#oh if I was absurdly wealthy….she’d be with me now

[shiftythrifting]

wanted this more than anything in the world but alas it was $650

[systlinsideblog]

Part 7

The fall of the great walled city of Turia came on a day shimmering with heat, but with storm clouds building on the horizion, looming heavy as they built into great mounds over the prairies. The air smelled of the promise of rain; that was good, Systlin thought. A good heavy rain later would wash the blood off the streets.

Turia’s towers glittered white in the sun. The walls were high and proud and in excellent repair; the warriors manning the top of it were said to be skilled. Everyone she’d spoken to had told her the same; Turia was home to a million and a half people. Turia was the jewel of the prairies, the Ar of the South. Turia was home to marvelous markets and one could find any luxury one wished there. The people of Turia were grand and wealthy and proud, and though they loved luxury their fighting men were excellent.

Its walls were high and thick. Its wells were deep and never ran dry. There were food stores to outlast the greatest of sieges. The nine gates were thick and strong and guarded zealously; while attackers died at the walls, the people of Turia would relax in their bath houses and dine on delicacies and laugh.

Turia was splendid. Turia was rich. Turia had been sieged many times, but never once had Turia fallen.

Systlin rolled her neck and shoulders, cracking any tension out.

She remembered Myr. Turia reminded her strongly of it. Myr too had been rich, and strong, and undefeated. Myr as well had thought itself safe behind tall, thick walls and strong gates, guarded by skilled fighters. Myr as well had laughed at the army camped on the plains before it. The walls of Myr had famously been bound in Power, power laid so deeply and thickly by generation after generation of Myrish earth witches that there had been more power than stone to the walls. Breakers before her, born to the desert, had tested those walls. Breakers before her had exhausted themselves against them and failed and died.

She had tried herself against them anyway. She had not failed. There was a hundred foot gap in the walls of Myr now, named for her. “The Mitraka’s Gate,” they called it. The legend of how she’d brought down the famously unbreakable walls of Myr had spread north to the Skyfire reaches and south to Sielauk before she’d even left the deserts.

Turia’s walls were not as high or thick as Myr’s, and they were not spelled for protection. Against a Breaker of the least power they’d be useless, and Systlin was the strongest Breaker ever to live. She eyed the warriors on top of them, still out of bowshot, and for a moment felt a flash of pity for them.

It was gone quickly. She wondered how many of those proud men had women chained to their beds. A million and a half people, but that number did not, she knew, count slaves. Counting slaves, it was said that the number was at least twice that, and likely higher.

Foicatch was watching her. He had not been at Myr when it fell, but he had been there since. He’d ridden through the Mitraka’s Gate. He knew, of course, that she was remembering.

“Been a bit,” He said at last, as they waited for Myr to send out its famous tharlarion cavalry, and honestly though she found herself growing fond of the kaiila the Wagon Peoples rode and could admit that the vicious reptilian tharlarion were impressive, she wished she had a good, normal horse. “Since we had a real battle before us.”

“Hmmm.” She agreed. The last time, indeed, they’d been fighting a mad god and his creatures. She’d killed a god, in that battle. Killed one god and threatened another. “Do try not to die. I’d hate to have to find a new royal consort.”

A snort. “I’ve no intention of dying today. I want to see you on the throne of that city.” A pause. “I’ve always had rather a fantasy, actually, of you on the throne of freshly conquered city, and me on my knees…”

Oh. Well. That did sound interesting. She gave him an appraising look. “Have you? You could have said something.”

“Well. It’s always been so busy when we’re breaching a stronghold, and things were all happening so fast at the time. You were so intent; I wasn’t sure you’d take it well.” A shrug. “Early days of us and all. By the time I knew better, you had the North in line again, and when we fought the Fallen One there weren’t many strongholds to breach or thrones to make use of.”

That was fair. “I’m going to hold you to that.” She said thoughtfully, even as the great gates ground slowly open and ranks of fighting men on those two-legged sharp-toothed reptilian beasts began to file out. She eyed the gleaming lances they carried disapprovingly; those were, of course, going to be the first thing she did away with once things got going.

Using her power in pitched battles was risky; she did not like doing it to kill. Not more than needed. But shattering some lances was no issue at all.

He grinned, that familiar and beloved flash of white teeth against that dark beard. “Oh, excellent.” He shot the enemy cavalry a look, and then looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. She nodded once. He leaned over, and she leaned to meet him; they exchanged a kiss, brief but sweet, and he peeled his kaiila away and headed to take command of the left flank.

She looked back over the prairie. There were several thousand riders now, forming ranks. A few men wearing particularly gleaming armor with extra gold leaf seemed to be conferring in a huddle; she waited.

“Ubara?” Dina said softly, from her side. “Ubara, should we…” There was nervousness in her voice.

“Not yet.” Systlin was the veteran of many battles of this scale; Myr was much larger than Turia, and that had been only the first city she’d taken. Dina was not. Even in a seasoned warrior, nerves before battle were normal, but Dina had taken up a spear only a year and a half past. She’d fought and killed, but the other tribes and towns and cities they’d taken were nothing on the scale of Turia. “They’ll send someone to talk, like all the others have. I’ll either kill him or send him back, like all the other times. I’ll break their lances; that will be the signal to charge.”

She looked to her side. Dina’s face was drawn tight. Systlin remembered that Dina, before slave chains, had once been a free woman, and had been born in Turia.

“You have a father, don’t you?” Systlin said, more softly.

“I do.” She whispered. “He never took a slave. He loved my mother, a Free Companion, and never took a slave; he has mourned her since her death. He is of the baker’s caste, as was my mother. He makes sweet rolls and gives them to children, and the best bread and pastries. I do not brag; he was famous in the city, and rich women and men came to buy from us. He and my brothers and I worked hard and were proud of our work.” She paused a moment. “I do not know if my brothers have taken slaves. And if they have…” Another, longer pause, and she looked away. “If they have, I will not beg mercy for them, but I will mourn what they might have been had their minds not been poisoned.”

Systlin thought of her own brother, dead so young. Of laughing and competing and playing with him, of the friendly fighting between close siblings. Of his smile and his laugh, and his sharp wit. She wondered, if her place and Dina’s had been switched, if she could have watched him killed for slaving and rape.

She probably could have. She knew it in the deepest place in her heart, where she worried sometimes at her own coldness. She probably would have done it with her own hands, at that. She’d executed her uncle and aunt with her own hands, in that battle to bring the warring lords tearing the North to bloody scraps to heel. But she was a famously hard and coldhearted bitch when it came to matters of justice, as any noble in the North of Ellinon would tell. “The Iron Bitch”, she knew they called her behind her back. “The Iron Bitch with the frozen heart.”

She’d have done it, yes. But she’d have mourned intensely after, for what might have been.

Dina was loyal and dear to her, a good friend. But if her brothers were rapists and slavers, Systlin knew that even if Dina begged, she would not grant mercy unless the offended girls asked it. It ran counter to everything in her to do so.

Goddess of Justice. The Lady’s voice whispered in her head.

Fuck off, she thought in return. I’ve shit to do.

“We can hope,” she said. “That they take after your father. And we’re not here to loot; if your father is in his shop and not with the fighting men, he’s quite safe.”

That seemed to ease Dina slightly. The woman was still used to the Gorean idea of war, where taking a city meant sacking it utterly, looting and burning and slaving. No army under Systlin’s command would ever fight so, though. She’d kill the soldiers responsible with her bare hands.

“Baker’s caste,” Dina said. “Do not fight, not unless they must. They will not be on the walls. Those on the walls and on the field here are warrior caste.”

Systlin would have to investigate this caste system more thoroughly. She did not like the idea on principle, but it seemed a force of social stability that most Goreans were very attached to. From what she’d gathered there were provisions for moving through castes if one wished. However, she’d heard that some, such as weavers and spinners, were considered ‘low caste’.

Systlin had attempted such tasks before; her mother was fond of spinning and weaving, though she was Queen Mother and needed never touch a spindle if she didn’t wish. After fifteen minutes spent at it, Systlin had come to the conclusion that the work that went into cloth was absurdly complicated and skilled, and had never touched a spindle since. She did, however, have a reputation for never haggling when it came to buying cloth or paying her seamstresses.

Low caste her arse. The idea of any of the most essential tasks…potters, farmers, fishermen, herders…being lower than any others raised her hackles. Perhaps the idea of low or high caste could go…

Across the grassland, a small party of men, led by one of the men in gleaming gold-chased armor began to ride towards them. Systlin put aside other concerns and nodded once to Dina, who nodded back and went to lead the right flank.

Her kaiila could sense that battle was coming, and shifted under her, tossing her head in eagerness. Systlin held her steady, and waited.

They headed, of course, for Foicatch. Systlin sighed and rolled her eyes, and nudged her kaiila forward. The creature sprang forward in that long, loping predator stride, and she headed them off in moments. They glared at her, all hostile intent. She regarded them in what was probably a dismissive manner, but so far as she was concerned these men were already dead. They were nothing that she had not seen on this world already, in the smaller towns that lay outside Turia. She’d killed a thousand like them since coming here.

“You know full well that I lead this army.” She said bluntly. “You’ve heard the stories.” She sighed. “It makes me curious…”

“Stories of trickery and nonsense about sorcery.” The man with the glittering armor said loftily. “A few villages might fall to some unnatural woman, but this is Turia. We will not be afraid of a tribe of women who think themselves the equals of men.”

“…As I was saying,” Systlin raised her voice slightly. “It makes me curious as to the full degree which you, meaning men on this world, are capable of deluding yourselves. I’ve been halfway through conquering towns and tribes and the men would still be telling me that I couldn’t hope to carry through, because I was but a woman.” She shook her head. “Almost sad, really. I’ve an army of  twenty five thousand camped before your gates. I know you have heard the stories of how I’ve conquered cities across the prairies and brought all the tribes of the Wagon People under my rule. I am Ubara-Sana of the plains, by my own hand, and I’ve crushed every force sent against me. And yet here you are, still claiming the same old tired thing.”

She looked him in the eyes. “This is the part where, if you are smart, you will confer with your people and you will open the gates, lay down your arms, and have a chance to survive this.”

He scoffed. Entirely predictably. “This is Turia, woman. The plainsfolk may not have been able to humble you, but Turia will. We’ve ten thousand cavalry, and that is not counting the fighting men on foot. You and your slave girls with swords can batter yourselves to ribbons against us, and we’ll put collars on those of you not killed.” A slow, lewd smile, because apparently he felt he hadn’t dug his own grave deep enough. “Maybe I’ll put mine on you, woman, and teach you to obey a master’s word.”

“Well.” Systlin shrugged. “I did give you a chance.”

She’d learned knife throwing from Stellead, but the Arms Master of the Bloodguard had been dubious of its effectiveness and the instruction had only been basic. It was at the Iron Mountain, under the tutelage of the master assassins of the Master of Knives, that she’d learned how to properly throw a knife.

She’d killed the Master of Knives, of course. He’d taken the contract on her father, and sent out one of his Shadow Hands to kill a king. She’d killed the Brother of Shadow who’d wielded the knife, as well, and many others besides. The Iron Mountain stood empty now, the bones of those she’d killed gathering dust in the halls.

Her knife took the golden-armored warrior through the eye. He looked quite shocked as he slid from the saddle and fell. His men started in rage, and went for their lances.

Systlin smiled at them. Her power rose, a cold sweep through her bones, tingling under her skin. She raised her hand, and flicked her fingers negligently at them, mostly for show.

Their lances shattered into splinters. So did at least five thousand other lances of the leading ranks of the famed thalarion cavalry of Turia.

A great confused sound went up, and thalarion shied at the strange scent of Power in the air, sharp as ozone. And as fighting men scrambled for their secondary weapons, Systlin’s forces charged.

Ice took the first man before her just under the chin. She didn’t quite behead him as her coal-black kaiila shot past, but slashed the big artery on his neck open. Blood pumped, and the sound he made as he fell was a terrible gurgle.

She wheeled her mount and ducked the frantic sweep of a sword. The riders were startled, off balance, and that was death when facing a warrior of her caliber. Her kaiila darted in and took the throat of one of the slower High Thalarions, tearing it open. The beast went down, and its rider with it. Systlin kneed the sides of her kaiila and it leapt; the final warrior managed to parry her first blow, a slicing cut at his neck.

She twisted her wrist, reversed the grip on Ice’s hilt with a little twist and clever movement of her fingers that Stellead had made her practice ten thousand times, and drove it into his chest under his ribs. Drew it back with a sharp jerk as she wheeled her kaiila again, and flipped it back around in her hand. She did not have to think about the motion; she had not missed the catch on the twist since she had been a child training under Arms Master Stellead.

Then her kaiila was running, and she pushed it hard for a few paces until she regained her place leading the center. Lances glittered to either side of her, and she felt a fierce pride in the women she’d trained.

She eyed the gates of Turia, behind the regrouping lines of thalarion cavalry. Arrows arched from behind, as her mounted archers began picking off the front ranks of the Turian forces as they came into range.

Arrows returned, from on top of the walls, and one bounced off of her wraithen-scale armor. She lashed out with her power, still simmering under her skin, and five hundred bows shattered. Cries of dismay went up a second time.

She eyed the great gates of Turia, even as her kaiila gathered itself to leap and the first of her lance-fighters neared the front lines of the Turian cavalry. She eyed them for a half a second before she hit the front lines of the Turians, and she Broke them.

The great gates of Turia, and fifty feet of the wall to either side, crumbled into splinters and sand. There was a great cry of horror and dismay from the city, and cries of “UBARA! UBARA!” from her own warriors, delighted.

And then her front line was smashing into the Turian cavalry, and there was no more time for thought.

The Turians were skilled, but they were off balance, had lost the advantage of their long lances, and had not truly been expecting a proper fight. Systlin and her best lancers hit them like a hammer, and pierced deep into the ranks before the Turians quite knew it was happening. The Turians were down to swords now, and only a few of the rear ranks still had lances. Systlin’s riders had long lances with reach, and their kaiila were faster and more nimble than the high thalarion the Turians rode.

And, of course, they had her.

Systlin was no stranger to mounted combat. She’d ridden with the tribes of the desert at Sura’s side for years, and was as deft a hand at mounted combat as any Rider. She’d never have been accepted, otherwise.

It felt, she had to admit, as she turned a sword aside with Ice and flicked the sword around, down, and up, taking off the man’s sword hand at the wrist, very good to be at it again. The man screamed, but she was past him. A lance glanced off of her armor, and she wheeled her kaiila. The beast snapped, catching a leg, and tore the man off of his mount. His thalarion turned and went for her mount, but her kaiila shook its head and was leaping away before it could do any damage.

Systlin fought with all the skill and speed and cunning she had. She fought viciously, the whole time willing that her army would not fail now, would not quail because this battle was larger and closer-fought than any before. She willed it, imagining that she could throw wide her arms and take under her shadow all of her proud free mounted warriors, and through sheer will alone keep them fighting.

And she did what she had always done, in battle. She led on the front line, and fought like nothing the Turians had ever seen before. Men rose before her and men fell; she was past Power now, and killed with pure hard-won skill and naked steel. She cut faces, necks, torsos, limbs. Ice’s blue-tinged blade was purple with blood, and blood spattered her all over. She killed, and killed, with all the skill of those long hours of training and decades more of fighting for her life. She fought, and killed, her blood sang with it.

You were never made for peace. The Lady’s words. It was true; she knew it was true. She loved battle, though she knew it spoke of her basically coldhearted and vicious nature that she did. She was a warrior born and trained and blooded, and she was at home on the killing field.

She’d fought three wars, leading from the front. She’d won each, and the sight of her at the forefront of her warriors, in her element, bloody and screaming and bringing death with her, was absolute horror to the men of Gor.

The sight that horrified the men of Turia stiffened the spines of her warriors, and to the endless horror of the men of Turia, the former slave girls, now screaming warriors with lances and swords, cut into them with a fury they’d never seen.

With her at their front, her mounted warriors smashed the Turian lines apart, just as the left flank led by Foicatch drove hard at the gap left at the rear, pushing the cavalry of Turia away from the broken gates and cutting them off from retreat into the city. Foicatch himself set himself in the middle of the smashed gate, and Systlin caught glimpses of him engaged in fierce close fighting now and then as foot soldiers pressed forward from the city to try and relieve the cavalry she was driving like a herd of sheep across the prairies before Turia.

But the fighting men of Turia were skilled, and proud, and they began to regroup. Men were shouting orders, and the remaining lances managed to form up defensive lines. The fighting grew vicious, even after Systlin Broke more lances, and their advance ground to a crawl. Their armies were nearly matched; Systlin’s warrior women had better armor and better reach, but the Turian fighting men had more experience, and it began to show as they got their feet under them. Systlin’s troops fought like mad wildcats, and she was so proud; they were still winning forward, inch by inch, but she was not about to spend more lives than she had to.

The Turians began to press back, and her advance ground to a halt. Systlin smiled, because she heard the galloping of the kaiila, and knew.

Dina’s mounted archers swept past, and the women turned on their kaiilas with those short but powerful recurve bows of wood and bosk horn. Strings slid from thumb rings, and three thousand arrows hammered home through that light leather armor that the men of this world favored. The kaiilas wheeled, and the women turned again, as they’d practiced a thousand times, sitting backwards on their mounts. Strings sang again, and arrows flew as thick as rain.

Turians died. Systlin yelled and plunged forward again, and to shouts of “UBARA! UBARA! WHIP-BURNER! CHAIN-STRIKER!” her warriors followed.

The Turians had nowhere to retreat from Dina’s archers, except back onto the lances of Systlin’s mounted spear-women. No rescue came from Turia; Foicatch was stacking the bodies of fighting men four deep in the ruin of the shattered gates.

The fighting outside the city drug out a big longer; it took time to slaughter ten thousand cavalry and their mounts. But caught between Dina’s wheeling mounted archers and their storm of arrows and the lances of Systlin’s cavalry and Systlin’s own sword, they were cut to bits.

It was then that Systlin regrouped her lancers and led them to the shattered gates, where the foot soldiers of Turia were approaching more cautiously than before. The shattered gates themselves were a charnel house; fighting men and women both lay dead alongside wounded and dead and shrieking kaiila, and blood was red over the stones of the road and the rubble of the gates and walls. Foicatch and his warriors held, and the fighting men of Turia seemed reluctant to approach within reach of Foicatch’s sword.

They parted to let Systlin through, and her lancers flowed around to guard the sides of the ranks of warriors.

Systlin joined Foicatch at the front lines. She must look a terrible sight; she was head to toe blood and mud, the colors of her wraithen armor dulled under the coating. Foicatch’s own set of wraithen scale armor was similarly filthy. There was a cut high on his temple, a glancing blow that was not serious but bleeding freely. Even as she joined him she felt a trickle of Power as he flicked droplets of blood away from his eyes.

A lull in the fighting; the soldiers of Turia drew back, appalled at the sight. Foicatch eyed her, gaze flicking head to toe to check her for injuries. She gave him a slight reassuring shake of her head, doing the same to him. The cut on his temple seemed to be the worst of it. She turned to eye the soldiers before them.

“Your cavalry,” Systlin informed the fighting men before them. “Are dead. My throat slitters are making short work of any survivors this very moment. You did not hear the offer I made before, I think, so I will make it one more time. Lay your weapons down now, and you may find mercy. I will not give you another chance.”

Not one fighting man moved, save for the one who yelled in defiance, pulled a knife from his boot, and hurled it at her head.

It was a good throw, she thought, as she twisted her head to the side even as his hand swept up with the blade. It was a good throw. Had she not been taught by Stellead and the Shadow Hands of the Iron Mountain, it might have struck home. As it was, it simply scraped her cheekbone in passing; a shallow cut that would heal quickly and cleanly.

Answer enough, she supposed. Foicatch was already moving, and fell on the knife-thrower with a single-minded viciousness that was poetry to see. Systlin was moving almost as quickly, and that was where the battle in the city began.

It was nasty work. Street by street, driving the fighting men before them. Many of the freed slaves in Systlin’s forces had been from Turia, and as planned they now took the lead. As Systlin had suspected, their knowledge of the city was invaluable; meeting places and baths where warriors gathered were found out. Attacks from small alleys were anticipated. Cobbles went slick with blood. A nasty dagger opened a long cut into Systlin’s left forearm, and some of the slick blood under their boots and the kaiila’s paws was her own. She bound it with a strip torn from her own shirt, cinching the knot tight with her teeth, and pressed on.

Turia was a city of millions; it took hours to work their way through, even with the size of her army. It was late afternoon when at last she realized that any warriors found out were fleeing rather than fighting, and being quickly ridden down by archers. Systlin stopped, at last, sitting high on her kaiila, and knew that she was Ubara of Turia, and by extension all of the plains in truth, by right of conquest.

Dina was staying close now, guiding them through the streets. She saw the same realization dawn on Dina’s face; Foicatch was already smiling that grim satisfied smile she remembered well.

“Take me to the throne of Turia.” Systlin said, and Dina did.

The first drops of the storm hit the bloody dust and thunder growled low when the reached the great palace of Turia. It was in a vast central building, half law chambers and half a throne hall. It was all in the same white stone that the city seemed to favor, with a great dome over the hall where the Thrones of Turia sat. They were very fine; there was, Systlin was sure, wood somewhere under the silver and inlaid semiprecious stones, but it was difficult to make out. She left footprints of blood and mud across the spotless tiled floors.

She’d made instructions clear before the first spear was lifted; her warriors knew what to do. One part of being a leader, her father had said long ago. Is finding competent people that you trust, and then trusting them to do their jobs without your having to hang over their shoulder.

He’d been right. Her people were competent, and she did trust them. So while she waited for her warriors to ferret out the various guild and caste leaders and other important persons, Systlin ascended the nine steps to the dais…it was gorgeously carpeted, and inlaid with ivory and gold…and sat herself down in the larger throne, the throne of the Ubar of Turia.

Foicatch eyed her. There was an answering warm pulse that went down her spine and pooled insistently between her legs; there was nothing like battle to get the blood up. But…She raised her eyebrows back at him. “Not yet.” She said, somewhat reluctantly, and motioned with her chin at the smaller throne, the throne where traditionally the Ubara sat. “Not quite yet. It’s not properly conquered until I explain things to the important people, is it?”

“I suppose not.��� But his eyes were lingering on her lips, and slid down over the length of her legs and the curve of her hip even so. She could feel the heat of it, and dearly wished to answer it.

But it was about at that point that people…some of them bedraggled, some begging and pleading, some silent and apparently numbly shocked into silence, all led by her fierce and triumphant warrior women, began to file into the great throne chamber. All were drenched; Systlin could hear rain rattling against the roof now, and thunder rumbling quite often.

They stared. Systlin knew what she must look like. She sat, and waited. Her shoulder ached; she’d been slammed into a wall at one point, and probably had a spectacular bruise. Her arm where she’d been cut stung. Her muscles burned from exertion; she’d been fighting on and off for hours. The cut on her cheek had scabbed, and pulled when she moved or spoke.

None of it mattered. Victory was pounding in her veins along the adrenaline. Even now, she knew, her warriors were removing chains from slaves; she could taste it on the air, and it was as sweet as honeyed wine.  

Goddess of justice and war.

She ignored the voice of the Lady whispering.

Dina was conferring with the other women native to Turia. They looked fearsome; all were armored and armed and bloody. Most of the blood, to Systlin’s immense pride, was not their own. They had wounds, true, but most were not serious, and every warrior will earn scars. They were standing and moving and speaking with a new edge of confidence that had not been there even this morning, and Systlin knew why.

Stories would be told of this, she knew. Stories would be told, and the warriors who’d fought with her to take Turia would be legend in their own right. And they knew it as well; had proved something to themselves that could never be taken away.

Yes, these warrior women would say, years from now. Yes, of course I know of the Fall of Turia. I was there. I fought at the Ubara’s side. There would be looks then, as awed as any Systlin herself had ever received, and she knew in her bones how the legends would be told in decades to come.

Dina of Turia, who led the Ubara’s archers and broke the Turian cavalry with the Ubara.

Sabra of Turia, the first of all who had her chains struck off, who rode with her lance at the Ubara’s side, in her honor guard, and who fought so fiercely that none could stand before her. Never in the battle for the city did she leave the Ubara’s side, and she walked through blood ankle-deep that day.

Hula of Turia, Doreen of Turia, Hireena of the Tuchuks. Tamra of Ar…

The list went on and on, and pride was a bright warmth in her chest.

Dina said something to Sabra, who nodded and turned to cross the hall and climb the steps. Systlin remembered that first day; Sabra clutching, terrified, at her sleeve. There was little trace of the frightened and beaten slave girl now; Sabra was one of her best with a spear, and she wore thick bosk-hide armor sewn with metal plates. Her arms and shoulders were strong, and her blonde hair braided tightly back. There was blood and mud crusted in it, and a vicious bruise showing around one eye. Her nose had been broken at some point, and hastily reset,. The dried blood from it was still on her chin. She was smiling a smile of victory.

“Ubara sana.” She said. “The guild leaders, councilors, and other important leaders of the city are assembled.”

“Thank you, Sabra.” Systlin smiled back, just as fierce. “And well fought. Fierce as a she-panther.”

The grin widened. “Thank you, Ubara-sana!”

“I told you,” Systlin said, still smiling. “You doubted me, but here you stand. When I secure the treasury, you are to take as much as you can carry, as a mark of my esteem. I name you now to my personal guard, for as long as you desire the post, but you must promise to tell me if you ever wish to leave. You were the first to have her chains thrown off, and I’ve no wish to ever bind you with others.”

Sabra blinked rapidly, and Systlin realized that she was blinking back tears. “I will, Ubara sana.” She said. “But I do not think that day will come.”

“Well. If it does, let me know. And I’ve another duty for you; you were the first to take up weapons, even before Dina. If you will, once things settle more in a few days, go among the women of Turia and tell them your story. And if any of them wish it, bring them to me, and help me train them as warriors, as you trained yourself.”

A light like fever lit in Sabra’s eyes. “Ubara sana,” she whispered. “You honor me, and I will do this.”

“You won your honor yourself, with your own hands and by your own actions.” Systlin said. “I merely handed you the tools to do so. Bring them all forward, then.”

Foicatch, she realized, was staring at her with an intensity that was scorching.

“You will never have any idea,” he breathed, very quietly, as her warriors herded the frightened rich and powerful of the city to the base of the raised dais the thrones sat upon, “the effect you have on people. What it’s like to see, from the outside.”

“Hush.” She murmured back, just as softly. “You’re biased.”

“I am. But I’m also right. Every woman in your forces would have followed you to the death this morning, but after this they’d follow you past it as well.”

“Hmm.” She allowed, but it was a pleased sound. “I try only to be what they deserve.”

“Yes.” He said. “Yes, and that’s why.”

She eyed the small crowd at the foot of the dais. They were frightened and soaked from the storm, bedraggled and sullen.

“Foicatch, darling.” She said. “Our guests appear to be soaked. Could you give them a hand?”

He made an agreeable sound and lifted a hand. She tasted Power on the back of her tounge, ozone and burnt cinnamon.

There were gasps and screams as the water streamed and spiraled off of the huddled leaders of Turia. Foicatch pulled it into a hovering globe above his hand, and then rather negligently flicked it aside. It splashed to the tiles, leaving the people in the crowd quite dry.

Dina clicked her tounge against her teeth. “Are you all sorcerers, on your world?” A year and a half of following Systlin, one of the strongest fire witches and the strongest Breaker ever to live, had rubbed the novelty off of seeing Power worked.

“Not all of us.” Systlin lifted a shoulder. “But a good many.”

“My mother’s a stronger water witch than me,” Foicatch said absently. “I’ve only half her gift.”

“Wait until you see him really angry,” Systlin said. “And see him tear the water from a man’s blood.”

“I have.” That was Hireena, herding the Turians forward. Her voice was low, and she looked at Foicatch with deep respect. “At the gates, as we fought.”

“Did you?” She said, with interest. Systlin had seen it done before. It had been….compelling. Hmmmm.

Later. Later. More important things first.

“Turia.” She said, her voice clear. “I greet you.”

Furious, frightened faces looked up at her. Mutters went around. Systlin remembered well what she’d been told.

“I greet you,” she said. “As Ubara Sana of the plains, won by my own hand. But of course, you are Turian, and the power in Turia lies with the merchants.”

“It is so.” One veiled woman said. She was looking up curiously; her robes were of exquisitely fine silks, and embroidered with gold. Pearls hung from the edges of her sleeves, and crystal beads glittered across her gown.

“That,” said Systlin. “May change. I understand, of course, that you’ve already well established trade routes, and I’ve no wish to interfere with them. But I am Ubara Sana now, and the old laws will change. You may have heard that, on the plains, slave chains have been outlawed, and all slaves freed. It is true, and as of this moment by my decree every slave in Turia is freed.”

There was a roar of arguments and shouting and disapproving noises.

“…cannot simply…”

“…My business is slaves! How am I to…”

“…an outrage!...”

Systlin waited them out, patient. As she did, another of the Turian women jogged in through the great door; the rain had washed away most of the mud and blood, but she was limping, a strip of cloth bound around one thigh. She murmured something to Dina, who nodded once and took the nine steps up to the dais two at a time.

“There is a problem.” Dina said. “Saphrar, a wealthy merchant, one of the leaders of the Merchant’s Caste in the city. He’s a fortified compound, and has walled himself up with his mercenary forces.”

“Tell everyone to pull back.” Systlin said at once. “Keep an eye on the compound; let no one escape. After I finish here, I’ll come and tend to his gates myself.”

Dina smiled thinly, and went back down, murmured this to the other woman. The other woman grinned like a wolf, and hurried out, swift despite her wounded leg.

“Have you all finished?” Systlin raised her voice above the crowd.

“I will contract with the Guild of Assassins for this!” A man with thick dark hair and wearing gold and white robes said furiously. He had a hand raised and was shaking a finger at the sky. “I’ll have your head in my vault. I swear it on the Priest-Kings! “

“I take it that you deal in slaves,” Systlin said dryly.

“I do! It is an honorable trade, and I have been dealing in slave meat for…”

Systlin nodded at Dina, who moved quickly. Her knife gleamed, and the man’s throat opened ear to ear. A gurgle, and a red rush of blood, and utter shocked silence.

“Slavery,” Systlin said mildly. “Is one of the greatest crimes, and slavers are condemned to death. Those who procure and deal in slaves for their own wealth are doubly damned. Throw his body to the kaiila; they must be hungry after the fight. What was his name?”

Silence.

“I asked,” Systlin said, voice going cold. “For his name. I expect an answer.”

Another moment of silence dragged out, and then…“Kazrak.” The veiled woman who’d spoken before said. “Kazrak of the Merchant Caste. His mansion is next to mine, and his warehouse is in the low streets, near the slave market.”

“Did he have a Free Companion, any children?”

“Both.”

“Then half of his estate shall go to them, and they shall maintain their home. The other half of his assets are forfeit, and will be redistributed between his slaves, who are now free.” Systlin raised an eyebrow. “Might I have your name?”

“Aphris.” Said the woman. “Of the Merchant Caste. I deal in silks and wine, not people.” She shot a somewhat vicious look at the dead Kazrak, as he was dragged off, leaving a smear of red on the tiles. “And he was cruel, and it does my heart good to see justice done him. I take it then that we, the free women of Turia, are not to be put in slave chains?”

“Bloody pits, no.” Systlin said, repulsed.

“I did not think so.” Aphris said, cool and collected, a point of calm in the angry and terrified crowd. “But many freewomen feared the worst. It is, after all, how war has been done on Gor for a very long time. You can understand the worry.”

It was a reasonable worry, Systlin supposed. “Of course. But have no fear, no hand will be raised against you. You are free, and will remain free. Aside from that, by my laws it will be punishable by death if anyone, from anywhere, ever attempted to enslave you, and I would hunt that man down and kill him for daring to put chains on one of my subjects.”

There were many free women in the crowd, and at the words there was sort of a sigh that ran through them, and a sense of some great tension lifted. The men looked startled. Systlin gestured, taking in the concealing robes all of the free women wore.

“It is no longer required,” she continued. “That you wear full Robes of Concealment in public. A free woman may dress as she likes and go where she likes. If you feel more comfortable in your robes, of course, then you are welcome to wear them, but it is not required. If you choose to set them aside and experience difficulty from anyone, you may make a formal complaint and the matter will be dealt with. I will make people and resources available to deal with such matters.”

A murmur. More looks of outrage from the men.

“Many,” Aphris said. “Will welcome this. But for myself, Ubara, I think I will choose to wear the robes, at least for some time longer.”

“Of course.” Systlin inclined her head. “And I am afraid, of course, that Turia will be judged.”

“Judged?” One man snapped. “Like you judged Kazrak?”

“Yes. Precisely how I judged Kazrak.” Systlin smiled unpleasantly. “There are three great crimes; the murder of an innocent who has done no harm, the rape of another, and enslaving another. The penalty for all three is death.”

Silence. Dead, horrified silence. And then,

“You cannot mean,” another man said, carefully. “That every man who held a slave will be killed.”

“No.” Systlin shook her head. Sighs of relief, but she continued. “Because some slaves, for whatever reason, beg mercy for those who held them. It will be up to any slaves you hold what your fate is. But,” and she grinned again, more horribly. “If a single slave you’ve held and raped chooses death for you, I will put a knife in her hand and hold you down myself for the sentence.”

“What.”

“You cannot mean…”

“Not all…”

“All.” Systlin said, merciless. “Every man in Turia. If a freewoman held male slaves…I’m told it happens…then her life is forfeit as well. I will not abide it. Have no fear; I will establish many courts to see to it. It will take us months to work through the city, but it will be done. And those of you who are guilty, I will hang your bones from the white walls as a warning.”

“You,” Said one man, who had until then been silent, staring angry daggers at her from the front of the crowd. His robes, she noted, were the finest in the room, and edged in purple. “Are mad.”

“Not the first time I’ve been called that.” Systlin said easily. She looked him over, matching up features with descriptions. “Phanius Turmus, I presume?”

“Ubar of Turia.” He confirmed, chin high. “You are defiling my throne, woman.”

“You were.” She shook her head. “But you lost. You’re simply Phanius now, and you’ll be judged with the rest.”

“I think that perhaps I shall contract with the Assassin’s Caste for your head.” He didn’t flinch or break eye contact. “Your head would look well in my vaults, I agree with Kazrak.”

“Oh, please do. I ought to make their acquaintance. It’s been some time since I trained with the assassins of my own world, and tore their master’s throat out with my knife. So yes please, do. It would be an exciting challenge.”

Foicatch sighed resignedly. “Really, love?”

Phanius was giving her a stare of pure and utter horror. “What are you?” He almost whispered. “What terrible hell did you crawl from, to plague us? Have you no respect for those of high caste?”

“My mother would be terribly offended by calling her a ‘terrible hell’.” She made steady eye contact with each person in her horrified and enraptured audience. “The terrible hell is her sister, who taught me to fight. And no. Every caste. From low to high. All will be judged the same. If any have offended in these ways, I will see justice done upon them. No one is exempt.”

“You’ll kill thousands!” One man cried. “Tens of thousands!”

“Oh,” Systlin said, cold as steel in winter. “Hundreds of thousands, I expect.”

“You cannot…”

“Poor choice of words.” Foicatch sighed again. “I could have warned you; there’s no better way to get her to do something than to tell her, earnestly, that she can’t.”

Systlin stood, and let Power rise. Not the terrible cold of Breaking, but her other gift, hot and furious and wild. Fire bloomed around her for a moment, and was gone too quickly to set fire to her clothes. But it had the desired effect. Silence fell. Horrified silence.

“I am not bargaining with you.” She said softly. “I am not suggesting. I am not your old Ubar. I stand here by right of conquest. I breached your walls and killed my way to this throne, and I am going to kill a great deal many more before I am through. The merchants and caste-masters are not ruling Turia any longer; I am.”

She moved a step down, drawing closer to them. “To put this in terms you understand, which I gathered from women you had kidnapped from a world not yours and forced into slavery; you had best get used to this new way, or you will die. I am telling you how things now are. You can flee the city, if you wish, but I will not stop here and I will find you. Be it when I take Ar, or Ko-Ro-Ba, or any other city, I will come. I am going to end slavery on this world, and I fully expect to do it at the point of a sword. I am Ubara Sana of the plains. I rule this city now. These are the great crimes that will be punished, and how they will be punished. This matter is not open for negotiation. If you dislike these words, you are free to take them up with any of the twenty thousand of my soldiers in your city. They’ll be thrilled to discuss them, I am sure.” She descended another step. “Until the courts are established and judging begins, no one is to leave the city. I control the entirety of the plains and other bands of my warriors have seized trade routes. I have the wealth of Turia at my disposal; you will not go hungry. And now, you are free to return to your homes; I have things yet to do tonight. One of you has decided to fight tooth and nail; I’m off to crack him out of his nutshell. Dismissed.”

She swept past, not looking back, and felt their eyes on her back as she went.

[forestwater87]

A big box o’Gwenvid AU ideas: A is for "Aww” and “Angst” and “AAAH”

This post is fucking rad as balls, and I started thinking of fun AU ideas . . . until I remembered that I already have approximately 2 billion WIPs already and don’t necessarily know if any of these have legs as actual fics. But it was fun to think about, so here we are! This is the first of . . . presumably 26 of these? Who knows, but this post we have:

Accidental Marriage AU

In which Campbell convinces incredibly wealthy investors known for their focus on “family values” that the Camp is a sweet family business run by a husband-and-wife team of counselors. The problem, of course, is that it isn’t sweet and its head counselors aren’t married. Campbell only has enough booze to fix one of those situations. 

He’ll figure the rest out in the morning. He thinks better with a hangover, anyway.

(Yes I think this one would be awesome in Campbell’s POV. You cannot change my mind on this.)

Actor AU

Okay, real talk this would just be @whiskyarts​‘s gameshow AU. Because I kinda love the idea of Jerk!David who just pretends to be a sweetheart for the cameras. Except I would cover it with my filthy Gwenvid hands and make it shippy in that antagonistic-hatemance-eventually-turns-into-something-resembling-feelings. There would be lots of angst and snark and sparkly clothes and I would love it and probably no one else would.

Alien AU

An Interplanetary Anthropologist, Gwen, manages to land a position on the Campbell after years of education and networking and plain old hard work. She is an employee of the most impressive warship in the galaxy -- sure, it’s gone to seed a little bit in the last few decades, but it still has its shine if you look at it sideways and squint a little -- and more importantly, it’s work experience! Paid work experience . . . as a janitor.

When the Campbell picks up a POW that the ship’s commander plans to (illegally) sell to the highest bidder, Gwen decides to treat it as an opportunity to build a real-life case study on one of the universe’s rarer life forms while it’s within arm’s reach. But the more she learns about the strange, sunny alien who was his platoon’s only survivor, the more uncomfortable she is with letting him disappear into her captain’s nefarious dealings and -- 

Oh fuck, this is The Shape of Water, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve never seen The Shape of Water but I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. Fuck. Goddamn it. Fuck.

Amnesia AU

David takes a rogue bus to the . . . well, everything -- something that’s more or less routine by now -- and hits his head hard enough to knock him out for almost a full day. When he wakes up, he’s the same cheerful David the camp is used to . . . except for three strange new things:

He doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing -- doesn’t, in fact, remember anything after some vague memories of childhood.

He’s completely terrified of the forest, and especially of Spooky Island.

He has no idea who Cameron Campbell is, but he’s quite positive he hates him.

Android AU

Actually @ciphernetics​ and I put this idea together a little while ago! Basically Camp Campbell has a state-of-the-art off-brand helper android named David, who is a perfect camp counselor, childcare provider, and comes equipped with the finest Forest Survival software Cameron Campbell could find for free online in half an hour.

Gwen, the new (requisite human) hire, hasn’t ever really interacted with androids, and doesn’t especially want to now. David is used to the distrust, even outright hostility -- very few of the campers seem to like him, and he knows that his presence can be unsettling to humans, and look, it isn’t a D:BH AU okay? It just looks like one, and acts like one. And is one.

Angel/Demon AU

Um the perfect Angel/Demon AU literally already exists, but they only wrote one chapter back in 2017 and never updated, and that makes me absurdly sad. Regardless, David being very bad at being a demon and Gwen being very bad at being an angel is the ideal setup for this kind of AU, in my humble opinion. 

However, David being an angel trying to reform his fallen ABFEL (angel buddy for eternal life!), who probably became a demon over something stupid and probably horny, also sounds extremely cute. They’re still friends, even though that is against literally all of the rules, and they secretly meet and hang out. David is convinced he can bring her around, and Gwen insists that she hates having him hanging off her nonexistent wings all the time. 

Honestly, probably neither of those things are true. Gwen wasn’t cut out for heaven -- and probably, neither is David.

Apocalypse AU

Cameron Campbell was probably doing something dangerously stupid in the hopes it could make him money. That, or the Quartermaster was doing something dangerous for reasons only he could ever understand. Hell, maybe that’s what that weird Daniel guy’s cult was trying to do. Whoever was doing what, they ripped a hole in their dimension at the bottom of Lake Lilac, and all sorts of awful things start creeping through.

There were signs, of course -- that weird fish-monster certainly didn’t come in through customs -- but an inopportune explosion, or wayward firework, or the rumblings of Sleepy Peak Peak, or something ripped a hole in the fabric of reality big enough for Lovecraftian monsters to start crawling through. There’s no stopping it. Really, there’s no chance of even fighting it. 

The second the rift opens, the story becomes one of just trying to stay out from under the Elder Gods’ feet.

Arranged Marriage AU

I think the easiest way to make this one work is by making either David or Gwen Campbell’s actual biological child -- maybe an heir, albeit to a highly illegal fortune and a mountain of credit card debt. But Campbell gets in trouble, the kind of trouble where he’s gambled everything and the only collateral he has left is a kid he got saddled with because their mother had better lawyers. A kid he’s been more than happy to put to work for the last 20-something years, who happens to have caught the eye of a ludicrously wealthy magnate -- not for her own sake (though Campbell would’ve been open to that too) -- but for her child, one she loves more than anything and keeps carefully shut away until the Right Person comes along.

His kid isn’t necessarily the right person, but for the first time in his life Cameron Campbell has a genuine treasure on his hands.

And, like all the fake treasures he’s passed off over the years, he just has to find a way to shine them up and make him a fortune.

Artist AU

Gwen is a starving artist living in a rat-infested hovel in the city, scraping by on a series of uninspired landscapes she paints on postcards and the goodwill of friends, family, and significant others. One day, a bright young man bounces up to her “studio” (it’s a cardboard box outside the park) and tells her excitedly that he’s been looking for her for weeks; he thinks her postcards are the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, and he would like to know if she’d be interested in moving down to a cabin by the lake. He runs a summer camp, he explains, and he knows they’d all be honored if she would teach them art lessons -- and of course paint in her spare time! The views are indescribable, and he’s sure she’ll have no shortage of inspiration.

She weighs the cost of what little artistic dignity she has remaining against room, board, and a steady paycheck for three months, and takes the job immediately.

Art Student AU

Put them in an art college -- maybe condense the ages so that the campers are like, younger students? -- and have Gwen as the Serious Art Student who cares a lot about theory and form and doing things right, and she’s constantly irritated by her classmate David, who sits at the same table as her and has declared them art buddies, and is convinced that the point of art is just to have fun and do your best! Maybe force them to do a group project together and really see them clash.

(Alternatively, there is the infinitely more shameless route of one being an art student and the other being a newd model for figure drawing. I am obviously much too classy to ever insinuate such a thing, but if someone was really looking for a way to write smuht . . . it’s sitting right there. On a table. nekkid. I HAVE TO CHANGE THE SPELLING TO MAKE THIS GO IN THE TAGS ARE YOU KIDDING ME)

Athlete AU

There are 4 major ways this one can go, I feel like:

Basically HSM: Gwen is a small part in her school’s musical (techie, maybe, or the orchestra) and lanky jock David -- which is the most hilarious phrase ever but he’s probably a runner or tennis player, something light on muscles and heavy on speed and springiness -- who’s well-mannered and cheerful but not the brightest, is put into the show as an extra-credit way to bump up his GPA so he can keep sporting his sports, and it turns out he’s both very good at and super enthusiastic about it.

A little like HSM, but as grown-ups: Gwen is the head of the drama/art department, which has just faced heavy cuts to support the superstar sports program, and she furiously storms over to the head coach’s office to let him know exactly what she thinks about him and his stupid meathead jocks. Of course, when the man who opens the door is a sweetheart beanpole with big eyes who already knows her name, she finds it hard to keep up her righteous indignation. And when it turns out that he was completely ignorant of the hit her department took from the budget cuts (or maybe not ignorant, just terminally oblivious) and is almost as upset as she is to hear about it, she’s forced to reconsider everything she’d assumed about Coach Greenwood; maybe he’s not the enemy after all, but someone with whom she can formulate a new battle plan.

Reporter/Famous Athlete AU: Either Gwen is a professional sportsball person and David is the shy, bumbling photographer eager to prove himself, or she’s the plucky, intrepid reporter and David is a good-natured professional athlete who she’s determined to interview.

Teammates AU: Professional or amateur sports team, and they’re just trying to scrape their way out of the bottom of the league without killing each other. 

Author AU

There are a lot of potential interpretations of this AU, but my personal favorite is Gwen as a novelist with two distinctly differing careers: as G. E. Santos, the high-concept writer whose books are critical darlings in the maybe 3 publications that care about such things but whose sales can’t quite crack the triple digits; and as Annabelle Elizabeth, whose steamy erotica regularly tops the bestseller lists and is reviled by all of G. E.’s colleagues as “populist genre trash.” 

The only person alive who knows about her Jekyll-and-Hyde author personas (besides her older sister Audree, who plays the part of charismatic and sensual Annabelle flawlessly) is her editor, David. He’s an odd choice, as her colleagues in both fields have pointed out -- reading her romance novels with his pen in one hand and the other covering his eyes, peeking through his fingers to write tremulous notes in the margins; stumbling through her ponderous literary works with a dictionary in his lap and his tongue between his teeth, poring through them like he’s learning a new language -- but he’s the only person Gwen will allow to touch her writing. 

Maybe it’s because he always seems like her biggest fan. Maybe it’s because she’s known him since they were at a summer camp together years ago. Maybe it’s because he believes in her in a way no one else does -- in a way she absolutely doesn’t believe in herself.

David is, for reasons she’s not entirely sure how to explain even to herself, the only person she trusts.

Avian (Bird People) AU

Centuries ago, it was said, avians were a rarity, an aberrant mutation to be locked up and intently studied but never trusted. Some people thought they were antichrists, a sign of the end times, when all normal humans would be destroyed and only the strange bird-people would remain.

In a way, maybe they were. Because when the earth’s crust ripped open and flooded the planet with magma and boiling water miles deep, avians were the only ones who could take to the sky.

Not all of them, certainly. In fact, most were locked up in detention centers and laboratories when the Swamp formed, and were unable to escape in time. Considering the people who could get to high enough elevations to escape the deluge, there were decades afterwards where the decimated human population outnumbered the avian one. Those were periods of tension, outright war and tentative alliances -- even romances, the kinds of great love stories that dragged both avian and human populations a few generations along when one or both of them should’ve died out.

That was over two hundred years ago, however. Now the Swamp is a murky expanse of scalding water and the boiled remains of civilization transformed into unrecognizable muck, with islands of “land” cobbled out of what remains. This is where the avians live, now. And humans don’t live anywhere, not anymore.

At least . . . that was what they thought.

[justkeeptrekkin]

Prompt if you wanna: Some fake!dating maybe they have to go undercover for hero work?

anon do you know how hard it was to not write a 80+k slow burn friends to lovers fic here? I’m such a ho for fake!dating. THANK you for this blessed ask. 

“We definitely, absolutely should not make-out in plain sight in the corridor of a villian’s penthouse apartment.”

Hizashi says it, but he very much does not mean it. He grabs Shouta’s face and kisses him again like his life depends on it. 

Which it sort of does.

Twenty minutes earlier.

The piano music sounds distant and strained in Hizashi’s earpiece. The laptop screen shows a sea of people who, for anyone who wouldn’t know any better, seem upstanding- if not also unnecessarily rich. The charity-event pretence is a clever disguise, but it didn’t fool everyone.

It had been Nezu’s idea to organise an undercover infiltration; with a little research, Hizashi discovered that several suspects for one of Tsugauchi’s biggest cases would be attending this party. Not that he should know about such things, but it’s hard not to pick up the facts when the police leave them around so lazily. Now, Hizashi sits in a storage room downstairs, Nemuri perched beside him on an upturned mop bucket. They both listen, watch the party roll ahead with all the glitz and glamour that would be expected for its absurdly wealthy guests. Prosecco, fancy looking finger-food, music, all set in a penthouse apartment in uptown Mustafu.

It looks like way too much fun.

“Why the hell is Shouta the one who gets to undercover?” Hizashi whines, leaning his chin heavily on his hand and watching his best-friend-who-he-most-certainly-doesn’t-have-feelings-for stand awkwardly amidst the crowd. “He’s literally the last person to ever appreciate this sort of thing, man, it’s so un- ooh, look, they have vol-au-vents-”

Nemuri shoves him in the shoulder, a reminder to concentrate. “I don’t need to tell you why, you know the answer.”

She folds her arms across her chest. She’s wearing a dress that is entirely too revealing for it to be a convincing disguise; even with the blonde wig, Hizashi reckons she’d be recognisable anywhere for her chosen style. Hizashi, meanwhile, is wearing red contacts, has temporarily dyed his hair black, and has been forced against his will to shave off his moustache.

He’s still bitter about that.

He sighs and drums his hands rhythmically against the bucket he’s sat on. It turns into a tuneless rendition of Down Under by Men At Work and Nemuri nudges him again.

“Can’t hear.”“Sorry.”

Shouta sighs into his earpiece. He’s always the one to go undercover since he’s still not that recognisable, despite his brief foray on national television. Hizashi and Nemuri, however, are. The only reason they’re dressed to the nines is for if  back up is needed.

Truthfully, Hizashi thinks the only reason they didn’t send him down is because they think his acting is too good.

“Eraser. Shou. There are crab cakes going by. Put one in your pocket for me.”Nemuri unsuccessfully muffles her laughter, and Hizashi thinks he can see the entire camera on Shouta’s lapel move with the extreme-sighing that he’s displaying.

“Shouta- the crab cakes! The crab ca- goddamn, why do you hate me so much, dude? No free food for your handler?”

“Stop distracting him,” Nemuri says, but there’s no sincerity and she’s laughing through the words. “Oh, we’ve got Suzuki at two o’clock, Eraser.”

The man of the hour; Tsukauchi’s prime suspect. A multi-millionaire bordering on billionaire with an intelligence quirk- a man who handles complex mathematics and probability as easily as ABC. Unsurprisingly, suspected of using his abilities for embezzlement and fraud. Worse, believed to be funding several underground villain organisations. He’s dressed in a fine black suit, so simple and understated that it screams this cost more than you’ll ever earn in your lifetime.

Shouta makes his way over.

Hizashi’s leg starts to bounce up and down nervously, making the adjacent shelf of cleaning products rattle. Shouta is able to remain deadpan in almost any situation, making him ideal for undercover cases- and he can be surprisingly good at improvisation. But there’s also something about his reserved exterior that makes villains suspicious of him. Now, as he winds through the party towards one of the most intelligent suspected villains that they know of, Hizashi can only watch and advise into his ear-piece with a growing sense of anxiety.

“He’s already drunk,” Hizashi observes for Shouta’s benefit, examining the slight dribble of prosecco down the collar of Suzuki’s priceless suit. “This guy isn’t usually the messy type. And he’s talking to people he doesn’t know, judging by his phone contacts, so he won’t push you away.”

Shouta hasn’t even arrived at the small cluster of people yet before Suzuki’s eyes fall on him, double take, and settle there. And there’s something in the way the shallow smile and calculating look melts, the way it shifts into something possessive. It makes Hizashi growl angrily down Shouta’s earpiece. Hizashi is painfully aware that Shouta cleans up very nicely, it’s unsurprising for others to notice this too, but-

“Reel it in, Mic,” Nemuri says in a low, teasing voice that makes him shoot her a hurt look. Shouta doesn’t know anything about his feelings, and she’s certainly not meant to be making it even more obvious than it already is.

The fact that Suzuki’s attention has changed so suddenly to the approaching stranger isn’t lost on the other guests, and they move their conversation elsewhere. Suzuki leers, starts making small-talk with Shouta and Hizashi feels immediately sympathetic. He’s always struggled with such things.

When the conversation shifts onto Suzuki’s quirk, and thus, complex mathematics, Hizashi starts to worry.

When he laughs and lays a friendly hand on Shouta’s forearm, he gets pissed.

Removing his mouth piece, he says to Nemuri, “I told you I should have been the one to go in.”“Hizashi, you’re our linguist, you’re only ever the one to go undercover when-”

Hizashi stands up abruptly, knocking over his bucket-seat and smoothing down his incredibly dull grey suit. He wishes they’d let him go with the purple. “I’m going upstairs.”

Nemuri grabs him by the arm. “Hizashi this does not qualify as an emergency, if you think he needs advising, advise. From a distance. That’s why you’re his handler-”

“Yo my dude, my pal, you’ve gotta chill.” Hizashi spins round, rests his hands on Nemuri’s shoulders, and tries to convey as much confidence as possible. “I’m going whether you like it or not. I’ll try not to scream at him, but I can’t promise anything.”

He leaves the storage room and ignores the sound of Nemuri calling after him.

Five short minutes later he finds himself winding through the crowd, offering smiles here and there. He manages to swipe a crab cake and stuff it in his mouth, expertly swallowing it before plastering on a grin and taking Shouta’s side.

Shouta’s eyes zip over to Hizashi, assessing his presence and staring perhaps a little longer than is wise. He can see the question in his eyes even if no one else can. Hizashi doesn’t give him the chance to come up with a story; he was always better at that.

No matter what Nemuri says about his acting.

“Sweetie, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Shouta doesn’t react. In fact, his entire lack of response and the following, gaping pause is pretty suspicious. Hizashi bursts into an unfamiliar laughter- it’s his posh-party laugh that he and Nemuri have always enjoyed practising, head thrown back, hand on chest. He clings onto Shouta’s arm. “I thought I’d lost you at the drinks table, I turned around and suddenly you’d disappeared!”

Shouta’s chest rises as he takes a steadying breath, mouth falling open to speak, but nothing comes out. 

The smile Suzuki gives Hizashi is courteous. “It seems he’s lost for words. Suzuki Reo.”

Hizashi takes the hand that’s extended and shakes it with a lot less enthusiasm than he ordinarily would. “Oh, charmed, I’m sure,” he says smoothly.

“Charmed I’m sure,” Nemuri repeats mockingly into his ear piece.

“And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

Hizashi’s brain falters. He hadn’t come up with a name for himself.

“Regina Falange.”

There’s a surprised snort at the other end of Hizashi’s earpiece, followed by uproarious cackles. And: “Mic please, honey, oh my god you might be smart but you’re a shit actor, you’re going to get all of us killed-”

“What an interesting name.”“It’s European.” He tries to fight off the temptation to end that with a questioning inflection: Is that believable?

“Fascinating.” He doesn’t sound all that fascinated.”We were just discussing my quirk, how awfully self-centered that sounds.”“Suzuki-san has a mathematics quirk.” Shouta supplies this quietly, almost conspiratorially, leaning towards Hizashi as he says it. He’s wrapping his arm around his waist. Hizashi’s heart stops, before he remembers that he started this we’re-a-couple charade and he really shouldn’t be acting so flustered by it.

“I was just telling your partner about Zeno’s arrow paradox, but I’m afraid I may have lost him.”

Hizashi looks down at Shouta. Shouta returns the look.

“Oh, that sounds very complicated,” Hizashi says sweetly. “I’m sure I wouldn’t understand.”

Shouta narrows his eyes. He knows this game and he’s never liked it. Hizashi, on the other hand, lives for it.

“Ah, it’s simple really,” Suzuki says, his smile apparently genuine now. This is a man who enjoys to show off. And a man who enjoys to show off is a man who lets information slip. “Imagine an arrow at point A, and the target at point B, and in the course of reaching B the arrow must travel at least half that distance, which we can call point C. In getting from C to B, the arrow must travel half that distance, which is point D, and so on. But once you realise that you can keep dividing space forever, paring it down into smaller and smaller fractions, you come to see that the arrow, in fact, can never reach point B. Mathematically speaking, therefore, there is no smallest number- and no limit to greatness. Infinite everything.”

He concludes this unnecessary exhibition of his intelligence with an almost disappointed look in his eye, staring over Shouta’s shoulder.

“‘You must therefore confess that all that exists is not unique, but rather of number numberless’.”

Hizashi rattles off the quote with an air of nonchalance. Shouta glares at him.

Suzuki blinks drunkenly at Hizashi, clears his throat in surprise. “Lucretius said that, if I’m not mistaken?”“Yes.”“You speak Latin.”“I read it from time to time.”

“Hah! You almost had me take you for just another party goer. I’m not often tricked.”

“Well, we have to have our fun somehow, right? You must get so bored with a mind like yours, in a world like this.”

“Oh, it can get me into quite a lot of trouble.”The rapid fire interaction reaches an abrupt pause as both men silently assess each other. Hizashi feels Shouta tug on his suit jacket with a little more force than is necessary.

“Excuse us.”And Hizashi finds himself, without the opportunity to press any further, being directed by the small of the back out of the main reception area and into a quiet corridor. A waiter leans against the wall on his phone, registers their presence, and scurries back into the kitchen.

Shouta rounds on Hizashi, standing close so he can whisper and be heard.

“What are you doing?”Hizashi hesitates, the right words filtering to his mouth too slowly. “I came to help! He was rattling off all this crap about mathematics, man-”

“You’re my handler, you’re meant to stay out of sight and feed me information from a safe distance.”“Is this wh- you’re angry at me? Are you really pissed at me because you think that I’m not safe right now?”“I had it covered. We have a system, you broke it and I want to know why.”

“I-” Hizashi doesn’t want to answer that question. “Why did you pull me away? He was opening up-”

“No, he was getting suspicious. The ingénue act works fine, but only if you don’t prove them wrong. Now he doesn’t trust us and he knows he’s been tricked by you before.”

“OK, but, that’s not. It’s not just that, I mean-” God this is so frustrating. He shoves a hand through his hair. “Fine, listen, I was freaked out because he was being all handsy with you and I didn’t like the idea of you being at the receiving end of some creep trying to flirt with you and he’s a villain so that’s even worse and-”

“Wait-”

He’s vaguely aware that Shouta’s trying to interrupt him, but the word vomit is virtually unstoppable now. “And maybe I just felt like I should be here to mediate or maybe it’s something more, I dunno-”

“There’s someone coming-”

“Maybe I just felt like something was- wait what-?”

Before Hizashi is aware of what’s going on, he feels Shouta grab his lapel and drag him into an abrupt kiss. It lasts only a few seconds, and during the entire experience the inside of Hizashi’s head is screaming. When Shouta pulls away, Hizashi collapses against the corridor wall.

“Whuh,” is all he manages.

“Don’t freak out.” Shouta says it so evenly, like it’s that simple.

“I’m not freaking out.”

“You are freaking out. Someone was coming and you were talking about the mission.”

“Ah- yeah, right, sorry.”“Don’t apologise,” Shouta adds. “I’m sorry. That I didn’t warn you.”

And despite having broken apart from their kiss, they’re only inches away from each other. And Shouta is still holding onto Hizashi’s lapel. He’s staring at Hizashi’s lips.

There’s the sound of footsteps approaching.

“We definitely, absolutely should not make-out in plain sight in the corridor of a villian’s penthouse apartment,” Hizashi says reasonably. Before pulling him into a sloppy, desperate kiss, breathing into each other’s mouths and Shouta crowding him against the wall.

Oh god. This is happening. Wait, this is actually happening, isn’t it?

“Boys, as much as I’ve been rooting for you for the past fifteen years,” Nemuri’s voice slips into their ears, sounding quietly amused, “this could not have come at a worse time.”

Shouta pulls back immediately at the sound of her voice and bristles at the reminder that they’re being watched. Hizashi slouches against the wall, feels like he might melt into a puddle on the floor. He watches the way Shouta stares at the ground with a thoughtful crease between his brow. 

“Can we talk about this when we get home?” he whispers.

Shouta opens his mouth speechlessly. Gives a shaky nod.

They regard each other for a long moment, hands still on each other.

“Let’s get back in there,” Shouta says, at last. He looks a little off-centre, which is as ruffled as Shouta gets. Hizashi feels a hell of a lot more than a little off-centre.

Hizashi responds with a grin, and holds up his hand for a high-five. Shouta surveys his raised hand with a weary smile, and obliges.

“Let’s do this.”

[brigdh]

What did you just finish? Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. A shallow, wealth-porn, frothy bauble of a book, but one which is lots of fun. Rachel Chu and Nicholas Young are both new professors at New York University (Nicholas in history, Rachel in economics, which I have to say seems like a weird choice for a character who spends the whole book being shocked by wealth) and have been dating for about two years, when Nicholas invites Rachel to come to Singapore with him for the summer, so he can participate in his best friend's wedding and she can meet his family. Rachel does so, only to discover that Nicholas is not generically middle-class as she'd always assumed, but rich. And not, like, normal rich, you guys: crazy rich. The rest of the book consists of Rachel gawking at the possessions of Nicholas's family and friends: private jets, personal islands, hotel chains, uncounted maids and drivers and servants, clothes from every top-name designer you can image, antiques and art and mansions and skyscrapers and on and on. Not all is absurdly wealthy bliss, however: various unmarried women try to drive Rachel away so that they can claim Nicholas for themselves, and Nicholas's mother is determined to keep her out of the family. She's shocked enough that Nicholas would marry beneath himself when she assumes Rachel is one of the Taiwanese plastics Chus (such trashy new money!); you can imagine how she feels when she realizes Rachel is actually the daughter of a single-mother real estate agent from Palo Alto, California. Meanwhile, the wedding brings to town every cousin, aunt, uncle, old childhood friend, ex-partner, and business connection from around the world back to town (seriously, this book has an oppressively long character list), and Nicholas's cousin Astrid, who also fell in love outside of the Singaporean elite, is dealing with the breakdown of her own marriage. The whole thing is a bit of a forgettable guilty pleasure, the sort where most of the fun comes from watching people who have such a vastly different lifestyle than me or anyone I know, like Gossip Girl or that Downtown Abbey scene where Maggie Smith asks "What is a week-end?" – except for the fact that pretty much every speaking character is Asian. Still, even if it's silly, it's a fun, fast-moving read. I will confess that my favorite part ended up being the footnotes, where Kwan translates the occasional word or phrase in Mandarin, Malaysian, Hokkien, or other languages and explains references to Singaporean places and people. A few of the ones that made me laugh: Malay slang used to express shock or exasperation like “oh dear” or “oh my God.” Alamak and lah are the two most commonly used slang words in Singapore. (Lah is a suffix that can be used at the end of any phrase for emphasis, but there’s no good explanation for why people use it, lah.) Among Singapore’s upper crust, only two boys’ schools matter: Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) and Raffles Institution (RI). Both are consistently ranked among the top schools in the world and have enjoyed a long, heated rivalry. RI, established in 1823, is known to attract the brainy crowd, while ACS, established in 1886, is popular with the more fashionable set and somewhat perceived to be a breeding ground for snobs. Much of this has to do with the 1980 article in the Sunday Nation entitled “The Little Horrors of ACS,” which exposed the rampant snobbery among its pampered students. This led to a shamed principal announcing to stunned students (including this author) the very next morning during assembly that, henceforth, students were no longer allowed to be dropped off at the front entrance by their chauffeurs. (They had to walk up the short driveway all by themselves, unless it was raining.) Expensive watches, eyeglasses, fountain pens, briefcases, satchels, pencil boxes, stationery, combs, electronic gadgets, comic books, and any other luxury items would also be banned from school property. (But within a few months, Lincoln Lee started wearing his Fila socks again and no one seemed to notice.) The exotic Black and White houses of Singapore are a singular architectural style found nowhere else in the world. Combining Anglo-Indian features with the English Arts and Crafts movement, these white-painted bungalows with black trim detailing were ingeniously designed for tropical climes. Originally built to house well-to-do colonial families, they are now extremely coveted and available only to the crazy rich ($40 million for starters, and you might have to wait several decades for a whole family to die). Overall I'd really only recommend the book to someone in need of a mindless beach read. In particular the ending is left unresolved; I know there's a sequel, but even for a book in the midst of a series I'd expect more loose ends to be tied up than what we got here. That said, I haven't seen the movie yet, and I suspect it's the sort of story where good actors can make all the difference, simply by fleshing out these somewhat-cardboard characters. Driving to Geronimo’s Grave by Joe Lansdale. A collection of six short stories by an author mostly known for capturing the spirit of rural east Texas, both in historical and modern fiction. In the title story, a brother and sister run afoul of a bank robber in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. This one had an excellent first-person narrator and a great sense of humor. In the Mad Mountains is a surprisingly straightforward Lovecraft pastiche, with hints of the Titanic's sinking and Amelia Earhart's disappearance mixing with the cosmic horrors. There's no twists or revisionism here; you could almost mistake this one for actual Lovecraft, except that Lansdale is much better at writing well-rounded characters. Though that's a low bar. Robo Rapid is an old-fashioned, surprisingly cozy YA post-apocalyptic story – more Edgar Rice Burroughs than Hunger Games – with a girl heading out on an adventure across a vast and unknown desert. The Projectionist is darker than the other stories; a noir tale of mobsters and unrequited obsession. Everything Sparkles in Hell is probably my favorite of the six. It reminded me a bit of Django Unchained, having a similar sort of violent humor tucked into a revisionist Western. A black bounty hunter and his Native American buddy track down four murderers, at least until a man-killing grizzly bear and a massive snowstorm complicate matters. Wrestling Jesus is the only story of these that I'd before; it was published in the Dangerous Women anthology and I have to say that I really disliked it there. A bullied teen is semi-adopted by an elderly ex-wrestler, who teaches him how to fight in between preparing for his own big match – he and another man have a rivalry going back decades where they compete for the attentions of a beautiful woman. Read as a story explicitly about a 'dangerous woman' it's a disaster, since a) the woman only appears in one scene, where b) she's literally a prize to be fought over by men. Read by itself, it's a fine story about a father-son relationship. Or it would be, if Lansdale hadn't included a long afterword complaining about the bad reviews he got for the anthology. Don't write a story that so blatantly misses the point and then get upset when people say you missed the point, dude! I hate it when authors I like act like dingbats in their nonfictional writings. But with all that said, this is a very nice collection of stories, with a surprising diversity of tones and settings. I've long been a fan of Lansdale's Hap & Leonard series, but this book would make a good introduction for newcomers. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. What are you currently reading? Jade City by Fonda Lee. This book has been described as "Hong Kong gangster movie, but fantasy". I just started it this morning so I can't say more than that, but really, what more do you need?

[lark-in-ink]

Hey uh

I wrote a thing!

Good Omens/Harlots crossover.  In which Charlotte Wells becomes a pawn in one of Crowley’s schemes.  Theoretically this is part 2 of a 5+1 (five times the North/Wells family met Aziraphale or Crowley) but unfortunately I have exactly 0 words written of part one (vs parts 3, 4, and 5 which are all partially written.) so who knows if I’ll actually keep it as a 5+1. 

(rated uh, T I guess? warning for nonexplicit underage-probably-depending-on-timeline sex work as typical in Harlots.) 

To Miss Charlotte Wells. Please join me tonight at the Vauxhall Gardens. Meet at ten oclock by the east fountain.

The card was heavy, of good paper, but plain and unengraved. There was no signature. Enclosed was a ticket to the masquerade ball to be held that evening. The ticket, the card, and the gown had been delivered to the house in Covent Garden by the dressmaker's son, who had unburdened himself and disappeared before Charlotte could think to question him.

The gown was beautiful, shot silk and heavily embroidered with flowers and butterflies. There was a mask, too, in the shape of a butterfly's wings.  “Whoever could have sent it, Ma?” Charlotte asked.

Ma smiled. “An admirer, for sure. And a rich one at that. Perhaps your charms have not gone as unappreciated as you feared”

Charlotte grinned- after a glorious few months of charming men of higher wealth and standing than she or her ma had seriously dreamed of, the past few weeks had been a comparative disappointment, working out of Ma’s house in Covent Garden, fucking a string of shopkeepers  and tradesmen and clerks and all the other men of modest means who scurried around London doing the bidding of the men Charlotte was really after. She was in no danger of starving, but she knew she could do better. She had done better.

And with this ticket, she would do better once again.

The dress fit perfectly, without the need for a single adjustment- to little Lucy’s disappointment, who had run at once for her sewing kit when she'd seen the gown arrive and begged to be allowed to make the necessary alterations. Instead, Charlotte allowed her sister to style her hair into one of the more elaborate arrangements she had seen on the finer ladies of London.

When ten oclock came around and Charlotte stood in the appointed place, it was not a gentleman who approached her.  One moment she was alone, and the next a lady stood next to her. “Miss Charlotte Wells.” she murmured. “How pleased I am to see you have come.”

You’ll be even more pleased to see me come, Charlotte bit back- she might have said it if it were a gentleman, but she was rather unsure now.  It was not out of the question that she might have attracted the attentions of some aristocratic lady. It had happened before. But it was not the most likely scenario. She glanced over to see the woman who had arranged for Charlotte’s presence.

She was tall, angular and bony, and she stood with a sort of predatory grace that made Charlotte’s heart race- perhaps in fear, perhaps in increased hope that the lady was looking for an assignation of her own. Her gown spilled dark green over the black of her stomacher and petticoat, the subtle embroidered design of snakes barely visible in the flickering lanternlight.  A ruby in the shape of an apple glistened at her throat, resting enticingly between her clavicles. Her hair was a rich red, styled even more elaborately than Lucy had done Charlotte's. Her mask was of the heavier porcelain style that hid the whole upper of her face, in an etched pattern of scales. The mask’s eyes covered in a dark glass rather than open, so that no hint of her own eyes could be seen. True anonymity, rather than the pretense of it. A wise choice, if a lady wished to consort with a harlot behind her husband’s back.

“And who might you me, madam? The serpent of Eden?” Charlotte asked. She tossed her head coquettishly. “Have you come to tempt me then?”

The lady smirked. “Not my intention, though I suspect I’ve done so just the same. But no, I’m afraid. Your role tonight is not Eve, but the apple. Come walk with me.”

They linked arms- Charlotte shivered at the contact- and strolled slowly around the winding paths of the gardens towards the center of the merriment. “Do you see that gentleman there? In that terrible stag costume?"

Charlotte looked. The gentleman in question's coat was not so terrible. His hat, on the other hand, would have been questionable at the best of times. As it was, the poorly-stuffed stag’s head was being pulled askew by the weight of it’s antlers. The effect was unfortunate.

“That’s Lord Exton, a member of the house of Lords,” the woman said. “Tonight at midnight, several members of Parliament will be meeting in secret to discuss certain bills and issues. My purpose tonight to to see that Lord Exton does not attend this meeting. I would like you to see that he is... otherwise occupied for the duration.”

"And how should I do that?" Charlotte said, as obvious as the answer was.

The woman smiled in that predatory way again. "I'll leave that to your discretion." She guided them towards a less well-lit path, As they entered the shadows where the lights were too sparsely spaced, she reached into her pocket slit, and pulled out two pouches that jingled promisingly. "Five guinnies now. Five more once the deed is done. Meet me tomorrow afternoon at St James Park. Tell nobody."

Charlotte held out her hand and the woman dropped one of the pouches into it. "I'm still charging him, as well," Charlotte said.

The woman grinned.  "I would hardly expect otherwise, Miss Wells. Best of luck."  She disappeared into the crowd without another word.

It was easy- not that Charlotte had been worried. She’d been charming culls for five years. Still, it was one thing to know that she could easily go into a place like this and get the company and coin of one of the many wealthy men here- another thing to have so specific a quarry. But in the end he was easy, a middle-aged man of very little wit or character and all the usual appetites. Charlotte wondered a little, as she smiled and charmed him, if she might charm him into being her keeper.

But then, maybe a man who someone wished to keep out of politics was not someone Charlotte wished to be so dependent on, even temporarily. She would not reject him if he came to seek her out. But she also would not chase after him, not when there were so many better prospects in London.  

When Charlotte ventured to St. James Park the next afternoon at the appointed place.  The woman was feeding the ducks.  Her dress was modest, high-necked and long sleeved. All in black, though too ornate and rich to be that of a Puritan. A black silk veil fell from the front of her hat obscuring her face. Charlotte wondered if she was recently widowed. A widow in mourning would, of course, be expected to abstain from entertainments like masquerade balls- but then, perhaps that explained her choice of mask.

"Most respectable ladies would prefer not to be seen talking to a harlot," Charlotte said as she approached from behind.

The woman betrayed no surprise. "While their husbands carry on as they please? That seems awfully unfair. Anyway, I hope nobody could accuse me of being respectable."

Charlotte smiled a little at this. “Oh? Do you often carry on with harlots, then? I do love being embroiled in a good scandal.”

“You’re a persistent little minx,” the woman chided. “I suppose you got the job done, then?”

Charlotte sighed. “Yes, yes. Your troublesome lord spent the night embraced by my thighs and I assure you politics was the furthest thing from his mind. What little he has of one, at least. Am I allowed to know what grand scheme of yours I’ve helped to orchestrate?”

“Oh, not my own scheme, just a favor for a friend,” the woman said. “And no. Not unless you manage to glean the truth from the web of lies that is London gossip. I wouldn’t try too hard.”

“And my payment?”

The woman once again produced the jingling pouch from her skirts. “Five guineas, as promised. And a bonus.”

The purse contained five guineas. Charlotte counted them raised her eyebrow “A bonus?”

“From my friend.  It will be- a surprise.” The woman smirked and walked away.  Charlotte secreted the coins in her own pocket and watched her go with a lingering disappointment.

Over the next few weeks Charlotte read portions of the newspaper that she would never have ordinarily studied so intently, wondering what it was her actions had caused or prevented. But how could she tell? The only clue she had was the importance of the absence of one man, not his involvement. Besides, over the next few weeks, she found herself easily distracted. Her luck had continued it’s upward turn. Some of this could have been the influence of the “friend” the lady had mentioned. But least half of her luck was just that- luck. A chance meeting nobody could have predicted.  And an absurdly long string of wins at the gambling table.  

She never saw the strange lady again.

[equalmeasurefiction]

2.1.6.1- Unforgivable

Equal Measure Navigation

2.1.6.2- Realities

Part 1 Master Post

<> <> <>

Trigger Warning: Misogyny, Crude Language, Shaming

The ocean was rough that night.  The wind whipped over the water as it pulled black storm clouds toward the shore.  It wasn’t a good time to be at sea, but nowadays trade ships rarely paid attention to storms.  Not when it was possible to load a vessel down with capable water benders who could help ensure that the craft, its crew, and its cargo reached its destination safely no matter what the weather conditions. Nevertheless, it was not a comfortable passage.

Tonraq sighed tiredly as he lay awake in the dark on a small cot near his wife’s small bed as he felt the ship heave and toss on the high waves.  He was tired—he’d secured passage on the ship by offering his expertise as a water bender and had spent the day hard at work managing the waves.  But, even though his body felt heavy with fatigue and he was sick from exhaustion, he couldn’t quite bring himself to close his eyes and sleep.  His mind was abuzz with fear for what awaited them at their destination.

But most of all he worried about Senna.

These conditions couldn’t be good for her.  He knew she hated his hovering, but he worried about her.  After all, Korra had gotten her tendency to charge into dangerous situations from both of her parents.

He turned to face the cot beside him.  He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her breathing.

She didn’t sound like she was in pain…

But what if she was in pain?  What if she just didn’t want him to worry?  What if something was wrong?!

“Are you awake?” His heart leapt into his throat at the sound of her voice.

How did she always know when he was awake and worried about her?

He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he replied. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright.”

He could just hear the edge of a smirk on her voice.  She knew he was fretting about her well-being and she was teasing him.  A small way of letting him know that she was alright.

Nevertheless, he checked again. “Are you sure?” 

Senna chuckled.  “Yes.  The rocking is terrible, but I’m fine.”  She paused and then asked, “Who let these amateurs captain a ship, huh?” she barely kept the laughter out of her voice.

Tonraq snickered and reached out through the darkness.  He found her small hand and their fingers tangled.  He smiled sadly as he felt her soft skin against his own.

She’d been so strong… and now she was so fragile.  Even after all this time, he feared that even the smallest accident could take her from him forever.

“We’ll be in Republic City soon,” he reassured her—well, it was more to reassure himself, but he said it aloud for her benefit.

“It’ll be a few days, I know,” Senna teased. “Did you send that message to my silly cousin?” she asked.

Tonraq chuckled.  “Tenzin probably already knows that we’re on our way.”

“Good.”

They fell silent, fingers intertwined in the dark, as the ship tossed on high waves.  But this wasn’t one of the warm, comfortable, quiet moments they usually shared.  The questions and unspoken fears weighed heavily on them both.

Finally, unable to bear it any longer he asked, “Your back doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“You set me up fine, Tonraq,” she told him.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m positive.” He could hear the indulgent smile in her voice.

“Then why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Someone’s heart’s been pounding like an anvil…” she paused and considered her choice of words.  Then added, “or like a hammer from that shipyard he works at.”

“Ah…” He laughed. “I guess you caught me.”

She squeezed his fingers gently.  “I’m glad you’re as worried as I am.  It makes me feel less like a silly old woman.”

Tonraq sat up and slid his hand along her arm to find her shoulder in the dark.  “You’re not a silly old woman.” His fingers traced their way up her neck and came up to cup her cheek. “You’re my beautiful wife, whom I love very much.”

Senna laughed.  “Flatterer.”

He swung his legs out of the cot as he sat up, and leaned down to press a quick kiss to her forehead.  Then, with a smile, he let his forehead rest gently against her own.

She reached up and gently stroked the side of his face with her hand, her fingers rubbing against his thick beard.  She giggled softly as he hummed with pleasure at her touch.  They remained like that for a moment, simply enjoying being in each other’s presence.

Then, Tonraq’s smile faded and he pulled away.  “I’m keeping you up,” he said.

“It’s alright,” she said, “I’ll probably get tired eventually.  Worrying does that if I recall correctly…”

He let out a heavy, anxious sigh. “Senna…”

“You can’t scold me, you’re just as worried as I am!” Even though it was meant to sound like a joke, he knew that she was being defensive.

“I am,” he said as he rose to his feet, “which is why I’m going to go for a walk.”

“Oh?” He could hear the teasing smile in her voice.

“Yes.” He made his way to the door of their tiny room—the best they could manage.

“When I was stretching my legs earlier,” Senna said loudly, “I saw a cozy room just a little way down one of the halls.  There was a radio in it.”

Tonraq chuckled.  “Are you saying I should try and find out what’s going on?”

“Please.”

The desperation in her voice damn nearly broke his heart.

His eyes slid closed and frowned and he nodded. “Of course.”

He hoped to every spirit he could think of that Korra would be alright when they got there.

“Tonraq?”

He stopped dead in his tracks.  He wanted to turn back, to go to her and hold her close and tell her that it would be alright, but he knew that it wasn’t the time.  They both knew better than to lie about the way things were.  Lying never helped anyone and it was only comforting for a little while.

Nevertheless, he could hear the vulnerability in her voice as she said: “Come back with…” she faltered and he heard her breath hitch in her throat, “with good news if you can.” Tonraq considered her request.  He realized he was quiet for too long. “I can’t make any promises…”

“I know.”

He turned to smile comfortingly down at her, but stopped as soon as he realized that she couldn’t see him.  There was no point in offering comforting expressions to a black void.  So, he said the only thing he could:

“I love you.”

She replied, “I love you too.”

And then he stepped out into the dimly-lit passageway, checked his pocket to be sure he had the keys to the room, and closed the door.

Tonraq stared at the metal door for a moment and reached up to massage the back of his neck.  He let his head drop and sighed heavily as he worked a big knot he’d just discovered.  It’d come up on him earlier when he’d been on deck, clearing the waves for the ship.

As the boat heaved again, Tonraq found his gaze drawn upward.  It felt like this shift was getting worn out.  Maybe he’d go up and put himself to use again.  It was better than wasting his time sitting around on the lower decks.

But before he went topside and worked himself into complete exhaustion, he needed to find that little room his wife mentioned.  He’d promised to bring her news.  And he was itching for an update anyways.

So, he set out to find that warm little room with the radio that Senna had mentioned to him.  He suspected he knew which room she was talking about—it was on the deck above this one.  A cozy little space where sailors and passengers could congregate and listen to whatever news a dingy little radio in the middle of the room managed to broadcast.

As he walked, along the long, dimly lit passageway to the stairs to the upper deck, Tonraq found his eyes and hands drawn to the walls which surrounded him.  His searching fingers dragged across the smooth metal surface as he took in the form of the interior of the ship.  These hulking, iron cargo vessels always fascinated him.  Their construction was so different from the smaller wooden boats he typically worked on.

Wood was a versatile material that could be shaped and bent with the correct application of heat and water.  There was a warmth to wood that cool, hard metal lacked.  And yet, as Tonraq paused to rest his palm on the smooth steel, letting himself feel the deep hum of the engine, he felt that there was something profoundly beautiful about the cold, solid substance.

He suspected that it was because it reminded him of ice.

He’d never actually done any repair or construction work on a metal ship.  The only work he’d ever been asked to do was scrape barnacles off the bottom of the hull.  Demeaning work, but the merchants who came down south with barnacle-caked hulls paid damn well for a scraping.

Most metal vessels were owned by the Fire Nation or the Earth Nation.  While the Northern Water Tribe had purchased several, they were still a rarity in the South.  But that was because the South’s economy relied predominantly on agriculture and fishing. They cultivated the food and shipped it north to the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom where scattered denizens of the Southern Tribe still lived in the wake of the disruption of the hundred year war.

Tonraq specialized in fishing vessels—small boats for fishermen, hunters, and occasionally the recreation of the absurdly wealthy.  The Southern shipyards were hardly the most popular with the big-name industrialists, but when someone needed help with anything, from an antique Northern Water Tribe elephant whale bone and tiger seal-skin canoe to the wooden filigree on a ridiculous yacht with ‘customized hydro-jet features,’ they came down to visit Tonraq and his compatriots.

And he loved every second of his work.  The living materials—bone, skin, and wood coming together to form Water Tribe vessels as they had been made for generations…

Yet the idea of constructing something like this metal ship intrigued Tonraq.  He couldn’t help but wonder what it would take to create a craft of this size and magnitude.  Even this low-quality steam freighter was easily twice the size of the kind of ships he worked on.  How many men would the work take?  How much fire?  Would they need metal benders to finish something like this?

Tonraq smiled wistfully and lightly tapped his knuckles against the metal.

What would it take to build a ship like this?

Talents that he, a mere Water Tribe naval architect, sorely lacked.

He chuckled and moved on.

He found the dimly lit, narrow stairwell to the upper decks and made his way up to the next floor.  As soon as he opened the door to the next level, he heard a tinny voice echoing down the hallway.  That would be the radio.

He took a deep breath and glanced around cautiously.  Sometimes people on the upper decks got touchy if people from lower decks came up to skulk around.  This deck was reserved for crew and passengers who could afford a decent room.  He hadn’t noticed it earlier, but the hallway lighting and the air were both far better up here and the walls were cleaner.  He’d have to bring Senna up later for a bit of fresh air.

As he made his way down the hallway toward the room with the radio, his fingers absently reached out to trace the metal panels again and his eyes drifted to where he was making contact.  It wasn’t exactly the best craftsmanship he’d seen, but metal boats weren’t built to be epitomes of beauty and skill, they were built for their durability, functionality, and…

He recognized the tinny voice on the radio.

Tonraq’s shoulders slumped and he bit back a groan and rolled his eyes.  He could already feel the headache coming on.  He nearly turned around to walk back down to the lower deck right then and there.

It was his younger brother, Unalaq.

The Northern Chieftain was running his damn mouth again.

He reached up, ran a hand over his face, and reminded himself that he’d promised Senna that he’d listen for news about their daughter’s safety.  He took a deep breath to steel himself against anything his brother might say that would… aggravate him and continued up the hall.  But he walked a little more slowly.

There was no love lost between Tonraq and Unalaq.  The situation between them had been tense for a long, long time.  For his part, Tonraq couldn’t understand why his brother hated him.  All he knew was that from the moment he’d been banished from the North, Unalaq had set out to make his older brother’s life as difficult and miserable as possible.  And since Tonraq did not know what he’d done and Unalaq refused to explain anything, the ex-crown prince was left to stew in his frustration and ire.

He supposed that it was possible that Unalaq feared him as a rival for the throne. It was the only explanation that Tonraq could fathom.  But that fear was entirely misplaced.

Of course, during the first few months of exile hardly a day had passed that he hadn’t thought and dreamt of how things might have been… He’d spent hours imagining himself as chief, fantasizing about being on the throne, and visualizing all the great good he’d have done.  But then he’d met Senna and they’d fallen in love, and slowly all his old desires and regrets had faded away.  By the time Korra had come along, Tonraq’s dreams of a life as the Chief of the North had almost entirely vanished.

Nowadays, there were rare, brief moments when he contemplated the course his life might have taken if he hadn’t been banished.  However, he found that he didn’t like the man he suspected he might have been.  Occasionally, he had nightmares about waking up in a room in the Northern Palace that he didn’t recognize, next to a woman he’d never met, surrounded by men who secretly hated him—as if his life with Senna and Korra was nothing more than beautiful dream.  In his worst nightmares, he met Senna, but she was with another man…

Those were the absolute worst.

No, Unalaq had nothing to fear from him.  He was glad he wasn’t the Great Chief of the Northern tribe.  He liked his job as a naval architect and he appreciated that his dealings with Southern politics were limited to acting as a local administrator and advisor.  He had enough tough calls to make at the shipyards.  Dealing with the backstabbing and underhanded behavior of politicians just seemed like too much right now.

Tonraq had tried to explain his feelings to his brother again and again.  He’d written hundreds of letters to the Northern Chief explaining that he didn’t grudge him the throne, that he liked his job as a humble shipyard worker, and that he was genuinely happy.  He loved the South, he loved his wife, and he adored his daughter—a strong, fierce girl who happened to be the Avatar!

He had so much to be proud of.  He couldn’t imagine begrudging his brother the throne and all the responsibilities that came with it!

But no matter how eloquent the missive, Unalaq had never once been moved.  And while Tonraq didn’t resent Unalaq for his seat and title, he did begrudge his brother for the nearly endless barrage of attacks on his happiness, safety, and family.

When he’d written his brother about his happiness with Senna, no less than five strapping Northern men showed up to try and steal her away from him.  When he’d mentioned that he was thinking of settling in the South, his brother had tried to influence the Southern politicians to banish him from that region as well…

And then there were the attempts on his life.  The frame-ups that had landed him in jail with unsavory characters who’d been paid to put an end to him, the assassination attempts… Each instance providing just enough evidence to point to the Northern Chief, but never offering enough proof to let Tonraq call out his brother.

By the time Korra had been born, Tonraq had long since stopped trying to talk to his brother about the bad blood between them.  He’d made peace with the fact that Unalaq hated him and had decided that if he couldn’t change his brother’s feelings he’d just return resentment with resentment… without the attempted murder of course…

So, when Unalaq had shown up at their house to offer congratulations about Korra being the Avatar both Tonraq and Senna had been less than hospitable.  Unfortunately, all their attempts to keep Unalaq away from Korra hadn’t been entirely successful.  He still insisted on visiting the South Pole every year and making a nuisance of himself—posturing and lecturing like some kind of Guru.

Tonraq hadn’t thought that he could resent his brother more after the assassination attempts.  However, Unalaq’s arrogance and holier-than-thou behavior and efforts at being ‘friendly’ with Korra had succeeded in getting under his skin like nothing else.  Even now the sound of his brother’s dry, dull voice roused his ire…

[…Earth Queen has mentioned that the Avatar’s guardians failed to adequately protect her.  I am inclined to agree with that statement considering the current situation…]

He knew he was close.  He could hear his brother clearly now.  He could hear the soft hush of a small assembly of people in a room with an open door just up head.

Tonraq heaved another deep and heavy sigh as he pushed his way into a small, well-lit, crowded room.  He pushed himself into the assembly and waded through the swell of people to stand close enough that he could hear the small radio.

He found himself elbow-to-elbow with a friendly-looking, bearded sailor, who was sporting a rather beaten looking rain slick.  He leaned down to the man next to him, “What’s he talking about?”

The man glanced at him.  He was frowning deeply.  “It’s a broadcast from earlier today,” the man told him, half-whistling his words through the few teeth he had left, “They’re replaying it for those who missed it.  You know, rek-cordings?  New-fangled technology-trick.”

Tonraq nodded, “I know what recordings are, I just want to know what he’s talking about.”

The bearded sailor opened his mouth to reply, but the tall, hard-looking woman in front of them turned sharply and shushed them.

[Shouldn’t we address the incident?  Shouldn’t the world know what the young Avatar has been subjected to while held by Equalists?  Shouldn’t they understand the depth of contempt the Equalists have for tradition, order, and balance?  I think the world should know what kind of disrespectful monsters these men and women really are.]

Tonraq grimaced and bit back a groan of frustration and rage.

Uncle Unalaq was taking an interest in his niece again.

He found himself recalling the countless occasions that his brother had tried to worm his way into the family’s good graces immediately after Korra had been declared the Avatar.  He’d tried to go through Senna, Tenzin, the White Lotus leaders, various other national leaders… he’d even tried to bribe Tonraq.

That hadn’t gone over well…

But Tonraq had learned the truth about his brother over the long years of putting up with every form of political and extra-political fuckery his brother could throw at him.  Unalaq only took an interest in people or things who would give him power.  And when he was done leveraging those people and things, he’d get rid of them.  Often in the most brutal fashion imaginable.

Tonraq had dedicated a lot of time and energy to keeping his daughter away from Unalaq.  He’d made sure that her connection to the Northern chief was kept out of the papers and he’d gone so far as to purposefully neglect to mention his connection with the young Avatar in any correspondence with old friends and allies. His daughter didn’t need Unalaq in her life.

But now, the Northern Chief was taking a public interest in Korra and Tonraq knew from experience that it could only mean one thing:

Unalaq saw an opening.

Tonraq clenched his teeth and folded his arms in front of his chest in disapproval.  He could already tell that his chiefly brother was about to give him and his family a lot of trouble…

[And then there is what you have told us all, Tenzin.  The Avatar herself saw this Amon strip the bending from a group of powerful benders.   We must assume, therefore, that Amon has this ability and that his claims are true—that he has stripped Korra of her bending and, in doing so, stripped her of her title as the Avatar.]

Tonraq’s brown creased in concern.  He knew he’d just heard the crux of Unalaq’s plan, but he couldn’t quite make sense of it…

What did Unalaq have to gain by stripping Korra of her title?

Over the radio, Tenzin let out a squawk of shock.  [What?]

Tenzin’s outburst was echoed throughout the room by many men.  The soft murmuring of shocked and confused voices filled the space, but others were listening solemnly and quietly, brows furrowed in pre-emptive concern, their eyes fixed on the box.  He could tell that they already knew what was coming.  They were the ones who’d heard it before, but hadn’t quite understood.

[What do you mean, Chief?] the announcer asked.

Tonraq turned his attention back to the radio.  His eyes were riveted to the small box.  Its scuffed and dented metal panels suggested that the little device had seen many nights of gambling and bad bets.  And all Tonraq could think was that it was a good thing Senna wasn’t in the room, because she’s have picked up the little box and smashed it by now.

Tonraq shook his head and smiled.  But the memory of his wife brought him back to the issue at hand.  She wanted news. He was here to get some.

Unfortunately, he still wasn’t sure what Unalaq had in store for them.  At this point, he could only guess that it had something to do with taking away Korra’s title as the Avatar.

But that made no sense!

If Korra was no longer the Avatar, then Unalaq had no reason to come after her.  So why would he even bring it up, except to gloat at the fact that Korra was just a girl from the South.  Just Tonraq’s daughter.

Just… Tonraq’s daughter…

…

… but who was Tonraq?

A chill ran down his spine.

If she was only his daughter—the daughter of an exiled prince…

His eyes widened and mouth fell open in shock and horror as understanding washed over him.  As the Avatar, Korra could not be made a tool of a single state.  She was of all nations and separate from all nations, because she belonged to all people…

But as Tonraq’s daughter she was a valuable tool for the Northern Throne.

He didn’t remember all the particulars, but the children of exiled princes and princesses were usually required to return to the capital to live in the royal house.  There they would serve the throne as political pawns to be bartered, deployed as hostages in place of royal-blooded children, or even married off to other nations to help cement an alliance… And the chief retained absolute authority over all of them.

The northern chief continued speaking: [As I understand it, Korra is no longer the Avatar.  Amon has usurped her title and made himself into a Dark Avatar—a being who will bring nothing but Darkness and Chaos into the world.]

Tonraq drew in a sharp deep breath as he realized that his brother was lying.  Unalaq was always blathering on about how the Avatar was more than a bender and how her spiritual development was vital.  He didn’t believe for a second that the loss of her bending removed her title.  He was just saying it to make the rest of the world think that it was true…

Because once everyone else believed it, Unalaq would be able to take Korra away from the White Lotus and her family easily.  And once Unalaq had Korra in his power, he’d manipulate her and use her—just like he used everyone else.

Unalaq had found the leverage he needed to get his hands on the Avatar…

From there it was only a matter of time before Unalaq managed to do some real damage…

Tonraq’s brow knitted, the corners of his mouth turned down sharply.  He could feel his fingers biting into his flesh.  If Unalaq thought that he could take his daughter away from him, he had another thing coming…

[Could you explain your stance a little more clearly, Chief Unalaq?]  The announcer sounded cautious, almost afraid.

Tonraq didn’t blame him.  The poor man didn’t know who he was dealing with.  Unalaq was a cunning, low-down eelsnake.

But Tonraq had a good sense of how low his brother would go to get his way.

Unalaq clarified his previous statement. [If Avatar Korra’s ability to bend has been taken away, if it is indeed gone forever, then she is no longer the Avatar.  She is no more powerful than any other ordinary, non-bender girl.]

“So… the Avatar’s not the Avatar anymore?” a woman in a heavy, tattered coat asked.

Tonraq shook his head.  “That’s not true and he knows it.”

“Well, you heard the chief,” another voice commented, “If he says she’s not… well, he knows about those things, you know?”

Tonraq looked around the room and took in the faces of the men and women assembled here.  They were wide eyed and ignorant.  They’d never had to sit through hours of lecture on the nature of the Avatar.  They only knew what they were told and believed their leaders without question.

For the first time, Tonraq felt afraid… If people didn’t know what was going on, if people believed what Unalaq said… Unalaq would take the Avatar and no one would stop him!

Unalaq began to speak again.  [Not only does this reveal the depth of the so-called Equalist Revolution’s hypocrisy—their treatment of a single, defenseless, young non-bending woman has been nothing short of contemptible—it shows the depths of their derision for the bending population.  Even ex-benders will not be spared violent abuse.]

Unalaq’s words drew another reaction from the assembly.  There was a low, murmur that spread through the small assembly—like the growl of a cornered dog.

Tonraq’s eyes scanned the room again, taking in the sight of creased brows, hard mouths, and fierce eyes. 

The crowd was getting angry.

Clearly there was more to this situation.  This wasn’t just a power grab. Declaring that Korra wasn’t the Avatar and therefore implying that he had right to her was one thing. Riling up benders across the globe… that was something else…

So, it was a multi-point agenda.  How fun.

Tonraq glared at the radio and hoped his brother could feel his anger.  He wanted his younger brother to know that his big brother was onto his tricks and that he wouldn’t get away with it… not this time…

Unalaq ploughed on.  [I cannot emphasize enough that Amon and his followers are essentially forcibly holding a young water tribe girl against her will.]

Tonraq drew a deep breath.  The way that Unalaq was talking about Korra… like she was a damsel or a princess who’d been plucked from a palace…  As if she were the helpless, hapless victim of Amon and his equalists… That was dangerous rhetoric…  Those were fighting words in the North and South.  And Tonraq could tell that it was affecting the audience…

The murmuring in the room hadn’t quieted, if anything the crowd becoming more agitated.  The water tribe men were getting worked up about all this talk of young water tribe girls being held by foreign men.  He thought he caught a comment about the ‘great dangers’ of Republic City—a Northern sentiment about how young girls shouldn’t be allowed into major cities or areas where they might encounter foreign men or mingle with men outside the tribe.

And then Tonraq heard a few unique water tribe words, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

Blood.

Honor.

Family.

His mouth fell open in shock.

These were the foundations of the Water Tribe.  The heart of their culture.

Tonraq’s gaze snapped back to the radio.  His eyes were wide with shock and horror.  He gaped at the little box that sat unobtrusively on a small table against the far wall.

He wouldn’t dare!  It was an act of depravity!

He wouldn’t dare use the oldest and most sacred traditions to-

Unalaq continued.  [Now, you must understand that within my tribe such actions against a young woman are considered deplorable.  I shouldn’t even have to begin describing how inappropriate this situation is, particularly for a young, vulnerable, water tribe girl… But to add insult to injury, Korra is my niece.]

Tonraq’s mouth closed with an audible click and teeth connected with teeth and proceeded to clench.  He drew his next, sharp breath through his teeth as his jaw tightened and his eyes widened.  His fingers dug into the flesh of his arm and his back straightened before bending back, making him appear even larger than he was before.

All around him, people muttered and whispered and wondered… and it was all just loud enough that he could hear it.

“You don’t think…?”

“He

is

traditional…”

“The girl is…?”

“It’s war he’s after…”

And through it all, Tonraq kept telling himself: Unalaq wouldn’t dare… not that… you can’t take that back… you can never take it back… you’ll lose the throne forever… your line will be disgraced…

And even as the small assembly chattered, Unalaq [In other words,] Unalaq continued, [this man is holding a young Water Tribe noblewoman against her will.  We have no idea what treatment she is receiving, but if she has been violated or experienced unusual harm it is a matter of family and tribal honor.]

Tonraq closed his eyes tightly.  “Don’t do this.” He murmured softly, “You can’t take it back if you say it, if you do it, you can’t take it back.  Don’t do this…”

But why would he do this?  If he went ahead and made this an issue of family honor and declared revenge, then he would have to launch a full-scale attack on Republic City!  Thousands would die!  He couldn’t possibly want to destroy the Capital City of an entire country just to get his hands on the Avatar!  Republic City was a beautiful place, a major trade hub in the region, and a bastion of progress and industrial development! 

Unalaq couldn’t be that crazy!  Sure, he had that whole thing about the spirits and clung to stifling traditional values but it wasn’t like…

… it wasn’t like…

… oh, who did he think he was kidding?  It was exactly like that!

Tonraq closed his eyes and reached up pinched the bridge of his nose.  Oh spirits, had he really forgotten what kind of man his brother was?  He let out a long, heavy sigh through his nose.

Unalaq resented any and all forms of progress, kept a court of war-hawks, and favored traditional laws over any progressive efforts.  He was so traditional that it was said that some of his new laws were even more conservative than the old traditional ones.  He hated major industries, looked on new technology with suspicion, and many in his cabinet regarded the United Republic as the source of the North’s economic decline—because it was ‘stealing’ trade and markets from them…

Unalaq said: [Unfortunately, no one has seen or heard from Korra to ascertain her wellbeing and safety.  What we have observed, however, is how these so-called Equalilsts treat her.  I fear I must assume the worst.  After all, her public humiliation was a stark revelation about the kind of men and women that make up the Equalist movement.]

“Fucking hell, brother…” Tonraq groaned softly.

“… brother…?” a voice from nearby echoed in surprise.

Tonraq suddenly felt eyes on him.  He did not flinch away from the curious stare of the assembly.  He had nothing to hide from these people.  He was not ashamed of his heritage.

Of his brother, maybe, but not of his heritage.

[A violation of filial honor cannot, will not, be tolerated and so I hereby declare a Blood War on Amon, his family, and every Equalist, bender or non-bender, who serves under him.]

“No!” A withered, crackling voice called out from the back of the room. “He can’t do that!”

Someone near the front shouted: “Quiet down old man!”

“I have family in the city!  He can’t do that!” the old man cried.

“Too late, this speech is from hours ago!  The edict is done!  It’s his right as chief!” Another chimed in.

The woman in front of Tonraq broke in.  “Pipe down!”

“He’ll kill my son and his wife!  My grandchildren!” the old man howled.

“Get over it old timer!” the man in the corner snarled.

“Shut up!” the woman barked “We’re trying to listen!”

A warm hand gently touched Tonraq’s arm. “You’re his brother?”

Tonraq knew it was the old-timer standing beside him from the way his words whistled between his teeth.  He didn’t look at him, but nodded silently.

[As a man, as a leader, my honor is at stake.  If I do not adhere to the laws of my people, I cannot call myself a man.  My people, my loyal kinsfolk, I address you now: I am your chief.  My honor is your honor.  My word is the law of the Water Tribe.  I have spoken on this matter.]

Tonraq groaned softly at Unalaq’s words.  This was an invocation of old traditions.  This was calling on the sacred compact between chief and tribe that was respected above all others.  It was something that every man in the Water Tribe knew—grandfathers whispered into the ears of eager grandsons who dreamt of being heroes. These were words that would rally the fighting spirit of every Water Tribe boy and man who dreamed of being ‘one of the great ones.’ 

It was a call to die for the nation.

One that no one would dare ignore—not when it was about blood and honor.  Not when it was about family.  Any who tried to revoke it would be censured, punished by their community.  They would suffer for reneging the call of the chief.

And Unalaq was exploiting it for his own gains.  He would send every man of Water Tribe descent out to die for his cause, just so he could have the Avatar in his power.

It was so despicably petty and selfish.

Tenzin’s voice emerged again, [Unalaq, I know you’re angry, but a full declaration of war is too far.]

Ah… Tenzin.  Tonraq grimaced and shook his head.  As always, he didn’t know the stakes.

[I will not back down,] Unalaq said, [I have spoken.  I have made my intentions known.  Words spoken cannot be taken back.]

Only the people of the Water Tribe would understand that Unalaq could not back down.  Once a Blood War was called, there could be no other option.  The Water Tribe Chief had literally put his dick on the line.

“I’m with Unalaq!” A man shouted. “These so-called equalists need to learn their place!”

Another voice near Tonraq spoke up, “Are you really the Avatar’s father?”

Tonraq glanced down at the man who was asking him.  He was another older-looking man with a tanned and heavily lined face—the face of a man who all but lived on these freighter boats.  White hair peeked out from beneath a black cap and blue eyes peered from beneath thick bushy white brows.  The old man’s rain slick was worn and, it seemed, couldn’t quite protect the old man from the cold and wet of the sea and sky.  The chill of the ocean wind seemed to radiate off his small, frail form.

Tonraq frowned in sympathy at the old man. He probably had friends and family in the great port city.  The fear of loss must be terrifying.

He gave the old man an honest answer: “Yes.”

The man took hold of Tonraq’s arm with shaking hands. “You have to stop him,” he said, his voice pleading.  “You have to do something!  Say something!  You can’t let him do this!”

Tonraq bowed his head and looked away, ashamed. “A declaration of a Blood War cannot be revoked.  And even if I could come up with a way to change this outcome, he would never listen to me.”

“You can’t let him!” the old man insisted.

“Yeah, so?” another snapped from across the room. “They’re going to war.  Everyone’s going to war.”

Tonraq looked up and spotted the speaker, an Earth Kingdom man.  He wouldn’t know what Unalaq’s words meant.  He’d take them for just another declaration of war—not a call to the entire Tribe to pick up every weapon and lay siege to Republic City and leave nothing behind.

A woman’s voice called out: “No.  You don’t understand.  A Blood War is a call to annihilate the enemy!  Unalaq wants to wipe the city off the map!”

Everyone began talking at once.  Voices clamored as people began to panic.

“What?!”

“No!”

“He can’t do that!”

“The Four Nations will stop him!”

An old man climbed up to stand above the crowd on a low stool.  “It’s an old and obscure law!” He lectured to the crowd.  He pointed to Tonraq. “You know it, because you’re his brother! The exiled prince!”

A gasp rippled through the room.  Eyes turned to look at Tonraq.  There was shock and surprise in the faces of the crowd.

The old man tapped his own chest with pride. “I know it, because I remember the stories!  And the Four Nations won’t know until Unalaq’s submerged the whole of Republic City!”

The crowd began speaking all at once again.  Each voice drowning out at least one other in the din they made.

“Submerged!?”

“But that would destroy everything!”

“That’s the point!” The old man on the chair shouted.

“Hey, that’s where my home is!  I’ve got family there!”

“Me too!”

A man turned on Tonraq, “What does your brother think he’s doing?” he demanded angrily.

Tonraq looked around the assembled room.  What could he say besides the truth: “He’s going to use this to steal my daughter, the Avatar, from the White Lotus, and destroy the biggest economic rival of the North.”

He should have chosen his words more carefully.  He’d given them more information and from that came more questions, confusion, and half-considered judgement.

“What?”

“You’re the Avatar’s father?!”

“How could you let this happen!”

“Can’t you control her?”

“She’s the Avatar!  It’s not his job to manage her!”

“But she’s his daughter!”

“The White Lotus manage the Avatar!”

“What are they doing, huh!?”

From the back of the room, a voice shouted, “She’s not the Avatar anymore!”

Heads twisted in the direction of the voice.  There was the soft sound of metal scraping against metal as a chair was pushed back.  Tonraq heard someone approaching.  The crowd parted as a lean, mean-looking water tribe man came to stand in front of him.  He had too many scars and he was missing an eye—probably from a fight he’d lost.

The man sneered at Tonraq, revealing two rows of yellowed, rotten teeth.  “She’s a cheap whore who’s been all used up by Amon and his equalists now, isn’t she?”

Tonraq’s shoulder blades dropped down his back to hug his ribs as he straightened. His massive arms unfolded as his body flexed and tensed.  “What did you just say?” he asked, daring the man to say what he’d just said again.

Apparently, the idiot couldn’t take a hint, because he leaned forward and snarled: “That bitch should have known her place.  Shouldn’t have been traipsing around Republic City going wild.  She deserves what happened to her.  Now her uncle is going to make sure she can’t drag the reputation of the noble house of the north down any further…”

Tonraq’s head tilted back and he looked down his nose at the tiny man.  “Say that again…,” he growled.

“I said,” the man leaned up to glare at him “your daughter is a fucking whore who deserves to die for bringing dishonor on the noble house of the North.”

Tonraq didn’t even think about it.  He hit the man square in the face.  No bending, no fancy moves, just a clean, hard blow to the face.

The crowd recoiled immediately.  The small, mean man tumbled across the metal floor to sprawl like a rag doll at the feet of the assembly.

Tonraq looked around the room calmly.  The crowd had pulled away from him after that brief altercation.  He had the attention of the people in this room, he may as well put it to good use.

“Listen,” he said.  “I know exactly what my brother, Uanlaq is planning and if you think for a second that I will let him get away with it, you’re wrong.” 

He took a deep, slow breath and squared himself to face the people in this room who were all looking at him with wide, expectant eyes.  “The Avatar is more than a bender and Unalaq cannot simply deny her status as a bridge between the human and spirit realms.  He cannot use her as an excuse to take out a city that is an economic rival.  He cannot use this as an excuse to take the Avatar away from her guardians and bring her into the power of a single nation.  There are international laws.  Not even a chief of the Water Tribe is permitted to break those laws. If he tries, then it is my duty and the duty of the Four Nations to remind him that he must respect them.”

A quiet murmur began in the room.  Tonraq thought he saw a few eyes light up.  He turned away sharply.

As he took his leave, he heard someone else speak up, “I don’t know anything about the Avatar, but I do know one thing: you don’t cross Tonraq, the exiled prince of the North, the Polar Bear Dog General of the Northern Army and get away with it!  If things had been different, you’d be swearing to his good name, instead of Unalaq’s!  And his daughter, the Avatar would be heir to the Northern throne!”

Tonraq winced as he began making his way quickly down the hall.  He kept his head down and his eyes averted.  He didn’t want to be remembered or recognized by anyone else for the man he’d been over twenty years ago.

There was a part of him that wondered why he even bothered to hide his face.  After all, a large group of people now knew who he was.  It was a little late to try and hide his identity, but this was not a good time to reveal himself as an exiled prince.

The broadcast had revealed that things were much worse than he’d ever imagined.  Unalaq was after the Avatar and he was out to wipe Republic City off the map.  And he was exploiting traditional Water Tribe laws to do it…

Revealing that he was Unalaq’s political rival?  At a time like this?  People would get ideas.  And ideas got people into trouble… the last thing Tonraq wanted was another assassination attempt.  He couldn’t afford that.  His family couldn’t afford that.  He didn’t need that trouble.

Tonraq sighed heavily as he pushed open the door to the stairwell that would take him topside.  He had no good news for Senna. 

<> <> <>

A/N: This is late, but Sunday turned out to be a scheduling mess...

Equal Measure Navigation

2.1.6.2- Realities

Part 1 Master Post

[theyearoftheking]

Book Forty-Two: Bag of Bones

“The most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones...”

Here’s a peek behind the curtain of my oh-so-glamorous blogging life. My eleven year old daughter insisted on calling this book, “Bag-o-Bones!” and every time she saw me reading it, she’d loudly ask, “Have they found the bag-o-bones yet??” Side note: I think she’d love this book, and am going to push her to try it once she’s done with Dorothy Must Die. And also? August 17th and the start of the (virtual) school year can’t come fast enough. Please and thank you. 

Bag of Bones is the perfect book to recommend to readers who claim, “Not to like Stephen King.” It doesn’t have the absurd (murderous clowns); but it does have the spookiness and fine writing craftsmanship you’d expect from Steve. It’s a treat for new and Constant Readers alike. I had read this book when it first came out and really enjoyed it, but now as a Constant Reader, I’m tickled by the number of Easter eggs I found. In no particular order, you’ve got:

A partial setting in Derry, Maine

Thad Beaumont (The Dark Half)

The writer, Bill Denbrough (It)

Roland and Rolanda (Dark Tower)

Norris Ridgewick and Alan Pangborn (Dark Half, Needful Things, Gerald’s Game)

Shawshank Prison

Juniper Hill Asylum

And... my absolute favorite line.. our main character, Mike Noonan, is out for breakfast when none other than Ralph Roberts slides into the booth and asks him, “Everything going all right? I only ask because you look tired. If it’s insomnia, I can sympathize, believe me...” I loved that scene so much. 

Bag of Bones starts with the unexpected death of Johanna (Jo) Noonan. Her husband Mike, a successful novelist, is plunged into deep despair after her loss, and has a bad case of writers block. In addition to being a spooky ghost story, Bag of Bones is also a tribute to modern fiction. The number of author and book references is dizzying. 

After a trip to Key Largo, Mike decides he needs to leave Derry for a bit, and head out to his and Jo’s lake house: Sara Laughs in the tiny town of TR-90. He’s hoping it might clear his head, and maybe revive his writing. 

Almost immediately upon returning to Sara Laughs, he makes the acquaintance of Mattie and Kyra Devore; a precocious mother/daughter pair. Kyra in particular catches Mike’s attention (not because she was wandering down the middle of the street unattended); but because he and Jo often talked about naming their unborn daughter Kia. Mike finds the coincidence uncanny. He’s drawn to Mattie (despite her young age); but she blows him off, and tells him it’s not a good time for her and Kyra to be making new friends. 

Understatement of the century. 

Mattie had been married to Lance Devore, who was estranged from his wealthy family, and wanted nothing to do with him once he got with Mattie. Lance died in a freak lightning storm, and since then, Max Devore, Lance’s father, had been fighting for custody of Kyra. Mike is warned off by basically everyone in town; they tell him to keep his nose out of Devore business if he knows what’s good for him. 

Buuuut Mike can’t stop thinking about Mattie and Kyra. And it doesn’t help that strange stuff has been going on at Sara Laugh’s. We’re talking ringing bells, refrigerator magnets rearranging themselves into cryptic messages, strage dreams, and voices. And, he finds out Jo had been out to Sara Laugh’s several times without telling him. One time, she was spotted with a handsome fella at a baseball game.She had also quit all her volunteer activities, and had been asking a lot of questions about the history of TR-90 and Sara Tidwell (the namesake of Sara Laugh’s). Mike doesn’t know what to make of any of this, especially considering he found out Jo was pregnant when she died. 

Against the advice of everyone in town, Mike starts spending time with Mattie and Kyra. He’s smitten with Mattie, and thinks Kyra is pretty much the cutest thing ever. Max Devore isn’t happy Mike is fraternizing with the girls, and in a strange sequence of events, uses his absurdly large motorized wheelchair to push Mike off a cliff into the water, and then his assistant, Rogette Whitmore (spoiler: his daughter) pelts Mike with rocks. 

Mike is understandably pissed after the rock pelting episode, and gets in touch with the best child custody attorney he can find for Mattie. The lawyer discovers something is rotten in the state of TR-90. There seems to be an inherent bias towards Max Devore, right down to the guardian ad litem assigned to the case. Mattie’s new lawyer, John, sews up a pretty neat case for why Mattie should keep custody of Kyra; and everyone celebrates. Well, everyone except Max Devore, who puts a bag over his head and kills himself. The town is PISSED: Max Devore was a huge benefactor, and they see Mike as the outsider who stirred up trouble with the young townie whore. His maintenance man leaves him, his cleaning lady turns her back on him... Mike is shocked. He didn’t expect that type of reaction. 

Meanwhile, his dreams are getting more vivid, and they involve Kyra. She is having the same dreams he is. A lot of these dreams center around Sara Tidwell; a blues signer and former resident of TR-90. Before her death, Jo had been doing some research about Sara, and the death of her son, Kito. It appears she had been uncovering some truths about the history of TR-90 that residents were none too happy about. It seems like Jo is trying to send Mike messages, but he’s not understanding them. And Mike is getting the impression Sara is not a helpful, benevolent spirit. She’s vengeful af. And he’s trying to figure out why. 

Mike, Mattie, Kyra, John and a few more associated friends celebrate Mattie’s win, and impending fortune... because Rogette called to inform her Max left all his money to her and Kyra. And Mattie makes it clear she wants to hook up with Mike. Winning! But then some townies conduct a drive-by shooting, and kill Mattie. Losing! 

Mike scoops up Kyra, and takes her back to Sara Laughs, where a massive storm breaks. Mike ends up cracking some of the puzzles Jo left for him, and discovers he needs to dig up the remains of Sara and Kito (the bag of their bones, if you will), and pour lye on their corpses to set them free. Come to find out, Sara had been brutally raped and murdered, and her son Kito had been drown by ancestors of several prominent TR-90 townsfolk, and they tried to cover it up. Why? Because they didn’t like a black woman living in their town. And she had the audacity to laugh at one of them. Yep... yet another book where art is imitating real life. The only thing Sara Tidwell was guilty of was forgetting that living while black is a crime in this country. 

So, Mike kills the evil spirits, and finds Rogette kidnapped Kyra. He gets her back, takes out Rogette, and they all live happily ever after. Well, kind of. Kyra goes into foster care, and Mike works to become her legal guardian. He realizes Jo was the love of his life after all (the handsome dude she was spotted with was her brother), and Kyra was the daughter they never got to have together. 

It’s a damn good story, with plenty of twists, and lots of Maine flavor. I loved it, and continue to recommend it to people looking for a spooky beach read. 

There was the one Dark Tower reference; and a Dahmer reference! It’s the second one I’ve found since starting my Constant Reader journey. That’s always fun... it’s been a while since we had a Wisconsin reference. 

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 28

Total Dark Tower References: 39

Book Grade: A-

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Wizard and Glass: A+

Needful Things: A+

The Green Mile: A+

Rose Madder: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

Four Past Midnight: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Bag of Bones: A-

The Wastelands: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

Dolores Claiborne: A-

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Desperation: C-

Insomnia: C-

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Gerald’s Game: D

Roadwork: D

Christine: D

The Tommyknockers: D-

Next up is Storm of the Century. I initially assumed it was something King had been contracted to write. Nope! He thought it might be fun to try his hand a screenplay, and find a buyer for it later. I’ve never read it, and I’ve never seen the television series, but it’s already got a sick Dolores Claiborne reference, so I’m here for it. 

Until next time, Long Days & Pleasant Nights, Rebecca