#steppe food is so tempting

[crazyyluvr]

heyy I've heard your requests are open! Could you do like a Jason Grace x gf reader where the reader has severe anger issues, but since Jason is rlly calm he is the only one who can handle her, and calm her down? I'm such a sucker for sunshine bf! X grumpy gf! trope haha

How to Anger a Demigod as a Horse 101

pairing: jason grace x gf!ares!reader

summary: in which you're very tempted to murder Hazel's magic (magically annoying) horse, but Jason's there to prevent that from happening.

genre: fluff, grumpy x sunshine (i think)

no particular place in the heroes of the olympus timeline, but they're on Argo II.

wc: 1.2k

warning/s: cursing, jason may be ooc, she/her pronouns, anger issues, jason's nickname for reader is pompeii because volcano n stuff

note: thank you for your request anon <33 i hope this lives up to your expectations. enjoy!

short oneshot under the cut :: not edited

The Argo II became more of a home to the eight demigods during their months of travel. Even though the ship would most probably get destroyed beyond even Leo's repair by the time they finished their quest of destroying Gaea, that didn't stop them from finding comfort within the Celestial bronze walls.

During that morning, most of the demigods were in the dining room, enjoying their breakfast. They were all tired and sluggish, since the night before wasn't kind to them. Usually they would take shifts when it came to guarding the ship, but everyone was awake last night due to the mini army of winged terrors that came across the flying ship, which caused them to set down on the sea near the land.

They all slept for less than four hours, and they all wanted nothing more but to add to those hours of sleep.

"GODDAMN THIS STUPID HORSE!"

Well, most of them slept. It seemed that one of them didn't find sleep as luxurious as the rest did that night.

"How does she have this much energy? It's like, seven in the morning," Percy groaned, almost faceplanting into his blue pancakes if it weren't for Annabeth's quick reflexes to hold her boyfriend's head up.

"I SWEAR TO MY DAD'S ROMAN COUNTERPART I WILL TEAR YOU TO TINY LITTLE PIECES YOU HUNK OF SHIT!"

"She's a daughter of Ares alright," Frank chuckled tiredly, rubbing his eyes. "Only she can be heard this clearly when she's all the way on the other side of the ship."

"What horse is she talking about? I thought the stables were empty," Piper wondered, not bothering to tame her typhoon hair as she sipped her orange juice.

"THAT'S MY SHIRT YOU DUMBASS — ARION THE FUCKING HAY IS RIGHT THERE — STOP CHEWING MY DAMN SHIRT!"

It seemed that Arion decided to pay them a little visit now that they were set on a monster-free dock. That would explain Hazel's absence from the table, and how she reappeared in the doorway. She turned to Jason, who was trying to shovel as much food into his mouth as he could so he can go to the stables.

"She's gonna explode again," Hazel panted, putting a hand on her knee to support herself. "I tried getting her to breathe, like you normally do, Jason, but she's not listening. She might actually go through with killing Arion this time."

Jason swallowed, wiping his mouth as he stood up. "I'll go handle it. You," he pointed to Hazel, "eat."

Leo looked up from his rubber band helicopter to stare at his best friend. "Good luck, buddy. She hasn't bit off your head yet, but that could happen any day now."

Jason chuckled. "Thanks, Leo, but I'll be fine." He left the room.

More cursing and shouts that sounded dangerously close to war cries made Jason quicken his pace as he crossed the deck to go down into the stables, where he could see flickering shadows of a girl and a horse.

"If you bite at my shirt again, I'll shove a grenade down your throat and use your insides as monster bait."

Jason stopped walking, to see if you could actually control yourself this time.

Chomp.

"THAT'S IT, I'M GETTING MY GRENADES —"

You're thundering footsteps grew louder as you approached the doorway to leave the stables. Jason stepped forward just as you were about to exit the room, putting a placating hand on your shoulder. "Woah woah, slow down there Pompeii. No need to resort to violence so quickly, hmm?"

Strands of hay were poking out from your hair — which wasn't as messy as Piper's but it was well on its way there. There were dark circles under your angry eyes, indicating that you didn't sleep a wink that night. Your knuckles were white from how hard you were balling your fists, and heavy breaths escaped your lips. Jason swore that he could see a little bit of smoke coming out of your ears.

"That goddamn horse is gonna die," you seethed, your chest rising and falling from your angry inhales and exhales. "Step out of the way, Grace."

Jason shook his head, a calming smile on his lips as he moved his hands to your hair, picking out the hay before resting on your flaming cheeks, flushed with annoyance. "Breathe with me."

"I gotta give that stupid piece of shit what it deserves —"

"I know, I know, but you gotta breathe with me first, okay?"

"But —"

"Breathe. In..." He took a deep breath in, sending you a pointed look when you didn't follow. His scolding glance made you mutter some colorful words under your breath before following along with him.

"Out..."

You exhaled with him. You could feel your anger boil down, and Jason saw and felt your shoulders let out the tension in it.

"In..." you closed your eyes.

"Out..."

You opened them once you sensed that Jason was done. "How are you feeling?" He asked you.

"Better. Still a little annoyed, but I'm better."

"Remember what we said?"

You glared a little at Jason, before sighing and looking away. "I shouldn't act on my anger unless necessary."

"And was it necessary now?"

"No..."

Jason's smile grew, putting his palm under your chin to make you look at him so he could give you a small peck on your lips. "You look like you haven't slept. How about you rest in your cabin for the day, let the rest of us handle the monsters and the bird crap on the deck?"

You shrugged, acting like you didn't really care, an act that didn't convince Jason, judging from the way you leaned into his touch. "Sure, whatever. As long as someone else makes sure that damned horse is gone by the time I'm awake." You casted a heated glare at Arion behind you. The horse simply snorted, bending down to eat the hay that you were trying to get him to eat instead of your shirt moments before.

Jason nodded, his blonde hair swaying slightly with the movement. "Deal. Let's get some food in your system before you head to bed, okay?"

"Fine."

You let Jason lead you out of the stables and into the dining room, where everyone was.

The silence that followed your arrival was awkward and tense, like they were still waiting for some aftershock of your anger.

They finally breathed when you and Jason squeezed into a chair and Jason gave you food that you ate in silence, a pensive expression on your face as your eyes were focused only on the food in front of you, paying no mind to the stares of your fellow demigods."

"How do you do it?" Leo sighed, launching his helicopter, which flew out of the room. "Even back at camp, not even her siblings could contain her. That takes skill, man."

Your half sister Clarisse, despite being known for her issues with controlling her anger, could hardly restrain you when someone decided to tick you off.

Jason shrugged, staring lovingly at you, his girlfriend, cheeks slightly puffed from the food you were chewing. "I don't know man. I just do it."

But deep down, Jason knew the truth. You would never calm down unless you let yourself be calmed down by someone you completely trusted.

Being able to make you see through your anger was not a skill Jason had, it was simply the one of the perks of being your boyfriend, and the one person you trusted more than yourself.

And Jason would rather jump into Tartarus than let anyone else have the privilege that you entrusted to him.

[jlilycorbie]

7 & 7

Thanks to @toribookworm22 for the tag!

Rules: Share 7 snippets from a work of choice and tag 7 people.

Forgive me, but I still don't feel comfortable tagging people. Someday, I will convince myself that other people like being tagged and won't be annoyed with me, but today isn't that day. If you see this, consider it an open tag. I would love to see snippets from your projects!

These are all from the (still) untitled fantasy WIP.

For reference, Scavats is an unagul: a giant ram rooster. He's big enough to ride like a horse, and his kind are know to be formidable predators.

1.

Scavats stretched his neck to nibble and pull on Oyuungah's tail. She squealed and danced ahead, giggling, then turned to bat at his nose. He showed his fangs and pranced.

"Everything?" Zaya asked, keeping hold of his harness so he wouldn't be tempted to chase his new friend. "Do you remember everything?"

"I don't think I ever knew much." Setsamaa swept a hand ahead of them. "It's like the road. If you know to look, you can see it. I still forget, until I see someone who is Djaetyli. And I remember there was a land to the north filled with people. I remember the sound of their accents, the taste of food they brought. The wine and the vinegar from ice berries."

Scavats hung his head while he plodded along until Oyuungah slowed to walk beside him and scratch his ears. He moaned, dangling his tongue.

Zaya breathed deep, and maybe she recalled a ghost of flavor. The road died when they stopped coming, when other people stopped going. Wet season would wash it away, flower season would sprout through it, fire season would parch and crack it, cold season would finish shattering it to wash away. The Huudzairen kept open roads by magic and labor. The caravans did their part, maintaining where they could, marking problems and passing word when they couldn't.

The people of the north wouldn't have used a road alone. Huudzairen must have made and kept it. Why wouldn't Castravi and Tsaltich and others use it, too, even if they no longer wanted to go north?

2.

The spring burbled out from beneath a big rock. On the steppes, a little extra height went a long way. Zaya grabbed her map and climbed on top of it.

As she unfurled the vellum, she saw Djaetyrot and remembered. Why she was there. Everything she'd talked to Setsamaa about. She had the map for years, and occasionally she'd take it out, realize something had gone very wrong in the world, then…put it down and forget. Put it away without looking. Find it again.

But every time, it wore a groove a little deeper in her mind. Became harder to ignore even if she didn't know what fit there. And she remembered ice berry vinegar with salty, crumbling cheese and peppered honey on warm bread.

3.

They arrived with the sunset in their eyes as the zaighen gathered for the evening. The low sun caught on their pelts and blazed like fire.

"They're beautiful," Zaya breathed.

"And yet you slaughtered one," Setsamaa said.

Zaya spent her life protecting herds and flocks. She knew some of the cold reality of even the gentlest farming. From a distance, the herd looked healthy. "It is not always beautiful and does not always feel right, does life."

4.

It also meant she clearly heard staggering footsteps nearby. Zaya looked around, and at the next intersection, she spotted a young woman struggling to carry two water buckets. She wore a loose top like the Huudzairen, and she had two legs. She had hooves, but they were rounded instead of cloven, and she wore a loose wrapped skirt with bright, intricate embroidery and tiny mirrors that flashed in the early light.

"A hand," Zaya offered, extending one to her.

She stumbled to a stop and stared, and Zaya worried she'd gotten the words wrong until her pale cheeks flushed. "Thank you," she said, and she allowed Zaya to take one of them.

"Where we going, then?"

"We're the spices and ovens," she said, grasping her remaining bucket with both hands. She had a Tsaltich accent.

"You cook so far from water?" Zaya asked.

"Not usually, no." She shook her long, dark hair out of her eyes and peered up at Zaya. "You're new then."

"Arrived last night. Just trying to find my way around, yeah?"

The girl grinned. "Then you want to find us. I'm Llenas, and you'll meet my ma and da soon, Elyri and Hyelwun. Usually we get here, someone calls a well for us, but it failed this year. Got to wait a few days to try again."

"And meanwhile carry water," Zaya guessed. "I'm Zaya. Don't know how long I'll stay."

5.

"You're back!" Oyuungah spotted them and addressed Scavats directly. He rumbled with pleasure and stretched his neck out, then flopped over as she scratched him, blocking the whole path.

"Shameful," Zaya told him, shaking her head and doing her best not to smile as their escort of children giggled.

A pair of dragons swooped by, and one managed to score a clawful of fluff. "I see the monster is on the loose," Bahkyti said mildly. He had one dragon on his shoulder, and his bald head covered as much to give another somewhere to perch as to protect himself from the sun.

"I hope we're all prepared for the aftermath of his rampage," Zaya said. He rolled over for belly rubs, dangling his tongue.

"Devastating," Bahkyti drawled as he tossed a couple of dried meat scraps into the air. The dragons caught them while Scavats watched. He fingered another piece before he tossed it to the unagul.

Scavats tried to snap the crumb out of the air, but he also didn't want to unseat the child who had climbed onto his chest. He wiggled to the side, twisting his head to lick it off the ground. He sneezed.

"All your ancestors are embarrassed right now," Zaya said while Oyuungah giggled and scratched beneath his chin.

6.

"You can wait in camp then," she said, smiling as she pushed him back. He snorted in her face, then stopped and crouched as their camp came into sight. Aleksani stood on the edge of the boundary. Scavats lowered his head, rumbling quietly, and Zaya set a hand on his neck to calm him.

Aleksani held very still as Zaya approached. Her jaw and eyes were tight, her skin almost blue in the fading light. When Zaya was close enough to talk, she turned to show her entire side soaked in blood. "I require assistance," she said, and crumpled.

As Aleksani collapsed, Zaya lunged forward. Aleksani folded over her arm. "Not the best place for this, hey?" she asked. Even after all the sleep, Zaya's body ached in protest. At least they were at the edge of her camp, so it wasn't far to haul her up and support her over the boundary and to her hammock.

Scavats grumbled and scratched at the ground, and Zaya said, "Oh, go pout out of the way." He snorted and continued to hover nearby. "What have you done to yourself, Leksa?"

"Who said you could call me that?" Aleksani asked.

"Made the decision myself, when you swooned into my arms," Zaya said. "Come on now, what have you done?"

Her skin was clammy, her eyes dark. "I made a miscalculation," Aleksani said.

7.

Zaya watched Aleksani in the reflection until she opened the doors to her wardrobe and gathered up the hem of the borrowed shirt. Watching her reflection felt intrusive in a way simply facing her would not. She turned away, and she found herself at eye-level with the three poppets. "Leksa?" Zaya asked. "Will you tell me about the poppets?"

"Thank you for your assistance," Aleksani said, offering Zaya her shirt. She wore a soft gown now of pale blue. The shade made her look like a corpse.

Zaya accepted her shirt and nodded. She almost expected Aleksani to call her back as she left, but she didn't.

[ptera-novaeangliae]

Some Pathologic 2 Tips!

Hey! Thought I’d add some tips to helping people play Patho 2 if they’re struggling, because I totally understand games reaching a point where you can’t enjoy the story because of how hard it’s become. These tips are intending to ease some of the meter management in the game, though they are aimed primarily at the first couple of days, because I’ve always found that how I prepare in the first three days goes a long way to determining how difficult my playthrough is. These tips are just from how I’ve played it, I understand a lot of people do things very differently! But these have got me through no deaths and no character death runs on intended difficulty before.

No major spoilers in this section, but I will add a spoiler to day 1 guide in the reblogs, for if anyone is intending to do a second playthrough or something.

Combat

·         Combat in pathologic can be tricky! If you want to go for few deaths or are struggling with deaths in the streets, it’s really good to remember that you don’t have any obligations to fight outside of the certain event on day 9.

·         Running inside buildings will always despawn muggers. In infected and burnt districts, every single building is unlocked and can function this way. In regular districts, you can use shops and character houses for this purpose. When they’re following you, this is a good idea, so you can get back to your trash can hopping.

·         My advice is to just run past enemies if you can! This is how I did my 0 deaths run, and they shouldn’t be able to catch up to you if you’ve got a head start on them, muggers don’t usually have good items anyways. Don’t be afraid of drinking water to keep your stamina bar high- you can always refill the bottles.

·         If you end up in a space where you have to or want to fight, good weapon durability is very important! Guns jam a lot if not well cared for, and knives kill people VERY quickly when full durability and used as a strong attack. I tend to grab things from bins (kids caches are a good place to find straight razors) and keep the knife from Lara’s cupboard in day 1 at full durability.

·         I don’t actually recommend saving up for the gun on day 1, you can probably afford it on day 2 anyways, but I find it dissuades you from using your money from getting cheap food on day 1, and encourages you to fight. You get some money guaranteed on day 2, and you can harvest the dead mugger’s organs outside of the dead item shop on night 1 to sell to Var for a lot of day 2 money.

·         Trading water with drunks for bandages may seem tempting but I’d recommend only doing this if you really need to (it’s always best to have some bandages, but I mainly buy them from stores) because having a lot of water is very important for tinctures- I talk about this later on.

Resources

·         I would recommend always selling rings, pocket watches and bracelets for cash in stores- these go for a lot and are worth more that way than trading usually.

·         Shop in stores! This helped me so much on my second playthrough, especially little items like safety pins, threads, needles and nuts. These are both really good for trading, for repair and they don’t cost much. Stock up on them.

·         Spend most of your day 1 money on food like bread (and nuts are always good to get), and then store it. Having a good stockpile of food is great for later on- this also goes for trading teenagers for smoked fish in the first couple of days. I tend to have food going spare when I do this.

·         Water bottles! This is a huge one for me, I find water to be a big limiting factor late game when you need a lot of tinctures, so stock up big in the days where the pipes are still working. Loot every trash can for empty water bottles, you should hopefully have around 50 filled bottles by the time the plague hits and you’re making tinctures.

·         In the first couple of days, you need to stock up on a lot. Store things in the cupboard against Big Vlad’s front door and at the food cabinet in Lara’s house so you don’t lose it, before you get the Lair.

·         Being able to create a lot of tinctures is a huge deal. Herbs are abundant in certain locations, go to these places on a night (so you can see the glow of the flies around them) and stock up: the Crowstone, the Ragi Barrow, the Gumstone (stone formations in the steppe). Additionally, the little river islands behind Artemy’s lair usually have a lot, and there are 3 herb rings in Shekhen that have A LOT that you shouldn’t miss when you’re there.

·         I don’t tend to bother with giving blood to the ground, for the herbs are very abundant in the steppe and blood sells (so do a lot of organs, no reputation drop at all if they’re taken from the hospital, and you’re in a financial squeeze.)

·         Always having a stack of walnuts is a great idea, they trade with little girls for 5 (the only NPCs to have shmowders). Safety pins, buttons, raisins and marbles are also very good here. Try to use the different children’s trade priorities to your advantage, and always buy nuts in grocers if you can.

·         Trade with kids as much as possible! Taking detours to visit playgrounds is important, and always having enough to trade with shmowder girls is a big deal.

Plague

·         So you can make a lot of tinctures- it’s very important, to keep a lot of tinctures on you for prophylaxis and diagnosis. Maxing out the public fund on plague days will give you all the resources you need for the day and more, lots of money for shops, food and sometimes antibiotics. I can’t recommend doing this enough, if you have time.

·         This is where tinctures and antibiotics are important (I tend to buy antibiotics from the shops to keep up with this, though organ antibiotics also work), after you’ve done your daily hospital task, you’ll need to treat some random people still to maximise the bar. You can do this in the street or in the hospital, if I remember correctly it’s about 3 people a day, and it’s very worth it.

·         Use your basic tinctures for this, and try to always use your + tinctures for prophylaxis of main characters.

·         Stock up on immunity boosters by trading with kids in the first couple of days, try to use these to boost your immunity when you need to, rather than tinctures to save them for other stuff. They also tend to be relatively cheap in stores- keep stocked up.

·         Having clothing items in all slots and keeping them at good durability helps with immunity too- this is where buying little items from shops all the time comes in handy. And repairing when durability hasn’t gone down much is always cheaper, sometimes it’s more effective to just buy a new item of clothing to replace the old one rather than repairing it.

·         Infected houses are great for dead items- Fellow Traveller has a shmowder but you can’t afford it? Pop into an infected house and stock up.

[otomes-world]

Savannah`s heat

Lions and lionesses rule in prides, the strongest survive in the steppes. The weak will die. Natural selection... kill or be killed.

In this environment Raggie Bucchi spent his childhood, who was "lucky" to be born in a slum. He had to fight for every bite of food to survive. However, the young man would not call his existence so unhappy. A large family meant a lot of hungry mouths, but at the same time support in difficult times, warmth.

Hyena learned from a young age to help his mother and grandmother look after the younger ones, became a future breadwinner. This was the basis for his character. This was the reason why he was able to get into Kingscholar's personal circle. Raggie even in a sense felt a unity with Jamil, although, naturally, he never said it out loud.

The opportunity to enter Night Raven College was a turning point, no one in his family had ever received an invitation before. Now Bucchi, fully realizing what chance fate gave him, grabbed it with strength. Studying in college is very honorable, so much so that in the future there should be no problems finding a job.

The possibility of taking a worthy place in society was tempting. Therefore, the hyena tried to prove himself wherever possible, sometimes bringing himself to exhaustion. It was difficult to combine work and study in any of the worlds, but Ruggie tried.

Coming home for vacations and holidays felt different. Of course, the dorm room was many times better than his own, but the thought that he would see relatives, familiar faces, his grandmother was incredibly warming his heart.

Even if he was born with little, but this didn`t mean that this will continue forever. Fortune has opened many doors for him, and Ruggie intends to use it to the fullest. All for the sake of those who were waiting for him at home. All for the sake of those who took care of him since childhood. For the sake of his beloved grandmother. 

[fancifulwhump]

i'm LIVING for your jaskier fics omg!! would you be at all interested in writing a prompt where Jaskier is riding Roach because he's not feeling well, but Geralt doesn't realize how bad the fever really is until he falls off? (if that's not interesting or too specific, I can try again! no pressure to write this!)

anonymous asked:  would LOVE to see a sick Jaskier with a cold while they’re traveling, and how Geralt would treat him being feverish and sniffly/how Jaskier would complain lol

AN:   absolutely! so sorry this took a hot second, but here you guys go  ---  hope you enjoy!  ;)

The language of Jaskier is above all a loud one... but just as subtle as any beast’s dialect, filled with intricacies and rhythms that Geralt cannot help taking note of the more he listens. It’s really not the same thing, of course. Non-speaking monsters really can’t use their words; they have no way to express how they feel, except by eating you. Jaskier hasn’t tried to do that. Yet. (Sometimes the way he eyes Geralt in the bath leaves him feeling the day’s not far off.) 

To the contrary — if anything, Jaskier is too verbal. He doesn’t know how to shut up.

Getting used to this took longer than Geralt would have liked. It also demanded considerably more patience than he realized he had. Somehow, staking out a monster’s lair for days in complete silence is bearable... but Sitting through one of Jaskier’s endless rambles is asking too much. Even Witchers can only endure so much.

“Do you ever shut up?” Geralt demanded one day, cutting off the motor-mouthed fool in the middle of another tangent.

Jaskier blinked at him, as though seriously considering the question, then shrugged. “Not a talent of mine, really.”

Miraculously, he did, for a moment. Despite all his instincts screaming to the contrary, Geralt nearly allowed himself to believe his outburst had worked... until Jaskier steppes on a twig, just a bit too loudly, then said, “I was asked the very same thing in bed not too long ago, actually, by this glorious milkmaid — granted, her accent was too thick to make out a word, so she might have been asking me to pass her my ruddy lute, who knows. But she was very enthusiastic —“

And that started him up all over again. Damn the gods.

In spite of it all, Geralt would be lying if he claimed to hate Jaskier’s blathering too much. Sometimes it’s... unique, not being constantly surrounded by silence. He wouldn’t call it nice, not be a long shot, but... it isn’t altogether unpleasant. Jaskier can make for entertaining company in his better moods, and he does keep things interesting. A routine pack of wargs can turn into a colorful job, so long as Jaskier is along to elaborate on it later. Geralt doubts he cuts such a striking figure “swinging his sword to the leaping beast’s belly”, as Jaskier’s latest gig claims, but...

Sometimes, it is nice not to be surrounded by silence. Even if that means putting up with Jaskier’s mouth more than he would like.

Case in point:

“Geralt.” A whine, then a cough, then a passionate sniffle. “Can we slow down? Please? I’ve asked thrice already —“

Four times. Geralt’s been counting. 

Gritting his teeth, he urges Roach a bit faster, conscious of the sound of struggling bard trailing a bit behind him. Jaskier makes no effort to be discreet when he moves, so Geralt can hear everything in perfect detail. The crunch of twigs beneath his heavy feet; the strain of his breaths, a bit more labored than they should be, a bit more congested; the way his chest rattles when he launches into another coughing fit. Even with a nasty cold, Jaskier’s loud.

“Just because I can’t catch it,” says Geralt once the latest fit has passed, “doesn't mean you need to cough on me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll be sure to aim my dying gasps towards the wilderness next time.” Backtalk is a talent Jaskier can’t help himself honing, even sick as a dog. His brows, foreword with childish petulance, draw even tighter together as he wraps both arms around himself, hunching in. A shiver courses through him; Geralt distinctly hears the rattle of chattering teeth. The second Jaskier catches his eyes lingering, however, he plays up his misery for the perceived audience, pouting and wiping at his face. Geralt rolls his eyes, looking away.

Geralt understands the patterns of many beasts, but Jaskier’s language was one of the easiest to learn. The Law of Jaskier: as long as he’s talking, he’s fine. 

And he hasn’t stopped talking since early this morning. No, not talking — complaining. Gods help him, Jaskier hasn’t stopped complaining.

He still stubbornly follows Geralt out on the road, however; in spite of his red nose and phelmgy cough, Jaskier refuses to be left behind. It wouldn’t be the first time he chose to linger in a particular village which Geralt went on ahead, but Jaskier insisted the last one one didn’t appeal to him — “Everyone looks half-starved there. No wonder, the food tastes like shit. At midnight I half-expect them all to gather into a mob, hunt down the nearest visiting bard, and fry him on a spit. I have just enough meat on my bones, Geralt, but I wouldn’t be tasty —“

That rant devolved into a coughing fit that left Jaskier doubled over on the side of the road for five minutes, gasping and heaving. Geralt actually had to stop and wait for him. By the time Jaskier recovered, raising himself shakily up from his knees on the dirt road, he looked a mess. His face was bright red, tears lingering at the corners of his eyes; his chest still heaved. That was the moment any sensible person would have turned back… but Jaskier simply steeled himself and carried on.

Fool of a bard, Geralt thinks now, listening to Jaskier’s heavy footsteps behind them. He’s lagging, slowing them both down. His scent has picked up something unfamiliar, an edge of sour sweetness that can only be a fever. At least he’s walking on his own… but he’s not walking fast, is the thing, and they have to walk fast if they want to reach the next town before nightfall. As it is, the prospect looks doubtful; Jaskier has slowed them enough already.

“As soon as we find a bed, I’m collapsing in it —“ Jaskier pauses to sniff again, and clear a hoarse throat. “Then not getting out for a year. A year, Geralt. You’ll have to — drag me by my feet or something.”

“Something,” Geralt agrees, his mind flashing to images of swords and steel. Oh, he’d get the damned bard out of bed.

The trail gets rougher as they make their way further into the mountains. Even Geralt stumbles in places, and he’s built for this sort of travel. He’s wearing the boots for it.  Jaskier is distinctly neither of these things. As Geralt’s must focus more of his attention on their way forward, he almost misses what’s going on behind him — the harshness of his companion’s breaths growing more and more labored, the way Jaskier’s coughs pick up force and frequency, the times he must stop — physically stop — to sneeze or hack his lungs out. Geralt tries to ignore it. He really does. But the fact that he almost manages, for about fifteen minutes, is what alerts him to a much more alarming fact.

Jaskier has stopped complaining.

As soon as Geralt realizes this, he jerks to a halt on the trail. Roach follows his lead… but Jaskier, his head down, doesn’t notice. Instead, he walks straight into Roach’s backside, nearly toppling off his feet. 

“Agh — damn it, Geralt.” Even his indignation sounds listless. “Give a man warning next time, will you?”

“How,” asks Geralt, through gritted teeth, “do you feel?”

Jaskier blinks, appearing to weigh the likelihood that his companion is genuinely concerned or just annoyed. Whatever he decides, he isn’t wrong. Instead of offering an answer, he makes an inarticulate ‘hmm-mmm’, shrugging his shoulders. Geralt’s hard gaze bores into him. Jaskier shrinks under it. After a moment, the pressure grows too much; he breaks. “My head is pounding, to be honest. Feels… dizzy. I don’t know. It’s cold out here.”

“You have a fever,” Geralt observes. 

Jaskier raises his eyebrows, then laughs softly, like he’s not surprised. “Right, yep, that makes sense. Figures you know me better than I do…”

He breaks off into another fit of coughing, which leaves his entire body quaking. Geralt has to actually grab his shoulder to steady him, just in case Jaskier should tumble over. As soon as he’s regained some kind of composure, though, Jaskier pulls away.

“I’ll be fine.” This time, there isn’t a trace of whine in his voice; he isn’t scraping the barrel for pity, but being deadly serious. “Not too long to the next village anyways, is it? I can make it.”

Geralt eyes him for a long moment, weighing the likelihood of getting there in a reasonable amount of time with Jaskier lagging behind. It’s not good. They’ve been making poor time as it is, because he’s had to slow his pace for the damned bard, but Geralt would prefer not to camp along the road overnight. (Because he doesn’t feel like sleeping on hard ground; not because Jaskier in his current state needs a warm bath and bed. Absolutely not.)

He sighs through his teeth. “Get on the horse.”

“What?”

Either Jaskier’s fever is high enough that he can no longer comprehend the common tongue, or he really is an idiot. “The horse,” Geralt emphasizes, patting Roach’s hindquarters in preemptive apology. “If you ride her, we may make it to the nearest village before nightfall.”

This is the one and only time Geralt has ever offered his precious horse; Jaskier knows this, as well as he knows this chance will never come around again. Maybe he’s just an opportunist. Maybe the promise of a roof over his head is that tempting. Either way, Jaskier doesn’t weigh his options for long before doing the sensible thing and getting on the damn horse.

Roach whinnies, making her displeasure at the entire situation clear. Jaskier isn’t helping matters, a dead weight on her back. The horse stamps her hooves, shuffling in dismay, but a look from Geralt chastises her. For the moment, getting the bard out of the woods will have to be more important than her dignity.

No, Geralt doesn’t like it either. One look at Jaskier’s face, though — the hollow-eyed pallor, and the distance, as though he’s drifted out to sea already — reminds him why it is necessary.

This time around, they are able to set a much faster pace. Roach keeps up, just as Geralt knew she would, even carrying the burden that is Jaskier. The sick man doesn’t help his case; rather than ride, Jaskier has both arms braces against Roach’s neck, clearly focused on just keeping his balance. There’s a precarious list to his posture which Geralt keeps an eye on, but he doesn’t actually fall; every time it seems like he might, he rights himself, and a new dawn of clarity rises over his face. It lasts only a moment, of course, before fading away… but it’s something.

It isn’t long before the woods begin to thin out. Geralt tracks their location by the trees, and by the hues of purple and gold beginning to blend together on the horizon. They haven’t far to go, and enough time to do it. Unless they run into any roaming monsters on the way…

He takes his eyes off Jaskier, and there’s the mistake. He forgets. When Jaskier was complaining, at least he was present; by airing his grievances he ensured that he could not be ignored. This quiet Jaskier is a foreign one, and Geralt isn’t used to him. So, he makes a mistake. He looks away, and doesn’t look back… until a gruesome thud echoes from behind him.

Geralt stops dead in his tracks. Roach lets out a distressed whinny. Jaskier says nothing at all.

“Fuck!” Geralt hisses, rushing back to the bard’s crumpled body. Face-down in the dirt, Jaskier makes no attempt to pull himself up. When Geralt hauls him upright with both hands on his shoulders, Jaskier groans, head lolling against his own chest. 

Mud stains his cheeks, and a bruise is sure to form where he hit the ground hard. Even when Geralt seizes his face, though — and damn it, he’s on fire, worse than Geralt thought — Jaskier proves incapable of focusing. An incoherent murmur passes through parted lips. It does exactly nothing to alleviate Geralt’s minor panic.

“Jaskier! Wake up!” Is he even asleep? Geralt can’t tell. “Say something!”

He means it, and the realization comes as an icy shock — never did he imagine he’d ever miss the bard’s incessant prattling. Yet in the sudden absence of Jaskier’s voice, silence rings louder than ever, and it’s smothering Geralt to death. He should have seen this, should have known, should have realized, damn it —

“Jaskier,” he hisses, hauling his companion to his feet. The full weight of Jaskier’s limp body melts against his own. When Jaskier’s burning forehead falls against Geralt’s shoulder, he shrugs, trying to rouse him… but nothing does the job. Even when Geralt, grumbling furiously, is forced to haul Jaskier back up onto Roach and leap up after him, the fever permits Jaskier to do little more than melt against him. His head lolls, eyes half-open and staring into nothing. Worse than it all, he is completely silent.

For once in his life, Geralt misses the damned bard’s complaining.

[fatehbaz]

Do you think this planet is going to die :,)

wanna answer with a simple reciprocal :,)

but also tempted answer in earnest: yes and no. as we know it, sure. definitely. maybe it’s better to say that the planet won’t die, but the world(s) will die. and not just the death of physical aspects of the planet, but also the death of invisible ethereal networks, relationships, experiences of millions of different forms of life with their own unique perceptions, their own worlds. a “world-ending” in which many worlds end. but in that sense, the world has died many times before, for many creatures (and for many humans). but it also seems that both the scale of death and the pace of death, over the past few hundred years or few millennia, is uniquely disturbing. there’s no separating ecological degradation from the context of human-on-human violence; expressions of the same hierarchies. the so-called Quarternary extinction event really is a mass extinction. but i don’t like to get caught up in the semantics of formally delineating epochs and eras and concrete boundaries: are we still living through a cascading extinction event set in motion during the Pleistocene? is the mass death and devegetation of the past several hundred years really a sort of end-stage manifestation of the ecological changes set in motion at the end of the Pleistocene, but with added influence of industrial-scale extractivism, empire, more-overt human violence? there has hardly been time for climatic trends, or localized ecosystems, to adapt to or recover from missing mammoths, giant sloths, etc. many human staple food crops had already been domesticated before those Pleistocene megafauna disappeared. plumbing and irrigation canals and artistic religious iconography existed at the same time as sabre-toothed cats and woolly rhinoceros. but the rapid advent of continent-wide rangeland and monoculture and dispossession and genocide and the cold methodical exchange of human bodies, in the past couple hundred years, when the planet became one inescapable plantation? yea, the exponential increase in the scale of death is staggering. you can put all the remnant populations of orangutan, tuatara, bison, Japanese giant salamander, Asiatic cheetah, etc. onto a small isolated reserve, and so technically these iconic species still exist, but that doesn’t reestablish woodlands and doesn’t stop the lithium mines. you cannot just magically resurrect the complex web of biodiverse soil microorganisms. people can visibly perceive the absence of a charismatic megafauna species that disappears, but what of the fungus and bacteria that provide for soil structure and nutrition, provide foundations for vegetation? bacteria go extinct too. even if you tore up all of the impermeable concrete and asphalt surfaces, and let vernal pools collect water in the springtime, who will live in those ponds if the local frog and spider species have completely vanished? some aspects of life, some things cannot be recovered. ever. “extinction isn’t the end of the planet.” sure, but it’s still the end of something, of someone. they say that the Amazon “breathes,” it inhales and exhales, it creates its own thunderstorm systems. and i like that analogy. but then devegetation and cereal grain agriculture of the steppes and Amu Darya river corridor in Central Asia causes hotter air to blow with noreasterlies across the Sahara and into the West African Sahel where the heated moist air provokes temperature fluctuation in the tropical Atlantic which provokes massive algae blooms which wield such power over the planet’s atmosphere. makes breathing hard. the Amazon chokes. you can’t stifle life on one remote corner of the planet and hope that no one will notice the violence. there are consequences. violence, extraction, death in one local region changes life and ends worlds on the other side of the planet. the Pleistocene and early-Holocene planet is dead already, even if it shambles around in some forms, small pockets of resistance, relicts linger, ghosts haunt us. it is transformed. what survives isn’t necessarily lesser. worlds end but life persists in other forms.

[mythriteshah]

Sleepover with the Angels

Thiji’s Angels: the ever-dependable and trustworthy entourage of the Mythrite Sultan’s retinue. These maidservants work tirelessly to maintain the integrity of the Regalia whenever their master is away or otherwise indisposed.  And on occasion, they conduct numerous operations and campaigns across the globe to deal with whatever threats may surface.  Delicate yet deadly, the Angels are the shining example of power and beauty – both of which they have in spades.

But whatever goes on through an Angel’s day, when they are not upholding the good name of the Higuri Regalia?  What activities await them when they are off-duty?  The answer one would find one day when Miss Kaori, one of the newest Angels to join the team, came upon a missive enveloped in an aroma unfamiliar to her.  She gave it to the Head Secretary of the Othard Branch – Yuanji Yuji – who immediately discerned the scent:

“Frankincense.  This is from Miss Susuna,” she deducted. Immediately after opening the letter to read its contents aloud, Yuanji and the others quickly gathered whatever they could within the next bell and made their way to the Shirogane docks, where the Mythril Wavetraders were anchored.  Their sisters from the Aldenard Branch had arrived as well, and their own personal effects and belongings were packed with the rest of the cargo.  Apparently they were already making their way to Hingashi to pick them up long before the message found its way to their mailbox!  Head Secretary Sesena hurriedly brought the others on board and ordered the merchant fleet to set sail for Thavnair.

About a half-bell before sunset, and everyone had arrived at Radz-at-Han, where they unloaded and transported the cargo over towards the Main Branch Headquarters.  There, a familiar face was awaiting them at the courtyard.

“Shiro!!” the Angels gasped.  This was Shiro Reina, their double agent downrange working for the Lion Order. She gave them a wink and took a large sip from the bowl of sake she delicately balanced on her hand.

“ようこそみなさん;点灯しています,” she uttered in her native tongue.

“Uh, care to translate, Miss Kaori?” asked Shishira.

“Shiro-San said, ‘Welcome, everyone.  It’s lit.’”

The Angels cheered and followed Shiro inside, where she would then lead them towards the newly-opened Servants’ Lounge whilst the Wavetraders hauled their cargo inside.  What was strange, however, was the attire the Angels were wearing: they all seemed to be dressed as if they were preparing to rest for the evening.  Nightgowns and nightcaps; slippers and pillows; even plush dolls in the likeness of the Mythrite Sultan.  But what could possibly constitute such a large gathering of the Angels under one roof, let alone all this cargo the Wavetraders were bringing? The answer would be made clear as the doors to the Servants’ Lounge swung wide open, revealing Treasurer Susuna with a *LARGE* glass of her favorite Bacchus Wine in hand:

“Welcome, girls, to our first-ever Regalia Slumber Party!” Susuna declared.  Everyone gave a loud cheer and entered the lounge, where they immediately broke out the food and drink.  “We’ve got a lot planned for this monumental occasion, but first, we gotta pay respects to an old friend.”

All the Angels took a glass of wine (or sake, for the Far Easterners) and gathered around a large portrait of a young Dunesfolk woman on the far side of the lounge.  She had eyes as white as snow, but blank.  Her hair was long and fuchsia with blue highlights, and in the portrait she wore a gown befitting that of a Sultana, her smiling visage bringing the entire picture to life.

Susuna took her place upon the balcony – her preferred perch and seat of power in the Servants’ Lounge – and turned to face the portrait. With a snap of her fingers, the gil which poured from the walls ceased, and all fell silent within seconds.  She then rose her glass to the portrait, and everyone else would follow suit.  Those who delivered the cargo also joined in the occasion.

“Angels and servants alike, we are here tonight to honor one of our fallen sisters: Lady Mamai Mai, whom was posthumously given the royal name of Sor for being the first – and only – Angel to have fallen in love with our master.  She was a young and promising Angel, who had a peerless gift for metallurgy, so puissant that not even the Calamity – which divested her of sight – could deter her mastery.  Only Althyk and Nymeia Themselves would know what events would have transpired have things went different in the Amphitheatre - whose name I can’t recall right now because I’m about four glasses in…”

“Akh Afah, Suna!” Lelena interjected.

“Thank you!  But without you, Lord Thiji wouldn’t have been the badass he is today, so here’s to you, Lady Mamai!  A sister; an Angel; a friend.  We know you’re watching us from on high, with wings you’ve so rightfully earned.  And even though we miss you and your cotton-candied sweetness that you always brought to us, we know your spirit will be with us to join in this celebration.  You won’t be forgotten, and every Angel who has come after you shall know your name, that your legacy may live on through our hearts and souls! Your vision was greater than any in all the land.  And once you’re done rejoicing with us, may you find peace in the aetherial plane. To Lady Mamai!”

“To Lady Mamai!” everyone echoed before finishing their drink. Susuna especially took hers to the head, falling over the railing just as she finished it.  Fortunately, she landed conveniently in the arms of Isja, who gave a playful wink to the Treasurer before setting her back down. With their remembrance concluded, it was finally the hour to commence the festivities.  The slumber party kicked off with a tournament of the popular card game which swept the realm: Triple Triad.  While it was tempting for Shiro, Yuanji, Kaori, and Koyuki, they preferred Doman Mahjong instead, so they played amongst themselves and watched their fellow Angels duke it out on the 3-by-3 battlefield…

Susuna: All right, girls!  Remember: the regional rules are Ascension and Three Open!  Match rules are Plus and Same!

Lilina: What?! Since when?!  I checked the rules for Thavnair the night before and they were Sudden Death and Chaos!  How did they change so quickly?!

Sosona: I remember hearing that one of the noble houses’ aristocrats spoke to some queer Hyur chick standing in the middle of Radz-at-Han the other day.

Luluma: Oh, I’ve heard of her!  Brunette; white dress; red bolero; blue jewel over her forehead?

Sosona: Yeah, the very same.  Fancied herself the “Queen of Cards”.  She seems to plant herself in areas with high foot traffic, but is never seen walking for some reason.  Anyway, the aristocrat paid her to change Thavnair’s rules because she has that much influence over the game.

Lilina: Well, how much did they pay her?!

Sosona: Thirty thousand gil.

Lilina: That’s it?! Suna could practically sneeze out five times that much given how opulent we are!

Susuna: I’ll take that as a compliment!  Now, let’s get to playing!

The tournament finally went underway, and the Angels commenced battle. They gave it their all in the battle of wits and expensive cardboard, but not everyone can be a winner.  One by one did they fall before their sisters through superior strategy and no small amount of luck, but only two would be left standing.  The time of the finals came, and it was down to Himmeya and Isja, who surprised everyone with her burgeoning skill.  The Far Eastern Angels halted their Mahjong to watch the finals match…

Lilina: After this night is over, I’m hunting down that “Queen of Cards” and changing the rules!  Stupid Ascension really cost me this tournament!

Luluma: Lina, you didn’t even make it through the preliminaries.

The other Angels couldn’t help but laugh at the remark.

Sesena: But I didn’t expect Himmeya to come in here with that deck of hers!  Where’d you learn to play like that?

Sarielle: And more importantly, why are all her cards Garlean?

Himmeya: I had a lot of time to play during my time serving the Resistance.  As for the cards, I beat up a few conscripts for them.

Shishira: Uh, does she mean that figuratively, or literally?

Himmeya: Yes.

Everyone paused to stare at Himmeya, who had a big question mark on her face.

Himmeya: What?  They were just hiding out around Gyr Abania at the time and I wanted to challenge them. They didn’t seem very belligerent, so I figured a game of Triple Triad wouldn’t hurt.  Though there was this one guy in the Ala Mhigan Quarter who got all uppity because he beat me, shouting “Glory Garlemald” this and “Unwashed savage” that, so I decked him.

Sarielle: Now I see why she likes hanging out in the Azim Steppe during work.

Veeveena: In her defense, such responses are justified given their history.

Umimi: Seconded!

Kaori: Quite the bloodthirsty Lalafells, I see…

Yuanji: We got to be a little blood-crazy to protect our lord.

Isja: With that out of the way – come, Himmeya.  Let us see who shall walk away as champion tonight!

With the banter concluded, the finals began.  Himmeya put up a fierce offensive with her Garlean deck, but Isja was able to hold her ground with her Primals, taking inspiration from the Eikon Collection.  The two fought with such skill that they were able to reach Sudden Death thrice, with the Ascension rule playing both to their advantage and disadvantage. However, something would catch Lilina’s eye…

Lilina: Wait… I noticed something!  Garuda… Lakshmi… Shiva… Susanoo… Ravana… Those are the primals either Lord Thiji or the Angels have faced!

Isja: Yes.  This deck serves as a reminder of the life our Mythrite Sultan has led to reach the position of power he currently holds.  The strength of these otherworldly beings shall see me through this day.

Himmeya: Respectable, Isja, but you forgot about my trump card – literally!

With a flourish, Himmeya slammed down the final card on the northeast corner that would seal Isja’s fate…

Angels: YOTSUYU GOE BRUTUS?!

Isja: Oh, no… with her lower-left stats now at “A”, that means…!

With Shiva and Ravana surrounding Yotsuyu, the rules of Same and Plus activate, resulting in them both being captured, and a combo that swept the board, taking Grynewaht, Lakshmi, Susanoo, Gaius, and Nael, and claiming the entire board for Himmeya, save for Garuda.

Susuna: And just like that, in an incredible finish, our own Ala Mhigan mauler takes the title of Triple Triad Champeen!

Isja: Well, I suppose one of us must excel at something.

Himmeya: Hahah!  You were a good opponent, Isja!  Let’s duel again sometime!

Isja: Deal.  But this time, it will be on my battlefield: in fashion!

Susuna hands the trophy over to Himmeya: a gilded card with outspread wings, commemorating her place as champion.  With Triple Triad now knocked out, the party would resume apace. First, the Angels set up dummies in a row and showed off their ranged prowess.  Sesena decapitated her target’s head clean with a Shield Lob; Umimi created a breaching wound with her deadly Tomahawk; Kaori utilized her Samurai powers to send a blade of force to slice her dummy to ribbons – the Tachi: Enpi; Luluma and Isja, the resident Lancers, practiced their deadly accuracy through the Piercing Talon technique, skewering their targets with ease; Shiro and Yuanji brought the Far Eastern flair, turning their dummies into pincushions in a flash of Throwing Daggers.

Himmeya, being the only remaining Angel, nodded to the others’ fine work.  Then she cracked her knuckles and concentrated her chi, giving Koyuki the signal to launch a Water spell at the Fist of Rhalgr disciple.  She captured the Fluid Aura into her arms and made a flowing series of movements which molded the waters into tendril-like extensions of her arms, effectively increasing her striking range.  She then utilized this Fists of Water technique to grab the striking dummy by the arms, snapping them with her aqueous appendages. Then she would deliver a punch to the chest and sent it flying.

“Monks may not be good at fighting from a distance, but that’s because they’re too small-minded!” the Fist of Rhalgr disciple chided, which gave cause for the Angels to cheer.  Their evening of merriment resumed with a variety of different activities, from light dancing and music, to combat demonstrations, and even some showcases of the latest fashion designs from the Regalia's think tank, courtesy of Isja. The drink flowed like the Thaliak River, and aided in prolonging the festivities well into the long hours of the night.  Save for Himmeya, who stuck primarily to lemonade, every other Angel had surrendered to the pure inebriation wrought from their rampant revelry - the one affected the most being Susuna, who was sitting atop the gil pile as if it were her own personal throne (which it kind of is).  Her fellow Angels were either resting on the floor, on a sofa, or over the railing on the floor above.

Their time of fun had obviously begin to wind down at this point, at which Sesena stirred from her stupor to speak with her sisters-in-arms...

Sesena: All right, girls.  I think now's the time we addressed the marid in the room!

Lilina: There's, like... four marids around the lounge, though!

Sosona: Idiom, Lilina.

Kaori: What does Sesena-San mean about this?

Umimi: Well, it can't possibly be about why Thavnair's joining the Blitzball Association, so it can only mean...

Sesena, pointing to a Thiji plush doll: Yup!  Our lovable lord and Sultan, Thiji sor Higuri!

Lelena: What of our beautiful lord?  Did something happen to him?

Sesena: Not what happened, but is happening now!

Meriri: The lass is talkin' about our lordship's marital conundrum!

Sesena: Thank you, Consultant of Metals!  So, as you all know - save for you, Miss Kaori, as you are still new -

Kaori: No offense taken.

Sesena: Our Mythrite Sultan's about to reach his twenty-eighth Nameday.  More importantly, this will be his twenty-eighth Nameday spent single!  And while this may not be of much concern to most... the guy needs a Sultana, as much as he may not let that on!

Isja: Who could possibly amount to the brilliance that is our Sultan?  The man has molded himself into a bastion of beauty and power - so much so that even I will admit that I had fallen for him at one point.

Sosona: We all have, Isja.  It's okay.

Isja: Are you certain?

Himmeya: Well, not me.  It was mostly for his impressive combat prowess he showed all those summers ago.

Sesena: It's thanks to Lady Mamai's sacrifice that there is a "No Dating Angels" policy!  He may love us like his own daughters, but it's because of what happened in Coerthas that he doesn't want that emotional attachment to happen again! And at no offense to Lady Mamai, I'm glad that was implemented!

Lelena: I heard you entertained the thought of dating him after a talk with Lady Tahrara some time ago!

Sesena: So?!

The Angels laughed.  However, Shishira went silent, as it was obvious that she harbors feelings for the Mythrite Sultan.  Veeveena took noticed and gave a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Lilina: Even still, he attracts a lot of attention from the females, no matter their race!  I mean, look at him!  Any woman of any race with a love of Lalafells would take one look at him and they'd get hotter than the 4th Astral Moon!

Sosona: Too bad most of them are too busy getting hot from chasing tail.

Sarielle: In all aspects of the phrase, I take it?

Sosona: You know it.  The ailurophilia and herpetophilia’s running rampant across the land, and it’s become a big deal to us as of late.

Lelena: Our Chief Analytics Officer, hard at work!

Shishira: I believe the Sagolii Merchant Queen collects those tails and consumes them as delicacies...

Koyuki: Hm?  How are you aware of this, Miss Shishira?

Shishira: I... may have glimpsed a few things during my tutelage under her.  Queen Chichibi's awfully passionate about collecting them.

Yuanji: She and Sosona have a point, though.  Many people seem to go after Miqo'te and Au Ra for some reason. We of the Far East have especially taken notice of this and it's become a cause for alarm for us, especially when they began adapting our customs.  What is it about the tailed races that makes them so much more desirable than others?  I will honestly admit that even I wonder at times why there aren’t --

Himmeya: Er, Head Secretary, there is no possible way to explain that right now without inciting some kind of riot.

Yuanji: How so?  No one is listening in somehow, are they?

Himmeya: ... Angel's intuition dictates that the matter should be left where it is.

Kaori: I fail to see the appeal.  Lord Thiji is an iconic figure upon merchants and nobles alike.  It was my understanding that many would be attracted to the sight and promise of coin.  Why should race play so huge a factor in this?

Susuna, finally having enough of the debacle, groaned loud enough for it to echo throughout the Servants' Lounge, commanding the attention of the others.  She then shifted her weight ever-so slightly that she slid down from her throne of gil and landed smoothly at the base of the fountain, her full wine glass unmarred.

Susuna: Honestly, girls.  The answer’s right in front of you as if you slipped and fell into Nophica’s massive rack! No more pulling punches here; I'm gonna tell you all why it's not happening.

After taking a moment to gulp down her wine before tossing it aside (Shiro easily caught it so as to prevent it from shattering), Susuna hopped on the fountain and reclined so that her back laid upon the mountain of gil.

Meriri: The answer bein'...?

Susuna: The status quo!

Umimi: "Status what"?

Susuna: Status quo; the current state of affairs.

Isja: I'm afraid you've lost me, Miss Susuna.

Susuna: Don't worry, I've got an epexegesis ready for you!  I, my sisters, Lelena and her sisters, and even Miss Veeveena have been with Lord Thiji since the beginning - before the Angels were even formed!  Ever since the Sagolii Desert shenanigans, Lord Thiji's had te-heh-heh-herrible luck with the fairer sex!  Miss Shishira, I'm sorry -

Shishira: I'm over it.  I was his first crush, and I disregarded it for Memejora...

Umimi: That you had the courage to state this tonight makes you the bravest of us all.

Susuna: And there's no lie here that you'd have been an incredible match for Lord Thiji were things different!  But that's beside the point - somewhat.  What I'm trying to say is this: the Mythrite Sultan's single because the Twelve know it and are keeping it that way!

Sarielle: Oh, my.  She's had so much Bacchus Wine that it's poisoned her thought process...

Susuna: It's the truth!  Because think about it: if Lord Thiji ended up with the right woman, he'd take over the godsdamned world!  He’d already make the Syndicate jealous from the wealth he's amassed, and if the ideal lady were to come into his life and finally become his Sultana, there'd be no stopping the Regalia's sphere of influence from expanding!  Every attempt he's ever had at courting a woman has blown up in his face because there's no one in this world who can handle one of the most elegant men in Radz-at-Han becoming an item!  It's why his twin brother took the burden off him somewhat by making Lady Mimizo a grandsire!

Umimi, giggling: Guilty as charged!

Susuna: It's not uncommon knowledge that the Valide Sultan favors her firstborn the most - he's had the most potential, and has shown it well!  And every loving mother wants to see their children succeed!  But she's still holding out on hope that her firstborn will find someone!

Isja: Not to mention his romantic dream... I heard that, too, was shattered.

Susuna: Thanks for reminding me!  All the crap he's put up with as an adventurer molded him into the martial and magical badass that he is today!  This reinforces my argument; the Mythrite Sultan's a god among men, and he's immortalized himself on numerous occasions!  I bet any of our honorary Angels would also say the same!  But man, did he look so regal in that Sorceress's Knight armor...

Himmeya: I guess dating auctions are out of the question...

Susuna: He'd only entertain that nonsense just to see what the smallfolk think he's worth!

Meriri: The Treasurer's startin' to speak some sense, actually... But the lord's a recluse!  He's so focused on his work that he doesn't have time fer such frivolities!

Susuna: Because he knows that the powers that be have screwed him over so much that it's not worth trying!  With the possibility of a love interest pretty much balled up and thrown out the window, he’s had more time than ever to focus on his work!

Veeveena: Well, it is said that true love comes when you least expect it!

Susuna gave a hearty laugh in response to the Main Branch Advisor's comment.

Susuna: If that were true, then we wouldn't have this discussion!  And Menphina forfend that doesn't come true right as our lord is on his deathbed and some floozy comes barging in giving her teary confessions of love to the man! I only hope that one of us is in the room at that moment to plant one between the bitch's eyes to save whatever dignity remains of the moment!

Kaori: Susuna-San truly is a spectacle to behold...

Sosona: This is honestly her thought process - only slightly skewed when she's drunk.  But I’ll keep it one-hundred just as my sister is: if any of us had the honor of being his Sultana, it’d be you, Veeveena.  No one else is as deadly or as beautiful as yourself.  The heirs you two would sire would be something to behold.

Veeveena: Stop it, Miss Sosona!  I only wish to serve alongside our Sultan!  

Umimi: Everyone here would agree that a flower born of Thavnair such as yourself would be the ideal mate for my brother-in-law!  I had almost sought to abdicate my position as Head Secretary and become Advisor in your stead!

Veeveena: Lady Umimi, you’re much too kind.  Just the honor of being with Lord Thiji is enough to bring fulfillment to my life!  Being an Angel has helped with that immensely!

Susuna: Well, if anyone would have to step up to bat, it’s you.  While it’s no secret that Lalafell have heritage from both clans, The Higuri family’s lineage has been predominantly Dunesfolk for as long as any of them can remember!  And he’s the oldest of a set of octuplets, and he’s an uncle of two, so their line is more than secure!  In fact, by that logic, Lady Umimi should no longer be an Angel, but I’m not gonna argue with long-lost Nymian royalty, either!

Umimi: Which is why I wanted to step down from the position of Head Secretary!  An Angel married into the family would definitely spark a conflict of interest, but I’m only wed to the Regalia’s Adjutant!  

Susuna: Speaking of which, going back to what Sena said about the “No Dating Angels” policy – we’re not. His.  Harem.  Many people will see a bunch of ladies under the same room and start jumping to conclusions over that, only to be proven dead wrong in the end – literally. And this further backs up my point! People think that having all of us under his wing is merely a means of seeing who will earn his favor and putting a ring on it.

Sarielle: And yet I hear Nobles having affairs with their own servants numerous occasions. You would think that individuals of such high social standing would face little issues concerning the pleasures of the flesh.

Susuna: Re: "No Dating Angels"! Calling Lord Thiji’s Angels a harem is an insult not only to the Regalia and its employees, but to Lady Mamai as well! And we’re not gonna dishonor everything she did just to have the public view us as such!  We’re his army of assassin-maidservants, and it’s gonna stay that way!

Lelena, to Sesena: Your sister, the demagogue, hard at work!

Sesena: She’s not wrong.  Even I’m growing concerned over the fact.  While people have begun jokingly referring to Lord Thiji as the Mythrite Bachelor, that as well is becoming something of a trend.

Luluma: Our Sultan can’t help it; everything transpiring around the realm sort of gets in the way of such efforts.  Problems from abroad have escalated thanks to the appearance of those towers everywhere, not to mention factors beyond our control, like people’s preferences.  We may as well start sending missives to prospective suitresses.

Susuna: And hurt the Mythrite Sultan’s dignity?!  Not happening!  Let’s not waste funding on postage for that! Plus I heard they tried making a show about that once...

Shishira: But, it doesn’t even cost anything to use mail.

Susuna: The fact of the matter is that if we force this, the results are gonna be catastrophic!

Sarielle: But we cannot remain idle for too long if we truly wish to assist in his predicament.

Isja: Agreed.  I know firsthand that Valide Sultan would be very cross should he reach his thirtieth Nameday without a suitable mate.

Sosona: Well, I don’t think half-Lalafell, half-Viera children are being brought to the table, if that’s what you’re implying.

Isja: Very funny.  I am perfectly fine serving as his prime model.

Susuna: Look, we just gotta keep doing what we’re doing, and if something finally happens, we gotta make sure that whoever has their eyes set on the Mythrite Sultan isn’t either doing it for the money, is out to kill him, or worse!

Just then, they would all receive a ring from their linkpearls, to which they would promptly answer.

?: Good evening, Angels.

Angels: Good evening, Lord Thiji!

Thiji: I sincerely apologize for interrupting your meticulously-planned slumber party, but a thought had just occurred to me that the season of spring is close to arriving.  We must begin preparations for the fourth Regalia Largesse.  With the strange appearance of the towers, our more militaristic efforts have been curtailed somewhat, which will allow us to focus more on our events.  I have already gotten in touch with our merchant fleet to prepare our reserve stock, for there are still many items we’ve left over from the previous summer we can still offer to the masses.  Until then, however, you Angels enjoy your rest for tonight and the rest of this sennight. We will reconvene later this moon to divulge further details.

Angels: Thank you, Lord Thiji!

Thiji: Of course, my beloved Angels.  Enjoy your party.

The transmission ended and everyone rejoiced once more as the lounge rang with their jubilant cries.  Due to their intoxicated state, however, they did not celebrate for too long until they collapsed to the floor in a comedic fashion.  The issue regarding the Sultan’s courtship would have to wait.

For now, it was time for the Angels’ beauty sleep.

[silenthillmutual]

(based a little on rp w/ @steppe-father & pre-this fic i wrote)

He always gets up before Artemy is awake, before he can really process that Daniil has moved and why, so he won't hear things he shouldn't or see things he doesn't need to. He just wants to preserve some semblance of dignity, though there's not much he has left and his reasons for keeping it are pretty stupid: he has nothing else. He feels like everything here has been constructed to break him. He can almost see the threads where his body is pullinh apart, like his arms are close to being ripped from their sockets and his eyes are coming loose. He's sewn together, and badly. If he lets himself wake up chest-to-chest with Burakh, he'll unravel completely. There's so little of him left as it is.

But he doesn't want anyone knowing how unhinged he's becoming. Its bad enough he lets Artemy convince him to sleep, lets him tempt himself with things he can't have. Get too comfortable in the light and the darkness will blind you. Distancing himself is...the eyepatch. It's a crude solution, one that can't hold forever, but he has to do something.

The first thing he does is pull on his gloves, and the second is check his mug by the window. It lets him know how much time has passed, since he never pays much attention to the clocks.

The tea is frozen almost solid. Damn.

He can pretend to work while he shuffles about. He thinks Artemy might actually be upset if he left the house entirely before he wakes up, but that doesn't mean Daniil can't reorganize, can't gather his thoughts while his partmer rests. He isn't good at this, at subterfuge; he's never been much of a liar, but concealing his feelings isn't difficult. His voice rarely shows much, no matter what he tries to change it, and people care less about the words than they do about the intonation. No one hears what they want from him, and no one wants to believe he feels anyway. It makes almost everything easier.

(People's perceptions aren't reality.)

(He still feels things, no matter how often he tells himself not to.)

At least he can pretend to work. At least he can look unaffected and uncaring when Artemy wakes. Like he hasn't been warming up, getting comfortable, getting closer. It's what everyone expects, and everyone wants what they expect. Even Artemy Burakh.

He doesn't catalogue how long he sits there, drafting letters he won't send to people who won't read them. Artemy wakes him out of what he might call a daze by saying "Jesus, emshen, don't you ever sleep?"

Something feels crooked in his chest at the notion that Artemy really doesn't remember them falling asleep together. His hand stops writing, and it takes a lot for him to not start screaming. He has to backtrack further now, regress harder, coil into himself like his feeble body is enough to give him warmth and his limbs won't stick together alone like this. He doesn't cry, but he sniffs, like that'll stop it when he has time to himself in the middle of the night. "No, you know the old adage- 'I'll sleep when I'm dead.'"

"You go on like this, and it'll come sooner than you think." His voice sounds like a warning, but Daniil guesses all the same that it's a joke. "What are you working on, anyway? A new avenue for your vaccine?"

These words shatter bone. They make splinters of him. The vaccine is a bust, he's utterly useless here, in over his head, but, "Yes," he lies, because he can't very well ask if he can be of any help to someone else (he can't, of course he can't), "I'm sure there's something I'm missing, something I'm overlooking," (there are other cities and they need protection, there are people still healthy and they need protection), "And once I figure out what it is, I'll be..." (worthless, doctor, and maybe this is why your research has led you no where.)

(maybe your research here is a failure and your research back home is a failure because you are a failure. surely the thought has crossed your mind?)

"You'll be what?"

Daniil blinks at nothing. He feels it running down his cheek, and is thankful Artemy hasn't moved from the bed to confront him. "Sorry?"

"You stopped talking in the middle of your sentence," Artemy tells him. "You're falling asleep in the middle of your sentences. You should lie down."

"I'm fine," he says, voice flat, mind screaming.

"I'm not convinced," Artemy counters. "You need to sleep, at least an hour. I can cover you. Maybe I'll pick up something in your notes?"

He thinks of something to say in response. Can you read cursive? Because his notes are a jumbled mess, half and half. If Artemy can find something, he'd love it, of course - but he has better things to do than entertain Daniil's curiosity on a broken idea. And Daniil has tasks he needs to complete, errands that take him far away from Artemy Burakh and his goal.

"Daniil?" He needs to say something. He's going to bother someone if he doesn't get back on track. But what is there to say? "Daniil, look at me?" When did Artemy get so...close to him? Not just metaphorically, but physically, he has his hand on Daniil's shoulder and he doesn't think he could make his arm move to shove him away. If he wanted to.

The world doesn't care what you want. He wouldn't be here if it did, he'd be in the Capital with his lab still standing instead of in the middle of nowhere surrounded by strange, judgmental people spitting venom at him for trying in vain to save them. Or he'd be here with Eva when they're not under constant threat of dying, getting to know his bound as people instead of patients insistant on trying his patience. Or...

No... No. No. Oh, no. This place has grown on him and now he doesn't know what he wants anymore.

He feels fingernails on his cheek and realizes, body still not moving, that Artemy is touching him. He hasn't asked in that voice, the one they all have, amazed at signs of life, if he's crying. He's just touching Daniil's cheek softly, frowning at him. "You need something," Artemy mumbles. "Maybe not sleep. But you need something."

"I already slept," Daniil mumbles. He keeps trying to look somewhere else, anywhere else so he doesn't have to keep looking at Artemy and his- and his- his disappointment, or whatever that expression is. His sadness. "I lied. But you forgot, anyway, so it doesn't matter."

"It does matter, actually," Artemy says, voice sounding lower, sounding closer. "It matters a lot. Its means something else is wrong."

"That doesn't matter - It doesn't! Don't you get it?" He wants to run his hands through his hair, tug at it until he starts to rip the whole doll apart, but he can't feel anything. He can't feel any of it: any scrape that he's gotten, his lungs when he wheezes or the burn, the taste of food. He feels it all turned down, pushed down under the weight of something else. Something bigger. Something more important. "I don't have time to do any of this, any of - whatever. And even when this is all over, there are still things -"

He feels something slide into his hand, breaking the monotonous feeling of worn leather against his skin...with rougher leather against his skin. He thinks he can make out the shape, but Artemy’s fingers prevent him from opening his hand to look at it. “It’s a charm,” he says, squeezing Daniil’s fingers. “I know you don’t believe in the custom, or the mysticism, but please take it.”

Daniil feels like he’s spinning, his head dizzy. “The custom?” he repeats. 

“Trading,” he says. “When you barter items with people here, you give some of yourself away. So take this charm, and with it, some of my warmth. To comfort you in the day to come.” 

So it’s not just the stores lacking food. Another thing he hasn’t understood, another thing he’s gotten wrong. Daniil sighs, feeling like he’s losing something else, coming more unbalanced. “Right. And what would you like in return?” 

“You don’t have to give me anything, erdem.” His hand slides off of Daniil’s, going to stand. “It’s not about the object, anyway. It’s about what it means, what you give of yourself to others.” 

He can hear the words in his head, what Artemy must be thinking. You don’t get it. You never will. You’d never give anything of yourself to others. They mean nothing to you. Heartless. “No, no,” Daniil says, mentally waving the words away. “I want to do this right. I want to give- give an equivalent exchange. I just -” Nothing you have is worth giving. You’ve saved everything valuable for somebody else. “All I have is bandages.”

“It’s alright, really.” His words don’t give Daniil the sense of hostility, but then he’s never been great at reading intention. “You don’t need to give me anything.” His voice is a bit softer when he says, “You’ve already given me more than you know.” 

“I insist,” Daniil says. “I want to try.” He licks his lips, thinking. He’s got one thought, clumsy, barely thought out, and he’s going to do it before he has a chance to change his mind. “Alright. Close your eyes.” He looks up, to see if Artemy has, and lets his breath go. He couldn’t follow through if Artemy watched him as he does this, removing the pin and sliding the cravat from around his neck. It’s a stupid idea, he’s sure; he can’t imagine what on earth Artemy would do with it, but it’s a little too late now to back out. He bites his lip, using the hand with the charm to grab one of Artemy’s, laying his hand out to drop the cloth in his palm. He feels Artemy’s fingers close around the garment and lips draw in confusion. “Take this,” he says, and watches Artemy’s eyes open and go down before he has to look away. “And with it, take...” Take what? Take my - “Take my vulnerability.” He hasn’t thought the words through, and he can feel Artemy staring again, intense, scrutinizing. He wonders what it is he’s thinking. “So that...you may know honesty?” 

Daniil stares at Artemy’s hand, waiting for it to close as he rubs his fingers against the fabric. He thinks for a moment that Artemy might reject it, but then he watches the hands join together, folding it. When he says, “Thank you,” it’s in the softest voice Daniil’s ever heard from him. 

And he doesn’t know what to do now, what he’s just done. He knows he’s just undone himself, and somewhere inside he can feel his stuffing coming out, the tear in the seam too big to sew shut. He thinks about bolting, but where would he go? It’s not as if Artemy would be unable to catch up to him. “I feel like I haven’t given you enough,” Artemy finally says. “But I want to be selfish. I don’t want to give it back. So can I give you something else, later?” 

The charm has a loop that fits around his wrist, pulling it tight. It’s something to look at that won’t give him some sort of attack. “You don’t have to,” Daniil starts.

“I insist,” Artemy parrots. There’s a moment of static silence, before his hand is soft on Daniil’s cheek again, and he says, “I’ll come back tonight.” 

[andmynameisadora]

Aw yeah. 

You’re gonna catch a fucking fish.

You’ve since left the steppe, and are starting to head back into sparse forest. Not nearly close enough to the Whispering Woods, you’re too far north. The air is still cold, but you don’t care.

The water is nearly cold enough to freeze, but intensely clear. There’s still just enough bright moonlight left to see into the clear water, at the slick shapes that move to and fro in the river you’ve stopped in front of. You’re not an expert, but in cases like these you’ve studied survival tactics enough to not die.

The worse case scenario is you still have some preserved food. Should you fail, you have that back up. It’s not much, but you’re not worried -- Entrapta’s voice cut through your thoughts, promising that it takes several days to starve to death at least. You are not counting on that weird incident with the fruit. You’re going to earn something. Plus, you’re actively taking care of yourself this way. It was so tempting to just ride straight through the night, and all the next day, so you’re in Bright Moon again as soon as possible. Not a good idea.

Besides, judging by the shape of the fish beneath the surface, they’re pretty big targets. The area around you is too sparse for fruit and other edible plants in a decent quantity, and while your powers give you some influence over plant life, it’s crude and not well controlled.

In a flash of light, your sword turns into a spear. Weighted perfectly, clutched in one hand. Perched on rocky outcrop, boots crunching, you take aim. Reflexes and strength are on your side. Taking a deep breath, you focus on a shape, and strike with all your might. Which was a bad move

You strike too hard, bent too far, and miss. The fish jumps in alarm, incredulous that someone DARE attack it, and with a powerful swipe of its tail it’s out of the water. You cry out, try to grab it, nearly dropping your weapon in the process. It’s slippery, of course. Purple and orange and green in shimmering length, and as you scramble to catch it that powerful tail SMACKS you. 

You’re already falling too far forward, stumbling, the shock of cold water is even worse. That’s a legit belly flop into the river as the fish escapes your grasp.

Soaking, growling, you pull yourself up. Now it’s FREEZING, ugh. Thankfully, it’s not cold enough in the season to hurt you. Probably. You’re dripping wet, boots squelching, tired and hungry and now wet. Try again.

A second attempt just has you miss, a little slick on the rock. Finally, the third attempt is successful! Your weapon spears  a green one through the eye, killing it instantly. Painlessly. It’s big, too. As long as your torso, it’s only your great strength that pulls it out of the water easily.

Now, a sane person WOULD preserve some of the meat, but you know that as yourself you’d likely freeze in the night, wet. Cold dry air still blows from the distant steppe. Even with the fire that now blazes near the skiff, it does little to fight the chill seeping into your bones. Still, your victory warms you just a little.

The size of your catch is diminished slightly when you transform. As predicted, She-Ra doesn’t get cold. Warm magic courses through your body, as you scale and prepare your catch. It’s still a nice dinner, even for someone eight feet tall. Better than nothing. Fire crackles, meat sizzles, and it’s just you and the stars and the night. 

The stars are comforting a little bit, as you eat. This time tomorrow, give or take a few hours, you should be home. Ideally you make one more stop, then it’s a straight shot... 

The fire continues to burn as you pick the fish down to its bones, and dispose of them. Your cheek still stings a little from the slap of another and the icy cold of the lake.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Deadly

My second story for @drawlight‘s advent challenge.

My current plan is to do as many stories as possible, each essentially a different AU. My first story was a Roman-era love confession. This one is...idk...a wander through history that got a little jumpy? Anyway, these are all first- or second-draft stories, so feel free to make any suggestions. I’ll probably edit, expand, and post the collection on AO3 in January.

02 - Snow (1683 words)

The first time Aziraphale saw snow, it was one hundred and thirty-four years after the humans left Eden. He had been sent to guard a small group of explorers traveling to the far north.

Heaven had warned him about the cold, but he hadn’t really understood the way it would sink below the flesh, settle into the bones. How could he? Angels didn’t feel such things.

Two of the mortals froze to death; another lost an arm to that creeping black death of tissue.

The second time Aziraphale saw snow, it was one thousand, three hundred and eighteen years after the humans left Eden, and shortly after the reign of Gilgamesh of Uruk. Trade with the tribes of the northern steppes was well-established. He simply had to ensure three merchants and their cargo didn’t fall afoul of any bandits.

There weren’t any bandits. There was, however, an avalanche. Aziraphale would not have believed the way so much snow could move so fast.

On and on, every time he traveled north.

Three thousand, seven hundred and six years after the humans left Eden, he sat with Crawley in the newly constructed city of Antioch, sharing a bowl of figs and fava beans. The demon looked at him incredulously.

“How can you hate snow? You’re an angel, I thought you were supposed to love, well, everything.”

“I love all of the Almighty’s creatures and plants, and I acknowledge the beauty in every aspect of Her Creation,” Aziraphale said, with enough fervent piousness that Crawley would hopefully forget what he had said about hornets just three days before. “Snow, however, is surely an invention of your side.”

“Nope,” Crawley said, popping the p and giving an infuriating grin. “I am more than happy to take credit for whatever your lot want to blame on me, but I know for a fact snow was your side, not ours.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Sure I can.” Crawley tossed another fig in his mouth and began counting on his fingers. “First, no one on my side has that kind of power. We didn’t do volcanoes. We didn’t do monsoons. We certainly didn’t do snow. Second, I went north right after Eden. Snow was already there. None of us had a chance to put it in. Third… nah, never mind.”

“What? You can’t just leave it at that.”

Crawley scratched at his hair, red curls spilling from the central part, and slumped further in his seat. Finally, he grumbled, “Well, it’s Her style, isn’t it? Little ice crystals, each a unique shape with infinite variety, too small, too…ephemeral for any human to appreciate. The mounds sort of softening the edges of the world, the quiet that falls over everything. The way sunlight glints off icicles. It’s, you know. Pretty.”

“Crawley,” Aziraphale felt a teasing smile grow across his face. “That was very nearly poetic!”

“Shut up.” Crawley folded his arms and glared at an unfortunate human that happened to be standing nearby. “But my lot certainly wouldn’t create something pretty. Enticing and deadly, maybe, but not pretty. Don’t have the imagination for it.”

“Well. It’s certainly deadly enough.”

“So’s the Nile flood. So’s fire. So are lions and crocodiles. And hornets,” he added in a tone that clearly said he had forgotten nothing of their previous conversation.

Aziraphale worked on a handful of fava beans for a few minutes before conceding, “Fine, perhaps snow is one of the Almighty’s gifts to the world, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Actually, according to what you just said, you do.” And that smug grin, as Crawley scored another point.

Four thousand, two hundred and fifty-four years after Eden, the Thames River froze.

It had been a difficult year. The emperor in Rome had declared that all people in the empire must make public sacrifices to the Roman gods. The still-forming communities of churches had been devastated – some followers had publicly refused the sacrifice, and then been killed or imprisoned; some had chosen to make the sacrifices and were shunned by the other faithful.

Already it seemed the people would never be reconciled, the fragile alliances of believers shattered forever.

And then one dawn, Aziraphale looked out the window to find the streets of Londinium filled with deadly white, and ever more falling from the sky.

In a panic, he dressed in his warmest furs of white and pale grey and pushed out into the almost waist-high snow. 300 souls he had been instructed to care for, shepherd in their new beliefs, mostly from the poorest sections of the city. Tenement buildings; no kitchens, some of them barely had a hearth worth speaking of. Foolish hubris of the Romans, trying to build a tropical city on this frozen island.

Aziraphale had crossed the Walbrook and was approaching the tight cluster of insulae behind the Forum when he saw someone approaching – tall, swaggering, dressed in layers of impossibly black fur. Even with his head covered, there was no question.

“Craw-Crowley,” Aziraphale greeted as evenly as he could. “I thought you were up north at the Wall.”

“Well, there wasn’t much going on there, thought I’d take a wander.” He pulled down a few layers of wrapping to flash a grin. “Glad to see you finally enjoying the snow.”

“I’m not – how can you even say that? These are dangerous conditions. People could – people probably will die, Crowley.”

“And are you worried about all of them, or just the few hundred your side have earmarked?”

“How do you know, I mean,” Aziraphale clenched his teeth, not sure what Crowley knew, not sure what was safe to reveal. “I am worried about all thirty thousand inhabitants, of course.” It wasn’t a lie, either. He would have to visit the ones he’d been instructed to look over first, but he would make sure everyone was safe. He could miracle each home warmer, produce thousands of loaves of fresh bread…

Couldn’t he?

Already the angel trembled at the thought of how it would sap his strength, leave him vulnerable to the cold. And how much time it would take to visit every one of those homes…

“Angel,” Crowley stepped closer, not grinning now. “It’s too many people. You can’t do it.”

He dropped his eyes to glare at the mounding snow, slowly burying him, trapping him in place. “I can try.”

“And if they’re meant to die? If this is the… Ineffable Plan?”

Aziraphale bit his lip, a thousand arguments coming back to him. This was an awful time for Crowley to try and score a point against him.

“I don’t know,” he started slowly. “But…there must be something I can do.”

“No, there isn’t.” But before the weight of the words could crush him, Crowley’s hand rested on his shoulder, pressure hardly noticeable through the layers of furs.

Aziraphale lifted his eyes and saw where the demon was pointing.

A group of men and women – priests, deaconesses, elders of the church – were pushing their way down the street through the thick snow, pulling a sled behind them. They stopped to knock at a door. The next moment, a woman opened it. Aziraphale recognized her; her husband had performed the sacrifices for the emperor, and the whole family had been exiled from the church.

Now a deaconess rushed forward to embrace the woman, talking with her gently. A few moments later, loaves of bread had been produced, and piles of furs for the children, who were settled into the sled. The woman and her husband emerged, pointing at the home next to theirs.

The church elders knocked, and another couple answered – these were pagans, worshippers of Mithras. It didn’t matter; they were fed, their children placed in the sled, and soon the whole group was walking together towards the baths, where clouds of steam showed the furnaces and hypocaust were already running.

Now that he knew what to look for, Aziraphale could see more groups out in the streets – some from the church, some not, all checking on their neighbors, feeding those without food, bringing those without heat to a place of safety. Caring for each other.

There wasn’t anything he could do. The humans were already doing it.

“You know,” Crowley said, “you once told me that the poorest people have the most opportunities to choose good.* I still think that’s bullshit, but today, at least, I’ll concede the point.”

“And…you aren’t here to interfere?”

“Nah. I already did enough Tempting for today.” He waved his arm. “First, I convinced quite a few city guards to huddle down someplace warm and spend the day drinking and gambling. So they won’t be out harassing your people. Then, I saw to it that a rather large number of libelli wound up in the home of some of your elders. Now, that’s a real moral quandary. Do they hand out forged documents saying their people performed sacrifices for the emperor? Or do they let them martyr themselves to prove their piety? Real crisis of faith stuff right there. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I suppose…it’s good that they have the choice.”

He turned back to Crowley, seeing how the tiny flakes of snow – individually so harmless – settled on the furs, on his hair, his eyelashes. It was beautiful, in a way.

Deadly. Pretty. Ineffable.

“Now that’s settled…can I tempt you to a drink?” Crawley gestured to the wineskin at his belt. “Spiced cider. Snow is nice and all, but I much prefer to watch it from inside, with a hot drink and a fire.”

“I…think I’d like that.”

It would be another one thousand, seven hundred and sixty-nine years until Aziraphale could truly enjoy watching the snow fall.

There wouldn’t be a fire – no open flames in the book shop – but there would be mugs of cocoa, a warm tartan blanket, and his demon sitting beside him on the sofa as they watched tiny white flakes drift down from the sky to cover a world that hadn’t been destroyed.

*Yes, in the book this conversation happened later. Call it an AU.

[2ofswords]

daniil learning more about town-on-gorkhon and how to live in it? trying to find a sense of home...

I got a bit carried away, so it is under a cut! Also I sure hope the story still fits the prompt... Thank you for it either way, I had a fun time writing this! ^^ 

The bartering in the town had always struck Dankovsky as a bare necessity. Sure, there seemed to be a tradition woven around it, but those were usually created to elevate a purpose. In a town torn from the rest of the country and dependant on regular trains, one had to rely on community in times of delay and the method of trading established such a network for basic needs quite smoothly. The days of plague showed as much albeit with a morbid connotation. One simply couldn't call children trading you morphine for needles the height of community values. Still he always imagined the tradition not to disappear but to… subdue. Yet, as always, his hypothesis was proven wrong and people cheerily bartered their sugar for meat the moment the trains continued their delivery. At first, continuing was more of a habit than anything else. There were still some raisins left in his pockets and Dankovsky himself never really had that much love for the small treats. The children were less enthusiastic about them as well, but he didn’t really need the soap they gave him, anyway. Then he remembered the beetles he had kept in his cabinet at Stillwater. An emergency stash he told himself, yet many such emergencies appeared and not a single insect left the house, unless as small tokens he uselessly carried around. A small sentimentality, reminding him that something beside the plague-ridden hell scape exists. Not that it actually mattered in the long run and now… Now he needed to move and the beetles… they would be hard to explain. So they had to go.

Finding a kid that would take them wasn’t very difficult. One of the small children wondered in awe at the collection, starstruck eyes staring at the delicate creatures while her fingers carefully danced over them and Daniil couldn’t help but notice the pull in his gut guiding his memory to times that had died long before his arrival in town. A happy and childish pounding, that broke his concentration long enough to not notice the kid question at first. “I asked, what you want for it.” “Oh… Um…” Maybe he should have thought about that. “You can just keep them. If you like them, they might be in good hands after all. Maybe add some to the collection. Or categorize them, that should probably be done…” The frown that graced her face signalled that his answer wasn’t quite adequate. Yes. This was still about tradition where trust in an equal trade was valued. One cannot disturb the children’s beetle and nut economy without repercussions, after all. “I have to give something back. I have to give you a part of my endurance after all. People say I have so much of it and I can hold my breath longest. Shall I show you?” “I believe you, it is fine. You do not need to… you are competing about holding your breath?” “U-huh. And I still have plenty of it until I reach second place. You seem like you could need some of it.” “… getting out of breath less often sound’s tempting.” He is getting too old for this and he still has a meeting with Burakh and Rubin in the afternoon. Now that the worst is over, he had proposed to take stock of the more harmless illnesses in town to order medicine, that hadn’t expired decades ago. “So you still have to say what you want. Aren’t you too young to always forget what I’m saying? Did the plague get to you?” “Watch your tongue, or you might really need that breath of yours.” “No need to get so defensive, old man. Geez. Don’t they teach you any manners?” Do they teach anyone manners? If someone ever bothered it didn’t have anything to do with the children in town. “So what do you have to give, little brat.” “Hm…” The child crossed her legs while contemplating the business deal. “I have a loaf of bread, I guess. These are a lot of beetles after all…”

A loaf of bread is acceptable. Or so it seemed, until he opens his mouth and noticed, how small exactly the arm was, that held the box of beetles protectively in her lap. How loosely the little dress hung from her body. A loaf of bread would sound fantastic, while he was starving or when there wasn't enough time to reach any of the stores. But this isn’t the case and he isn’t exactly in need of bread. “So do we have a deal or not?” He should close his mouth. Or better yet answer the question. “How about… you give me something else.” He couldn’t possibly take anything from a starving child. Shouldn’t. Ever, yet he had done so too many times. This has to stop, he shouldn’t be even considering it. He is a scientist and as far as he is concerned exploiting children wasn’t in the job description. “How about… a story.” Children like stories, right? They must be valuable in some way. “I mean”, he adds quickly, “the needs of our mind are as important as the basic needs of our body. So I demand you to accommodate my craving for… more intellectual affairs.” “I mean… sure. If you want to… grandpa.” At this point this kid was just testing his endurance. Motivating breathing exercises might also be a way to increase its capacity. “I do.” Her eyes wandered to the box and then back to Dankovsky. “I mean. Sure. Then let me tell you a story…”

He thought nothing of the trade at first. His beetles did after long last find their rightful heir. One objective cleared. Time to indulge in more important affairs. That belief lasted until evening, when he found one of the kids lurking at his doorstep. “Are you the doctor that trades in stories?” “I am the doctor. Are you hurt, is everything alright?” “Look, my friend has gotten himself a splinter in the foot! Walked on some wood, when we were trying to… ah never mind. Anyway, we –“ “Lead the way.” “- we only need some tweezers, but our shop didn’t have any to sell!” “I can remove the splinter. It’s a simple enough procedure and even a small wound needs to be properly disinfected.” “I don’t have anything on me. Maybe one of the buttons, but I only have three of them left. So I thought…” “It’s fine.” But it probably isn’t because everyone seems hell-bent on losing every small trinket in their possession. Does anyone even wear the charms that are made, they seem to change hands on a daily basis. “You can tell me the story while we are on our way. If it is a good one, I might not even tell your parents about it.” The child’s face lit up. “Then buckle up, because I do have a good one.”

The next day turned out to be a complete and utter mess. A mess made of excited whispers whirling hands frantically signing what words cannot convey and a lot of sugar filled food leaving his hands. “So. There once was this boy, who had a small wolf cub as his half …” “And then I saw this monster in the steppe! Not the Shabnak but an even bigger one!” “The bull talked! I swear it did!” “My granddad used to sew, you know, so I had a few needles at hand. And the guy really deserved it, so we –“ “Then a giant wave pulled us out of the facet and we all sat at the stairs, we were so surprised!” At some point in the afternoon he had to stock up on cookies and apples just to gain something to trade away. Utter nonsense. He should’ve demanded this madness to stop. The children were barely giving him enough space to move from place to place and their constant chatter did become… grating. Yet there he was, more sweets in hand, while his next unusual costumers were already waiting right before the shop. Do these brats even know, that he isn’t a walking garbage dispenser? Still. The thought about turning them away seemed just as wrong at this point. He was knee deep in this mess already. Might as well swim. And some of these stories were charming really. Somehow everyone seemed to have swallowed a poet whole and considering the local medicine that might not be that much off from the truth… Still. The constant talking was annoying. Distracting, really, a major inconvenience at best. Yet it was oddly charming to observe their desperate tries to up one another as if they expected Dankovsky to pull a secret cake out of his coat that only the best storyteller could get. They were trying. Inspiring one another, forming a chain of developing fantasies that were quite unreal – and quite frankly useless – but cheerful and… lively.

“There you are. I was looking for you.” “Aren’t you all?”, he answered before turning and noticing Clara leaning against a nearby building. Her smile was as knowing as ever. She couldn’t possibly look into other peoples minds, right? Of course not, utter rubbish. These story’s must have gotten to him after all. “What do you want?” “They say, you are giving out free candy.” “It’s not free. And if that is all, you might want to be on your way.” Of course she is following when he turns on his heels and tries to be on his way. “So, I have a story for you.” “I guessed as much.” He doesn’t even have to look at her to know she is pouting. When he finally does, she seems as happy as ever though. “There once was a prince who was locked outside of his house. When he wandered through the garden, he spotted a flower more gorgeous and beautiful then all of the rest. But the flower grew too large and everything that fell under his shadow withered and died away.” “That must have been quite the flower.” “Shh. I’m talking. So they send for a gardener, even if the prince had loved his flower very dearly. So he gave the flower his heart in order to protect it, when the time had come.” Ah. So that is where this was going. Charming. “And did he manage to save it?” “Of course not! What could a prince have done against the gardener’s shears? So the flower was destroyed and when it shattered the princes heart broke with it.” “… that isn’t a nice story. It doesn’t even have a satisfying conclusion.” “That is because the story isn’t over and you keep interrupting! Anyway, when the prince was left alone in the garden, he tore out the pieces of his heart and buried them into the ground for no one to see. He thought he had hidden it for good, but then it started raining and the pieces of his heart grew tine little stems and, slowly but surely, began to grow out of the ground.” By now they arrived at his doorstep. For a minute Dankovsky contemplated to invite the girl in. But that seemed a bit too forward. So he grabbed a small bag of sweets and some of the dried meat he had bought for himself. Who even knew how long Clara had lurked around town and when she really ate the last time. “So…”, this was getting uncomfortable. And quite frankly, ridiculous. “What did sprout out of the ground after all.” Her grin widened. “How about you tell me? I would trade to hear the end of that story.” “Hm… very well.” When he opened the door and looked back, Clara was already gone. Sighing he entered his own house and close the noise behind him. The town was still recovering, yet at this very day at least around the Bachelor it seemed to be filled with laughter, dreams and a future, where anything could be overcome with the right anecdote in mind. A piece of meat for a smile wasn’t such a bad trade after all. Still not a bare necessity… but something different. There was not really anything new to be heard. Not a real discussion no real bond to every single child who tried to steal his precious time. Still, there was meaning in a word spoken at the right space and time. There was meaning in the act of building sky castles together. Maybe he had once again underestimated the local custom.

[phonelinescut]

oh look, i’m back with the report on pathologic 2 day 5 and by god it’s an awful one

five deaths everyone, five deaths!

i may have descended into a death spiral, tilting ever downwards.

setting the scene, i’ve already played up until around 1pm on day 5 at this point and reloaded a couple times to no real gain on my part, just a little less red on the bars. i start playing again tonight from my save in the lair.

at first i tried the original strategy: walk through the warehouses, stop off at the weird house to trade for a shmowder (a shmowder! in the flesh!) and hop on over to the chemist in bridge square to have a civil chat about embalming bodies in houses. i drop dead in the street the first time, the same the second time around.

then i decided my approach was most likely flawed and next turn made a stop in the crude sprawl where i could get so food so i could stop bloody dying every time i stepped out of my lair. this emboldened me, and so i went about my business at bridge square. morale is high and my mum, who is sitting next to me as i play, is concerned as i try to explain various bits of lore like where are your fellow doctors and why is one of them a teenage girl?

third time, i finally make it to the chemist and have a chat to victor kain about the whole thing, who tells me to mark houses with chalk. sure victor, i can do that, don’t mind me if i collapse on your lovely carpet. so i go out and listen at a few houses, mark one that’s mysteriously already marked and have a desperate flick through all the locals’ trading offers. cue another death, i’m pretty sure this one was another ‘local surgeon keels over in the middle of the road’ situation.

the fellow traveller greets me in the theatre this time and makes a wonderfully tempting offer but i refuse for reasons unknown even to me. the fear of what i may lose is greater than the hope of what i may gain, i guess.

so fourth time is a ride, i start in the crucible, thanking the save. i then proceed to listen at the houses, and enter one that’s making a noise just to check i’m doing the right thing. i get beaten to death trying to get up the stairs. no one is at the theatre this time.

fifth time’s the charm or so i’m hoping. i mark some houses and proceed to the theatre, mainly so i can check on the bone structure outside but also to chat to dankovsky, since i remember he was there from one of my previous reloads. i manage to get there just fine and have a nice talk to daniil who is actually making some sort of effort to care about steppe language? very sweet. i promptly drop dead to the theatre floor. at least they don’t have to carry me far.

so here i am, typing this post after this ordeal and considering just starting a new game. i don’t believe at this point i’m likely to ever get back on track with anything but i’m reluctant to restart because i know i won’t be experiencing it for the first time again. i know where i went wrong (that damned Fund task on day four that involved me sabotaging my own attempts to complete it) so i know i don’t have to stay like this, and there are some things i would do different but i’m still hesitant to abandon this run? help me

tl;dr i’m in a death loop and poor artemy has to put up with it, god help us

[baby-nanori]

So @buffgoatsinc is like a level 100 paladin and she strapped Nanori to Finn’s chest baby sling style and ran me through Blackrock Mountain, all the while I nearly died like every fucking encounter. Blink, ice block, and invis saved my fucking bacon. After this she also gave me 20kg just so I could buy bigger bags. And I’m just over here like ‘.... nice’

For people who can’t see the images/have a hard time reading it the full text is below the cut

Dear Ts’ana,

I will try to recount what happened when I went to Brewfest. The past sixteen hours are not so clear and I’m still not sure what continent I’m on. I know I’m in the house of a Pandaran and a new… friend. Yes, I suppose I would call Finhiir a friend.

I went to Brewfest and I had some wine some Draenei brought. I was excited to see some more Draenei and they were very nice about me never having anything to drink before. They gave me some wine and told me to enjoy Brewfest.

I learned to ride a racing ram. I joined a sausage eating contest (I didn’t win, but I did my best). I helped a brewery advertise in Ironforge. I tried a bunch of food (the Draenei I got the wine from said to eat a lot on alcohol); there was soooo much cheese and bread Ts’ana. I loved every moment of it.

Then I ended up dancing with some dwarves and humans in front of a band. When I’d danced my hooves off I slumped against a table and contemplated eating snow for some hydration when a big Draenei joined me at the table. I thought nothing of it until he said, ‘why the sad look, cos? It’s Brewfest!’ and put a mug of beer into my hand. I tried to tell him that, no, I wasn’t his cousin but he wouldn’t listen to me and insisted we drink together.

So I drank the beer with him.

And then I drank another beer with him.

And I drank another. And another. And another.

I honestly don’t know where I even put all that alcohol! I’m a little Draenei girl and this big, shirtless, Draenei expected me to keep up with him!

But I upheld the family honor. I kept up. Hopefully, my brothers would be proud!

I did get his name eventually. Finhiir. But he loudly told me no one calls him that. Everyone calls him Finn and since I’m his cousin I should also call him Finn.

I’m not related to this Draenei. Never have been. I have no idea why he thought we were.

Then one thing led to another and sometime after our sixth drink Finn said we needed to do something to commemorate our reunion. I had no idea what he had in mind but I was too drunk to really argue. So I said that sounded fun.

I made a horrible mistake agreeing to that, Ts’ana.

He ended up taking me south. Way south. To the Burning Steppe and a place I’d seen marked on maps as ‘EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT ENCROACH’ I believe is Blackrock Mountain.

By now I’d sobered up for the most part but Finn kept drinking as he let me into Blackrock Mountain to an elf who teleported the both of us deeper into the earth. Finn just loudly kept saying everything was fine and he just had some business here this wouldn’t take long. Then he ran headlong into a group of gigantic two headed dogs!

I didn’t know what else to do other than keep up. I had no idea how to get back and I’d have been too worried if I’d left him alone. What if he got hurt? What if he died? What it-- I don’t even want to think it. But my worry was unfounded as I was by far the most in danger of the two. I nearly died SO many times from giant two headed dogs or rock golems. Only through the grace of the Naaru and knowing the spell Ice Block was I able to survive most of the volcano. And the entire time Finn kept yelling back at me to keep up or if I got caught he couldn’t reach me fast enough if I was in trouble.

Even hung over as I am I can still recall, with crystal clarity, Finn running at the beasts, shirtless, hitting them with his bone club and then throwing his shield like a discus and it bouncing off them and then falling over dead. Finn is so beyond any power I could comprehend right now. He’s as powerful as FelFlyer or Ellianna.

Then we came to the final chamber, at the end of a spiral jetty of rock in a lake of lava. And there the Old God Ragnaros rose up from the lava depths, killed his attendant and then turned to us. I was genuinely worried for Finn even as he yelled at Ragnaros to stop talking and fight him. Only once Ragnaros was dead could I get close enough to a still intoxication Finn to open a portal to get us out of that horrible place.

I got a cute pair of new gloves for my trouble at least.

Back in Stormwind all the alcohol finally seemed to affect Finn and he fell asleep. Just in the middle of the mage’s tower. I was not nearly as intoxicated and the fear from the Molten Core scared me sober a fair bit. I needed to get him somewhere safe and to someone who’d be able to deal with him. He didn’t have a lot on his person but he did have a Draenei beacon on him that was a portal anchor to somewhere-- off the Eastern Kingdoms. Yes I remember now, I’m in Pandara now. It was labeled “Babe”. Which was a good sign. It had to mean safety right?

I used the anchor to open another portal and shoved Finn’s passed out weight through it. We ended up in a sparse forest on the mountains in front of a house. I dragged Finn up to the door and knocked. A Pandarian answered, took one look at us and said something like ‘Somehow I’m not shocked’ or something to that effect. But he did let us inside and took Finn off me and allowed me to sleep on their sofa. I did so immediately and that was where I woke up.

I can hear Finn and the Panarian, who was awake before both of us and gave me some tea and some bread and told me his name was Ded, talking in another room. I don’t know what of. I don’t really care to know either. Writing this is making my head ache something fierce and I’m tempted to pull out my ugly hood/eye covering to protect my poor light sensitive eyes.

Really what I want to do is make sure Finn is okay before going home. If he’d just come out of that room I could check and open a portal back home.

[velteris]

Tagged by @nozoroomie 

 Name: Variations on Velteris in A Major

Nickname: bckskj ^ is all u get unless I've known u for ages

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Hogwarts House: Slytherin w a lil bit of Ravenclaw

Height: uhh 155cm? which is like 5'5 I think

Sexual Orientation: I...am a lesbean

Ethnicity: Chinese, specifically from Hong Kong, tho I belief my dad's family is hokkien

Favorite Food: mmmmmmeat

Favorite Fruit: Mangos probably?

Favorite Season: Autumn

Favorite Book series: I suddenly forgot every series I've ever read ndksksn uhhh. uhh???? newsflesh was nice? sorry that's not my fav but it's the only one besides Harry Potter n Harry Potter is just kinda the bread and butter so

Favorite Fictional Character: I feel like this is Blatantly Obvious but ayase eli holds my heart please give it back i need that for other things

Favorite Flower: my dude I'm so ignorant I wouldn't know a rose if I saw one

Favorite Scent: ....ok u know what. I rly like the typical """""guy"""" deodorant scents like pine and mountain air, I'm always so tempted to grab one of those but my deepest fear is having some assume "oh your boyfriend???" no I'm just a gay who likes the scent of Switzerland fuck off

Favorite Color: rn dark purple

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: all!!!

Average hours of sleep: I like my good nine hours but I get eight I think

Cat or Dog person: both

Number of blankets: Two in winter

Dream Trip: I'd....id rly like to see the alps or just like, lil European towns, old things... I'd say Japan but I've already been jcksksj though I'd love to go through rural Japan too!! also. in my dreams, I speak perfect Mongolian. I fly into Mongolia and meet a nomadic family. I help out for a few weeks, sharing their ger, petting their dogs, herding their horses and sheep. it's cold but my clothes are thick and the tea is hot. I can see for miles across the steppe. when I leave, I promise to write, and so do they

Last thing I googled: “zelda best horse” (spoiler: they’re all good horses. they’re all best horses. i love them all)

Blog created: September 2015

How many blogs do I follow: 90

Number of followers: 594

What I usually post about: uhhh gay shit, memes, gently decreasing amounts of love live and other similarly gay anime, occasionally A Writing

Do I get asks regularly: hmm like once a fortnight maybe? on average?? ndkxlsn rarely unprompted asks tho they're usually in response to a question or a Happening I post about

roomie u literally tagged all my friends what am i supposed to do now????? @skiretehfox have u done this?? @hitomishiga @huesofthemorning ????? @600ml @luckfoser MUTUALS I NEVER TALK TO BUT SHOULD, HI,

[man-and-his-world]

ASTANA, Kazakhstan  —  I was the only visitor in Greece. As I walked through the tunnel of philosophers, eager young Kazakhs accosted me. “This is the Greek alphabet! It has 24 characters, and it was the original language of science. Here, please, come and take a photo by the sea.” They hustled me over to a Mediterranean backdrop. They outnumbered me five to one, I succumbed to relentless explanation.

It was a sunny afternoon on the second day of EXPO 2017, held on the outskirts of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. The Expo boasts of being “the Olympics of economy, business, and culture,” a global event where each participating country showcases its national achievements in its own “pavilion” and crowds come to see pieces of the wider world. But today — at the first Expo ever held in a post-Soviet state — there weren’t any crowds.

***

The Expo was being held on the outskirts of Astana, near one of the city’s many construction sites, in a purpose-built park. Dubbed a “future city” but looking more like a vast conference center, the organizers claimed the site was self-powered, fueled by a mix of wind and water. Each pavilion takes up anywhere from one room to several floors in a giant ring of new buildings built to encircle a great sphere of black glass at the center, the Kazakhstan pavilion. Viewed from the west, the dome loomed over neighboring apartment buildings. “There’s two big ways to piss off the Kazakhs,” a delegate commented, “Mention Borat, or call the dome the Death Star.”

The obvious lack of attendees, by contrast, didn’t require mentioning. Greece wasn’t the only deserted pavilion. Many were barren of anyone except staff. A few of the big names — China, Germany, the United States — had clusters of a couple of dozen visitors at a time, but outside most nations I snaked my way through empty rail guards. On the avenues outside, two out of every three people were wearing lanyards. I eavesdropped on a conversation between two European delegates: “We have to plan for the worst-case scenario — if there are no visitors to our event.”

For years, the Kazakh organizers had been quietly ramping down the tallies of expected attendees at the three-month event; 5 million, 3 million, now 2 million. On opening day, the official figure was 10,000 visitors, and even that was a generous rounding-up. The next day, the crowds were even barer. In the Chinese pavilion, a CGI video showed a fly-through of busy Expo grounds; outside the street was empty save for a janitor having a smoke. Come dinner time, the empty plastic tables and giant windows of the second floor of the food court gave it the air of a provincial airport at 2 am.

At the last Expo I attended, in 2010 in Shanghai, the streets had been jam-packed; the event saw 73 million visitors. The last “specialized” Expo — the generally smaller events, like this one, held in between the quinquennial “world” Expos — was hosted by the coastal Korean city of Yeosu in 2012 and drew 8 million. Officially, Astana had sold 670,000 tickets — but there were serious doubts about how real many of those sales were. There were few doubts, by contrast, about the event’s $3 billion to $5 billion price tag.

So, what had the organizers of the Expo been thinking in awarding the event to Astana in the first place? And why had this remote capital asked for it?

The Expo used to be an international headline event, an opportunity for hosts and guest countries to show off for a mass audience. The first, in London’s custom-built Crystal Palace in 1851, embodied all the power and glory of Victorian Britain. The 1889 Exposition Universelle left the Eiffel Tower dominating Paris. The New York World’s Fair of 1939, “Building the world of tomorrow!” sung a science-fiction utopianism of atomic cars and robot servants. Through much of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union erected pavilions boasting of their social and technological supremacy.

But since the 1980s the Expo has largely dropped off the radar of the Western public. The events are still sanctioned by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) in Paris, but, in an era of easy communications and cheap flights, there’s less thrill in seeing a little bit of Spain or Thailand or Egypt on display. Meanwhile, private corporations have come to play a far larger role in Expo events, using it as an opportunity to show off products and woo potential clients. The U.S. government, for its part, is barred by a 1999 law from providing funds for its own pavilion, forcing it to depend entirely on corporate sponsorships.

In the developing world, however, the Expo remains an object of fascination. For the public in these parts of the world, there’s still a buzz associated with glimpsing faraway places and peoples; for governments, such events still qualify as a rare chance to show off for a sizable (if shrinking) international audience. As an editor at China’s state-backed Global Times in 2010, I was obliged to work on dozens of pieces about the Shanghai Expo and its importance to the country. (They were incredibly boring, true, but that’s state media; it could have been the Sex Olympics and it would still be leaden.)

It was inevitable that Kazakhstan would bid to host the event. With its massive natural resources, it has been the most successful of its Central Asian neighbors at picking itself up out of the ruins of the Soviet Union. Under autocrat Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former Communist Party boss who took over without trouble when the Soviet Union collapsed, the economy has grown steadily even as its press remains shackled and corruption rampant. Its international recognition has also remained low.

Since the 1990s, the country has been making an earnest bid to correct this latter deficiency by serving, whenever possible, as a host for the rest of the world. In recent years, it has been the site of everything from international football gatherings to meetings of religious leaders to Syrian peace talks.

Part of the country’s drive to stage such events is Nazarbayev’s own ego. At 76, he’s increasingly conscious of his legacy; one of Astana’s main buildings is the Museum of the First President of the Republic, a mausoleum erected even before his death. Many of the gatherings are pointless; the World Religious Congress, commented one interfaith expert, was “a complete waste of time, developed along the old lines of the Soviet Religion and Peace events, which were likewise a front for repressive regimes trying to look nice.”

But it’s more than that. Like other Central Asian states, outsiders barely know where Kazakhstan is or who the people are. Finding a national story to tell the rest of the world (or, to use business-speak, a brand to sell) has been important for Kazakh pride.

The line they’ve settled on is hospitality. While other Central Asian nations have largely failed to find a post-Soviet identity, the Kazakhs know what they’re pushing. Kazakhs are very, very keen to tell you how friendly they are. “The Expo is very important to us because Kazakhs are a naturally friendly people. And we want to welcome everyone,” said Tilik Zhunnunsova, an office manager in Astana. “Because Kazakhstan was a place of trade on the old Silk Road, guests are always welcome in Kazakhstan.” In the Kazakh pavilion at the Expo, an entire wall was dedicated to explaining the importance of being a good host.

That hospitality culture is real, but hardly unique. It’s a shared tradition with roots in Turkish and Arab nomadism throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, not a Kazakh creation. Kazakhstan has spent billions on these events — a high cost for a nation where nearly half the population still lives on about $70 a month. But as a national story for a young nation, it’s not a bad one. “The thing I really admire about the Kazakhstanis,” says Anthony de Angelo, the communications director for the USA pavilion, “is that at a time when everyone else is turning away from the rest of the world, they want to embrace it.”

***

Kazakhstan’s path to hosting the Expo was straightforward. It put in its bid in 2012, when the only competitor was Liège, in Belgium. As the previous Expo, Milan 2015, had also been in Europe — and as Kazakhstan was flush with oil money, while Belgium was in the middle of the Continent’s debt crisis — it was an easy win. The BIE boasted of this being the first Expo event in a post-Soviet nation.

Like the Olympics, the Expo has become a less tempting event in straitened times, a surefire money-loser that’s alluring mostly to those who want to shove to the forefront of the global stage. Kazakhstan almost took the 2022 Winter Olympics too, losing by just four votes to Beijing, the only other contestant left; every other city had dropped out due to popular objections or financial constraints.

But that’s where the first blunder was made. The natural location for the Expo should have been Almaty, the country’s largest city and former capital. Almaty is not only big, it’s also relatively easy to reach — not only for Kazakhs, but for Central Asian neighbors.

Since 1997, though, Kazakhstan’s government has been based in the new city of Astana, 600 miles north of Almaty in the high reaches of the country bordering Siberia and surrounded by nothing but the steppe. The city is a cross between a theme park and a construction site; shopping malls sit next to grand palaces (built, unsurprisingly, to host global events) while the shells of new apartment blocks rise around the edges. Nazarbayev threw oil money at famous architects like Japan’s Kisho Kurokawa and the United Kingdom’s Norman Foster to design the new city, and so it’s stuffed with gleaming monumental landmarks that look as though they’re about to transform and fight the Autobots.

Much of Astana is beautiful — but it’s also half-empty, and hotels are ludicrously expensive, driven up by the flow of all-expenses paid foreign delegations and provincial officials. “The city is frenetic,” the head of the USA pavilion, Joshua Walker, imaginatively told Forbes magazine. It was true that the opening ceremony produced a rare traffic jam: a long procession of SUVs with individualized license plates. But at best, Astana was going at a gentle amble; when I strolled through the city I frequently found myself alone, usually next to a gold-plated statue or a bush in the shape of a dinosaur.

There was also almost no effort to draw visitors from outside Kazakhstan. A desultory marketing campaign in Russia had looped in a handful of guests, but in Kazakhstan’s other neighbors, there was almost nothing. Air Astana promised free Expo tickets to anybody flying in; at both Almaty and Astana airports the machines issuing them were broken. I found a pair of lost Chinese tourists looking over a map in an Astana park (“I think we’re here, look, here’s the big glass pyramid.”) One of them, Mr. Tan, turned out to live a few miles from me in Beijing. A retired Communist Party official, he was an Expo enthusiast. “I loved Shanghai!” he said, delighted at the memory. “It had a little bit of so many countries! So I was so happy when I saw there was another Expo near China this year!” But they were the only ones. Being a host is wonderful, but it helps to invite guests.

On top of that, there was a palpable resentment toward the Expo from many Kazakhs. Plenty of people were proud of it — “We have been preparing for this for four years! Even little children know what the Expo is!” said Nikolai German, a Russian-Kazakh shop owner. But Kazakh social media was lit up with complaints about being forced to buy tickets, about pension funds being divested toward Expo funding, about the absurdity of spending billions on a vanity project when “half the country still shits in a hole in the ground.”

Then there was the corruption. The Kazakh government has already acknowledged that millions of dollars were stolen during the construction process. In part because of the fallout of squabbles among the country’s oligarchical elite, the official in charge of the Expo, the chief construction manager, and the Expo firm’s managing director were all arrested for embezzlement. This wasn’t surprising; Kazakhstan is a deeply corrupt country, and the Expo, like any big event, a playground for thieves. The Milan Expo in 2015 was wracked by corruption scandals, adding to the prevailing cynicism about the event.

“The government is running tramps through the turnstiles to keep the numbers up,” another resident of Astana told me confidentially, refusing to give me his name. (Kazakhstan ranks 157th in the world for press freedom, and dissenters are frequently arrested.) “Of course I won’t go!” proclaimed Talgat, a construction worker. “That’s for people like you!” He poked me in the chest with a calloused finger. “Not people like me.”

But maybe the biggest problem with attracting visitors was that the majority of the Expo was boring. The exhibition’s theme — “Future Energy” — meant an endless sequence of corporate videos about the sun (good) and wind (also good). The bigger the petro-state, the more time the pavilion spent talking about how committed they were to alternative energy. “Please come to the Shell pavilion,” one of the Kazakh staff implored me, “It is a very brilliant company.” Many of the videos ended with young women in diaphanous clothing turning to smile at the viewer; the Israelis one-upped this by having a live dancer — in diaphanous clothing — as a treat after you’d sat through their video.

More generally, hardly anyone’s heart seemed to be invested in the proceedings. The technology on display in the pavilions was an endless stream of the same ideas; over and over again, I pressed buttons to light up diagrams of sustainable houses. In some pavilions, budgets had clearly been rapidly scaled down; Venezuela was nothing but an empty room with some photos of the country on the walls. (“Fuck those guys for even coming, though,” another delegate commented. “How dare they even buy plane tickets when their country’s on fire?”)

The national slogans started to blur together: Land of Energy, Energy in the Air, The Power of Energy, Energy on the Move. “What is the source of infinite energy?” asked a voice-over at the USA pavilion. “It’s people. You, me, all of us, together.” I looked around to make sure we weren’t about to be processed as Soylent Green. Later there was a song. “There’s an energy moving through the air/It’s the land we love, it’s the land we care/There’s an energy in the world we do/and when we use it our dreams come true.”

Among all this, there were a few outstanding exceptions, like a great German pavilion full of things to push, pull, and hold, culminating in a stunning laser show. The designer of the British pavilion, Asif Khan, bearded, skinny, and deeply sincere, showed me around. “The whole landscape’s computer generated, down to the leaves,” he said, pointing to the 360-degree display around a central yurt made up of hanging graphene tubes. “And the weather’s randomized — but the more people touch the tent, the more the weather’s influenced by them.” I watched a Kazakh boy run his hand along the tubes, delighted as they lit up in the darkness. “Look,” Khan said, “If one Kazakh kid sees this, and he goes away wanting to be a scientist, or an engineer, if he takes something away from it — then my job’s done.”

Occasionally, you could see glimpses of the point of the whole affair, beyond the branding exercises. The American “student volunteers” took pictures with local visitors, snapping them by the pavilion’s “HOLLYWOOD” sign and chatting with them in Russian. “For a lot of Kazakhstanis, this may be the first time they’re meeting a real live American,” said de Angelo, the communications director. “And so we want to make it stick. But it was when we announced that they’d be a cowboy show that people’s faces at the TV event really lit up.”

A few nations had had the common sense to bring musicians. As Lithuanian folk dancers, adorned in pointy hats, twirled outside their pavilion, a crowd gathered to laugh, clap, and do-si-do with them. For a moment, the whole thing seemed worth it. Then I took a closer look at the crowd. Of the 20 people there, only four weren’t other delegates.

[memoirsofratasum]

Aeromage Sanna: A Star to Guide Us

We thought our time in the desert was done with Joko’s demise. Yes there is still an Elder Dragon, but there always is an Elder Dragon. It just felt like there was some finality, like the last chapter of a book that we could close and move on from. The Priory was satisfied with the connection we had forged with the Sunspears on their behalf. The mountain had gained immeasurable knowledge about Elona and we gained new friends and experiences. Our job was done.

The Priory had given us leave after Joko’s second-death and Tarnn and I returned to Kryta. It was weird not having to shake sand out of our clothes whenever we came indoors and the weather in the Reach was a lot colder than I remembered. It was nice to be home under our own roof. It wasn’t all time for relaxing though. We got home in time to make some extra cash at the Queen’s Gauntlet, me patching up fighters and Tarnn as a Ringmaster. We made infrequent trips to Amnoon for the sake of trade but waypoint fees add up without the Priory footing the bill. The first big trip we took was for the Festival of the Four Winds after we finished our tenure at the Gauntlet. The wind! The water! The food! I can’t believe the last time we were at the Cliffs was just when we were starting at the Priory. That seems like a lifetime ago.

One other thing I’ve been focusing on since coming home is jackal training. I have this working theory about jackals, that they aren’t limited to just sand and their canine forms, but could take on the abilities of any mount and find use out of any material. I’ve only had my jackal Cirrus and Tarnn’s Arkose to work with, but they are both smart and eager to please. With just a little positive reinforcement and gentle training Cirrus has learned to shape her form using water, which is good cause Divinity’s Reach has more water than it does sand. Arkose is able to form using Tarnn’s magic as a source which is even more impressive! Still working on teaching them to alter their physical shapes. Thankfully there are so many raptors around to mimic that I think they are starting to grasp that particular command. I’m keeping meticulous notes and refining my techniques in order to submit my work to the Priory so that my research can be used by future jackal riders. Maybe someday soon Cirrus and Arkose will be able to fly like griffons!

It wasn’t until early autumn that we got a frantic summons from the Priory. General Soulkeeper’s very own airship, the Soul's Vendetta, had gone down north of Kourna and all contact had been lost. We had been on that airship, not even Bloodstone Fen had been able to take it down! The Pact needed first responders stat and if there is one thing Tarnn and I have experience with it’s being the first in after a disaster. We were to rendezvous with a larger team by waypoint at the Allied Encampment in Kourna and make our way north on mount-back. Word of fresh branding in the area made airships out of the question.

The air in Jahai was blazing, but it seemed cleaner to breath since the last time we were there. The region sadly still wasn’t peaceful, there were still some Awakened fighting, for what reason we don’t know and they weren’t our mission anyways. Just enough of a force to keep those stationed here busy, but not enough to need extra assistance. So the attackers were kept at bay, certain members from all three orders were off to the side packing up their mounts for the trek north. Tarnn and I joined them, our jackals carrying our medical supplies. It must have been a sight to see from the towers, dozens of mounts in a riot of color riding north from the encampment as one.

We rode for hours. We had radio operators and surveyors with us, trying to make contact as we got closer and tracking the likely trajectory of the Soul's Vendetta from its last known location. The nearest anyone was able to calculate was that the airship crashed at the border, but still on the other side of the mountains. And some of the equipment was picking up branded energy in the distance. We knew that one of Kralkatorrik’s minions was responsible for downing the airship and the area had been branded, but details had been scarce at the briefing.

Any details we were missing was filled in by the overwhelming purple that greeted us when we came through one of the mountain passes. Huge crystalline waves rose high into the sky and twisters could be spotted in the distance. I had never seen tornadoes form in any branded region I had previously been in. Were they forming to due to the age of the branding, the fresh magic twisting upon itself until it was hundreds of feet into the air? Or was it a side effect from the natural weather patterns in Jahai? I would have loved to have studied them but I had a more important duty on hand.

Our group picked our way down the steep pass and from that height we could see a glint of metal and some spare tendrils of smoke from under the shadow of the largest crystal outcropping. It was the remains of the Soul's Vendetta, only hours after it was brought down. The personnel were glad to see us. I was immediately shown to the medic tents while Tarnn assisted with building the outer defences. The others worked to distributed much needed food and supplies.Things were bad, many of the wounded were in no condition to fight, but honestly I had seen worse. A usable Pact Vanguard was forming around us from the shell of the ship and as long as they were left alone the Pact could create a steady foothold in the area. I remember hearing a cheer when the radios were bought back online. A lifeline back to civilization until waypoints can be established.

It was a few days after we arrived that we learned we weren’t the only ones bunkering down in Jahai. Who should come stride through the camp on the griffonback than Sahil! Apparently the Soul's Vendetta had crashed right up against one of the entrances of an ancient Sunspear base! The Sunspears had just finished clearing out the tunnel and wound up in the middle of our camp. This was fortunate turn of events, neither order was at their strongest right now and Sahil told us that while our immediate goals may be different, both groups agreed to watch each other’s back.

Sahil gave us a rundown of what he could share, and maybe a little of what he couldn’t. There had been a leadership summit further north to determine was what going to become of Elona without Joko. Multiple factions had formed over the months but no one was able to come to any agreement, and they still haven’t when the summit was crashed by dragons. A Shatterer that had merged with Zhaitan’s death magic had attacked the summit trying to get to Aurene and Kralkatorrik itself was moving through portals. The Sunpears, aided by the Commander no less, seemed to have a plan on how to deal the with the Elder Dragon, or at least track it as it moved through the Mists. Now it is possible that Sahil didn’t share the details because we we’re not currently aiding his group at the moment, but from the way he spoke and acted I think he genuinely was in the dark as much as we were. He was pretty high in the order so this must be a very secretive mission.

The Death-Branded Shatterer though is still out there. It’s after Aurene and from what we’ve learn it was the one that took down the Soul's Vendetta. I’ve seen General Soulkeeper pace the Vanguard, muttering angrily to herself and ordering wielders up north to where more of the wreckage lay. And it’s certainly not for the purposes of salvage. She was planning something big, something to bait the Death-Branded Shatterer into striking range to give a hard  blow to both Elder and Lieutenant. Even we who were part of the rescue team were given orders and placements. Which is Soulkeeper’s right of course, she is the highest ranking member of the Pact on site and we are here to serve the needs of the Pact.

We would all fight with her, no questions there, but there was some concern around the cookfires. No one was saying it outloud but there were plenty of worried glances behind her back. I don’t think there is a soul from Tyria that doesn’t know the General’s story with Kralkatorrik. But Tarnn reminded me that even if this is an overly personal fight for her, this new Shatterer needed to be taken down and the Pact is the only one in the area with the knowhow to do it.

However I don’t remember any junundu wurms or repurposed inquest golems in Blazeridge. I had been on watch duty on the rocky outcropping just outside the staging platform when the two escort groups came into view. I admit, my first instinct was to be alarmed, but this wasn’t my first tour of duty so I brushed it aside and rode Cirrus to General Soulkeeper to inform her that the reinforcements had arrived. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that toothy grin of her’s. This wasn’t a fight she’s been planning for a few days, it was a fight she’s been dreaming of for years.

Soon the Pact and our DERV units, Sunspears and their griffons, Awakened and their junundu, and the usual gathering of adventurers were in place. But even the largest army means nothing if there is no enemy to fight. Soulkeeper was saving something special up her sleeve for that. A chunk of bloodstone, so potent that it made me wince even at a distance, was carried by a small golem right through Almorra’s Stand. This Shatterer was too brainless to see the trap, that or the bloodstone shard was too tempting. Either way it didn’t take long before a crystalline dragon of green and purple swooped in.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen those Shatterers in Blazeridge Steppes but there are some things that stick with you. While I believe Death-Touched is smaller than its Tyrian cousins, it is no less imposing on the field. Branded crystals that reeked of death magic, summoned riftstalkers, and even miniature twisters, it was pure chaos. But even imbued with Zhaitan’s magic it is still a Shatterer. We knew its tactics, could see when it was going to fly, when it was going to breath. This was a familiar fight and General Soulkeeper’s confidence was justified.

Eventually the Death-Touched Shatterer faltered and Soulkeeper called for us to hold back. The Sunspears and Awakened protested in alarm as the dragon seemed to take to the air to escape. But its flight was weak, it did not have the strength to climb over the ridge. Instead, it crashed into the rock face and exploded in a shower of purple and green crystals.

The cheer was louder than the dragon’s roar, but I don’t think anyone was louder than the General. As much as this was about Kralkatorrik and about Aurene and about Elona, there is no getting around that this was about General Soulkeeper as well. I could hear in the crowd members of the Vigil being especially proud for having been apart of this for their leader. I don’t think I can quite understand that feeling being Priory, but I was still glad for the Vigil in particular for this victory.

There is another fight right around the corner. The Commander and the Sunspears have something planned for Kralkatorrik. I don’t know what will come next, but we Tyrians are fighters. So I’m sure we will all be right there, as eager as General Soulkeeper shattering a crystal dragon.