#she’s very delicate with his jewelry and such she knows how sacred they are to him

[chamomile-g-tea]

doodles !!! doodles of my fools!

[stingslikeabee]

"Happy birthday, amore~" He coos under his breath, without looking the least bit concerned about anyone who might see him, all while dropping a small package, wrapped in a flowery pattern, on Melissa's lap. If she's curious enough to open it, and he knows she is, she will find a surprise -not a time bomb, but a pair of gold and glass earrings in the shape of colorful roses.

Then, he leaves without a look for her, an imperceptible smile adorning his lips.

unscripted asks - birthday edition! . always accepting

There were very few things that could rile Melissa up once she crowned herself queen - after all, with the unofficial title came a lot of power, and being denied or disobeyed was harder when she could inflict some form of punishment or just withdraw her kindness otherwise. Like a good monarch - the madame's word had real effect on the residents, for better or worse.

Rolfo Sciara, however, frequently featured on the small list of nuisances - made worse by the fact that she cared more than she should about him, going as far as defying her own rules and risking her head over some frivolous, dangerous affair. There were so many other better, more sensible options out there; falling for the machinations of a Corneo lackey surely was beneath the queen of Wall Market?

Or at least it should have been; and yet there she was, receiving a gift on her birthday and looking at how calmly he had visited her on sacred grounds without a care in the world. It was true that the patrons were in the guest rooms upstairs, and that the employees who remained were at the back and occupied with cleaning duties, but... What if someone saw him there? What if the rumors made it to Corneo?

There should be no room for affection and love between the madame and the gunslinger, and yet his words had left the brunette stunned. Melissa felt her cheeks heating up, her hands clutching the gift despite better judgement and the tips of her fingers playing with the wrapping even if she knew she should just discard it. Dropping it in a dumpster, setting fire to the thing - any other fate was better than giving in to Rolfo's games.

But she didn't do any of these things - even if the bodyguard had long left, Melissa brought the mysterious box to her room and carefully opened it when she was sure no one else was looking at her and the birthday surprise. The jewelry was unexpected - it looked custom made, very delicate and the sort of a thing that a thug wouldn't have thought of buying. Was Rolfo more than what he seemed on the surface? Did he truly love her as he claimed, was he better than his peers?

Melissa hated that she didn't know; but if the gunslinger had any doubts relating to whether or not his beloved enjoyed the gift, these would have been clarified when he next stalked the madame. After all, the earrings were often in plain sight, almost as if it signified something else in addition to the gift's acceptance.

(Feelings returned, perhaps?)

[hacawijo]

Azriel never said he was entitled to/deserved to be with Elain, those were Rhys’s words. Azriel said it didn’t make sense for two of the brothers to be with two of the sisters and not the third. Obviously it’s not the healthiest reasoning, but I think he’s reasoning in order to explain his strong feelings for Elain and to make sense of the powerlessness and envy he feels. Imagine pining after someone mostly unavailable and ultimately uninterested in you for 500 years, then finally finding someone else who makes you feel a lot of things and gets you better than maybe anyone else AND who is into you just as much as you are into them (he smells her arousal folks, Elain is super into Azriel and has been forever - literally fight me, I will give you receipts) and then to be forced to watch that person be essentially claimed, against their own preference, by someone else. Also, since when is it not absolutely certain that a fantasy romance ship is happening when someone expressly forbids it for political reasons??? That is such a classic trope!!

Azriel can’t catch a fucking break. How could you not have all of those feelings and then feel like fate screwed you when that person’s two sisters are destined for your two brothers? It’s a rationalization ADDED ON to the feelings he already has for Elain, he doesn’t have feelings for Elain because he thinks he’s entitled to her, he hopes that fate is showing him that his feelings are not in vain (AGAIN).

SJM herself said that she’s sprinkled breadcrumbs about Azriel’s story for a long time, which also makes me think Gwyn isn’t endgame because she’s such a new character. The moment between them in the bonus chapter actually reminds me a lot of Cassian’s moment with Emerie in ACOFAS. A lot of people predicted that he might be torn between her and nesta, but really it was just a way to flesh out that character outside of Nesta’s narrative. It seems more like SJM is trying to incorporate Gwyn into larger parts of the story and as more than just nesta’s friend. Perhaps what we need to glean from his interactions with Gwyn are the things Azriel values, and the personal growth he might go through, in a vocational sense, in the next book.

It makes him happy to make Gwyn happy because he ultimately cares very strongly for people who have suffered and survived and thrived. Cassian cares about what happens to the illyrians, Azriel doesn’t - the Valkyrie (to an extent) and the illyrians are Cassian’s mission, Azriel doesn’t have anything like that, yet. Azriel doesn’t like the violent things he does for the court, and that is probably part of why he feels so unfulfilled and lost. The most valuable things he has done have been the type of thing he did in saving Gwyn at Sangravah and training the priestesses with Cassian. This is all rooted, of course, in the suffering he witnessed his mother go through. All three of the illyrians are defined by the violence and wrongs done to their mothers, and two of them have found ways to make relative peace with those wrongs. Azriel has begun to and has done much to help wronged women and children and people, but I don’t think he’s had his Aha! Moment yet in the way that Rhys and Cassian have. His interaction with Clotho feels like an indication of his greater purpose, an alternative concern to his romantic woes re: Elain.

I’m not saying this means that Gwyn ISNT involved in a romantic way in the next book, but I think it’s hasty to assume it’s romantic just because Azriel has a meaningful, connected moment with her. Think about Manon and Elide or Feyre and Lucien, two friendships that bridged a lot of characters together and that could have gone in a romantic direction but didn’t. She tends to do that more with friendships than romantic relationships I think. I also think there was a clearer indication of Emerie’s interest in Mor than Gwyn’s in Azriel (I know there’s more interaction between Azriel and Gwyn, but Emerie is clearly into Mor when she says she doesn’t come around Windhaven anymore), and it seems almost as tidy to have Azriel and Mor end up with the other two Valkyries as for Azriel to end up with the third sister. Azriel, Mor, and Cassian are very nearly as much a sacred trio as the Illyrians. Also, I think it’s more likely that Mor will end up with Emerie because she hasn’t had a real romantic interest be yet revealed (the only thing I can think of is Viviane’s younger sister, but that was also superrrrrrrrrr subtle and I might have read too far into the text) and SJM pretty much never decides to start those in the course of one book (of which this extra Azriel POV chapter would be a part).

I also just want to say that Elain has been consistently uncomfortable with Lucien. He gets her the gloves for solstice, and it’s because he has a fundamental misunderstanding of her as a person. He sees her as something delicate to be sheltered and protected from thorns and elements, but that’s actually one of the things Elain loves most about gardening, and is probably how she wishes she could live her life if given the freedom and confidence. In the Feysand chapter, Feyre specifically mentions the gloves that Lucien got Elain and the consequences of Elain not wearing them. On the surface it seems silly because she hurt herself, using the gloves makes total sense, but Rhys and Feyre are actually talking about Elain as someone who is growing and who actually likes to get dirty and FEEL things. It would make COMPLETE sense for Elain to be with Lucien, he’s her mate and he’s courtly and traditional (for a high fey, anyway) and it would be very politically tidy. But maybe this new, changed Elain just doesn’t want that anymore. Maybe she thinks Azriel’s scarred hands are beautiful because they’re nothing other than what they are, and she’s not afraid of having her own scars (I.e. the thorns).

I don’t know for sure that it’s a great sign that Azriel got Elain jewelry. That could be an indication that he sees her beauty and delicacy similarly to the way Lucien does, and certainly he is protective of Elain. BUT think it could mean something different because it was juxtaposed with the pearl earrings that Lucien gave Elain. They were plain, we’ve never had any indication that Elain is interested in pearls or even regular jewelry. SJM OBVIOUSLY put much more thought into the description of the necklace and AZRIEL OBVIOUSLY put much more thought into his gift for Elain than Lucien did. He thought about Elain and what she means to him and gave her something that appears gently beautiful and informal but is even more lovely when someone PAYS CLOSER ATTENTION TO IT, as Azriel always does with everything, and especially Elain.

just can’t imagine SJM having anything that is awkward and at best uncomfortable and uncommunicative turn into an endgame relationship. Elain and lucien have no passion, neither sexual nor antagonistic nor romantic. All of her relationships tend to involve a pretty instant attraction and ongoing tension with tiny little moments sprinkled in from the get. Elain is only ever uncomfortable around Lucien. On the other hand, she is innately comfortable with Azriel pretty immediately (again ask for receipts and I will give them).

They also meet each other pre-cauldron, Lucien is literally like, “she’s my mate!” During one of the most traumatic and dissonant moments of Elain’s life. Remember how much Rhys DIDNT MAKE FEYRE’S LIFE OR TRAUMA ABOUT HIM???? He waited FOREVER to tell her about the bond, was pretty certain he could never be with her, would have been happy to never tell her and just have her be happy. Cassian was pretty sure of the bond with nesta and did not come close to mentioning it until they declared themselves together forever. Rowan and Aelin were also terrified to admit to each other that they were mates, again because they worried what it might do to negatively affect the other. But there’s Elain, fresh outta the cauldron, they all heard her screams and saw her terror and despair, and the first thing he says is “she’s MY mate.”

Also want to be clear I’m not trying to hate on Lucien. I mentioned above that Lucien is used to being pretty courtly and traditional, I think he was raised in the autumn court and has a very traditional understanding of what the mating bond means. I don’t think he is ever trying to claim Elain because he’s inherently trying to ignore her wishes or control her, but because he feels that bond and believes in the fact that it is sacred. Elain was born human, doesn’t really understand the significance of mates the way Lucien does. Of course she wouldn’t have a matching reverence. Elain is used to love and building trust and a relationship with someone over time and with patience. Which is exactly how her relationship with Az progresses.

Really think about Elain and Lucien, what about them seems compatible? He plays the game, he’s clever, his specialty is in people and he likes to have repartee with those he’s close to. Elain is pretty much always herself, she doesn’t change to suit her company, and she frankly doesn’t seem to love figuring people out. She loves being with the people she loves, but the politics of people don’t interest her - nature interests her. She’s kind in a way that Lucien would probably probably find boring in someone who isn’t his mate. In ACOSF, nesta is constantly thinking about the difference in her relationship with her mother from the relationships her mother had with her sisters. She makes it really clear that Elain never knew how to handle people in the same way as nesta or any courtier, and that she wasn’t really all that interested in intrigue or politic (which is why their mother was never interested in Elain). Elain and Lucien do not understand each other and do not understand the other’s passions or motivations. I like Lucien, I don’t love him the way that some folks do, probably because I never really got over his failure to feyre in ACOMAF, but I do want him to be happy. I think he can’t give Elain what she wants or needs and vice versa.

Lastly I want to talk about symmetry and fresh narrative. At this point, mating bonds are pretty played out. SJM has set a lot of groundwork re: the fact that mating bonds are NOT always perfect, and are NOT always happy. Rhys talks a lot about his mother and father. They were very unhappy together; they did not understand each other. It sounds like Rhys’s father was a politician and Rhys’s mother was wild and raw and genuine. This is part of the reason he waits so long to tell Feyre about the bond (and obviously he doesn’t even get to tell her, she finds out on her own). I am definitely not trying to say that Lucien is like Rhys’s father, he’s not, he’s a much better person, but I do think that the differences in Rhys’s parents’ values and passions mirror the dissonance that can be felt between Lucien and Elain as well. I think all of the wind was taken out of the relationship before it started because Lucien named Elain as his mate so quickly- it was really unearned. It is so EARNED in Feyre and Rhys’s story and Aelin and Rowan’s.

I think the idea of choosing love over nature is actually extraordinary. Elain, who has never really had a choice in her whole life, will make the most subversive and difficult choice of the series by rejecting her mating bond. And Azriel, who has never believed himself worthy of good things, will be chosen over a mating bond because he is so extraordinarily deserving of happiness and love and to be truly chosen as someone else’s paramour even beyond the influence of a mating bond. Is there any greater narrative validation of Azriel than that???? SJM writes grand, dramatic cosmic payback for her characters, and this would be a crowning achievement in that vein.

As for Lucien, what he has needed is a way out of the lines he’s always been expected to live in. He was never at home in the autumn court, he was never truly at home in the spring court, and despite Elain, he is definitely never at home in the night court. Lucien’s love, the thing that made him more happy than anything else in his life, was inherently unconventional, and then the convention he lived in destroyed it. Letting go of Elain and the mating bond will be the best way for him to reject the rules that have confined him for his entire, mostly miserable life. Elain will choose Azriel, and Lucien will choose to let her go, not just for Elain but also for himself. I’m willing to bet he might even give up his immortal life to be with Vassa and Jurian. Obviously that whole trio’s dynamic is still pretty murky, but I THINK he seems to be into Vassa (hell who knows - maybe he’s into jurian). Certainly he is happier with them than he has ever been anywhere else (tamlin was Lucien’s dear friend, but Lucien was also fucking terrified of him), and maybe it’s not and will never be about romantic fulfillment for him. That being said, that seems unlikely given SJM’s tendency to pair off her characters.

As for people being mad about the sex stuff...... have we not been reading the same books? Cassian and Rhys have both made it clear to Feyre that Az can get it, he hasn’t been chastely pining for Mor his whole life. Nesta also specifically confirms in this newest installment that Elain is not a virgin, hello bread crumb set up. Elain and Azriel are both sexually active adults who are sexually attracted to each other. Why should they not be able to have agency over their own sexuality in the same way as all of the other characters? Because they’re shy? Because they seem nicer and gentler?

I think it’s actually really infantilizing to make Elain a victim/inactive participant in her solstice interaction with Azriel. Sure, narrators aren’t always reliable, but SJM always uses the fey scent as a story device to confirm sexual interest and initial/general consent for the reader without suspicion or misinterpretation. I. E. Nesta and cassian both had really warped understandings of how the other felt about them for a lot of ACOSF, but they always came back to knowing for certain that they were sexually attracted to each other. That is something that SJM makes pretty freakin clear in most situations. I don’t think that Azriel thought anything that was darker or dirtier than anything Rhys or cassian has thought about feyre and nesta. In fact it was definitely less kinky than how cassian and nesta often thought of each other sexually before they really got together.

Also, a lot of elain’s reactions to Lucien in ACOWAR remind me of mor’s reactions to Azriel throughout the series. You could tell she was feeling some type of way, but in reality it was guilt and sorrow that she couldn’t return his feelings, not that she was tortured by her love for him. I feel like when Lucien goes to the continent and Elain displays emotion about it it’s more about the fact that she feels bad she doesn’t feel more for him even though she does feel the bond. I’m sure it was really confusing for her. Elain’s reactions to Azriel, though, remind me more of the little snippets of interaction between Aedion and Lysandra before they had more POV in the ToG series and also those between cassian and nesta in ACOMAF and ACOWAR before THEY had POV chapters.

Wow so yeah here’s my dissertation. I hope someone out there reads this and is like YES THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN TRYING TO SAY, because I love when I find posts like that.

[notapaladin]

a little mystery to figure out

The rumors reaching Nezahual’s ears can’t be true. They suggest that Tenochtitlan’s Master of the House of Darts and the High Priest for the Dead are...together, and Nezahual’s met Acatl. No, Teomitl is clearly going to be pining forever.

He decides to visit his sister city, and learns much more than he really wanted to.

Also on AO3!

-

Not for the first time, Nezahual reflected that his life couldn’t get any better than this. He was a healthy young ruler with slaves to serve his every whim and his pick of lovely, inventive concubines to share his mat; he had only to wave a hand, and a dozen servants would rush to attend him. The mat spread out in his palace gardens boasted two thick cloaks and a deer pelt to cushion his reclining form, and above him a pair of noisy motmots fluttered like living jewels.

By his side, his current favorite concubine—Miyahuaxochitl—picked up a delicately carved rosette of fruit, studying it for a moment before popping it into her mouth. “Hm.”

He put an arm around her, pulling her a little closer. “Is it not to your taste?”

She thought for a moment and shook her head. “No, my lord, it is. Forgive me, I was only...thinking.”

“Oh?” It wasn’t an accusatory question—of course she was entitled to the contents of her own head, though he’d never been especially impressed by her sagacity—but she flinched anyway. He registered, belatedly, that he’d been using what his childhood playmates had called the “creepy snake face,” the one that supposedly made him look like a rattlesnake eyeing a bird’s nest. It wasn’t like he could help being curious, but when you were an agent of Quetzalcoatl, that apparently came with side effects. Oops.

At least she got over her unease quickly. “About the tales you told of your last visit to Tenochtitlan. Working with Teomitl-tzin and Acatl-tzin.”

“...Thinking about other men?” He smiled.

“Not like that.” As he hope she would, she shoved him lightly and pretended to take offense. “I was wondering how Teomitl-tzin’s marriage is going. I don’t like to think of anyone being unhappy in love.”

“His wife is the Guardian of the Duality in Tenochtitlan.” And absolutely the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met. Too bad Teomitl snatched her up first. We might have killed each other, but gods, I’d die happy. He twined a lock of Miyahuaxochitl’s hair around his fingers. “I’m sure it’s going fine.”

She didn’t seem soothed. Her gaze drifted over the sparkling water of the nearest fountain as she replied, “...Well...yes, my lord, but…”

“But?”

For a long moment, she silently traced meaningless patterns over his bare chest. It tickled, but not enough for him to be distracted from her words when she finally spoke. “It’s only that...you mentioned he seemed awfully close with her brother.”

“Acatl is his teacher.” But even as he spoke, his mind whirled. The pup is often angry—I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s his base emotional state—but when Acatl was accused of treason...gods, he was frantic, and not on his own behalf. And there’s the way he looks at him when Acatl can’t see him... Nobody looks at another person like that if they aren’t at least a bit infatuated.

Miyahuaxochitl had clearly reached the same conclusion far ahead of him. He mentally revised his opinion of her brainpower. “Mm. That’s...not the kind of closeness I mean…”

Anyone who could do the things she could with her tongue had no business blushing like that at a mere insinuation. And she hasn’t even seen them together. I swear the only time Teomitl wasn’t glaring at something was when he was looking at Acatl. “You really think so?”

She nodded. “I listen when the slaves talk amongst themselves. They all say that when those two were guests at your summer palace, they seemed...very close. And some of the merchants, too—rumor has it that Acatl-tzin never used to even step foot in the palace until he met Teomitl-tzin, and now he’s there all the time.”

He found himself remembering the last time he’d been in their combined presence. The bloodstained courtyard. The ghosts. The ahuizotls, all teeth and claws. And the way Teomitl had looked at Acatl, even with his sword drawn and visions of the Turquoise-and-Gold crown filling his head. Well. That would certainly explain a lot. I wonder if...no. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I’d question whether Acatl even had blood in his veins. The poor pup is doomed.

The thought made him grin. There was, after all, a way for his life to improve—watching Teomitl splutter in impotent rage. “I think it’s time I spend a week in Tenochtitlan again.”

&

Pomp and circumstance were, of course, the prerogative of a Revered Speaker traveling to an allied city. But for once, Nezahual found himself curious as to what would happen if he took the subtle approach. Accordingly, his boat docked in the Atempan calpulli—if the memories of his spies served, Acatl had been from there—and he prepared himself for a nice, long walk on a sunny day. He’d even taken the steps of leaving his guards with the boat and most of his jewelry; they would follow an hour or so behind, to be ready in case he needed them. Meanwhile, in his least elaborate cloak, he could pass for a nobleman’s child instead of an Emperor for a day.

Ah, the sacrifices he made for the sake of information.

For being the domain of peasants, the calpulli really wasn’t as shabby as he’d imagined it would be. Children ran underfoot just as they did in the outskirts of his own city, and women called to each other as they spun thread and ground corn. He’d been walking for perhaps half an hour, heading deeper into the city, when he heard a name that gave him pause.

A group of women had gathered in an open courtyard to spin maguey fibers; one, middle-aged, sat down on the outside of their little circle and commented, “Saw our Acatl the other day.”

Acatl was a common name, but the degree of pride in her voice suggested he was more than just a fellow peasant. If he squinted, he thought he could make out a certain family resemblance—that girl shared his nose, and that woman had a precise copy of his jaw. Cousins, then. He made a production of stretching and leaning against the wall of the opposite house, for all the world as though he was fascinated by the birds in the tree branches above, and watched as a woman with red ribbons twined through her marriage braids perked up noticeably at her words. “Oh? How’s he doing?”

Their arbiter of knowledge grinned as she set her spindle whirling. “Seemed to be doin’ quite well for himself; had a nice new pair of silver earrings and all.”

Now that was interesting; Acatl was entitled to a degree of splendor as a High Priest, but her tone suggested he’d only recently begun to take advantage of it. Red Ribbons nudged the woman next to her. “Remember when he went off to calmecac and announced he’d stay on as a priest? His parents were furious!”

General sighs around the circle. Nezahual privately marked down Acatl’s parents as idiots.

A buxom woman in a flower-embroidered blouse muttered, “What a waste.”

Though this mildly blasphemous statement seemed to meet with some approval, the older woman let out a defensive huff. “Hey—he’s an excellent priest! Our Acatl, a High Priest!”

Flower Blouse sighed wistfully, a motion which did interesting things to her chest. “I know, Auntie. I’m sure you’re proud. But...he’s so handsome.”

There were collective nods. One girl clasped a hand to her chest and gazed wistfully up at the heavens, as though the mere thought of Acatl was enough to send her into rapture. Nezahual raised an eyebrow. While that is certainly an apt enough descriptor if you’re into older men, his personality...then again, I do seem to have a knack for running into him in stressful times. Stressful times he’d occasionally caused, but that was besides the point.

Red Ribbons looked thoughtful. “No wonder all the girls were so upset. Remember Huchimitl?”

A slender woman with her hair in a maiden’s plait smirked at her. “Just the girls? Because I remember your husband, when he was young—”

“Her husband, then? My brother, now! You should have heard him when he was at the boy’s calmecac, it was all Acatl-tzin this and Acatl-tzin that—“

“Girls!” Their auntie aimed a scorching glare around the circle, and all five of them suddenly found their spindles utterly fascinating. “You should be ashamed, gossiping like that about our High Priest for the Dead!”

The maiden was either brave or suicidal. “Auntie, you started it…”

“I was merely telling you what I saw!” She sniffed. “Ridiculous girl, it’s hardly my fault if our Acatl wants to finally take advantage of his place in the world—the Duality knows it took him long enough. Why, I remember when you all were young...”

Judging by the assembled eye-rolls and badly stifled groans, it seemed she was about to break into one of the dreaded When I Was Your Age speeches bemoaned by younger generations everywhere. Nezahual had heard his fair share as a child, and had no intention of staying and listening to this one.

Accordingly, he pushed off from the wall and continued on his way with a thoughtful hum. Clearly, Teomitl would have significant competition in the—vanishingly unlikely, he’d seen the way Acatl reacted to the suggestion of sexual intercourse—event of Acatl ever breaking his vows of chastity. Still, he mused. New earrings, for a man who never wears any. The pup must be trying very hard.

Hm. His last meal had been just after dawn, and he was getting hungry. The market should be packed at this time of day, and he had an excellent memory of a certain old grandmother’s tamales. He steered himself towards it.

&

Tenochtitlan’s main market was, indeed, packed. He felt the cacao beans and gold-filled quills wrapped in his cloak, gaze drifting over stalls selling jewelry and knives and caged animals. A woman on a spread-out blanket was haggling intently over the price of a caged parrot; her neighbor was trying desperately to interest a sacred courtesan in a length of orange cotton. At another time he might have bought both—he could always use a sacrifice to Xochiquetzal, just to be polite—but the smell of roasted meat was distracting.

He wound up buying two tamales, leaning against a tree to eat them just in time to avoid bumping into a porter with a load of bulky, fragile feather fans. Quetzal feathers predominated, a blazing iridescent green, but he spied bright blue cotinga and the delicate reddish-pink of spoonbill feathers as well. They were fit for a nobleman, if not the imperial court itself, and he wondered which featherworker’s shop had turned them out.

They were apparently quite impressive to the merchant manning a blanket full of wicker baskets, who remarked, “...Big order.”

The porter shrugged, adjusting his hold as the topmost fan made a bid for freedom from its carrying strap. “Oh, these? Straight to the Temple of Mictlantecuhtli.”

“Again?!”

“Yep.”

The merchant blinked slowly. “...Tlaloc’s green dick, who died?”

Another shrug. The errant fan hit the ground, and he swore as he knelt to pick it up. “Nobody important, so far as I know. At least, not recently.”

Given the way the merchant leaned forward, eyes gleaming as he lowered his voice, he’d come to the same conclusion Nezahual was rapidly arriving at himself. Such expensive feathers were either payments for services rendered, or...well. Payments for services you hoped would be rendered. Nezahual stopped chewing momentarily, the better to eavesdrop on the man’s murmur of “Must be a personal gift.”

That got a snort and a badly hidden grin. “Dunno why they bother. Acatl-tzin’s just gonna sell ‘em and give the proceeds to the poor anyway.”

“Pft, you have no romance in your soul—oh, I’ll let you go.” He’d spotted a potential customer, and beamed encouragingly at the woman who’d made the mistake of getting too close with intent to buy.

As the porter trudged off, Nezahual returned his focus to his lunch. They were really excellent tamales, spiced meat punctuated by the sharp bite of roasted chilies. He wondered if the woman who sold them would be interested in moving to Texcoco. It’s generally frowned upon to kidnap your allies’ citizens, but I might just risk it for more of these. It wasn’t like Tizoc would care, after all. Acatl might—the man was irritatingly principled—but a man who would sell that many expensive gifts to feed the poor probably wouldn’t complain too strenuously if one old woman got a new job in Nezahual’s palace kitchens.

He shook his head, biting back the smirk that wanted to escape. Poor, stupid Teomitl. That’s not a man that can be bribed onto your mat.

A pair of market girls passed by arm in arm, snapping their gum. He was about to tune them out, but their chatter snuck into his ears anyway.

The one in the pink blouse had a particularly chirpy voice; it would be just the thing to cheer him up after a tedious day, as long as she never brought up her current conversational topic again. “Did you really see the Master of the House of Darts down by the knife-seller the other day?”

Her companion—pale blue skirt, yellow makeup—nodded cheerfully. “Mm-hmm!”

A long, wistful sigh. “Mihmatini-tzin is so lucky.”

Blue Skirt puffed her cheeks out thoughtfully. “I wonder when he’ll take a concubine or two…”

That earned her a cheerful, laughing shove. “What, you think you’ll stand a chance?”

She was promptly shoved back, nearly colliding with a young man carrying a load of blankets as she cackled. “I just might!”

The joy in both girls’ faces was infectious, and Nezahual found himself with a genuine grin. Pink Blouse was smirking widely at her friend, showing off teeth that had been dyed a brilliant red. “You’ve got some competition, don’t you?”

“...Hm. I guess so. But...Teomitl-tzin’s really handsome.”

While Nezahual found himself regretting his decision to go incognito—neither girl had noticed him, and he was sure they’d revise their opinion of Teomitl’s supposed good looks if a better option presented himself—Pink Blouse let out a crack of laughter. “Hah!” Gum snapped cheerfully between her teeth as she added, “You’re not the only one who thinks so, I’ll tell you!”

He wondered who those people were—besides Mihmatini, who was proof positive that love made you blind and stupid. Nobody who looked that much like Tizoc could be that handsome, surely. Maybe on a foggy night. At a good distance. But before they could elaborate, he lost them in the crowd.

Both tamales were becoming distant memories, and he closed his eyes against the glare of the day to ponder his next move. Atempan and the markets had been enlightening, but they wouldn’t give him the answers he sought. He knew the palace would be his best bet, but there would be questions and politics and Tizoc there, none of which he especially felt like dealing with. At least not yet.

The Sacred Precinct was on his way, so he’d walk slowly. And if he engaged in the time-honored pastime of flirting with the next pretty girl he saw, that was absolutely besides the point.

&

It was mid-afternoon by the time he crossed over the canals to the Precinct walls, but the open plaza was as crowded as the markets had been. He kept his ears open and his mouth shut anyway. You could learn a lot from gossip if you were quiet. You could learn even more if you were Quetzalcoatl’s agent in the Fifth World, but he decided not to press his luck yet. His attendants were still keeping a significant distance behind him, and calling on the Feathered Serpent was something he preferred not to do in public. People always made such a fuss when your eyes rolled back in your head and spectral scales shimmered along your arms.

Ahead of him, one priest of Huitzilopochtli was huddling with another. He slowed his pace and pretended to be very interested in the sight of two sacred courtesans bickering.

The younger of the two priests was looking around warily, but his gaze slid right past Nezahual without seeing him. He clearly had different, worse problems. “...Quenami-tzin still seething?”

“Mmyep.”

“...I think I’ll take the long way back to the temple.” Nezahual couldn’t judge the priest for his wince; being under Quenami’s power had been bad enough for him, and he had been an Emperor since boyhood.

It didn’t take a genius to imagine why he was in a bad mood now. He remembered that load of feathers for the temple of Mictlantecuhtli, and smirked to himself. I can only imagine what he thinks of a peasant’s son accruing so many riches—and then to give them away! All because Teomitl thinks Acatl is one to be courted like a maiden.

The older and wiser priest nodded, but he was already distracted. The two bickering courtesans had descended to a screaming match, with vocabulary even Nezahual hadn’t heard employed in quite that way. It was fascinatingly undignified. “Good idea.”

“I mean, can you blame him?”

“It’s not Acatl-tzin’s fault that he—“

But Nezahual’s pace had slowed too much, and whatever wasn’t Acatl-tzin’s fault was lost when he nearly collided with a priestess carrying an armload of bloodstained grass balls. Since they had a regrettable tendency to roll all over the place when dropped, and since he had been raised with manners, he had to stop and help her pick them up. By the time they were finished, the priests had moved off.

He sighed. There was nothing for it; he’d have to enter the palace.

&

As he’d predicted, it was a unique form of torture. He’d met up with his attendants, so at least he was properly dressed for the obligatory good-to-see-you-glad-you’re-not-dead-yet audience with Tizoc-tzin, but having to listen to the man’s voice sucked all the pleasure out of what should have been a soothingly rote speech. It would take time for a proper banquet to be arranged, leaving him with several hours of free time he seriously debated spending in the women’s quarters. It would probably be worth it if he got caught. Tizoc was almost definitely not up to the task of entertaining a lady, and the women were sure to be bored.

He’d made up his mind to try it when he ran into Teomitl. Almost literally ran into, in fact; the man was striding through the palace corridors at his usual brisk pace, only to stop dead when he saw him. He was wearing the red cloak of an off-duty Master of the House of Darts and a frown.

After a pause just long enough to be insulting, he addressed him. Aww, he was learning politics. “Nezahual-tzin.” A stiff, perfunctory bow. “What brings you here?”

“Would you believe a diplomatic visit?” He tried for his most winning smile.

It didn’t work. Teomitl’s eyes narrowed, and when he drew himself up Nezahual realized that the man was still taller than him. Every line of his body screamed irritation. “...No.”

He paused for an instant, considering, and then let his smile widen. It had always been fun to needle Teomitl, even when they were children—the man was always so serious, so dignified. Of course there was a place for such things, but if the man was in love...it would be terribly amusing to watch that dignity crack. “It is! I heard some very...interesting things about your lovely city on my way here, you know.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Apparently Acatl-tzin’s very well-liked.”

Teomitl’s fists clenched briefly, then relaxed. Oh, he was touchy. “As he should be.”

And quick to jump to Acatl’s defense, as well—there’d been no hesitation in his words. Nezahual remembered the day they’d rescued Acatl from a traitor’s death; it had been the only time he’d ever seen Teomitl so frantic. Acatl had been oblivious then, and he was oblivious now. “A shame he hasn’t noticed. I’ve heard he’s gotten some expensive gifts recently.”

“Mm.” His jaw was tight, and he was resolutely not meeting Nezahual’s gaze. There was a faint tinge of red in his dark face.

Nezahual fought an urge to snicker. Allied ruler or no, they were presently alone in the courtyard and he didn’t particularly care for being punched in the face. The jade rod piercing his septum as a symbol of his rule was just as breakable as his nose was, after all. “Is he the sort of person who enjoys a bit of luxury? Do you suppose he’s the sort of person who’d then think kindly of the sender? You know him so well, after all.”

Teomitl sucked in a breath. “I suppose it’s none of your business, Nezahual-tzin. Good day.”

Then he stormed off, and Nezahual didn’t stop him. Baiting Teomitl was highly entertaining, but he’d had his try at that for the moment. Until the banquet, he’d enjoy himself in more leisurely pursuits.

The banquet, when it came, was fascinating to watch.

Mihmatini and Teomitl sat together, and he found himself studying them. She was radiant in feathers and jewels, but were her eyes tight around the edges? Did she suspect that her husband was besotted with someone else? It had been blindingly obvious to him even when he’d attended their wedding; he’d made it through the ceremony and half the feast before he’d had to sneak off to laugh himself sick. Mihmatini was an intelligent woman, but...well, love did make you blind.

Or maybe she’s just trying not to see it. Of course, all men took their pleasure where they pleased, but he imagined it had to be much different—much worse for the wife—when the one your husband had designs on was your own elder brother. But they weren’t acting as though anything was amiss; as the evening wore on, she leaned against her husband’s shoulder, and Nezahual strongly suspected she was holding his hand where he couldn’t see. If he hadn’t known better, he’d think Teomitl had never gone behind her back to overthrow his brother.

...Speaking of brothers…

He turned his gaze to Tizoc’s gilded screen. Tizoc had always hated priests in general and Acatl in particular; his attempt to get the man killed proved that. The part of Nezahual’s mind that was always turning over schemes and inspecting them from new angles wondered idly how he’d react if he knew his younger brother was interested in his greatest foe, if that was something he could use...but no, he wouldn’t sink that low. Teomitl was not an enemy he wanted to have when the man became Revered Speaker in his turn. And an enemy I’d have in truth, if I did something to jeopardize the life of his favorite priest.

Who, to Nezahual’s surprise, was in attendance. Apparently his unannounced visit was judged a significantly important occasion to merit the presence of all three High Priests. Acatl was seated between his fellows, wearing full regalia and an expression which suggested that if either man tried to speak to him, he’d drown them in their soup bowls. Next to him, Quenami was grinding his teeth; it appeared his foul mood had persisted all day, and Nezahual would bet quite a lot that it had something to do with the silver earrings in Acatl’s ears. They weren’t large or ornate, but they glittered where they caught the torchlight.

As he watched, Acatl turned his head in Teomitl’s direction, and their eyes met. Teomitl, caught in the middle of raising a soup bowl to his lips, flushed and set it down.

Nezahual tried very hard not to start cackling into his grilled turkey.

&

In the end, the confirmation of all those rumors was an accident. He really didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But he’d been about to turn in for his own mat when the idea struck him, and so before he could think better of it he was on his way to Teomitl’s chambers. Maybe the man would spill something interesting if he prodded him hard enough.

Teomitl’s chambers turned out to be occupied.

Very occupied.

To give them credit, they were trying to be quiet; if he hadn’t been actually in the courtyard and aiming for silence himself, he might not have heard them. But there was a very familiar rustle of cloth, and the distinct crackle of a thin reed mat, and then—

He knew that voice. He knew it very well, even though he’d never heard it like that.

“Ah, hah, Acatl…”

Impossible.

He sat down hard in the packed dirt, feeling his world rearrange itself to make room for the noises he was hearing. That was Teomitl, half-breathless with pleasure, and that was Acatl’s answering indistinct murmur, and that was the faint slap of flesh against flesh, and that was the steady rustling of reed mats under a man’s weight. He’d thought Teomitl pining, trying desperately to catch his dignified tutor’s attention. The idea that he’d succeeded...

He realized he faced a crossroads. He could slink away while they were busy with each other—undoubtedly the honorable choice. He could interrupt them—crude, dishonorable, and likely to result in severe physical pain if not immediate death.

Or he could sit down in Teomitl’s courtyard to wait.

He found himself waiting for a long time—enough to pick out the constellations above his head and develop a certain respect for Acatl’s stamina, but not long enough for him to fully pin down what he was going to say. It seemed he might owe Teomitl some sort of apology, which was a distasteful thought. He could bear it, though. Apologies, advice, perhaps some gentle mockery—yes, that was how he’d deal with this.

Eventually the sounds from within faded to a quiet conversation, and then to the faint rustle of someone getting to their feet. He glanced idly at the entrance curtain as its bells jingled, taking in the sight of a formerly-chaste High Priest making his escape from a lover’s embrace. The key word there being formerly; Acatl may have once sworn a vow of chastity and celibacy, but he’d clearly not so much broken it as shattered it to pieces and performed a merry dance on the shards. There were the faint marks of teeth in his collarbone and bruises at his hip, and his previously neat hair was in disorder.

Oh, and he was staring at Nezahual in open horror, such that Teomitl scrambled up off the mat and all but knocked him aside in order to take up a protective stance in the doorway. Any moment now, the open horror would transmute itself to outrage.

Absolutely nothing could have stopped his tongue. “You two seem to have had a very pleasant evening.”

Teomitl had clearly gotten as good as he gave; there were the beginnings of some fantastic marks on his throat. Much more important, however, was that his eyes had gone solid jade, and the air was starting to fill with the scent of the lake. “You.”

“Teomitl!” Acatl seemed to have shaken off his horror; now he laid a hand on his lover’s arm as though that alone would stop him from doing violence. Then again, he’d seen the man accomplish the same with words before.

“Acatl…” It came out in a snarl. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Nezahual, who was beginning to feel some mild concern.

“Look, if you kill him, it’s a diplomatic incident and it’ll start a war with Texcoco!”

“...And?”

“And I think Tizoc-tzin will probably want to know why!”

Nezahual decided he could probably risk interjecting. Acatl was being reassuringly sensible about the whole thing, and Teomitl’s eyes were returning to their normal dark brown. “I heard some very interesting rumors in Texcoco. You’re lucky that Tizoc-tzin never thinks beyond threats to his person.”

He watched as Acatl and Teomitl exchanged uneasy looks. It was Acatl who spoke, with his gaze fixed on Nezahual; the air around him grew measurably colder, though it didn’t seem to affect Teomitl at all. “...Rumors?”

He’d had a lot of time to stitch together the day’s overheard conversations into a cohesive whole, and he discovered he was amused by the tapestry it presented. “You two, together, seem to be rather a...popular notion among the people of Tenochtitlan. Aside from Huitzilopochtli’s clergy, of course.”

Both men recoiled for a moment, their faces red, and then they spoke at once. “I—“

“—That is—“

He held up a hand. “I won’t breathe a word.”

Teomitl’s eyes narrowed, cold as the bottom of the lake. He saw jade reflections dance in their depths. “You wouldn’t be so accommodating unless you want something from us.”

He’d also had a lot of time to determine what that something would be. It seemed a simple favor, and one unlikely to cause offense. Not with what he’d seen. “...Should Tizoc-tzin’s death come with a reasonable amount of warning…”

He paused, watching the way both men stiffened. Acatl’s fingers twitched as though to take Teomitl’s hand before he visibly pulled himself back; Nezahual couldn’t help but smile. As though we don’t all know the useless craven isn’t long for this world.

“You let me tell him on his deathbed.”

Teomitl was still suspicious, but he seemed inclined to listen. “...Why?”

“Star-demons,” he said promptly. He’d seen them only at a distance, but the carnage—the bodies in pieces, such as he’d never even seen on the worst battlefields—had stuck stubbornly in his mind. And to know it was Tizoc’s fault...yes, he’d be very much pleased with the chance to make the man’s last moments that little bit worse.

“...I’ll give you that,” Teomitl muttered.

“Excellent!” He affixed a charming grin to his face. “So we have an accord. I must confess, I really hadn’t expected Acatl-tzin to be swayed by pretty silver earrings. I would have held out for solid gold—“

Through gritted teeth, Acatl snapped, “I think you should leave.”

Since he didn’t want to be an ahuitzotl’s dinner—an annoyingly likely scenario, given the way Teomitl was vibrating with rage—he left. Quickly.

EXTRA: Some Weeks Earlier

Teomitl’s life changed irrevocably over lunch, of all things.

He’d started showing up at Acatl’s house with tamales after a long, frustrating argument with the rest of the war council regarding preparations for the next campaign, when he’d only wanted to comfort himself with the thought that at least he could do one useful thing by making sure the man he loved remembered to eat that day. It had quickly become a routine. Hearing Acatl’s voice, seeing him smile...it was good. It was all he would ever get, but it was good. He’d become an expert at ruthlessly beating back the corner of his heart that still stupidly yearned for more. He knew he wasn’t going to get it.

Even if Acatl kept looking at him. And smiling. And laughing, sometimes, a half-disbelieving chuckle that made his heart do unpleasant things in his chest.

Acatl wasn’t laughing now. He’d seemed preoccupied all day, and barely picked at his food. Teomitl’s chest hurt, and he told it sternly to cease. If you keep doing this to me, he told his heart, I will have you removed. Today’s meal had been worryingly quiet.

Acatl broke the silence without looking up from his half-eaten tamale. “...I heard some...interesting rumors from my cousins yesterday.”

Teomitl swallowed. Acatl had a lot of cousins. Not as many as he did—he could still count them all and didn’t need a chart to figure out how they were related—but a lot. It was probably nothing. “Oh?”

“They seem to think your feelings for me are…” He trailed off, and Teomitl had the pleasure of seeing him blush. It almost distracted him from the heartstopping terror coursing through his veins. “...Not quite platonic.”

“Ngyrk,” he said intelligently.

Acatl dropped his gaze to the floor. “...I try not to give credence to gossip.” He swallowed visibly. “But.”

“But,” he echoed. Maybe if he prayed hard enough, the earth he sat on would sink into the lake. Or one of the gods—at this point he wasn’t picky—would strike him down.

Acatl drew a slow, hesitant breath. He still wasn’t looking at him, and Teomitl realized his hands were starting to shake. His own were only spared that indignity by balling themselves up into fists so tight that his nails cut into his palms. “...If...they were accurate…”

He managed to force the words out somehow. I am no coward. If he’s going to throw my heart back in my face, I can damn well meet it head-on. “If they were? What would you do, Acatl-tzin?”

“...I’d say we should be more discreet, for starters.”

We. His heart leapt, and this time he didn’t tell it to stop. He could barely breathe; the dread had faded, and pure joy was fizzling up to replace it. “Does that mean you—“

Acatl pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to help him up as well. “It means, I think we should continue this discussion inside.”

They didn’t wind up doing much talking.

[illegiblewords]

5 Questions for Writers!

               5 Questions for Writers                                                        

I got tagged by @kunstpause, it looked like fun so figured I’d go for it! THANKS TO KUNST!

Tagging @wouldyouliketoseemymask, @nilim, @azwoodbomb, @peregrineroad, @frostmantle, @autumnslance, @strangefellows, @redbud-tree, @nozomikei​, and @rivenroad​. No obligation to anyone but full permission to steal granted to anyone else who might like to. I’ll literally be delighted if you pick this up spontaneously and blame me as an excuse lmao.

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

I made long answers so have a cut!

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

It depends heavily on what fandom and where I am mentally, but I’ve figured out I tend to love writing angsty lameass dudes with blonde hair who are prone to doing really silly things despite taking themselves entirely too seriously. Honestly, I have a pretty huge track record at this point. Harvey Dent, Vexen, Dmitri, Lahabrea, probably more besides. Every one of them fits the right balance of lameass to angst. I like seeing them grow and find fulfillment as people and they are very very cute while still having an edge of badassery and cleverness. Also they’re funny.

Lahabrea is my favorite at the moment, and him reaching that position is an accomplishment considering how stiff the competition is in FFXIV. Loser tricked his way to the top while I was busy laughing at him.

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

I really, really, really love redemption arcs and people recovering from fucked up experiences. Latter case especially I love seeing characters in those situations successfully connect to the people and world around them, especially if they get to grow together with a partner. I also LOVE “hero saves the villain and villain takes it to heart”.

(You may be sensing a theme here haha.)

There are a few reason these concepts resonate with me, the first being I think they’re really hopeful, inspiring, and something I always wanted to see growing up but rarely did.

People fuck up in life. People get hurt in horrible ways that bring out the worst in them. Sometimes when that happens they dig themselves deeper and deeper into ugliness. The more a person’s bad side comes out, the more hopeless it can feel. And for mental illness especially I’ve found this can be a major issue.

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has flaws, but I think there’s something really significant in seeing someone who has hit rock bottom, who can no longer imagine a way out, get offered a hand for support and take it. While recovery and redemption (not synonymous of course) ultimately need to be carried by the individual struggling, I really can’t understate how important it is to know in those situations that you’re not alone and someone believes in you.

I think a big part of why this theme is important to me is because mental illness, both genetic and due to trauma, is something unbelievably difficult and painful not only for the sufferer but those around them. The most mentally ill characters in fiction tend to be villains, and are disproportionately more likely to be suffering severe trauma. It frustrated me since I was pretty young to see over and over again cases where a mess could have been avoided if there was any support system in place.

Seeing compassion and connection given that kind of power means a lot to me, as does recognizing that villains are people before they are villains. It’s also very reassuring in the sense of “If this person fucked up that badly but still tried to better themself, I can too. And odds are I’m also worthy of love and compassion, even when my issues make things harder for others. I just have to keep working to improve.”

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

Eff.

Straight up I think I’ve written too much to have just one favorite description. It’s been a lot of years and I have hundreds of fics and I’m lame. So I’m going to put a few of my favs.

Anytime there’s a gap in block quotes it’s a different section within the same fic.

22 - A Batman Fanfic

He trembles beneath the weight of their expectations but his smile never fades flashes before cameras microphones under his nose crowds screaming questions bleeding together he answers like clockwork the District Attorney who must bring justice to us all paying tribute to false idols with golden hair and silver tongues we the people bow down in worship to this guardian of the law with words and deeds I believe in Harvey Dent so he swears in hallowed halls to bring prosperity to smite the wicked to damn the criminal with authority invested in him by Gotham’s dutiful children and himself.

***

On the precipice of victory we stand united our voice raised like a torch like a spear like a golden arrow against the beast of Lerna we are gods and monsters we are so much more than good and evil we are order in the court cauterizing corruption our head held high and mighty manifest in Harvey of the doubletalk Harvey who writes himself into the fabric of Gotham’s history Harvey who will not bend before the Roman we command you the unworthy we condemn you the unrighteous we will not be merciful and you will fall before our eyes.

***

I am Dionysus divided at the altar of Tyche O Fortuna O Fortuna give me guidance in the light of the moon you dance sacred silver dollar I see and obey the wax and wane your whim Wheel of Fortune the card I am dealt your servant your slave venerated puppet of flesh blessed is your wisdom bestowed upon I am your disciple wine-mad twisted chanting your word becomes law holy splendor against gavels desecrating your name defiant in denial extend your will through me and we shall strike the innocent enlighten the ignorant or spare them all for now.

Doppelganger - A Spider-Man Fanfic

She asks him to tell the story of himself, and like Scheherazade he begins anew each day.

As with many other things, this comparison is imperfect. The Ravencroft Institute is hardly a palace and neither of them could pass for royalty. She sits in a chair across from him over a carpet the color of sawdust. Her walls are lined with insects pinned on display. Not many butterflies, quite a few beetles. On a bookshelf Dmitri sees The Metamorphosis nestled between non-fiction texts more relevant to her profession. He thinks maybe it's an inside joke she has with herself, but doesn't say so.

He's received an invitation to call her Ashley instead of Dr. Kafka and doesn't know whether to accept. It might be to make him more comfortable. It might be something else. In her late fifties Kafka is built from delicate features, and he suspects the lines around her eyes mean they crinkle when she smiles. Short black hair, beige suit, only jewelry a pair of diamond stud earrings. Dmitri thinks she looks like a mother, but not his.

Her weight sinks into leather, darker than the floor. The couch he rests on matches. He finds himself leaning forward with one elbow propped on his thigh, the other locked in a cast suspended by his neck. There is something reassuringly empty in the gray fabric of his uniform, cheap and utilitarian and harmless. Dmitri’s wrists are thin, but then he's lost a lot of weight recently. He probably wouldn't be able to run as fast as he used to, but then circumstances would be the same anywhere he went so that really doesn't matter. His espionage days are over. His free arm is shedding in flakes but at least his skin is dry. Clean.

Dmitri no longer looks like anyone, unrecognizable to himself. A face without much in the way of edges, short nose. Weak chin. Mismatched eyes that shift between green and blue and brown and every other natural hue as moments pass into minutes pass into hours. Dark blotches interrupt his forehead and chin. They will peel in new patterns across a span of days. For the most part though, he is pale enough to trace veins where his body seems on the brink of spilling out.

It's been a while since he shaved his head and the hair that grows back is almost foreign. An unruly mess of black, blond, brunet, and red—strands as unlike in texture as anything else. The mask that made him Chameleon was white plastic embedded with hardware. Left deformed after trying to resemble others in flesh too many times, it allowed him to duplicate any face, any body he could remember. More than holograms, the most complete sensory illusions technology could perform.

Without it, Dmitri feels stripped.

When Kafka looks at him she’s receiving constant signals and missing none of them. The moments he needs to turn away, flat monosyllabic turns of phrase he chooses or resorts to or blankly accepts as his own. It doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t comfortable and he doesn’t even trust it’s not calculated. But she’s going to notice no matter what he does at this point, and lying about it doesn’t do anyone much good. They both know why he’s here.

***

“We were poor. We worked hard to keep ourselves fed and clothed and less than an embarrassment. I probably could have worked harder. Mother,” he begins before stumbling over himself.

The story he’s telling isn’t hers. Whatever else she was, Sonya Smerdyakov wasn’t Mrs. Bates. He remembers her voice as the beginning of an echo, forever following someone else’s lead.

And so he followed her.

She was bright like a light going out. She was gentle without being kind. Her fingers were short and delicate and she touched him as little as possible. He found her attention in the way she avoided his name.

***

In the privacy of his room, Dmitri began talking to himself.

Celebrities. Teachers. Children. The flat, steady rhythm of his father’s voice. The words and intonations favored by mother. Sergei’s laugh. He lost himself in a fantasy of conversations, strode through space to mimic confidence he didn’t feel, flashed teeth in front of his mirror like other people.

Once, Dmitri raised his voice. And when his older brother came, eyebrows knitting in confusion, he found himself full of stammered explanations, hands fumbling at his elbows, stumbling over his tongue to make sense of it.

Just making stories for himself. A game with no ending. That was all.

***

He would have died in that town under the eyes of speechless parents. Dmitri remembers the confusion that took his peers when he found a job for people who spoke for themselves. They thought he might be growing up.

He could lie. And when he began he understood it would always be a game with no ending.

Dmitri lost himself in a fantasy of conversations with real people and a voice that didn’t belong to him.

They asked a stranger to sign their yearbooks without even realizing it.

And then he was eighteen, and he left to continue elsewhere.

He didn’t announce his departure.

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It was probably a dream.

Lukewarm water crept down his throat, nearly making him choke. A skin pressed to his lips, insistent. He coughed, and for the first time there was moisture enough for resistance.

The face that obscured his vision was shrouded in white cloth. Cenric found he couldn’t focus on it. Mismatched eyes, one light and the other dark. Impossible to say if blindness caused the inconsistency.

A string of shells dangled from the figure’s neck, rattling gently. The skin pulled back for a moment. Careful. Patient.

It returned only once he'd grown quiet. Cenric drank for as long as he could. Impossibly, a great deal remained by the time he relinquished his hold.

There wasn't enough of him present to say thank you. Cenric barely registered being dragged, being carried onto a cart. Awareness was altogether gone by the time they started to move.

***

…to the blessed traders who enrich our lives we’re bound to pay with our lives in turn aether born fire-walker your will sees us to rest we entrust ourselves to your sight forged of oschon for peace and prosperity and an ending you do not weep for father azeyma lives in the earth with you her fan brings no breeze the air is hot and thick and breathless your domain a silent place that does not stir have you forgotten the sound of your own voice have you known what it is to live and fail have you been alone do you know what it is to die how can a god pass judgment without being judged nald’thal lord of departures of flame and sand whose coin purse overflows who knows not what it means to starve what it means to spoil the legacy of one who loved you nald’thal who holds shells and souls and precious stones as if their worth were equal nald’thal who cannot know mercy without knowing pain who are you to weigh mortal affairs?

***

In darkness he unwinds the black bandana, steps first from his slops and then his kurta. Yuyudana has provided robes, which rest neatly on a small rock nearby. It crosses Cenric’s mind that the bones of his knees, his hips, his wrists, even his face have all started to protrude strangely. He looks less hyuran than before, maybe less than he ever has. Closer to something priests would exorcise than anyone deserving aid.

He wonders if this idea has occurred to them.

The water, when he advances, is cold. Goosebumps raise across his skin as slowly, gingerly, he wades in to his waist.

Cenric ducks under.

His hair is a long and tangled wreck. Being wet only disguises this slightly. It drifts past his neck, comes to float near the surface. Cenric holds himself in silence, eyes open, watching the silver scatter of light over stones and plants and fish. He remains for as long as he can bear.

His vision stings afterward. Gasping, he can’t tell if the cause is exposure or something else. For a time he simply waits, breathing hard through his nose, hunched so that his lips are partially submerged.

He thinks of nothing, pretends that this time instead of no future he has no past.

Only one moon remains. Maybe the sky aches for losing Dalamud, but better that than the blow which scarred Eorzea.

Stalemate - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

He is presented with impressions of a horse, gaunt and fetid and decayed. Spreading ruin wheresoever it goes. Occasionally it sloughs off portions of its own flesh, which collect flies and blacken any land that surrounds. On its back rests a world, and alongside it does the herd struggle under their own burdens. But even beasts of such endurance have limits. Theirs are reached. When the rotten steed lags, its companions cannot afford to falter. Cannot turn. Without its ability to bear loads, this aberration has no place. Falling is inevitable.

Yet a heart still beats and lungs yet swell.

The Ascian shivers in his grasp, but does not attempt escape.

Here, something festers. Something bleeds. An old wound exacerbated over time.

Fevered, coated in a film of self-disgust, the core of Lahabrea convulses.

 Don’t…

 Don’t leave me like this…

***

Teeth and tongue. Lingering, wet, disembodied. Another finds his hip. Another his thigh, slipping beneath what clothes remain.

And another.

And another.

Warm, human, seeking. The Warrior tightens his hold, uses the moan crawling from his own chest as incentive. Barred by naught but fabric, driving close as he can manage. Lahabrea makes a strangled sound, his gasp crushed empty. A new mouth finds the dark knight’s ear in response.

These are parts of him no one dares touch, no one dares acknowledge. Slick now, attended with something like reverence. Supplication.

He resolves to fuck the Ascian senseless for this, presses his intent deep into Lahabrea’s aether. He is going to steal all his fancy words away. Make him squirm.

“I… I…” Tight, airless, like a plucked string. The Warrior feels Lahabrea’s voice reverberate against the roof of his mouth.

The feeling is difficult to describe. Cracked ice. A fraying rope. Such is Lahabrea's response, fumbling and disoriented as it is.

The Warrior lets go.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

Just imagine me weeping over here lmao. Same deal as before, I’VE DONE TOO MUCH SHIT.

Spare Change - A Batman Fanfic

"Stop," he gasps, "I wouldn’t—"

"You would Harvey. You did. It’s what makes you such a damn good instrument. You had to test yourself, prove that you’re not a real person.” He can feel fingers grinding against bone. His knees bend. Harvey kneels, shuddering, gazing up into the destruction of his own visage. Two-Face meets his eyes, blue on blue. “People are weak. People are ruled by what they want and don’t want. You’re capable of anything if the wind blows just right. You can’t even stop yourself.”

"I wouldn’t," he repeats, numbly.

"Did you," demands Two-Face, forcing him down further, "or did you not flip for their lives, Harvey Dent?"

"We…We aren’t the same people anymore."

"Of COURSE we’re the same people!" Another shove and he’s on the ground, Two-Face sitting on his chest, teeth bared, coin clenched tight between them. "Do you really think you can close your eyes and pretend you aren’t capable of these things? They’re alive," and there is something hideous in his expression, something certain, "because they were lucky. No other reason.”

"The coin is gone! Even if I wanted to listen to it—I can’t!”

"If you’re so sure," says Two-Face, "then how about you improvise?”

And with one motion the silver dollar is under his tongue, forced back so hard he feels himself gag and begin to choke before his eyes open.

The Inquisitor’s Letters - A Dragon Age: Inquisition Fanfic

To His Worship Inquisitor Mahanon Lavellan of Skyhold, My name is Isell from Amaranthine and I’m seven. My mum is helping but says I can send you all by myself. Thank you for fixing the hole in the sky and also the one by the dead man’s house. There were demons but they’re mostly gone now and people are going outside now. Da says Amaranthine has been through too much and can survive anything and he says you’re an elf like us and the Hero of Ferelden was an elf too. He says people used to think elves can’t be heroes but now they don’t. Have you met the Hero of Ferelden? Also I heard that even though you’re Dalish Andraste helped you in the Fade and that humans let you be in the Chantry because anyone Andraste likes must be a really good person. What’s Andraste like? The Chant says a lot but it’s different meeting someone I think. Also I think I saw you a little before but Mum wasn’t sure because you had a helmet on and we were far away and there were a lot of people but I bet it was you. Da wasn’t sure I should write because he says the Dalish don’t like city elves like we are but I think you must be nice and Mum agrees with me. I’ve been playing demon hunters with my brother Arrion (he’s just five still) and Da said templars are who fights demons usually and elves can’t be templars. People thought elves couldn’t be heroes and inquisitors though and we are so I bet I could too. Is it hard fighting demons? Da says they’re real scary but I’m not scared. Thank you for helping us and everyone and I hope you kill lots of demons. Sincerely, Isell U’venlan

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

Cenric sits on the floor, draped in a white cotton tunic. It might have been snug on a Roegadyn but anyone else would find ample room. Behind him, Memesu stands on a cot holding shears. Gold earrings dangle on either side of her face.

“I fought at Carteneau, you know,” she mentions casually. There is a soft hsssssshhhh. Click.

Hair hits the floor. Coils.

He starts to shake his head, aborts the gesture partway through. Stills. “…you saw Bahamut?”

Memesu snorts. “I’m sure everyone this side of Hydaelyn saw Bahamut.” Click.

“That’s probably true,” he concedes. The dragon is what everyone knows, everyone remembers. He can't imagine the proximity. “What about the Warriors of Light?”

“Pff.” Gentle tugging at his scalp. Cenric does not open his eyes but leans into the motion. “I wasn’t of rank to see their like. Not that I’d remember. Stop moving.” Click.

Cenric hesitates.

“What do you remember, then?”

For a time, the only sound comes from blades and a thousand strands cut short. This lasts for several minutes. Cenric resigns himself to secrets.

Then, “I used to think I was special too. As a twin. My sister was Memeni. We studied together.”

 Was.

The exhale hits him slowly, quietly.

“She died?”

He can feel the shrug in her hip against his shoulder.

“It was Carteneau,” says Memesu. “Of course she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Click. “It had nothing too do with you. If you keep trying to claim responsibility for every misfortune you find, you’re going to get self-important.”

Cenric only grunts, quiet and non-committal.

 Click.

 Click.

 Click.

“Carteneu was so much worse than people remember. Only four years later and already we hurry to dispose of details.” There is a hard undercurrent to Memesu’s voice, but what contact she makes remains light. Careful. “I remember the arcanist from Limsa who didn’t dodge a magitek canon in time. Miqo’te. Spells come faster in that discipline, so there’s less stress on distance than thaumaturgy. Girl got careless.” Click. “The mess smelled like rotten eggs and charcoal. Her face was… melted.” Click. “I try not to look in those situations. They only make casting harder. But she was so close.”

Cenric doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word.

Memesu continues. “One of our own gladiators, an Ala Mhigan, took to mutilating any pureblooded Garleans he could catch. The man had a string of eyes hanging around his neck. I’m pretty sure one enemy officer wet himself before he started to beg. Not that it particularly mattered.”

 Click.

“Memeni… didn’t anticipate what she was getting herself into. She saw magic as a way of being useful to craftsmen. My focus has always been theoretical. Right side.” Startled, Cenric lets her guide his jaw to get a better view of his profile. Click. Click. “Meni used to think I was a priss. She preferred to develop magitek kettles alongside alchemists. See if she could find a way to capture light like the Mhachi did. She still enjoyed fishing when she could, even though it smelled awful. Never outgrew the braids she wore growing up. ” Memesu sighs. “…just understand she died afraid, in pain, and with things left undone. My sister didn’t even resemble herself at the end.”

Cenric is very still. Thinks carefully.

“…I wish it could have gone differently,” he says at last.

Memesu’s mouth slides up in a small, crooked smile. She tousles the neat, ear-length hair before her. “So do I.”

Eclipse - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It ends at Elidibus’ untimely arrival.

“Lord Zodiark,” he says, so smoothly that were he not searching for it that the anger would be undetectable, “appreciates your attentions.”  His gaze does not waver from Lahabrea as he speaks. “But there is work to be done and I’m afraid there are words I would have with your Speaker.”

They disperse.

Nabriales, careful and curious, folds himself out of sight beyond the chamber then makes his way back to its edge.

Lahabrea, farthest from the exit, attempts to steal some small dignity. Turns to face Elidibus.

The Emissary makes him wait. Expressionless red masks matched by those who wear them.

Then, with more speed and force than typical for his demeanor, the Emissary closes distance to trap his colleague against the wall.

“It was my error,” hisses Elidibus, leaning in, “to have stayed silent upon rescuing you. A mistake I will remedy now, so we can be on no uncertain terms.”

Lahabrea lowers his eyes. Nabriales notes that despite the dread they all share of such reprimands, the man does not brace.

“You know as well as I that these words offer less succor to our Lord than action,” continues Elidibus, his fury quiet and no less sharp for that, “just as we both know your thoughtless action is the cause of repeated missteps these past centuries. Make no mistake—for all the strides you’ve made, your fixation and your impatience have cost the rest of us considerable time.”

Silence.

“Do you truly think this is your best service to Him?” asks Elidibus. “To us? Compromising your ability to fill the hours? Even Emet-Selch agrees these displays are disgraceful. You have ever borne them poorly, but being a 'paragon among paragons' naturally you continue ignoring your own better judgment with ours to continue this exercise in futility. Idiot.”

A twitch of the head. Almost a flinch.

It is one of few moments Nabriales has seen the Emissary express his anger so openly. Even after the Thirteenth fell to Igeyorhm’s error, Elidibus allowed the Angel of Truth to lead and voiced his own reproach with a more typical icy demeanor. Scathing though it was.

“I can be of use,” says Lahabrea softly. “Only three of us remain, and I—“

“You,” Elidibus snaps, “cannot follow the most simple instructions for the good of us all. Not for Him, not for Amaurot, not even for yourself. Your pride has made you not simply an embarrassment but a liability.”

Neither man speaks for several moments after that.

And then, at length, Elidibus exhales.

Says the Speaker’s name.

Receives his attention.

“What would you have me do?” the Emissary asks. His tone now is almost weary. “Clearly it would be unreasonable to trust you’d simply listen. Must I mind you like a child?” This is what breaks Lahabrea’s composure.

Knowing the man’s temper, Nabriales had expected him to lash out. Even on the back foot their orator is perfectly capable of defending himself from insults.

Instead, he embraces Elidibus fiercely—face just within the bounds of his pauldrons. Jaw locked shut firmly enough to hurt. Expression downcast.

Elidibus remains perfectly still at first. In the absence of conversation it is possible to hear the rush of Lahabrea’s breathing. Only through the nose, withheld briefly between each inhale as if that offers some means to steady himself.

As if that would make it better.

Tentatively, Elidibus holds him back. Lahabrea's fingers contract, and though he remains upright when his knees begin to give it is the Emissary who helps him kneel.

“Easy,” he murmurs, and Lahabrea removes one hand to run it reflexively over his face—coming against the mask.

Nabriales finds himself staring, searching. A puzzle with missing pieces whose image he may yet divine

“It was not,” says Lahabrea roughly, “my intention to…”

Elidibus reaches beneath the other man’s cowl, finds the hair and skin beneath. Draws him in once more.

Naught that would be shared with or among the Sundered. Nothing so personal as that.

Nabriales has worn his own share of flesh. Bedded lovers, adopted companions and families of vessels to fulfill a purpose. Passable enough, perhaps, but never for him. Not in truth.

It’s as if he looks upon two strangers.

Parched - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

The door closes behind them. Lahabrea, projecting his preferred likeness over the host, waits on a couch within.

It’s admittedly a surreal sight. Ishgardian finery with its gilded edges, its elaborate wallpapers and marble floors. A collection of creams and blues and greens, fine furniture with velvet seat cushions. All ostentatious in the extreme… and then Lahabrea. Masked and cowled. Pouring three glasses of La Noscean arrack.

Elidibus freezes, and though none of them can see his eyes the confusion is clear enough.

“What is this?”

“Your turn,” says Emet-Selch, lightly but less flippant than he might have been.

Lahabrea proffers a cup from where he sits.

Elidibus neither moves nor speaks.

Emet-Selch approaches. Takes the drink. Presses it carefully into the other man’s hand.

“Don’t think,” he says smoothly,” that I won’t let you drop it.”

Mercifully, Elidibus has a good grip.

“Sit,” says Lahabrea, gesturing with his own glass to the sofa across from him.

Elidibus sits.

Emet-Selch sits.

Takes his own glass, perhaps a bit pointedly.

Elidibus’ mouth is pressed tight. It opens briefly, as if to speak. Shuts again.

“Explain,” the Emissary manages eventually.

Lahabrea meets his co-conspirator’s eye. Downs his arrack in a single attempt.

It is a long attempt.

It lasts several moments.

The other Ascians watch.

“Elidibus,” says Emet-Selch as Lahabrea endeavors to catch his breath in the aftermath, “Lahabrea and I are concerned that you may be experiencing some difficulties in recent years.”

“I’m fine,” replies Elidibus coldly. Holding his drink. “Why did you think this necessary?”

“Because—“ wheezes Lahabrea.

“Because you’re practically a mammet,” says Emet-Selch, picking up Lahabrea’s glass. Moving it just out of reach. “Truly. It’s been what, two hundred years? Three? Neither of us can remember the last time you so much as spoke of matters unrelated to the Rejoining.”

Lahabrea reaches. Elidibus pours his arrack into the other man’s glass before nudging it back toward him.

Elidibus makes eye contact with Emet-Selch.

“I remain focused,” he says evenly. “Nothing more.”

Emet-Selch gestures to the bottle.

Elidibus sighs.

Refills his own glass.

“There are matters I must attend myself. As is the case with each of you.”

“Undoubtedly,” replies Lahabrea more evenly. “But with few exceptions, you haven’t done so.”

A hard stare from behind the mask.

“What would you have me do? I can’t very well take time off.”

Emet-Selch sips.

“A negligible amount of time,” he says, “taken sparingly, may be forgivable.”

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

Lmao see this is a plus side/minus side deal. Minus side, it’s being asked just before I embark on a MASSIVE ASS FANFIC. And I basically am excited for all of it. Plus side, there are things I refuse to spoil.

So... putting it vaguely, in no particular order:

- Lahabrea and Hydaelyn meet a second time after Praetorium.

- Moonfire Faire

- Thancred

- Conversations over mulled wine

- Silvertear Lake

Some of these are sex scenes. Most aren’t. But I am very hyped.

[catie-does-things]

Zutara Week Day 1: Gifts

A belated birthday present, and an explanation. 752 words, G.

AO3 / FF.N

“What’s this for?” Katara asked, blinking in confusion at the object that Zuko had just set before her on the low table of the sitting area in her guest suite at the palace. It was a mid-sized wooden box, painted with delicate blue and white wave patterns. The lid had an image of Tui and La made from inlaid ebony and mother-of-pearl, and the fastenings appeared to be silver. It looked more expensive than anything Katara owned.

“Well, I know I, uh, missed your birthday,” Zuko explained apologetically, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. He was seated on the couch opposite her, the table and the box in between them. “So, happy...belated?” Zuko may have been wearing his formal Fire Lord robes, with his hair pulled back, but the shy grin tugging at his lips was the same one Katara remembered from their days hiding out on Ember Island, when the two of them had finally been able to settle into a real, easy friendship.

Those days were still less than a year ago, but a lot had happened since then.

“You’ve been busy running a country,” Katara reminded him, delicately touching the image of the moon spirit. “You didn’t have to get me anything.” Certainly not something as nice as this box - though Katara supposed Zuko might feel like he had to give fancy gifts, being royalty and all.

“I wanted to,” Zuko insisted. “And I wanted to send it to you at the south pole in time for your actual birthday, but it took longer than I expected to...well, anyway, now I get to give it to you in person.” He cleared his throat, probably realizing he was rambling. “Are you going to open it?”

Katara’s eyes widened. “There’s more than just the box?”

“Of course,” Zuko replied, leaning forward. “Go ahead, look.”

Carefully, Katara unlatched the silver fastenings and tipped the lid back on its hinges. The interior of the box was plain black lacquer, but its contents were a mix of scrolls, jewelry, carved ivory figurines, and other objects - all of them clearly Water Tribe. On top of the little hoard was a particular scroll that Katara recognized.

“Is that…” she said in amazement, picking it up and unrolling it. Sure enough, there were the familiar illustrations - the basic waterbending forms, just as she had first seen them. “How did you get this?”

“Well, I didn’t steal it,” Zuko replied, and the utter cheek of this answer broke the tension. Katara laughed, and a proper smile lit up Zuko’s face like the dawn. “I tracked down the buyer, and made him a better offer,” he went on with unguarded enthusiasm. “But along the way, we found a lot of other Water Tribe stuff that had been sold on the black market, so...that’s what the rest of it is.”

Katara looked at the other treasures - sacred objects and lost art, the history and culture of her people. This was more than just an extravagant birthday gift. She replaced the waterbending scroll in the box, and shut the lid, one hand resting on Tui and La. “Zuko,” she said solemnly, eyes fixed on the box. “This is priceless.”

She looked back up to find Zuko awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck again, and though he quickly checked the nervous gesture, she didn’t miss how his hand paused for just a half a moment over his chest, right where the lightning scar would be, before it fell to his lap. “It’s not enough,” he said softly. His smile was gone, and Katara missed it. “I know there was more that you...that my people took.”

Katara was silent for a moment, staring at the scar on his chest as surely as if she could see it through his robes. She knew very well where it was, what it looked like. She could never forget what had happened. But there was one thing she still didn’t know. “Why did you do it?” she said at last.

“It was the right thing to do,” Zuko said, evasively. “You deserved it.”

Katara frowned, unsure what to make of that answer. “So you had to?”

“No,” Zuko replied quickly, with such force that Katara’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “I wanted to.”

“I’m not just talking about the box,” Katara shot back.

Zuko reached the rest of the way across the table and took hold of her hand over the image of Tui and La. “Neither am I.”

-----

I got halfway through writing this before I remembered that Katara actually still has the waterbending scroll at the end of the episode, but I didn't want to pass up the detail of including it here. Let's just say this scene takes place in the same AU as Day 2, which will make sense when you read it.

[hamlets-ghost-zaddy]

queen of peace

Part 5/10

Shifty Powers x Reader

“Mother, are you absolutely sure you don’t want to come? Margaret said I had to convince—” you call, taking the stairs two at a time, if only to hear the green chiffon of your skirt fluttering at your ankles. Yet, when your Mary-Janes plunk onto the thin carpet at the bottom, girlish delight is forgotten in favor of your eyes bulging, air stoppering in your throat, and stuttering out: “M-Mother, is that—? Is that the—?”

She perches on her armchair in the sitting room—the tapestry upholstery faded; it’s been in the cottage since Mother’s gran lived here as a little girl—her beaming smile shifting from the tea kettle in her hands to you. It’s the tea kettle; the robin-blue heavy ceramic one that’s been shown in the cookware shop’s place of pride since July. “Look, dear, I decided to spring for it,” she says, her voice floating with lightness, as if reveling in an indulgence long overdue. “Isn’t it the loveliest thing? And, you did mention you wanted something practical for your birthday in a few weeks, so I thought this could be for Christmas and your birthday.”

Yet, the justification doesn’t reach your ears; you’re deaf to the chattering praise of the kettle as Mother holds it to the weak electric light of the overhead chandelier, inviting you to admire it from all angles. Your imagination conjures the scene of Mother creeping to the stronghold box secreted in the workshop, illustrating how she took out your carefully stacked pound notes—freshly and hard-earned from the nurses’ orders—halving it and scurrying off to the cookware shop. Is this your fault for not confiding in her how desperately the money’s needed? She surely knows some it, but you’re so careful to hide the letters from the bank, the reminders on the loans and interest, and she had been so thinly pale and grayly sick in the years since London; you couldn’t risk a relapse. Where would you be, who would you have, if something happened to her?

The thought sobers you, allows you to plaster a smile on, and you offer: “It’s really quite lovely, Mother. It’s just the right dash of color our little house needs.” Admittedly, the old cottage with its threadbare carpets and worn upholstery would take much more ‘dashing’ than a blue tea kettle could offer, but your seeming-approval cheers Mother noticeably. “Are you coming to the Christmas Eve party? Margaret asked me that I positively badger you about it.”

Her smile shrinks marginally. “Oh, I don’t know, darling. Why don’t you go ahead, and I may catch you up in an hour or so?” Carefully, you keep a frown from pulling at your lips at Mother’s blatant lie. She hurries on: “Don’t forget your Christmas packages; I put the tin of cakes on top.” She gestures to a modest pile of boxes on the ottoman, an old tin stuffed with almond-butter cakes, dusted with real powdered sugar, crowning it. That white sugar, an absolute necessity in your family’s sacred holiday almond cake recipe, had cost you dearly. Smilingly, you allow her to load your arms up with packages, sacks, and tins, and shoo you out the door and into the early chill of nightfall. She sends you trudging through the flurries of snow and toward the bright bauble of Margaret’s house.

You try not to brood as you walk, your surly thoughts keeping the nip of the air at bay, but your thoughts revolve continuously back to the neat stack of bank letters folded into your jewelry box and how you’d politely word a begging request to extend the payment deadline—again.

…

Margaret shepherds you into the party with wide-flung arms, a bright grin that stretches her immaculately painted cherry-red lips, and any of her stress or harried anxiety from two days prior—during decorating—has entirely evaporated. She coos over your Christmas dress (the same one as last year, and the year before that, though she’s kind enough not to notice) as she carves a path through the seemingly uninterrupted mass of humanity cluttering her home. American sergeants laugh at the vicar’s jokes—he’s putting in a brief appearance before scampering off to other party invitations—Mrs. Pinchent, your dowdy widow-neighbor, giggles and flirts with a taciturn American colonel; Evie Lowell holds captive a slew of local and soldier boys alike; Mr. Jamison, the busybody bartender at one of Aldbourne’s two feuding pubs, hoots uproariously with a cluster of American captains. Couples attempt to dance in a narrow patch of carpet provided, youngsters dart between legs, and the elderly have claimed chairs to keep an amused eye on it all.

Whatever darkness heavying your mood, you leave behind, outside in the cold of the garden.

“We’re not doing any kind of formal gift-exchange,” Margaret informs. “The idea is you put your packages under the tree, and then you’re supposed to check every once and a while if someone has left something for you. It stretches out the fun and anticipation of the gift-giving!”

“Oh,” you mutter, glancing down at your packages, eyes catching on the card attached to the one at the very top: in your neatest cursive, you wrote, ‘To my dear friend, Shifty.’ Disappointment trickles into your chest; you’d never admit it, but you wanted to watch him open it. You’re not sure why it’s important to you all of a sudden.

After Margaret helps deposit your packages under the tree, merrily ripping into hers and exclaiming over the cape you knitted for her—a lovely, pure white lamb’s wool that you matched to her white muff—she whisks the almond-butter cakes away to put on the serving table. You watch her dissolve into the crowd, fidgeting with your velveteen sleeves as your eyes flick over the profiles and backs of the party-attendants nearest you. You don’t particularly want to mingle with Mrs. Pinchent or Mr. Jamison, but they seem to be your only options at the—

“Look!” exclaims George Luz—you instantly recognize that brash American accent of his, constantly pitched as if auditioning to announce for the Royal Ascot—and you find a delicately carved wooden squirrel under your nose. “He did carve me a squirrel!”

“Huh,” is all you can remark, gently plucking the figurine from George’s hands, inspecting its deep, chestnut color, honeyed and rich. The little squirrel even clutches a nut, its head cocked in inquiry at the viewer and fluffed tail held in trepidation. You manage: “It’s lovely, George.”

Accepting the squirrel back, George glances over it, too, trying mightily not to seem too pleased. “It’s alright; Shift’s talented, that’s for sure. The kid’s got, I don’t know, depth or something.”

As innocuously as possible, you ask, “Did Shifty give it to you just now?”

“Nah,” George replies, pocketing the squirrel. “He gave out all his gifts back at the barracks; said he didn’t want to deal with carrying anything here.” The drop of disappointment through your chest from before builds into a free-fall. “I swear, he’s got some imagination, too; he gave Skip an otter but the funny things, I kind of see why Skip’s an otter, you know?”

Before you can think of a response, before you can sort the slowly dawning horror creeping over you that you gave Shifty a gift, and he most assuredly didn’t give you one, Skip appears at your elbow. He shouts to be heard over the party’s rabble: “You’re here! Good, I’ve had to use every stalling tactic I can think of to get the guys to hold off on charades! Come on, you’re on our team; our secret weapon.”

Your eyebrows jump. He remembered; he was being genuine about the team, you think, befuddled.

Skip’s hand wraps around your elbow and he’s towing you—George Luz trails, snorting over the paper crown balanced precariously on Skip’s head, most likely from the Christmas poppers Margaret adores so. You’re helpless to being dragged away from the tree, and any hope you have of swiping up your gift to Shifty before he can see it; before he can open it and face the unmistakable truth that you’re horribly enamored with him. Before your friendship turns brittle and crumbles because of your own self-sabotaging.

First the kiss, now this. It’s like you don’t want to be happy.

(This, in tandem with the damnable kettle, you decide, might be warrant enough to label this the Worst Christmas Yet.)

…

You had your doubts, given that Skip seems someone inclined to comedic dramatics, but he hadn’t been hyperbolic when he proclaimed he, Penkala, and Malarkey were truly pitiable at charades. “What on Earth are you doing?” Malarkey bursts, exasperated, as Penkala skips around the cleared charades floor, flapping his arms and occasionally squawking. All the charades were—allegedly—Christmas themed, though you pulled a Clark Gable card your last round, and you’re fairly sure Clark Gable has nothing to do with the reason for the season.

“Chicken?” Skip guesses, Penkala shaking his head and squawking again, as if this time, it’d trigger the correct answer.

“A deranged goose?” you offer, Malarkey and Skip snorting, but Penkala waves his hands emphatically, pointing at you. “Oh, a goose?” you guess, when Penkala twiddles his fingers, meaning its part of the phrase. “Um, Christmas goose? Roasted goose? Goose and—”

“Time!” Margaret trumpets, popping to her feet and nearly upsetting the holly and garland crown she wears. Allen Vest had made a whole show of crowning her after the first round of charades ended in her team winning, declaring ‘peace unto the queen of Christmas.’ “How many points did they get, George?”

George had made scorekeeper when it became obvious he couldn’t keep his great trap shut, guessing for teams other than his own and giving out freebie points. “Uh, seven! Wow, Penkala, way to go! You didn’t embarrass yourself!”

Penkala takes a bow as all teams—four teams of four, all composed of Easy Company men, the company all your American friends (because you do suppose they’re your friends) belong to—clap and cheer, Malarkey and Skip whooping. As Penkala flops onto the couch next to you, Skip leans over to whisper in your ear: “Looks like you’re not the star player anymore.” He winks, curling grin mirroring yours, and you shake your head back. Without you, the team would have negative points, if any: you earned eleven points when it was your turn, and had guessed nearly all of the words when the boys were acting.

“Good,” you shoot back. “I was getting tired of carrying this team.”

Skip’s eyebrows quirk and he tilts his chin back to roar his laughter to the ceiling.

Basking in the glow of your joke, you swing your eyes away and around the room, your smile growing stale and then shriveling. In the crowd amassed as spectators to the game, you pick him out easily—looking older, more tired somehow, in his dress browns, despite the cheerful blue and white scarf wrapped, once, twice, four times around his neck, the scarf you knitted him—the sensible gray cap, your other gift, peeking from his trouser pocket. Yet, after the initial yank in your stomach, a yank that makes you feel you’ve been thrown into open space, you forget the gifts for his expression. An expression you don’t comprehend, can’t ascribe any logical reason to, because he’s envious? There’s melancholy written in his frown, confusion in the pinch of his brows as if baffled by his own reaction, but yet, despite himself, he looks envious.

His eyes find yours, across the lounge of jostling elbows and knocking knees, and your chest aches, your lips part, words building in your throat until you’re rendered completely mute. What is it about Shifty, about how he’s looking at you now, that fills you until you’re sure you’ll burst? that drains you until you’ll pop out of existence? that makes you burn and chilled, made significant and trivial—feeling every new contradiction on each inhale and exhale?

“C’mon, girlie, get on up there,” Skip says, close to your ear, nudging your shoulder, urging you from the coach—Shifty had made you forget where you were, what you were doing, and you blink at Skip to chase away the haze in your head—and to the cleared performance patch of the lounge’s carpet. “We’re five points away from winning! You’ve got to go bag this one for us!”

Malarkey, having taken Margaret’s invitation to ‘help yourself!’ to an extreme when it came to the ale keg, leans around Penkaka to plant a good-luck kiss on your cheek. “We’re counting on you, sweetheart; you can do it!”

When you collect yourself, when you dare to steal another glance into the crowd, Shifty has moved, is moving through the archway and out of the lounge, You crane to keep him in your sights. But, there are too many bodies, too many voices clogging the air and rooting you on. He melts into the party as Margaret calls: “Two minutes starts now—go!”

…

Bing Crosby’s new Christmas record, and the drunken rhapsodizing accompanying it, floats out of the kitchen when you slip into the back garden. Easing the door shut behind you and clutching your wool coat tightly to your body, your eyes sweep across the snow, winking and reflecting the lights on in the house. Your breath clouds and you plop down on the stoop next to Shifty—it took you nearly twenty minutes to locate him after the charades game devolved into George and Malarkey leading everyone in carols, another five minutes to track down your coat.

He blinks at you, the redness in his nose and cheeks—luminescent in the light reflected off the snow, a wash of the lamp’s yellow and the winking green and red of the fairy lights—softening him, easing that earlier maturity and tiredness you noticed in the lounge. “Oh, hey,” he offers, adjusting his scarf self-consciously and angling to square his shoulders toward you. “I like your, huh, crown.”

“Oh, thank you,” gusts from your lips as you touch your fingertips the holly and garland crown you wear, bestowed upon you by Margaret after your team won the final round of charades. “I was proclaimed the queen of peace, or something like that.”

Shifty nods, eyes skating over your cheekbones, along your nose, to your lips, and back to the crown. The intensity, the thoughts darkening his expression, remind you of looking into a fishing hole, falsely shallow, secreting hidden pockets inside its murky depth; it makes you fidget with contradictions again, makes your chest expand until it aches and your shoulders hunch, as if collapsing on yourself. You reach to pull the crown off, but he leans forward, hands on yours, stopping you. “No, please; keep it on. It…it suits you.”

Biting your lip and lowering your eyes as your fingers drop to twist in your lap—it suddenly seems far too much to look at him—you manage: “Oh, well, okay.” Pause, and you fuss at the bare fur still on your threadbare coat’s cuffs, trying to marshal your senses and recall why you wanted to come out here, what you had formulated saying. “Um, I was going to, um, make sure you’re all right. I noticed you slipped out and I wanted to make sure …”

You allow your words to trail off.

Shifty hums after a moment, leaning closer to you. You’re not sure if its conscious or not. “That’s kind of you to be worried; you’re a good friend,” he offers, his accent coaxing the words from him. “I…” he pauses and you can feel him choosing his next words: “It’s great seeing everyone so happy and enjoying themselves, but I keep thinking about my family playing charades and other games at home right now. It’s made me sad, I suppose. But…but, it’s more than that…I can’t help but think …”

You’re not sure when you thread his fingers with yours, but you offer a gentle squeeze when he stutters to a stop. You tilt your face so you can monitor his expression through your eyelashes and still hide just how desperately you want him to know you’re there for him; how much you desperately wish you could articulate how you care.

He tries again: “I can’t help thinking about what’s to come. The…the war. Who will get hurt, or, or not come back … who’s celebrating their last Christmas right now.” At your backs, a wave of laughter floats from inside, muffled by the brick walls and door, but you feel its weight slamming into your ears, pressing on your shoulders. You know Shifty does, too: you track how he winces. “I know I ought to enjoy the happiness while I can, but what if…what if it’s my—?”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Darrell Powers,” falls from your mouth before you’re aware you spoke, gripping his hands urgently and entirely forgetting your carefully designed cover. You hold his eyes, hoping he sees the ferocity of your firm resolve, hoping he understands how greatly you feel and believe every syllable you say. “Don’t you dare talk or think like that. You’re going to come back, you have to—” because I’d be lost without your eyes in my life; your eyes looking at me like that, you think, but bite back. You can’t say it; you won’t. You can’t watch his face pale and widen in horror. Not again.

Yet his worry remains unchanged and you frown, placing a gentle hand on his cheek, trying again: “Shifty, I know you’re staring down the unknown and you’re scared, but it’s okay to be scared. I’d be worried if you weren’t scared honestly.” That earns you a faintly-cracked grin. “But this is one Christmas of many, many more to come, and whenever you want me to tell you that, let me know. I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face, okay?”

His grin turns wobbly, his eyes glassy as you speak, and his nod is uncertain.

Huffing, you tease, “I’m going to need something more than a nod, Shift.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he manages thickly. He sniffles, takes a choppy breath, and tries to smile. And, God, you want to kiss him; you want to fold yourself into him and be safe from the war, fate, and all that’s to come; you want to cry and laugh and feel multitudes with him. You want, you want, you want—but when has it ever mattered what I wanted?

Instead, you content yourself to wrapping your arm tightly around him, letting him tuck you under his chin, letting his scent of bonfires, boot polish, and summer rain wash over you, letting his arms brace firmly across your back. This is the most you can have from him, you know; this is the most you’d ever ask from him, because what does it matter what you want if you can at least be there for him. Hold him and whisper a thousand assurances, allowing yourself to pretend for a fleeting instant that he really is yours.

tag list: @gottapenny, @wexhappyxfew, @maiden-of-gondor, @mayhem24-7forever, @medievalfangirl

[caveartfair]

The Art of China’s Empresses Reveals Their Powerful, Secret Lives

Probably Giuseppe Castiglione and other court painters, Empress Dowager Chongqing at the Age of Seventy, ca. 1761. © The Palace Museum.

Probably Giuseppe Castiglione and other court painters, Empress Xiaozhuang, ca. 1750. © The Palace Museum.

At the onset of Empresses in the Palace, the 2011 miniseries that caused a sensation in China, a beautiful young woman, Zhen Huan, is paraded before the emperor. She is one of many marriage-age girls who have been summoned to Beijing’s Forbidden City to be considered for the Yongzheng Emperor’s harem. Although it is an honor to be chosen as an imperial consort, Zhen is dismayed—she must leave her family behind and enter into a new life of luxury, restriction, and scheming ambition.

In the historical epic, set against the backdrop of the flourishing Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) in the 18th century, Zhen navigates the treacherous, strictly regulated court, where eight ranks of consorts compete with the top empress and vye for the emperor’s attention. (While there was only one empress at a time, the larger lower ranks could move up the social ladder, especially by bearing sons.) At the top of this food chain stood the empress dowager—a consort who had either installed her son on the throne, or was the widowed primary wife of a previous emperor.

The real women who lived in the palace are shrouded in mystery, but Daisy Yiyou Wang and Jan Stuart—the curators of a new exhibition that delves into the empresses’ lives—emphasize that the TV show is a dramatization. At least, there’s not enough evidence to prove that the salacious backstabbing and love affairs that dominate the plot actually took place.

“Empresses of China’s Forbidden City, 1644–1912,” a collaboration between the Palace Museum in Beijing; the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts; and the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, D.C. (where it is now on view), capitalizes on the popularity of such costume dramas. The exhibition centers on five empresses’ little-acknowledged influence on art, religion, and politics through the furniture and objects they used, the paintings they enjoyed, and the jewelry and clothes they wore.

Court hat with phoenixes. Probably Imperial Workshop, Beijing, 18th or 19th century. © The Palace Museum.

Festive robe with bats, lotuses, and the characters for longevity, Jiaqing period, 1796–1820. Probably Imperial Silk Manufactory, Suzhou (embroidery), and Imperial Workshop (tailoring). © the Palace Museum.

Pair of bracelets with bats, peaches, and flowers, probably 19th or early 20th century. © The Palace Museum.

Seal of empress with double-headed dragon with box, tray, lock, key, and plaques, 1922. © The Palace Museum.

Hairpin with figure and vase, 18th or 19th century. © The Palace Museum.

The relative obscurity of these women runs counter to our understanding of royalty today. “If you watch the royal wedding in England, it’s a public affair, a spectacle,” Wang said. “Back then, imperial women were probably completely invisible to the general public.” In European monarchies, copies of rulers’ portraits were circulated around the world for others to venerate; in China, access to imperial powers was a privilege, their images considered sacred.

The curators also knew they were up against pernicious gender bias in their field. Scholars of Chinese art history generally believed that women at court had access to inferior art, fashion, and decorations compared to those used by the emperor. “People questioned us from the beginning because we didn’t think objects used by women and made for women were secondary art objects,” Wang said. She was convinced that some of the most spectacular pieces in the Palace Museum collection were enjoyed by powerful women. She was right.

Court painters, Drinking Tea from Yinzhen’s Twelve Ladies, 1709–23. © The Palace Museum.

Probably Giuseppe Castiglione and other court painters, Consort of the Qianlong emperor and the future Jiaqing emperor in his boyhood, probably 1760s. © The Palace Museum.

The curators found that the quality of art and objects owned by these high-ranking ladies matched those of the emperor, though they didn’t always feature the same motifs. “There’s a longstanding thought in Chinese culture that if you have good omens, images of what is desired surrounding a person, that can help actualize the goal,” Stuart said. Thus, women in the court found themselves surrounded by images of mothers and sons, or symbols suggesting fertility—a woman holding a seeded gourd, or two interlocking jade circles, a reference to continuity.

Their quarters were decorated with exquisite pieces of furniture. One delicate lacquer cabinet in the exhibition—whose staggered shelves offer discreet places to put personal treasures—is painted with a delicate landscape scene and auspicious motifs like the bat. Each piece in an empress’s living space was similarly spectacular and refined.

Festive robe with bats, clouds, and the characters for longevity, Qianlong period, 1785 or earlier. Probably Imperial Silk Manufactory, Nanjing (weaving), and Imperial Workshop (tailoring). © the Palace Museum.

Still, the lives and activities of these women have been obscured for centuries. The Qing court, like many other monarchies around the world, had a patrilineal structure. There was a tradition to record the emperor’s life in great detail, but no such tradition for his wives. “To say they’re not documented at all,” however, “would be a false statement,” Wang said.

Often, the influence of the empresses is only obliquely referenced in archival documents written by the emperor, and so they are characterized from their husband’s or son’s point of view. “Although it’s not strictly articulated, you can get a very strong hint that many of these women were educated, they could talk about state affairs, and be the soulmate of their husband,” Wang said. The empress was also expected, like women all over China, to be a good household manager.

Qing Kuan and other court painters, The Grand Imperial Wedding of the Guangxu Emperor (detail), ca. 1889. © The Palace Museum.

To navigate the intense competition at court, savvy networking with both men and women became paramount for success—and survival. The women who rose to power in the imperial court were those who understood the rigid social codes and worked to exploit their possibilities. Their influence on state affairs “was more about subtle subversion than overt,” Wang said, and often went undocumented.

Shrewd dowager empresses took advantage of traditions of filial piety, which demanded that the emperor bow to no one—except for his mother. “That quirky fact is a nice way to be reminded that in the Manchu culture, women actually had dignity, authority, and status,” Stuart said. Empress dowager Chongqing was visited by her son, the Qianlong Emperor, almost every day, Stuart observed, and though her advice—on battle strategy, or how to pray—was not always recorded, we know from historical records that he did, in fact, follow her suggestions.

Ritual space in the Main Hall of the Palace of Longevity and Health. Courtesy of the Palace Museum, Beijing. © The Palace Museum.

Empresses could additionally wield influence as religious patrons. Empress Xiaozhuang, who was Mongolian, was the first person to bring a dedicated worship of Tibetan-style Buddhism to the Qing court, which became the main religion practiced there. As part of her patronage, she commissioned a tremendous amount of high-quality art for the temple near her residence. A portrait of Xiaozhuang from around 1750 appropriately shows the empress in a monkish brown gown, clutching prayer beads.

The Qing dynasty’s last empress, Cixi, achieved an unprecedented level of overt influence, “controll[ing] the power of the court for more than 40 years,” Wang said. Cixi played up her position as the senior matriarch to manipulate the men in her life, especially her husband, son, nephew, and grandnephew, all of whom became emperor at one point. When her son ascended the throne as a little boy, Cixi ruled as co-regent with another woman and the emperor’s brother. “She must have had incredible people skills,” Wang said.

Empress Dowager Cixi with foreign envoys’ wives in the Hall of Happiness and Longevity (Leshou tang) in the Garden of Nurturing Harmony (Yihe yuan), ca. 1903–05. Photo by Yu Xunling. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Cixi’s subversion of gender roles isn’t found in texts, but in art. In the Chinese tradition, the most important person is depicted as the largest figure in a painting. In one work showing Cixi playing chess with her son, she is tellingly shown as bigger than the emperor.

Cixi deeply understood the power of images. At the dawn of the 20th century, invasive foreign powers seeking an “open-door” policy in China threatened the Qing empire. Cixi cannily began to cultivate relationships with foreign diplomats, especially their wives. She sent weekly gifts to Sarah Pike Conger, the wife of an American ambassador. Conger convinced Cixi to let an American painter, Katharine A. Carl, create her portrait. “For Westerners to see the real her rather than a dragon lady—that’s the kind of press she got at the time—was quite a coup,” Wang explained. She caused a revolution in Chinese court portraiture when she had an official portrait of herself exhibited at the World’s Fair.

For the first time, the public was invited to not only know of the empress’s great power, but to gaze upon her powerful visage. It was a transgressive moment of significant cultural sway, a “coming out” for the hidden female leaders of China’s Forbidden Palace. The curators likewise hope that the exhibition will inspire other scholars of history, Wang said, to pay attention to women’s lives. “There’s a lot to be uncovered.”

from Artsy News

[galadrieljones]

zero: chapter 6

Fandom: Horizon: Zero Dawn | Pairing: Aloy x Nil | Rating: M (Mature)

Content: Existential Angst, Touch-Starved, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alcohol Abuse, First Loves in the Wild, Slow Burn, Violence, Love Triangles, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Post-Traumatic Stress

Chapter 1: Zero | Chapter 2: Driftless | Chapter 3: Borderlands | Chapter 4: Keep | Chapter 5: History | AO3

Forgiveness

“He won’t be there,” said the barmaid. She was putting together a nice cup of coffee for Aloy. The tavern had big, wooden walls and low, brass lights, and it was rather crowded for a typical morning in the Maizelands. Somebody was talking like a parade had come to town. New merchants from the Borderlands with new wares, and this got the villagers excited.

“What do you mean?” said Aloy. She had her hands folded on the counter in front of her.

“If you’re going to see brother Nil? He won’t be there. He caught word on some bandits from Oseram travelers. He told me to tell you if you came, and he left a note where his camp used to be. He said it would be a note that only you can read. Whatever that means.”

Aloy got red in her cheeks. She felt the go-between nature of this barmaid and the rest of her life, and it was making her itch. She sighed and rested her chin in her hands. “More bandits,” she said. “Great.”

“Are you surprised?” said the barmaid. She handed Aloy a little cup and saucer. The coffee smelled good. They didn’t have coffee in the Sacred Lands and Aloy was growing used to it here.

“Not really,” said Aloy. “He’s not really the sitting-still type.”

“And neither are you, I take it,” said the barmaid with her green eyes. She introduced herself as Brissa. “I knew Nil as a kid in Meridian Village. I don't know that he remembers me exactly whenever he comes in here. I was a touch younger, but I remember him.”

“Did you know Avad?”

She blushed. She was tall and rangy and beautiful, but she wore a wedding ring and had some ceremonial tattoos on her neck that communicated the rites of a Carja marriage. “No,” she said. “Only Nil knew Prince Avad.”

“Does everybody know Nil? It seems like they do.”

“Not everybody,” said Brissa, smiling. “But many do. None speak of him anymore, of course. They all think he was a betrayer, but I remember what happened in Sunfall, and a lot of us know the truth behind his allegiances.”

“What truth?” said Aloy.

“That his mother was murdered by Oseram mercenaries,” she said, almost casual. She began polishing a glass with an old brown rag. “Mercenaries who later joined Avad’s cause in Meridian. Nil was a teenager. It was a big deal.”

Aloy felt suddenly very far away and cold. “His mother was killed by Oseram?” she said.

“Yes,” said Brissa. She set down the glass and rubbed her eyes. Then she looked right at Aloy, very serious. “He doesn’t talk about it, does he?”

“No,” said Aloy. “He doesn’t.”

Brissa sighed. She seemed unsurprised by this, the fact that Nil had kept it all a secret. “I guess you two just live in the moment then,” she said. She looked up. “Am I right?”

“What does that mean?”

“You both hurt, but you don’t talk about it. Why not?”

“I’m fine,” said Aloy, so quick and so certain, she almost convinced herself.

But Brissa was not so easy. She sort of squinted, leaning over the bar as if she were reading the glyphs of truth on Aloy’s soul. She nodded, once. “Right,” she said, smiling. Then she changed the subject. “When he moved away from Meridian Village, you know, we were all so sad.” She sighed. “He was so cute, and he writes good stories. He used to read them at the campfire and change his voice for all the characters.”

Aloy allowed herself to laugh at this. “Nil?” she said.

“He used to be much happier,” said Brissa. It was a blunt fact as she tended to her nails with a slender file from her pocket. The Carja spoke with a forward measure. They rarely hid their truths and were uncontained with bravado like the Oseram or the Nora. They wore their bravado on their faces in tattoos and ceremonial make-up. They wore it on their head-dresses and elaborate fashions of metal and ceramic plates. “He was light on his feet back then.”

Aloy nodded, feeling a little guilty for some reason.

“Were you ever light on your feet?” said Brissa.

Aloy gave her a look. She pushed the hair off her face and felt suddenly persecuted. “What’s with the interrogation?”

“Nothing,” said Brissa, innocently. Like it was all a joke. “I just get that you’re a warrior-type, and him, too. So serious. My brother’s a little like that. Not my husband. He’s a fisherman and he just wears his emotions like jewelry. That is why I love him. But still, working at a bar, I’ve had some practice.”

“I’m not that serious,” said Aloy. “I can be…less serious. And I don’t even know if I’m a warrior. I mean, I’m good at stabbing stuff, if that’s what you mean.”

Brissa laughed at this. “You’ll come around one of these nights, Aloy, and I’ll get you toasted off your ass,” she said. “We can talk about your whole life, and your big handsome lover Nil and his childhood brevity.”

Aloy felt very tense in her face and her neck as she drank her coffee. The room was warm and itchy. She tried to pay with a couple coins before she left but Brissa would hear nothing of it.

Afterward, Aloy encountered a distressed man in Brightmarket who had grown worried upon the disappearance of his daughter. It came suddenly, like a big wind in a canyon and took Aloy off guard so that she could not escape him. She’d been busy, walking along the river, gathering up ridgewood for her arrows, trying not to feel both sad and elated at once. She didn’t even see him coming and then suddenly she was involved in his life, and he had a very sad face that made her think of Rost, and then it was too much, and it was in this moment that Aloy felt her heart shut itself away behind a curtain and she began to realize exactly what Brissa had meant about her being a warrior, and she felt annoyed.

The man’s name was Lahavis. He was a diplomat, high born, and he had dealings in the Carja Civil War, and Aloy wondered about his allegiances. His daughter, Elida, had disappeared, and Lahavis was worried that she had taken her own life.

“Why would she do something like that?” said Aloy. They stood by the river, which smelled of medicine. It was late morning, and she had a whole bundle of ridgewood beneath her arm, on her way out to Nil's camp.

But the man looked disheveled. He became uncertain and panicked. “I don’t know. Why would she? She is about your age. Why would a young woman about your age find herself in despair?”

Aloy sighed and didn’t have the answer. “People get sad,” she said. It seemed to be the only true response. She gave in, because the man seemed desperate, and he offered to pay her. “I’ll find Elida.”

“Thank you,” said Lahavis, and then he started to cry and leaned into the railing of the bridge over the river where they talked beneath the rising sun. “You have no idea how grateful I am.”

Elida was pretty and mild, and it turned out she had stolen a boat off the Brightmarket docks and rowed it across the canal to an abandoned little island covered in moss. It was hell getting over there. Aloy tracked her to a beach that faced out against the lake, and she was surprised by a Snapmaw, which she killed quickly, but those things were long and evil, and she sustained a kind of bad frostbite to her left arm. She sat swearing and sweaty down the beach from the big, sparking beast and all of its severed electronic impulses. It was dead. “Stupid fucker,” she said as she examined her injury and spat into the sand. She saw a girl then, climbing down from the mesa overhead. This startled Aloy at first, as she was on her guard, but then she noticed the delicate weaving of the girl’s lavender dress, her shiny hair. This was a noble girl, hesitant, and Aloy knew right away that it was Elida, and she sighed with relief, as she assumed this meant her job was complete.

But Elida was atypical in her behavior. She did not speak at first and seemed unwell and frightened. She rushed to her little camp under one of the escarpments in the cliffside, and she rifled through a little hope chest without a word until she found a small covered jar full of a thick salve that Aloy recognized, and then she approached Aloy with the utmost caution.

She held out the jar. “Thank you,” she said, shy. “Here. For your wound.”

Aloy took it without question, staring at her and trying to figure out what to make of this scenario. “Elida?” she said.

“Yes,” said Elida. She then became curious. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Like what?”

“You killed that Snapmaw with just a tripwire and your bow. It was incredibly fast. I thought you were going to die.”

“Oh,” said Aloy. She sighed. She unscrewed the jar and smelled the contents inside. It was hintergold and something stronger. “I’ve had a lot of practice. I don’t recommend it.”

“How do you know my name?” said Elida then, sitting down beside Aloy. “Did my father send you?”

Aloy rolled up her sleeve. The patch of frostbite was small and incomplete but it hurt like fuck. “Yes, he did.”

“Did he pay you?”

She wouldn’t lie. “Yes. But I’m not going to make you do what you don’t want to do, Elida. I just came to make sure you’re all right. I’m not here to force you home if that’s not what you want.”

Elida nodded. She seemed to trust Aloy. She glanced back to her camp. It was set up with a square garden of pretty herbs and a tent and a dead fire, some dead rabbits strung up and many more salves and potions for medicinal healing. The day was bright and new, the sun hot overhead. Aloy noticed that the camp had two bedrolls, and she looked around, but there didn't seem to be anyone else there on the island.

Meanwhile, Elida took off her elegant head-dress, and she drew up her knees and hung her head between them, and she sighed. She had red And puffy eyes. It looked like she’d been crying on and off for a very long time. “I’m alone,” she said.

“Are you?” said Aloy.

“At the moment, yes. I’ve been waiting for someone, but I don’t know where he is. I am okay, though. I promise.”

“Who are you waiting for?”

Elida became troubled. She looked away and her cheeks were very pink. She began drawing shapes in the red sand at her feet. An elephant, a butterfly. “Your name is Aloy, right?”

Aloy looked down at her hands as Elida changed the subject, the linen wraps around her knuckles and wrists, and she played along. “Yes. I’m Aloy.”

“I’ve heard all your stories,” said Elida. “How you saved King Avad from the Oseram invaders. How you can tame machines with your spear.” She looked up, curious and bright. “And yet now, you’re here for me? My father must be paying you a lot.”

“It’s not about money,” said Aloy, rubbing her hands together and pressing them into the sand. “Or, maybe it is a little. But in the end, I think you’re kind of my age, and I just—took an interest. Your father was worried you’d killed yourself, Elida. That’s serious.”

“He was?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you’ll get it then,” said Elida. She drew some more shapes: a tree, a sun, a hand. “Maybe I can tell you. Maybe you’ll understand.” It was almost like she was talking to herself. “You’re you.”

“Maybe I’ll understand what?”

“What I’m doing here,” she said. She sniffled. She started to cry. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t cry,” said Aloy. “Don’t apologize.” She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, but she felt brute in her attempts at comfort as she always did. She did not feel like a comforting person, and this made her insecure. She did not know how to be soft, and she didn’t know what this meant for her. She was not a wise, soul-reading barkeep or a noble maiden wasting away on an island of moss. She had never learned those things. She was an outcast. “Please.” She lowered her voice anyway. She tried, because that’s what Aloy did. “It’s okay, whatever it is. It can be fixed.”

“Can it?” said Elida, a question.

“Well, maybe not,” said Aloy, giving in, feeling tired all of a sudden. “But I can’t know unless you tell me what’s wrong. Is this about another person? The person who shares your tent?”

“Do you know about that?” said Elida. “Have you ever been close to someone like that?”

Aloy thought hard about it. Despite the untold histories, the secrets, she knew now that she had. “Yes, a little.”

So Elida took a deep breath and told Aloy about Atral. She told Aloy that Atral had helped her plant the little garden by the camp, that they had used to be friends but now they were more than friends. She told Aloy that he had joined the Shadow Carja, and that this was their doom. She said that the war had changed him, that it had changed them both irrevocably, and that in answering that change, they fell in a kind of hard love, the only thing that could save their young souls. It was the only thing, like bells ringing in a far away land, and it drew them to its beauty but it was impossible, and it was ghosts. All ghosts. She needed help finding him and making sure he was okay, and she felt belittled by her weaknesses, and her father was too curious and too concerned to be of any help at all, and so she had to leave him or else go crazy. “He won’t get it,” she said. “All he’ll see is treason.”

She spoke of Atral’s sad eyes as the sun went up and up over the mesa. She spoke of how the war seemed to make him both taller but also brittle and sad. Aloy became so wrapped up in the story, she cast her eyes to the sky and then she closed them. She forced her mind into darkness for it was all she knew. Elida was a proper girl with good posture and enunciation, that is what she tried to think about. Elida did not deserve this, because she was an innocent. But then, Elida said something at the end of her melancholy prayer of love, and it was gritty and strange, and it jerked Aloy hard into the moment in which her idiotic deflection tactics fell away like an old curtain, and she saw only Nil inside her mind’s eye, and everything that became of him when the sun went down.

“It’s like…I’m dead,” said Elida, still drawing those shapes in the red sand. But they’d started to mix together, and Aloy couldn’t tell them apart anymore. “It’s like I’m dead, and I only come alive when I’m here with him.” She looked at Aloy, the utmost earnestness in her strange, royal eyes. “Do you know what that’s like, Aloy?”

Aloy became confused, because she did not. No matter what had happened to her, she had never once felt dead. She wondered if Nil felt dead sometimes, because that is who she thought of when the big questions came to mind. “No,” she said. “But I can understand what you’re feeling, Elida.”

Elida nodded, her eyes like little sad lights in empty windows. “You’re lucky then,” she said, wiping away all of the pictures she’d drawn in the sand, smoothing them free with her palm. “I feel so empty.”

“I’ll find Atral,” said Aloy, like a reflex. “Don’t worry.”

  And she did. She did find Atral, but it wasn't what any of them wanted. Even still. I’m not dead, she said to herself that day and all night, like a chant, a reminder of self-forgiveness for all the things she wanted and wished for and how it measured up with what had come to pass. Losing Sickle, kissing Nil by the river. I am me, she said as she lit an entire patrol of kestrels on fire, and as she watched, covered in blood, as Atral died on the dirty fucking floor of a cliffside watch on what had otherwise been a very clear and beautiful moonlit night. He was sturdy and good and he had kind eyes, and she didn’t understand what could make a young man like this get caught up inside a war like that. But how could she? Knowing what she knew now, or what she didn’t, rather. He gave Aloy a little metal key, all bloody, pressed it into her palm as if to symbolize the entirety of young love and life right there in a single gesture. Then, he asked if Elida was safe, and he asked for forgiveness. He promised that he had never betrayed her or their secret meeting spot. He said, “Give her this key, and please. Tell her…tell her it’s all worth it.”

Aloy left Brightmarket that very night, feeling mixed and torn, with Elida tucked into her grief and her loving father’s arms behind her. Elida had cried, but she was oddly filled with a new and tearful optimism that renewed Aloy. The woods were warm that night, and welcoming to her weary soul after she found Nil's note, accompanied by a cryptic map, and she sprinted cleanly through the forest, staying in the shadows, as quiet as can be, and when the moon was high and she knew that it was getting into the witching hour, and she had traveled many miles and made it very far,  she found a freshwater pool somewhere isolated off the river with the moonlight sprinkling through the trees and the fireflies off in the distance, and this is where she decided to build her simple camp for the night, and she took off all her clothes and folded them neatly beside the bedroll, and then she went into the water and washed Atral’s blood out of her hand creases and out of her hair. It felt good in the water, and she wasn’t afraid. She slept in her tent with the flap open and no fire, sound traps and tripwires planted everywhere, on all sides, but it was quiet that night in these parts of the Sundom, and nothing and nobody disturbed, almost as if someone had cleared a path for her.

Sometimes, when Aloy thought about Nil, she thought only about his demeanor upon killing a man. He stood tall and fierce as he ripped the spear from the meat of their spine, as if certain he could never die, and he let the body fall heavy to his feet in anger. But at the end of the day, there was nobody better at building and maintaining a camp than Nil. His delicate ways in how he applied the medicine, braided her hair. She wondered what it would have been like to hear his stories in childhood, all his different voices to pass the time. She thought about those days after Sickle, and how many nights she’d spent in the Borderlands, punishing herself—but for what? Punishment for something she couldn’t place. But she knew now. Survival is not a crime. This is what Aloy decided that night, young and feeling young. It is all worth it. She drifted, safe and sound in the far-flung weeds of existence with the big bugs buzzing in the treetops overhead. Her hair was down and unbraided as she slept, drying to frizz against the pillow that smelled of aloe and pine.

[lonelypond]

Casual Lunacy, Ch 28

Love Live, NicoMaki, 2k, 28/?

SCREAM

Electricity practically buzzed in the stank, stifled air, starting when you entered from the alley leading to the Tech Sub-Basement’s door. Anju would occasionally hold the ends of her hair up, watching as they danced in the static from a bank of server racks, pressurized testing chambers and miscellaneous equipment. A different wind than she’d grown up with. No one to keep her company yet this afternoon so Anju sat behind the desk, examining her nails. She was very pleased with the way her new manicurist swirled red and blue polish together to create practically hypnotic purple spirals. She then turned her attention to the window up on the main screen. Tsubasa had been here last and lazy. With a disdainful tap, Anju closed the "Taser" search. A small shake of her head was the most she let herself react, even with no one else there, but werewolves? A waste of time. What use were they? Not even residual magic could be gathered from them. So what good was that?

Anju zoomed out another window, the one the camera Erena had deployed unnoticed on the light board fed into. Fangs was in rehearsal and Kashima and Nico were onstage, Nico’s head gripped against Dracula’s half bared, bloody breast, Kashima’s fanged scowl a gloating triumph. Anju delicately opened the thin silver cover of what everyone assumed was a watch at her wrist. Inside a small, polished shard of blue-red gemstone pulsed. Anju opened another window on the computer, the one tracking the feedback from the backstage meter. As the numbers jumped higher the gem gleamed brighter. That was what Anju was here for. Tsubasa could distract herself ineptly hunting useless werewolves all she wanted. But Anju was here to see if an audience would let Kashima and Nico unleash the levels of power she needed.

The theatre was silent, shocked. Kashima, having fled the vampire hunters, had paused on the other side of the window, staring back at Nico. The actors playing Seward, Van Helsing, Holmwood and Morris surrounded the bed, stock still. Nico’s mouth had dropped open, nothing coming out. Micah stirred in the bed next to her, considering if he should “wake up” and startle Nico. Nico never froze. Her ability to improvise a line was legend. Micah wondered briefly what was going on to interfere with Nico’s formerly rock solid work habits. Then Nico snapped back in, with a scream that shook the walls.

“Feel guilty yet?” Eli whispered. She was leaning against the foot of Nozomi’s stool, waiting until The Three Sisters scene came back around. This rehearsal was to lock in the Dracula effects they were using so tech would go easier. Nozomi had her deck out and her boots off and was considering the latest message from the cards while her foot stroked Eli’s back.  

Nozomi muttered, unhappily, before meeting concerned blue eyes, “The cards agree with you.”

“Really?” Eli bounced up to stand behind Nozomi, arms pulling the other woman into her chest.

Nozomi snapped fingers at them as she frowned. All reversed. Eli got that right off. Four Of Swords. The Sun. Queen of Swords.

“They don’t look bad?” Eli ventured, still unsure about meanings. “What do they tell you?”

Nozomi clucked at herself, fingers tracing the Queen of Swords��� profile. “Don’t be a bitch.”

Eli didn’t reply, she just held Nozomi closer.

The scene couldn’t be over soon enough for Nico. Her blanking on lines kept getting worse and worse, which pulled everyone even more out of character. Ben Thani, playing Arthur Holmwood, came down with a fit of nervous giggles, bringing everything to a complete stop until he recovered. Kashima stayed in the wings, watching, eyes full of sympathy. Nico had never had a rehearsal like that. Echoes of Nozomi’s voice kept taunting her, memories of Maki kept tempting her and Mina Murray wasn’t locked in enough to give Nico an escape. So she froze and stuttered and failed. And wanted to SCREAM. Again. Out of character. But before Nico could get offstage to vent some of her frustration, Professor Asuka’s voice stopped her.

“Ms. Yazawa, we will be in much better shape this weekend, if you start to take this seriously.” The director’s tone of voice wasn’t snarky, just considered, professional appraisal. It lashed Nico, who was feeling like a complete amateur, someone who thought you could just make lines up. Pained, Nico bit back a chirpy response. She knew the director was right. She had a head full of werewolf danger and an ear full of shrill teasing. Nico needed to focus on Fangs, opening night was next week. She had obviously not cleared enough room in her schedule for practically a starring role, love interest, two solos, her regular work and class schedule AND a sexy, clingy, werewolf girlfriend. But there was nothing Nico would quit. Nor could she continue to perform this badly. Too much was at stake.

Nico nodded at the director, heading backstage to change out of her nightdress. Vampire hunting outfit. Anju and Kotori had found her costume jewelry, a lovely silver brooch inset with blue-red stones.

Nozomi was waiting at the rack. Nico really didn’t have time for any of this and attempted to ignore her current nemesis, but unsurprisingly, Nozomi refused to acknowledge Nico’s obvious rancor.

“Nico has to change. Privacy please.” Nico glared, whacking Nozomi with the end of a hanger.

Nozomi shrugged, expression smug.

“Nico is not telling you anything.” Nico stepped into her skirt, then pulled the nightdress over her head.

“The cards are worried about our relationship.” A teasing moue from Nozomi pushed Nico to almost her limit, but backstage was a quiet, sacred zone. “I might have been rude, Nico-chi.”

Nico stopped, arms still trapped in the nightdress, staring at Nozomi in disbelief. “We don’t have a relationship. Nico tolerated your company but now we both have better things to do…”

Nozomi giggled, Nico groaned internally hearing her own phrasing. “Such a crass and impersonal way to refer to...”

Nico bared her teeth as she buttoned herself into her blouse.

Nozomi changed tacks, without apologizing, smoothing out the nightdress on its hanger, “Oh, Nico-chi. We’re not through yet. We’ve been friends for two years and we will continue.”

The less Nico responded, in any way, the sooner Nozomi would disappear.

“I’m serious about you leaving Maki alone.” Nico gritted.

“I know.” Nozomi paused. “I shouldn’t have baited you like that.”

Nico shrugged.

“No response? But I’m being sincere.” Nozomi sounded puzzled.

Nico was fed up and just wanted to be somewhere with her script and no one demanding she have a reaction to their drama, so her response shredded any belief in Nozomi’s sincerity. “Should I thank your girlfriend or the cards for your change of heart?”

“Eli.” Nozomi giggled, “The cards just agreed with her. But she’s my fiancée now.”

Fiancée. Of course Nozomi, who spends her time harassing everyone she knows and ruining their peace of mind, if not their lives, gets a girlfriend, now a fiancée out of it. While Nico got gray hairs from werewolf worries. The next time Umi started in on her litany of complaints against Nozomi, Nico would just pull an endless series of double espressos and cheer her on, rather than try to defend the psychic blunder.

“Nico has to go.” She pulled on her jacket, “Congratulations. You don’t deserve her.” The look in Nozomi’s eye as she shrugged was so self deprecating that Nico softened slightly. Not that she’d let on, “As long as we’re clear on that.”

Nozomi headed for the exit. Nico headed to the other side of the stage, where the rest of the vampire hunters were waiting for their next entrance. She felt weary again as her anger drained. More rehearsal, then work. The thought of Maki’s bright, amethyst eyes glowing with joy at seeing her was the only thing keeping Nico from crying, overcome by exhausted frustration.

Maki slid her arm into her flannel shirt. Her father had just finished prodding her ribcage through her tank top.

“All healed up as far as I can tell without an x-ray.” Her father announced. Then he put an arm around his daughter’s shoulders, “I’m glad you decided to stop by. Your mother and I were worried.”

Maki shrugged. She didn’t really want to start a Nico related conversation with either of her parents. Pretty much ever.  On cue, her mother returned, carrying a tray with a pot and three cups.

“How’s your paper coming?”

“I’ve been busy.” Maki sat on the couch, crossing her arms over her chest. Her mother raised an eyebrow at Maki’s curt response, but held back her own retort, taking a moment to pour the tea out. “So when are you bringing Nico home to dinner to officially meet us?”

“Tomorrow.” Maki, sighed, letting a minor note of apology color her voice, “So she can work on her lines while I work on my paper.” Maki stared into her tea, nervous, “Then she wants to stay over, if that’s okay.”

The Doctors Nishikino exchanged a quick glance, before Maki looked up, voice earnest. “Nico’s very serious about her…” studies didn’t seem a serious enough word, considering Nico’s views on Nico’s future in theatre, “career.” Maki sipped, satisfied at that phrasing.

“Ambition is a laudable quality,” Maki’s mother sat next to her daughter, smiling. “As is effective planning. We’d be happy to have Nico here with us tomorrow. Or any day.”

Maki was suddenly suspicious of parental intent, head full of Nico in performance mode and parents in inquisitive mode. “Don’t make a fuss, please.”

Dr. Nishikino winked at her husband and laughed at her daughter, “No promises, Maki, dear. Meeting prospective spouses is like a full moon to a parent.”

“Mama.” Maki whined, covering her blush with a pillow, trying not to imagine Nico’s reaction to being called a “prospective spouse.”

N: ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡ Hi, pretty girl. Nico’s had a crazy night and the Cup o’ is slammed ＝(￣□￣;)⇒ Not a spare seat. Can you just wait at my apartment, if you still want to see Nico?

Maki was helping her mom finish the dishes when her phone went off. Her mother leaned over her shoulder, shamelessly snooping. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Nico, haven’t you.”

Maki nodded, biting her lip as she considered her response.

“Sometimes, spending every minute together isn’t a positive thing in a relationship, Maki.” Maternal nudging wasn’t going to stop.

Maki closed her eyes, trying to clear out thoughts of what she’d been hoping Nico would be wanting to do after work before she tried to have this conversation with her mother. Her mother. Take a deep breath, think wolf on the couch watching a movie cuddled next to Nico thoughts. “Nico gets cold.”

Dr. Nishikino nearly pulled off the refrigerator door as holding in the laughter at the earnest sincerity in her daughter’s voice tried to double her over. Dr. Nishikino the taller wandered in, curious as to what had amused his wife. She was holding a hand to her forehead, eyes closed, attempting to regain control as Maki started to back away. She’d shoved her phone in her pocket and was nearly out the door when her mother spoke again, “S...sorry, Maki. We were just having a discussion, dear, about not needing to be with someone every minute.”

Maki was feeling increasingly besieged as her parents exchanged another look, although her father was remembering the recent night she’d gone missing, “I think Maki and Nico are both responsible enough to set their own boundaries.”

“Thank you, Papa.” Maki kissed her father on his cheek and ducked into the living room to reply to Nico’s text.

“You know I’m right.” Dr. Nishikino frowned at her husband.

“I’d rather know she was at Nico’s than wake up in the morning and find her missing.”

“Oh.”

M: If you want me to, I’ll wait for you at your apartment.

Maki paused before typing the next sentence, remembering what her mother said and wondering if Nico would be too tired after a long day for company.

M: Unless you need some alone time.

Instant response.

N: Nico was looking forward to the the gleam in your eyes when you see Nico ♡ඩ⌔ඩ♡ It was a rough rehearsal. Cuddling while Nico runs over her lines sounds perfect.

M: I’ll bring coffee and donuts (*^◇^)_旦

N: Maki is the best girlfriend (*￣▽￣)d

M: Nico is the best (っ´▽｀)っ

N: See you soon, Pretty Girl (~￣³￣)~

M: (ﾉ∀`♥)

Nico blew a kiss at her phone, before picking up the pot for refills. Maki was adorably goofy in a naively thoughtful way. Only Maki would offer to bring coffee over when Nico had just spent her entire night at the Cup o’, without thinking maybe Nico could bring home her own if she wanted. Or make it. But Nico wouldn’t mind the donuts. Or the company. Or the coffee, for that matter. Nico leaned in closer to Jens than she intended as she poured his refill, but he’d recover. It was a comforting feeling, knowing that there was someone out there, someone smart and gorgeous and sexy and cuddly and caring, who wanted to do something to make Nico smile. Nico had never expected that.

[sasasarararara]

The Infallible Girl: Bonus mini chapter

Chapter 2.25

Isis chose a seat at the very back of the bus. It allowed her to see the rest of the bus’ passengers without having to turn around conspicuously. It also meant that nobody could sneak up behind her. Though the Millennium Torc hadn’t made so much as a peep since her vision of Malik and Rishid, the vantage point of the back seat still made her feel more secure.

The bus lurched to a start just as the sun began to rise. Isis settled into the metal seat and began to sort through the contents of her new travel bag. Much to her delight she found a few of the books she’d been reading nestled among the more practical items. The driver had told her that between the rough desert roads and the stops they would be making along the way, the drive was expected to take roughly eight hours. The books would provide some much-needed entertainment. She selected the one about the magician and began to read.

Isis only realized she’d fallen asleep when she began to dream. The rickety bus fell away and she found herself standing in the desert, but the barren patch of wilderness they’d been driving through was replaced by a sprawling temple complex. Stepped pyramids surrounded a massive building that, judging by the grandiose architecture, appeared to be a palace. It took Isis a few moments to realize that she knew exactly where she was. She’d read about it many times and had even seen it mapped out, but it looked so different in person. She was in the Pharaoh’s Court.

As she gazed in wonder at the opulence around her, Isis began to notice the people milling about.             Priests, scribes, and scholars roamed the court and mingled openly with each other. Servants darted from building to building running errands and guards stood stalwart at their posts.

A small group of people stood out from the rest of the court. Three men and a younger girl who looked about her age stood in a small huddle some distance away from the other people. Instead of the practical linen tunics and kilts worn by the others, the men were dressed in long, flowing robes and positively dripped with golden jewelry. The girl, on the other hand, wore the shortest dress Isis had ever seen and jewelry that, while still excessive, seemed marginally less decadent than the men’s.

As Isis stared at the gleaming foursome, one of the men looked up from their conversation and waved companionably in her direction. Isis glanced behind her to see who his gesture was intended for but saw nobody. She looked back at them in confusion only to discover that now they were all staring at her. The original waver beckoned for her to join their group.

Isis considered running away. Only select people were allowed so close to the palace, and in Aquilah’s hand-me-down jeans and baggy pink T-shirt she was sure it was painfully obvious that she did not belong. But the sparkling group didn’t seem upset by her presence. The girl was jumping up and down in excitement and the man who’d waved to her was beaming. In any case, she was sure this was a dream. An extremely realistic dream, but a dream nonetheless. She shrugged to herself and began to make her way over to them.

She hadn’t made it half way when the girl, unable to restrain herself, sprinted to meet her. She launched herself at Isis and wrapped her in a hug so tight it squeezed the air from her lungs. “Isis!” she exclaimed. “You’re back! It feels like you’ve been gone for so long! Did you find the pharaoh? What about Seth? What are you wearing? I like it!”

Isis found her arms wrapping around the girl’s waist almost of their own accord. Normally her instincts would have caused her to freeze up or struggle to free herself from the grasp of a stranger, but somehow this girl didn’t feel strange at all. A mixture of familiar emotion arose within her. It was a combination of annoyance, concern, and overshadowing everything, love. Isis had no idea who the girl was, but she was certain they somehow knew each other.

Gentle hands began to pry the girl away before Isis could attempt to make sense of the situation. “Whoa, Mana,” said Isis’ rescuer. “Give her some air.”

Isis looked up at a man who could have stepped out of a classic Egyptian mural. As he delicately pulled the girl off Isis, she saw the other two men approaching behind him. One was bald with a tattoo around his head, and the other was tall with a gold trimmed veil over his hair. Again there was a sense of familiarity. Feelings of respect, companionship, trust, and yet more love washed over her.

“Mana, I don’t think this is her,” the tall man said. “At least not yet. Did you not notice that she’s shorter than you?”

“And she still has the Torc,” added the bald man. “When Isis comes back she won’t need it.”

“Who are… I mean, how do I know you?” Isis asked. She was positive that she not only knew these people but cared very deeply for them. Judging by the girl’s greeting and the expressions the men were wearing, the feeling was mutual.

The tall man smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid that would take too long to explain with any accuracy. Think of us as old friends for the time being. My name is Mahaad.” He rested a hand on her shoulder and she automatically took his elbow to complete the gesture of greeting.

“My name is Isis,” she responded, though they seemed to know that already.

Mahaad’s smile broadened. “That’s quite a coincidence, being named the same thing twice in a row,” he laughed. Isis had no idea what he meant by that but felt compelled to laugh along with him.

Next the man she felt she had seen a thousand times on various scrolls and murals stepped forward. “My name is Karim,” he said as they repeated the greeting gesture. “I know you don’t recognize us but it’s wonderful to see you.”

The bald man was the next to greet her. He introduced himself as Shada. If it weren’t for the innate sense of comfort she felt, Isis would have been intimidated by him. He was almost as tall as Mahaad and the markings across his brow made his expression look permanently severe. This made it even more surprising when he burst into laughter during the greeting gesture. “Sorry!” he exclaimed. “You look so much like our Isis except now you’re smaller than Mana. It’s so strange!”

Before Isis could ask Shada what he meant, Mana bounded over and hugged her again, but this time a little more gently. “Have you seen us in any of your visions?” she asked excitedly.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” Mana said, her voice edged with disappointment. “I thought you’d want to know all about us.”

Though she still had no idea what any of this meant, Isis scrambled to come up with a way to spare her new, or possibly old, friend’s feelings. “I’ve only had it for one week and barely know how to use it,” she admitted. “Usually I only get visions when I’m in danger.”

This seemed to satisfy Mana. “Well I guess you know us now,” she chirped, then leaned in until her face was level with the Torc and yelled “THANKS ISIS! THE NEW YOU SEEMS NICE!” at the top of her voice.

Once again Karim gently pulled Mana away from Isis. “You know that’s not at all how it works,” he chided. “Isis is not inside the Torc,” and then shuddered and mumbled “thank the gods” under his breath.

“Keep practicing with it,” encouraged Shada. “There is so much more you can do with the Torc than simply receive visions of danger. As the Torc’s chosen bearer you can-”

Isis lost her balance as a tremor shook the world around her. For a brief moment she was no longer in the desert but on a rickety bus, her head bouncing painfully against the streaky window as they drove over a particularly pothole ridden road. Then she was back in the Pharaoh’s court.

“Looks like you’re being pulled back to the mortal realm,” came a voice right by her ear. “We don’t have much time left.” Something about “mortal realm” resonated strangely with Isis, but she was far too focused on the fact that Mahaad’s arm was wrapped protectively around her waist to take much interest in what it implied.

Over the past week it seemed as if all she’d done was fall down. Even in a dream she couldn’t manage to stand on her own two feet. It was even more humiliating now than ever. She already hated that she had no way to pay the Rahal’s back for taking her in, and being so easily overpowered by her little brother was even worse, but the idea of her new-old friends having to take care of her was practically unbearable. While she loved and trusted these people, Isis also felt an intense need for them to see her as capable. Especially Mahaad for some reason.

The desire to be seen as strong was familiar. Back in the Tomb, displays of weakness would always end in one of three ways. The least painful possibility was that she would be punished. Even a lapse as small as forgetting a line of sacred text or dozing off during meditation was grounds for swift retribution.

The second way was far worse. One of her brothers, most often Rishid, would end up suffering on her behalf. If the cause of an error was not immediately obvious, her father had the tendency to assign blame to the easiest target. This had become worse and worse as he aged and withdrew farther from his family.

Finally, without a nurturing adult presence it always fell upon her brothers to take care of her when she was upset. Isis remembered spending long hours crying onto Rishid’s shoulder when she was young, forcing him to be more of a parent or nurse than a brother. As she grew up and started tending to Malik in much the same way, she began to recognize how unfair it was to deprive Rishid of his childhood.

Thanks to their upbringing all three of the Ishtar siblings had become adept at hiding what they perceived to be weakness and failure. Rishid had once spilled a drop of ink onto a 400-page text and spent the next month secretly copying the entire volume into a fresh journal. And though he thrived on attention, even Malik had adopted similar tendencies. Isis had seen him fall flat on his face and swallow a mouthful of blood and a baby tooth rather than admit he was hurt.

But Isis particularly prided herself on her resilience. Even beyond her upbringing she was naturally independent. When faced with a problem she automatically tried to solve it by herself. She always tried to puzzle her way through the more confusing texts on her own before asking for help. She had no problems playing alone and in fact sometimes found herself craving time away from her brothers. She hated feeling helpless. As time wore on, her ability to seem composed at all times changed from a mere survival trait to a vital part of her identity.  Malik was the dreamer, Rishid was the nurturer, and she was the capable one. Recently even the servants had begun to defer to her more as a leader rather than the child that she truly was.

Isis’ sudden lack of control was weighing heavily on her. Life in the Tomb was often difficult but at least she had felt a deep sense of self-possession. Now she was wandering in an unfamiliar land with minimal possessions, an overwhelmingly powerful artifact she didn’t understand, and only the barest skeleton of a plan. She was at the mercy of a world she was out of step with by 3,000 years.  Not only had the past few days been emotionally traumatic, but her ego had taken a severe beating.

What made thing even more frustrating was the sudden realization that she didn’t want Mahaad to let go of her. Despite the desert heat, the warmth of his arm through her shirt was incredibly comforting. The desire to be held and reassured conflicted harshly with her desire for independence. It was confusing to say the least.

Isis stepped quickly out of Mahaad’s grasp. “I’m fine, thanks for catching me,” she mumbled, trying not to blush. The sound of Mana sniggering only made it worse.

“You’re our Isis alright,” Shada said with a smile. “Three thousand years later and still the same. It’s a relief to see that some things never change.”

The strangeness of Shada’s statement was enough to get Isis’ attention through the haze of embarrassment. “What do you mean by ‘three thous-” she began, but was cut off by another tremor. Again she was on the bus, then just as quickly in the desert once more. This time Karim had put a hand on her back. He let go as soon as it was obvious she wasn’t about to fall over.

“Just in case,” he said apologetically.

Isis sighed. “What’s going on?” she asked. She could feel herself slipping away from them but didn’t want to go. There was so much she wanted to ask, but her curiosity was nothing compared to her desire to bask in the comfort of their presence.

“You’re starting to fade,” Mahaad said. “I wish we could answer all of your questions but there isn’t time.” He rested a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t know what you’re about to face. We only get brief glimpses into the mortal realm and we are never quite certain of what we see when there. But you must never forget that you are not alone.”

“If anyone can do this, it’s you,” Karim said. “I’ve never met anyone so in command of their destiny.”

Shada put his hand on her other shoulder. “And of course we’ll be thinking of you and eagerly awaiting your return.” He paused, then hastily amended “but not too eagerly, obviously. Live a good, long life.”

“I don’t know,” Mana laughed. “Wouldn’t it be fun if she came back soon and was short for good?” She elbowed Isis playfully in the ribs. “We’d be like twins!”

“Again, Mana, it does not work that way,” Mahaad said, though there was laughter in his eyes. “She’ll come back exactly as she was no matter when she… rejoins us.”

With that, Mahaad pulled Isis into a friendly embrace. Isis reciprocated the gesture happily. “You are not alone,” he repeated. “Seek help as you need it and trust your companions as they prove themselves. I know you. Do not condemn yourself to do it all alone.” Isis closed her eyes and smiled as she leaned against him, basking in the comfort of her new… old… friends.

When Isis opened her eyes she was no longer resting on Mahaad’s shoulder but against the back of the bus seat. The memory of her dream faded instantly, but the sense of peace stayed with her for the rest of her journey to Cairo.

[kierannin]

A Tale to Tell

00. Prelude

The Kaldorei live for a very long time. A very, incredibly long time. Even in my short two centuries I have done and seen so much… I am unsure if I will be able to keep track of it all. So I write. About what I’ve seen, what I’ve done, who I’ve met, who I’ve lost. I will start with the time of my childhood, because it was the events of my childhood that lead me to where I am now. It is not as clear as I would like it to be, as much of my thoughts are darkened by the more recent past. I will share this only with those who may read this, for otherwise I feel as if I may drown in my own thoughts.

My name is Kierannin Moonfeather, formerly of the family name Deathbloom. I began my life born to two Kaldorei. One, my father, a warrior and scout for our people. The other, my mother, a Priestess to our Lady Elune. I was the second child, born later into their lives. My brother had already reached his fourth century by the time I joined the world. For as long as I could remember he was a Warden of our people, stationed at the sacred tree in Hyjal. Theadrin was a good brother, a kind brother, and I grew to love him very much. The highlight of my childhood was when he would visit us, brief week long visits filled with adventures and stories. I’m certain that only half of the stories were true, and even those were only half truths.

Ama’diya, my mother, was not the best of Priestesses. But she did what she could for the outlying villagers in the place once known as Auberdine. My father, Ladon, worked hard to protect the area and hunt. He worked well with the Sentinels, although he was never one of them. My childhood was filled with each of them teaching me how the Kaldorei are, and how we are meant to be. Protectors of the land, of our forests. Guardians of Elune, even those who are not blessed to follow Her light. At least, that was what they told me. I know now that not everyone believes as they did.

It wasn’t until shortly into my first century that I began the training that my mother wished of me. She brought me one day to the Temple of Elune in Darnassus. The first time I had ever set foot in the capitol of my people. It was… Impressive. I was awed when I first entered the Temple. Ama’diya took me to meet her friend and mentor, the guide that had helped my mother become the Priestess she was. They talked with me, I cannot remember what was said, and I began taking steps towards becoming a Priestess myself. Although, it was short lived.

Not long after I started working with both my mother and Lilora things became… Tricky. This was the first Battle for Mount Hyjal. I was nearing my second century when the demons attacked the World Tree, and the fighting bled down into Darkshore, the place now called the Felwood, and even Ashenvale. I am not positive how far the demons spread, but I know that our home on the outskirts of Auberdine was attacked. Along with many others. Both of my parents were killed by demons. I… The… My father went first. He… Went down fighting. Protecting mother and myself. Mother tried her best to hide me, told me to blend with the shadows. I had always had a knack for that. I hid in their room, tucked away in my mothers robes and the gentle cloths that my father enjoyed wearing. She tried to protect me, but the… Felstalkers took her. They were merciless. A creature with red skin followed the four legged monstrosities into the home, and the beasts scented me in my hiding place. The red skinned creature, what I now know to be an Eredar, approached where I was and dragged me out. Away from the home, where I could see the remains of my mother, drained of everything. Where I could see my father, still partially alive but bleeding out. The Eredar made a show of killing me. Sneering at the futility of my father attempting to save me. I… Cannot remember what it felt like. But the Eredar had dragged a blade of some sort across my neck, severing so much, and yet not enough.

I still survived. Longer than my father. Long enough for Theadrin to arrive for his monthly visit and see the devastation. He had rushed home after things had settled, and found his family destroyed. Yet, he still thought he could save us. Me. I don’t remember him picking me up and carrying me to the nearest Moonwell, but he did. He told me how he plead and plead, begging for at least me to be saved. His beloved little sister. As he dipped me into the waters, he swore to the stars that the Moonwell glowed like the brightest patch of moonlight he had ever seen, and what would have been the killing blow of the Eredars blade, closed. Healing into a jagged scar. Even more, when he could look once again at the Moonwell where I lay drenched in the healing waters, my family's traditional black hair had paled to the color of the moon. White as the purest star. It was a shock to him, to say the least.

He was worried that only the body had healed, and that I was too far gone. But I took a breath. He described it to me that I took my first shuddering, ragged breath and he knew that I was alive. From there I remember waking up in the village closest to Darnassus in Darkshore. North of Auberdine. Lor’danil was where he had taken me to hope that I would heal and survive. He stayed with me, for a few weeks. Until I was strong enough to move and talk. Learning how to speak again with the healing was… A struggle. But in the end I surpassed it. Even in the aftermath of such a brutal battle, there were strange creatures that haunted my dreams. Pink skinned, short, with no ears. When I asked about them, I was told “humans” were what they were called.

They had fought with our people. Fiercely, loyally, strong. They threw themselves at the demons our people had been cursed to face with a reckless abandon. Something I admired. I became restless. Asking eventually of someone if they knew where I could find more of these humans. The Kaldorei I approached thought I was insane, but told me that to the south was an encampment of them. Very far to the south, along the eastern coast in a marsh. An odd place to build a colony, but it set my heart on fire to think that perhaps I was able to find them, learn how they fought and potentially repay the favor they had given by helping us in our time of need.

I had nothing left in Darkshore, and many people knew it. Not yet an adult, and still no longer a child. They humored me. Lending an older hippogryph, one that was nearing his last legs and needed a good place to retire. I would be his last charge, and he would return to Feralas, the place of his birth which was not too far of a fly west of the marsh. I packed what little remains I had, visiting my home one last time. I could not lift my fathers swords, but I took his hunting dagger. My mother never had any weapons, but I dug through her jewelry box and found a pendant that she had worn as an apprentice priestess. A full moon pendant hanging from a delicate silver chain. I did not believe that Elune was with me, but by bringing my mothers pendant, and my fathers dagger… They could be with me as I continued forward in my life.

My only regret was that the attack had happened at all. With my mind made up, I began the path towards who I would become, the old hippogryph and myself flying to the newly formed Theramore in Dustwallow Marsh.

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Sailor Moon Crystal” English dub. Episode one.

I told you I was gonna do it

oh the Toei logo, hello old friend

and who could this attractive couple be? oh the ambiguity

two minutes and two seconds into the episode and we finally have dialogue

and its Ikuko of all characters

she is being voiced by Tara Platt who was Temari in Naruto and is the real life wife of Yuri Lowenthal who voiced Sasuke of all characters

having watched a couple episodes of the Viz dub for the classic anime I already know Usagi is played by Stephanie Sheh who was Mamimi in FLCL, Orihime in Bleach, and Hinata in Naruto

I like how she voices her, if there was one character they needed to get right it was her

I think we all reached a point where we realized the Tsukino family treats Usagi like crap, very sad

oh Moon Pride, you aren’t the worst song but Moonlight Densetsu you ain’t

I guess I shouldn’t dwell on it though because even Toei’s sacred cash cow DBZ was even given a new intro song when they did Kai (and I like that song)

I always liked that the first scene with the iconic magical girl is her being late for school

and I always liked that this is very much a cat series

boing

if its one thing I love about SMC its that Luna is always making a :3 face

Jadeite is being voiced by Todd Haberkorn wow

Miss Haruna is voiced by Julie Ann Taylor who is Holy in the JJBA dub (a dub I kinda really wanna get to, but I’m not sure about Jotaro’s voice....)

“its not my fault the other kids always get to school on time” oh honey

“the princess in my dream was so beautiful...someday I’m going to become a princess and I’ll never go to school again” how about becoming literal queen of the world? the only downside is your daughter is annoying as hell and has a lot of unchecked psycho sexual hangups towards her dad

it took me literally forever to realize that when an anime says something about an English class they don’t mean literature and grammar, they literally mean learning the English language

PRAISE THE HEAVENS NARU NO LONGER HAS A FAKE NEW YORK ACCENT

her actress is Danielle Judovits

I....I never liked Umino...ever

he is voiced by Ben Diskin aka Joseph fucking Joestar

we have a class where Joseph is being taught by his daughter basically

“that’s Umino, he’s an otaku” oh damn!

that reminds me remember that side story from the manga where Chibi-Usa was friends with these valley girl wannabe Sailor Senshi and my girl Hotaru totally burned them by saying they were otaku? I want this in the anime somehow

SEI! RA! V!

by the way I would like an OVA or something that adapts the Sailor V manga too, but I don’t see that happening sadly

our first reference to Osabu, who I am happy is still involved with Naoko’s life and the SM franchise after all this time

wow one billion yen that must be like twelve dollars

she craves that youthful energy

which is one of those things about the Dark Moon arc that dates it in my eyes, like something about the villains sapping away energy feels so old fashioned

MAMO CHAAAAAN

back at it with that Tom Ford suit

I wonder how he affords those things

bump head

“are you trying to make bumps on my head too?” Mamoru its a fucking piece of paper

so I know Bun Head is more technically accurate.....but I’m sorry I am attached to Meatball Head its so....I don’t know it feels right and its the only thing from the DIC and Cloverway l dubs I’m actually attached to along with the nickname Rini

I haven’t even said anything about Mamoru’s voice, I’ve heard it in clips and episodes of the classic anime and I really like it and I think Robbie Daymond is good and I really hope I get his autograph at Anime Boston this weekend (he and Toru Furuya have an autograph session together so its win win)

as far as other things he’s done he’s Mumen Rider in the OPM dub and Chrollo in HXH so that’s like going from cinnamon roll to garbage smoothie (yeah I still hate Chrollo)

OH NO SHE’S HOT

OH NO HE’S HOT

I love these two so much

and I like how Mamoru looks towards his reflection like Usagi calling out his fashion cut deep (it probably did, he’s a delicate flower)

ah yes the legendary silver crystal. and you seriously think you’ll find it in a jewelry store. how did you get into Harvard?

so interesting thing about Motoki’s voice actor is that he also voices Zoisite, huh

I love the part where Luna just stares into Usagi’s soul when she says she has a bald spot, its like “you wanna say that again? be-yotch?”

wait doesn’t Ikuko CARE that her fourteen year old daughter is coming home past dark?

seriously locking her out of the house like this just comes off as abusive, what kind of parenting is this?

oh fuck off Shingo, no one likes you

I know everyone loves to trash the animation this season (lord knows I did) but that first shot of Tuxedo Mask looks real good

I had forgotten how many visions of Serenity and Endymion they gave us in this episode

Luna’s voice I’ve heard before too, she’s played by Michelle Ruff who was Rukia in Bleach

we can finally put the fake British accent to rest never to be heard again

I like how Luna doesn’t even seem aware of the fact that a talking cat is abnormal

kitty feet

I’m happy they replaced these CGI transformations in season three with better ones, but still I am happy the transformations were a thing to begin with since I thought they would do away with them

this is the only time her hair thingies can pick up someone’s cry for help

why didn’t the daimon just kill Naru’s mom?

MREOOOOOOWWWW

God fucking bless

RIP “and that means you” thank God

man I am just referencing the old dub like mad aren’t I?

this is seriously the only time her hair thingies are more than just accessories

moon tiara boomerang....sigh

okay never mind they call it that in the new manga translations too, I checked

“I shall remember your name Sailor Moon” given how many times you get brainwashed and or loose your memories I wouldn’t count on it

so we’re calling them guardians instead of soldiers, eh I can live

AMI

um yeah this closing has nothing on the first one for season three

but I am a sucker for these two regardless

“allies? you mean like Tuxedo Mask!” I mean she isn’t wrong

tune in next time where Ami kicks ass at a video game and Beryl’s boobs make their debut