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Legends Chapter 3: Challenges

18+ Minors DNI

Hi Riders, I decided to post early this week since the chapter is done and I won't be able to post on Wednesday like usual. Starting next week I will be moving my posting schedule to Thursdays. So this will be the longest time in between chapters. Please feel free to ask any questions or just comment on the story so far. I love hearing from you guys! And remember to let me know your opinions on a love interest!

Chapters 7-9 in Fourth Wing Pairings: Xaden x Younger Sister, Liam Mairi x Best Friend, Sawyer x Reader Warnings: Swearing, Violence, Smut (First time writing smut, definitely needs work lol), Oral M receiving, Unprotected Sex, Spoilers from the book series Word Count: 8,785

Legends Masterlist

I can't wait until next year when we get to join the riders quadrant. Not because I'm eager to become a rider, but because I'm excited to finally see you again. - Recovered correspondence from Liam Mairi to (Y/N) Riorson

A few days have passed since assessment day. Sawyer and Rhiannon have been teaching Violet sparring and the four of us have been studying history and physics together. Violet hasn't taken up my offer of teaching her sparring but she has been talking to me more, so at least it's a step in the right direction.

Now that dinner and classes are finished, we're back in the sparring gym along with the two other squads of flame section, fourth wing. Rhiannon is teaching Violet while Sawyer and I are on the mat next to them.

Sawyer and I aren't going full out, but more testing each other just to do something. "When did you learn to fight?" Sawyer asks.

"Pretty much since I could walk." I throw a punch that Sawyer dodges. "Living beyond the wards, my dad always wanted us to be able to defend ourselves."

"Makes sense, no wonder you're so good on the mat." Sawyer throws a punch of his own but I use his momentum against him, sending him to the ground.

"What about you?" I try to pin him but he uses his size to roll from underneath me.

"I learned pretty early on, plus last year in the quadrant helped." He shrugs, trying to sweep my legs from under me.

I hum, "You know? I kinda admire you."

"Admire me?" His eyebrows knit together, using the distraction I tackle him to the ground. "Shit!" I laugh as he struggles beneath me, his arm locked between my legs. "Why would you admire someone who didn't bond and had to repeat a year?"

"Because," I grunt as he finds a way to wiggle out of my grip, rolling so he's on top of me. "You didn't give up. Despite knowing that this college is a death sentence and you'll have to be here an extra year, you came back. It's brave."

Sawyer has me pinned between his hips, "Brave? That's a new one." The right side of his mouth curves into a smirk. "Do you yield, (Y/N)?"

My own lips pull into a smirk, "Why would I yield when I have multiple ways to make a man beg for mercy?" Sawyer's eyes widen at my words. I push my full weight off the ground, switching so I'm now on top of him, "And if I did yield I never would have gotten to see how good you look underneath me."

A smile lights up Sawyer's face, "I must say, I like this view myself."

"(Y/N)!" Sawyer and I look to the side, Xaden has his arms crossed, watching us fight. He crooks a finger at me beckoning me over.

I look back at Sawyer, "Duty calls, but you're not allowed to move from this position. I expect to finish this when I come back."

"Sure thing." Sawyer laughs as I stand to walk towards my brother.

I follow Xaden to the corner, out of the way of passing cadets, "Practicing or flirting?" He asks.

I smile, "Why can't it be both?"

Xaden rolls his eyes, "Don't do it in front of me."

This time, I roll my eyes, "I didn't know you were here, Xade. With that being said, deal with it. I can die at any point in here and if I want to fuck someone I will."

Xaden's face quickly morphs into one of disgust, "I don't need to know." Xaden pulls shadows around us, shielding us from prying eyes and ears, "I called you over here to tell you we're meeting tonight, midnight." Xaden already told me where this first meeting between the marked ones will take place, I guess he finally got the chance to confirm a time.

I nod, "Okay, I'll see you tonight then." I move to walk away but he grabs my arm, stopping me before I get far.

"You'll be able to make it out by yourself?"

"Duh, I'm not incompetent. I'll be fine. Liam and I already planned to meet when you got a time so we could head over together." He nods before letting me walk back to Sawyer, the shadows falling away. I smile at the taller first year, who is still laying on the mat where I left him. "Awe, you listened."

"I was thinking while you were talking to you brother," he smirks, "I'll yield right now if you want to find a room to sneak off too."

I smirk back, "Say less." I hold a hand out for him to help him off the mat. As we walk out of the gym, my eyes meet Xaden's. He glares at me, knowing exactly why I'm leaving but he doesn't do anything to stop me.

*_*_*_*_*_*

There are a lot of empty bedrooms to choose from considering cadets only get a private room once they bond a dragon. Sawyer and I choose one that's close to the barracks. The minute the door is closed behind us, Sawyer pushes me against the door, hands gripping my hips.

I throw my arms over his shoulders and pull him down, our lips meet in a heated kiss. He quickly adjusts his hold on me, hands skimming down the sides of my body to grip my ass then thighs. I jump up as he presses me even more tightly against the door. Our tongues clash, my fingers tug at the ends of his hair as his hands feel my curves. "More," I whisper against his lips.

He quickly adjusts his hold, moving one of his hands to fit in between our bodies. He unbuttons my pants, sliding his hand underneath my clothes. "Fuck," he pants. "You're so wet."

I whimper at the pressure of his fingers against my clit, kissing down his neck. I tug at his shirt wanting more access to his skin. We slightly pull away from each other so I can pull his shirt off. He removes his fingers from my pants, carrying me to the bed. I take off my own top before he throws me on top of the sheets. "You're beautiful." Sawyer whispers, a smile lighting up his face.

"Mm, you're not too bad yourself." I run my hands up his toned stomach, pulling him down once more so his lips crash into mine. I roll the two of us over so I can get on top of him. "Wanna taste you," I mumble as I start kissing down his body.

Once I reach his pants, I snap the button open, tugging them off him to get access to his cock. Sawyer watches me with wide eyes, waiting for my next move. I smirk up at him before I lick the tip of his cock. Sawyer groans above me, "(Y/N)." I smirk once more at the sound of his voice, it's rougher now compared to how it usually sounds. My lips wrap around the tip, and I swirl my tongue around it causing Sawyer to groan once more. "Feels so good." He reaches a hand down, gathering my hair and lightly tugging.

I hum around the tip before slowly sinking more of him into my mouth. What I can't fit, I wrap my hand around before slowly starting to bob my head around his length. I look at him through my eyelashes, seeing his blissed out face. I can feel him getting closer but before he cums he grips my hair tighter, pulling me off of him. A string of drool connects my mouth to him. I pout, "What was that for?"

"Want to feel your pussy wrapped around me. Don't want this to end yet." Sawyer lets go of my hair and reaches for my pants, indicating he wants them off. I step off the bed to shimmy out of the tight pants. Once off, I climb back on to the bed, straddling Sawyers hips.

The minute I sink onto him, we both moan from the pleasure. I slowly lower myself, sinking inch by inch until his cock is fully inside me. "Gods, you feel incredible." I moan.

"And the view is definitely perfect." Sawyer smirks, referencing the conversation that started this. I let out a breathy laugh.

"It is," a smile lights up my face. I start to move, Sawyer's hands gripping tightly onto my hips to help me. They'll probably end up bruised with how tight he's holding me but I don't mind.

After a few agonizingly slow minutes, Sawyer starts to roughly fuck up into me. The action causes me to gasp and I fall forward, one of my hands splayed on his chest, the other lands on the pillow by his head. I turn my head to kiss and suck at his neck as our hips meet.

Breathy moans and groans escape our lips, "Are you close?" He asks me. I nod, not being able to form words, "Me too. Cum for me, (Y/N)." He reaches a hand between us to rub at my clit, helping me climax faster. I slam my lips on his as I cum, Sawyer following right after.

When we ride out our highs I roll over so I'm laying beside him, "That was. Amazing." I sigh.

Sawyer laughs, "Agreed." He turns his head to look at me, "Want to go for another round?"

I bite my lip, because yes, abso-fucking-lutely I want to go for another round, but I need to go meet Xaden and the others and if I don't leave now I'll be late and Xaden will be pissed. "I have to go meet my brother, he'll be pissed if I'm late. But if you stay here, I'll be back soon and we can go for however long you want."

Sawyer smirks, "Sounds like a plan to me." I give him a quick kiss on his jaw before standing up to put my clothes back on and heading out of the room.

*_*_*_*_*_*

I meet Liam by the parapet. He's sitting on the same bench where he helped me put my shoes back on on conscription day. "We're going to be late." Liam whispers, standing up when he sees me, handing me a cloak.

"We'll be fine." I brush his concern off, moving past him to the stairwell as I slip the cloak over my shoulders and pull the hood onto my head.

"Did anyone see you?"

I purse my lips, "Technically no."

Liam's eyes narrow, "What do you mean? Technically no?"

"I was with someone. That's why I'm running a little late. They just think I'm meeting Xaden, so they won't say anything considering he's my wingleader."

"Care to share who you were with?"

"Why? You jealous?" I smirk.

"No." Liam shakes his head, holding the door at the bottom of the stairwell open for me. "Whoever it was, bet I'd be better."

I quietly laugh, "I don't know. I had a great time tonight."

Liam smirks, "But you've never been with me." We stop talking as we see the figures ahead of us. Xaden and the others are gathered by the Iakobos River, under a tree.

"Finally," Xaden says, seeing us approach. "You're late."

"Maybe you're just early." I tilt my head.

Xaden rolls his eyes, "I don't care what you do in your free time, but don't let it delay our meeting." I smirk, Liam and I aren't even a minute late, I know he's just being protective and doesn't want to think of me sleeping with someone. Understandable though, considering I don't want to know what he does in his free time either.

"Well, let's not delay anymore, big brother."

Garrick starts the conversation, "We've already lost Sutherland and Luperco."

"We're here to make sure as many of you survive as possible." Xaden continues.

"Like it or not," Imogen says, "We're going to have to stick together if you want to survive until graduation."

Carolyn Bennett, a first year with olive skin and dark brown eyes speaks up, "And if they find out we're meeting?"

"We've done this for two years and they've never found out," Xaden responds. "They're not going to unless one of you tells. And if you tell. I'll know." He narrows his eyes at the group, "Like Garrick said, we've already lost two first years to their own negligence. There are only forty one of us in the Riders Quadrant, and we don't want to lose any of you, but we will if you don't help yourselves. The odds are always stacked against us, and trust me, every other Navarrian in the quadrant will look for reasons to call you a traitor or force you to fail."

There's a murmur throughout the group, I lean against Liam, not wanting to stand up straight anymore. He wraps his arm around me as Xaden continues, "How many of you are getting your asses handed to you in hand-to-hand?" Four hands shoot up, Carolyn is one of them along with a tall dark-skinned gangly guy named Dmitry Harper, a guy with shoulder length black hair and tanned skin named Julian Rizzo, and a pale woman with blonde hair named Carina Steiner.

I made it my mission to know all of the marked ones names even if I didn't have a lot of contact with them growing up. Their parents all fought with my father, and just like Xaden, I feel some responsibility towards them. "Shit," Xaden swears, lifting a hand to his face.

"I'll teach them," Garrick assures.

Xaden shakes his head, "You're our best fighter-"

He gets cut off by Bodhi, "You're our best fighter," He corrects.

"Dirtiest fighter, maybe," Imogen says, smirk on her face, "You and (Y/N) don't know how to fight clean."

"Ruthless more like," Garrick corrects, "Both of them."

I smile, "Thank you."

"Garrick is our best fighter," Xaden continues like he wasn't interrupted, "but Imogen is right up there with him, and she's a hell of a lot more patient." He pauses, "So the four of you split yourselves up between the two of them for training. A group of three won't draw any unwanted attention. What else is giving you trouble?"

"I can't do this," Dmitry says, he hides his face behind his hands.

"What do you mean?" Xaden's voice is hard.

"I can't do this! The death. The fighting. Any of it!" His voice pitches, "A guy had his neck snapped right in front of me on assessment day! I want to go home! Can you help me with that?"

"No." Xaden bluntly answers, "You're not going to make it. Best accept it now and not take up my time."

"That was a little harsh, cousin." Bodhi says, but we all know Xaden's right.

"What do you want me to say, Bodhi?" Xaden cocks an eyebrow, "I can't save everyone, especially not someone who isn't willing to work to save themselves."

"Damn, Xaden," Garrick mumbles, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Way to give a pep talk."

"If they need a fucking pep talk, then we both know they're not flying out of the quadrant on graduation day. Let's get real. I can hold their hands and make them a bunch of bullshit empty promises about everyone making it through if that helps them sleep, but in my experience, the truth is more valuable, and I know for a fact (Y/N) agrees, that's why she looks bored as hell right now."

I nod in agreement. "We knew coming in here that death would be common, best get used to it and be prepared to welcome Malek with open arms."

"In war, people die. It's not glorious like the bards sing about, either. It's snapped necks and two-hundred-foot falls. There's nothing romantic about scorched earth or the scent of sulfur. This," He gestures around us, "Isn't some fable where everyone makes it out alive. It's hard, cold, uncaring reality. Not everyone here is going to make it home... to whatever is left of our homes. And make no mistake, we are at war every time we step foot in the quadrant." He leans slightly forward, "So if you won't get your shit together and fight to live, then no. You're not going to make it."

Everyone's quiet except for Garrick who mumbles, "Fucking Riorson's."

Xaden sends him a look then addresses the group once more, "Now, someone give me a problem I can actually solve."

"Battle Brief," Lydia Savel starts, her bunk is a row over from mine, "It's not that I can't keep up, but the information..." She trails off.

"That's a tough one," Imogen says. She turns to Xaden for his answer.

"You learn what they teach you," Xaden replies, "Keep what you know but recite whatever they tell you to." In other words, don't say anything about the truth of what's beyond the wards and memorize what the professors want you to know. "Anyone else? You'd better ask now. We don't have all night."

"When do we get to kill Violet Sorrengail?" Ashton Matuli asks from the back of the group. I stand up straight, my head snapping towards him, a glare on my face.

"Yeah, Xaden." Imogen says, a seemingly sweet smile plastered to her face, "When do we finally get to have our revenge?"

Xaden turns his head to Imogen, "I told you already, the youngest Sorrengail is mine, and I'll handle her when the time is right." I roll my eyes at my brother.

"Didn't you already learn that lesson, Imogen?" Bodhi asks, "What I hear, Aetos has you scrubbing dinner dishes for the next month for using your powers on the mat."

Imogen turns to face Bodhi, her eyes set into a glare, "Her mother is responsible for the execution of my mom and sister. I should have done more than just snap her shoulder."

I open my mouth to respond but Garrick beats me to it, "Her mom is responsible for the capture of nearly all our parents, not her daughter. Punishing children for the sins of their parents is the Navarrian way, not the Tyrrish."

"So we get conscripted because of what our parents did years ago and shoved into this death sentence of a college-"

"Violet's in the same death sentence of a college, if you haven't noticed," I cut her off, "And her mother forced her to come here as well. She was originally training to be a scribe. So looks like she's not doing much better."

"Don't forget her brother was Brennan Sorrengail," Xaden adds, "She has just as much reason to hate us as we do her. And I'm not going to tell you again. She's mine to handle. Anyone feel like arguing?" There's a moment of silence before Xaden speaks again, "Good. Then get back to bed and go in threes."

"Go ahead, I'll catch up." I whisper to Liam. I wait for the group to disperse, Liam lingers a bit farther away. I look towards Xaden, "You can't kill her."

He raises an eyebrow at me, "Yeah? Why not?"

"Like Garrick said, we don't punish the children for the sins of the parents. I hate General Sorrengail too, but Violet did nothing wrong. Leave her out of this." I don't wait for him to reply, I turn around and head towards Liam. We walk back together, Liam heading for the barracks and me towards Sawyer.

*_*_*_*_*_*

The next morning Sawyer and I are up early so we can make it back to the dorms before everyone else starts waking up. Just as I'm about to open the door I hear voices, I pause to listen, "We have curfew for a reason, cadet."

I whisper to Sawyer, "It's Dain. We should wait until he passes." Sawyer nods in agreement, moving closer to also listen.

"And you know that no one is supposed to be in the private dorms until after threshing." Dain scolds.

"Maybe we were just up early," We hear Rhiannon answer, "You know, like you are right now."

Dain sighs, "Just get back to the dorms and pretend you slept there, will you?"

"Absolutely!" Rhiannon agrees, footsteps move away back towards the dormitory.

"Monitoring the sex lives of first years was not what I had in mind when I applied to be a squad leader." Dain's voice fades as he walks further from the door.

I slowly creak the door open, peaking my head out to check if it's clear, "All good." I smile over my shoulder at Sawyer, "Luckily it was Rhiannon that was caught, he so wouldn't have let me get away with it."

"You think so?" Sawyer asks.

"Oh, definitely, Dain hates me. He thinks I'm out to get Violet and when we first met I called him an asshole."

Sawyer smirks, we make it to his dorm first, "I'll see you at breakfast." He whispers before opening the door and stepping inside.

Once I make it to my own dorm, Rhiannon is sitting up in bed tying her boots. "Where were you?" She questions.

I smirk, "With a friend."

She wiggles her eyebrows, "And that friend would be?"

I giggle, "I'll only tell you if you promise not to tell anyone. I don't want things to be weird."

Rhiannon nods, suddenly serious, "Promise."

I lean closer, "Sawyer."

Rhiannon's eyes light up, "I wondered where you two ran off to last night. I saw you talking with your brother so I thought maybe you were doing something with him but it makes sense that you and Sawyer left together. Was it good?"

I smirk, pulling a shirt over my head to put a fresh one on, "Well considering we went multiple rounds..." I trail off.

Rhiannon laughs, once we're both fully changed she hooks her arms around mine so we can head off to breakfast, "Well, your secret is safe with me."

*_*_*_*_*_*

After breakfast the next day, all of the first years are in Professor Kaori's classroom. Kaori is our professor for Dargonkind. I sit with my squad, Sawyer to my left. Liam sits beside me to my right, the rest of his squad close by. I'm taking notes as Kaori talks about the different dragon types. "Keep the temperaments of each specific breed in mind when you decide which dragons to approach and which to run away from at Threshing."

Professor Kaori is an illusionist. He can project different images of things he's seen to show others. Currently there is an illusion of a Green Daggertail in front of the class but Kaori quickly replaces the image with a Red Scorpiontail.

"Red Scorpiontails like Ghrian here, are the quickest to temper," Kaori looks at the dragon with a smile, then his eyes quickly scan over the cadets, "So if you offend him, you're-"

He gets cut off by Ridoc, "Lunch." The class laughs, even Jack Barlowe, who I was beginning to think only knew how to glare at Violet.

"Precisely," Professor Kaori smiles, "So what's the best way to approach a Red Scorpiontail?"

A first year from Second wing speaks up, "They prefer that you approach from the left and from the front, if possible."

Kaori nods in approval, "Excellent. For this Threshing, there are three Red Scorpiontails willing to bond." The image changes in front of the class to another dragon.

"How many dragons are there in total?" Rhiannon asks.

"A hundred for this year." Kaori changes the image again, "But some might change their minds during Presentation in about two months, depending on what they see."

"That's thirty seven fewer than last year," Violet says.

Kaori nods, "Yes, Cadet Sorrengail, it is, and twenty six fewer than the year before that."

"Wonder why there is less bonding." I mutter to Liam. He nods, his eyebrows knitting together.

Another voice from across the classroom asks, "Will they tell you why they won't bond?"

"No, jackass," Jack sneers, "Dragons only talk to their bonded riders, just like they only give their full name to their bonded rider. You should know that by now."

Professor Kaori sends Jack a pointed look that shuts him up, "They don't share their reasons, and anyone who respects their life won't ask a question they're not willing to answer."

"Do the numbers affect the wards?" Aurelie asks. She's tapping her quill against the desk, never happy sitting still. Can't say I blame her though, my leg is bouncing up and down as I focus on the conversation around me.

"We're not sure," Kaori's jaw ticks, "The number of bonded dragons has never affected the integrity of Navarre's wards before, but I'm not about to lie to you and say that we're not seeing increased breaches when you know from Battle Brief that we are."

The wards are faltering quite frequently, which begs the question are we growing weaker or our enemies growing stronger. I personally think it's our enemies growing stronger, which kind of terrifies me to think about. Either way, all that means is that I need to train harder and do better so I can make sure myself and my loved ones survive.

Kaori changes the image to Sgaeyl, "You won't have to worry about how to approach blue dragons, since there are none willing to bond this Threshing but you should be able to recognize Sgaeyl if you see her."

"So you can fucking run," Ridoc drawls. The class laughs, as I share a look with Liam.

"She's a Blue Daggertail, the rarest of the blues, and yes, if you see her without her bonded rider, you should... definitely find somewhere else to be."

"Xaden said she likes me." I say with a proud smile.

"Consider yourself lucky then," Kaori smiles, "Ruthless does not begin to describe her, nor does she abide by what we assume to be what the dragons consider law. She even bonded the relative of one of her previous riders, which as you know is typically forbidden, but Sgaeyl does whatever she wants, whenever she wants."

"Badass," I whisper to myself.

"In fact, if you see any of the blues, don't approach them. Just.."

"Run," Ridoc finishes for Kaori.

Kaori nods, "Run. There are a handful of other blues in active service, but you'll find them all along the Esben Mountains in the east, where the fighting is most intense. They're all intimidating, but Sgaeyl is the most powerful of them all." And my brother bonded her.

"What about the black dragon?" A first year in Jack's squad asks. "There's one here, right?"

Jack's face lights up, "I want that one." I roll my eyes.

"Not that it's going to matter," Kaori sighs, he flicks his wrist replacing Sgaeyl with a massive black dragon. "But just to appease your curiosity, since this is the only time you'll ever see him, here is the only other black dragon beside General Melgren's."

I suck in a breath, I hate General Melgren and his dragon more than the Sorrengail's. And that's saying a lot. Liam notices me tense and grabs onto my hand, gently rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. "You okay?" Liam asks, causing Sawyer to look over and notice how tense I am. He reaches down, placing his hand on my thigh, squeezing gently.

I nod, "Fine."

"He's huge," Rhiannon says. "And is that a clubtail?"

"No, a morningstartail. He has the same bludgeoning power of a clubtail, but those spikes will eviscerate a person just as well as a daggertail."

"Best of both worlds," Jack calls out, "He looks like a killing machine."

"He is," Kaori agrees, "And honestly, I haven't seen him in the last five years, so this image is more than a little outdated. But since we have him up here, what can you tell me about black dragons?"

"They're the smartest and most discerning," Aurelie answers.

"They're the rarest," Violet adds, "There hasn't been one born in the last.. century."

"Correct," Kaori nods, "They're also the most cunning. There's no such thing as out smarting a black dragon. This one here is a little over a hundred, which makes him about middle-aged. He's revered as a battle dragon among their kind, and if not for him, we probably would have lost during the Tyrrish rebellion." The marked first years around the room pull there sleeves down and squirm, except for Liam and I. We both hold our heads high, unfazed by the gazes of our fellow first years. "Add to it that he's a morningstartail, and he's one of the deadliest dragons in Navarre."

"I bet he powers one hell of a signet. How do you approach him?" Jack asks, sitting forward in his seat.

I loudly laugh before I can stop myself, "Oh please try to approach him. I'd pay good money to see what happens." Liam and Sawyer smirk beside me.

Jack glares over his shoulder at me but doesn't say anything as Kaori starts to talk, "You don't. He hasn't agreed to bond since his previous and only rider was killed during the uprising, and the only way you'd ever be near him is if you're in the Vale, which you won't be, because you'd be incinerated before you ever got through the gorge."

"Someone should ask him again," Jack states.

"By all means, Jack. Why don't you. Maybe he'd say yes if you ask him nicely." I pout, the rest of the class laughs, except for Jack and his gang of misfits.

"It doesn't work that way, Barlowe." Kaori says, bringing the attention back to him, "Now there is only one other black dragon, which is in service..."

"General Melgren's," Sawyer says, "Codagh, right?" Sawyer's hand is still resting on my thigh, lazily tracing patterns. He's not taking notes in this class, which makes sense since he already took it last year.

"Yes," Kaori nods, "The eldest of the den and a swordtail."

"But just for curiosity's sake." Jack speaks up once more, causing me to roll my eyes. "What signet ability would this guy gift his rider?"

Professor Kaori closes his fist, the illusion disappears, "There's no telling. Signets are the result of the unique chemistry between rider and dragon and usually say more about the rider than the dragon. The stronger the bond and the more powerful the dragon, the stronger the signet."

"Fine. What was his previous rider's?"

"Naolin's signet was siphoning. He could absorb power from the various sources, other dragons, other riders, and then use it or redistribute it."

"Badass." Ridoc's tone has a little more than hero worship.

"He was," Kaori agrees.

"What kills someone with that kind of signet?" Jack asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

Professor Kaori glances at Violet before quickly looking away, "He attempted to use that power to revive a fallen rider - which didn't work, because there's no signet ability capable of resurrection - and depleted himself in the process. To use a phrase you'll become accustomed to after Threshing, he burned out and died next to that rider."

There's a brief moment of silence then Kaori flicks his hand once more, "Last dragon of the day." A huge white dragon appears in front of us. She looks to have a daggertail but the image is slightly blurry, making it difficult to see. "This image is also a bit outdated but since we are going over every kind of dragon, I figured I should mention her."

"She's beautiful." I say.

"I've never seen a white dragon before," Liam tilts his head.

"She is, and she's the only one of her kind. She's never bonded before so we don't see her very often. But she is just about one hundred years old and we believe she's incredibly powerful. It's possible that if she chooses to bond, that she will die with that rider. Which is why she either doesn't want to risk bonding or she is waiting to choose wisely. Of course we can't be certain, as nobody has ever talked with her."

"Is she coming to presentation this year?" Lydia Savel asks.

"No, she has not said that she's willing to bond this year." The bell rings signaling the hour is up, we collect our things, putting them in our bags, before heading out of the classroom.

*_*_*_*_*_*

I stand next to Xaden in the gym watching as Rhiannon faces off against a guy from Second Wing. She quickly gets him in a headlock, cutting off his air supply. "She's good." I say, tilting my head. Xaden hums, a look of boredom on his face.

"You're better." He states.

I smile, "Not many people here will be better than me."

"Don't get cocky, that's how you lose."

I roll my eyes, "I'm confident, not cocky. I know not to underestimate anyone and I know not to let my emotions get the better of me, I'll be fine."

"I know you will be," His eyes flicker to me as the guy in Rhiannon's hold passes out, "I'm not worried about you on the mats."

Both of our gazes our drawn towards Jack and Violet who are arguing, "Gods, I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth." Violet throws two daggers at Jack just missing him, causing me to snort. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Xaden's lips twitch as he fights off a smile. I smirk but don't say anything.

Xaden turns away when Violet makes eye contact with him, "I'm going to watch some of the other Fourth Wing matches, but I'll be back over here when you're called up."

"No need, you're a Wingleader, focus on the cadet's that need help."

"You're my baby sister, I'm going to support you in your first challenge. Kick your opponents ass and don't disappoint me." I smile and nod, moving to stand beside Rhiannon as Violet moves onto the mat.

Violet is against Oren Seifert. He looks like he's going to be sick, Violet may get lucky. "Don't take this personally, but you'll only be a hazard to your wing." He says, palming a dagger. He charges at Violet but he's sluggish. She lands a punch to his kidney's before spinning away. They taunt each other, swinging their daggers and dodging.

When Oren goes for Violet once more, she waits until the last moment to dodge, nicking his side in the process. She kicks him in the back, sending him sprawling to the mat. Violet takes advantage, digging her knee into his back and placing her dagger at his throat, "Yield."

"No!" He calls out, he retches, bringing up everything he ate that day.

"Ew. Gross." My face scrunches up in disgust.

Beside me Rhiannon mumbles, "Oh my gods."

"Yield," Violet demands once more.

"He yields," Emetterio calls out, ending the match. Violet stands up, sheathing her blade, than taking the one that Oren dropped on the mat.

"You won!" Rhiannon exclaims.

"Good job!" I smile.

"He's sick," Violet shrugs in response.

"I'll take being lucky over being good any day," Rhiannon counters.

I nod, "True, but you can't just rely on luck. Keep up with training and you'll be fine."

"I need to find someone to get this cleaned up." Dain mutters, walking away and getting a first year to clean up the mess.

The group moves to another mat to continue matches, "Riorson and McCall." I move towards the mat, a girl slightly taller than me but with less muscle steps up. She was the one who was originally in Dain's squad but got switched out. She nods at me, "Weapons?" Emetterio asks.

"Swords?" She asks, noticing I have a short sword strapped to my hip. I nod pulling mine out, causing her to do the same.

"Begin." I keep my weight balanced, waiting for Scarlett to make the first move. When I don't know how my opponent fights, I like seeing their style first. She lunges, swinging her sword towards my neck. I quickly block it with my own, pushing her arm up and spinning underneath, ending up behind Scarlett.

She moves quickly, not wanting to have her back towards me. She charges again, feigning left before attacking towards the right. Once again, I quickly block, I kick her in the stomach, causing her to stumble backwards. She gasps in pain but comes at me again.

I dodge, swiping at her legs as I pass her. My sword nicks her ankle causing her to stumble once more. Before she can recover, I attack with a flourish of swings, each one sending her closer to the edge of the mat. I send a quick kick to her sword hand, she loses her grip, the sword tumbling to the mat. I quickly raise my sword to her throat.

Scarlett sighs, "I yield."

I smile at her, "I'll take a dagger, keep the sword." She smiles back at me, reaching into a sheath on her thigh to hand me a dagger and picking up her sword once more, before stepping off the mat and heading back to her squad.

As I step off the mat to stand once more beside Rhiannon and Violet, I glance up at Xaden, he has a proud smile on his face. He nods to me before turning to watch another match.

Week after week passes, I win every match thrown my way only ending up with minor bruises and cuts. Liam and Violet are also undefeated at the moment. Every time Violet is up against someone though, they have something wrong with them. It's easy to tell that she's poising them but I'm starting to think I'm the only one who notices. It's not like I'll tell anyone, surviving the Rider's Quadrant takes more than being strong, and Violet is smart enough that she may just survive.

It's early September and I've collect five new weapons from challenges. Professor Emetterio looks down at his roll seeing who's to fight next. "(Y/N) and Liam." Multiple heads turn, trying to find each of us in the crowd. One of us is losing our winning streak and it's not about to be me.

*_*_*_*_*_* Liam

I slowly make my way to the mat, just because I'm going against (Y/N) doesn't mean I'll take it easy. I make it to the mat first my eyes scan the room for her. My blue eyes land on her just as she hands her corset halter that carries three of her daggers, to Violet. My eyes narrow in confusion but quickly widen as I watch her reach down to pull off her shirt, leaving her in just her work out bra and pants.

She flings her shirt at Ridoc who's standing beside her, gaping like a fish. "What are you doing?" I hiss once she's across from me. I know every eye in this room is on her right now, and it makes my blood boil.

She smirks, "Using all of my assets to ensure a win."

I roll my eyes, "Fighting me without a shirt isn't going to be a distraction."

"You say that now, but I know you better than that. Using daggers okay?" She asks.

I nod, but don't take one out. I want to win, but I don't want to harm her, and without an extra layer covering her that goal got a lot more difficult. "Begin." Emetterio calls out.

She tilts her head at me, beckoning me over, a small smirk on her face. I know she won't make the first move, and I want to end this quick so I comply with her wishes. The smirk on her face grows as I lunge but (Y/N)'s quick and dodges out of the way. Gods do I want to wipe that look off her face. She uses her foot to trip me, but I catch myself before I fall.

I turn to face her again, she raises an eyebrow, unfazed by the eyes on her. My jaw ticks, I just know Xaden is seething on the side of the mat. I charge once more, her dagger grazes my side as she dodges, but I grab her arm before she can fully get away.

I twist her around, throwing her to the mat, she let's out a gasp of air. I squeeze her hand open, causing her to drop her dagger. Our faces are close, neither one of us have broken into a sweat, "I love being manhandled." She whispers, her breath gentle on my face.

Before I can reply, she knees me in the groin, "Cheap shot." I groan, as I fall off her.

She gets another dagger out, pinning me to the ground, "All is fair when you're at war. Do you yield, Mairi?" She's straddling my thigh, one leg pinning my right arm down, the other knee pressed to my groin. The dagger she holds is pressed to my throat, and her other hand is holding my free arm to the mat.

I clench my jaw, about to move her off of me, but her dagger presses closer to my neck and her knee moves pressing more into my groin, and I know I'm trapped. "I yield." I say loud enough for the room to hear me.

(Y/N) smirks once more, she kisses my cheek as she sheaths her dagger, then pulls a dagger from one of my sheaths, "Thank you for this." She winks before getting off of me, offering her hand to help me up. Once I'm up, she turns around, twirling the dagger she took from me around as she heads back to her squad. My eyes follow her as I slowly back off the mat.

Just as she reaches Ridoc, grabbing her shirt back from his outstretched hands, a hand grabs tightly onto my shoulder, "Undress my sister with your eyes again and I'll cut them out of your head." I blink, my head whipping to Xaden who's glaring at me. I gulp and nod, turning around to properly head back to my squad.

"Mairi, I know you just lost your first match, but damn. You're so lucky. I'd gladly let (Y/N) do anything she wants to me." My eyes sharpen into a glare as I look at my squad mate, Augustus.

"Fuck off." I growl.

Augustus smirks, "What? I thought you two where just friends. And (Y/N)'s hot. Every guy and some of the girls were eye fucking her when you guys were fighting."

Lyra, another first year in the squad nods, "Even Barlowe looked like he wanted to have a go with her." She tilts her chin in his direction, "He's still trying to sneak glances."

I look in the direction Lyra indicated, my eyes finding Jack, he's laughing with his squad, and sure enough his gaze passes by (Y/N) multiple times. I feel like throwing up. Instead of answering, I march over to (Y/N) and her squad.

*_*_*_*_*_* (Y/N)

I make my way back to my squad after winning against Liam. Ridoc holds out my shirt, I slip the dagger I won from Liam in an empty sheath before I reach to take my shirt back from him, "You might want to put that on fast, your brother looks to be seconds away from killing everyone in this room." Ridoc says.

I snort, "He won't do shit."

"Well, you looked hot and everyone here can agree on that. I swear everyone was eyeing you like they wanted to take a bite." Rhiannon smirks, "Honestly, I wouldn't say no."

"Come find me later," I wink, taking my corset back from Violet.

"I could never be brave enough to fight without half my weapons. Or without at least some sort of barrier between my skin." Violet says, shaking her head.

I smile brightly, putting my corset back on, "The key is knowing your opponent. I know Liam would never intentionally hurt me, at least not severely. So without that extra layer, he was going to be more cautious and not go all out even though it's a subconscious thing, because he would never purposefully go easy on me."

I pause briefly as I tighten the corset, "Plus, like you guys pointed out, I'm hot. So there was a chance he'd be distracted by that as well."

"Incoming," Sawyer whispers, looking behind me.

I turn around to see what he's talking about and find Xaden's eyes locked on me and Liam marching over, a glare on his face. I open my mouth to tease Liam about losing but he beats me to it, "Never fucking do that again."

My eyebrows knit in confusion, "What? Win?"

Liam rolls his blue eyes, "Fight shirtless in a room full of horny cadets. Jack fucking Barlowe was eye fucking you and if I have to see him do that again I'm going to murder him than gouge my own eyes out. Don't even get me started on having to hear what my squad wants to do with you."

I smirk, "Oh, was it anything fun? Maybe I -"

"(Y/N)!" Liam scolds, grabbing my upper arm, but I only smirk more.

Before either of us can reply Garrick appears at our side, "I'm going to separate you two before you're brother comes over and hurts Liam." Garrick looks Liam in the eye and nods at him to get back to his Squad. Liam's jaw ticks once but turns on his heel, walking away from us.

"Why does Xaden want to hurt Liam?" I ask.

"He wants to hurt everyone that was looking at you, Smiley. He's showing a lot of restraint at the moment."

I snort, "I'm sure he is. Does that mean you weren't looking at me?" Garrick smirks but doesn't reply.

"Smiley?" Violet asks.

"She was always smiling and laughing as a kid so I started calling her Smiley." Garrick answers.

"If any of you try and use that nickname, I will break your nose. Garrick's the only one allowed." I say, watching the match in front of me.

"She's not lying. She broke Xaden's nose when we were thirteen because he tried to call her it."

Rhiannon laughs, "I would had loved to see that." The girl on the mat knocked out the other cadet with a swift kick to the head. She takes one of the cadet's daggers then moves back towards her squad.

"They were thirteen, I was eleven." I clarify.

"I'm sorry, Violet," Professor Emetterio speaks up, causing our group to face him, "You were supposed to challenge Rayma, but she's been taken to the healers because she can't seem to walk in a straight line."

Violet winces, "That's... Too bad," She pauses, "Should I just..."

"I'm happy to step in," Xaden says from across the room, causing me to smirk.

"You sure?" Professor Emetterio asks, glancing over his shoulder.

"Absolutely." Garrick and I exchange a look. We know he's already pissed because of my stunt so it's going to be fun seeing him against Violet. I know Violet is probably on the verge of a heart attack but Garrick and I both know he won't do anything on the mat.

Xaden steps forward, "You are all in for a treat," Professor Emetterio says, clapping his hands, "Xaden's one of the best fighters we have. Watch and learn."

"Well that's going to go right to his head," I mutter to Garrick, rolling my eyes.

Garrick's lips twitch into a smirk, "Please, he already has a big head, Emetterio saying he's one of the best fighters isn't going to change that."

Violet steps onto the mat, facing Xaden. "A little out of her league, don't you think?" Dain calls out, trying to protect her.

"Relax, Aetos." Xaden looks over his shoulder at Dain as he begins to take off all his weapons, handing them to Imogen. "She'll be in one piece when I'm finished with her."

Dain raises his voice, "I hardly think it's fair-"

Xaden cuts him off, "No one asked you to think, squad leader." Garrick and I both snort, turning away to hide our laughs.

"You don't think you'll need those?" Violet asks, watching Xaden remove the last of his weapons.

"Nope. Not when you brought enough for both of us." He grins, stretching out his hands, "Let's go."

"This is going to be fun," Garrick whispers.

"He's not going to hurt her, right?" Ridoc asks.

"No." Garrick and I both say in unison.

"You both seem confident about that." Sawyer says, watching the match.

Violet attacks Xaden, he blocks her easily, and slowly starts to disarm her, kicking each of her weapons towards Dain who stands at the edge of the mat. "We know Xaden, he won't harm her." Garrick replies.

Xaden and Violet are talking as they fight, Xaden offers Violet a hand, "Don't take it." I mumble.

"She's going to take it." Garrick says. Sure enough, Violet takes my brother's outstretched hand. He tugs her up then twists her arm behind her.

"Damn, thought she'd be smarter than that."

Xaden keeps disarming Violet until finally she snaps, "You've made your damn point." Imogen gasps, but I just smirk. Xaden crosses his arms, unbothered, and Violet starts letting her emotion into her fighting.

Xaden has Violet pinned to the mat, he moves her hands to grab her last dagger, showing her where to attack an opponent. "See, he's just teaching her. No harm done." Garrick says to the rest of the squad.

The two exchange a few more quiet words before Dain speaks up, "I think she's been taught enough today."

"Awe, he's jealous." I whisper to Garrick. Garrick's shoulder's shake in a silent laugh. Xaden stands, walking away from Violet and gathering his weapons from Imogen.

Violet moves towards Dain in order to collect her weapons, "Aetos," Xaden calls out, turning to look at the second year, "She could use a little less protection and a little more instruction." Dain nods.

Xaden makes a beeline for me, "Good luck." Garrick whispers to me, he nods at Xaden then walks away.

Xaden is glaring at me, he then grabs my arm, pulling me away from my squad and out of the gym. "Challenges aren't over you know." I say, a smirk on my face.

Xaden remains silent as he walks me through the halls, glare never leaving his face. I know why he's mad, but I don't care. We make it back to the dormitory, heading straight for his room. Once he closes the door behind us, he finally lets go of my arm. "Sit." He says, gesturing to the bed.

I sit on the edge of his bed, biting my lip to keep from smiling, but it's easy to tell that I find his anger amusing. Xaden's eyes flare, "It's not funny. What the fuck where you thinking?"

"I was thinking it's Liam and I could distract him. When you fight an opponent that's bigger and stronger than you you need to use everything in your arsenal to win. That's exactly what I did."

Xaden rolls his eyes, "Oh, so you'll just walk up to a random enemy, take your shirt off, and fight them in hopes they'll be distracted."

This time I roll my eyes, "If I know my enemy is attracted to me then yeah, maybe." Xaden's glare hardens, "Xaden, I'm not dumb. I know how to win and get what I want and that's exactly what I did. I'm still undefeated in challenges, you should be proud of me. I don't see what the big deal is."

Xaden raises his voice, "The big deal is that you were just shirtless in front of almost the whole quadrant and half those people were eyeing you like a piece of meat. You're my little sister, I don't want anyone looking at you-"

I cut him off, "That's why you sent Garrick to me. You wanted him next to me to scare off anyone eyeing me. Well, Liam already informed me about the colorful commentary on my behalf and I don't give a fuck. Let them talk. Let them look. More than half of those people are going to be too scared to do anything anyways."

"That's not the point!"

I stand up, "What's done is done, Xaden! We can't go back in time and stop me from taking my shirt off and you know what? Even if we could, I would do it again. Because I. Won. I did what I needed to do and I don't regret it."

Xaden pinches the bridge of his nose, "You're going to be the death of me." He says causing me to roll my eyes, "Just don't do it again. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Xaden's jaw ticks but he doesn't say anything else.

#series rewrite #the empyrean #xaden x sister!riorson reader #fourth wing #xaden riorson #dain aetos #violet sorrengail #imogen cardulo #garrick tavis #liam mairi #bodhi durran #ridoc gamlyn #sawyer henrick #rhiannon matthias

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julesthequirky · 1 year ago

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The Choice: Chapter Seven

All my work is purely aimed at those 18+ so minors kindly, DNI.

Summary: You find three of your favourite characters in your home. It shouldn’t be possible, but there they are. In the flesh. How the hell did they get there? And surely there’s a way to get them back? But as you get close to each one, the thought of sending them back proves difficult to comprehend.

Characters/Pairings: Fem!Reader, Dean, Beau and Ben (Soldier Boy)

Warnings: Language, typical Soldier Boy behaviour

W/C: 1,541

A/N: As you can see (for those who saw my post earlier) I have split the chapter into two. It wouldn't look right with all the chapters around the same and this one not.

A/N 2: Also it has crossed my attention that as much as you guys love these fics, please don't upload the ficpic to another social. I know none of the images are mine and you can decide to ignore my request, but it do 'make' them with the intent of them being uploaded solely by me. So far I've seen it on the pin board app.

Pulling yourself out of your reverie and ignoring the moisture between your legs, you located Dean in the hat section. He, of course, had on a cowboy hat and posing in front of the mirror.

“Lookin’ good, cowboy.”

Dean spun round with a sheepish grin on his face.

“You really think so?”

You nodded, reaching up on tiptoe, and angled the hat better. His green eyes bore into yours, and the moisture between your legs intensified. Those butterflies stormed your belly, causing a tingling to cover your entire body. Oh Lordy. Staring into his eyes had your brain short-circuiting.

“I love Westerns.”

“I know.” You replied as you moved your hands away.

His lips curved into a smile, which didn’t help the fluttering in your stomach. The Stetson he wore blocked off the surroundings, forcing you to focus only on him. You noticed how green his eyes could get, how the freckles speckled across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. You noticed the 5 o’clock shadow across his jaw and chin, the slight crook in his smile and just how pink his lips were.

Caught in his gaze, your heart beat just that little bit faster, and it ached just that little bit harder for the hunter.

“What d’ya think?”

You blinked and tried pulling words from your mushy, in-love brain.

“I think you should get it.”

He nodded and took the hat off.

The rush of Boot Barn came surging back. For a moment, you’d forgotten where and what you were doing. It was silly, silly schoolgirl feelings. Feelings you should push aside, but they just managed to get in the way.

A tap on your shoulder had you whirling around. It was just Beau with the boots and a selection of jackets.

“I couldn’t decide. Could you help?”

You nodded and took the jackets from him. All three were indicative of Beau’s style in Big Sky—black denim with a faux fur lining, tanned suede with a fur collar, and a typical blue denim jacket.

“I can’t decide either. I bet they’d all look great on you though.”

Beau blushed as he smiled, exactly the way Denise had complimented Beau in the first episode of season three. Dean, Beau and Ben shared this smile, and you had Jensen to thank for that.

“Darlin’ you say any more, and I’ma go redder than a farmer’s neck in the middle of summer.”

Damn that Texan. You gave him the jackets back and reached on tippy toe for a light brown Stetson. He ducked a little bit, allowing you to place it atop his head.

“There. It suits you.”

Beau’s face and neck went redder than a farmer in the middle of summer, leaving him speechless.

You clapped him on his shoulder and turned, only to be immediately put in a dour mood. Ben leant against the store’s wall, sweet-talking a female employee. Your heart whomped in your chest, emotion making it tighten. You weren’t sure why, but it felt like rejection.

The female employee smiled in Ben’s direction, giving him all her attention, twirling hair around her finger. Jealousy stabbed at you hard. Fuck him.

Ben turned his head to see you looking. He smirked and turned his attention back to the female employee. Instead of storming over there, you turned on your heel and went straight to the cashier with Beau and Dean.

At Walmart, you picked up a few plain colour t-shirts, Wrangler jeans, underwear, and socks for all three. Dean picked out a few flannels, as did Beau. Ben wandered around, trying to get your attention, and the petty person inside of you gave him the cold shoulder.

“You can’t be mad at me forever.”

You said nothing, moving the cart by some graphic t-shirts. Dean placed a set of two pyjamas, a long dressing gown, and a pair of slippers into the cart. Ben still had clothes to find besides the bare basics you had picked up.

Reaching out, you picked up a t-shirt with an American Eagle with the flag behind it. Patriotic. Sure, it was stereotypical, but honestly, you had no idea what he would wear. You pulled the t-shirt off the rack and brought it to Ben’s chest. He pulled a face at being treated like a child, but he wasn’t helping. You threw the T-shirt into the cart. Ben fished it back out, annoyance etching his face, and picked up a size bigger. Right. He was jacked. You’d forgotten that with the extra muscles, he would need a size larger than Beau and Dean.

You pushed the cart further, but Ben stood in front, gripping the metal, stopping you.

“I saw you when I was talking to that woman. You were jealous.”

You scowled and pushed against him, trying to ram the cart past, but all it did was jam one of the front wheels.

“Admit it, Y/N. You were jealous.”

Your scowl deepened. Ben wasn’t going anywhere, it seemed. Not until he got the truth from you. To evade him, you went to roll the cart backwards. The metal creaked in his hands. The cart wouldn’t budge.

“We’re not going anywhere until you admit it.”

“Why? So you can feel smug with yourself?”

Ben moved from the front of the cart to you. The metal had warped where he had held it, bending under the pressure of his hands. He stood tall, clearly using his height against you. You strained your neck, looking up. A dumb smirk sat on his face.

“Maybe it will make me smug, or maybe I’m trying to prove something to myself.”

Your brow furrowed in confusion.

“Like what?”

“Doll, what makes you think I’ll tell you before you admit to me your jealousy?”

Your scowl came back.

“I wasn’t jealous.”

He snorted with laughter. “Yeah, and I’m a virgin.”

You moved the cart, but he stopped you, again putting his hand on the cart.

“Sweetcheeks, just admit it.”

It was embarrassing to admit. Your pride made you too stubborn to admit. Your hands tightened on the bar. He tested you. on purpose. For what reason? Probably to find out if it would make you jealous or not. Well, it did, and he was probably right. But you weren’t gonna tell him that.

“Just pick out some damn clothes.”

Ben laughed. That deep booming laugh and walked away, allowing you some time for yourself. He knew how to push the right buttons. He knew how to get under your skin. Was that a good thing? Your ex couldn’t even begin to scrape the surface.

You followed as Ben wandered around the clothing section of Walmart. He grabbed some grey sweatpants and undershirt tank tops and threw them into the cart.

“You’re such an old man…” You muttered.

Ben turned around, throwing you a dirty look. Seems he didn’t appreciate that comment. Who wore undershirts in this day and age? Nobody you knew, that was for sure. He had only picked out a handful of clothes. Guess he didn’t need much.

You found Dean and Beau trying on boots. They were laughing together, doing impressions of someone. You didn’t get it until Dean lowered his voice, made himself look all serious and barked out:

“I fart the star spangled banner!”

Of course, it was a perfect imitation. Beau collapsed with a fit of laughter. Behind you, however, was another matter. You turned and collided with Ben. He huffed and snorted, nostrils flaring like a bull preparing to charge. You pressed your hand to his chest. Fuck, it was hot.

“Fuck you, you bendy legged fuckface!”

He stepped forward, forcing you back. You pressed a hand to his chest again.

“Please, Ben. He was only messing. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

Ben huffed, hands curled into tight fists. He didn’t care that he was in public, but you did. He took another step closer, again forcing you to step back.

“Watch your mouth.” Ben warned and walked off, presumably to cool off.

You stared after him, calling his name until you could no longer see him. It frustrated you at how sensitive the Supe was. It seemed he could give it but couldn’t take it.

“Jeez, he can’t take a joke, can he?”

You swiped a hand down your face and turned to Dean and Beau.

“Y’know, I was kinda hoping that since you both have a nice friendship thing going, that Ben would join in and have the same.”

Beau sat on the stool, looked at Dean and then at you.

“Darlin’…”

Honestly, you didn’t wanna hear it.

“Tell me you were only messing around, D?”

Dean sighed.

“Yeah, I was just messing around.”

But from his tone, you could tell he was lying. An array of emotions pained you, but disappointment was the biggest one that fatigued you. You had expected better of him and Beau.

“I’m gonna go look for him.”

Dean stood, moving the shoebox out of his way, before stepping to you.

“Y/N, c’mon…I was only messing around.”

“Oh, yeah? Who else did you impersonate? Or was it only Ben?”

“He does a really good Yogi bear impression.” Beau piped up, not helping at all.

“I know!” You snapped, storming off.

Tags: @yvonneeeee, @curlycarley, @angelbabyyy99, @sassy-pelican, @k-slla, @deans-spinster-witch, @ashdoctor, @eretsupremacy89, @fanfic-n-tabulous, @deans-number-one-fan, @afro-hispwriter, @justjensenandhisalteregos, @tiredstrangerr, @zemosdarling228.

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masters-of-void · 2 months ago

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Flashbang [Warframe Fanfic]

good lord this posted early because tumblr mobile is evil so nobody saw that! ANYWAY, this post by the genius @illegal-wall-dragons made me run so fast to write this scene, it was SO necessary. don't mind that it's a rambling mess tho haha! details: 3k words, takes place between arthur's r4c3&4 chats

Arthur was surrounded.

Techrot closed in on him in all directions, chattering viciously. They swiped at him with their barbs as he whipped around for an opening, one that wouldn't present itself no matter where he turned.

He moved at a distance from the enemy as best he could and sliced his spectral sword through the air, energy blades flying to their marks. They cut a swath easily. But not enough.

Though he kept swinging, for every one he felled, two more appeared to take its place. He couldn't stay here. Needed higher ground. Blade in hand, he slammed it down into the cobblestone, knocking the horde back with a radial explosion of javelins.

Above him was a ledge to the roof line. Leaping high, he caught the gutter and hauled himself up before it could snap, taking off down the row of apartments.

"Requesting assistance," he called into his comms.

Nothing but static answered him.

"Hello? Is anybody there? Amir? Are comms down?"

Nothing.

"Aoi? Anyone?!"

He waited, bounding a gap, straining his ears to hear even a crackle, and all he got was more fucking nothing.

He'd made it maybe three sections when babau tendrils shot up the outer walls to grab him about the legs. He fell hard, his chin smashing on roughened shingles, but he didn't stay down long as the thing wrapped the rest of its flailing, static-jolting whips around his wrists, his arms, his torso, his neck.

It lifted him up off the roof, its grotesque body sliding up the building onto the platform with him. It pressed him face-first against a wall where he couldn't see it. Couldn't fight back. He writhed, and it was pointless.

"Nnnngh, somebody, respond! I'm pinned down! Eleanor!"

He called for her every way he could, hoping she would take control of the thing and make it stop, but it didn't loosen its strangling grip on him.

That was it then. If even his twin couldn't hear, none of them would be coming to help him. Not here. Not like he had.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried, "...Drifter..?"

And then he heard a terrible shriek. It pierced his heart with a terror he'd never felt so deeply, not in all this horror he'd already faced. It froze his steel muscles as though he were a prey animal caught in the gaze of its dedicated hunter. More followed, and he soon spotted their source.

Little skittering creatures were scrabbling up the walls of the building he was pinned to.

Each had four limbs, a vague childlike shape, but their bodies were darkness made solid. Clouds black as night followed them from the street below. They crawled their way up the smooth stone at a leaping, inhuman pace with long claws of glowing crimson.

They were calling him by name.

"Arthur!" their voices echoed. "Hey! Arthur!"

The babau would only tear him apart. But those things-- Somehow he knew that if they reached him, they would unleash a different horror he couldn't comprehend.

He fought harder to get free, putting all his strength into pulling his wrists together. A tendril snapped. That was all he needed. Grabbing the one around his neck, he yanked on it, and he heard it rip, but he still couldn't breathe.

He was burning, his face pressed against searing heat, his soft innards melting inside his shell.

The countdown.

It was over--

It was over.

The shadows were all around him.

"Wake up!"

Red claws cinched his shoulder from behind, shaking him with fury.

"Arthur!"

The babau and the heat vanished. He was free.

He rolled away from the wall, his back pressed to it, but the shadow still held him, its deathly cold darkness drowning, drowning, sinking its claws into him. It drew in a mere breadth away, but he couldn't see where it was separate from the shadows it brought with it.

He couldn't be sure his strike would hit, but maybe he could banish it. Stun it. Shed some light and attack then. Anything.

Building up the energy with a quick tension in his body, he looked at the thing square and burst with light.

"Shit!" the assailant gasped.

There was the sound of stumbling, a small crash, and then one of the coffee mugs that'd been left on the kitchenette counter shattered on the floor.

Wait a bloody--

Turning on his bedside lamp, Arthur got hold of himself enough to see plainly what had happened. It was Drifter who'd woken him from- from a simple nightmare, the stupid sod now backed up against the far wall, both hands over his eyes.

"Damn it, man!" Arthur exclaimed, looking down away from the bright lamp. He furiously blinked the sleep film from his own, then slapping the remaining grogginess out of his system, he scrambled to his feet and hurried the few paces to the mess. The broken mug shards swept aside, he hovered close, putting steadying hands up and ready. "Are you all right?"

"...What?" Drifter demanded right as his likely ringing ears caught up. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Just need a sec."

He didn't uncover his eyes after said requirement, though, never mind move away from the wall, clearly disoriented to hell.

Literal stars danced around his face, an effect Arthur was reasonably certain only he -- only Excalibur -- could perceive. Its use was welcome during battle, but seeing it hurting someone he'd come to think of as a friend...

Guilt washed over him, and he shook his head at himself, taking Drifter by the shoulders to pull him to the cot to sit down. He'd had no occasion to test the science on it, but he could promptly guess that the beyond-regs amount of candela that power produced might cause lasting blindness at point blank range. They needed their medic, now.

"Stay put. I'll get Lettie."

"No," Drifter dismissed lightly, finally dropping his hands. He alternated blinking fast and heavy, glancing around without any indication that he could see a damn thing. "It's fine. It'll fade."

"You're certain of that?"

"We'll...find out."

Arthur shook his head again, passing a hand through his hair and pulling on his bangs before letting them fall. "Shit, mate, I'm sorry," he said with a grimace and a heart continuing to race.

"Nah, it's my fault." Drifter put his head back in his hands, rubbing his eyes.

"Don't do that," Arthur warned gently.

He obeyed, holding still. "Ugh, and I know better than to touch a guy while he's fighting demons in his sleep," he grumbled into his palms.

Arthur afforded him an amused huff although he was more disbelieving than anything. He checked his computer for the time - four fifteen in the devil's cursed morning. "What are you even doing here?"

"I...couldn't sleep. Was walking the perimeter. It sounded like you needed help, so I--" He cut himself off, one hand going to his thigh and the other elbow resting on his knee. "Sorry," he said like he'd just concluded an ill-considered thought process. "That was overstepping."

"It's..." Arthur started. He cast a look around his one private area in this rotten place, this tiny security officer's break room. He'd been about to say 'it's fine' automatically out of courtesy and surprised himself that it was true. "It's fine. No harm done. Er, well..."

Drifter snorted a little, but he didn't say anything, busying himself with trying to blink his vision back to life and leaving Arthur with no direction on what to do.

It was too close to first call now to worry about finishing his sleep after this passed. Not that he would've anyway after a nightmare like that.

He sighed deeply, his waking anger cooling off, and decided that as long as he had a guest, he might as well behave accordingly.

He went to his makeshift kitchenette, intending to get a pot of coffee going. Or maybe some tea. However, he looked back, taking in Drifter's unseeing stare at the floor, the stars still holding a grip on his head. He'd turned it slightly to listen for what Arthur was doing.

Right then, on second thought, he didn't feel like explaining to Lettie why he'd both blinded their pointman and also subsequently allowed him to spill hot liquid on himself. Kindly, he wanted to have a pleasant Friday.

There was nothing else he knew of immediately that he had to offer, though. He dug around the cabinets, a little louder than necessary, until he found something half acceptable - a dusty can of Big Bytes soda. Not well mannered hospitality, he could just hear his mother tutting with disapproval, but it was a shot of caffeine nonetheless. He popped it open and poured about half into one of the other mugs on the counter that survived, allotting the rest for himself, and brought the peace offering back to the cot.

He'd scare up some breakfast to share later, too. Maybe that would make up for it. Given it actually faded like Drifter promised.

"Here," he said. He picked up Drifter's wrist to guide his hand to the drink and sat down beside him when he had a good grip on it.

"Oh. Thanks."

They both took sips, making faces at the wonderful flavor of old, room-temp soda, but it was certainly more pleasant than suffocating nightmares and a face full of flash grenade before the sun was even up. It was enough having something to focus on while their adrenaline levels settled.

To that end, Arthur tried to tell himself it could've been worse. Ever since Drifter started showing them how to trigger their full abilities, it'd gone from uncontrolled no reaction to the occasional uncontrolled overreaction. He was gods damned lucky Arthur hadn't speared him with a spectral javelin.

If this were even half as bad as Amir must've felt about what'd happened with him...

He could still feel the way the electricity arced across his face, trailing scars down his throat that were no longer visible. Through his own blind eye. Now he had the charming fear that his powers could go haywire, too.

"Y'know," Drifter announced amicably, "can't say I ever wondered what that felt like, but I guess I don't mind knowing how good the baddies get it."

"Hmph. Reminds me of the tasers," he replied, though he hadn't been thinking of that at all.

"Huh?"

"They, uh, the ICR trained us for taser discharge tolerance. Part of Combatives. Voluntary, but we all did it. Hurt like a sodding bitch."

"Hm." Drifter leaned back on his hand and stretched his legs out a bit, making himself at home.

They lapsed into silence once more, briefly. The two of them were comfortable with the companionable quiet by now. They'd shared drinks before, not a word said between them. But while Drifter seemed to count amongst the few who were content with that most of the time, if he thought someone had something to air, he didn't waste the chance to encourage it.

"Did you...wanna talk about it?"

"What?"

"The- you know," he said, gesturing at his head.

"Ah." Right. How could Arthur forget.

That would always be the hard part for him. He didn't know where to start or what details mattered. No one that he'd talk to about his nightmares had ever really asked before. But he guessed that the nitty gritty of it wasn't important. It was just the feeling it left him with. It's not like he was spilling the cold, shameful facts of a more real and visceral sort anyway. He could air this one.

"I'm just," he sighed, searching for the words. "I'm surrounded on all sides by this thing. But I did hear what you said, hammered as I was. I trust all of you, for us to- to carry each other through it."

"Wow, even Quincy?" Drifter needled, smirking in Arthur's general direction.

Arthur rolled his eyes. But honestly. Yes. Imagine that. The right fucking miracle it was.

He rested forward on his knees with his drink in both hands and just quietly marveled at the way things had made such a turn.

The extra help on the field wouldn't last, of course. It would be a brief thing in the long scheme of it. Just a memory, long, long down the line of this eternity; something to look back on one day, like, 'Ahh, right, that's where it started. Funny thing.'

That's how Arthur pictured it right now anyway.

Their starcrossed savior probably intended to stay only until the end of the year to be sure everything was running smoothly. He'd be wanting to return to his home in the future as soon as he could, like anyone else. So though Arthur had no illusions that the Drifter would be moving on soon, he could appreciate that the man had been here at all.

Not just been here, but he'd changed somehow, too.

Arthur turned to look at him, meeting his unfocused gaze.

Where had that dead man walking gone? The one sitting beside him was bright eyed even without the odd glow, buzzing with life in the quiet early morning. How had he done it?

Knowing he was being observed, Drifter inclined his head questioningly.

"Sol, having you on point this time-- It does make a difference," Arthur told him. "So I'm not worried. It's just...hard to sit with, sometimes."

Drifter's mirth fell to something solemn, and he sat up to mirror him. "I get it. You know the rules, though."

"'Feel everything. Every second.' Right'o," he responded with a mock salute.

Drifter nodded, taking another swig of his drink. He heavy-blinked again once, holding the mug at an angle to the light and swishing it, testing his tracking of the soda's movement with either eye.

Arthur squinted, pleased to see that the stars had mostly scattered. "Vision coming back?"

"Yeah. Slowly but surely. Guess we lucked out." Drifter smiled, making proper eye contact. "Not permanent."

Not that it would be. With the time loop. But all the same... "I'm still having Lettie check on it when she's up. You don't want floaters or sun spots for the rest of this."

"Sure." He drummed his fingers on the mug, his countenance darkening. "Hey, listen. Uh, those things you saw... they're called the liminus."

Arthur turned to him, brows furrowing in suspicion. Could he read their thoughts, too, like Eleanor? If so, why hadn't he said anything before? "How do you know that?"

Drifter looked...meek. Worried. And like that, the moment was ruined. He barrelled through the question, saying, "They're from Duviri. They hide down in the caves. In...the dark places of your mind. I know when they're close. Apparently."

Arthur groaned. "I see." Leave it to him to reveal anything more concrete about that place and it'd just be bad news for Arthur personally.

"Yeah. I don't know for sure, but...I think when they're there, they're actually there. The void makes them real," he continued carefully. "So when they're in your dreams like that, you need to just wake up. Don't try to fight them. Not in your head. Just end it, right there."

Arthur looked away with a huff, gnawing the corner of his lip. To call that little revelation an annoyance would simply be an understatement. "I'll try to remember that."

Drifter clapped his hand down on Arthur's shoulder, giving it a friendly shake. Like an apology for infecting him with foreign demons.

It was that head game- transference-- whatever-thing in the reactor core, presumably. He could barely remember it, the way every part of him had merged with the other's mind, their memories becoming one. He'd seen...things. Monsters, brutality and the hopeless agony he literally couldn't call to memory again since it happened. Whether that was by design, something Drifter did, or a block his own mind put over it, that was all fine by him.

But he still retained the strongest feeling they'd shared before he'd completely lost his senses to the pain -- their need to get out, the past and present melding into that single moment. To walk out of there, boldly or otherwise, away from the demons that plagued them.

It appeared a few clung on.

How comforting. This situation just kept getting better.

Arthur wouldn't hold it against the man, though, not when he'd done it to save him. He wasn't carrying himself out of that place on his own by any means. He'd take the swings as they came. It was all he could do.

"Aight, I'm gonna go catch twenty minutes of shut eye," Drifter said with a final pat on his shoulder. Downing the last of his soda, he started to yawn but had to stop himself, pretending he just had to clear his throat when the carbonation threatened to make him crass.

"No," Arthur chuckled without humor, "you're going to Lettie. Direct like."

"Riiight." He dunked the empty mug into Arthur's waiting hand as he stood, well aimed enough, and headed for the door. Arthur let him go unassisted, treating it as a test of sorts. One Drifter promptly failed.

He winced in sympathy when the poor bastard steered his hip so hard into the sharp corner of the counter, it knocked him to the side. He shook his finger at it, smirking sardonically to himself, and hid his limp with a heavy swagger out the door.

And then he went off in a direction that was decidedly not towards Lettie's station.

A minute passed after he left. Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Right. Okay," he muttered. It was to be a 'long' day then. He chugged the dregs of his own soda, wishing desperately that it burned like liquor, and got up to go call the reveille.

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thank you for reading! reblogs are appreciated ❤️

#myposts #mywriting #warframe #warframe 1999 #warframe 1999 spoilers #arthur nightingale #warframe drifter #drifter anyu #i also have an 'amir helps an injured quincy' scene inspired by that post on the line but idk when i'll finish it #i love them sm and their dialogue is kicking my ass hroo #tennocreate

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groversimp · 1 year ago

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Hey! First ever request, can i ask for a Luke Castellan x male reader where reader is an ill son of Ares and Luke nurses him back to health? Thank you lovely!!

Sorry, I Can’t Take Your Touch

YEARNING!!!

Ty for your patience anon!!

Warnings: stab wounds, slow burn, tension so hot it could burn someone, Luke, slightly suggestive?

This is post-betrayal, you’re a part of Kronos’ army

“I don’t need your help, Castellan.”

Those were the first words to come out of your mouth as Luke approached you with a first-aid kid, his darkened eyes glare down at you. You suck in a breath as you sit up from the blood-stained cot.

“Yes, you do, Y/L/N.” Luke’s voice is rough from the day of battle- screaming commands and demands. Anyone else would think he still looks confident, but you can see the exhaustion in his eyes. ‘He knows what he’s doing, this is his rebellion’ you tell yourself, if you were anyone but yourself you might believe your words. You know Luke, so much more than you know yourself even.

“No-“ You said, kicking a leg out to shove him away as he walks towards you. He dodges your attack with a swift step.

Leaning on the cot, his knee rests on your leg as he pins you down with one arm. “Stay.” He says, your witty response dies on your tongue.

He moves his arm to grab your waist, using his other hand to open the first-aid kit. He pours some rubbing alcohol on the deep cut, ignoring your wince. With a soft grunt, he shifts and pulls you up with him.

He starts to wrap the bandage-wrap around your mid-section, plush gauze and fluffy cotton over your wound.

“Where’d you learn this stuff, Luke?” You ask, soft words almost dying in the deep silence wracking through the room.

“These are just the basics, I picked it up from some Apollo’s kids before I left.” He says, Luke looks up at you- you’ve never called him by his first name. His eyes linger on you a beat too long, memorizing the concerned furrow of your eyebrows, the deep fire that lays beneath your eyes. Everything he loves about you. It’s like second-nature to him.

“You never learned, Y/N?” Hearing your name slip from his mouth felt so wrong yet so right, and you know you would give anything to hear him say it again.

“No,” you say. “No, I never wanted to.” Luke hums in response. After awhile of silence, he looks up at you, eyes looking over your form.

His lips are a hairbreadth away from yours, so close you can feel them but not close enough to be pressed against yours. It’s almost painful, the desire you have for him. The want, the need, to have him to yourself. To lock him away and keep him safe. Away from wars, away from commanding.

He pulls back, away from you, then stands up without a look at you.

“Rest, Y/N.” He says, voice deep and shadowed eyes not looking to you. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he left, you sighed and fell deeper into the cot. You really should stop this before it begins.

#pjo fandom #pjo x reader #luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #ares reader #luke castellan x you

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rarepears · 1 year ago

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Here's an idea that can fit neatly with post canon Solo Leveling:

Sung Jinwoo goes on vacation with his family to Italy. With his sister, wife, kid - it doesn't matter who, when, why. What happens is that when they are in Rome, on a tour in the Roman catacombs, Jinwoo is... intrigued. So after the tour, he heads back to the catacombs and explores. And then he proceeds to do the same with the other Italian cities they visit.

Unlike normal humans, Jinwoo doesn't have to worry about getting lost in the long tunnels. Plus he can talk to the dead, so he tries summoning a couple dead humans to see what he can learn from them. (Does it work on souls with no mana and those who have passed away for so long? Keep in mind that sections are from 2nd century AD. But some are much more recent bodies with the most recent burials being in 1800s, so I mean, maybe?) Sections of the catacombs are unexplored; parts of them were said to have been used for smuggling and hidden activities under the government's noses.

It would be terribly funny if this is how Jinwoo runs into a couple mafia secret pathways. Unbeknownst to Jinwoo, the mafia has noticed Jinwoo's lurking. But because Jinwoo has been portaling in and out of the catacombs via his shadow summons... they can't pin him down or how he comes in and out. Gradually rumors spread... of the ghost haunting around the Italian catacombs. Some mafia men, the more religious ones, even start taking to praying to him.

And that's how Jinwoo unknowingly gets his first worshippers. Pity for Jinwoo, his shadow summons don't care to let him know of that fact and instead, encourage Jinwoo to keep exploring the tunnels. By encourage, I mean whining like 5 year old kids who really really want something of course.

#solo leveling #solo leveling ideas #sung jinwoo #manhwa #fanfiction ideas #sung jinwoo explores european catacombs as a hobby AU

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livelaughlovetoread · 6 months ago

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A Long Canon Compliant Jily Fic || AO3 || Rated M

Updated March 28 2025

Summary

Lily and James Potters’ love was fiery, filled with passion, tragedy, and love. It was not a fast ignition of a flame that proceeded to burn bright. No, it was a flame that was lit on the Hogwarts Express before anyone had joined the compartment. It burned brighter as their years progressed, and it was lit ablaze in their seventh year. It burned vividly until the day they died. Their love was described by many as a light that shined during the darkest parts of the war. This is their story.

Part 1: The First Eleven Years - Birth to Aug. 31st, 1971

The first six chapters cover the first 11 years of the main protagonists: James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Severus, and Lily. These chapters are long, and can be read individually.

Part 2: Magical Mystery Tour - Sep. 1st 1971 to Aug. 1973

The Hogwarts Express is coming to take our gang of misfits away on a tour that will change their lives forever. These chapters will span the first two years of Hogwarts and establish friends, acquaintances, and adversaries.

Part 3: Can't Take My Eyes off You - Sep. 1st, 1973 to Aug. 31st, 1976

The world gets darker and enemies emerge from the shadows, however, sparks ignite at Hogwarts. These are pinning years for both Lily and James.

Part 4: I Fought the Law - Sep. 1st, 1976 to July 31st, 1978

The Marauders and Lily feel a growing animosity toward the way the Ministry is handling the murder and disappearance of Muggles and Muggle-borns. The law may not be on their side, but they know this is a fight that must be won.

Part 5: My Generation - Aug. 1st, 1978 to July 31st, 1980

The Order is full of witches and wizards from across generations who unite to fight for a world where the next generation can live freely. Even amid tribulation, sparks of joy persist, lighting their path forward.

Part 6: Baby, I Love You - Aug. 1st, 1980 to Oct. 31st, 1981

It was the darkest days of the war, but the happiest they'd ever been. James and Lily had no idea these would be the last fifteen months of their life.

Epilogues: Spirit In The Sky

There will be four epilogues for different people's POVs. That is all I can say for now.

Extras

Cover Art is made for each of the sections! The chapter update post will have art to match these covers (P1, P2). Each cover art will also be posted as chapters on AO3 to mark the sections.

Spoilers Without Context are posted for each chapter and will have a release date. I also post commentary on the spoilers HERE.

Each chapter has a fan fiction recommendation at the end, you can find them all HERE.

List of Spells HERE. All Posts related to ALITS are marked as such, asks answered about ALITS can be found HERE. If I have posted a sneaky snippet, you can find them on this tag. There are also some extras.

#Pin post #ALITS #harry potter #hp #jily #james potter #lily evans #marauders #lily potter #remus lupin #severus snape #jily fanfiction #jily fic #maraders era #sirus black

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its-me-sally · 2 months ago

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Currently Sally : not really anything happening to her rn(she is fine to have some asks)

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When Sally is talking her thingy will either be 🕷️ :~~~ or Sally :~~~

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Welcome to everyone who is currently looking through my askblog, this is @sl00chi (me) dw oc Sally and an askblog about Sally, however there are some rules that you have to follow :

• CA.I,TALKIE AND ETC. ABOUT ANY OF MY OCS IS A VERY HUMONGOUS BIG NO

• No fanchildren of any of my ocs (even if it not my dw ocs)

• Sally is only 11 years old (minor) so any asks about shipping Sally romantically is a big no

• The creator is also a minor so never ask any NSFW stuff in both blogs

• No weird ask, no sexual ask and no irl topic ask about anyone and anything

• No homophobic, transphobia and more

• anon magic is allowed

• be patient after you send your ask since it will take for awhile

(more rules will be added as this askblog continues)

Here are other dw oc askblog from the Dandy world ocs community (will be updated) :

Maggie (Sally : he pepper sprayed me >:( ) : @certerfiedevil

Beth and Phillow : @bedbathandbeyondtoons

Flapjacky and Drizzle : @ask-drizzle-and-flapjacky

Ace : @askacestuff

Error, Morgan, Vix, Patch, Chi, Dyna, Jinji and Shadow : @gardenview-treehouse

Katie, Teri, Nina, Wick, Gaiu, Wally, Gill, Fifi, Karson, Iza, Derica, Pip, Hannah, Fred, still writing (Sally : Katie helped me with my plush :) ) : @ask-the-ocs-xd

Bucky, Fedora, Jack and Go : @summer-event-toons

Pailey : @pailey

Paperine : @ask-paperine

Timeless Tavern : Rini, Aria, Canto, Calix, Ria, Crisanto, Lottie, Lady Karma, Horatius and Dusty Westwind with Gardenview : Manti, Sune, Aura, Lune, Sparkle, Jackie, Shi and "Pinkie" Diane : @the-timelesstavern-and-more

Marine : @marine-ask-blog

Glacia : @ask-glaciaglide-the-icecube

Sunny Dee : @sunnydeethecat

Pomm : @askpomm-partyhat

Battie (or Batty), Marga, Tewa, Cavo, Mantz, Skulltorz, Jess, Courro, Cueeny, Crom, Maggie, Inspiration and Dum: @fandomaskocs

Eid Mubarak toons: Lena and Mat with Gardenview :Fallet, Tomo, Shutter, Elly, Tori, Cory, Maggie, Artblock, Benjamin Illumino Hydogiplic, Rootie, Lettery, Tiga and Tiv : @ask-coryworld

Rén, Komainu, Yin-Yin, Lumi, Sparky, Dēnglóng and Yuèbîng : @the-chinese-new-year-toons

Mr.B and Buckley : @r0ckstarbf

Azzie and Bora : @azzietheinhaler

Hatterlsy, Threadrich, Amphie, Syruphina, Commodore, Crinkle, Rippley, Firkie, Wellson, Trapphie and Harina : @knickett-nook

Icee, Plasma, Sunset, Sharkey and Molly : @xxiceeplasmasharkeysunsetxx

Pierre, Percy, Cyril, Webster, Rolie, Anthony, Suki and Mittens : @canisesworld

Candy, V.A/Proto, Nelly/Shell Shock, Seedly, Nomy, Mandy, Alisten, Slooely/Soo, Mazzle, Enzzle, Febble, Datta, JANE DOE/Snip, Sage/Zinger, Dia/Dival, Bee, Scratch, Goober Snoonert, Emosmo, Modger, Lutter, Clodger, SeTea, Doodles, Phonnie/Fonnie and Sangen : @ask-theclones

(more things will get updated on this pinned post in the future)

Other ocs that you can also send asks to :

Currently T.Sally (twisted Sally ) : her wound is healed not but fully recovered yet but atleast she is fine rn (she is fine to have asks rn ig?)

you could ask something to my gacha ocs they are fine with it

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Extra : one of my fav post that has a story that you can see ft. T.Sally and T.Mic on the comments section on the first or top one that T.Sally is saying something then that's where the story started

#How the heck I forgot to tag it :|#Sally #Sally the spider #Sally (Sloochi)#Dw #Dandy's world #Dw oc #Dandy's world oc #And looks like I got a new tag for Sally thank you Nighterex 👍

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aemiron-main · 11 months ago

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Patty Posts Made After Seeing The First Shadow

(click here for the main Patty section of the google doc)

(click here to go to a tumblr post with the Patty posts I made BEFORE seeing the first shadow)

“Gay Henry Truthers Are Erasing An Interracial Relationship During The 50s”: No We Aren’t, The Struggles Of An Interracial Relationship Are Still Very Much Present Even With Gay Henry & You’re Actually The Ones That Are Erasing Key Aspects Of Both Henry and Patty (x)

This is Your Dream: Was TFS Patty’s Dream? At Least Partially? Did Patty Go Missing At Age 12? Are Her And Henry Hooked Up To NINA Together? (x)

But It Wouldn’t Be Make Believe If You Believe In Me: It’s Only A Paper Moon, TFS, and Things Not Being Real (x)

Dream A Little Dream Of Me: Is Patty Real? (x)

The Stolen Girl: Was Patty Stolen By HNL? (x)

It’s Not About Him, It’s About Dad: How Patty’s Puppy Love For Henry Ties To Her Issues With Mr Newby (x)

Henward, TFS, Rabies, and Patty’s Bat Wings (x)

I Love You: Gay Henry, Puppy Love Creelby, and Virginia-Patty Parallels (x)

Hentty, Mileven, Kisses and The Fleshflayer (x)

Patty vs El Asking About Her Mother (x)

You Don’t Know Him: Hentty and Edward (x)

TFS, Twins, and a Henward Concept (x)

The Man Behind The Curtain: The Wizard Of Oz and TFS and Patty Being Dressed Like Dorothy (x)

Patty and Henry Being Compared To Romeo and Juliet (x)

That Lab Extra That Looks Like Patty (x)

Anything Is Possible: TFS Creelarke Crumbs and a Patty-Scott Parallel (x)

Say It: Even More Hentty Familial Parallels (x)

Well, Now Where Do We Go? Nowhere! vs The Girl From Nowhere (x)

Stolen Babies: Patty Being A Stolen Baby Vs Mr Newby’s The Stolen Baby Jesus vs Victor Calling Alice “My Baby” (x)

His Great Shame Was On The Other Side (x)

Patty Holding Her Coat The Way El Holds Her Lab Gown (x)

Mystery Meat, Patty, Heather and The Fleshflayer (x)

Who My Real Mom Is (x)

That Wasn’t Me, That Was Patricia: Split, ST, TFS, and Miss Patricia vs Patricia Newby (x)

Music Boxes, Changelings, and The First Shadow (x)

Maxine, Patricia and Brecna (x)

I'm The Only Friend You'll Ever Have: Did Patty Get Agent Smith’d During TFS? Why Is Brenner Everybody? (x)

Not A Child, But Instead, A Small Woman: Patty Vs Suzie, Orphan (2009), Daughters Becoming Wives, Growing Up Too Fast vs Not Growing Up At All, and NINA Being A Small Woman (x)

Patty and The Balrog (x)

The Girl From Nowhere? What About The Old Drug Dealer Man From Nowhere? (x)

TFS, The UD vs Oz and Will's S2 Poster (x)

Patty’s Slow Motion Fall: Did Henry Slow Time? (x)

The Resemblance Is Uncanny: Patty Newby and The Uncanny Valley (x)

Patty’s OTS Shot In The TFS Trailer (x)

#stranger things #the first shadow #patty newby #pinned post section

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talusclan · 3 months ago

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Welcome to TalusClan!

High on the alpine slopes, far beyond the treeline, lives a hardy and proud Clan of wildcats. They prowl the stone spire forest and bask in the rocky fields, far isolated from any kind of civilization. A close-knit collective, the cats of TalusClan thrive in the inhospitable slopes, relying on a solid foundation of community and teamwork built over countless generations. But shadows weave through the stone forest, and for the first time in any cat's memory, TalusClan is facing a danger entirely unfamiliar.

See the characters in #allegiances

And see various scenes and lore moments in #pieces

This page documents the lives of my Generator Clan TalusClan, a solo Clan living in the stone spires of a tundra.

The world of TalusClan focuses mostly on internal and interpersonal conflict as opposed to external dangers. Death is minimal and violence even more so- angst is avoided in most scenarios, and I like a happy ending! I consider TalusClan to be a few notches past slice of life, with a wide scope encompassing every character in fairly equal measure as we explore their relationships and individual histories.

I try to be as faithful to the generator as possible, using all of the names and descriptions from the roster i was given and using the generator to create non-current characters, such as dead cats, exiles, and kittens who haven't been born yet! The exceptions to this are:

The name given doesn't fit with the setting. If I don't get something satisfactory with a non-allegiances character, I'll tweak their name to be more setting appropriate but have the same vibes. For example the name of the Clan itself was changed from AntelopeClan to TalusClan because cats living in an alpine tundra wouldn''t know what antelopes are, but they do know what talus slopes are! This is not a strict piece of worldbuilding because i don't want to torture myself.

Skipperclaw and Starlingberry, whose names i mixed up early on and just really preferred that way

FAQ

Where can I read the story in order?- You can't, at least not right now. The story isn't being told as a comic, more as a series of drawings and lore passages. Due to the non-narrative nature of the story, I doubt I'll ever tell it in a fully linear way, but as I draw and post more scenes I will compile them in chronological order in this pinned post!

Is this a Clangen blog?- Technically, in the sense that it's a generated Clan, but no- it is not made using the Clangen game. All I was given was a list of names and descriptions from this perchance generator. But it's the same general idea, and I consider us to be in the same category.

Why is this FAQ section so empty?- Because I can't think of any more questions right now. Please ask some if you have any! I'll be happy to tell you anything you want to know about this little world.

#clangen #clangen comic #talusclan #warrior cats oc #warrior cats #art #generator clan #fanclan #wc ocs #warriors

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fdelopera · 5 months ago

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Welcome to the 41st installment of 15 Weeks of Phantom, where I post all 68 sections of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as they were first printed in Le Gaulois newspaper 115 yeas ago.

In today’s installment, we have Part III of Chapter 15, “Un Coup de maître de l’amateur de trappes” (“A Masterstroke of the Trapdoor Lover”), and Part I of Chapter 16, “Singulière attitude d’une épingle de nourrice” (“Strange Behavior Regarding a Safety Pin”).

This section was first printed on Saturday, 27 November, 1909.

For anyone following along in David Coward's translation of the First Edition of Phantom of the Opera (either in paperback, or Kindle, or from another vendor -- the ISBN-13 is: 978-0199694570), the text starts in Chapter 14 with, “So at nine sharp, a four-wheeled berline-style carriage, with curtains drawn and doors locked, pulled up in the rank on the Rotonde side of the Opera House,” and goes to Chapter 15, “But there’s no sign of Mauclair anywhere!”

There are some differences between the Gaulois text and the First Edition. In this section, these include (highlighted in red above):

1) Chapter XVI was printed as Chapter XVII. This numbering error was made in Chapter VII, and was not corrected, so it was propagated throughout the Gaulois publication.

2) Chapter 16 in the Gaulois text is Chapter 15 in the First Edition, etc.

3) Compare the Gaulois text:

Je pense plutôt que cette ombre était celle du fantôme lui-même

Translation:

“Rather, I believe that this shadow was that of the Phantom himself…”

To the First Edition:

Je pense plutôt que cette ombre était celle du fantôme

Translation:

“Rather, I believe that this shadow was that of the Phantom…”

4) This line was added to the First Edition, and did not appear in the Gaulois:

On jouait Faust, comme par hasard.

Translation:

“Coincidentally, Faust was being performed.”

5) Compare the Gaulois text:

L'émoi n'était pas moindre sur le plateau que dans la salle.

To the First Edition:

L'émoi n'était pas moindre sur le plateau et dans la salle.

Both mean:

“The commotion was no less on the stage than it was in the house.”

6) Minor differences in punctuation and capitalization.

Click here to see the entire edition of Le Gaulois from 27 November, 1909. This link brings you to page 3 of the newspaper — Le Fantôme is at the bottom of the page in the feuilleton section. Click on the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen to turn the pages of the newspaper, and click on the Zoom button at the bottom left to magnify the text.

#phantom of the opera #poto #gaston leroux #le fantôme de l’opéra #le gaulois #phantom translation #15 weeks of phantom #phantom 115th anniversary

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butterflydm · 2 years ago

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wot reread: a memory of light (chapter 37)

spoilers for the last book, a memory of light

I am going to do this enormous chapter a little differently than the previous chapters (basically so that I can refer to this post later and understand all the various threads and not get them mixed up with each other). Instead of going in chronological order by each event presented to me, I'm going to have different PoV sections and then have my thoughts under each of those.

Egwene & Gawyn (& Galad)

Gawyn is exhausted, despite the week that they all just took to prepare for this last push of the battle. That's not a good sign. Pretty sure that's the Bloodknife ring sapping his strength. Yeah, when he puts the ring on again "his strength returned". (From TGS: "One never committed Bloodknives unless one was very serious, for they did not return from their missions." "The incredible abilities came at a cost, however, for the rings leeched life from their hosts, killing them in a matter of days. Removing the ring would slow that process slightly but once activated - done by touching a drop of one's own blood to the stone ring while wearing it - the process was irreversible.") He's already dead. He's just still walking around. Oh, hon.

"[Egwene] hesitated for a moment, looking through the gateway to Mat's command post. Egwene met the eyes of the Seanchan woman across the table, where she sat imperiously on her throne. I have not finished with you, Egwene thought." A very mean thing for Sanderson to write here, considering.

From her sense in the bond, she believes that Gawyn has gone off "to join the Andoran army" and sends Bryne to fetch him. Then she assigns Siuan to go "join Mat and the Seanchan Empress and listen with ears accustomed to hearing what is not spoken". Siuan calls Egwene a legacy that will shape "what is to come".

"I'll help watch this Seanchan woman for you, maybe help poor Min crawl out of the fang-fish net she's found herself in." Good luck, Siuan!

Egwene realizes, too late, that she's sent Bryne off to the wrong place, as once she travels to her own new location, that Gawyn is actually "on the Heights themselves, where the Shadow held the strongest."

Honestly, using the Special Assassin Rings to try to commit a Special Assassination on the leader of the Shadowspawn forces sounds like... a good idea? Gawyn knows that the original Bloodknives were doing a very good job specifically murdering Aes Sedai, because that was the crime that he was investigating when he found them in the first place. I also wonder if a lot of people forgot or missed that this attempt to go kill Demandred is not when Gawyn first activated the ring and signed his own death warrant (I bet that I missed it during my first read too). That he first activated the ring back when he and Egwene were pinned down by the Sharans and death seemed right around the corner for both of them. Gawyn's death has been irreversible since chapter 23.

"Once, perhaps, he would have done this for the pride of the battle and the chance to pit himself against Demandred. That was not his heart now. His heart was the need. Someone had to fight this creature, someone had to kill him or they would lose this battle. They could all see it. Risking Egwene or Logain would be too great a gamble. Gawyn could be risked. No one would send him to do this -- no one would dare -- but it was necessary."

He isn't able to get the assassin's blow off on Demandred and it looks like a key element is because Demandred detected the 'weave' that the ter'angreal is using on him. He calls it Night's Shade and confirms that it "leaks your life away".

I wonder why Demandred's face seems "eerily familiar" to Gawyn? I can't think of why that might be. lol, why does Demandred call everyone "little"? "Little man." "Little queen". "Little swordsman". What is your obsessions with everyone's heights? (wait, is he the one that was SLIGHTLY shorter than LTT and pissed off about it? as opposed to Sammael, who was considerably shorter than LTT and pissed off about it?)

haha, Demandred is CONVINCED that Lews Therin is the one directing the battle on the other side, either using Mat's face as a Mask of Mirrors or by sending messages through Mat. He has a spy in Mat's camp, probably, but is convinced that Rand is there somewhere, hiding. I mean, I kinda wish he were, just so that Rand and Mat COULD HAVE A REAL SCENE TOGETHER, but Demandred and I will both have to be disappointed. But it's kinda funny that it feels like Gawyn was rejecting the idea that he is "following" Rand in, like, a philosophical way, but Demandred meant "Lews Therin is literally your battle commander".

Gawyn loses the duel. And I like Gawyn this time around, so I'm much more emotionally affected by it. That's so rude. 😭

Egwene fights to reach Gawyn, feeling how close to death he is. 😭��

Galad is on the Heights, fighting against Sharan channelers on Mat's orders, wearing a copy of the foxhead medallion. Galad also keeps getting confronted with things about 'his' Children of Light that are making him go 'yikes'. He's killing the Sharan channelers because it makes sense for the battle and he was ordered to do it... but the Children are happy to have an excuse to kill channelers and have some... real strange beliefs that kinda make channelers akin to vampires (...burying the head separately or they will rise again?).

One of the Children finds Gawyn, near death, and brings Galad to him. As he dies, Gawyn is talking over his regrets, starting with regretting staying at the White Tower back in book 4. He tells Galad to tell Egwene that he loves her, and Galad reassures him that Egwene already knows. Galad gets very cold inside when he realizes that his brother is dying. "He had seen men die, he had lost friends. This hurt more. Light, but it did."

When he tries to tell Gawyn that he needs to leave, so that he doesn't leave Galad without a brother, Gawyn tells him about Rand. And he tells Galad not to hate Rand. "I always hated him but I stopped." And Gawyn dies. 😭😭😭

Egwene feels it when it happens. After sending out a burst of flames at the nearby enemies as the pain consumes her, she collapses for the moment (there is a group of Whitecloaks nearby so she was very very close to reaching Gawyn before he died. That is heartbreaking).

Egwene wakes up after having been removed from the battlefield. She feels empty and heartbroken but, especially after she overhears how badly the battle is going, she knows that she does not have the time for grief or mourning, not now. "Egwene al'Vere lost a man she loved, and she felt him die through a bond. The Amrylin has sympathy for Egwene al'Vere, as she would have sympathy for any Aes Sedai dealing with such loss. And then, in the face of the Last Battle, the Amrylin would expect that woman to pick herself up and return to the fight." It's interesting how (as Rand's foil), Egwene is both the same kind of hero that Rand is, but she's also the kind of hero that Rand expected himself to be but actually ends up not being. Rand's Last Battle is philosophical; Egwene's Last Battle is physical (which is to say, the show gets another point right in how they decided to distribute episode eight out to its protagonists -- with Rand's fight ultimately being in his head while Egwene's is out on the battlefield; that's what Rafe & co meant when they said they were doing a whole-series adaptation and not just adapting book-by-book. they looked at the actual endgame needs of the characters and put in the work up-front to make sure that those would vibe with the set-up).

18. In order to keep herself balanced on the battlefield, Egwene decides that she needs to bond a Warder, though she is far from emotionally ready, and she asked "Leilwin Shipless" if she will accept the duty, getting immediate agreement. And Egwene goes back out to fight again.

19. "Egwene led an assault the likes of which had not been seen in millennia." There's some intense fighting and then Egwene comes face-to-face with Taim, who calls himself M'Hael now. There is an intense battle scene. The battle involves a lot of balefire being tossed around by Taim and, in the back of her mind, Egwene ponders the notion of whether or not the weave really is impossible to counter. Egwene didn't need the help of anyone else's ancient memories in order to rediscover Traveling, after all. That was all her, figuring it out from basic principles.

20. Egwene and her Aes Sedai have been fighting on the Heights for hours. Taim reappears, pouring balefire into her line of Aes Sedai and killing dozens. Egwene thinks again about what Perrin said in TAR about balefire -- "it's only a weave" -- and considers how balefire is considered a one-of-a-kind sort of thing. But what if it isn't? What if it works like any other weave? With the One Power, there are always two halves. Logically, balefire should have an equal and opposite counterpart, just as saidar has saidin. "If a weave exists, so must its opposite". And when Taim strikes again with balefire, she counters with this idea of this weave that she has created, one that is the opposite of balefire. Something that will reinforce the Pattern instead of unraveling it.

She decides that it is called the Flame of Tar Valon, and she uses it to kill Taim.

21. Egwene realizes that she's reached the point of no return -- if she releases her grip on saidar, then she will burn out. There is too much inside her right now. More than she can hold. So she can let go and burn out and survive... or she can take that power and use it.

She tells Leilwin née Egeanin one last command -- find the seals and keep them until she sees 'the moment the light shines'. Then she wraps her up in Air and shoves her through a gateway, releasing their bond.

She closed her eyes and drew in the power. More than a woman should be able to, more than was right. Far beyond safety, far beyond wisdom. This sa'angreal had no buffer to prevent this.

Her body was spent. She offered it up and became a column of light, releasing the Flame of Tar Valon into the ground beneath her and high into the sky. The Power left her in a quiet, beautiful explosion, washing across the Sharans and sealing the cracks created by her fight with M'Hael.

Egwene's soul separated from her collapsing body and rested upon that wave, riding it into the Light.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Before I move on to the next set of plot-threads, I want to ponder a question: why on earth does Gawyn get blamed for Egwene deciding to go out in a blaze of glory? He died hours ago. She bonded a new Warder. She doesn't die out of rage over her Warder's death here. To quote Gawyn: [Her] heart was the need. Egwene looked at what the battle needed from her at that moment, and she made a choice.

Once upon a time, Lews Therin stood on a mountain after losing the love of his life, and his despair created destruction around him. Once upon a time, Egwene stood on a battlefield after losing the love of her life, and her sacrifice healed the destruction around her.

Last time around, Lews Therin was fighting the wrong battle -- and the wrong person was the one fighting in the battle.

re: Egwene dying at all. I actually do think that having one of the Emond's Field Five die was a good choice. Would I have picked Egwene as the one? Probably not. otoh, it kinda seems like the other four were all mentioned as still being alive in Jordan's epilogue, so Egwene was the only one who could die (since the epilogue was considered basically sacred). idk I'm a big softie who has a hard time killing off characters so I'm not really the person to talk to about that subject, lol.

Rand (& Nynaeve)

TDO's attack against Rand starts out as an attempt to break him down and shatter him, but Rand resists. "It was as if the Dark One was shredding him while at the same time trying to crush him entirely, coming at Rand from infinite directions, all at once, in a wave."

When that fails, TDO then 'weaves' a reality for Rand to see. A world 'remade' in TDO's image, where the taint overlays everything, the Blight is everywhere, and Rand has been forgotten in his failure. TDO makes him watch his father die, and then Dannil leads him back to Emond's Field, where a Turned Nynaeve is waiting with channelers and Fades to Turn Rand too. It's an attempt to make Rand feel despair and give up, but when Nynaeve & co begin the process of trying to Turn Rand to the Shadow, he pushes back, rejecting this reimagining of the world that TDO has created. Hmm, Rand finds threads here that are more varied than the five threads of the One Power, calls them "the fabric of creation" and uses them to channel a different reality.

We now get introduced to the world that Rand reimagines. "He passed from nothingness into majesty."

Gorgeous buildings. Wide roads but nothing driving on it, only people walking around, in vibrant clothing. Now, instead of the memory of Turned Chosen enslaving and tormenting the Two Rivers, Rand has willed into being memories of Ogier coming "to the Two Rivers to repay Rand for his sacrifice, intending to build a monument here, [but] the town's leaders had wisely requested help improving their city instead".

Rand doesn't quite imagine paradise entirely -- though he's integrated the Seanchan into his vision of peace here, he doesn't know enough about the Sharans to do the same, so there are still "campaigns" there. And there is a monument dedicated to the fallen of the Last Battle with "familiar" faces that Rand isn't quite willing to look at. Like TDO had done earlier, "He'd built this reality out of the threads of what could be, of mirrors of the world as it now played out".

The knowledge that other people are out there dying and sacrificing for a potential future shakes Rand -- he wanted so much for his sacrifice to be the only sacrifice, which was always going to be impossible. But when he lets that thought enter his mind, this vision of reality starts to get eaten up by TDO and Rand has to force it back into place.

It is the anniversary of the hundred years of peace that Rand had wanted in the Dragon's Peace that he had the nations sign before (and during, in the case of the Seanchan) the Last Battle. Lady Adora, Perrin's granddaughter, is the mayor of Emond's Field. Rand slips past her and into the school. A school for anyone to come and learn, no matter what their background. TDO taunts him again for believing that he can eliminate suffering entirely. So we're kinda doing a "the perfect is the enemy of the good" argument here. Is "better" enough when it isn't "perfect"? And is "perfect" only ever a lie? TDO attacks Rand again, and this world fades back into a faint mirror of possibility. The heart of the Last Battle is a philosophical argument about the nature of reality, and of human nature.

As he stands with the great shadow of TDO, Rand can see the armies outside fighting. TDO is mostly outside of time, except wherever it touches the Pattern. There it is bound to the linear nature of time. TDO tells Rand to watch as the people fighting in his name die, and spins another vision for him.

The new world-possibility that TDO spins for Rand looks very much like the regular world, with some minor differences like steam-drawn carriages driving around. He's in Caemlyn this time, and he can still see the hole in the wall from when Talmanes blew the hole to escape from the Shadowspawn, but there's a bustle and a life around.

He goes to a fruit seller, and she mentions her fresh peaches for sale. "Peaches," Rand said, aghast. Everyone knew those were poisonous. She tells him that they are safe now; the toxin has been removed. Hey, isn't it peach blossoms that Rand made bloom back in Ebou Dar? So that was actually meant as something of a subtle threat, though Tuon took as an Important Omen. As they're talking, a street urchin steals one of the fruits and starts to run off, and the fruit-seller pulls out a rod and does something that instantly kills him. When Rand reacts in horror, she acts puzzled, asking him if "it" belonged to him. Yikes! Yeah, definitely still a very Bad World, Rand. When she asks him what faction he belongs to, he takes that as his cue to leave, very quickly.

He searches Caemlyn to find the Queen's Blessing and, with relief, sees that Basel Gill is working inside. So this one is not a hundred years in the future like the last one. Gill says that they're in the Fourth Age and that the Last Battle was won. After Gill tells him that he'll get him a faction symbol, Rand notices a nothingness that signifies TDO's presence and questions it. This is a world where TDO has tricked people into believing that they won the Last Battle.

When Gill returns, it's with guards to rob Rand for his fancy coat. Rand realizes that TDO has taken everyone's consciences/compassion. This is a world without any spark of 'light' inside people's hearts, only Shadow. Rand tells TDO that seeing this only makes him want to fight harder and now he will show TDO a world "without Shadow".

In the cavern, Nynaeve works to save Alanna's life. All her Power is still wrapped up in the link with Rand, so she has to sew and use her herbs and all her know-how from being the Wisdom of Emond's Field.

As Rand tries to weave together the possibility of a world without the Shadow, he finds that the threads resist him and he wonders if that is because of how unlikely such a world is. iirc, Rand's upcoming dreamworld is a moment that the show has already given us great set-up for with the fantasy that Rand gets from Ishamael in episode 8 and is another illustration of how far ahead Rafe & co were thinking with all their choices in the first season.

He chooses to create Caemlyn, to wash the taste out of his mouth of having seen the horrible vision that TDO showed him last time. Trees are in full bloom, there isn't a cloud in the sky, and children don't recognize what a sword is. He asks to visit the queen and is directed towards the gardens, though he first travels through a hallway of magic mirrors, letting him see this paradise reflected in other lands: a peaceful meadow in the Mountains of Mists, the Stone a museum instead of a fortress, the rebuilt towers of Malkier, the Chora Fields of the Age of Legends surrounding the city of Rhuidean as he hears Aiel voices lifted in song. No locks on the doors. No more need for money -- "a nearly forgotten eccentricity". Channelers create food for everyone and Aes Sedai heal anyone who suffers injury.

His own grave in the Blasted Lands, where his body had been burned after the Last Battle, overgrown with leaves, grass, and flowers. Rand pauses at this window for a long moment before he moves onward into the gardens.

Elayne sits alone in the gardens, not too far from the garden wall where he once fallen in and met her for the first time. "Elayne was as beautiful as she'd been when they'd last parted. She was no longer pregnant, of course. A hundred years had passed since the Last Battle. She appeared not to have aged a day." When Elayne sees him, she greets him in surprise.

18. She wonders if her daughter is using the Mask of Mirrors to play a prank on her, but Rand sinks down to one knee before her and tells her that he's real. And, as he looks into her eyes and listens to her voice, he realizes that "something was wrong".

19. "That simpering tone, that vapid reaction... Elayne had never been like that." He gets more disturbed as she continues, talking about Aviendha spending her week off from singing to do "nursery duty". "Aviendha. Tending children and singing to chora trees. There was nothing wrong with that, really. Why shouldn't she enjoy such activities? But it was wrong, too. He thought Aviendha would be a wonderful mother, but to imagine her seeking to spend all day playing with other people's children..."

20. When he looks into Elayne's eyes, he sees the same kind of blankness that he's seen in those forcibly Turned to the Shadow. He accuses TDO of having done something to her. But TDO asks him, "Did you think that removing me from their lives would leave them unaltered?"

21. "She was not herself... because Rand had taken away her ability to be herself." Again! This resonates so well with what was set up in episode eight! Rafe is playing the long game!

22. I do have to... interject a side note: this scene really couldn't be done with Min because... this horror that Rand accidentally did to Elayne, stripping her of her autonomy in an attempt to create a world without Shadow... is basically what Min did to herself in LoC.

He’ll have to take me as I am, [Min] thought, twitching the reins irritably. I’m not changing for any man. Only, her clothes would have been as plain as any farmer’s not that long ago, her hair had not been in ringlets almost to her shoulders, and a small voice whispered, You’ll be whatever you think he wants you to be.

Honestly, that's a big part of why I dislike how prophecy is used in a couple of the romances (Min->Rand and Mat->Tuon) because it feels like it's been used to strip away their autonomy and yet this loss of their self doesn't get treated like a horror even though their 'choice' to chase Rand/marry Tuon was done because they believed they had no choice.

23. Rand weeps in despair at all the loss of life that is going on in the Last Battle outside of Shayol Ghul. "He should have been able to protect them. Why couldn't he? Against his will, the names began to replay in his mind. The names of those who had died for him, starting with only women, but now expanded to each and every person he should have been able to save - but hadn't." But he refuses to give in to TDO's offer to 'stop fighting and rest'. And TDO spins another possibility for him...

24. The next offer that TDO makes is 'nothing'. Aka oblivion for all of existence. He claims that it is the same as the 'peace of the void' that Rand seeks so often. Rand gives the offer due consideration, and then rejects it.

25. Rand feels Egwene's death and it shakes him hard. Egwene's name is added to the list in his mind, and despair claws at him as TDO gloats that the dead belong to him.

26. Rand is watching the whole battle play out -- he sees Elayne (captive and alone), he see Rhuarc (his mind forfeit), Mat (desperate, facing down horrible odds), and Lan (riding to his death).

Demandred's words dug at him. The Dark One's pressure continue to tear at him.

Rand had failed.

But in the back of his mind, a voice. Frail, almost forgotten.

Let go.

Elayne & Mat (& Fortuona & Min & Galad)

Elayne is heading into the main Seanchan camp to talk to Mat about why he appears to be changing the battle plans without letting her know. Along the way, they deal with some Draghkar and Elayne deliberately deafens her side so that they will be able to ignore their song. After this, she's approached by a sul'dam and damane pair and, reluctantly, allows the damane to heal her ears. Elayne is, btw, wearing sturdy boots.

Elayne has also been paying attention to how the Seanchan behave, and so she does not talk to any of the sul'dam herself, because she's noticed that they care a LOT about who talks to who. This sul'dam in particular is highborn, Elayne suspects from the shaven sides of her head, so she'll definitely feel insulted by Elayne not being willing to speak to her. <3

Elayne also notes here that the Seanchan highborn seem to dislike the idea of being healed with the Power ("Why any of you would want to be Healed by an animal is beyond me," the sul'dam says). But she also points out that there's a gap between what the Seanchan claim is true and what they actually seem to do -- they say they disapprove of healing but are having their damane learn the weaves.

Mat and Elayne's relationship seems to be fairly healthy here which honestly is fascinating given... you know. Tuon and the whole Seanchan defection. Elayne insults Mat when she greets him, but he finds it amusing, just as she suspected that he would. He's made up a throne for her in Andoran red-and-gold, extra cushioned, and with a still-steaming cup of tea waiting for her! Husband behavior! Not the kind of ~husband behavior~ that Mat derided all throughout TGS but actual "I care about your comfort" behavior.

She notes that his clothing "smelled of some kind of compromise" -- Tuon agreed to let Mat wear clothing in the style that he preferred as long as it was silk? Elayne also notes that he's wearing a pink ribbon around his hat. And that is also fascinating because Mat had two very specific memories about Tylin's (pink) ribbons in his second chapter in this book (right before he saw Tuon again), and they were both extremely negative. The first time was when his scarf around his neck reminded him of "a ribbon that felt like a chain" and the second was his flashback to the pink ribbons when he saw Tylin's headboard/bed. So for Mat to put a pink ribbon around his hat is... interesting. A reminder of the chains that he's still wearing? We're not in his PoV, so we don't get his reasoning, and I don't think he ever thinks about it in his own PoV.

"All in all, Elayne was impressed by how easily the scout mixed his obeisance and his report. She was also sickened. No ruler should demand such of her subjects. A nation's strength came from the strength of its people; break them, and you were breaking your own back."

I am also really really curious by what (silent) Fortuona might be thinking of the casual & intimate way that Mat and Elayne are talking to each other here, given how jealous she's gotten in the past. Elayne noted when she entered the tent that Fortuona was present ("dressed in enough green silk to supply a shop in Caemlyn for two weeks" and with Min standing silently at her side) but has not engaged with her at all.

"You spent this whole week planning with us, and you knew the entire time you'd throw [the plans] out with the dishwater." Anyway, Mat says that he didn't know the entire time, but that he needs to keep the plans in his head if they want them to be safe from the Forsaken. Also, Elayne, in contrast to most of the people who have interacted with Mat recently, is able to figure out what he's thinking just from a couple of micro-expressions.

But it's interesting/frustrating the implied changes that have happened over the course of this week of off-screen planning -- aka Tuon compromising with Mat. Because it happens off-screen, we don't actually find out why Tuon was willing to compromise - is it because, with all his friends around, she's realized that it would be impossible to control him with the methods she would use if they were alone, because he could just... walk fifty feet away and hang out with his powerful friends instead of being stuck with her if she pushes him too far (as he did in the previous chapter when she was trying to force him to sit in judgement)? Has she actually had off-screen character development (if so, stop having important emotional moments happen off-screen!)? We just don't know.

Mat is also still calling Fortuona "Tuon". And that scene ended with Elayne never, at any point, engaging with Tuon and she also never thinks of Fortuona as "Mat's wife", only as "the Seanchan Empress". Surely she has to know by this point that they're married but she Does Not Think About It. I genuinely have so many questions -- one of the primary ones being: where has Mat been sleeping this last week? Does the fact that Mat was saying "Tuon's tent" in the previous chapter mean that he has his own tent separate from hers? Tuon positioned "having sex" as a reward-type situation back when Mat first showed up in Ebou Dar, so is that time in the gardens the only time that they've had sex? Given that Tuon seems to want Min by her side constantly, if she did decide to have sex with Mat again, would she insist on Min staying in the tent with them to keep an eye out for sex-related omens? (we already know that Selucia and at least one or two other guard-slaves would likely be present) Has Mat been avoiding having sex with her or sleeping in the same tent as her so that she doesn't get another chance to steal his medallion? So many questions, absolutely nothing in the narration that gives me any hints at answers.

Okay, our first Mat PoV in this chapter is fascinating because Mat has basically the exact same thought here about Galad that he had about Tuon in an earlier chapter. Compare "[Galad] could have been a statue, with that pretty face and unchanging expression. No, statues had more life." vs "Mat shivered. He didn’t like it when Tuon got like this. That stare of hers... it seemed like the stare of another person. A person without compassion. A statue had more life to it." The Whitecloaks = Seanchan comparison is alive and well (or the Seanchan are what the Whitecloaks would be if they had the kind of continent-wide coercive power).

Min is spending all her time in the command tent whispering to Tuon. It sure feels like she swapped super-easily from being Rand's prophecy girl to being Tuon's prophecy girl (okay, okay, I'll cut her some slack since Rand did ask her to watch Fortuona). When Elayne's voice sounds "cold" here, Mat compares her to an Aes Sedai, unlike their earlier encounters. Also... it doesn't sound like Selucia is around? Did she get demoted again? Elayne also... sorta speaks to Tuon here? But then quickly swaps back to talking to Mat only lol.

Mat realizes that there's a spy either inside or just around the command tent, because of how quickly Demandred is responding to his changes.

Mat is amused by the fact that Elayne has managed to "shift" her throne around so that it's either the same height or slightly higher than Tuon's, so he hasn't ~embraced Tuon's dignity as his own~ or however the Seanchan might put it.

15. Hmm, we also have confirmation here that Mat has been... flirting (????? sexually harassing???? who knows with New Mat but probably harassing, sadly) with other Seanchan Bloods, if not in front of Tuon, then in front of people who would report to Tuon, which is another interesting piece of data to put into the puzzle. It really does seem like Mat has managed to (off the page) force a certain level of compromise into his marriage.

16. And, here, Mat slips away with just Elayne and Birgitte so that he can reassure Elayne about his plans in private, even though Tuon questions him walking away (and he doesn't even look back at her because "those eyes could drill through solid steel"). It genuinely seems like some fascinating stuff happened in that week of planning that we didn't get to see! Mat seems a lot less scared of doing things that will upset Tuon. But again, we don't know if that's actually due to a change in Mat and Tuon's relationship or if it's Mat's physical proximity to people who would unquestioningly take his side against hers that gives him new boldness.

17. He tells Elayne that he has a plan to deal with the spy that he believes is listening in at the command tent, and he goes through his entire thought process for her here, which is an astonishingly unprecedented amount of communication from Mat. So Elayne is in on his plan -- and away from the command post so that if things go wrong, she can pick another general to lead them; and he sent a message to Talmanes about his plan as well (that Talmanes signaled that he received), so the only remaining question mark for Mat is whether or not he can "coax" Tuon into doing what needs to be done.

I am going to say that I find it very interesting that when Mat is certain that there's a spy in the command tent and that their security is compromised, he finds a reason to get Elayne away from the command tent. The reason makes tactical sense, of course, but it's interesting.

18. Birgitte tells Elayne that all her older memories are gone now. Her first memories are of waking up to Nynaeve and Elayne in this world. Elayne wants to go after Birgitte, to try to comfort her, but Galad arrives. Galad isn't entirely certain why he's been sent here but he's got time to scold Elayne for being on the battlefield "in your condition". Elayne (accurately) points out that if they lose, it's gonna be a lot worse for the kids. So Elayne and Galad can talk about the kids together but Elayne and Tam can't?

19. Elayne knows Mat so well, even as she claims to despair over understanding him. "I'm convinced that Mat only acts simple so that people will let him get away with more."

20. A letter arrives for Galad from Mat, and Sanderson makes fun of himself when he has Elayne note that Mat's spelling and handwriting is much better in this letter than the one he sent her in ToM. Anyway, he's sent the copy he had of the medallion (Elayne does verify here that it's a copy and not the original) to Galad and told him to go kill as many Sharan channelers as he's capable of killing. Because he feels like "a Whitecloak" will have the stomach to go kill a bunch of channelers. When Galad agrees with Elayne that he shouldn't have a problem with "killing women" and explains that women are just as capable of evil as men are, Elayne tells him "You actually said something that doesn't make me want to strangle you." lol, ilu Elayne. Galad thinks she's joking but, no, of course not.

Characterization note: Mat never gave the medallion copy to Tuon. That was the whole reason that he'd originally held onto it after ToM, with plans to give it to Tuon to protect her. ...and then she stole his medallion and it sounds like he had to do some fast-talking to get it back. And then he never mentions or brings up the copy until this moment when he sends it to Galad.

Did Tuon's betrayal of Mat earlier in AMoL mean that he no longer trusted her with a medallion?

Did Tuon's own paranoia and mistrust screw her out of getting that extra level of protection and trust openly given from Mat, and so Mat held onto it to find another purpose for the copy instead?

21. Min apparently is still spending all her time here quietly whispering to Tuon. She's gotta be someone's little whisper, I guess. She's gotten used to it over the last few books. Anyway, Logain is here because he wants to go fight at Shayol Ghul instead of here at the "battle for the little lives of men". Or he wants to be sent against Demandred, as the "dragon's replacement". Mat finally just gives Logain permission to go fight Demandred if he wants to do it so badly.

22. Ah, here is where Mat has another willful delusion (number five? six? not sure): "What he would give to be done with all of these high heads. Mat might be one of them now, but that could be fixed. All he had to do was convince Tuon to forsake her throne and run off with him. That would not be easy, but bloody ashes, he was fighting the Last Battle. Compared to the challenge he now faced, Tuon seemed an easy knot to untie."

Made up a girl in his head, one that Fortuona will never be. Good luck with that, and all.

This does also show that Mat continues to have no interest in being part of the Seanchan hierarchy (and this is something that is backed up by his actions, like refusing to legitimize himself as the Prince of Ravens by refusing to sit in judgement of soldiers throwing themselves on the Empress's mercy). Though Mat shows signs of protectiveness and sometimes affection towards 'Tuon', he shows no signs of wanting to be involved with 'The Seanchan Empress Fortuona'. It does feel a bit like we're continuing the thread where Sanderson actually gave Mat a reason for his bizarre turnaround in CoT/KoD by having him mentally compare the fear that Tuon/the sul'dam have over channeling with the fear that Rand/male channelers have over channeling -- this is an echo of the 'Rand-friend vs Dragon Reborn-scary' battle that Mat has been having in his brain, off-and-on, ever since he first learned that Rand could channel. I wish that Sanderson had leaned into it more, but even this subtext here is more of an explanation for Mat's change in characterization in CoT than we ever got from Jordan.

I have to admit, the way that it's done does kinda remind me of BBC's Merlin -- in S1, Arthur and Merlin go through this entire character arc of Arthur looking past his prejudices about servants as he becomes Merlin's friend. And then the show aired and large parts of the audience went, "huh, kinda seems like they're in love with each other"; and so the show did a hard reset in S2 and Arthur basically went through that exact same arc with Gwen, who was always meant to be his canon love interest, and went back to being more of a jerk towards Merlin. And in WoT, Mat's struggle between caring about a person vs being put off by/scared of that person's public mask was first grounded in his friendship with Rand, but now it's basically been transferred over to Tuon instead. Basically "oh shit, this character arc makes this character look queer; better shift it over to his canon het love interest STAT".

(but imo this thread works so much better with Rand because the READERS know the real person behind the public mask; and I feel like we never really get that with Tuon -- there are hints that a real person exists but even in her own PoVs, it feels like Tuon is still mostly just The Mask)

23. Tuon signals that it's time for her and Mat to stage their fake fight about the Seanchan pulling out of the battle, picking "I can protect myself" as the issue she wants to fight over, which Mat thinks is kinda silly but whatever. "His plan with Tuon was to take a cue from what Rand had once done with Perrin". ...how did Mat find out about that? I guess from Min? Perrin was asleep and Rand was gone, so I guess it must have been from Min. I'm... pretty sure she knew the Rand & Perrin fight was fake? Or maybe Perrin told him about it during the dinner where Perrin laughed and laughed over how droll it was that Mat had married a slaver. Because Perrin and Mat got to have a reunion dinner.

24. A Gray Man attacks. I'm sorry... are we supposed to believe that this is the same Gray Man from Ebou Dar that escaped back in Mat's second chapter? Because I thought Shadowspawn (including Gray Men?) couldn't go through Gateways? Maybe this Gray Man also has Mat's non-channeling teleportation skills. Anyway, this time the Gray Man is attacking Mat just as channelers invade the command tent (so... literally proving the point that Mat had just made about how the tent was no longer secure) so Min... throws herself at Tuon to protect her? Why is Min's first instinct "protect the head slaver"? Why is Min in the tank for the Seanchan so quickly?

Min also manages to knock over Tuon's ten-foot tall throne, so it sounds like it's actually made of pretty flimsy materials. That kinda feels like an unintentional metaphor -- looks imposing but is basically paper mache. lol.

25. Anyway, this is the first time Tuon shows any shred of an actual... like... positive emotion towards Mat? (I don't count "laughing at him because she views him as a brainless sex toy" as a positive emotion) So I guess we should celebrate that. Because when everyone gets attacked, Tuon runs over to try to help Mat with the Gray Man, "growling softly in an almost feral way". Once again, I am deeply curious about the mysterious changes that happened in their relationship during that skipped over week of planning, that resulted in Tuon compromising with Mat and now appearing to actually give a shit that he might die (... or she might just be possessive and not want to lose her new favorite toy? But I will choose to extend the benefit of the doubt).

26. And, once again, Min's entire priority list seems to be Tuon. ?????? Why are you so obsessed with her? Since we're in your PoV right now, could you explain to the readers why you're so deep in the tank for the Seanchan and Fortuona? Would love a reason. Anyway, she can't reach her new-found love, Fortuona, so she slips out of the tent to see if she can help any other way, and runs into Siuan.

27. When Min tells her that she needs to go find Bryne because that's the only way she'll survive, Siuan says that she can't leave because "Cauthon is in danger." Hey, you were willing to call him 'Mat' back in book three. But anyway, she says, "If Cauthon falls, this battle is lost! I don't care if we both die from this. We must help. Move!" So. Siuan. The tent is on fire. Would you say that you were there to help Mat "when the flames are high?" Just asking.

28. Okay, there's a whole group of Gray Men attacking Mat, so we're not supposed to think it was the one from Ebou Dar. But that's a gun that never went off, now that I think about it.

29. MIN! Yelling at the terrified damane to help when her sul'dam is dead is pointless if you don't FREE HER from the collar. She isn't capable of channeling without her sul'dam's permission. You should know this. YOU WERE IN FALME WITH EGWENE! Egwene explained all of this to you! (also, I think Min left the poor nameless damane to die in the burning tent, since she would also be incapable of running away on her own if she's still leashed? Slave-masters always get rescued before slaves, after all, and Min has yet to actually voice any objections to slavery since she has joined up with the Seanchan)

30. Anyway, Min successfully throws a knife at the remaining Gray Man and Mat hauls an unconscious Tuon up over his shoulder, and we have sadly saved the head slaver's life yet again. "Never had [Min] been so happy to see a knife fly true." ????? I mean, I guess the idea is that saving Tuon means that Mat is willing to leave the burning tent but still... didn't she once save Rand's life during some event or other? Or maybe I imagined that and this is the first time Min's knife skills have ever been useful, idk.

31. Oh, and Siuan is dead. Happened when Min wasn't looking. So we traded Siuan's life for Tuon's. Not worth it. Min gets a break from being the Distressed Damsel because Rand isn't around and so Tuon gets assigned the role. I feel like... maybe the narrative should have focused on whatever it was that Siuan was doing to help there, instead of what Min did? Also, it seems somewhat convenient that Siuan died before she got a good look at Tuon, because Siuan has a Talent for seeing ta'veren.

32. I wish... I really wish that Sanderson had given us the compromise conversation between Tuon and Mat. I wish that we'd actually gotten that conversation on the page, instead of just implying that something has changed because Elayne notices the effects. Because then maybe I would also give a shit about Tuon instead of just kinda wishing that someone would let one of these assassins take her out.

33. Okay, our first ~Fortuona~ PoV since the week of planning that appeared to have led to compromises in her marriage with Mat. Let's see how things stand with little miss slaver. She refuses to be healed by damane herself, though she seems vaguely tolerant of the idea of other people being healed by them.

34. I have to roll my eyes over Fortuona thinking about how her slave-guard's 'honor' depends on her fatally punishing them for their failures. It's like how she pretended that she was the one who most regretted having had Selucia beaten a time or two back in her initial intro PoV, rather than the actual person who got their ass whipped. It's just toxic brain-vomit that speaks of how deeply conditioned Fortuona is by her culture. If she actually cared about any of them as people (she doesn't, of course; she cares about them as property that she owns) then she would care about trying to dismantle the part of their brainwashing culture that says that their lives should be forfeit if they have failed her.

Anyway, she assigns them to go off to be suicide troops in the battle. Oh, and Selucia is here now, in the aftermath, with an injury. So I guess she in the tent that whole time, it's just that no one mentioned her. Poor Selucia. She really has gone back to being nothing but Tuon's Voice.

35. Fortuona raises "Darbinda" aka Min to the Blood for saving her and Mat's life, and Min isn't impressed enough for her liking (I'm also not ever going to be using that name for Min again). "How like [Mat] she was. Stubbornly humble, these mainlanders. They were actually proud - proud - of their low-born heritage. Baffling." Have you- have you considered having an actual conversation with one of them about why? And about the name thing too -- both Min and Mat are people who actively choose to go by shortened versions of their names. Maybe ask them why they don't consider forcible re-naming to be an honor (and Fortuona should know that Mat feels that way, since she glared at him and willed him not to argue when she re-named him).

Though, of course, given that Fortuona Must Always Have Slaves Around Her at all times, having a conversation like that with Mat or Min becomes a bit trickier, because if they give good answers to her questions about why they don't care about being part of the Blood, Fortuona's slaves will hear those answers. That's a major downside to the whole "nothing is private (when you have slaves)" lifestyle that Fortuona is rocking. She probably doesn't even really understand what having privacy would be like (once again, I have to say what a huge mistake it was for Jordan to have Selucia along on the circus journey, because it meant that Tuon was still wallowing in her toxic slave-owner culture during that entire time period, because she always had a slave on tap to make sure that she kept The Mask up at all times). Because though Tuon doesn't see her slaves as people, she does always need to be The Owner when they are around (which is always).

36. Mat looks over to her and gives her a nod, to let her know that they should have their fake break-up fight now. Alas that it isn't a real break-up fight. So they fight over how Mat should have warned them all sooner that the tent wasn't safe. Interesting note: though many of the Seanchan look at Mat with "accusing" eyes after she lays her charge, Galgan frowns and Fortuona notes that he doesn't seem to agree with her accusation. "Impressive, that [Mat] had converted Galgan so quickly." Anyway, after a super-quick fight where Mat is just like "okay, fine, storm off in a tizzy if you want, see if I care"; Fortuona turns around and does just that.

37. Interesting that their fake fight actually got Mat's genuine temper up. And he wonders if Tuon was genuinely angry as well and if she will genuinely abandon the fight rather than come back as planned. Interestingly enough, Fortuona didn't have a single spark of genuine anger in her PoV. It was all her following the plan. So it sounds like the fight involved a lot more of Mat's genuine frustrations than it did Tuon's. "I've had it with you. You and your bloody Seanchan rules just keep getting in the way," does feel like a pretty accurate representation of how Mat has been feeling in a lot of the Seanchan-related scenes that he's been forcing himself to endure, yeah. But Fortuona assumed, in her PoV, that Mat was entirely acting and that none of his reactions were genuine -- "he was good at this". Mat and Tuon are still looking at each other and seeing someone completely different than the person who is really there.

38. What Mat says to Min here is also genuinely fascinating. I don't particularly like Mat & Tuon, even now, but I am finding them much more interesting (in a 'watching a bug through a glass' sort of way) than I ever found them in the Jordan books. Because Mat tells Min to "keep an eye on" Tuon and then clarifies that he doesn't mean in a "protection" way but in a "watch her" way. "She worries me, Min."

...I do kinda have to giggle at Mat saying that Tuon doesn't need protection and is a "strong one" when Mat literally just had to haul her unconscious ass out of a burning tent because she basically failed immediately when she went to go help him with the Gray Men. But, hey, I appreciate that Mat didn't let the narrative shoehorn Tuon into the role of his Personal Distressed Damsel even when it was clearly trying its hardest to force her into that position.

39. Oh, so Mat and MIN get a hug when they say goodbye. *eternal grumbles at how the ONLY PERSON who didn't get an emotionally appropriate reunion with Mat was his fucking best friend*

40. Ugh, is this where Mat starts calling her "Fortuona"? Because he's decided to take Karede's suicide troops into battle with him and Karede refuses to go with him if Mat won't call her "Fortuona"? I guess I'll wait and see if the way that he addresses her actually changes.

Anyway, Mat tells Karede to keep Mat alive "for Tuon" because he's "almost certain that she's fond of" him.

*gazes off into the distance, thinking about how everyone else that Tuon is 'fond' of is a slave that she owns and is fully willing to beat or order to their death if they fail her*

41. Bryne dying off-screen affects me a lot less than Siuan somehow managing to die off-screen in a scene that she was actively in. Elayne figures that Bryne's fit of rage that sent him running towards Trollocs and got him killed means that Siuan is dead.

Siuan and Moiraine never got to see each other again. 😭

(fingers crossed for her getting to take Thom's place as the watcher outside the cave in the show version, if we get to the ending)

42. Yeah, from what we've seen in every other PoV and perspective, Perrin is the only person who thinks that Elayne isn't good at tactics. So we can safely discount his opinion as just him being an asshole who thinks that the only woman worth listening to is his wife.

43. "The Shadow pushed with all its might. Humankind did not have days remaining, but hours."

44. A bolt of balefire attacks their camp, and Demandred loudly taunts "Lews Therin" that he is hunting "a woman you love". Of course, Rand can't respond to any of that, no matter how loudly Demandred echoes it across the battlefield with the Power. Birgitte grabs Elayne so that they can get somewhere secret and safe to regroup from, since Elayne herself is the main target now.

45. Of course, Galad can hear the threats and knows that Demandred is actively hunting his sister, so now he has twice the reason to try to kill the man -- killing his brother and trying to kill his sister. In order to get Demandred to fight him directly, Galad loudly proclaims his relationship to Rand. "[The Dragon Reborn] is not here, but his brother is!" And now Galad and Demandred will duel.

46. Mat finds out from Bashere that no one has heard from Faile. He wonders how he can possible finish off this battle without help from the Horn of Valere. ...maybe you shouldn't have deserted from the Last Battle at the start of the book, Mat? Just a thought. Mat yells at Bashere, which makes him grin and his wife give Mat a fond look -- hey, Mat, bet they'd be willing to let you be a third, especially if you yell at Bashere some more. Still healthier than your marriage with Tuon! Give it some consideration!

47. "He needed an army. And a gateway. He needed a bloody gateway. Fool, he thought. He had sent the damane away. Could he not at least have kept one? Though they did make his skin crawl as if it were covered in spiders." God, this is the first time since Winter's Heart that the narrative has let Mat openly think about how fucking creeped-out he is by damane and what the Seanchan do with them! Mat was so incredibly disturbed by the damane kennels in WH and then in CoT & KoD, he acted like it was the sul'dam who had the raw end of the deal. So, yeah, Mat's first chapter in AMoL had brain-breaking teleportation and he forgot half of his characterization until he was finally allowed out of fucking Ebou Dar (RIP any hopes of an emotionally-resonant Cauthor reunion), but we have seen, over the course of the last few chapters, the slow return of how incredibly disturbed and creeped-out Mat was over the damane system. This was the thing that Jordan essentially made Mat forget in order to get him to be willing to suck face with Tuon at the end of KoD, so it's really nice to see it coming back to life. Finally.

Maybe Min will also remember at some point how fucking awful the damane system is.

48. Oh, Mat gets to reunite with Loial now? *insert annoyed grumbles about how Mat & Rand is pretty much the only important relationship that got completely cheated by how Sanderson decided to do the plotting of AMoL*

Since I mention Rand:

Those dice kept ratting in his head. He also felt a pull from the north, a tugging, as if some threads around his chest were yanking on him.

Now now, Rand, he thought. I'm bloody busy.

No colors formed, only blackness. Dark as a Myrddraal's heart. The tugging grew stronger.

Mat dismissed the vision. Not. Now.

I feel so cheated that this ends up giving me nothing that I wanted, thanks! Why did we bother! I am vibing with so much of Mat's PoV in this book now that we're out of Light-forsaken Altara but I'm so frustrated by how much Sanderson is teasing something that I already know I will not actually get.

49. Mat gets to reunite with Teslyn here. Not that I am not thrilled to have Mat reunite with Teslyn because I am, but it does... frustrate me all over again, how shallow and limp the Cauthor reunion ended up being, all happening in the shadow of the slaver ball-and-chain. Every time Mat gets a better reunion with someone else, I feel cheated about his reunion with Rand all over again. Anyway, Mat is so happy to see Teslyn that he could kiss her. (he does not)

Teslyn is going to take Mat, Loial, & co up to the Heights. My brain wants to find something symbolic in the fact that after Mat sends away Tuon & the damane, the first channeler that he runs into is Teslyn and she is the one who is enabling all his battleground hopping as he sends out order after order.

Something, something, wrong road vs right road.

Tylin... Tuon... Teslyn. Women that Mat met in Ebou Dar who have similarly rhythmic 'T' names. Tuon was jealous of Joline but it was Teslyn who started the ball rolling on Mat helping the Aes Sedai escape Ebou Dar.

idk. Maiden, mother, crone vibes, but the maiden & the mother are both abusive?

50. Demandred and Galad duel; Demandred tries to taunt Galad about Gawyn's death in order to break his focus. Galad realizes that the main purpose of what he's doing here is keeping Demandred's focus off of the armies and off of Elayne. It's in Galad's best interests to last as long against Demandred as he can. Some more fighting happens but then Galad's arm gets cut off, and he too, has lost his duel against Demandred.

51. I've seen objections to Mat personally leading the fight at this point but -- the situation is pretty dire and his command tent was blown up. Maintaining a mobile unit and darting in and out of the battle seems like the best of the bad options at this point?

52. For the moment, Elayne and Birgitte are out of the direct line of the fight. Elayne is not currently flying her banner, but she's sent messages to her commanders to let them know she still lives. Then a fake band of refugees arrives, hiding Mellar, who still has his copy of the medallion and who is here because he is still obsessed with Elayne. She thinks here that he's "the one many people still assumed fathered her children". So Elayne sent out the "Rand is the baby-daddy" press release but some people actively chose to continue to believe that slimy Mellar was the daddy? Gross. He has, apparently, been trying to track Elayne down this entire time.

53. He kills Birgitte and the loss of the bond -- and the loss of her friend -- tears at Elayne. They also have another corpse -- a woman dressed to look like Elayne, with her hair color -- that they plan to parade around to pretend to everyone that Elayne is dead. His next plan is to cut her babies out of Elayne -- ah, this must be why we jumped her pregnancy so far ahead, so that it wouldn't be quite so ridiculous that her babies could be kept alive after this -- and TDO gets the kids while Mellar gets to keep Elayne.

54. Mat has requested that the Seanchan make their return to the battlefield but instead of doing that, Fortuona is taking some time to listen to her captains debate over the subject of returning. While people suffer and die on the battlefield.

55. ...Min thinks here, with no commentary, that a Captain Yulan "had been the one to lead the strike on Tar Valon". Do you... have any opinions on that, Min? No? No opinions. Okay, noted. Her only worry is that she's started to think of her viewings as 'omens'. She really does lose herself in other people so easily. For literally the first time ever, Min uses her viewings to try to suss out a spy. Wow, Rand would have found this extremely useful, Min! She notices that one of the random so'jihn (those are slaves, Min, btw, in case you've forgotten about the existence of slavery) has a bunch of images over her head the way that normally only Aes Sedai, Warders or ta'veren do.

56. Part of her wants to just try to stab the woman, but instead she goes to confront Fortuona, asking her to please define what a Truthspeaker is. Fortuona... reluctantly... allows that it's her job to call Fortuona out in public if she screws up. So Min turns to the Blood and says, "[Tuon] has abandoned the armies of humankind, and she withholds her strength in a time of need. Her pride will cause the destruction of all people, everywhere."

She calls out the member of the Blood that the spy has compelled while throwing a dagger at the spy -- which is caught mid-air using the Power. After Moghedien (I'm assuming) escapes, Min says that this shows that the Shadow is trying to keep them from the battle. "With that in mind, will you still pursue this course of indecision?"

57. Tuon does claim here that following this mandate that Min has pressed upon her is "follow[ing] what my heart would choose". Is that true? Who knows? At least she's going back. Tuon also seems to regret slightly that she's now placed someone into the position of Truthspeaker who doesn't have the kind of trained-in deference that Selucia had. Grass is always greener.

Question: does Tuon's 'heart' matter if she still actively chooses evil unless her feet are held to the fire? That is the sort of... moral question that I feel like should have been at play way earlier in the Mat & Tuon relationship. Sanderson is actually using the basic foundations of Mat & Tuon to much greater emotional complexity than we saw at work in CoT & KoD but because it's happened after we already saw that stagnant Tuon in those two books... it's hard for this to feel earned by the narrative. It works a lot better if I close my eyes and try to imagine that we had a better lead-up in the earlier books, lol.

58. Mat learns that Egwene has died (Blood and bloody ashes, Mat thought. Egwene. Not Egwene too? It hit him like a punch to the face.) and half the Aes Sedai have exhausted themselves too much to keep channeling but all the Sharan channelers have been taken out of the picture. Then we also witness Mat's coping mechanism in action -- when his mind wanders back to Egwene, he abruptly cuts the thought off. "No thinking of that right now". Instead, he forces his mind back to business and asks if they've gotten any new troops from Mayene, healed up and ready to fight again. Lan says that he'll check.

59. Then Mat digs in his saddlebags, pulling out Rand's banner, "the one of the ancient Aes Sedai" and he tells them, "Somebody hoist this thing up. We're fighting in Rand's bloody name. Let's show the Shadow we're proud of it."

So many things that could be said here. Frustrating how late this happens? I guess that's my main feeling here, which is a shame. I wish that it could feel more triumphant for me, but this is essentially where Mat already was before he had his weird teleportation to Ebou Dar at the start of AMoL, so it's mostly just me being frustrated that none of this was allowed to exist when Rand was actually here for Mat to interact with him. Mat's friendship with Rand disappeared from the narrative just long enough to avoid us actually getting any kind of emotionally-resonant scene between them and that just... will probably always be something that I will find deeply regretful about the choices Sanderson made in this book.

But I don't want to hold onto my frustration forever, I guess. Mat really has gotten a lot better over the last few chapters. I will choose to be glad that Mat has gotten to a better place again with Rand, even if it's still bizarre that he suddenly backtracked on him at the start of this book.

60. Mat is hoping that his luck will come through when another messager brings news. The Queen of Andor is reported dead. (Bloody ashes! Not Elayne! Mat felt a lurch inside. Rand... I'm sorry.) Just like with Egwene, though, he doesn't let any of that emotion show through to the soldiers, only asking the messenger who is now in charge of the battlefield.

61. He wonders if he might not be able to win even if the Seanchan do return. If it might not be better to let the Seanchan/Fortuona hunker down in Ebou Dar and... die anyway in a few weeks or months? lol, that's not a mercy for them, Mat. But he did just hear that two people he cares about deeply are dead, so I'll give him a little slack for momentarily wishing that he didn't have to call Tuon back to her potential death too, even if he's still never given me anything he actually likes about her besides "hot enough to have sex with".

...oh, and he then learns here that Lan disobeyed his orders and went off to head towards Demandred on his own.

But Mat moves forward with his plan anyway, even though he's fairly sure it won't be enough.

Horn of Valere Team (Faile; Olver)

Faile & co run across a camp in the Blasted Lands that is being used as a supply station for the Shadow's army.

Aravine betrays the group and is a Darkfriend. I am... struggling to remember who she is. brb, will check the wiki. ahhh, she's one of the people that Faile met while she was a captive of the Shaido; a fellow captive. Anyway, Darkfriend, and she finds the Horn in Faile's bag at this point and says that she will deliver it to "Lord Demandred". Olver gets free and stabs the woman who is keeping Faile captive.

Faile grabs a horse (miraculously, it is Bela) and gives chase after Aravine, soon joined by Harnan and Vanin. She accuses them of trying to steal the Horn but they protest that they were only trying to steal the tabac that they thought she was carrying, because Mat owes them money, and seeing the Horn in there came as a huge shock to them (which is why they dropped it and didn't take it with them when they ran).

She throws a knife at Aravine's back and recovers the Horn. She finds Olver again, but they are being hunted by the Shadow's forces, who now know they have the Horn. She gives the Horn to Olver and tells him to get it to Mat. Then she gets back on a different horse (not Bela), making sure that the sack she carries is obvious, and heads off on distraction duty.

So Olver has the Horn. He's pretty stressed because now he's all alone again, as the Darkfriends and Trollocs chase after Faile. "How brave he had thought himself. Now, here he was, finally at the battle. He could barely keep his hands from trembling. He wanted to hide, dig deep into the earth."

A Trolloc discovers him and Olver sees Bela still there and runs for her, wishing he had a horse that looked faster. He races towards where he can see Mat's banners on the horizon, but more Trollocs keep appearing. And Bela gets shot by a Trolloc arrow and goes down. He tries racing up the mountain to reach Mat's banners but they're so far away. He finds a crevasse and wedges himself into it, trying to push deep enough that he's out of the reach of the Trollocs. Poor kid. This is all incredibly traumatizing for him.

He couldn't stop shaking. He also couldn't make himself move. He trembled, terrified, as the beasts pried at him with filthy fingers, digging closer and closer.

Other Misc PoVs

We get a Tam PoV that continues to have zero acknowledgement of the whole "Tam knows he's going to be a grandfather" thing. It's just weird at this point.

Okay, what Uno thinks about Mat ("He still didn't understand why anyone would put Cauthon in charge of anything. He remembered that boy, always snapping at people, eyes sunken in his head. Half-dead, half-spoiled.") should also have been what Min remembered about Mat. The last time they both saw him was around that same time period of Falme, when Mat was deep in the grip of the dagger-sickness. This is the Mat that Min would have met!

Perrin wakes up and is told that they were able to heal him so that he wouldn't die and will recover but that's all they can do for him. Healing needs to be saved for other people too, so "your participation in the Last Battle is over". And then he goes back to sleep, but regular sleep this time.

Graendal collects Rhuarc as one of her pets. 😭

...why am I supposed to care that Demandred has feelings for women (or, I guess, A Woman)? I really have absolutely no reason to care about Demandred's love life. Why am I being told any of this? Was someone worried that readers would think Demandred was gay for obsessing so much over Lews Therin, so a "Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?" moment was thrown in to avoid that? It does seem put in to deliberately contrast for his, uh, "burning passion that was his hatred for Lews Therin".

Another possibility is that this is a relationship meant to foil/reflect Mat and Tuon's? Shendla sounds just as willfully delusional about her future with ~her Wyld~ as Mat always sounds when he's thinking about his Fictional Tuon Girl. "Oh, just because you do evil things and control an evil army of literal horrors doesn't make you evil, darling! Just because you own slaves command Shadowspawn doesn't make you bad, sweetheart! The evil things that you do don't define you! You can do evil things and be a super-great person! I believe in you!"

We get another Tam PoV where he doesn't think at all about his impending post-Last Battle grandfatherhood.

Our third Tam PoV. No acknowledgement of Elayne's pregnancy and how Rand has been announced to be the father. We have time for Tam to run into Lan and for Lan to be all "ah, the blademaster who gave Rand his sword earned the title" but no time to think about Tam's actual upcoming grandkids. It's so weird how disconnected Elayne's pregnancy manages to be from Rand's plotline even after Rand and her entire army all know about the pregnancy and that Rand is the father! Somehow, this plotline is still only considered relevant to Elayne herself and not relevant to Rand or Tam at all????

Androl pickpockets Taim for the true seals, I think? I feel like maybe Sanderson should have leaned into the pickpocketing thing for Androl. tbh, this plotline has felt pretty pointless, lol. The Asha'man could have just been part of the army in the other plotlines and nothing of value really would have been lost.

Okay so... why are the Sharan channelers such experts in war, anyway? Because it doesn't sound like they've constantly been having civil wars, the way that the Seanchan have, so where have they been getting their experience in fighting? You can't become an expert fighter in a vacuum.

The Band has been secretly hidden in caverns deep underground so that they can work on repairing the dragons (with Aludra's expertise guiding the way, of course), waiting on Mat's order (with Asha'man and gateways to get them out again) for them to attack once more.

The Tuatha'an work as battlefield triage, going through the bodies trying to find those who are only wounded and might be saved. "The Way of the Leaf was an easy master at times, providing a life of joy and peace. But a leaf fell in calm winds and in the tempest; dedication demanded that one accept the latter as well as the former."

Raen asks Ila what they would have asked these people to do, in the face of Trollocs. Ila says that they could have run. That there was no need for them to fight here, right at the cusp of the Blight. Raen says that the Trollocs would have followed. "We have accepted many masters. The Shadow might treat us poorly, but would it really be worse than we have been treated at the hands of others?" Ila asks, but Raen disagrees. "It would have been worse. I am not going to abandon the Way, Ila. It is my path and it is right for me. Perhaps... perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path." Ah. They're talking about/mourning Aram. Ila says, "I shouldn't have turned my back on him. I should have tried to help him return to us, not cast him out." She had always felt as if she knew the answers in life. Today, most of those had slipped from her. Saving a person's life though... that she could cling to. She headed back among the bodies, searching for the living among the dead.

Galad ends up in the Mayane hospital. I wonder if he still has his copy of the medallion. I assume he does. Not sure when he'd have had a chance to give it back.

Ah, asked and answered. Berelain finds the medallion around Galad's neck as he whispers "back to Cauthon", so she takes the medallion and heads off at a brisk pace.

Loial and Erith take a moment to rest together before the final charge of the Last Battle. Loial has managed to take notes here and there, for a story that he'd like to pretend that he'll still get to write. "There was no harm to such a little lie."

The night grows darker as Lan charges towards Demandred and we pass our final Tam PoV of this chapter... still no mention of the fact that he knows he's going to have grandkids. (or the news going through the army that Elayne is reported dead? or anything like that?)

18. Ah, Lan was the one who received the note from Berelain with the medallion - I do not know how Galad ended up with this, but I believe he wished me to send it to Cauthon. I wish that Lan had cleared this plan with Mat tbh! But anyway, Lan does have three things here as he faces off with Demandred: one that Gawyn had (he's a Warder, with that boost in endurance) and one that Galad had (a medallion to protect him from weaves) plus he also has twenty years of experience fighting at the side of an Aes Sedai in a quest to locate the Dragon Reborn. It sounds very much like his reasoning is the same as Gawyn and Galad as well -- this is a necessary job, and I'm a person who is already here and can be risked to do that job.

19. "Lan held nothing back." He knows that he can't afford to give Demandred time to think, so he just goes for a relentless assault. Demandred does pretty quickly figure out the 'just channel things at him' trick, so Lan is dealing with dodging rocks as well. Demandred is just so certain that anyone who can hold their own against him is Lews Therin! It's honestly been kinda the comic relief of this chapter.

20. Then he uses one of the lessons that he taught Rand (that Rand used in his battle against Ishamael in Falme) -- he deliberately lets Demandred stab him so that he can get close enough to stab his own sword through Demandred's throat.

The world grew dark as Lan slipped backward off the sword. He felt Nynaeve's fear and pain as he did, and he sent his love to her.

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #wot amol spoilers #wot a memory of light spoilers #mat cauthon #egwene al'vere #elayne trakand #rand al'thor #seanchan content warning #faile bashere #olver (wheel of time)

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