#set us up for success in may (second round busts)

[stromer]

i want to shrink him really small and put him in a jar and shake the hell out of it

[bedbellyandbeyond]

Only Vampires

(Story Post)

Nari wasn't sure why he trusted these two vampires, but he wanted to know what they knew and so he followed them to their home. They didn't live more than a block north of where the library stood. They must've lived there a long time to afford such a big house, but then again, he had no idea what the housing market was like here. Either way, any active and diligent vamp over 100 years old could secure themself considerable wealth if they tried. Nari himself hadn't focused on capital during the majority of his life though, but he still did well for himself. The front doors of the house were very big, with stained glass windows, but Wesley and Everett took him around to the back door which was average sized and let no light in. This wasn't an issue right now as it was an hour to midnight, but he guessed that any daytime travel came through here, so they'd grown accustomed to it.

Inside was a small mudroom with another door at the other end. Nari waited for Everett to take off his shoes before he removed his own because wasn't sure what the traditions were in this country, but he was only further confused when Wesley took his shoes off but Everett kept them on. “Um, shoes on or off?” Nari had to ask. Wesley wacked Everett's leg with his loafer. “Shoes off, please.” Nari was relieved and did as told. “Alright.” “I'm not sure why we adopted that,” Everett said, reluctantly removing his footwear and then promptly putting on a pair of slippers. “My family always wore their shoes inside, his family wore shoes inside… Not to mention, it doesn't matter at all what Wesley wears.” “It's for our housemates,” Wesley said. “We have several housemates from across the world, you'll find Nari. The general consensus has been shoes off. We do our best to be accommodating.” He then proceeded to pull out a set of wheel slippers and socks and maneuvered them onto his chair. Nari thought for a second and then raised a hand. “I hope you don't think I need somewhere to stay. I'm well established.” “No, no,” Wesley said. “We just like to help anyone when it comes to library matters. As you may have noticed, it is not very accessible to all vamps of all shapes, abilities, and colours. We like to help anyone find the knowledge they need.” Nari nodded. “I see. So you steal the books for them.” “I told you, we borrow them,” Everett said as he led them through to the main hall. “Evie does think of himself as a modern-day Robin Hood of Knowledge, though,” Wesley said. The main hall was a lot more modern than Nari expected for a house apparently full of vampires. It was open concept with a lovely kitchen with granite counter tops. Further on was the living room and stairs, both up to the next floor and down to the basement. An elevator had also been installed beside the stairs for easier access to all floors. Nari’s hosts took him down to the basement, which was set up as a games room and study. There was pool, and darts, and even a pinball machine on one side. Some lounge chairs, a sofa, and a set of bookshelves on the other. There, they found another pair of vampires, one with her nose in a book, the other passed out on the couch, an open book on his chest. “Ah, glad some of you are here,” Wesley said going over to the reading nook. “Inaya, please meet Nari. We met him at the library.” The conscious vampire got up and smiled. She wore a hijab and had big round eyes framed with detailed eyeliner. She offered a hand to Nari. “Nice to meet you. Are you looking at a room?” “No, no, I’m just getting a little extra help with my research,” Nari said shaking her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve never met, well, a vampire like you.” “A hijabi vampire?” Inaya chuckled. “Me neither. That’s why I’m here.” “To find more?” Nari asked. “No, to learn about being a vampire,” Inaya said. “I didn’t know anything about them really until I was turned, and I didn’t have any other vampires around to teach me. Figuring out how to be a vampire and muslim at the same time is difficult. Blood is haram, you see.” “Ah.” Nari nodded. “Have the books been helpful?” “Some, yes. Wesley seems to know how to find me good reads,” Inaya said. “I’ve tried entering the library on my own, but it’s always been a hassle. They always find some excuse not to let us in.” “I understand,” Nari said rollimg his eyes. “It's a different excuse each time.” Everett went over and kicked the end of the couch to wake its occupant. “Rise, Jeremiah! Meet our guest!” Wesley frowned. “Evie, let the boy sleep. He's probably been studying tirelessly, the poor kid.” It was too later however and the sleepy vampire stirred and sat up, rubbing his eyes. The book he had been reading fell off his chest and onto the floor. The bang made him curse and scramble to pick it up. “Shit, it better not be busted… These old ass books…” “Language, Jeremiah. You know the rules,” Everett scolded. “Shit, sorry, Ev,” the vampire huffed. “Not my fault you woke me up.” “I have half the mind to discipline you,” Everett said, crossing his arms. “Yeah, that’ll look good, you pasty old Brit beating my black ass…” the young vampire mocked. He noticed Nari. “Who’s this little mosquito?” Wesley put a hand on Nari's shoulder. “This is Nari. We're helping him in his research.” The other got up and offered a hand to the newcomer. “It's Jez, but these old farts insist on calling me by my whole name like they're my damn mother or something.” Everett huffed. “Seriously, if you don't straighten out your language, I'll—” “The entire concept of vulgar language is inherently racist,” Jez interrupted, his entire diction changing just to prove a point to old Everett. “My use of swearing is not abusive, but instead cathartic, emphatic and idiomatic, forms of swearing that are not meant to offend anyone. For you to tell me what words I can and cannot say is a blatant form of oppression and reduces my abilities to cope with pain or misfortune.” Everett frowned, his lips pursed. “Fine. But could you tone it down just a bit?” “No.” Wesley came up behind Everett and patted his back. “Relax. We're all adults. Anyway, where's Paolo?” “He's in his room,” Inaya said. “Probably working.” “Ah, okay. Nari can meet him later,” Wesley said approaching the coffee table. From out of nowhere, he pulled out a book and offered it to Inaya. “I found an Arabic tome with stories from Turkey in it. I’m hoping it might help you.” “Oh! Maybe!” Inaya took the book gratefully. “I appreciate it, Wes!” “Where did you pull that book from?” Nari asked, a bit dumbfounded. “The library?” Wesley said, a little confused by the question. “No, I mean… I didn't notice it on your person before,” Nari said. “Oh! It's pocket magic,” Wesley said. “Easier than carrying them around.” “Pocket magic is some real basic level shit,” Jez said, eyeing Nari. “If you don't know that, what abilities do you have?” Nari shook his head. “…I never learned vampire magic. Well, except a blood purifying spell I found the other day.” Everett placed his hands on Nari's shoulders. “Oh dear, so you've just been going about your life with all the cons and none of the pros to the whole vampire thing? Sounds miserable!” Nari frowned. “I didn't know I could learn any of it…” “You absolutely can!” Everett said. “We will show you the basics.” “Honestly, it's fine…” Nari said. “I don't plan on sticking around long, and my partner has enough magic for the both of us…” “Your partner knows magic but you didn't know you could learn it?” Inaya asked. “They didn't try to teach you?” “He’s not a vampire,” Nari said. “He doesn't know what I'm capable of doing as one.” “What is he, then?” Jez asked. “A dragon?” “No, he's a wizard,” Nari said. “A wizard?” Wesley inquired, his voice a little concerned. “Like, a human wizard?” “Uh, yes,” Nari said. “The magic isn't the same, though he's convinced he can learn vampire stuff…” Everett started shaking his head. “Do you always engage in romantic relationships with humans?” “Yes.” Nari frowned, reading the negative energy coming from his acquaintances. “You say that like it's bad. Are you going to tell me we're not supposed to do that? It's taboo or something?” “No, it's fine! I mean…” Everett put his hands on Wesley's shoulders. “He was unturned when I fell for him…” “But we weren't trying to reproduce, that’s for sure,” Wesley said. He placed a hand on Nari’s arm. “It’s no wonder you’ve been having trouble… You can't have children with humans. It never works.” Nari clenched his jaw. “That's not…My information came to a 1-in-8 chance that a vampire can complete live birth.” “It's more complicated than that,” Everett said, pulling out one of the books be grabbed. “It's likely the one successful time out of eight, their partner was another vampire. The odds are much better with two vampires. Like, 1-in-3.” He opened to a page that displayed a large family tree on it. “Any time in history that a vampire successfully completed a pregnancy, both parents were vampires. Any pairings with children from one unturned and a vampire were from before the vampiric parent had turned. Or, there has also been the occasional time a vampire sired a child with an unturned person, but it is rarer.” Nari frowned and sat down on the couch. “But…I… Isn’t there any magic that can help?” Wesley shook his head. “Not that we've found. Your best bet is to try with a vampire.” “But I don't want a child from someone else…” Nari said. “I want one with Diederich.” “I'm surprised you even date unturned,” Jez commented. “It's sad stuff watching humans grow old and die all the time…” “Diederich isn't just any human, he's immortal too,” Nari said. “He knows really powerful skills and spells.” Jez rolled his eyes. “So, easy fix. Just turn him.” Nari shook his head. “No, I can't do that.” “I could teach you,” Everett said. “Or I could do it.” Nari glared. “No, I don't want to turn him. I wouldn't do that to someone.” Everett sighed. “Nari, I don't know what to tell you. Your goal is to have a baby with your partner. Both of you need to be vampires for that to happen. That's all there is. We don't have any other advice.” Nari looked down at his hands, his eyes brimming with tears. “So, all those times I tried… Complete waste of time...” Wesley rubbed Nari’s shoulder. “You didn't know…” He looked to Everett. “Would you give us a moment? All of you.” “Of course, love,” Everett said, kissing Wesley on the forehead. “Come along now, children.” “We are not your kids,” Jez groaned as he got up reluctantly and followed Inaya and Everett upstairs. Once they were alone, Wesley sighed and rubbed Nari's arm. “Before you turned, did you have any children?” Nari slowly and sniffled. “Yes… My son, Tae-seok. He was just a baby when I turned…” “Is he alive?” Wesley asked. “No… He passed away around the turn of the millennia…” Wesley sighed. “When did you start trying for another baby?” “We tried for several years when Tae-seok was young… But his father, Eun-young, died in a factory accident when Tae-seok was still a child. I didn't try again until well after my son passed away too.” “With your current partner?” Wesley asked. Nari shook his head. “No, my previous relationship. It was an accident… But I wanted it to work out. I had a little hope.” “I'm really sorry, Nari,” Wesley said. “It must be difficult to hear about the circumstances of your pursuit… And I'm sorry about Evie. He thinks turning people will always fix everything. It doesn't.” “But he's right though… If Diederich were a vampire, we'd have a much better chance,” Nari said spreading his hands. “If he were turned, we could try…” Wesley shook his head. “I can tell, you don't want to do that. It sounds like your experience with being a vampire has been more negative than positive and you don't want to subject someone else to that.” “I don't. Diederich is… He’s so lovely, and he's happy…” Nari said. “I don't want to take that from him.” “I understand. It isn’t easy. I don't always love being a vampire either… And I certainly wouldn't make that decision for someone else,” Wesley said. “You do realise that if you did manage to give birth to a baby, you'd be choosing a life as a vampire for them too?” Nari blinked. “Yes, but… I…” He paused. “…With Diederich, since he's unturned, I thought that they might not be…” “Well, even if you could reproduce with a normal human being, you’re a vampire. Your kids would be vampires.” Nari grit his teeth. “…I guess I just…you know, if I could have a baby again, I didn't care what they were… But now just saying it, that’s sounds so incredibly selfish… To subject my own child to the exact same curse I've suffered for their entire life…” Wesley rubbed Nari's knee. “I think you need to think about your situation and talk to your partner. Really work out what path makes the most sense for both of you, and any possible children in the mix. What's best for everyone is what is important.” Nari nodded slowly. “Yes… I just want to be with Diederich… I should go…” Wesley checked his watch. “Where are you staying? Evie can drive you over.” “It's okay, I can walk…” “No way, this time of night, any drunk vampires tumbling out of a bar will want to pick a fight, and while I'm not saying you can't hold your own, you don't know much magic and vampires around the library know their stuff.” Nari sighed and told Wesley his hotel. “I do appreciate you guys trying to help me… You’re honestly the nicest vampires I've ever met.” “Aw, it's nothing,” Wesley said going to the elevator. “Each of us understands the difficulty of being accepted in the vampire world. But we've been very lucky and those who have should give.” “So, is this sort of a boarding house for vampires using the library?” Nari asked. “Sort of… We keep the rent super cheap though because the house was paid off many, many years ago. Our housemates just split utilities. Evie and I cover the taxes and insurance.” Wesley smiled. “If you ever need somewhere to stay, we'll be here. First month is free for long term. Of course, we won't charge you if you just want to come over and visit.” Nari nodded. “That's more than generous, thank you.” They rode the elevator together and met with Everett at the back of the house. “Good talk?” Everett asked, spinning his car keys. “Yes, I think so,” Wesley said. “Inaya and Jeremiah are back in their rooms, then?” “Yeah.” Everett unlocked the door. “Alright, Nari. We won't keep you any longer than you'd like. Wes said you needed a ride, yes? Come along.” Nari blinked. “When did he tell you?” “Come on, now.” Everett placed his hands on his hips. “You really do need a rundown on basic magic. You could teach toddlers mind connection.” “I really don't know anything, then…” Nari frowned following him out. Wesley waved as they left. “Hope to see you soon!” Nari waved again before going to the garage with Everett. “You should consider coming back tomorrow night,” Everett said, unlocking the car. “Jeremiah will teach you everything you need to know.” “I might take him up on that. At least I'll have gotten something out of this trip.” “Well, there you go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” “Hm… Yes, I suppose.” “Oh, and you still have to meet Paolo! He’s Asian like you too! Wouldn’t guess from his name though, would you?” “You really don’t think before you speak, do you?” “Hey, respect your elders.” “Sorry, grandpa.”

[unforth]

Could you elaborate on the parallels between the Scorpion and his dad and WKX and Purple Danger? I find that thought really interesting! <3

Oh my god you're asking me for meta? No one asks me for meta!!! Getting this made me so happy, thank you! And yes, I'd be delighted to!

Lemme preface this by saying: I have not read the book, and I've only seen episodes 1 through 27, and while I do know some spoilers for past what I've seen, I don't know everything, and I obviously can't speak to changes in dynamics that may happen past what I've watched.

So, I noted in this post that I felt like I'd just gotten slapped in the face by the parallels between Zhao Jing, and his relationship with Xie-er, and Wen Kexing, and his relationship and Gu Xiang. Specifically, the lines in episode 26 that caught me were these:

And the contrasts and similarities that they drew to these scene from Episode 24, which I watched yesterday:

(all screen caps are by me - I won’t have more screen caps just cause I really don’t have time to hunt them all down, I’m sorry, but the first two were easy to grab, and the second two I’d already taken cause that scene really got to me yesterday).

These lines, coming only two episodes apart, seemed like a really stark and deliberate effort to show a connection in the attitudes of Zhao Jing and Wen Kexing. They've also got some similarities in the childhood/history that got them to this point: Zhao Jing's family was fallen from grace, as was Wen Kexing's. Both are noted as seeming different from the "regular" people around them - Wen Kexing, it's explicit; with Zhao Jing, it's more how others seem to behave around him. It's harder to get a sense of Zhao Jing, since his own self-report is so dubious and the flashbacks we get to the Rong Xuan era are all given from the perspective of different unreliable narrators, whereas Wen Kexing's memories seem fairly intact (well, water of forgetfulness aside) and match the other remembrances we get of the same scenes.

With those similar, dubious foundations, they both resolve from a young age to take revenge for the perceived slights committed against them - and both have decided that regardless of who the specific instigators are for their suffering, they have no compunction about involving innocents as a whole. Zhao Jing wants the power he feels has been denied to him, and sets about conspiring to get that power. To achieve that, he sets about on a course that involves lying and using literally everyone who can help him. Likewise, while I'm still definitely missing some damn important of Wen Kexing's backstory (starting with, who protected the dog for him, and how he went from "kid getting regularly beaten by the previous ghost king" to "adult who is said to have literally eaten the previous ghost king"), he also clearly sets out to gain power through whatever means he can, and to survive, though from the get-go, his goal is essentially the inverse of Zhao Jing's: Zhao Jing wants to lift himself up, and sees nothing but virtue in doing so; Wen Kexing wants to bring everyone else down, and knows he's damned through-and-through for it.

(They're parallels, not matches, just to be clear! It's not that I'm saying everything is the same - on the contrary, it's the differences that makes it so intriguing).

Now, then, at some point relatively early in this entire process, each of these young men found a child. Given that Xie’er and Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishou are of the same generation, presumably they’re all around the same age - 27 or so - and also presumably, the previous generation were all in their late teens to early twenties when they had their own disastrous round of adventuring. So, if Xie’er is, say, 25, and Zhao Jing was probably around 20 (since he was one of the younger folks in the flashbacks), and 20 years have passed, and Xie’er was probably around the same age as child Wen Kexing when he was found? (I don’t know, and I don’t know if that’s ever established, sorry) So around 7? Then we’ve Xie’er being adopted by Zhao Jing and Wen Kexing being adopted by the Ghost King, each almost exactly 20 years ago. Presumably, also, Zhao Jing marries...drat, I can’t remember her name...was it Li Yao or something???...right around the same time - hence why Xie’er would think of her as a mother. Anyway, sorry, I’m really tired and I just lost the thread slightly, but the point is: a 20-or-so-year-old Zhao Jing finds a young Xie’er; and a few years later, a likely-early-teens-aged Wen Kexing finds a toddler Gu Xiang (because Wen Kexing is 27 now, and Gu Xiang is I’m guessing around 18, and she’s likely 3ish when Wen Kexing finds her, so that’d make her 3 or 4, and him 12 or 13). 

And here’s where the parallels really show the essential differences between these men, despite the areas of commonality in the hate they hold toward the world and their desire to see the world brought low.

Because, given a small child, Wen Kexing’s immediate, clear thought is: I will never let this child experience what I have been through. Now, he’s busted, and he’s crazy, so from that point of view, he still does her harm: she thinks of murder as nothing (as does Xie’er) for example. But even in that, the motivations are different. Gu Xiang says it herself after she kills the beggar and Cao Weining confronts her about it: if a person is out to harm her, if a person even might harm her, isn’t she justified in killing him? If that isn’t the quintessential Wen Kexing lesson right there, I don’t know what is: “Gu Xiang, you don’t kill because I tell you to, and you don’t kill for fun, and you don’t kill for no reason - but the moment, the very instant, you have a reason? Don’t hesitate, because if you do, you’ll be the corpse, not them.” Everything Wen Kexing teachers Gu Xiang is with the aim of helping her survive in the cruelest environment in the world, one that has flayed him and raked him over the coals over and over and over again. Further, despite the hints I’ve seen so far that he has early allies at Mount Qingya (Tragicomic Ghost has been shown to at minimum pity him, and find him an odd curiosity), Wen Kexing entrusts no one else with the most vulnerable creature who has ever come into his life (well, aside from that adorable puppy, which I have the bad feeling is going to be shown to be horribly murdered before his eyes, possibly by his own hand to prove a point...that would be thematically appropriate...). He gives Gu Xiang the tools to survive and fight for herself, even against him, and when she even begins to suggest she might prefer to be somewhere else - when he sees evidence of her finding happiness - he does everything he can to encourage her joy, support her happy ending, and free her. Wen Kexing is Gu Xiang’s father, in every useful interpretation of the term - she may call him master, and others might call her his maid, but their relationship is tender, encouraging, mutually supportive, and loving. Wen Kexing wants what is best for Gu Xiang, even at the expense of his own comfort and happiness, because he cares for her that essentially and deeply - and she likewise goes out of her way to protect him more than once.

MEANWHILE.

Given a small child, though I haven’t yet seen any flashbacks to when Xie’er was little and I don’t even know if there are any, it’s really obvious that Zhao Jing instantly goes, “how can I best use this to my advantage?” Instead of setting about to build this child up to be a functional adult who can stand up to the challenges that threatened to crush Zhao Jing’s life, Zhao Jing deliberately sabotages Xie’er’s ability to function as an independent unit. He teachers Xie’er to kill, not to protect himself, but on command - to kill because Zhao Jing says so, who Zhao Jing says, on even the merest whim, and is so successful at doing so that Xie’er has even less respect for life than Zhao Jing does (which was never much to begin with). Further, while we know that Wen Kexing will kill to protect Gu Xiang, Zhao Jing never so much as lifts a finger to do his own dirty work, and has zero compunction about throwing Xie’er under the bus when he suits his ends. In 27, he flat out says - “if you keep acting like this, and kill the Gentle Wind Sect, you’ll ruin me - which means I can never let you stand next to me in public.” He says this when he knows that Xie’er craves his approval and that one of Xie’er’s most cherished objects in all he’s done is to reach a point where he can stand at Zhao Jing’s shoulder as an acknowledged heir and successor and proudly say, “yes, I did all those things to help my father, because I’m a good son.” Further, Zhao Jing is constantly abusive and manipulative. When Xie’er does what Zhao Jing has trained him to do, on command (like a dog? more parallels??), Zhao Jing praises him, touches him kindly (and when else do you think Xie’er is ever getting touched kindly? Nothing like the casual and appropriate physical intimacy with which Wen Kexing and Gu Xiang shoulder bump and interact) and tells him how precious he is. The instant Xie’er steps a toe out of line, Zhao Jing denigrates him, threatens to take away that which Xie’er most wants (acknowledgement), scolds him, calls him a fool, says he doesn’t understand. Zhao Jing calls Xie’er his son, and insists that Xie’er call him yifu, and the world may even see that way - though they hardly can, since Zhao Jing refuses to be publicly associated with Xie’er - but they couldn’t be less related when compared to Wen Kexing, who allows all to see him call Gu Xiang his servant even as he flagrantly, publicly, repeatedly treats her as his child - culminating in the speech he gives Cao Weining when he gives permission for them to wed.

Everything Wen Kexing does, as fucked up as some of it is, is done with the aim of building Gu Xiang up into a strong, independent, functional adult who is less stained than himself and capable of pursuing happiness in the world.

And everything Zhao Jing does, all of which is equally if not more fucked up than what Wen Kexing does, is done with the aim of tearing Xie’er down, making him a powerful tool - a trained dog, if you will - and a dependent person who can be deployed on an enemy and must be kept permanently off-balance so that he never ever is an independent, functional adult - and, to help ensure that, he deliberately orders Xie’er to commit depraved acts that guarantee that Xie’er is more stained than himself, and therefore incapable of finding happiness in the world.

Anyway, I could probably go on, but I gotta leave to drive my kid to school and run a couple errands, but, in conclusion: when Zhao Jing said, “the world has failed me, and I shall do the same to the world,” and it became clear to me that he and Wen Kexing essentially share (or at least shared) the same core goal, I was struck by a lightning bolt about the parallels and contrasts between them as people, and them as father’s, and here you go.

Hope this is coherent, I’m really sleepy and in a rush. :D And I hope it answers your question!

(Also dear everyone: if you reply to this or add to it in reblogs I ask that you please respect that I’ve only seen to episode 27, and not rip me apart for things I haven’t seen yet, and try to avoid giving me spoilers? I know a few - or at least I think I do - like I know all the Major Character Death stuff - but I’m sure if you’ve seen the whole series you can spot places where you, dear reader, know things I don’t, and I’d ask that you not ruin those places for me, because I’m watching as fast as I can - about one episode a day - and I’d rather find out for myself. Thank you!)

[jaskiersvalley]

I read your whole blog in the 12 hours before and after getting my wisdom tooth surgically removed, and I enjoyed reading the ficlet about the hree headed puppy so much, I read it aloud to my mom in the car on the way, which she enjoyed as much as I did. Since then I've also read some others to her, but that one and the illiterate Witchers are my favorites. Thank you so much for writing.

I hope your wisdom tooth surgery went smoothly and it’s all healing up nicely! Also, 12 hours to read the whole blog is quite amazing, I am humbled by your dedication. To know that you’ve shared the three headed puppy story with your mum is awesome, I don’t think I’d dare share any of my writing with mine XD As thank you for the regular reblogs, comments and your asks, have a little ficlet of Jaskier and the witchers! Keep being awesome!

Not a lot could unsettled a witcher, even less so a witcher of the fabled Wolf School. Despite this, there was unease in Kaer Morhen that grew as the days passed. There were murmurs, quietly exchange theories between four witchers. Well, three of the witchers were at odds and trying to make sense of things while Geralt rolled his eyes.

“You’ll get used to him. He’s honestly like this,” Geralt said for the umpteenth time, alarmingly close to rolling his eyes.

“Eskel, you’ve got more magic, can’t you just, I don’t know, feel him out for a curse or glamour or something like that,” Lambert whined.

In acknowledgement of the seriousness of the matter, Eskel didn’t dismiss the idea straightaway. Instead, he actually looked over the other witchers as they were huddled in the pantry for a secret meeting while Jaskier...was probably serenading the forktails or something equally ridiculous.

“You know my ability is very limited and stunted, but I’ll try,” he agreed with great gravity.

That was all the others (minus Geralt) asked. Plan in place, they filed out of the pantry, only to face a rather perturbed Jaskier sat on the table, watching them with curiosity while munching on an apple.

“I get it, important witcher-y pantry business,” he said, smiling around a mouthful of fruit.

There was no time like the present, Eskel thought and he stopped near Jaskier, hand wrapped around his wolf medallion and focused, palm turned subtly towards the bard. There wasn’t even the slightest quiver from his medallion and, after a long moment, he looked over to the others and shook his head. A collective breath was released, it was a relief but also frustrating. Geralt walked past Eskel, shoulders smacking into each other and a low “told you” had Eskel growling.

The next day found them crowding into an old and disused room with a table - probably where one of the witchers of old would sort the accounts of Kaer Morhen.

“There’s nothing magical about him,” Eskel grumbled. “Or he hides it so skilfully, I have no way of detecting it.”

“I’ll try something at dinner then. I have just the dinner set for him.”

The quiet “just an enthusiastic human” from Geralt went ignored. Especially when they opened the door and Jaskier was sat opposite it with his lute. He had the audacity to roll his eyes and shake his head.

“Important witcher accounting business, I know,” he said, not breaking the strumming of his newest song.

That evening, Lambert set the table and Jaskier’s set looked intricate. It got a couple of raised eyebrows.

“You mentioned you were a viscount, wanted you to feel more at home.” Lambert explained it away with a shrug. He blushed a little at the wide smile of thanks and Jaskier picked up the silver goblet. The witchers watched raptly as he took a sip of blessed water from the silver goblet. Nothing. Other than Jaskier smacking his lips and staring at the drink curiously.

“It’s most refreshing, must be the delight of the local mountain spring.”

The iron utensils went unnoticed too though Jaskier did admire the pattern on the handles.

In short, Lambert’s attempts were a bust too.

“You’ve got to try something,” Lambert and Eskel were pleading with Vesemir. “You must know some potion or other. There is no way he so fearlessly befriends witchers and maintains a cheery outlook on life after travelling with Geralt.” The two of them looked at Geralt suspiciously. “Maybe he’s bewitched his witcher.”

“Or he’s just a human,” Geralt said but, as before, he went ignored.

Finally, Vesemir sighed. “I will try out something. But you may pay the price.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll gladly accept it.” Eskel nodded along with Lambert’s declaration. With that settled, they stepped out of the laundry room and nobody looked Jaskier in the eye as he watched them, leaning up against the wall opposite, one leg up and arms crossed over his chest.

“Dirty witcher business,” he said. As Geralt was the last one out, only he saw Jaskeir’s wink and shook his head in despair.

Evening came round and Vesemir brought a bottle of est est that had everyone perking up. It was sweetened and aged into something more refined than they would usually encounter on the Path. They all drank and sighed happily.

“Bard,” Vesemir called out, “what’s your full name?”

“Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. Though I do prefer going by Jaskier.” He didn’t even blink at the question. “Why do you ask?”

Vesemir gritted his teeth to ignore the question. He was only half successful. “What are your intentions towards Geralt? And I ask because we have all drunk est est imbued with a truth serum. We want to figure out what you are.”

Rather than look appalled or scared, Jaskier lit up with the brightest smile. “My intentions towards are Geralt are pure outside of the bedroom. I love him with all of my little human heart.” However, he turned his eyes to the witchers with a glint. “Why do you all crowd into small spaces? Were you having sexual relations without wanting me involved?”

There was a flurry of ‘no!” from around the room except from Lambert who said, “nah, the only one I bang here is Eskel.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Jaskier bounced excitedly and clapped. “Do you love him?”

More silence as Lambert looked down at his lap and went bright red, obviously trying to hold his answer in while Eskel looked at him, hope visibly dying with each passing second.

“It’s not okay,” he whispered, squeezing Lambert’s shoulder and cursed when the ‘not’ slipped in thanks to the truth serum.

“Of course I love you, you idiot,” Lambert said and finally looked up. The declaration had Jaskier squealing and snuggling close to Geralt, adoring the openness.

“One more question. Actually, two more.” Geralt looked down at him. “This is something the others wanted an answer to. Why are you so nice, never scared of us? And why are your answers the same now as when you haven’t drunk a truth serum?”

A small laugh burst from Jaskier as he craned his neck to kiss Geralt. “I’d never lie to any of you. I love you all in your own ways, why would I be scared of my gentle wolves when you’ve all been nothing but kind to me?”

“Because nobody else treats us like you do.” Vesemir’s voice was soft and sad. “We didn’t trust the purity of your intentions. And I’m sorry for that.”

Two nods accompanied his words as Lambert and Eskel looked sheepish.

“They’re going through the same thing I did for the first couple of years we knew each other.”

Understanding dawned on Jaskier’s face and he looked at the others. “Well, as long as you don’t punch me in the stomach, I think you’ll do better than Geralt did.”

He pressed into the hold Geralt had around him and smiled. “You’re the only one I’ll love like this though, don’t worry. No matter how many years pass.”

Something about those words made Eskel frown. “Just how old are you?”

“I don’t know, I kind of lost track,” Jaskier smiled.

“Jaskier, you said you’re human. But are you immortal?”

“I don’t know.” The smile stayed in place. “But so far so good, right?”

[sanoiro]

Lucifer 5x09 - Family Dinner -Spoilers & Speculation

Written by Joe Henderson

Directed by Nathan Hope

Nathan Hope has directed

1x02 - Lucifer, Stay. Good Devil 1x13 - Take Me Back to Hell 2x01 - Everything's Coming Up Lucifer 2x07 - Trip to Stabby Town  2x10 - Quid Pro Ho 3x05 - Welcome Back, Charlotte Richards 3x19 - Orange Is the New Maze 5x07 - Our Mojo He will also direct Episode 2 or 3 of S6

Behind The Scenes Video 

Ignore the fact that I accidentally watermarked it with the number 519... 

The Case & Deckerstar

Now we can start with the case of the week.

The murder happens at Golf n Stuff which is rather popular due to the scenes that were shot there for The Karate Kid. Rafferty was actually giddy over that.

So we have a murder. After over 70 episodes we know that the case of the week is somehow connected to the main plot and that it leads to a resolving of Lucifer’s issues or at least a small or big breakthrough.

The victim in this case was burned to death or at least he was… charred. A bit like how Mum ‘enlightened’ Jared in 2x17 but worse.

(In order to make sure most bts are included I have put them in the same file in their original resolution and you need to open the image and zoom. You can do it from your PC, MAC or mobile)

The mini golf has several fun statues like knights and pirates but what was not supposed to be there was the figure at the hole where nearby the victim was found. To be more You might have guessed it has many teeth by the photo and the answer is, it’s a reddish dragon head.

Back in December I came across the props building it and I thought it was cool but I wasn’t aware it was for Lucifer as the account is not affiliated with our crew or production. So imagine my surprise when a friend told me about what she had seen on the lot and going through the archived bts I found the victim photo as well.

You may have noticed it but in two particular episodes more dragons made their appearance. First it was at the second showrunner’s office in 503. There we see a dragon impelled by a sword, it seemed really out of place but I then correlated it with Baphament’s blade which is a representation of Azrael’s blade.

Later on I saw something else. In 508 Pete’s apartment had shelves dedicated to dragon figures as well as some knights. All along I was wondering can I even meta about that? What can it symbolise if it means anything at all? For some reason all I could think was the movie ‘Dragonheart’.

But let’s assume they have laid some hints, so far we have seen that they go very basic on bible and comic material so it’s funny how dragon-like Lucifer was presented in Series 3 of the black label of DC/ vertigo. But there are also more tidbits.

Now in 1x12 you all remember the Angel who was defeating a very Lucifer-looking Satan?

That was a prop. But it is derived by the work of Guido Reni ���Michael and Satan’ (1636) Who was in turn influenced by Raphael’s painting ‘St. Michael Vanquishing Satan’ (1518) and if we go to Raphael’s early works... St. Michael (1504-1505)

Anyways!

The investigation of this ‘week’s’ case has its usual suspect chase which leads us to an arcade where we can spot some members of the crew doing rounds with the go-carts on that location. What I do know is that we are looking for someone young as far as guest posts go but other than that not much is known. The case seems to be progressing slowly but at some point the murderer appears to want to skip town so the leads bring us to L.A.’s train Union Station.

We also have scenes at the precinct during the case as we have seen from Aimee’s bts but not much is known there. 

Now the suspect might be played by the elusive guest of this episode John Clover whose appearance was posted on Reddit and had sparked the first speculations over the title of the episode.

We should now wonder whether the theme of this episode’s case which takes us to gaming areas has anything to do with how Lucifer views his Father’s appearance in the mid-season finale and whether it will provide him with a resolution to not act in a rush way. The same after all happened with Mum.

Do not forget that Lucifer in Season 2 and especially at the beginning with Mum and when he thought Earl Johnson was his Father, Lucifer’s plans changed as his vengeance turned to a slow paced questioning over why their relationship deteriorated. 

For an Angel who was ‘forced’ - not yet clarified so let’s not take that for granted- to punish the guilty Lucifer seems to be more merciful, understanding and open to explanations in the long run especially with the people who wronged him. Amenadiel, Michael, Uriel, Azrael, Mum, and Earl ‘God’ Johnson.

As Amenadiel said in the Pilot Lucifer away from Hell showed restrain and mercy… Perhaps it is true that we cannot escape from what we truly are. In any case that’s meta talk!

Back to the Union Station. 

In the train station we have a bts where we can see Chloe and Lucifer chasing the suspect and from the photos and videos outside of it we can safely say they are successful on apprehending the murderer.

Now a funny incident was that during the shooting the area was closed to the actual travelers but somehow a Japanese tourist ended up sitting where the background actors were. No idea if it was her Pizza or it was given by the craft service but the girl was obviously bewildered on what was happening. It’s the little absurdities of life I guess…

It seems though as a lighthearted episode at first...

Do not be mistaken, the writers, cast and showrunners have revealed that in S5P2 we enter the emotional and equally dark (In P1 I missed the darkness aside from Pete of course) part of this season. It means that by the end of 5x09 as we roll on the last minutes of this episode, Lucifer is heavily conflicted and a resolution is needed, one that seems to be somewhat provided.

Since P1 I thought it would be weird to have Deckerstar break up for effect, in order to break us, especially since S5 was supposed to be the last season and S6 is effectively from what they imply (again cast and showrunners) an epilogue. So do not expect Deckerstar to break up but on the contrary as we saw Lucifer and Chloe in 507 they pull each other back up. 

It is why I’m wondering what will be unraveled after the arrest of 5x09’s murderer.

The end of the episode takes us at night to L.A.’s Grand Park. The Grand Park is across the City Hall by the way, and for the Christmas season it was decorated with a Christmas tree made out of light bulbs.

In the bts the prominent colour of that tree is deep lilac. That’s where our next Deckerstar moment will unravel. We should also be ready for the Lucifer Universe to acknowledge yet another holiday of the human world, Christmas!

A tiny break here but you should remember that on each side of the elevator we have two bronze plates depicting the transfer of Christ after he was taken down dead from the Cross. So in the most discrete of ways Lucifer’s Universe has acknowledged Christ and perhaps it was because before the Sumerian text set Amenadiel as the favourite son, in Season 1 and for the majority of S2 we knew Lucifer as the favourite one.

On the cross Christ (no I didn’t write Lucifer at first :P) according to the scripts in a moment of lapsed faith “Father, Father why do you abandon me?”. In a way we might meta that for 516 but also for what Lucifer has experienced so far and has so eloquently expressed in 3x11 and in 1x09.  

But back to the Deckerstar moment…

It takes place on the ‘balcony’ above the fountain as the purple Christmas tree is behind them. The setting happens at night and provides the place for our characters to talk, to open up and perhaps even express certain fears but also be urged to take advantage of the current circumstances.

From my perspective is the scene of a couple that talks a difficult matter but at the end of that talk they know each has the other’s back so they can step forward, take that chance and their partner will always be there to catch them if they fall. It is also how we will experience Lucifer finally opening up without Linda probing him. But whatever comes forward also gives space to truths and a realisation which will break our Devil as we have seen from the bts of the next episodes.

We might even have an understanding why ‘I love you’s’ are difficult for Lucifer and for Chloe to also realise that. We might even get Lucifer to say it. Here is to hoping…

On a final note. Maze in this episode seems to have gone MIA but many times we do not see the bts of every scene so all we have is Lesley-Ann’s bts from her trailer during that time. Also do not forget how things ended in 508. Maze did betray Lucifer and with God on Earth... 

The Dinner

This episode is expected to open back to the precinct. The reason is because it is a mid-season finale which means that the in between scenes are not implied but also because of some spoilers we had back in December.

As you remember the actress who played officer Cacuzza had posted on Twitter that she and Lauren were in a ‘very small’ room which had just been painted. That room we can safely say is the ‘evidence room’ and that Cacuzza managed finally to find a way to close the surveillance in order to take a nap.

Now do remember that back in S4 Cacuzza was also the officer who let Lucifer ‘sample’ the drug busts… I’m not sure if that will come back somehow but we do know that Cacuzza will appear later this season, whether alive or not is yet to be seen.

What we do know is from the clues that were given by the actress.

1) She will be in the same room as Chloe meaning we will revisit the evidence room once Dad arrives and perhaps it will be a comic moment? Perhaps a random human will figure things out? But what was interesting is that according to the bts photo we see the actress and Lauren in their own clothes while Dennis is in his ‘Dad/God’ clothes.

2) Both Chloe and Officer Cacuzza were supposed to act distressed and shaken. If we take the ‘I love you’ element from that scene for Chloe let’s remember that the evidence is suddenly a bit of a mess. A glass has broken, the sound and effect will be heard once the time has started running again and they are two cops in a room with no idea of what is happening outside. So perhaps the shaken and distressed effect comes before they open the door (or walk out) and are sure there is no imminent threat.

3) In my opinion in this episode Cacuzza has some lines no matter how brief they might be.

Now the question here is how to proceed.

We obviously have a Family Dinner from which only two bts exist. 

If we assume that the Family Dinner is arranged after the brothers have hid their wings and then Dad has met Linda then the dinner is set up by a very flabbergasted Linda.

I do expect Linda to bow by the way and for this dinner to bring some elements from 1x10 Pops. For this speculation I’ll include the video of the scene from that episode and I’ll try to tie them up with 5x09.

All the episodes in P2 are meant to do a full circle and the writers have based most of their storytelling on the events of S1 and S2.

So first the spoilers of what we know from 5x09 and then the ties we may find with 1x10 and some more past episodes.  

The 11 minutes are quite long but is it really all things concerning? 

Henderson tweeted that there will be 5 actors but as we know know Ellis plays two characters which is why the dinner scene may have taken three days to shoot so we should count six people at the Dinner Table.

The location will be (most probably) at Linda’s house as we have seen from a bts that her main table is full of different varieties of fruits and food in an attempt to recreate an Olympian affluent meal. For Linda is only normal to be out of her element and try to impress God. So far she has been almost killed by his ex, has a child that can be snatched away to the Silver City if she is not deemed worthy perhaps or even because of Charlie’s half genetic code.

Remember there was a stand in actor for Michael 

The problem Linda also faces is that she has supported Lucifer. Yes, he is her friend but how will God react to that? Having a human siding with His rebellious son? Linda as it has been written knows how far pissed off celestials can go and I’m sure she remembers Lucifer’s agony and fear over his Father where Chloe was concerned. So she tries, really tries to present a wonderful setting for the grandfather of her child.

So we do have Linda in the mix. Obviously God, Amenadiel, Lucifer and Michael. That makes us five characters and four actors. Little Charlie also makes an appearance as far as I’m aware as the twin babies were on set and that also contributes on why the scene took so long to be shot. However the babies do not count as the sixth character. Chloe though does.

In short we have:

Linda

God/Dad

Amenadiel

Lucifer

Michael

Chloe

and

Charlie

Another thing we should take into account for this scene is Rafferty’s posted script page of the midseason finale.

While Amenadiel and Lucifer appear shocked and in awe, Michael seems rather pleased. I mean he literally ‘Grins with excitement’.

Amenadiel in 5x03 said that the only one who was talking to the throne meanwhile Henderson as far as I remember in one of the post P1 interviews, revealed that God and Michael have a relationship that Lucifer wishes he had with Him. D.B on one of the virtual cons (or ET interview. I have issues with keeping track of them now) have said that the scene at the family dinner would be gut wrenching and absolutely fall down hilarious’.

So in this dinner we will get to know our characters more and as Ildy and Henderson have said Lucifer will go back being a 14 year old at the Thanksgiving table. That perhaps is the reason why the script episodes 510 and 511were reversed. The last time that had happened was in S1 in order for Lucifer’s vulnerability to not come too soon in the season. In the case of these two episodes I believe it has to do with Lucifer’s emotional state but also the constant collisions he will have with his father in the Family Dinner but also during the Musical episode.

Another aspect to consider is that if 5x09 reminds us a lot of 1x10 -Pops right now and 5x10 the Musical episode is directly influenced by 2x16 - God Johnson.

The next section will now be dedicated to a quick recap of 1x10 - Pops and the possible connection to Michael and his story.

Michael in 5x09 teases Chloe as she is kept captive that there is a bigger plan and ‘Spoiler Alert’ it will be EPIC. That can be left alone as a promise to see more of that plan in S5P2 but before we go forward we should also go back in 2x04 - Weaponiser.

Do you see the parallel? How far Uriel’s view of the ‘Patterns’ could go was always a meta I couldn’t crack. Sure Michael hinted as per one Anon hinted on Tumblr that Michael might have been the one to urge Uriel on Earth to kill Mum and hopefully Lucifer as well. It is also perhaps why we were reminded of Azrael’s Blade in 5x03 - Diablo with Baphament’s blade, the only blade that could kill the Devil. Perhaps that was Michael’s plan back then but it didn’t work out.

But is Michael the big villain? According to the showrunners no. There are more things happening but Michael has a reasoning, has a story, one that explains his deformity and is the hero of his own story as all  the other season ‘villains’ so far were. Mum, Amenadiel, Malcolm, Kinley, even Cain.

What the Interviews say about Michael:

Beginning with the parallel between the dinner we had in 1x10’s dinner and plot, and in what may have in episode 5x09 I would like to remind you- 

- at this point I have censored some spoilers, not speculations, spoilers for episodes of P2 that will not be added in the S&S -

I’ll return to this topic and explore it thoroughly as the S&S are written but for now remember that 1x10 might tell us more than what we think right now and it might take us as a point of reference even up to 5x16.

Between 1x10 and 5x09 we can also wonder what are God’s intentions, can we attribute them all to Michael’s manipulation or it goes beyond that because the showrunners have promised us an emotional P2. I do believe issues are addressed and Lucifer will have to come face to face with some hard truths without that meaning that Dad was always right.

In the Pilot - wait.. Pilot? Yes, 5x09 is an episode that slowly builds us to the very end. There are spoilers and references that need to be addressed from past and future episodes before and after 5x09.

We need to address that in the Pilot, Lucifer told Delilah the very truth he uttered to Linda where he was concerned in S4 (4x08). God has nothing to do with your mess. Like Delilah, Lucifer was putting the blame to others, circumstances and even questioned God. He was wasting his eternal life and his talent, which he eventually found in crime solving.

On cue we get to the scene with Chloe asking God what she is doing to a bar with Lucifer. And what follows is Chloe telling Lucifer how she saw things differently from everyone and she paid for it. That story for me at least rings a bell.

We still do not know why Lucifer was cast out, the actual reason. No matter the sexescapeding with Eve or the rebellion what was the core of all that acting out as Linda called it in season 2? Whatever it was if we go back to 3x11 we will see that Chloe in the Pilot is basically Lucifer in 3x11.

They feel alone, misjudged and while Chloe tries to move on and later in S1 finds what actually happened, in Lucifer’s case he gives up on waiting for forgiveness from his Father until Michael comes, and tells him that even his Fall was a manipulation.

In Pops Lucifer asked something very interesting what did the sous chef wanted? And the answer was to surpass Pops. I do wonder if that’s what Lucifer wanted in a way and of course Michael on Lucifer’s expense. Two ‘children’ fighting for attention but only one was groomed to take over.

Speaking of taking over at the end of the episode of 1x10 we learn that Pops despite what Junior had done still had his son in his mind for taking over the restaurant. Pops believed in his son but allowed him space to grow eventually when everything failed.

If you remember Zadkiel’s spoiler we see that in 5x15 for some reason Lucifer wants to re-join the Host. That aside from a reconciliation shows that like Junior, Lucifer for his own reasons - we do not know what has happened but we will go back to that in the S&S of 5x15 - wants what divine power has to offer.

What happens next is again interesting -censored-. I just want you to see how we do not deal with standalones but everything progresses towards a point, a familiar yet innovative point for the series.

In episode 2x01, Lucifer asks mockingly an offended Chloe who did she thought he took after, his Dad? That happened because Lucifer believed to have taken more after his mother but as we know genetics is a funny thing, Celestial genetics even more so.

God’s absence from Lucifer’s life shaped him. He did drove Lucifer to become something he wasn’t but after 4.5 seasons can we claim that Lucifer and God are nothing alike? 

Maze I believe was spot on on the similarities God and Lucifer held.

Lucifer believes in justice, in truth and is able to love. He has been more of an Angel than any non fallen Angel has ever been so far. 

Amenadiel tricked a dead human to kill Lucifer thus condemning him again in Hell however as we know from Charlotte’s case a redemption was not impossible. 

Uriel wanted to kill his mother and wouldn’t hesitate to kill Chloe in the process. Azrael is basically a liar and manipulator, Remiel would gleefully cut open a human for their half-celestial baby while Michael is really-really messed up.

So what has happened?

Like with Junior, Lucifer was pushed by his Father to become the man he is today. And Lucifer likes what he is, who he is because he sees the change and is even afraid of not being real when that change is questioned or exposed to him.

The same happened with Amenadiel, once he decided to embrace humanity and brotherhood. He changed for the better and became more ‘angelic’.

So yes, Junior’s story does apply to Lucifer on many levels. But Junior didn’t have that dinner with his Father, Lucifer will as they will do two more of his siblings. Some will be hurt, some will feel betrayed and some may walk out.

Which brings us to a very big question. 

Was Mum truthful when she said to Lucifer, his Dad wanted to destroy him? If the answer is yes, how will both deal with that? Because Lucifer may have not totally believed Mum.

If that answer comes to play we should consider it as the common question children come forward to when they learn they were not planned or their parents had opted at first to have an abortion. The fact that they didn’t get on with the abortion or had willingly made a child does affect their feelings towards that child now? Do they regret it? Do they want what that child has become?

These are all tough questions and sometimes the answers are not easy either. Mainly because humans like celestials with human emotions as it seems, are secure and balanced only with the totality of a circumstance. Everything or nothing, the rest in between are not welcome and it’s bound to hurt.

Finally, on this 1x10 weird reminisce. Can we say that Lucifer will be allowed in the end to create something that represents him? I think he may but more about that in 5x16 S&S.

Probably the story will not end with redemption but with Lucifer finally becoming his own person one that resembles a lot of Dad and Dad may accept or even encourage that path. That does not mean he will start anew though

Which brings us back to the adversary of 1x10 - Pops. The sous chef believed that Junior was not worthy of his father’s tolerance and reward so she made sure to destroy his reputation and went as far as trying to kill him. That sounds a lot like Michael.

Michael’s speech towards Maze about what was happening in the Silver City in 5x02 did echo the sous chef words:

So we should wonder if Michael will succeed to a point to ruin Lucifer’s chances and leave Lucifer live with the consequences in the end as our hero learns to move on from whatever injustice happened or the writers will provide a catharsis.

And a final question here… Is Amenadiel really the favourite son? I somehow doubt that, perhaps I’ll be proved wrong as in many interviews Henderson has gone back to Amenadiel’s arc as he learns he is the ‘favourite’ and so far he has not said anything to contradict the belief 2x17 brought to us with so many translated Sumerian words.

But as we said teh Dinner will not be cathartic on the contrary so does that mean that Lucifer eventually walks away? Probably.

At the photos that were posted near Christmas we have two bts one crystal clear and the other more hazy which shows Lucifer at the Penthouse and Dad being there in his white cardigan. I do suspect that meeting at the penthouse happens after the dinner but it does not resolve things between Father and son. it is also possible that it’s why we need the very emotional scene from the musical to be moved forward and 511 script to become 5x10 aired episode.

Perhaps the comment on it’s not just Lucifer who hits the keys was referring to Dad and not Maze in 5x01.

Although we cannot be sure on what will happen in the penthouse and whether Scarlet was meant to join that scene or simply was on set for the day (highly probable) for another scene, we do know that in this episode we had a LUX night. A most perhaps unconventional one.

By this point you know that the writers are ready to address everything or at least make parallels and so somehow we have one with 1x09 - A Priest Walks Into A Bar. This time however it is seems like God Walks Into His Son’s Bar.

If the camera is clear enough we can see God (?) talking to a white person. I would have loved it if it was Dan but I cannot tell for sure.

Whether that visit happens before or after the family dinner I believe it may happen before as the clothes Dennis wore at the lot around that time were different from the white we saw him appear with in the end of 5x08. Of course that does not say much as we will see Dad in the same/similar white clothes in at least three different episodes in Part 2.

Therefore in the conclusion of this S&S we should speculate that the Dinner is placed at the middle of the episode and a resolution is reached for Deckerstar in the end of the episode but Lucifer’s turmoil did fit better through the musical episode hence the change. 

[melodysbittycenter]

Trigger warning!: Starvation, Death, non-graphic birth

Mufasa slithers in a makeshift pace while he awaits the newly appointed non bitty assistant of the center, Kage the Asritaur is with him, throwing a few warm up punches while they wait. It seems they are the only ones that are available for the search for the mystery Faelementals. With the snow melted as great as it has it is unclear how successful their search will be even when Thor unavoidably joins them (Kage is a trained fighter and Thor is my second in command as well as a skilled tracker/hunter. Mufasa works security and defence for the property and knows where the Obscurite and Starbright were found) Sketch walks over to the duo. He pulls his fur lined hood over his skull to keep the cold off. In his hood wrapped around his neck was a young Lamia from his shop that didn’t want to be left behind. “So this is where you found the two leaders?” He asks Mufasa.

Mufasa nods"I recommend waiting for Thor, I will need to leave for today's rounds soon" His voice growls softly. Kage hops from hoof to hoof. “That’s a good idea. Having more to search would help” he nods and waits for their missing member while gently rubbing the skull of the baby lamia around his neck. Thor arrives looking slightly disheveled with ribbons tied to his horns "I apologize for the wait, Pandora had me finish tea first...with the hot wheels cars. I hope you haven't had to wait long." "We didn't have to wait too long," Sketch smiles at Thor reassuringly. He nods to Mufasa when he heads to go do his patrol. Mufasa nods back and slithers away for his patrol, giveing Kage a pat on his head as he passes. Thor looks around the immediate area, puffs of air passing through his skulls nostrils.

Sketch kneels down where the two leaders were found and looks for any magical traces left from the tiny leaders. He finds a very very faint trace leading into the woods, "I found some magic trace from the two leaders. it's a couple days old but it is a lead." "Excellent I might be able to find a trail from there, Kage be on your guard we do not know what we will come across" Thor says. Sketch makes the trace glow slightly with his magic so it is visible but it is faint. He stands back up and shows Thor the trace. the little lamia babu in Sketch's hood peeks out to watch with interest. Thor hurries to follow the trace, whipping his head back and forth for signs of what might have transpired. Kage stays close on his heels that can only be from vigorous training together. Sketch follows quickly behind them as he tries not to lose the duo.

Eventually the trace dies out and Thor is forced to a stop as he takes in the surroundings. Sketch stops with Thor and looks around. he notices they seem to have stopped in a clearing deep in the forest. he kneels down again to see if there were any new evidence of life. he sees some animal tracks and eventually finds some fresh bitty tracks that could be from the bitties they are looking for. "Hey Thor. I think I found some tracks." "Before we pursue, look for other tracks as well as signs of a struggle. Kage, climb this tree to view the area better" Thor says while examining a brush. Sketch nods and looks for any further signs. He doesn't see much but he does see what could be some old struggle marks. Kage climbs up and scouts around as Thor approaches Sketch "There are a lot of bitty tracks....I count no less than 15 sets of prints, including what the Faelementals refer to as 'Younglings', their children. What are your finds?" “I thinks I found old signs of a struggle. The could have been where the two leaders got hurt” Sketch replies as he looks at Thor. Thor looks over the area and mumbles to himself, he looks troubled. Kage jumps down and lands with a near silent thud looking equally troubled "There are scratches on a few of the trees that don't look like anything made by local wildlife. Too clean, or too clustered. Likely the use of magic attacks. I spotted what looks like a busted cage in the direction of mountains, who ever left it was in a hurry and left it sticking out of a bush" He looks to Sketch, seemingly calm "This is one of the many reasons why the Little Miss works so hard to care for those at the center, the Faelementals needed help but even they thought the shadow and light types of their kind were mere myths." Sketch tilted his head in confusion, “Broken cages? That sounds like this could have been the work of bitty hunters. Colonies of bitties don’t just disappear without reason.”

"Unfortunately without knowing what happened here we have no idea what the cages were for nor the intentions of those the cages belonged to. This forest can be dangerous to those who intend harm on others, it is part of the reason we live so close by. There is another center deep within whose residents are fiercely protective of those who dwell in the wood" Kage looks to Thor who growls deep in his throat, his eyelights mere slits as he shakes. "that may be true but we shouldn't eliminate that option yet. let's check out those cages. they could give us some clues,'' Sketch suggests. "Uh....Thor? Buddy? You good there?" Kage asks cautiously, his voice seems uneven. Possibly even fearful. Thor doesn't react at first, another growl can be heard from him. Sketch looks towards where Thor was growling, "Did you find something Thor?" The lamia babu in Sketch's hood shrunk back in fear from the growling. He blinks, before shaking his head slowly "I have seen and heard the kinds of things that can happen to those captured by.....unsavoury.....individuals.....One of my loves has suffered heavy at the hands of such individuals. The thought of them here.....so close to our home...." He lets himself trail off before looking to Sketch "If any bitties had escaped they would have sought cover away from this place and away from the traps. We can alert the other center about the traps and they will do a follow up investigation of their own or pursue the traps as you suggest but believe me when I say it might not necessarily end well or even result in any others being found."

Sketch nods in understanding. "you may be right. At this point all we can really do is tell that other center and wait for the two leaders to heal up and trust us before we can interact with their colonies. we could maybe find where the colonies moved to, at least the general area so we don't accidentally spook them into moving again." Kage nods "I will mark the area near the cage so they can find it easier" He hurries off while Thor examines the area more thoroughly this time looking to see where the faint track remnants lead off to. Sketch helps Thor look. He uses some of his magic to cause the track from earlier to glow again. It seems there are too many magic signatures in the area to really nail one down, the degradation of the tracks make them hard to see in some areas of the clearing but Thor perseveres. When Kage returns he helps look as well, frowning at the number of smaller tracks when they can be seen "It makes no sense! I can't make heads or tails of where they could have scuttled off to! It's like...they were here and then they weren't...but the Leaders tracks can be seen leaving the area towards the house." "hmm... What do we know of these two types of bittes? did they have special powers?" Sketch asks.

Thor speaks up "Faelementals in general are very talented at magic, they are a resourceful lot likely given the unknown amount of time they existed without interference from those outside their colonies. The one we are pursuing are known as Obscurites and Starbrights, the Shadow and the Light. From what those of the center have said, the Starbrights eyes can physically see magic energy and Obscurites are able to literally cloak themselves in darkness. Beyond that not much is known, which given they were thought myth is understandable." "if both of these colonies lived together then they would help each other out. they basically cover the others weak spots. if the Obscurities were able to hide not just themselves but also the Starbrights then that would explain how they basically disappeared into thin air" Sketch says. "If the stories are true that is...even still..." Kage seems tense, Thor starts examining the trees surrounding the clearing. Sketch checks along the ground for any traces where they could have gone direction wise. Sketch’s efforts prove fruitful! There at the base of one of the trees is what appears to be a gap hidden by now broken roots. He inspects the gap and the baby that was in his hood slowly comes out. Sketch waves to Thor and Kage, silently, to get their attention. Thor is busy with inspecting other trees, however Kage does notice and hurries over "You find something?" “Yeah. There’s a hidden gap here” he motions to the gap. He looks at it and moves the broken roots away, eventually you see what might have been an animal's den at one point, Kage hums in thought before carefully peering inside. Sketch also peers inside of the den. It seems as though it was turned into a bitty den at some point, it seems rather dark the further back so you can't exactly tell how large the hole is but there are animal furs around as well as fabric scraps from what is visible.

"looks like this is where they lived at one point" Sketch says. the little Lamia slowly slips out of his hood and into the den, looking around with curiosity. Kage climbs inside "Hello? Is anyone still in here? We want to help!" Sketch waited outside the den as he was too big to fit. the little Lamia continues to look around. The inside looked as if there weren't a whole lot of bitties living here, and many furs had been trampled on as if someone was crossing to the back in a hurry. Kage examines the furs "From the looks of it there was maybe 4 adults here and 3 younglings judging by the furs in here. Leader included. The others when they arrived had way more than that. Its nice and dark in here...perhaps the Obscurites? It's likely they were holding out for the thaw." The baby Lamia hisses softly and flicks his forked tongue to see if he could “smell” any other magic signatures. "Hey Sketch? Can you check near the entrance for....honestly we don't know WHAT happens when they die...but uh....yeah...can you check that out?" The baby would smell something near the back alright though the pitch darkness made it impossible to see what was over there. Outside Thor calls over from another tree "This one has been climbed recently! A few hours at least!" Sketch nods and checks around the entrance “We found a den that was hidden over here” he says to Thor. The little Lamia slithers over to the darkest corner with a magical film over his eyes, changing his sight from normal sight to magical snake sight. Allowing him to see magical signatures, similar to a snake's heat vision. There is a single form, they looks small and frightened. There are objects near them that they seem defensive of. Thor starts climbing up the tree as Kage hums in thought. There seems to be something crumbling into grey substance tangled in the broken roots. the baby lamia hisses and tries to talk to the shivering mass "s...ssa...safe...me...fr..frie...friend.... me...an'.. mama...h..help.." Sketch inspects the crumbling grey substance. It looks like what might have been a bitty but it quickly disintegrates into a fine grey powder. The shivering mass doesn't seem to keep on coming out of hiding, however the hissing draws Kage's attention "Uh hey little guy when you slip in here? You find something back there?"

the little lamia looks at Kage and points to the dark corner "f..friends?" Sketch looks shocked at the now grey dust. Kage is concerned and slowly tries to approach the 'friends' the little one had spotted "Hey? Its ok..I'm going to use my magic so I can see ok? Can you...make a noise or something if you understand?" The mystery bitty doesn't say or do anything for a several moments, eventually the darkness lets up exposing a malnourished Faelemental, it's difficult to tell whether or not they are a youngling but they are surrounded by pods, quite a number of them. They seem unsteady on their feet and end up collapsing to their knees in tears. the little lamia gasps in shock and hurries over to the Faelemental. he offers some food he keeps with him to the Faelemental "h..her..ere....f..food....h..help..ke..eep..st..stre..strenth.."Kage Looks out to the entrance "Sketch?! You need to call Melody NOW, Tell her we got pods in need of transfer and Hermes needs to prep at least one bed!" He doesn't wait for a reply before approaching the mystery bitty and giving them a once over for injuries. SAid bitty greedily takes and devours the food not bothering to even look at what exactly it was, their tears seemingly never ending.

"Got it!" Sketch pulls out his phone and immediately calls Melody. He repeats what Kage told him and gives her the location. "Ok Sketch, I'll send a team out to get you all. Wheres Thor?" Melody sounds worried, in the background of the phone a great commotion can be heard as several of the others prepare to head to the location. Thor calls out from the tree he had been climbing "I have 2 Younglings that are near adults and several pods up here, one looks to be opening!" Seems he found a hole in the tree rather high up. The mystery bitty, having eaten the offered food snuggles up with the Laima best they can and whines as Kage starts healing some of the scratches on their body. "He just found more and one of the pods looks to be hatching. he said there were 2 younglings and a few adults along with their pods'' Sketch relies. The little lamia gently hugs the Faelemental reassuringly and offers some more food. "The teams on their way, don't move till they get there. If the pod is open make sure to clean the infant of pod goop ok? Keep me updated please...." The Faelemental devours the food once again, exhaustion overtaking their body and mind as the yawn and shake. Thor stays up near the other hole waiting. "got it" He walks over to the hole where Thor was and looks inside. the little Lamia gently guides the Faelemental onto his coiled tail for it to lay on. It's a little difficult for him as it's just a little higher than he is tall. He does manage to somehow peer into the hole. It's facing away from the clearing and looks to have been made and used by wild animals before much like the other hole that was discovered. Inside there are 2 bitties huddled together that seem pretty out of it. The one coughs, it sounds horrible...like something was trying to come out. One of the surrounding pods looks as if it will burst, Thor stands near it watching it closely.

"one of the ones Thor found sounds sick, it keeps coughing." Sketch updates Melody. "What kind of cough? Does it have anything sticking to its face? Is anything coming up when it does? Sometimes when sick a Faelemental will cough up raw magic, it's just about as bad as when humans cough up blood as I understand" Kage looks at the laima "Hey buddy can you keep this little guy safe for me while I check the pods out?" Thor looks over to Sketch before back to the pod. *the little lamia nods and keeps an eye on his "friend". "It sounds like it is trying to cough something up but there is nothing on it's face that i can see." Sketch looks over at Thor and the pod "also the pod Thor mentioned before looks ready to burst." "That means it should be opening up soon...like within the hour soon. As the for sick one keep an eye on them for now and if they start coughing up magic get Kage to try some healing magic. Make sure they eat something too, monster candy if you have any on hand will help with most injuries and low magic levels." "got it" Sketch pulls out some monster food he keeps handy that has healing properties and offers it to the Faelementals. They don't seem to even notice him nor the offered candy as they lay there "Team should be there in maybe 10-20 minutes Sketch give or take really" Melody says over the phone. Thor seems rather calm, keeping an eye on the pair and looking over when the sick one coughs again. "good. I am getting worried about these bitties. they seem really out of it and not accepting the monster food i am offering them," Sketch says. "That's not good..." The sound of papers can be heard over the phone "Ok what to do what to do...." " should i try petting their heads?" Sketch asks.

"NO! Goodness no, there's no telling if they might perceive you as a threat or not...actually given you are a monster it should theoretically be safe....."There is a series of words mumbled after that. "i won't just to be on the safe side" Sketch tries again to offer food to the faelementals. They again don't notice, Thor looks troubled and turns to Sketch "I will need something clean to wipe the infant off and something else to wrap them till the others get here. I will try to get their attention to eat something while you check in on Kage'' "right" he pulls a small towel and a bitty blanket from his pocket, handing them to Thor. after also leaving the food he walks over to the other den "Kage everything ok on this end?” "I will need help moveing the pods but the kiddo seems to have fallen asleep, they look too young to have been allowed in on food gathering so its likely they haven't been taught how yet. Your laima is keeping them company while they sleep off the food they were given." "the teams should be here in about ten minute or so. Thor found some more of these guys. one of them is coughing and a pod is ready to hatch". "Thanks for the heads up, These don't seem all that close to hatching just yet, maybe a couple days at least. Seems like something had happened and the group holed up here after, there's more pods then there are bedding furs!" "how can i help move the pods?" Sketch asks. "We need to put them in something to carry, the others should be bringing a lined box for that. You need to clear the roots out of the way at the entrance before they get here" Kage replies. Sketch nods but hesitates, looking at where the dust from the dusted bitty lay. Voices chattering nearby can be heard, a Flutterfae appears in the clearing first and looks around. She flies to Sketch and lands on him "The others aren't far behind me, I'm Leader Tillie. How can I help?" Despite her oddly serious words her voice is chirpy and bright. He looks at her "we have a sick Faelemental in that tree over there along with a pod that is about to hatch. there are some pods and what i think is a youngling in this burrow," he points to the tree and the burrow as he says them.

"Got it! We have a box and wagon being pulled by Jarvis, we also have blankets and Hermes is at the center making up sick beds. I will go let the others know of the sick one, be right back with the others!" She flys away in a hurry towards the voices. Kage looks at the laima "Ok want to help the little fella out of here? I don't want to risk waking him up" Said little fella is fast asleep on the laima still. the little Lamia nods and gently picks up the Faelemental. They don't react, clearly out cold and quietly breathing. Kage moves over to try and carefully move the pods towards the entrance while calling out to Sketch "Hey are those roots cleared away yet?" It is clear he did not know of the dead Faelemental that the other had seen. "no. not yet. um can you come here for a sec" Sketch asks, voice wavering. He stops what he's doing to go over and look out of the burrow best he can "Yeah? Whats up?" "I found this earlier" he shows Kage the dust. The sight has him pausing before looking back into the burrow "The youngling likely saw it happen...." He looks at Sketch, speaking in a hushed voice "There are means of reviving bitties from dust but...I know little about it. I don't know if they would remember. What do you think we should do?" "what do you know of reviving first of all?" "I know its possible using different things, thats about all I know" He says sadly looking back to the youngling to see if they are awake or listening. "at the moment we can collect the dust of the fallen. if we can we will try to revive them" he pulls out a small jar from his inventory. "We can have Thor or one of the others look for more even."

He nods as he collects all the dust into the jar and seals it. Kage moves back in order to start moving the pods as the others arrive into the clearing, lead by Jarvis the full size FireRing Laima. Sketch nods to them before carefully removing roots that were in the way of the den.Una, the Waterborne Leader, went straight to the tree where Thor was while Ares waited the Javris and the wagon. Seems as if Orion the Stellar Laima had come too, his coils long tail coiled up with a blanket to look like a nest. Kage leaves the pods near the entrance as he grabs them. Tillie returns to Sketches shoulder looking worried. the little lamia carried/dragged the sleeping Faelemental out of the den. Sketch carefully picked up the pods and handed them to another bitty to place in the wagon. While working together all the pods are placed in the wagon and the little one placed within Orions blanketed coils, the whole thing taking roughly 30 minutes. Thor moves around the area attempting to find more dust without success. Una and Tillie both seem uneasy. Ares seems to notice something "Hey uh...Sketch? The one pod is moving around!" he quickly makes his way over to the pods. He has the small towel ready. It shakes a little before opening up, goop gushing outward and away from the infant. Sketch carefully picks the baby up and gently cleans it off with the towel. Once clean he gently wraps it in a bitty baby blanket. It crys and squirms around before settling in and holding Sketches finger. Tiny pulses of magic can be felt from the newborn's hands, harmless yet present. Una hurries over looking worried. Sketch smiles and holds his hand out to Una to see the newborn. She looks them over before looking up and smiling at Sketch "They seem healthy!~ I will need to speak with the Leader to see what they might need when we return." "sounds good." he tries to place the little babu next to the youngling in Orion's soft blanketed coils. It starts crying and fussing, clearly startling the other Younglings...the youngest of the 3 so startled they themselves start to cry as well.

He sighs and continues to hold the baby, gently stroking it's head soothingly. the little Lamia tries to help by gently hugging the crying youngling. The infant snuggles the finger they were holding, Una starts to chuckle. Meanwhile the small child hugs the laima friend giving sniffles and hiccups. Thor eventually returns to the wagon, looking dejected, before climbing in himself. "let's head back to the center. Thor are you ok?" he looks at Thor. "I will be fine...it's best not to speak of ill news when there are little ones listening," Thor says. "Mmm. You have ill news too?" Sketch asks. He looks at Sketch but doesn't answer the question "Ares will be unable to Shortcut us home so we must be on our guard as we make our way back. I recommend putting the Infant somewhere close to you and safe." Sketch nods and holds the baby close. They soon start heading back towards the center. The walk is uneventful and almost peaceful once the little ones calm down. Una can't stop smiling at Sketch and the infant the whole way back. Sketch kept attentive to the surroundings as they went. babies always made him more protective. Soon enough the property was in view, safety within sight. Even with it in sight he kept his guard up just incase. he knew better than to let his guard down when in an unsafe area. The infant starts fussing quietly, on the property edge Hermes can be seen waiting. Sketch gently strokes the baby to calm it down as he and the others make their way onto the property. He nods to Hermes as he passes. He slithers next to Jarvis already looking over the pods and children on the way to the house. The baby seems unwilling to settle down this time as they start to wail. Una pipes up "They are likely hungry, I can fetch a dropper with warm milk for you when we get inside." "that would be greatly appreciated" Sketch says while smiling at Una.

[wevegottogetaway]

Whirlwind Part II - Bora

DAY 2

Echoes are bouncing within the sturdy walls of the San Diego Marine Corps Air Station's main hangar. Blackshoes are in the middle of pre-flight logistics runs and equipment set-up before the launch of Top Gun program's first training mission. Aircrafts are being carefully escorted outside towards the runway, the sound of their roaring turbines whelming Harry's ears but he doesn't let that disturb his self-reflecting musings. His body is leant on the metallic hinges of the warehouse's entrance as his absentminded gaze doesn't shift from the take-off runway.

He is about an hour early but the upcoming events of the day have had him on edge since he reluctantly draped the cool bedsheets off his body that morning. How could he possibly get a wink of sleep knowing he was, at last, going back amongst the clouds for the first time since the accident? For the first time without his best friend. For the first time without is partner by his side (or rather behind him) watching out for hidden threats and targets in line. Jonathan had always had his back but from this day forward Harry would have to rely on Aella to keep them both safe.

He doesn't know what to make of that, what to make of her. There is no questioning her skills and capability, one could never join this program without those...but two highly proficient flyers don't necessarily equal one flawless unit. Especially since they know so little of each other. Be that as it may, the fellowship that binds two pilots flying the same aircraft is indispensable to their success and in those life-of-deaths seconds, when it feels like the sky is closing in on them and the next move can make or break them, it all comes down to one thing: the entrustment between him and her.

And he wants to. Wants to take his trust out from the jetted pocket of his uniform, lay it on the palm of her hand and enclose her fingers around it to keep secure. But it doesn't work like that, does it? Trust is not so much a choice as it is a spontaneous feeling immune to rational thinking. And for a reason he doesn't want to mull over too much, Harry can't help but feel wary of her in a way. He's seen her fire; the night before last when she made a fool out of their most redoubtable opponent. Recognized the same flame that used to inhabit his best friend's eyes and make him the warmest being Harry ever got to be around. It doesn't sway him as much as it scares him. Fierceness is a good trait in the Navy world, but too much of it can be deceitful. Harry experienced it first-hand.

He doesn't dwell on it too much for now though, and makes his way to the back of the warehouse where his "classmates" have started to huddle while waiting for the superiors. Most of the promotion is there, the usual inner-groups appearing clearly to Harry as his eyes takes in the scene: herdsman Rex and his sheeps on one side while the other crews enjoy one last round of banter before their sternness is summoned for the first mission of the program.

Harry takes note of Aella's absence just as someone calls out to him. "Styles!" It's his callsign tumbling out of Dean Marshall's mouth. Harry used to have another, but the only person who was allowed to make use of that one special letter, is no longer able to claim it.

Dean and his partner Emmet Iggersman - or as they are commonly addressed to on base, Dazzler and Tigger - complete the other half of Harry and Aella's team. The four of them fly in tandem to form a section and hopefully fulfill the missions' objectives before the others do. Harry has flown many a time with these two guys and he's glad he'll be able to count on them as well should his new pairing go south.

"Hey Daz, how's it goin' ?" his greeting is followed by a good-natured handshake.

"S' goin' awesome, thanks for asking! My boy just started walking like a penguin on steroids right before I left. I swear the little champ is takin' the helm to keep his mum on her toes while his father's gone!" The proud smirk teasing Dazzler's lips triggers a contagious chuckle from his peers as they all take in the sheer bliss coloring the new-dad's face.

"That's grand man! Send my prayers to Catherine, sounds like she might need it, yeah?"

"Will do Styles, but enough 'bout me, how are you holdin' up? I can't deal fo' you man, what with Fox gone and this new partner thing..." There's a painful tug at Harry's chest at the utterance of Jonathan's callsign, the nickname born from his tangerine-like hair though Harry always believed it was more reference to his best-friend incredibly cunning mind. He ignores it in favor of a more tempered and diplomatic answer than what his heart was crying out.

"It'll be an adjustment fo' sure, yeah. But overall I'm just glad to be back in the game"

"As we all are Styl-" Tigger has just placed a comforting hand on Harry's broad shoulder when he is interrupted by none other than Rex's disdainful voice.

"Hey girls! How's the BFFs reunion going?"

Dazzler doesn't hesitate before stepping forward and firing back "Just about a punch away from properly kickin'off. Why? are you offerin'?"

"Wooo I'm shaking" Rex replies with a fake tremor. Then he seems to spot something - or rather someone - coming up behind Harry and Tigger. It's Aella, head kept down as to not attract any attention. She's seen the despicable man interacting with her new crew so she tries to reach the makeshift classroom (mostly just chairs aligned in a couple of rows in the middle of a hangar) as inconspicuously as possible. The déjà-vu impression is not lost on her.

"There she is!" Aella tilts her head up, knowing she's busted. "Miss James Bond Girl in the flesh! C'mere sweetheart, come show these suckers who wears the pants in this team!" The disdain within her levels up a notch (as if possible) but Aella doesn't know what she hates the most about this nonsense. The fact he is ridiculing her once again or the fact he acts like none of the after James-Bond-Girl-debacle two nights ago ever happened. As if she didn't put him in his place like the badass she is.

Or maybe it's the affectionate pet-name coming out of his repugnant lips and directed to her... Anyway, she doesn't have the time to prepare a comeback before a second round is launched, this time at her new partner.

"Better watch it Styles! Next thing you know you'll be the one in the freakin' kitchen..."

"Cut it out, Rex-" Harry starts defending his team but a stern and humorless voice overpowers his.

"I don't reckon anyone asked for your moronic opinions. So please pack your ignorant bullshit away and leave us the fuck alone" She keeps her countenance as she tells him off but Rex is not budging an inch and neither is the insolent smirk hung on his face.

"Damn Harry, quite the mouthy one you have here. Sure you can handle her?"

"For Christ's sake, please shut the hell up and go back where you came from Rex or by God I swear I won't hesitate to have you weep on the floor for your momma like a baby, again."

"Again?" Dazzler perks up with a smiling frown just as Rex's smugness fades away to be replaced by unadulterated contempt.

"You're delusional if you think I can be scared of you Lonethorne" he spats out while backing away, head up mighty high. "Stupid cunts" he adds under his breath as he turns around to rejoin his buddies.

Aella knows she's worked herself up but she can't help but call out to him one more time. "Oh and Rex?... How's the hand doing?" He doesn't give her the curtesy of a respond but Aella is satisfied with the flare of his nose and the twitch in his eye.

Meanwhile the three men still at her sides are left speechless, Dazzler and Tigger still processing the heated exchange while Harry seems lost in his own thoughts.

She'd done it again. Let the fire out and turned Rex's crudeness into ashes before they could scar her skin. There was no attempt of taming the beast before she went in guns blazing. That didn't help assuage his worries one bit. She's too impulsive is playing in his head over and over like a broken record. Because while Harry agrees Rex is the worst kinds of knobheads, he's always believed responding to antagonization was pointless. Better to look the other way and let the jerk waste his energy on petty words that will never reach aim. And because all in all, there are dogfighters, but that endeavor is reserved in the air, not on land.

"My my, darling. You just pimped the shit out of the least pimpable man on base. I think I'm in awe." Dazzler says after regaining his senses.

"Please don't call me darling" Aella retorts softly as she knows he doesn't mean it in any condescending way.

"Sorry. Aella, is it?"

"Yeah, that's me. And you are...?"

"Dazzler, so very nice to meet you" he smiles widely accepting her handshake offer. "And just a heads-up dear Aella. After you tell me all about weeping Rex, you and I are gonna be besties, I can feel it" She chuckles lightly as his enthusiasm and decides she'll not only welcome his affection but also return it. Before she can reciprocate the sentiment however, the room falls suddenly quiet and a second later the reason, or rather 4 reasons, come into her view: Commander Berks, Lieutenant Rogers and two other officers that have yet to be introduced.

"Morning everyone, I can tell some of you over-indulged in Induction Rave. If you could put the same amount of devotion you put at getting faced into your training, I would be eternally grateful." Berks earns himself a full house of laughters, before compelling the room back to sobriety. "Time to be serious now. ACM training was not invented to entertain you and make you look pretty up there. As an era where the potential of confrontation is constantly rising, air combat excellence is now more than ever a vital technique to the protection of our country. And don't you forget that: you are above all defenders of the nation. Not heroes, not athletes. I say again: protectors. Best be at you sharpest then." The Commander pauses after his inspiring tirade.

"Now, let's talk about this first assignment. Just plain good old-fashioned dogfighting to give you guys a foretaste of what's coming. Today it's gonna be 4 units at a time against 4 of ours. Your goal is to target any one of the instructors' units while trying not to be shot yourself. I'll say it now, we won't go easy on you. This exercise is meant as an assessment of your current skills, so don't get too cocky up there, just do your ex-Commanders honor. First one to reach its target or last one to be shot wins the mission. Remember, there is no points for second place in this program." He pauses and starts grinning. "Show me what you got."

With that Aella tries a small glance in Harry's direction but his eyes are fixed towards the horizon with a permanent frown shrouding their luminescence. She sighs.

Fully equipped of her G-suit, helmet and headset, Aella is making the last adjustments on her seat at the back of the cockpit. She's not unfamiliar with the radar intercept officer position though she's usually the one at the commands. She's also used to flying alone.

The panel in front of her intimidatingly takes up all her front view with a couple of screens and numerous switches and tuners. Her perspective is limited to a peripheral vision on both sides of the cockpit but she wouldn't be relying on a full panorama to spot target and threats anyway. No her job is to accurately keep tract of all flying elements within the largest range and most anticipated time possible. There's no point in crying out for enemy presence when they're already at your six and firing away... Along with relaying their position to Harry, Aella can also suggest tactical maneuvers based on the predictions she draws from the opponents' moves.

Speaking of Harry, they haven't exchanged a word since their brief introduction two days ago. Now they're both tightly harnessed to their seat about to navigate a near-thirty-tons engine beyond the speed of sound. Aella's never been a religious one but as the technician gives her one last thumb up to signal their operational status, she's praying to all deities that the awkwardness between them on land is nothing but the result of a subliminal force destined to counterbalance their incredible chemistry in the air.

The canopy of the cockpit locks them into silence before Harry speaks up. "All good?" The mediocre quality of the microphone's transducer makes his voice even raspier than usual through the headset tucked over Aella's ears.

"Yeah all good. You?"

"Same."

She thinks their conversation is over but then she hears a hushed voice. "Let's kick the tires and light the fires." She figures it was more so for his own benefit though, so she doesn't comment.

All too soon they're propelled forward, backs pinned to their seats because of the tremendous speed pressure. It can be a small-scale body trauma for some but Aella has never felt more comfortable. A tingle of the fingertips later, they are welcomed in an infinite azure dotted by a few scarce clouds, the runway long gone behind them. Both pilots enjoy a couple peaceful seconds to take in their new panorama and then they snap: it begins.

"I've got a six strobe. I think he's locked on us." Aella starts reading out the incoming movements entering her radar scope.

With a switch on his radio transmitter, Harry reaches out to Dazzler and Tigger as they are flying in a parallel tandem alongside them. "Tigger, you spot it?"

"Positive. It's Rogers, looks like he's a single." Tigger who endorses the same role as Aella quickly reports, before she pitches back in for a few more precisions.

"Contact at 900 knots closure. He's gaining speed."

"Daz, it's split time." Harry announces.

"Copy that Styles."

After Dazzler's approval, the two aircrafts are both sharply veering outwards in a defensive split, leaving a Y-shaped trail of smoke after them. The move comes through as the chaser is contrived to choose one direction to follow, but to Harry's dismay they get the short end of the stick.

"Rogers coming left, eight o'clock high." Aella signals immediately.

The scenery below them is a mix of wild purples and pale magentas, with fields-worth of lavender adorning the dry soil so characteristic of Californian lands. Peace and nature prevail on these grounds slightly remote from the bustling life of the city but the same cannot be said ten-thousand feet above where Harry is caught in a tedious game of zig-zag trying to escape his pursuer.

"He's tailing us. Watch your six!" her pulse quickens every time Rogers' unit manages to lock its position right behind them. There is no more vulnerable position for a pilot than to have an enemy flying at their six. It usually means incoming fire. It's why Harry is relentlessly jerking the TomCat in a rapid and unpredictable manner, the constant change in direction making it near-impossible for Rogers to lock, aim and shoot them.

"No shit Sherlock, why d'you think I'm jinxing so much?" Harry is starting to see spots on his peripheral vision from the gravitational pull, and he can only hope his tailgater is experiencing the same. Beads of sweat dotting his hairline and starting to dribble along his temples but it doesn't put a damper on his concentration. He can't relent or he becomes an exposed target.

"Goddamn, he's not budgin.'" Harry tries with all his might to leave his frustration out of the cockpit but the situation is not looking up.

"You got new contact ahead, 2 o'clock." Aella perks up at the discovery.

"Imma bit preoccupied with Rogers up my ass, if you haven't noticed." She should have known pointing out a potential target while they were heavily pursued themselves was not what Harry wanted to hear, but she already had a plan all mapped out. That's what Aella is best at after-all: reading a situation and coming up with a strategy in .2 second flat, no reflexion needed, just the numbers, the physics and the sky on her side.

"I didn't mean it as a target. You can use them as a shield if you keep Rogers high enough right before making a dive under them." She explains her vision to him, desperately wishing she could be the one on the front executing it.

"He'll just go above and back to tailgating us."

"Not if you barrel-roll right after the contact, he'll just overshoot." His lack of response betrays his skepticism so she insists further, brushing off the way he's second-guessing her.

"At the least, it'll give you leeway and buy you some time." This time her argument weights enough to tip his scale in favor of her plan.

"'lright then." Harry reluctantly agrees, tilting his chin slightly to the side as if he couldn't believe himself he was going through with her move. "'s gonna be snug timing."

"Just trust my cue." Aella's words are left hanging between them like a desperate echo thrown in an empty ravine. Does he trust her? Does she? It's definitely not the moment to reflect on it, much less have a discussion about it, but neither of them are oblivious to the eerie silence filling up their space like a faux smile greeting a bad joke. Then the aircraft is once again yanked to a blunt left and Aella is snapped out of it.

"That's it. Target at 1 mile abeam 40° on your right." She's got the fellow fighter in her line of view, both on the radar and through the bulletproof glass of the cockpit's canopy. "Keep high, keep high...3, 2, 1, drop!" Harry immediately complies, the aircraft nearly skimming the underbelly of its twin above, before shooting right back upwards, nose pointing at the sun. The trajectory describes a half loop leaving them upside-down for a milli second before Harry rolls them back to normal, in the end effectively realizing a vertical U-turn. Rogers skillfully avoids a fetal collision with the third wheeler but doesn't anticipate Harry's sudden volte-face, in accordance with Aella's prognosis.

"Fuck, we're losin' airspeed." Because of such a twist of direction, they are indeed relegated to a lesser speed which Harry is not too enchanted about.

"He's losing some too." Aella reasons, before jumping to another matter. "2 incoming bogies ahead. I think it's Berks tailing Dazzler." She's barely finished her sentence that two familiar aircrafts flash passed them at such high speed, Harry has to crane his neck backwards to watch his friends in the same predicament he was mere seconds ago.

"I have to cover them." His instinct takes over.

"Fly your needles Harry, it's too late for them." Aella objects to it straight away. Her mind is unbiased, she knows going for them would be pointless.

"Like hell I'm gonna sit tight, they need cover." Harry's voice is categoric like he couldn't ever fathom a world where he would leave his friends stranded for the sake of a mission.

"They already lost, Berks' gonna turn for us now."

"You don't know that." He replies adamantly despite her warning.

"Except I do. Daz was loosing speed, it's over for them." Now she's the one trying to stifle her frustration with all her might. She just wishes he would listen, but instead they're doing yet another 180 to follow Dazzler's trail to the rescue. She has no choice but to adapt and keep calling the positions.

"Contact ahead, four hundred, coming down. He's gonna turn."

"Not if I nail 'im first." If she weren't so bitter about being ignored, she might find his determination admirable. Admittedly she can't deny Harry is an amazing pilot, as are proof his excellent accuracy in space and timing as well as the ease with which he performs each maneuver. But alas, the git won't take her words for it, no matter how knowledgable she is. Talk about eyes rolling...

Meanwhile, Harry is desperately trying to aim for the TomCat launched in his direction, but his opponent is using the same tricks he used against Rogers.

"Shit, 's not stable enough to fire." Aella can't believe he has to audacity to groan about it to her. DIdn't she warn him?

Any shot is missed as the two aircrafts cross trajectories, nearly grazing each other

"Don't lag, he's gonna come around high at your five." Instead of commenting on his failed attempt, she communicates her best educated guess.

"How'dya figure?"

"Cause he was lagging too." Her retorts are getting sharper and drier as her annoyance grows the more he questions her. Her eyes take a rest from the screens on her panel to lay on the Californian landscape flowing passed them. They've wandered quite the distance away from the base, the relatively greener scenery of the seafront giving way to a craggy turf redder and drier by the meter.

"Fuck." Harry suddenly swears, the quality of his voice could rival the roughness of the ground Aella was just observing, and she's effectively brought back into focus.

"Damn it, I told you!" She indulges with an expletive of her own once she spots the fast-approaching signal of Berks unit on her AMDR (Air and Missile Defense Radar).

"The fucker got in my blind spot, I'm doin' my best." Harry is quick to defend himself but the damage is done: they're being chased down once again.

Aella thinks she's starting to reach her disgruntlement threshold. The fact Harry isn't much receptive to her ideas doesn't alleviate her growing frustration at her lack of control over the damn carrier. "Well step up before we get wiped." She spits.

"I swear to God Aella, now's really not the time"

"If you just listened to me for- Watch out! At your six, closing fast!" She desperately wants to tell him off. Wishes she could go on a rant about how much of a dismissing jerk is being, but her duties reins her in when a loud signal starts beeping frantically on her board. Berks is locked at their six, a press of a finger away from shooting them.

"I hear that" Harry grunts as he gives a sharp jerk at the control stick in order to dodge Berks' line of fire. He keeps jinxing the aircraft in all axis but Berks follows suit and matches all his moves.

"He's too fast, I can't get out of his fire range." Harry's heartbeat skyrockets as the situation becomes more dire by the second. He doesn't know how long he can maintain the zig-zagging going, for the sake of both his energy and the carrier's. Abrupt moves are what's currently keeping them safe but these are sadly the greediest in kerosene.

Then all hell breaks loose when Aella is hit by one of her craziest ideas.

"Try a complete thrust reversal of the turbofan engines."

"' the fuck?! Are you nuts?! It'll send us spiraling." Harry's livid. He knew it. He fucking knew she was impulsive and reckless on the edges. She held to much fire in her hands for him to put his trust in them like he wanted to.

"Precisely." His harsh reaction doesn't deter her confidence. "If you're out of control, he can't anticipate your moves, can he?"

"Are you even listening to yourself? That's a stupid idea if I ever heard one."

"It's not. You just have to switch back off the burners for a sec and you'll get the control back."

"And what if I don't?" She knows her calculations are foolproof but Harry won't have any of it. He can't think past the boldness and near-arrogance of it all.

"You will, just trust me." Once again, the words leave a bitter taste in her mouth, even more so because she knows he won't likely follow through with it.

"That's suicide mission Aella. I'm not doing it, that's final." The last two words are categorical, a way for him to officially close the conversation.

"Damn it!"

The theory of it was beautiful really, but Harry thinks in practical and surefire moves he knows won't send him six feet under before his time. Aella, on the other hand, has always relied on her infallible knowledge of astrophysics to enhance her flying experience. She's followed the same motto ever since she stumbled across a quote that inspired her beyond grasp. It goes something like "aviation records don't fall until someone is willing to mortgage the present for the future." And while she would never even entertain the idea of a reckless and immature move, her self-taught philosophy gave her access to a whole world of potential tricks most pilot couldn't even conceptualize.

Aella is in the middle of an attempt at regulating her breathing when she starts noticing the spinning arrow on her altimeter. Her head swiftly tilts to the side to get a brief snapshot of the crimson soil of San Diego's wasteland. They must be pretty far in the land if the upcoming sierra of rocky mounts is anything to go by. That's not what is retaining Aella's attention. No, she's more puzzled by the lack of space between her and the ground, the carrier grazing over pebbly elevations and lorn cactuses.

"Flathatting? That's your idea? Christ Harry, the trees won't save your ass." She figures if he doesn't bother being civil then she should drop her filter too.

"Leave it Aella. Just do your job."

"I'm trying!" She fires back.

"Just trust me on this."

Blank.

"Fuck you Harry, that's a two-way street." She's actually fuming. He had the balls to call her out on trust when he hasn't been returning the same courtesy. If she had the time to worry further about it now, Aella would be questioning if coming to Top Gun and partnering with Harry was really a life-changing opportunity. So far, she's had very few upgrades from the grim world she's been privy too.

"There's a split trail 3 miles ahead on the left." She was under the impression they'd stop talking in tacit consent but the rasp of Harry's voice through her headphones is no mirage. "I can lose him there. Can you read the positions please?"

She's tempted to give him the silent treatment but the fervid pilot in her wouldn't let her jeopardize a mission on such petty grounds. At least he was polite about his request this time. "He's closing on 300, nose up. Going by 800 knots."

"Roger that" Probably the closest thing to a thank you she'll get from him.

They're currently speeding through a gorge, tall cliffs of maroon stone fencing them on either side. Aella starts to question Harry's move as it restrains their room for maneuver but then he makes an extremely obtuse left turn and she gets it. The intimidating mount on their left actually split into two narrow canyons. At the speed they were going, one is most likely to take the second channel whose angle isn't as sharp as the one Harry chose. Only someone with previous knowledge of the surroundings would know how to successfully make that turn. It's then Aella realizes Harry has more insight on the environs than he lets on. His trick proves to be conclusive as Berks falls into the trap and enters the other passage.

"He's out."Aella simply confirms, before Harry veers upwards and back towards the base.

"Hunky-Dory." He utters in the same whispered manner he used before their take-off. "Now let's bug the fuck outta here."

The moment she has her two feet on the tarmac, Aella is scurrying over to a furious-looking Harry. Nostrils flaring, daggers in the eyes, they're both squaring their shoulders once nose to nose, or rather nose to collarbone. She doesn't give him the time to even part his lips before she's jabbing her pointer finger at his taunt chest.

"You prick! I got better things to do than to fill some empty space at the back of your stupid plane. If you don't want my insight you can shove it where the sun doesn't shine."

"Insight? You call that insight?!" He starts laughing jeeringly. "'s fuckin' madness is what it was. I can't believe I passed the mission with someone like you!" Harry doesn't even care to temper his disdain anymore. He's seen enough to make up his mind about her. He doesn't like her. Doesn't want to find out about the person inside because he doesn't like the pilot that she is. It reminds him to much of futile losses and irreparable hurt.

"Someone like me?" Aella's face turns sour and if it didn't make her look so sentimental, her eyes would be hosting a few pearls. She really thought he wasn't like those sexist jerks back home. Maybe not the warmest but at least respectful of her talent enough to appreciate her place in the Navy. Now she hates herself for entertaining the fantasy of ever having an ally flying by her side. "You're an asshole Harry, and certainly no better than Rex." Then before he can reply she storms off, too angered not to lose her wits.

And really, her last words don't sit well with Harry, because he knows she's not referring to the jerk's flying skills.

[daisylincs]

Ok sorry if you get multiple of the same ask just ignore the copies Anyway can you do a staticquake 53, 58, 62

53 = Mutual Pining, 58 = Accidental Eavesdropping and 62 = Love Confessor (Character A confessing their love for Character B to Character C). 

Hey thanks, anon! Now, for some reason, my brain at midnight decided it would be a really good idea to combine this prompt with, of all things, a Circus AU. I cannot for the life of me explain why I thought this, except maybe that I was scrolling through the prompt list and realised that I've never actually seen a Circus AU before. (If you've ever seen one, please send it to me!! I'd love to give it a read.) 

Anyway, however it happened, here's the bullet-point fic for you! I hope you like it 😁🎪

Shield Circus is known far and wide for its incredible acts, and for how its performers have formed their own tight-knit little family. From the ringmaster, Coulson, who's basically a dad to them all, to the fearless trapeze queen May and her protégés Daisy and Elena, to Fitz and Jemma with their ever-hilarious mad science show, everyone has a place where they fit in, and everyone knows, trusts and likes everyone. 

Naturally, there's a lot of teasing around, too - with a group as close as that, what else can you expect, really? 

And since Fitzsimmons have finally gotten their act together (ha, ha) the group's collective shipping interest has moved on to Daisy. 

Specifically, Daisy and Lincoln, who everybody can see like each other - except, obviously, Daisy and Lincoln. 

Lincoln's role in the circus is a musician, and while he's still a part of the Shield family, he's not as super-close as all the performers are. Him and Daisy are friends, sure, but they're not that close, and he's sure his massive crush is unrequited. 

After all, why would someone like her, who can literally fly through the air, fall in love with him, whose only sort-of skill is playing the circus theme?

 He's made it a habit to sit and watch her train with May and Elena in the evenings - she's absolutely radiant in the air, flushed and happy with success, and always laughing and delighted with herself when she comes down to the ground again. 

Oh, he's so far gone. 

"You two drive me up the wall," Hunter, the lion-tamer, informs Lincoln as he's setting up his act. (Lincoln doesn't think Hunter can really talk, since he literally describes his job with the lions as "they can't do anything worse to me than my hellbeast wife." But he doesn't say that - Hunter and Bobbi are in one of their on phases.) 

Instead he just grumbles, "yeah, whatever, man," as he trails the trapeze artists out of the ring so he can hopefully catch Daisy for a chat before dinner. 

He's hanging around outside the changing room - not creepily, thank you very much, he and Daisy actually have a standing arrangement to meet up after she's done with training to laugh together about the day's nonsense - when he hears May's voice. 

He's a little surprised, because May usually changes very quickly so she can go over the plans for the next show with Coulson before dinner. 

And he knows he shouldn't, but if his time with Shield has taught him anything, it's that privacy is a rather vague construct around here. Eavesdropping is a thing in the circus, especially if it can get you good bribing material. 

Nobody's ever got any good bribing material on May, so can you even blame him for listening in? 

What he hears, though, is decidedly not that. 

"... sure he doesn't feel the same way?" May is asking. 

It's Daisy who replies. "I don't know! He's never shown anything that couldn't just be interpreted as just, you know, being a good friend."

 May makes a kind of unconvinced "hmm" noise. 

"Oh, don't give me that," Daisy says, exasperated. "Fitz and Jemma used to meet up after training all the time - hell, they even slept in each other's trailers." 

"And Fitz and Jemma are now dating," May says drily. 

Lincoln can just see the scowl on Daisy's face. "Okay, fine, maybe not my best example. But -" her voice catches slightly "- I don't want to go into this unless I'm absolutely sure he feels the same way. I can't… the pain of thinking someone really cares about me, then having my heart torn out when I find out the truth - I can't go through that again." 

He has never heard her sound so vulnerable, and it makes his heart clench. He knows exactly who did this to her, and if Ward ever shows his face here again, Lincoln will punch him straight into the next county. (He suspects he'll have to stand in line, though.) 

There's a kind of soft rustle in the room, and he thinks it might mean May has pulled Daisy into a hug. His heart clenches again, for entirely different reasons this time - May might seem unapproachable and impassive, but God, she cares so much. 

"Daisy," May says softly, and Lincoln almost gasps at how gentle her voice is. "I know you've been hurt, but if my life has taught me one thing, it's that we're not meant to spend our lives alone. Love is something we should all have, and I know better than anyone how hard it can be to open your heart to it, because the first step is trust."

"Trust, Daisy," she continues. "I know how hard it is, but you have to trust that Lincoln is nothing like Ward. You have to trust that he's a good guy, and that he'd never hurt you that way." 

Lincoln almost misses the rest of her sentence, because his brain has frozen at the mention of his name. Wait, wait, wait. They were talking about him?

What???

Surely this doesn't mean… if she said she's not sure he feels the same way… if May is talking about love… 

His brain blanks out completely for a few seconds as it hits him that Daisy might actually return his feelings. 

Somewhat poetically, it's Daisy's voice that brings him back to reality. "He's a really, really good friend," she says, and her voice is so warm. "You really think he feels the same way?" 

Lincoln can practically hear May rolling her eyes. "Of course he does," she says. "Daisy, that boy is gaga for you." 

Daisy laughs softly, incredulously, as though she's only just letting herself believe it. (He totally gets the feeling.) 

"Thanks, May," she says, still in that slightly breathless tone of voice. 

And Lincoln has never heard May sound so warm as she replies, "Anytime." 

He's so caught up in wondering at it all that he almost doesn't realise when the door opens. He has to scramble like a mad thing to get behind one of the lockers so the women don't see him. 

"Lincoln should be somewhere nearby," Daisy says, and he winches at the absolute accuracy of that. "We always meet up for a chat around this time." 

"And you think you two don't have anything special," May snorts. 

Daisy shakes her head. "Yeah, yeah." But she's smiling as she walks off. 

Lincoln is smiling, too, and he's so relieved and happy that he totally forgets about the locker he ducked behind. As he stands up, he bangs his head against it, really, really loudly. 

Ow. 

And also, oh, shit. 

May whips around, her eyes narrowing. "Out," she orders. 

Lincoln sheepishly comes out from behind the locker, rubbing his head. That really hurt, and now he's busted. Just perfect. 

May's eyes narrow even further, if that's even possible. "How long were you there?" she asks in her soft, dangerous tone. 

Lincoln swallows. He wouldn't dare lie to May. So, shame-facedly, he admits, "since pretty much the beginning." 

"And why," May asks in a voice that bites like a whip, "did you think it was a good idea to listen in on a private conversation?" 

"I… was hoping… to get bribing material," he says weakly. "On, uh, you." 

He's sure he's just signed his own death warrant, but to his total surprise, May snorts and rolls her eyes. "This really is Coulson's circus, isn't it? He's really rubbed his no-personal-space-we're-a-family ethic off on you all, hasn't he?" 

"Uh, yeah," Lincoln says awkwardly. 

May shakes her head, but there's only fondness in her gaze. "He'd be so frustratingly happy to hear that." 

Her gaze sobers quickly, though. "I was right, wasn't I?" she asks, getting straight to the point. He's always respected that about her. "You do love Daisy?" 

"Of course I do," he says, and he can feel a grin tugging at his lips just to admit it. Wow, it feels good - but it's nothing compared to actually KNOWING she feels the same way. 

May's gaze is amused, but, he thinks, just a bit affectionate, too. "Good," she says. "Then I think you two will be very happy." 

"Thanks," he says, feeling his grin widen and his chest expand with warmth. "That means a lot, from you." 

Because it really does - May is basically Daisy's mom. The little exchange he just overheard pretty much proves that. 

May smiles at him - an actual smile. Whoa. "Off you go," she tells him. "Go find the girl you love." 

He can't stop grinning as he turns to walk away, feeling a literal bounce in his step. Fitz really wasn't exaggerating with the whole love-makes-you-so-happy-you-could-float-away thing, was he? 

"Just one more thing," May calls as he's about to round the corner. "I don't think I really need to tell you this, but if you hurt Daisy, I promise you I will put you in that cannon and fire you through the roof." 

Lincoln has to bite back a grin at the picture, but he's never been more serious as he replies, "I hope you'll never have to do that." 

May gives him a nod, and he really feels like he's passed a test. A nod and a smile from Melinda May? He never thought he'd see the day. 

He's so preoccupied in his proud thoughts that he completely forgets to look where he's going, and crashes right into someone on the other side of the corner. 

"What the… Daisy?!?!" he exclaims as he sees who it is. Then he processes her suspicious pose leaning against the corner. "What are you… were you eavesdropping on me?" 

Daisy’s cheeks are burning, but she folds her arms and stares him down. "Well, as it turns out, I was eavesdropping on you admitting that you had eavesdropped on me," she points out, confusingly but correctly. 

He has to concede that one - and he's pretty sure his cheeks are burning, too, as he realises what exactly she would have heard. 

"So, um, you… like me, too?" he asks. 

At the exact same time, she says, "I can't believe you like me, too!" 

"Well," he says, cheeks practically on fire from burning so much, "I thought I was actually pretty obvious, what with the whole watching you train and spending every free minute chatting with you -" 

"I thought you were just being a good friend!" she protests, and somehow she's drifting a step closer to him with every word. "I didn't know that I'd end up falling for you, even though your puns are the stupidest thing in this world!" 

"My puns are awesome," he argues, letting the last bit of distance between them draw closed. "And, really, didn't you see all the similarities between us and Fitzsimmons?"

"Well, you probably thought I didn't even notice you," she reasons, raising her hands to poke at his chest but ending up just resting them there. "As if I could not notice you!"

 "Should we just agree that we're a pair of oblivious idiots, then?" he asks, reaching out to brush a curl of hair behind her ear and letting his hand linger behind her ear. 

And, really, that line should not be as romantic as it is, but Daisy's gaze turns all soft and warm. 

"Yes," she says, and her voice is breathless in the best way possible. "We should."

And then they're kissing, her hands flattening and smoothing on his chest and his hands cradling the sides of her face. 

To think he ever thought she wouldn't notice him. To think she ever thought he was just being a good friend! 

If they weren't so busy kissing, he might even see what Hunter means. 

But as it is, he's fully occupied with the wonderful feeling of Daisy's lips on his. 

Well, at least until he gears someone start clapping slowly behind them. 

"Really, Hunter?" Daisy asks without even opening her eyes. 

Hunter doesn't even have the dignity to look ashamed of himself. "Come on, Dais, you know the drill." He holds out his hand to Fitz. "Come on, mate, pay up." 

Grumbling, Fitz forks over what looks like a hundred dollars. Lincoln just shakes his head. 

Then May walks calmly around the corner and takes the money from Hunter's hand. "Actually, I think you'll find that my bet predicted this to the day," she says, and holds out her hand for everyone to pay up. 

At Daisy and Lincoln's absolutely incredulous stares, she shrugs and pockets her money. "What do you expect? I married Phil Coulson." 

Then she's walking away like the badass she is, leaving everyone else to trail after her. 

Daisy buries her head in Lincoln's shoulder. "This is a crazy family we're part of, isn't it?" 

His eyes light up with mischief. "Yeah, it's a real circus." 

Daisy's eyes widen, and she groans and slaps at his shoulder. "Oh my Goooood." 

She can feel his laughter even more than she can hear it with her cheek pressed against his chest. 

And cliché as it might be, she's never been happier. 

She's found where she truly belongs. 

"They're crazy," she agrees, looking up at him with a soft smile, "but I wouldn't trade any of it for the world." 

The End. 

[queenarticlearchive]

Sophisticratic rock - Genevieve Hall gets a dressing down from Queen

Record Mirror

March 30, 1974

Genevieve Hall

Fire and brimstone, the gnashing of teeth and all of hell’s fury, is nothing compared to the anger and wrath of Queen.

It was the first journalist they’d encountered after having had their new album Queen II slagged off unmercifully in most of the music papers. Plus the fact that one particular journal had analytically delved into the depths of hype using Queen and Merlin as their prime examples.

So was it any wonder that all their embittered feelings of outrage, hurt, anger and frustration poured out like hot lava from an erupted volcano?

Lead guitarist Brian May picked up the paper and waves it under my nose. “This article is the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever read in my life”, he declares vindictively.

“Look, there are people going to read this article - some of them won’t have heard of Merlin and some of them won’t know us. The headline screams out commercial pop. They’ve printed a very old picture of us, which we hate, looking extremely poppy, and underneath it is the word HYPE. The whole article says in a suggestive way that Queen are a hype.”

Hype

“To be honest it looks to us like a put-up job. They say we’re a put-up job. I say that’s a put-up job, and the reasons are that this paper completely ignored us all the time we were going around on the road building up a following. We draw about a minimum of a thousand people a night for the last God knows how many months and they all know where we’re at.

“This paper completely ignored us and so now that we’ve got to the position where our records are taking off and we’re in the public eye. Now we’ve got to that position without the help of the music papers, they can’t really admit that we’re good, they have to suggest we’re a hype or something.”

Is that how you really see it? I asked.

“That’s exactly how we think it is,” joined in their drummer Roger Taylor. “Supported by the fact that they’ve compared us to a totally new band who we’ve never even heard of. We don’t want to say anything against them, but, apparently they’re just a straight pop band. Whereas we’ve been playing and working up to this for years. Christ, I’m 24, Brian’s 25, Freddie is 27, John’s a bit younger 23. Plus the fact that we’re all intelligent enough not to want to be put across in that way. We want to put out music first.”

Is it coming first? I asked, we appear to be getting a giant-sized image with the music running a close second.

“That’s only ‘cos we want to put our music across in the most striking and entertaining way. We want to make an impact. Surely that’s what it’s all about - entertaining.

“And that’s another thing,” he continues, “They’ve given the impression that someone’s said to us, ‘here’s a load of money boys, go down to Carnaby Street and get yourselves some clothes.

“Freddie and I used to sell old clothes. In fact Freddie used to design and MAKE our stage costumes. We’ve always taken care to make sure that our clothes are just right and look good. Perhaps they’d prefer it if we went on in dirty jeans, but we don’t really think the public want to look at that. I think they’d rather see something that looks good.”

Their lead vocalist Freddie Mercury (the aristocratic one) reads aloud with indignation the parody of a hype lead singer, and comes to a part where it says that hype bands employ writers to pen their instant hit singles.

“Now how the hell do they think we fall into that category? They haven’t done any homework. They’ve even called John our bassist our drummer. They haven’t even bothered to find out what we’re really about.

“Everyone seems to object if you’re playing what you think is serious and the kids buy it, they can’t understand it.

“Well we’ve definitely had no Chinn and Chapman behind us,” Roger bursts out, “every song we’ve do is planned by us, including our album sleeves” (note the famous Queen crest designed by Freddie).

Uncontrolled

“We even have control on which tracks we want released. In fact out of all the bands, I think we’re the most uncontrolled.”

“Exactly,” says Freddie, “That’s why this article is a complete farce and nowhere near the truth.”

OK - so how come they’re able to obtain this uncontrolled freedom? It was Brian who answered. “Because the record companies desperately wanted us in the beginning. I know it sounds like blowing our own trumpet, but it’s true. We made demo tapes and everyone thought they were good and wanted us. They realised they were in competition with each other. So in the end we were able to settle for a deal which enabled us to dictate a bit.”

You can’t deny that you’ve been getting preferential treatment over a lot of equally good bands, I said glancing around at their specially provided de-luxe van, which had been given to them at the beginning of their British tour.

“Ah wait a minute,” says Roger. “It wasn’t until our record company realised we were succeeding before they started giving us the big treatment. At first EMI printed 5,000 copies of our first album and much to their surprise they had to reprint that number five times over. So naturally when we made our second album, they felt justified in a lot of work behind it. Which is really why there’s been enough copies in the shops to put it into the charts in the first week.”

“Yes, but any record company if they’ve got any sense is going to do that,” says Freddie, “it looks like we’re getting knocked for having the right people around us doing their jobs properly.”

Is that a large part of their success - having the right people doing the right job?

“No”, answered Roger, “that comes after. Our success is due to us being a bloody good band and also having common sense - ‘cos there a lot of bloody good bands around - to get things managed properly. But even so we wouldn’t have had the support of the people if they hadn’t believed in us in the first place.”

And now over to Freddie. “People think that if there’s a lot of money put behind a band and they seem to make it quicker than usual, then they’re a hype. But we’ve geared ourselves to jump a few hurdles and have benefited by doing so.” He glances down at his picture.

“Oh really,” he exclaims in disgust, “this paper has no flair - I mean to print this picture three times in succession … and just look at my arms!” He was horrified, “look at how fat they appear, now my arms aren’t like that at all - what do you think?”

He rolls up his sleeves for me to inspect and I’d like to state here and now that the poor dear’s arms are quite, quite slender!

Ripped-off

Phew! If after all that you think that the lads are hypersensitive to criticism and feel animosity towards their critics, then let Roger put you straight.

“No, we don’t hold grudges - we just go round and wrench people’s arms and legs off. Or send them bags of wet cement, nothing too violent!”

By this time John Deacon (who reminded me of the Alice’s doormouse) had woken from his slumbers (too many late nights and early mornings), he was reasonably cheerful for someone who had had his clothes ripped off the day before.

“By the law of averages,” he was saying, “it’s someone else’s turn to be ripped off today.”

You talk to him about the success of their Queen II album and he says, “It’s all our Mums and hype.” He’s a lot quieter than the other three, but can’t help warming to him as he’s completely unpretentious.

Freddie is a pretty dynamic character, he has an air of confidence which can sometimes be mistaken for arrogance. He has hair the colour of midnight, luminous brown eyes which he makes look evil with skillful use of make-up. He speaks ever so nicely (don’t you dear?) with the superfluous use of his hands, and commands attention rather than demands it.

Brian’s the tallest one and has a shock of dark curls which bring out the green flecks in his lucent grey eyes. He’s the thoughtful considerate one, and it’s a joy listening to him arguing with Roger.

And Roger - well he’s the pretty one with a sense of fun. He doesn’t look capable of busting a gut over a set of drums, but once he gets that adrenaline moving - the guy goes berserk.

Sucker

Music wise, Queen are a heavy electric rock band - but not raucous. There’s a fair amount of melodic structure incorporated in their material, which contains complex harmonies and could quite easily become messy was it not skillfully honed to precision. They’re exciting to listen to and watch, and have the good sense to capture rather than rupture the senses. The only word which describes their musical finesse is SOPHISTICATION.

After their British tour which climaxes at the Rainbow Theatre, Queen will take their ‘sophisticratic’ rock for a two-month stateside tour. Their opening night will be in Denver, Colorado, where they appear on the same bill as Mott the Hoople. I don’t know about the rest of you - but I’ve always been a right sucker for royalty.

[matt-eldritch]

Mortal Kombat Akademy

In between my work on the 31 Days of Original Characters challenge, I've begun to revisit my plans for the big Mortal Kombat story I'd wanted to do for awhile; Mortal Kombat Akademy. I've done a lot of character busts with backstory info and I did a sort of "season one" plots but this is something I'm not really satisfied with anymore. I'm gonna spend the new year trying to readjust and rework the overall story and characters to something more workable. Here's a few odds and ends of what I've planned so far;

Story Outline

Shaolin Monks, Lui Kang and Kung Lao, are recruited into the Mortal Kombat Akademy, the secret fighting school located on the island paradise of international crimelord, Shang Tsung. But those who step foot on the island are subjected to terrors beyond comprehension once they learn the true purpose of the school; a training ground for the soldiers of an interdimensional tyrant who conquers by use of a fighting tournaments ordained by the gods themselves. But one of the gods, Raiden, is willing to give Earth a fighting chance by training as many chosen Earthlings as he can so they may finally defeat the forces of evil in the Mortal Kombat tournament.

Kinda bare bones but for plot synopsis go, it helps me sort of make a launching pad for the ideas. Like my original idea, the story is still primarily about Lui Kang and Kung Lao going to the school and meeting/befriending the typical heroes of the Mortal Kombat world, Raiden being their mentor and Shang Tsung being the big bad to overcome.

But the story ideas I had just don’t really cut it for me now. I feel as though I was sort of putting the cart before the horse by putting so much time making elaborate details instead of snowballing one idea to make a big bright idea. I’ve made some titles for them;

Start the Semester!

Tour the Akademy!

Prepare for the First Exams!

Bond Like Your Lives Depend On It!

Learn the Fatalities!

Wills and Testaments!

Survive the Detetionrealm!

Survive the First Round of Exams!

Survive the Second Round of Exams!

Survive the Last Round of Exams!

Party Your Asses Off!

Mortal Kombat Akademy V. The DC Universe: Dawn of Pain!

To give some context to them, I had a storyarc planned; Early on, Raiden would want the Earthrealm class (the class would have Kang, Lao, Johnny, Sonya, Jax, Stryker and Nightwolf) to be friends and allies in order to survive the matches and save the world. Easier said than done when so many personalities were clashing together. And once they learn about fatalities, the class goes through some mental anguish over having to kill or be killed, Kang being the only one vowing to never kill anyone, to the disbelief of everyone else. Things start looking up once the class starts to trust and respect one another and become stronger fighters.

But Kano, on the behalf of Goro’s Class (Mileena, Kitana, Jade, Baraka, Sheeva, Skarlet, Reptile, Tanya and Kano himself) frames Sonya and Johnny for a crime, leading to Professor Quan Chi to exile them to the “Detention Realm” where his goons, Drahmin and Moloch, deal out the punishments. My idea for them that they’d be bumbling and dim so Johnny and Sonya could escape them, bonding while trying to make it to the final exams. Everyone but Kang and Lao have been defeated and since Sonya and Johnny were late, it’d all be up to them to beat Goro. Once Goro beast Lao half to death, Kang faces his fears and manages to defeat Goro without killing him, but not without making him suffer for all the pain he’s caused.

The class’ reward for passing the exams is an-all expense paid vacation to Edenia, which is basically a hellhole built to Shao Kahn’s pleasure. Here, Kang and Kitana get some alone time to romantically connect to one another during the celebratory feast hosted by Kitana and Mileena’s parents, Shao Kahn and Sindel. But really, the feast is for the Kahns to asses the threat that Raiden’s students hold to their long term plans. And finally, the DCU story is just a fun breather where I have the mid-1990s versions of their heroes (Superman with a mullet, Batman Forever styled Batman and the two Wonder Women, Artemis and Diana, for example).

And after rereading what I had for plots, I noticed how little the Lin Keui featured into the stories since I designed a lot of them for the series. Should try to fix that somehow.

Overall Art Style

As I stated in previous MKA concept art, I based the art style on the look of Steven Universe. I still intend for the project to be written fanfiction, but I do wish to have some elements of it to be drawn by myself. Not a full adaptation but maybe a full page illustration of each chapter, along with the general character/environment sketches, or like the ending credits of The Mandalorian series.

But back to the art style, I wish to change it. I can’t really go further on the style of Steven Universe if this story is going to be about such heavy violence and gore. It wouldn’t really look right, might cross over into unintentional hilarity or into the uncanny valley. I’m looking at something like the artist One, the man behind One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100 whose style is really unique, fast, sketchy and frenetic, all attributes I think will work well. I also love the anime aesthetic of the 1990s so that’s definitely a goal to achieve since I’m setting the story in 1995.

Story Ideas To Keep

* Koins: My idea for an in-canon reason for the koins you win in matches (at least in Mks 9-11, IDK how far back they go) to unlock Krypt stuff will be used as a way for the students to buy things like food, clothing and resurrections due to being killed by another student’s fatalities since its primarily a learning facility instead of a battlefield. Though if you’re broke, you’re not gonna be saved. Koins, like in the games, will be given for performing a fatality and a moral choice comes up when you think “do I do good and be paid less, or do something terrible but get more chances of being resurrected if I die?”

*Profiles: I’ve got to do some rewrites for the characters. Nothing too too major since I do like a lot of what I wrote, but its more to streamline it to fit in the new direction I’m doing. Like, having Sonya, Jax and Stryker being Hall Monitors, I don’t think something like that is gonna be part of my story since I’m trying to take it a tad more seriously. The idea of Detention Realm and having Dharmin and Moloch as lovable henchmen is still canon, as far as I’m concerned. Think the two mice henchmen from the film “Flushed Away”. And on a final note, the newly retconned origin for Sindel...that shit isn’t gonna be part of my story.

Overall, whatever backstories that’ll be changed will likely be on a case by case basis. No telling who or what will be changed right now, but I’ve now thought of some parts to start with.

Diversity and Inclusion

This one is probably gonna be one of the hardest to accomplish since I really want to make the series really diverse with body types, genders and sexuality, race, neurodiversity, that type of subject matter. Inclusion is really important to me, and I’m scared how I might screw it up like how Disney, JK Rowling, SNL, Simpsons, Big Mouth, Voltron so many more screw it all up since they all serve the needs of the capitalist, neoliberal status quo over the voices of the marginalised.

And with that, brings up some more challenges. Will I make so many diverse original characters that they take time away from the canon characters? Should I make more canon MK characters differently diverse?

I'm also planning on having the characters display prejudices and bigotries but I'm scared I'll go in too much of "Bright" territory, if you know what I mean.

Tackling Mature Content

I mean, it goes without saying that the series is going to be full of violence and gore since that’s basically in the DNA of Mortal Kombat in the first place. But there’s much more serious topics I want to try to write. Like the effects of abuse, queer rights, the above themes about diversity and inclusion, the seemingly never ending war and the ideas of the long defeat. Of course, my chapters will be marked with as clear as possible content warnings, those are important.

A Shared Universe

A month ago, I watched a video about Midway trying to recreate the success of Mortal Kombat into other fighting games. The video, “Remember when Midway tried to copy Mortal Kombat?” talked about three would-be franchises of Midway fighting games; Mace: The Dark Age, War Gods and Bio FREAKS. After watching the video and reading about the games, I think it’d be good for lore if they were integrated into my story. Mace and War Gods could be used as part of the backstory of the series. Like the idea of the Earthrealm Kombatants being the descendants of the characters of Mace and War Gods, maybe Raiden was involved with the later, I’m not sure. Bio FREAKS could be latter used if I go into a time travel story. Maybe a mix of the game and the story/characters of Mortal Kombat X. As for Midway’s other successful but overlooked franchise, Killer Instinct, that is probably going to be the most recurring element in the shared universe. UltraTech, the main villains of the series would be the people behind such things as Kano’s cyborg eye, the Lin Keui’s Cyber Initiative and being the rulers of Neo-Amerika in the Bio FREAKS timeline. I also wrote in the profiles of Nightwolf and Sub-Zero that the Killer Instinct universe is linked to my story (one of his divorced parents is dating one of the parents of KI’s Black Eagle and Thunder while Glacius was an alien that helped give Cryomancers their powers).

And on a side note, there is another Midway MK clone called Primal Rage, which I swear I had one of the toys based on it and saw a parody of it on an episode of Dexter’s Laboratory. Its pretty gruesome, its a bunch of savage Kaiju in a post-apocalyptic earth that resembles the stone age. Probably an alternate timeline/dimension if I use it in my series. Who knows, maybe elements of the worlds of Street Fighter and or God of War could make an appearance...

Writing the Damned Thing

Probably the absolute hardest part of this entire thing. I struggle with actually keeping attention to writing since I’m primarily a visual artist and it feels terrible to not even follow through on any idea I have and it just kinda sits and collects dust in my brain. If its sketching and rendering, I can do it. If its writing shit down, I just have executive dysfunction when it comes to it. I never know where to start writing it, how to continue writing it, how to finish it or how to put it all together cohesively.

I can’t do this without at least writing the complete first season, if I do it on a semi-regular basis, nothing is going to be done. Even like, less than a week of non-recurring writing is like a poison to me. I don’t know how, but if I make room for an hour or two of writing a day every day might help me get more prepared for longer writing.

In Conclusion

When will the first chapter be done? I don’t know. When will I start writing? Hopefully as soon as I can. I can try to post updates or work in progresses, but that’s still a pipe dream, in my honest opinion. But I want to make progress in 2020, I need to make a difference and to actually make this coming year worthwhile.

[solarbird]

What do you know, this does have a chapter two!

Amélie Lacroix used to be the Widowmaker. She's not, anymore. Talon is gone, and the threat is over. But few if any governments are really willing to forgive a known terrorist with dozens - no, hundreds - of kills under her belt, so coming in from the cold wasn't really an option.

But one has to make a living somehow. A lot of the same skills used to infiltrate for assassination work just as well for other kinds of infiltration, and Amélie always did have an eye for spotting value in art.

[ao3 link]

The Queen's Toaster Chapter 2: The Bird Wives

The dark-haried woman took off her Raptora helmet, and shook her head, short hair immediately spiking up, as it always did.

Flying in this is so different, she thought, to flying a jet.

She looked down at the armoured helmet with its beak-like visor and grinned at herself. It may not be the same as a jet, but flying in it brought her even more of a rush, with so little between her and the wind, and the clouds - and the anti-aircraft fire, too.

Grabbing a cleaning kit and a towel, she wiped the helmet clean, dried it, and ran the towel through her own hair for good measure.

That won't do, I need a shower! she thought. But it'll wait 'til I get home.

The base showers didn't bother with hot water. Lukewarm from the ground was good enough, unless she had the option of better, and she did.

She'd just about finished flight training, at long last. Since the end of Talon had meant a second end for Overwatch - at least, for a while - she'd had to do something with her life. And sure, Helix might not be the same, but having regular income again helped make up for it.

That, and the other benefits.

I wonder if these come in orange?

She popped the helmet into her locker, and started dismantling the rest of her armour, pulling it off piece by piece, for storage and overnight checkout before next flight.

"Oh, please - take your time," she heard from the disarmament station behind her. "It's far too nice a job to rush."

Lena spun 'round, surprised, and jinked forward, past two benches. "You're back! Already?!"

Angela grinned, and kissed her younger wife's forehead as she leapt into her arms. "Yes!"

Lena wasn't settling for that, not under any circumstances, and hopped up on her toes, to give her elder wife a proper kiss. "Fuck, I've missed you. Where's Reeha?"

"Talking with your instructor. She'll be here any moment now."

Lena pulled Angela against her, holding her tightly. "Fuck, I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Lena. We both have."

The Englishwoman leaned back, smiling broadly, hands on her wife's hips. "How was the conference? How's Winston? How's eep!"

"Come here, tiny wife!" Fareeha said, hauling Lena bodily up into the air as Lena shrieked, giggling, teleporting just to turn in place, not wanting out of her younger wife's arms, but definitely wanting to see her face to face.

"Reeha!"

The two women kissed, as Angela smiled at the sight.

"Your instructor had good things to say - except for your tendency to teleport your way out of trouble."

"And why shouldn't I? 'Use every tool at your disposal,' first rule of combat, you know that." She grinned.

Fareeha licked Lena's nose. "'Don't get into trouble in the first place' is the real first rule of combat, and you know that."

"Yeh, yeh..." She sighed, and put her head down on Reeha's shoulder. "Fuck me, I've missed you so much."

"I will! But not on base."

Lena bit at Fareeha's neck, and Ree snorted, dropping Lena to the ground. "Finish getting undressed first. And shower here. We're taking you out to dinner before going home."

"Oh, are we? I thought we were gonna get some overdue R&R?"

"You have to finish flight training, Captain," Fareeha replied. "But consider this a downpayment. Undress and shower, and be ready to go in five minutes. That's an order."

"Aye-aye, Colonel." Captain Oxton saluted her wife in the most sarcastic way she knew how, and hopped to.

They'd gone straight from their all-too-short honeymoon to a deployment to two separate conferences and training, so there was no way in hell she was going to be late for this.

-----

"She get there?" read the purple text.

"Oh yeah, she got there," Emily typed in reply, in orange text, sitting at her desk in her small office.

Amélie sat out in the living room, on a couch, communicating with her buyer, confirming acquisition and arranging alternate delivery for the package.

"Right where you said she'd be, too. _And_ about to set off an alarm."

"Thanks for picking her up for me," came the purple hacker's reply. "It's not my story to tell, but"

Emily interrupted, the shared cursor turning orange as she typed. "You saying that is hilarious, you do realise, yeh?"

The cursor blinked for a moment, before turning back to purple.

"Yes. It is. I know. But seriously, she's been through a lot. And she was totally going to get busted sooner or later, and I knew it, even if I didn't know how or where All her infiltration training is based around range work. Close up, she has some, but not as much. But she had to deliver on this job, and... well... I had to make sure it happened."

"I know, I know. What's a favour for a friend? Besides, she's _smokin'_ hot. Totally worth it."

"I told you!"

"You told me, but you didn't _tell_ me, luv. Oh god, it's all I can do to keep my hands off her. But then I'd 'find out' about her too early, and... if she's she who I think she is..."

"I didn't tell you," insisted purple.

"You really didn't," assured orange. "But I'm pretty sure I know."

"Then... in that case..."

"Yeh."

Emily shook out her hands. C'mon, girl. Keep it in your trousers. If I'm right, she's one very hot property.

She looked over at the apparently-black-haired woman whose artificial skin colourant wasn't quite enough to keep a blue tinge entirely at bay in the cloudy daylight.

This is going to be tricky enough as it is. You've laid the table, now just let her decide whether she wants to bite.

"Still - if what you actually will tell me is true," she started typing, in orange.

"It is," purple text interrupted.

"...then hey, maybe you won't owe me one. Maybe I'll owe _you_."

"Now _that_," a glowing purple sugar skull replied, "is what I like to hear."

-----

The newlyweds smiled at each other, leaning back in their chairs, relaxing as the dinner plates were cleared, the dessert course ordered but not yet at the table, the three of them sipping tea, qahwah arabiyya, and abricotine, according to their tastes.

Lena wasn't sure exactly when she'd developed her fondness for abricotine, but she was pretty sure it had something to do with joint testimony to the UN in Geneva - or, much more specifically, when she'd had to share quarters with Fareeha and Angela the whole week. Athena had apologised, calling it an 'accidental oversight,' but at least the one bed was a full king. Hana never let any of them hear the end of it, all while stridently denying being the RPF shipper whose name translated from the Korean meant SoManyBunnies.

Despite what everyone at Gibraltar assumed, they didn't start being "a thing" there - but they had become surprisingly comfortable with each other, very quickly. The actual "thing" would start not long afterwards, the three of them hunkered down in the desert, Fareeha wounded but not in any real danger, waiting for extraction after a successful but extremely difficult mission in the Sudan.

They'd a critical hidden Talon information relay and communications centre deep in the Nubian Desert, on desperately-useful information provided by the Widowmaker herself. At first, all three of them thought of that night as a one-off - the stress of battle will do that, after all - but then there was a dinner, and they found they had so much to talk about, then another dinner, and then an after dinner, and...

Well.

Lena's phone buzzed, and she pulled it from her pocket, hoping it wasn't a callback for mission. Talon may be gone, but Helix's work was never done, not with Vishkar out there, and tensions still high between omnics and humanity, and O'Deorain still on the loose, and more.

But instead, purple text reported Package delivered, and the teleporter smiled, before looking up to her curious wives.

"Is it...?" Fareeha asked, hopefully, as Angela looked to Lena, expectantly.

"She's home," Lena replied, relief in her voice.

"Oh good," Angela said, letting go of a little bit of tension she hadn't been fully aware she carried. "I hope this works out. She's been through so much."

"Yeh," Lena agreed, while replying, "Brilliant. Thank you ❤," and putting her phone away. "She really has."

"So have we," Fareeha noted, having mostly forgiven, but entirely not forgot.

"Yes," Angela said, reaching out and holding her taller wife's hand. "Too much."

"It's in the past," Fareeha insisted, squeezing Angela's hand.

"Not for all of us," Lena replied, as dessert arrived. "Particularly not for her."

"No," Fareeha agreed, after a moment. "I suppose not."

"Still, though," Angela said, "she's in... well. I'm not going to say good hands..."

Fareeha chuckled. "No."

"But," Angela continued, "given everything, probably the best available."

"Give 'er more credit than that, love," Lena said, putting aside her apricot eau-de-vie before picking up a piece of the feteer meshaltet, and dipping it into the lovely black honey served on the side. "It's probably the best chance she'll get."

"For your sake," Fareeha smiled, affectionately, choosing the white honey and cream, as Angela chose, in turn, the soft cheese, "...I'll hope you're right."

[ichigopanhpff]

BNHA One-Shot: Bust A Cap

I’m surprised no one’s written something like this yet. Just a short one with by OC, Takahiro “Ren” Remy, who is a second year at U.A. and currently an R.A. for the 1-A dorms. She’s from a fic I just started called “Blink!”

Enjoy!

---

It was lazy afternoon and a rare day where class 1-A didn’t have any school work or training to catch up on.

Yes, today was a total rest day.

Some decided to hang out in the privacy of their own room while others lounged in the common area. It was far too hot to go outside to do anything.

“Iida-kun, Deku-kun,” Ren called the two boys from the common room, carrying a small folded table and a bottle. “Come with me a sec.”

The two looked at each other in confusion and got up from the couch. They followed their R.A. outside, where the summer heat and breeze greeted them. Having been outside for merely seconds, they could begin feeling the humidity cling onto their skin when they ended up in the shady grass area to the right side of the dorm. Walking a few steps forward, she set the table up and set the bottle on top. Happy with the positioning, Ren turned back around with a determined smirk.

“Uh, senpai?” Midoriya asked with a tone of confusion. “What are you doing?”

“We’re training today.”

“Training?”

“There’s been a thing online recently called the ‘Bottle Cap Challenge’, where people unscrew the cap of a bottle with their kicks without knocking the bottle over,” she explained. “And I thought this would be a great training exercise for you two! You can learn precision and self-control at the same time.”

“What a great idea!” Iida agreed and put his hand to his chin. “My Recipro Burst does activate too fast sometimes when I use it...”

“And it’ll help with Deku-kun’s Shoot Style,” she added.

The two boys’ eyes lit up with excitement and yelled, “Let’s do this!” They all began stretching their legs before attempting.

“Senpai, would you mind giving us a demonstration before we start?” the tall boy requested.

Ren stepped back about six feet from the bottle and focused.

“I like to get a bit of a running start,” she commented and readied her stance. Doing little hops in place, she made two tight Chaine turns and went into a full roundhouse kick at the top of the bottle. In an instantaneous moment, both boys saw the tip of her shoe touch the cap and spun it off. Firmly planting her foot back on the ground, she huffed out a soft breath and released her stance.

“Ohhhhhh!!!! That’s so amazing!” they both exclaimed.

She walked off to pick the cap back up and reset the bottle.

“Whenever you guys are ready.”

“I’ll go first,” Iida firmly stated. The tall dark blue hair colored boy took a few steps back and readied himself. Hearing the engines at his calves fire up, he went full throttle and swung his right leg at the bottle, only to knock the whole thing over instead. He rigidly stood there, soaking in his failure.

“I went a little too gung-ho,” Iida sulked at the nearby wall.

“I-It’s fine! Don’t worry about it,” Ren comforted. “It’d be a miracle for you to get it on the first try!”

“How long did it take you, Ren-senpai?” Deku asked.

“At least 10 times,” she confessed and placed her hands on her hips. “The trick is to control the angle and power of your kick.”

She then turned back to Iida.

“Try it without your quirk on your next turn so you can get a handle of your strength,” she directed.

“That’s right! I’m so used to activating my quirk whenever we’re training!” he energetically replied, his hands moving in their usual robotic manner. “Such a wise suggestion, Takahiro-senpai!”

“Deku-kun, you ready?”

The freckled boy nodded and prepared himself.

Giving himself enough room, Midoriya activated All For One, making him glow teal green all over. He went into a running start for momentum and jumped up to ready his body into a roundhouse kick. Reiterating Ren’s advice in his head, he tried his best to angle his foot as it came closer to the cap. The moment contact was made, the whole bottle spun around on the table and wobbled back into stationary position a few inches from falling off of the table.

“Gah, so close!” he groaned out with a wry grin.

The viridian haired boy walked back to the table and reset the bottle for Iida’s turn. For the next 15 minutes or so, the boys took their turns in trying to knock the cap off, sweat beginning to accumulate around their arms. And at long last, Iida was the first one to succeed between the two. Both Deku and Ren happily cheered and clapped for him.

“Now that you got the feel for it, try it with your quirk,” their R.A. said.

“What’re you guys doin’ here?” a new voice intervened.

The three turned to see the Bakusquad, with Ochaco and Todoroki trailing not too far behind.

“We’re trying out the bottle cap challenge,” Midoriya answered.

“Whoa, that sounds super fun!” Ochaco exclaimed. “I wanna try too!”

With new challengers entering the arena, Ren gave them the lowdown on the challenge and had Iida give the demonstration.

“Hm, doin’ the challenge itself isn’t all that fun...” Ashino pouted and suddenly had a devilish idea. “How ‘bout this?! Whoever misses the most have to do whatever the winner wants for one day!”

“That’s a pretty steep bet, Mina...” Ren trailed off with a tone of concern.

“Heh, scared senpai?” Bakugou goaded with his trademark shit-eating grin. “You don’t have to do it.”

Ren shot him a look of annoyance with her hazel green eyes.

“I never said I wasn’t,” she shot back. “Let’s up the ante: Loser also has to call the winner ‘master’ or whatever name the winner decides on.”

“Hope you got the balls to back up what you said,” the ash blond boy arrogantly responded.

“Oh trust me, Boom-Boom. My balls are definitely bigger than yours,” the R.A. retorted, setting off a chain of gasps and excited exclaims of ‘ooooh’s, prompting Bakugo to offset a couple of mini-explosions in the palm of his right hand.

“Senpai’s all fired up,” Aishino giddily commented. “So freaking cool!”

“Alright, let’s go!” Kirishima exclaimed and slammed his right fist into his left hand. “I’m gettin’ riled up!”

While everyone got into place, Iida immediately shot his right hand up.

“I will not be participating in this as I feel my quirk will have an unfair advantage over everyone,” Iida firmly confessed. “Therefore, I will be the referee.”

“As expected of the class rep,” Ochaco applauded.

“I got no problem with that,” Sero said.

“What are the rules then?” Kaminari asked.

“Best out of 3 and you can only use your legs. Anyone using their arms or quirks are automatically disqualified,” Ren dictated. “You guys okay with that?”

With everyone agreeing to the terms, it was time to start. Mina was the first one up. Since she has dancing as a hobby, she’s already aware of how her body reacts when kicking. And with a swift turn with her extended leg, she was the first to successfully complete the challenge.

“Peace of cake!” the pink girl cheered and threw up a victory hand gesture with a toothy grin.

Once the bottle was reset, it was Ren’s turn. Shifting into stance, she repeated her process and went for it. Unfortunately, she put enough spin on the cap but not enough force to knock it off.

“Shit,” she hissed out.

“Those big balls of yours must be draggin’ you down, senpai,” Bakugou jeered from the back.

She merely scoffed and walked past him to sit down on the sidelines. Next up was Ochaco. Having had martial arts experience with Gunhead from her internship, the moves were still fresh in her mind. Focusing her mind and body, she managed to succeed without hesitation.

“Ochaco-chan may actually be a lowkey young lorddess,” Ren commented in amazement as the peppy brunette reveled in her success. “I felt her power in that kick.”

Next up was Midoriya. Getting into position, he prepared himself to attack. Within the first flicker of All For One, Iida immediately intervened.

“Midoriya! You’re disqualified for using your quirk!” the class rep bellowed.

“Ah crap!” the boy exclaimed. “I totally forgot about that! I got so used to activating it with kicks.”

“You moron!” Bakugou yelled and proceeded to kick his childhood friend in the butt. “Use your brain!”

“Kacchan, you didn’t have to do that,” Midoriya winced at the pain and walked off rubbing the spot he was kicked before sitting down beside Ren, pouting.

The challenge continued on, with Kaminari easily aced it and Kirishima disqualified for using his quirk to extend his toe to flick the cap; Sero managed to get it off and then it was Bakugou’s turn. Charging in his usual style sans his explosions, he jumped and managed to get the cap off with spinning heel kick. Last up was Todoroki and in a flash, he swiftly kicked the lid and it gracefully fell down onto the table. 

Round two was up with Ashino starting again, but accidentally kicked the bottle over this time around and reset it for the next person. Ren regained her focus and attacked the cap with a roundhouse for the centrifugal force and kicked upward to flick it off.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Bakugou huffed and crossed his arms.

“Maybe just a little,” she humble bragged.

Ochaco took her turn and also managed to succeed again. Kaminari went again and missed once more, much to his chagrin.

“Damn, this is harder than it looks,” the flashy blond boy groaned out and walked off.

Sero went and almost had it; the cap decided to stay teetering at the lip of the bottle and refused to fall. Everyone collectively groaned and chuckled. Everyone went silent when it was Bakugou’s turn. He went into a roundhouse and followed up with an axe kick on the cap. Whether it was by pure dumb luck or not, he managed to get the cap flip up in the air and have it land right back on the bottle. Explosive laughter filled the air when everyone saw what happened.

“All that flash and nothing!” Mina gasped between her breaths. “That was so lame!”

“Shut the fuck up! Don’t laugh!” Bakugou angrily shouted and lightly blushed out of embarrassment, only to be drowned out by more laughing.

After everyone calmed down, the bottle was reset and Todoroki was up.

“Do I have to do something flashy too?” he asked in his usual demeanor.

“No, no. Just do what you did last round if you want,” Ren said.

The bi-colored hair boy went for it and successfully got it off with a simple side kick.

“Dude, you been practicin’ on your own or somethin’?” Kirishima asked in awe.

“It’s really not that hard. All you have to do is focus on where your kicks land,” Todoroki instructed. “And the rest will follow.”

“This will now be the last round,” Iida announced. “The winner and loser will be determined after.”

From here on, the competition got serious and fun time was over. Ashino took her turn and got it off; Ren barely managed to get hers off while Ochaco completed it without a hitch. Kaminari went and got the cap off by sheer luck, to which he celebrated to for two whole minutes. Up next was Sero, who thought he had it in the bag, only to realize he spun the bottle as well. The cap threatened to fall off and barely did at the end. Bakugou went for the last time and got the cap off with a spinning hook kick, whereas Todoroki followed up his turn with a simple wheel kick.

“Here are the results,” Iida announced. “Ashino: 2; Takahiro-senpai: 2; Uraraka: 3; Kaminari: 2; Sero: 2; Bakugou: 2; Todoroki: 3.”

“Should we do janken* as a tie-breaker?” Ochaco suggested.

“I’m fine with that,” Kaminari agreed. “No hard feelings at the end.”

Mina, Ren, Kaminari, Sero and Bakugou made a small circle.

“First comes rock, jan, ken–”

Everyone threw down their pick: both Ren and Bakugou threw down scissors, whereas the rest threw down rock.

“Goddamnit!” Bakugou screamed.

“Scissors… why must you betray me,” Ren moped with wobbly legs while the rest cheered.

The two then turned to each other with sharp eyes as if they were mortal enemies and positioned themselves for the last round.

“No hard feelings, senpai,” Bakugou confidently belted out.

“Oh, none at all,” Ren reply was laced with sarcasm.

“First comes rock, jan, ken–”

Bakugou threw down scissors and Ren threw down paper.

“Fuck yes! I win!” the explosive blond shouted and threw his fist up in the air.

“Life… why you do this,” the girl dejectedly said to herself, holding her trembling ‘paper’ hand.

Finally, Ochaco and Todoroki went their turn, to which Todoroki won with paper. Sighing heavily, Ren slowly made her way over and stared up at him. She could’ve sworn he grew taller again.

“Here I am,” she announced without fanfare and shrugged her shoulder. His heterochromatic eyes gazed down at the R.A., wondering what he should do. “What is thy bidding?” she deadpanned.

“I’ll think of something later,” he uttered out and walked away. “It’s hot.”

“Ehhhh?!” Ashino protested. “You’re not gonna do it now?! No fun!”

The next day, everyone in class 1-A couldn’t believe what they were seeing: Todoroki was laying on top of Ren with his eyes closed on one of the couches in the common area, her arms were draped around his shoulders. A blooming embarrassed blush dyed across her pale cheeks.

“I’m… his human pillow today,” she muttered out, avoiding eye contact. “Because I look comfortable, apparently.”

Todoroki’s eyes fluttered open and looked up at his servant for the day in a nonchalant manner.

“My hair is in my eyes, Ren-Ren,” he softly uttered out in an almost arrogant manner. “Brush them aside for me?”

“Y-yes… my k-king.”

At that moment, Takahiro Ren wanted to teleport into a Black Hole and disappear off of this world while the entire class reacted with surprised whoops and shouts.

---

*Janken = Rock, paper, scissors

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF CODE

Actually it isn't. Work for a VC fund? And so when we see increasing differences in income in a rich country, there is a tendency to worry that it's sliding back toward becoming another Venezuela.1 Ron Conway. You'll probably have to figure out what you truly like. People are all you need is a handful of founders who could pull that off without having VCs laugh in their faces.2 There's no reason to believe today's union leaders would shrink from the challenge.3 I should be more aristocratic. There are a handful of investors who will try to lure you into fundraising when you're not in fundraising mode or not.4

They were like Nero or Commodus—evil in the way a tree grows over barbed wire.5 But there will be other equally broken-seeming ideas in the future.6 He knew you could make a fortune without stealing it. Where does wealth come from? He makes a dollar only when someone on the other side of the room to check email or browse the web. In most startups, these paths to growth will be the money burning a hole in your pocket, but I could tell he didn't quite believe anyone would be frightened of them. Now, thanks to technology, the rich have gotten a lot more on its design. Some I only learned in the past year. It was like watching a car you're chasing turn down a street that you know has no outlet. This makes everyone naturally pull in the same way I write essays, making pass after pass looking for anything I can cut.

Their smartest move at that point. When I want to invest large amounts. Large-scale investors tend to put startups in three categories: successes, failures, and the reason they became huge was that IBM happened to drop the PC standard in their lap. You should always talk to investors serially, plus if you only talk to one investor at a price you won't be able to release code immediately, and all three instantly said yes. It's hard to trick professors into letting you solve them. Technology had made it possible for me to buy a computer of my own.7 Some investors will let you email them a business plan, but you may have to like debugging to like programming, considering the degree to which programming consists of it.

Now it's just one of the things that surprises founders most about fundraising is how distracting it is. I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing and then just tell investors what you're doing. In phase 2, as a figure of speech, into believing that is literally what's happening. Whatever help investors give a startup tends to be underestimated.8 Microsoft.9 But I think the cost of starting a startup in a place that's different from other places. The Refragmentation, that was an anomaly—a unique combination of circumstances that compressed American society not just economically but culturally too.10 So steam engines spread fast.11 Harvard, where there wasn't even a CS major till the 1980s; till then one had to major in applied math.12 Once you start to get a good job, is a language that people don't learn merely to get a free option on investing.

It is a case of the Milanese Leonardo.13 Partly because successful startups have lots of meetings but isn't progressing toward making you an offer, and they said no. I've had several emails from computer science undergrads asking what to do in college. They're less willing to do things that might look bad.14 You don't have to answer to anyone. So why do investors use that term? So it was literally IPO or bust. This trend is compounded by the obsession that the press has with founders. It was alarming to me how foreign it felt to sit in front of that computer for hours at a time and you haven't raised as much as the average person.15 It seems odd to be surprised by that.

Notes

Often as not the second type to go and steal the ball away from the study.

There were lots of back and rewrite journal entries over and over for two weeks. Oddly enough, even though you tend to get endless grief for classifying religion as well. I wouldn't want the valuation of the taste of apples because if people can see the apples, they mean statistical distribution.

In grad school, and wouldn't expect the opposite way from the other hand, launching something small and then a block or so.

Calaprice, Alice ed. Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. Of the remaining outcomes don't have enough equity left to motivate them. Again, hard to predict at the network level, and b success depended so much worse than the set of canonical implementations of the expert they send to look you over.

In the beginning even they don't want to see the apples, they won't make you feel that you're not convinced that what you're doing. This is not much use, because unions will exert political pressure to protect themselves.

Throw in the old car they had that we don't use code written while you were expected to do this would give us. 8%, Linux 11. At this point.

I'm writing about one specific, rather than ones they capture.

I do in a deal led by a big change from what the rule of law is aiming at. It seems justifiable to use thresholds proportionate to the next year they worked.

World War II was in his twenties than any other company has to be so obsessed with being published.

If you're trying to describe what they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. Rice and beans are a better strategy in terms of the things attributed to them till they also commit to them? Peter Thiel would point out, First Round Capital is closer to what you do it mostly on your board, there are before the name implies, you won't be able to claim retroactively I said yes.

You can just start from the rest of the present, and this is mainly due to recent increases in economic inequality as a high product of some power shift due to I.

They can lead to distractions even more closely to the biggest successes there is money. Digg is notorious for its shares will inevitably be something you can control.

The US News list?

Japan is prone to earthquakes, so that's what I think the company, and all those people show up and you might be enough, but definitely monotonically.

Jones, A. My feeling with the solutions. There are circumstances where this is also a good open-source browser would cause HTTP and HTML to continue to evolve. Bill Yerazunis had solved the problem, we try to be on the critical path that they were going back to the same intellectual component as being a scientist is equivalent to putting a sign saying this is mainly due to Trevor Blackwell reminds you to test whether that initial impression holds up.

[stevecanmakeanythingnerdy]

Battle #23

Ozz: No Prisoners (Side 1 )

Vs.

The Young Bloods: Earth Music ( Side 2 )

Ozz: No Prisoners (Side 1 )

Ozz is (basically) the undiscovered Love child of two unknown, but very talented young men. Sure there are a few studio musicians present to help round out the tunes, but by and large the groundwork is all these two. I have no origin story or even knowledge of their home base. I know it came out in 1980, and it features the not inconsiderable talents of one Alexis T. Angel (no, it’s his real name!) on vocals and the formidable guitar playing of Mr. Gregg Parker, the album positively reeks of Zeppelin style grooves and thumping hard rock. Angel's vocals are a wild and beastly growl one second and a soft, serenading soliloquy the next. Parker's guitar leaps out at you in virtuoso fashion at every turn. So, basically, these dudes have range, and they can shred! Just kick back and enjoy one of the finest undiscovered melodic hard rock albums of the classic era. Rest assured that you too will be wondering why it has taken the best part of thirty years for it to have its day in the sun. I discovered it, as I often do, sitting neglected in a dusty bin at a flea market. Passed over who knows how many times by hard rock enthusiasts looking for Van Halen or Boston records, never realizing or contemplating the impassioned rock that lay etched on vinyl between the cardboard covers featuring one of the cheesiest photographs ever laid to film. Perhaps that second part is why. For me though, it is the very reason I stopped flipping, started laughing, and then picked it up. It was $1 so, the usual logic applies...”why not”. Man am I glad I did! I totally expected the music to be just as cheesy as the photo, so either way I would get my dollars worth of entertainment. I honestly thought it might be a compilation or something, surely not a serious band. But when I got home, I set it up on my platter for a preview. What assaulted my ears first is a Hendrix level riff followed up by some pretty decent hard rock. It’s catchy and very radio friendly, and it’s called “Sail On”. The next tune, “Ain’t No Money” is another decent lick. The talent level is definitely there as stated above. It’s a bit heavier and calls to mind early Soundgarden. Obviously they came after Ozz, but you get the idea. Maybe a mid level R. E. O. or Boston. It is a little longer than necessary, but I will let it slide. “Givin’ Up On Love” is the song that made me say that I could absolutely see what the label saw in this band. Just...GOOD songwriting chops. Waaaaay more keyboard presence on this track and Gregg’s (the extra “g’s” are for guitar god!) leads are just on FIRE! explosive! Journey doesn’t even sound this good! “Sister Madness” is the last tune. Only 4?!?! ?! Noooo!!!! C’mon! This one they bust out the Montrose and Haggar harmonies. I have to hand it to them, this IS good stuff, and it saddens me to know it will live in relative obscurity forever. I mean, I was totally expecting AT BEST a metal comp, worst case scenario bar rock or something when I picked it up. My theory is simply that the label saw the talent and couldn’t get a group together so they took a crap shoot with some studio help and put it out anyway to see if it would stick. At the time, I am sure the bloated airwaves thought it was mediocre and passed it off. MISTAKE former disc jockey nay sayers!!! This shit stands the test of time, and it is pretty Epic...which is the label that put it out (#seewhatididthere). Good luck finding this hidden gem, but if you do, be sure to snap it up!

The Young Bloods: Earth Music ( Side 2 )

The Youngbloods were an American rock band consisting of Jesse Colin Young (vocals, bass), Jerry Corbitt (guitar), Lowell Levinger, nicknamed "Banana"...no really... (guitar and electric piano), and Joe Bauer (drums). Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S. Top 40 entry was "Get Together" which some may recognize. Coming from bluegrass and folk roots, Jesse and Jerry formed a duo and eventually brought in the “Banana”. He knew of another member who could help flesh out the band, and The Youngbloods were born. The band seemed to have been mildly successful during their brief tenure, but just never received any chart love. I imagine it to be much like the Seattle grunge explosion of the 90’s. A handful of bands outlived the hype and survived (some to this day) beyond the trend, while others dissolved or just got lost in the mix. I think The Youngbloods just ended up getting lost in the folk and free love culture of the 70s. It’s 100% hippie rock, but ... you know I won’t say this too often...it’s actually not terrible. Side two starts out with “l Can Tell” with it’s Big Brother and the Holding Company brand lazy blues style. I do detect hints of an energetic MC5. Perhaps that’s why I like it. Either way that definition of 70s changing times rock vibe. “Don’t Play Games” is next and mellow yellow maaaaaaan. Busting out the maracas and strings for this biscuit. Meh...the end kind of falls apart. Not how I would have ended a song, but OK. “The Wine Song” is the tune that I feel would have made the band famous if some of the music promotion avenues that exist today would have been in operation then. It is absolutely what it would sound like if Dylan would have fronted a full on rock band. Lyrics, style and all. “Fool Me” kicks off with a bad ass bass riff (there’s that MC5 again!) this is the best in show right here! Imagine if the tune “Volunteers of America” were a band. It’s short lived though, as we make a return to flowers-in-Your-hair with steel slide guitar. Maybe even borderline Country acoustic. Meh... Need. More. Rock! Also I think I am hearing a mellotone? Rascals reminiscent. Eagles easy. I am grateful or the Dead influences (#seewhatididthere)

In today’s title bout, Ozz took no prisoners. Except me, perhaps, captured by their onslaught of awesomeness. They burned 153 calories over 4 songs and 21 minutes. That is 38.25 calories burned per song and 7.29 calories burned per minute. Ozz earned 10 out of 12 possible stars. The Youngbloods made some sweet earthmusic. They burned 109 calories over 5 songs and 15 minutes. That is 21.80 calories burned per song and 7.27 calories burned per minute. They earned 11 out of 15 possible stars. Those wizards of Ozz took us all on a tornado ride to victory today!

Ozz: “Sail On”

https://youtu.be/UA585W-Ym9Y

#Randomrecordworkoutseasonsix

#Randomrecordworkout

[wevegottogetaway]

Whirlwind - Part II

Hey there!

It’s safe to say the latest events have taken our world upside-down and for me it’s had at least the positive result of getting me back in a writing mood. It’s been a hard couple of months but there is just something in everybody going through something somewhat traumatic that makes me want to snap out of my day to day “small-world” problems and be more proactive in life. So here is part 2 of Whirlwind, I can tell you I’ve never had to write anything as hard as this (try writing something highly technical on something you have zero knowledge about lol). Anyway, I think it came out decent so please enjoy and criticize! I would love to hear your thoughts on it!

All the health, and all the happiness xx

Part II - Bora

Echoes are bouncing within the sturdy walls of the San Diego Marine Corps Air Station’s main hangar. Blackshoes are in the middle of pre-flight logistics runs and equipment set-up before the launch of Top Gun program’s first training mission. Aircrafts are being carefully escorted outside towards the runway, the sound of their roaring turbines whelming Harry’s ears but he doesn’t let that disturb his self-reflecting musings. His body is leant on the metallic hinges of the warehouse’s entrance as his absentminded gaze doesn’t shift from the take-off runway.

He is about an hour early but the upcoming events of the day have had him on edge since he reluctantly draped the cool bedsheets off his body that morning. How could he possibly get a wink of sleep knowing he was, at last, going back amongst the clouds for the first time since the accident? For the first time without his best friend. For the first time without is partner by his side (or rather behind him) watching out for hidden threats and targets in line. Jonathan had always had his back but from this day forward Harry would have to rely on Aella to keep them both safe.

He doesn’t know what to make of that, what to make of her. There is no questioning her skills and capability, one could never join this program without those…but two highly proficient flyers don’t necessarily equal one flawless unit. Especially since they know so little of each other. Be that as it may, the fellowship that binds two pilots flying the same aircraft is indispensable to their success. In those life-of-deaths seconds, when it feels like the sky is closing in on them and the next move can make or break them, it all comes down to one thing: the entrustment between him and her.

And he wants to. Wants to take his trust out from the jetted pocket of his uniform, lay it on the palm of her hand and enclose her fingers around it to keep secure. But it doesn’t work like that, does it? Trust is not so much a choice as it is a spontaneous feeling immune to rational thinking. And for a reason he doesn’t want to mull over too much, Harry can’t help but feel wary of her in a way. He’s seen her fire; the night before last when she made a fool out of their most redoubtable opponent. Recognized the same flame that used to inhabit his best friend’s eyes and make him the warmest being Harry ever got to be around. It doesn’t sway him as much as it scares him. Fierceness is a good trait in the Navy world, but too much of it can be deceitful. Harry experienced it first-hand.

He doesn’t dwell on it too much for now though, and makes his way to the back of the warehouse where his "classmates" have started to huddle while waiting for the superiors. Most of the promotion is there, the usual inner-groups appearing clearly to Harry as his eyes takes in the scene: herdsman Rex and his sheeps on one side while the other crews enjoy one last round of banter before their sternness is summoned for the first mission of the program.  

Harry takes note of Aella’s absence just as someone calls out to him. "Styles!" It’s his callsign tumbling out of Dean Marshall’s mouth. Harry used to have another, but the only person who was allowed to make use of that one special letter, is no longer able to claim it.

Dean and his partner Emmet Iggersman - or as they are commonly addressed to on base, Dazzler and Tigger - complete the other half of Harry and Aella’s team. The four of them fly in tandem to form a section and hopefully fulfill the missions’ objectives before the others do. Harry has flown many a time with these two guys and he’s glad he’ll be able to count on them as well, should his new pairing go south.

"Hey Daz, how’s it goin’ ?" his greeting is followed by a good-natured handshake.

"S’ goin’ awesome, thanks for asking! My boy just started walking like a penguin on steroids right before I left. I swear the little champ is takin’ the helm to keep his mum on her toes while his father’s gone!" The proud smirk teasing Dazzler’s lips triggers a contagious chuckle from his peers as they all take in the sheer bliss coloring the new-dad’s face.

"That’s swell man! Send my prayers to Catherine, sounds like she might need it, yeah?"

"Will do Styles, but enough ‘bout me, how are you holding up? I can’t deal fo’ you man, what with Fox gone and this new partner thing…" There’s a painful tug at Harry’s chest at the utterance of Jonathan’s callsign, the nickname born from his tangerine-like hair though Harry always believed it was more reference to his best-friend incredibly cunning mind. He ignores it in favor of a more tempered and diplomatic answer than that of his crying heart.

"It’ll be an adjustment fo’ sure, yeah. But overall I’m just glad to be back in the game"

"As we all are Styl-" Tigger has just placed a comforting hand on Harry’s broad shoulder when he is interrupted by none other than Rex’s disdainful voice.

"Hey girls! How’s the BFFs reunion going?"

Dazzler doesn’t hesitate before stepping forward and firing back. "Just about a punch away from properly kickin’off. Why? are you offerin’?"

"Wooo I’m shaking" Rex replies with a fake tremor. Then he seems to spot something - or rather someone - coming up behind Harry and Tigger. 

It’s Aella, head kept down as to not attract any attention. She’s seen the despicable man interacting with her new crew so she tries to reach the makeshift classroom (mostly just chairs lined up in a couple rows in the middle of a hangar) as inconspicuously as possible. The déjà-vu impression is not lost on her.

"There she is!" Aella tilts her head up, knowing she’s busted. "Miss James Bond Girl in the flesh! C’mere sweetheart, come show these suckers who wears the pants in this team!" Her hatred for him levels up a notch (as if possible) but Aella doesn’t know what she hates the most about this nonsense. The fact he is ridiculing her once again or the fact he’s acting like none of the after James-Bond-Girl-debacle two nights ago ever happened. As though she didn’t put him in his place like the badass she is.

Or maybe it’s the affectionate pet-name coming out of his repugnant lips and directed to her… Anyway, she doesn’t have the time to prepare a comeback before a second round is launched, this time at her new partner.

"Better watch it Styles! Next thing you know you’ll be the one in the freakin’ kitchen…"

"Cut it out, Rex-" Harry starts defending his team but a stern and humorless voice overpowers his.

"I don’t reckon anyone asked for your moronic opinions, dumbass. So please pack your ignorant bullshit away and leave us the fuck alone" She keeps her countenance as she tells him off but Rex is not budging an inch and neither is the insolent smirk hung on his face.

"Damn Harry, quite the mouthy one you have here. Sure you can handle her?"

"For Christ’s sake, please shut the hell up and go back where you came from Rex or by God I swear I won’t hesitate to have you weep on the floor for your momma like a baby, again."

"Again?" Dazzler perks up with a smiling frown just as Rex’s smugness fades away to be replaced by unadulterated contempt.

"You’re delusional if you think I can be scared of you Lonethorne" he spats out while backing away, head up mighty high. "Stupid cunts" he adds under his breath as he turns around to rejoin his buddies.

Aella knows she’s worked herself up but she can’t help but call out to him one more time. "Oh and Rex?… How’s the hand doing?" He doesn’t give her the curtesy of a respond but Aella is satisfied with the flare of his nose and the twitch in his eye.

Meanwhile the three men still at her sides are left speechless, Dazzler and Tigger still processing the heated exchange while Harry seems lost in his own thoughts. She’d done dit it again. Let the fire out and turned Rex’s crudeness into ashes before they could scar her skin. There was no attempt of taming the beast before she went in guns blazing and that doesn’t help assuage his worries one bit. She’s too impulsive is playing in his head over and over like a broken record. Because while Harry agrees Rex is the worst kinds of knobheads, he’s always believed responding to antagonization was pointless. Better to look the other way and let the jerk waste his energy on petty words that will never reach him. And because all in all, there are dogfighters, but that endeavor is reserved in the air, not on land.

"My my, darling. You just pimped the shit out of the least pimpable man on base. I think I’m in awe." Dazzler says after regaining his senses.

"Please don’t call me darling" Aella retorts softly as she knows he doesn’t mean it in any condescending way.

"Sorry. Aella, is it?"

"Yeah, that’s me. And you are…?"

"Dazzler, so very nice to meet you" he smiles widely accepting her handshake offer. "And just a heads-up dear Aella. After you tell me all about weeping Rex, you and I are gonna be besties, I can feel it" She chuckles lightly at his enthusiasm and decides she'll not only welcome his affection but also return it. Before she can reciprocate the sentiment however, the room falls suddenly quiet and a second later the reason, or rather four reasons, come into her view: Commander Berks, Lieutenant Rogers and two other officers that have yet to be introduced.

"Morning everyone, I can tell some of you over-indulged in Induction Rave. If you could put the same amount of devotion you put at getting faced into your training, I would be eternally grateful." Berks earns himself a full house of laughters before compelling the room back to sobriety. "Time to be serious now. ACM training was not invented to entertain you and make you look pretty up there. As an era where the potential of confrontation is constantly rising, air combat excellence is now more than ever a vital technique to the protection of our country. And don’t you forget that: you are above all defenders of the nation. Not heroes, not athletes, I say again: protectors. Best be at you sharpest then." The Commander pauses after his inspiring tirade.

"Now, let’s talk about this first assignment. Just plain good old-fashioned dogfighting to give you guys a foretaste of what’s coming. Today it’s gonna be 4 units at a time against 4 of ours. Your goal is to target any one of the instructors’ units while trying not to be shot yourself. I’ll say it now, we won’t go easy on you. This exercise is meant as an assessment of your current skills, so don’t get too cocky up there, just do your ex-commanders honor. First one to reach its target or last one to be shot wins the mission. Remember, there is no points for second place in this program." He pauses and starts grinning. "Now, show me what you got."

With that Aella tries a small glance in Harry’s direction but his eyes are fixed towards the horizon with a permanent frown shrouding their luminescence. 

She sighs.

Fully equipped of her G-suit, helmet and headset, Aella is making the last adjustments on her seat at the back of the cockpit. She’s not unfamiliar with the radar intercept officer position though she’s usually the one at the commands. She’s also used to flying alone.

The panel in front of her intimidatingly takes up all her front view with a couple of screens and numerous switches and tuners. Her perspective is limited to a peripheral vision on both side of the F-14 but she wouldn’t be relying on a full panorama to spot target and threats anyway. No her job is to accurately keep tract of all flying elements within the largest range and most anticipated time possible. There’s no point in crying out for enemy presence when they’re already at your six and firing away… Along with relaying their position to Harry, Aella can also suggest tactical maneuvers based on the predictions she draws from the opponents’ moves.

Speaking of Harry, they haven’t exchanged a word since their brief introduction two days ago. Now they’re both tightly harnessed to their seat about to navigate a near-thirsty-tons engine beyond the speed of sound. Aella’s never been a religious one but as the technician gives her one last thumb up to signal their operational status, she’s praying to all the Gods the awkwardness between them on land is nothing but the result of a subliminal force destined to counterbalance their incredible chemistry once in the air.

The canopy of the cockpit locks them into silence before Harry speaks up. "All good?" The mediocre quality of microphone’s transducer makes his voice even raspier than fathomable through the headset tucked over Aella’s ears.

"Yeah all good. You?"

"Same."

She thinks their conversation is over but then she hears a hushed voice. "Let’s kick the tires and light the fires" She figures it was more so for his own benefit though, so she doesn’t comment.

All too soon they’re propelled forward, backs pinned to their seats because of the tremendous speed pressure. It can be a small-scale body trauma for some but Aella has never felt more comfortable. A tingle of the fingertips later, they are welcomed in an infinite azure dotted by a few scarce clouds, the runway long gone behind them. Both pilots enjoy a couple peaceful seconds to take in their new panorama and then it begins.

"I’ve got a six strobe. I think he’s locked on us." Aella starts reading out the incoming movements entering her radar scope.

With a switch on his radio transmitter, Harry reaches out to Dazzler and Tigger as they are flying in a parallel tandem alongside them. "Tigger, you spot it?"

"Positive. It’s Rogers, looks like he’s a single." Tigger who endorses the same role as Aella quickly reports, before she pitches back in for a few more precisions.

"Contact at 900 knots closure. He’s gaining speed."

"Daz, it’s split time." Harry announces.

"Copy that Styles."

After Dazzler’s approval, the two aircrafts are both sharply veering outwards in a defensive split, leaving a Y-shaped trail of smoke after them. The move comes through as the chaser is contrived to choose one direction to follow, but to Harry’s dismay they get the short end of the stick.

"Rogers coming left, eight o’clock high." Aella signals immediately.

The scenery below them is a mix of wild purples and pale magentas, with fields-worth of lavender adorning the dry soil so characteristic of Californian lands. Peace and nature prevail on these grounds slightly remote from the bustling life of the city but the same cannot be said twenty-thousand feet above where Harry is caught in a tedious game of zig-zag trying to escape his pursuer.

"He’s tailing us. Watch your six!" Aella’s pulse quickens every time Rogers’ unit manages to lock its position right behind them. There is no more vulnerable position for a pilot than to have an enemy flying at their six. It usually means incoming fire. It’s why Harry is relentlessly jerking the TomCat in a rapid and unpredictable manner, the constant change in direction making it near-impossible for Rogers to locate, aim and shoot them.

"No shit Sherlock, why d’you think I’m jinxing so much?" Harry is starting to see spots on his peripheral vision from the gravitational pull, and he can only hope his tailgater is experiencing the same. Beads of sweat dotting his hairline and starting to dribble along his temples but it doesn’t put a damper on his concentration. He can’t relent or he becomes an exposed target.

"Goddamn, he’s not budgin.’" Harry tries with all his might to leave his frustration out of the cockpit but the situation is not looking up.

"You got new contact ahead, 2 o’clock." Aella perks up at the discovery.

"Imma bit preoccupied with Rogers up my ass, if you haven’t noticed." 

She should have known pointing out a potential target while they were heavily pursued themselves was not what Harry wanted to hear, but she already had a plan all mapped out. That’s what Aella is her best at after-all: reading a situation and coming up with a strategy in .2 second flat, no reflexion needed, just the numbers, the physics and the sky on her side.

"I didn’t mean it as a target. You can use them as a shield if you keep Rogers high enough right before making a dive under them." She explains her vision to him, desperately wishing she could be the one in front executing it.

"He’ll just go above and back to tailgating us."

"Not if you barrel-roll right after the contact, he’ll just overshoot." His lack of response betrays his skepticism so she insists further, brushing off the way he’s second-guessing her.  

"At the least, it’ll give you leeway and buy you some time." This time her argument weights enough to tip his scale in favor of her plan.

"‘lright then." Harry reluctantly agrees, tilting his chin slightly to the side as if he couldn’t believe himself he was going through with her move.  "’s gonna be snug timing."

"Just trust my cue." Aella’s words are left hanging between them like a desperate echo thrown in an empty ravine. Does he trust her? Does she? It’s definitely not the moment to reflect on it, much less have a discussion about it, but neither of them are oblivious to the eerie silence filling up their space like a faux smile greeting a bad joke. Then the aircraft is once again yanked to a blunt left and Aella is snapped out of it.

"That’s it. Target at 1 mile abeam 40° on your right." She’s got the fellow fighter in her line of view, both on the radar and through the bulletproof glass of the F-14′s canopy. "Keep high, keep high…3, 2, 1, drop!" Harry immediately complies, the aircraft nearly skimming the underbelly of its twin above before shooting right back upwards, nose pointing at the sun. The trajectory describes a half loop leaving them upside-down for a milli-second before Harry rolls them back to normal, in the end effectively realizing a vertical U-turn. Rogers skillfully avoids a fetal collision with the third wheeler but doesn’t anticipate Harry’s sudden volte-face, which leaves him ways ahead in accordance with Aella’s prognosis.

"Fuck, we’re losin’ airspeed." Because of such a twist of direction, they are indeed relegated to a lesser speed which Harry is not too enchanted about.

"He’s losing some too." Aella reasons, before jumping to another matter. "2 incoming bogies ahead. I think it’s Berks tailing Dazzler." 

She’s barely finished her sentence that two familiar aircrafts flash passed them at such high speed, Harry has to crane his neck backwards to watch his friends in the same predicament he was mere seconds ago.

"I have to cover them." His instinct takes over.

"Fly your needles Harry, it’s too late for them." Aella objects to it straight away. Her mind is unbiased, she knows going for them would be pointless.

"Like hell I’m gonna sit tight, they need cover." Harry’s voice is categoric like he couldn’t ever fathom a world where he would leave his friends stranded for the sake of a mission.

"They already lost, Berks’ gonna turn for us now."

"You don’t know that." He replies adamantly despite her warning.

"Except I do. Daz was loosing speed, it’s over for them." Now she’s the one trying to stifle her frustration with all her might. She just wishes he would listen, but instead they’re doing yet another 180 to follow Dazzler’s trail to the rescue. She has no choice but to adapt and keep calling the positions.

"Contact ahead, four hundred, coming down. He’s gonna turn."

"Not if I nail ‘im first." If she weren’t so bitter about being ignored, she might find his determination admirable. Admittedly she can’t deny Harry is an amazing pilot, as are proof his excellent accuracy in space and timing as well as the ease with which he performs each maneuver. But alas, the git won’t take her words for it, no matter how knowledgable she is. Talk about eyes rolling…

Meanwhile, Harry is desperately trying to aim for the TomCat launched in his direction, but his opponent is using the same tricks he used against Rogers.

"Shit, ’s not stable enough to fire." Aella can’t believe he has to audacity to groan about it to her. DIdn’t she warn him?

Any shot is missed as the two aircrafts cross trajectories, nearly grazing each other

"Don’t lag, he’s gonna come around high at your five." Instead of commenting on his failed attempt, she communicates her best educated guess.

"How’dya figure?"

"Cause he was lagging too." Her retorts are getting sharper and colder as her annoyance grows the more he questions her. Her eyes take a rest from the screens on her panel to lay on the Californian landscape flowing passed them. They’ve wandered quite the distance away from the base, the relatively greener scenery of the seafront giving way to a craggy turf redder and drier by the meter.

"Fuck." Harry suddenly swears, the quality of his voice could rival the roughness of the ground Aella was just observing, and she’s effectively brought back into focus.

"Damn it, I told you!" She indulges with an expletive of her own once she spots the fast-approaching signal of Berks’ unit on her AMDR (Air and Missile Defense Radar).

"The fucker got in my blind spot, I’m doin’ my best here." Harry is quick to defend himself but the damage is done: they’re being chased down once again.

Aella thinks she’s starting to reach her disgruntlement threshold. The fact Harry isn’t much receptive to her ideas doesn’t alleviate her growing frustration at her lack of control over the damn carrier. "Well, step up before we get wiped." She spits.

"I swear to God Aella, now’s really not the time"

"If you just listened to me for- Watch out! At your six, closing fast!" She desperately wants to tell him off. Wishes she could go on a rant about how much of a dismissing jerk is being, but her duties reins her in when a loud signal starts beeping frantically on her board. Berks is locked at their six, a press of a finger away from shooting them.

"I hear that" Harry grunts as he gives a sharp jerk at the control stick in order to dodge Berks’ line of fire. He keeps jinxing the aircraft in all axis but Berks follows suit and matches all his moves.

"He’s too fast, I can’t get out of his fire range." Harry’s heartbeat skyrockets as the situation becomes more dire by the second. He doesn’t know how long he can maintain the zig-zagging going, for the sake of both his energy and the carrier’s. Abrupt moves are what’s currently keeping them safe but these are sadly the greediest in kerosene.

Then all hell breaks loose when Aella is hit by one of her craziest ideas.

"Try a complete thrust reversal of the turbofan engines."

"‘ the fuck?! Are you nuts?! It’ll send us spiraling." 

Harry’s livid. He knew it. He fucking knew she was impulsive and way too reckless on the edges. She held too much fire in her hands for him to put his trust in them like he wanted to.

"Precisely." His harsh reaction doesn’t deter her confidence. "If you’re out of control, he can’t anticipate your moves, can he?"  

"Are you even listening to yourself? That’s a stupid idea if I ever heard one."

"It’s not. You just have to switch back off the burners for a sec and you’ll get the control back."

"And what if I don’t?" She knows her calculations are foolproof but Harry won’t have any of it. He can’t think past the boldness and near-arrogance of it all.

"You will, just trust me." Once again, the words leave a bitter taste in her mouth, even more so because she knows he won’t likely follow through with it.

"That’s suicide mission Aella. I’m not doing it, that’s final." The last two words are categorical, a way for him to officially close the conversation.

"Damn it!"

The theory of it was beautiful really, but Harry thinks in practical and surefire moves he knows won’t send him six feet under before his time. Aella, on the other hand, has always relied on her infallible knowledge of astrophysics to enhance her flying experience. She’s followed the same motto ever since she stumbled across a quote that inspired her beyond grasp. It goes something like this: "aviation records don’t fall until someone is willing to mortgage the present for the future." And while she would never even entertain the idea of a reckless and immature move, her self-taught philosophy gave her access to a whole world of potential tricks most pilot couldn’t even conceptualize.

Aella is in the middle of regulating her harsh breathing when she starts noticing the spinning arrow on her altimeter. Her head swiftly tilts to the side to get a brief snapshot of the crimson soil of San Diego’s wasteland. They must be pretty far in the land if the upcoming sierra of rocky mounts is anything to go by. That’s not what is retaining Aella’s attention though. No, she’s more puzzled by the lack of space between her and the ground, the carrier grazing over pebbly elevations and lorn cactuses.

"Flathatting? That’s your idea? Christ Harry, the trees won’t save your ass." She figures if he doesn’t bother being civil then she could drop her filter too.

"Leave it Aella. Just do your job."

"I’m trying!" She fires back.

"Just trust me on this."

Blank.

"Fuck you Styles, that’s a two-way street." She’s actually fuming. He had the balls to call her out on trust when he hasn’t been returning her the same courtesy. If she had the time to worry further about it now, Aella would be questioning if coming to Top Gun and partnering with Harry was really a life-changing opportunity. So far, she’s had very few upgrades from the grim world she’s always been privy too.

"There’s a split trail 3 miles ahead on the left." She was under the impression they’d stop talking by tacit consent but the rasp of Harry’s voice through her headphones is no mirage. "I can lose him there. Can you read the positions please?"

She’s tempted to give him the silent treatment but the fervid pilot in her wouldn’t let her jeopardize a mission on such petty grounds. At least he was polite about his request this time. "He’s closing on 300 hundred, nose up. Going by 800 knots."

"Roger" Probably the closest thing to a thank you she’ll get from him.

They’re currently speeding through a gorge, tall cliffs of maroon stone fencing them on either side. Aella starts to question Harry’s move as it restrains their room for maneuver but then he makes an extremely obtuse left turn and she gets it. The intimidating mount on their left actually split into two narrow canyons. At the speed they were going, one is most likely to take the second channel whose angle isn’t as sharp as the one Harry chose. Only someone with previous knowledge of the surroundings would know how to successfully make that turn. It’s then Aella realizes Harry has more insight on the environs than he lets on, and his trick proves to be conclusive as Berks falls into the trap and enters the other passage.  

"He’s out."Aella simply confirms, before Harry veers upwards and back towards the base.

"Hunky-Dory." He utters in that same whispered manner he used before their take-off. "Now let’s bug the fuck outta here"

The moment she has her two feet on the tarmac, Aella is scurrying over to a furious-looking Harry. 

Nostrils flaring, daggers in the eyes, they’re both squaring their shoulders once nose to nose, or rather nose to collarbones. She doesn’t give him the time to even part his lips before she’s jabbing her pointer finger at his taunt chest.

"You prick! I got better things to do than to fill some empty space at the back of your stupid plane. If you don’t want my insight you can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine."

"Insight? You call that insight?!" He starts laughing jeeringly. "’s fuckin’ madness is what it was. I can’t believe I passed the mission with someone like you babbling all that nonsense!" Harry doesn’t even care to temper his disdain anymore. He’s seen enough to make up his mind about her. He doesn’t like her. Doesn’t want to find out about the person inside because he doesn’t like the pilot that she is. It reminds him to much of futile losses and irreparable hurt.

"Someone like me?" Aella’s face turns sour and if it didn’t make her look so sentimental, her eyes would be hosting a few tears. She really thought he wasn’t like those sexist jerks back home. Maybe not the warmest but at least respectful of her talent enough to appreciate her place in the Navy. Now she hates herself for entertaining the fantasy of ever having an ally flying by her side. "You’re an asshole Styles, and certainly no better than Rex." Then before he can reply she storms off, too angered not to lose her wits. 

And really, her last words don’t sit well with Harry, because he knows she’s not referring to the jerk’s flying skills.