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darthrevaan · 7 years ago

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If you're still up for Old Kingdom prompts, can I request something featuring the clones and/or Ahsoka? I still can't get the "Fallout: Ancelstierre" thing in particular out of my head, lmao

So this is some Ahsoka, bc I know you love her ;) I went through a couple of iterations of what Ahsoka’s backstory would be, but I wanted to bring in all the new worldbuilding Nix gave us in Goldenhand somehow, so here goes nothing :D

The girl Anakin had brought back was clearly from theNorthern Tribes. Obi-Wan had seen a few of them at the Glacier; theyoccasionally sent traders, most of whom dealt in furs and horses. There wassomething mischievous about her face and her smile, and she darted around thecamp like a little bird, flitting here and there between the tents, catchingthe eyes of all the occupants. Most of them had never seen anyone from theNorthern Tribes before, even though they came to Belisaere on diplomaticmissions every once in a while.

“Why exactly is she here?” Obi-Wan asked, watching her asshe chatted with some of the soldiers. “We can’t afford to send parties back tosafety, even to protect refugees.”

“She’s not a refugee,” Anakin said, “She’s been here for thepast three months. She knows the land. She says she knows what the Dead creature is, where it hides, itsstrategies. She says she’ll help us.”

Obi-Wan gave her another long, considering look. “She’llhelp us? For what price?”

“Her tribe sent her down here following rumours that thisarea had been abandoned. They want a new place to settle, away from the dangersin the north. Ahsoka said she’d help us if I promised to get the Queen to granther tribe this land, as well as the protection of the Kingdom.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “That’s not a small promise, and I don’tknow how much help-”

“Obi-Wan, we know nothing about Lospoth, let alone thisparticular area of it. She’s been here, fighting these creatures, for threemonths. She can help us.”

“Yes, but extending the Queen’s protection to any group isn’ta small matter. You already pushed the boundaries by letting theAncelstierrians across the Wall. The Queen was forgiving of that because it wasin line with her plans; she’s made no mention of allowing the Northern Tribesto settle on depopulated land within the Kingdom. She may not be particularlyhappy with you making promises in her name without consulting her.”

“I know that,” Anakin said, “I considered it before I madethe promise. But we need all the help we can get. I still don’t have a lot ofexperience with the bells or Charter magic, and this Dead creature is powerful.I think we need Ahsoka - and I’llhave to hope I can settle it with the Queen when we return to Belisaere.”

Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment. Anakin had only a very loosegrasp of politics, but a huge amount of compassion. It was an admirablequality, but Obi-Wan wasn’t sure it was going to endear him to Court, or evento the Queen.

Still, he had a point. If this girl Ahsoka had localknowledge, it would be extremely helpful. The scouts the Queen had sent withthem had not been to Lospoth for some time, and though they knew the land andwere skilled rangers, someone with recent knowledge would be much more helpful.

“She may as well stay, for now. The Queen is known for hercompassion, and she is interested in repopulating the lands ravaged by theDead. The Kingdom may not have the best of relationships with the tribes, butperhaps a diplomatic avenue can be pursued.” He shook his head. “It’s somethingyou’ll have to talk about with the Queen when we get back to the city. Fornow…keep the promise.”

Anakin smiled. Obi-Wan had the feeling that even in theshort time they’d known each other, he’d become attached to Ahsoka. He hoped itwould all end smoothly, but he didn’t voice any of his doubts aloud. “Youshould rest,” he said instead, “You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.”

The next morning dawned bright and cold, with a low misthanging close to the ground, wreathing the tents in swirling white vapour.Obi-Wan was up with the dawn as usual, but he decided to let Anakin sleep alittle longer. He would need all his strength for the test ahead.

He knelt down next to the banked fire and began to stir theembers, building it up into crackling flames once more. He was just setting upthe water pot on the tripod over the fire when Ahsoka dropped down oppositehim.

Obi-Wan jumped, almost spilling water all over himself. Hehadn’t even heard her footsteps.

“Morning,” she said, grinning at him.

“And to you,” he responded, keeping his tone neutral.

“Anakin said you can see the future,” Ahsoka said with nopreamble. “Is that true?”

“Somewhat,” Obi-Wan said cautiously, “I can’t See anythinguseful on my own - or not very often, anyway. But with all my family together,we can See much.”

Ahsoka nodded. “He said you came from the Glacier, where thewitches live.”

“We’re not witches,” Obi-Wan said, mildly affronted.

“You use magic to see the future,” Ahsoka said, “Sounds likewitchcraft to me.”

“It’s Charter magic,” Obi-Wan said.

Ahsoka tilted her head. “What’s the difference?”

“Your witches and shamans use Free Magic; here in theKingdom, that type of magic is outlawed. The Clayr - my family - use a specialtype of Charter magic that only we can utilise.”

Now Ahsoka looked like she understood. “So you use Kingdom magic. That, I understand.” Shewrinkled her nose. “Or, I don’t understand, but I know our magic is differentto yours.” Her face took on an almost wistful look. “My mother used to say youcould use Kingdom magic without losing your soul. Is that true?”

“I…don’t know what you mean by soul,” Obi-Wan said, “Chartermagic lacks the corrosive, corrupting effects of Free Magic. You aren’tphysically harmed by using it.”

“Shamans would rule all of us, if they could,” Ahsoka said,scowling. “They only want power. More and more power, always. But mother saidin the Kingdom, shamans weren’t like that.”

“Magic-users are known as mages in the Kingdom,” Obi-Wansaid, “And they may crave power just as much as one of your shamans. But justto use Free Magic requires the will to subjugate a Free Magic creature, or thewillingness to perform spells that, with extended use, will cause corrosion andcorruption of the flesh. Free Magic is, by its very nature, inimical to humanlife. In the Kingdom it is seen as inherently evil, and it certainly seems todrive its practitioners to immoral acts and ill ends. Charter magic, on theother hand, is a force that works in tandem with human life; that draws itspower from it. It is not inherently harmful to the user - although it can be,if someone inexperienced attempts a spell that is too powerful for them.”

Ahsoka had followed this explanation with rapt attention. “Anakinsaid you were a master sha- I mean, mage,” she said.

“Anakin has been saying a lot about me,” Obi-Wan said,stirring the water in the pot above the fire. It had just about come to theboil while they’d been talking.

“You are family?” Ahsoka asked.

“Not really,” Obi-Wan said, “At least, not in the way youmean. No, I’m just a companion.”

“His lover?” Ahsoka said.

Obi-Wan felt himself blush, and looked down into the boilingwater. “No. Just a friend.”

“Hmm.” Ahsoka sounded sceptical, but she didn’t press theissue.

“Anakin told me thatyou came here looking for a new home for your tribe,” Obi-Wan said.

Ahsoka shrugged. “My tribe had many bad winters in a row.Then in the summer, large raids by other tribes. Now, a new witch rampagesacross the steppes, wanting to kill and enslave everyone. Our people are tiredof running, suffering, and dying; we heard the Kingdom is safer, and not manypeople live here now.” She made a face. “No, but dead things live here instead!It’s not what I was hoping for. But Anakin says he can kill the dead, and makethis land safe again.” Ahsoka nodded, “Then, we would live here.”

“It would be a big change,” Obi-Wan said, “No more shamansand witches, no more Free Magic. No more raiding. Do you think your peoplecould adapt?”

“We’re prepared,” Ahsoka said.

Once again, Obi-Wan felt a tingle of doubt. They should behonest with this girl about the chance that the Queen would turn her tribeaway, even with Anakin’s intervention.

“Are you not making breakfast yet?” Ahsoka said, leaningover to peer into the pot. “I’m starving.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “It’s coming. Why don’t you go wakeAnakin up? He needs to start getting ready.”

Ahsoka grinned and rolled up onto her feet. “I want to berepaid with the biggest portion of breakfast,” she said, before darting off inthe direction of Anakin’s tent.

After going throughthe trial of waking Anakin, you’ll need it, Obi-Wan thought, grinning tohimself as he began adding porridge to the boiling water.

#anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #AU #star wars #star wars abhorsen AU #mine #in a galaxy far far away #does the walker choose the path?#intrusivethot #asked and answered

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blackkatmagic · 3 years ago

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The Hands aren’t faltering.

Fives curses as he ducks long teeth, slams shoulder-first into the Dead Hand that’s reaching for Echo, and spins, lashing out with Charter-laced metal, but there's no dent they’ve been able to make yet that’s held for more than a moment, no falter in the advancing ranks. They're going to be overrun, Fives thinks grimly, and takes two steps back into the relatively clear space between Hardcase and Dogma, trying to see if there’s some path forward he’s managed to miss, some advantage he can't see.

The whole valley is full of the Dead, though, and the hot-metal reek of Free Magic is so thick in the air that Fives can taste it.

“How long until sunrise?” he calls, and there's a grunt, a curse. Echo cuts through the Hand that’s practically on top of him and whistles, sending a Charter mark flaring like a burn of silver. It makes the Hand recoil, and Echo drives his sword through its head and falls back, shoulder colliding hard with Fives’s. Fives steadies him, and he lets out a rough breath, pressing against him for a bare instant before he pulls away again.

“Too long,” he says grimly, and checks his comm. “Four hours. Maybe more, with those mountains.”

The shadows will let the Dead linger, Fives knows. They need water, a stream, something, but the Hands dammed the river above the village and there isn't even a trickle left this far down the valley.

“Kriff,” he mutters, checking the horizon even though he knowsEcho is right. “The general’s not back yet.”

Echo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t say why Anakin is likely taking so long to get back. the fighting was just as heavy on the far side of the ridge, and even a Jedi can be overrun eventually.

“The Necromancer has to be around here somewhere,” Fives says, maybe a little desperate. “If we can find him—”

A Hand throws itself forward, and Fives swears, puts himself between it and Echo and shouts, the Charter mark burning his tongue as it flares to life like a shield. He reaches, dips into the continuous and changing flow of the Charter, and grabs for another mark, and this time when he speaks it the shielding glow changes, shifts, strikes.

The Hand falls, burning to ash, but it would be more of a relief if there weren’t twenty more behind it.

“We have to get through all of these first,” Echo says, and his whistle cuts through the cold air, rises, rises. Fives can feel the way the Charter flows through the sound, around it, and after so long fighting he knows exactly what Echo is trying to do without having to ask. Bracing their shoulders together, he adds his own whistle to Echo’s, and the bound magic flares. Across the battlefield, there's another whistle, a fourth, a fifth, not the same pitch but all with the same purpose. Echo steps back, still holding the note, and light kindles, glows as the marks seeded through the earth respond, waking up, flaring—

All across the valley, the mines detonate.

Echo sags in the aftermath, staggering, and Fives only just catches him in time, drags him back by his armor and gets in front of him as another Hand surges up, this one with long claws. It grabs at his sword, bears down on him like a freight carrier, and Fives cries out as it almost knocks him off his feet. Twists, kicks out, and as it topples over onto him he stabs upwards, rolls out from beneath its fall, and gets an arm under himself, just in time to see a slick-quick blur of darkness beneath the feet of the Hands.

“Mordauts!” he shouts in warning, bile rising, horror matching it. he scrambles up, grabs the hand that Echo shoves at him, and makes it back to his feet as the rest of Torrent all scrambles back, pushing towards the top of the small rise at the center of the valley. Tup stumbles as they go, and Fives grabs him, hauls him back and puts himself right in front of him, slashing out at a too-large rat made of shadows and freezing cold as it darts towards them. The Mordaut squeals, the Charter-infused metal slicing right through it, but—

“Down!” Kix cries, and the flare of a grenade right over their heads is warning enough to make Fives duck and shield his eyes. Fire surges, scattering the Dead for just a moment, but there are still too many of them. Dozens, hundreds of Hands, marching towards them in grim, relentless ranks, lurching steps carrying them up the rise, with Mordauts beneath their feet just waiting for an opening, and Fives tries to calculate how many they’ll have to push through in order to retreat and can't see any options.

“Kriff,” he breathes, and feels Echo’s gauntlet close tight around his wrist, just for an instant. One moment of comfort when it looks like there's nothing but the cold and the Dead and the sunrise that’s too far away to be of any use. Turns his hand, grips back as the first row of the Dead crests the hilltop—

Deep, low, carrying, the sound of a bell rings out across the valley.

Fives’s breath catches, even as the first rank of Dead stumbles to a halt. The acoustics of the valley catch the bell’s deep tones, carry it back, reflect it, until Fives can practically feel it in his bones, in his blood. A binding, and by now he can recognize the sound of Saraneth in a fraction of an instant, can feel the weight of a will behind it. Not a Necromancer’s will, not this time.

Fives knows there’s no real difference between a Necromancer’s bells and an Abhorsen’s bells, but sometimes he’s absolutely sure that all the bells sound sweeter in the hands of a Jedi.

“Fives,” Echo breathes, and Fives looks, follows Echo’s gaze across the battlefield. In the gloom of the night it’s almost impossible to see anything, regardless of the two moons above them, but—

“Oh,” he breathes, just as light kindles. A blade, glowing green and blinding, of pure Charter magic spun through a kyber crystal, unmistakable and the most welcome sight Fives has seen in weeks. The green glow burns across a dark cloak, a worn robe embroidered with silver keys, a deep hood and pale eyes beneath, reflects off the silver and gold of a large bell with a mahogany handle, still ringing deep and low.

It’s not Anakin, Fives thinks, breathing out. But—a Jedi, without question. A Jedi, here to bind the Hands and send them back to Death, and Fives is so relieved he could cry.

#my writing #here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road #echofivesjon #that abhorsen!au i've spent the last year screaming about #star wars

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mosylufanfic · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Jyn Erso & Rey, Cassian Andor & Rey, Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, Jyn Erso & Leia Organa, Jyn Erso & Chirrut Îmwe, Cassian Andor & Bail Organa & Breha Organa Characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, Rey (Star Wars), Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Mogget | Yrael, Baze Malbus, Chirrut Îmwe, Unkar Plutt Additional Tags: Family, Families of Choice, Adoption, Established Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Inheritance, Canon-Typical Mogget, Magic, The Clayr's Glacier, Charter Magic, Child Neglect, (canon-typical - Rey's upbringing) Series: Part 6 of does the walker choose the path Summary:

No Charter mark and she threw stones at a Mordicant, instead of running away. Who is this girl?

"Jyn, this is Rey," Cassian says, answering one question.

from @rain-sleet-snow

#Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #Rey #rebelcaptain #fanfiction #recs #rain-sleet-snow #Abhorsen AU #a sequel to one of my very fave longfics!#with Rey!!#star wars #search your feelings you know it to be queue

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avoyagetoarcturus · 7 years ago

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The Old Kingdom girls go trick-or-treating together as their fave Star Wars characters. Happy Halloween! (Clariel is Anakin, Sabriel is Luke, Lirael is Rey.)

Also happy Asexuality Awareness Week! (Clariel is a great canon asexual character.)

#clariel #sabriel #lirael #abhorsen #old kingdom #garth nix #star wars au #crossover #halloween #trick-or-treating #maiart #first time i've drawn happy clariel hahahaha

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imaginaryelle · 5 years ago

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Author Interview

Thanks to @dafan7711 for the tag!

Name: Alex (they/them)

Fandoms: MDZS & The Untamed, Marvel Avengers (comics), Good Omens, Dragon Age & Mass Effect, Star Wars & SWTOR, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes; the list goes on but these are the main ones.

Where You Post: Tumblr and AO3.

Complete: 72 works on AO3; a few (less than 10?) oneshots are only on tumblr.

Incomplete: Posted? I think the closest is these two snippets from my Wangxian Modern Musician AU (1 | 2). Unposted? The well is bottomless.

Coming (hopefully) Soon:

1. Wangxian Modern Musician AU: Wei Wuxian has been out of the live music scene for more than a decade and just happens to land a traveling show with his ex as his first get-back-in-gear gig (thank you, Nie Huaisang). Features include hand massages, yearning in taxis, getting-back-together uncertainties, publicity angst and comfort softness alongside traveling show hi-jinks.

2. MDZS/Abhorsen Fusion: What if. Just stay with me for a second. What if. Lan Wangji was the Clayr-raised Abhorsen who was chosen for the role over any of the Lotus Pier disciples and Wei Wuxian was an Abhorsen-raised free magic necromancer who became more of a free magic creature instead of falling properly into Death? Possibly he can also turn into a rabbit I’m still working on details here but I am. Excite! Thank you for your time; @suspiciouspopsicle and I have a lot of ideas we like to play with for this AU.

3. So Many Wangxian Things Okay, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergent A-Yuan!kidfic, Everything; Also Some Juniors Friendship Things; Possibly Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian Reconciliation While Night Hunting.

Do You Accept Prompts?

Absolutely, though I tend to be focused on one fandom at a time for actually answering them (I try to note what fandom’s at the top of my mind in my tumblr sidebar). Currently, that’s MDZS & The Untamed (shippy stuff-not just wangxian, sibling or family relationships, hurt/comfort, whatever). Also, kissing, hurt/comfort and domestic moment prompts are always likely to be answered fastest. I cannot resist them and am unlikely to build an entire world and accompanying plot and thus get lost for weeks on end.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write:

Wangxian Modern Musician AU! Which is, as a point, from an anon prompt that I got a bit carried away with.

Favorite Story You Wrote:

What, ever? Hm. I’m going to go with Practical Exercises in Free Will (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley) today. It’s a choose-your-path fic, which was both challenging and enjoyable to put together. I should definitely do more of those.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

If You Want a Life of Action (SteveTony, Marvel 616, 72k) This was my first Cap-IM BB, and remains my only actual multi-chaptered work of the last … decade or so. May try that format again soon, we shall see.

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

the face and the mask are mirrors, baby (SteveTony, Marvel 616, 16k, mind the tags). This fic is… really really personal for me, and I’d never read anything in fandom that explored gender identity the way I was trying to so I was, in fact, a complete wreck over posting it (I’d also never before written a remix so that compounded things). But the fandom reaction to it has been truly lovely <3.

How You Choose Your Titles:

It depends on how long and complex the story is, I guess. I try to think about what the core concept is, or about phrases/concepts that will tie the beginning and end together, but sometimes I just look up song lyrics and poetry that feel right.

Do You Outline?

This really depends. I do outline for bigger fics (over 15k), and especially for fusions that are bigger because I need to keep track of so many elements at once. Sometimes I will do a pseudo outline of interior vs exterior plots while brainstorming, just to get themes and main plot points recorded. In general I need to just write a certain amount of a story before I can even start an outline though. The act of writing itself helps me figure out more of how I want the story to flow. I am trying to get better at outlining overall, because I’m pretty confident that if I can develop it as a more readily-accessed skill I’ll be able to finish more stories much faster.

I’ll tag (if you want to, no pressure): @somanyjacks-writes, @theflowergirl, @suspiciouspopsicle, @roamingjaguar, and anyone else who’s a writer who wants to join in; please tag me if you do!

Find an easy copy/paste version of these questions here.

#about alex #tag games

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incognitajones · 5 years ago

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11 Questions

@cats-and-metersticks tagged me!

Rules: Answer the 11 questions of the person who tagged you; make up 11 questions; tag 11 people to answer them.

1. List your current WIPs!!

From oldest to newest:

Disassemble my Despair

First Steps

The Presence of Departed Acts

True and False

untitled "Cassian & Jyn meet when younger" AU

"not a story" (untitled original novel experiment)

second chapter of Filling the Role

Plus a few more bits & scraps that will probably never turn into a complete story.

2. What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

I can't answer this one because I never know whether to decide based on my experience writing a piece, the finished product, or the audience reponse. Should it be the niche pairing I never thought I'd write but managed to pull off, judging by the recipient's comment? Or the fluffy modern AU I had a great time writing, even if it's pedestrian & unimaginative?

3. What are some of your current goals as a writer?

...to finish my WIPs. 😭

At one point, I had loftier goals of trying to stretch myself and develop new skills: write unreliable narrators, slowburn, more complicated plots, suspense! Now I just want to get them done, even if it means resorting to the most tired resolution imaginable.

4. What first inspired you to write fanfiction?

Other writers, specifically some of the BNFs on a mailing list in my corner of LOTR fandom who were incredibly welcoming & supportive. My creativity is always higher when I feel like part of a community, and that was a good one.

5. What’s your favorite thing to cook for dinner vs. what’s your favorite meal to eat out?

cook: something savoury & filling (beef stew, dahl, etc)

eat out: something with seafood (sushi, coconut shrimp, scallops)

6. What would your dream house be like?

On the water, lots of windows, screened deck (see: my dream home and cabin porn tags)

7. How do you like to start a story?

At the latest possible point. Sometimes I still write a lot of extraneous words to feel my way into the beginning of a story, but I think I've gotten better at figuring out where to chop them off and what can be left as backstory.

8. What’s the biggest thing that convinces you to read the second chapter in a multi-chapter fic?

I'd have to say voice. An intriguing premise, an immersive setting, or a solid plot hook helps, but even if none of those are present, a really good sense of character voice will keep me reading.

9. What fic are you currently obsessed with (any fandom, reading or writing), if any?

or the path the walker, @rain-sleet-snow's Abhorsen AU! It feels like it was written especially FOR ME because it combines my OTP with one of my all-time favourite fandoms in a seamless manner. She's been sending me snippets for a while and it's been very hard to contain my excitement.

10. Describe your perfect Saturday!

Sleeeeep in, a good cup of coffee & my spouse's amazing waffles for breakfast, something not too strenuous outdoors (gardening, walk in a park/the woods, swim), read a really good book and/or write on the back porch, white wine or cocktails at some point in the afternoon, maybe go out to a movie or some live music in the evening. Extremely unambitious, but hey, that's me.

11. Metaphors or similes?

Metaphors! Similes are great too, but I love the immediacy and crisp bite of a good metaphor.

And now, no-pressure tagging: @englishable, @glorious-spoon, @fortysevenswrites, @kotaface, @dryadrobot, @ladytharen, @skitzofreak, @youareiron-andyouarestrong, @linearla, @jlrpuck, @thegiddyowl

(my 11 questions are below)

What was the last book you read, and what did you think of it?

Are you a multishipper or an OTP type of fan?

What’s a song you always sing along to?

If you could be adopted by a Star Wars character, who would it be?

A movie you can’t help but stop and watch when it’s on TV

What city/country would you really like to visit?

If you had to live in a historical era (i.e. more than 50 years in the past), which would you choose?

Would you rather be rich or have amazing talent in your chosen field?

That one little pet peeve you know is irrational but still bugs you

What’s a favourite small indulgence when you want to treat yourself?

As a child, did you have a favourite toy or stuffed animal?

#ask memes #about me

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 6 years ago

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What other fandoms are you familiar enough with to use as an AU prompt? Pokemon Trainer AU? Homestuck AU (they'd still probably die but at least there are lots of ways to come back to life)?

I’m not that familiar with Homestuck, definitely not enough to do an AU. I read the novelizations of the Pokemon show as a kid but never saw the show or played any of the video games. I did play the super-obscure Pokemon board game, but most of my trading cards were printed in Japanese (I had a strange childhood), so my experience there is, uh, probably not quite overlapping with everyone else’s.

Anyway, if you want list of all my fandoms… Boy howdy. I don’t think I can come up with them all. However, I can list everything that comes to mind between now and ~20 minutes from now when I have to end my procrastination break and go back to dissertating. So here it is, below the cut:

Okay, there is no way in hell I’ll be able to make an exhaustive list. But off the top of my head, the fandoms I’m most familiar/comfortable with are as follows:

Authors (as in, I’ve read all or most of their books)

Patricia Briggs

Megan Whalen Turner

Michael Crichton

Marge Piercy

Stephenie Meyer

Dean Koontz

Stephen King

Neil Gaiman

K.A. Applegate

Ernest Hemingway

Tamora Pierce

Roald Dahl

Short Stories/Anthologies

A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

I Am Legend, Richard Matheson

Dubliners, James Joyce

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

Who Goes There? John W. Campbell

The Man Who Bridged the Mist, Kij Johnson

Flatland, Edwin Abbott

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison

To Build a Fire, Jack London

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bier

At the Mountains of Madness/Cthulu mythos, H.P. Lovecraft

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

Close Range: Wyoming Stories, E. Annie Proulx

The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

Bartleby the Scrivener (and a bunch of others), Herman Melville

Books (Classics)

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Secret Garden, Francis Hodgson Burnett

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

The Secret Annex, Anne Frank

Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

The Stranger, Albert Camus

The Call of the Wild, Jack London

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Atonement, Ian McEwan

1984, George Orwell

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

The Iliad/The Odyssey, Homer

Metamorphoses, Ovid

Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne

The Time-Machine, H.G. Wells

The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, MacBeth, Othello, and The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Thomas Stoppard

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Books (YA SF)

Young Wizards series, Diane Duane

Redwall, Brian Jaques

The Dark is Rising sequence, Susan Cooper

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Diana Wynne Jones

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Abhorsen trilogy, Garth Nix

The Giver series, Lois Lowry

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Uglies series, Scott Westerfeld

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

Song of the Lioness, Tamora Pierce

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle

Unwind, Neal Shusterman

The Maze Runner series, James Dashner

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia C. Wrede

Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Louis Sachar

Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

Among the Hidden, Margaret Peterson Haddix

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

Poppy series, Avi

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd

Tithe, Holly Black

Life as We Knew It, Susan Beth Pfeffer

Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klause

Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum

Haunted, Gregory Maguire

Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block

Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

East, Edith Pattou

Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O’Brien

The Looking-Glass Wars, Frank Beddor

The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Homecoming, Cynthia Voigt

Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

The Landry News, Andrew Clements

Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson

Bloody Jack, L.A. Meyer

The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner

A Certain Slant of Light, Laura Whitcomb

Generation Dead, Daniel Waters

Pendragon series, D.J. MacHale

Silverwing, Kenneth Oppel

Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Define Normal, Julie Anne Peters

Hawksong, Ameila Atwater Rhodes

Heir Apparent, Vivian Vande Velde

Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix

The Keys to the Kingdom series, Garth Nix

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken

The Seer and the Sword, Victoria Hanley

My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George

Daughters of the Moon series, Lynne Ewing

The Midwife’s Apprentice, Karen Cushman

Island of the Aunts, Eva Ibbotson

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, Nancy Farmer

A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray

A School for Sorcery, E. Rose Sabin

The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs

The Edge Chronicles, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Hope was Here, Joan Bauer

Bunnicula, James Howe

Wise Child, Monica Furlong

Silent to the Bone, E.L. Konigsburg

The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene du Bois

Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters, Gail Giles

The Supernaturalist, Eoin Colfer

Blue is for Nightmares, Laurie Faria Stolarz

Mystery of the Blue Gowned Ghost, Linda Wirkner

Wait Till Helen Comes, Mary Downing Hahn

I was a Teenage Fairy, Francesca Lia Block

City of the Beasts series, Isabelle Allende

Summerland, Michael Chabon

The Geography Club, Brent Hartinger

The Last Safe Place on Earth, Richard Peck

Liar, Justine Larbalestier

The Doll People, Ann M. Martin

The Lost Years of Merlin, T.A. Barron

Matilda Bone, Karen Cushman

Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger

The Tiger Rising, Kate DiCamillo

The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

In the Forests of the Night, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

My Teacher is an Alien, Bruce Coville

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, Julie Andrews Edwards

Storytime, Edward Bloor

Magic Shop series, Bruce Coville

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

Veritas Project series, Frank Peretti

The Once and Future King, T.H. White

Raven’s Strike, Patricia Briggs

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy, Gregory Maguire

The Wind Singer, William Nicholson

Sweetblood, Pete Hautman

The Trumpet of the Swan, E.B. White

Half Magic, Edward Eager

A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L'Engle

The Heroes of Olympus, Rick Riordan

Maximum Ride series, James Patterson

The Edge on the Sword, Rebecca Tingle

World War Z, Max Brooks

Adaline Falling Star, Mary Pope Osborne

Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo

Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi

Parable of the Sower series, Octavia Butler

I, Robot, Isaac Asimov

Neuomancer, William Gibson

Dune, Frank Herbert

The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily M. Danforth

The Martian, Andy Weir

Skeleton Man, Joseph Bruchac

Comics/Manga

Marvel 616 (most of the major titles)

Marvel 1610/Ultimates

Persepolis

This One Summer

Nimona

Death Note

Ouran High School Host Club

Vampire Knight

Emily Carroll comics

Watchmen

Fun Home

From Hell

American Born Chinese

Smile

The Eternal Smile

The Sandman

Calvin and Hobbes

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

TV Shows

Fullmetal Alchemist

Avatar the Last Airbender

Teen Titans (2003)

Luke Cage/Jessica Jones/Iron Fist/Defenders/Daredevil/The Punisher

Agents of SHIELD/Agent Carter

Supernatural

Sherlock

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Firefly

American Horror Story

Ouran High School Host Club

Orange is the New Black

Black Sails

Stranger Things

Westworld

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Movies

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Jurassic Park/Lost World/Jurassic World/Lost Park?

The Breakfast Club

Cloverfield/10 Cloverfield Lane/The Cloverfield Paradox

Attack the Block

The Prestige

Moon

Ferris Bueler’s Day Off

Django Unchained/Kill Bill/Inglourious Basterds/Hateful 8/Pulp Fiction/etcetera

Primer

THX 1138/Akira/How I Live Now/Lost World/[anything I’ve named a fic after]

Star Wars

The Meg

A Quiet Place

Baby Driver

Mother!

Alien/Aliens/Prometheus

X-Men (et al.)

10 Things I Hate About You

The Lost Boys

Teen Wolf

Juno

Pirates of the Caribbean (et al.)

Die Hard

Most Disney classics: Toy Story, Mulan, Treasure Planet, Emperor’s New Groove, etc.

Most Pixar classics: Up, Wall-E, The Incredibles

The Matrix

Dark Knight trilogy

Halloween

Friday the 13th

A Nightmare on Elm Street

The Descent

Ghostbusters

Ocean’s Eight/11/12/13

King Kong

The Conjuring

Fantastic Four

Minority Report/Blade Runner/Adjustment Bureau/Total Recall

Fight Club

Spirited Away

Disturbing Behavior

The Faculty

Poets

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Marge Piercy

Thomas Hardy

Sigfried Sassoon

W. B. Yeats

Edgar Allan Poe

Ogden Nash

Margaret Atwood

Maya Angelou

Emily Dickinson

Matthew Dickman

Karen Skolfield

Kwame Alexander

Ellen Hopkins

Shel Silverstein

Musicals/Stage Plays

Les Miserables

Repo: The Genetic Opera

The Lion King

The Phantom of the Opera

Rent

The Prince of Egypt

Pippin

Into the Woods

A Chorus Line

Hairspray

Evita

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Fiddler on the Roof

Annie

Fun Home

Spring Awakening

Chicago

Cabaret

The Miser

The Importance of Being Earnest

South Pacific

Godspell

Wicked

The Wiz

The Wizard of Oz

Man of La Mancha

The Sound of Music

West Side Story

Matilda

Sweeney Todd

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Nunsense

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown/Snoopy

1776

Something Rotten

A Very Potter Musical

Babes in Toyland

Carrie: The Musical

Amadeus

Annie Get Your Gun

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

The Final Battle

Rock of Ages

Cinderella

Moulin Rouge

Honk

Labyrinth

The Secret Garden

Reefer Madness

Bang Bang You’re Dead

NSFW

War Horse

Peter Pan

Suessical

Sister Act

The Secret Annex

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Disclaimer 1: Like a lot of people who went to high school in the American South, my education in literature is pretty shamefully lacking in a lot of areas. (As in, during our African American History unit in ninth grade we read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn… and that was it. As in, our twelfth-grade US History class, I shit you not, covered Gone With the Wind.) There were a lot of good teachers in with the *ahem* Less Woke ones (how I read Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Bluest Eye) and college definitely set me on the path to trying to find books written/published outside the WASP-ier parts of the U.S., but the overall list is still embarrassingly hegemonic.

Disclaimer 2: There are a crapton of errors — typos, misspelled names, misattributions, questionable genre classifications, etc. — in here. If you genuinely have no idea what a title is supposed to be, ask me. Otherwise, please don’t bother letting me know about my mistakes.

Disclaimer 3: I am not looking for recommendations. My Goodreads “To Read” list is already a good 700 items long, and people telling me “if you like X, then you’ll love Y!” genuinely stresses me the fuck out.

Disclaimer 4: There are no unproblematic faves on this list. I love Supernatural, and I know that Supernatural is hella misogynistic. On the flip side: I don’t love The Lord of the Rings at all, partially because LOTR is hella misogynistic, but I also don’t think that should stop anyone else from loving LOTR if they’re willing to love it and also acknowledge its flaws.

#literature #fandom #booklist #about the blogger #long post #long ass post #books #nothing to do with animorphs #Anonymous #asks

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ao3feed-rarry · 5 years ago

Text

Plague

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2XE7prD

by 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue

Jon Snow is a Witcher tracking down the Avatar. Harry Potter is the Abhorsen, unhappily kept from doing his job. Sam Winchester is the king of the Southern Water Tribe intent on destroy his husband's empire. Morgana is an exiled fire-bender, framed for murder. Padme is an assassin. Mulan faked her death after kidnapping Jack, and now tries to make contact with Pidge and the Rebellion.

Kikyo is the re-animated Avatar, hostage of Naraku.

Sauron, Lucifer, The Night King, Voldemort, Jadis, Aslan, Lotor, Shan Yu, Daenerys, Arthur, and Darth Vader are warring rulers trying to make an empire, but only if Naraku doesn't destroy everything first.

Words: 434, Chapters: 1/42, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of Witcher Avatar Merlin Sabriel Verse

Fandoms: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Supernatural, Merlin (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), The Umbrella Academy (TV), Stranger Things (TV 2016), Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper, Old Kingdom - Garth Nix, Star Wars - All Media Types, Voltron: Legendary Defender, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, Mulan - All Media Types, The Dragon Prince (Cartoon), She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, Hercules (1997), The Little Mermaid (1989), Hannibal (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi

Characters: Jon Snow, Morgana (Merlin), Sam Winchester, Harry Potter, Jack Kline, Vanya Hargreeves, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Night King (Game of Thrones), Lucifer (Supernatural), Will Stanton, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Padmé Amidala, Kikyou (InuYasha), Naraku (InuYasha), Mulan, Sauron | Mairon, Frodo Baggins, Megara (Disney), Will Graham

Relationships: Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Night's King/Jon Snow, Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort/Ginny Weasley, Padme Amidala/Morgana, Lotor/Allura/Pidge, Mulan/Shan Yu, Kikyou/Naraku (InuYasha), Pidge & R2-D2, Castiel/Sam Winchester, Darth Vader/Padme/Obi-Wan side ship, Tormund Giantsbane/Jon Snow/Ygritte, Jon Snow & Morgana & Harry Potter & Padme & Sam Winchester & Kikyo & Mulan, Mulan/Megara

Additional Tags: Avatar the Last Airbender AU, Witcher AU, Jack is Sam's Son, Trans Sam Winchester, Trans Jon Snow, Trans Harry Potter, Angst, Squick, Horror, The power of friendship, Harry Potter Centric, Jon Snow Centric, Sam Winchester Centric, Morgana centric, Padme Amidala Centric, Trans Mulan, Abusive Relationships, Everyone in a relationship is an adult in this fic, Crack Treated Seriously, Asexual Castiel (Supernatural), Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Kikyo centric, Mulan Centric, Main Protags are Jon Harry Sam Padme Morgana Kikyou and Mulan, Trans Will Graham, Trans Maxine "Max" Mayfield, His Dark Materials AU, GoT au, LotR AU, Old Kingdom AU, Warring Empires, the first chapter is only a prologue right now

read it on the AO3 at http://bit.ly/2XE7prD

#ao3feed #ao3feed rarry #fanfic #harry x ron #rarry #hon #rory

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darthrevaan · 7 years ago

Note

AH I LOVE IT (and all of the other Old Kingdom stuff you're posting/reblogging recently!) Okay, new prompt: someThing calls Anakin 'Saraneth's get' or Obi-Wan 'Mosrael's get.' And then Obi-Wan has to Explain.

So this is partially constructed out of a fic I sent you before (but didn’t post on my tumblr), which hopefully you won’t mind reading again! In any case, over half of this is new material, so ;) (bc yet again, I reached the 4k mark with this…)

Anakin and Obi-Wan have a close encounter with something Dead, as well as a certain exasperated Ancelstierrian captain…

The Ancelstierrians hadn’t been entirely certain whereAnakin and Obi-Wan might find their wayward captain. “He was scouting outplaces for us to settle,” Fives had told them, “He was meant to be back a weekago, but it’s not unusual for scouts to be late. There’s a lot of dangers outthere, plus whatever goes on when you cross the Wall.”

“And just how well do you know the dangers? How manytimes have you been into the Kingdom?” Anhrin had growled.

Fives had given her a scathing look. “Not our fault ifyou can’t defend your own border.”

Obi-Wan had cut through the burgeoning argument withanother question. “How do we get him to trust us? We’ll need to convince himwe’re not guards from the Wall come to arrest him.”

Fives had thought for a minute, and then taken somethingfrom around his neck and handed it to Obi-Wan. “Give him that. He’ll know it’sfrom me.”

Obi-Wan had taken the charm and looked at it dubiously. “Orhe’ll think we killed you for it.”

“And how would you have known it was important?” Fivessaid. “Look at it. It’s just a rock and a feather on a string.”

Now, as they rode up the Old North Road in the thickeningtwilight, Anakin was starting to doubt the effectiveness of their plan. “So,just how are you planning to find one man in this entire area?” he asked.

“I’m not,” Obi-Wan said, “I’m planning on you repairingthe Charter stone at Barhedrin Hill. Fives told me Rex uses the hill as alandmark; we might have a chance of running into him while we’re there.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then he’ll go back to the Wall, and Fives and the otherswill be there to intercept him, either at the crossing points or back in theircamp.” Obi-Wan shrugged. “Either way, he’ll be found, and we’ll have repaired aCharter stone in the process.”

“Unless he’s dead,” Anakin muttered.

“Try to remain positive, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “Now,it’s almost dark; let’s find a place to camp off the road.”

They found a small dell with flat, grassy ground at thebottom, about twenty paces from the road, set back behind a screen of oaktrees. It would be easy to set up the tent – but first they had to cast thediamond of protection. Obi-Wan hobbled the horses while Anakin got started. Hetook a deep breath and tried to calm his mind, holding the symbol of the Eastmarkin his head, imagining it in fiery burning lines as it would be when he etchedit onto the ground. Closing his eyes, he began to draw with his sword; firstupward, then a curve, then downward again…

With an effort of will, he pushed the mark from his mind,out through his hand and down the sword into the ground. The Eastmark leaptinto life, burning orange.

Anakin stood back and regarded it critically. “It’s notvery bright,” he commented to Obi-Wan, who had walked up to stand beside him.

“It’s satisfactory,” Obi-Wan said. “You take theSouthmark, and I’ll do the North.”

When all four marks where done, lines of fire sprang upbetween them, and the diamond of protection was complete. Anakin was sure thetwo marks he had cast were dimmer than those Obi-Wan had, but the other man wasadamant that he had done a good job. “You barely knew what a diamond ofprotection looked like two months ago, may I remind you,” Obi-Wan said as hehammered a tent peg into the ground.

“Still…” Anakin glanced uneasily at the marks. “This isdangerous country.”

“Which is why we’ll take watches,” Obi-Wan said. “Thereare things that could break through the diamond, given enough time.”

They didn’t even discuss lighting a fire. Anakinvolunteered for the first watch; he was still apprehensive about the diamond,and there was something, almost like a sixth sense, singing a warning in theback of his mind.

The night was silent. His Death sense lay quiet, only afaint hum in the background like it often was. Still, he couldn’t shake thefeeling that something was out there in the dark, watching him.

A Free Magiccreature wouldn’t feel like Death. Something of that ilk might be hiding outthere. With that comforting thought in mind, Anakin watched the cardinalmarks closely and kept wakeful and alert.

However, when Obi-Wan woke up and gently shook hisshoulder to take over the watch, nothing had happened. As Anakin lay down inthe tent, he was unsure whether to be anxious or not. He’d seen nothing; but,as completely as he trusted Obi-Wan, his Death sense was weak. There was achance, however small, that whatever was out there was waiting for Anakin tosleep, knowing that it would be easier to approach undetected when Obi-Wan wason watch.

But his worry came to naught. Obi-Wan woke him as thefirst light of dawn was beginning to break over the horizon, and they had asmall breakfast of dry bread and salted pork before packing up their camp. “Didyou see anything last night?” Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I did notice you were jumpy,though.”

“I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was outthere.”

Obi-Wan looked troubled for a moment. “Well…I supposewe’d best be on our guard.”

That was all they said on the matter. They’d had enoughexperience running from trouble with each other that they knew there was nopoint endlessly discussing possibilities; either something would reveal itself,or it wouldn’t.

Obi-Wan nodded and, with a flourish, broke the Northmark.With a flare of light, the diamond disintegrated, the lines of protectionshining brighter for a moment before winking out. Anakin gripped the hilt ofhis sword; it was common for more intelligent Free Magic beings to attack atthe moment a diamond of protection was broken.

Nothing came charging out of the trees, and after amoment Anakin let his grip relax. Perhaps what he’d felt really had beennothing.

“The path up to the crest is steep and winding,” Obi-Wansaid when they were back on the road. “I don’t know if the horses will be ableto make it up.”

“We can leave them at the base of the hill,” Anakindecided.

The spot where the path to Barhedrin Hill met the roadwas easy to miss even in daylight, but the bluffs that contained the path wereclear, as was the brow of the hill rising high above. The path ran up a narrowgully between the bluffs, red stone rising high above their heads and blockingthem in. It was the perfect place for an ambush, Anakin thought, some of hisearlier anxiety returning.

A small stream ran through the gully, sluggish andslow-moving now, choked up with ice. The path crossed it several times onbranches and stones, ending with a proper bridge at the midway point, which waswhere they decided to leave their horses, tied securely to the wooden posts ofthe bridge. They continued on up the slope alone.

It was a half-hour walk up to the crest of the hill, withthe path becoming steeper and rockier the further they went. Eventually theflat path changed to roughly hewn steps, cracked and crumbling with age.

At the top of the hill stood the Charter stone,surrounded by the low walls of a crumbled, fallen-down tower; the old Guardtower of Barhedrin Hill, long since abandoned. As they neared it, the sense ofviolent Death grew and grew, until it was like a choking scent in Anakin’snostrils. The stone was twice his height, and hewn out of a rough grey rock,expertly sculpted. It bore hundreds of tiny, dead Charter marks, frozen as theyhad been at the moment of the stone’s breaking – now nothing more than etchingsscratched into the rock. The jagged, zigzag crack down the middle of the stonereminded Anakin uncomfortably of an open wound – and as the pale light of thesun hit it, he saw there were dark patches all over it, of what could only beblood. “The Charter mage,” Anakin said.

They were both silent for a moment, before Obi-Wan said, “That’swhat you’re guarding against, Anakin. A creature would have to be both powerfuland twisted to perform a ritual like the one needed to break a Charter stone.That’s the kind of creature you’ll have to hunt.”

We’ll have to hunt,Anakin instantly thought, though he didn’t know why the second pronoun feltmore accurate than the first. He wasthe Abhorsen, after all. He also knew what Obi-Wan might be thinking, but didn’tsay; this was the true face of FreeMagic.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to walk forwardtoward the stone. He circled the stone at a distance, reluctant to touch it.Obi-Wan, he noted, stayed as far away as he could, back by the beginning of thepath.

Frowning in concentration, Anakin recalled the pages in The Book of the Dead that dealt with themaking and breaking of Charter stones. The ritual would require somecomplicated Charter marks, a lot of concentration, and a not inconsiderableamount of his own blood.

He forced himself to walk closer to the Charter stone, tokneel down beside it. “I’ll need you to keep a watch,” he said to Obi-Wan,“This will take-”

Even as he spoke, he felt a sickening lurch in hisstomach as his Death sense flared to life. There was something Dead nearby, no,a few Dead somethings, onesignificantly stronger than the rest, and how had he not sensed them before-

Because of thebroken Charter stone, he thought with a dull thrill of horror. It blinded my senses. “There are Deadthings coming,” he said, drawing his sword in one hand and Saraneth in theother.

Vahenda was out of her scabbard and in Obi-Wan’s handalmost from one moment to the next. “Where?” he asked, simple and to the point.

“Close,” Anakin said, still trying to tell exactly wherethey were on the hill. “From the east- no, the southeast.”

They both turned in that direction, scanning the hilltop;nothing was moving. “How far? Can you tell?” Obi-Wan said under his breath.

“They’ll be in sight in a few minutes,” Anakin said.

He could hear Obi-Wan begin to mutter under his breath,his fingers sketching out Charter marks in preparation. He recalled all thedestructive Charter marks he could; they were the core of what Obi-Wan hadtaught him so far, for situations just like this.

They both stood, stock-still, listening intently. Thewind gusted around them, lifting their hair and loose edges of their clothing,and making an unsettling moan as it passed through the crack in the Charterstone.

The first thing Anakin expected to hear was footsteps,but not as light nor as fast as those he caught on the wind now. Frowning, hestraightened, trying to catch a glimpse over the edge of the ridge - andwithout warning, a figure vaulted up the last few steps and stumbled to a halt,staring at them in undisguised dismay.

The man - who was clearly living, and not some Dead thing- let out a stream of curses in a language Anakin didn’t understand, andglanced over his shoulder once before setting his jaw and stalking toward them.“I’ve no time for your rubbish today, Kingdom etisii,” he said, “I’ve got bigger troubles.” He’d drawn a knifefrom somewhere on his person, a long blade about the length of Anakin’sforearm. It looked somewhat dull in the light of the morning sun, and thehandle seemed to be falling apart even as the man levelled it at them. A weapon from Ancelstierre, Anakinthought, Everything they bring with themdisintegrates eventually, which is exactly what’s happening to that knife.

“I agree, my friend,” Obi-Wan said, though he didn’trelax his aggressive stance. “Perhaps we might call a truce for a moment? Theenemy of my enemy is my friend, after all.”

“And then you arrest me as soon as it’s dead?” the manasked. “Not likely.”

“They’ll be here in under a minute,” Anakin muttered.

Obi-Wan reached up and tugged off the necklace Fives hadgiven him, then threw it through the air at the man, who caught it on instinct.“Recognise that?”

The man held it up to his face, his sneer of derisiontransforming into shocked disbelief. “How did you- why do you have this?!”

“Fives gave it to us,” Obi-Wan said, “He said you’drecognise it - Captain Rex.”

The man - Rex - scowled and stuffed the charm awaysomewhere in his clothes. “Why the hell would Fives be talking to you to?” hedemanded.

“Unless you get over here and out of the path of thoseDead Hands, you’re never going to find out,” Anakin said.

Rex looked back down the path, his position giving him aview down the steps to where Obi-Wan and Anakin couldn’t see. Whatever he sawdown there made him move swiftly in their direction; he took up a ready stanceon Obi-Wan’s right. “If we survive this, I will have so many questions for you,etisii,” he growled.

“Likewise,” Anakin muttered - and then he heard it. Ashuffling, scuffing noise, as of someone dragging their feet as they walked. Hetook a firmer grip on Saraneth’s handle and dragged in a deep breath. The lasttime he had faced the Dead, everything had gone wrong. Obi-Wan had paid the pricethen – Anakin was determined to make sure he wouldn’t a second time.

The first Dead Hand came into view, shuffling towardthem, the pallid skin on its face already falling off. It was followed by asecond, and then a third – and then by a stronger Dead thing, lumbering behindthe rest, hissing softly from its gaping mouth. The stronger creature halted asit saw the figures on the hilltop and sat back on its haunches, raising itshead as though sniffing the air. Then one word, hissing and sibilant, floatedacross to them on the wind; “Abhorsen.”

“It knows me,” Anakin muttered.

“You think the Dead don’t know that sword?” Obi-Wan said,nodding to it.

“What the hell is an ‘Aborsen’?” Rex snapped.

“Ab-hor-sen,”Obi-Wan sounded out the syllables. He nodded at Anakin, “That’s him. A warriorwho can bind the Dead.”

“Right.” Rex sounded sceptical.

“Abhorsen,” thecreature hissed again. “Filthy Saraneth’sGet. It has been a long time since we had one of your ilk to fear.”

Saraneth’s Get? Anakinthought, frowning. What is that supposedto mean?

“Don’t let it distract you,” Obi-Wan muttered, his handtwitching, just waiting for the right moment to unleash a Charter spell.

“Keep coming this way and I’ll show you why you should beafraid,” Anakin said, raising his sword.

“I will crack open your bones and feast on your blooood,”the creature snarled, slithering closer.

The Dead Hands came on, slow plodding step after step,and Anakin watched them out of the corner of his eye. “You take the Hands,” hemuttered to Obi-Wan, “I’ll go for the creature. On three.”

Obi-Wan nodded, and Anakin began to count down under hisbreath. “One, two, three-”

Gouts of flame burst from Obi-Wan’s hand and sword,engulfing the Dead Hands. The spirits within them screamed, desperately tryingto cling onto Life even as their host bodies disintegrated.

Wrapping a simple shield spell around himself, Anakinjumped through the flames and landed mere feet away from the Dead creature,which was hissing and writhing in anger as it watched its servants burnt to acrisp. “Feel like making the final walk, ugly?” Anakin asked. With a carefulflourish of his wrist and a concentration of will, he rang Saraneth.

The creature moaned and snarled as it felt Saraneth’seffect, felt Anakin’s will pressing onto it. It writhed its misshapen head andbatted at it with its unnatural, elongated arms, as if trying to cover itsears. Anakin rang the bell again, a simple, careful pattern, and focused allhis will on the creature. Submit. Submit.

The creature began to flop about, flat on its belly,rolling from side to side; Anakin could feel it come under his sway. He rangone more time as he focused and, with an effort of will, crossed the boundarybetween Life and Death.

Within a blink, he was standing in the cold, grey lightof Death, the river tugging at his calves. He set his feet and stood firm,looking for the creature.

It was easy to spot; it was still wriggling, churning thedark water with its agonised death throws. As Anakin stepped closer it raisedits ugly muzzle above the surface of the water and said, “Abhorsen, Abhorsen,have pity, have mercy on me, your beseeching servant, your faithful slave! Rukwill serve you, will be your slave forever, will sing your praises, Abhorsen,Ruk begs for mercy-”

“The Abhorsen has no mercy,” Anakin said, sheathing hissword. “Not for Dead things.” With cautious hands he pulled Kibeth from itspouch.

The creature let out a long moan. “Not the Walker, notthe Walker, not back to the Sixth Gate, back to the struggle, no-”

“No,” Anakin said, “Not the Sixth Gate. You will walk allthe way, to the Ninth Gate and beyond.” With that, he rung Kibeth and Saranethtogether, a precise, careful tune, one of the patterns he’d taken great care tomemorise from The Book of the Dead.

Already under Anakin’s sway, the creature had no defenceagainst both bells rung together. It slipped away under the water and made abeeline for the First Gate; a moment later Anakin heard the sound of thewaterfall stop, a clear indication that something had passed through.

With a cautious look around, he returned Kibeth to itspouch and drew his blade again. The surface of the river was undisturbed, andthe Precinct looked peaceful, but TheBook of the Dead had stressed thatthis was where a necromancer would be vulnerable, and the Dead at their mostsneaky. With the power gained from the lifeforce of an Abhorsen, even a GreaterDead could batter their way back out into Life.

Anakin waited only a minute more, feeling the Dead thingthat had called itself Ruk fade away as it floated further and further down theriver, beyond the reach of his senses. The spirits that had inhabited the DeadHands were long gone by now, and he felt nothing new cross the border. Theyhad, it seemed, won the day.

He turned and stepped back across the border into Life,feeling his eyes begin to itch. He brushed the ice out of them, feeling piecesof it fall out of his hair as well.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he wassurprised to see it was Rex, not Obi-Wan, brushing ice off his surcoat. “I’veseen some crazy things in this Kingdom,” he said, looking down at thefast-melting ice in his hand, “But I’ve neverseen anything like that. I know it’s cold up here, but that…”

“It’s a side effect of passing into Death,” Anakin said.

Rex looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. “‘Passing into’ death?”

Anakin nodded. “I can step between the two planes almostat will. It’s part of being the Abhorsen, and how I’m able to banish the Dead.”

To Anakin’s surprise, Rex rolled his eyes. “YouKingdomers and your ‘Dead’,” he said, making air quotes around the word. “Youpeople have the weirdest superstitions.”

“Superstitions?” Anakin could feel his mouth hangingopen. He pointed with his sword at the pile of grave dirt and ash where theDead creature had been. “You call that ‘superstition’?”

“I call that a nasty beast of some kind,” Rex said,“Something that could move and talk, and therefore was clearly not dead.”

“But- it- it was decomposing! Right in front of you!”

Rex shrugged. “I’ve seen weirder.”

Obi-Wan laid a hand on Anakin’s arm. “Not now, Anakin,”he said, “You still have the Charter stone to fix, and then we need to get backto the Wall.”

“Not so fast,” Rex said, “I think this is the part whereyou tell me why you have Fives’ charm with you. He’d never give that to someone, not unless he trusted them completely.”

Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan, who inclined his head; clearlyhe was willing to let Anakin tell this story. “We were looking for you,” Anakinsaid. “The group of refugees you were scouting for have been authorised tocross the Wall. I need to go to the Queen and clear up a few things, and I needyou to come speak to her on behalf ofyour people.”

“‘Authorised to cross the Wall’?” Rex repeated, “How?They were sneaking in, not applying for passage.”

“The Guards found them and brought them back to the maingate,” Anakin said, “And I…rushed their applications through, so to speak.”

Rex frowned at him. “So to speak?”

“I told the Guards to let them in and consider themcitizens of the Kingdom.”

There was silence for a moment. “You can do that?” Rexasked, incredulous. “Who are you?”

“The Abhorsen,” Anakin said. “I’m kind of a big deal.”

Rex looked nonplussed, and Anakin could almost hearObi-Wan rolling his eyes. “Please stop talking and go fix that Charter stone,”he said.

“I’m going,” Anakin said, grinning to himself. Then athought hit him, and he reached out to grab Obi-Wan’s arm. “One minute. ThatDead thing - he called me ‘Saraneth’s Get’. What does that mean?”

Obi-Wan tilted his head. “You haven’t heard the rhymeabout the foundation of the Charter?”

“Well, of course. But I don’t see what-”

“Five of the Shiners poured themselves into theBloodlines,” Obi-Wan said, “Saraneth is the being that became the Abhorsenbloodline. You are, some might say, a descendant of Saraneth.”

Anakin frowned. “But Saraneth was a Free Magic creature.”

“You’re not literallyit’s descendant. It’s more of a poetic thing.”

“So I’m poetically Saraneth’schild?”

“The power of Saraneth - the very essence of the creatureitself, you might say - lives in you, in your blood,” Obi-Wan said, poking himin the shoulder. “That’s why your blood has power.”

Something in Anakin’s stomach twisted. “My blood haspieces of a Bright Shiner in it?”

Obi-Wan looked thoughtful. “I’ve never thought of it likethat, but yes, I suppose that’s how it works.” He shrugged. “This is all veryesoteric, theoretical magic, Anakin. Not something even I know a lot about.”

“I just- you’re saying an incredibly powerful Free Magiccreature lives within me,” Anakinsaid.

“Not exactly. It’s powerlives on through you; the entity itself is gone, consumed in the process ofcreating the Charter. The remnant of Saraneth, the raw physical power it oncepossessed, is what you have inherited.” Obi-Wan smiled. “I suppose it would bemore of a concern for you. The power I inherited from Mosrael is dilutedthroughout my cousins, but you, as far as we know, are the sole heir toSaraneth’s power.”

“Surprisingly, that doesn’t make me feel better,” Anakinsaid. He could feel nausea rising in his gut.

Obi-Wan patted him on the shoulder. “Just focus on fixingthe Charter stone.”

“It’s strange,” Rex said, “I can understand the words,but it’s like you’re speaking some kind of weird foreign language. I don’t knowwhy you people insist on calling your science magic.”

Before Anakin could reply, Obi-Wan gave him a gentleshove toward the broken Charter stone. “Being near that thing is setting myteeth on edge,” he said. “Take care of it, and I’ll take care of our friendhere.”

Anakin hesitated for a moment, glancing at the Charterstone. The thought of a Bright Shiner in his blood, within his very being, wasn’teasy to banish - but Obi-Wan didn’t seem concerned, and he too had inheritedsome of a similar power. He watched Obi-Wan go over to Rex and start speakingquietly to him. The Ancelstierrian’s expression changed slowly from wariness tosomething gentler; he looked ready to listen to whatever Obi-Wan was tellinghim.

Smiling to himself, Anakin turned back to the Charterstone, and cracked his knuckles.

#anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #captain rex #star wars #AU #star wars abhorsen au #in a galaxy far far away #does the walker choose the path?#mine #hamelin-born #asked and answered

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