#so fascinating how local language forms

[somer-writes]

I have crawled out of my mole whole to humbly ask you

but what type of southern accent do you think Twilight has? 🤔

hello thank you for coming out of your mole hole, have a treat :3

uuuuh well so im like Midwest Supreme so my interp for his accent comes from like podunk midwest backwater nowhere XD we're talking towns built around grain elevators where theres more cows than people and you can get snowed in for days if you dont live on a snow route

but usually the Default Southern accent i write for OCs is either like Appalachia or gater rasslin loosianna XD

depends on if i want cowboy or chewing tobacco yknow

i think twi just bc of the goats and pumpkins is probably somewhere in the wyoming or northern colorado range of That Peach in Levis cowboy. like modern twi wears a duck coat and chews on toothpicks and has a stetson hat. or when hes doing ranch work hes wearing coveralls but has the sleeves tied around his waist and a carhartt shirt underneath. and you know his carhartts are just destroyed and patched over and over in the ass. he gives fresh goat milk to the farm cats and the dogs follow him *everywhere*. hes riding draft horses recreationally. epona might be a perchie

imo a lot of people write a Tennessee twi but mostly like knoxville. maybe arkansas? not quite In the Swamp south for a lot of them but more like Mountain South. but not mountain enough to be the kind that sets bear traps for cops yknow. just mountain enough to have anarchist leanings.

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

DP X DC PROMPT #25

(#) = Notes at the end of post

(*) = Just me building off of other ideas.

✦

Family Reunion

Clockwork sends an adult Danny, newly appointed Ancient of Space, on a mission through time again. Except this time, it isn't located on Earth, but a distant planet he's never even heard of before. Clockwork didn't tell him any specifics on what he was supposed to do or when he was supposed to return to his own time, just to blend in and have an experience. He would know when it was time to return.

Needless to say, he has a blast! His core is bursting with happiness at getting the chance to explore this unknown corner of the universe with a sky full of constellations he's never seen and fascinating locals. Considering he might be here a while, he buckles down and learns all about their culture and their traditions and even eventually learns their language without having to use the two-way translator Clockwork gave him.

He spends decades there, not even having to worry about how he never appears to age, the people here being incredibly long-lived. However, he eventually meets someone. Someone he falls head over heels for. He gets married. He has kids. He watches them slowly grow into adults as well. It isn't until one of his sons informs him that he's expecting his own child(1) that Danny feels a tug at his core.

He ignores it, but over the course of a few weeks, it's gone from the occasional pull to a full-on yank at his entire being, along with a sense of dread that something was going to happen to this wonderful little planet. To his family.

He becomes restless and loses so much sleep, it's a miracle he can even stand. His family are worried for him, but he assures them that he's just feeling a little under the weather. One night, he's sat up in bed, unable to sleep again. His gaze is fixed lovingly on his spouse, but nonetheless sad.

He doesn't miss when all the soft sounds of the night stop and a green glow appears behind him.

"It's time to leave, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"There isn't any way I could stay? I can't bring them with me?"

"I'm afraid not. There are some things that can't be changed or stopped, even when they fall into your domain. I'm sorry."

"Why send me here just to make me abandon them like this? What was the point?"

Clockwork is silent, but when Danny turns to look at the ghost, he's gone.

Danny takes a few more precious days to spend time with his family. Kiss his spouse. Hug his kids. Feel the strong kicks of his grandchild he won't be there to witness the birth of.

The night he leaves, he places a letter on his spouse's nightstand, gently kisses their forehead, and disappears in a flash of green, never to be seen again.

Years later is when Danny gets the news. That the planet Krypton is no more and that his family is gone. He searched the Ghost Zone for them, but he never knew the location of Krypton in the cosmos. Their afterlife is beyond his reach, in a place that isn't even on the Infamap.

He nearly drowns himself in grief when he finds a sliver of reprieve in the form of a news broadcast. An extraordinary man in blue and red with the kryptonian symbol for such emblazoned on his chest is shown fighting off multiple enemies at once. He is the spitting image of his father and Danny as well.

He had a grandson. His grandson was alive.

✦

(1) This was Kara, not Clark. Danny left before he even found out about Kal-El being in the oven, so there will be a misunderstanding at first. Then Kara pops up later, and Danny just bawls his eyes out that he had two surviving grandchildren without even knowing it this whole time. How he first meets either of them is up to you!

(*) What this means power-wise for Clark is yours to decide. As well as what Clark already knows about his grandfather from the stored information his father left him. What his father thought of Danny disappearing without a word is also up for you to decide.

[sailor-aviator]

Sleeping With the Fishes

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Reader

Summary: From a young age, the animal kingdom had fascinated you, and maybe that's why you chose to pursue that passion. You quickly became a force within the field, becoming the leading expert on ape social structures, which is how you found yourself on an expedition into the African jungles searching for a troop of gorillas. What you weren't expecting, however, was to run into the local wild man on one of your excursions... (Tarzan!AU)

Trigger Warnings: Language, Dead animals, Injury to self, Reader is a bit of an idiot, Baboons, Bradley not understanding boundaries, The boys make fun of Boots. I think that's it.

Word Count: 3.2k

A/N: He's finally here! What do you guys think?? This blog is 18+ ONLY! As always, reblogs and comments are welcomed and encouraged!! Find me on AO3 under sailor_aviator where all of my stories and drabbles are posted! If you would like to be added to the Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw tag list, please click the link below!

Series Masterlist || Moodboard 1 || Moodboard 2 || Moodboard 3 || Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw Tag List

You woke up to the sound of yelling coming from the boys’ tent. You scrambled out of the sheets, barely pulling on a pair of shorts over your underwear before running out of the tent and towards the camp. All three men were standing outside the tent, looking uneasily at each other.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, a little out of breath from your run. “What happened?”

“Well,” Bob started, glancing over at Jake as the blond ran a hand through his hair.

“Wild man left a goddamn fish in my bed,” he snapped, glaring disdainfully into the tent.

“He what?” You questioned, pushing past them to look in through the opening. Sure enough, a large, bloody fish sat atop the usually pristine sheets. You grimaced, backing up to stand with the others. “What kind of fish is that?”

“What?” Jake hollered, looking at you incredulously. “Who gives a shit? There’s a fish in my bed, Boots!”

“Do you think he’s threatening you?” Javy asked thoughtfully, stroking the length of his jaw as he eyed the fish. Jake turned to look at him, a surprised look on his face as if the thought only just crossed his mind. He looked back at the fish with pursed lips.

“Bradley isn’t like that,” Bob assured, placing a gentle hand on Jake’s shoulder. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

“There’s a fish in my bed,” Jake gritted out, waving wildly towards the tent. You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms in front of your chest.

“Quit being such a baby about your gift,” you scowled. Jake began to splutter, face going red as he fought to form a coherent thought. At that same moment Ice and Maverick came walking up from where they had been fixing dinner.

“What’s going on?” Maverick asked, glancing around at your little group. Jake pointed a finger into the tent, taking deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The two older men pushed past you and Javy to peer into the tent, their eyebrows shooting up their foreheads at the sight.

“Huh,” Maverick laughed out. “He must have seen you working with the plants this past week.”

Jake stared at him for a second, blinking slowly as he processed what the brunette just said.

“Pardon?”

“He sees me growing some of the food here,” Maverick explained, gesturing towards the small patch of land he had set aside to grow some vegetables for the camp. “I use fish from the river to help fertilize the crops. He helps me with it sometimes, in fact. He must have thought you’d want some fish to help with your research.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” you sighed. Jake stared at you, an unreadable expression that slowly morphed into one of distraught.

“But,” he murmured, waving uselessly back at the fish, “my bed? Why?”

“Now that is a bit of a mystery, I’ll admit,” Maverick hummed, staring confusedly at the bed. Ice rolled his eyes.

“Is it though?” He muttered, giving you a knowing look. You shifted uncomfortably. Surely he wasn’t implying…

“Boots, we’re going to have to take a raincheck on going down to the waterfall,” Jake sighed, looking at you now.

“What?” You frowned. “No way! It won’t take you that long to clean up! We can just go after!”

“This is going to take me forever to clean up,” he argued, shaking his head. “No, we’ll just go tomorrow or something.”

“Jake, if I have to spend one more day in this godforsaken camp, I’m going to lose my mind,” you scowled. “I’ll just go on ahead and you can meet me when you’re finished. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like a terrible idea,” he frowned. “The jungle is dangerous, Boots. God only knows what’s out there waiting to snatch you up.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” you snapped, glaring at him. “I’m just as capable as the rest of you. I can take care of myself. Javy, tell him.”

Javy sucked in a breath, eyes darting between the two of you as you waited for him to say something.

“I don’t know if I feel comfortable getting in the middle-”

“Useless,” you hissed, turning back to Jake. “Jake Seresin, I am a capable woman who can take care of herself. I’ve done this plenty of times before when you aren’t here to infantilize me.”

He mulled over your words, glancing at the others before sighing.

“Fine,” he relented, “but don’t go too far, okay? I’ll join you when I’m finished with this. Hopefully, it won’t take me too long.”

You smiled in victory, turning to head back to your tent and get ready. It didn’t take you long, just changing into a fresh set of clothes and filling up your canteen with water before grabbing your backpack. You were just about to leave camp and head towards the falls when Maverick stopped you.

“I packed you some lunch,” he said, handing you an old container. You took it from him, smiling gratefully as you shoved it into your backpack.

“I’m guessing there’s something else you wanted to say to me?” You asked, earning a chuckle.

“Just,” he hesitated, shoving his hands in his pockets as he gazed into the jungle, “be careful. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Jake, but Bob and I spotted a leopard by the river not too long ago. It’s possible it’s moved out of the area, but I wanted to let you know just in case. Just stay vigilant.”

“Yeah, I will,” you smiled, readjusting the strap on your shoulder.

“I’m sure Bradley will be keeping an eye on you too,” he added. “You should be fine.”

“Thanks, Mav,” you nodded, turning and heading into the jungle before you.

The sun shone brightly, some of the rays penetrating through the canopy above. It was strange being out in the wilderness by yourself, the strange new noises keeping you slightly on edge as you continued to trek through the leaves. You took another swig from your canteen, the cool liquid easing the unsettling warmness that surrounded you. You tried in vain to wipe away the sweat accumulating on your forehead, letting out a frustrated sigh and grunt of disgust when you just ended up smearing more sweat onto your face. You shoved the canteen back into your pack, stopping when you heard a chattering sound coming from up above.

You looked skyward, seeing a couple of baboons racing along the trees. You grabbed blindly for your notebook, eager to jot down some notes and sketches of the creatures for Ice and Bob to go over when you returned. You trotted after them, now digging in your bag for a pen as you continued after them. The baboons noticed you, chattering at each other loudly as they took you in. Seeming to taunt you, they waved their arms at you, tilting their heads as if to say “can’t catch me.” You huffed out a chuckle, twisting and turning through the trees as you chased them. You were so caught up in trying to jot down some notes that you didn’t notice the dip in the ground or the tree root that arched out of the dirt beneath you. You fell with a panicked yelp, hitting your head on another one of the large roots, the world going dark around you.

You weren’t sure how long you had been out, probably not too long since the sun still beat down through the canopy. You touched the sore spot on your head, wincing at the slight sting, but sighing with relief when you checked your fingers and found no blood.

The baboons were still shrieking and chattering above you, almost as if they were laughing at your unfortunate predicament, and you cast an errant glare upwards at them. Damn monkeys.

An ache rippled up your leg from your ankle, and you bit your lip as you shuffled back to lean against one of the trees, hoping against all odds that you hadn’t done anything too bad to it.

Your head pounded, a wave of dizziness running through you that was most certainly not helped by the intense humidity and heat of the jungle. You let out a groan as you experimentally moved your ankle, hissing when a jolt of pain ran up your leg. Yeah, definitely sprained. You huffed out a sigh, leaning your head against the trunk of the tree.

The cacophony of noises did little to ease your aching head, and you wished you had waited for Jake to finish cleaning his bed like he had insisted. Now you were stuck out in the jungle, hoping and praying someone would find you before something else did.

You groaned at the thought of what Jake would say if he could see you now. That smarmy look he’d give you as he looked you over. The “I told you so” that would follow. You would never hear the end of it, but a chilling thought ran through you. The guys had to find you before Jake could be his insufferable self, and as far as they knew, you would be down by the waterfall. How far away were you? You scolded yourself for straying away from the trail markers that had been laid out. How was anyone supposed to find you now? You sniffled, biting back the tears that threatened to spill over.

You checked your canteen, grimacing at the sound of the half empty container. Setting it down with a thud you gazed at the canopy above, wiping the sweat from your brow. It could be hours before someone realized you were missing. You hoped sooner.

Another wave of emotion rushed over you, and this time you allowed yourself to let a few tears slip down your cheeks. How could you be so foolish?

The sound of rustling foliage drew your attention across the small clearing, your heart rate picking up at the sound. Your thoughts raced back to what Maverick had told you before you left the camp. Bob and I spotted a leopard by the river not too long ago. Inwardly groaning, you lamented about your situation, hoping that whatever was hiding in the foliage wasn’t a giant cat. You stayed as still as possible, praying for whatever it was to continue on. From the sounds of it, whatever it was, was huge, and it was getting closer.

You gripped your canteen in your hand, ready to throw it at whatever came out of the dense leaves. It wouldn’t do any lasting damage, but perhaps it would daze the creature long enough for you to scramble away and towards help. Surely Jake was done by now? How long had you been out here?

You bit back a shriek as the leaves parted to reveal...a man?

He was tall—huge really, and so unfairly handsome. Tanned skin stretched across bulging muscles, caramel brown hair curling at the top of his head. It was his eyes though, that captured your attention. Deep, mesmerizing honey-colored eyes that stared at you intensely, as if trying to make sense of you.

"Who the hell are you?" You asked, voice tight as he crouched down, inching closer to you with slow moments. "Where did you come from?"

He didn't answer as he crept closer, his movements almost like that of the apes you observed during your travels. His hand reached towards you, his knuckles brushing against the tips of your fingers. You jerked your hand back, regarding him wearily.

"Human?" He asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Me?" You spluttered, feeling heat rise to your cheeks. "Of course I'm a human! What did you think I was?"

His eyes narrowed at you, his lips pressing into a thin line as he seemed to consider you.

"Not like any human I have seen," he spoke, his English seemingly broken. "What kind?"

It took you a second to figure out what he was asking you.

"I'm a woman," you told him, a sense of unease filling you. Was this the man that Ice and Mav had told you about? What was his name again? Bradley, right?

“Seen you at the camp,” he continued, watching you for a moment. “Smell good.”

Your cheeks warmed even further at the comment, and you cleared your throat before shifting where you sat, wincing as the movement jostled your ankle. Bradley glanced down at the swollen appendage, frowning at the redness that seeped to the surface.

“Hurt?” He asked, leaning forward, his face so close to yours. You swallowed thickly, eyes roving over his face and hesitating on his lips. The facial hair that sat atop it wasn’t a bad look on him, quite the contrary actually, and for a second you wondered what it would be like to feel it on the skin of your thighs as he-

You blinked rapidly, trying desperately to clear the depraved thoughts from your head. You chalked it up to the combination of the African heat and the fact you hadn’t been laid in God only knows how long. You cleared your throat and briefly met his gaze before looking away.

“Yes,” you answered him, cursing at the shakiness of your voice. “I think I hurt my ankle when I fell. Do you think you could go back to the camp and tell the others where I am?”

Bradley frowned at you before shaking his head.

“Boots hurt,” he rumbled. “Can’t leave here.”

“Then how do you expect the others to—hey!”

You yelped when Bradley slid one large hand under your knees, the other coming up to rest on your back as he lifted you off the ground. You scrambled to find purchase, finally wrapping your arms around his neck, eyes widening when he turned to look at you, face so close, your noses were practically touching. You tried desperately not to think of the hard curves of muscle you were being held against, willing yourself to think about anything else.

“This is,” you began, swallowing thickly as you stared into his eyes, “this is not the most practical way of doing this.”

He stared at you for a moment, blinking at you in confusion.

“Practical?”

“You know,” you mumbled, tearing your eyes away from him, “the best way to do this.”

He frowned at that, giving you a challenging look as his grip on you tightened. You gasped as he held you closer, a spark of mischief in his eyes.

“Can you walk?”

“What?” You blinked. He chuckled, bringing his face even closer to yours which was not helping you form a coherent sentence.

“Can you walk?” He repeated, the corners of his lips tugging up just a hair. You processed his question, scowling at him once you realized he was messing with you.

“No,” you huffed, meeting his gaze with a glare. He gave you a smirk as he turned and started walking through the jungle.

“You don’t have to be so smug, you know,” you grumbled, relaxing a little when you felt confident that he wouldn’t drop you. He hummed, the smirk still painted on his face as he continued on.

“So you know what smug means, but not practical?” You groused. Bradley spared you a look before turning his attention back to where he was walking.

“Ice calls Maverick smug,” he supplied. You hummed, but didn’t say anything else as the two of you carried on.

“Boots?” Bob asked as you and Bradley appeared from the jungle. He was standing by the fire pit, a confused look on his face as if he couldn’t quite figure out what it was he was looking at. Jake and Javy glanced up at the sound of your name, the blond scrambling to his feet when he saw you in the arms of the wild man.

“What happened?” He asked, crossing the distance to come stand beside you. Bradley let out what could only be described as a growl as he swung you away, fixing Jake with a glare. Jake gaped at him, jaw slack. “What the hell-”

“Bradley?”

All of you turned to see Ice and Maverick walking up from the other side of the camp, looks of concern as they glanced between you and the man whose arms you were still currently in.

“I, uh,” you stammered, glancing around at everyone. “I fell.”

“You fell?” Jake asked accusingly, already eyeing your swollen ankle.

“I was following some baboons,” you admitted, refusing to meet his gaze. You could already feel the accusatory look he was giving you. “I was taking notes, and I tripped over some tree roots. Bradley found me and brought me back here.”

“You were supposed to go straight to the river,” Jake accused.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You strayed off the path, didn’t you?”

“Jake-”

“Dammit, Boots,” he growled, running a hand over his face. “You could have been seriously hurt!”

“Speaking of,” Ice interrupted, moving forward to examine your ankle. “Let’s get you looked at. Bradley, would you mind setting her over here?”

Bradley looked over at the bench that Ice gestured to, pausing for a moment before walking over. He plopped down, situating you on his lap, his arms still wrapped around your middle. You let out an indignant squeak, glaring when both Javy, Jake, and Bob snickered, trying to cover them up with coughs.

“Looks like wild man is already attached,” Javy quipped, earning another glare.

“Why don’t you come over here and say that,” you snapped, feeling the heat on your cheeks grow even warmer. Ice looked like he was struggling not to laugh as he crouched in front of you, and you just barely caught the smirk that Maverick had on his face. You winced as Ice began his examination, biting your lip from the pain. You felt Bradley’s arms tighten around you, and you gripped onto his arm a little tighter to keep from crying out at the red hot spike of pain that shot up from your ankle.

“Looks like you sprained it,” Ice finally announced. You let out a groan, leaning back into Bradley as you rolled your eyes.

“Just my luck,” you grumbled. “How long am I stuck here for?”

“I’d say at least four,” he surmised. “Maybe six if you don’t keep off of it.”

“Looks like wild man will just have to carry her around everywhere,” Javy snickered, Bob and Jake joining in with him.

“Would you be quiet?” You growled. “This is going to be a nightmare!”

“Serves you right,” Jake smirked, that smarmy look you hated already on his face. “You should have waited for me.”

“I hate you,” you mumbled, crossing your arms with a huff. Ice chuckled, moving to stand.

“Bradley, would you mind bringing Boots to the medical tent for me? I should have a bandage for her to wear.”

You scrambled once again as Bradley lifted you, clinging to his shoulders as he began to walk after Ice across the camp. The three boys were barely holding in their laughter as they watched you, breaking out into fits of giggles as you flipped them off.

Bradley was none the wiser as he held you, his hold gentle as he took care to not jostle you too much. You supposed the next couple of weeks wouldn’t be so bad.

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[that-one-i-think]

Temple Of Menphia Lore!

SO having a character that is a follower of Menphia has resulted in me making a religion from scratch SO HERE IS THE MAIN POINTS OF THE RELIGION FOR THOSE INTERESTED! (Like most of my lore posts, feel free to use. Sharing is caring and all.)

The Temple of Menphia is a religion that focuses battle and justice, with the defining feature being the "Fury of the Righteous". I based a lot of the principles off of Sikhism and partially from the DC Amazonian's. Essentially, based it off of religious warriors. (seriously though, look up Sikhism. Super fascinating)

The temples were established by Menphia as her own way to combat shadow knights. Warriors with a strong sense of justice who are able to combat the rage of shadow knights and channel their own. It is much more difficult for a person who is in control of their emotions to be corrupted than someone dealing with religious shame. Equality and social justice are incredibly important aspects.

An important aspect of the temple of Menphia is injustice collecting. Think of them similar to bounty hunters and cops. Most temples act as a form of Judge, Jury, and Executioner, with locals coming to them with issues and the temples acting as a way to solve problems. Essentially, if a villager cannot get their lords to act on a crime, a temple priest will delegate it instead.

Temples also handle a lot of lord corruption as well. An example of this is a farmers daughter who was the mistress of a lord ending up dead. The farmer asked the temple to investigate, believing it was fowl play. One of the judges (a temple priest who is more skilled with words than battle) investigated and after finding out a Lord was he one who killed her, dispatched justice accordingly.

Unlike the Church of Irene, the Temple of Menphia is incredibly separate from politics. For they need to in order to treat everyone fairly. This also means that Temple Warrior won't join in on a war unless the know that the side they are fighting on is correct. They are for the people, not for a nation.

The temple of Menphia is very open to sex and violence. Menphia was the Divine Warrior of Fury and Passion, so as long as it can resemble a fight, you are set. It is also why tattoos are a part of the religion, it is withstanding pain and coming out on top.

Now onto some flaws about the religion. While being a very open religion, it is very difficult to join a temple. For temple members require years upon years of training, unlike the Irene church. The Temple of Irene is also a temple that isn't really that knowlegeable about science, math, or magicks. They are essentially a church of Lawyers and Warriors, they are focused on social issues and justice. They are taught to read though, but aren't taught many languages beyond Havasi (The Tu'la langauge)

A lot of Menphia followers have an extreme prejudice against shadow knights. When many of the temple warriors have been taught how to kill them since the age of 4, it leads to prejudice. The temple doesn't really do guest well either, they will nurse you back to health but claiming sanctuary isn't really a thing unless you are in genuine unfair danger.

That is all for right now. Again, feel free to use and comment or ask questions. Story building is the best when other people can chat about it.

[yuurei20]

Hello! It's me again. Thank you for answering my last ask.

I went and found some more voice lines. Sadly, I cannot screenshot the audio, but here's the English translations of the lines from Jack's dorm uniform, Rook's Halloween costume, Malleus' GloMas outfit, Kalim's New Year getup, Silver's Halloween costume, and Silver's Birthday Boy clothes. It's worth noting that Deuce calls Kalim "Asim-senpai" in the New Year's duo.

Hope this helps! (I only have the Jack, Malleus, and Rook shown here, the rest I got via the helper cards in Crafter's Gauntlet battles. lol.)

Hello hello, thank you so much!! I checked the audio on all of the above cards and with the exception of the usual removal of honorifics, the official translations on EN are all perfect! :>

Have put together an original dialogue/literal translation comparison just for fun, but they're all great as they are!

Jack's phrasing here is probably meant to be a wolf-based pun, as the word he is using (かます) both means to defeat a person/win a challenge in one go, and is also pronounced the same as the word 嚙ます, for "to bite."

So technically he is saying both "let's bite them" and "let's finish them off" simultaneously, which isn't really something that can be portrayed in English.

Ruggie's response of "熱くなっちゃって" is kind of Ruggie saying, "You always get so heated!" or "passionate" or "worked up."

The word "hade" (派手) comes up a lot with Kalim, but can be so difficult to express in English. It can be said as "flashy," "gaudy," etc. Basically, to go very big!

Deuce's response is the same on EN and is a word of encouragement (it is actually かます again, from Jack's Duo, as Deuce is encouraging Kalim to take out their opponent), but Deuce is also saying "please."

And then there is Deuce's use of last-name-senpai being changed to a first name without an honorific which, as you say, is worthy of note!

Deuce's way of expressing himself connects directly to his past violence and his present-day efforts to reform himself; an important part of the character that might just be impossible to translate into english. (More here!)

Malleus and Sebek's lines are both perfectly accurate on EN, although "-sama" has been removed from Sebek's dialogue.

The game has an interesting relationship with the "-sama" honorific. Sebek's "Malleus-sama" gets rewritten into "Housewarden Malleus" or dropped, while it is localized as "Mr.," "Master," "O Great," "O mighty" or "Count" with other characters.

Rook's Halloween Duo dialogue is perfectly accurate! Interestingly, while Trey and Riddle both have "roses" in their nicknames, Riddle's is pronounced as the English/French word "rose," while Trey's is pronounced as the Japanese word "bara" (薔薇).

(All of Rook's nicknames (including changes made between servers) can be found here!)

Silver's Halloween Duo is also perfectly accurate, with just the loss of "-senpai" from Silver.

Leona's line is a great example of how flexible the Japanese language is, depending so heavily on context as it does: technically all Leona is saying is the word "show," in a command form. He isn't specifying what it is that he wants Silver to show to him, so while we can infer that this would probably be "show me what you've got" or "show me how it's done," etc, in English, he could technically also be saying "show me what's in your hands" or "show me what you're hiding," etc.

(If you've ever wondered how some translations can vary so wildly between sources, this is part of why!)

Silver's Birthday Duo is also perfectly accurate, missing only the "-kun" from Ruggie.

Unlike Cater, who also uses honorifics in 100% of his dialogue (except with Trey in important situations), when Leona overblots Ruggie doesn't shift to calling him by name: he calls him a casual form of "you," which is equally fascinating. (More here)

Also, combined the above screenshots with their corresponding audio for reference, here!

[haven-of-dusk]

More Caswen Headcanons because I have too many of these to fit in my mindbrain:

This one's long. A few years after their wedding, Ricky is selected as one of the Greene Foundation's Global Ambassadors for the Universal Language Project, or in other words, he gets to travel the world a bit to help encourage musical education globally. EJ doesn't have to come with him...but he does want to, so he quits his job (cordially, they understand it's not like he hates it there) and learns as much as he can about the variants of sign language in the areas they'll be traveling to so he can interpret for Ricky. Ricky also attempts to learn some, but really only succeeds in remembering 'Sorry' 'Please' and 'I love you'.

Building on that last one, EJ's favourite location they live for a period is Sweden, while Ricky's favourite is a tie between Wales and Italy. As a result of that, once they finish Ricky's time as an Ambassador, they settle in Copenhagen and EJ lands a job at the University of Copenhagen while he works on a second Masters degree there.

They adopt a Bernese Mountain Dog name Lykke and a Husky named Kota (because I couldn't resist).

One of EJ's nicknames for Ricky is 'Mr. Whiskers' for twofold reasons, because whenever EJ plays with Ricky's hair he leans into it like a cat, and also because of EJ enjoying the time Ricky attempted to grow facial hair.

They both cry at emotional movie moments. Frequently.

Ricky: Golden Retriever Boyfriend, EJ: Black Cat Mask hiding another Golden Retriever Boyfriend

EJ watches anime because he's fascinated by the art form, Ricky watches with him because he enjoys the stories, the colors, and any excuse to cuddle with his husband.

EJ drinks coffee in the morning, Ricky does not, but since he's up earlier anyway, EJ makes it a habit to visit one of a few local cafés every couple days and pick up a different pastry each time for Ricky's sweet tooth.

Speaking of which, Ricky loves couple costumes for Halloween, which EJ's willing to go along with out of love.

Ricky always knows when EJ is getting too stressed about work and will come up (much like a cat or dog) and demand attention until EJ relents and takes a break.

EJ is very much a New Years person, and thus Ricky has a bunch of contacts lined up for restaurant/event dates around that time.

Ricky found out how much he loves traveling while they were moving around for the Ambassador thing, so EJ always arranges a 2+ week vacation in the summer to at least one location they haven't been yet. Sometimes with at least one of the other Wildcats joining them.

[geistundmaterie]

Phenomenology of Mammon

Either what I’m about to write doesn’t make any sense and I’m slowly spiralling down into a state of madness, or I have managed to see the true essence of Mammon.

When one is fascinated by a certain character, it does not happen by a mere accident. Your unconsciousness responses to the seen images with different intensity, some things appearing especially meaningful to you. This text is not an analysis of the obvious allegories that were put into Mammon’s concept. Instead, I attempt to explain why his design and everything related to him “goes hard” and fascinates many at an irrational level.

Clowns and the Transcendence

Mammon is a clown and this fact is meaningful in itself. In human cultures across the globes, the universal transcendental reality is broken down into various local forms. Thus, "truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names". In other words, material reality consisting of concepts and forms is finite. By relying solely on it, one loses some of the possibilities that exist beyond the rational association with the world.

A symbol gives access to the deeper layers of existence which are otherwise inaccessible. For example, the rationally incomprehensible can nevertheless remain expressible in the artistic image. A clown, in turn, is the ultimate symbol of the symbolic expression in itself, as seen in its performances or playing of a role. It is an articulation of a desire to escape the human cerebral way of thinking. Clown’s intuitive trickster nature allows it to access the realm of existence that go being the conventional categories of reason. It exemplifies how a wordless intuitive artistic expression can compensate for the deficiencies of a language. Clowns playfully engage with the reality and lure us into a region of the spirit beyond any material or societal creeds. Thanks to their silly form, clown embodies a statement that point beyond themselves into the realm of everything instinctive and irrational.

In a letter to comedian George Carlin, Byrd Gibbens, a professor of English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, wrote about the significance of the trickster in indigenous myths:

Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.

Balancing between Chaos and Order

The Helluva Boss’ merch of Mammon depicts him in a dynamic and balancing pose. Any good clown is always balancing between chaos and order, not falling into the extremes of both.

One thing those depictions of Mammon instantly remind me of is the World tarot card. It usually represents the archetype of completion, achievement, fulfilment, sense of belonging, wholeness, harmony. This card has a dancing figure at the centre. The figure is constantly in motion, but it moves harmoniously, calmly balancing between opposites. Its expression of unity and fulfilment is eternal yet dynamic rather than simply static. One feels the cosmic rhythm and participates in it. There are four figures on each corner of the tarot card, representative of the four corners of the universe, the four elements, and the four evangelicals. Together, they symbolize the harmony between all of their energies. And all of them are is the dancer’s control. Mammon, in return, has four hands.

In fact, it is not a mere coincidence that The Fool and The World tarot cards both have a dynamic yet balancing figure at their centre: this state is the beginning and the end of all being, starting with unconscious wholeness and moving to its conscious experience. The clown is the perfect synthesis of Apollonian and Dionysian drives: it is a whim that has gained form and purpose. A repressive (Apollonian) society needs a mediator between it and a Dionysian element, a safety valve through which one can give a symbolic satisfaction to the antisocial tendencies. Without the latter, human life is misbalanced. One must experience what Friedrich Schiller called the play drive. It unites the infinite and the finite, instinct and reason, and life and form in the human experience. In order for the play drive to effectively mediate between the body and the mind, humans must develop passivity, practise intuition, and open up to the universe. They also need to practise using reason and active stance towards the world. When both are accomplished, a person can experiences a balance between two polar opposites of being at once; they feel themselves as ever-changing matter and come to know themselves as an eternal mind.

Artistic expression results from the balance and union of two opposed principles of rational and irrational. By being like a clown and engaging with life in a playful, symbolic way, you transcend yourself and become fully human.

Taken from the Shark Robot merch store, Twitter: zllm6

Spider Web and Mandala

Mammon is a spider demon. His territory is packed with spider web visuals, including “the lounge” he sits at during the performances. Spider webs are an unconscious but a meaningful creative phenomena, a beauty that is produced by an instinct. They also bear a striking resemblance to mandalas.

Mandala can be found in all the ancient cultures and is a symbol of life’s innate interconnection and of the Self, a unification of the conscious and unconscious life of the individual. In terms of one’s inner world, it represents the inherent order of the soul in centre of which resides the God itself. A centre that unites all polarities and contains the essence of all that emanates from it. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the Self.

In the mythology of many Native American cultures, an important figure called Spider Grandmother (Hopi Kokyangwuti, Navajo Na'ashjé'ii Asdzáá) can be found. She has a central role in the creation myth as the Creator who spun the “Web of Physical Life”. It is upon the strands of this web that all life is interconnected, with each creature being a vital and integral strand in the cosmic web.

Hence, a spider web can be viewed as a symbol of the organised cosmos and primal source of everything.

Unio Oppositorum

Mammon at his core is a union of opposites. To begin with, he unites the classical dichotomy of matter and spirit in himself. He has animal features and is still a spiritual being. His concept as an “animal deity” also corresponds to the ancient tradition of depicting beings with a divine status as animal-like: Egyptian pantheon of Gods, some Babylonian Gods, three animals following the Evangelists, and so on. Even the Christ was attributed with animal features, being called “a lamb of God”, “a fish”, or being depicted as a snake on a cross. Both, the instinct and the spirit, belong to the wholeness of the cosmos.

Mammon encompasses numerous other opposites within himself: he’s both goofy and dangerous, he’s a “baby” or “a manchild” to some and a sugar daddy to others, he’s lazy and extremely energetic at the same time, he’s fat yet very agile and has a very good body coordination, he has teeth and claws yet reminds you of a teddy bear, he’s both the performer and the manager, he’s both “a rock star” and an traditional artist, he’ll take from you but also give you what you want, his theme music is a combination of a classical circus jingle, a tune from “Carmen” and electric guitar rizz. Despite all the opposites at hand, everything feels natural and balanced in Mammon.

Even Mammon’s black-and-white stripes in his full-demon form indicate the consciousness of the opposites in him: he is not just light or not just dark; he is a combination of the two. This detail of his appearance reminds me of Koshare Pueblo Clowns (sometimes called Sacred Clowns).

For the same reason Mammon’s dualistic patterns on his clothes are extremely fitting and symbolic.

The Double, the Trinity and the Quaternity

“One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

Mammon has two Fizzbots sitting beside him. Folk cosmologies commonly feature twins, who are typically engaged in an unending battle with each other. Reality consists of a multiplicity of things: the division into two was necessary in order to bring the ‘one’ world out of the state of potentiality into reality. Dualities coexist in an undifferentiated manner in their natural state. However, the tension between the opposites grows stronger as consciousness awakens. An irrational third, the transcendent function, manifests from this conflict and unites them.

The fact that the Twin Fizzbots look gender ambiguous is meaningful: they are in unison and transcend the sexual duality, with “the transcendent function” being Mammon’s wish to make them androgynous. For the same reason it is very symbolic that in the storyboard, Mammon had two groupies of opposite genders sitting beside him: it is a “the divine pair” of complementary opposites united through Mammon’s equal attraction to them.

In alchemy, a lot is revolved around the “Mystery of Coniuctio” (of the Conjunction, the Marriage of the Opposites). The conjunctio requires a medium for its realization. The fruit of this union is the “Philosopher’s Son”, the Mercurius. He is a trickster entity that balances between two opposites, and is the base and the end of all being, an integration of light and dark, good and bad. This alchemistical process expresses itself in a trinity, tria prima, related to the law of the triangle. The law of the triangle is natural law formed from the union of two opposite but complementary equal halves to produce a perfect manifestation. Consequentially, the Twin Fizzbots (having complementary outfits with patterns on opposite sides!) are joined in Mammon, with them forming a trinity together.

Mammon has four arms. Four is a culturally meaningful number and an omnipresent symbol of the cosmic balance, as expressed in four cardinal direction, the four "Holy Creatures" that bear the Divine Chariot, four seasons of the years, fours functions of the consciousness, etc. Quaternity represents wholeness and universality. Several Hindu deities are often portrayed with four arms. The iconography of four arms symbolises divinity and power, as well as dominion over the four quarters of the universe.

The Rhombus

Mammon’s current costume includes many rhombuses: a shape consisting of two triangles, one downward and one upward pointed, joined together. This geometric symbol represents the unification of low aspects with the upper. Because rhombus contains vertical and horizontal directions simultaneously, it expresses the concept of Unus Mundus that unites matter and spirit instead of treating them as two polar opposites that exclude each other. In other words, it’s a symbol of the Hermetic universal principle: "as above, so below; as below, so above", which is rooted in the ancient Egyptian mysticism and Hellenistic philosophy. According to it, the immortal and eternal realm of the inner world corresponds to the physical and mortal reality of the outer world that we all experience. With that, Mammon displays yet another symbol of a union of opposites.

The Value of Money

Mammon represents the sin of Greed in a physical embodiment. There is nothing he loves more than money, all his endeavours dedicated to making more and more of it. He desires the ultima ratio of all things worldly.

Aside from its economic function, money can be used as a driving force behind action, a benchmark of success or status, a means of expressing one's own value, a tool for exerting control over others, a means of achieving happiness, a solution to problems, a means of defining one's own worth, and a source of security. It is not inherently wicked.

Money also symbolises a storage of concentrated potential energy for later use, it links us to the material world. Soul needs money so it doesn’t fly off into some distant psychic reality. “Laying up treasures in Heaven, where moths and rust can not consume them” leads to disassociation from the material existence, condemning it to a degree it does not deserve. Before your physical death, you are forced to play by the rules of the world that put value on success and material gains. In Jungian school of thought, the first half of human life is dedicated to adapting to the outer world, planting your feet firmly on the ground and accustoming oneself to the conditions imposed on you, learning how to use the material restrictions to one’s advantage. It’s all about the expansion of life and conquering the environment you are inhabiting, which includes learning how to secure yourself and improve your life conditions by earning money.

Taken from the Shark Robot merch store, Twitter: kstoooone

Colour Psychology

What are the positive features one could instinctually associate with Mammon’s colours?

In colour psychology, green represent health, life, and prosperity. Being a dominant colour in nature, green is associated with vitality, harmony, and growth. It is a harmonizing, balancing and calming shade. Green is also associated with luck: the Irish believe the wearing of the green brings fortune.

The gold colour is the colour of wealth, achievement, and triumph. Golden colour adds richness and warmth to everything that it comes in contact with. It illuminates and enhances other things around it. It is optimistic and positive, as well as being synonymous with divinity, wisdom and power in many religious settings. It inspires knowledge, spirituality, and a deep understanding of ourselves and our souls. For the alchemist, gold represented the source and end of all being, and the perfection of matter on any level, including that of the mind, spirit, and soul (the famous “Philosopher's Stone”).

Sometimes, purple colour can be seen in things associated with Mammon (his advertisement for Fizzbots, the interior of his concert building, etc.). Purple, green and gold are Mardi Gras colours.

Mammon’s merchandise usually feature lime green, a hue mixture of yellow and green. Lime green is a bright, electric colour full of vibrancy and energy. It is a colour closely associated with confidence, and is thought to promote feelings of liveliness and excitement. It is also a colour that is said to stimulate the mind and body, and to promote creativity.

In conclusion, Mammon’s visual appearance features colours that have a psychologically vitalising and positive effect on the viewer, making him a very pleasant character to look at.

KA-CHING!

The known laws of physics forbid the movement through the outer space of either mass or energy faster than the light speed. Mammon doesn’t care about that, he simply teleports wherever he pleases.

The trickster archetype is a “boundary-crosser”. They violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis. They will dismantle, construct, manifest themselves, move, and perform tricks that seem to bend all notions of causality, normality, and sense. All your prior knowledge and assumptions will be casually thrown out the window by these entities. They excel at manipulating reality to their will and breaking the laws of physics. The strangeness of Mammon does not end there. Where does the „ka-ching“ sound and confetti come from? What are those voices of cheering kids? Mammon is a reality warper and uses his abilities in the most childish yet endearing way possible. You are confronted with something that blows up your categories of judgement and does not give you a coherent explanation for anything you saw. These are just facts you need to somehow integrate into your established picture of reality.

The Jester and the Death

There could be a very profound symbolism behind Mammon’s skeleton suit.

The medieval understanding held that the root of all foolishness was the denial of God (logos, ratio). Any detachment from human reason, or the instinctive, irrational, and impulsive behavior that prioritizes desire over purposeful thought, was referred to in this context as "foolishness." Foolishness and sin were set on the same level. Those who denied the existence of God were doomed to eternal death after their life on Earth had ended because they rejected the idea of an immortal soul (and, instead, lived a life of an irrational desire-driven “animal”).

The Fall of Man brought death into the world. Adam and Eve lose both paradise and immortality when they choose to follow the serpent instead of God. The Old Testament provides an explanation for the two greatest mysteries of human existence: first, the imperfection of man and, second, the temporal limitation of his existence. If original sin is the reason for death and if foolishness has the same meaning as the original sin, then foolishness should also have a causal connection with death. This was, in fact, the conviction of people in the late Middle Ages.

The fool and the death are believed to have a kinship relationship in the Dance of the Death frescoes. The death appears in numerous depictions of it dressed as a jester. During the turn of the Middle Ages, there are actually a lot of visual arts examples where death and the jester are viewed as counterparts (window niche in the monastery of St. Georgen in Stein am Rhein; choir stalls of the church of St. George in Nördlingen, collegiate church of Öhringen in Hohenlohe, etc.).

The other implied connection is the fact that the Carnival (“carne vale”) is followed by the Ash Wednesday (“remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”). Two aspects of man’s limitations (flesh and death) are thus seen as affiliated with each other in the liturgical year.

The Devil, the Jester und the Death are the Unholy Trinity of Christian visual art.

Truth is One, One is All, All is One

Cultural similarities across the globe underline the facts that, despite things being expressed in different ways, our psyche tries to communicate the same truths. All cultural manifestations have their unique features, but within their areas of action one can recognize the same archetypal patterns. Jungian analysts and mythologists pointed to the plethora of tricksters around the world.

Firstly, Mammon reminds me of the Laughing Buddha (Budai or Hotei) from Eastern cultures. His well-fed appearance represents abundance. When you observe the most popular form of the laughing Buddha closely, you will notice that he is always carrying a cloth bag that is filled with many precious items such as food, candies for children, and other riches. According to the belief, he will collect all your sadness and misfortune, put it in his sack and leave you with abundance and positivity. The sack also represents wealth and good fortune.

The most popular colour for household Laughing Buddha sculptures is gold. Even though it is a Feng Shui sign, Vastu Shastra experts also advocated for the placing of Laughing Buddhas in the home. To them, the smiling Buddha is comparable to Kubera (the god of wealth). Lord Kubera, celebrated as the Supreme Lord of Wealth and revered as the Treasurer of the Gods, stands as the epitome of affluence in Hindu mythology. Business owners and shopkeepers, seeking to accumulate wealth, turn their devotion toward Kubera.

Lastly, Mammon’s affiliation with the wealth and his jester nature draw parallel to the Roman God Mercury. He is a trickster and the god of commerce. His name is related to the Latin word merx, from which we get the English words merchandise, merchant, and commerce. It may also correspond to the Latin word mercari (to trade). Mercury often served as a mediator between the gods and mortals, including being a guide to the people who descended into the Underworld. Considering the fact that “the Underworld” is a symbol of the unconsciousness, this perfectly correlates with the previously mentioned ability of a clown to perfectly balance between rational and irrational state of being.

As stated above, the alchemy symbolically views Mercurius as the resulting “child” of the Union of Opposites, the restoration of the original undifferentiated state of the cosmos. The tria prima of alchemy needing for the achievement of this state consist of “sulphur, salt and mercury”. Sulfur, the "soul", is the masculine principle. Salt, as the "body", is the feminine principle. Mercury, as "spirit", is equivalent to "mind". Hence, the mystical trinity is: Soul, Body, Mind. It is, however, important to consider that the mind has two aspects (conscious and subconscious, left and right). This is metaphorically expressed in the balancing act of Mercury. This is why Mercury is often depicted with wings, he literally "flies between the two worlds". In the “In the mountain of the Adepts” engraving from Stephan Michelspacher's “Alchemia”, one can spot Mercurius at the top centre, being depicted as a playful, jester-like figure, standing in the same balancing pose like the Mammon standee.

Taken from the Shark Robot merch store, Twitter: kstoooone Conclusion

Mammon provides us with a plenitude of symbolic insight into the topics that continue to stay vitally relevant. Seeing Mammon is enough to feel like coming in contact with a primordial deity. You are confronted with something greater that yourself and experience “mysterium tremendum et fascinans”. Mammon is undoubtedly the best character ever created by the Western civilization.

*gives his cheek a smooch*

[diabeticlady]

Skyrim Stuff Part 3!

At this point I'm hoping that my Skyrim save doesn't fall apart. I still have like a good forty or so entries left so... we'll be good for now! To be honest the most upsetting part of the possible save death would be all the time I have put into writing these. I've delved into Elder Scrolls lore to try and ensure that it all makes sense. With my specific fascination with Wayrest I even went and got Daggerfall started and running so I can mess with the Knightly Orders and Nobles there. Fantastic and free game you can play through Daggerfall Unity. Though I doubt anyone reading fucking Skyrim modded playthrough RP is unfamiliar. Thank you to all that do read this, even if you don't like it. Anyways, enough rambling, back to some more entries!

Last Seed, 18th, 4E 201

This place has turned itself into some form of giant death trap. I do not know what the Nords of old were trying to protect but I am left wondering how long these contraptions of death have been left swinging. I managed to easily dodge through the swinging axes, and was perceptive enough to notice the hanging jars of burning oil, ready to be released. Another note to self, do not burn these undead. The smell was nearly enough to make me throw up right then and there. Would have been a terrible way to go out, mid swordfight. Nonetheless, as I venture deeper inside the purpose of this Golden Claw became apparent. Another wall with symbols on it required my touch. The Golden Claw was no more than a key! To be used to enter this large cave area. I found an excavation site nearby, and gathered a few remnants from it. However that was hardly the oddest thing that happened. There was this wall, etched into it some form of runes. A language long since forgotten, perhaps? What matters most is that as I approached this wall, I found myself absorbing some type of magic. Just like the runes, I can only assume that this magic is ancient and esoteric. I only hope that whatever it is that I absorbed is not evil in some form. It was quite heavily guarded after all. Maybe this is what the undead here were trying to protect? I will have to speak to some local wizards, to help understand what I have uncovered. There was one last undead foe that rose from their tomb, though they were still easily dispatched. It also seemed to shout at me, propelling magic through its voice. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I found another piece of possible treasure on its corpse (though it was technically already a corpse), some slab of rock with something etched into it. I lived through the catacombs, but now I just have more and more questions.

Last Seed, 19th, 4E 201

I went down from where that catacomb left me, and decided to head back to that quaint little town I had seen earlier. Riverwood is what it is called. Along the way I stumbled across another piece of odd architecture, though unlike the catacomb. I don't know what it is, but I found a note nearby, and I am yet to read it. Will do so after this entry. Anyways, after resting at the local inn (that makes two), I stopped by the local merchant to acquire supplies and food. Apparently the Golden Claw was some relic of his, which I kindly returned. Got paid 400 septims for that, my first quest complete, even if I completed it unknowingly. I am pretty well stocked on food now, and also managed to tackle another little trouble-spot. A nearby mine. I had seen bandits near it, and so I went in assuming that the mine was being attacked by them. Little did I know, the bandits had completely taken control of it. They were still weak compared to me, easily felled by my blade. The poor miners inside though, I found a journal that spoke about how they were enslaved by the bandits, forced to mine the iron in the cave under cruel cruel conditions. I hope that they receive a pleasant rest, from the Divine Mother. I am headed back to Whiterun, I need to meet with the court wizard there. Maybe they can help explain what magic I absorbed in that catacomb.

Last Seed, 19th, 4E 201

I have arrived back in Whiterun. After some shopping, I have decided to relax at the Bannered Mare. This will be the last journal entry for today, as I plan on getting myself drunk. Though, there are already plans for tomorrow. I read the note I found on the unknown structure. Apparently it was Dwemer? Either way, I have the remains of someone to find. Sounds like it'll be fun. I also spoke with the person who owns the inn, a lovely lady by the name of Hulda. They were not kidding about Nord size, as the woman towers over me! Anyways, the lass spoke of some odd going ons in the town of Helgen. I checked my map, it is not far from Riverwood. I have no clue what that is about, might be related to the tensions I have heard about going on in Skyrim, with the Stormcloaks and the Imperials. Either way, another place I need to check out.

[jeannereames]

Hello Dr. Reames! When you decide to read a history book on your free time - and a book completely unrelated to your area of expertise - but you know nothing about said topic, you're only interested in learning about it. How do you choose which book you'll read?

FANTASTIC question. Thank you for asking it.

Let’s Talk How to Evaluate the Quality of a Book NOT on/in Your Specialization or Field

I’m going to start with some general bullet points of advice with discussion. Then I’ll give a concrete example of a book (or set of them) that I decided not to buy after a little rummaging.

The Basics

(These may seem obvious, but a lot of folks ignore them, like they skip over reading the introduction. Always read the book’s introduction!)

Who’s the author?

Most books have, on the back cover or inside, a note about the author. Also, google the person. Do they have a professional degree or some form of special training/ experience (e.g., say, they worked on a dig)? If they’re a professor, where do they teach? (But don’t put too much on that; the state of academia today means highly respected scholars could end up in Podunk Mississippi just to find a job.)

What type of book is it and who’s the intended audience?

Is it an academic book meant for other specialists? A book intended for use as a textbook? Something marketed to general audiences: “pop” history, or creative non-fiction? These may all be well-done. Yet if I’m wanting to learn about a topic I’m not familiar with, I specifically seek out a textbook, as they're geared to teach the topic to non-specialists. They won’t go down a research rabbit hole. Specifically in ancient history, those “Companion to…” collections are great, as you get multiple experts weighing in on what they know the most about. And they're intended for interested readers but not specialists in that particular topic. Also they’re curated by an editor who IS a specialist, so you know the chosen authors are respected in the field.

When was it written?

If the publication date is 50 years ago, it’s been superseded. It might be out of date even if it’s 20 years ago—or 10. But newer is not necessarily better.

What press published it?

Princeton, Cambridge, Brill/DeGruyter, Berkeley, Peeters, Harvard, Chicago. Any would be a good sign. But the University of Oklahoma does not mean it’s a bad book. (Beth Carney’s important first monograph on Macedonian women came from UOk.) University presses can corner the market on a particular topic: Univ. of Nebraska does a LOT of native history. Also, it may not be a university press at all. Routledge is perfectly respectable, as are Bloomsbury and Penguin. For local histories or something niche, you may get publication by a historical society, not a major press at all. (I picked up a perfectly fine book about ghost stories in the city of Savannah done by the local historical society.) BUT IF IT’S SELF-PUBLISHED, that’s a big ol’ Red Flag.

Going a Little Deeper

Ask somebody you know, who IS a specialist in the field, if they’ve read the book and what they think

Depending on your personal circle, this may not be possible.

Find a review (or three)

I regularly teach my undergrads (and grad students) to look for reviews.

Look at the bibliography

Probably more important for academic books, but how long is the biblio? Yes, topics can have more or fewer publications, but it should go on for some pages. Also, is it all in just one language? Some fields may tend that way (much American history), but a well-done monograph in, say, Greek or Roman history should not be monolingual in the research.

Actually check (don’t ignore) footnotes

They tell stories. Again, this largely pertains to academic books, but you can find fun (and occasionally catty) scholarly quarrels in them. Very early in my reading on Alexander, I became fascinated by the back-and-forth in footnotes between the “Three Bs” (Badian, Borza, and Bosworth) plus Green and Hammond. BUT some red flags: 1) the author disproportionately citing themself, especially if it’s because 2) the author seems to have quarrels with a large number of colleagues. Maybe the author is just original! But sometimes that tells you their conclusions are questionable. Use your common sense.

Now, for a concrete example … as some of you know, I have American indigenous ancestry, specifically Peoria-Miami (Myaamia). While I know some things about our tribe, I’m far from an expert. On our Facebook page, one of the other members recently dropped mention of a series on the early history of Indiana, and the conflicts between settlers and natives during the French-Indian Wars—including St. Clare’s Defeat, effected by the Myaamia and led by Little Turtle (Mihshihkinaahkwa), the worst defeat [proportionally] ever suffered by American troops.

I thought, Oh, cool, maybe I should pick these up and read them in my “copious” spare time. E.g., probably years from now.

I followed the provided link, and immediately thought, This doesn’t look good. Page ran on forever, not well organized, and I had to hunt for info about the author. Although he was a retired schoolteacher, he didn’t seem to have any specific training in doing historical research; I don’t think he was even a history major in college (probably did education). Additionally, the book-covers and purchasing info made it clear all the books were self-published, and the provided text snippets contained grammar errors.

Yeah, I left that page bookless. Maybe the info in them was perfectly fine and he just couldn’t find a publisher who wanted creative non-fiction about an event most people have never heard of led by a chief with a name most can’t pronounce…. But I’m going to bet the research matched the grammar: slap-dash.

Now, that was a relatively easy one to figure out; I spent all of 10 minutes on the page. (And no, I’m not naming the author nor linking to the books, as this is an example, not an attempt to humiliate the person.) But it gives you some idea how I evaluate books in a field very far from my own specialty.

———————

* Although that said, they’re starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with new topics for Yet Another “Companion to….” Some I’ve seen would be better just sold as a collection on X topic, not “Companion to….”

[hopeymchope]

Danganronpa Kirigiri: Post-Halftime Report

So you probably remember that I recently discovered the entire Danganronpa Kirigiri series is now available in some form of an English translation. I jumped on reading them immediately, and I started to write this post when I was at the halfway point of reading Danganronpa Kirigiri Vol. 4. Because that's roughly the halfway point of the series a whole, right? But then I went and finished Vol. 4, so now I'm like... idk, 57% through? Though that doesn't actually account for unique page counts in each volume, so maybe I should reconsider that percentage. Er. ......... The point is that I feel like I should probably say something to mark the "roughly halfway" point. Y'know — just write some notes on my thoughts and feelings where things stand so far.

MINOR WARNING: I'm obviously a huge Danganronpa fan. Since late 2016, I've absorbed every possible piece of DR media I could get. So I've basically been waiting seven years to be able to read past Volume 1 of these light novels. (There's been a translation of Vol. 3 out for some time, but ofc I had no desire to skip from 1 to 3, so I passed on reading it before this.) Combine that with the Japanese-reading side of Tumblr HEAVILY hyping these books as one of the best things in the franchise + this being my first "new" DR content in two years, and there are some serious expectations weighing down the DRK light novels. I think that's why I've often felt so critical of them as I've gone through them.

A few different people have warned that these are partially machine translations. In actuality, they're a mix of machine translation + already-existing translations + A.I.-supported cleanup of the text + a human read-through to clean up major dangling errors — albeit by someone who is not a native English OR Japanese speaker. Even Chinese fan translations were used as part of the source, which is NOT IDEAL. With that in mind: How's the result? Honestly, it's DAMNED impressive! Extremely readable and easy to get engaged with! ...... but of course, it's not without issues. Errors in syntax/grammer are pretty common, some concepts forego more natural/accurate translations in favor of slightly awkward explanations, and there's at least one Japanese word that is regularly repeated yet left weirdly untranslated. And yet? Despite those sporadic issues, the story is NEVER difficult to follow. These books are full of complex mysteries with tons of little details building upon one another, and all the necessary information to enjoy them comes through clearly. So: Although a thorough, proper translation and localization by parties fully versed in both languages would still be the ideal scenario, I find that these translations make for a satisfying experience right now.

Given that most of the overall narrative is told via Yui Samidare's first-person POV, I thought we'd learn a lot about Kirigiri's onee-sama. To my surprise, however, Samidare is one of the — perhaps even the — most thinly drawn protagonist(s) I've encountered in any Danganronpa story. Halfway through the light novels, and I've learned very little of her history, absolutely nothing about her home life, and her inner thoughts come in just two forms: 1) Feelings of inferiority/low self-esteem (Of course! It is, after all, a tradition), and 2) Deep adoration of Kirigiri.

I've always adored how Kazuataka gives his characters (even relatively minor ones) numerous traits that make them feel realistically complex, sometimes almost self-contradictory. Basically, that whole GDC presentation he gave on how he develops characters and stories? I LIVE for that shit. By comparison, author Takekuni Kitayama has introduced us to many characters, but the vast majority lack that same complexity. They don't even hint at that kind of complexity. Though perhaps that's because...

I think it's safe to say that the best aspect of Kitayama's writing is his complicated, fascinating mysteries. Reading these, it's no wonder he was asked to come up with the murder scenarios for "Master Detective Archives: Rain Code"! DRK Vol. 2 in particular really engrossed me with its gothic atmosphere and strange setup. Which isn't to say that he's flawless at this stuff, mind you; the main mystery of Volume 3 required Samidare to be pretty thick-headed to not even consider some of the details behind the truth, and it ultimately featured a pretty ridiculous answer to how the murder was executed. But even if that one felt a bit botched, Volume 4 has already made up for it rapidly with numerous twisty mysteries all being juggled by different detectives, each one coming off well-plotted and well-reasoned so far. (Though at least one is not yet fully explained.)

To that previous point: Kirigiri is already solving far more elaborate, complicated mysteries in these light novels than anything she's forced to deal with in DR1. I guess that's fine when you consider that she figures out the truth behind DR1 Chapters 1-4 well ahead of their trials. But now it kinda feels like 13-year-old Kyoko would've resolved every mystery in DR3 much faster than 20-ish Kyoko did in that series. :P I'm only sort-of joking, lol. But hey, maybe she got a little rusty between DR1 and DR3.... ? Or we can justify her more deliberate pace in DR3 by pointing out the ways her efforts were hindered, the fact she was being routinely drugged, and/or noting just how wild the circumstances she had to "solve" truly were. (I mean... the culprit's already dead? The entire primary base has been duplicated in a now-underwater environment? The Savage She-Hulk created a possible Death Cure before dying herself? There's a lot of crazy shit to unpack there :P)

Volume 3 ends with a serious case of "Jin Ex Machina". It's...NOT well-justified by the story, to say the least, but on the plus side? It's executed via a classic trope from action/suspense tales, so I'm inclined to let it slide. :) The end of Volume 3 and the opening of Volume 4 are also when the "grandfather twist" is revealed. I was spoiled about this particular turn of events YEARS ago, but I still believe it's an effective and clever misdirect. The answer is so obvious in retrospect, but Kitayama manages to distract his readers very effectively until the moment he hands both us and Samidare the solution.

RE: Jin, since even the first game I've liked the fact that Kyoko held this resentment towards her father for abandoning her because it feels so real. In a world full of outlandish "psychopop" elements, dealing with a father who abandoned their child is something incredibly grounding bc I know so many fucking people who have this same backstory in their lives. The reveal that he kept a photo of his daughter (in DR1) and wanted Kizakura to help watch out for her (in DR3) then added elements of wish-fulfillment to that backstory; it's pretty typical for a child abandoned by a parent to want to believe that their absentee parent still loved and cared for them in some way, even from afar. DRK takes that "love from afar" much further by having Jin secretly watching over Kyoko all the time while simultaneously never seeing or speaking to her directly... and that's a step too far for my taste. It's hard to swallow that he has such time and/or ability. Thankfully, Kitayama doesn't go so far as to absolve Jin of his sins, which was where I was worried this may be headed. See, we learn that the board of Hope's Peak all but demands that Jin stay away from the Kirigiri family if he's going to continue to advance within the school's hierarchy (and no, this is never explained or justified — even if it's pretty easy to believe Hope's Peak Just Be Like That). This helps keep Jin a somewhat ambiguous figure; sure, he's obviously very concerned about his daughter, but his decision to totally dedicate himself to an organization that keeps him away from her raises doubts for both Samidare and us readers. Which I appreciate.

.......Tohachiro Uzuchi sounds like a fascinatingly weird dude, doesn't he? His total dedication to the Kirgiri Family's legacy despite how it impacted his daughter is something else, yo.

Starting with Volume 4 (and evidently continuing into Volume 5), we're starting to get lengthy chapters where we aren't focused on Samidare OR Kirigiri for the very first time. Instead, these chapters center us on other, different detectives. We don't get to know these characters much at all before we're thrust into focusing on them, PLUS this comes after the series has already made both us and Samidare severely doubt anyone who's registered with the Detective Library. So my first reaction to starting a chapter with one of these newbies is consistently a bored, irritated feeling of "Why should I care about y'all?" Happily, it didn't take me long to quite like Salvador Yadorigi Fukurō — the first of our focal detectives outside of our lead duo. That makes me optimistic for how I'll react to the others' stories.

I've often seen the question "Did DRK really need to take seven volumes?" over the years. And while that may sound a bit, idk, presumptuous? maybe entitled? to many fans (bc ofc an author can take however long they want/need in order to tell the story they want to tell), I admit that I understand and empathize with this questioning mindset. I think this way about movies all the time! "This movie would've been better without these scenes" or "This movie needed X and Y scenes to fully come together/help the pacing." So: Do I think DRK could've benefitted from some kind of edit or even expansion? I'll need to wait until I'm completely finished to feel confident, but right now: I think we could've easily cut out one of the first two volumes, sure. But that'd also lose us some precious time developing the already-rushed Samidare/Kirigiri relationship, so maybe it wouldn't be that smart.

[pikapeppa]

re: your post about quen glyphs... it's possible that the old focuses they found in the delta were formatted to work w/ simplified chinese characters... after all, the focuses are pre-zero dawn and would have been formatted to whatever the local ppl used, right? its even possible that being able to write and speak simplified chinese in addition to any other languages that a focus could be formatted to might be something on the diviners examinations alva talks about... (also the fascinating implications that the quen might have had the only record of other languages existing pre-apollo)

I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO REPLY TO THIS. But I wanted to do it when I had time and brainpower to fully think it through 😂

So this ask is in relation to my tags on this gorgeous photo, where I remarked that it's weird for this beautiful Quen person to be carrying a tablet with what look like nonsense glyphs, when we know canonically that the Quen read and write English in the Roman alphabet. This is in contrast with the Oseram, for instance, who read and write English in their own original glyph system (as evidenced by Erend having trouble learning to read the Old Ones' glyphs).

For the purposes of this reply, I'm going to focus on Mandarin and Cantonese as the spoken forms of "Chinese" since they're the most familiar Chinese languages, and since Mandarin is considered the "standard" Chinese language. Before I start, I should also point out that there is no such thing as spoken simplified Chinese; "simplified Chinese" refers to a variation of written Chinese that's usually used to transcribe the spoken language of Mandarin, whereas "traditional Chinese" refers to the written variation of Chinese that's usually used to transcribe Cantonese.

ALSO, STRAP IN, BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO GET A LITTLE NERDY HERE. I'm a speech-language pathologist by day (smut writer by night! 👹) and my favourite class in undergrad was a course about writing systems of the world, so I'm just giving advance warning that YOU ASKED FOR THIS. 😂😂😂

Okay, diving in now! That's a really good point re: the Focuses in the Great Delta -- it would make sense for many of the Focuses there to be set to display in Mandarin and/or Cantonese, and thus for the "glyph system" to be simplified or traditional Chinese characters, respectively. But if we're sticking to canon lore, the Quen don't speak other languages. There is a datapoint from Alva about this where she expresses some (VERY ACCURATE AND ADORABLE) disgust at Ted Faro for the loss of all languages except the Zero Dawn "default" language of English. If we're taking this at face value (and I see no reason why Alva would lie about this in her notes), then even if the Focuses were formatted to display Chinese characters, the Quen wouldn't be able to read them. This would also explain why being a Diviner is a rare and highly-prized role: it would probably be rare for the Focuses they found to be set in English, and those English Focuses would be even more prized and revered since they're interpretable.

Now, we might wonder why the Quen wouldn't be able to learn to speak Mandarin or Cantonese by deciphering the glyphs on a Chinese-formatted Focus. The problem is that the Quen have no spoken language to map the Chinese characters onto. Chinese characters are not an alphabet, and thus there's no one-to-one correspondence between a character and a sound or a sequence of sounds; instead, Chinese characters are largely morphographic, meaning they represent a unit of meaning rather than a sound or a sequence of sounds. The Quen might be able to figure out what some Chinese characters represent by comparing a single piece of text that's written both in Chinese and English, but they would not be able to figure out what the Chinese characters sound like.

Ah, but you might be wondering if the Quen could have figured out how to speak Mandarin/Cantonese by listening to audiorecordings or holovids in Mandarin/Cantonese and mapping them to transcripts written in Chinese, then comparing those Chinese transcripts to English transcripts of the same text? (Wait, YOU'RE NOT WONDERING THAT? SERIOUSLY?? I'm teasing. I'm clearly overthinking this.) I mean, yes, they could, but that would require you to have a piece of text in both English and Chinese that also has a corresponding holovid/audiorecording in Mandarin/Cantonese for that text, which... I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but that seems like a pretty big ask. Then again, if the Focuses have like a library of C-dramas with subtitles, then that could work???

But this brings me back to Alva's datapoint again. If all of the Diviners learned Mandarin/Cantonese for their exams, either Alva is being secretive about this in her own notes (seems implausible to me, she is not a disingenuous person), OR there is a faction of Quen Diviners above Alva's proverbial "pay grade" who are working on that. So that could be an interesting avenue for someone to explore in fic! Actually, the more I think about it, the more plausible it seems that there is some "upper class" of Diviners who are secretly working on restoring old languages and who get extra perks from the Imperial family for interpreting the most valuable texts. Okay, you got me, you talked me into it LOL.

But let's return now to my original cheeky remark re: the Quen glyphs as pictured in the game. This is a more detailed image of some Quen glyphs in Burning Shores:

Now, we can't say whether this piece of text is meant to be read top to bottom or whether it was pinned to the post sideways, but it looks to me from the brackets and the red lines (likely underlines) that it's posted sideways and is meant to be read either right-to-left or left-to-right. This does not look like Chinese characters, either simplified or traditional. On a superficial inspection, it looks to me more like the Tibetan syllabary, or maybe the Hebrew abjad, without actually being either of those. In the image I referred to at the beginning of this post, the glyphs look more like the Arabic abjad as it would be used to transcribe Farsi. In other words, the Quen glyphs as pictured in the DLC alone are inconsistent.

To be perfectly honest, I think that these Quen glyphs are a "game-ism": one of those things that's a visual element in the game that actually doesn't match up with the lore, similar to how Grudda is canonically from the Desert Clan but has Lowland tattoos. (If you've never noticed this, I implore you to use tearblast arrows to blow off all his armour until he's naked down to his underoos the next time you play LOL. Drakka would greatly approve.)

In short, I still adhere to the idea that the general Quen population read and write in English using the Roman alphabet, and that the Quen glyphs pictured in these images are visual nonsense (NO OFFENSE). If there are any Quen who speak and read in other languages, it would most likely be a secret faction of Diviners that Alva doesn't know about.

I hope this answer was satisfying and not fucking boring as hell BAHAHAH. Thank you for making me think about this, though! It also reminds of a mini-rant I have about Hekarro wanting the Tenakth to learn Carja glyphs that I should find some time to write out!

If anyone has further thoughts about this, feel free to comment/reblob/send me an ask or a message or whatever! ❤ Also, forgive any typos, it's past 1AM when I'm writing this LMAO.

-- much love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika xoxo

[velvetvexations]

(anyone who may know better - I happily welcome corrections!)

I was reading some more into the Second Sino-Japanese War, as is my wont, and I think the key to understanding Imperial Japan is that they were (A) obsessed with securing the dominance and propagation of Yamato culture via (B) copying everything the West did as closely as possible. They were undoubtedly motivated by a very strong envy of Western empires and entitlement to a seat at the same table. Not that they were more entitled than the ones already sitting at the table, of course! No colonial asperations were morally pure or justified beyond simple nationalistic greed. But it's interesting because in those other cases the table, by which I mean not just the benefits of empire but the balance of power where the Western empires had a stranglehold on the world, kinna gradually formed between them over the course of centuries, and Japan was like, on the outside trying very hard to break in and take that for themselves after the Perry Expedition. And holy hell did they go a long ways towards making themselves a modern world power in an extremely short amount of time, the exact opposite of the Qing Dynasty, which was in such disarray during this entire period that by the time WW2 rolled around it was interrupting China's ongoing civil war that had been going on since a couple of decades earlier when the Qing had fallen.

Like, they suppressed the local languages of their colonial conquests but then, also, look at this:

That's a group of IJ officials pretending to inspect where a fake bomb was set off to false flag a justification for taking Manchuria. Japanese people dressed in "Western"-style clothing is hardly anything surprising now, but in-context, it's strange. Because like, IJ was trying so hard to make all of East Asia distinctly Japanese, right? But it was all filtered through that desire to be as powerful and glorious as they saw the Western world. IJ was, in a sense, stuck in a mindset of "anything you can do I can do better" - towards the West, with East Asia just being the tool with which they proved that with.

Fear of a Qing-style Century of Humiliation probably made it feel existential on some level, a case of doing or dying on top of plain nationalism. To assert their independence, because an empire by definition can not be subordinate to any other power, Korea went through modernization reforms and proclaimed itself an empire in 1897 despite patently not being an empire (the justification being that Korea had historically once been divided into three kingdoms), but it was too little too late and IJ annexed them just a decade or so later, which absurdly must have seemed to justify IJ's worldview that one was either a colonizer or the colonized.

There was a political cartoon about the Boxer Rebellion where the Eight-Nation Alliance is seen carving up a pie labeled "China" as a Chinese man looks on in outrage, and it's so fascinating, because the Chinese and Japanese man (who, side note, appears to be the only genericized ENA rep rather than a caricature of a specific person) are drawn in the same racist way yet Japan was nevertheless by the turn of the century seen by the West as being at least close to same level - the full understanding of how far Japan had come on the world stage would arrive just a few years later when Japan kicked Russia's ass in the Russo-Japanese War.

The Russo-Japanese War is particularly interesting in regards to the disparity between how IJ viewed Asia and the West, because one thing that particularly shocked the latter was how 'gentlemanly' IJ's wartime behavior was, treating prisoners and civilians with boundless (and most importantly for the IJ, vocal) generosity. Yet, just a decade earlier during the First Sino-Japanese War, they committed many atrocities that would foreshadow the many they committed in the second. Unsurprisingly, the West quickly forgot the PR scandal IJ made for itself with the Port Arthur massacre of 1894 and declared that it's conduct in the war with Russia (keep in mind I am paraphrasing a turn-of-the-century opinion in a historical context!) "proved Japan is civilized".

It's interesting to think that the person who sent Perry to open up Japan and had this huge radical affect in causing Japan to become obsessed with modernization and catching up, which led to as much as it did, was...Millard Fillmore. Who Wikipedia notes is ranked by historians as both one of the worst and least-memorable presidents ever. The fact that he's in a very real way responsible for one of the most evil regimes in history is probably underdiscussed.

[a-mad-scientists-writing]

A New Era (5)

Chapter 5: The Dark Spirit

AO3 1 2 3 4 5 6

P1 P2 P3 P4

Rumours of a new airbender are percolating through the Earth Kingdom. Again.

At first, they pass right by the arbiters, who are more concerned with trying to outswim the giant sea serpent attacking them en route to Ba Sing Se. Survive they do though, and head on home, Valkyrie nodding off on Skulduggery’s shoulder as the monorail glides through the city rings.

Once a week, during the ‘stay’ part of the leave-stay rota, Valkyrie and her parents have Skulduggery over for a meal at their house. It’s become a tradition for the first of these to take place the night of their return, if their return isn’t at an unreasonable hour. It is at this dinner, specifically right as Valkyrie cools the pot of tea with a small whirlwind, that the arbiters hear about the new airbender from Desmond and Melissa.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery usually spend their time off in the city assisting law enforcement or training, but this news is more important. While heeding Skulduggery’s warnings that it may not turn out the way they hope, Valkyrie can’t stop thinking- what if there is another airbender? She could learn from an actual airbending master- not that Skulduggery isn’t a great teacher, she adds hastily, but it would be good to learn techniques not derived from firebending or other bending moves. Skulduggery is the first to agree.

They do need some kind of official permission to investigate, though.

֍

Mr Bliss visits the Earth King a lot, Valkyrie notes as they approach the palace. On most occasions she wonders whether it’s really necessary, but not this time. Mr Bliss can provide the closest thing to an official license to investigate they are likely to get in the Earth Kingdom. Ever since Skulduggery accused King Thurid of treason last year, things have been decidedly frosty between the arbiters and the palace.

They explain to Bliss that there are no other matters that require their attention; the only reports of disturbance the local city police have thus been unable to contain are that of some sort of acrobatic thief. Skulduggery cheerfully decides not to involve himself. Mr Bliss acquiesces.

‘Why is Mr Bliss here all the time now?’ Valkyrie asks as they head down the palace steps. ‘He’s got his own kingdom to run.’

‘Interesting question. Why do you think that is?’ Skulduggery’s been turning questions back around on her like this more and more often lately.

She sighs. ‘Because Guild’s asking him. He probably needs help.’ She snorts. ‘Shows how much of a king he is.’

‘Doesn’t it just,’ says Skulduggery enigmatically, with a slight tilt of his head that she knows means he wants her to think on that more.

‘Guild might be the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world, but Mr Bliss is the strongest earthbender in the world. He should be in charge.’

‘Who says he won’t be someday?’ Skulduggery muses.

‘Are you… are you implying that Mr Bliss is trying to make a move for the throne of Ba Sing Se?’

‘No, of course not. He barely wanted the throne of Omashu. He has no desire to rule.’

‘Oh.’

‘Which is why it’s so interesting that he’s making a move for the throne of Ba Sing Se.’

‘He is?’

‘Of course he is.’

‘Shut up.’ Valkyrie thinks for a moment. ‘Well if we know, Guild definitely knows, right? And he can’t just be sitting around, letting it happen.’

‘No. I suspect there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we aren’t privy to anymore.’

‘Were we ever?’ Valkyrie mutters.

‘If we were nosy enough. My guess is Guild is trying to turn this to his advantage.’

‘Which he would do how?’

‘I don’t know. How do you think?’

Rolling her eyes, Valkyrie makes an effort. ‘I suppose… he could try and bring Mr Bliss under his influence. Which would mean… he’s trying to bring Omashu under his rule.’

‘Most likely under a lot of language like “forming closer ties” and “bridging interstate gaps,” but yes, essentially.’

‘Huh. Wow. So what’s for lunch?’

‘You are fascinating. I tell you a major shift in the Earth Kingdom powers is brewing that would surely make the city explode into monarchist riots if it was common knowledge, and that’s your response?’

‘Well it’s not our job to play pai sho with kings. We’re arbiters. We just have to keep people safe.’

At this, Skulduggery does, unexpectedly, give her a smile. ‘Hah. Yes. You’re wise beyond your years, you know that?’

‘Yes. Yes I do.’

֍

The sheer vastness of the Earth Kingdom means that while the Earth King does technically have dominion over all of it, he cannot be as effective a ruler for the areas too far from Ba Sing Se. As such, there are several other kings and state leaders with their own semi-autonomous rule.

Omashu and the surrounding villages is one such subsidiary. Guild’s attempt at ‘forming closer ties’- whether by stretching his power and attempting to diminish Mr Bliss and Omashu further, or by granting Mr Bliss further autonomy to appease him- is risky, but Guild is not a popular king. Especially not since his actions after the previous year’s incident at the North Pole.

Communication between Guild’s palace and the two arbiters has all but ceased since Skulduggery accused the king of treason. This leaves only people who are personally loyal to Skulduggery willing to help him in Ba Sing Se. It is not an official policy that no assistance be given to him and Valkyrie- that would be a spectacularly bad look for Guild, and would upset relations with the Fire Nation significantly- but things have certainly turned frigid towards the arbiters. And while not as bad for Guild as it could have been, this is still not good for his image: he is practically exiling the First Airbender and her teacher.

One of the consequences Skulduggery and Valkyrie now face has been a great lack of cooperation from Ba Sing Se’s law enforcement. Chief of Police Remus Crux acts in the way that Guild wishes he could: with hostility and borderline threatening behaviour towards them. Needless to say, Valkyrie and Skulduggery do not spend a second more of their time in Ba Sing Se than necessary.

‘On the bright side,’ Desmond is prone to saying, ‘no more being peer pressured into climbing the social ladder!’

It is true. Valkyrie’s parents are no longer bombarded with party and dinner invitations from socialites. Skulduggery, on the other hand, never seemed to have that problem in the first place. Valkyrie gathers that high society generally disapproves of people who dress like they do (with style), talk like they do (with class), and are respected war heroes with the favour of the Fire Lord, but who nevertheless persist in speaking their mind regardless of the company they keep, especially when that mind has such differing world views.

It seems like a really good example to follow, Valkyrie decides.

֍

Following the whispers, she and Skulduggery travel to a village in the far east, along a peninsula between the Eastern Sea and the open ocean. At their arrival, the arbiters are met by the head of the village. He informs them that yes, the rumours are true. Several airbenders did escape the genocide at the Eastern Air Temple, much like Valkyrie’s great-grandfather escaped from the Southern Air Temple. The village hid them, and over the years the culture and teachings of those air nomads were secretly passed down to their children, and their children’s children.

At hearing news that another had deemed it safe to resurface, the last airbending descendent revealed herself. She had heard about Valkyrie’s inability to learn airbending in its original form, and was ready to train her.

Just as Valkyrie is thinking that this is the best news she could have hoped for, the ‘was’ registers. The community confirms that the airbending master died two months ago, succumbing to an illness she had long battled. This is the worst news Valkyrie could have heard.

But! The airbending master had a son- and he too is an airbender!

‘That’s great!’ Valkyrie exclaims.

Unfortunately, he ran away after his mother’s death.

‘Oh.’

The village knows that he ran away to Ba Sing Se, however!

‘Well, I suppose that’s okay-’

But they don’t have any information more specific than that.

She waits expectantly, but that seems to be it.

Back to Ba Sing Se it is. As they are walking back to their ostrich-horses, Valkyrie mid-moan about the five-day journey they took to get here, Skulduggery receives a message. It isn’t from one of the usual Earth Kingdom birds, nor from a Fire Nation messenger hawk: instead the little scroll is carried by an arctic kite fox. Apparently, they must make a stopover at Chameleon Bay, by the site of an old battlefield.

֍

The man who wants to meet with Skulduggery is unsettling, and dresses strangely. He wears clothing reminiscent of that of the Water Tribe, but adapted for warmer climes, and in much darker colours than is traditional. Blue so deep as to be almost black. No fur or bead adornments. His name is Solomon Wreath, and Valkyrie gets the impression that Skulduggery doesn’t like him; it may have been the way he punched him.

Skulduggery says he’s a bloodbender.

Wreath starts the conversation off casually enough- talking about the way blood has soaked through the earth here, the power it brings this place. You know, normal stuff like that. In the face of Skulduggery’s distinct waspishness however, he moves on.

‘I take it you’ve been to the airbender’s village?’

From the ensuing back-and-forth, Valkyrie surmises that Wreath is an investigator for the bloodbenders. He tells them that this business with the new airbender is mixed up in his own case at the moment: the Diablerie.

‘You’re saying the Diablerie are after the boy?’ Skulduggery said.

‘Oh, they’re doing much more than chasing after him. I examined his mother’s body a few days after she died. It wasn’t illness that took her life. Tea made of a poison root, not native to this area. Unsurprising the village didn’t recognise it.’

‘And why are you telling us this?’

‘Because this is the Diablerie. I’d like to pool our resources. Whatever they are planning will be far easier to stop if more people than just myself are involved. In fact, I’ve already reached out to a friend of yours, I believe: Tanith Low. She is investigating reports of Jaron Gallow’s presence in the west.’

֍

A thousand or so kilometres away, Murder Rose stabs Tanith through the hand. Apparently there are more members of the Diablerie in town than just Gallow.

֍

‘You’ve put something together about what Wreath said,’ Valkyrie states as they head off again, Skulduggery in a thoughtful silence.

‘I might have, yes.’

‘Do you know what the Diablerie’s plan is?’

‘Perhaps. Do you remember Billy-Ray Sanguine? Or more to the point, do you remember his unexpected disappearance from the North Pole last year?’

‘Vaguely,’ Valkyrie replies, glancing at the scar on her hand.

‘About three months ago I got a tip he’d been seen moving east, with friends.’

‘The Diablerie?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So whatever the Diablerie’s planning is why he abandoned Vengeous?’

‘Possibly.’

‘You just fill me with confidence, you do.’

The only reason Skulduggery can think of as to why the Diablerie (Vengeous’ old war unit) in collaboration with Sanguine (Vengeous’ hired hitman) would want an airbender is for the same reason that Vengeous wanted Valkyrie last year. Someone wants to awaken the Grotesquery and reopen a spirit portal.

Unfortunately, three months ago there were only three airbenders in existence: Valkyrie, the now-deceased airbending master, and her son. Valkyrie was not a viable option to go after, not with Skulduggery alert to the danger she could be in every lunar eclipse from people who might want to awaken the Grotesquery. An airbending master would have been too risky as well, especially with a far easier target available: her son. The Diablerie would have killed her to stop her coming after them. Obviously, they weren’t counting on the boy simply running away before they found him.

֍

On the journey back, Valkyrie wonders how they are going to find this airbender boy when they have no location more precise than ‘somewhere in the giant city encompassing the vast majority of the North-East Earth Kingdom.’ She does brighten up at the thought of the missing boy perhaps being able to teach her some pure airbending. Skulduggery speculates that it will probably involve a lot more flipping about the place, utilising air currents and whatnot. Valkyrie agrees; her attempts to pick up some inspiration for new moves from Tanith’s fighting style have only been moderately successful. Acrobatics don’t come that naturally to her.

Skulduggery pauses, tilting his head.

As soon as they arrive back in Ba Sing Se, they go to China’s library and ask for all the information she has on the acrobat who’s been causing trouble for the police. China obligingly presents them with several sightings’ locations, all situated around one of the classiest hotels in the city.

֍

They walk in. They walk up. They walk along a hall. They walk into Billy-Ray Sanguine.

Punching ensues, rather horrifying the boy with the carefully tended bald head who comes out to investigate. Valkyrie shoves him back into his room, locking the door behind them.

Sanguine comes through the wall at speed, obviously having been thrown. He stands, angrily wiping blood from his nose, his tinted glasses missing to reveal the scarring around his blinded eyes, and pauses. Valkyrie glances down. The floor they’re standing on is stone.

In a matter of seconds has his razor on her throat. Skulduggery strides in from the blackened and smouldering hallway, fire blazing in his fists, but stops upon seeing the tableau.

The bald airbending son of a monk who is, of course, Fletcher Renn, is even more horrified. He and his bald head aren’t convinced at all by either man’s attempts to persuade him to come with them. The blind guy with the knife does not at all appear to be a better option than the firebender.

When Valkyrie employs a new airbending move she’s been practising, whipping up a spherical gale around her to force Sanguine’s blade away and send him stumbling, it is officially too much for Fletcher. He grabs a staff sitting by the window, jumps out and swoops away on the extendable glider wings, his bald head shining briefly in the sun.

‘I really hate you guys,’ mutters Sanguine.

֍

Once Sanguine has skedaddled, they find Fletcher dazed in the alley below. He crashed his glider into the building opposite about three seconds after launch.

֍

Not long into conversation with Fletcher, Valkyrie decides that she doesn’t need another airbending teacher after all. Fletcher is a dismissive, arrogant teenage boy who is not dealing well, or at all, with his mother’s passing. He is extremely resistant to the idea of teaching anyone anything about his mother’s culture. The emphasis is made plain for Valkyrie and Skulduggery. He does not consider himself an air nomad. He does not want to be involved with any monk business.

As Skulduggery points out, this stance is at odds with the traditional yellow and orange robes Fletcher continues to wear, and the staff he continues to carry, not to mention the shaved head he has kept in preparation for an arrow tattoo. His mother would have made him a master, if she had lived. She wanted to train Valkyrie next.

‘Yeah, well. Look what that got her,’ Fletcher responds in a dead sort of voice.

Fletcher knows his mother didn’t die of her illness. She’d been getting better, not worse. The fact that she was murdered doesn’t seem to really hit him until that moment, though. It might not even have occurred to him until Skulduggery said so. Valkyrie is suddenly reminded that even if he is disrespectful and uncooperative, he’s not that much older than her.

It is still pretty satisfying to watch Skulduggery intimidate him into coming with them, though.

֍

They drop Fletcher off at the Sangian, a private research facility in the Lower Ring. It is also a hospital for those who have some desire to keep out of the Earth Kingdom’s official way. After the events at the North Pole, Kenspeckle Grouse was entrusted with supervising the delivery of the Grotesquery to Ba Sing Se, where it was placed in the Earth King’s palace for safe keeping.

Planning to egress the freezing tundras of the Northern Water Tribe anyway, which despite taking great strides in recent years was nevertheless limiting his ability to practice healing with its rigid cultural gender divide, Kenspeckle decided to stay in Ba Sing Se. He has a number of people frequently in his care, most often Valkyrie, who it is always a pleasure to see, and Skulduggery, who it is not. They find the healer treating Ghastly Bespoke, who has not woken from his coma since Serpine’s attempted coup.

Lying in a pool of water a few inches deep, Ghastly’s body is surrounded by the blue glow of curative energy. He remains motionless. With a sigh, Kenspeckle suspends the session for the day, and the arbiters eventually get him to agree to house Fletcher for the time being.

֍

Valkyrie goes home. She tells her parents all about Fletcher, and Skulduggery’s idea about the Diablerie possibly trying to open one of the portals again. Her parents react… unexpectedly.

She distinctly sees the blood drain from her mother’s face, and her father stops dead in his aimless wandering about the house. What comes next is almost twenty minutes of Desmond and Melissa grilling her for answers about what Skulduggery is doing to keep her safe, what the Earth King’s stance on all this is, and how much danger she is in. A bit blindsided, Valkyrie nonetheless recovers quickly. Despite being more than a little unsettled, she reassures them that no one is after her, that she’s better than ever at airbending and hand-to-hand combat, and, when they press, that Skulduggery is, yes, always nearby.

‘Fletcher’s the only one who’s really in danger and he’s safe with Kenspeckle-’

‘But you always have to get involved, Val! Meanwhile, where are your father and I? Stashed away somewhere else while you inevitably go off into danger with Skulduggery.’

She thinks about that a lot, later that night.

It takes some doing, and her parents exchange looks when they think she won’t notice, but they’re eventually a bit calmer. With their wedding anniversary coming up, Valkyrie suggests that they take a vacation to Gordon’s mansion. Even her dad picks up on that blatant attempt at deflection. Neither think it’s a good idea while this situation is going on. Valkyrie is frustrated, which is more than probably just a reflection of her parents’ same feelings at her apparent nonchalance, but she keeps it off her face. She doesn’t want them to worry about her, and she doesn’t want to have to worry about them worrying about her. It’s a ball of unpleasantness, and it sits in her stomach.

Then she thinks of Fletcher. It’s good if the worst thing she can say is that her parents are too protective.

֍

The next morning, Skulduggery comes to pick her up. Walking their usual route to the Upper Ring, he says their first stop is to get the Grotesquery out of the Palace.

‘Steal it, you mean?’

‘Pre-emptively steal it,’ he corrects. ‘If we’re correct, the Diablerie are going to make a play for it.’

Skulduggery doesn’t trust Guild, and suspects he may be colluding with whoever has hired Sanguine, be it the Diablerie or someone behind the scenes. He doesn’t want to be caught off-guard like last year, especially if they end up needing to make a sudden dash to one of the poles before the lunar eclipse this month. As such, he sent a message to the Sun Warriors the previous night, requesting Bentley.

֍

Entering the palace will be easy, but keeping out of sight of the Dai Li so they don’t alert Guild to their presence will be impossible. Therefore, the plan is to nonchalantly but rapidly make their way down to the lower levels, where there will be less eyes watching them.

The Grotesquery is kept under the Palace, locked away and under guard in a maze of stone corridors dimly lit by guttering flames. Skulduggery extinguishes them with a gesture.

As they enter the tunnels, with no alarms having been sounded so far, Skulduggery leaves her at the base of the stairs and disappears into the darkness.

When Valkyrie ventures forwards, heart thumping, she almost trips over something. Light flares again, this time in Skulduggery’s hand ahead of her, and she sees the obstacles are several palace guards sprawled on the floor, out cold.

They enter the doorway they were guarding, and find a chamber containing a cage. The ancient slumbering spirit is inside. Skulduggery tosses flames into the torch brackets, and they approach.

The floor opens in front of the cage and Billy-Ray Sanguine tunnels up with Gruesome Krav, the largest and strongest member of the Diablerie, by his side.

Krav launches himself straight at Skulduggery, swinging punches fast and hard, relying on pure strength to keep the firebender busy.

Sanguine pulls out his razor and once again tries to settle the grudge he’s formed against Valkyrie.

She switches into a mindset that’s becoming familiar: he can sense her movements through the earth, so she softens the impact of her motions with the air. He sends lumps of rock flying but can only half-sense her as she evades each one, right up until the moment she gets in close and breaks his nose.

Swearing and bloody, he sinks through the ground. There’s a breathless moment. Then the floor under Valkyrie tilts dramatically, sending her sliding right to where Sanguine wants her. He plunges out of the wall. She twists away. As such, he only breaks her wrist.

The pain blocks out everything for a moment, leaving her helpless to stop the blow to the head. Suddenly Valkyrie is dazedly staring at the ceiling, seeing the glint of Sanguine’s razor in the half-light, his snarl as he reaches down- and the blinding wash of fire that sends him stumbling back. Looking back, she sees Skulduggery take a solid hit for the lapse in concentration during his own fight.

Beating out smouldering clothes and swearing, Sanguine refocuses on the mission and stomps on the ground. A square of dust flies up around the cage, and the section sinks. Sanguine jumps into the hole, on top of the cage, shouting out to Krav, who shoves Skulduggery away and follows. The floor closes up behind them.

The room is revolving for Valkyrie, but she still hears a whirring and clicking in the walls. The chamber was booby trapped, and something has been triggered by the Grotesquery’s removal. There’s shouting, running footsteps. She hears Skulduggery curse, and the slam of the chamber’s reinforced metal door being closed. Then thumping, and a hideous screech. Skulduggery must have sealed it somehow, and the Dai Li are struggling to get in.

Valkyrie feels hands helping her up and gasps as more white-hot shards of agony flicker up her arm. She jerks away from Skulduggery as he tries to examine her wrist, teeth clenched hard to stop herself from crying, throat and eyes burning, shaking her head to stop him from checking, asking.

Bang. Bang. Skulduggery looks past her to the door, his expression hard and tense, the way he gets when he’s calculating and throwing out plan after plan because options and time are running out. Coming to a decision, he leads her to the back of the room, telling her to keep an eye on the door while he finds the secret exit.

‘There’s a secret exit?’ Valkyrie mumbles.

‘There’s always a secret exit.’

The door flies off its hinges, a battering ram following through. Remus Crux is the first person inside.

‘Get them!’

Everything goes black as the torches go out.

‘Secret exit time!’ she shouts over her shoulder.

The passage Skulduggery pulls her into has a mechanism that Valkyrie would have sworn was actually earthbending, if either of them had been an earthbender.

Rock gives way before them and fills in behind them, the sensation very like Sanguine’s burrowing technique. It sets her heart beating faster and faster and her legs pound their way to sunlight ahead of Skulduggery, spurred on until she has to stop running or collapse. They surface in a park in the Middle Ring. It seems strange that the Earth King would have a secret passage leading from his palace to a random park that isn’t even in the Upper Ring, but the throbbing in Valkyrie’s wrist has reached new heights after the run and she can’t bring herself to care about anything but making the pain stop. She’s never been this badly hurt before.

A great mass of ruddy vines, covered in purple flowers, unfurls itself and lopes happily towards them in the deserted park. It’s Bentley. They are in the meeting place. He happily shows off his florid new ornamentation, the vines swinging cheerfully, the flowers rustling, the sleek, beautiful black of his scales utterly concealed under the garish arrangement. The sight is enough to knock Valkyrie out of her pain for a moment.

She finds enough breath to groan in dismay. Skulduggery laughs, guiding her over with a hand on her shoulder. As they get close, Ben sniffs at her worriedly. She flinches. The pain comes back full force.

Ben accepts Skulduggery’s deterring words and draws back before lowering himself as much as he can to let Valkyrie climb on as easily as possible. He rumbles soothingly. He keeps carefully level upon rising into the air, far above the city but with all the security of being a few feet aboveground. Something about his gentleness makes Valkyrie’s throat close up. And then suddenly she’s sobbing, and her body won’t let her stop. Skulduggery tangibly stiffens behind her, all but rearing back.

The thing is, they are flying a couple hundred metres above the city. Even if Valkyrie does want nothing to do with Skulduggery, there’s nowhere else for him to go. Even if it is his fault, which is not an inconceivable stretch of the imagination, what’s done is done and now the most important thing is what to do next. Skulduggery has seen her eager, miserable, playful, homesick, cheerful, scared, shocked, sarcastic, giddy, and damn near dead, but somehow her crying has passed him by, and he’s not fool enough to think that after two years of sticking to him like glue this is the first time she’s had cause.

The thing is, she shouldn’t have to feel like she needs to prove anything to him; by the spirits, he knows how tough she is (it’s a fact that is particularly hard to escape when she’s constantly throwing herself into danger rather than listening to him).

There’s no one else at hand. And there’s nowhere for him to give her space. And there’s two other things he knows.

How to deal with injuries (so what if he risks exposure? He’s already done that today too).

How to deal with a child’s tears (so what if it’s been longer than Valkyrie’s been alive since he’s had to? Those are the kind of skills that tend to stick).

In the space of a few seconds, Valkyrie has decided that maybe holding her breath will teach her body who’s boss and force her to start calming down. The unsuccessful idea is put on hold, however, when Skulduggery starts talking. He’s rooting around in Ben’s decorations for one of the bags usually saddled onto him.

‘Do you know, Ghastly once threw a rock at me so hard it split in two? Hit me right on the shoulder and shattered. I can assure you, nothing quite compares to the pain of your best friend suddenly turning on you in the middle of a battle like that. I mean, nothing other than the pain of a broken collarbone, that is.’

 There’s a pause in which Valkyrie hears a watery, drizzling sound.

‘It was completely out of the blue, too. Honestly, it was mostly shock that made me break down.’

At his gesture, Valkyrie hesitantly extends her arm to him a little. Skulduggery carefully wraps a freezing wet cloth around her wrist. The cold bites and she looks away but Skulduggery’s story provides a distraction.

‘Yes, I suppose I did betray him first. Turned on him just when he needed my help. Left him to the soldiers’ mercy. And yet, I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking he went a little overboard in his reaction.’

The cold is almost hurting her skin, but as Valkyrie concentrates on Ben’s flowers waving in the wind, she finds that the pain is dulling more and more, and the cold becomes more soothing than not.

‘You and Ghastly forgave each other eventually, didn’t you? It was just a ruse, right?’ she asks.

‘Oh yes. Forgiveness took a while. Almost the whole afternoon. And we both had to stop panicking first, of course. Luckily it didn’t take long for the healer to fix me up, and then we were both back to playing Bandits and Soldiers in no time.’

Valkyrie pauses. ‘What?’

‘We were eleven. How’s the wrist feeling?’

‘What?’

‘Looks like the trembling’s stopped, so I’d say the shock’s worn off.’ He whistled suddenly and Ben took a downturn. ‘We’ll be at Kenspeckle’s in no time, even so.’

‘You’re unbelievable.’

‘I know. My medical acumen astonishes even me sometimes.’

֍

When Fletcher, aimlessly wandering the halls of the Sangian, sees them enter, he is not (hypothetically) shut up thunderstruck at the sight of a seriously injured, shocked, pained girl. Instead, he does not even realise Valkyrie’s wrist is broken as he follows her and Skulduggery to Kenspeckle, making comments neither of them listen to.

To Valkyrie, all she can feel of her wrist is the relief of soothing cold. There’s even some ice formed on the outside of the rag from the altitude. Skulduggery keeps a hand on her shoulder all the way in, talking idly to her as if they aren’t probably the Earth King’s Most Wanted by now. Kenspeckle has just finished treating an impaled hand belonging to one Tanith Low by the time they show up, and Valkyrie’s calmness and her happiness to see her friend do a lot to mitigate Kenspeckle’s reaction to Skulduggery’s latest escapade with her.

‘Who’s that bald kid?’ Tanith asks.

Fletcher leans against a wall and grins cockily at her. ‘Fletcher Renn. You may have heard of me. The Last-’

‘New airbender,’ Valkyrie says as Kenspeckle sits her down beside Tanith on a bed, before fetching a long wooden tray, bound and waterproofed. It looks specially designed for resting limbs in.

The wards of Kenspeckle’s clinic are quite different to most other Earth Kingdom hospitals, because most other Earth Kingdom hospitals do not have waterbender healers working in them. Each room contains several beds around the border. The mattresses are covered in oilskin, which is not porous, and a cloth sheet is tucked firmly over the top for the patient’s comfort. The oilskin lessens the difficulty of bending water out of the mattresses later. Each bed can be separated into its own curtained-off area, but the curtains are all drawn back in this room, exposing the central feature of the ward: a wide and shallow circular pool, large enough for a tall adult to lie in comfortably and a healer to tend to them without difficulty.

With smooth fluid motions, Kenspeckle bends water from the circular pool into the wooden tray. Carefully, he guides Valkyrie to rest her arm in it and soon a blue glow and a strong soothing sensation surrounds her wrist, although most of the pain had already waned.

Tanith frowns, resuming the conversation once the process has started. ‘He’s the reason I was stabbed?’

‘Yeah,’ said Valkyrie, adding irritably, ‘And I still don’t like this “Last Airbender” business.’

The issue of the epithet bothers Valkyrie. Practically everything about the situation does, now. She maintains that the rumours calling Fletcher ‘The Last Airbender’ sound too similar to her legendary ancestor’s title. Actually, it was her legendary ancestor’s title. Skulduggery agrees that yes, while Fletcher holding the mantle does seem to be a significant step down from her indeed legendary ancestor-

‘Right here,’ Fletcher says grumpily.

-it is still of value. Skulduggery insists that it’s symbolic of there still being a remnant of the Air Nomads’ culture left, not just an airbender, which is why Valkyrie on the other hand is called the First Airbender: Fletcher is carrying on a legacy, whereas she is not.

The conversation moves on, but Valkyrie notices Fletcher leave the room.

With rumours of the Last Airbender’s reappearance circulating, there was the possibility that Valkyrie would no longer have to be the Earth Kingdom’s and Air Nomad’s prodigal daughter of sorts, or the Fire Nation’s poster-child of peace (‘Look! It’s one of us teaching her! We’ve taken such great strides since that whole trying-to-conquer-the-world thing!’).

Reluctant to begin with, Valkyrie quickly grew fed up with having to be present for all sorts of official occasions, of having to sit through talks from Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation officials about matters of state that really had nothing to do with her. The officials were just interested in the self-congratulations that came of interacting with the only representative of the new Air Nation. The symbol of her was important, but she wasn’t. She hadn’t even gotten to meet the Fire Lord.

Her and Skulduggery’s continuous excursions around the world helped detract attention from her, but now with her maturing age, and now that she has saved the world, more and more attention is coming her way. What direction is rebuilding the Air Nomads going to take? How is she going to manage it? Has she got a ‘special someone’ in her life yet? Valkyrie has become quite good at speaking up for herself (better to be blunt and plainspoken rather than subjected to hour-long discussions regarding policy change in Shu Jing, or inappropriate prying into her personal life). She had also been hoping, though, that this could all be passed on to Fletcher. After meeting him, it doesn’t look likely.

‘I think the Water Tribe’s my favourite nation at the moment,’ she tells Tanith and Skulduggery. ‘They don’t expect anything from me.’

‘What about the Air Nomads?’ Skulduggery asks.

‘The only other air nomad on this earth is a moody, bald, seventeen-year-old boy who wants an arrow tattooed on his forehead. No thanks.’

Tanith snorts.

֍

The boy in question is wandering without paying attention where, as his head and heart fill with dark clouds like they are wont to do these days.

He finds himself in the room with that scarred sleeping guy. He’d been taken out of his private ward’s pool after his healing session for the day, and was lying on the only bed in the room. What was his name? Horrible Spokes? The one who’d been comatose for like two years. It was impressive the old healer had managed to keep him alive, really. Fletcher doubted he’d be waking anytime soon. Probably for the best. What a world to come back to. Plus, he might not want to, what with… like… all those scars. Fletcher wouldn’t, that was for sure.

Fletcher is looking morosely right down at the man when his eyes flick open.

֍

The first thing Ghastly hears is a very loud scream. He sees a yellow and orange blur shoot into the ceiling, hears a thump, a second thump as the blur returns to earth, a lot of groaning, and some swearing.

Soon after, the commotion brings several familiar faces running into the ward. To the consternation of the old healer, Valkyrie throws herself at Ghastly in joy, and the expression on Tanith’s face makes him feel like he’s floating for a moment. Skulduggery of course initially projects indifference, and Ghastly plays along until they’ve both had enough of winding up the others. The hug his friend gives him is the warmest Ghastly can remember.

֍

Feeling just a little tense at the idea of being wanted for questioning by the Earth King while the Grotesquery is in the hands of Mevolent’s remnant Fire Nation, Ghastly’s reawakening is just the good news Valkyrie needs. Ghastly is relieved to see her alive and well too: the last thing he remembers is the White Cleaver’s sights locked onto her like a canyon crawler onto food. While he is still uneasy about Skulduggery making Valkyrie his partner/apprentice, he acknowledges that they weren’t much older than her when they went off to fight in a war.

‘We were a couple of desperate teenagers, Skul. And Valkyrie isn’t in the middle of a war,’ Ghastly argues once they have a moment alone.

‘Granted. But I ask you this: if you’d had all the perspective you do now when we were that age, would you have made a different choice?’

‘No,’Ghastly admits.

Coupled with Valkyrie’s determination not to sit on the sidelines, this is enough to appease him.

֍

Tanith confirms that all four living members of the Diablerie are involved in the brewing situation. She recounts how Solomon Wreath tracked her down (and it occurs to Valkyrie to wonder what Tanith actually does when she isn’t helping Skulduggery and herself) and recruited her, knowing she fought alongside the arbiters at the North Pole and would be interested in hearing about the splinter Fire Nation’s activities. Now, with the Grotesquery in their hands…

‘They’re definitely planning to open a spirit portal,’ Tanith concludes.

Another lunar eclipse is due to occur within the month, so the conclusion is a sound one, and it will probably be for the same reasons as Vengeous: to summon Vaatu and attempt to make a Dark Avatar. The fact that such a plan has failed twice before- once with Vengeous the previous year and once with Avatar Vile himself- doesn’t seem to bother them. They are fanatics, after all.

‘We need a weapon,’ Skulduggery decides.

Fortunately, they know someone even better than an arms dealer.

֍

China took possession of the Sceptre of the Spirit World soon after Serpine’s attempted coup d’état. It has been inactive ever since he tried to use it on Valkyrie, and the best China can figure is it shorted out from the sheer incompatibility of what Serpine was demanding of it. The Sceptre, designed not to harm spirits, was being used to target an airbender, the most spiritual culture to ever exist. China suspects that it could work again if the focusing crystal was replaced, however. But where to find a Spirit World crystal?

Surprisingly, it’s Fletcher who knows. The North and South Air Temples had most of them, he confides. The airbenders collected them from the ground surrounding the spirit portals in the poles, the creation of which scattered them everywhere, apparently.

Under cover of darkness, Ben takes off from his concealed place in Kenspeckle’s grounds and Skulduggery and Valkyrie spend that night flying to the Northern Air Temple.

‘Are you sure you want to come?’ Skulduggery asks suddenly, some way into their flight.

‘Hm? What?’

‘Are you sure you want to come to the air temple?’

‘Yes? Wait, you’re not worried about it being dangerous, are you?’ Valkyrie says, dismayed and impatient. ‘We’ve been there before, it was fine.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Kenspeckle and Ghastly may be right, you know. It is rather irresponsible of me to keep bringing you into situations like this. You’re allowed to say no.’

‘What? No! I mean- I bring myself into all this. This is what I want to be doing, and you’ll have a harder time from me than Kenspeckle and Ghastly if you try to stop me from coming. I’m meant to do this. Is this about my arm? It’s fine, look. Completely healed. You don’t have to go easy on me, it’s all back to normal. Okay?’ She’s obviously blabbering, but her discomposure is a secondary consideration compared to Skulduggery deciding she can’t handle being an Arbiter of All Nations.

‘Okay. Just thought I’d check.’

‘Okay.’ Valkyrie relaxed slightly.

֍

That night, Desmond and Melissa receive a message via hawk from Valkyrie that she is fine, but lying low with Skulduggery. They don’t have to worry about her, she says, but in fact they do.

They have a visitor.

Chief of Police Remus Crux stops by to inform them that their daughter and Skulduggery Pleasant broke into the Palace Vaults that morning and stole the Grotesquery. The Earth King has branded both arbiters traitors to the crown and issued warrants for their arrest. As such, keeping any information from Crux about the whereabouts of their daughter is at best impeding an investigation, and at worst, treason.

Deciding not to tolerate the incompetent accusations of Remus Crux as to their airbending daughter’s collusion with rogue Fire Nation elements, the Edgleys eject him from their house with as much politeness as they can muster. In return, he offers a warning that their daughter’s age will not deter the swiftness of the law’s punishment. Desmond punches him.

They start packing half an hour later. Their anniversary is coming up, after all, and they feel like a vacation back to their hometown- not visiting Fergus and Beryl (as some cover stories truly would be unbelievable) but instead staying in Gordon’s mansion near the Cave of Two Lovers. Coincidentally, this is also the same place they picked with Skulduggery and Valkyrie a few months ago as a rendezvous point in the event of a crisis.

֍

Valkyrie and Skulduggery didn’t notice this on their last visit to the Northern Air Temple, but now they do: it is not uninhabited. Upon scouring the place for spirit world crystals, they find a real piece of work, a creepy old man named Anathem Mire. He was an inventor who built weapons for the Fire Nation once upon a time before escaping the fall of the capital and using his devices to maroon him at the furthest, most inaccessible reaches of the world. Absently, Mire directs them to the crystals, not taking his eyes off Valkyrie. He is seemingly fascinated with the new airbender, unable to stop drinking her in.

When they try to leave with the crystal, things go about as well as expected. Steel doors with old but functional mechanisms lock Skulduggery out of Mire’s wing of the temple, trapping Valkyrie. Mire is insane, twisted, and saying all sorts of stuff along the lines of how he’ll keep her with him forever, how he can sense such power within her, how yadda yadda yadda. Valkyrie hits him with a gale so strong it blasts him through two walls of thousand-year-old masonry. Incredibly, he gets back up, but Skulduggery has melted through the door by then and they take off, Mire’s screams of how he’ll find her following them far out of range of his voice.

But aside from All That, the recovery operation goes smoothly.

֍

China receives a visit from two tired-looking arbiters a few hours later. Valkyrie is happy to see her, as always, and recently China has been finding, rather exasperatedly, that she also looks forward to their sporadic appearances. China agrees that they will need the Sceptre to beat the Diablerie- and as the Sceptre’s owner, that must mean she’ll fight with them this time.

Once Valkyrie revives the Sceptre however, comes a certain amount of disappointment- China’s help will not be necessary.

‘Hm,’ China says as she sights along the Sceptre’s length to no avail. The crystal remains dark and unresponsive, and its heavy wooden case, which she was aiming at, remains intact.

‘I killed Serpine. Maybe I’m the owner,’ Skulduggery volunteers. China hands the weapon over, but he too manages nothing.

‘It seems I was wrong,’ smiles China ruefully. ‘Changing the crystal didn’t revive it.’

‘It has a semi-sentience,’ Skulduggery said, examining it. ‘Perhaps Kenspeckle can heal it.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘No. But the world, especially the Spirit World, refuses to comply with what I believe of it quite often. It’s worth a shot.’ Skulduggery shrugs and passes the Sceptre to Valkyrie while he collects his hat and coat from China’s couch.

As soon as it touches Valkyrie’s hands, the crystal lights up and a purple blast is unleashed, giving everyone, particularly Valkyrie, a fright.

Skulduggery looks at the hole in the floor. ‘Well,’ he concludes, ‘it works.’

And then it happens again, striking a bookcase.

‘My books!’ China rages. Valkyrie swears violently.

‘Calm down! Stop firing!’ Skulduggery shouts, and then pulls China out of the way of the next blast. Valkyrie gives a shriek and shoves the Sceptre into his hands as he darts towards her. It has claimed her as its owner.

‘I can’t use it! Skulduggery, I can’t use it! I tried not thinking about it firing but it just kept coming into my head!’

‘It’s alright, no one was hurt,’ Skulduggery says in a soothing tone somewhat undercut as he catches his breath.

‘My books!’

Valkyrie gets as far as, ‘China, I am so sorry…’ before words fail her.

Well, it’s not like China is capable of, or willing to, hold a grudge against a fourteen-year-old. Still speechless, she turns to her other target instead.

‘I’ll pay for the damages,’ Skulduggery says quickly.

‘The damages?! Some of those volumes were irreplaceable!’ She spins away, the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes, and counts to ten in her head. When she feels less ready to crumple the walls of the apartment into scrap metal, she turns back to the arbiters. With an exhale, she hitches a slightly strained smile onto her face. Sweeping away dismay and irritation and the dust of her recently-vaporised bookshelf courtesy of a mortified Valkyrie, China wishes them luck, as they are no longer required to trust her- a difficult task, she knows.

‘We could still do with your help,’ Skulduggery says unexpectedly. She meets his eyes and smiles.

‘Nonsense. You’ll do fine without me.’

After they leave, with the sun edging up over the horizon, she receives another visitor. The only thing less welcome than Remus Crux’s face is the secret he tells her he knows.

‘Where are they, China?’

She answers.

֍

There is a rather… bad… confrontation at the Sangian.

Earth King Thurid is not as confined to the Palace as many of his predecessors preferred to be. He was a soldier and an officer, not born into a sheltered royal life as he was never actually expected to take the throne. But then Serpine murdered King Eachan, along with all the other members of the royal family residing in the palace, and take the throne he did. He maintains his hands-on approach to situations, as if running a kingdom was only a larger and more complicated battlefield with the added satisfaction of actually being able to remove Skulduggery Pleasant from his list of problems.

Once Crux informs Guild of the arbiters’ whereabouts, the Earth King himself takes the Dai Li to arrest them at Kenspeckle’s facility. Aside from a few key problems, this confrontation goes well.

The problems:

The Diablerie capture the Earth King

Kenspeckle refuses to allow his hospital to be used as HQ

Remus Crux becomes certain that Skulduggery and Valkyrie are working with the Diablerie and helped to kidnap King Thurid

So really, the only part that went well was when no one captured Fletcher. Ghastly suggests they make a new base of operations at his tailoring shop.

֍

The Sangian is in Ba Sing Se’s Lower Ring, right up next to the Inner Wall- built onto it, in fact. It’s an area where there is no concept of a common ground level. Some people’s roofs are level with other people’s patios, and there is a complicated network of trestles and steps to reach the stone pavement below. If you step outside on a good day, you can see all the way to the Middle Ring wall and over the cramped, crowded arms of streets that embrace it. On a great day, which, despite the feeling, this day actually is, you can even see into the Middle Ring itself. Fletcher asks where Bespoke Tailor’s is, and Ghastly’s points towards it.

Fletcher nods brightly. ‘Alright. Meet you there.’

Then he wraps an arm around Valkyrie and steps off the terrace into open space.

The only reason Valkyrie doesn’t scream is because the rush forces all air back into her lungs. Fletcher’s glider snaps open though and the downward drop becomes an upward swoop in a split second. Fletcher loses his grip on her and she drops abruptly until his hand catches hers. Then she screams. With rage.

They barely clear the wall. Valkyrie kicks a banner and she distinctly sees sentries and officials gawking as they shamble lopsidedly through the air. The flimsy glider is not meant for passengers, but as the flight is sustained, Valkyrie begins to laugh as much as she swears.

When they touch down outside Ghastly’s, Fletcher does his fancy look-at-me-I’m-an-airbender staff-spin to fold the glider wings. Valkyrie punches him.

‘Ow! Why’d you do that?!’

‘Shock, mostly!

‘I thought you’d enjoy it.’

Now that her feet are back on the ground and she isn’t on the verge of plummeting into the paved streets of Ba Sing Se, she realises she did. But she won’t tell him that.

‘It’s okay,’ Fletcher says compassionately. ‘Flying can be scary, the first time.’

Narrowing her eyes, Valkyrie replies, ‘My transport of choice is a dragon, Fletcher. I’m not exactly inexperienced.’

He shrugs and grins. ‘Still better when you can do it yourself. For airbenders, the sky’s literally the limit. It’ll take a few years, but you’ll get there. Probably.’

She rolls her eyes and sends a blast of air his way, which he swerves away from, and comments that she airbends like she’s trying to sling rocks. This earns him another blast. He ends up behind her this time.

She steps smartly on his foot and he stumbles, to his surprise. Fletcher’s not used to people being quick enough to trip him up. Although, he can’t be sure if she managed it because she sensed the air shift, or because she’s just better at fighting close-quarters than he is. Or both.

Either way, it’s… good. It’s good to have another airbender around, even if she isn’t anything like the Air Nomads.

Valkyrie regards him stiffly with her arms crossed, prepared for more comments about how improper an airbender she is. If there’s one thing that’s become abundantly, and infuriatingly, clear to her in the limited amount of time she’s known Fletcher, it’s that she is definitely not as good an airbender as him. He opens his mouth, she prepares a retort, and he gives her some advice.

She should try moving in the breeze, following it around. Her new style’s not bad exactly, Fletcher says, just different, and ‘living in the air more’ will help refine it.

When the others arrive, she and Fletcher are having a mock sparring session- essentially just showing each other what they can do (she has some moves he doesn’t, Valkyrie notices). Then Skulduggery arrives. His actions are thus:

Grimly stalking up the street.

A cursory glance over Valkyrie to check she’s alright.

Advancing on Fletcher like the almighty harbinger of the world’s darkest thunderstorms and looming over the boy as such.

‘Never. Do that. Again.’ (Fletcher nods quickly, terrified.)

Abruptly pausing at the sound of movement from within Ghastly’s supposedly deserted shop.

Restraining Ghastly and Tanith from launching themselves at Solomon Wreath, the two other bloodbenders he’s brought along, and the White Cleaver. It’s impolite to attack your allies.

֍

Ba Sing Se may have fallen to Avatar Vile’s siege during the war, but it would have surely held out longer if it weren’t for the Dai Li’s betrayal. The sway the organisation held over the city’s population through hypnotism and fear ensured that the kingdom was brought down just as much from the inside as the outside in the end.

When the city was liberated once more, the secret, brainwashed prisoners of the Dai Li that most people didn’t even know existed were at the bottom of the priority list. The White Cleaver was one such prisoner who slipped through chinks in the chaos, who was never rescued but somehow escaped; whose conditioning was never broken; who, somehow, found himself at the bloodbenders’ doorstep and was pieced back together by them, a phrase which sounds much gentler and more wholesome than the process was.

Returning to them for the same reason (albeit a far more literal piecing together) two years ago after Serpine’s command of him almost got him killed, the bloodbenders regained the White Cleaver’s services. Wreath assures Skulduggery that he is on their side- or at least, under their control.

֍

Meanwhile, frantically searching for a lead that will get him the Earth King back and the arbiters in chains, Remus Crux returns to the Library barely half a day later to extort more information from China Sorrows, only for the Diablerie to show up at the same time looking to recruit her.

Crux does not take this well. He does not take this well at all.

The burgeoning cracks in his mind are accentuated by the breaks in his legs when he throws himself out the window to escape.

֍

As the day dwindles and the sky darkens, Valkyrie flies Bentley to Gordon’s house. She has gone long enough in a highly tense situation without letting her parents know in person that she’s safe. The plan is to spend maybe an hour there and then fly to the Serpent’s Pass, where the exchange of Guild for Fletcher is scheduled to take place the next morning. Skulduggery, Ghastly, Tanith, and Wreath remain at Bespoke Tailors’ to work out the exact details of how they will come out of the exchange with both targets safe and the Diablerie in custody.

Bentley is flying low between the rocky crags of the mountains when there’s a distant shout. A second later a boulder the size of Valkyrie’s house in Léi slams into Ben and knocks him out of the air.

Valkyrie is flung off his back. It’s pitch black. The only things she can sense are the rush of the air, the pull of gravity, her own terror, and the pained shrieks of Ben echoing throughout the mountains.

A second before she hits the ground head first, Valkyrie flings out her hands and funnels the air into a cushion. She flips, feet catching the ground, but slips. Her recently-healed arm jars on impact. A massive crunch as of the snapping of fifty tree trunks seems to vibrate straight through the earth. The dragon cries out again.

‘Ben!’

Torches send shadows scurrying back through the rocks and trees. Desperately trying to reorient herself, find her feet, find her focus, Valkyrie sees an empty catapult, sees Earth Kingdom soldiers- no, policemen, Ba Sing Se guards near Omashu- and a hurry-up wagon with an iron door, bars on the single window.

She lurches up and blasts the whole thing onto its side. The reins snap, the ostrich-horses rearing and providing even more of a problem for Crux’s men than a scared, angry airbender. There are thrashing sounds from beyond the ambush. Bentley.

Valkyrie charges right towards the men, sliding on her knees and bending over backwards as one of them takes a swing at her with a baton. The heavy wood passes over her and she comes up, firing an elbow into another man’s belly, following the air currents into dodging between the narrow space left by two more men and sprinting as hard as she can towards the darkened trees.

A fifth man steps out of nowhere. Suddenly she’s sprawled on the ground, her head ringing, blood in her mouth from her bitten tongue. Muzzily, she tries pushing herself up, the world swaying under her good hand…

She couldn’t have passed out for long, but when she wakes up, being dragged across the ground, her hands are shackled behind her back and the wagon is righted, door gaping ahead of her like an open mouth complete with metal teeth. She’s tossed unceremoniously inside. Inside, she’s not alone.

Vaurien Scapegrace was being transferred to a low security jail in the outlying Earth Kingdom regions when his (one-man) security detail received instructions to wait for further instructions. These came in the form of four more guards and a catapult, the Earth King having obviously realised what a credible threat he was. But no. Of course, it had to be the Cain girl who would steal his glory yet again. He harbours a great deal of resentment to her by this point, especially after she flipped the damn wagon with him inside.

He is not, however, suicidal. Beyond being her usual degree of pain in his backside, he is not incensed enough to incur Skulduggery Pleasant’s wrath by attempting to kill her. He is, however, a little stupid, and a lot unlucky, and not above trying to scare her.

The world is still spinning and lines of light are flashing across Valkyrie’s retinas and she feels like she’s going to be sick and she can’t tell what’s going on except she’s been locked in a cage with the dark shadow of yet another man standing up and snarling her name-

-she twists her hands. The air pressure drops, then bursts outwards in a brutal wave of force from the little space cupped in the centre of her palms. Valkyrie shoots off the floor, Scapegrace flies back, hits the wall, and then her knee catches him on the side of head for good measure, knocking him out cold instantly. Valkyrie lands on her feet, her knees go weak, and she falls yet again.

Unable to process so many things, least of all how she did that, she allows the static in her brain to take over once more, and slips into blackness.

֍

It is well past dawn on the rocky ridge jutting out over the Serpent’s Pass. The water far below is brilliant in the light, only serving to remind Fletcher that they can’t wait any longer. Time is up, and that blind guy is already on his way over to start negotiations for the exchange. Tanith’s pacing makes him feel even sicker, and Ghastly’s urgings are the only ones thus far that have managed to get Skulduggery to calm down enough such that the air stops sizzling around him. None of them know where Valkyrie is.

֍

Ben is not a happy dragon. He has been shot down, crash-landed, injured, and now his charge has been hit and locked in a box. Ben is not a happy dragon.

Crux’s men are even less happy. They did not expect a fourteen-year-old girl to almost beat them in a fight. Wasn’t air supposed to be a soft element? She wasn’t even supposed to be properly trained. But at least she’s locked in the wagon now. Sure, the walls did buckle and splinter a while ago, but the private went and looked, and both prisoners were unconscious, so no harm done. All they have to do is get back to Ba Sing Se and hand her over to Crux, and that would be th-

The ground drops away, and the bolts between the cage and the cart snap. The guards plummet back down in the smithereens of their cart, and Bentley breathes a plume of fire at them to discourage any attempts to get back up. He hefts the cage in his claws, snarls at the aches in his body, and soars for the horizon as fast as he can, the scent of the big city drawing him on.

Dragons are intelligent, but do not think like humans or spirits. Now that a human he cares about is in danger he elects to take her to the extremely fortified safe place he knows she often inhabits: Ba Sing Se.

The population of which Remus Crux has by now convinced she helped kidnap the Earth King.

֍

Tanith watches Sanguine come over to greet them. The waters far below the knife-edge cliffside reflect in his dark glasses and the grin he flashes at her is as sunny as the cloudless sky. At least, right up until Skulduggery, his own expression as stony and sharp as the ridges of the Pass, puts him in cuffs and hands him over to Ghastly, telling him to break Sanguine’s arms if he even thinks the ground shifts. Then his attention is back on Fletcher.

The boy is pale and jittery. When Skulduggery promises that he won’t let anything happen to him, Tanith thinks treacherously of Valkyrie. Then she pushes those thoughts away. She should know better than to let her fears overcome her before a fight.

‘Funny, the girl not bein’ here,’ Sanguine muses, as if following her train of thought. ‘Didn’t want to risk us gettin’ two airbenders, did you?’

Tanith ignores his prying and the building tension in her body, only meeting Ghastly’s eyes briefly. They watch Fletcher walk shakily out onto the narrow ridge.

Guild is on his way from the opposite direction. She doesn’t allow her focus to falter even for a moment, attention fixed on the party on the other side of the natural bridge. As yet, the Diablerie have not made any moves. Sanguine, on the other hand, seems happy to talk, relaxed as it is possible for a prisoner to be.

‘You seem awfully keen to get your hands on another airbender,’ Skulduggery comments, ‘considering you didn’t even stick around to see whether she could open a portal for you last year.’

‘Well, you know how it is,’ shrugs Sanguine. ‘It’s cold, you’re tired, and your boss is a fanatic who didn’t bring enough backup and is bent on getting himself killed when there’s another perfectly reasonable, higher-paying offer just waiting for you to take it.’ He grins. ‘And what’s even better is, these people do know how to arrange backup.’

Skulduggery lunges but Sanguine has already jerked his head sideways. A spray of dust and rock from the cliff-side pelt Ghastly and instinctively making him recoil. Cuffs dangling from one hand, Sanguine pulls something out of his pocket just before Skulduggery reaches him-

BANG.

The light flares everywhere, searing Tanith’s eyes before she can look away. Everything burns white. Her ears ring. Disoriented, she doesn’t dare move, very aware of her position on a cliff-edge a hundred feet above the water. Scuffling. The sound of a fight. She blinks furiously, her sword out, her senses coming back far too slowly. She can make out blurry figures in the distance. Fletcher. Guild. And something huge, looming out of the water…

֍

Yelling at Ben to turn around proves fruitless. It’s apparently too hard to get a message across to a dragon when you’re shouting through the bars of a box and hurtling through the sky faster than wind. Valkyrie is instead condemned to watch as not only Ba Sing Se, but the palace itself, looms closer and closer.

The cage is set down carefully. Palace guards rush in. Valkyrie tries to ignore her throbbing head and aching body, and readies herself for another fight as the guards prise off the door and see who is inside.

The fight is very short. Nonexistent, really. The guards are on red alert, they suspect her of aiding in the kidnap of their king, and a dragon has just landed on their doorstep. There’s a lot of them out there, and her hands are still bound. She is seized immediately.

‘No, no, Ben STOP!’

The dragon does, exhaling a waft of superheated steam instead of flame, glaring menacingly at the guards holding her and Scapegrace.

‘Go get Skulduggery!’ Valkyrie yells as the guards haul her away, weapons still aimed at the dragon. She’s trying not to resist, but Bentley isn’t moving and she needs him to go.

‘I swear I didn’t do it!’ Scapegrace gabbles in the back. ‘I’ve never met Valkyrie Cain in my life!’

‘Skulduggery! Get Skulduggery!’ Valkyrie screams. Bentley stays planted on the stone tiles of the massive pavilion, getting further and further away, luminescent yellow eyes fixed on the retreating group. The lack of flowers or any other kind of decoration on his sleek black scales only enunciate his sharp bared teeth and reptilian presence.

‘Do you understand? SKULDUGGERY, Ben!’

Just as the great palace doors are about to close, Bentley takes off.

֍

In summary, the exchange did not go well. The giant sea serpent was an ample distraction for Sanguine to snatch Fletcher away and escape with the Diablerie. Ghastly’s quick thinking sped Guild and the patch of earth he was standing on out of their (and the serpent’s) reach, however.

After retreating into the cliffs where the serpent can’t chase them, it seems as though Skulduggery’s temper, on a simmer all day, has reached boiling point. That is, until Bentley arrives, late, sans Valkyrie.

Then Tanith understands what boiling really looks like.

‘Let’s go,’ he says shortly. Flames flicker in his teeth. Likewise, Bentley blows a fiery plume before take-off.

֍

The guards lead Valkyrie and Scapegrace, despite his protestations, down to the cells. Vaguely, Valkyrie wonders who’s giving the orders with Guild missing.

Walls suddenly slide down in the hall, blocking it off section by section, effectively trapping them. By the guards’ reactions, this is unexpected for them as well. Moments later, Dai Li agents drop down. They are informed that the Palace has gone into lockdown. No personnel in or out.

The guards begin to tell the Dai Li their business, when one of the newly shut walls spirals open- much more forcefully and roughly, without the smooth grinding of stone on stone characteristic of the Dai Li.  

Mr Bliss steps through. He locks eyes with Valkyrie immediately.

‘I wasn’t informed that Arbiter Cain had been arrested.’

‘Sorry sir, must be an administration error. We were just taking her to the cells for deten-’

‘We found the airbender,’ Valkyrie blurts, managing to make her voice work. While it is a bit of a relief to see a familiar face, she has no idea whether or not Bliss believes she and Skulduggery were involved with Guild’s kidnapping.

The guards are silent though, and Bliss’s attention is on her, so Valkyrie quickly relates the information about the hostage swap and the Diablerie’s plan to open a portal.

Bliss regards her. Eventually, he decides, ‘I’ll take custody of her.’

‘The palace is in lockdown, my lord-’ begins a Dai Li agent.

‘I know,’says Bliss coldly. ‘And I didn’t order it. Find out who did.’

The agents nod and melt away into the shadows. The walls are lifted, and the guards move on, which Scapegrace is happy about until they take him with them.

Bliss turns to Valkyrie and reduces the earthen restraints on her wrists to rubble with a gesture. ‘This way.’

She doesn’t argue.

The palace seems much darker and quieter without people bustling through its corridors. The halls they travel dwarf Valkyrie. The journey is awfully reminiscent of Serpine’s coup. She doesn’t know where they’re going, but she doesn’t ask either. She wonders what it means that Mr Bliss, the Earth King’s advisor and the man making a move for the throne, was not informed about either her arrest or the lockdown.

Bliss stops in a dark corridor just like all the other dark corridors they have passed through, looking around. He motions her towards a shadow. She steps into it silently.

A section of wall opens, revealing the Administrator, who Dai Li agents wave through before closing it again.

‘You asked for me, my lord?’

‘Did you order the lockdown?’

‘I did,’ the Administrator answers, looking around the corridor and missing Valkyrie’s hiding place.

‘Why?’

‘I was informed that Skulduggery Pleasant’s dragon had arrived at the Palace entrance. I assumed that it was a threat to the personnel stationed inside, including yourself sir.’

‘Were you aware that Valkyrie Cain was brought into this palace a short while ago?’

‘Yes sir. I sent my assistant to inform you immediately. I don’t know why you wouldn’t have been notified.’

‘Where is your assistant now?’

‘All staff should be headed to the East Wing, sir.’

‘Then let’s see if he’s there.’ Bliss turns and a burst of lightning from the Administrator’s fingers hits him in the back.

Valkyrie manages to stifle her gasp. The Administrator moves around Bliss’s prone, smoking, groaning form, her eyes cold as she readies more lightning.

Valkyrie takes a running leap out of the shadows and pushes both hands at the Administrator, the torrent of air nearly bowling the woman head over heels. She sprawls but rolls to her feet, lightning ready impossibly fast. Time seems to slow down as she watches the Administrator’s fingers extend towards her in a very familiar fashion.

Valkyrie jerks to the side. Lightning sizzles past her cheek. She kicks her leg straight up like a door latch, unlocking a gale of wind from ground level that blasts the Administrator into the ceiling. She falls to the ground on her knees, dazed but still able to get back up.

Heart thundering, Valkyrie readies another fistful of air and-

‘Stand down!’

Skulduggery’s shout echoes from behind her. He’s at the end of the corridor, his hand full of warning flames. ‘Stand down, Administrator,’ he repeats.

Tanith and Ghastly run in behind him, fighting stances also ready. Valkyrie grins widely and turns back: the traitor sways, and slumps unconscious.

‘Good enough,’ Skulduggery says, and extinguishes his flames. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he adds casually.

‘I had it covered,’ Valkyrie shrugs.

֍

The presence of a self-admitted member of Mevolent’s rogue Fire Nation in the Earth Kingdom’s palace, a trusted member of the court no less, is a shocking one. Even Thurid Guild doesn’t try and chalk this up to somehow being Skulduggery’s fault. Finally, the Earth King is willing to listen to what they tell him.

If there was only one portal, located a moderately close distance to these events, the pressure would be on to rush to it straight away. As it is, two spirit portals are possible targets. The closer one in the North is the least likely option: the Northern Water Tribe has increased security around it tenfold since the events of the Grotesquery’s awakening the previous year. That leaves the Southern Spirit Portal as the Diablerie’s most viable choice, all the way on the other side of the world.

Unlike the previous year’s attempt to summon Vaatu, there is some leeway with time. The lunar eclipse is a week away, and with the help of Solomon Wreath and the other bloodbenders who volunteer, the ships that go to battle can be assured of a speedy passage across the ocean.

֍

After a rather angry Kenspeckle, as the only waterbender healer in the city, has been summoned to the palace to get Mr Bliss back on his feet, the Earth King’s war room fills with people.

Guild, lesson learned from his last excursion outside the realms of his immediate control, hands over command of a contingent of soldiers to Mr Bliss for the duration of the emergency. Their orders are to travel to the South Pole, apprehend the Diablerie by any means necessary, and stop the portal from being opened- also by any means necessary.

‘If possible, retrieve Fletcher Renn alive,’ Guild adds. Valkyrie thinks scathingly that it sounds like an afterthought. Mr Bliss however, accepts these terms without question.

Valkyrie watches them closely as this handover of power between kings occurs, but neither Bliss nor Guild exhibit any trepidation, satisfaction, or notable behaviour. They are both good politicians: moreover, they are both good commanders.

Skulduggery, Tanith, and Ghastly also volunteer for the mission.

‘Accepted,’ Guild nods. ‘However, your student will remain here, Arbiter Pleasant.’

‘What?’ exclaims Valkyrie.

‘Airbender blood is needed to awaken the Grotesquery, as was discovered last year. If two airbenders are present at the South Pole then that is double the likelihood of Jaron Gallow and whoever he is working for being able to open the spirit portal. Arbiter Cain, you will remain here in Ba Sing Se for the duration of this mission.’

‘In the dungeon?’ Valkyrie narrows her eyes.

‘Under the protection of the Dai Li,’ Guild snaps.

‘Respectfully, Thurid, you’ve spent the past few days hunting us from one end of the Earth Kingdom to the other,’ Skulduggery says bluntly. ‘I don’t have any reason to think you won’t arrest my student as soon as I’m on a ship out of here.’

‘The warrants for you and your companions’ arrest have been rescinded,’ says Guild stiffly.

‘Oh good. I’m sure the Fire Lord will be very glad to hear that.’

‘I couldn’t give less of a damn what the Fire Lord thinks of the policies I enact in my own kingdom against-’

‘Against a special envoy of another nation?’

‘Yes! Particularly when that envoy commits crimes of espionage, theft and endangerment of the populace, and especially when that envoy may well be acting on the orders of the Fire Lord! The head of a rival nation in possession of a particularly reprehensible history!’

‘A history that ended fourteen years ago. You were there, you should remember.’ At this, Skulduggery’s voice becomes hard, and seems to knock some rationale back into Guild. Valkyrie knows the look that passes across his face- she’s seen it on other soldiers, ones who fought with Skulduggery at the Fall of the Capital.

‘Yes. I do remember,’ he says tightly. ‘But thankfully this isn’t fourteen years ago. Today no governments are in need of toppling, so I wouldn’t think there is any reason for you to recruit an exiled prince and form an army this time. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Thurid, Caisson had nothing to do with my actions in the catacombs and you know it.’

‘What I do and do not know is not up to you to decide, special envoy. Regardless of your intentions, you have perpetuated an international incident, and the brewing situation between our nations will be resolved between the Fire Lord and myself.’

‘Resolved or escalated,’ Skulduggery says. ‘You don’t seem to be trying very hard to avoid a war. As I recall, Meritorious also found it to be quite the unifying force, having a kingdom focused on a common external enemy- instead of its leader.’

Valkyrie, and everyone else in the room, has been totally silent for the whole exchange. Had anyone dared to speak to the Earth King, any Earth King like that before? She knows Skulduggery doesn’t hold a particular regard for people in positions of power, and doesn’t have a problem telling them when he thinks they’re wrong, but this borders on dangerous behaviour. If things really are as tense between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom as Guild is saying (and how had she missed that? Skulduggery hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t seem surprised now, so he must have known the possible consequences for breaking into the catacombs), then Valkyrie half-expects Guild to throw Skulduggery into prison right now without a trial.

When the Earth King finally speaks, he is as cold as the icy waters in the North.

‘After this mission is complete, the Earth Kingdom’s borders are closed to you, arbiter. Set foot here again and you will face consequences.’

At this moment, Remus Crux bursts into the chamber as fast as a manic, hobbling man can. Ignoring his protestations of Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant’s collusion with the enemy, Guild sends Crux away and dismisses them all.

֍

The forces head to the Southern Water Tribe as fast as possible. Solomon Wreath, his White Cleaver in tow, volunteers along with several other bloodbenders to help speed the ships on their way. Valkyrie, Skulduggery, Ghastly, and Tanith fly ahead on Ben.

For the entire week it takes to travel to the South Pole, Valkyrie thinks of Fletcher. Regardless of what awaits her and Skulduggery after the mission (what with the possible war, Skulduggery’s ban from the country, and what that means for her) and the confrontation that is coming at the end of this journey, Fletcher is alone. Last year, she was only in Vengeous’ hands for the greater part of a day, and that was horrible enough.

She hopes he is okay.

֍

The cold in the South is just as biting as in the North, Valkyrie finds, but disembarking onto the crunchy snow is far more bearable. This time, she is dressed for the weather- and nor is she a prisoner. Still, the wind finds every opening it can in her clothes, and the sun reflects blindingly off the white landscape all around her.

‘I see tents,’ she announces, and stamps off towards the village with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, face buried in her collar under her hood. Tanith laughs.

The Southern Water Tribe is far less grand than the Northern Water Tribe. The settlements, decimated by decades of Fire Nation raids, have only just begun to rebuild and expand, but after years of living as they have, the chance for recovery has made the people stronger, and ready for war should it come to them again.

‘We haven’t finished unloading,’ Skulduggery calls, and sighs when she continues stubbornly onwards. He shoulders two packs and catches up quickly.

‘It’s too cold,’ says Valkyrie.

‘Stop complaining. You’ve been to the Northern Water Tribe.’

‘It’s too cold there too.’

‘You’re just tired from the flight,’ Skulduggery dismisses cheerfully. ‘You’ve got dragon-lag.’

‘How are you so chipper?’ Valkyrie complains. ‘You’ve got less layers on than me. Why aren’t you suffering?’

‘I’ve got more fortitude.’

‘Hmph.’

‘Take a deep breath! Can’t you feel it refreshing you?’

‘Oh yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely keeping me fresh. Like meat in an icebox.’

‘Feel that breeze!’

‘Oh, I feel it.’

‘This is where you should be coming alive! It should be energising you! I grew up here, you know, I know what I’m talking about.’

‘What?’

‘I know what I’m talking about.’

‘What? You grew up here?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve told you before.’

‘You definitely haven’t.’

‘You just don’t pay attention.’

‘Of course I don’t, because you’re always going on about fresh air and feeling the freezing wind.’

‘Maybe if you’d hitched a ride on Ben you wouldn’t be so freezing.’

‘What?’

Behind them, Bentley lumbers along, carrying Tanith and Ghastly. They have rearranged all his packs, saddles and cushions so they can sit on him bareback, and look far less chilly.

‘Ben’s warm?’

‘Of course he’s warm, he’s a dragon,’ said Skulduggery.

‘And you didn’t tell me?!’

‘Well I thought you would have noticed.’

‘I can’t feel him through all these layers! Wait. Stop. Wait. You’re a firebender. Is that why you’re not as cold? Are you doing some sort of firebending thing?’

‘Do you see any fire?’

‘You’re such a cheater!’

‘As an airbender, you should be able to change the air currents to keep yourself warm.’

‘Oh I should, should I?’

֍

The Earth Kingdom soldiers and bloodbenders will not arrive in their warships for several hours, so the intervening time is filled up making preparations for the trek to the portal and coordinating with the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.

The Chief, Renato Bisahalani, knows Ghastly and Skulduggery from the war. He is a charismatic, forceful man who has already organised most of the required preparations for the Earth Kingdom contingent’s arrival. He has gathered warriors and waterbenders from every settlement that has some to spare, and messages by polar dog come in often bearing reports of the Diablerie’s movements, but very little sightings have been made, and their current whereabouts is unknown. It is guaranteed that they will be heading to the spirit portal however, and so Bisahalani has alerted Aranmore, the portal’s closest settlement, to be on guard.

Ghastly and Skulduggery take all the activity in their stride, appearing completely in their element as they tour the bustling encampment bivouacked outside the main coastal settlement. Unfazed, they survey the herds of arctic camels and snow leopard caribou that will be used by the troops for rapid transport. It is the sight of this that brings home to Valkyrie the magnitude of force that has been mobilised for this mission. This isn’t even the full extent; the Earth Kingdom’s own soldiers are only just now beginning to filter in.

‘Isn’t the Diablerie only four people?’ Valkyrie dimly hears herself ask.

Bisahalani overhears her. ‘According to King Thurid’s reports, there have been sightings of the rogue Fire Nation moving across the Earth Kingdom ever since Fletcher Renn’s capture. We expect they’ll have boarded ships and reached the South by now. We’ve been patrolling the waters, but there are many that are too dangerous to risk losing ships. If the enemy has landed or is going to land, it’ll be in those places that only the crazy and desperate go.’

‘You have ships modified specifically for waterbender use. They can’t navigate these areas?’ Skulduggery says.

‘You overestimate the number of fully trained waterbenders we have. They can’t be everywhere at once,’ Bisahalani replies dryly.

‘What about the king tides?’ Tanith says unexpectedly. Bisahalani and Skulduggery look at her, surprised. ‘I saw the ocean patterns as we were flying over. The king tides are due now, aren’t they? They could be used for passing over rapids and ice shelves.’

A grin tugs at Ghastly. ‘I’m glad someone can keep up with the sailing jargon. These two enjoy confounding the rest of us far too much.’ He nods at Skulduggery and Bisahalani.

‘You grew up by the water?’ Bisahalani inquires.

‘Kyoshi Island,’ Tanith nods, smiling briefly back at Ghastly.

‘Ah. Well again, the problem comes down to our waterbender numbers…’

The discussion goes back and forth. Valkyrie keeps up as best she can, but mostly she is distracted. Looking around at the preparations being made, she can’t help a trickle of fear that shivers down her spine. The White Cleaver, blank-faced as ever, sharpens his scythe with a whetstone.

It looks like everyone is expecting a pitched battle.

֍

The combined Earth and Water forces reach Aranmore by nightfall. The lunar eclipse is due in a few hours.

Aranmore is a tiny village, mostly empty as all the civilians were evacuated as soon as word came that the Diablerie and Mevolent’s Fire Nation were on their way. The landscape is more ice than snow, rising and dipping erratically, strewn with great twisting glacial mounds which on one hand provide good cover and on the other are great for concealing ambushes. Somewhere in the centre of these warped ice structures jutting out of the snow lies the Southern spirit portal.

The head of the village, a crabby old man named Batu, greets them upon arrival and reports no activity. Bisahalani and Bliss set to work organising scouting parties and perimeter patrols, dividing up the troops as efficiently as possible. Skulduggery takes Valkyrie aside to talk with Batu.

Despite the man’s age, he refuses to be evacuated, insisting that no one knows the area like he does and that they’d be fools not to use him. Skulduggery subsides, but manages to wrangle a promise out of him that he’ll stay under cover and away from most of the fighting.

He does this by saying, ‘I’ll need someone to keep an eye on Valkyrie for me.’

Before Valkyrie can object, Batu seems to notice her for the first time. ‘‘Ere, what’s your kid doing out here?’

‘Student.’

‘Partner,’ says Valkyrie.

‘Partner,’ corrects Skulduggery.

‘I don’t need to be looked after,’ Valkyrie protests.

‘This place is about to become a battlefield,’ Skulduggery points out. ‘I won’t be able to make sure you’re safe out there.’

‘You think I can’t handle myself? I told you, you’re not making me do anything I don’t want to do-’

‘I don’t think that at all, I just know what being in a battle is like, and whether or not you want to accept this fact, it is my job as your partner and your teacher to see that you stay as safe as I can keep you. There’s not much I can do if you don’t want to listen to me, and spirits know I’d rather have you by my side than not, but you need to understand that this is not like we’re on our usual travels.

‘Nineteen years ago I lost my family to war. I’d rather not have to explain to your parents that I didn’t learn from my mistakes the first time around. So please, think about them before rushing in after me.’

Valkyrie falls silent at the tone of his voice. ‘Alright,’ she says eventually. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

Skulduggery nods, acknowledging that’s the best he’s going to get out of her. ‘There’s another reason we need you to stay in reserve.’

‘Because I can open the portal,’ Valkyrie guesses.

‘You can what?’ Batu interrupts. They both look around, having mostly forgotten about him. ‘You’re an airbender too?’

At Valkyrie’s nod, Batu says reflectively, ‘Popping up all over the place now, aren’t you? Good thing the firebenders aren’t here yet. Saving your presence, of course,’ he adds to Skulduggery.

This is precisely the moment at which known very unfriendly firebender Jaron Gallow tries to fry them all.

Skulduggery blocks the incoming fire blast. Through the sudden rush of people, Valkyrie can see Gallow leaping into their midst, whipping up fire all around him. Like ants out of a hill, more firebenders come pouring from the icy structures all around.

‘They’re already here!’ someone shouts.

Valkyrie takes off running as Skulduggery orders her and Batu to get to cover. The ambush overtakes everyone in sight within moments.

Valkyrie has never been involved in a battle so fierce- or, she’s starting to realise, been present on any kind of battlefield. By comparison, the Northern confrontation last year was a small skirmish.

Dodging through the maze of ice and fighting, clearing hillocks and sliding down snowy embankments, Valkyrie glimpses people she recognises. She leaves Skulduggery behind as he heads for Gallow. Firebenders twist and contort where they stand, screaming like an orchestra as Solomon Wreath conducts them with his hands. Ghastly is fist fighting Gruesome Krav, Bliss coming in to back him up. Bisahalani directs waterbenders from an elevated position to send an avalanche down on a group of Mevolent’s forces. The White Cleaver, a blur of movement in the midst of an overwhelming number of foes.

Batu pulls her into a secluded hollow out of the way of the fighting. Heart pounding, Valkyrie tries to calm down by fixating on the icy structure providing them cover instead of the battle. It looks like a tree encased in centuries worth of ice. There’s a blue glow beyond it.

Instead of running towards the village, they’d been headed towards the spirit portal, Valkyrie realises.

The closed Southern portal is almost identical to the one in the North, except it emits blue light instead of red. Not far from it lies the slumbering form of the Grotesquery, and with it, a struggling Fletcher Renn. Sanguine is holding him down while a woman who Valkyrie assumes is Murder Rose leans over him, about to cut his throat.

Batu pulls Valkyrie back before she can intervene. As Rose brings down the knife, Tanith pelts out of the frozen trees and tackles her to the ground. Fletcher yells in pain.

Sanguine mustn’t be able to see any better here than in the North, but he snarls and draws his straight razor nevertheless. Valkyrie shoves Batu off and blasts Sanguine onto his back with a burst of wind, running into the open. She grabs Sanguine’s arm as he blindly swings the razor at her, then twists under it and uses his own momentum to drive it into his stomach.

Sanguine roars, an expression of utter fury and disbelief on his face. He wrenches the blade out, blood spattering the snow, and with a few parting promises of vengeance upon her, disappears into the frozen depths of the forest. Another enemy for life made, she guesses.

Valkyrie crouches by Fletcher, who is shaking and groaning, and notices that there is too much blood on the snow just to have come from Sanguine.

Rose opened up Fletcher’s shoulder and upper arm before Tanith pulled her off him.

Fletcher’s own scared eyes meet hers, then slide past in horror. The blood splatter has landed on the Grotesquery, and its shrouded, injured form is rising to its feet behind her.

Before Valkyrie can so much as shout, an arm has wrapped around her neck and pulled her away. Batu is surprisingly strong, and more than a little insane it seems. He’s been working with the Diablerie for years, tracking down possible airbenders to awaken the Grotesquery and summon Vaatu so that he can become not just a bender, but the Dark Avatar, the most powerful bender in the world. He probably would have kept talking, but at this point Valkyrie is losing consciousness and can’t break his grip and Tanith is still fighting and Fletcher can’t get up so she reaches under her heavy layers and blasts Batu with the Sceptre of the Spirit World.

His ashes crumble to the snow. This radiant display of power is nothing compared to the spirit portal opening though.

In the chaos, the Grotesquery made its slow, painful way to the portal, and placed its hand on the cold blue hemispherical surface.

An awe-inspiringly massive blue jet pierces the night sky, casting a blinding light over the whole South Pole. The Grotesquery lets out a piercing cry, deafening everyone on the battlefield. Somehow, Valkyrie knows this is the signal to summon the dark spirit. Purpose fulfilled, it stumbles into the light and does not return.

There’s a shocked moment of silence, and then the sounds of the battle resume even fiercer than before. Valkyrie barely notices.

The sound of the cry bore her to the ground, setting a ringing in her ears that dazes her. She is completely unable to rise. Her eyes fix on the light: shapes coalesce within the spirit portal. There are so many of them, too many to be just the one dark spirit the Grotesquery wanted to bring forth…

The next thing Valkyrie is aware of is Skulduggery trying to get her to focus on him. His sword is bloody. Behind him, Tanith and Rose are lying in the snow, but only Tanith is stirring, red matting her hair. Ghastly is hauling her upright, simultaneously checking over the still-prone Fletcher.

‘Valkyrie! Valkyrie, look at me. I need you with me,’

She manages to, but remains disoriented. ‘I’m with you.’

Something flies out of the vertical strip of light that is the open spirit portal. Something dark with glowing eyes, sharp teeth, and batlike wings. Valkyrie’s heart stops, and cheers echo throughout the dark icy forest as the rogue Fire Nation roars their approval.

But then several other dark spirits fly out, and proceed to attack everything in sight.

The good news is there is no sign of Vaatu. None of the spirits seem to be significantly more powerful than the others, and while violent and vicious, they don’t live up to the tales of soul-destroying terror that describe Vaatu. The summoning is yet again a failure, and three attempts shows it as statistically significant too.

The bad news is, there doesn’t seem to be any attack that works against the dark spirits. Not ice, not fire, not metal or fists, and the Sceptre is useless. They don’t seem to be solid beings, amorphous and even intangible if they so choose. Bentley is the only one able to make any headway, flying overhead breathing fire and clawing at any that stray too close.

Ghastly and Skulduggery manage to get Tanith and Fletcher, both semi-conscious, to a place of relative safety in a hollow beneath an icy overhead canopy. Valkyrie, her head clearing more with every passing minute, keeps her hands pressed firmly to Fletcher’s shoulder, staunching the hot flow of blood. Tanith’s arm is broken, and she is breathing shallowly. Valkyrie doesn’t object when Skulduggery tells her to stay with them, he and Ghastly rejoining the battle as soon as they’re safe.

The battle is now against fleeing rogue Fire Nation soldiers and dark spirits alike. Valkyrie watches it progress, on the edge of panicking. Then something amazing happens.

A glimmering golden coil lights up the night, wrapping around a screeching, struggling spirit with more eyes than legs. As the coil tightens, the spirit changes. It becomes a lighter colour, sharp edges and claws rounding into paws and softness. It ceases struggling, and becomes more docile. When the coil retracts, the spirit flies away.

Beneath is Solomon Wreath, bending streams of water in a way that Valkyrie has never seen before.

Over and over he directs the winding streams around spirits, gold lighting them up once the transformation begins, and dissipating once finished. He shouts directions to the other water- and bloodbenders, who copy him. Soon the chaos begins to die down, the golden pulses lighting up the dark here and there almost soothing.

No spirits return to the portal. They are here to stay, apparently.

Before Valkyrie can breathe a sigh of relief at the winding-down battle, arms yank her backwards and drag her through the icy hollow, which is more of a tunnel as it turns out.

Valkyrie throws her head back and crunches someone’s nose. He yells, and she does it again. The hands release her, and she whips around, using the Sceptre like she’s seen Fletcher use his staff to slam a wall of air into Remus Crux.

He flies out of the tunnel, snow spraying up, but is on his feet again within moments, diving back towards her.

‘You did this!’ he hisses, hands on her throat. ‘You’re part of it! All of it!’

Another guy who has completely lost it, Valkyrie notes distantly. She twists out of his grip, kicks his knee, and runs- straight into three enemy firebenders.  

What follows is a blur of movement. The firebenders attack and Valkyrie dodges between, following the air currents to slip inside their movements. She can’t take all three head on, but fortunately airbending is the most useful element for evasion. Fletcher did say she should practice ‘living in the air’ more; well, there’s nothing quite like learning on the job. She ducks under fiery punches, finds herself with her back pressed to someone else’s and follows them whenever they try to turn around and grab her. Coming face to face with another firebender, she sidesteps and they punch her back-to-back partner instead.

She keeps running, and when she realises she’s being chased towards a dead end of glassy ice, speeds up, plants her feet firmly and runs straight up it, flipping over the firebenders’ heads as she comes down behind them in a roll. Flicking the Sceptre, she sends up a torrent of snow and takes off running again, but it doesn’t slow them down for long. Soon enough she has to turn and face them; she can’t both run away and dodge fireballs. She spins the Sceptre to disperse most of the blasts, but now she’s being driven back to somewhere she can’t see.

Valkyrie steps off snow onto sheer ice. She glances down and sees they’re now standing on a dark frozen lake.

A bright flash and a swathe of fire herald Skulduggery’s arrival. He pelts down the bank and enters the fray like she knew he would, and as far as Valkyrie’s concerned, the fight is all but finished at this point.

Then Remus Crux tackles her, still insensible to reason, still convinced she’s working with the Diablerie despite the firebenders visibly trying to kill her. The ice they struggle on cracks, and together they plunge into glacial water.

The bitter cold has her instinctively gasping. Icy water floods her lungs. Her muscles- all of them, it seems- clench up. Crux is having a similar response, dragging her down as he tries to claw his way to the surface. Below the ice it is dark. She cannot see the surface. She cannot breathe. Her limbs are failing her. The cold is within her and without her, and it is fading as she loses consciousness.

And then she can see again. Move again. The water is within her and without her. It bends to her will.

֍

Solomon follows the sounds of the fight in the direction Pleasant ran.

There’s a battle taking place on a frozen lake in the midst of a clearing of twisted ice pillars. A dangerous place for a fight between firebenders, and yes, he can see the ice already thinning and cracking underneath them. There is already a hole where someone went through, in fact. He starts forward to assist Pleasant against the three opponents he’s facing, and the lake explodes.

Solomon is thrown back into the forest. On the other side of the lake he sees Pleasant get struck in the head by icy debris and slump.

The black water surges, a massive, terrifying whirlpool that decimates everything in its path, ice, trees, and people alike. The flood races at Solomon like a tsunami, a wall of water that smashes apart solid objects. With a slash of his hands Solomon diverts it around himself, creating a momentary pocket of safety, but there’s others on the battlefield not so fortunate to be a waterbender.

There’s a finite amount of water in the lake, thankfully. But when the torrent begins to slow, something yanks the current straight back, and this time spears of ice as long as a man fringe the waves. More screams are added to the night over the roar of water, some cut off suddenly, some dissolving into gurgles. Solomon liquifies a spike that drives at his chest, but with his hands full stopping the second flash flood from consuming him he can’t prevent the Earth Kingdom soldiers nearby from being impaled to whatever icy trees still stand. Once it passes, Solomon looks up.

A towering spire of swirling water spins overhead. There is a figure suspended at its tip, hands lowering from where they instructed the flood to expand and withdraw and turn to ice and kill. With swift motions, they direct the spire to lower them to the bank, not twenty feet away. The water coil collapses with a splash.

Solomon looks into the glowing red eyes and snarling teeth of the Avatar.

Like a switch is flipped, the glow winks out and Valkyrie Cain falls to the snow.

֍

Valkyrie opens her eyes and starts shivering. She is soaked to the bone, colder than she’s ever been in her life, but she’s not shaking from the cold. After a brief moment of blissful ignorance, she remembers what happened only a few seconds ago.

It felt like she could do anything, and after she shot out of the water all she wanted to do was destroy. It was like she had one hand on the reins, and something else was guiding her. She did things without knowing how. She’d felt unstoppable and relished it and she can’t stop trembling from the terror.

She’s a waterbender. But she hasn’t been hallucinating her time as an airbender for the past two years either.

This can’t be happening.

Another memory hits her between the eyes like a hammer, and she lurches up with a crackle of ice from the water freezing to her skin and clothes to find Solomon Wreath already crouching over her. His expression is wary and calculating as he asks if she’s alright and tries to help her up. She shoves him off. She needs Skulduggery. Where is Skulduggery. Wreath says he saw him by the bank before the flood.

He’s not there now.

She stumbles up and takes off shakily into the forest. There’s blood and bodies everywhere. She passes several soaking people gathered around a groaning Bisahalani, whose legs are definitely not supposed to bend that way. It’s among one of the better sights. Jaron Gallow, motionless, missing an arm. Mr Bliss, the King of Omashu, her king, impaled on a two-metre jagged spike of ice, eyes open, not breathing. Shouts for help echo all around. She still can’t find Skulduggery.

She hears Ghastly’s voice and runs towards it. He’s near the hollow where she hid with Tanith and Fletcher. They’re okay. They’re all okay. Ghastly grabs her when he sees her, asking if she’s alright, but she can only stammer if he knows where Skulduggery is. He doesn’t. She takes off again, but Tanith and Fletcher are losing blood and consciousness and Ghastly can’t leave them to go after her. Instead she hears Wreath pelting through the slurry and snow at her heels.

Skulduggery isn’t on the battlefield. He isn’t at the healing tents set up in Aranmore. He isn’t among the wounded brought in on stretchers, or the dead brought in on more stretchers. The bloodbenders don’t find him buried in the snow and ice like so many others, or in the lake they dredge by lifting spheres of water into the air, where one of the firebenders who was after her is still alive. In fact, Skulduggery’s not the only person missing in the aftermath.

Dimly, information filters through to Valkyrie about the occasional soldier, or waterbender, or warrior who can’t be accounted for. The firebender prisoner laughs, coughing blood out of battered lungs. He laughs because Mevolent’s Fire Nation still takes prisoners of war. And now they have Skulduggery Pleasant.

[goblin-writer]

The Garden of Earthly Delights

It all started one starless night. You had sat at your window letting the cool autumn wind whisper past you. The town had gone to sleep and all the windows were dark. And in that solitary pool of light, you looked up into the dark.

Humanity might have sent thousands of satellites and trained their eyes upwards for thousands of years but what was out there. The sky was clear and no star lit up the dark. Not for the first time either. You had thought to order a telescope but ended up getting side-tracked.

It was a few days later that you made it to your local library. Browsing through the sections, past 000, 100, 200, all the way to 521. Celestial mechanics and a shelf down, 523, specific phenomena. And there, tucked between Plato and Avicenna you found a loose pamphlet. Yellowed with age, and smudged across the author’s name. All that remained was the name of the organisation and parts of the text.

The Joen Institute

Est 1501

Den Bosch

The language was unfamiliar at first, but you spent hours trying to find connections to it in the vast catalogue of the library. Books that had been untouched since they were sorted in were disturbed by you. Pages, brittle with time, moved for you. And in one, a text from the 17th Century you found a mention to the Swan Members contribution to a feast. Unsurprisingly, a swan each. And the fat from that had been caught in a cup, and the fire it produced sparked brilliant, princely orange.

But the true work of the Institute still eluded you. It was, as if your cup was empty. That realisation, that knowledge fills like a cup seemed to change something. You looked back through the books arrayed before you. And there, the pamphlet.

You could understand what it said. They had looked to the stars and claim to have seen the truth. Seen what lies beyond and between the planets. Reading on they referred to their members.

The Institute had counted many influential people among its ranks. Artist, poets, politicians, and captains of industry. Each had included their knowledge in their work. Hidden from all those not part of their Institute. Maybe, you thought it’d be closer to a cult. Regardless. You had learnt something and now you wanted to seek out more of their creations. Maybe you could find answers to what lay beyond.

Clarity was just a step away.

A terrible promise waiting to be fulfilled.

And beyond the Earth a large creature shuddered and woke. Knowledge was being rediscovered, and it hadn’t eaten in so long. With a roar it left its nest. That roar would have shattered foundations but in space it emanated along hidden lines. And multitudes shifted toward the Garden that is Earth.

But your search continued, unaware of what you had woken. You tore through books, speeches, and visited galleries. The first major departures from the body of literature created by its adherents was a French text, by a certain cardinal. Other major works were found across what was once the Holy Roman Empire.

But their most famous work came from the man that the institute was named after. A piece of art made of three panels, showing creation, delight, and the consequences of the banal. Amongst each of the panels you learnt new things. Hidden messages that drip by drip filled the cup with clarity.

And while you learnt you slept less. The sky became a fascination, as each of the works raised your eyes higher. Higher toward the stars. You learnt constellations and ideas. The movement of the Earth amongst the ever-spinning tapestry of the stars. So it didn’t bother you when constellations were broken, or when new ones seemed to form for a few hours a night.

You gathered more information about the Institute until one day a letter arrived at your door. It was an invitation. The Institute had taken notice of your ride into obsession. And how your actions had turned the wheel onward. Atop the letter sat a blue sphere, with a circumference of gold and a spire, tipped with red flowers.

Dear Colleague,

                We have watched your work with great interest. As you moved amongst our monuments you have set certain processes in motion. It is time for us to meet. While we would come to you it would be easier if you join us. We have enclosed a ticket to the airport and a driver will be waiting for you.

                Come now.

                We must lay out the delights for our visitors.

                With respect,

                The Joen Institute.

------

Thank you so much @flashfictionfridayofficial for the delicious prompt.

It came out to just under 800 words.

I look forward to the next prompt.

[grandhotelabyss]

Could you discuss some of your major disagreements, if any, with Harold Bloom?

With the stipulation that great critics prove their integrity by being wrong, and that we should thus welcome their wrongness, I have many disagreements. I often find him an inspiring rhapsode more than a persuasive critic or theorist. Or maybe they're differences of sensibility more than disagreements. We could talk about local differences of opinion about this or that writer, but sensibility is probably the larger question.

He was endlessly fascinated by the poet's solitary quest, modeled ultimately on the Biblical prophets, for priority and absoluteness of vision in a degraded cosmos: Alastor on his solitary quest. It's not that he never question or even censured, in the course of his analyses, the solipsism to which this quest gives rise; he wasn't stupid; but it was still the most interesting thing to him, even later, when he disciplined this aspect of himself to arrive at his reverence for Shakespeare, a figure who contains this quest—especially in Hamlet—but contains much more besides. Whereas I can only handle so much Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Stevens, etc., before I want to pick up a novel again, a novel or a Shakespeare play.

Though he came to be the public scourge of Theory, Bloom was a theorist himself originally. He was right to challenge both New Critical and then deconstructionist prejudices, with their French formalist paradigms, right to insist that Wordsworth and Tennyson shared the eminence of Baudelaire and Eliot. But he appreciated a very high degree of abstraction, abstraction of rhetoric and abstraction of vision—much more than I can tolerate, much less admire, except in small doses. Like Stevens, he saw the theory of poetry as the life of poetry.

I prefer in contrast a peopled canvas, a richer tapestry. As ideal images of the artist, I like Joyce or Woolf perambulating the city rather than Wordsworth or Shelley alone on their promontories: the novelists are also alone, perhaps, but alone in the crowd, and teaching the crowd how better to be alone, in a communion of our common exile.

He always slights literary form—what other major critic is so little interested in language?—and possibly in consequence misses some dimensions of irony. He saw only the sermon in Dostoevsky, not the disputation. He scanted what was inventive in Poe. He condescended to Keats. He claimed that Beckett, not Joyce, wrote the best English prose of the 20th century. But even when confronted with a solitary different from his preferred solitaries, he missed what was formally at issue: thus he saw Thoreau as only a lesser Emerson rather than as a very different kind of writer than Emerson, one much more attuned to language as material.

His "anxiety of influence" theory is relevant to the strain of visionary, prophetic poetry he prefers, but is it a generally applicable theory of (or standard of value for) poetry, literature, or the arts in general? As Joyce Carol Oates remarked somewhere in her published journal of Bloom, writers are influenced by what they ate for breakfast and read in the news, too. (Novelists more than poets, perhaps.)

This is more minor, but he was also hypocritical on the identity politics question, demoting Dostoevsky and Eliot for their anti-Semitism while wondering why anyone would want to demote, say, Milton for his misogyny or Stevens for his anti-blackness.

The best way to sum it up: this year I finally read David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, the fantasy novel Bloom loved so much that he wrote (as his only published work of fiction) a sequel or fan fiction. I found Arcturus hideous, quasi-unreadable, a nasty and punitive fable; I found it as unwholesome as Bloom finds Dostoevsky and Eliot. In this post, I try to explain this whole divide between Bloom and myself with reference to Lindsay's book, while also praising his Nietzschean-Kafkan vitalist-ironic reading of the Bible, a book I (how can I say this without sounding "Reddit"?) have trouble with, trouble Bloom explains and helps to allay. I may agree with Bloom about the Bible more than I agree with him about anything else.

After all that, though, he was right about what matters most: our very sense of who we are and of what it is to be who we are has been shaped by a smaller number of writers than we may want to admit, and we will therefore not even know ourselves if we don't read them—read them critically, of course, but read them.

[yuurei20]

Character Dialogue Comparison, ENG vs JPN: Epel and Idia Vignettes, Words Make the Man

Original Vil: “Is it normal for the light in one’s eyes to change so completely depending upon if they’re doing something they have an interest in or not? What a troublesome apple.”

Translated Vil: “And yet his eyes clearly lit up at the prospect. I see right through you, my dear Epel”

For context, Vil has just seen Epel ride a blastcycle for the first time and is impressed by how Epel’s aura changes completely when he is doing something he actually enjoys (ride a blastcycle) since, when they are together, Epel is generally doing something that he is being forced to do. Vil assigns Epel the main role in his student film and Epel vehemently refuses to accept while being dragged away by the costume designers.

That is where the above line comes in, and the English line insinuates that Epel is secretly happy to have been assigned the role, despite his refusal.

This seems to be a misinterpretation of Vil’s original dialogue, however, which insinuates the opposite: Epel does not have any interest the role, his interest was in the blastcycle, and his eyes are not lighting up at the prospect of the role--the light has gone out, his excitement with the blastcycle having been extinguished.

This is the one and only time (thus far) that Crewel welcomes his students by referring to them as “class”, rather than puppies. If this seems like it might be a continuity error, it probably is: in Crewel’s original dialogue he doesn’t say “listen well, class” or “listen well, puppies”, at all; he simply begins his lecture on lanternblossoms.

In a very un-Vil-like form of expression, Vil says “Words make the man”, in the English translation. His original line, however, was, “Words make the person”, without specifying a gender.

※This is probably the fault of English-languages idioms (and my overthinking) more than anything else, but given Vil’s vehement dislike for separating words, clothes, interests, etc, along gender lines, it seems unlikely that he would choose to use a gender-specific idiom, and in his original dialogue, he didn’t.

With the English translation referring to Malleus’ green armband as yellow, then to Kalim’s farmer badge as an armband and Floyd's deadpan "Twinsies, get it? haha", I have begun to suspect that the translation team might not be able to see the scenes they’re translating for during the writing process (not unusual in localization, unfortunately).

That certainly seems to be the case in the scene above, where both the original lines and Idia’s expression are both reserved, but the translation team has added “You’re freaking me out! Stop!”, despite it. Neither existed in his original dialogue.

Previously ◀︎ Vignettes: Leona, Ruggie and Jack

◀︎ Main Story: Book 5 Part 1 of 3

◀︎ Events: Wish Upon a Star

Thank you as always to my wonderful proofreading team! :> And if anyone notices anything odd about the interpretations above, please let me know and I am always happy to update!

Also just a disclaimer, I don't make these because I'm trying to start a revolution against the official English translation of Twst or anything ww I am always impressed with their work and encourage everyone to play the ENG-server version of the game :> But I also do localization similar to this as a part of my job and I am fascinated by how different professionals approach the same hurdles of language, that is all!