#so maybe he stained them as some sort of.. war ritual

[dissectress]

fuck it, troublemaker wife and girldad immortan joe

[titlemewickedwonderland]

The Debt (Ghost band oneshot)

Auth. Note: Some of you may know this OC from the snippets published previously that I was planning on doing a story about Ghost. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out! But here is a one-shot I created from a blurb idea for said book that will no longer be made...Enjoy! Grab a tissue... or the entire box.

Summary: Marina is a teenage girl who lived a normal life until one day she nearly gets killed by a supernatural creature. She was then taken against her will to the Clergy at the orders of Papa Emeritus the III (Terzo) who she finds out is her birth father. She is held under house arrest at the Abbey while Terzo and his Ghouls try to figure out who is trying to kill her. In her adventures she finds some shocking truths about her mother and her heritage.

Trigger Warnings: Major Angst - No Comfort, Cursing, Death, Blood

-These snippet one-shots will be placed out of order as I see fit to write them! But it is in the Marina series! Enjoy!

Workshop!

Blood. There was so much blood! Seeping through her pale fingers like some sort of macabre of scarlet sand. It pooled below her - seeping into the denim of her jeans and staining the fabric forever. It was warm… sticky with its thickness and its scent of iron and copper left a bad taste on her tongue. She couldn’t make it stop and it was all her fault. 

A hand trembling with horror and mind-numbing pain did she reach out to grasp the torn black fabric of his shirt. The ashen skin beneath the jagged ripping hole in the fabric was wet. Coated thick and pooling around the edges of the wound that was dark and deep cavernous in its shape in such dark red it looked nearly black. Maybe it was black; she didn’t know. Did ghouls even possess red blood? They were demonic creatures after all, how was she supposed to know?! 

What she did know though were the dark scarlet splatters that ran like tears of red raindrops down the silvery mask and getting soaked up into the fabric of his balaclava that covered his mouth - the fabric lay still; molded to the shape of his lower jaw and lips showing no signs of breath. 

“D-Dew? C-Come on, open your eyes. You can’t leave me…I can’t do this without you. Please?” Marina gripped with trembling fingers tighter into his torn shirt but felt no breaths that would make his chest heave with pained exertion or feel the warmth of his beating heart; feeble as it should have been.

“Please….” her tears obscured her vision of him and she shook him desperately; her words coming out in pained sobs. “Please…Please PleasePlease. PLEASE!” her words came out in a broken scream. 

But the dead could not talk and her voice was the only thing that echoed back to her. Her mind did not want to catch up to what her heart already knew - with what her trembling hands could feel and her blurry vision could see. And they waged a war. Beating against each other as hard as she beat against his chest as if her blows would shock his heart into beating again. 

A wet cough off to her other side made her head swivel on her shoulders to stare at the figure sprawled feet away from her trying his best to get back up. His black and white paint makeup was smeared with the same red that coated his clothing. She scrambled away from Dew’s body in favor of crawling on unstable limbs over toward Terzo so that she could scramble his body against her own; cradling him to her chest as if he too would just stop breathing completely if she didn’t hold him together with her bare crimson-coated hands.

“It’s my fault…All of this is my fault…Terzo, please tell me what I can do to fix it. Please, I’ll do anything…I can’t lose anyone else.” the teen gripped his jacket and looked around the ceremonial space that looked like nothing but an empty vast basement in the catacombs.

“A ritual…there has to be some kind of spell or ritual, right? Where’s your book? I have Papa’s blood. I-I can do the rituals too and reverse this-” The old tomb was a foot away and she reached over to paw it towards her; refusing to let go of Terzo’s battered body that rocked and lurched with her struggles... 

There had to be some kind of spell. Healing spell, reverse spell, shit even a summoning spell would do! If Terzo could do it she could too. She had to try! Her fingers trembled on the pages; staining the old paper red as she scrambled from side to side nearly tearing the damned pages from its spine with how quickly she yanked and swiped in a frenzy. 

 “Tesero…” Terzo’s voice was raspy and wet sounding; soft near her ear her head bent low to stare at the scribbles in front of her with unfocused frantic eyes.

Another voice broke through the open space a few feet away. Cardinal standing there wringing his hands looking utterly distraught and helpless. He swallowed thickly watching his niece and brother; he felt so guilty because he had a part in this too. He just didn’t know that their mother would kill Terzo. All he wanted was recognition from his mother…from the clergy…to be seen more than that awkward Cardinal beneath his brother’s shadow that road tricycles around the halls and played video games in his spare time with no social skills to speak of. And now it looked highly likely he’d be known as the next papa that killed his brother.

“Marina, Miele… You can’t…” The man in red began swallowing the lump in his throat. As if his words could change anything. As if he could reach out and fix this. They both knew he couldn’t do shit.

“I can!” 

Marina’s head snapped over toward him to pin him with the scariest death glare on earth; it wasn’t scary because of its intensity - it was scary because of the utter helplessness and desperation blurred among the tears that the Cardinal saw there that spoke volumes of how much she didn’t forgive him for his involvement; for the utter betrayal not just for Terzo but to her; he felt it like an unforgiving punch to the gut. 

“And I fucking will!” her hand clenched into a fist so hard into the palm of her hand she felt the sting of her nails. 

“I am the daughter of Papa Emeritus III. His unholy blood runs in my veins. I can do this…I have to.” her words choked up as she closed her eyes tightly feeling the hot sting of tears on her waterline again.

Drip…drip…Marina felt it before she ever saw it. Her nails pierced the skin of her palms so deep blood dripped to the papers below. Not that it mattered, the tomb was ruined anyways.

She noticed the smoke first - the small crimson droplets on the old yellowed pages below her were smoking; evaporating as if the pages themselves were soaking up her blood; burning her life essence into the paper.

The warmth was what she felt next; overpowering yet comforting despite the unyielding coldness of the summoning chambers. Like a heated blanket creeping over her shoulders and back.

She saw Terzo’s mismatched eyes widen as they stared up in awe at her…no, not her - just over her shoulder at the powerful presence she felt at her back. 

Unyielding warmth gripped her shoulders and Marina jumped where she sat paralyzed; realizing they were hands. Pale hands with fingertips charred black as if they were dipped into ash. 

She didn’t have to look up to realize she had company. Despite the power radiating at her back - it was not malicious. Not in the way that she’d presumed so she did not fear when she met Terzo’s reverent gaze; her mind already knowing who stood behind her without even having to look. 

“I can’t do this alone.”

“I know, child.” 

“I don’t know what to do.” her voice cracked as she closed her eyes tightly; finding no relief behind her closed lids of the pain that gripped her heart. 

The hands that gripped her shoulders were steady and did not remove themselves from her completely, instead one left her shoulder to pet at her hair as a father would do so to his child. The voice was deep and rough; demonic undertones of voices that belonged not to its being were just as powerful as the words that to anyone else would mean little but to the teenager meant a choice of life and death.

“You only need to ask, my child. I shall give you the same as your mother and let you choose.”

“My mother chose to pay with my life to fulfill her end of the bargain.” Marina sucked back a breath and the tears that wanted to fall as she tilted her head and met the fathomless black eyes above her with no fear. 

“I want to trade my soul for theirs.”

A low rumble like thunder was her only response as pale ashen hands cradled her tear-stained face; a black-clawed thumb brushing away a trail of wetness. The blackened eyes stared down at her for so long she feared she would get no answer as she stared into the glossy blackness of her own reflection in the pupilless orbs. 

“One life cannot suffice for two.”

It was like the dagger in her chest was twisted but she knew deep down he was right. A life for a life. Blood for blood. A soul for a soul. Her mother had made the same deal. To live her life - to get the chance to see her daughter grow and when the time came it’d be her turn. But here, Marina sat in the same position having to choose - to make the hardest decision of her life. 

To choose who lives and who dies. A fate that no one should have to have fallen into their laps.

“Lord Lucifer.” she took a breath and shook her head. 

“I can’t choose….please isn’t there another way? Anything that I may have is yours…just please…don’t make me choose.”

“Tesero.” Terzo’s voice broke and her head turned to face her father feeling her heart nearly combust at the look of acceptance in his gaze before following his gaze towards where Dew’s body lay feet away. 

She understood without him even having to say the words. Terzo wasn’t giving up. He was accepting this fate that had landed him in her arms. He was accepting his death. The sacrifice that he should have made a long time ago but never had the courage to until now; he was taking up the torch for one last act of fatherly love he could ever give her. 

She understood. Understood in that very moment what he was telling her and it broke her heart even more as she nodded slowly. She lowered her head until her forehead pressed to his. 

“No...No…you don’t have to do this, Terzo.”

His gloved hand gripped hers and squeezed with all the strength he could. “You were right, little one. I failed you and your mother; I should have stepped up sooner - made a different choice. But know that I tried. I never stopped loving you. To watch you, even from afar to see the woman you’ve become…you are my greatest accomplishment. It would be an honor, amore mio. Let me do this and atone for my sins.”

Marina sniffled and raised his gloved hand to her mouth; pressing a trembling kiss to his knuckles. “I love you….daddy.”

“What do you choose, child?” the teen slowly turned her teary gaze towards the King of Hell and raised her chin; trying to show her bravery despite the tremble of her lips as she formed the words that would seal their fate.

“If it suites your favor, Lord Lucifer. I…” she shuddered out a crackling breath. 

“I choose Papa Emeritaus II - Terzo. To take my debt and pay with his life in favor of your servant; the fire ghoul Dewdrop.” 

“Pope?” the being turned his gaze towards the wounded man who nodded weakly in compliance. An affirmative that he, Papa Emeritus III would accept the terms. 

“Then it shall be done. Child of Lucifer, Marina." the demon king released the girl - a bright scarlet haze invading her vision and her ears began to ring; as everything began to fade she heard his departing words.

"Your debt is paid, my child.” 

And when Marina opened her eyes. She was back in the comfort of her childhood bedroom with the sun shining in her window and the birds chirping outside; she sat in front of her vanity mirror staring at her minimalized makeup face listlessly looking back at her. But Marina felt nothing but utter exhaustion and confusion; what had happened? Why did she end up back home? Was it all a dream? Had the betrayal not happened? Was Terzo still alive? A tap at her window made her turn her head to look and she was greeted with the familiar silver mask she'd come to love.

"Hey, hellcat." Dewdrop spoke up as he climbed through the dimly lit bedroom. "It's time..."

the teen saw his black-clad figure in the reflection moving behind her but as he did something caught her attention. It wasn't his presence beside her. Or the hand that rested warm and alive on her shoulder. 

It was the black funeral dress hanging off her closet door.

Now, I do not know what it is or what a relationship with Lucifer or Satan would be like as a deity or patron for those who are witches and are working with him/them? as a guide so please don't come at me saying it's wrong or I portrayed their character wrong. I only have gone off of what it was like for a few of the witches that do work with Satan/Lucifer that I follow on Tiktok who have shared their stories and experiences while working with said being. Thank you for reading!

Taglist: @darklylucid

[acourtofsnakes]

Solus - Rogue, Chapter 1| Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader(F)

Summary: So I don’t want to give too much away, but a rough outline - You are Force Sensitive, and after being hunted your whole life, you’re not surprised to find another Mandalorian on your tail. What you didn’t expect, was THIS Mandalorian. Nor anything that happen’s after. And so begins a journey of two Rogues (three if you count the womp rat). 

Warnings: Not many in this chapter as it’s an opening but, mentions of death, angst?, swearing, fighting, my rusty writing after I haven’t done it in years, let me know if there’s anything else!!

AN: So, I think this might be a little messy in terms of tenses. It jumps around from the past to present a little too, so I’m sorry if its confusing… Let me know what you think!! And if you want to be added to the taglist!

Word count: Just over 4k.

Rogue Masterlist | Introduction| 1: Solus| 2: Arir | 3: Tor | 4: Gaa'tayl

Rogue Taglist:  @snipskixandbeskar​ @weirdowithnobeardo

Mando’a translation: Solus - Alone

Alone.

That word had come to change its meaning over the years. When you were a small child, alone meant you were outside, playing in the grass and flowers with your parents just a few metres away indoors, within sight of you still. Close enough to come running should anything happen to you. Including that time you got stung by a bee and screamed so loudly the neighbours thought you were being raided.

A few years later, alone meant being shut away inside your room, windows closed, door firmly shut.

“It’s for your own safety, honey, you know what will happen… We don’t want this for you, we hate this, but we must keep you safe, my darling.”

You understood, of course. It was your own fault; you didn’t mean for it to happen… But just because you understood, it didn’t mean you had to like it.

A year on, alone changed properly for the first time.

The true meaning of the word hit you like a speeder when you were kneeling in the mess on the dusty ground.

Blood had soaked your knees, staining your tunic. It had coated your hands, your arms as you frantically shook the shoulders of your mother, willing her to open her eyes, to sit up and hold you. To stroke your hair and tell you it was okay, it was all just a bad dream. To take you home, where you could forget this whole thing.

It didn’t truly sink in until you heard your fathers strangled scream as he ran around the corner…

And then the sickening hiss and sizzle as the blaster hit him square in the chest. The way he tried to crawl across the ground to you and your mother, but there was a heavy white boot planted firmly in his back, a gloved hand yanking his head up and a vibroblade sliced across his throat.

His blood had coated your own bare feet as you ran to him.

You were only 12.

From that moment on… you were truly alone. No family. No more friends, they had all left when you showed them your power. Such a beautiful, natural thing, being in line with the Earth, the energy that connected all living things. It was rare, meant to be celebrated…

Instead, it just bought death upon those you loved.

So, as you ran from the horror scene within the market square, your parents blood baking onto your skin in the hot sun, you buried it. Deep inside, locking it in a box, surrounding it in darkness and keeping it hidden.

And that’s where it had stayed for the last 20 years.

~~~

Sorgan was a good place to be for a little while.

The air was breathable, the forests thick and lush, providing good cover, and the inhabitants were spread few and far between. It was quiet, the only habitable planet in its system, in fact, so it was… safe?

Well. That’s what you had told yourself when you made the split decision to come here after somehow managing to stow away on a ship that just happened to be going there.

You’d just been attacked by a Trandoshan bounty hunter, chased halfway across the planet you were on and forced to dump most of the belongings you’d managed to acquire for yourself in an effort to get away. The green lizard humanoid was… beyond eager. Hunting was their way of life, they thrived on the ritual of it and this one was no different. He was relentless. Constantly tasting the air for your scent with that disgusting flickering tongue. He’d even licked your neck once and you thought you might throw up all over his weird, scaly body. 

It had gone on for more than a week before you decided to try and get the jump on him. You laid a trap, using his eagerness against him and it had worked…. Mostly. You fought, hard, managed to sever his arm and you were just going in for the kill when out of nowhere the tables turned. Knocking away your weapons, he’d pinned you to the ground, a wickedly sharp blade pushing into your shoulder and scraping bone.

He took one look at you, battered, exhausted, blood soaking your shoulder and burst out laughing, preening in glee that he’d finally caught you, finally managed to capture the girl everyone wanted (you hadn’t bothered to ask if he was employed by the Republic or the Imperials. At this point, it didn’t matter anymore).

What he failed to notice in his gloating, was the vibroblade you pulled from the sheath on your thigh. One moment, he was laughing, the next, his head was thudding onto the ground next to your own, mouth still open in glee, reptilian tongue lolling out.

The next hour or so had been a blur, making your way through the town again, cloak pulled up over your head and over your shoulder to hide the wound. You’d managed to steal cloth and a tincture from a street vendor, binding and cleaning the knife wound whilst hiding in a small alley. It was there that you saw the ship, only a small cargo ship, the door left open. You’d slipped in like a ghost, settling between some crates of unidentifiable objects and let yourself slump, adrenaline leaving your body, leaving it shattered and full of pain. Too close. You’d almost been caught and taken back Maker knows where. Luckily you had that blade, one you’d stolen from an Imp a couple years back after he’d tried to capture you.

As you hid in the cargo hold, you heard the co-pilot ask about the turquoise planet.

“Sorgan? Why Sorgan? That place is beyond boring. I’m surprised the people living there haven’t started a war just for something to do.”

The pilot had laughed, “You’re right there. Barely anyone comes out here anymore. Most people don’t even remember it’s here.”

That suited you just fine then. A mostly empty planet with a krill-fishing village that kept to itself, swamps and forests… hey, maybe you’d finally get a chance to relax.

Since then, you’d found a little place in the forest, up high in some clustered branches, near a source of running water. It was high enough to stay out of the way of predators, but close enough to the ground that you’d be able to spot any enemies – and get away quickly.

You’d even made a friend here.

Well… sort of.

Your first night on the planet, you were trekking through the forests when your legs had just… given out. You were spent, mentally and physically, blood pooling through your fingers from the knife wound which had since opened up again. As you lay there, staring through the canopy, you decided that maybe this was it now. Maybe it was time to give up the fight.

You had been running for so long, it was a way of life now. Had more injuries than you could count and been hunted by twice as many people. Hunters and mercenaries of all species and origin, IG-11 droids, the occasional Imp or New Republic official, even a Mandalorian once – that one had been bad. You’d had to give in after you killed him and go to a hospital, he’d left a blaster hole in your thigh so deep you could see bone.

It was quiet here, peaceful, you remembered.  The treetops had begun to blur and swoop under you as you came to your decision.

I’m sorry, mumma, I’m sorry, papa. I tried, but I can’t do it anymore.

You had closed your eyes, giving into the darkness with a final goodbye and letting it wash over you like a tidal wave.

Only to be woken up what felt like seconds later by a wet nose and furry face pushing against your hand. Lifting your head, you’d blinked away the blurriness to find a rounded, big eared head resting on your hand. A Loth cat. It appeared that you’d gotten yourself a little friend.

Since then, she hadn’t left your side, following you everywhere, climbing up the trees and curling up on your lap of a night. You weren’t sure what had drawn her to you, but… it was the first companion you’d had in such a long time, and her warm body against yours was such a comforting feeling that you couldn’t bear to part with her.

That was a few weeks ago.

Nothing had happened in those few weeks. No fighting, no threats, no beeping of tracking fobs waking you in the night and sending you hurtling for the trees.

Nothing but trees, swamps and your furry little friend that you’d called Duru, after a childhood friend.

The only thing bothering you at this point, was your arm. You’d managed to smuggle some herbs from an apothecary hut in the fishing village, but it wasn’t healing properly. The wound had sealed, but it ached. Insistently. Some days it wasn’t too bad, but most of the time, it caused you enough grief that you struggled to grip anything. It was just lucky it was your non-dominant side.

A small groan left your lips as you rubbed at the skin around the wound, perched on a low branch, watching the village. The string of your bow dug into it, sending small shockwaves down your nerves and making your hand spasm. You shifted the bowstring, curling your hand into a fist and releasing it again to get some feeling back into it, an absent action as you just watched the day-to-day life of the village.

It soothed you in a way, just watching people go about their daily lives, how each person had a part to play. Even though you hadn’t met any of them and doubted they knew you were there, you liked and respected them nonetheless. So, whenever you snuck into the village for supplies, you always left something in return. Prey you’d shot down in the forest for food, herbs you’d gathered, fish you’d caught. Just a small way to say thank you to the for keeping you safe, even if they didn’t know it.

You weren’t sure how long you had been sat there for, eyes closed, one leg dangling from the branch and just enjoying the sunlight on your face, the cool and faintly briny breeze when Duru suddenly shot to her feet, a low growl rumbling from her throat. Your eyes snapped open in an instant, bow drawn and pointing into the forest, ignoring the lick of pain as your shoulder protested.

You scanned the branches, the ground below but… nothing. There was no-one there, but Duru was still staring, eyes fixed on something you couldn’t see. You huffed, leaning back against the trunk. She probably just saw a bird or a bug or something.

Still, you remained on edge for the rest of the afternoon, your hand flying to the hilt of your knife at every little crack of branches or whisper through the trees.

It took you a long time to sleep that night, but your body eventually gave in and fell into a somewhat fitful slumber, hand still resting on your bow just in case.

---

Beep.

Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep. Bee-

Within seconds, your eyes shot open and you were bolt upright. You knew that noise.

Instinct took over and you grabbed Duru, urging her still sleepy body onto your shoulders as you scrambled down the tree trunk… only to fall the last metre because of your shoulder.

Stifling the cry of pain, you shot back to your feet and took off running, in the opposite direction of that noise.

You’d been too relaxed, let your guard slip down too much here. You should have left the second Duru went on alert last night. Of course, her instincts were so much better than yours, but you ignored it. Like a fucking fool.

The curses kept slipping from your lips as you ran, not daring to see who was behind you just yet. Maybe you’d get lucky, maybe it was just a normal hunter, looking for a big job, not realising the countless that came before him or her. Or it.

You almost laughed to yourself as you zig-zagged through the trees, feet flying over the undergrowth.Maker, you had to get off this planet, it was making you too lax.

The predator’s presence was like a dark cloud behind you, slipping through the trees, lapping at your heels every time you thought you had gotten away. Trees and branches whipped past your face, stinging but you didn’t have time to brush them away. You didn’t even have time to turn your bow and shoot an arrow, the hunter was just that close. Your brain worked frantically, seeking for a way out, an escape, a distraction, anything.

Wait.

A distraction.

You cursed yourself again, drawing in a ragged gasp of air into your aching lungs as you fumbled at your belt. You had a small flash grenade in a pouch on your belt. You used to have three, you’d had them for years and only used them for dire situations. Like this one, you just need a distraction, even for just a few seconds to get up into a tree.

Duru dug her claws into your shoulders for grip – ow, claws -  as you activated the grenade and threw it over your bad shoulder without even turning around. The hunter was so close behind you, you knew it would work no matter where you aimed.

As the grenade exploded into light, you shielded both your eyes and Duru’s with the hood of your cloak, putting on a burst of speed and adrenaline and you bolted for a tree to your left, practically flying up into the canopy. Without hesitation, you began to make your way through the trees, almost sobbing with relief to the Maker that the branches intersect and cross over so that you can make your way across them.

After about 10 minutes of moving through the air, you stopped, hunkering down against the trunk of a huge willow tree as you tried to haul air into your lungs, whilst staying quiet. The pain in your shoulder nearly brought tears to your eyes, the ache in your chest but you stayed still, breathing in through your nose slowly, then out through your mouth, massaging the stitch in your side.

Was the hunter still all that way back? Was he looking for you on the ground? Maybe he was in the trees too, opposite you, watching and waiting to-

“You can’t hide from me.”

The voice came from below and somewhere to the right, a few metres away. On the ground then. The voice sounded male, a little distorted, but that may have just been the roaring of blood in your ears.

You barely breathed, scanning your surrounds and slowly rising to a crouch on the branch, calming your body into a hunters pace of your own. Slow, even movements, balancing your weight as you crept around the tree to a branch on the other side.

Even Duru was silent, hunkering around your neck, her head barely peeping out of your cloak.

“You might have evaded all the others, but you can’t run. Not from me.”

Typical. You rolled your eyes as you slipped along the branches like a phantom. Another hunter thinking he’d get the glory because he captured you. The faint call of fear in your blood quietened as you realised he was just like the others.

Let him gloat, you thought. He could be dispatched as easy as the ugly reptile last time. And his tongue. 

You kept your ears pricked as you eased over to the next tree, but you couldn’t hear him. Obviously trying to get the jump on you. You let out a silent laugh as you reached the adjoining tree and began to descend.

“I can bring you in warm. Or I can bring you in cold.”

You froze, going rigid, praying the leaves would hide you as one foot dangled in the air. He was right underneath you.

You dared a glance down, finally looking at your current attacker and…

Nearly fell from the tree.

Standing on the ground below you, pulse rifle pointed at you was a tall figure. Decked out in beskar armour so shiny you could have done your hair in it, the infamous helmet covering his face, tilted in an almost casual, cocky expression.

A Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian.

You’d heard whispers of this one. That beskar armour, more than any other Mandalorian has ever laid their hands on, paid for by the collection of a high-stakes bounty. A bounty which he stole back, from the hands of The Client and Stormtrooper bodyguards, breaking Guild code and going on the run. Wanted by The Galactic Empire, The Guild, and countless others, he became a rogue, travelling the Outer Rim with his little green child in tow, completing jobs and missions for normal people, all the while being hunted himself by Moff Gideon. He was relentless, one of the best, not hesitating to kill if someone threatened him or the Child.

Someone obviously wants you very, very badly, to call upon a wanted man to track you down.

And he obviously wants to bring you in just as much, to take the risk of this hunt. You briefly wonder just how much he’s being offered.

Fuck. You’re really screwed now, aren’t you?

All of this flashed through your mind in an instant, as your arm shook with the pull of your body weight on the wound. You made as if to move, put suddenly he’s there before you’ve even let your foot drop, a gloved hand grabbing the bottom of your cloak and yanking you to the ground with a thud. Duru made a yowl of protest, springing off your shoulder and into the trees, which you were relieved about because at least she’d be safe.

Twisting to avoid putting weight on your bad shoulder, you bared your teeth at him in a grin, “I bet you use that line on all the ladies, don’t you?”

Really?? This man, this Mandalorian was going to either kill or take you, and you were trying to flirt with him??

Shaking your head at yourself, you rose to your feet, grabbing your bow, thankful you spent 4 years saving the credits for it. It was made of a strong but flexible metal, perfectly shaped for your height, as familiar to you as your own arm. Its edges were razor sharp, a knifes edge. You spun, swinging it toward him and it lightly clanged as it met the armour on his forearm, the vibration skittering down your arm.

The Mandalorian lifted his other hand, a knife in it that he guided toward your side, “Only the ones that have a bigger bounty than I’ve ever seen on their head.”

You quickly jumped back, but not before he caught you, cutting through the fabric of your tunic and opening a small cut just under your ribs. “Ooh, now we’re onto flattery so soon? Careful, Mandalorian, I’d think you were trying to woo me, not kill me.” You flung out with your bow again, only to have him grab it, yanking it out of your grip and throwing it to the side.

Mandalorian made a faint noise, whether it was disgust or exasperation you didn’t know, “You talk too much” He came at you again, a flurry of fists and kicks that were almost too quick for you, making you realise that you weren’t just fighting some cocky hunter.

This was possibly the most dangerous Mandalorian out there, save for Boba Fett. He wasn’t going to let this go. You were a good fighter, excellent, even, but as you both danced a routine of attack and defence across the clearing, you realised… you just might not walk away from this.

You panted, ducking under his arm as he swung for you. Maybe… maybe you could go and seek help in the village, you could hide in a hut or a boat, beg them to take you in.

It was like he read your mind, seeing what you were planning to do, “Really? You’d lead me into the villages? Haven’t enough people died for you already?” His voice was like a rasp as it come out through the modulator, cutting straight through the clarity of the fight and into your heart, making you pause.

How did he know that? Your parents were common knowledge within the hunters of course, nearly everyone knew, but everyone else, those that tried to hide you…

~“Run!!! Y/N, run. Don’t look back, whatever you see, whatever you hear you must promise me you will not look back.”~

A hard impact to your jaw made you stumble backwards, dragging yourself back to the present. Asshole. He’d distracted you. “You’re talking to me about death? How many have you killed, Mandalorian?” You kicked out at his knee, your boot connected just under the plate that covered his thigh and he partially went down.

The Mandalorian grunted as he rose back to his feet, “I’ve killed, yes. But criminals. Murderers. People who deserve it. I haven’t killed innocent people.” He came for you again, fists up and his blaster out this time

You couldn’t help the shocked laugh as you avoided his advances, slashing out with another small knife, grinning when it found home in his shoulder, “You haven’t? What about all the Jedi your little clan murdered?” You spat out the word clan, punching him hard, ignoring the protest your knuckles made at the impact of the beskar. “You didn’t understand a people, so your first instinct was to slaughter them like animals.”

You could almost feel the frown behind the T-visor of his helmet, “That was before me, I was never a part of the war. And why do you care about the Jedi?”

~“Mumma!! I’m not leaving you!! I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, this is my fault, I shouldn’t have done anything, I’m sorry!!”

“Shhh, shhh, my darling. It’s alright. They just don’t understand you, that’s all. Which is why you have to run, you must go and find your father and be safe, please.”

“There she is!!! Over there! Kill anyone that tries to protect her”~

You hesitated, lost in memories of the past, explosions, screaming and blood. So much blood…

He shot out a grappling line from his vambrace and it wrapped around your ankle and he pulled you off balance and to the ground, again. Weapons made specifically to combat Jedi, people with the same abilities as you, reminding you just how hunted you were. He rose to his feet, walking over to you, “I don’t know why they want you. I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t care. I just know that you’re a criminal, you’re wanted, and the price on your head is nearly as big as mine.”

You snarled at him, reaching for your vibrobrade and pulling it from your thigh.

He just sighed, kicking it from your hand with one foot easily and at the same time he jammed the end of his rifle against your shoulder, already having marked it as a weakness.

A howl of rage and pain ripped through your gritted teeth, and the edges of your vision started to go black. It was broken by the helmet coming into your eyesight, the moon bouncing off the surface, “Give in. You can’t win. Even if you beat me, more and more people will just keep coming after you.” His voice had turned to honey on a knife edge, persuasive. Wrong.

Right.

You shook your head, as if trying to shake off his words, deny the truth of it even as tears started to burn the back of your eyes. You arched your back from the floor, trying to get up, trying to shift his knee off of you but he was like a damn rock on you, pinning you to the floor. “Fuck off, you’re just as heartless as the rest of them.”

Your power cried out to be used, begged form that place buried deep within you, but you pushed it down. You wouldn’t, couldn’t. Instead, you swallowed, lifting your head and opening your mouth to scream.

Only for his hand to wrap around your throat, his fingers lightly pushing against you. It wasn’t enough to strangle you, or cut off your air supply, but the squeeze of his fingers was enough to warn you that he would do it if you tried to alert the villagers. The Mandalorian leaned down, close enough that you could see your reflection in the black visor. More honey dripped from that voice, worming into your head, your defences.

“More people will die for you. And I don’t think you want that. I won’t touch those villagers, but anyone after me might not be so lenient.” He tilted that stupid helmet, merely watching you struggle with another light squeeze around your throat, another slight prod into your shoulder.

~Explosions lit up the market, local people screaming and running for cover as spices and fruit flew through the air. You choked, searching through the smoke, until your bare feet landed in something warm and wet. Blood.~

As you glared up into the unrelenting metal, you caught your own reflections eyes. Bruised. Battered, snarling. A danger to anyone you came near. How many people had died because of you? Either directly or indirectly? All because you kept running. Maybe you just didn’t deserve it. Deserved to live freely. And hell, you were so tired. 20 years on the run, more if you count the years with your parents. Always having to look over your shoulder, never being able to completely trust another living person. The closest thing you’ve had to a friend in the last 5 years is a Loth cat, and even she left.

It was time to just… give in.

~“Mumma? Mumma wake up, please wake up. You have to, you have to get up, please mumma, PLEASE!!”~

You couldn’t do it anymore.

I’m sorry.

The Mandalorian saw the defeat in your eyes, the way your body slumped into the ground, your muscles relaxed. As a tear rolled down your cheek, you took one last glance at the stars, so you didn’t see him hesitate for just a second before using the shock of his rifle to knock you into darkness.

Next chapter

[thinknicht]

Kakashi loses his father and Minato gains a puppy

Kakashi had been mad at his dad for months now – for screwing up that stupid mission, for losing all his awesome reputation because of it, for getting replaced by a ghost. Everybody had said his dad was going to cost them the war, that he was a selfish bastard; everybody had whispered and subtly let Kakashi know just how much of a disappointment his father was. 

It was so unfair! Why did he have to make a stupid mistake? He was supposed to be perfect, Konoha’s elite White Fang. Everybody was supposed to love and admire him… it shouldn’t be like this. The Hatake Sakumo he knew and admired was always proud and straight-backed, confident and sure. He wasn’t supposed to make mistakes, to have people hate him so much that they’d treat him and Kakashi both like trash. Kakashi… couldn’t do much. He was just a kid – but he could feel. He’d felt all sorts of things – he had been scared and ashamed and sad at it all – but mostly he’d been furious. He’d been mad at the old ladies gossiping about his dad on the street, at his classmates who’d previously admired him but would now shoot him derisive looks, at their parents who mumbled bad words behind his back, thinking he couldn’t hear – or perhaps not caring. But most of all he was mad at his dad for not defending himself, for not defending him. 

Picking up Kakashi from the Academy, he must have heard the whispering parents too, seen the looks Kakashi’s classmates kept shooting at him – but instead of standing proud whilst slinging Kakashi upon his shoulders like he had used to, Sakumo had bowed his head and said nothing. They had walked silently home, side by side – yet it had felt like they were worlds apart. He couldn't stop thinking about how his dad hadn’t met the eyes of those gossiping parents, or even their children. Of what those parents had said and how his dad’s hand had trembled on his back as he’d led Kakashi away.

The dishonoured White Fang. He too, must know the gravity of what he’d done, they whispered. Just look at him, at those eyebags and posture. It seemed like the pathetic scumbag at least recognized what he was. Suits him right, they crowed, for almost costing Konoha the war. It’d be better if that drunk disgrace just ended it already. 

The words had hurt – but they couldn't compare to his father's reaction. It had challenged some of Kakashi’s most visceral beliefs about what his dad was like. Day after day, his father would pick him up from the Academy and never defend him,  never look anyone in the eyes, like a beat down dog. Then, one day he didn't come. After waiting in the rain for over thirty minutes, Kakashi  had realised this. He’d been forgotten, cast aside.  No one would come to pick him up. Kakashi had begun walking home alone after that – every day. His father hadn’t mentioned it at dinner. The added responsibility was not as exciting as he’d always pictured it to be.

Some days it had all gotten to be too much and he’d said something rude and frustrated to his dad – but he hadn’t really meant it! He’d just been acting petulant. He’d just wanted things to get better… to go back to how they’d used to be. He’d wanted Sakumo to snap out of the weird dazes he got into lately, maybe even get angry at him and defend himself, even if Kakashi had to take the brunt of his fury. It would have been okay. Kakashi had just wanted him to react – anything at all would have been preferred to the emptiness that constantly seemed to follow him, dull grey eyes unnerving… unfocused… wrong . Kakashi had just wanted things to return to how they used to be.

 The winter was cold and harsh, reflecting Kakashi's mood perfectly. Overcast skies and short days were not conductive to good humor, but with the beginnings of spring, Kakashi felt the beginnings of new hope sprout within him. Perhaps, now that everything was brighter and better, his dad would get better too?

He'd been in a good mood all week so much so that he didn't even mind that much when his dad forgot to make breakfast or lunch or shown his face at all. This had happened a few times before, him falling asleep and not waking up for a long time. By dinner Kakashi decided to go look for him, maybe get him to come out to the porch and look at the rabbit den he'd spotted in the garden. And yet dad wasn’t in his room or the living room or the bathroom or the kitchen. After checking everywhere else he could think, he’d gone to the west wing. His father had always avoided it because it contained his mother’s old bedroom, the one both of his parents had used to sleep in before he was born… the one dad never used anymore. 

 There was a smell in the corridor… unpleasant, disgusting. He had been ignoring it until now, and he kept doing so. Maybe his father had left to the bar or even a mission! Or maybe he’d gone to mom's grave. He should just… 

He went back to the kitchen and ate dinner. He brushed his teeth. He put on his pajamas and went to bed. It had been a long time since his father had tucked him in. Normally, Kakashi was responsible in following his bed time, but that night he felt restless. Against his father’s wishes (who was he kidding, nobody would scold him) he flipped on the light again and paged through a scroll – he would look for dad tomorrow, hopefully by then the smell would be gone. But the stench was getting worse and worse and finally he set the scroll aside and propped himself up. There was no way he could keep ignoring it any longer. It had penetrated up his nostrils and into his bloodstream, slinking into the very marrow of his bones.  Those of Hatake descent had extremely sharp noses; at this rate sleeping would be impossible.

Resigned to some inminent pain in his nostrils, Kakashi crawled out of his futon and folded it carefully, his stomach pooling with dread. It was unreasonable. He wasn’t a little baby anymore – he was six . It was just a smell. Maybe some dead animal had gotten in, he told himself. He’d throw it out and that was that. And yet every part of him told him to turn around. He didn’t. 

 Earlier, Kakashi had left his mother’s room out of the search for his father before – perhaps because a part of him had known all along what he would find.  Still, the sight of his father’s rigid corpse shocked him down to the very core. It had to be a joke, a trick, a training exercise, he thought wildly, but he didn’t dare step into the room to check.  Kakashi was a logical creature even then and he knew that that made little sense – Sakumo hadn’t trained or played with him in months, and he was sensitive about strong smells. No. What he was seeing was exactly as it appeared.

He was dead. Not murdered or assassinated – dead.

The body of his dead father was sprawled upon the blood-splattered floor, flies buzzing around it noisily. A katana gleamed, reflecting the moonlight that streamed in from the window as it protruded from his stomach. Sepukku. The samurai’s suicide ritual.

Kakashi had known something was wrong even before going into his mother’s old room, but nothing could have prepared him for this. His father – dead. The flies, the blood, the smell, the choice he had made – seppuku .

After standing there for maybe minutes or maybe seconds, his recollection of the night’s events got blurry. Kakashi barely remembered running out of the house in still in his pajamas and barefoot, or stepping on glass as he rushed away, away, away. He barely remembered barging into the hokage tower, leaving bloody footprints in his wake and sobbing uncontrollably. He barely remembered explaining much of anything, other than repeating ‘sepukku’, ‘sepukku’, 'sepukku’ like a mantra. The look in the hokage’s eyes said he understood. Someone had sedated him after that.

  It had been a month since then. He couldn’t go to sleep at night anymore without seeing Sakumo’s cold body sprawled upon the blood-stained wood whenever he closed his eyes, without smelling that smell . He couldn’t dream anymore, couldn’t get a full night’s sleep. He couldn’t train with Sakumo anymore or count the days until he’d be back from his latest mission. He couldn’t do any of those things – because Sakumo had abandoned him.

 The villager’s behavior toward him didn’t improve. In fact, it was as if Sakumo’s death had been kindling thrown into a fire. Where previously people had only whispered about the White Fang’s shameful, pathetic, selfish behavior, now they all talked about it openly. Every gossiping old lady told their neighbor that they’d always known there was something cowardly and dishonourable about that Hatake dog. Drinking himself into a stupor to then commit suicide, and to top it off with his kid at home! It was rumored that the poor boy had found the man in a pool of blood and sake. What a pathetic waste of space he had been! 

Kakashi’s mask, until then vehemently hated, had suddenly become a reprieve – he was harder to recognize with it. His training, which had previously been the way in which he connected with Sakumo, the way in which he strove to impress him when he returned from missions, now became the only thing he had left. He trained constantly, both resenting and missing Sakumo in equal measure, his exertions the only outlet. During those moments, when his body and spirit trembled and his eyes misted, he swore to himself that he would never make the same mistake.

 Sakumo had died (had killed himself) for breaking the rules. Everybody said so. Kakashi had always known that the rules were important, but a few times he’d felt tempted to question them – like when that frog girl had crossdressed as a boy. He had seen her sometimes afterward, when he’d glanced out of his classroom window, sitting all alone and friendless in the yard outside while her classmates played – and he had known immediately that this was his fault, that his rule-abiding had done that. Before he’d confronted her, she’d had friends, he’d seen it. He hadn’t liked that… somehow it had annoyed him, he didn’t know why. He’d told her sensei about it, just kind of expecting she’d get into trouble for a bit and maybe find him to throw another tadpole at him afterward… but that hadn’t been what had happened. She hadn’t found him to throw tadpoles at him whatsoever, and instead had started looking sullen and withdrawn and sad whenever he saw her from the window. He hadn’t wanted that. He’d just wanted to follow the rules.

A part of him had begun to doubt his decision then. A part of him had felt guilty.

He had thought about breaking the rules other times too, like when a hard test was coming up and he’d been tempted to sneak into the teacher’s room to check the answers – this was practically in a ninja’s job description after all – though he’d settled for studying all night in the end. 

He had felt bad, too, about more indirect breaches like getting all riled up when that frog girl called him names. Ninja weren’t supposed to fall for taunts, it was in the shinobi handbook that they show no emotion because talling for taunts lead to mistakes. But he kind of enjoyed the breach in the monotony that the frog girl and her loud bowlcut friend provided. He liked that they weren’t all admiring and brown-nosing around him like all his classmates, and, though he’d never admit it to himself, he liked the stories they came up with too, and when he was bored in class he would sometimes picture the annoyed faces frog girl would make at him when he outsmarted her and snicker. But ninja should live in the present, without distractions or indulgences in childish make-belief games, he realized that now. That girl was a rule-breaker more than anyone else he knew, and if Kakashi had learned something from his father’s death it was this: he would never, ever break a rule again. Any rule.

 He stopped going to frog girl and bowlcut’s meadow. At first a part of him missed them. He was all alone, after all – but – he still didn’t go, didn’t want to see their looks of pity – or even worse – disgust. He kept wanting to drop by but then not doing it. He had other things to keep him busy, like being a genin. He was a ninja now.

He wouldn’t make his father’s mistakes in his career, he swore to himself. He’d follow the ninja handbook to a T and then nothing like what Sakumo had gone through would happen to him. He had graduated now and frog girl and bowlcut were just kids . He had better things to do than them now, like training and having endless nightmares.

 At night, he couldn’t keep lying to himself. He cried himself to sleep often.

During the day, he kept his mask on and his feelings off, and surely things would get better if he did that. He had been accustomed to living alone from when his father left on missions, but this was different. He was in charge of his dad’s money now and other things like cooking and cleaning and bills and… he felt anxiety just thinking about it. He knew he’d have to pay some kind of bills for electricity and hot water and heat and all that later on, but he didn’t know how or where or when to do it. Money wasn’t an issue, his father had never lacked it, but he still got nervous thinking about what if he suddenly ran out or someone scammed him?

 He had spent the first week after That Night with another family – the Sarutobi household – the first week after his dad had died. Then he’d graduated the Academy and the hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had told him that he was welcome to stay with them, though he could become independent now too if he wanted, seeing as he was now a genin – legally an adult. Kakashi had jumped at the chance of being alone. Asuma’s constant invasive presence and probing questions had been stifling, his mom’s mothering unwanted, the pitying looks they all kept shooting at him less than welcome.

“I will return home,” he’d told the hokage immediately. The more Hiruzen had insisted to the contrary, the stronger Kakashi’s determination to be left alone.

  Now, he was regretting that decision… he hated living alone, hated the empty spaces and the silent Estate. At this point he'd agree to live with anyone, but his pride kept him from going back to the Sarutobi household. He missed his dad… he missed frog girl and bowlcut but didn’t know how to reach out. He felt so, so alone. He wanted to be independent and strong and rule-abiding, but he wanted a hug too and a good night’s sleep and some excuse to leave this stifling estate where his dad had killed himself, but he couldn’t let himself look weak, he couldn’t , didn’t even know how – and he didn’t know what to do.

 He had started going to the central market in Konoha, even though it was very far from the Hatake Estate, which was located at the village’s outskirts. He told himself it was just because the central market was better than the small shop he’d used to frequent, even though he’d never bothered to go there Before.

At the market, he would dawdle and soak in the people and chatter, floating through the lively atmosphere. It made the loneliness starker but also duller. Before, he had loved to have his peace and quiet, but now silences haunted him. Now the noises of people had become a balm. He often just walked around the stalls, peering at the wares and at the people and listened . He didn’t do anything else. A part of him had hoped to maybe run into someone he liked there… but of course he never did. He should have known that none of his classmates or frog girl or bowlcut would be there, of course. If he had really wanted to find them, he knew he could, but somehow he didn’t.

 He was shaken out of his musings when the blond man appeared again. Kakashi and the blond man had coincided a few times in the market already. The blonde would often sit on a bench and do nothing in particular, though he’d sometimes bring books to snicker at, or chat up girls and vendors alike when they passed him by. The blonde man had a radiant smile and people seemed to love him, Kakashi had noticed. A part of him wanted to be mad at him for that, for having something he so sorely wanted but didn’t have, not any longer, not after that mission – but he mostly found himself being unable to muster up much resentment.

Sometimes, Kakashi wondered why the blond man would spend so much time at the market, just like him. Was he lonely too? Did his family leave him behind like Kakashi’s father? Despite himself, he’d gotten curious. He had made a habit of going to the market every day and he’d started getting to know the regulars. During his excursions, Kakashi always wore bland clothes and the mask so that he wouldn’t be noticed as much, but he in turn did notice the people, and the blonde man was often there – except sometimes when he left on missions, or so Kakashi assumed. The blonde man was a ninja.

He’d never dared to approach, but today he felt tired… so he sat down on the bench across the blonde to eat an apple he’d bought. He tried to divine what the man was reading, to subtly glance at his book’s cover… but he got caught looking. The blonde gave him a smile, then returned to his book. Kakashi didn’t dare to look again but his heart pounded. A while later, the blonde was cornered by some civilian ladies who wanted his opinion on some of their wares and ushered him away. Finally, Kakashi dared to steal another glance, then stood up and stretched, readying to go back to the estate.

 That smile… it had struck him like a punch to the gut. How long since anyone had just… smiled at him? He couldn’t remember the last time. Lately, he was always alone, and when he wasn’t, all he saw in people’s eyes was either disinterest or distaste, depending on whether they recognized him or not. Sometimes there was pity in the case of his father’s former friends like the hokage. 

Missions weren’t any better. In fact, he found that he hated the whole thing. Without fail, he always got passed around the genin teams, mostly replacing recently deceased members, and was never liked by the other integrants. He wasn’t sure if it was because they knew his reputation, because he was so much younger (and better, he privately thought) than them, or because he was the replacement of their dead friends. Yes, Kakashi thought. Nobody had smiled at him in a long, long time… He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it until that very moment.

 The next day, he sat on the bench across the blonde again… and the day after too. He always noticed when the man was gone on missions and he… it wasn’t like he was stalking him or anything, but the man – Minato, the old ladies called him – would always smile that warm smile at him, and Kakashi… Kakashi cherished it. He mustn't know who he was, that Minato. A part of him feared what would happen if he found out… would he start glaring at Kakashi if he did?

 One day, Minato sat down next to him. Kakashi froze and almost bolted… but the blonde just pulled a book out of his pouch and calmly began to thumb through it, like always. He talked to the merchants like always too, and Kakashi slowly relaxed. The week afterward, when Minato returned from what must have been a mission, he sat next to Kakashi again, surprising him once more, but he relaxed quicker than last time.

 “Mind if I take one?” Minato asked, peering at him from over his book. “Those oranges look mouth-watering.”

Kakashi startled and looked at Minato suspiciously. “You’re an adult. You shouldn’t be asking kids to give you their oranges.”

The blonde’s lips quirked into that smile again and Kakashi almost forgot he was supposed to be acting pissed-suspicious. “Yeah, but aren’t you one too?” Minato asked with a chuckle. “A legal adult? I’ve heard about you, you’ve made genin, haven’t you?”

Kakashi was startled for two reasons: one – adults never acknowledged he was independent and two – Minato knew who he was! And he still smiled at him?

“I guess you can have an orange,” Kakashi decided, handing it over.

Minato laughed. “Thanks, kiddo. Also, I was going to say that I would pay you back before you interrupted me.” He chuckled. “You’re always here, so I figured I’d treat you next time we meet.”

Next time.

Kakashi’s breath hitched. “S-sure. I mean whatever, it’s just an orange.”

The blonde chuckled. “So you don’t want to get treated, huh? Well, I guess it’s no sweat off my back…”

“That’s not what I said!” Kakashi exclaimed, wide-eyed. He took it back! He wanted to meet with Minato again!

The blonde teen laughed, suddenly reaching out to give him a mighty head ruffle. “Alright, alright. I’ll treat you to some dango then, I think.”

“I don’t like sweets,” Kakashi informed, crossing his arms, but secretly wishing for another head-ruffle.

“You say that now … but have you tried the fried eggplant with honey?” the blonde prodded happily. “Maki-baa makes ones to die for!”

“Eggplant,” Kakashi repeated dubiously, “with honey ? What kind of crazy person would make a sweet out of eggplant ?”

Minato smirked at him. “Just you wait. You’re going to be blown away, Kakashi!”

“H-hey! How do you know my name,” Kakashi muttered. “Stalker.”

The blonde chuckled. “Kid, I’m a master infiltrator. Knowing these things is pretty much my job.”

“Yeah, well you look like a girl,” Kakashi spluttered, embarrassed for some reason. “And way too young.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m nineteen and my looks are great for making people underestimate me, so… peace!”

“You’re weird,” Kakashi declared.

“Ah, wait till you try the eggplant. You’ll join the dark side soon.”

“ Right .”

  Somehow, Minato never suddenly decided that Kakashi was a persona non grata. He never avoided him, never stopped being kind. Kakashi found himself missing the blonde intensely when he was gone on missions, though he never admitted to it.

Life continued and things got easier… or maybe he just got used to his situation. He got used to his nightmares, used to the silence, used to the glares. Like all shinobi worth their salt, Kakashi adapted. He stopped getting crawls just from looking at the Hatake estate, though he still avoided the west wing like the plague. He completed D-ranks with ease and watched as other genin got sent out to the field and didn’t come back. He got used to being a replacement for the dead genin too… there were many. Still, a part of him wished he could have his own team, his own sensei. He wanted it so badly… why couldn’t he have what everyone else did? He surmised none of the jonin wanted to get stuck with the little kid, with the White Fang’s spawn. He understood. He still wished though.

Autumn came and went and the days got colder. Less people visited the market now, but Kakashi still went religiously. Despite his pride, he had finally worked up the courage to ask Minato how to deal with taxes and bills… even though he’d hated doing it, because he was afraid Minato would think he was a little kid after all if he asked. But the blonde hadn’t done that. He’d gone into long-winded, excited explanations on book-keeping, tax-paying, old fogies who might try to mess up his taxes so he needed to check everything over carefully, remember that, Kakashi!, and most importantly, what Minato had happily dubbed ‘money-saving ninja skills’. Kakashi had never enjoyed learning about anything more, but maybe that was because it was Minato who was teaching him.

One day, Minato showed him how to fish in order to save money. Another day he invited Kakashi to a training ground and taught him how to season said fish. Then, the week after they went to the woods and they cooked a rabbit. Minato would often give him tips on how to save money whilst doing all of this, though Kakashi privately thought that the blonde wouldn’t really need to follow his own advice since merchants were constantly gifting him their wares or inviting him over. At the beginning, Kakashi had wondered why everyone liked Minato so much, but now he understood. Minato was special… he was… sometimes, Kakashi couldn’t believe that someone like that would bother to give him the time of day. It was... the best thing that had happend to him in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

  Over the years, someone had taken up the nasty habit of drawing odd preschooler figures on his window when it was fogged up from the cold, or with crayons and chalk during the summer. Kakashi had been trying to catch the perpetrator ever since they'd begun, thinking that it might have been frog girl or bowl cut, but never managed. When he grumbled about it halfheartedly to Minato one day, the blonde  burst out laughing.

“Ah, the henohenomoheji? That was me!”

“What?” repeated Kakashi dubiously. “You’re the person who draws them? But they look like they were made by a preschooler!”

“Ah, I guess it’s a habit, from when my siblings were still… anyway, yeah! I’m not an artist, that’s for sure,” Minato told him sheepishly. “But I wasn’t trying to bother you, I promise. The henohenomoheji were just my way of telling you that I’d returned to the village after a mission, Kakashi. I always stop by your place to sketch a quick one on my way to the tower.”

“Oh.” The tower was on the other side of the village. Kakashi gulped. He felt happy Minato went out of his way like that, he really did, but… a part of him had hoped…

“Kakashi? What’s with that look?” Minato asked softly. “I… didn’t know it would upset you. I’ll stop, I promise.”

“No, don’t,” Kakashi mumbled.

He should have known it hadn’t been those two. Of course they must have thought the same as everyone else, that he was a disgrace and not worth hanging out with. Why had he even expected otherwise? Frog girl and bowlcut had probably forgotten all about him by now. He felt some part of him freeze at that. If they’d forgotten him so easily, he had no reason to expend energy thinking about them either. Firmly, Kakashi pushed the two out of his mind. He would not think about them again.

“Kakashi? Is everything… alright?” Minato’s deep blue eyes were filled with concern and Kakashi felt the coldness that had spread in his gut thaw.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Minato nodded slowly. “Well… I have some news that will cheer you up! I applied to be a jonin sensei. How’s that for cool?”

Kakashi frowned. “A… a jonin sensei?” Hope lit up within him. “Does that mean… you’ll…?”

“Yep! You’re my student now, Kakashi! Hope you’re not too put off by this pretty face.”

Kakashi’s lips split into a large grin, his cheeks hurting from the rare action. The mask would cover it, but Minato had never had any issue with reading his expressions before. Smiling brightly, the blond teen lurched forward to give him one of those wild head-ruffle noogies Kakashi adored so much.

“I guess it could be worse,” he muttered, failing rather spectacularly at hiding his excitement.

“Don’t be coy with me, Kakashi! I’m your sensei now and what kind of pupil lies to their sensei!”

“Sh-shut up, Minato… sensei.”

“Awww! And he’s blushing! I need to take a picture!”

“DON’T YOU DARE!”

Note: this is an extract of my story misnomer, hence the frog girl oc, but I figured this chapter pretty much doubled as a Kakashi character stude so here you go! Hope you enjoyed!

(Also, in case it wasn’t obvious from the japanese characters, the image above is not mine.)

[holywonderlandbanana]

The lion dressed in white

                                              It was  a clear day with tumbleweeds rolling and roadrunners zipping through the scrub. Vultures soared in the air waiting and gliding patiently for whatever roadkill that each passing motorist would provide for them.  There was a hitchhiker named Steve who was stranded on the highway with car trouble , no phone connection to call for help and patiently waiting, but not for a splattered ground squirrel; he was waiting for a ride instead. Perhaps the birds would fair better. It requires a tremendous amount of patience to hitch a ride, especially out in this desolate terrain where water is scarce. Most motorists won’t stop for a hitchhiker due to the risks involved; but the ones bold enough to do so are completely different stories. They got much to share,  such as this peculiar fellow in the white sedan who had stopped to offer a ride.

      This gentleman was from somewhere in Africa, but he was dressed in all white. The derby hat, coat, tie, and every other article of clothing was brilliant white. White enough to stain your vision for weeks. His complexion and outfit put  The Lion Dressed In White  had made a perfect contrast. 

            Steve got in and announced , with much gratefulness, to get to the nearest gas station. The driver had unusual markings on his face that had come from the outward corners from his eyes and reached  down and across his cheek-bones. They were almost like tear drop tattoos, but there was no ink: just mysterious  elliptical patterns carved to his skin. When Steve noticed it, he assumed that it was some sort of ritual but that didn’t surprise him so much: what was really catchy was the outfit that this gentleman was wearing. Steve couldn’t help his curiosity and had to ask.

    “Is white your favourite color” ?

       “ Haha! It kept me alive, my friend. Where I come from, I was in a group where we would paint our faces white for protection.”

     Steve chuckled, “ Sorry, I am a little lost here. How would painting your face white protect you, and from what”?

   “It would confuse our enemies. During the civil war, rival troops would eat who they captured. It use to be quite common for a warlord to eat the heart of his enemy, especially one of high rank. It’s said to give you more power.”

      “ Damn! You guys ate each other?  That’s some wild shit. But how would painting yourself white confuse a bunch of cannibals?”

           “Where I come from, nobody would want to eat a white man.”

         “Well, that’s discriminating; not that I’m complaining. It’s not like you’re taking my job from me or anything. In fact I am happy that I am not good enough to be cut up and shitted out by another person.I suppose we smell bad to you guys or something”

         “ Perhaps, or maybe we don’t find you appetising. Try putting on some cologne. Maybe my friends there will make an exception with you.”

           “ I think I will pass on that offer; but I know some other white dudes that you can take out of my sight.  I’ll even buy the cologne. If they taste bad, I’m sure it’s nothing that a little salt and pepper can’t fix. Don’t eat me though.”

        “ Haha! Don’t worry, my friend.The war over. Nobody is getting eaten anymore as far as I know. But during the war, I remember when we fought a militia that was led by a General Stark-Naked.  He was called that because he and his troops would fight naked. They believed that being naked would protect them from bullets. It didn’t make them safe from my bullets though. Haha! I would shoot those motherfuckers and watch them die. Bad thing about that was they didn’t have any clothes to that we could take.  When we fought other factions, at least the bodies had clothes that we could take. You just fix the bullet holes and clean off the blood and they will be as good as new. Some would take the underwear; not me though. I don’t want somebody else’s shit stains. With these guys though, they were tough to fight with and no spare clothes to show for it after killing them. When Stark-Naked’s troops came, you had better kill them or die quick before they get to you, because they were the worst. One time they killed my friend, Jimbo.”

        The driver took a deep breath and continued.  “Jimbo was a brother to me. If you were good with him, he would do anything for you. He saved me from a bunch of bad kids who chased me to a corner.  This man got between me and the gang holding a machete and all those punks ran away. I could never in my life pay him everything he had done for me. He taught me how to fight and survive in the streets. One time, Stark-Naked started making big problem in my neighbourhood. He wanted more solders: child soldiers. I was a kid then and Jimbo wanted to protect me and the other kids. I was ready to fight and be his soldier . The militia had us surrounded and Jimbo ordered me to go in hiding . When I refused, he smacked me and demanded that I evacuate. So I had no choice but to hide.  My brother and guardian stayed alone to face the enemy.

       He faced them all and was ready to be shot right there. But it didn’t work that way with Stark-Naked. They didn’t shoot him. Instead, they beat him with bamboos and 2x4 sticks until he was down. The beating took hours . And then he was tied to a light post and cut up by a big knife . His liver and intestines spilled to the street. The troops had marched down the streets with his limbs nibbling on them as if to eat beef jerky or chicken wings. Oh how they laughed and cheered. From then on, my goal was to get those motherfuckers. It was then, that I joined the white faced militia. I killed quite a few enemies, but I wanted Stark-Naked himself. I never did catch up to him though. The war came to an end and I came here. From what I hear, General Stark-Naked is now a preacher who is spreading the word of love and giving back to the community. What can I do? There’s your gas station, my friend. I hope this ride helped you.

[equalseleventhirds]

ok so i’ve seen some stuff about like, what if we get one episode for each of the fourteen fears, and that’s cool and all but i would like to propose: there are no longer fourteen distinct fears.

in s4 we got a lot of blended statements (with 2 or more fears working together) as setup for jack magnum’s big ‘everything at once’ ritual, and i think that the new sort-of statements we’re getting are likewise combinations, but with even more blending and even less separating

the cabin was corruption (’moldy treasure’, ‘rotten sanctuary’, ‘as you putrefy, body and soul’, and the whole idea of twisted love), lonely (’something to fear the loss of’, ‘lonely companionship’, ‘it will not let you feel the warmth and joy’, ‘your voice does not echo when you call to them, and they find they sometimes cannot hear it’), spiral (the tea thing, ‘pretends to be a cabin’, ‘are the dimensions of this place quite what they were’, ‘were the curtains always stained that dull maroon’), possibly also web (’it is a trap’, ‘if you had need to eat no doubt there would be food’, ‘stay within my false defenses’)

the trench is an obvious slaughter location (war, bagpipes, etc), but it has TONS of flesh bits (’meat for the grinder’, lots and lots of society and the rich and powerful chewing you up and spitting you out, the horrible doctor and the many wounded, ‘the enemy will eat your body’), buried (charlie unable to move and then crushed into the dirt, ‘what there is tastes of cordite and sand’, ishaan imprisoned), desolation (’instead they fed him to it, tossed him into its burning innards and sealed the hatch behind him’, ‘whatever god of hatred and pain’, ‘a single flash of destruction’, ‘the white-hot agony of melted and crumpled metal’), a bit of beholding (’the drone’s camera blinks once, twice ... the thing makes no sound as it follows him), and even stranger (the twisted, inhuman faces of the enemy seen from both sides; perhaps even the smiling, friendly face of the man with the red flower)

(and beneath both of them, of course, the end. death in the trenches. the cabin as a tomb.)

even the tower the panopticon has become is not just beholding; it is enormous, huge beyond human comprehension, like the vast. walk, and you will inevitably reach it, as it pulls you in like a spider’s web. i suspect as we get closer to it, it may show more traits of more fears (you’re not special jonah)

so what does this mean? maybe it means that in this post apocalyptic world, the constraints humanity placed on fear, by separating and cataloging it, by breaking Fear apart into smaller fears, no longer apply. if they ever did.

(or as i like to say, robert smirke had no fucking business categorizing the fears, and his famous list of fourteen was arbitrary at best and really just the result of an upper-class academic white man trying to exert control on ancient and powerful things beyond his comprehension, and he was wrong. he was so very, very wrong.)

(and jonah magnus will be too.)

[courtorderedcake]

Majestically Too Far Beyond : CSSNS 2020

It’s finally here! Yaaaay! Here’s my @cssns​ for 2020, Majestically Too Far Beyond, title based on the Poem written by Komal Kapoor. You can read my explanation of how this mess all got started Here. Art is by @kmomof4​ and I threw in some too for fun. 

Summary :  Emma Swan has never been that type of girl, you know, the one that cries and sinks into a pint of ice cream after a break-up. She's never ever cared about anyone other than completely out of survival, but then came Neal, and then came the final big break up with someone maybe she sort of kind of loved. So now she is one of those girls who are homeless, living with her adopted brother and his wife at their farm in a long abandoned Victorian keeper's home, desperately trying to save to get her own place while working her difficult government job and as a merc witch on the side.  When a desperate Witch calls on her to do a spell, it's all bad news - but then said Witch revealed a mountain of gold coins, and whimpered that Emma is her only hope. How can she not be a bad ass magic savior for this poor soul? All seems to be well, until the consequences are suddenly very real.  Killian may be a Demon, a fallen Angel that now delights in the practice of revenge, but first and foremost he's a gentleman. Sort of.  Especially when his ruddy Angel brother is focused on bureaucracy and keeping mankind out of chaos, while Killian barely keeps his denizens as safe as he can in a world that wants Demons dead. Witches and Warlocks use them for parts, Werewolves see them as a threat, Angels mostly still hold on to the ancient feud regardless of their treatise, Fae stay chaotic neutral, Vampires don't care for others affairs - it's a perilous world where hate crimes happen without consequence. When Killian goes above to plead for more safety laws in the metropolis of Hyperion Hills, the city that lies over a major portal to hell, he does not expect to meet a council that the elemental five sit on. He especially doesn't expect that the council would ever take him seriously in his campaign for demon safety. Regina, Snow, Ariel, Elsa, and Belle seem dead set on making it their pet project - each for their own very different reasons. Especially when they bring up hiring a tempestuous security consultant, Emma Swan. When they adjourn, he can say that he is optimistically apprehensive. An optimistic Demon never leads to good things, unless by good things you mean throwing back rum while chasing a pretty woman for plundering. He's unsure of what to expect when challenged to do shot for shot by a mysterious blonde Witch, who didn't care who (or what) he is, but he does like a challenge. Too much in fact, the challenge raising the stakes, because from there on it becomes a blur, and yeah, he's bloody well in it now. The idea of a contract sounds fantastic when they stumbled into the strange tower, half naked and wanting. It's the ritual she does instead that he should have been paying attention to. So, maybe now he's missing a hand, and has only the vaguest idea of what happened from the mess of blood he's woken up to, his and someone else's, a mirror's accursed magic the only thing to tell him what took place: he's a prisoner until someone lets him free… And a woman that he’s positive did not exist in his life yesterday, who just happens to not only be a Witch but a complete stranger, is pregnant with his child. 

Rated E, but really falls in at more of a M. Fluffy angst with some adult themes and hinted undertones.  READ ON AO3 HERE.

Chapter 1 - Long ago, eclipses were feared as well:

To say that the Jones 'Brothers' had been fighting since time began, was not an understatement, but also not exactly truthful. They had actually been fighting before recorded time, and before there was even a concept of the perception of anything besides the aether or eternity.

That's why he'd fallen, actually. Loss was a powerful motivation, enough even to question the utmost Authority - and the Authority despised questioning. Fighting was in the nature of the divine Celestials, as it seemed, and in Her infinite curiosity that She defined as 'Wisdom', God had let Lucifer burn too brightly. Their war was a lover's jealous quarrel turned violent. 

Although Liam was created moments before Killian, they were brothers (as it were) even amongst a host of angels, and they were close regardless of their stubborn spats. They fought over the world and its workings, Liam given a flaming sword while Killian was given books. They fought over knowledge of the divine arts, arguing whether humans were worthy of the Arcane. They fought over Killian's love of a mortal woman, and his questioning of commandments. 

They fought over Killian standing behind Lucifer, and Liam fought Killian right before he fell. In some ways, it was Liam's own hand that pushed Killian, but in his last angelic act, Killian forgave his brother. 

While Earthborne and some remnant Angels believed Demons were not capable of love, they were of course wrong. Demons loved, lost, and forgave just as any others. Even after the schism, even after years of passive aggressive pettiness between both sides, Demons were still seen as wayward, dark, demented creatures. Angels had done little to fight this stereotype, instead reveling in their continued status as goodwill ambassadors. 

Even their name amongst mortals was a cosmic joke, the Creator and her lover-made-antagonist too long gone to bother with proper names. They were Angels or Demons to some cultures as humans grew on God's abandoned project, while others called them by their new names. 

The Angel Diana was called a Goddess alongside Hecate, Freya, Gabriel, Uriel, and many others. The Demons Zeus, Odin, Loki, Hades, and Poseidon happily took on roles that suited their carnal needs. Angels mixed with mortals along with Demons, God's secret seeds of elemental magics taking life along beside them as Druids, Fae, and Elementals.  Some of the Celestials even birthed life as their lost parents had, Demons begetting Demons, Angels begetting Angels, and everything or anything in between. 

Humans gained magical prowess as the world changed, Witches, Druids, Warlocks, Mortismals, and Mesmerels becoming the norm for human bloodlines. 

Still, Demons were given less, all because God had cursed them irrevocably before disappearing with Lucifer into the abyss. They were cellularly different now than any of the Angels they had once been, a yoke around their neck that they could be forced to obey. Like Angels, they could be worshipped, called, trapped, or contracted even as their powers and bodies twisted into the curse stained strangeness God graced them with. They were looked on with disgust, pity, horror, and anger for it despite their best attempts.

Which was why his sodding Ponce of a brother working as an Angel ambassador for a Prince of Hell was so important - and so bloody frustrating. 

It wasn't as if being a Prince of Hell wasn't stressful enough - his people always under siege or afraid of some Witch summoning them to place a brand, then using them as a charcuterie board - no. It was that his brother was a baked potato when it came to convincing the public they were not what millennia of ingrained hatred had established Demons as. 

Bosch had died before Killian could uppercut him, regardless of his depiction of Liam as a trumpeting ferret bird or the even less flattering version of Killian. Dante had been another great PR stunt his brother had botched miserably. The Rings of Hell weren't even used, Lucifer gone before he could put God's plans for punishment into place. Now as a museum and reenactment park, it was a popular attraction that helped generate funds for the denizens that lived in the spacial plane that surrounded it, but Dante's review had been swayed by Liam taking him into The Kingdom right after. How could Hell ever live up to the paradise God herself had planned for humans? Only Cedar Point, Busch Gardens, Disney, or Universal Studios could come close as far as themed parks. It was a complete disaster. 

This newest idea of Killian sitting on the board of Hyperion Heights to work with the world's premier intersectional coven, 'StoryBrooke', was another terrible idea in the making, and Killian had no qualms letting his brother know it.

"This is absolutely ridiculous Liam," Killian gritted out, itching under the glamor that made him look mortal. Being confined in a skin suit had his molecules vibrating so loudly he could hear his canines, starlight and cosmic fire sending pinpricks of goose flesh down the dark hairs of his arms and legs. Wearing this was torture enough without Liam staring at him in disdain, his own heavenly image unblemished. Even his halo was a polished gold around his fat head. "While I am a dashing rapscallion in my original skin, don't you think it's bad form for them to see me like this instead of how I actually look? Isn't the point of this to show that even if we're not as pretty as your lot, we're still beings that deserve respect?"

Liam grunted, rolling his eyes. Blue fire from explosions of stars and galaxies lit in mirrors of Killian's own, but framed by rosy cheeks and tawny curls instead of moving shadow, a ghoulish pallor, and dark hair the color of ink or raven's feather. The Angelic glamor contained the haze of darkness that moved like smoke around him, the length of his fingers and claws, and made his flesh look pale but not tinted the color of the universe's light. It did not hide his horns (remnants of shattered halo) or his twitching tail if someone chose to leave eyes on him too long, but that was another Demonic burden to bear. 

"First impressions, little brother. Even the most progressive Witch is still a Witch. I'd rather them see you like this instead of wondering if you truly need all your giblets."

Killian swallowed hard, nodding once before grumbling, "Younger brother. Younger."

"Go over your notes again. You'll need to be your nauseatingly charming self for this, especially if they bring the males in their midst," Liam asked of him, and Killian looked out the dark windows of the car as his tail moved in agitation. 

"Regina. Head of the Coven, Witch and Mortismal that inherited her throne from her mother. Began the integration method and broke away from the Misthaven Coven to create the StoryBrooke one," Killian intoned. 

"Right. She's a tough nut too, and her ghosts do the most of her dirty work. She's not someone to cross unless you want your chairs stacked to the ceiling every morning by some bloody poltergeist." 

"Aw, well, I'm unfortunately haunted by you already, I doubt a poltergeist could do more damage." Killian slanted a look at his brother, who gave an annoyed huff as his pure white feathers ruffled. Killian was thankful in part that he did not have wings at all times, even if the trade off was painful. "While Regina is the head of the Coven, the head of the Council is Elsa Frost of the Frost twins. She's a direct descendant of the Giant Ice Sorceresses with powerful magic, but her passion is creating legislation for Hyperion Heights. Her sister Anna is the family's public relations face, and runs their fashion empire, Arendelle Designs with her Druid husband."

"Good. Good, tell me about Ariel Poisson."

"Siren and Mermaid, with four years on the council. Made history as the first water Elemental to sit on the council, beating the long seated Witch, Ursula, by a large margin. Opponents argue that her father's position as King of the seas and his dominion over fair weather and fishing made voters nervous to not cast ballots for her. Her campaign slogan was 'Part of your World', which could be beneficial to my campaign." 

"Right. Snow Blanchard?" 

"Would-be heir to the Misthaven Coven who ended its elitist reign by breaking tradition and leaving, sending them into chaos." Killian smirked. "She sounds like someone who I could get along with."

"She gets along with everyone except her family, which is more than normal it would seem," Liam replied back, and Killian snorted out a chuckle. 

"Druid, Elf, and Green Witch. Runs a high profile herbal apothecary chain Enchanted Forest Supplies, focused on holistic medicinals, herbs, and spices. Nolan Farms is a subsidiary that sells produce to the Heights, which is her husband's 'pet' project."

"Watch yourself, brother," Liam warned. "While you might get away with that if it's just the Witches, if David and Ruby sit in today you'll find that will not stand."

"Ah, yes. Ruby Reddings and David 'Charming' Nolan. You only circled that they are Werewolves in red ink everywhere you could. David is Snow's husband, and her lead farm hand. Ruby is Snow's cousin who introduced the two. Ruby is currently in a high profile relationship with your colleague, Inspector Wolfe, and they both are very active in pack politics. Many are betting they will create their own pack if the current Alphas do not abandon some of the more ancient doctrines. Nothing new there."

"Don't forget Livre and Fa."

"Belle Livre, Witch turned Vampire, runs a community literacy foundation and bookstore chain. Known ally to Demon rights. Soft spoken but brutally intelligent. Introduced a synthetic blood that allows for daytime living via plant cells collaborating with Enchanted Forest, which made history 6 years ago," Killian listed. "Mulan Fa, Vampire. Cultural Development head of the Heights, and curator of The Hyperion Heights Museum of Art, History, Science, and Culture. Teaches part time at Hyperion Heights University as an adjunct professor. Fa is married to a Fae Elf, Merida Ursa."

"Good. That's as far as we know besides the whole Swan fiasco, which is not to be brought up."

"What Swan fiasco?" 

"Oh, little brother. If you had done your research outside of the profiles I gave you, you would know all about the criminal history of the black and heartless sheep within the Misthaven and StoryBrooke covens. It's better off that you don't know."

"Er. Well. Alright. I didn't look into them because I don't bloody well care about their lots as long as we get protection. There was another slaying this weekend. A Lower Demon."

"I'm aware. Did you know her?" 

"Not really, but that's not enough either. I owe my people more. The other Lords of Hell are fine telling Demons to stay below and never use their name, which is fine for the new blood. It's the old, the weak, and the abused that are at risk."

"Careful, Killian. Your lust for vengeance will never be welcomed by mortals."

"I'm well aware Liam. They like my kind for an entirely different kind of lust."

"Could you please not." Liam sighed, sitting back against the seat. After a moment, his brother spoke quietly. "There was another attack as well, this time in broad daylight in Camelot Town. The Anti-Integration Movement has claimed responsibility."

"Of bloody course they have!" Killian hissed, clenching his fists. He pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing. "Brilliant. Just absolutely marvelous -" 

"They were going to run a story in the Times. I managed to block it for now, but we need a sympathetic writer on the inside, or we risk them running another story with their bias."

"I have a guy. I'll reach out, he's an old school Warlock who I've worked with in the past on push back. What's their excuse this time?" 

"They said that the Succubus was, quote, 'asking for it by the way she was dressed'."

Nausea rose in Killian's throat, and he swallowed it down with bitter practice. "I wasn't aware that how someone dressed meant their lives were not only void, but taking pieces of them was fine as well."

"We know they're being funded well, and we will get arrests as soon as possible. This won't be forever, Killian."

"That's easy for you to promise when this has been my - our forever." Killian bit out, glaring at his feet.

The car came to a stop, the driver opening the door to let them out. Killian moved briskly up the steps of the council building, as Liam followed behind. They moved through the lobby with an easy flash of Liam's ID that Killian scoffed at, moving into the elevator. 

"After that display, I'm going drinking after this," Killian gritted through his teeth. 

Liam blinked, straightening his tie in the door's polished reflection. "What display? They were nice."

"Exactly. If I came here alone, I would have been in that security line for an hour." 

Liam rolled his eyes, taking down his halo to polish the golden ring. "You absolutely exaggerate how you're treated. Not everyone is out to get you, especially when you look like this. Give others a break."

"I'll give myself a break after this with as much rum as I can safely consume, instead."

The doors pinged open to reveal a small atrium, dark wood flooring in stark contrast to the birch tree covered walls. A secretary stood behind a rounded desk against the far wall, motioning for them to sit. 

"They'll be with you in a moment," she offered, glancing at them with a thin smile. Killian could practically taste her distrust as he scratched behind his ear. Liam swatted at him lightly in a bid to get him to stop, both of them tense when the doors finally opened to reveal a petite woman dressed in a powder blue skirt and blazer. 

"Come in gentleman. The council will see you now." She smiled icily. His brother stood, his feathers slightly puffed in an indication of his own nervousness. 

Killian followed a second later, walking with them as they made forced, but pleasant conversation all the way into the boardroom. 

Women sat at a long table that curved slightly, facing their own small table similar to a courtroom. He was reminded of the tribunals in the old days when law had begun, but the courtiers were far different than the strange group of women scrutinizing them. 

To his surprise, the majority of them seemed actually curious instead of repulsed or bored. 

"The council recognizes Liam Jones and Killian… Jones. These are your chosen surnames, correct? And you identify as… brothers?" 

"Yes," Liam stated firmly with a curt nod. Killian watched from his peripheral as his shoulder muscles twitched, his wings held stiffly upright to keep them from the floor. 

Killian nodded, careful to keep his tail curled around his legs. The skin suit itched as it clung to him, not abated by his attempt to sit more casually. 

"Interesting," remarked the dark haired witch at the far right. A nameplate sat in front of her, marking her as Regina. He wondered idly if her stare was due to the blood on his hands only an eternal existence could bring. 

"You are here to ask for help in creating safety measures and a potential council commitment to Demon rights, correct?" Ariel, a fiery haired lass with a heart face, asked. 

"Our major point of concern is the influx of hate groups that seem to fall in line with smuggling operations and planned violence," Killian said slowly. Attention snapped to him, and he brought up the slide presentation he had prepared. "We have had some luck stopping shipments and arresting bit players, but we can't find the heads of these operations."

"You can't find them, or you are barred from digging deeper?" Mulan asked, and he chuckled darkly. 

"The latter, I'm afraid. We have consistently come to the same dead end again and again. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you ladies how difficult a foe powerful covens behind corporate entities are." He let a grimace creep onto his face, and saw the majority of the women nod in acknowledgement. 

"This could make many enemies for us, if approached in the wrong way." Belle stated quietly. "Specifically with our good friends in the Storybrooke Coven."

Snow nodded, exchanging a bitter look with her. "We may need a professional from our coven, but she's unable to get clearance without special notation."

"Oh? Who is this?" Liam asked. 

Elsa and the rest of the coven smiled in varying degrees of fondness. "The best in the business, and in my Coven. If you need to find someone, Emma Swan can always find them, and she's good at criminal magical activities. She knows the system, knows how and where to hide, and where to seek."

They'd found what the coven wanted, and their stake in the venture. Killian caught Liam's face falling, his eyes narrowing into slits. 

"You can't be serious. Involving Swan in this after -" 

"That was all a misunderstanding, and was blown completely out of proportion. We have long held up our end of the blame and accountability, while Misthaven has shirked theirs in the name of slandering her." Elsa steepled her fingers. "If you desire the best, which I assume is why you are here, you need to rehab not only Demons’ image, but hers as well. She should be sitting here with us."

Liam tried in vain to tip the scale back in their favor, his face going red. "We'll consider this as part of our negotiations."

"Negotiations? Liam, you are a detective. You should have deduced by now that you have no leverage. You have only decisions to make." Regina closed her planner, regarding them with her dark gaze. "So, make them quickly, before our patience wanes."

Killian bit back a laugh at Liam’s sudden blustered stuttering. These witches were good, and as the meeting ran on for hours he realized just how much liquor he would need to recover. 

 "Well that went well." 

Liam’s sour expression and slumped shoulders were just visible in his peripheral, even as his feathers were still quite literally ruffled. He huffed out a noise of disapproval, too vexed to even reply back. 

"Aye to that, brother." Licking his lips, they stepped into the cool dusk air. "I'm going for that drink, are you…?" Killian glanced at Liam, who shook his head with annoyance. 

"Seriously? You really -" 

"Really shouldn't what Liam?" Killian smiled, venom leaking into his tone. "Go get drunk in a town that would rather pretend I don't exist or sell me in a fine powder to the nearest bidder? I think I'll be okay, although the concern is duly noted."

He turned on his heel, his glamor falling away in a puff of smoke. The air hit his itchy, overheated skin, his tail whipping around in sharp, agitated flicks. 

"Take care of yourself, little brother! No need to be a self destructive bastard. We lost a battle, not the war!" Liam called after him, stepping into his sleek car. Killian snorted. 

Hailing a cab with some difficulty, the driver asked where he was headed with the same slight resignation he was used to for his kind. 

"A bar, Demon friendly please. Some place without swill."

The driver nodded, dropping him at a dimly lit corner of the city. A red neon sign spread crimson light along the sidewalk, soft light also spilling out the doors accompanied by loud guitar. Looking up, the looping, swirled lettering made him smirk. 'The Jealous Flask' was as good a place as any in his neck of the underworld woods. 

The inside was smoky, deep red damask wallpaper paired with dark, pitch stained wood panels, booths, and bartop. The liquor selection was displayed neatly, unlike the few early patrons sitting scattered around. The jukebox played warbly rock music, some punchy chords and an easy to memorize refrain. 

'one two three four, can I have a little more, five six seven eight nine ten, I love you' 

The bar stools were empty, and Killian slung himself onto one, the bartender nodding his head by way of a greeting. 

"Rum, neat," Killian stated, pointing to his preferred vice. The bartender did not stop polishing the glass in his hand, but the bottle floated down gently, pouring itself into a tumbler before the glass set itself down in front of Killian. "Thanks, mate."

The bartender nodded again, continuing his work with the aid of his magic. People began to trickle in as the time ticked forward, a witch or two eyeing him suspiciously, vampires playing pool in the front, a group of young werewolves forcing change into the jukebox to get edgier music playing through the speaker system. The Clash crooned out words against the Fae Queen ruling over greater Eld, the pack jumping around excitedly and thrashing their heads back and forth. By this time Killian had moved to the far curve of the bar, his glass refilled to the point of the bottle sitting next to him like a patient date. There were still no other Demons in his presence. It shouldn't have surprised him, shouldn't have even made him angry with the amount of violence they were privy to, but he burned away the emotions with the alcohol flowing down his throat. 

A soft touch on his shoulder caught his attention, and he turned with a growl. It died in his throat when large eyes met his, blonde curls falling in front of her eyes in loose tendrils. 

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bother you," she stammered, biting her lip. Pointing to a drink that was clearly not his, umbrella and all, she continued. "I was trying to reach my drink. It’s gotten crowded and I thought, I mean, I am sorry I wasn't trying to -" 

"Aye." He nodded, throwing back his drink. "S'alright lass. I'm sorry, I s'pose I'm just a bit out of place here."

She smiled, blushing. "Yeah, I uh, I get that. I haven't seen you around before."

"First time here. I was in the neighborhood for business." He poured himself more, and to his surprise she pushed and elbowed her way to sit next to him. 

"Business?" Her eyes were curious while her fingers toyed with the umbrella in her drink. "Should I be concerned?" 

It was clearly teasing, and Killian felt himself loosening up around her. She seemed to read him well, or at least the alcohol was working. "Not any of the good kind, I'm afraid." He grinned with a wink. 

"Ah, so we're just ships passing in the night?" She leaned in and he could smell the floral and herbal scent of her, her eyelashes batting coquettishly as she sipped her drink in his space. 

"Passing closely, I hope," he murmured. His heart raced; it had been ages since any mortal had shown interest in him that was mutual. 

His head spun as she met him drink for drink, hand unsubtly creeping higher up his hip. 

"Would you be opposed to… Maybe, I don't know… getting out of here?" 

"Are you saying you would fancy a nightcap, lass?" She smiled from under her lashes while biting her lip, and his heated blood grew hotter. 

"Perhaps." She stood with grace as she extended a hand to him. "My place is a quick and easy teleportation spell away from here, and my bed doesn't require any sort of magic outside of what I can do with my tongue." 

Killian hesitated, her golden hair in the glow of the lights making her seem to shimmer. "I don't even know your name -" 

"Eloise. It's Eloise." She pulled him up, letting him stumble into her body. Her lips met his, and soon he was pulling her closer as their mouths slanted across one another's in hunger. She bit his lip and he felt the tightness that had bloomed in his belly spread fire down his spine. 

"Lead the way, love," he whispered huskily, grinding into her. 

She smiled broadly, the world shifting until he was in her dimly lit home. A lone window twinkled starlight, moon huge outside as it hung in the sky. Her tongue slid past his lips, the bitter herbal taste overwhelming while the world shifted again, this time pulling him apart. 

 In a perfect world, Emma Swan would not be doing anything remotely close to what she was currently debating doing. It truly wasn't her fault; it fell on Neal and his stupid family if anyone was to blame, and his stupid coven with their stupid leader. She should have known back then it had been a set up, should have known that Neal was a fucking liar. How many times did the same drawn out plot have to play out? Apparently, too many, considering she had still warmed his bed until a week ago. 

This time it was final. Emma wouldn't accept him back when Neal slithered out from under the rock he had his affair in. She wouldn't be charmed by his smooth talking silver tongue, and if he so much as breathed near her, she would take another five years for breaking his smarmy Fae nose. Final. It had to be final. 

But finality meant certain conditions had to be met, especially if she was to ward him away. For one, the beautiful loft that belonged to Neal in the Heights downtown could definitely not be her base of operations any more. Neither could the various in between places she found where Emma could grieve until he took her back, damaged goods and all. No more hotel rooms, no more abandoned apartments, no more warehouses, vacation rentals, or quiet empty offices. She had to get her own place, and it had to be able to handle her particularly finicky magic. Neal's place wasn't great for her particular practice, but the view had been killer enough to ignore it. Neal's fortune had meant she didn't need to work, and with her record (or, as his coven would sneer, 'notoriety') that was just as well. 

Working added a wrinkle to her life; she would have to find somewhere that allowed her enough space for her magic to keep her employed. That would require a hefty chunk of gold - if she was lucky. The prices in the downtown area were steep, only high profile Witches, Warlocks, Fae, and Celestials could afford accommodation that close to the capitol buildings and Ley Lines. Initially when Emma had glanced through the apartment listings on the bulletin board, she had almost had a panic attack at the amount of gold they demanded. 

Her brother David, blessings be, had been her knight in shining armor. There was a large Victorian home that lay in shambles at the edge of their farm lands, its beautiful scalloped details in need of paint, and the gutters growing weeds as thick as her forearm. But, it was within her budget if she could get the down payment placed before the scheduled demolition. She put what she had down to stall as much as she could, but it was not enough in the least. 

One big job was all she needed. One big job that she could cash out on. A dip of her toes back into the waters of peddling illegal magic, just quickly in and out without a splash. 

She didn't need any more jail time, that was for certain. 

Putting out the word she was available in the whisper market was always dangerous, but listening in was free and without a snag if you were smart. 

Emma heard tell of a desperate woman willing to give a truckload full of gold to the right Witch who could perform delicate, esoteric, deeply Arcane and forbidden magics. Luckily for both of them, that's what Emma excelled at. 

She had always been good at her craft, and her magical workings were beyond powerful. She could do things that other practitioners only dared to dream of, if they could even conceive it. It was why Neal had kept her around, and why his coven's dislike would melt away if she said she would consider joining. 

(If she did that around Yulesmas for better gifts, was it really so bad?) 

The request itself was intriguing, the woman herself a Witch that could not do the spell alone. She wanted an equivalent exchange of unbreakable magical bonds, which while tricky, was not forbidden in most circumstances. The offer was too good to pass up on, but Emma didn't like leaving things to complete chance. 

Cue her sister-in-law, Snow. If anyone could throw runes, read the winds, divine from the mundane, and not keep any of it a fucking secret, it was Snow. 

Emma knocked on their cheery red door in the early morning, which must have been a surprise to Snow considering she was half dressed in business wear. She pulled up her stockings in a one footed hop, motioning for Emma to come in as she balanced the phone receiver against her neck. The coiled cord spun around her, and she groaned loudly. 

"Yes, Regina, I know. I'll be there, I'm literally - it's 2 hours away. I will be there in thirty minutes at latest, but - Well, yes, Emma just walked in." Snow gestured at a chair, and Emma sat, looking at her with an eyebrow raised. "Yes, I know it's early for her. I know. Uh huh. Yes. We will definitely put her on the table; it's absurd not to, considering - yes, I would love to talk to you about this in person as I've said - alright. Yes. Okay then, buh-bye." 

Sighing, Snow twirled, untwisting herself from the phone cord. She smoothed down her pencil skirt and blouse before looking straight at Emma with a curious stare. Her mouth twitched with annoyance as she spoke. 

"Now. To what do I owe the pleasure? I have a meeting with Celestials shortly, so." She waved a hand indicating the clock in the background. Turning to the counter, she opened up a cookie jar and removed a rolled cannabis cigarette, putting it between her lips and lighting it. 

Emma swallowed, watching the petite woman slide the purple lighter back in its space on their counter. "I just need you to divine something for me. A situation, with a woman who wants me to… to uh, do something."

Snow rolled her eyes, narrowing them to glare at Emma. "We are bringing you up as collateral in our meeting today, trying to get you a seat where you belong - on the council," Snow hissed. She pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a breath. 

"Please?" Emma asked innocently, batting her eyelashes for good measure. 

Snow sighed. "Alright. Picture the situation and the woman."

Emma focused on the description, the spellwork requested, the woman's pleas. She could feel Snow's magic engulf her, and the fuzziness that came with it as she wove threads out into the natural universe, time and space sending her back answers. 

A moment passed, and the feeling abruptly stopped as Snow shook her head. 

"This doesn't feel right," Snow said, taking a drag of her blunt. She exhaled, the thick smoke swirling into the shape of birds that dove through the air. Emma coughed, waving a hand in front of her face. "That woman… I don't know. She feels off."

Emma frowned, petulant that the answer was negative. "She's a Witch, and in trouble." 

"Have you rolled your runes?" Snow began to pull on her loafers, gathering her things. 

Emma chewed her lip. She had divined, or tried to, but had not found a concrete result. "Yeah, and they said it's… Questionable, but the end result leaves all parties happy. Tarot said basically the same thing."

Snow let out a little twittering laugh, pulling her purse up on her shoulder. "And how does Neal feel about it?"

"Neal doesn't need to feel any way about it. I… We… I broke it off." Emma looked at her shoes, then idly inspected the counters formica. "Forever this time." 

"Oh. Is that why you're here so early?" Snow's eyes went wide, a hand covering her mouth. "Oh, Emma, honey. I'm so sorry, I've just been under so much stress with Regina and this council. Wait, where are you staying? Oh no - are you homeless!? You mean it, you're never going back to that creep?"

"Never," Emma said firmly, even as her voice caught. "I'll find a place though, Snow. Don't worry." 

"So you are homeless, oh Emma, if I wasn't late - no. No. You know, I'll call Regina and cancel it, you need me more than -" 

"No, well, I mean -" Emma shook her head. "No. I'll stay here tonight if I have to, but you need to get to your meeting. I don't need Regina's wrath on top of everything else."

"You know you can stay here with us as long as you need, oh, Emma, I wish you had told me -" 

"I don't want to stay here. I can't work here, and I love you guys but you both are gross with your lovey dovey hippie -" 

"I get it, I get it." Snow grimaced. 

"So yeah, I need the money. I can't stay here, I need my own place… I put a tiny deposit on that Victorian down the road, but I need the full down payment to keep it." Emma shrugged. 

"The house at the --- Emma, that place is a breeze away from being condemned!" 

"No it's not," Emma groaned, rubbing her temple. "It's got good bones, and character. It just needs some… help."

"Well. I mean…" Snow hesitated, heading towards the door, as Emma followed. "Alright then. I'm just warning you, I get a terrible vibe from that woman and I could cancel this today, we could work out a plan. We have the money from the harvest. You could work for us or with David and help us with the roll outs in exchange for a loan. I'm organized, but the help would be appreciated if you're living so close… especially since I'm making sure that house is safely remodeled for you. I don't want you to end up with the roof falling on you or some gas line exploding." 

"You worry way too much, Snow."

"I hear the future through nature, and it's generally terrifying. Nature is terrifying. Excuse me for being cautious, and wanting to help you out."

Emma laughed as they walked out the door together, Snow rummaging in her bag for lipstick which she quickly applied. "Yeah well, you're also smoking weed so potent it could put an elephant to sleep. I don't want a loan from you."

"I'm not an elephant, Em. I'm an Elf. It'll take more than this to knock me on my ass." She smiled, extending a hand to squeeze Emma's shoulder. "Be careful, okay? No repeats."

"That wasn't -" Emma protested, but Snow cut her off with a sharp look. "Yeah, alright. 

"Good. I'll see you tonight, you're coming for dinner. No buts." Snow grinned, before disappearing with a puff of periwinkle smoke. 

Emma groaned, kicking dirt as she stalked away towards her new potential home. 

 In the final days before moving from the small basement apartment Emma rented, the dingy, unused, bare studio finally found some decoration in chalk outlines, herbs, and a large bubbling cauldron. It hadn't ever been a home or remotely close to one when Neal presented a better option, the bed untouched and unmade. It reminded Emma more of her prison cell than anything else, which offered a strange duality of comfort mixed with dread. It was fitting that she would meet to do this ritual here. 

Gothel arrived promptly for their 10 am arranged meeting in a well worn taupe cloak. She looked as desperate as the correspondences between them indicated, but Emma resolved to get this over with as quickly as possible. They shared a nod in the form of hellos, then Emma pointed to the cauldron.

"Let's begin, shall we?" Emma asked, and Gothel drew back her cloak to reveal her tired and gaunt looking face. 

"Yes. Let's. Your payment, with more upon completion." Gothel dropped a large purse on the counter, Emma immediately grabbing it and checking the contents. It was real, her heart soaring as she shoved it in her bag. 

"So, you are to give me a token of your will, usually blood, an animal you raised, or something that's valuable to you . Something you care about, that you are tied to that a severing will make you -"

"I give you the life of my first child," Gothel interrupted. 

Emma's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh." Biting her lip, she brushed back her braid. "That's… That's super Illegal. I…" 

"You wanted something heavy, you got it. There's a reason why I came to you; you have a reputation for doing things quietly. The reason you chose me is because you need the coin. Now, my terms. I know you provide healing. I want to keep myself young and strong - youthful immortality. Grant me this." The grin on her face unsettled Emma, Snow's warning in her mind. Nevertheless, the satchel of gold meant a secured home.

"Um. Alright. Are you sure, the life of your firstborn? That's a ways off, and the strength won't happen until -" 

"Do it. Do it now, I know the spell will be enacted when payment is due. I'm well studied - Breaking a bond with a child, specifically your first, will grant me the power I need. I know that I can't do this spell myself either, so here I am."

Emma gulped. "Okay. Let me get the texts."

Emma returned with her copper cauldron, pile of books, and spell components. Gothel's grin grew wider, her eyes gleaming at the sight of the tongues, eyes, crushed butterflies, and other more macabre ingredients the spell required. 

Feeling a low tug in her gut that something was wrong, Emma backed away from the altar. The other Witch seemed to shimmer, slightly in alarm, a glamor of some sort possibly covering her skin. Feeling even more unsettled, Emma shook her head. 

"I can't do this, listen -" 

"Please. Please you must, I need this to escape a curse. It's blood magic, almost unbreakable and impossible to escape on my own. Please." Emma heard no lies in her speech. "I admit that I have not been entirely truthful. While I was able to send you the gold easily, I am trapped, held against my will. I can only project myself to you. I was afraid to tell you, because I am desperate to rid myself of this curse." When no lies continued to register, Emma felt a deep sense of pity for the other witch. A blood magic binding was no joke; someone truly must have hated the poor woman. 

"Fine," Emma said, throwing her hands up. Gothel perked up slightly, hope in her eyes. Throwing the ingredients in the cauldron, a shimmering mist roiled over the edge as she spoke ancient words and stirred in the shape of long unused runes. Adding bones that melted in soapy bubbles and stirring with a long Pegasus feather that gradually turned to ash, she looked up at Gothel, who was wringing her hands anxiously.

"Your tokens?" Emma asked. 

Gothel waved a hand over the stained cloth; several of the woman's teeth, a long braid of her hair, and a large chunk of skin fell into the cauldron. The cauldron's contents began to boil, smoke curling in darkened serpentine tangles. 

Emma began the words, Latin, Arameric, the old tongue of the Pagans, Celtic, remnants of Gaul, flowing them together until speaking plainly to her own magic. 

"Blood of one that is two, child, mother, 

Blood of my own, tear them asunder, 

Thicker than wine, thicker than water, 

Ties that bind, bound to another, 

The womb that grows life, 

Kin cared for in kind, 

A payment for power, 

Remake the ties, lift, and unbind."

Scraping her hand against a dagger, Emma let her blood drop slowly into the brew, the words flowing out in the crimson rivulets. As she pulled away the wound closed from her own healing energy. 

"Cradle of moon within flesh, 

Remake that which is to be made, 

Your reflection removed, 

Mine in its stead.

Your burden is mine, 

Carried and held as your first, 

Blood of the two, child, mother, 

As they are born, you are cursed."

She looked at Gothel, who was still wringing her hands, long nails cutting into her palms. This magic was hopefully worth the price the woman had so freely paid. Breaking an infant and mother's bond to give to another was a great sacrifice, the magic comparable to true love, if not greater. The power the Witch would receive would hopefully free her from the curse, but also give her the strength she desired.

"It's done. You must cast your brand over the cauldron, and when you, you know," Emma turned around, holding herself tightly. Caught up in the thought of what she, Emma Swan, would even do with a child, she was unaware of the other Witch behind her scrambling to the cauldron or her deep disregard for anything she was saying. "Get pregnant, let me know. I'll handle that - Wait, what are you -" 

Gothel chuckled lowly, her brand in its arcane circle around the cauldron, neon lines of electricity like power that sparked and crackled. Emma felt her hair stand on end, small pebbles lifting off the stone floor as the cauldron shook. Smoke rose in heavy plumes, purple and a noxious mauve that made the air feel sticky, her lungs not able to fill all the way. Gothel's chuckle had turned into a wild cackle, her braided and matted hair like vines or a visage of Medusa. 

Gothel's voice was crazed, shrill as she pointed a gnarled finger at Emma. "This is it. This is it! I've done it, I'm free! Oh, you silly, stupid girl. Now nothing will ever stop me again!" 

Her laugh grew into a shriek of triumph as magic swirled around them, Emma watching as the woman in front of her disappeared. Gaping at what happened, Emma checked herself for any signs of curses or hexes, unsure of what had just taken place. 

To her surprise, no sign of magic lay on her that she could see. She wasn't cursed, the room wasn't jinxed, and the second payment… Emma quickly checked her purse, finding the large satchel of gold easily. The second sat where Gothel had discarded it without looking twice, and she picked it up hesitantly. It was heavy in her hands as she checked it again and again, realizing that for once in her life, everything was going right. 

 Three hours later, she owned the Victorian home down the road from her brother's farm, the first home she had ever truly called hers. 

 Living near her brother's home had its perks, and disadvantages, as Snow had hinted. For one, Snow was cooking for her every day, and Emma was positive she was going to gain several dress sizes if she didn't stop gorging on various pasta dishes while pouring her magic into restoring the wooden floor. 

A major downside was having her brother constantly fixing her house without her being aware. She'd been woken by him cleaning the gutters, fixing her porch, and of all things, roofing. It had only been a few days, but between his insistence on the outside being presentable and her own work inside, the house was coming along faster than she ever dreamed. It was frightening, and David kept her on edge with his very obvious attempts at snooping around. 

"So, you're done with Neal for good," he said, startling her as she sat out on a newly hung porch swing. She wrinkled her nose at him in protest, and he grinned. "And… You're making doors again."

She froze, panic gripping her. 

"It's alright, I'm not mad. I'm just - just be careful. I trust you, but I know that before -" 

"I made a mistake. I know it, you know it, the Coven knows it, and so does everyone else in the Heights that saw me fall from grace." Emma curled her arms around her knees, bitterly forcing out words. "I won't make the same mistake again. I am on the straight and narrow; these doors are for commuting and hunting skips only." 

David laughed, poking her in the side. "Back to hunting skips, huh? Damn. Don't you ever settle down and enjoy the simple life?" 

Emma laughed, shaking her head. "What the hell is the simple life? Nothing is simple."

"Well, yeah, but… I mean the simple life." He brushed a hand through his hair, looking at her with a gentleness that she instantly felt uneasy with. "House, a pet maybe, hobbies, a partner, kids -" 

"If you are trying to set me up again -" 

"Not me," David raised his hands defensively. "No, I was just -" 

"I don't deserve that life," Emma stated, shrugging. The sun was sinking lower, crickets singing in the cool air. "That life isn't for me. That life is for people like you and Snow, people that are worth something."

"Oh, Emma. You know that's not -" 

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Emma snapped, standing with a start. David looked at her with a hurt expression, and she felt pure rage. "Goodnight."

She stepped back into the house, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. 

"Emma, come on," David called from the porch, but Emma wasn't listening to him as she fought the immediate urge to be ill. The sudden nausea ripped through her, and despite her attempts, vomit burst from her throat. 

She panted, holding on to the wall with one hand. The other hand gripped her side, fierce cramping making her double over in a scream of agony. She lurched forward, unable to breathe as pressure rose in her stomach. To her terror, her skin grew taut and she seemed to bloat, the pain of it ripping through her. 

David splintered the door, his arms around her as she lost consciousness. 

She woke in an ambulance, David holding her hand like he'd done when they were children. He was always the best big brother she could have asked for, always protective of her, and always pushing her to be better. He had convinced her to trust Ruth, convinced her to take a chance with the older woman who was willing to adopt both of them, and they had found another home together. When she was scared or sick, he was right there to hold her hand. Even now as pain ripped through her, he was there. She tried to understand, but her body burned until the flame became too much to bear. 

She woke again to the beeping of machines and David's yelling, her body aching but no longer in the same searing pain. Lifting herself up to try and hear what David was saying, she struggled to make out more than just fragments. 

"I'm not leaving, that's my sister ---- How did -- she wasn't, she --- I don't know, she never said anything ----- A WHAT? No! I'm --- not leaving!" 

Emma's stomach lurched, and she shifted to get out of bed. The sheets slid from her middle, and she gasped. Her middle was rounded, as if she was pregnant. But that was impossible, that was absolutely and completely impossible. 

A knock sounded, a petite woman entering. 

"I'm Doctor Mullins, Emma. I know that this may take some time to fully process, but… you're pregnant."

Emma hissed out a breath into a hysterical laugh. "What? No. No. This is not how babies work, or pregnancy, or even - I haven't even had sex since - "

"I know, and I understand that you must be frightened." The doctor attempted to console her, but Emma could not stop her rising panic. She touched the rounded skin of her stomach, the firm smoothness lined with stretch marks. Letting out a low wail, the doctor tried to speak over her still. "It's some ancient and dark magic, but it's very real. We have an inspector on the way to take your statement, and we performed a few tests -" 

"No. No, this is a bad dream, this isn't real, this isn't happening to me!" Emma closed her eyes, trying to focus. 

" - most concerning of which is the results on paternity, which indicate that the father has non-human presenting DNA. Normally that's not terribly unusual, but this is clearly not a planned pregnancy considering your… your conception being, well, this, and the genomic markers show that the parentage is half Celestial. I need to ask, have you had any relationships with an Angel?"

Emma shook her head, trying to understand what the doctor was asking. 

"Alright, what about anyone with proximity to dark, Arcane, or Demonic magics? Anyone who associates with Demons? Do you associate with them?" The doctor eyed her curiously, and Emma shook her head again. 

"I don't know any Demons, Angels, or Celestials." Emma bit her lip, frustrated at the question. Rolling it between her teeth, she murmured a thought out loud. "I did recently perform a ritual that was older. It didn't call for this though, I don't know anything about this…" 

"Well, it doesn't just happen." Emma looked at the doctor with enough venom in her stare to curdle milk. The doctor laughed nervously. "I mean, it did but -" 

"This cannot be happening," Emma moaned, throwing her head back against the hospital bed's pillow. "This has to be a bad dream."

"I'm afraid it is all very real. Considering the circumstances, an inspector of magical law will be assigned to question you regarding the situation. Because of the issues of legality, you may not leave or have visitors until then." The doctor stood, brushing her hands on her slacks. "Baby looks healthy despite wanting to grow at an accelerated rate, and we have slowed that as much as we can. Welcome to motherhood Miss Swan, and, er… Congratulations." Giving a last placid smile, she left the room, leaving Emma alone. 

Emma sat stunned, unable to do anything but focus on her steady breathing. 

(Fuck)

The single word came to mind again and again, escaping from her lips as her breath finally began to turn into sobs. 

"Fuck."

[fymagnificentwomcn]

Why do people think Kösem mistreated or was mean to Turhan and Mehmed? I've never read that anywhere in a book, but it's so famous around internet that it's ridiculous.

<DISCLAIMER> Here I need to put a small disclaimer because while answering the question, I truly decided to share some interesting bits about Kösem vs Turhan and in the end it turned into some mini-essay heh. It was definitely a really complex matter and the myth of evil old hag who snatched unlawfully power from her angelic daughter-in-law and then began persecuting her because she was not obedient enough culminating in Turhan having no choice but to kill her mom-in-law and then become best (but absolutely not interested in power) Valide ever is just... not true.<END OF DISCLAIMER>

*******

Same.

I mean, we can bet that when later the rivalry between the two ladies was in full force, they were sometimes rude to each other, but I doubt they would have done it in public for people to note and record, and even that could be filtered out. Harem was truly a closed-off space and this is why we get most of quotes by Sultanas from their letters or if they act in political capacity, like Kösem’s speech to the pashas from the Divan. And yes you can find all sort of rumours cited in books, but I haven’t seen anything like that with legitimate sources provided.

This is also why we have so many different accounts of Kösem’s assassination, often very conflicting, and sometimes even completely internally incoherent and illogical.

And for example we have an account by Derviş Abdullah, who so wanted to avod placing blame on any of the Valides, that he put all blame of Süleyman Agha going from one Valide to another, with each telling lies about the other to incite them to act against each other. But why would the agha want to create showdown between two sultanas? In this case he was an easy scapegoat because he was present as the participant in brutal treatment of Kösem in most accounts. And both Sultanas surely actively participated in the conflict.

As I said, Turhan was very good at propaganda. She really put a lot of focus to keep a good image, especially an image as a lady who was not so much involved in politics and doing it legally, so she placed far more attention to make it seem like Mehmed was ruling, not her, during her regency. She also relied more on statesmen’s advice than Kösem because she was less experienced, and, as Halil İnalcık puts it, less talented than her mother-in-law. And when she gave her power to Köprülü (who was however her man through and through) she created that image of a woman giving up her power willingly. Sakaoğlu states plainly that those historians who criticised Kösem so much were exactly the ones who praised Turhan a lot and stresses how such historians desribed Turhan as having “no political aspirations” as opposed to her mother-in-law. “No political aspirations immediately meant “charitable lady with golden heart, religious and loved by all”. Turhan continued to create her image even when Köprülü began taking radical actions to maintain order:

The year 1656 is, nevertheless, an appropriate date at which to conclude a study of the political role of dynastic women in this period, for henceforth the emphasis in Turhan Sultan’s role as valide sultan would be altered. As her overt political involvement lessened, her ceremonial and philanthropic roles increased considerably. Indeed, the appointment of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha seems to have initiated a period of intense ceremonial aggrandizement of the dynasty. It was shortly after his appointment that Turhan undertook the construction of the Çanakkale fortresses and her great mosque—both reportedly at the grand vezir’s urging. The elaborate royal progresses between Edirne and Istanbul and to Bursa and other areas near the capital also date from this period. Mehmed IV, who in the forty-five years of his reign displayed little interest in the government of his empire, nevertheless campaigned a number of times as a figurehead ghazi under Köprülü Mehmed Pasha’s successors. It may be that these royal rituals were planned by Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, or Turhan Sultan, or both, in order to divert attention from continuing crises and the severe and bloody solutions imposed by the grand vezir. With political power and military leadership delegated to the grand vezir, the most useful function that the sovereign might perform was to furnish visible symbols of majesty and piety to maintain the subjects’ loyalty and sense of community.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Peirce also said that Turhan was a sultana who was very concerned with “custom and propriety”.

Sakaoğlu also concludes his citation of Evliya Çelebi’’s account mentioning [short summary & parapharase of that account by me:] how Turhan and Meleki found a way to kill Kösem and then they killed many other people after that and then mentioning also alleged mismanagement by both that brought about Cinar incidents in with the following comment: “This historical account tells us that she [Turhan] had a character far removed from some of her descriptions on other sources and the only ting that saved her from a fate worse than Kösem Sultan’s was luck and her son”. Sakaoğlu also wrote a whole article on how male historians tried to villify the most powerful woman in Ottoman history entitled precisely that (Turkish title of the article: Erkek tarihçiler Osmanlı tarihinin en güçlü kadınını nasıl kurban etti? How did male historians villify the most powerful woman in Ottoman history?)

Peirce mentions about Meleki that:.

Kösem was murdered in a palace coup led by Turhan’s chief black eunuch. Meleki became the new valide sultan’s loyal and favored retainer. She was eventually manumitted and married to Şaban Khalife, a former page in the palace training school. The couple established residence in Istanbul, where, as a team, they were ideally suited to act as channels of information and intercessors on behalf of individuals with petitions for the palace. Şaban received male petitioners, Meleki female petitioners; Şaban exploited contacts he had formed while serving within the palace, while Meleki exploited her relationship with Turhan Sultan. The political influence of the couple grew to such a point that they lost their lives in 1656 when troops stationed in Istanbul rebelled against alleged abuses in government.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Curiously, some people truly believe in some myth it all immediately became good after Kösem was killed. Evliya’s account is not the only one actually that mentions Meleki and Turhan being good friends even during Kösem’s lifetime, so maybe the “betrayal” wasn’t actually betrayal even if Meleki was formally Kösem’s slave/servant. Maybe the story of Meleki warning Turhan was invented. We will never know.

Turhan was truly careful to cut herself from controversial decisions and whatever the Grand Vizier was doing, but as Leslie Peirce puts it, she undoubtedly had influence on Köprülü and if she hadn’t liked what he was doing, she would have definitely had a way to end it.

Turhan saw what problems her mother-in-law encountered, so was careful to hide her interest in politics (which again does not mean she had none). But when she gave up power it was a necessity - chaos persisted and persisted after Kösem’s death, there was no Grand Vizier who could stay for longer, and last rebellion was bloody and very dangerous to both Turhan and her son. Turhan realised she would not be able to handle it and in the end made a correct decision because that was a necessary step at that point.

According to Naima, nothing came of these efforts because no one was strong enough to enforce the necessary reforms; the would-be reformer Tarhuncu was brought down by the discontent of influential persons injured by his attempts to economize.The year-and-a-half-long grand vezirate of Derviş Mehmed Pasha in 1653 and 1654 was a respite of relative solvency and harmony, but after his death matters once again began to deteriorate. The integrity of the throne was increasingly threatened both internally by rebellious pashas and externally by Venetian advances in the war over the island of Crete, as well as by chronic fiscal shortages now exacerbated by the costs of mounting campaigns against these internal and external enemies. A serious uprising of the troops in March 1656 that resulted in the execution of many palace officials demonstrated the urgent need for a political solution. It was found six months later when Turhan Sultan appointed the elderly Köprülü Mehmed Pasha grand vezir.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Sakaoğlu descirbes this event in the following word “the financial and political management were responsibilities that Turhan Sultan and her son Mehmed IV could no longer attempt to rescue and operate, so they handed over the management to Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and new era began for the Ottoman Empire”.

Which does not mean Kösem ruling in her own right was a bad decision either - Kösem was more talented in state matters and she knew she could handle stuff, especially during her second regency when she also had a lot of experience. Turhan realising she could not handle it and withdrawing also spoke well of her sense of responsibility, even though she was not as gifted in politics as Kösem.

Thus said, while Turhan did not have such gift for state matters, she was truly skilled in the act of PR & ceremony, which truly helped her a lot during her career and after her death.

Since she later skillfully cut herself off from blame concerning what was happening in politics, there was still one huge stain on her reputation, namely the way she took power from her mother-in-law.

Contemporary Ottoman chroniclers did not welcome the news of Kösem Sultan’s death and recorded it as an injustice committed against a woman of great accomplishments and stature, and as a harbinger of greater social disorder. The manner in which the older valide was disposed of and the subsequent chaos in the palace was recalled during the reign of Mehmed IV as a time of upheaval. Bobovi, so taken by the event, was able to recall more than a decade later the part of the palace where the old valide had been removed from her quarters for the last time.

Source: Lucienne Thys-Senocak, Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan

Murder of Valide Sultan was unheard of in Ottoman history. And what was a better way to justify it then by assassination attempt on the padişah himself? But how to explain why Kösem, known for her prudence and careful calculation, would have attempted such a risky move for no reason? Wouldn’t it have meant that Turhan, the lady of pure characters with no political aspirations, actually did desire power and wanted to take her from her mother-in-law?

Peirce comments that:

The bloodiest contest between competing mothers—the murder in 1651 of the formidable queen mother Kösem by the party of her daughter-in-law Turhan, who was impatient to take power—was reminiscent of past rebellions of princes against aging sultan fathers.

We know little about their relations when Turhan was just a haseki - we only know about conflicts between Turhan and Ibrahim. We similarly know next to nothing about relations between Kösem and Ibrahim’s concubines - the person she was definitely in conflict with was Şekerpare aka one of the people who encouraged Ibrahim’s spending and supported corruption in his court (do not confuse her with his consort Şivekar, historically they were two separate people, show put them together because of limited screentime). There are however some mentions of her, similarly like in the show, backing up Turhan in her conflict with Zarife. Peirce mentions Kösem groomed Turhan in the Imperial Harem and one of her articles. This is a mention of Kösem backing up Turhan in the Zarife conflict from Sakaoglu’s Famous Ottoman Women, though of course this whole Padre Ottomano story with illegitimate prince has so many versions and legends surrounding it and again this account sounds sensationalised in some details like Turhan seeing them in bed or Zarife being pregnant with Ibrahim’s child only then, though we know such situation with throwing Mehmed after a quarrel did take place.

Turhan was definitely the person who benefitted most from Ibrahim’s deposition - from relative obscurity she entered big politics as Valide Sultan. While Kösem got the job of a regent, her position was actually not as stable as woman with her own son - it all depended on statesmen and their whims. She was offered a job due to her experience as opposed to really young Turhan (she was only around twenty two) and as person who had already stabilised Empire when it had been on the brink after Osman’s deposition and Mustafa’s disastrous reign. It was not legally normalised in the Ottoman Empire for a mother to be automatically regent - in the past it was often Grand Vizier and when Süleyman left for campaigns, he always appointed his viziers and later his sons as his regents, not his mother or Hürrem. Mehmed III was the first one to appoint Safiye as regent when he was on campaign to Hungary. Later Halime and Handan were appropriately co-regent and regent de facto, but they did not have the naib-i-sultanat title like Kösem and later Turhan.

Judge Abdülaziz Efendi commented on this unprecedented occurrence in the following words:

It being an ancient custom that upon the accession of a new sultan the mother of the previous sultan remove to the Old Palace and thus give up her honored office, the elder valide requested permission to retire to a life of seclusion. But because the loving mother of the [new] sultan was still young and truly ignorant of the state of the world, it was thought that if she were in control of the government, there would result the possibility of harm to the welfare of the state. Therefore the elder valide was reappointed for a while longer to the duty of training and guardianship, and it was considered appropriate to renew the assignment of crown lands to the valide sultan.

Of course I can bet neither Kösem wanted to go to Old Palace nor Turhan was happy about not becoming regent, but it obviously had to look like this officially :) Peirce comments here that truly the position of Valide Sultan had become institutionalised by then for Abdülaziz to put it in these words because he was a well-known as opponent of Kösem.

After quoting the above,Thys-Senocak goes on to say:

By the time that Turhan Sultan was to take up the position of valide, Kösem Sultan was in her sixties, and she had been a valide since 1623, close to three decades. Upon the death of her husband, Sultan Ahmed I, she had been removed to the Old Palace for six years until her son Murad IV succeeded to the throne in 1623 and she returned to the Topkapı. When Murad died, she continued to serve as a valide for her son İbrahim. During these years Kösem had established a solid network of alliances within the court and among the Janissaries, who would support her if her power was threatened. In the unstable times that faced the Ottoman administration Kösem’s seniority and guidance were seen as essential by many in the palace. Her authority was not, however, welcomed by Turhan, who saw her place in the harem administration usurped by her mother-in-law.

Turhan was deprived neither her Valide Sultan title NOR status. Kumrular mentions she was nowhere near as powerless as some try to portray her. There is even evidence from Spanish ambassadors she participated in foreign politics, e.g. that she complained about ambassador Allegretti sent by Spain .She also moved to Kösem’s old Valide chambers.

Kösem’s rank as “Big Valide” was a new one, created especially to allow her to be regent. It was the only time this title was used in the Ottoman Empire.

Also the new Grand Vizier, Sofu Mehmed Pasha, was against the appointment of Kösem as a new regent because he hoped to get the position himself and as Peirce says also saw himself as “temporary ruler”. He was supported by Abdülaziz Efendi, and these two were the two statesmen Kosem addressed particularly in her famous speech because she was well aware they plotted against her together. Swedish ambassador Ralamb said the following about two first years after Ibrahim’s death: “the state experienced two good years. The valide sultan, an intelligent and smart person, ruled well and peacefully thanks to her natural talents and much experience”.

It is generally assumed by historians who assessed the whole conflict, like Kumrular or Peirce, that Turhan was the one who initiated the rivalry. From the start, she tried to undermine Kösem’s rule, thus also making it difficult for her to stabilise Empire and Kösem was actually doing a good job with it. Her first decision was to remove corrupt harem aghas, who participated in mismanagement and mayhem of Ibrahim’s reign, but Turhan used this opportunity to lure them to her side and made them her supporters, which as Valide Sultan was not a difficult task. In her speech dimissing the aghas according to the account by Derviş Abdullah, Kösem apparently accused them of having schemed against her which resulted in her exile and then said that thanks to their corrupting influence “light of my eyes, Sultan Ibrahim, became a martyr, crying loudly. Do you intend to bring similar fate to Sultan Mehmed?” 

Turhan also worked hard to lure as many statesmen as possible to her side by showing herself as morally superior to her mother-in-law, which again was quite easy considering she was up against a woman with so many years of experience on political scene. She especially used Ibrahim’s deposition for this purpose. According to Rycaut, she sent letters to statesmen describing herself as poor grieving widow with an orphan who hopes to see those responsible for his father’s death punished.. obviously she meant Kösem among them. She often incited anger following Ibrahim’s deposition and rebellions, which again made it difficult to restore peace after Ibrahim’s reign. And please - relations between her and Ibrahim were so bad & she was so sidelined by him during his reign compared to his other women, it is hard to believe she was truly in any grief. Sakaoğlu mentions three “strikes of luck” for her - Ibrahim’s death, Kösem’s death and surviving Cinar incidents of 1656). Rycaut ends his description of the “throwing Mehmed” incident with the following words: “All these matters served for farther fuel to nourish the implacable Spirit of the Queen [Turhan]”.

This tactic was also shown in the show – after pushing for Ibrahim’s death during the coup&making it bloody, she continued to incite riots to force the Şeyhülislam and others to demand Ibrahim’s execution, then made Mehmed sign his dad’s death order. For once, she seemed to acknowledge Kösem’s rank and didn’t do anything behind her back because she was well aware that Kösem, a seasoned politician, would realise that there was no way Ibrahim could survive this and decide to carry out the sentence herself being justifiably scared what might happen if he got into Turhan’s and her supporters’ hands or other angry people as she saw what had happened to Osman. Then Turhan could carefully remove herself from the scene and depict Kösem as Ibrahim’s murderer, while conveniently forgetting everything she had done from first episode she was in to have him dethroned and killed (when she told Haçı: “How any padisahs have you killed?” GIRL….) Plus, she knew the whole situation of Kösem carrying out the execution would fuck up Kösem mentally and make her an easier opponent for further fight...After all, following Ibrahim’s death she happily announced “Ibrahim is dead, now time for Kösem”.

Shortly before Kösem’s assassination there was still rebellion of sipahis incited by Turhan. Rycaut mentions she wrote to them about her husband’s death and how those who had caused it (implied Kösem and janissaries) disrespected her son’s authority and would soon bring similar end to sipahis and eradicate them forever. The rebels also mentioned Ibrahim’s name & demanded his killers punished during these riots in 1651 (!).

What happened next, we will never know for sure. Kösem was definitely a woman of action&it’s likely she had to take into account steps like dethroning Mehmed or getting rid of Turhan. Apparently, Turhan was afraid about Süleyman being put in Mehmed’s place for some time. What we know for sure she planned for eliminating four of Turhan’s allies.

Did she try to kill Mehmed? We will never know, but it spreading such rumours would definitely make it easier for Turhan to rally supporters.

Another example of Turhan’s strategic PR – she requested a fetva for Kösem’s execution, but after Kösem’s death dismissed the judge to cut off herself from his person and this decision&also to prevent punishment of people involved in the matter. Still, GV who carried out purges among Kösem’s allies was later dismissed for that and it’s hard to imagine Turhan had not been involved in the original decision for these purges. There is one account by Rycaut describing Turhan requesting fetva for Kösem’s execution in which the mufti was scared to make this sort of decision, while Turhan arranged a mob to come and demand justice “for their padisah”, and simultaneously Turhan hid behind a curtain to say to leave the woman (Kösem) in peace for the sake of the padişah her son and to stop slandering his grandmother’s name&involve the padisah in such matters The account goes to kinda sensationalised picture that there was a woman in crowd that Turhan pointed out as being Kösem and encouraged the mob to punish her, not the padisah’s mother, and then fell to her knees crying in front of her son, with Mehmed drying her tears with handkerchief, but this sounds definitely like sensationalised account to make the story more dramatic such as Rycaut’s mentions that Kösem was 80-year-old toothless old lady to stress her age (she was 60, chill)

Turhan was a very sly and PR-based sultana.

I’ve seen a theory (?) that Kösem was rude to Mehmed and Turhan because of her sassy speech to pashas (?). Firstly, one of the people to whom the speech was addressed earlier, Abdülaziz Efendi, had insulted MEHMED when during a Divan meeting Mehmed did attend (Kösem was there with him to instruct him, just as Turhan later) replied to Mehmed asking him about bribery among pashas: ’My dear, who taught you this?” Of course what they wanted was to express displeasure that in fact this woman was ruling them, not a padişah. And Kösem did mention the slight given to her grandson. After the “I’ve seen reigns” part the usually skipped later part is “Sometimes they attempt to kill me. When certain imperial commands have been issued, they have said [to the sultan], ‘my dear, who taught you to say these things?’ Such patronizing behavior towards sultans is impermissible! And what if the sultan is instructed?” [translation taken from Peirce].  Moreover, the same people were plotting against her and also tried to have her killed and she was very well aware of that, which is why she kept mentioning her death. The speech is not only sass, as Kumrular points out, Kösem also mentions that she is aware death might be near and is not scared of it and she’s also aware everything will go on following her death, no matter how important she was.

Kösem following Ibrahim’s death was shaken and just as shown in the show in fragile mental state that she did not resemble her old self in certain aspects – she was definitely more reliant on her trusted group of people mostly consisting of janissaries instead of co-operating closely with everyone unlike during her first regency (which was pointed out as serious mistake by Naima) and was more quarrelsome than ealier, but damn those people truly used her weaker mental condition for their purpose – like when she was crying in her room following Ibrahim’s execution, Abdülaziz Efendi (yes this bitch again) came to her and told her it was what she had been praying for in response to her “Whose curses and bad wishes reached him [Ibrahim]?”, which shook her mentally very much (Abdülaziz Efendi himself described this incident, so it’s hard to doubt its occurrence).

And in the end, while assessing the Kösem/Turhan conflict we must also take into account that this elderly woman who had been through a lot was automatically at disadvantage against young, seemingly innocent rising star, who in the end emerged as victor. And as Derviş Abdullah put it when talking about the matter “it’s easy to put all sort of blame on the deceased” (he used it when discussing all sorts of rumours & blame being assigned to Kösem following her death).

- Joanna

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 7

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, Saelhen and Looseleaf continued their scouring of the evil torture wizard's evil torture tower for clues as to the identity of the murderer terrorizing the towns of Barley and Wheat. They found a bunch of mysterious documents of ominous character, but they've yet to check out the tower's hidden basement- and the ne'er-do-well lurking within...

The basement doesn't immediately contain any horrors, unless you're the type to get the jibblies from a messy room. There's dirty dishes (recently used), empty beer bottles from a Zeishus Brewery, and discarded clothes everywhere. It's very lived-in, and whoever lives-in here doesn't seem like they were expecting visitors.

Saelhen takes a look at the desk nearest the stairs, next to a well-used recliner and a recently-extinguished candle. She gets a nat 20 on her Investigation, and finds that the desk has been rotated to face the wall, concealing a drawer that doesn't look like it's been opened in some time, judging by the cobwebs.

What's inside is mainly more of the sort of thing they found on the sixth floor- technical notes on neurology and pain magic. With the critical success, she's able to piece together that the odd numbers on the abrasive letter found upstairs were some sort of pain measurements the letter-writer was providing to Lumiere.

They also find a less academic, more personal note, expressing frustration with his own research.

"Why would the Burnscreamer's rituals require Abyssal? Even a god like him shouldn't have any connection to the demons- what is he playing at?" "If I could just correct the sigil, I could bypass so much of this nonsense..."

Saelhen then gets a nat 1 on her Religion roll to know what that means, and assumes the Burnscreamer is the frontman for a metal band her dad likes.

As they search the rest of the room, they notice- at the bottom of the central shaft- a circular basin in the stone floor. It's stained red, but it's dry- not as much blood as you'd expect to see given the carnage on the sixth floor, so it seems like it's been recently emptied or cleaned out.

Oyobi, meanwhile, checks the locked door by the stairs, and finds it... cold? I wonder what that means vis-a-vis-

The extremely sneaky +9 Stealth person hiding braced against the walls of the central shaft fucks up right about then, and slips a little, letting out an involuntary "Gh- shit!", alerting the party to his presence.

Saelhen tries to chase after this person by parkouring off those same walls, gets a 9, and faceplants in the blood basin, leaving the issue to the party member who has wings. As the hider flees through one of the doors in the shaft, Looseleaf uses her darkvision and 24 Investigation roll to pick out the right door and give chase.

(Meanwhile, the rest of the party heads up the stairs normally- and Saelhen orders Orluthe to bust down the front door, so they can go outside and catch anyone trying to escape by rappelling down the side of the building. This turns out to be unnecessary, because when Looseleaf detected that the front door was magic and assumed it was a trap, this was incorrect.)

Benedict I. (GM): ("who knows what kind of trap could be on this magic door? better go up and through the window into the room full of traps, instead") (i was laughing so hard) (it's just an automatic door!) Looseleaf: Honestly, the people in town oversold this place. They made it sound like such a deathtrap and really it was just a bunch of spiky bots. And knives. And comfy pillows. Benedict I. (GM): Well, when they were there, there was a living evil torture wizard actively trying to take them prisoner and torture them.

Looseleaf botches her Investigation roll to search the torture lab she emerges in, but... that doesn't stop her from just checking each and every possible hiding place one by one, manually. She alights upon the correct solution swiftly- checking inside the broken remains of the iron maiden.

bBenedict I. (GM): Anyway, Looseleaf, inside the corpse of the iron maiden, you find. A rather heavy man, performing a downright heroic feat of contortionism to suspend himself inside the door without getting impaled on the spikes. Arnie: "Uh." "Can you pretend you never saw me?" Looseleaf: "That depends on what you're doing here, I guess. Who are you and what are you doing here?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: oh that is a nervous man Arnie: "No one. Nothing. I'm, uh, supposed to be like, dead, probably." "So I'm not here." "Yeah?"

Arnie Zeishus is the deadbeat husband of Cassie, the innkeeper from Barley, who fled town a while back. He explains that after fleeing his responsibilities in Barley, he tried to set up shop in Wheat running a brewery, but got in trouble flouting the brewing regulations of the Ecumene of Harmony. So after getting arrested there and breaking out of prison, he decided to sneak into the torture wizard's tower and lay low as a squatter in the guy's basement. He figured he might get caught and tortured, but it couldn't be worse than what the townspeople wanted to do to him.

Except, as luck would have it, the torture wizard was already dead when he arrived! So he's been making a home of the place with Lumiere's old animated housekeepers, using the torture wizard's fearsome reputation as a way to keep anyone from tracking him down and making him do stuff like clean up a distillery explosion or pay child support or what have you.

On the other hand, someone has been sneaking around his tower doing something sinister on the sixth floor that results in blood pouring down into the basin periodically, and he's stressed out of his mind wondering who the hell is doing that and how he's supposed to avoid getting caught and/or killed by them.

(He notes that the "KEEP SHOUTING" sign was his attempt to get intruders to at least give themselves away by making noise, after they were clearly ignoring the "KEEP OUT" sign he put up.)

Looseleaf also takes the time to ask if Arnie here knows anything about someone named Choss.

Arnie: He looks surprised. "You know Choss?" Looseleaf: "Let's say that Choss is a figure of importance in this investigation." "Anything you could tell us about how they arrived in town and what they did in town would be appreciated." Arnie: He shrugs. "Choss was there before I was- she's a real weirdo." "Knows how to party, but- gotta say, her stuff's a little too strong for me." "A crazy high at first, but it gets- whoof, intense." Looseleaf: "She's an apothecary of some kind?" Arnie: He laughs. "You could say that. She's got herself a little drug lab in town, always smells like burning. Don't know how she gets away with it- some of that stuff's gotta be illegal." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And how old is she, approximately?" Arnie: "Eh? She's- hard to tell with lizardfolk, s'not like you can read the wrinkles..." Looseleaf: Ah, of course. Lizardfolk. Saelhen du Fishercrown: yep Arnie: "Seems youngish, though? Party girl through and through." "Just, uh, if she offers you a blend, don't take it unless you're ready to spend the next hour feelin' like fire ants are chewin' their way out of your skin." He shudders a little. Looseleaf: "Hm. Sounds painful." Arnie: "You have no idea," he laughs.

They also inquire about the locked freezer room- and why Arnie would hide out here, in dangerous torture tower, rather than just running off to a city, which is a little weird that he didn't do. Arnie claims there's just groceries in there, and no stolen wine bottles whatsoever, he certainly isn't a thief and he definitely hasn't been lying low out here because if he goes to a city some old pals from Thunderbrush might find him and want him dead, no sir! He would never ever commit a crime, ["wink wink" in hand-signed Thieves' Cant].

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Of course. I can't imagine we have any thieves here." [Nudge nudge.] Looseleaf: "In the meantime, Mr. Zeishus, you mentioned having done something that.. makes going anywhere where you might meet someone from Thunderbrush a dangerous thing?" Arnie: He fidgets. "Uh, well..." "I, I try to leave all that behind me." "You just... don't want to get involved with the ghost dryad mafia. Just a tip."

He drops a little bit of exposition about something that may be coming up- apparently, Thunderbrush used to have these huge skyscraper-sized trees, but they got chopped down in some sort of war or raid a while back, and now the Stumps are ruled by the necromancer ghost dryads of those trees who used the last vestiges of their power to cheat death. Apparently Arnie was strongarmed into doing crimes for various ghost dryad mafiosos and made too many enemies, so he fled to Barley to shake the heat.

Looseleaf also comes to a realization regarding some hints dropped earlier in the townsfolks' tragic backstories:

Looseleaf: (actually, wait, i just realized: choss is probably chitch's daughter, the timelines there line up perfectly and maybe this whole dragonborn business is a total red herring we invented for ourselves) (what the shit, lumiere, you kidnap a guy's daughter and raise them as your own child? that's fucked.)

Looseleaf occupies this Arnie guy by interrogating him about these things, while Saelhen slips downstairs to try to pick the lock to the freezer room.

Eventually, after a bunch of failed rolls and more small talk from Looseleaf to keep Arnie occupied, Saelhen pops open the lock. Inside, she finds a fairly large and frigid room. There are meathooks hanging from the ceiling, empty. There are shelves lining the edges full of frozen food.

And to her right, there's another door- this one out of place with the rest of the construction, made of a strange stone shot through with rivulets of glowing orange. There's a symbol on a stone circle embedded in the door:

Before she checks that out, though, she checks the darkened back of the room- which contains some tubs filled with ice.

And those tubs have corpses in them, with the four-pointed wounds.

It is not especially likely that Arnie had no idea these were here, in a room he claims to use to store groceries and has the key to.

Looseleaf, meanwhile, attempts to read Arnie's spirit to determine his alignment and general intentions. His Deception beats her Insight, but what she does manage to get is...

Arnie is afraid. He is filled to bursting with terror and desperation more intense than you've ever felt from anyone before. And the fear does not seem directed at you.

Meanwhile, Saelhen tries to get that door open. What's the deal with that thing, huh? There's no handle, so... she has the bright idea of slapping her mysterious god icon bracer (the one that when previously slapped against a magic thing opened a pit to infinite bats) against it, see what happens. And I get very excited, because ohohoho, I didn't expect that, I had to think through the ramifications of doing that, and...

...then I work through those ramifications, and what I realize is that, as far as the players would know, the end result is just that the door slides open, and nothing else of note occurs.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Why am I even here I just wanted to help a nice little girl show up her dipshit inquisitor mom now I'm in a pain room investigating pain machines..." Looseleaf: (looseleaf warned you about getting involved in the case, she warned you dog)

There's also a bunch of weird machines, and more of Lumiere's notes, which Saelhen goes and nabs as many of as she can. Then she beats feet immediately, not wanting to spend any longer than necessary in the hell lab. The problem is, she doesn't want to leave any sign she was in there, so...

Saelhen du Fishercrown: Does tapping the exposed bit of stone with the bracer again close the secret hell door? Benedict I. (GM): Nope. Saelhen du Fishercrown: hmm. poking it with her finger? Benedict I. (GM): Ouch. Nope. Saelhen du Fishercrown: physically pulling the stone upwards while muttering "fuck fuck fuck ow ow ow"? Benedict I. (GM): Oh, hm, yeah, that would work. At first there's no effect, but as you continue to pull and the pain gets worse and worse... Roll me a Constitution save. Saelhen du Fishercrown: 16 CONSTITUTION SAVE (3) Benedict I. (GM): That'll do it! Your pain feeds the door, and, satisfied, the mouth closes. Looseleaf: How extremely concerning!

Cool!

So Saelhen goes back upstairs, the party secretly confers and exchanges information, and... something has to be done about Arnie.

His expression changes, suddenly.

Arnie: "You don't know what you're talking about." "This doesn't have to happen."

Looseleaf continues to try to offer help to this guy, inferring that he's being forced to do someone else's dirty work. She rolls a 20 on Persuasion! So... what happens following them cornering and exposing the culprit is not the rolling of initiative. Still, though...

Arnie: Arnie... backs up a step. "You're morons." "You have no idea." "You're talking like you can help me?" "That's impossible. No one can help me." "I- I'm fucking cursed, dammit!" Looseleaf: is he? i have magic sense, he is clearly not actually magically cursed, right Arnie: "What are you clowns going to do about it? Nothing!" "What are you going to do, kill a dragon?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You are entangled here. If Looseleaf says so, then I trust her intuition and her investigative prowess. This doesn't necessarily mean you're entangled in such a way that there is no way out for you." Saelhen shrugs. "Theoretically, the device on my arm is responsible for drowning a small city in vampiric monsters from beyond the stars. And yet there was a way out of that, and a genuine silver lining into the bargain." "I want you to understand that I am absolutely sincere when I say: There is always a way out." Arnie: "That's- there's no way! There's only one way out!" "He'll free me from the curse if I do what he says, and that's the only way!" Looseleaf: ...That is not how dragon-curses work at all. Benedict I. (GM): Not as far as you're aware, no. Doesn't seem like anyone's told Arnie.

They continue to try to convince him that there's hope, that he doesn't need to do what the dragon says, that they can help him. And Arnie just keeps pushing back, refusing to acknowledge any of it, weeping and shouting and doing whatever he can to avoid believing that he didn't have to do any of that, that there was any other way- because if there was, he'd be a monster, right?

Meanwhile, Vayen... is standing a ways away and staring at them all, as usual... but this time, he's smiling. No one here has ever seen Vayen smile before. He looks like his birthday came early. And as they're on the verge of a breakthrough...

Arnie: "Fucking- you don't think I know that?" "I know that! I know he's manipulating me!" "But what else do I do?" Vayen: "You could kill yourself," Vayen suggests. Looseleaf: "Vayen what the FUCK?" Arnie: "What the fuck- shut up, asshole!" "I'm not dying! Not here, not nowhere!" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...Vayen, you are placing a remarkable number of ticks in the 'leave you at the side of the road' column." Vayen: Vayen shrugs. "It's the most reliable way to neutralize a dragon's curse." "It's the sensible thing to do, if you don't want to cause collateral damage."

It's as though he deliberately picked the one thing to say to ensure that this argument would keep happening, and not reach a friendly resolution. The hell is his problem?

Still, the party keeps trying to talk this guy down.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And -- Arnie, surely you don't think the dragon would hunt you down? Dragons don't go out of their way to punish us; they just use us to accomplish whatever it is they're planning. He'll make it someone else's problem." "I know the type. Arnie, it wouldn't care enough to hunt you down. What seems like a personal connection, like it caring about you -- if it tries that at all -- it's just an implement. It's a way of getting you to do what it wants. Go to ground effectively, and it won't bother to spare the effort." Arnie: "What are you, talking like some kinda dragonologist? The hell do you know about dragons?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...I am not a dragonologist, no," admits Saelhen. Looseleaf: "...Are you a dragonologist?" Arnie: "Of course it could hunt me down! Damn thing's got magic items out the ass and it flies faster than I can run!" "As soon as it saw me going somewhere it didn't tell me to, I'd get turned into a midnight snack!" "And then I go to ground, and the curse kicks in, and I end up dead or worse anyway. Sounds great." "Or, I stay here, gut a few self-righteous fucks who treated me like dirt for a while, and maybe the thing keeps its end of the bargain and lets me go!"

Yeah, that's a confession, and like, not one that makes him look great. Still, given this guy's weirdly high rolls on physical stuff, and his apparent aptitude for murdering people, they're not super sure they want to fight this guy- on top of just, not exactly wanting to fight this guy.

What are they going to do? They have to come up with a plan- and their plan has to take less than three weeks to pull off, since Arnie only has six corpses left in the bathtubs, and the dragon wants two corpses a week to prove he's still doing the job.

(And is it even worth going to all that trouble just to protect this guy from the consequences of his actions?)

Next time: a plan is hatched, and the party gets back on the road.

[systlin]

It was some six weeks after her last sight of her Johnathan in the well when Arabella met the Lady in Blue.

She had returned to their home in the country, and had taken up her place as the lady of the house as if nothing had happened. Of course, there was much gossip around the recent happenings and the apparent return of magic, but the few times her maid boldly broached the subject of Mr. Strange, Arabella quite firmly told her that Mr. Strange was away for some time, but was well, and would return when he was able.

She tried to immerse herself back into the world of the gentle lady; she truely did. But after pillars of darkness and women who’d returned from death with a curse laid on them, after dances in faerie and gentlemen with hair like thistledown, it was...trying.

She found herself lingering in Johnathan’s library, looking over his bookshelves. There was little left in the way of magical tomes on them, but there were a few dense, dry books on the history of magic left, and she found herself sitting down to puzzle over them. It was difficult going; the writing was dreadfully dense and obscure, and she found little of interest in them.

But she persisted, even as tales of children working magic they read in twigs and people working spells that came as natural as breathing were told breathlessly by the servants. She remembered, though, Johnathan speaking excitedly of this ritual or that, and when she at last found a mention of a spell...one to light a candle, a trifle, really...in one of the books, she eyed the candles waiting on the reading table thoughtfully.

At last, hesitantly, she spoke the words. Nothing happened.

“That’s all nonsense, you know.” The voice was cordial, friendly. And utterly unfamiliar.

Arabella spun, snapping the book closed. At Johnathan’s desk, where he’d spent long hours writing, was a woman. A very queer woman.

She was tall, long of leg and arm, with a great tumble of auburn hair caught back in a simple braid. She was wearing a blue dress, a plain blue woolen dress with slits up either side to the hip. Arabella could see this, because the woman was leaning back in the chair with her feet up on Johnathan’s desk, ankles crossed. Under the dress were leather trousers, and plain leather boots, the sort a laborer might wear. They looked well worn.

She was looking at Arabella, rather bemusedly. Her skin was fair and freckled, and there was a long staff leaning against the desk next to her. Strange things that might be letters were carved into it, and stained red. Her eyes were very blue.

“Excuse me!” Arabella fumbled for the bell to summon the servants. “Excuse me, but how did you get in here?”

A wide smile, amused. “I go where I like. All ways open for me if I wish them to. And don’t be afraid. I’m not here to harm you. I am here to help you.”

“Who are you?” Arabella stood, moving towards the fireplace. There was a poker there, good and sturdy.

“Well now. Names are a powerful thing, and I don’t think you’ve earned mine just yet, Arabella.” The woman did not seem concerned as Arabella grabbed the poker. “But if you do not wish your Johnathan back, I will go, and not trouble you again.”

Arabella did not set down the poker. “I’ll make no bargains with you.”

“A wise course of action, were I a fairies. But I am not.” She produced a knife, seemingly from nowhere, and pressed it against the ball of her thumb until blood welled. “See? I bleed red, as do you. I am as human as you.”

Arabella did not move. “Why are you here?”

“I told you. To help you to get your fool of a husband back.”

Arabella did move at that. She straightened in indignation, spine ramrod straight, and lifted her chin. “My husband is a magician, good lady, and has served this nation in war...”

“Yes, he has, and he’s also a fool.” The lady in blue dropped her feet to the floor and stood. She was taller than Arabella by a good margin, and she slid the knife away into a sheath at her belt with the ease of long practice. “But he is a lucky fool. My lord has decided that he should be aided, and so here I am.”

Arabella’s eyes dropped. The sheath of the knife was decorated with black feathers, and more of those strange, sharp maybe-letters. There was another black feather tucked into the end of the woman’s braid.

Black feathers. Raven feathers.

She lowered the poker a bit. “Your lord? You serve the Raven King?”

She was taken aback by the response. The woman in blue threw back her head and laughed, laughed as if Arabella had just told the most delightful joke in the world. Laughed until she gasped, and wiped a tear from her eye.

“The Raven King? Oh, no. I don’t serve Uskglass. I serve the one that Uskglass learned from, same as he does. Uskglass is working some part of the great plan, same as me. We would be more...how would you put it these days...a colleague of Uskglass, you could call me. An acquaintance.”

“You know the Raven King?”

“Of course.”

“My Johnathan would love to meet you, he was always fascinated by the old stories.”

“Oh, he has. And they refused my aid, the silly twits, because they did not trust a sorceress. Had thoughts about a woman’s place, even your dear Johnathan. Thought me a faerie out to trick them. I knew they would, but I had to attempt it anyway. Anyway.” A nod at the book Arabella still held. “Those are useless, unless you want to use the pacts made by another, and even if you do wish to settle for a lesser power, you don’t need all that nonsense. A true magician makes their own pacts, and weaves their own spells.”

“Pacts?” Arabella finally set the poker aside, fascinated despite herself. It occurred dimly to her that the servants ought to be here by now, but it did not surprise her that they were not.

“The bond with the spirits that lets magic work. Magicians for centuries in this land have been using those made by Uskglass. None of them bothered to make their own.”

So easily said, it was. Knowledge that two centuries worth of magicians would have killed and died for, tossed out with the casual sort of air one would use to dismiss a servant.

“Lazy, it is.” The woman in blue shook her head. “But then, I suspect it suited Uskglass to have the magicians of his kingdom bound to him so, and having to rely on fae servants rather than their own power. It’s a clever move. Our lord would approve.” She looked at Arabella, in the eye, direct as an arrow. “So then. Do you wish to learn?”

“Excuse me?” Arabella said faintly. “Learn what?”

“Sorcery, of course. True sorcery, such as your fool of a husband has only dreamed.”

[morethanaprincess-a]

@cadcnce​ said: “Give me two… okay, maybe I need more than a few seconds but it’ll just take me a moment.” Wylan regards his spelunking companion with a beaming and cocky smirk before hopping onto some convenient branches nearby. A moment to judge the height of the wall is taken before he vaults rather deftly over the top. There’s the sound of him hitting the ground with a rolling *thud*, a small cackle of success, and then steps to bring him back to the gate.

When Sonia sees him again he’s only a bit roughed up on the coat, but flourishing his hands like he’s ready for some silent applause. Regardless of whether he would get what he so frequently sought, he drops his hands to fiddle with something by the base of the gate column. A beat after he stops comes the creak of the lock giving way, allowing the man to yank the iron metalwork open allowing simple access to the condemned and long abandoned hospital.

Wylan ushers Sonia inside much like a butler, a hand over his chest and a bow of his head that lasts long enough for her to enter and start her way to the doors before he hops in place and dancing steps bring him to pace with her.

“You said you wanted something creepy. Well, here’s this place! I don’t have any idea what kind of shit we’ll find in here. Corpses? Hobos? Zombies? A leprechaun? Funyarinpa themselves? Only one way to find out.” He flashes her a devilish grin as he clicks on his flashlight.

Unprompted asks: Accepting!

It was the sort of place she’d never get away with visiting during daylight. But as soon as her work was completed for the day, Sonia had left her sheath dresses and heels behind for her black tactical gear, though she’d left the bulletproof vest at home. She’d thought about bringing it as she braided her hair back, but then decided against it. It was a surprise, not a war. All she’d been instructed to do was dress comfortably, something she could get dirty in.

So she waited patiently, her combat boots digging into the wet earth below them. It had rained recently, and from the dilapidation from the outer gates alone, the princess had a feeling whatever they were meant to keep out was in equal disarray. “Please be careful!” She called, as loud as she could manage without her voice carrying too far. It would be a problem if they were caught trespassing. He might be able to get out of it, but she’d have a harder time convincing the authorities not to get the Castle involved. She sighed gently when he reappeared, not looking too worse for wear. It had been quite high and if he’d landed wrong, he could’ve been seriously hurt.

“What is this place?” She asked, voicing her thoughts when she’d intended to keep them quiet. Her curious eyes looked from the dead trees to the overgrown weeds that had reclaimed an iron set of chairs and an outdoor table for nature’s own. It looked, well, almost recreational in a way, save for the pleasant chill it sent down her spine. She smiled: there had been life here before, and now it was deserted, desolate, with plenty of stories to tell if only someone would uncover them. He might have wanted applause, but she was far too distracted, too busy putting the pieces together in her mind as they approached the doors and he answered her inquiry for her.

“This is...this is an abandoned hospital of some sort!” She beamed, an attitude far too bright, too enthusiastic, entirely too happy to be taken to a place that if she fell, she’d likely need a tetanus shot. Or possibly a priest. “Oh, it looks as if it’s been abandoned for decades! Look, see how the weeds and mold have set in? And no one’s repaired the broken glass or the brown stains on it...” She’d stayed by his side until then, but as soon as they approached the double doors Sonia went on ahead, gloved hands pressed against the window hoping to clear some of the dirt and dust away to see inside. “This reminds me of the abandoned mental hospital I visited in Poveglia! Victims died of plague there, you know. I went with University friends a few years ago, though one of them remained in hospital until an expert from the Vatican was called. I wasn’t permitted to know more than that, unfortunately.”

Inside, she could already see the remains of a treatment room: fungus growing out of the split-open chair and dusty cabinets, still closed it seemed from the last time procedures were being performed. She grinned, pushing away from the soiled glass before returning to his side. “I wish you would have provided a bit more detail,” She continued, now a bit wistful. “This would be an ideal location for a ritual, or even the usage of a spirit board. There certainly must be spirits lingering with unfinished business, or even something more sinister.” Corpses and zombies? Sure, Sonia wouldn’t say no to that. But a chance to connect with the undead, the spirits and demons who were rumored to infest places just like this, looking for the living to share their stories and possibly their bodies? That was far more of a tantalizing prospect for Sonia Nevermind.

She might be the future Queen of Novoselic, but even she couldn’t completely ignore her hobbies. The bigger question was: was this an ordinary hospital closed due to finance troubles, or did something truly horrifying cause it to shut down? 

[tessatechaitea]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E8: "The Battle"

Depending on who you ask, the United States public school system is a huge waste of time, a factory to teach kids how to live life as factory workers, free daycare, a temple to learning, or a place to socialize future citizens. But I know what it really is and it's less cynical than you might expect from me. Sure, I could have been super jaded about the public school system but I was lucky and went to a Satanic elementary school (if you're curious, just search the blog for "Haman" or "Satanic elementary school" or "AC/DC"), so I had a love of learning about the Devil from an early age. Anyway, I believe the public school system (and while I can only truly speak to the United States' version, I'm going to assume it's very much the same concept across other nations and cultures) was the easiest solution to keeping civilization advancing. That probably sounds obvious and you're already in the comment section typing up responses such as "Like, DOI!" and "What a stunning reveleation /sarcasm" and "ur trash 1v1 me". (Believe me, the only correct way to end that sentence was with the punctuation outside of the quotes.) Listen, I get it! It's a simple concept! But in our modern times when it seems like half of the country thinks education corrupts the youth (which, if you went to Haman Elementary in Santa Clara, California, it certainly fucking did. Long live my Lord and Master!), sometimes simple truths need to be beat like a living horse (that's what the phrase "No use in beating a dead horse" means, right? It means there is use in beating a living horse and we should beat them more. Right?). Or did I mean beat like a drum? You know what? Sometimes I wish I learned more than ritual summonings and secret hand gestures. What I'm trying to say and which I won't make any clearer with this next statement is that the public school system was the best version of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. In this analogy, "shit" is "knowledge" and "wall" is "children." Because the only way to advance civilization and continue to make things better for everybody is to make sure young people are caught up on the story. Sure, a lot of them (and I should probably say "a lot of us" because look at me as an adult: writing a blog about comic books and Star Trek) won't take up the torch to help advance civilization. But that's the thing. You don't know which kid is going to make the connections to establish the next thing that helps civilization mature. At the very least, you know that if you don't throw shit at children, they're never going to have the opportunity to understand exactly where they are in civilization's timeline and how they can make it better going forward. Also, can we sometimes just throw real shit at children because now that idea is in my head and it's not going anywhere? If we break this system, we are accepting eventual stagnation and a probable decline in the overall levels of satisfaction with life. And as we can see in our modern times, a growing percentage of unimaginative dullards don't fucking care about progress. Education teaches their kids that their parents were unimaginative dullards and so those unimaginative dullards would rather destroy the educational system than maybe look inward and try not to be an unimaginative dullard. And let's not forget about the people who want to destroy the system simply because it uplifts everybody and not just the people who look like they do. Obviously the public school system doesn't present enough material to create an adult that will truly help drive humanity's balls through civilization's goalposts (help me. I think I have some kind of sickness that makes me speak in analogies, sort of like Lyme Disease but if I were bitten by a conservative talking head). The public school system is just to fire the curiosity of the children so they'll strive to become more educated on their own. And at one time, college was the perfect way to specialize and really get in-depth on the things which really held the child's interest. But, once again, a certain section of the population viewed higher education as a slippery slope to being a decent person and so they've demonized it. One way to make a higher education less possible was to make it less affordable. Although making college less accessible was probably a backlash to college students protesting the government's participation in certain wars which made the government say, "Where are we going to get all the young dead people we'll need for future wars? I mean, they'll only be dead after! We're not into necromancy. Not everybody went to Haman Elementary." Free or affordable college just gives less privileged young people more options than the ones people who don't want things to change want them to have. After all, job providers aren't really as good at providing jobs as they seem to want everybody to think they are. So they need a system which forces people into debt, or convinces them to saddle themselves with a huge mortgage, or hypnotizes them into thinking children are great things to have in their lives so that they'll always need the shitty job they have to pay for their tiny sentient wells where money is thrown. I wish I was more coherent and less digressive than I am so I could get my point across. But this sometimes happens after I've read two or three comic books by Ann Nocenti. Let me just take a moment to cleanse my aura and I'll try to be more succinct. "Master Satan, please direct my aggression and blood lust into a fine focal point as sharp as the tip of the Lance of Longinus so that I may do your bidding to corrupt His lost lambs and bring them to the beastly reality of this cum-stained world. Thank you my Father. I count the days until I will be welcomed into your embrace of unholy fornication." In summation, education can only be attained by stacking one block upon the other. You need a system which both teaches the basics of how we got to where we are and also weeds out those that don't fucking give a shit about climbing the pyramid of blocks that's already there to add more to the top. Some people are meant to simply take care of the foundational blocks. Some people will climb partway up and improve the blocks in the middle. But you need a system to find the people who will craft the blocks for the future top of the pyramid. And as an added benefit, the higher one climbs, the better a person they generally become. Sure, you still have many climbers who only see profit in the journey. But some of them do their part as well (granted, not a lot of them. Most of them just want to find a way to keep all the blocks for themselves and establish a toll gate halfway up the pyramid and then convince everybody that the toll gate has always been there and it was never a free climb at all). And you also have people who consider the education gained as a simple corruption of the soul. But fuck those people. They pretend the pyramid doesn't even exist and only want to tear it down anyway. Now imagine how big this pyramid must be in the 24th Century! It's so big that it allows people to pursue whatever they want to pursue without being shackled to a daily grind just to pay bills. Fucking imagine that, right?! A civilization so prosperous and educated about the nature of reality that nobody in the system feels compelled to force other people to throw their lives away so those people can earn somebody else another buck. What a healthy civilization! Now imagine that civilization butting heads with our 21st Century reality. Imagine how much we'd despise those 24th Century bastards! Don't they care about making another buck?! What are they thinking?! I bet it would end up in a battle just like "The Battle" in this episode! Yes, we are the Ferengi. And, yes, I'm probably not going to say much about this episode. Picard gets mind-controlled by capitalism and almost destroys socialism. But he doesn't and the Ferengi learn a lesson about greed sometimes being bad which is a really hard lesson for them to swallow due to their big ears (because when they swallow I imagine their ears pop a lot?). The main thing I learned from this episode is that every great starship captain in the Federation has a tactical maneuver named after them. If you haven't come up with a new innovation for space battles, you're a piece of shit not worthy to captain a Starfleet vessel. And that's all I have to say about that.

[indomitablemegnolia]

It was edging onto the noon hour, eleven-thirty-six am to be exact, but you couldn’t tell by the light of the sun; Gods, it was as if Fenrir the wolf had jumped out of a Norse legend into the sky to swallow the sun; I had already been at the airport for five and a half hours; my red eye was cancelled, and I had been bounced from gate to gate to gate, to wait to wait to wait, only to be told nothing was happening; they always stressed the word yet, but what they really meant was, ever. It was really not a huge surprise, I had watched the weather report while listening to my neighbor get lucky; the animal noises and obvious gymnastics required to make such a ruckus would have left me exhausted for weeks, but here they go again, well, at least someone is getting some. I was surprised there wasn’t cracks and holes in which to watch in that shoddy, tiny, airport motel room, just barely a step above an S.R.O., but it was a bed and damn I was tired this was a trip doomed from the word go, giving me little glimpses of the movie ‘Fight Club’ after the first hour of meetings, suddenly I was Jack’s complete lack of surprise.  My agenda, my plan… my hope, now dead, dead as dreams, it began full of such potential; that was zapped away within seconds, so why should it end any easier, really? What did I expect traveling to a place called Port Chester, New York? God, it sounds like the setting for a soap opera, but truly, in retrospect more like an episode of supernatural, including a vengeful spirit.

Speaking of vengeful spirits, the dark icy clouds encased the airport in a swaddle of gloom, like the foreboding storm from poltergeist; anyone who can read the sky could see that the weather was only going to get worse. Those dark clouds only served as an ominous warning, a foreboding that should have come as a warning, or possibly in the form of a question. getting blacker, rain already turning to solid ice as it fell from the heavens; Shangri-La this was not, it had congealed into a complete and total ice storm.  Usually, storms brought a certain sort of odd comfort to me, though today, not so much; most likely due to the fact I was so far from my home; as if cued perfectly on time the song ‘Can’t find my way home’ played in my ears. I choked on my snarky laugh as I trudged to my next expected gate, lamenting the fact that I felt nine hundred and ninety years old today. No matter what direction I looked I saw that long dark sky had the look of hard wet sleeting ice in the nearness of the future. I wish I was home with a tall cuppa joe and a nice big book on my lap, with some good soft music cuddling me under a heavy blanket. Turning the corner that I wish could have been to my kitchen with its pretty little red potholders. I stop short, before me sat the largest conglomeration of unhappy people I ever remember encountering, all of them choosing seats at or near the ticket agents booth; the far wall and its bank of windows showing a clear view of a very Poe dark and dreary as well as the show inside, was beautifully vacant. I walk amongst the revelers, noticing the complete discontent on every face I passed.

Oh, the universe had such a sense of humour, didn’t it? I shake my head, suddenly I felt I needed a drink; nah, maybe I just needed a lot of life insurance; god, I knew I needed a vacation; or maybe I needed a home in the country; or more than likely a full once over by a qualified psychiatrist; though mostly I needed to figure out where this Phillip Marlow-esque monologue was coming from, but on second thought that drink sounded lovely. I snickered to myself, the morning I was leaving Mom and I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying our morning coffee, or so I had thought; as with all morning rituals there was a vast amount of time allotted for silent contemplation staring into that vast unknown.

“What’s wrong?” Mom had asked, worry evident on her face.

Taken aback, I snickered, possibly the coldest most patronizing snicker I had ever snickered; as if the woes of the world and the things that weighed on my mind could be delineated down to utterable words, instead of answering I shrugged, “nothing really, why?” I tried to sound light and unbothered.

Mom huffed, “I don’t know, you look like something is bothering you,” she took a huffing breath, “actually you look like you are seriously contemplating smoking or becoming an alcoholic.”

Damn, she just dropped that in my lap, I laughed a real laugh, “It’s not that it hasn’t crossed my mind,” I took a drag, “To tell you, yes, of late I have partaken of much more libation than I ever have before, but you know exactly how limp my lungs are, too limp for smoking and I don’t quite have the intestinal fortitude to become a full-fledged alcoholic, I think you actually need a stomach to tie a good one on. So, no worries mom, it is just the world today and the way it’s working that just bugs the hell out of me.” Good god, am I that easy to read? Good times, right?  “I am just tired of the feeling of a nine thousand gorilla standing on my neck.”

She reached over patting my hand… Ah, mom she always had the ability to knock me sideways, but then make it all ok.  I pulled my fakieciggy out, (an e-cigarette that had long since been empty of all nicotine, but still had the light flavour of vanilla; hell, it lights up; the motion alone was as satisfying in form and function. Taking the time to sigh, reset my Qi, was enough, really, just an idiosyncratic mnemonic device.) put it to my lips and took a long drag; “Freaking bat country.” I mumbled under my breath, batting at the invisible bats, wishing to hell I had my flask, but there was no way I was going to try to take that through TSA, hell they were already way too frisky for my tastes. Really, I am a two-date minimum to get to second base kind of girl; who the hell was I kidding, my threshold was much wider for the whole idea of bases, I really was tempted to yell, RAPE! So, I had to make due with what I had. What I had was a coat, a hat, and a gun; oh, god I wish; what I really had was a headache, my huge black messenger bag, my oversized dark purple purse that served as a computer bag, my WWI aviator cap, a Pea coat and my knee-length waterproof leather boots. I saw a seat near the window, with a perfect reflection of the passersby, so, I pulled my sweater sleeves up over my elbow and went out to stake my claim, sadly sober as a judge.

Taking a people watching post, sitting in the fourth seat in, perching on the edge of the chair, I push my messenger bag and purse under my chair, lay my coat across my lap, leaning my shoulder into the back of the chair, I watch.  I watched the rapacious soul eating mob move and ebb and flow as they would. Rock Hudson and Doris Day style husbands and wives in deep serious whispered fights, staring daggers at each other; a Calvin and Hobbes, pair of college students mumbling amongst themselves whether or not they had asked anyone to feed their bong water fish, which I highly doubted that the fish was ever alive; Mothers with children looking like the perfect advertisement for birth control, faces bleak, eyes sallow, looking at the world with a ‘someone kill me now’ appeal, my heart ached for them. Then like a ray of light a tiny toddling head went past, not screaming, not crying, he toddled on, chasing a large red and white ball. His tresses shorn close on the sides, the middle left long, his tiny Native American feet trotting to a mix of a babies walk and a fancy dance in his borrowed handmade mucklucks, like a Sherman Alexie character brought to life; he chased that ball, hunkering in the fashion that only a beautiful child can, accidentally nudging the ball, chasing and hunkering again.  His simple, beautiful, innocence was unmistakable, I wish I could capture that image to hold on to forever, but like anything and everything miraculous, possibly once in a life time, it could only be seen, witnessed, never captured for reproduction, no picture can be taken, no beckoning for others to see.  I watched him play, until mom noticed how far he had traveled, she motioned for him to come back, with a shriek of a laugh he finally captured the ball, it balanced awkward in his tiny hands as he scampered back to mom, I reveled in his beauty for as long as I could.

A shadow passed, a series of people walked into my vision, I watched a very rich woman, head to toe designer gear; from diamonds to Manolo’s, the cheapest thing on her could have been the down payment on a home, basically Marie Antionette circa 2017. I don’t know why, but I liked her, she was blonde; in fact, she was a blonde, to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window, you know the type, beautiful, petite with a touch of sad, the kind you know any of fifty men would commit a felony for, start a war for, but she was not the kind that could eat people alive, her money was new and she wore it like a crown. Sadly, there she was trying almost desperately to gain the attention of her Louis XIV, his must be very new money, there is a comfort that comes from old money that he utterly lacks, with old money there is nothing really to prove; this man wore his wealth, including his wife, as if it were a status symbol requirement, his BMW keyring dangling from his Burberry coat pocket, his hands soft, totally without callouses, nails perfectly manicured, his hair coiffed with gallons of product; by all counts he was a useless man. Despite Marie’s attempts for his attention, it was focused like a laser on his newest game, he chased a bedazzlingly big busted, slim-fit skirt, again you know the type all tits and flash. I saw Drusilla, Louis’s game, meet his chase; she was also blonde, not nearly as pretty; she reeked of five thousand an ounce perfume, cheap sex in a motel room, and cigarettes, it all came along with a none too subtle ‘I would suck your dick just to kill time’ look about her, but her attitude left way too much to be desired. She must have felt my eyes watching them, she gave me a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of my back.  I watched the movements of these people, friends worse than enemies; lovers as adversaries; families at war and at peace; and lonesome strangers all lost in this Dante’s inferno morass, helpless, stuck, stranded.  In this place, full of people there was only about a handful of humans.  Poor Marie, she doesn’t know that down mean streets, on these streets a person must travel; a human who is not themselves mean, but can be; who must be neither tarnished nor afraid; they must be the hero in this story. She must have been looking for a man whose lips tasted of faerie tales, and mistook the frog for the prince.  Oh, but she is a peach, there may yet be hope for her, they walked on.  Then as ships pass in the distance my eyes moved from them to another.

This other; this long, tall, dark cloud drifted past stealing my vision; he was head and shoulders taller than Louis; he walked to the agent desk, handing the agent his ticket, there was something about him that usurped every atom of air around me. His dark licorice coloured, supple leather jacket hugged him tightly, dark wash jeans detailed the rest, tight enough to highlight the merchandise, but loose enough to leave bits and pieces for the imagination; Goddamn, taking in the entirety of his goliath frame was breathtaking, my god, he was lovely. The desk agent said something and motioned for him to find a seat; he spun deliciously on his heel, with ceremonious attitude reserved for royalty; he walked away, sliding his sunglasses down to rest on his nose.  He moved like water, luscious, cool, delicious water flowing over smooth stones; I literally leaned foreword and watched that walk, it was magnificent. God, he was about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake; no reverse that he was the angel wings on devil’s food; he was like a prowling lone wolf looking… for what? I am not sure, but the way he moved over the crowd, not through it, it was almost enrapturing. I mean, look at me, I was amongst these adders, trying to make my presence small, wanting literally to disappear, but I felt their lies and hate sticking to me like hot molasses, but him, he, seemed to be coated with a repellent, a Teflon, not a thing stuck to him.

He was as honest as you can expect a man to be in this world where it was going fast out of style. Not only did he move above them and through them without a spot of tarnish, he walked with that sultry panache. He was a complete man, very complete, my eyes slid to the lightly bagging rear pockets; they showed enough definition, but not the detail; good god I can’t believe my mind went there; he was a common man, although, there was not a thing common about him, he was as unusual a man as could ever be found. He, to use a rather weathered phrase, an unutterable phrase, was a man of honor. Possibly, by a natural instinct, look at those shoulders he could support the world; maybe by inevitability, by the sheer thought that someone had to be so he was more than happy to pick up the mantle, without thought of it, and certainly without ever saying it; or maybe he wasn’t, I was none too sure about my instincts these days. Oh, but the delicious stride of his foot sure and while in his gaze no man faltered, even Louis straightened his head when this wolf was on prowl. He seemed a man whose story was a manly adventure in search of a hidden truth, oh and goddam by the looks of him he was fit for adventure; oh, to be part of that adventure. Christ, my mind and oddly enough my body reacted to the idea of what kinds of adventure he would be up for.  It would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure, and I have had enough of those not fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in… he was the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world; he would be something of a marvel in every world. No, no, he probably wasn’t, look at me running wild with a though; he was probably just a man who dressed a part, stuck in an airport, with a walk… I let him slowly move from my sight, he was already driving me to distraction.

I look out on the desolate grey landscape, the ice creeping up the window panes; maybe it was Marie, maybe it was that godly walk, maybe I was in mourning for the loss of his visage or just the self-destructive nature of the human condition, but it was something that not even those chubby little hands clutching at that giant rubble ball could chase away; I don’t know what or why, and frankly I don’t really care, it just was; I suddenly feel ages, years heaping onto my shoulders. To lean heavily of Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, mostly it was just times; really it always does seem like we are on the edge of evolutions end; though always like on the TV shows the countdown stops at 1, although this time is feels to be on negative numbers. I remember not too long ago, it seemed we were in an age of wisdom of invention and growth; now it is an age of foolishness, it is the epoch of disbelief, it is the epoch of incredulity; I miss the season of Light, for this is a damn season of Darkness, from which it seems there will never again be a spring, no hope, it is a winter of discontent, of despair. I remember the last day when we still had everything before us, though now in retrospect we really had nothing before us, we thought we were all going directly to heaven or maybe we were already there, we are all actually in a freefall directly the other way. I look at my world and succumb to the dark, dreary letting the weary days soak my soul. The world floods my brain, once upon a time not actually all that long ago.  

Oh, it was the leanest of times, those times where those I love sat before my eyes and macabrely joke about which of us will be the first we all should eat; obviously my brother as his meat would be soft and sweet and succulent; you know, those jokes that bring a forced laugh, for fear that if we didn’t laugh we would have to run in terror from the reality of these thoughts; in those horror times we were packing, cleaning, locking away the remnants of a fantasy, a dream that we held in our hands while it died a cold and horrible death.  An ancient card from the times when we were convinced it couldn’t be worse than that but we knew that if we just hang on one more day… the card fell from our hands and fell open; springing from this card comes the vivacious voice of one Gloria Gaynor;  Our hips lost the battle of staying locked, tears began to fall as our lungs let free a laugh that was not at all forced; that was the moment that pedantic break up song from the bygone disco era became our salvation and a battle cry to send Schrodinger back into the shadows.  From there light began to shine and there was air to breathe, but again Fate slammed that door.  DAMN HER AND HOPE

There no such thing as beauty anymore, all colours fade from vivid to dead gray.  It really is an amazing thing when you think you have reached that horrible craggy earthen bottom, Hope, the vicious bitch that she is, shows you exactly how wrong you can be.  For a second I reach back in memory to long ago, remembering giggles and birthdays and handmade cakes with half the necessary fixings.  I let myself float, a few weeks ago, in that warm pool of possibility, red wines flavour haunting my taste buds. Gods, she showed me a brief glimpse of lovely, of that haven, I actually, almost felt that sun on my face. I still almost feel that smile on my face, doused in tears.  Ice cracked in my chest at the memory of that instant my heart had defrosted.  I knew better, I fought, I tried to resist, I didn’t believe, but then I wanted to, I needed to, then I did… We drove for hours, maybe it was days, time begins to lose its continuity when the radio is playing great music really loud, sunglasses fitting just perfectly and the speedometer reads 85 mph steady and true. There is something about it that made my heartbeat strong and true. We laughed and sang along, and it was the first time since I can’t really remember when that mom smiled, she laughed, without letting that haunted look come back to her eyes.

We would stop for burgers and laugh about something from eons ago. Then we’d hop right back into the car and drive; my foot getting heavier as we went. I don’t know what we were running from, or maybe running to, or maybe just it was the idea of the freedom that neither of us thought about a damn thing… yeah. All I really knew it was no stop until… it felt right. So, we drove and we drove, miles ticking off the rented odometer; states flying by, for once we weren’t simply standing in one place, trying to make traction on a treadmill, for years we were running at full bore and never getting anywhere, literally, figuratively, however the hell you want to say. Philosophers and scientists like speaking of continuity, but those who are stuck in the spin cycle, too close to the damn agitator, pieces of life, of spirit, of heart, of dreams, of happiness, being mangled, breaking off falling to the ground. Then one day I stopped, I just stopped running; my soul too tired to continue, I stopped.  I stopped trying to make everything fine, everyone happy I understood finally that I was on a fool’s errand. I took mom’s hand in mine and she stopped running too, we stooped to pick up the broken scattered pieces, but fate showed us that it was like trying to grab on to Jell-O with your hands and hold tight. So, we let them drop, leaving them to wait for the chalk outline of their tragic death.

The Pacific came into view over the rural cattle covered hills, the radio suddenly silenced. My eyes misted over and I turned on the wipers as the chill October rain drizzled from the heavens. I take that right and head north on HWY 1 knowing where we were going. Childhood memories haunted behind unshed tears, living has taken on a new definition in the dozen years since last, I smelled that organic salty home. I would stop and relive bowls of chowder and giggling splashing icy surf on naked tender feet, but now, it showed in stark relief to what living now meant, those laughing giggles echoing in our hearts. My hand dropped from the gear shift and mom laced her fingers through mine, we took a moment to mourn this breathing cadaver we had become. I pull over and park, it took a hot second before I grabbed my small bag from the back seat, I clamber out, walking around I helped mom from the car.  Walking as quickly as tear filled eyes and our beleaguered bodies would allow us, we made our way to the beach; and we sit listening to the surf, dropping my bag off my shoulder and we walk down to an old drift log. I made sure mom was comfortable, stepping out of my sneakers and socks using only my feet I walked to the rushing surf. I stooped pulling my pant legs up as the waves began licking at my toes. The oceans icy tongue sliding softly over my skin. I wanted to keep walking, walking till It was over my head, but I stood still when the waves kissed up my legs to behind my knees. I breathe letting my eyes roll closed, the wind ran its fingers through my hair as it kissed my face. Mom is suddenly there, holding my hand, both of us knee deep in the surf, we giggle and smile at each other as if we were children with a secret, oh and that secret…

I turn from the wind’s loving kisses, mom’s hand snaking into mine; we stood LIVING, for these seconds we lived; we walk hand in hand back to that driftwood stump, mom sits, I pull out the bottle of red wine from my bag, pulled the cork and took a long drink. Passing the bottle to mom; I noticed that those unshed tears were no longer abiding behind their dam. I don’t know when they had started sliding down my face, but I look a damn state now. Mom passes the bottle back and I take a long drink, looking up at that dark gray cloudy sky. I know it should have looked sad, foreboding even dower, but to me, it looked like a hug from an old friend. The crash roared so loud I couldn’t hear my own breath. It was perfect, the screaming person who has been occupying my mind suddenly shut up and I could breathe.

At its most benevolent this life has, one sweet single unattended moment, set aside for each of us. One single moment in and out of time. We took this moment, this little heaven inside this Dante’s nightmare we have called living, we take our little moment out of time and we take a shelter in it. Stealing away from all the shocks are horrors that this too long, far, far, too long life is heir to. This definition of living and its toll that it has taken on our souls. Our distraction fit, and I watch as we both take a deep breath and bury our toes in the cool sand like an oyster taking shelter. We close our eyes, breathe deep, we became high on this freedom, away we float. Beauty like lost dust moat in a shaft of sunlight, wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning in the snow, or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply so intense that it is not heard at all, that fabulous unsound, but while that glorious music lasts.

Oh, and while it lasts.

One by one I watched those sorrows, the angst and pain the uncertainty melt from our shoulders, the time to hesitate is through, and sometimes the best fight is not fighting at all. I look to mom and pass the bottle, and we speak in silent words, we always knew that the possibility of an impossible fight would come, though yet I would glove up and take my hits, but it would be a heartless battle; all of my hits soulless. There is a freedom in acceptance; as a song says, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose; the knowledge that losing a bout isn’t everything, but we both knew we were going to lose this one would take everything from both of us. There was a release; we both felt it, we collapsed into it, death would come and we would fall into his arms. Her eyes lead me, in their depths in a moment of ecstatic joy, with no expectations, not from THIS ONE MOMENT. A beautiful, simple moment of being.

No wants, no needs no worries. God, mom had always made broken look beautiful, strong look invincible; She walked with the gorgeous universe on her shoulders. When she shrugged that heaped heaven gracefully, making that pain and strife look like wings. In this moment of communion between us. That toll was gone, peace found us as we held hands like always. mother and daughter and we wanted nothing more than this peace.  We took it, we loved it. Yes, we both knew this was just our moment and the treatments and pain would return and lost, lonely, broken, we would have to drive back home… eventually. Though, in that long stretched moment, we were infinite… Mom corked the bottle and we walked carefully back to the car, we got in again and I drove for more and more hours finally finding a beautiful hidden paradise amongst the redwood trees.

The bed, it was comfortable, lovely and clean, luxurious and the room had an eighth story window seat that still didn’t look down on those trees. We sat in the early morning feeling the air, smelling of earthy redwoods, kiss our skin and our lips with warm, delicious, coffee. The water from the tap tasted sweet and fresh, like a childhood memory poured from a second or even third-hand crystal pitcher. Late morning, the bathtub was large and deep. This was a paradise, this heaven was perfect, as if god understood that I had just acquiesced to his summons and decided to send me an extended heaven, or possibly on that curving mountain road I had missed a turn and we had both passed those pearly gates… In this paradise, there was a grand restaurant that required reservations. We ordered three rounds of drinks called the golden eagle, that tasted like buttered sunshine with a citrus hint and a float of Chambord. I ordered the lobster and she the steak, sharing the asparagus and potatoes…everything was perfect. We laughed and walked the long way around and danced and smiled at the smell of the beautiful trees. We walked among the ancients and there is something to be said for being less than drunk, more than lucid and still infinite among the kings of the Earth.

A tiny pearl of a treasure I tuck into that little box lined with black velvet that I keep all my most precious things of beautiful in.  Stupidly I believed, stupidly I let the want the will pull my hand out…  Ages told me that it was a mistake, that hope would be the thing that kills me, but I let my hand reach out, I almost touched it, but then there was nothing; now I lay bleeding out.  Nothing, but air that my fingers slid through and I fell, I fell a million miles.  One shining second in horror years, I trusted that idea of hope, the bitch, and now one eon wiser I woke this morning my eyes rioting at the idea of waking to this world, my brain screaming its recalcitrance at the idea of still dragging air into my lungs and begrudging the world for letting the sun to continue shining.  I will never again trust to hope, I can never lift my eyes from the motion of my feet in this broken trudge, all marching to that horrible monotone beat because the living will never come to any good.

A buzzing distracts my mind from this drudgery and I look at my stupid phone. A text from my momma: “Happy Birthday Angel, text me when you are on your way or if you will be on your way.  I hope you are wearing your smile and your lipstick, you never know who will fall in love with you today.”  An ironic chuckle escaped my throat and a wry smile pulled the corners of my lips.  In 37 years, no one had ever fallen in love with my damn lipstick or smile for that matter, I doubted today was any different today from any other day. Although, yes, I had put on my lipstick before departing for the airport today…  dumb ass.  Suddenly, the landscape was replaced by the rushing crowds passing behind me, superimposed, reflected on the glass in vivid colour.  Oh, and the din of the people began to enter and drive away my own private hell; I let the relief wash over me.  There was an odd surety to the idea that life goes on, it goes on whether or not one would wants it to; I started watching the people, along with the storm raging outside the windows, but the activity made my mind move from that cold place.  I felt like an idiot to let myself bask in that much self-pity.

A gust of air hit me as someone sits a few seats down, I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t take the time to look, I would be leaving this section soon anyways, as soon as they tell us all that there will be no motion. It is the real human smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, grows brave by reflection. My brain reeled, shook from my own morass by a simple stupid misquote. Jesus, apparently, this birthday is getting to me; I know so many try to convince that it is not the aging that bothers them, but for me it is truth; oh, the passing of time, when I start counting is like a pall on my soul, but to just despise it would be terribly ungrateful, to hate adding to the tally of years lived when one is already well and past expectations.  I don’t care what number of years I have lived, I really don’t mind the few hairs on my head that have transitioned from this dullard nondescript brown to a tinsel silver, the crinkles next to my eyes are every one of my laughs counted out for me. I do mind, however, is that so much time keeps passing, days mark themselves in memory and unwanted thoughts surface, I mind marking how much I haven’t done. I do mind is that not once has this journey been anything other than an upward climb, fingers gripping, bleeding, over the roughest terrain.  I decided, enough pain…  I was never one to just revel in misery, I am not the kind of woman who breaks into pieces under the blows of abandonment and absence, I am not the one who goes mad, who dies; though I know I will, possibly quite soon. Unlike Marie, I know I am the hero of this story, it is my responsibility to make it good. Surveying myself I saw that the few fragments that had splintered off were pieces that always are supposed to be sloughed due to living and learning. For the rest, I was… well, I was, just me. I was whole, whole I would remain. Thusly being stuck in an airport for a birthday is just one of those things that just happen, and yes, mostly to me.

Their reflections, with the gales of wind blowing ice and snow pelting the large bank of windows. Ah, its time to face the truth, nothing will be flying in this mess; hell, the smart people stayed home and didn’t even bother. I sigh, I never could have been accused of being one of the smart people, I watch the strangers pass behind me, all of them seemingly stressed and kinetic, like little white rats in a closed maze; frantic to get to where they were going, none willing to admit that no one was going anywhere anytime soon.  I scanned all he miserable faces, yes, we are all in a way trapped, foreword motion was impossible, but always there is someone who seems to take it so much worse than everyone else, making that small claustrophobic feeling a teensy bit worse.  Most just accept that, yes, in this world not much seems to go the way we all plan, there is always that one total jerk who thinks that god and all that’s holy and unholy alike should bow to his will.  With that thought my mind decided to switch to the politics network; I literally shuddered, became nauseous and pulled it back front and center.

This jerk yelled and bellowed as I watched apparently, the Scandinavian Bruce Willis had decided that handing a helpless gate agent her own head on a platter was the best use of his time.  He was demanding everything under the sun.  From the loud whining and bluster, I gathered that he was supposed to be traveling to Maui, but he wasn’t going to be there in time and would lose the large deposit he placed on his room, most likely a common hazard for travel like that.  As if that was anything the gate agent could do anything about, it was really his own stupid gullibility. Yes, I would much rather be in Maui too, in fact I think the ticket agent wishes she was in Maui with a Chi-Chi in hand, but its not where we are, nor where I was traveling to. Finally, the mans blustering hit a fevered pitch, his face turned purple, I thought he was about to stroke out, but his wife finally stepped in.  I had already lost interest in the whole show about half a tirade ago, he was an overgrown child with the stupid notion that the world owed him something.

I shake my head softly and roll my eyes, a soft, rolling, deep chuckle moves through my ears, and movement catches my eye.  I let my eyes be pulled expecting to see disapproval in the reflected face.  I all saw was a man; my breath shuddered, not just a man, but that man, the wolf with the godly walk, that gust of air was him sitting, that man. Well, honestly simply man is an insufficient term, but one I would use for the long-legged monolith a few chairs to my right.  He seemed to be elsewhere, with more than a single dose of “I don’t give a shit” attitude, all I could see was crossed arms and Ray Bans, so I let my eyes peruse. He was long, tall, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, those legs alone reached at least 5 foot from the edge of the chair. He was thick; legs like tree trunks, but his shoulders alone took the space of two seats. I pitied the person who was seated next to him, hopefully, he wasn’t the middle seat, talk about crowding.  He wore a thin, white tee shirt, dark washed jeans.  I let the smile pull the edge of my lips, apparently, he didn’t look at the weather before heading out today, poor fool.  He sat trying to tuck his thick licorice coloured leather around himself tighter.

His opaque dark Ray-bans hid most of his face, ear buds tucked into his ears. His thick brows curved gracefully over the rims, his lips beautifully arched with a light pout to his bottom lip, a set of the most beautifully kissable lips to possibly exist. A day’s growth of scruff along his gorgeously chiseled jaw, god he was a beautiful man.  He couldn’t have been reacting to my derision, maybe he was chuckling at something on his earbuds. So, I swallowed my ruffled feathers and I just enjoyed the view of the reflection. His dark brown hair, blonde and ginger highlights deliciously sparkled, in what was once a deliciously close cut style, now grown out two months too long; the length silky enough to run soft fingers through, letting the long ends curl around fingertips.

I settle back, catching little glimpses, filing his form away for something fun in one of my writing exercises, I watched the ice creep along the glass of the window and the passing of the people while listening to my own ear buds, hitting repeat on some riotous punk. Social Distortion peps me up, I feel the beautiful sweeping warmth of eyes on me, I look up all I can see is the dyspeptic travelers and the airline ticket agents looking as if people had taken bats to them, circulating handing out food and hotel vouchers to make up for the surprise ice storm.  Curiosity draws my eyes back to his mostly obscured face, I wonder what colour his eyes are; statistically, they were most likely brown, but something told me they were some beautiful exotic colour. Seriously, look at the man, he is something made of myth and mists, he could never actually be real, like a unicorn or the truth. As with everything, the gods compensate, a man that graceful, that beautiful, with that luscious of a walk, there really must be something maybe just some single thing wrong with him, somewhere. Maybe he has a temper or maybe he is just stupid. A loud cacophony of uproarious yelling, uh oh, the natives are getting restless.  

God, how the hell do they expect airlines to circumvent nature and still get them to their destination safely, you know they would be the first filing suit in the case of an accident, and seriously how the hell an ICE storm can be so surprising, but low and behold, here we all are stuck. I tuck my vouchers in my book and keep watching the people reflected in the window, like an interactive ultra-widescreen TV. A Latin woman reminding me heavily of Anne Bancroft goes huffing by consigning herself with a beautiful grace to the fate we all in the airport now share, a night at the on a crummy airport motel mattress and airport food.  Again, that warm pass of eyes, perusing the faces, I assume it’s just another people watcher or a passerby.  A move in my peripheral vision drew my eye back to him; dammit girl, the cardinal rule of people watching is NO STARING, I chided myself.

@pedeka @writernotwaiting @iamhisgloriouspurpose

@keeper0fthestars @sweetfairy1

@fromthedeskoftheraven @shikin83 @bilbo-baggins-middle-finger

[worldwalkernovel]

The dynamic duo: What is their favorite book/poem/song of earth? Of Alleirat? Can they sing? What are some instruments of Alleirat? What are they made of? How are they made? Are they widely available? Of earth's instruments, what is their sound similar to? Are there major festivals/holidays? Any strange ones (like the city in Spain that has an annual tomato fight)? What are Alleirai beds like (raised on four legs/futons/hammocks)? Are there sleeping bags or does everyone just suffer on the road?

Hey, y’all, sorry I just...fucking vanished there!  Real life obligations caught up with me.  Ironically this is a long term positive--I’m much more productive in writing when I have a job, because it leaves me less time to second guess myself.  Point is, I’m going to try and actually Do Things on this blog again.  Also the last one about holidays got pretty long so I put it under a cut.

What is their favorite book/poem/song of Earth?  Of Alleirat?

Oh my God, listen, I’m not gonna get to most of this question because I got overexcited, but let’s talk about these two and Earth poetry, yeah?

Crispin discovers Emily Dickinson in seventh grade English class, and the first poem of hers he ever reads is, of course, Because I could not stop for Death.  He traces his fingers over the words “Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet//Feels shorter than the Day//I first surmised the Horses’ Heads//Were toward Eternity –” and for some reason he can’t quite put his finger on, his throat closes up tight and his voice breaks when he’s asked to read aloud.  Some indiscernable something about her words ring in his head like English hasn’t rung in years, and he checks a collection out of the library the same day.  His favorite poem of hers is--it’s not really his favorite, but the poem of hers he knows by heart and can’t seem to peel out of the beat of his pulse is I measure every Grief I meet.  Some days he loves it, for how cleanly and purely it seems to scribe him into neat four-line stanzas.  Some days he can’t read it without crying, or throwing the book across the room.

The only Dickinson poem Brenneth likes is Tell all the Truth, and sometimes when she looks at Crispin she thinks it was written for him.

Brenneth doesn’t like poetry much, she mostly prefers songs--they’re easier to remember and she knows what to do with them, she doesn’t really know what to do with poetry (can’t sing it, doesn’t have a narrative, can’t even go see it performed) and she doesn’t like not knowing what to do with a thing.  But once she read Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti.  She started it by accident, and there was a story, a narrative threading through the ramble, and she kept reading, and--

Brenneth has dreams for a week, dizzy uneasy dreams of Crispin biting into strange foreign fruits and letting juice as thick and red as blood stain his mouth, and of hands--his hands, strong and crackling with lightning--pressing the fruit against her mouth and saying eat, eat, and of a mouth on her jaw and neck and collarbones, drinking the juice from her skin.

What are Alleirai beds/travel beds like?

The basic structure of Alleirai beds is “four legs, some kind of pad, sheets/blanket, maybe a pillow” but there’s a lot of scope there and it’s not unheard of for people to have a different arrangement based on what they’re used to--sailors are used to hammock-style bunks on ships, travelers used to sleeping rough are most familiar with bedrolls that consist of little more than two blankets and possibly a very thin pad.  At the end of the day, though, since a large portion of the continent is arable, elevated beds have the practical advantage of being easier to keep relatively clean of dirt, water, and creepy crawlies.  As such, a cot-style arrangement is considered the bare minimum, with a base of taut cloth and no mattress at all. The rich might have a four-poster bed with a down mattress.  Most people are somewhere in the middle with plain frames and horsehair or straw ticks that get exchanged on a semi-regular basis.

Can they sing?

Yes!  Brenneth has a nice folksy low alto, it’s nothing special but she used to sing shanties and ballads while she worked in her forge, especially while she was hammering or doing anything else that required a rhythm.  Sometimes she gave people a discount on their work if they were willing to teach her a new song instead, and people made jokes about the singing smith.  Crispin has a beautiful mid-range tenor, sweet and clear as glass when he was a child and deepening to something warm and full as he got older.  He has formal voice training, which was part of his education--singing is a good way to learn to project your voice, which is a desirable trait in a hero of legend.  However, he hates to sing alone, which is where all his training lies, so he taught himself to sing harmony to Brenneth’s melodies and that’s the only way he sings anymore.

What are some instruments of Alleirat/what are they like?

They hit a lot of the same major categories as we do--they have necked and non-necked string instruments (things like guitars or fiddles and lyres or harps, respectively), drums and other percussion instruments, wind instruments.  They lack the finesse to make out modern instruments, and most wind instruments are made of wood rather than metals, whereas they have a lot more metal drums than hide-and-wood drums, so playing the drum in Alleirat is equally about knowing how to stop a sound as start it.  You know that dome-shaped hang drum thing?  Something similar to that with only a few tones (like four total) is pretty common on ships and is used to keep time for sea shanties, and more complex versions are popular during festivals, in combination with strings and singing.  Vocalists are prized in Alleirat, so wind instruments are less common than things that allow singing and playing simultaneously.

Are there major holidays/festivals?  Any weird ones?

I’d have sworn on my life I answered this already, but apparently not.  The Alleirai seasons each have a festival at the height and one at the end of the year, four religious festivals and one political.  The political festival is Unification Day, the commemoration of the unification of the continent of Alleirat and the formal truce of the lengthy wars that threatened to kill everyone on it, and takes place in the early days of summer.  How seriously and/or cheerfully people take Unification Day depends on how they’re feeling about the Unified Council at that moment, and whether or not their protectorate state is on the verge of civil war with a neighbor.  

The religious festivals are:

the Feast of the Wanderer, which takes place at midsummer and is a festival of plenty and warmth and alcohol--the Wanderer is the god of life and fire, and the festival is encouraged to embrace and embody joy and revelry.  There are also ritual fights, which are largely in fun and more like friendly bar brawls than formalized gladiator matches, and both participants are usually quite drunk.  Agreeing to be the on-call flesh workers standing ringside on the Feast makes you an obscene amount of money, but you have to be sober.  Gifts are also exchanged at this festival--material gifts, specifically.

the Lady’s Night, or the Night of Stars, which takes place at midwinter and is very much a festival of...keeping out the dark, I suppose, would be the way I’ll put it.  The festival is about remembering that We Are Alive And Life Is Short, as well as remembering the dead, with a lot of candles lit in memorial and just for light--traditionally, you stay up from dusk until dawn, and if your candles and fire go out, you’ll have bad luck all year.  There’s still drinking and feasting and general celebration, but it’s more intimate and less raucous than the Feast.  You exchange stories and sing and hold your breath whenever the flames flicker.  (Cheating with magical glowglasses is considered bad luck as well.)  There are people who learn a single story or song all year in preparation for the Night of Stars, and you display them as a gift for the people you’re celebrating with.

the Landing, the first day of the new year at mid-spring, which marks the day that tradition and lore say the gods first came to Alleirat.  It’s probably not the right day, sort of like Christmas was moved around a bunch, but no one but the very well educated or very pedantic care.  You leave offerings at the temples or shrines at dawn, and then you go out and celebrate.  All day if you can, more often just from “whenever you get off work” to “whenever you collapse.”  The large cities and sometimes smaller towns and villages hold a parade, and crown young people, a boy and a girl in their mid to late teens or early twenties, as the Lady and the Wanderer for the day.  The crowns assigned to each of the two (generally flower crowns, rather than anything valuable) is supposed to be handed around over the course of the day, as a sort of village-wide game of Tag with the crowned people as “it”, and whoever holds the crowns at sundown has the responsibility of leading the town in the service of the Landing, which is a whole thing.  It’s sort of like religious hot potato with drinking.

the Eve of Dead Gods, which is pretty much what it says on the tin.  In terms of the feel of the Eve, it’s sort of somewhere between old celebrations of Halloween and Yom Kippur, with an emphasis on considering your own actions of the past year and serious reflection, as well as a  day when...well, they’re pretty serious about the dead gods.  Gods can’t be ghosts, of course, don’t be foolish, but--but when you worship the last two of a mighty pantheon, it doesn’t hurt to do honor to those who went before.  On the Eve, you lock your doors and windows at dusk and don’t go outside again until the sun is shining, and you remember that everything dies.  Even gods.

Some people--those whose ancestors escaped the sinking of the western continent--hold a quiet holiday for the Chained Lord, the god who didn’t answer when they called for salvation and whose death throes killed thousands.  It’s a small thing of fasting and candles and salt scattered on the floor, observed by most as little more than a cursory tradition and not even a shadow of a shadow of what his festivals must have once been.

[zippdementia]

Part 53 Alignment May Vary: What to do About Those Pesky Dragons!

This was a short session almost entirely taken up by a single combat. I’ll get to that in a moment. First of all, some housekeeping. Before we leave the temple of Maaken, Trakki announces he has something to do. He takes Trellara and lelads her into the altar room.

Trellara is smitten with Traki, but she is not stupid. The temple of Maaken already has an evil reputation and each step she takes into the temple seems to confirm this. She lingers for a moment at the mural showing the three figures rising to rule the world, but she does not comment on it. When they reach the altar room, her doubts finally settle into fear and then a terrible sort of comprehension. This is due in part to a natural 20 on her insight roll, but probably has more to do with the giant pulsating blob of horrible meaty parts resting in the corner of the altar room, yet in clear view (the Soul Jar).

Trellara draws her scimitars but seems unwilling to accuse Traki. The thought of him betraying her is too awful. “No,” is all she says. “I am sorry,” is all he replies, though no sorrow enters his voice. Then he is on her, stabbing at her with the Dagger of Erythnul, burrying it in her shoulder. It’s evil properties drain the life from her and while she is stunned he open palm strikes her, knocking her unconscious.

A dry cackle comes from out of the shadows and the old woman with the slit throat, who once made honey cakes but whom we now know Traki previously murdered and turned into an undead, approaches. “Nazragul is pleased by your decision,” Mama Honeycakes says.

“Then ask him to tell me how to perform the ritual that made you what you are. But I want it better this time. I want her to rise more powerful than before.”

Mama Honeycakes smiles a broken smile.

Soon the ritual is set. Trellara lies with her chest and heart exposed on the altar. Over her hovers Traki, his arm slit open and the blood gushing over her form, staining her white face red. Sitting on her naked skin are pieces of the soul jar, pulsating slowly in the blue torch flame that lights this area. Traki has drawn a rune on Trellara’s chest, over her heart. Next to him stands Nysyries, supervising the work, for she is one who can manipulate the magical weave while Traki is a stranger to that world. Luck alone, and the power of the dagger,  showed him how to bring the old woman back. Now he wants something more than luck.

“Now we begin,” she says, in Nazragul’s throaty growl.

So what’s happening here is a couple of arcana rolls. DC 15 on the first one, to see if Trellara can become anything other than a slobbering zombie who will follow Traki around slowly like a dangerous pet. He passes this, but only barely and with the help of Nysyries aiding him and a fate point (+1 to any roll, remember these? We use them a lot). The second test is to see whether Trellara becomes blood crazed or maintains a semblance of control over her new powers. This he succeeds at wildly!

The dagger plunges into Trellara’s heart, piercing the center of the rune on its way there. Trellara moans, whether in pain or ecstasy, Traki cannot tell. The pieces of the soul jar suddenly move for the wound in the chest, squeezing themselves inside of it, while the blood Traki smeared on Trellara’s face and body seems to be sucked up by her skin, disappearing into it like water poured over dry sand. Trellara sucks in a breath. Her skin has gone whiter than before. Her eyes have sunken back in her head. Her teeth have become sharp points. Yet despite this, she seems to have retained her beauty, unnatural as it might now be. She looks around like a newborn. The hole in her chest reveals a softly beating heart. She demurely covers it with her clothing.

“You have freed me,” she says in wonder to Traki.

Tyrion Ragedrinker, also known as the Blue Bard, sits outside the temple sharpening his axe. He looks up when the three emerge and briefly lets his eyes rest on the new Trellara. “Well, there’s that, then,” he says, and goes back to sharpening his axe.

Trellara has become a wight, with all the good and bad that brings with it. She is pretty powerful now, if not the sturdiest fighter. Definitely more powerful than before! And Traki’s successful ritual means she retains her beautiful voice and a sense of self. She’s a little odd right now, crying tears of blood without knowing why she is crying, and tearing out the feathers of her owl as slowly as possible to see how it reacts (Nysyries has them bent to her will, using her powers to make them actually enjoy being afraid of the group... they are a little twitchy, but they obey). But eventually she will learn to adapt to her new body and will be able to fit in almost as well as any of them. She doesn’t like sunlight, though, and becomes sluggish and less charismatic under its glare. The group is going to have some fun roleplay challenges when they reach Brindol, considering they will have to hide their evil nature during that entire chapter. This just adds to the fun and gives them a powerful NPC ally to boot!

Dragon Leftovers

I have long been dissatisfied with how Red Hand of Doom handles its end game with the Dragons. I’m going to jump ahead a bit here (my players, if you are reading, I’ll keep this vague and spoiler free)... So you’re powering through Red Hand of Doom, having a good time, and then you get to the end of the adventure and, oh, guess what? Your party didn’t kill all the dragons. So now they have to fight them all AT ONE TIME. This is supposed to be a punishment for players who didn’t succeed at routing dragons throughout the adventure and to be honest, it is not an impossible fight to win, depending on your players’ levels and how many there are. But dragons are tough. Young dragons have a CR of somewhere between 7-10, depending on their type. Now, one of these may actually not pose enough of a threat to your party. But two or three of them at once?

Not that I’m saying non-legendary Dragons should fight alone (we’ve seen how that worked back at the Sunken City of Rhest) but they should be paired up with lesser minions meant to keep players from being able to focus fire on them and pin them down, maybe CR 2s or 3s or even a couple 4s if the party is really tough and needs a challenge. You’ll see this happen in the storm battle I’ve set up for Ozyrandion, below. I used Xanathar’s guide for this fight. Looking at Xanathar’s guide, five level 9 characters are said to be equal to taking on a level eight challenge, but I’m not sure I agree with that in practice. At least in my group, I’ve seen two of my party (Traki and Tyrion) take on Ozyrandion at the bridge by themselves and do okay, and that was back at level 6 or 7. At level 9 I have no doubt that all three of them would destroy a single young green dragon and honestly two of them could hold their own in a fight. Thus, I treat my players more like level 13 when using Xanathar’s guide to set difficultly. There are a lot of things that could factor into why this happens in my group, like the fact that we allow epic maneuvers like grappling in mid-air, or it could be the NPCs they travel with, or their aggressive tactics, or my poor rolls, but it seems to balance out a lot better.

Note: A lot of this is gut work more than math work. I pick my monsters for fights based on how well I know my players and how they fight, so I have a good idea of what challenges them. Xanathar’s guide is just there to give me a guideline to judge what I’m doing after the fact.

That said, three young dragons versus my three party members is almost a guaranteed TPK, even using Xanathar’s guide and treating my players as higher level.

But there are story reasons, too, to dislike the way the dragons are used. The players are supposed to believe these beasts show up for one fight in the game and if they survive it then they just disappear from the playing field to go back home. Why would they do this? Why wouldn’t they continue to be active participants in the war? Dragons are touchy beasts: wouldn’t they hold a grudge and seek out the adventurers who escaped their wrath, especially if those adventurers succeeded in getting past them to the thing they were guarding (bridge/eggs/phylactery/etc)?

My advice to GMs running Red Hand of Doom is this: if the players encounter a dragon and survive the encounter without killing it, then look for ways to work that dragon back into the plot before the battle of Brindol. You will have to adjust their fights a bit to keep them a challenge, but I think it lets all the dragons shine more as individual, willful creatures and makes them feel less like obligatory boss fights. For instance, in our game, Ozyrandion lives. I decide to have Azor Khul send him to guard the Ghostlord’s lair instead of Varanthian. Varanthian is a fine monster, and a level 11 challenge would be a decent solo monster fight at this point in the game (and I’ve got other minions in the Ghostlord’s lair who can reinforce if the Behir gets locked down with stun or the like), but I would rather the players get a shot at a reoccuring villain rather than have to establish a new one. So instead of the players fightng her, they have an intense encounter with Ozyrandion and three Manticores who accost them in the middle of a raging storm on the edge of the Ghostlord’s lair.

Here is a list of other suggestions for how to bring surviving dragons back:

Ozyrandion: the haughty green dragon is sent to hunt the players, catching up with them on their way to Rhest or at some other point in the adventure between locations (as I did above). If he fails again but escapes, he becomes obsessed and “goes rogue,” chasing the players down even after the adventure has ended, gathering more powerful allies each time (wyverns, chimera, etc).

Regiarix: if Regiarix and Saarvith both still live, then maybe they attack the elves right after Rhest and launch a side quest to hunt them down in the fens, where they will fight alongside some ghoulish minions. If that doesn’t appeal, or if they survive that, then they join in the battle at Brindol, attacking at the same time as another major event that the players are on their way to help with, waylaying the players and preventing them from reaching their goal. The players have to defeat the two here and if they don’t do it quickly enough, they fail to reach their goal in time, causing the failure of one of the major events of the battle. Note, if you do this, consider giving them extra healing options after the battle.

Varanthian: I think the Behir has the opportunity to become a much more interesting character then just a boss fight. Consider introducing her earlier in the campaign, when the players have little chance of defeating her in combat. Knowing this, she should taunt them, warning them to leave this quest to “better men.” She will continue to dog them throughout the adventure, tracking them for her own pleasure, enjoying the thrill of the hunt more than the promise of the kill, maybe attacking before a big event just to weaken and frighten them.  She will criticize and downplay their actions, mocking any other dragons they face as “inferior foes.” She will only go on the full offensive at either her original Ghostlord’s location, or after the Battle of Brindol. You may even want to consider replacing Tyragun with her in this case and removing Tyragun entirely, as using this method the Behir is a more interesting character then him. I honestly wish I’d thought of this sooner...

Abiathrix: The Red Dragon is the only one that it really makes sense to have the players meet again at the finale, if not defeated earlier. Mostly because there really isn’t anywhere else for him to go, as he’s encountered so late in the story. But having two dragons to fight may be an acceptable challenge. If not, it is very possible he defects and flees the fight altogether. I always assumed he was really a coward at heart and hasn’t run yet only because nothing has really challenged him before. Chances are he will remember the characters who defeated him, though, and will return when he is older and more powerful to wreak his vengeance on the people of the Vale.

Riders on the Storm

The players approach the Ghostlord’s Lair by night on owlback, scanning the horizon for signs of “a giant stone lion” which they’ve been told contains the Ghostlord’s lair. Nazragul says they MUST secure the Ghostlord’s services so that he can use his powers over flesh to shape the Soul Jar into something more suitable for carrying into battle. Readers may recall that the point of the Soul Jar is to release the trapped souls of Nazragul’s army into freshly killed bodies after the Battle of Brindol. The entire point of the players fighting off the Red Hand of Doom is so that Nazragul’s armies will then have the easier time of slaughtering the weakened people of Brindol and bringing the city under his control, fulfilling his age-old dream of conquering the vale and the people (descendants in this case) of Rhest. We’ll see how that goes in a future chapter. For now, the players are suddenly distracted by a massive storm which rises just as they finally think they spot the stone lion. Nysyries knows time is short for her: she has two nights left before she needs to feed again on male human souls or else risk losing her druidic powers forever, as per her pact with the lady of the wood. She is not willing to wait out this storm. Tyrion is all for flying in, too, so the group pushes onward.

The storm bats their owls around and visibility drops to what is illuminated by Tyrion’s magical breast plate and the occasional lightning strike. in this darkness hides four ambushers, who roll very well on their stealth checks... but Nysyries rolls even better on her perception, even beating Ozyrandion’s 25 to hide! So she sees the shapes flying out of the darkness at them. When she calls to her companions to ready for combat, Ozyrandion hears her and realizes the surprise is up. “MY CHANCE FOR REVENGE HAS COME!” he booms.

Combat takes us a couple of hours. There is a lot going on. The Dragon is obviously the heavy hitter, but the Manticores get to roll enough times each turn that they pose at least a threat that can’t be ignored. Complicating things is the fact that the owls pose a big weakness. Yes, as mounts they allow the players to dodge, dash, or disengage for free, but they have little hit points and if killed, the players will be in free fall. Finally, the storm itself makes ranged attacks at disadvantage and is difficult terrain. It also has a special effect that happens each round based on a d100 roll:

1-10: A new combatant is carried into the storm. Choose a flying creature of CR 4 and add them as a neutral creature that selects a random target on its turn. Roll initiative for it now.

11-35: everyone must make a DC 14 CON save or be hit for 2d8 thunder damage and have disadvantage on all attacks rolls this round. Success on save takes half damage and avoids the penalty.

35-44: The clouds gather into a thick mass. This round nothing happens. Next round, roll the dice twice and apply both effects, re-rolling 35-44.

45-55: Nothing happens this round, the storm rages on.

56-69: Everyone is struck by confusion as per the spell confusion for one round. On their turn, if they can make a DC 18 WIS save, they avoid this effect.

70-85: lightning strikes a random character in the storm for 4d10 lightning damage

86-100: Everyone must make a DC 14 STR save or be blown into the nearest character within 20 feet. Succeeding the save means nothing happens to you. Failing the save moves you as described and both you and whomever you hit take 3d6 bludgeoning damage.

My players continually roll the thunder and lightning effects throughout combat, with a round where nothing happens occuring near the middle of combat, so we miss most of these effects, but the thunder and lightning have a big impact on the combat nonetheless, usually in favor of the players, who roll much better on their saves than the monsters do.

The combat starts with Nysyries taking control of the storm through call lightning and trying to strike an approaching Manticore. Traki leaps from the back of his owl, meanwhile, and aims for another Manticore, tackling it midair and tumbling down into the storm with it, stabbing with his dagger and punching with his fists all the while. Tyrion, seeing this feat of bravery (insanery?) follows suit, but not to be outdone, he chooses to leap on the dragon! Hey, he argues, Traki already got to kill a dragon, so it’s my turn!

Ah, classic DnD. Where Dragons become equivalent to big-game trophies.

By the end of the round, things are not going as well. The manticore Traki is, er, riding gives as good as it got, using its tail to reach that “oh so hard to scratch spot” on its back where Traki is and impaling him with a critical hit here. Traki gets hurt pretty badly, dropping below half life as he takes three massive hits from the Manticore. Nysyries finds herself targeted by Ozyrandion, who chooses to ignore Tyrion for the moment (”Disgusting little flea! I’ll deal with you next!”) and instead breathes poison at both her and her owl. It’s a heavy hit. The owl dies instantly. Nysyries is knocked unconscious and begins to fall into the storm. 

Trellara, meanwhile, goes nuts, unleashing the power of her now supernaturally beautiful voice to psychically attack the nearest Manticore. Her voice allows her to either target one enemy for 10d6 damage or ALL creatures within 30 feet for 3d6 damage (halved for both effects on a save, on a DC 13 Con save). The Manticore makes the save and launch into a flurry of attacks on her, bringing her down to half life. A lightning bolt then sparks across the sky and arks its way through Trellara and her owl, blasting her off into the night sky.

Tyrion casts healing word, saving Nysyries, who mid fall transforms into her signature Quetzalcoatl and rejoins the battle. After this, things turn to the player’s favor. Ozyrandion fails a ton of rolls against Tyrion, both in trying to pull him off and in trying to just do damage to him. Eventually, he flies high above the others, heading into the storm clouds to focus on Tyrion alone. The two beat eachother with their various weapons, the dragon missing more often than not, Tyrion having the same problem. Tyrion gets the upper hand, though, when he uses his reactionary Breastplate of Chaos (which has previously had such wonderful effects as turning him permanently blue) to randomly unleash a high level magic missile on the Dragon. This turns the tide, and from here on out Tyrion hits more and more with his berserker axe, going berserk in the process.

Far below them, Traki keeps leaping from Manticore to Manticore, asking each one “Hey, do I know you,” and confusing the hell out of them in the process. He’s thinking one might be the Manticore from Vraath Keep, you see, though that Manticore is actually still lounging around in those ruins, king of his own little domain. No, these Manticores DO NOT know Traki and have regretted meeting him at all. He manages to intimidate the first one into carrying him back into combat (and then this Manticore quickly bails on the fight), from here leaping on the next one. This one has a smarmy British accent and he’s less inclined to surrender, deciding to Kamikaze in the storm instead of letting Traki have victory. Good thing Nysyries is there to save him!

The rest of the fight is easy to describe. Nysyries and Traki together make easy work of the last Manticore, Nysyries diving underneath it while Traki drags the blade of Erythnul across its exposed belly. And Tyrion finally delivers a bad enough blow to Ozyrandion that he gives up on trying to rip the annoying little man off of him and instead dive bombs into a storm cloud brimming with lightning and booming with thunder. Here Ozyrandion meets his end, struck by a lightning bolt. That same bolt rips through Tyrion as he falls, a speck in the black sky that Nysyries turns and speeds towards.

At this point, what I think would be amazing is for Nysyries to catch Tyrion but have him still be berserk. I think that would be amazing. I think Nysyries and Traki agree, they laugh a little and Traki starts to muse about how he could restrain Tyrion until they can knock him out. But Tyrion isn’t for it and since it would be a stretch of the rules to insist that it happens, we move on. I’m usually okay with bending the rules a little in the name of hilarity and fun, but only if everyone is on board. So instead, Nysyries succeeds on her “catch the Blue Bard” roll without incident and we move on to the rough landing that puts them inside the eye of the storm and directly outside of the Ghostlord’s lair (I’ve doubled the proportions on everything here for reasons I’ll reveal once we actually meet the Ghostlord):

Rising from a low mesa is an intimidating sight. A massive lion of stone crouches, as if ready to pounce on a nearby hill. The cyclopean monolith is composed of a dull tawny stone. It looks to be about four hundred eight feet in length, and the top of its maned head rises over one hundred feet from the ground. There seems to be some sort of hollow between the lion’s front paws, in the area bordered by its chest. Likewise, hints of a dark cave are apparent in its gaping maw. The lair is constantly shrouded by a flight of dozens of ghostly lions. These spirits fly in unending circuits around and through the structure’s stony body and head. They are invisible during the day, but append the following description if the PCs approach the lair at night. Dozens of translucent lion-like shapes fl y and caper about the massive lion’s head and body. The shapes sometimes even pass through its stony surface to emerge in a different spot.

As you stare at this phenomenon, suddenly a voice calls out a confused “Now what is happening here?” You turn, and see the professor’s ghostly form standing nearby, looking aghast at the spiral of ghostly forms. Suddenly he is pulled from your side and lifted into the air, making thin protests as he is quickly drawn towards the spiral against his will and joins the other souls in the vortex.

Quick Analysis: This fight was meant to replace the opening fight against the Behir that’s set up for the entrance of the Ghostlord’s Lair. Thus, the goal was twofold. First, to provide a similar challenge (something equal to a level 11 one enemy challenge) which will drain some of the players’ resources heading into this dungeon. Second, to deliver something impressive to start off this dungeon.

On the first point, I think this was a success. The fight ends up being challenging but fun. It could have gone either way for my players, but once they got the upper hand, the fight continued to go in their favor. They definitely have used up a fair amount of heal spells and Nysyries has used a valuable transformation. They will have to decide whether a short rest is worth the risk before moving on next time. Regardless, they won’t be entering the dungeon at full strength. And Trellara is gone, disappeared in the storm. Not dead, perhaps, but missing in the Thornwaste for the time being, along with the surviving owls.

On the second point, it is also a success! This was a memorable fight and set up the environment for us, too. Flying through the storm to get here and then seeing it surround them as they approach the Ghostlord’s giant lion makes this all the more ominous and impressive. If your players fought and escaped Ozyrandion earlier, then I recommend using this fight (or a similar one) instead of the Behir. Save her for more interesting encounters.

[rebaobsessivelywrites]

The Profiler in the Therapist (ch 2)

You can find this entire fic here on AO3.

Fandom: Bones (TV) and Criminal Minds (TV)

Entire Fic Description:

Dr. Lance Sweets is no longer the innocent eager psychologist he was a little over a year and a half ago. His time as a prodigy profiler at the BAU was a blessing. His time in a serial killer's basement was not.

Now, scarred but healed, Sweets is 'retired' to calmer job in the FBI as a therapist. As he helps others, he helps himself. But... is it enough? What will he do when one of his most fascinating (unwilling) patients asks for help on a case? How will his new team take his past as his secrets slowly start to come out?

Entire Fic Warnings: cannon-typical violence, past torture, panic attacks, PTSD, serial killers

Chapter word count:  2,408

Chapter warnings: panic attack, discussion of serial killers

Summary: How will Sweets take profiling his first serial killer since the BAU and his fateful experience?

Please read the fic! First chapter, next chapter, master list. And let me know if you want to be tagged.

It was quiet. Not quite silent, but as quiet as it got in DC. Outside his office windows, Sweets could see the eerie pale cast of the streetlights suffusing the night air like a mist. Below, on the road, the constant rush of wind from passing cars was the only sound.

He was alone. Normally he would welcome the quiet, but being left with his thoughts was not doing him any favors at the moment.

Lance was firmly ensconced behind his desk, a collection of files scattered across the surface in disarray. In his hands, the young profiler held a single photo. He hadn’t moved in quite some time. He simply sat there and stared… Stared at the stretched, prone-looking form of the silver skeleton.

Gormogon.

After weeks of nothing, this was the second case Agent Booth asked for help with…and it was one of the most notorious serial killers ever: a ritualistic cannibal connected to a supposedly extinct secret society.

Just think about that for a second. A secret society, conspiracies, delusions, rituals, cannibalism. Lots of cannibalism. It sounded like some crappy old horror film.

Swallowing hard, Sweets forced himself to set the picture aside and pick up another. This one was of the vault; the extensive vault filled to the brim with expensive and rare artifacts. What did that say about the history of this so called society?

The next picture Lance picked up gave him pause. It was of two bloody kneecaps resting on a stained and elaborately decorated piece of fabric. The blood wasn’t anything the profiler hadn’t become used to, but…

What the hell was he doing?

Solving a crime of passion between two teenage boys that happened 20 years ago was very different than studying a prolific and very active serial killer.

They had bones from seven different victims, a vault full of old artifacts indicating a much longer history than they could guess, and a killer bold enough to send pieces of his latest victim to the expert working his case.

It wasn’t like anything Sweets had encountered at the BAU.

Well, he had some frame of reference. For example, there was Foyet. He was bold and confident, unafraid of law enforcement, and took great pleasure in tormenting his investigative team; just look at Hotch. He was controlled and self-aware, capable of ceasing all violent acts for over a decade.

And then there was Frank—a mobile, tireless, sadistic serial killer who killed a staggering total of 177 individuals over a span of thirty years without anyone connecting the victims. He was a textbook sexual sadist who dismembered his victims alive, forcing them to watch. He thrived on fear.

Then there were cannibals, like Floyd Ferell. Cannibals ate flesh for power— primarily spiritual power. They were generally not sexual sadists, although it was possible for them to express sadistic behaviors. Often displaying some form of mental illness, they were driven by an all-consuming hunger.

So, Sweets had experience, but he had only been involved in Ferell’s case, and was not officially supposed to know about Foyet. But this experience didn’t help as much as it should have.

Gormogon was just as confident as Foyet. He did not, however, display the same pathology. And, like Frank, Gormogon was likely prolific, based on the history of the vault, and was just as good at staying away from law enforcement. However, Gormogon was not a sadist. And finally, although definitely a cannibal, something about Gormogon just didn’t quite fit with the average flesh-eater. He was controlled, meticulous, patient… careful. And, most importantly, he shared…and the kid he had shared with was not a classic submissive personality.

Everything seemed to be pointing to someone who was not driven by sadism or mental illness, someone intelligent with a political agenda, and severe delusions that they wanted spread. Just one kid at a time.

Like a teacher and student.

How far back did cannibalism go amongst the people who used that vault? Would they find bones from more victims? Or was Gormogon the original master-mind? Had he found the silver skeleton and gone ‘oh! I should replace each of these bones with a piece of someone I eat’? It was doubtful… This had the hallmark of tradition. For example, this whole widow’s son thing could not be a coincidence….

Lance’s mind swirled with questions and theories, blurring like a particularly fast rollercoaster ride. But, no… no. Stop. His mind ground to a painful halt, one of the more messy pictures filling his field of view. It was effective in stopping is work-flow.

Dumbfounded, Sweets stared at the pages of notes in his own hasty scrawl scattered amongst the crime scene photos and detailed evidence logs.

This wasn’t what he had intended.

He forced himself to drop his pen and scrambled away from his desk and the piles of evidence and connections and suppositions. A little wildly, Sweets stumbled over to his couch and collapsed, head in hand. Distantly, he noticed he felt rather nauseous. And dizzy. He felt like he had climbed a mountain.

Panic attack, his mind supplied helpfully.

Well, great.

He hadn’t had a panic attack since he had finished his psych evaluation and transferred to the DC office. It had been months. But…but least he wasn’t having a flashback too. Those were more common but not as difficult to control. Which was a little strange. But, well, that was the human mind: strange.

PTSD manifested in many different ways and was caused by all sorts of things; war, death, injury, emotional trauma, physical trauma…. Triggers were just as varied. But, some people didn’t display many symptoms—amazingly. Hell, Sweets had worked with several of them. It was part of the reason he had felt so guilty about leaving the BAU even though everyone had understood and encouraged him.

Sweets huffed a sigh… then froze. Lifting his head from his hands, he smiled. The panic attack was gone. He could breathe again.

Hesitantly, he looked back over his shoulder at the pile of files and notes. Maybe… maybe he could do this. He knew he really did want to help Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan, even if they weren’t super welcoming. And he really did enjoy profiling—even, perhaps especially, serial killers. Sweets had been fascinated to see Gormogon’s vault, to hear the team work. He wanted more of that.

It was true that he was terrified. After all, Gormogon was taunting Dr. Brennan and it was likely that she or one of her colleagues could be seriously harmed. Sweets was seeing Foyet torture his old team at the BAU, and he didn’t want the same for the team at the Jeffersonian. He didn’t want to watch another team struggle so much....

But he could help them. It could be painful, potentially even traumatic, but he might—just might—be able to help stop another killer.

How could he possibly turn away from that chance?

Reenergized with determination and resolve, the profiler returned to his desk, set on organizing his notes into some form of coherency. He would do his best—his absolute best—for this new team.

--

Sweets had managed to keep it together for the entire day.

His help the previous day had been better received than expected, even though Dr. Brennan was still quite resistant. Many of his theories had been proven true in the space of time between Booth giving him the file and him delivering the profile, which helped his credibility. Most notably, Dr. Hodgins and Agent Booth had recovered a completed skeleton done by Gormogon and the previous Gormogon.

Sweets was not exactly pleased that he had been proven correct.

Then, this morning, he had found out that Dr. Addy had discovered a network of mirrors that allowed Gormogon to observe everything that went on in his vault and that Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth had devised a plan to divulge false information while inside the vault and set a trap for the killer. Lance was mildly terrified at that news. While a good plan, there were so many ways it could go wrong.

Later that afternoon, his fears were confirmed when he learned about the bomb Gormogon had dropped, nearly killing the agent-anthropologist pair.

Thankfully, having learned about it via email in his office, Sweets was able to have his quiet panic attack before heading to the Jeffersonian. Ostensibly it was to expound more on his profile with this added information (Gormogon meant to kill them; it was a symbolic bite. He’s developed a deep personal hatred for the team. He likely won’t stop…); in reality, Lance was almost desperate to reassure himself that they were both alive and relatively unharmed.

Save for a few nasty bruises and cuts, they were.

Shaken but relieved, Sweets had returned to his office and finished off his remaining appointments. Helping the various FBI agents and consultants helped calm him even further.

That was, of course, until he got home.

Now he sat on his couch, staring at the far wall, his mind running through all the possibilities. All the different ways it could have gone, and all the ways Gormogon could still destroy the Jeffersonian team. Lance had done the same thing when he had learned about Hotch being attacked in his own apartment, before being left at a nearby hospital by Foyet himself.

It was too much, having two horrible obsessive serial killers targeting people he loved or was coming to care deeply about. It was just his luck and entirely unfair.

Sweets was crying. Why, exactly, he didn’t know. And honestly he didn’t care. He was just very, very grateful it wasn’t another panic attack.

He sat there for some time, lost in dark thoughts, before the familiar ring of his cell phone shook him out of his trance-like state.

He hurriedly wiped off his face and cleared his voice before answering, “Dr. Sweets.”

“Hi,” the voice greeted on the other end, the owner clearly smiling, “Lance.”

Despite his previous mindset, a smile spread across his own face, “Hey, JJ.”

“How’s the youngest profiler I know?” she asked when he said nothing more.

He quickly deflected, “Oh, I’m alright. How are you? And the team? Did you wrap up that case in Albuquerque?”

“Yeah, yeah we did,” she sighed, “It was a big one, but everyone got out completely unscathed. We even saved a couple kids and a new mom.”

“Good,” he said, relieved, “good.”

“Are you sure you’re ok?” JJ prodded, “You sound drawn out. Bad day?”

Despite himself, Sweets gave a dry laugh, “You could say that.”

“What happened?”

“Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth—do you remember them?”

“Yeah. You’ve been having sessions with them, and Agent Booth asked for your help on a case a few weeks ago. Is Dr. Brennan still being difficult?”

“She is, but that’s not…” he sighed, “Well, two days ago Booth asked for my help again. Today… they nearly got blown up.”

“What?” JJ asked, shock coloring her tone.

“Yeah. Um…” Sweets paused, a little unsure about what his old team member would think about the case he’d become involved in, “Have you heard about Gormogon?”

“Not… officially, but word gets around.” She paused. “Are you telling me you’re consulting on a cannibalistic serial killer case and said serial killer nearly blew up the lead investigators?”

“Yes?” he answered hesitantly.

“Were you there? Are you ok?”

Lance sighed, “I’m just consulting; I was nowhere near the bomb.”

“That’s a relief.” A moment later she asked, “Are they ok?”

“Yeah. A little torn up, but no serious damage.”

“And… how are you taking it?”

“About as well as can be expected, I suppose.” JJ said nothing; Sweets could practically see her raise her eyebrows expectantly. He admitted reluctantly, “But… I’ve had two panic attacks in the past three days. One was after I heard the news.”

“When was the first?” the media liaison was sounding more and more concerned.

He grimaced; he didn’t want to admit it, but… “Just after I had compiled a preliminary profile.”

“Sweets…” JJ started hesitantly.

“I know,” he cut her off, certain he knew what she was going to say since he’d been telling himself for days, “But I could help, and—”

“That’s not what I mean. You know how hypocritical that would be for any one of us to say. We… we’re just worried about you, Sweets.” She heaved a big sigh, “We were all so relieved that you were taking time to recover. Then we were all relieved you were taking a safer job…”

“JJ…” his voice was thick with emotion.

“We’re guilty, Lance,” she cut him off, “We’re guilty that we didn’t get to you sooner, and we’re afraid that something similar could happen to you again. It’s not rational— we all have the same job—but it’s true. I was the same way after Hankel had Reid.”

“I know.” Damn it. He was going to start crying again…

“It’s just the idea that something could’ve happened to you…” she sighed, “I don’t want to stop you; I think it’s wonderful you’re profiling again. We all know how much you love it.”

“Yeah…” he choked out.

“But you need to take it slow, ok?” Now it sounded like she was going to cry. “For me? Don’t push yourself. If you have problems with… with panic attacks, or nightmares, or flashbacks… just promise me you’ll stop and take a break. ”

For a moment Lance merely struggled to blink away his tears and to form coherent sound. He loved JJ like the older sister he’d never had. He loved that entire team; they were his family. They supported him through everything from the moment he joined the BAU. They supported him when his parents died, and they supported him when cases got to be too much. They taught him how to profile, and they taught him how to laugh again. They were the best of the best in every way. In fact, they found him, when no one else could, and then they supported him even more.

“I… I promise.” He swallowed hard, “For you, JJ… and the others; I’ll be careful.”

JJ sniffled a little, “We’re here for you, Sweets, all of us. As far as we’re concerned, you’re still a part of this team. And you always will be.”

Yes, he thought, smiling through his tears, After all… family is forever.