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moontrinemars · 4 months ago

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Tenth Lord in Jupiter Nakshatras

Thanks for your patience in waiting for the next part of the series - I’m glad you guys are interested. As always, recorded for my own benefit, published for yours. General disclaimer is in my bio. Credit to KRSchannel for inspiring this post.

Find your 10th lord here, and find your 10th lord’s nakshatra here.

The 10th house rules our life’s honor. It represents the services we perform for society as well as the reputation we earn as a result. It is associated with the father and the career because traditionally, this is where both our standing in society and the role we performed in society would come from - inherited through the father’s family line. However, in our contemporary world, this isn’t always the case, which is why it’s important to know the grander themes at play.

The three Jupiter-ruled nakshatras are Punarvasu, Vishakha, and Purva Bhadrapada.

Jupiter is a planetary object that represents ascension, expansion, and union. It is the aspiration that guides us to our greatest heights, and the intangible whole comprised of all pieces, parts, and individuals. Channeling Jupiter means to take the role of the collective in our capacity as an individual, such as sharing our experiences to better the understanding of others, or discovering, exploring, and sharing universal truths that connect everyone. This is why Jupiter is associated with the partner. Venus is like the practical partner, who represents our own earthly values, but Jupiter is the soulmate, who allows us to ascend beyond the self, uniting physical with spiritual. Jupiter obscures, elevates, and enlightens, offering both afterlife and a life purpose.

DO YOU HAVE YOUR 10TH LORD IN A JUPITER-RULED NAKSHATRA? THAT MEANS YOU…

Audrey Hepburn, Amelia Earhart, and Kendrick Lamar all have their tenth lords in Jupiter ruled nakshatras. Audrey’s is in Punarvasu, Anne’s is in Vishakha, and Kendrick’s is in Purva Bhadrapda.

… AND THE PUBLIC MUTUALLY TEACH, EVOLVE, AND MYTHOLOGIZE ONE ANOTHER.

This placement produces an individual who is not content to engage with either their vocation or their society as a means to an end. These natives rather prefer to approach their public life, and the concept of the public itself often enough, as deeply meaningful and containing a higher purpose. Here you find individuals who shake up their industry by introducing cultures of open-mindedness and experimentation, as often as you find those who pursue their far-flung, lofty legacies at the expense of their health, relationships, privacy, and even life.

Jupiter's fame is more particular to how its influence manifests than to the amount of or method by which it was accrued. Whether you're looking at canon-defining classics, the celebrity of subculture, or the first individual of a certain kind to succeed in this or that field, you're looking at a Jovian native whose legacy serves to teach the public, and expand how the public defines itself. Of course, anyone can push boundaries, but these natives are most likely to be remembered for the barriers they break, and the lessons they taught in the process.

MORE ON THE SPECIFICS OF PUNARVASU, VISHAKHA, AND PURVA BHADRAPADA BELOW!

IF PUNARVASU RULES THE TENTH LORD, YOU…

Sharon Tate, David Beckham, and Halle Berry all have their tenth lords in Punarvasu. Others with this placement are William Shakespeare, Aretha Franklin, Amy Adams, J. M. Barrie, Debbie Harry, Al Gore, Alannis Morisette, Naomi Judd, Stephen King, Tony Curtis, Eddie Murphy, Gisele Bündchen, Werner Herzog, and Courtney Love.

Take public responses to your behavior personally, even finding it difficult to separate your identity from your reputation at first.

Are likely to be known for your professional value on an individual level, as a matter of skill, rather than as a team member or leader.

May benefit from a mentor who takes you under their wing, or may play such a role to new incomers to your field or workplace.

Count on your inborn charm to buoy you through scandal.

Transform your persona with age to appeal to new expectations.

AND YOU MAY FIND…

Travel is an expected part of your job, and public service you perform in foreign places seems to leave a greater impact.

Early on in life, key marriages and romantic partnerships can interfere with your career and social status, or vice versa.

Engaging in social service, partaking in cultural traditions, and organizing society-wide events, is spiritually cleansing, and allows you to reintegrate your public persona and personal identity.

Others imbue you with moral authority you are not prepared to shoulder, potentially leading to unearned imposter syndrome.

A pattern of being publicly linked to 'someone else': a role you have played, a title you've been given, a superior who enhances your image, a teammate who steals your valor, etc.

PUNARVASU is the Star of Renewal. Industries and career types favored are those involving archetypes, exploration, drama, history, innovation, education, spirituality, relationships, care-taking, healing, delivery, narrative, articulation, influence, and transportation.

IF VISHAKHA RULES THE TENTH LORD, YOU…

Anne Hathaway, Usher, and Billy Idol all have their tenth lords in Vishakha. Others with this placement are Dodi Al Fayed, Steven Spielberg, Susan Sarandon, Winston Churchill, Giorgio Armani, Martin Luther, Patti Page, H. G. Wells, Martin Scorsese, Analeigh Tipton, Joel Coen, Megan Mullaly, Richard Strauss, CM Punk, Georgia O'Keefe, John Cleese, Monica Vitti, Ashanti, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Naturally come to occupy positions of authority in the industries of your mastery, if not through literal rank than socially/morally.

May find yourself successfully introducing a new movement, genre, belief, or idea before it's celebrated by the mainstream.

Are generous in the world of public service, and will leave a legacy of having cared for and striven for the betterment of your society.

Know how to communicate your ideals and philosophies to a wide audience in a professional setting effectively, even artistically.

May be accused of elitism, pretentiousness, or arrogance, even when you try to cultivate an attitude of humility and modesty.

AND YOU MAY FIND…

Your early professional life is beset with competition, or your chosen industry is somehow affected by martial conflicts.

Members of the public will interpret you either as self-indulgent and petty, or as austere and enlightened, with no in-between.

Opportunities for romance are plentiful for you in social and legal settings, but resulting relationships must be extricated from those wider contexts to establish a happy and healthy marriage.

Your boss often partakes in social drinking with his subordinates.

Jealousy is a common theme, whether you have a reputation for being jealous, others are jealous of and threatened by you, etc.

VISHAKHA is the Star of Purpose. Industries and career types favored are those involving research, politics, competition, speech, ideology, agitation, immigration, criticism, trade, exchange, leisure, intoxicants, production, leadership, personal branding, and style.

IF PURVA BHADRAPADA RULES THE TENTH LORD, YOU…

Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, and Sidney Poitier all have their tenth lords in Purva Bhadrapada. Others with this placement are Kurt Cobain, Laurence Olivier, Michael Jordan, Charles Dickens, Vincent Price, Armie Hammer, Franz Schubert, Gerard Way, John Steinbeck, Kurt Russell, Maya Angelou, Conan O'Brien, Bobby Driscoll, David Tennant, Jay Leno, Rik Mayall, Keri Russell, and OP.

Tempt others into rule-breaking and are tempted in turn by communities and livelihoods that circumvent or defy the law.

Signify a movement or change in social norms within your field.

Use your work to provoke others into changing their core beliefs.

Bring elements of the metaphysical, spiritual, transcendental, and philosophical into a more social and/or practical public setting.

Naturally uncover and grapple with a fundamentally darker side of public life and of the public in general, with too much exposure or attention more likely to pose a real, material risk to your health, security, or even life.

AND YOU MAY FIND…

Your look, attitude, and/or impulses are easily congealed into an image or symbol, one that is powerful but restrictive, and your depths may be shunned by the public or authorities as a result.

Anyone who tries to take a conflict with you public will suffer serious consequences as a result, from either your own ferocity when tested, or organized backlash from others on your behalf.

Introduction through the professional and public sphere makes others magnetically attracted to you; however, those who would already be attracted to you are at risk of becoming obsessive.

The pursuit of a specific career or end-goal, specifically through higher education or founding of a philosophy, actually puts you in contact with more opportunities and generates more success in a totally different field or toward a different goal than you plan for.

One of the most rewarding and effective means by which you can perform public service is through contributions to education and community outreach through mentorship.

PURVA BHADRAPADA is the Burning Pair. Industries and career types favored are those involving ideology, sensuality, speculative genres, music, investigation, nature, spirituality, research, administration, promotion, conflict, subcultures, rhetoric, death, and crime.

HOPE THIS IS HELPFUL. VARIATION IN REQUESTS MEANS WE’RE GOING OUT OF ORDER, BUT WE WILL RETURN TO THE OTHERS LATER. FEEL FREE TO MESSAGE WITH QUESTIONS, THOUGHTS, IDEAS, ETC. THANKS SO MUCH. PART 7 WILL BE FOCUSED ON MERCURY-RULED 10TH LORD NAKSHATRAS! ♡

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inyri · 8 months ago

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Equivalent Exchange (a SWTOR story): Chapter 41: Good Soldiers Follow Orders

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M. Trigger warning: graphic violence, depictions of torture, body horror.) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire/Knights of the Eternal Throne.)

Comments are always appreciated! Visit me at:

Archive of Our Own

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Author’s Note: Please note the trigger warnings. I had to step away from this for a little while (all right, more than a little while). Chapters are consecutive, of course, and as I posted the last one and moved to wrapping up this one I found life imitating art in a very, very uncomfortable way. I don’t talk a lot about my work for many reasons. Normally it’s not very exciting. And then there are the days that stay, the reminders that sometimes the world is deeply, viciously cruel in ways that are hard to process. As part of my work I met two men who were subjected to that cruelty, heard their stories, and helped care for them on their paths back home.

The first iterations of this series of scenes were very different from where we ended up. Nine and her team were far nastier at first, which wasn’t really true to her, and then I tried to make it funny which- well, obviously we can see the problem with that approach. So this is where we ended. It’s still an ugly chapter, but here we are.

This chapter is dedicated to AD, AH, and all victims of torture.

Good Soldiers Follow Orders

Theron follows her close as a shadow as they make their way from her ship across the base, dodging carefully around the first watch guards on their patrol routes. A month ago it would have been simple but a month ago they’d been sloppy; since then she’d ordered new watchposts set, new floodlights installed, locked down the turbolift platform to the valley below. There were so many other places to land a ship on Odessen, canyons and clearings and deep, dark forest far beyond the view of the towers, and it would have been far too easy for an infiltrator to sneak in.

Or one might simply use your landing bay. Valkorion’s armor gleams as an arc of light cuts across the path. In through the front door. All comers welcomed. Perhaps Arcann should-

The illusion shatters when she steps through it, the sentence left ominously unfinished.

Second patrol. Third patrol. Through the external door on the heels of a pair of Sana-Rae’s adepts, weaving through the hall and crammed into the back corners of the lift with an absolutely massive Zabrak with a distinct half-ring of glitterstim around one nostril (she makes a mental note- the cantina’s more than necessary but if they’ve got a spice problem that’s another vulnerability they can’t afford), down the hallways into Science Wing and nearly to the lab- outside door’s open, good, but how’s she going to-

Shit.

She’s six steps ahead of herself in contingency plans as usual, mind racing, but that doesn’t matter worth a damn when she fucks up Step One. Stopping so abruptly he almost runs right into her, she grabs Theron by the wrist and pulls him into the darkest corner of an empty meeting room. His head tilts in silent confusion as she reaches toward the stealth generator clipped to his belt. I thought- he starts to sign, one hand raised.

Switching, she replies, left-handed; pulling it free, she replaces it with hers. Backup has a shorter clock when the main’s off. If it overloads-

Theron nods. Bad. Right. Where should I stand?

Back- her fingers stutter as she considers (Void, she really isn’t thinking, is she? She needs to be. One mistake and the whole thing comes apart)- back left corner. You’ll have a five-count to get through the door before it closes, then don’t move and-

Don’t say anything. I know. He repeats the sign, an added emphasis. I promised.

She rubs her forehead, trying and failing to settle the ache building between her eyes. I know. Come on.

***

The inner laboratory door slides closed with a soft hiss, just muffling Theron’s last few footsteps as he settles carefully into the corner, and she lets her stealth field drop.

“I got your message.” Nine forces the words out, forces strength into her voice as she sets the lock. She cannot falter, not now. “SCORPIO, give me the holo. Let’s get it opened up.”

“Commander.” Doctor Lokin looks up from across the room, setting a handful of instruments and an empty syringe- not all clean, she notes- neatly into place on a polished metal tray. Beside him, her would-be killer slumps forward against the treatment chair’s restraints, an intravenous catheter in his right arm and his lower body wrapped in a surgical dropcloth, head covered by black fabric and bound around the middle with thick strips of spacer’s tape. “We were just beginning.”

[ sleepy already, cipher? but we’re only just beginning.

when hunter’s slap hits she startles bolt upright in the chair and then wishes she hadn’t, her ribs shifting beneath the straps like so many shattered potsherds as she grinds her teeth to keep from screaming. she’s screamed so much already and she won’t give him the satisfaction of another, won’t-

hunter gestures- toward the woman, she thinks, it’s getting hard to see now with her face so bruised. let’s wake her up, hm? ah, no- something cold and metallic tightening on her right index finger- the other hand, to start. now the left side, still the index finger, tighter and tighter and oh void it hurts it hurts it hurts she’s got to say something or it-

i’m telling you, she gasps, when those reinforcements get here from- and there’s a sharp snap and she can’t help it and she screams-

keep singing, little bird. I do so hate to have to break your pretty wings.]

Her hand throbs.

“I didn’t tell you to start without me.” Her stomach churns even as she curls her fingers into an easy fist, testing their movement; she couldn’t do that for a month after Corellia so it’s only the memory of pain, isn’t it? “And how long has that tape been on? We need his eyes open, not swollen shut. It’s too fucking tight.”

“If you’re referring to this-” Lokin lifts a pair of bloody-gripped forceps with one finger and a long-suffering look- “your knife tipped his saphenous, and I assumed you would prefer he not hemorrhage before you had the chance to work. I’ve only just run the amytal in, nothing more. But,” he squints at the rings of tape, flips a vibroscalpel from the tray into his palm and before she can even begin to move he slices through the binding neatly, once and then again, “you aren’t wrong. SCORPIO restrained him while I was busy with his leg, but I ought to have-”

SCORPIO turns from the console, shoulders lifting in what might have been a shrug. “My primary directive on Odessen remains operational security, Commander. He cannot share what he cannot see.”

“Yes, but-”

One of the wall-mounted monitors beeps, shrill and insistent, until Lokin prods it with a gloved finger and it lapses into red-flashing silence. “He’s starting to wake. Shall we?”

Void, she hates interrogations. (She used to be good at them once, when she was younger and followed orders better. She used to be good at them because of course, why waste precious time on subtleties when you can simply pry and bend and break and it all comes out in the end either way- maybe in pieces, yes, but that was just another puzzle to solve if one was clever enough, even if it was messier-

Orders were orders.

She used to be good at them once. Before Corellia.)

“Is Lana coming? She’s covering for me with Sana-Rae, I think, but-”

She turns too quickly as the door opens behind her and as she spins the room tips sideways and then it starts to spin, too; pausing midstep, she grabs at the nearer benchtop to steady herself, her left hand raised as a counterbalance. Lana clears the doorway in two steps, the worry lines across her forehead deepening.

“I’ve got you,” Lana murmurs. “We’ve just finished, and I had a feeling you might-” she only wrinkles her nose a little as she glances toward the instrument table- “want my help with this.”

When she nods the world shifts unpleasantly anticlockwise. “Yes. Dialing out blind on his holo’s a losing proposition. With any luck he’ll talk, but I’m not counting on it and we haven’t got the time to wear him down.” Pressing her lips together against a wave of nausea, she inhales. Exhales. Inhales. The spinning slows.

“Physical methods, then?”

She shakes her head- oh, Force, there it goes again- inhale. Exhale. “Just tell me what you see. I’ve been bled on enough today, and if we push too hard-”

“Does it matter? You can’t possibly intend to let him-” at her gesture Lana lowers her voice, just above a whisper- “walk away from this. An attack, here, on you- there have to be consequences.”

“Do I look like a Jedi to you? You know me better than that.” When she says it Lana snorts and rolls her eyes and to be fair she has a point- of course she has a point- but a misstep now could be the last strand of a rope to hang herself by, the final block knocked loose that brings the whole tower crashing down, and she can afford that far less than to give away a shred of undeserved mercy. “You’re a step ahead of me, that’s all. I need the who before I decide the what.”

Lana sighs. “I know. I only- I defer to you, Commander. It’s your decision.”

“Maybe, or maybe it’s Trant’s. But we won’t know until we know, and-” another warning chime from the monitors; another warning look from Lokin. “We’re running out of time. And when we’ve finished I’ve still got to talk to Koth and Senya, and-”

“Already postponed, and that can wait in any case. There’s nothing to discuss that won’t keep for a day. We’ll call them once we’re in transit,” Lana eyes her up and down, “after another round of kolto.”

“I’m fine.”

“Liar.” Lana’s hand comes to rest beneath her lifted arm; with the world still half-spinning she’d have missed the subtle pulse of energy if Lana hadn’t flinched when their fingertips meet. “Force help me, you’re not - I’ll take it over, Nine. I’ll… I can do it. You should rest.”

“No.” When she shakes her head the room stays level now, at least. It’s something. “No. This is my mess to sort out. Just lock the door.”

***

Five minutes later all she’s got out of him is a slurred sequence of names, ranks, and serial numbers (lying, Lana says each time from her perch behind the chair, though she knew that long before she said it) and the unwavering gut-punch certainty that the man is an SIS agent. With so little actual information to go on and their databases two years out of date- when Theron left he’d downloaded what he could but slicing back into the mainframe to sync them’s a risk none of them are willing to take right now- trying to find a name for her attacker’s useless, with dozens of dossiers a partial match to the same physical parameters: average height, average build, Underlevels accent, Republic emblems tattooed on biceps and back and another handful laser-faded to barely visible outlines. With half the Republic’s infantry dredged up from the Coruscant undercity’s gangs and prisons and half the SIS (and nearly all of SpecOps) poached from the army, she could have shot into the Dealer’s Den or the Red Rancor on a Primesday night and hit five clones of him in a straight line between the door and the bar.

She studies his face from every angle, waiting for a memory to trigger, and- no, still nothing, barely a nod in the corridor or a passing glance in the mess line. Three weeks on Odessen and the man’s practically a ghost, a traceless alias for a name and a ride hitched on a transport from Port Nowhere. Granted, both she and Theron had been off-planet most of that time, but stars, if this one got in so easily how many more could?

That’s a problem for another day. It has to be.

But for now SCORPIO runs the serials, just for the sake of thoroughness, and- ah. Those faces she knows: Corellia, six years ago; a Coruscanti gala, bloodstains on a black dress; Dromund Kaas, only a month or two before Zakuul.

She just hadn’t known their real names, then. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had.

Orders were orders.

“So you’re ten dead men in a trenchcoat, then? And you’re wrong about that last one, by the way. That was probably Cipher Four. I’ve never been to Ord Mantell.” She pushes his commpad away with a scowl. The damned thing’s wiped clean- all the more likely he’d spoken to Trant within the last half-day, then; that was a lesson from Alderaan that only the Director ought to have learned. With enough time they could have recovered it, but they don’t have time. So she turns back to him instead, her thumb and index finger poised on closed eyelids gone puffy from the pressure of the binding. “Last chance to make this easier on yourself. When did you last hear from Marcus Trant?”

“More’n ten. Way more.” His words are less slurred now, the serum finally taking effect, and Lana sits up straighter. “‘nd hells take your easier. You’re gonna kill me anyway, so-”

Void, why are they always so insistent on dying?

She doubts he can see her, so she just adds a twinge of melodrama to her sigh. “Not necessarily, agent. You tried to murder me. Naturally, I objected-” a little more pressure on his eye, just enough that he starts to shift against the restraining strap- “but if I really wanted you dead I’d have let you use your kill pill instead of wasting perfectly good antitoxin on you. I can be civil if you can.”

Lana closes her eyes, focused and still.

“To be clear, you’re alive as a means to an end and it’s in your best interest to cooperate. But you and I know how it goes, don’t we?” When she lifts her open hand SCORPIO presses the holotransmitter into her palm. “Good soldiers follow orders. It’s not personal. You were only doing as you’re told.” She leans in closer, knee jostling against his mended leg just a little harder than necessary as the paper drape crinkles, voice lowered in a simulacrum of confidence. “Stars, I remember those days. He sits in his big office and sics you on a target, unclips your leash and you just- well. Ours not to reason why, hm?”

The cuff around his right wrist clinks against the arm of the chair as he makes an obscene gesture.

Wrong tactic. Well, then.

Her sigh’s loud enough to make him flinch. “And it was all wrong, wasn’t it? All that planning, all that time pacing, writing a five-line message that he never even saw, all for nothing?” His breath stills, his heart rate spikes, and Lokin hooks another syringe to the IV port and slowly pushes the plunger down. “DId you think I wouldn’t see? I’d almost feel sorry for you if it wasn’t so utterly pathetic.”

His head lolls forward against the restraint, a counterpressure against her hand.

“Oh, no, no.” Shifting, she pushes him back upright with two fingertips in the center of his forehead. “Not yet. Not until-”

“I almost got you.” His mouth contorts- it might have passed for a grin in a darker room, teeth bared, feral- and something in his voice makes her hair stand on end. She recoils, pulling her hand away from his face even as he pauses. “So fucking close. Just a few more seconds and I’d’ve bled you dry, Cipher, and then I’d-”

(The words barely register; he’s not the first and certainly not the most creative person to threaten her with postmortem indecencies but somehow they always think it’s going to shock her into silence, as though it’s the single most awful thing that could ever happen when she’s lived through far worse horrors and more to the point she wouldn’t even know, she’d be dead).

“-see enough and you know Shan’d come running- Force, that would’ve been even better, the look on his traitor face even if it was the wrong way round-”

wait.

WAIT.

no, Trant wouldn’t have-

When she blinks she sees it all in the span of a millisecond: half a hundred ways it could have gone, half a hundred indignities inflicted, half a hundred times it breaks Theron for just long enough for the blow to fall. Lana must see something else; she makes the smallest little sound, a muffled gasp of disgust covered over by knuckles cracking in clenched-fisted fury and then a snarled Sith curse she doesn’t understand (but Valkorion clearly does- she isn’t wrong, he murmurs) and it brings her back to herself.

Her comm buzzes; her eyes flick down toward the screen.

Kicking him for breaking comm silence would be counterproductive, she supposes, but what does Belsavis have to do with anything? If Theron knows his name he ought to have just said so, not making her work harder than she already is.

< don’t know him but think I know the unit> <told Marcus it was a bad idea> <don’t think he listened>

That would explain the burned-off tattoos. Stars, has the SIS truly become that desperate? Or was this another Garza project- some experiment likely as not to fail just as Eclipse Squad had, so why waste frontline troops when the Republic had a whole planet full of froth-mouthed maniacs more than happy to keep killing as the cost of their freedom and if things did go bad, well, they were going to die one way or another so what did it matter?

Then SCORPIO blinks once, head turning toward her comm and then, slower, toward the corner and oh, damn it all-

“Didn’t think the SIS went in for necrophilia,” she says conversationally, covering her mouth over a particularly exaggerated yawn as Lokin barely stifles a snort. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell the Jedi. I am curious, though- did you pick that up on Belsavis, or was that why they locked you up in the first place?”

His teeth clench.

“Piracy? Hm, no. Some flavor of war crime, I’m sure- oh, I know. Fragged your CO, I’d bet. You’ve got that sort of look.”

“Onomatophobia. Go fuck yourself.”

(She’d come at it all wrong, hadn’t she?

She’d thought this wasn’t personal because for her it wasn’t. Okay, fine, with Trant maybe it is, now, but this is no old enemy. She only hurt him to start with because he cut her first and deeper and even Theron doesn’t know his name- and stars know his memory’s brilliant, to judge by his stories he remembers everyone he ever worked with and it was far harder for him when they weren’t all just Minder Ten and Fixer Twelve and Watcher Three. The garotte alone might have been sheer bloody-mindedness in a way she wouldn’t have expected from the SIS, but even the Republic for all its supercilious moralizing had its fair share of sadists; Hunter hadn’t truly been one of them but they��d certainly all thought so at the time and still they’d all turned their heads, every single time, even when she’d screamed until her voice gave out.

Of course her control word was in her Republic file. He wasn’t the only one to try to use it, the first ones in earnest and then, when she’d shredded enough of them into bloody little pieces that they realized it didn’t didn’t hold her any more, as a vicious sort of mockery. That worked a bit, she supposes; maybe it always will. Not well enough to save them, of course.

She’d thought it wasn’t personal, that orders were orders and he’d come after Theron because he had to. But stars, she’d been out of the game for five fucking years and he’s practically got her dossier memorized, errors and all, and he’d called Theron a traitor and the first time she really pushes his buttons he-

Oh, this was very personal.)

“No,” she says, and breathes, trying to untie the panic-knot tightening in her chest, “I don’t think I will.” Snatching up a scalpel from the instrument tray as her voice wavers, she presses its tip, just so, beneath his chin. “You thought you were close? Close only counts in horseshoes and heavy ordnance, puppy, and that and a slip of my hand’ll buy you an unmarked grave. And-” he’s trying not to move, trying not to flinch. A single bead of blood wells up beneath the blade and stars, it’d be so easy, just one little movement and stay calm stay calm stay calm- “you still haven’t answered my question. When did you last hear from Marcus Trant?”

Lana exhales as her gaze comes back into focus, lip curling. Whatever she saw, she didn’t like it. “Today. It was today. But beyond that-”

“It’s good enough.” It was never going to be that easy. “SCORPIO, you don’t still have Belsavis census access, do you?”

A yellow flash, and then- “I am no longer tethered to Ward 23, and what I retained is long out of date. Proximity would be required.”

“Never mind. We’ll move on to the holo, then. Doctor?”

“Ready.” Lokin nods approvingly as she sets the scalpel down. “Retractor?”

“Retractor, please. Left eye.”

One click. Two clicks. Three.

The ‘pub squirms, fighting the restraining strap in earnest as he tries to blink against the cold metal instrument. “What are you-” his pupil constricts until she shifts the operating light away- “you gonna take my eyes now, Cipher? Keep ‘em in a jar somewhere, or-”

The holo’s scanner locks on as she holds it level with his forced-open eye. “No, thank you. I never was much for souvenirs.”

It chimes cheerfully as it comes to life in her hand; she flips idly through the settings. The user ID’s a string of alphanumeric gibberish, the message system’s not set up and the whole thing’s still on factory default but she’d expected all of that. It’s almost certainly a burner. The call log’s intact, though, with four time-stamped entries. One: incoming but barely five seconds long, likely a functionality test. Not useful. Two: outgoing, eighteen days old. Confirmation of arrival? That’s a Coruscanti subnet, but that could be a handler. Three: outgoing, one day old, to the same address as the second- they’d landed back from Nar Shaddaa by then.

Four: incoming. Coruscant again, but a different address. One minute and six seconds duration.

Two and a half hours ago.

He said he’d call it off, Void damn him. If Trant kept his word and she’s wrong, if she burns the last thin strands of the bridge between Theron and everything he ever believed in to ashes and she’s wrong-

(He did say he would call them. Reflected in the freezer’s glass door, Valkorion tilts his head contemplatively. And tell them what?

He said-

he said-

[-but those last few breaths last longer if you don’t struggle, don’t they? You’ll figure that out soon enough.]

For the first time she can remember there is something like approval in his smile. So you did hear it, he says. But oh, little Cipher, you didn’t listen.)

She gestures to Lana and Lokin, pointing with two fingers at each one in turn and then the door with a snap of her wrist that sets it throbbing. “All of you but SCORPIO, clear the room. Now.”

Lana blinks but it’s Lokin who speaks first. “Commander, if I may? If you plan to proceed further, the subject may require additional stabilizing mea-”

“Wait outside until I call for you. That’s an order.”

He’s halfway to the door before Lana starts to move from the benchtop and even then she pauses beside her as she passes, one hand on her shoulder and her mouth lowered level with her ear. “You’re not getting Valkorion involved? I know you’d rather not dial out blind, but I thought I felt-”

“I’m not,” she murmurs in reply. “On either count. But if this goes bad I don’t want you in the room when it does.”

“All right.” The sheer force of disapproval contained in Lana’s sigh might have leveled buildings; it isn’t all right and they both know it but it’s far too late to argue over it now. “Should I go and find Theron, then? I can think of some excuse to keep him with me until you’ve finished.”

They both startle at the sound of SCORPIO’s voice. “Unnecessary. He is-” her heart stops as the droid’s eyes flicker- “secure.”

“We can’t be certain of that. He still doesn’t know, does he? If there’s a second-”

“I see many things that you do not, Lord Beniko.” Five metallic fingers uncurl ceilingward (not toward the corner; her heart stutters, then resumes). “I am perfectly certain.”

Lips pressed together, nostrils flared, Lana grits her teeth against a retort before she simply continues toward the exit. “Then I will wait,” she says, a sparking halo of electricity coiling around her words as the door slides shut behind her, “until I am needed.”

And then the room is quiet save the beeping monitors, the ‘pub’s ragged breathing and the sharp rattle of his restraints, and Nine glances sidelong at SCORPIO as she settles herself carefully in the blind spot on his right. “Be nice.”

“Error. Program file: nice not found.”

She must have iterated again; the sarcasm’s new. Rolling her eyes, she glances down at her comm again.

< Also, you are welcome.>

She flicks an ironic salute toward the droid and that too makes her wrist ache. More time in the tank, then, on the way to Voss. More time lost that she can’t afford and a favor owed that she probably can’t afford either- stars know SCORPIO’s kept secrets for her well enough through the years but she’s no particular fondness for Theron; the last time he’d cracked a joke about needing a processor update she’d signal-locked his implant to play That Slippery Little Hutt Of Mine on repeat for forty-three minutes straight until half his face was twitching and he’d finally apologized- but hopefully that can be negotiated. Ongoing access to the network, maybe. Lana will fuss and she’ll be right, but if that message had gone through unintercepted they all know what it might have meant. It’s a small enough price.

“If you’re done arguing-” the ‘pub’s slurring again. He’s burning through the serum faster than she’s ever seen- “either get this thing off me or-”

If he keeps that up she may as well not bother with the call. She ought to have known better than to think that he’d say much of anything useful but his ranting’s absolutely tedious; they’re going to need to gag him after all, aren’t they? It wasn’t supposed to be that sort of interrogation, but she also hadn’t particularly expected him to- oh, if he calls her that one more time she might just stab him after all. (Like he’s got any room to criticize- all her old sins could overfill an archive but at least she’s not a stars-damned corpsefucker.) “Shh.” When she tilts her head toward it SCORPIO picks up the spacer’s tape and tears a strip from the roll, pressing it firmly over his mouth until th+e noise quiets into muffled incomprehensibility. “That’s quite enough out of you, I think.“

Hm. That brings to mind a better idea, actually.

“Do we have enough input for a voiceprint? Something like this?” Tapping a brief message into her commpad, she sends it through to SCORPIO. Only a few lines, but if it truly is Trant on the other end of the connection it should be enough to be certain.

It has to be enough.

She doesn’t look toward the corner. She mustn’t look toward the corner.

“Way more than enough.” It’s near enough a perfect mimic. SCORPIO folds her arms smugly and the ‘pub goes grey. “Prepared for playback.”

“On my signal, then, but give me a twenty second delay on video.” Her fingers twitch despite themselves, tingling at the tips; she forces her breathing into rhythm. (Lana was right. She isn’t fine.

Lana was always right. But she doesn’t have a choice.)

Inhale. “And prep the package files for transmission on verbal command. No passcode.” Exhale.

A pause, a flash of scarlet. Inhale. “Yes, Commander.”

Exhale.

Inhale. She smooths her hair back, adjusts her collar carefully under her chin, slaps both cheeks briskly with closed fingers to bring a little color into them and even that little jolt rattles her brain inside her skull. She considers, briefly, the backs of her eyelids. That seems to help. Exhale.

The far corner remains quiet.

She lifts the holo in line with the ‘pub’s eye once more as his pupil shimmers finely from side to side; they’d definitely pushed the dose too high but even so it’s far faster than it ought to be, chasing some other vice out of his system, and the camera struggles, beeping and chirping error after error until finally it locks on.

Inhale. Exhale.

She meets SCORPIO’s gaze, scrolls back to the end of the call log, and presses redial.

Inhale.

“Connecting.” The tinny synthetic voice of the SIS operator sets her nerves on edge. “Connecting.” Come on, pick up-

The channel opens with a click and she nods, lets her breath out into the following silence before the voiceprint begins.

“It’s done. Shan and the Cipher. Wrong way ‘round, but-”

“Well-” the video delay goes both ways but she doesn’t need it, she’s heard Marcus Trant’s voice in so many briefings it’s burned into her brain; the last brittle shard of hope she’d clung to shatters and leaves her with nothing left but rage. How dare he- “it’s about fucking time.”

Oh, she is going to end him.

***

Nine’s body language shifts then, her spine rigid where she’d been starting to hunch forward in fatigue, her hands fisted, fingernails digging hard into her palms. Her stance settles, just a little wider, forward on her toes; her chin lifts. He can’t see her face, still angled toward the prisoner.

“Send the photo confirmation, then execute extraction- and get your video on. Where are you?” Force, he’s going to throw up. Even when Jonas told him, even after hearing Marcus with his own ears he hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d called it off. It had to be a mistake- or maybe Nine’s paranoia got the better of her (and he knows why and he doesn’t fault her, she can’t help Valkorion in her head and the poison he’s feeding her day after day after day) and this was just another shadow to peer into. Dragged into the light, it would have been nothing at all. A mistake. A mistake.

She nods to the droid once again. “ Just a few more seconds. Bad connection but I’ve almost got it.”

He shudders. The copywork’s uncanny and he knows for sure that’s not all readback. If SCORPIO gets it in her head to playact as one of them, starts giving orders in Lana’s voice or Koth’s or his own? He’s no reason to think she would, but whatever loyalty she seems to owe starts and ends with Nine. They’ve got to talk about it, at least.

Nine angles away from their prisoner, raises the comm chest-high as the little hologram springs up in the hollow of her hand. He can see her better now, her face blank and beautiful and perfectly, utterly cold, and then she smiles and-

(He has spent far more time than he’d ever admit to, from Rishi to Ziost to Zakuul to tonight, every hit and hurt and shattered bone and her bloody armor left in a pile again and again on the medbay floor, being scared for Nine.

This might be the first time he’s honestly been scared of her.)

“Hello, Director,” she says. “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”

It’s only a little flinch, but it’s there. “Cipher. Still alive, I see.”

“Commander. You lied to me, Marcus. You know what happens now.”

“I think you’ll find that I didn’t.”

Every syllable of her laughter’s a rifle shot, clear and piercing. “Yes, yes. You said you’d call, and you did.” By his posture he’s caught and he knows it, back straight, shoulders set. “But you know perfectly well that wasn’t our agreement. To go by the way Theron spoke of you I’d have thought you an honorable man, but-”

Marcus lifts one hand, a futile placation as Nine’s mocking smile fades back into hard-eyed silence. “I really am sorry about Theron, for what little it’s worth. He-”

“You’re sorry?” That wasn’t a laugh, not quite, halfway caught in her broken throat. “You’re certainly about to be, but Theron’s fine. This puppy was just as stupid as the last one- worse, actually, since he got himself caught in the bargain.” She turns her body, lets the camera capture the prisoner behind her straining against the chair straps in wide-eyed muffled fury. “He never got anywhere close to Theron.”

“He knows, then?” (He still can’t see Marcus’ face. He isn’t sure whether he wants to.)

She shrugs, noncommittal. “One thing at a time.” Her free hand gestures vaguely toward the instrument tray. “I’ve been a bit busy, I’m afraid, and now I’ve got all these dossiers to send off-”

“I’d suggest some time in kolto first. You don’t look at all well, Cipher.”

“Commander.” When she blinks her eyes stay closed half a second too long and she sways back and forth and stars, she needs to sit down before she falls over but she’s too stubborn to let anyone see her hurting. He knows her tells now, though- her jaw clenches, her left hand curls and uncurls. “Five years in carbonite couldn’t kill me. You honestly thought a garotte would be enough?”

“No,” Marcus says softly. “Not really. But we make do with what we have, don’t we?”

“I suppose we do. SCORPIO, transmit file Eclipse . Full recipient list.”

One red flash, two green. “Transmission complete.”

(She really did it. Oh, fuck, she really, actually did it.

He should never have gone home. He should never have gone-

It isn’t home. Not any more.)

Marcus sighs. “Where?”

“Everywhere.” Nine looks up abruptly as one of the monitors sounds yet again; she reaches up and simply shuts it off completely and at this angle he can finally see properly, both of their faces in profile. “Every reputable news service in the Core Worlds and about half of the disreputable ones, so you may want to warn your receptionist. I suspect your switchboard’s about to melt.”

“She’ll handle it, and Eclipse Squad was Elin’s mess. I’m afraid I can’t comment. Now, if we’re finished-”

“We are not. Transmit file Legate. Full list. Call it off. Now.”

One red flash, two green, and Marcus winces, his composure finally breaking. “Are you out of your fucking mind? No one came out of that clean, you least of all.”

“I might be.” A knock at the door- no, it’s there, not here, and a comm chiming. “But Legate died in a warehouse collapse on Quesh, poor thing, though with all those warheads going up at once confirming it was quite impossible. Pity.”

A single vein pulses across his forehead.

“Call it off.”

Another knock. “Do you think Theron will believe that?”

“He doesn’t need to. He knows about the Castellan restraints- he’s known for years.” She glances, for the smallest fraction of a second, toward his corner. “I think he’ll understand if I blur the truth a little.”

(He nods before he remembers she can’t see him. Of course he understands. He wishes she hadn’t done it, wishes she hadn’t needed to do any of this, but of course he understands.)

The room goes quiet, the stillness broken only by restraint buckles clinking against the chair frame.

“Do you think he’ll believe this?”

The angle of her head’s a wordless question.

“What wouldn’t you do to bring down an enemy? The head of the SIS, no less.” The framing of the projection changes, the bottom edge of a screen coming into view as he stands up slowly from his desk. Marcus’d always lived at the office, one of so many bad habits he’d passed down to him over all the years they’d worked together (the work always comes first, he’d said. It always will. It will take everything you can give to it and then it will take more and you’ll swear and shout and threaten to quit. And then you won’t, because this is what we were made for. And that is how we win). “It’s everything you ever worked toward. So: a foiled assassination attempt in your own base- how terrible.” He clicks his tongue, a mocking little tsk. “You’d have to retaliate, and who would fault you?”

Nine’s eyes narrow.

“But if it came out that you set it all up- a few intercepted messages, perhaps, shared by an old friend-”

Her lips draw back from her bared teeth. “Stay away from him.”

“I’m finished,” Marcus says. “I know that. But that doesn’t mean you get to win. Once a iiar, always a liar, Cipher Nine. Who do you think he’ll believe- you? Or me?”

No. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t . Not that it would have made a difference, but Marcus couldn’t have known that- Force, he really is going to throw up.

(When Theron joined the SIS he was seventeen years old and every adult he’d known for more than a galactic standard month had abandoned him, sold him out or simply sold him at the first sign he’d outgrown his usefulness. It took nearly a year on Coruscant, nearly a year of steady paychecks and a bed to sleep in every night, before he owned more clothes than he could fit into a go bag; it took almost two before he stopped apologizing for asking for equipment. But Marcus never gave up on him, even when he fucked up (which back then was more often than not), even when he bristled and snapped like a half-wild animal, even when he wanted to give up on himself. If Master Zho had been the nearest thing he’d known to a father- stars knows it wasn’t Jace, especially not now- Marcus had come close too, once.

Once.)

She takes a deep breath. She’s fading fast, now, hands tremulous even as she’s fighting to keep the holo steady. He can’t just sit here and watch this, he can’t, he can’t-

“Her,” Theron says, letting the stealth field drop as he takes a step forward and she spins, startled, at the sound of his voice. It comes out as a gasp; he doesn’t even know how long he’s been holding his breath. ”Who do I believe? Her. Always.”

Marcus buckles like he’s been gut-shot, bracing himself against his desk. “You- you said you hadn’t told him yet. You said-”

“I think you’ll find that I didn’t.” Nine smiles, absolutely feral and absolutely beautiful, and he steadies her with one hand at the small of her back. “Though as you can see, I really have been busy.”

The last time he saw that look on his face was the day the blockade went up around Coruscant. “Hello, Theron.”

“Hello, Marcus.”

He sits back into his chair, heavy, elbows resting on the desktop. “This office would have been yours, you know. You were ready for it. But you’re on the wrong side of the war.”

“Which war?” Nine says it at the same time he does and then she dips her head, ever so slightly- you first. “We’re here fighting Zakuul. We’re here fighting Arcann,” he continues, “and we’re finally winning. I know you know that. I know Jace knows that, and I know you’re both still fighting the same fucking war against the Empire that you’ve been fighting since before I was born because for you that’s the only thing that matters. But I’m not.”

“You dare-”

“I made my choice,” he says softly. “Now you make yours. Are you going to drag the whole SIS down with you?”

Marcus rests his head in his hands. For a moment it’s the day after the Ascendant Spear, the day after Ziost, the day after Tython, the weight of a thousand impossible choices and ten thousand lies pressing down on him, and then he looks up and shakes his head. “No.” He sighs. “No, I’m not. What happens now?”

“Resign,” Nine murmurs. “Retire. Disappear before the Senate comes for you, or let them scapegoat you: I don’t care what you do, but you will call this off. You will do it now, and if I ever have reason to doubt you- if anyone from the Republic so much as breathes harm in Theron’s direction- the Ralltiir file goes public.”

Someone’s pounding on his office door, a woman’s voice shouting something incomprehensible as he reaches out of frame, and then a few moments later a series of four tones in a cadence burned into his own memory- send message; subnet selected; confirm?-

Message sent.

The holotransmitter in Nine’s hand chimes.

“Done. Now, if there’s nothing else?”

Nine turns once more (and he turns with her, careful) to put their prisoner back into frame. “What do you want me to do with him? I’d put him back on Belsavis if I was you, but-”

Marcus stands up abruptly, even as he makes a face as she says Belsavis, at the unmistakable sound of a single round of blaster fire and the hiss of a door sliding open. “Elin,” he snaps, “not now -”

“Yes, now.” General Garza’s got a blaster pistol in one hand and a commpad in the other when she crosses into camera view. “I just got a fucking call from the fucking- oh.” She cranes her neck toward the projector. “Well, we can fix that problem, at least-”

The call disconnects abruptly.

Nine sags against him, exhausted. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I know I promised-”

“Commander.” He’d nearly forgotten SCORPIO was still at the console until she speaks, and he’s never heard that tone from her before; he looks sharply up at her and follows her sightline. The prisoner’s sitting bolt-straight, back rigid, eyes wide, and a high-pitched whine like a drill through durasteel shrills warning from somewhere that isn’t his mouth- “Commander, get down!”

All Theron can do is drop where they’re standing, his body a shield over Nine’s, before there’s an awful wet noise and the smell of blood and something else familiar in his nose, hot and metallic and not his and not hers and even though he knows he shouldn’t he looks up again and oh, fuck-

The lab door slides open and Doctor Lokin comes running into the room, Lana just behind with her lightsaber blazing, and they both stop short at the sight of it, at the ‘pub still strapped into the chair with half his head just gone and at him and Nine on the blood-spattered floor.

“What- who-” Lana covers her mouth with her free hand. “What in the Void happened?”

Nine’s shaking so hard she can barely move; he curls her close against him to keep her upright. “Not me,” she whispers. “Not me.”

#inyri writes #equivalent exchange #swtor #swtor fanfiction #imperial agent/theron shan #nine/theron #cipher nine #thank you all for your patience #as i wrote this one fought me for a very long time #so i hope it was worth the wait #and the next chapter is kinder to them i promise

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featheredadora · 1 year ago

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Just another quick update for anyone wondering if I've fallen off the face of the earth: I'm okay!

I'm still struggling, more than I expected to be tbh, but I am trying to give myself grace to recover. I am still planning on returning to Tumblr before the end of the month, just might be a little while longer!

The birds are all doing good, and Sunshine is going to the vet today for a check up and nail trim, so here's hoping little man is a well behaved lemon and goes in his travel cage easily!

#blog news #text #Thank you all for your patience #I know I've been gone a long time at this point #These past few months have somehow been the most difficult and traumatic of my life #But I am hoping I will recover soon #Just gotta give myself the space and time to recover from the trauma

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remyfire · 1 year ago

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"Why don't I give you one, then?" It takes BJ a moment to catch up. "A…" "A fantasy," Hawk replies. "If you have to save all that mental energy for doctoring later." "You tell me a fantasy," BJ says softly, suddenly so conscious of the thin state of their tent walls. "And I take care of my little situation?" Hawk hums as he shrugs. "Hey, what you do with it is up to you. I'm only running my mouth." ~~~ Weeks after an unexpected passionate encounter with Hawkeye in Seoul, BJ struggles to figure out why Hawk seems to be so uncertain about picking up a casual sexual relationship with him—just friends burning off steam. But when Hawkeye suddenly offers to narrate an erotic fantasy for BJ, the rules of the game they're playing begin to rapidly shift.

This is the first sequel to my hunnihawk fic, Scratching The Itch, and the second story in my series spanning the show and post-war, Some Things Are Evergreen! Thank you all for waiting for it, and I hope y'all enjoy!

#finally it is here #thank you all for your patience #already thinking about story three god help me #bj hunnicutt #hawkeye pierce #hunnihawk #beejhawk #hawkbeej #m*a*s*h #my writing #anything you say can and will be held against you #some things are evergreen

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inventors-fair · 6 months ago

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Mix and Match Commentary: Putting it All Together

What a weekend... That's what I get for thinking I can juggle a dozen things this close to the end of the school year.

It looks like 13 out of 25 different adjectives were used in this contest, as well as 13 out of 25 different nouns! "Belligerent" was the most-used adjective, appearing on three cards, and "Choir" was the most-used noun, appearing on a whopping five cards, but oddly enough there was no Belligerent Choir today. I'll be honest: I'm shocked that nobody went for a Gargantuan Frog or something of the like. There were definitely some favored ideas on display with the given combinations.

And yet, there were a few that truly surprised me! I think that overall I'd call this contest a success. The words on the list were fairly straightforward and also 100% off-the-cuff, so perhaps if you all would like to see this again I can have a more curated list, perhaps taken from some actual cards with the idea that you can't use a name of an actual card in the combo. But hey, we'll see how it goes. How do y'all feel about this contest? It's something I've been wanting to do for a little while now.

There were quite a few cards that almost, but didn't quite, make the cut here, so I'll be talking about them as JUDGE PICKS. Check 'em out to see what we liked about them. Onto the commentary!

@an-anarchist-shapeshifter — Umbral Expertise (JUDGE PICK)

This combination checks out with the card superbly. I'm reminded of cards like Training Grounds, from a vibe perspective, or other cards that would probably depict a location in which a specific form of magic is practiced and honed. This card's mechanics are, to say the least, massively complicated, and it took me a little bit to figure out the real gist of why it works so well. The ability of each player to have shadow creatures makes those decisions harder to pick up on based on board state; I would worry about places where you're behind and have to continuously flicker your cards to make the best blocks, and then there's the option of blinking a creature after blocks if there's a shadow war going on—you get the idea.

Blink shells and aggro shells are both strange places to see cards like this that have the best of both worlds. What I will say is that I worry about how much board complexity this card adds. Making lots of tokens, for example, might be easy to track in digital but harder on paper if there's no good way to show how shadow counters are distributed. And even then, what indicator would be good enough? Would it be the theme of a set, or is this more Commander-focused where you can have these weirder mechanics? I've got a few questions about that, but complexity is my main concern. I can imagine someone being quite upset about a huge board that's inadvertently badly represented because of weird counter checks. Playing with it in a moderately-built board, though—I'd love that.

@big-golyat — Ossified Choir

I find it interesting that both cards that used "Ossified" this week used them with "Choir." Small world! When I looked at this card, the one thing that I wanted from it mechanically was something that it could do with that tap ability that wasn't just, y'know, tapping. Would it have been unreasonable for this card to have "2, T: You gain 1 life" instead? I don't think so. With the notion of a choir, though, exalted is absolutely one of the best mechanics you could've used for the flavor connection, and I totally get that.

Flavor's a strange one here, no? Not a bad one, of course, but I'm wondering if these things are statues, if they're just made of bone, etc. I'm imagining statues because of how it would work with gods, relics, all that stuff. Being enchantment creatures doesn't hurt with that, either. I think that it makes them feel a little more constructed and less naturally, well, that. Regardless of the cool flavor, though, this card would probably be a good addition to an evasive color combination in limited. Exalted is awesome and I like how you can see this as a pseudo-Enlist? Almost? I mean, tapping for extra power is related in at least one way. Smallest of notes: quotation marks go around the periods.

@curiooftheheart — Unbound Tomb

Huh! I like the ETB on here, and I just had a throwback to Zendikar. For some reason I was thinking about cards that exiled without a specific ability tied to them, but then Bojuka Bog hit me, and yeah, this card totally works in that vein. Entering untapped is pretty crazy comparatively; then again, so is not hitting the entire graveyard. What're you going to do, play this against Dragon's Rage Channeler? Possibly. But I don't know if it would be strong enough to mainboard or sideboard, unless you're deep into graveyards and lifegain. Most graveyard hate wants the entire thing to be exiled. De-delirium-ing someone is fun, though, and I wonder if that's what you meant to hit specifically. All the same, though, gaining massive amounts of life ain't nothing. This can probably get 3-5 life fairly consistently in a grindy limited game.

I'm wondering about the name and combination, though. The tomb is in the process of being unbound, sure, and that may be enough; lands are hard to get through with action words if it's not repeatable, and that may be a me issue. And while I like the flavor text, I'm not sure how it precisely relates. Are the ideals mentioned there the things being exiled? It's not a major issue for the card itself, and it's a strange little card to be sure. I think ultimately I like it, and the life gained would only be a problem in formats where it's a) easy to bounce lands for some reason? or b) heavily graveyard-based AND grindy, like Shadows over Innistrad was.

@dimestoretajic — Tyrannical Response

Play this on your turn, and your opponent is basically boardwipe-or-scoop. Play this on an opponent's turn after attackers have been declared, and once more, boardwipe-or-scoop. I would've been totally down for this card making 2/2s, but 4/4s is such a massive swing for the number of creatures that you'll be getting that it's not worth justifying this even as a legendary instant. I respect that you put the limitation, don't get me wrong, and it was the right thing to do. The massive amount of power on board is enough to tip the scales in a way that's probably not as balanced as one might imagine it to be.

But again, one could argue the nature of legends and legendary instants/sorceries, whatever, I know where that's coming from—and I still say that it's too much. The last limited format with legendary instants/sorceries had almost fifty legendary cards that could fulfill that role. Maybe it's a pendulum issue, though... But no, I'm really iffy about this one. Maybe I'm just paranoid about the swingier board states that this could enable. Still, you picked the right combo, name, and flavor text for this kind of effect at the very least. The numbers game is the only thing I'd change.

@feyd-rautha-apologist — Belligerent Tomb

Conceptually, I like this card, so let's work on how to do some editing for it. Firstly: auras have to enchant either objects or players. Graveyards are zones, so a card can't actually enchant a graveyard. Rather, this card should probably be enchanting a player and should probably be a curse as well, so that the text can read: "Whenever a card is put into enchanted player's graveyard from anywhere, that player loses 1 life." For the flavor text, this should probably be in quotes, since it appears to be spoken from the perspective of a specific character and not a general ephemeral being or omniscient extrapolating voice.

This enchantment, however, has got a lot of power problems going for it. Turning something like Tome Scour into a Lava Axe, which you can do quite easily on turn three, barring any Hedron Crab shenanigans, is a bit much when comparing cost to effect. I know that it seems expensive, but I wouldn't be shocked if this had to cost as much as 3BB overall. 2BB might be okay, I suppose, depending on how much milling is in the set that you can force onto your opponent. Again, not a bad idea, but the power, practicality, and wording could use some work.

@hypexion — Belligerent Spirit

One must be punished for being alive, after all. This card's simple for sure, but it does the Undying stuff well enough for me to say that it's really a pain and I'd love to play it in limited. Swing, get in kinda, sac, etc. A four-mana 2/2 might not seem great until you also have extra damage and a recursive body to think about. Having it be a 2/3 wouldn't necessarily be out of the question either, would it? Or would that throw off some numbers... I dunno, but either way, I could definitely see this blowing up in draft tier lists.

Is it just modern sensibilities that make this card difficult to balance without being too powerful? I don't know, honestly; Murderous Redcap was good in its day and this is pretty much in the same vein, innit? I don't think that it's too far off from that design and I...honestly just noticed that it was that close when writing this. Heh. But in all seriousness, it fits the name, it fits the ability, and I don't think anyone would complain about a Redcap effect being in limited, the more I think about it. That said, I've never played with it. Last note, but the flavor text is 85% there. It's an awesome notion and I'd love to tweak some wording in the editing bay. The vibe is great.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Impossible Notion

I think this card needed one more line of rules text: that you could spend colorless mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it. Would that have been too much? Or would that even be relevant? The point is, I'm not quite meeting this card on the mechanics side. The name and ability combination, though, not only makes sense but also feels like it wants to have some kind of Eldrazi invocation. Getting things back from exile by a) casting them and b) having to own them and c) having to spend colorless mana all makes sense for a restriction.

Then the question remains: should this card exist, and why? Getting things out of exile has long since been a bit of a thorn in R&D's side. Combining this with Karn, the Great Creator—or at least putting them in the same design-space room and letting them duke it out—makes for a deck that really puts a damper on things. Insta-speed Relic of Progenitus plus this is a real pain. In limited, what would this card do then? I honestly couldn't tell you. This card may not be too bad for a one-time use, I'll give you that. I'm struggling to find an argument in favor of its presence, though, strictly based on the rules that have been set for exile recursion and the prevalence of problematic possibilities for which this card allows. Still, a bold design for sure—even if the flavor text could be a little meatier.

@masternexeon — Ravenous Overflow (JUDGE PICK)

I was actually quite happy that multiple people took abstract nouns and made creatures out of them. This card is, additionally, a real pain in the butt and ravenous indeed. You know I really like how you framed this combination of green and blue here. There's a force of nature that's representative of consumption, but that consumption is also taking the form of flooding and overtaking the land (and its inhabitants) through how much it's flowing. Green gets its hunger sated, but not by flesh; blue gets its domain expanded, but is forced by ferocity. It's a cool balance. That's one of the major reasons I'm going with it as a Judge Pick this week!

Whether or not this card is balanced is another thing, and it's really funny regardless to turn everything into Islands. The thing to keep in mind is that turning something into an Island without it being a land... I honestly don't know what that would do. Seriously, I took a few hours off after reading the comprehensive rules—I know, long weekend—and I don't have a definitive answer. To be fair I wasn't sure what to look for but the point stands. I think the payoff might be a bit too swingy in limited, honestly. Sacrifice two random creatures to more or less shut off your opponent's big threats and/or mana sources, and then use any additional synergy to permanently keep your opponents off their colors unless they're also blue? Seems a bit hard to stem the flow, pardon the pun. But how can you scale the effect to keep this while adjusting the numbers? And also by putting "Island lands" instead of just "Islands." Saves me a headache.

@misterstingyjack — Abandoned Choir

I did ultimately like this card even if I wasn't super convinced about it. That said, the card draw could be pretty neat—I suppose I was just more swayed by Amonkhet's designs and the use of counters as a resource, because this can kind of turn itself into a draw resource and/or potentially use other cards with defender and the ilk as resources, but it's a bit...narrow? Maybe Amonkhet had its different themes that it was working with, and Phyrexia is a little iffier on that front. I do like how you've used white card-draw to its strengths, though. This feels like reasonable space.

So how often will one have three toughness? Probably often enough to make a difference. I do wonder how this card would've played with the change to do a creature with power 1 or less instead. I honestly don't know if that would be too powerful considering an abundance of tokens and/or weenies, but hey, it's an end step effect, whaddaya gonna do. This card really is a thinker. I do appreciate the writeup, though, and I think that as an Aftermath-y card, I can totally buy what the effect was going for. What's a choir to do in Norn's wake? Sing the praises and all, which makes sense to me. I'm also very curious as to why this is the second mono-white Choir with an implied self-tapping theme. What's up with the psychic connection here?

@partytimesdeluxe — Freshwater Tomb (JUDGE PICK)

There's this wonderful freshness to this design combination that feels great even if the practicality is a bit strange. What's the best-case scenario for this card in terms of mana-fixing? I suppose that a hybrid card dying would make for a great trigger, but beyond that, this card feels a lot slicker than I imagine it to play. Y'know? I think that a lot of folks liked this design because of how it feels. On the battlefield, I have to wonder if this card would do everything that one wants it to do. Protecting a creature from being animated and/or cycling the creatures that die is...also something.

I suppose I too want this design to play well but I'm not sure what the true benefit is. Perhaps I'm not seeing something? If this land was, like, Bloom Tender...hoo boy. Would that be too powerful? Or, if it was "1, T: Add two mana in any combination..." That way it could turn dying creatures into XX, XY, or YY, depending on if they were multicolored or now. Multiple ways of filtering. Honestly that sounds a lot stronger than the one-mana restriction. Child of Alara dying would help this card, sure, but beyond that... I think I'm picking this card because the possibilities and the slickness are absolutely there. It's just on the brink of being perfect in terms of actual gameplay; I absolutely need to praise the idea because, well, of how cool it feels!

@piccadilly-blue — Plentiful Canyon

Alright, so, neat as the notion is, I think everyone is in agreement that this card doesn't 100%-functionally-work, and the only question is why within the comprehensive rules. As far as I can tell, the main reason is that playing a land is a special action that doesn't use the stack, and can't have costs associated with it, because playing a land isn't a spell and additional costs only exists for spells and abilities. Assuming that everything within the comprehensive rules is how I understand it, you could play this land and pay its cost with its own mana ability since there's no moment that this card would be on the "stack," i.e. it would exist on the battlefield by the time you would have to pay the "cost" to play it.

...God, does that make any sense? I hope it does. Regardless, the discussions have been discussed and I think that we're all in agreement. I've talked a zillion times about your envelope-pushing and how much it makes me think so we'll leave it there. The flavor text, then! I like the rhyme here. Feels like the western prairie ballad that you were aiming for, and that's a great addition to the vibe of the card.

@real-aspen-hours — Draconic Absolution

The flavor text here is great, and the implication is pretty cool; it feels kind of like Jund's dragon worship but with less of a predatory-shaman nature and more aligned with the Phyrexian-style divinity that is creepy and powerful all at once. I'm starting with the flavor and feeling here because—and I'm not sure if this was intentional or not—this card is an upgraded Rip Apart from Strixhaven. Where Rip Apart destroyed instead of exiling and was sorcery speed, this card is just that but slightly better.

Is that enough? Not exactly. If there was consideration for Rip Apart, I really would've liked to see a mechanical distinction beyond "strictly better." If there wasn't, well, I don't blame you; it's a clean design and clearly someone at Wizards thought the same thing if the card was actually printed. Tried and true, I suppose? That's unfortunately all I got for this particular card considering all of the considerations. In the end, I think that we're left with one last request: make sure you put your rarity indicators in your text submissions! Argh.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Freshwater Lasso (JUDGE PICK)

I'll give this card the award for "most physically imaginative use of world tropes in conjunction with the name." Lassoing things is super on-par for Thunder Junction, and I love how you connected that to the name. And we gotta agree—this lasso is indeed fresh and watery. Hydromancy allows for this card to really come into its own, and I love how it can be something that revolves around potential dexterity for untapping creatures, or as a prison for your opponent's creatures.

I wish this didn't have to be a rare, but like, it really really does. Insta-speed gaining control of a creature is something that can't happen too often in limited. The fact that it is instant-speed definitely ups the complexity. I don't mind that at all! Could there be one additional thing that this card does to make it so that putting it on your own creature doesn't suck as much? Well, actually, gaining control of a creature that you can then untap is...really cool. Man, this card is cool. We had a lot of strong contenders for this week and this is as close to being in the top six as you can get, honestly. Maybe I've just been enamored with Thunder Junction but I don't care because of how darn cool this card feels. Good job.

@sombramainexe — Kindred Spirit

So for the render here, the name did have to change in order to fit the contest; pluralizing the names does indeed count as changing the words, ergo, disallowed. Regardless of whether or not is was changed, I'm not a fan of having the name and typeline be the same thing. Perhaps it was a mistake to have "Kindred" be part of the adjectives list considering the kind of cards that a name like that drives people towards. I'm still working on it. With this particular card I feel that the name could have been changed because of the fact that it's not currently giving as much without AD or flavor text. The tongue-in-cheek aspect comes across as ultimately derivative instead of subversive, which is what I imagine the intent to be.

Mirrorweave is still a valid card, though, and I think that this card is an interesting take on it. Turning things into Spirits could be an awesome blowout. Why do the names not change, though? I imagine that it's because of legendary rules, and I understand that—is there a different way to go about it? I think that this is honestly completely new design space, because as far as I can tell there's no mass copy effect that allows creatures to keep their names. I wonder what the design principle behind that is, and I'd be curious to hear.

@stupidstupidratcreatures — Magnificent Mortar

Hey. Listen. Don't look at the card, look at me. Okay? I think that this is hilarious. This is a very, very funny card and I'm also a little bit mad. But it's still funny. But I'm a tiny-teensy-little bit mad. And I can't help but admire the fact that you designed a card with an implied second card that will, as far as we know, never exist. That's chutzpah if I've ever seen it. As for the interpretation of "mortar" here, I was thinking more in terms of salvos when I made this card and less about the combination, and yet you're here with one of the most creative combinations I've seen.

Mashing up creatures for mana is awesome, actually, and the way to activate it with a pestle is funny enough. As far as mana rocks go, I don't think that this card is the most powerful and I wish that it could've had one additional ability to really get the pestle's power online. You know how there was the whole "Blank of Empires" cycle of artifacts from some core set a while back? M12, that was it, right. But yeah, no, the abilities really ramped up because it's hard to get artifacts with the same name on the battlefield at the right time. Might want to consider that in terms of power level for next time. I'm gonna be very concerned if there's a future contest in which the Perfect Pestle can make an appearance, but hey, the world may never know if I accidentally do that one. Heh.

@tanknspank — Draconic Choir (JUDGE PICK)

I think we're in the realm, once again, of having really cool cards with really cool abilities that happen to be so normally and pragmatically good that they just barely miss the ledge of greatness. Having that pseudo-flashback kind of effect, the Dreadhorde Arcanist ability, is really cool, and stacking those triggers is necessary for making this effect really max out. It's a bear that beats in limited and burns out your opponent before blocks. What more can one ask for?

The last question I could possibly have is why "Choir" was such a popular choice this week. What was it about that word that just made people go nuts with these collective designs? I'm not complaining, I'm just really surprised. A choir of dragons is still pretty awesome, though, so I won't complain about that. What world would this be on? It feels almost like a Baldur's Gate kind of style, but that's probably not it. Maybe the "choir" is a metaphorical one and all the roaring is what brings the fire to life. Who can say, who can say. All the same, this card is a self-evident wonderful piece of work and I think that it should be commended for its solid design choices as a support card for limited and constructed spellslinging decks.

@wildcardgamez — Kindred Banner

We have a mix between Pillar of Origins and Rally the Ranks; Is that enough? I think, while this design is normal, its effects are really generic slash expected. Kindred means creature types, banner is an anthem. I feel that this could've been flavored somewhat, or given more mechanical significance that we haven't seen before. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen this exact combination, but it's a normal enough effect that I can imagine we'll see something like it in the future of design.

So, I'll say for the rest of this commentary to take a look at the uniqueness of the winners and the expectations for them. Or... No, actually, I won't do that. Because I'm not going to say that this card is bad. It's pure good design, based on the foundations of the creature-type-matters effects that we've seen printed before, and what else can one possibly ask for. I think there's the question to ask: are you submitting for the contest, or are you submitting to show you know what a good card is? That's something I can't answer, so I can offer only a couple small edits, and leave the rest up to you. Firstly: you probably want this as an "as" ability, like most of these creature type effects are. There are many reasons why, but the stack is a pain. Secondly: Like Pillar of Origins, you want to say "spend" instead of "use" in the text of the second ability, and you might also want to add that this is for abilities too if you want that.

There we go, whew. Have fun designing artifacts this week! — @abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #mix and match contest #thank you all for your patience #this is why it's so much better to be doing commentary throughout the week

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loonasketches · 6 months ago

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Yeah I haven’t posted in a while. I’m sorry to those who’ve been waiting.

Honestly it might be a good minute before I can post regularly again. I need a break.

I need time to take care of my mental health and find better treatment. I’m not doing well, to put it briefly, and I just need time.

I don’t know when I’ll come back, I still love drawing and I love being here, but I know if I don’t really focus on my health I’ll just be worse off.

#hope you guys understand #I’ll send the eclipse stickers out when I can get the stamps #literally the only thing that’s kept me from sending them is money #just know they’ll be sent eventually #I’ll make sure of it #thank you all for your patience #💜#archive

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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 5 months ago

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Cerimonia Compedum, Part 2/2

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 Characters: Isobel Thorm/Dame Aylin, Wyll, some Minthara, and the BG3 ensemble. Length: ~6700 words Summary: The aftermath of the Thorm family reunion. Welcome to camp and dealing with the tadpole mind-mess, Isobel.

Second part of my Tadpoled Isobel Act 2 route fix-it, and the mostly 'comfort' part of the hurt/comfort.

Part I can be found here.

Also on AO3, if you prefer.

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Cerimonia Compedum - II

"Where have you been?"

Aylin's eyes widen at the harsh tone, awash with achingly honest confusion. She holds a flower, of all things, in one hand, and has just opened the conversation by exclaiming something about it reminding her of Isobel. As if they talked just yesterday, strolling around Reithwin hand in hand, with a little detour to peruse the market. It is all, when put together, quite ridiculous.

"It is as I told you - I thought a walk and a flight would do me good, and so I--"

Everything she'd thought of and rehearsed to say upon Aylin's possible return flew out the window at the first sight of her. Isobel has only the month-old dried-up dregs of her anger and neglect to draw on.

"A month, Aylin! It's been a month!"

"I-- I suppose that it has, yes, by the turn of my Mother's face in the sky." She is looking around, craning her head to see behind Isobel, visibly bewildered. "Isobel, has something happened in my absence? Are you well, is your family well? What troubles you so?"

"Has anything happened?" Isobel is aware she is approaching shouting, incredulous; that they are on her balcony, where Aylin chose to alight out of nowhere, that the entirety of Moonrise and a good bit of Reithwin might be able to hear her grievances. "You left, after claiming to love me! Abandoned me with barely a word!"

"Abandoned?" Wide-eyed, agonised, wings in distressed flutter. "I would nev--" Aylin cuts herself off, something resembling realisation finally dawning on her.

"I am… I am truly, deeply sorry, my dearest Isobel." She drops to a knee, downcast, a picture of contrition, one of Isobel's hands clasped between both of hers and held to her bowed forehead. "I would not, in my darkest dreams, think of hurting you so. I was…" her throat works, searching for something, "unaware."

It is clear the word does not encompass all she wants it to. Then she returns to the mode of ardent proclamation that she is so proficient in, and Isobel's heart clenches with the familiarity, with the agonising fear she has carried of never hearing it, never having this again.

"But a wound unwitting is no less painful. I-- I will make amends, in whatever way you wish. Whatever fair Isobel desires of her, Dame Aylin will undertake, until such a time precious forgiveness is earned and bestowed. This I vow, with all solemnity."

Isobel wants to be angry. She does. But it is Aylin, before her again, all of her, the full force of her. And Isobel cannot believe she's managed to get even slightly used to the gaping wound her absence had carved out. It is so very painful and obvious now, in contrast, as it makes the first tentative effort to knit itself closed.

She drops to her knees beside Aylin, and throws her arms around her. For once, Aylin hesitates before returning the embrace, as if only now being uncertain of its welcome.

"Never let me go again," Isobel whispers right next to her ear, fingers tightly woven in golden hair. "That is what I desire."

Her head feels like it has been split open. Again.

Above her, just coming into focus, almost looming, the picture of impatient concern…

Aylin.

And the Sharran… Shadowheart. With some oddly shaped, dully glowing thing in her hand.

Isobel groans, eyes fluttering against the overcast light of an afternoon sun. Fragments of memory flood and assault her hazy mind, green-hued, reeking, filled with macabre displays of clumped flesh and clean-picked bone and unfathomable cruelty, and she feels ill. She leans over and retches, to little effect.

All the while, Aylin helps to keep her sat up, holds her ever so gently, kneels beside her on the ground and rubs her back in soothing circles. Passes her a canteen of blessedly cool, fresh water, of which Isobel barely manages a sip before doubling over again.

Then Aylin presses a moonlight-wreathed hand against the back of Isobel's neck and bathes her with such sudden relief she can't help but gasp aloud. The pounding in her head fades into nothing with the first cool wave of that achingly familiar magic.

Isobel looks up at Aylin, eyes and mind finally approaching clarity, and feels torn between an endless surge of desperate apologies and begging for all this to be real. What comes out is a sob, that turns into a wet cough, that turns into heaving tears buried in Aylin's chest, arms around her neck and fingers digging into every bit of her they can reach.

The Absolute listens, and She will give you whatever it is you desire. All you need to do is let Her in.

"Are you… are we… really here?" Isobel asks, finally, hesitantly, once it feels like she might be able to breathe again. Her fingers trail insistently over the fine silver and cobalt blue detailing of Aylin's armour, as if the filigree swirls might transform into celestial writing to answer her.

Then comes a surge of panic, for although her thoughts seem to be mostly her own at the moment, there is something else, something decidedly alien.

"It's… it's still in there, inside my-- inside…"

At the deeply horrifying sensation of something twitching behind her eye, Isobel tries to claw at the skin of her cheek. But her gloves are in the way, and then Aylin takes her hand and grips it firmly.

Aylin. Aylin, alive, here, with her. Yet still just as quiet as the marble she looks hewn from.

Aylin, who Isobel met with such callousness, whose heart she teared at so viciously.

"Oh, no," she manages in a small moan, "I am so, so sorry, Aylin, I swear… Selûne preserve me, I would never…"

"I know," Aylin says simply, finally, clutching her closer, murmuring into her hair and pressing kisses as reassurance. "I know, beloved."

Isobel lets her forehead drop against the cool plate of Aylin's armour, resigned to the horrid truth. "I-- but I did."

She feels more than sees Aylin shake her head resolutely. "That was not you. It was not you. It was him, twisted as he became, using you as a mouthpiece for his wicked thoughts." Aylin leans down and tilts Isobel's chin up to look her in the eye, meeting her distress with a soft gaze that seems enveloping in its sympathy, even as her voice resounds with determination. A hand brushes Isobel's messy hair behind her ear with utmost gentleness, then moves to cup her cheek. "I would no more blame you for those words than I would the warhammer that he struck me with for a shattered rib."

"A… warhammer." Isobel frowns, a cocktail of strange, delirious amusement tinged with offence helping to jolt her back into herself, bit by bit. "Is that what I am?"

Aylin closes her eyes with a wince, brow furrowing. "I have not spoken to anyone not intending to murder or mutilate me in a century. Forgive me, my love, if I am… far from my most eloquent, for the moment. You must know it was not my intent to belittle or insult you."

"Goes for the both of us, I think," Isobel mutters, mind teetering above the implication of Aylin's words, above the century. Then she sighs, suddenly feeling a bone-deep exhaustion wash over her, as if the accumulated strain of tendays of holding up the moonshield followed by very deliberate blows to the head descended upon her all at once. She lets herself sink feebly back into Aylin's embrace, and feels dully, vaguely grateful that they seem to have been left alone, in an almost private little spot on the riverbank. Still under the shadow of Moonrise, but now, miraculously, with enough light for it to be cast.

"Yet even in your addled state, you spoke the truth," Aylin starts with some effort after a long, quiet stretch of the two of them calmly existing in each other's proximity, but soon trails off into an uneasy silence. She runs her hand along Isobel's arm, then fidgets with the corner of her crumpled and awfully dirty robe, as if grasping for small reassurances of Isobel's presence. Yet all the while, she doesn't look down - instead, her gaze darts around their surroundings, focusing on nothing, but so clearly troubled. Her voice and her breathing are audibly strained and Isobel thinks she might weep, too. "I was not there when you were killed. I did not protect you. I failed in my most sacred duty, and in doing so I tore apart my own heart so terribly I feared it would never mend."

Isobel is given no chance to respond, even if she knew what to say, where to even begin. As soon as the words cross her lips, Aylin shakes her head, draws a breath that has only a hint of a tremble to it, and visibly steels herself. "But now is not the time for such discussion. You need to rest, and recover. The ordeal he has put you through is…" Her teeth clench, that silvery flash of rage burns briefly in her eyes, and her hands tighten into fists.

"He… my… Ketheric," it comes back all too easily to Isobel - the deliberate distance she once put between herself and the nightmare wearing her father's face, for the Harpers' benefit, as well as her own. "Is he…?"

"Ketheric Thorm is no more," Aylin's shift into a flinty demeanour is near-instant. "We have crushed him under the weight of his sins. He will never hurt you again."

And so Isobel learns her father is truly dead, and feels nothing so much as a horrible, horrible relief. It is as if she has released a breath she had been holding for so long it has strained and bruised her ribs, perhaps irreparably. As if prompted by Isobel's shudder, Aylin presses closer, puts both arms around her again.

But what has he put you through?

There is a ghastly image before Isobel's eyes, plucked from four different minds, none of them her own, and it is almost dizzying: Aylin, chained in a grim, swirling void, in filth and rags where resplendent armour should have been. With no sword and no wings anywhere in sight, her light is contained but persisting, never to be extinguished, and there is a defiant, proud tilt to her chin, even after a century.

This is what Isobel was complicit in, even if only for a little while. What she perpetuated with her own hands.

She can so easily recall the love and utter, blind loyalty she felt in the moment. That he'd made her feel, and that has now been replaced by an ugly, hollowed-out feeling, like something inside her had been scooped out, scraped away none too gently, leaving her raw. It is a violation on such an unspeakable level, such twisting of everything that should exist between father and daughter, it feels like the very worst of betrayals.

"To taint my soul and my body with the foulest of dark magic was not enough, I suppose," Isobel bites, snaps, at nothing, at a phantom before her. "He had to make a play for my mind and my heart as well. No part of me left out of his grasp, his control, I--"

She shakes her head as anger, blisteringly hot, blinding, mounts within her, and furious tears burn at her eyes. "That is not love."

Freedom, free will, choice: all fundamental tenets of Selûne, valued so highly by the goddess and her devoted, elevated above many concerns and taking precedence even when it might not, at first, seem wisest. And all of them taken from Isobel and Aylin both, stolen in such cruelly different ways.

"No, it is not," Aylin agrees after a brief silence, sounding more tired than Isobel has ever heard her. "He, who would call me a thief…"

Isobel breathes in, as deep as the stutter in her chest will allow, and moves to climb to her feet, to end the pointless wallowing before it has had a chance to truly begin. Aylin follows immediately, refusing to let go of her even for a moment. Isobel finds she does not object in the slightest.

But then she stumbles, as another image intrudes into her mind for a split second. It is so fleeting Isobel can't even tell what it represented, but the discombobulation is immediate and thorough and takes some focused effort to shake off. She meets Aylin's worried gaze, then looks down at herself, at the both of them, at the mess of ichor and blood and fluids she can't even begin to place that cover them from head to toe.

"For my first hopefully free-willed act," Isobel declares, making a feeble play at trying to lighten the mood, "I choose a thorough wash, and a change of clothes."

That first evening, Aylin hovers. It is all Isobel can do to get her to put her hands on her with more pressure than a brush of fingers - odd, when they had already clung tightly to each other after Isobel's awakening on that dusty riverbank right outside of their allies' camp.

Then there is the way Aylin looks at her: like she is the purest and most precious thing in all the realms, despite everything, but at the same time like Isobel is about to come apart in her arms, if she dares to hold her too firmly.

Isobel does not need this. Certainly not alongside the veritable storm that has taken hold in her mind, a constant invasion of thoughts not her own, most of her patience going towards keeping it at bay. It does not promise to be a restful night, and Isobel's frustration at everything around her mounts mercilessly.

Once they are safely ensconced in a borrowed tent pitched in a carefully chosen remote corner of the camp, she takes Aylin's face between both her hands, pulls her down and kisses her.

"I'm not fragile, Aylin," she says, and nips at her lip almost angrily. "Do not treat me like I am. Not you, the one who never has."

Aylin sighs, and kisses her back, ardent but still far too gentle. Entwined, they sink down to sit on the spare bedroll and threadbare blankets that will have to serve as a bed for both of them.

"I know you are not," Aylin says, almost apologetic, running her fingers through Isobel's hair and caressing her neck. "My beloved, who is like fine-woven moonlight draped over a core of sternest steel."

Isobel leans into the touch and basks in the words. It feels, above all else, tangible and true and familiar. An invaluable gift, to be grounded and to know what is real. Who she is. Her own heart. Her own mind. The flush as Aylin trails kisses up her jaw and to her ear - it is a precious, welcome sensation.

"But… I lost you once already," Aylin whispers into her skin, so softly that Isobel almost doubts her hearing. "So please, please, my darling. Grant me this one indulgence."

"It is no great burden to indulge you, Aylin," Isobel murmurs, snuggling even closer. "But talk to me. You need to talk to me. What happened?"

If she could touch her mind to Aylin's, Isobel wonders idly, would any of this feel different? Less… unwelcome?

Aylin frowns, sits back, Isobel's hands held in hers, and begins hesitantly. "I've spoken to our former Sharran, Shadowheart. She who freed me at such great cost to herself. I promised to shed light on her past, to lay the path to reclaiming her future out before her, and so I did."

Isobel doesn't interrupt, even as Aylin's hands become completely still and a tension thrums through her.

"In return, she told me the truth of this affliction that you share with so many of our new comrades."

Isobel swallows with some difficulty, eyes fixed on their entwined fingers.

Ceremorphosis, as a medical term and phenomenon, is familiar to her, purely academically. But suddenly and violently it is no longer a strange, abstract problem a provincial Selûnite cleric is unlikely to ever encounter. It is a death sentence, with a mysterious delay of horrifyingly uncertain duration. A looming doom placed upon her by her own father. The promise of an agonising end and yet another shadow cast over the fate of her very soul.

Isobel focuses rather desperately on taking measured breaths, not too shallow and not too deep, as Aylin goes on, entangling herself in her own words.

"I have since taken the time to speak to our other companions. Several of them have promised me they will not rest until a cure has been found. They are stalwart allies indeed, and I do not doubt them - and after all, their own lives are on the line as well. I have asked if I should serve as a messenger on their behalf, beseech my Mother to intervene beyond my own presence, but they tell me it is not so simple. I understand - undoing the work of three would-be gods, still--"

"Aylin," Isobel speaks up at last. "Stop."

Aylin's hold on her hands tightens almost in a spasm as she grows quiet, then lets go with an expression of deeply pained concern. Isobel moves forward to grasp at her, demanding a proper embrace, burying her face in warm skin.

Her angel has always run unusually hot. Not feverishly so, but rather like there was an eternal dynamo within her, radiance coursing right under her moonlight-grey skin, just waiting to be unleashed. Ever casually impervious to most shifts in temperature and a charmingly convenient source of pleasant warmth during cold, draughty stone-tower winters. And now Isobel, who could not get rid of the chill of the tomb that had seeped into her even before her capture, clings and clings and leeches. How apt.

"You will be saved, Isobel, just as they will," Aylin murmurs somewhere above her. "I am sure of it, because I will not allow anything else. I will not be reunited with you, only to lose you immediately. I refuse."

It is not a great burden to choose to indulge Aylin in this, either: burning, fervent, stubborn, decisive hope.

Isobel gets no sleep that night. Instead she is treated to far more than what she would deem her normal share of plaguing nightmares. She crawls out of a grave, but for once it is not hers. She hungers, thirsts, aches alone in darkness, save for the scurrying of rats. Until she suddenly burns with all the fires of the hells themselves.

In the cool light of the dawn, she contemplates Aylin's sleeping face. Traces gold lines with a finger, barely touching. She has not asked where they are from, but it is enough that someone has, and Aylin answered, and the images swarm Isobel's mind unabated. These psychic fragments and echoes are not how she wants to learn, and she grits her teeth against them fruitlessly.

They pack up and leave the once-familiar surroundings of Moonrise as soon as morning breaks fully, the two druids among them pointing out small signs of nascent life, returning already. It seems, miraculously, at least some part of this entire tragedy might still be undone.

There is little else to do around the lands that were Isobel's home, for now, and nowhere left to visit. It does not take a great intellect to gather what happened after she was taken; a glum, even more severely sharpened Jaheira limps with them towards the city, Harperless. Isobel tries to force down the guilt, to no avail. If she'd been stronger, faster, smarter… if she'd found a way to make the protection last longer, be less dependent on her…

But she didn't, and so she's cost Jaheira her comrades twice over now, a century apart.

Protector, that sweet, colourful tiefling bard had called her, banisher of shadows.

The weight of failure presses down on Isobel, and it is so very hard not to hasten to shoulder all the blame. Even the part that reaches across a hundred years, from beyond the grave.

As they trudge down the road, Isobel tries not to think about… thinking. Tries to focus on the feel of Aylin's arm around her waist, the uneven ground beneath her feet, and the slight sting of the blister her right boot has rubbed into her heel. But they are walking in the footsteps of an army - her father's army - and her eye still itches and Isobel cannot meditate this away.

The drow commander Minthara eyes her with particular intensity as she brings up the rear of their little procession, and seems to promise a welcome distraction. Isobel decides to use their travelling time wisely and start with one of the items on her long list (apologise to Shadowheart for attempting to burn her alive and making it most of the way there, apologise to Karlach for healing the mind flayer that was doing its best to devour her brain, apologise, apologise, apologise, for all the things she did while not herself…).

She approaches Minthara, and clears her throat to disrupt the suddenly rather tense silence.

"I need to thank both you and Wyll for your efforts in getting me out of that nightmare in one piece," Isobel begins. When she is met with a singular pale eyebrow, wryly raised, Isobel, feeling quite awkward, tries for a jesting angle. "Well, I wouldn't really thank you for the pounding headache, but I understand it was… necessary. In my… state. And besides, it's not like you could do much worse than he already had."

Ketheric. Father. Papa. General. Accomplished commander. Fearsomely skilled leader. Hated enemy. Outplayed, outplayed, outplayed. Her mind screams. Her mind? Isobel blinks and tries to focus on Minthara's words, some of which have already slipped by.

"Make no mistake, I hold little fondness for gods or their servile playthings. But while I respected his capabilities, I have even less fondness for Ketheric. In that moment, I wished to deny him, deprive him of something precious - and death, for him and his, is clearly an easily-slipped thing, and so would not have sufficed," Minthara's gravelly, mesmerising voice commands attention and brooks no argument, even as she states pointed cruelties as if she were discussing the weather. Then she waves a dismissive hand. "You should be grateful our fearless Blade of Frontiers was there, hell-bent on rescuing you, as he failed to rescue his father."

She says it so very matter-of-factly. And Wyll. Poor Wyll. Isobel has to go speak to him, she--

Hatred toward the woman she now knows as Orin flushes Isobel's entire being. Vengeance, achieved in part. The horror of being a puppet, of being made to worship and love.

"It's not a weakness to feel kinship over a shared situation," Isobel smiles feebly, crookedly, struggling to pick her own thoughts out of the whirlwind and trying not to wince all the while. "But I understand. And I'm grateful to you, still."

She leaves Minthara to her lonesome march, not caring if her hasty retreat is seen as cowardly, craving the company of someone altogether less sharp in her painfully raw, exposed state.

Sharing so much with someone - many someones - who isn't Aylin is… odd, to say the least.

If Isobel is honest with herself, it was never much of a challenge to keep all the Harpers and Fists at a polite distance, to keep up the pretence, the façade, to lie even to Jaheira. The truth is she has always been a bit isolated, now that she properly thinks of it; the only child of a widower, the youngest-by-far scion of a large family. It had been her and her father, and then her and Aylin, and as for everyone else - well, Isobel likes to think she was kind, and helpful, and reasonably funny, and friendly, and welcoming, and accepting, and all the various good Selûnite traits and values imparted on her from a young age. But Isobel has also always armed herself with a sharp wit and sharper tongue, and high defences that not many dared or even thought to try challenging.

Who would she have confided in, anyway? Her family name hung over her entire existence, just as it hung over her entire town. The nurses in the House of Healing were competent, excellent colleagues, but always held her apart due to who her grand-uncle was. The patients she treated were just that. The endless distant or not-so-distant relatives focused on their respective lives and duties and their own part in holding up the weighty name of Thorm. The acolytes who visited, who Isobel trained with, she lost contact with rather quickly, as they moved on to distant postings or to lives of travel and adventure. The temple in Moonhaven was so very close - and yet, if you asked her father, so far that it might have been on the moon itself.

Isobel sees clearly now, from afar, from below, that she lived up in a tower in more than one sense, looking down very kindly from her pretty balcony.

But now? Every day on the road and every night when they stop to rest, any sense of distance is a long-lost dream.

Hells, heated and sulphur-tinged. Blood and hunger and darkness and red knives dancing. Isolation and loneliness and loss and the burn of irresistibly driving ambition, then steely discipline violently earned, perfected in every sense. Isobel sits and tries to keep her death-chilled foibles out of the mix of the oddest campsite in Faerûn, but she can tell by the looks she is getting from all sides that she is failing.

"Do not broadcast," Shadowheart snipes at her, thwacks her playfully on the shoulder as she passes by where Isobel sits on a log by the fire, uncharacteristically alone. Aylin (her Aylin, whose mind she might genuinely want to try sharing) is away helping Karlach gather extra firewood, now that there are actual woods around them. Shadowheart frowns, as a horrible sense of absence creeps into Isobel's mind. "And try not to skim, either. It's rude."

Isobel grits her teeth. "I am not exactly doing it on purpose."

"I won't say you'll get used to it," Wyll, ever the peacekeeper, intervenes, sitting down next to Isobel, meeting her eyes with the kindest, most patient and understanding gaze, and his - their? thoughts resound with father, father, father, "but it will become easier to manage, I promise, until we are finally cured."

Isobel isn't sure she believes this to be more than a platitude. Nothing she has ever experienced compares to this feeling - this uncertainty that what fills her mind are truly her own thoughts, or ever will be again.

"If there is a way - and there has to be a way - we will find it," Wyll insists. Tainted. A grip on my soul. A hold I must be rid of. Six months… Isobel looks up at him, startled, gripping at her own chest with the intensity of the sensation.

Wyll's smile is so bright and comforting, even as it stretches the scars of what must have been a truly agonising injury on his face. Isobel feels a burst of resolve. Bonding, making friends, the normal way. Words, instead of brain-eating worms.

She frowns, chews on a lip, focusing on closing up her mental defences once more. Instead of through odd, unpleasant, barely-controllable mind invasion, she will find out what is troubling Wyll Ravengard through the age-old tradition of asking over a cup of wine. So she steps over to their supplies, grabs one of the thoroughly aged bottles they raided from what is, presumably, Isobel's own cellar now, and pours two flawless, mismatched cups.

"I'm sorry. For… spilling." She gestures at her head and his. There is a pleading undertone to her words, but Wyll must surely remember the first few nights his thoughts were not solely his own.

He accepts the apology and the cup very gallantly. "We've all had a chance to master it, at least somewhat, over the course of our journey. It would be cruel to expect you to manage it in a handful of days."

"Thank you," Isobel sits back down next to him. "I appreciate it, even if some of our campmates are a bit less than patient with me."

A companionable silence stretches between them. The wine tastes of her youth, of the first feast she attended after coming of age, led on her father's arm into a crowded ballroom, into a bright, warm, dizzying welcome. But suddenly the ballroom grows so much bigger, outshining even the grandest hall in Moonrise, and the people gathered there, lining up for dances, are nobody Isobel has ever met, even as her anxious over-prepared mind recites their lofty names, titles, and positions one by one.

"If you don't mind me asking," Isobel begins, tentative but eager to replace the flood of memories with something, anything. And opening with I'm sorry about your father seems both woefully inadequate and primed to take the conversation down pathways Isobel would prefer not to tread just yet. "What is it that will happen, six months from now?"

"Ah," Wyll says, quietly. "My own… spillover, I assume."

"You worried rather loudly," Isobel offers him her friendliest smile. "I know it's not been very long, but I want to be of help. You've all done so much for me and Aylin both - we owe you a debt that I'm not sure can ever be repaid. And here I sit, granted an unexpected lease on life, as well as a rather aggressively ticking clock," Isobel tries for a casual shrug but can't stop her hand from rubbing at her temple. "Let's just say I'd like to get a head start."

Her drinking companion shakes his head, casting a rueful look at her. "Careful - or you'll burn yourself out, like you looked to be doing with all that moonlight back at the inn. Rest, first."

"Many of your friends would say the same of you, Wyll, and yet you persist," Isobel fires back, some small ire in her provoked by the very mention of Last Light, and a part of her both offended and terrified by the thought her Lady's moonlight would ever burn her. Then she cringes - more things she shouldn't know yet, more jumping to conclusions. "I'm sorry."

"No need for apologies." He is forgiving. Far too forgiving. Wyll parries and ripostes with a light, charming air, navigating their conversation with the practised ease of fighting a rapier duel. "A dangerous prospect, I see, having you around - it is a cleric's lot to be insightful and perceptive, after all. Our own Shadowheart tried so very hard to keep to herself, cloak herself in secrets, shadows, and mystique. But the Lady of Silver asks no such things of her followers."

"She, well," Isobel sloshes the barely-touched wine around in her cup. "She errs on the side of companionship, friendship, and compassion openly offered. Guidance for the lost, and all that."

"And I do appreciate it, truly," Wyll reaches over and puts a hand on Isobel's shoulder. "But one thing at a time." Then he pauses, mulling something over while staring into the fire. "In six months, Triad willing, I will be free of the infernal pact that binds me. What that will truly mean for me, how it will play out - if I will live to see the deadline at all… remains to be seen."

Isobel nods, raking her mind for something to say beyond empty, if well-intentioned platitudes.

"Tell me a story, then," she blurts out when the silence feels like it has stretched to a snapping point. "I'm sorry to say the legend of the Blade of Frontiers is quite new to me - all my knowledge of local heroes is at least a century outdated. As is most of my knowledge, really."

A flash of a feeling flits over Wyll's face too quick for Isobel to parse, and the temptation to dig deeper and link to his mind is so vilely enticing Isobel bites the inside of her cheek.

His expression ultimately settles into a teasing grin. "Must have been interesting, then, for one of your first encounters to be none other than the fabled Jaheira."

Isobel chuckles and tries very hard to ignore the sore spot that is being prodded at again. "Interesting is certainly one way to put it." She knocks her shoulder against his. "But regale me! Your best, please, Sir Blade."

Wyll smiles wryly, points to his head, to all of himself, in a way that makes Isobel's insides churn in commiseration. "You've not exactly caught me at my best."

She takes a sip of her wine, mouth twisting at the tang, then indiscriminately pushes away another swarm of sights and sounds. "A good thing you've all already seen me at my worst, then," she mutters.

"Ah, we shall save our reminiscing for another time, perhaps," Wyll gestures at something to their right with his goblet. "Your rather intimidating divine paramour seems to be looking for you. And believe me, I am not one to get in the way of what is truly a storybook romance."

Isobel looks up at his prompting and her gaze is drawn exactly to where Aylin is approaching from, with that particular gravitational pull that has always seemed to exist between them.

"She can join us, if you don't mind. There are few things she loves more than a good tale, especially if it includes evil soundly trounced and innocents protected."

"Bread and butter of the Blade of Frontiers," Wyll acquiesces, finally settling into the distraction, and at least a small weight seems to lift from his shoulders.

When Isobel waves her over, when their eyes meet, Aylin's entire ever-gleaming being lights up even more brightly. She sits down next to Isobel, presses a kiss to her temple, and folds her into an embrace immediately. The entire motion is so old and comfortable, comes so very naturally to both of them even after all this time, that Isobel senses stubborn, hopeful warmth bloom and unfurl in her chest.

"Dame Aylin," Wyll inclines his head in a respectful greeting, with a degree of polite formality still to it that Isobel knows Aylin will take great joy in dismantling. "Isobel and I have come to the conclusion that it is a good night for remembered heroics. What say you?"

"In all my many nights, I have yet to know one that is not." Aylin's grin is wide and contagious. Isobel feels oddly accomplished at the sight, suddenly caught in the middle of something refreshingly buoyant.

"Very well. Even as the days of the Blade of Frontiers as most know him are numbered, and reminiscing might be all that is left to do," Wyll sighs with a sudden note of melancholy. "Be it by tadpole or by pact-breaking, that chapter is drawing to a close. And what will remain of him afterwards… remains to be seen."

"Nonsense," Aylin fires back without hesitation, waving a dismissive hand, all ease and utter conviction. "Even if the many deeds to his name are as yet unknown to Dame Aylin, a man who has braved the depths of the Shadowfell to come to her aid and challenged the Apostle of Myrkul at her side, who is so esteemed among his peers and allies…"

Then, her voice softens, as does her entire bearing. "One who has risked himself in the midst of furious combat to save the life of darling Isobel, even when she was pitted against him by cruel machinations…"

Isobel feels her face flush in discomfort, and tries to disguise it with a sip of wine. She regrets it immediately as her-but-not-her hands fidget with a dress neckline and a neckerchief all at once in a maddeningly disorienting superposition.

Meanwhile, Aylin is reaching the peak of her now passionate proclamation, as Wyll watches, rapt.

"I trust that nothing will hold that man back from doing what he knows is right, or make him any less a champion. Whatever sobriquet he might bear, and whatever power he might wield, I would be honoured to fight at his side and call his cause my own."

Wyll's cheeks are flushed dark, his eyes twinkling in the firelight, and his smile, once his wonderment fades, is warm and genuine. He clears his throat. "The tale of the fearsome behir, then, since the lady insists."

"I do," Isobel says without pause.

But Wyll lifts a finger as well as a cheeky eyebrow, and smirks at her and Aylin both. "...in exchange for the tale of your first meeting."

"Oh? A romantic at heart, are you?" Isobel smirks right back.

Wyll's hand rests over his chest as he nods his head in mock-solemnity. "I would not dare deny it."

"A bargain well-struck," Aylin exclaims her approval almost haughtily. When she makes a move to get up, eyeing the wine and the crockery, Isobel hastily pulls her back down and shoves her own half-finished goblet into her hands.

Wyll's fine voice rings out with the pleasing notes of a natural storyteller. "There I was, perched on the cliffside, sword in hand, with nary a spell left in me, when the ambush came--"

Isobel feels like laughing at herself, at the very particular way she has chosen to fall into old habits. It is the oddest reach for something familiar and comfortable she has yet caught herself in. Climbing up, up, up the old fortress that surrounds their camp, risking the soft wood of the most rickety ladder she has ever seen, only to make it to the top of what remains of its tallest tower.

A mild summer breeze ruffles her hair, and Isobel breathes in as deeply as she can, slowly, carefully. The night sky is clear and the moon beautiful in her full majesty, accompanied by the glimmering trail of ever-faithful Tears. But, for once, that is not where Isobel's gaze is drawn.

Down below, a day's march away, the city sprawls before her eyes, thousands and thousands of tiny lights flickering along the wide, glittering river. Thousands of different dangers and opportunities awaiting them all, the stuff of dreams and nightmares both. On the other side of Isobel's lookout, at her back, lies their little travelling party - an assortment of unlikely fates entwined in a way Isobel never could have imagined, rushing headfirst towards whatever conclusion they will manage to earn.

She feels oddly untethered. A century removed from what little of the world she got to know, the remnants of her life obliterated by shadows. To moor her, there is Aylin, the one beloved constant; to guide her, still welcoming and rewarding her devotion despite all the niggling doubts and claims of unworthiness that insist on cropping up within her, is her goddess. And there is this: the clamour in the back of her mind, the bizarre but increasingly familiar interplay of her companions.

Another distraction catches Isobel's eye, draws her gaze up once more. A bright comet soars across the sky, turning this way and that, its blazing trail blending with the moonlight as it crosses before Selûne's kindly, watchful face.

Aylin did say she would scout ahead after supper, though Isobel has a sneaking suspicion it was more of an excuse to stretch her wings and indulge. And who can fault her for it?

Isobel rests her elbows against the worn crenellations, content to watch the spectacle, comfortable in the knowledge Aylin will come to perch at her side as soon as she has had her fill. The simple certainty of it calms her more than anything else since her awakening, more even than the pleasant way the moonlight settles on her skin.

The evening is quiet. The murmurs in her mind meld with the rush of the wind, the beat of two mighty wings, and the soft babble of streams feeding the river. Isobel supposes it is an odd song, but she allows herself a moment to bask in it and appreciate all of its unusual harmonies.

#isobel thorm #dame aylin #baldur's gate 3 #fanfiction #aylin x isobel #bg3 #wyll ravengard #oathkeeper writes things #my fic #thank you all for your patience #hope you like the promised non-grim conclusion #as much as i have fun with the keymash-y HOW DARE comments and reactions #might mess around in this AU again one day who knows

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