#myth reads the hawk's gray feather

[longsightmyth]

Look I realize that Mists of Avalon is supposed to be our watermark for feminist Arthurian fantasy but FIRST OF ALL Marion Zimmer Bradley was a terrible person of the highest order and SECOND OF ALL it was still filled with girl hate.

Read Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's Arthur trilogy instead. Not only is it WOMEN EVERYWHERE DOING EVERYTHING even if the framing device is a dude's narration, it is King Arthur In Space.

[multi-musemenagerie]

((Again, much of the same. Nuthin' needed, just something I'd like to leave for Hawks- if you want to also apply to Bakugou, I see, sure. Whatever.))

It's raining roses tonight. It's been raining roses the past day. The reports say the now-named, "Rose-Front", will be over soon in a few hours. It's been a strangely melancholic day, civilians caught up in a mood half way between romantic and gloomy. The skies' been gray, not blue as the rich sweet scent of roses entangled with the fresh rain, petrichor, and sank into the city streets and gutters. Stores and those city-owned street-cleaners have been pushing, brushing away the red petals that were getting trampled, shoved into corners and now shoved into trash cans. The Commission's reassured that this was merely a quirk accident, a harmless one, and to you as well that they've got it under control. Anyways, there's been a surprisingly smaller amount of Villains on Hawks' patrol today. What time is it?

How's the weather up there, fly-boy?

Hawks hovered high in the air, staring up as rose petals fell. Transfixed. There was an allegory here. Something he could compare to his feathers or another Icarus allusion. Why did he always think of that myth? He looked down finally, watching the sea of red and pink fall to the ground, get trampled, get washed away. Definitely some symbolism, nothing he had the stomach or heart to read into. There was that feeling of loneliness again, when you're the man at the top of the mountain no one else can climb, or that predator stuck in the trap of its own making. Yeah, loneliness, let's go with that.

"Glad I got my coat. Quite the storm."

[simu1acrum]

Tales of the Silver Prince

From KSBD I wanted to show this to someone who hasn’t read the comic but didn’t want to make him sift through like 5 months of pages to find it so here it is, all of it, in one place, under the cut.

And Prince Kassardis was given three vessels of wine, and three wives, and three rings to gird his ring-fingers. But Kassardis’ heart was heavy at his wedding ceremony, and no amount of wine could float it up from the depths it had sank to. For this ceremony held with it deadly promise, for it was custom in that part that the prince, within a week of his wedding, should choose a favorite wife. This was a marker, a battle drum of sorts, between the three wives of the great house of Ium-Am. The battle only ended when one wife stood, scarred and bloody, and the remainder were dead or exiled.

Kassardis was sick of this slaughter, and the hollow wreck of a man he called his father. His three wives were very pretty, but they were cruel as hawks. Even as he stood there besides the marriage pool, he could see the bloodlust glow behind their veiled eyes. It was for that reason he took his naming dagger and traveling cloak and fled his tower one summer night.

Vastoki was Prince Kassardi’s first wife, and the youngest. She wore only one ring and kept her fingernails expertly trimmed. Her dress was a short cut, her vela plain and good for traveling, and she wore eye glasses. Her teeth were filed to points, and she kept sparrow feathers tucked behind her ear. She was a master marksmen with the long rifle, with which she had trained her whole life, so that on her wedding day she could swiftly assassinate her rivals. By the time it had reached her wedding day she had hunted five men in practice and was thirsty for blood.

It was for this reason she was the first to set out in search when the prince was found missing.

Littari was Prince Kassardis’ second wife, and though she was not quite as young and vigorous as his wife Vastoki, nor as patient and wise as his wife Ipreski, her bloodlust was the strongest by far. Where Vastoki was thin and lithe, and favored traveling clothes, Littari wore a full set of eidolon-wrought armor, which she cleaned and polished constantly, and gave her the appearance of a gargantuan demon. She was twelve spans tall, and had enormous teeth. Her bulging muscles meant tailoring for her was a nightmare for her maids, so she spurned their service, and preferred to travel with her cook, sandal bearer, and sword-master only.

Littari was far too strong to use a sword, for any normal weapon would break and shatter with the immense force she put upon it. Instead, she dragged around with her a great and heavy iron cauldron, with which she would beat opponents to death quite savagely. It was to this pot which the prince’s other wives had promised to chain her and force her to serve as a scullery slave, and so she had taken an oath of revenge to pulp, cook, and eat them.

Littari was by far the least popular of the prince’s three wives, and so she only learned of his escape after the young Vastoki had started her pursuit. Nevertheless, by the second day, she was not far behind her quarry, and her steps shook the dust from the eaves of peasant homes as she passed.

Ipreski was Prince Kassardis’ last and oldest wife, though barely by a few years. Despite her relative youth, however, her hair had already become white as snow. Some gossiped about how it was a curse from a vengeful sorcerer, for the offenses of the princess Ipreski’s family were broad, and no less horrible for their breadth.

Ipreski kept her white hair long, and bound up in coils that wrapped around her waist five times. She was exceedingly lazy, and would rather order one of her numerous and weary servants to fetch something than walk a mere five paces. She was pampered and fond of food and wine, and complained loudly if there was no place for her to lounge about.

This laziness of hers was a clever mask, for Ipreski kept all her energy coiled up inside of her like a spring. She was a master swordswoman, in the old tradition of her family, and her muscles were like steel cables. Such was her skill that she could kill a man and sheathe her sword before the first drop of his blood hit the ground. She had no need to pursue her opponents, for they could not touch her, and was instead content to wait until they came to their slaughter. This was the source and secret of her arrogance. She loudly mocked Kassardis’ other wives, especially the large and slow Littari, for she believed there was no chance they could beat her in open combat – and it was true.

It was only fitting, therefore, that the languid Ipreski was the last to set out in pursuit of the young prince in her palanquin, with her full retinue trailing after her.

Prince Kassardis knew his three wives were cunning and vicious in equal measure, and the journey ahead would be hard and grueling. Therefore the very first thing he did was to seek out the Very Wise Frog, which lived on a nearby hill known as King’s Rock. The road to the Frog was well worn by pilgrims, so it was not a hard climb for Kassardis, who wore his fine leather boots, but it was steep.

“Very Wise Frog,” said Kassardis, when he reached the summit, “This brutal life is like a steel cage. My father’s kingdom is built on the stacked bodies of his officers. He sups on blood. His surviving wife picks his gray hairs and pushes toy soldiers around from her sedan.”

“Your father’s kingdom is very large,” said the Very Wise Frog.

“I will escape my own blood,” said the resolute Kassardis, “And flee to the land of Samura, where their cities are built on covenants of peace and no blood is shed unjustly. The journey is long and hard, so please give me some advice, as my family has treated you well.”

“Samura is a myth told to small children to comfort them,” said the Very Wise Frog, “Your wives are much faster than you and will catch up to you, then beat you savagely before returning to the time honored ritual of trying to murder each other.”

The Prince was aghast. “I refuse this life of violence!” he said.

“Violence is inescapable,” said the Very Wise Frog.

“Don’t gloat at me, frog!” said the Prince, “My trial is only just beginning. Surely you have some other advice for me?”

“No,” said the Very Wise Frog.

“Frog!” said Kassardis, growing panicked, “What do you mean by ‘violence is inescapable’?

“It is,” said the Frog.

“You’re a liar!” said Kassardis.

“No, I am not,” said the Frog, “Nor have I ever been. Violence is inescapable. Inseparable from life itself. Permanent. It is fixed in your cosmology. Forever. I could go on, but that’s besides the point.”

At this Kassardis was so enraged that he threw the Frog off the summit of the mountain. It bounced of a cliff and split like a wet melon, dying instantly, and posthumously proving its point to Kassardis.

Kassardis, for his part, wept.

Prince Kassardis was swift, and he was young and his mind was honed. The land about his kingdom was barren but not fierce, and the roads were well kept. Even so, the sun had barely dipped below the horizon before he knew he would soon be caught. For as he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw the cruel glint on Vastoki’s eyeglasses as she traversed the bluffs behind him. And a little further back than that, even for all this distance, he thought he could hear the awful grinding of Littari’s cauldron as she dragged it across the bare earth. And even further back, just cresting the horizon, were the bright and lazy banners of Ipreski as her palanquin was borne along into the desert.

Prince Kassardis struggled mightily to rid himself of his pursuers, for despite what the Very Wise Frog had told him, he still held within his heart the vain hope that the peaceful land of Samura existed and he would someday find himself upon its gleaming shores, free of his wives and throne.

First, he fled the road, and spying a low and reeking gully hurled himself therein. There, the mud and brambles were so thick that he could barely move, and the fetid water was choked with the corpses of animals that had become trapped in the muck. Thick clouds of flies bit at Kassardis as he struggled heroically onward, until at last he heaved himself from the mud, his trail almost completely invisible, and made for higher ground.

Indeed, when the clever and keen Vastoki came upon Kassardis’ trail disappearing into the gully, she was taken aback by his cleverness. But with her specially made eye-glasses, Vastoki’s eyesight was keener than a hawk’s. She picked out the shining pieces of thread from Kassardi’s silver waistcoat clinging to the brambles, and was back on his trail in scarcely an hour, her fellow wives close behind.

Seeing his three wives draw ever closer and that his first plot to foil them had failed miserably, Prince Kassardis doubled his pace. Knowing he would never outrun the cruel Vastoki on open ground, he hurled himself into a sea of dead grass, and used up all his water trying to escape her grasp. A night and a day later, he emerged on the shores of the river Dal, and spent the last of his money hiring a fisherman to take him downriver.

The fisherman’s boat overturned in the town of Kol Varas, and there Kassardis did a very shameful thing. He sold to the first rich man he could find his fine silk headwrap, and his father’s silver dagger, and his waistcoat lined with sparrow feathers, which were marks of his lineage. With his sack of foreign coin he hired six strong men, belligerent knights from the wars of conquest, and hid himself in a wheelbarrow, hoping against hope that his ploy would be enough.

Vastoki arrived in the dusty town not hours later, and she was almost immediately set upon by the mercenaries that Kassardis had hired. From his hiding place, the young prince watched as Vastoki was caught in their ambush and fought desperately against stave and sword.

Vastoki was very fast, but also very slight, and no match against the six knights in close combat. Though beaten, she merely retreated to lick her wounds and set camp outside of town. One of the knights nearly lost his head to her long rifle when he ventured out to confront her, and that was that for a while.

As night fell, the knights returned to Kassardis. “Where wandereth thee, young one?” they said in their foreign dialects.

“To the land of Samura, where I may find peace and an escape from violence,” said the exhausted Kassardis, from his hiding place.

“Violence is inescapable,” guffawed the mercenaries, and robbed Kassardis of everything remaining that he owned, for they had seen he was a fool from the start. They threw him naked and beaten into the street, and spent their winnings on drink.

Kassardis, his swollen eyes full of tears and knowing his time was short, stole a woman’s garb from a washing line and a small hunk of bread and fled into the desert, the final words of the Very Wise Frog echoing in his ears.

The belligerent knights, for their part, died not hours later when they were squashed into a pulp by Littari’s iron cauldron.

Kassardis knew his time was running short as he fled into the wastes around the town of Kol Varas. Instead of his naming knife, he had a stale hunk of bread, and instead of his prince’s garb he had only a stolen woman’s garment, thin and nearly useless against the freezing cold of the desert nights. He knew his three wives were not far behind, and despair was his constant companion. But still, he pushed on, wholly consumed with the conviction that he would find the peaceful land of Samura, or die in the process.

By the third day, when the desperate prince’s wives were closing in rapidly, the scorched and tortured soles of Kassardis’ feet felt stone and not sand beneath them. Kassardis looked up and saw that he had stumbled upon a mighty road, broad and sweeping, that passed through enormous stone arches into the distance. The road was crumbled with age, but Kassardis recognized at once that it was the famous Arched Road of Samura, and a great burst of hope filled his heart.

Kassardis followed the road until it was dark, and lightness filled his step, so that he did not even notice when the sun had gone and the nightmare chill of the desert began to grasp at him. All through the night, he followed the road, and the night itself could not touch him. And when the sun grazed his face, Kassardis was still walking, but he still had not found the kingdom of Samura. It remained like this for a day longer, until Kassardis, sustained by hope alone, and dying of thirst, stumbled across a battered old sword master encamped by the side of the road.

The sword master was aghast at Kassardis’ dreadful condition, and at once tended to him, and gave him water. “Young man,” said the old sword master, “I am Ket Amonket, the gate keeper of the kingdom of Samura. There is nothing for you here. Turn back.”

Kassardis was shocked. “Uncle!” he gasped, ” If you are indeed the gatekeeper of that mighty kingdom, please take me there at once. I am fleeing from my three wives, who wish to drag me back into a world of bloody tyranny!”

“You are here already,” said Ket Amonket, and motioned to the desert, “This is the kingdom of Samura, burned to ashes and ground into dust for decades.”

Mortified, Kassardis could only gape at the empty desert. But here and there, the young prince could see what he had been blind to while hope had still filled him up: the corroded remnants of great and stately buildings and fluted columns poking out of the desert like bleached ribs.

“Samura was founded on the principles of peace,” said Ket Amonket, “So it was sought out by many across all the ten thousand realms. Those that sought to flee from the world of violence.”

“Violence is inescapable,” moaned Kassardis.

“Yes,” said the old man. “Very wise words indeed. Soon this land contained more people than it could sustain. Violence once again began to grow in the hearts of its people, like a foul disease, until it blossomed into destruction. It was a foolish hope.”

“Then there is no hope for me,” said Kassardis.

“There is still yet,” said Ket Amonket, resolute. “Let me do one favor for you, young man, as one who has already lived too long. You must flee to the canyon south of here and hide yourself there as best as you can, until the sun sets. I will tell your wives you vanished into the desert a day past, and throw them off your trail.”

“Thank you Uncle,” said Kassardis, “I will hold on to my hope a little while longer.”

“Hold on to this,” said Ket Amonket, giving Kassardis his sword, “It will protect you a lot better than hope.”

Kassardis took the weapon very reluctantly, and would have thrown it away at the first chance he had, but the words of the Very Wise Frog continued to tear at his mind, so he clung on to it as he fled for the canyon.

“At the very least I’ll give the boy a good head start,” Ket Amonket assured himself as he watched Kassardis’ three wives trek over the dunes a little while later.

The sword master was wrong. Ipreski severed his wind pipe before he could get a single word out, and all that passed his lips was a spray of blood . Kassardis got a head start of about ten minutes.

Kassardis, for his part, could do little but flee to the canyon, carrying the old swordmaster’s weapon and clad in near-rags. Once there, he hid himself among the reeds in a low pool in the bottom of the canyon. It was cool, and shady there, and the coming evening began to wash over the land, and Kassardis felt, for the first time in days, peace enter his heart.

It was with dread then, that he heard the footfalls of his three wives entering the canyon not an hour later, and knew that his time had run out.

Kassardis knew instantaneously that the words of the Very Wise Frog had come true. For the canyon had three entrances, and down each came one of his wives, armed and thirsty for blood. First, small and cunning Vastoki with the glint of her rifle sights, then enormous and brutal Littari, dragging her iron cauldron, and finally the refined Ipreski, languid and resplendent on her palanquin. And one after the other, all three of their cruel and lusty eyes fell upon Kassardis.

Kassardis tried to pray, but found no sound would come out of his lungs. He tried to hide deeper in the reeds, but he found the mud unyielding. He tried to shut his eyes, but his heartbeat drowned out his thoughts. So instead, he clutched on to the old swordmaster’s weapon like a good luck charm, its cruel metal cold against his bare chest. A strange thought entered his mind and gripped his tendons like a vice.

And as this thought gripped Kassardis, it was then that the truth of the Very Wise Frog revealed itself in its full glory. For violence truly was inescapable, and the three wives were inundated with it. They had no other language with which to negotiate their hard won spoils.

“Stand aside,” said soft Ipreski, “As oldest wife the Silver Prince is mine by right.”

“Move an inch further,” said Vastoki, “And I will put a bullet through that milky throat.”

Littari, for her part, said nothing, but rather hefted her cauldron into the air with a tremendous roar, and charged. Kassardis watched as the words of the Very Wise Frog came perfectly true, and a brutal combat unfolded.

Realizing the danger that Vastoki’s rifle presented, Ipreski slid off her palanquin and behind an enormous boulder. But that boulder was shattered a moment later by the tremendous force of Littari’s iron cauldron, sending her flying. Ipreski’s servants and retainers were pulped a moment later against the heavy bottom of the cauldron and spread across the rock, and Littari advanced on the eldest wife, frothing at the mouth.

She would have crushed Ipreski as she had promised, but in a mere second there were three cracks of Vastoki’s rifle, and Littari’s skull blossomed in gore, her cauldron smashing to the rocks below as she slumped forward. Ipreski sprang to her feet, her fine silks tearing, and drew her blade, dashing at Vastoki before she could reload.

Vastoki was impossibly agile, and even though her fingers were slick with grit and sweat, she chambered a round and fired it right at the smooth face of the eldest wife. But Ipreski had anticipated this for years, and had practiced a blade art specifically for this purpose, which she called Ego Ballistics. With impossible speed, she cut through possibility and cleft the bullet in two before it could touch her flesh.

Vastoki was taken aback. Such was her speed, however, that the incoming blow merely severed her nose from her face and cleft her glasses in two, instead of separating her head from her shoulders as was intended. Blinded by gouts of blood and shrieking in pain, she crawled away. But Ipreski, caught in the moment of victory, was blinded in her own way to Littari, who had survived three bullets to the head by the virtue of her enormously thick skull and was now staggering up behind her with cauldron in hand.

The first blow of the cauldron cracked Ipreski’s’ back and sent her sprawling, the second crushed her shins and feet to splinters. The third did not come, for Vastoki, acting on instinct, loosed three more shots, which blew the throat out from Littari and sent her reeling backwards.

This gory sight, and the ruin of his three wives, Kassardis beheld, and his resolve hardened into ice. He emerged from the pool, his blood cold in his veins, and the old swordmaster’s blade clutched tight in his hand.

As Kassardis approached his maimed and mangled wives, they scrabbled for their weapons in whatever way they could, clutching their gory injuries. For Kassardis was a ghastly sight: malnourished, clad only in rags, and with a terrible light in his eyes. They should have known then that the fate Kassardis had chosen for them was far worse than they ever could have expected, but they were fools with little imagination, and so chose to fight anyway.

Kassardis took the pommel of his blade, and with all his strength struck each of the wives across the head, knocking them unconscious. It took four blows from the great enameled hilt of the sword to fell Littari, but eventually the pints of blood she had lost stopped her struggle.

With great fierceness, Kassardis drove off Ipreski’s retainers, and tearing scraps of cloth, bound the gushing wounds of his wives however he could. He knew however dire their injuries seemed, they would likely survive, having been bred for generations for thick blood, tough skin, and other valued traits to place them above his other potential wives.

Exhausted, the silver prince finally dragged himself to the road, where he waited for a merchant’s cart, and went to a hard-scrabble town to find an apothecary. There, he bartered the remainder of the old swordmaster’s belongings for medicine, keeping only the blade and the old man’s boots, which he put on.

Finally, there in the gulch, Kassardis made camp, and over the next few days tended to his wives with incredible care. He sewed up gashes, blotted dried blood, and fed them water as they suffered. And though he tried his best, Littari would surely never speak again, Ipreski surely never walk again, and Vastoki’s nose had long since disappeared into a pond.

On the third day, Vastoki, the youngest and most calculating, could finally speak, and when she did she was astonished.

“You fool!” she croaked, “Do you seek to garner my sympathy? When I am well again, I will subdue you, husband, and take you back to our great kingdom and our rightful throne. This changes nothing!”

“Of course,” said Kassardis, “Violence is inescapable. The Very Wise Frog was right.”

And to Vastoki, something had changed in Kassardis. He was more relaxed, and more tense at the same time, like flexible steel. A great truth had settled into his flesh, and his calm was a terrible thing to behold.

“I came to find the land of Samura, where peace is eternal,” said Kassardis, “But instead, I find that I must carry Samura with me.” And he grasped the hilt of his sword and stood, and Vastoki finally realized how tall he was.

“None of the three of you will ever agree to share me, and none of the three of you can best the other,” said Kassardis, “You are already too poisoned by violence. I will run from you, and you will find me, again and again, and again and again you will destroy yourselves in trying to claim me. And again and again, I will tend to your wounds, and flee, knowing that I will never truly escape.”

“Again and again you will destroy yourselves until you are mere hunks of flesh, crippled wrecks of meat. And there will come a day when you have become so ruined that even I will be able to best you in combat, and you will submit to my peace.”

Vastoki did not believe Kassardis at first, for she was a fool, but she humored him anyway. “And what then?” she scoffed, “Your kingdom, my silver prince, will ever await you. It is worth a hundred thousand cattle, and half a million sheep. They will send more wives. Ten thousand of them!”

“And I will tend to them too,” said Kassardis.

It was then that Vastoki knew the truth of Kassardis’ words, but she could do nothing about it, for violence was inescapable. She knew she could not turn from her fate, for the vain hope that she would still win grasped her beyond all reason.

“You will never rest!” she spat, and her missing nose wept blood, “You will flee for all eternity!”

“Such is the cost of peace,” said Kassardis, “Even if I should care for ten thousand maimed wives.”

Then he tightened his wives’ bandages, and soothed the struggling Vastoki, and left them ample supplies. And though his wives spat and cursed at him, they could do little but let him leave, his countenance calm and resolute as he said one last thing:

“I will see you in Samura.”

[fablemaidens-blog]

She held her phone close to her face, squinting her eyes to read the sun-tainted screen...darker than usual.  Under a tree, she seeks a moment of shade and throws back her water bottle in a desperate swig of hydration.  She’s been hunting for days.  Searching for something she had never seen but knew existed.  It was right there on the screen, it had to be real.  Triple Treet was no myth...she just needed...some proof...some physical evidence...she needed IT.

The cache would be well hidden, no mere passerby would be able to clumsily stumble upon it for fear of its treasures falling into the wrong hands.  Some might call it a foolish game to spend one’s life as a semi-professional geocacher, but the rewards were otherworldly.  Boxes and safes and fake tree stumps filled with trinkets, curios, knicknacks, baubles, novelties, toys, doohickeys and whatnots of undetermined values waiting to be discovered.  Pokemon cards, a Twix bar, colored pencils, grandfather’s war medals, a box of matches, a paperclip, half a pair of shoes, plastic gemstones, a dried rose, a box of raisins, the possibilities were endless.  Triple Treet promised a sweet reward, she could feel it in her slightly hollow bones (she was part bird).  Using her keen intuitive and locating skills, she determined she should be right on top of the cache. It had to be here...the map said....the map map map map map is fading on her screen, her phone is dying how will she find Triple Treet without the map the fading map 1% what the map the mA-

Portable charger the only true ally. Given she’s had a good charge that is.......

She plugs her phone in with furious passion---she can’t lose the map even for a second or Triple Treet would never be found. Deep in the woods, a fellow bird whistles an ominous tune....she must be close.

Back to the map, her eyes whirl in her head and she knows she’s close...she’s been close for hours now.  She set up camp a few miles back and the sun is sinking below the treeline.  If she wants to find the cache she better do it soon lest she wander the forest, a mere bird-person, alone at night with predators and prey alike, lest she get caught in the naturalistic melee.

A glowing orb in her mind’s eye moves her feet forward ten paces, left 57 inches, back a meter, and up a short but appealing hill.  Surrounded by trees it is difficult to know where one has been and where one hasn’t, but her bird senses keep her on track.  She whistles and a small red hawk lands on her outstretched arm.  Clicking her tongue a few times, she sends her ally to the sky in an aerial attempt at locating the cache.

She slumps on a nearby tree, heat exhaustion and desperation getting the better of her...hope fading...cache nowhere to be seen.  Perhaps I should have gone to grad school and become a master of literature like my parents always dreamed I would. But they’re only human, they wouldn’t understand. I must go on. It’s close...I can almost...taste....it....it.it.it.it.it.it.it.it.it....

******CAWWWWWWW*******

With sharpened senses, she turns to the sky.  The red hawk lands on a branch and extends its clawed foot at an 86 degree angle to the right.  A hollow blackened tree sits lonesome, a gray mist hovering thick in the surrounding air.  At the sight of it, the sun vanishes instantaneously and her world is thrust into pitch darkness.

Triple Treet.

Guarding the hollow tree, a precocious looking raccoon perches between two mossy rocks. He turns a sharp eye on the bird-girl, but makes no sound.

“Good guardian I come in search of Triple Treet.” The coon perks at the statement.  She speaks confidently and with composure despite her racing bird heart.  She is so close....

“Good patron what ist thou name?” the raccoon inquires.

“I am the one who seeks, my name matters not.” Her palm begins to itch at the question of her identity.

“Very well, patron. Then listen:

If it is Triple Treet you seek

Provide the codes with open beak

Only then will what you desire

Be for the taking, young squire.”

A less prepared seeker would be rattled by such an undertaking, but years of research tattooed upon her left forearm gives the bird-girl reprieve from potential anxieties.  Below a misshapen and haphazard freckle, in fine inked print exist 6 combinations of symbols, letters, and numbers.  A thin, hopeful smile pulls her mouth at the corners...she is so...close....

“PROVIDE THE CODES OR BE AWAY FROM THIS PLACE!!!!!”

The thunderous cry of the coon does not startle the seeker.  In robotic fashion she relays the precious codes:

AF82+HYEET

WIGHTMANSAPPLEBUTTER

40V<>8J2$M

&7&7#GXL_!

MOTHERSMAYHEM?

MMMMMMMM6

Silence ensues for a brief moment. The coon opens his mouth as a beam of light envelopes his body and in a blaze of glorious fluorescence, he is gone.  The path is clear.  Her Timbs-clad foot, raised and falling quickly to the ground beneath her in eagerness, smashes through the tiny ecosystem beneath her as she is sucked into a sloshing pool of what-appears-to-be-quicksand.  Her red hawk ally screeches her alarm, sensing the danger within, and uses her laser eye capabilities to send a sturdy branch crashing from a nearby tree before flying off in fear.  The seeker grabs the branch as a rescue device, the only tool at her disposal in the pool of half-liquid half-solid.  Slime.  She is sinking into a bottomless pit of glue and laundry detergent.  Elmer’s Pit.

Though her hold on the branch is strong, it is anchored to nothing and she slips further into the slimey death trap. That foul creature deceived me!!! He was no guardian!!! Treacherous leech, I’ll make a hat of him!

In her moment of despair, the bird-girl fills her lungs with one last breath before sinking beneath the pool of slime.  Toxic hallucinations begin to infiltrate her otherwise impenetrable mind...the slime’s effects are quick and merciless. Visions assault her...her first home, the nest in the pine (distorted pink in this imagining), swirling rainbows of laser lights, Lana Del Rey with the mouth of an alligator, a cotton candy machine filled with Barbie doll heads, water filled bubbles seep from her lips....she’s transcending....descending...ascending somewhere GOOD...its good---good.....A sudden pressure is felt on the branch she still clings to beneath the surface and suddenly she is being pulled up and out of the monstrous pit by forces unknown.

Great bursting bolt of oxygen, burning the toxic waste from the seeker’s skin, evaporating in plumes of vaporous death--up---up----and a   w   a      yyyyy....

FREEDOM.

Her saviors, who other but her fellow faithful feathered allies? Red hawk had not fled in fear, but in aid! She returned with a flock of assistants, all holding onto the branch with their tiny bird feet, pulling her to the leafy shore and to safety. Laying on her back, she ravenously consumes oxygen her strength molecular and returning like a wave upon a deserted shore. Swiping the back of her hand across her still closed eyes, the seeker regains her sight and turns her freshly cleansed gaze back to the hollow tree.  She had almost forgotten the hollow tree. The cache! The geocache....Finally!!!! My Triple Treet....

[longsightmyth]

"What is the highest wisdom of man?"

"To be able to work evil, and not to work it."

[longsightmyth]

And Gweniver (Guinevere) is COMPLICATED in this one okay. She doesn't like Arthur (actually Taliesin points out that she doesn't seem to like many people at all and is super standoffish to hide that she's shy) and has been raised to believe she's the heir and this is her destiny, and now she's... not? Maybe if it was more clear-cut there would be less animosity from both sides, but since Arthur and Gweniver's relative precendence in succession order is BASICALLY EVEN it's just like, what the fuck do we do now?

If you're Gweniver, you raise your chin and be a cooly polite as possible. If you're Arthur, you think she's being a dick on purpose.

If you're Taliesin, of course, you describe her in the best possible way to make me fall madly in love:

"She would never have to bid folk remember that she was a princess born; her royal bearing was innate, she could no more have set it aside than she could have stopped breathing - and were she ever faced with such a choice I have no doubt but that she would have far preferred the latter."

[longsightmyth]

"Greetings to you - cousin," [Gweniver] said, the brief pause before the appellation perfectly timed to convey both reluctant acceptance of fact and grim resistance unto death.

Obviously I am in love, idk what y'all want from me.

[longsightmyth]

Also, like, PKM is prochoice in the softest way to be prochoice I have ever read, by which I do not mean she's namby-pamby about it, I mean she, via Ygrawn/Igraine, presents it smiling as an 'of course it's better for everyone if the child is wanted. It doesn't do any harm to let the soul wait a little longer for a happier life'

[longsightmyth]

"[Gweniver] was staring at Arthur as though seeing in him something she had never imagined possible - much as a hawkmaster who has found an eagle chick in a nest of partridges, or a huntsman seeing a wolf cub suckling amongst a lapdog litter. And though the plainly hated what she was seeing, she was honest enough to respect it and brave enough to show that respect; and I think I never in all our lives after had greater admiration for the Princess Gweniver that I had that night."

[longsightmyth]

I do appreciate that literally nobody gets married until their thirties in these books except Aeron's parents in The Silver Branch, and that was a scandal so large her parents literally had to go defend themselves in a formal reception and almost had actual legal trouble because of it.

So 'oh we've seen you're going to marry Morgan, who is currently like six' is, while still Questionable, mitigated by Taliesin being like 'she's six and also I'm going to go haring here and there barding, seeing her a few times in her childhood and then not once in over twenty years' and then she's in her late thirties and an accomplished sorceress and adult by the time they run into each other again.

Still side-eyeing it tho.

[longsightmyth]

King Arthur in Space is thankfully from one of the Welsh planets. Four for you, Kennealy-Morrison, you go Kennealy-Morrison.

(so I’m starting the King Arthur in Space trilogy, in case that needed to be cleared up)

[longsightmyth]

Oh sure Morguenna (Morgan or Guenna or any number of pet names) Pendreic just rocks up on a boat from nowhere like 'hey guys I'm the lady of the lake now you need a sword let's go get it'

Have I mentioned like I love how PKM has all her ladies be awesome (except Marguessan but even she's awesomely evil)(okay and Amzalsunea from Blackmantle but I tend to pretend that whole... thing doesn't exist for my own peace of mind)

[longsightmyth]

The treatment of Gwenwynbar is admittedly questionable but she's also not portrayed as evil, it's just, as Taliesin says to Ygrawn, "She's no Gweniver."

I'm prepared to accept that a shitton of people whose hopes are pinned on a political marriage (and who like the principles involved in that political marriage) aren't going to like it when one of the people in the proposed political marriage hares off and marries somebody else. Taliesin admits grudgingly that they were set against Gwenwynbar from the start, but it definitely didn't help that she was very obviously jealous of everybody else's relationships with Arthur and not shy about showing it.

On the plus side, she divorced him and didn't turn them in to one of the evil guys even when she looked Arthur and Taliesin in the eyes and knew it was them.

[longsightmyth]

Admittedly Arthur and Gweniver are first cousins in this, and while yes I frown on that irl, it's made pretty clear that the people pushing for their marriage are like 'first cousin marriages aren't great but this is how we consolidate support for our already in-exile throne okay we can't throw this shit away or have our support split when we're fighting a magical tyrant bent on crushing our culture and way of life'

[longsightmyth]

And does the book vilify Gweniver for being upset that Arthur is now being touted as the heir at his introduction and her utterly ignored by her uncle in front of a giant crowd of people? It does not.

Taliesin acknowledges that he was angry with her then, but looking back realizes how crappily Uthyr handled the whole thing and that Gweniver managed imppressive self-possession under the circumstances even if Taliesin, sitting next to her, could tell how utterly furious and hurt she was.

[longsightmyth]

Myth reads The Hawk’s Gray Feather, Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Look I’m getting tired of one-off tumblr posts that get lost. Stream of consciousness chapter by chapters!

So we know from Blackmantle that Arthur was going to show eventually to fight off the oppressive yoke of Edeyrn, evil half-sidhe druid and half brother of Gwyn ap Nudd, who was (is? She’s sort of a goddess now?) Athyn’s godson. We also know from The Silver Branch that Arthur was of the House of Don and one of Gwydion’s far-off ancestors, thereby from Gwynedd, aka one of the Space Welsh planets.

The narrator of this trilogy is Taliesin, bff and eventual brother-in-law to Arthur. Taliesin is super proud of Gwynedd in general and Arvon in particular. “I speak not to vaunt, for I myself was born on the borders of that land of sea and stone: I, Taliesin, youngest child of Gwyddno, lord of Cantred Gaaelod, and Medeni his wife, who died of some plague when I was yet too young to know her. There were often plagues in those times, many said sent by Edeyrn the Marbh-draoi, to chasten the race of Kymry, that if he could not bend their stiff necks then by the gods he would break them.”

Edeyrn has outlived all contemporaries (I mean, WE know why: half aes sidhe, etc etc, but most of the Kelts are still kind of like ‘wtf’) and overthrown Alawn last-king. “Almost since the day Edeyrn took power for himself, breaking the ancient rule of Ard-tiarnas and Fainne and Senate and Assembly and House of Peers that has served us so well and so long, there has been a resistance.”

Not a very EFFECTIVE resistance, apparently, since a lot of people went ‘oh sure we’ll take this opportunity to grab some power’ and a lot of those people were druids, so. Magic.

The Ban-Draoi were having none of that nonsense apparently, but I noticed in Blackmantle that the Ban-Draoi seemed to have less political power at that time than they do in Aeron’s. Maybe that’s still the case?

“As for the common folk of Keltia, they chose much as common folk, or indeed any folk, anywhere, would choose: to be left alone to live their lives as best they might; with honor if it could be managed, with the least degree of dishonor if not. Though not to be greatly praised, neither are they to be greatly blamed: they helped where and when and as they could, and if they could not help then at least they did not often hinder. They wished only to survive, and sometimes - oftentimes - even that poor grace was not to be given to them.” Ouch, y’all.

Taliesin has six siblings: Tegau, the eldest daughter and the heir, triplet boys (?!) Elwyn, Cadreth, and Adaon, two more sisters two years apart named Shelia and Rainild, and Taliesin born twenty (?!) years after them. All of them are part of the Counterinsurgency (the rebellion scorns to call itself a rebellion, because Edeyrn is the invader and insurgent, is the thinking). Tegau lost a breast in battle, said ‘no don’t grow it back, I want a fucking gold one to Make A Statement’. Taliesin clearly thinks she’s cooler than sliced bread.

He doesn’t see his dad much because he looks ridiculously like his mom and it makes his dad sad. Screw you, dad. Taliesin finds fatherly affection in a Super Secret Druid (though apparently it’s an open Super Secret to the family)  named Ailithir, who I assume is Merlin. My memories of these books are fuzzy.

Taliesin’s nurse wakes him in the middle for the night for his father Gwyddno to tell him that Edeyrn has summoned Gwyddno and that Taliesin, as the only child of the manor home, is nominal lord, with Ailithir to keep an eye on him. Taliesin can tell everyone is worried, and his father gives him the feather Taliesin’s mother found the day she learned she was pregnant with Taliesin. It’s a grey hawk’s feather, naturally. “In the bardic speech it signifies courage, and far seeing, and swift striking, and high soaring beyond the flight of common wings.”

So yeah. We the readers know Gwyddno is as good as dead, and Ailithir pretty much confirms it when he talks about how Taliesin’s father and grandmother kept their little corner of Gwynedd from under Edeyrn’s control by being super clever rule-lawyers and pretending not to have any idea about the counterinsurgency. “In the ordinary way, your sister Tegau, as firstborn, would come to rule it in her turn.” I have only known about Tegau for like ten minutes and already if anything happened to her I would kill everyone in this book and then myself. If Tegau dies I will riot., and tbh Taliesin would probably join me.

Anyway Gwyddno has been called to account for basically everybody he knows being counterinsurgency. He’s very dead, he (and Taliesin) just don’t know it yet.