this court, as beautiful as you,” he added, his voice half an octave lower. She couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ah, so the rumors of the wolf’s silver tongue were not exaggerated,” she commented, leaning back on the bench and motioning for him to join her there. He sat beside her at a polite distance, though the look in his eyes was hardly polite.

“I get by,” he said archly, still smiling.

“Or perhaps instead you get in,” she said mildly, her tone curious and her gaze on the few stars that could be seen through the branches above them. His response was a real, honest laugh rather than the carefully modulated laughter she’d heard from him during the feast. It was low and rumbling and ended with a subtle snort on the inhale. She smiled, as pleased to have heard his true laughter as to have caused it. She had a feeling he had cause to truly laugh even less often than she did.

“Aren’t you a clever little wolf?” he asked, eyeing her with renewed interest. She didn’t turn her gaze to him, watching him only from her periphery, but she could see the slightly wary set of his shoulders. He was testing the newcomer.

“A wolf, am I?” she asked. “Like you? I confess, I’ve never been compared to a wolf before. Most people equate me with a halla, especially while I was a member of Ghilan’nain’s court. She made quite the show of presenting me with one of her very first halla. A gift, she said, for my service and my aid in her inspiration for the beasts. It still resides at my home and has a healthy new calf this year.”

“A truly royal gift,” he observed, that tense set of his shoulders becoming more pronounced though his tone was still mild and flirtatious. “Yet I believe that those who would equate you to such an animal are all but blind. You may be pale and graceful and truly lovely like the halla but you are not prey and you are not the sort to shy away from anything.”

“Oh? Our very first conversation and you believe you have me all figured out?” she asked him, smiling lazily and still keeping her gaze fixed skyward. Let him think she wasn’t paying attention to him.

“Perhaps not, but I believe I have seen a fair amount,” he told her, a predatory tilt to his head. “And I know that you spend only a few centuries in the court of an Evanuris before you withdraw to your home in the mountains and ultimately decide to transfer to another court. I can only imagine how tedious it must be to alter the Vallaslin of all your many slaves for each transfer.” She had to bite the inside of her cheek to repress her grin. He’d just put himself on her list with that little comment, though getting Mythal to part with her Wolf would be the challenge of a lifetime. “Yet you have resided in five of the eight courts thus far. Do you intend to make the rounds of them all? What will you do when you reach the end? Start again, perhaps?”

She tittered and finally slanted a look at him. He very carefully adjusted his posture to remove all sign of his wariness of her and show her only one who might be interested in finding himself in her bed. But she knew better. “You think I have planned that far ahead, do you? I am quite old now, after all. The shortest amount of time I have ever spent in a court was my six hundred years with Sylaise. I have only just arrived at my fifth court and I will likely remain for ten centuries, at least.”

“Where do you think you’ll go next?” he asked her with mild curiosity, doing a very good job of seeming like the answer didn’t matter. He didn’t fool her. She’d danced to this tune and played this game more times than she could count, and she began while he was still a spirit. He would not be able to trick her.

“Who knows?” she asked carelessly, waving a hand through the air. “Ask me in a few centuries. Maybe I’ll have an answer for you.” Elgar’nan was her next stop. She’d planned everything so carefully, had been working diligently for so long that she thought of almost nothing else. She was over six thousand years old and had set the board for this game before she reached the end of her first century. Of course she knew where she would go next. This was too important to leave to chance.

“It seems strange that you change alliances like you do,” he told her softly. “I could not imagine leaving Mythal’s service. Yet you began life with Andruil, did you not?”

“I did indeed,” she confirmed easily. Her movements were meant to be seen; she was the distraction. “But Ghilan’nain asked for me when she married Andruil, so I joined her budding court. She was quite disappointed when Dirthamen seduced me away from her. She tried to offer me a dragon if I stayed. Unfortunately for her, Dirthamen offered greater secrets and I would not be swayed.”

“I had heard that you were Dirthamen’s lover for a time,” the Wolf said, betraying great interest. It was well known that he had fought against Falon’din’s forces, which were often bolstered by Dirthamen. Mythal did not approve of Falon’din’s bid for power and land.

“I was, but that was long ago,” she said, adding a note of wistfulness to her tone as though she missed those days. In truth, she had been glad to be passed over for some new secret he had pursued. Dirthamen was a superior, narcissistic ass for the most part, and she would never revisit some of the things he had asked of her in the bedroom. Her three century stint as his lover had been the most difficult to smile and keep up her act through. “I knew it wouldn’t last,” she continued, keeping that wistful tone in place. “His only true love is secrets and the pursuit of them. Still, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity when it presented itself.” She turned to him with a cheeky grin. “Besides, who in their right mind would turn down an Evanuris? They are… divine.”

“But you left his court, as well,” the Wolf pressed. A muscle in his cheek twitched and she wondered what about her last comment had angered him.

“Yes, well,” she waved her hand dismissively. “He had passed me over centuries before that and there was little left at his court to interest me. So when Sylaise visited and offered me a position among her Ladies of the Dance, what reason did I have to pass it up?” It had taken her far too long to secure that invitation. She’d only meant to stay with Dirthamen for another century after he passed her over, but she had also expected to remain his lover twice as long as she had. Unfortunately, like a rowdy young boy, his attention strayed far too easily. It was the only time she’d been outplayed, though the one he’d truly passed her over for had lasted less than a century. She got his attention, but she couldn’t keep it.

“Yet you requested the transfer the Mythal’s court?” the Wolf asked her, carefully innocent and curious. He was such an intriguing man. What would it take to gain his confidence, she wondered?

“I wanted to bask in the glory that is our Queen of Justice,” she told him with a grin. In truth, it had been a carefully calculated risk, one meant to pass the message to those who would need to know that she was circulating deliberately to achieve her goals. The right people knew why she was there and had already begun approaching her and her people carefully. “And I am restless, after all this time moving around,” she admitted with a shrug. “I have found that the more I move around, the more I want to move around. It is an interesting dilemma.”

“It seems like a wonderful thing, for you to have such freedom,” he told her gently, putting slight emphasis on the word freedom. She grinned at him, but secretly she was beginning to suspect that Mythal might have an inkling of what she was doing and was trying to get her to reveal sensitive information through her Wolf. Using a carefully hidden method, one she had developed herself, she probed him for listening spells. He made no move that would suggest that he realized what she was up to, but she found a powerful listening spell in his earring. It did not fight her probe, though it was meant to if it could detect them. Mythal would have no idea that she’d figured it out, fortunately.

“I do enjoy the ability to see new things and experience life at different courts,” she told him, withdrawing her magic. She wondered if he knew why he’d been asked to ask such specific questions of her or if he’d simply been given a script and told to seek her out. She wondered if he was complicit or merely the messenger. Mythal’s Wolf would be quite the prize for her if she could manage it. But now was not the time.

“You have been well-loved by every court you have attended,” he said, imbuing his tone with modest jealousy. It was entirely false, but well-acted. “Sylaise let you go reluctantly and with great praise. I heard that she even told my lady to treat you well or else she would steal you back.”

Lyna laughed carelessly. “I find that very difficult to believe, Wolf!” she chortled. In fact, she knew it to be true. “Sylaise was fond of me, true enough, but to threaten Mythal over me? Never.” He smiled at her.

“Believe what you like, my lady,” he told her. “Still, the fact remains that you have been loved by every court.” She looked at him sidelong under her lashes, recognizing her chance.

“Most of them are rumors,” she murmured. “I am not quite as… well-traveled as whispered words would have me appear.” In fact, she’d only had a handful of lovers in her lifetime, all of them taken to further her own ends. And nearly half the rumors circulating about whom she had bedded she had begun herself with careful words whispered in the right ears. How she appeared to the public was a carefully crafted façade.

“Far be it for me to have anything to say on your previous lovers, my lady,” he told her with a shallow bow. “I happen to quite well-traveled and very few of the rumors about who I have… traveled with are untrue. I am hardly in a position to take offense.”

She veiled her eyes with her lashes and blushed. “Good to know,” she teased with a smile. Then she made a show of locating the moon in the sky and exclaiming about the time as she all but fled from his presence, confident that she had played her part well. She would need to screen all her belongings for listening spells again.

 ***

The next time Lyna met the Wolf was at another feast, this one celebrating Mythal’s victory over Falon’din. The Wolf was featured prominently as he had been the one to lead her armies to victory. For this celebration, Lyna danced. Normally, only commoners in troupes and courtesan slaves danced at such events, but this victory had been enormous. Lyna had been a Lady of the Dance for Sylaise and since all the nobles were expected to present gifts of their devotion and gratitude to Mythal and her general, Lyna had decided that her gift would be dance.

With her she had half a dozen of her most talented slaves, all wearing Mythal’s Vallaslin the color of Lyna’s eyes. Those six women in fluttering skirts danced with scarves to create the backdrop to Lyna and Fen’an. The two of them danced a complicated and sinuous routine that would be considered entirely inappropriate if anyone knew who Fen’an was to her. Fortunately, only two people besides them knew and so it was seen as a loving, graceful display of strength and flexibility.

The dance was the longest Lyna had ever performed, lasting an entire hour. The musicians were drooping with weariness from the pace of it, her slaves half dead with exhaustion, and Lyna herself had to struggle against intense dizziness and nausea from the prolonged exertion. Fen’an was refined, but his face was an unhealthy shade of red as they took their final bow. Mythal thanked them extensively for their beautiful performance and dismissed them. Fen’an casually wrapped his arm around the youngest slave’s waist, looking for all the world as though he was flirting with the girl while he was really helping her keep her feet as they left the hall. Lyna had no easy retreat to rest and recover, being expected instead to remain for the rest of the feast and festivities.

She had to struggle not to collapse on her cushion, had to fight not to guzzle water and remained refined. It was a challenge, but she somehow managed to merely sip her water as the feast commenced. She and her dancers had been the openers to the celebration, a position of great honor for such a thing, though Lyna felt less honored and more exhausted. The boar roasting on a giant spit in the center of the room was cut up and served to the attending nobility as Lyna sipped her way through her fourth glass of water.

Lyna waited until people were beginning to wander the gardens just outside the great hall and slip away in pairs before she left the table. Careful not to show that her limbs were aching and she was still slightly shaking from exhaustion, she wandered back to the bench in the garden where she had spoken to the Wolf weeks before.

“Your gift was incredible, my lady,” the Wolf said from the shadows. Lyna gasped and jumped with surprise, though it was entirely for show; she’d been expecting him but didn’t want him or anyone else to know that.

She laughed lightly and shook her head. “It was the least I could offer to you for your victory,” she told him. She did not mention Mythal. She probed for magic as he drew near and gestured that he might join her. This time she found no spells on him.

“Still, it was an amazing feat of skill and endurance,” he told her as he sat on the bench, a little closer than he had dared before. “Your grace in the dance…” he trailed off, shaking his head as though he had no words to describe it. She felt herself blush and almost panicked when she realized it was real. He smiled at her and she looked away as though embarrassed, carefully showing the face of a modest maiden and hardly able to believe that she was only faking half of it.

“The truly amazing feat of skill and endurance was your victory against Falon’din,” she murmured. He smiled.

“Perhaps,” he allowed. They were silent for long moments and she wondered where he would take this. She was shocked that he didn’t have any spells to spy on their conversation and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Surely Mythal would not attempt to convict her of her crimes on her Wolf’s words alone. She knew quite well that no court would ever take that as evidence; she had made sure of it through careful bribery and friendship.

“We were never properly introduced,” he suddenly announced. Lyna blinked at him.

“We do know who each other is, though,” she reminded him. He smiled and raised an eyebrow at her. She sighed. “I am Lyna,” she told him with a small smile.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions.” He told her hand and kissed it lightly. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” She tittered lightly, charmed despite herself.

“A pleasure,” she returned. He released her hand after a moment and flooded the area with his magic. She jumped, caught by surprise, though he withdrew his power just as quickly.

“My apologies,” he told her quietly with a small smile. “I was checking the area for listening spells. I have something very important that I wish to discuss with you and I do not wish to be overheard.” She frowned. This was not part of her plan. He took a deep breath before beginning his story. “After the battle, there was a great blizzard. We were unable to march home for two weeks. I got separated from the troops when I went to try to contact Mythal. In the storm, I could not find my way back. I took shelter in a cave, but it was not empty as I thought when I first spotted it. A woman was hiding there, a slave from Andruil’s personal household. She’d been beaten and she was starving. I shared my food with her and kept her warm. After a few days, she trusted me enough to tell me why she was there. She said that she was Andruil’s bed warmer and that she had fled to escape the abuses she suffered as a result. I told her that I would take her to Mythal because I thought she would help the girl. She told me that she had been searching for a messenger who belonged to a noble that traveled the courts, a noble who freed slaves everywhere they went and left behind agents of their will to continue their work. I had a suspicion of who she might have meant. With her testimony, I could have brought this noble’s deeds and all their many crimes before Mythal. But I did not. I had not intended to even before Mythal…” He stopped and took a breath. “I had intended to allow this noble to do as she liked and not interfere. But when I brought the girl before Mythal and begged for her help and mercy, Mythal instead sent word to Andruil that she had found her slave. And Andruil burned the girl alive for daring to seek her freedom.” He clenched his fights so tights together that Lyna wondered if he would break his own fingers. She had heard of the escapee who had been returned to Andruil, but she had not known that the girl had died so cruelly. She made a mental note to speak to her messengers about seeking runaways before anyone else could find them.

Suddenly, Solas met her eyes. “I know it is you,” he said with conviction. “I know that you are the one who very carefully leaves a trail of freed slaves everywhere you go. Andruil and Ghilan’nain have very few slaves remaining. They simply disappear, one at a time over the course of centuries. You are so careful and you present such an image to court that no one suspects you. But in certain circles, slaves whisper in dark corners of the powerful noble who fights for them.”

“What is it that you want?” she asked in a whisper, hardly daring to hope that Mythal’s Wolf would come to her freely.

“Free me,” he begged, barely giving the words voice. “Take me from here and free me. For a long time I have wondered at Mythal’s wisdom, her claim to godhood. She did much to instill in me the belief that she was fair and just and true, but I have seen that she is none of those things. It is not only what she did to that slave, but that was the final straw and I can take no more. I will fight for you, join you in this battle, anything to be free of her, to free others from her. Please. Cast any spell you need to know my sincerity.”

Lyna took a deep breath, recognizing that all her careful planning had just been dashed to pieces by the tide. “I already did,” she told him. “You carry no listening spells tonight and I have had a truth spell running this entire time while you spoke.” He jerked back.

“How could you have? I sensed nothing!” he cried.

“Of course,” she told him with a gentle smile. “I have developed ways to cast spells entirely undetected. I had to, or I would have been discovered long ago. I have been doing this nearly all my life. I would not be careless.” He was silent for a moment.

“Will you free me?” he asked again.

“If that is what you wish,” she told him. He nodded vigorously. “Then shed all magic and gifts from her and flee this place without being seen. You must go to the cellar and find the bottle labeled Mala Revas. Behind it is a loose stone. Strip everything from your body, all clothing and jewelry and ornaments and weapons. You will be leaving everything behind. I am sorry, but there is no other way. Once you are bare, press the loose stone. It will reveal a secret compartment near the floor. Take what is in it and dress the clothes provided. Place your discarded clothing in the compartment and close it. Then find the bottle labeled Vir Revas on the opposite wall. Behind it is another loose stone. Press it to reveal a secret door. Be certain to close the door behind you. Follow the path. If you are true in your desire for freedom it will show you the way. Speak to no one until you reach the end of the path. You will be greeted with the phrase freedom’s end. Reply with the words freedom begins, and you will be shown to your lodgings. I will find you there.”

“Freedom begins,” he murmured. Then he bowed low and left. With a gesture, she set her agents to watch him as he fled. This would be his first test, and if he betrayed her the path would be sealed and all evidence that it had ever existed removed. Even the bottles in the cellar to mark the points of entry would be gone as if they’d ever been.

 ***

Lyna held lands in the Arbor Wilds that crossed the Frostback Mountains. The lands had been carefully won or purchased until she held more than anyone knew, and they were covered with secret passages and hidden places where freed slaves lived. She sent Solas to her largest settlement, where all newcomers to her cause went, and she found him there two weeks later.

“Andaran atishan, Wolf,” she greeted him. He jumped to his feet, setting down the clothes he’d been sewing. He bowed, but the man beside him laughed and poked him.

“We don’t bow here, little noble,” he said, grinning. “Here, we are equals.” Lyna grinned at them both. Solas fidgeted awkwardly.

“Are you settling in?” she asked Solas, holding out her arm so that they might walk. He took with grace.

“Well enough,” he told her. She raised a brow and he sighed. “It’s so much bigger than I ever imagined,” he admitted. She grinned.

“This is only one of many villages like it,” she told him. “I am over six thousand years old and I began this venture before I reached the end of my first century of life. I have had much time to create all this.”

“To what end?” he asked her.

“To free us all,” she told him.

“Would you destroy the Evanuris?”

“Only their hold on us. I have no desire for a bloodbath. I do not wish to become a murderer,” she said. Then she sighed heavily. “Yet my time table has shifted. I will be forced to make a move centuries earlier than I had planned.”

“What move?” he asked curiously.

“I will become the public face of my rebellion,” she admitted softly. “We will shift our movement into the light and encourage slaves to come to us for freedom. And it will undoubtedly begin a war.”

“If you are so against bloodshed, why start a war?” he asked her, frowning. “If you’ve managed this covertly for so long, why not keep it that way?”

She smiled at him. “Your presence has been noticed, Wolf,” she told him. “If I do not make my move first, the first strike will be theirs, as well as the advantages it provides. I cannot allow that.” He was quiet for a time.

“There has been a secret war being waged under our very noses for six thousand years,” he finally said, halting his steps under an ancient willow tree. “You have been freeing slaves since you were little more than a child. Why?”

“Do you remember the slave man who danced with me at the feast?” she asked. He nodded.

“Is he your lover?” he asked. She laughed, and it was the first time she could remember laughing for real. It felt so good to be able to laugh and mean it that it went on until she was nearly in hysterics. When she finally calmed herself and wiped her eyes, he was staring at her as though awestruck.

“No, he is not my lover. He is my father,” she told him, catching her breath.

“Your father is a slave?” he asked, shocked. She shrugged, grinning.

“And my mother, too,” she told him. His jaw dropped. “I was born a slave and hidden away. My parents gave me to a family of commoners to be raised free. I always knew who my real family was and I was determined from a young age to see them all be free, not just myself. The family who raised me lives at my main estate and is the only family anyone else knows about. My birth parents are part of my personal entourage and follow me to court. I fought and clawed my way into the nobility and I have continued to climb because with each slave I free I understand more and more of why my deeds are necessary. I will not rest until all Elvhen are freed.”

“Everything anyone knows about you is a lie to cover up your true intent,” he said wonderingly.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Unless I am here with the slaves I have freed, I can never take off my mask.”

“Your time as Dirthamen’s lover…?”

“It was awful,” she spat, relieved beyond measure to be able to say the words. “The things I had to do to stay in his favor…” She shuddered. “It was just one more move, one more necessary evil I inflicted on myself to achieve my goals. I learned so much as his lover, secrets to magic and ways to keep secrets that I needed desperately. If I had not made that move, I would have probably been discovered by now.”

“Have you ever taken a lover because you wanted to?” he asked her, frowning.

“I hardly see how it’s your business,” she replied, uncomfortable. His jaw dropped.

“Then you have not,” he breathed. “You must be so lonely.” His words stopped her cold. She was lonely. She craved peace and companionship. She wanted a least one friend in the entire world. But even those she freed could not be trusted to that extend; she had been betrayed before and barely contained the situation. She could not afford to want.

“What I am and what I need are immaterial,” she said at last, aware that she had been silent for too long.

“But they aren’t,” he told her intently. “You do so much for us yet ask for nothing in return. The least you are owed is the ability to be yourself.”

“It is not for me,” she told him, stating a simple fact.

 ***

And so the Wolf set out to charm the Halla. Each time she visited as she made her preparations to bring them out of the shadows, he sought her out. Always he had a book to discuss or a beautiful spot to take her to or a subject of interest to debate with her. And each time he stole her away for a few hours, she relaxed a little more.

The first time he kissed her she knew he hadn’t meant to. They had been sitting under the light of the full moons beside a lake. She had turned, laughing, to share a thought with him and suddenly found his lips on hers. All thoughts of their conversation fled her mind at the gentle glide of his silken lips over hers. She had never been kissed like that, with reverence and compassion and even affection. She could not have pulled away if she’d tried.

“I apologize,” he said as he leaned away, breathing heavily. “That was…” He paused and cleared his throat, avoiding her gaze. “It was impulsive and ill-considered, rude of me.”

“Kiss me again,” she whispered, wide eyed and wanting. He looked surprised, then smiled and obliged, his tongue dancing with hers until she whimpered in his arms.

 ***

Lyna couldn’t say exactly when it happened, but eventually she came to realize that she had fallen in love with her Wolf and his kind words and soft touches. And she panicked. She stayed away for months, fighting her rebellion from the front lines and trying to drive all thought of him from her mind. She could not afford to fall in love. She could not afford the weakness it provided, the distraction.

Yet it was because she was trying so hard not to let herself succumb to her love that she nearly lost everything.

She could have avoided the sword if she had been comfortable in her own skin. Instead, in sliced right through her belly before one of her agents beheaded the man who held it. The skirmish was her own fault, as well. It had been her wrong step that tipped off the guards they were fighting. It would serve her right if she died for it.

When she woke, Solas was asleep in a chair beside her.

“Where am I?” she asked with a moan of pain. He shot to his feet, instantly alert, then settled himself on the cot beside her. He brushed her hair away from her face.

“Back in the village,” he told her softly, concerned. His healing magic surged through her, chasing away the lingering pain. “You idiot,” he murmured as he finished, leaning his forehead against hers. “You should have let me come with you.”

“I was afraid,” she admitted. She had always been able to tell him the truth, and it was a harder habit to break than it should have been. He sighed against her mouth.

“I know,” he whispered, and brushed his lips over hers. “I love you, too.” She jerked, her eyes bugging out as she looked at him. He smiled. “Did you think I kept spending time with you out of pity? No. You intrigued me from the very first moment I met you. I began spending time with you because you needed it and because I wanted to know you. I kept spending time with you because I enjoyed your company. I have loved you for quite a while now, Lyna.”

“I cannot be in love,” she whispered fiercely.

“It is not a weakness, my heart,” he told her, reading her all too easily. “It can be a strength, something to fight for beyond yourself. I can bring you peace even on the battlefield. And I want to. Will allow me to?”

“Everything in me wants to say yes,” she admitted. “But if it compromises my ability-“

“Denying it has compromised you more than accepting it would,” he told her with a smile, tapping her belly where she’d been stabbed. She looked up at him, reading the love and compassion in his eyes. Then she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and yanked him down to kiss him.

***

When Lyna woke, she simply blinked at the window for a while, thinking about the dream. It was more than a little startling. When Solas nosed the back of her neck, she turned in his arms and kissed him.

“So if I had been alive back then, I would have been the Dread Wolf?” she mused, grinning. He chuckled.

“So it would seem,” he said.

“That was… fascinating,” she told him. “Thank you.” He kissed her.

“You are worth the effort,” he whispered against her lips. He rolled her beneath him and she let the dream fade away to accept the pleasure.

[aion-rsa]

INTERVIEW: Marc Guggenheim Will Keep X-Men Gold ‘Light and Fun’

For the past several years, Marvel Comics’ X-Men have had their hands full combating large-scale threats to mutantkind’s very existence. When you’re battling those kinds of existential crises, it can be hard to focus on making the world a better place for the humans that fear and hate you. So the X-Men have frequently had to distance themselves from or temporarily set aside the dream of their founder Charles Xavier; proving that man and mutants can co-exist by using their powers to protect and defend the world.

That all changes this April with the launch of the “ResurrXion” line of books, including the new twice-monthly ongoing series “X-Men Gold,” by writer Marc Guggenheim — the executive producer of The CW’s “Arrow” and “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” and a comic book writer who made his Marvel debut back in 2006 with the “Civil War” arc of “Wolverine” — and artist Ardian Syaf, formerly of DC Comics titles including “Superman.” “X-Men Gold” finds Kitty Pryde returning to the team she grew up with, now as the group’s leader, as she works to mutantkind into an all-new age of high-profile superheroics.

CBR spoke with Guggenheim about the book’s direction and keeping things “relatively light and fun” (at least at first, Kitty’s leadership position, the initial threats his X-Men will face and how they’ll interact more with the larger Marvel Universe than they have in quite some time. Plus, CBR has the first look at the covers to May’s “X-Men Gold” #3 and #4, both by Syaf.

EXCLUSIVE: “X-Men Gold” #3 cover by Ardian Syaf.

CBR: Marc, looking at the line up for “X-Men Gold,” Kitty Pryde is on a team with her former best friend in Rachel Grey, an older version of a father figure from her youth in Old Man Logan, an ex-boyfriend in Colossus, and two close friends she pretty much grew up with in Nightcrawler and Storm. So at first glance it seems in terms of team dynamic this would be a nice homecoming for her, but is that necessarily the case?

Marc Guggenheim: It is. It’s certainly complicated particularly with respect to Peter, and some of my favorite moments from the first issue relate to their history together, but overall it’s a very empowering homecoming. Kitty is the “kid who made good.” She’s the apprentice who’s returning to become the master.

This relates to my goal of keeping the book — for the time being at least — relatively light and fun. The complexities that arise from the composition of the team aren’t dark and hand wringing-y. They’re meant to be really fun. If I can get you at least chuckling once an issue, that would be wonderful.

So, if you’ll pardon a bad joke, they’re the X-Men and not the Angst-Men?

Exactly. I think the X-Men have always had a certain amount of angst, but the thing that I’m trying to calibrate with “Gold” is not making the angst the driving force of the stories. I kind of feel like for the longest time — and I’m really using “E For Extinction” as the sort of jumping off point — that the X-Men have had a lot of angst, which was appropriate because ever since “E For Extinction,” the X-Men have been sort of fighting for their very existence, always facing some version of extinction.

I think one of the great things about ResurrXion — and one of the reasons it’s so aptly titled — is that the X-Men coming out of “IvX” have a new lease on life. The existential threats that they were facing have been tabled for the time being and that’s allowing the X-Men to look to the future in a way that they haven’t been able to in a very long time. We hit this point pretty hard in X-Men Prime.

Kitty Pryde is returning to the X-Men in a leadership role. What made you want to cast her in this position?

It started with a great love of Kitty. My first X-Men issue that I read was #139, which was the “Welcome to the X-Men, Kitty Pryde – Hope You Survive the Experience” issue. From the moment I was offered the gig, I knew I wanted to return Kitty to the team if the character was available. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was an opportunity to do more than scratch a nostalgic itch. I realized I had the chance to tell a very classic story: the story of the apprentice who becomes the master. To me, her becoming the leader of the team was the ultimate realization of that arc.

When I pitched it, I wasn’t so sure how people at Marvel would respond, and to my delight, that was the thing about my take that excited and energized everyone the most. It certainly energized me because it’s been a lot of fun to write Kitty as someone calling the shots. She’s really proving on the job that she’s learned a lot over her many years of being a member of the X-Men.

EXCLUSIVE: “X-Men Gold” #4 cover by Ardian Syaf

Is she going to feel some of the weight and darkness that some of the other prominent X-Men leaders have wrestled with like Cyclops and Storm?

Eventually I would love to get to that point. I’m intentionally avoiding that right now because, like I said, I tonally want to start the book off on a lighter and more hopeful note.

But you’re right: It is true that Storm and Cyclops have have met with very challenging moral ends. It’s something we’ll definitely be dealing a bit with when it comes to Storm, but it’s more on Storm’s side of the equation than on Kitty’s. It would be really nice to cast that particular shadow on Kitty eventually, but before I cast shadows, I want to get some sunlight in there.

Another interesting dynamic that occurred to while looking at your line up is you have two characters that hail from nightmarish possible futures in Old Man Logan and Rachel Grey. What’s it like bouncing those two characters off of each other?

I’ve got an idea for a really cool scene between Logan and Rachel, but the right moment to have that scene hasn’t happened yet. The scene I have in mind does speak directly to the fact they both come from futures that just happen to both be lousy. What is it about the future that in any iteration, it always looks crappy? I want to get a little meta (but not too meta) about it, but I haven’t had a chance to fit that in just yet.

Superheroics will be an essential part of “X-Men Gold,” but what about the training of the next generation of mutants? Will that be a part of your book as well?

Yeah, it happens in the background because the book is very much focused on the active X-Men. What I think is very critical about the X-Men’s new status quo is that the mansion is full with students, so the X-Men still have to be teachers as well as heroes. They have to continue to training the next generation of mutants.

So, yes, the younger X-Men will very much be a part of the book. In fact, the students have moments in each of the issues I’ve written so far. At the same time, it’s a little bit of a balancing act, because I want to maintain the focus on our core X-Men.

“X-Men Gold” #1 cover by Ardian Syaf

I think balancing between your core cast and all the fan-favorite supporting characters that are part of their world is sort of the main struggle for any X-Men writer. Because even the mutant characters that might be considered C-list by some are other readers’ favorites. So how has it been balancing all of those things?

I always try very hard to keep some space for non-action moments. I think when you’re able to spend time just with the characters it gives you opportunities to interact more with the students and more with the fan favorite characters.

At the same time, different stories are going to lend themselves to different kinds of characters. So while we’ll always have our core group, Kitty is smart: If she needs a particular power or skill set from other mutants she has no compunctions against bringing them into the field. For example, Rockslide and Armor will help the team in issue #3.

What’s your sense of the X-Men’s rogues’ gallery? Is “X-Men Gold” a book where we’ll see classic foes? New villains? Or both?

I would say both. The first arc features a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. One might think, “Jeez, another Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?” But hopefully I’ve come up with a twist that makes this Brotherhood different from all the other ones that came before it. That team will feature some familiar faces and some new characters.

There are a lot of different things I’m trying to balance in the book. One of them is having new characters and adding new toys to the toy box, while at the same time bringing back characters that people know and love. The Brotherhood is a good example of doing a mixture of those two things.

For me, one of the most interesting aspects about the Brotherhood is the word evil is in their name. A lot of villains see themselves as the heroes of their own story. So to have “evil” as part of their group moniker suggests you’re dealing with a group that wants to take ownership of that word and embrace it. Is that true with this group?

Yeah they really should be called, the Brotherhood of Self-Aware Mutants. No, the truth is in this particular instance the “evil” is very intentionally included. There’s a secret to the team that connects directly to the reason for the word “evil” being in the group’s name.

Ardian Syaf’s art has a feel and flavor that reminds me of some of the past heroic eras of the X-Men. So it seems like he’d be a good fit for what you want to do here. What’s it like working with him?

I’ve got to give all the credit in the world to [Marvel editor] Dan Ketchum. I said to him that putting Ardian on this book was the best bit of casting; of matching an artist to a book.

I think Ardian’s style tells you everything you need to know about what the book’s mission statement is. His art is new and fresh, but it also harkens back to John Byrne and Jim Lee. There’s even a bit of Arthur Adams in there. So his style is very modern, but it also speaks to an aesthetic that draws on the influence of the ’80s and the ’90s.

Ardian Syaf’s cover for March’s “X-Men” one-shot, written by Marc Guggenheim, illustrated by Ken Lashley and setting the stage for much of the “Resurrxion” status quo.

Any further hints and teases you can leave us with about the tone, scope, and scale of your initial stories?

Because we’re double-shipping I’m keeping the arcs pretty short. They’ll be about three to four issues long. I’m really excited about that actually, because it’s made the issues themselves very dense. We’re not really doing any sort of decompression here. We’re telling very tightly compacted and constructed stories, and I’m trying very hard to make sure that each issue has a handful of moments that make that issue really, really special. There’s no sort of filler issues. I want to make sure that with each issue everyone is getting a lot of bang for their buck; that in those 20 pages there’s a lot of great stuff going on.

That structure is also a lot of fun. We’re going to tell a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants story in the first arc and there’s going to be a brand new kind of threat in the second arc. You’re not going to have to wait six months to get a different story. You’ll be getting stories on a much more regular and consistent basis, which I think harkens back to the feel of reading these books back in the ’80s.

In recent years it tends to be very easy to have the X-Men exist in almost their own corner of the Marvel Universe. Will we see some of the larger outside MU trappings in “X-Men Gold?” Will groups like say, S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers, pop up from time to time?

Yes. The whole raison d’etre of the book and the team is that throughout the X-Men’s history they’ve sort of segregated themselves. They were either up in Westchester, or they were on Utopia, or they were in Genosha, or Limbo. They were never in the middle of the action; they always segregated themselves from humankind. What’s so great about Kitty’s plan is that she wants to put the X-Men front and center. They’re going to have relationships and interactions with humans. That’s the only way they’re going to combat the prejudice against mutants. The only way you fight ignorance is with knowledge and interaction.

So, yes, the X-Men are going to be smack-dab in the middle of New York, and as we all know there’s a lot of superheroes and stuff going on in New York. We will be seeing S.H.I.E.L.D. As people who read my last comic know [Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” comic book], I have a great affection for S.H.I.E.L.D. We’ll also be seeing other superheroes as time goes on.

We’ll be crossing paths with some big things happening in the Marvel Universe, as well. That’s really important to what we’re trying to do with “X-Men Gold.” The big mission statement of the book and the team is that the X-Men are interacting with the rest of the Marvel Universe in a way that they really haven’t in a long time.

“X-Men Gold” #1 is scheduled for release on April 5, with “X-Men Gold” #2 following two weeks later.

The post INTERVIEW: Marc Guggenheim Will Keep X-Men Gold ‘Light and Fun’ appeared first on CBR.com.

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[londontheatre]

Dominic Rowan in Winter Solstice – Orange Tree Theatre – photo by Stephen Cummiskey

The visit of the unexpected stranger is a familiar element of drama as with Goole in Priestley’s The Inspector Calls or with Goldberg and McCann in Pinter’s The Birthday Party in both of which plays the stranger challenges the status quo and leaves it utterly changed. This is also the premise of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s brilliant new play Winter Solstice at Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre in a clever translation by David Tushingham directed by Ramin Gray. As with Priestley and Pinter there is a metaphor at work – though a quite subtle one. We are today living in times where the expected realities of how we live have been interrupted by what seem almost alien forces. With Trump in America, Brexit in Britain and the rise of extremes across Europe the mould seems to have been broken. To try and understand this we may look back to (for example) Germany in the 1920s and 1930s whereas Hitler’s biographer Ian Kershaw put it “a highly cultured, economically advanced, modern state allowed into power and entrusted their fate to a political outsider with few, if any, special talents beyond undoubted skills as a demagogue and propagandist”. Winter Solstice also has an intellectually strong, cultured norm – Albert and his wife Bettina – invaded by an outsider whose values, somewhat at obscure at first, emerge to be dangerously alien.

The format and dramatic style of the play is unusual. It is almost like a read-through early in a play’s rehearsal stage in that the “set” isn’t really a set at all and there are no realistic props or costumes. And the stage directions and author’s explanations are read out as a form of narration. This is a source of much of the play’s comedy – it is very funny at times – but also adds rather than takes away from the authenticity for the audience who are engaged throughout.

It is Christmas Eve and we are in “A wealthy, middle-class living room in our time” where Albert and Bettina, he a successful writer of moral philosophy she a prolific director of artistic films, are bickering. The country is unspecified but we get the message when we hear that “The people who live here have never voted for a conservative party in their lives”.

[See image gallery at http://ift.tt/1FpwFUw] The presence of Bettina’s mother, Corinna, is part of the reason for the angst but in fact we soon rumble that the marriage is fragile and each of them is seeking or enjoying consolation elsewhere. On the shelves above Albert’s desk we see not just his own works (including “Dictatorship and Death”) but also “books by other authors – on the Third Reich, on fascism, on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust”.

The stranger Rudolf arrives. He had met Corinna on a train the day before and she had apparently invited him to visit her. From the start he “creates the slight impression of coming from another time”. Corinna is delighted: “What a surprise. How lovely”. And in justifying the invitation she made to him “…he had nowhere to go – there were no more trains because of the snow… he’s got nobody – like me”. Rudolf and Corinna are the same age – a generation older than both Albert and Bettina and their artist friend Konrad Rudolf is mysterious – he says he is from Paraguay but says that he is not Paraguayan “Do I look like one… they’re really tiny. Like dwarves… and they’ve got tiny fingers, tiny eyes and tiny feet.”. Gradually more remarks like this emerge and we begin to realise that Rudolf has, to put in mildly, some very odd opinions. He does, however, play the piano “very, very well” and music comes into the mix – Chopin and Bach. This, however, is also a source of concern.

“Music,” Rudolf says, “is order. The world order” and the “cosmic order”. And on Chopin “Chopin was Polish – Polish – who would have thought… there aren’t many Polish composers.” And then “There just aren’t any Jewish composers, well I can’t think of any”.

The world order, in Rudolf’s mind, becomes clearer later: “One must know one’s place. Like an orchestra. Everyone has their place. Not everyone is the conductor. It’s Latin. Conduce: the Leader”.

This is a bit too much for Albert with its unsubtle salute to an authoritarian leadership style and to “The leader” – which in the original language of the play would, of course, have been “Der Führer”!

Shortly after this Rudolf is invited with Corinna to visit Bettina and Albert’s young daughter’s room “Oh yes. I stand with my troops at the ready” (he clicks his heels and salutes)! Meanwhile Corinna is becoming increasingly infatuated with Rudolf behaving, says Albert, “Like a seventeen-year- old tart”.

The main stories which includes Bettina’s attraction to the artist Konrad, Albert’s affair with his much younger work colleague Naomi, Albert’s pill-popping, Corinna’s loneliness, Konrad’s sense of failure and the rest all become rather subordinate to Rudolf’s increasingly worrying language and hints about what his preferred “world order” is. When he is told that Konrad’s painting is called “The struggle” he asks “My Struggle?” which (again) in the original would have been “Mein Kampf” and rather more shocking! This reaches its apotheosis when he later says “… is one allowed to kill a human being? No! But sometimes it has to be done… if it serves a higher cause” A “Night of the Long Knives” reference perhaps – or worse. That it might be worse comes towards the end of the play, when, unprovoked, he turns on Albert and says “Who do you actually think you are – you filthy Jew” – the mask has finally slipped. Before that Albert, high on pills and alcohol, has decided that Rudolf is a “monster” – indeed that he is the “Butcher of Auschwitz” (Rudolf Höss about whom he is writing a book). From Rudolf’s “Anyone who does not serve mankind betrays the species… might be human in the biological sense perhaps, but in actual fact he is no longer part of mankind” we can see why Albert might think that – though it is a delusion as Höss was hanged at Nuremberg and unlike Joseph Mengele did not escape to South America – and become a Paraguayan citizen!

Winter Solstice, like An Inspector Calls leaves one unsure who the visitor really is – his mystery is intact. As Rudolf puts it we may reach conclusions but are they the “right conclusions from the wrong hypothesis”… or the wrong conclusions form the right hypothesis”. As you leave the theatre after this extraordinary play you won’t be quite sure!

(The cast of five is quite excellent in what is a demanding two hours without a break. The direction is sure-footed and the staging very clever. The Actors Touring Company has worked with the Orange Tree on this production – it is a triumph)

Review by Paddy Briggs

Christmas Eve. Bettina and her husband Albert aren’t happy. Bettina’s mother is staying for the holidays. Which is awkward. Not least because Bettina’s mother met a man on the train. And now she’s invited him around for drinks…

Family, betrayal and the inescapable presence of the past reverberate through the UK premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s razor-sharp comedy.

Previous plays include The Golden Dragon and Arabian Night both presented by Actors Touring Company.

Schimmelpfennig is the most performed playwright in Germany and one of the country’s most exciting original voices, with productions of his work worldwide in over 40 countries.

“ATC produces work that inspires me to reconsider what a play can be and what theatre can do. Magical.” Simon Stephens

Estimated running time 1 hour 55 minutes This is an Orange Tree Theatre and Actors Touring Company co-production. http://ift.tt/1lWsRhN

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