#the grief. the confusion. the anger at other relatives who are affected way less. the religious disillusionment

[wewerebornsextuplets]

i need to lock in on attacks but... comic ideas......... AURGHH

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

TS: Farak (Difference) [3/3]

Read Part 1, Part 2

Payal sat still, counting every minute. She breathed to calm her senses, get a grip on reality but for once she wanted to crash and cry. Pour her heart out. Be the unreasonable, emotional one. Yet she couldn’t afford to.

Because she had no shoulder to cry on. Nani’s quiet blessing, Bua-ji’s smile of assurance - all came when the news of her pregnancy broke. Somehow, her news made their day.

It was the silver lining of their clouds. Their worries for her stemmed from the child in her stomach, not for her sister in the ICU. 

Payaliya, you have to take care of yourself, you can’t worry yourself sick.

Your tension will negatively affect your child. 

You’re responsible for two lives. 

Three. 

She couldn’t stop feeling responsible for Khushi’s life. The city of Delhi seemed strange and cold when her sister had moved from one job to another, biting her humiliation with a smile to provide for the family. 

Their Bua-ji had smiled, regarding Khushi with pride for taking the city as her own. But Payal laid awake night after night, growing further spite for the city that demanded so much from her baby sister.

She hadn’t been able to fall in love with the city. 

Just with a man from there. 

And today, she was reminded how alone she was. With no sister by her side, nor any love for the man who made this place her home. 

She and her sister were alone. 

Perhaps they always were. 

---

After several grueling hours, Khushi stabilized. Payal sat by her side, stroking Khushi’s head with the aching tenderness of a mother. Arnav rested on the couch, nearly dropping off to sleep. Akash and the rest of the family waited outside. 

Khushi’s heart monitor beeped, in little echoes. 

“It’s time for you to wake up Chutki,” Payal whispered. Grasping Khushi's frail hand, Payal placed it on her stomach. 

“You’re going to be a maasi.” 

Arnav snapped out his fatigue, surprised at the news. 

Payal finally allowed herself to feel the joy of a new child settle in. And she broke down, clutching Khushi’s hand tighter. 

“Please wake up,” She begged, hunched over the bed, shoulders shaking. Pressing soft kisses to her hand, Payal drew all the strength and comfort from an unconscious Khushi. She could imagine her sister jump in joy, planning on spoiling the child in utmost detail. 

“Kuch toh bol Khushi,” Payal sniffled, caressing Khushi’s cheek. 

A gentle tap on her shoulder, a white handkerchief. 

Payal froze, proprietary kicking in an instant. 

“Thank-” She froze midway. There was a wall of ice between them. His yells were loud enough to travel through walls.

Arnav couldn’t bring himself to congratulate Payal. Not when the woman who would happiest at the news lay motionless in a bed. 

Arnav sat on the other side of the bed, caressing Khushi’s fingertips. 

“We wanted to tell the family about the truth. But we were afraid.” Payal confessed. 

“I understand.” Arnav did. In the five months of being married to Khushi, he was unable to tell the truth to his family either. The idea of preservation was so tempting that it had physically hurt him to break Anjali’s bubble. Shyam’s deception had burned into his skin like poison, but his sister - happy and smiling - made up for all the hurt. 

He had bought time and did nothing. 

Payal wished she had been a bit less in love with Akash, then she wouldn’t have succumbed to her family’s pressure of hiding the truth from the Raizadas.

And now that their lives had fallen apart like a pyramid of cards, she was left with nothing but regret and bitterness. 

It was fair for the family to be angry with them for hiding the truth. 

But blaming Anjali’s health on them?  

A knock interrupted her thoughts. Manorama stood on the other side of the door. 

She was not welcome. 

“Is Phati-”

“Khushi is fine,” Payal addressed her mother-in-law without looking at her. Manorama gasped at Payal’s hidden anger and turned away, crying. She knew she was guilty of mistreating Khushi, she just didn’t want to confront that. Not now. 

“Payal,” Payal stiffened at her husband’s voice. 

She approached the door, her anger placated at his confusion. It was a big day for him. They were going to be parents. 

“Akash-”

“Why did you speak to maa like that?” Her barely-there smile slipped off her face. 

Of course. 

Arnav kept the papers down, surprised at the edge in Akash’s tone. Akash realized his mistake a bit late, especially when he saw Khushi lying still in the bed behind, numerous tubes fitted in her. 

He had been so used to superficially balancing relationships that he barely noticed the undercurrents and fractures.

Arnav itched to go to Akash and Payal, talk about their obvious strain in the marriage, but he knew better. Wasn’t it ironic that everything was tied to Akash and Payal’s marriage? Khushi was afraid, to tell the truth, because of its impact. Arnav threatened her with their marriage. Khushi married him for the sake of it. And today, Akash and Payal stood on two sides of the door, a valley of miscommunication and hurt between them. 

Once again Arnav was at a crossroads on repairing a situation where no one was completely wrong. 

A gentle reminder that he was anything but God. 

Akash touched Payal’s wrist, a small contact of affection and reassurance, and tried to enter the hospital cabin. 

“What happened, where are you going?” Payal stood in the way.

“Woh, just to check on Khushi-” 

“-and do you even know who has been suffering since this morning?” Akash bristled at her tone, “Have you seen Arnav ji’s state?”

At this Arnav had to stand up and interfere.

“Payal, I’m completely fine.” Arnav clarified. 

“I know Arnav ji, but-” Payal removed Akash’s hand from her wrist, “Akash, you’re just Khushi’s brother in law, not her brother. Your duties as a son outweighs those of a damaad.” Akash blanched. He finally knew where Payal was coming from. 

Payal, do you even remember that you’re the Raizada’s bahu? Do you even care about Di?

Arnav was confused, but one look at Payal’s bitter smile disclosed that he had intruded on something very private. With a soft ‘excuse me’ that neither heard, Arnav stepped out to give them their privacy. 

“Payal I didn’t mean that. Khushi means just as much,” 

“I know Akash. Don’t worry. You don’t even have to apologize. As you said, I only care about my family. So I’m doing that. You should go and look at your family-”

“Payal it’s our family. Humara.” Akash cut in, tired from the loop of their arguments. 

“There’s no hum, no us. Even now there’s just you and me. If- Di?” Payal stopped, brushing her tears in practiced modesty. In a language couples knew, Akash stepped back and put on an air of calm. They couldn’t expose their marital fights to the family. 

So they wore their cracked masks of concern and gentility. 

“Di, what are you doing here? Are you ok?” Akash asked, his arm extending to Anjali’s shoulder for support. 

Instantly, Payal reached out for Anjali’s hand. In a matter of days, the woman seemed to have aged years. 

“Akash, Payal ji, I’m fine. I…” Anjali choked as she tried to find words. Her heart had come to a stop on hearing about Khushi. The woman she had come to care for as her own. 

“DI!” Arnav jogged up to Anjali, hesitant as she tried to enter the room. Akash picked up on his brother’s worry without prodding. 

“Di, Khushi ji is still… it’s better if you don’t see her now.” Akash began to guide Anjali out of the room. 

“Yeah Di, let’s go home. I’ll let you know when Khushi’s a bit better.” Arnav said. 

“Nahi,” Anjali shrugged her arms out of her siblings’ grip. They treated her like a fragile china doll. But for once she wanted to break. She wanted to see the ugly side of things. She wanted to see the truth.

For once she wanted to fall. To feel the pain rush through her so much that no more would come her way. 

“Di?” Arnav, Akash and Payal murmured. 

“Please Chottey, let me see Khushi.” Anjali asked. 

“But Di, yesterday-” Akash was frightened, Anjali’s abortion attempt fresh in his mind.

“Whatever happened, happened.” Anjali heaved. She looked around and wondered if she had proven to be so weak that her family feared for her more than the woman who was on her deathbed. 

“Do you really want to see Khushi?” Payal asked. Anjali nodded. Unheeding Arnav and Akash’s quiet but frantic protests, Payal stepped back and opened the cabin for Anjali.

“Payal, why did you-” Arnav began, worried for Anjali’s health.

“Because it’s what she wanted jeth ji. And Di is my sister. This is the least I could do for her.” Payal said and closed the door on Akash and Arnav’s faces. Anjali gripped Khushi’s pale hand. Her heart, if any of it was left, broke at Khushi’s and Payal’s state. 

“Payal ji?” Anjali beckoned Payal towards her. 

And for the first time in the day, someone brushed a gentle hand against Payal’s cheek. In a mere second, Payal broke down and hugged Anjali, sobbing her fears and griefs in the older woman’s arms. 

“I’m so sorry Di, we should’ve told you everything.” Payal confessed.

Anjali broke the hug. 

“Then tell me, how did you both even meet him?”

In a few words, Payal described all the events in detail. To her credit, it was as unbiased as it could be. Anjali heard the account patiently, without interrupting - her silent questions answered with pieces from Payal’s story.

In the end, Payal apologized, again. Anjali dismissed it.

“Tell me Payal ji, chupane se kya farak pada?” Anjali asked. 

“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” She said, “but, I understand what you both did and why.” Payal nearly crumpled on the floor in relief. 

“True, I believed Sh-him for a moment. That Khushi chased him, your family trapped him but at the end of the day, that story made no sense. And I had my suspicions,” Anjali sighed, remembering the sudden relatives, clients who’d always ask Shyam for money in front of her, his long trips to cities despite some concerned friends spotting him around Delhi.

But the truth was beyond her nightmares. 

“I’m… sorry Di. We truly are.” Payal whispered, clutching Anjali’s hand. 

“Just promise to not hide anything.” Anjali asked. Payal nodded, grateful for Anjali’s friendship.

Arnav and Akash stared at the three women through the glass panel on the door, wondering if they had ever understood any of them. 

---

A day later Arnav sat by the bed, his back stiff and shirt wrinkled from spending the night sitting by Khushi’s side. He had not slept a wink. 

“Chai” Payal held out a steaming cup of tea towards him.

“Thank you but I don’t take su-”

“-sugar. I know. Khushi has told me about it at least fifty times.” Arnav took the paper cup, grateful for it. Payal sat on the other side of the bed, gently fixing Khushi’s hair and blanket. 

“Jeth-ji, what had happened?” Payal asked. 

“Shyam manipulated my will to have all my properties and assets in his name. He kidnapped me on my way to London but Khushi figured out something was wrong and she rescued me. In more ways than one.” Arnav caressed Khushi’s wrist. There was a point during the kidnapping when he had feared he would never come home. 

And somehow, home found him.

“We’re sorry Arnav ji, we had no idea he would turn to this… if it makes any difference, I promise that I won’t hide anything.” Payal promised. She had known, deep in her instincts, that hiding Shyam’s truth would bite them. Arnav gave her a soft, tired smile and acknowledged the promise.

The could’ve, should’ve, would’ve floated in the air. Decisions seem clear after the consequences have been laid out after the time for deciding has passed. 

“And since we’re talking about being honest… what happened-” Arnav frowned, “on the night of your wedding?” Payal asked, her quiet fears coming true as Arnav paled. 

“There was a misunderstanding but… uss baat ka koi farak nahi padta.” (that no longer matters) Arnav admitted. His words barely above a whisper.

“Koi farak nahi padta?” (truly, it does not?) Payal asked. Arnav looked away, refusing to answer. 

“I am her sister, I deserve an answer.” Payal teared up. Arnav didn’t meet Payal’s eyes but in the fewest words possible, finally divulged the truth of his marriage to Khushi. Despite her bravado, Payal’s knees nearly buckled and she gripped the bed frame for support. 

“Payal!” Arnav shot to hold her but Payal dismissed him. She dabbed her tears with the edge of her pallu and sighed. 

“I’m sorry,” this time Payal refused to look at him.

She wanted to yell, scream, tear his hair off his scalp yet… Payal didn’t know how to react to him. A part of her berated herself, and her amma. It was their fault. Their selfishness cost Khushi her love, marriage, destiny.

How could she blame a stranger when her own made all the wrong decisions? 

“As a bhabhi I can attempt to understand you but as a sister…” Payal trailed off, biting her words - for Khushi’s sake. Hadn’t this always happened?

Everyone made decisions for Khushi. Amma decided Khushi shouldn’t say the truth. Arnav decided to force Khushi into a farce of a marriage. 

No more.

As much as her palms itched to drag her sister far away from this man, she would wait for Khushi to come back to her and speak what she wanted. 

“Payal I’m so sorry,” Payal heard his anguished apology. 

“I am not the person you should be saying sorry for-” Payal choked. 

“And why… why was it so easy to believe the worst of her? You have more respect for me, our father than the one woman you claim to love. Kyun?” Arnav had no answers. He had never known when he had crossed the boundary of haq to lack of boundaries and respect. More than often he misused his right to the deepest corners of her mind to the ability to hurt her the most. Arnav swallowed a gulp, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I-”

“-And you must be realizing this because there’s a very real chance we’ll lose Khushi forever, haina? Because God knows I forgot I had a sister until now.” Payal broke down. In the few months post-marriage Payal had been forced to choose the Raizadas above her sister, time and again. 

First out of shame because Khushi had eloped. Then because it was what good women did - care for their sasuraal first. Lastly, she was used to Khushi becoming the second choice in her life because in Khushi’s life she prided on being the first. 

Wiping her tears away, she stood up and decided to leave the room for now. 

“Khushi, please wake up.” She heard his soft sobs.

“Ab isse koi farak nahi padne waala,” (These [your pleas/apology] no longer matter) She said. Arnav remained still, refusing to believe the truth in her words. 

Payal left, she had no heart in her to forgive herself nor him. 

-- -- -- 

Arnav crouched towards Khushi, whispering words of anger and apology. 

Angry because she couldn’t leave him. Even if she had to punish him, hate him, yell at him - she had to be alive. Not for him, despite him. Khushi Kumari Gupta’s life could not be summarized into the journey of a woman who lost love, marriage, and life. 

She was too young for her story to be incomplete. 

Over time his orders reduced to begging, his tears dried to long stares. 

He made silent promises, confessions, and deals. 

But nothing made a difference. Just like Payal said.

She didn’t wake up. 

-- -- --

After a point Arnav finally fell asleep, his thoughts silent. 

There were no more pleas, promises, nor words of love whispered to her ears.

That’s when the frail palm underneath his moved a fraction. 

-- -- --

A/N: It’s taken me forever to complete this work! The biggest thank you to @ridzmystique​ who’s constantly told me and supported me in completing this story and anon - see I finally completed it (so sorry that it took so long)! 

Farak germinated from the idea of stopping time and having the characters reflect on their decisions. Farak as a word is very interesting - it means ‘matter’ ‘difference’ and its meaning changes beautifully with context. 

So it does not matter if Arnav says sorry when its too late, or expresses only in time of emergences. 

And perhaps there’s always been a difference which sister’s health was at stake. 

So my hands really itched to have the plot stop and let the characters breath. Khushi’s sickness has really nothing much for the family to grieve on. But the last words they said, that would be ingrained in their memory. 

I hope you guys liked it! 

Much love,

- S

[dwellordream]

“…In the first three books of Troilus and Criseyde, we have a Troy that may be characterized as a heterosexual lovers' refuge from the overtly masculine and misogynistic battlefield. The walls of brick and stone, and the walls that are Hector, keep the war from intruding into and violating the life of the city. The attitude of the Trojan people with respect to the war seems an important index of the ways in which they attempt to distance themselves from it and deny its danger to them. The war represents a serious threat to Troy, and the ideology and practices the city develops reflect a necessity to minimize and alleviate this threat. The real conditions of existence facing the Trojans are that, because one of their king's sons has stolen away a Greek queen, with her blessing but without her husband's, they are besieged by a superior force and their seers and soothsayers predict their ultimate defeat and annihilation.

These rather dismal conditions of existencenare not encoded as such by the Trojan voices in the poem, who describe the war as an opportunity to perform valorous deeds and to win praise and public acclamation. To Diomede, the war has a clear purpose: to punish the theft of Helen, who is thus encoded as property. The Trojans, however, do not encode themselves as thieves protecting an illegally-obtained plunder. Nonetheless, the ideology they develop to describe their role in the war also concerns women's placein society. To Diomede, and presumably to the Greeks in general, the city of Troy is being besieged and thousands of Trojans are dying to punish Helen's being in Troy and not at home with her husband. No matter how one assigns blame for Helen's being in Troy - whether Helen herself has willingly left her husband, or has been unwillingly stolen away by Paris - to the Greeks, Helen is still encoded as an object, the possession of which is extremely important and worth a great many lives. Unfortunately for her, she is, in the eyes of the Greeks, the object that represents both marital and martial potency. Her disposal is not to be of her own choosing.

To Diomede, the war is being fought to maintain men's property rights in women. After his stay in the Greek camp, Calchas appears to have become more fully cognizant of Greek practices that encode women as property, property that may exchanged to create kinship bonds and relations among men. Thus he sends for his daughter. It is only after living among the Greeks that Calchas comes to understand more completely their ideology and practices concerning the exchange of women, and appreciates the power that having engendered a marriageable daughter gives him the Greek world. His initial lack of understanding arises because the Trojans and the Greeks in this poem have slightly different ideas an practices concerning the role and position of women. My claim that Trojan practices concerning women are somewhat different from Greek practices which encode women as objects exchange does not, however, make Troy a haven for women.

With Troy itself, male characters show different degrees of acceptance women's sexuality and of their power to choose the objects of the affection. The Trojan and Greek practices, may, however, be contrasted by looking at their effects on Criseyde. In both places, Troy and the Greek camp, Criseyde takes the lover who is presented to her and her unwillingness or eagerness in the matter seems to be of little avail; however, there is a significant difference in the tone of Diomede's wooing, on the one hand, and Troilus's and Pandarus's, on the other. In the Greek camp, Calchas stands in a similar relation to Criseyde as did Pandarus, yet he has none of Pandarus's playfulne and obvious enjoyment of the game of love. Calchas does not act as a go-between, nor does he help accustom Criseyde to the idea Diomede's love for her, as Pandarus has done for Troilus.

Diomede’s wooing is considerably less timid, and his telling Criseyde to disengage her mind from Troy because of its imminent destruction is frankly brutal, and not at all the sort of conversation a man has with a beloved woman whom he believes has a real option to decline his favors. On the other hand, Troilus is continually, almost comically, aware of Criseyde's option to decline. In Troy, much more energy is expended on obtaining a voluntary compliance from the beloved lady. In this respect, the situation in Troy, especially from Troilus's point of view is much closer to the medieval ideal of courtly love. This is not surprising in view of the war raging outside the walls of the city: the Trojans have found themselves defending the right of women to enter and remain in love relationships voluntarily, and have consequently enhanced and strengthened the ideology that men ought be suitors and women granters of sexual favors. Troilus, perhaps alone among all the inhabitants of Troy, has wholeheartedly em braced this ideology and attempted to put it unmodified into practice. Troilus, as befits his name, has become an embodiment of the structures and practices of his entire city.

…According to her uncle, who is not some sort of monster having only her worst interests at heart, Criseyde really ought to find herself a lover, someone worthy, someone whose love for her will give her credit, and someone whom she can enrich by her cherishing. Pandarus's happily cozy picture of loving bliss does not, however, entirely conform to his own experiences or to Troilus's expectations, in which men love and suffer, and women go out visiting in pretty clothes and enjoy themselves. Helen, who is invited to the meeting of Criseyde's friends at Deiphebus's house - “For she may leden Paris as hire leste" (II, 1449) - is very much the adored beloved whose lover is regarded as her servant. Lastly, the behavior of Trojan women at the feast of Palladion conforms to Troilus's denunciation of them. During th spring rites, all women in the crowd, except Criseyde in her "widewe habit blak" (I, 170), are "ful wel arayed, both meeste, men, and leste" (I, 167). Criseyde's wearing of black as a token of the grief of he widowhood contrasts strongly with the festival attire of other Trojan women from all ranks of society. In a city at war, a city that has lost many to battle, Criseyde is the only woman who remembers her dead husband in her somber dress.

I believe that it is Criseyde's setting herself aside in black that first attracts Troilus to her. Not only Troilus's scorn of lovers and loving in the opening passages of Book I, but also his having come to manhood in a city under siege because one particular woman, Helen, left her husband and wanted the option to exchange one lover for another makes him extremely susceptible to Criseyde, the only woman among the crowd at the festival whose attire indicates sexual fidelity. After being smitten by Criseyde, Thus gan he make a mirour of his mynde In which he saugh al holly hire figure. (I, 365-66) Troilus has fallen in love with an idol of his own making, and not with the Criseyde the reader comes to know in the poem. Troilus sees in Criseyde's black attire the devotion to sexual fidelity that so character izes him. Her blackness is very like that of a tabula rasa, on which all (and only) pure, white thoughts can be written.

In Criseyde, Troilus finally sees what he did not believe could possibly exist in all the world, a feminine version of his loyalty and his capacity to indulge in a transcendent and all-consuming love. Criseyde's love for her husband appears to have transcended his death, and a love that leads to and outlives death is precisely the sort of love that Troilus had wanted and yet despaired of finding. This is why, despite his social, economic, and military status in Troy, Troilus is genuinely overawed by Criseyde, and has little hope of success. When Pandarus tries to persuade Troilus that Criseyde is a woman like other women, Troilus cannot believe him, claiming that for al that evere ye kenne,/She nyl to noon swich wrecche as I ben wonne. (I, 776-77) This is more than the courtly lover's due respect to his mistress's claims of beauty and status. Troilus's belief in Criseyde's unmatchable virtue also explains his faint when he first witnesses the tone of Pandarus's wooing of Criseyde. Troilus is overcome when he overhears Pandarus making up a story about his supposed jealousy and anger towards Criseyde.

Troilus has not been present at the exchanges between Pandarus and Criseyde in which Pandarus induces her to accept Troilus as her lover, and he has not witnessed the mixture of cajolery and threats of his and Pandarus's deaths with which Criseyde has been persuaded. He really knows little of the reasons for which Criseyde accepts him. In this poem, Troilus is very much a young man, one relatively inexperienced in affairs of state or of romance, and he expects his transactions with Criseyde to be unpolluted by motives other than those of the heart. In their bedroom scene in Book III, he kneels as a suppliant by her bed. His posture may seem amusing to us as readers, because we have seen a flustered, confused, self contradicting, and easily-persuaded Criseyde for hundreds of lines of poetry. Troilus, however, has only the dimmest knowledge of the process by which Criseyde's sexual favors have already been secured for him. He believes himself to be the model of a courtly lover suing for favors from a venerated mistress. Even Criseyde's amused reply does not persuade him of his power over her:

…The ideology about the relations between the sexes seems to be simpler, albeit more brutal, in the Greek camp than it does in the city of Troy, probably because we, as readers, spend much more time in Troy and observe many more of its citizens. At the camp, we have Diomede, who sees women as objects to be won in battle so as to gain status, and who says to himself concerning Criseyde's love for Troilus: But whoso myghte wynnen swich a flour/From hym for whom she morneth nyght and day,/He myghte seyn he were a conqueror. (V, 792-94) By naming her a "flour," Diomede clearly objectifies Criseyde, and he goes on to equate loving a woman with martial victory over another man. (This ought not to be surprising amongst an army whose purpose in Troy is to send the message that "if you don't let one of our kings have his wife, we shall take her anyway, destroy your city, kil your men, and rape your women.") Hector, the man who is the walls of Troy, stands between life in Troy and this threatened destruction.

Relations between the sexes outside the city walls are associated with power relations held in place by violence. Within the city itself, however, a veneer of courtesy and courtliness masks assertions of male power over female sexuality. Pandarus, despite his many kindly intentions towards his niece, does cajole and at times nearly bully her into accepting Troilus as a lover. Pandarus's attitude toward Criseyde disposing of herself in love clearly takes Troilus by surprise. The practices of the courtly lover found in Troy are expressed in their extreme in Troilus, and he is, perhaps, an example of what happen when one takes anything too seriously. Pandarus, Criseyde, Helen, and presumably many more like them, manage their love affairs in Troy without the utter despair that comes upon Troilus at any thwarting of his hopes. And, of course, they manage their love affairs in a walled haven in which both men and women have the possibility of sexual pleasures and the choice of sexual partners. Discretion is necessary, but in this Troy of feasts, good fellowship, loving friendship, and close family ties, physical pleasure for both sexes is encouraged.

I would like to suggest that this characterization of the city of Troy and of the Greek army feminized the city, as falling in love has feminized the city's namesake, Troilus. Some readers find Troilus's love for Criseyde to be an obsession, to be a longing that emasculates and weakens him, and to be a sign of his youth and immaturity. To th Greek army, Troy has become the place of the "other": a feminine, weak, decadent and declining civilization that must give place to a new, young, very aggressive and masculine warrior culture. Greece, with its ideology that women's sexuality is to be controlled by men, and that martial power decides all disputations of right and wrong seems more in line with the Western history of relations between th sexes and between the weak and the strong, than does Troy. To the Greeks of the poem, Troy is very much "other": an exotic, almost Oriental place of wealth, leisure, abundant feasting, and beautiful women. (Helen, the most beautiful woman of all time, is always Helen of Troy, never Helen of Greece, or of Sparta, or of Menelaus.) The poem's medieval English reader, however, could not see Troy entirely as the place of the "other."

Troy is, of course, also the mythological source of both Rome and London, and the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde is a place of medieval gentility and courtliness. Despite seeing Troy as London's root and the Trojan aristocracy as the ancestors of British royalty and nobility, the medieval reader may have also seen Troy as a city that must inevitably fall to allow for the newer and presumably better civilizations of Rome and London. The Trojan civilization of Hector and Troilus aroused a bitter antipathy in the Greek army, and was destroyed by that army. Troy has projected onto it by the Greeks all of the characteristics that are most repugnant to a new, young warrior culture trying to establish itself in the face of opposition from an older, richer, less-bloodthirsty culture that is living on the fruits of victories won by its ancestors. Thus it is that to the more primitive and hardier Greeks, the city of Troy seems to be feminine, gentle, loving, luxurious, and supportive of a life that they are denied, and thus must destroy.

The Trojans who seem most to embody Troy are Troilus and Hector. Despite his stature as a warrior who performs heroically without the city's gates, in his attitude towards sexual love, Troilus is very much at the center of the city. His brother, Hector, although even more renowned for his valor, is also an embodiment of this feminized place. Hector is the walls of the city, the guardian against the Greek army which will violate the female body of Troy. In this poem, female bodies and feminine space do not hold out against masculine or martial intrusions. Since Troilus and Hector are embodiments of the city itself, all are equally doomed to die. Criseyde's succumbing to Diomede's advances is the first successful masculine/Greek penetration of feminine/ Trojan space, and her succumbing is as inevitable as all the other Greek intrusions into the city that follow upon it.

Since the deaths of the two brothers follow closely on her accepting of Diomede, it may even be the case that her fall may be seen as the first, the one fall that sets into motion a series of further falls. First Criseyde, the character with both Greek and Trojan ties, succumbs; then Hector, the walls and outskirts of the city, is overcome in battle; and, finally, Troilus, the heart of the city, dies. (Yet, since this is a Christian and an English poem, he rises to a new life.) This is not to blame the fall of Troy on Criseyde's leaving Troilus, but to suggest that the Trojan parliament decided to follow a more pragmatic, Greek-like practice with respect to Criseyde's place in society, and to be false to the more aristocratic and courtly practices adopted by Hector and Troilus concerning women. The parliament's turning Criseyde into an object of exchange was an early step in the own succumbing to the force of Greek ideas and culture. It was, in fact allowing through the gates of the city a "Trojan horse" of Greek pratices concerning women and the places they may inhabit in society.”

- Diane Vanner Steinberg, "We Do Usen Here No Wommen for to Selle": Embodiment of Social Practices in "Troilus and Criseyde"

[cblgblog]

I'm curious about your take on Wakanda being wronged hard in FaTWS, and by Bucky specifically? I haven't seen many people talk about it, but I'm just angry and confused as to why Bucky was to careless and rude towards Ayo and the Dora Milaje, acting as if their anger about Zemo was an overreaction. Hell, Walker got more respect from him in the end than the Dora did

I'm looking at the writers' perspective here, it was their decision and I'm wondering why. What was the thought behind it? Why did they make Bucky so insensitive? At first I thought it had to be some arc, but nothing came from it. I'm wondering what made them look at this series and think "Yes, let's make Bucky screw over the people that helped him".

It wasn't just him wronging Wakanda, it was his behavior towards Sam too, how he was so ignorant during the cop scene, dismissive of Sam's feelings, and obsessed with the shield to a point of lashing out at Sam for things that weren't his fault. Why was this a choice that was made? Bucky didn't have much personality in the other movies, they could've done anything but they chose this, and I think more people should talk about how wrong that is. Not for Bucky, but for the black people in the series who were wronged.

Okay so here’s the deal. One, I’m white, so know that going in, take my take on this for whatever it’s worth accordingly. Two, I haven’t watched the eps since they aired, with the exception of a couple scenes, so my memory—not so much of events but of specific nuances of how Bucky reacted to them—isn’t fresh.

I say that last part specifically because of Bucky and his interactions with Sam, because ultimately they bother me much less than the Wakanda stuff, and here’s why. Bucky is, to varying degrees depending on situation and episode, a dick to Sam about the shield for most of the series. Undoubtedly. But I get that, to a point. He at least explains his feelings in 1x05, why he reacted like that, and admits he fucked up. He had all his feelings for Steve wrapped up, incorrectly, in that shield, so when Sam just tossed it aside (from Bucky’s perspective), it caused him to freak out/lash out. Which was never fair to Sam, but at least culminated in Bucky recognizing that. Sam keeps saying to him that the two of them have not lived the same experience, the shield and its legacy do not mean the same thing to them, and Bucky finally realizes that. He acknowledges that neither he nor Steve grasped the full reality of the situation, and he apologizes. Does that erase what came before? No, but it’s not supposed to. It’s him acknowledging his own ignorance and trying to do better.

So, at least there’s an arc there, which is the other reason his stuff with Sam bugged me less. There was an evolution in his thinking, there was a change from wah wah, you gave up the shield, to oh wait, I kinda get it now. He realizes that his reactions were wrong, even if his feelings were understandable. Which, on a human level, I think they were. It’s a very human thing for Bucky to equate that shield directly to Steve, and take Sam’s rejection of it as a rejection of Steve. It’s understandable how he got there, given the bizarre nature of Steve’s time travel shenanigans, the nearly endless nightmare that Bucky’s life has been since he fell from the train. Losing yet another 5 years when he’s already lost 70+, all the unprocessed guilt and grief that isn’t helped by him having actually the worst therapist ever, oh my God this woman sucks at her job, she’s funny, but she’s awful. His feelings, I believe, were valid, given everything that went down. His reaction to them—the lashing out, whining, refusing to see Sam’s side of it—his reaction was not valid. But at least he gets to a point where he realizes that. At least there’s an arc.

Could they have found a different way to create conflict in the series? Sure, and I’m not gonna argue with anyone who wishes they had. For me personally, I was okay with it. Bucky’s ignorance and misplaced anger made sense to me. Bit of an aside, one of the few scenes I rewatched for this (because Youtube and knowing exactly where it was) was the cop scene, because you referenced. I’m assuming you mean the bit where Sam gets stopped, gets the ‘calm down sir’ treatment. I didn’t think Bucky was a dick in that scene? He seemed aware of what was happening, given his angry, “No he’s not bothering me, do you know who this is?” It’s actually one of a relatively few instances in the first 5 eps where Bucky does seem genuinely aware that he and Sam don’t live in the same world, even when they’re walking the same street, right next to each other. So, as far as illustrating that, and Bucky coming out of his own feelings long enough to pay attention to Sam’s, I thought it was one of the better scenes.

So, Sam and Bucky, I’m less bothered by. Bucky and Wakanda? That’s a hot garbage fire.

Zemo’s whole inclusion here, and nearly everything related to it, was incredibly botched. He’s randomly rich as fuck now, and a Baron, to match his comics counterpart. Which is not only an incredibly lazy retcon, it kills much of what made his character interesting in CW. In that movie, it was one guy, working alone, limited resources, dedicating himself to his cause. If nothing else, you had to admire his tenacity. Now suddenly he’s got a butler and a plane and piles of cash? Where was that in CW? More importantly…why? What purpose did it serve, besides making him more superficially similar to his comic self?

Why did we detour to him at all? None of his plans ultimately affect the larger narrative all that much. He starts out in prison and…ends up back in prison. Why? Why would the Dora just leave him there? Ayo says that they will bring Zemo back to face Wakandan justice…and then they just don’t. They leave him in the hands of the same people who lost him to two random dudes who were able to bust him out of prison on their own, one of those dudes being an entirely human guy, no enhanced powers, no Serum. In CW, okay, T’Challa did a deal with Everett Ross I guess, fine. But once the Americans proved they couldn’t hold him, it made no sense that the Dora would just go, okay, here you go again. They aren’t Batman. They have no reason to keep throwing the baddies in Arkham Asylum to wait ‘til next week when someone breaks out again.

The Zemo stuff had no arc to it. The only worthwhile thing was Bucky proving to Zemo that he can’t be controlled anymore, but that scene could have come about in a million better ways than it did. Ultimately, the weird little team-up with Zemo feels very cliché and contrived. It feels like a trip down a side road that dead ends to nowhere. It feels like filler, which is a particularly terrible crime when there’s only 6 episodes in the damn season.

Bucky’s dickishness towards Ayo and the other Dora really is baffling, especially when the writers went out of their way to give us that flashback, a direct, show don’t tell indication of all the Wakandans did for him. And it’s not his feelings for Steve that have him acting out this way, or at least it shouldn’t be. Steve has nothing to do with this aspect of things. Steve obviously had trust in and respect for T’Challa, and there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t extend to the Dora as well. Strong, badass women who put it all on the line for their country? Yeah, Steve should/would get that. He would have broken Zemo out of prison, if he thought it was the right call to make, but he also would’ve been like yeah, I did that, I understand that I fucked you over, I’m fully prepared to accept the consequences of that once my mission is complete, I’m sorry it went down like this. See the, “I’d like to surrender myself for disciplinary action,” he gives Phillips in First Avenger, after he goes to rescue the 107th. If it’s an authority he respects and acknowledges as having good intentions (Phillips as opposed to the Accords), Steve will ultimately give that respect back, even if he goes off to do his own thing first. He respected T’Challa and Wakanda. Bucky should have respected them even more, given his more direct connection, given the flashback scene in FatWS, given his acknowledgement that Wakanda and it’s people gave him a rare respite, a calm in the shit storm that’s been his life since 1945.

So yeah, it doesn’t make sense that he was so flippant and dismissive towards Ayo and the rest. It makes even less sense that they put up with it. It’s bad writing, that’s all I’ve got. The show is incredibly irritating, in that a lot of the plot-driven stuff is pretty fucking awful, but most of the character study stuff for Sam and Bucky is so good.

[dearlazerbunny]

Lie to Me (Ch. 14 of 28)

Pairings: Loki x Reader

Genre/Ratings: M eventually (aiming for a slow burn here); warnings for kidnapping and subsequent anxiety/PTSD (will be marked before every chapter)

Words: 2,700

Summary: If you had to guess what the captured, traitor, trickster god Loki Laufeyson wanted or needed at this moment, a babysitter would be far, far down on the list. (Set after the events of Avengers 1.)

SHOUTOUT TO @molmcb and @jessiejunebug, who are now happily living in my closet amongst my cosplays and stuffed animals

Requested Tags: @deraniel​, @iamverity,  @yasnooshka24, @wegingerangelica, @themusingsofmany, @dark-night-sky-99, @tarynkauai, @stuffandstuff-stuff, @angelicshinigami, @my-current-fandom-is, @geekysimmerthings

Another vague email, another secret meeting. Par for the course you suppose. You brace yourself to walk into another room full of superheroes, but thankfully when you push open the door there’s just two relatively standard-stock agents in black suits, albeit with incredibly stony faces. The man gestures for you to sit, and you do so at the head of the table, so the pair are flanking you on either side.

“Hello.” You set your stuff down. “Can I help you?”

The female on your right, wearing her hair in a severe bun, raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow at you. “Do you know why you’re here, agent?”

“No, you guys didn’t exactly put it in the subject line,” you joke, but are met with nothing but glares. Yikes. Tough crowd. “Am I… did I do something?”

“Not precisely.” The man sitting on your left hand side pulls out a few unassuming folders and sets them across from you. “My name is Sitwell. We recently received a few… interesting reports, from Agent Barton.”

Oh, crap. This can’t be good. “I see. What about?”

“How long have you been assigned to Loki, Y/N?”

“Um-” you count back the months in your mind. “It’s been a while. Eight months? Nine?”

“And what would you say your relationship to the prisoner is?”

You can’t help but wince a little at how he says the word prisoner. “Friendly, I guess. I mean, you talk to someone every day for almost a year, you get used to them, I suppose.”

The man- Sitwell- nods. “Agent Barton expressed similar sentiments. While it appears your assignment has been going smoothly, there have been concerns regarding your  ability to maintain… neutrality.”

You bristle. “What does that mean?”

He slides a folder towards you, flipping it open. “You were in D.C. for the Incident, correct?” You nod. “I’d like for you to take a look at some photos.”

The first photo, in horrifically excellent quality, is a skyscraper crumpled to ruin, its steel bones twisted and mangled into a fatal position. The street before it is upended, with concrete shattered everywhere.

You know what these pictures are from. You’ve seen the news. The city workers pushing rubble from one place to the next. The memorial reels commemorating the funerals of those caught in the crossfire that day.

Despite trying to brace yourself, your stomach twists at the images of carnage marring New York’s proudest city. You aren’t heartless, you can imagine the anxiety that permeates the alleyways. Once, it was the city that never sleeps. Then someone finally put its lights out.

“If you’ll flip to the last photo, please.” A picture of an incredibly unassuming man greets you. Receding hairline, watery blue eyes, same professional yet nondescript suit everyone wears around SHIELD. You squint at the headshot. His tie has a subtle design on it- do they really make neckties with Captain America’s shield on it?

Apparently you asked that last question out loud, because Sitwell gives you what you assume is the closest you’ll get to a smile from him. “They do, though I believe he had this one specially made.” He sobers. “Did you know Phil Coulson, agent?”

Oh. So this is the agent everyone’s had on the tip of their tongue. Apparently he was a legend around here- Fury’s right-hand man, both the Black Widow and Hawkeye’s handler, not to mention all the fantastical rumors of his own exploits. It’s something of an initiation process, scaring the interns with stories of how he battled his way out of a secret underground HYDRA base and escaped the Amazon with nothing but a Dasani water bottle and a popsicle stick. “No. I mean, I know of him. Everyone does. But he was gone before I transferred.”

Sitwell nods. “Phil Coulson was a very special man. Unfailing loyalty, a sharp eye, and a knack for keeping us all out of trouble.” He pauses. “He was one of my best friends.” You’d known that even before he had told you, just based on the admiration and grief in the agent’s voice. “He was also one of the most personal tragedies to result from the Manhattan Crisis.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” He nods elegantly, graciously. “There are, of course, dozens of other agents who ended up in the crossfire. Not to mention the civilian count.”

“Why are you showing me this?” You ask tiredly, even though you already know the answer.

“We thought it prudent to remind you who we have in that cell, and why.” The folder is closed; the pictures of a devastated city fade back into history. “Loki Laufeyson is not your friend, agent Y/L/N, nor is he someone to be reformed, rehabilitated, or empathized with.” His words are crisp and incredibly cold; hailstones biting at your cheeks in December. “He is an inter-dimensional war criminal with hundreds of innocent lives hanging over his head. He is a murderer, a manipulator, and a liar. He speared Coulson through the chest and left him to bleed out on the floor. Do not forget that,” he adds gently.

You open your mouth to say- something. To defend him, or yourself, or both. But nothing comes. Sitwell and his friend rise from their seats and tuck cream folders neatly under their arms. “Thank you for your time, agent.” When the door closes behind them, you’re still sitting blankly, imagining Phil Coulson staring blankly at you with just a hint of a smile in his blue eyes.

                                                            XXX

“Copper for your thoughts, darling?”

You smile wearily at Loki, head propped on your hand. “It’d be a waste of a penny; I’m not thinking anything in particular.”

“Mmm, I do not believe so. It’d be nothing compared to your attention. But beyond that, something is clearly wrong.” He gestures to you, at your shoulders that are clearly slumped and your fingers twisting anxiously. “Tell me about it?”

You sigh and force yourself to stop fidgeting. “I was called into a meeting. It wasn’t very fun.”

He hums noncommittally, clearly waiting for you to elaborate.

Everything in you hesitates. You don’t want to go there. You really don’t. In the beginning, you told yourself you wouldn’t because it wasn’t your job; later, it didn’t really seem to matter. But if you’re being honest, it’s been digging at the back of your brain for a while now. Every so often you’d be laughing with him and then suddenly stop and think to yourself, this is the man who tried to take over the world. Loki is a tricky, temperamental bastard with a lot of issues, but world domination always seemed a bit… much? You can’t reconcile the carnage downtown with the man sitting across from you. And yet…

“Promise you won’t get mad?”

Loki tilts his head, worried. “I suppose. Is everything alright?”

“… why’d you do it?”

He doesn’t ask what you’re referring to.

For a minute the both of you just look at each other. Your gaze isn’t accusatory, it isn’t angry or demanding- simply confused, and a little sad. Loki, similarity, doesn’t react with heat or deflection or any of his hundreds of other tools of the trade. He looks sad, too, and considers you with a heaviness that’s tangible all the way across the room. “You don’t have to say anything. I just-” you drop head in your hands, as though it’s suddenly too much to hold it up. “If I’m being honest, I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around it for a long time. And then they showed me these pictures, and I guess an agent you, um… stabbed… and it- doesn’t make sense.” You can see your own reflection mirrored over Loki in the glass, just slightly superimposing your features on his own. “I like to think that I know you. I want to think that I know you. But everyone keeps trying to convince me that you’re not the person I think I know.”

You shake your head and laugh a little at yourself with a weary tone. “I’m sorry. I’m probably not making any sense.”

“You always speak intelligently, Witling. I admire you for that.” He laces his hands in front of him, as he does when he wants to keep himself still. “It is… complicated. And incredibly ugly.” He glances at you. “I would not wish to burden you with the story.”

“I’ve got nothing but time.” You smile a little at him, though it’s tinged with melancholy. “And I think we’ve established I’ve got a decent perspective on ugly stories.”

You feel his green eyes on you- such a familiar feeling, even though now it makes you shift anxiously in your seat. “I suppose you deserve to know. You are one of the few who have shown me any grace for my actions.” In a graceful movement, he criss-crosses his long legs in front of him, and lets his elbows rest on his knees. “You know of the events in New Mexico?”

“More or less.”

“It was, in essence, a desperate scheme to win the affections of my father. To prove my worthiness in the eyes of someone who had never seen me as such.” Loki is excellent at hiding his feelings when he wants to, but by now you can see through all the façades he throws up to protect himself. “I had discovered my heritage in… less than ideal circumstances. I believed Thor’s downfall was my chance to claim everything I’d ever yearned for, only to realize those dreams were never possible to begin with. My anger was- immense.” Something in his voice cracks. “I was mourning so many different lives. My childhood, my Aesir form, my father’s son and an heir to Asgard. Everything I had ever known was simply an illusion waiting to be shattered.” He grimaces. “I did not handle it well.”

You don’t think your chest has ever hurt this much. “I don’t think anyone would, Loki. You can’t blame yourself for feeling angry.”

“What has anger every gained us,” he says softly, as though he’s quoting some wise scholar.

You don’t know what to say to that.

“I pleaded with my father over the broken Bifrost,” he says, “asking him if he could ever truly love me the way any child craves. And he denied me that simple need once and for all.”

“Loki-”

He shakes his head. “Thor was holding me aloft over the abyss. He would have pulled me to safety, I am sure of it. But instead- I let go.”

In your entire life, you don’t think you’ve ever heard anyone sound so broken as he does in this moment. It makes you physically ache, and you want to take his grief and shoulder it yourself so he might have a spare moment of peace; let your thumb rub away the lines etched in his face until they smooth into something happier.

“When Thanos found me, I did not have the strength or heart to resist.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “Who is-”

“Don’t,” Loki warns. “Please. He is…” he mumbles a few things under his breath, but in languages you can’t understand. “He is a titan that has risen from the depths intent on his own ideas of perfection. His cruelty is outshone only by his ambition.” You can’t hold back a small noise of dismay when you notice his fingers are trembling. “I could not have fallen into his power at a more opportune time.”

“I will not claim to be wholly innocent. I am not. When he offered me dominion over Thor’s beloved Earth, I did not stay my hand from the weapon he gave me. But only after I received it did I realize his true intentions.” He takes a shaky breath, and presses his spine to the wall behind him, like he needs the support. “Casualties the likes of which you could not imagine. Violence, brutally meted without hesitation. The entire galaxy balanced in the palm of his hand. I tried to run- but I was weak, and now he had a grip on my very being.” The smile he gives is mirthless, haunted. “I am not easily broken. But they did so… effortlessly.”

By now you’ve drawn your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, curling in on yourself as tight as you can manage. It’s like the room has dropped in temperature, slowly freezing your blood from the inside out. “What did…” you trail off, your voice thin enough to crack the most fragile sheet of ice. “Do I want to know?”

“I would not tell you even if you did.” You roughly wipe away a tear with the heel of your hand. “But the heat was immeasurable, and the scars were thoroughly and deliberately gifted.”

You wince reflexively. “How do you torture a frost giant,” you murmur, trying to push all kinds of horrific images out of your mind.

He nods briefly. “Precisely. All the while the infinity stone was working its power. I can resist thrall more than most, but not completely.”

“You mentioned an infinity stone before.”

“The mind stone is one of them. It is housed in the scepter Thanos gave me; the one I brought to Midgard during the invasion.”

Pieces are coming together one by one, into a warped and twisted sort of understanding. “That scepter- you used it to brainwash Barton, and everyone else.”

“Yes.”

“And it was also… controlling you?”

“Not so completely. I could resist in certain moments.”

“No, but- Loki.” You sit forward, trying to understand what he’s telling you. “It was controlling you. You were being controlled. Just like Barton. Just like all the others.”

“One could say.”

“Loki! This means- it means it wasn’t your fault!” You’re a strange mix of hopefulness, wrath, depression, and enlightenment. “Does SHIELD know this? Do the Avengers?”

“No,” he says fiercely, and he pins you with that gaze of his. “And you will not tell them.”

That stops you short. “Why-?”

“Because I am guilty no matter the circumstances, darling.” His voice is gentle, like he’s trying to let you down easy. “I did not refuse Thanos’ offer.”

“You had just fallen through space and time after your entire identity was stolen from you,” you retort. “Even if the latter hadn’t happened, would you have physically been able to resist after your fall? Enough to escape?”

“I- do not know.”

“Loki.” You sit back and rub your eyes. “This changes everything.”

“It doesn’t.”

“It does! If Barton isn’t being held responsible for what he did when he wasn’t in control of his body then you sure as hell shouldn’t be!”

“Witling-”

“When Fury knows he’ll have to-”

“He will not know! And you-” he looks at you firmly, “will not tell him. Anyone. Promise me, Witling.”

“But why? Loki, you could clear your name-”

“He is the most dangerous thing in the galaxy,” he hisses, “and he will be coming back.” When your eyes widen, Loki closes his own and takes a deep breath to steady himself. “I fear it more than Ragnarok,” he says simply. “I would not bring any more destruction to this world than I already have. At least for now.”

You’re ready to argue, ready to fight with him tooth and nail until he realizes just how not at fault he actually is for this whole catastrophe- but you can’t bring yourself to do it. Not when he’s shivering and vulnerable and minutes away from tipping into a headspace you know would be hell to drag him out of.

“Okay.” He looks at you. “I- I don’t agree with it. But I trust you. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Thank you for telling me.”

Loki nods, his face exhausted and drawn. “In here, I would trust you before I trust myself.”

[aithne]

(Illume) The Bound Fox

There is no true privacy on a ship, Reiko thought as she attempted to find a location on the deck that was out of the way of the sailors, who were going about their jobs as usual. What she needed to do now was going to require a fair amount of talking aloud, and she really didn't want to be cooped up in her cabin any more than necessary. Not with some of the memories that were beginning to return.

She finally found a relatively out of the way location, settled herself more or less comfortably, and turned her face towards the sky. Her spirits--the five that were left--swirled and settled beside her. Miss M, her mouth still bound by Lin's mark, hugged herself, the look on her face a mixture of grief and fear. Kei, the only one who could not be still, paced the deck before her. Tsuyoshi was muttering to himself, which Reiko could hear as if someone were talking several rooms away. Setto sat beside her, seeming to be waiting for her to speak.

And Zhane perched on a rope, looking at Reiko with an expression that Reiko could not read. Perhaps she was angry, or perhaps she was afraid. Perhaps both.

"I'm sorry." Her tone was soft. "I...is there anything more I can say, really?" The muttering from the bound spirits grew louder, Zhane's voice contributing to the fray as she tried to express something incomprehensible to the shaman. "I've never heard of a sword that can trap spirits." She reached out with her mind to that place that Jin had once been anchored, the place where he had been raw and painful. "My Jin, my honorable Jin." She had loved him, the older man who had so often lectured her when she'd done something less than honorable. But the lectures were always kindly meant, and though his words had often stung she'd always had to admit that he had a point.

Setto looked at her, and said, "You knew that jade is a substance that affects spirits. You knew that Jade Warriors can see spirits, and you knew that it was likely that the warrior had a nasty surprise in store for you. And yet, you still rushed into the fray, and attacked the person that the warrior was created to protect." His words were mild, but the anger behind them was not, and Reiko quailed; Setto had a temper on him, though it sounded as if he was holding it in check for the moment. "And your impulsive behavior lost you Jin. Is there a reason we shouldn't all be angry with you, Reiko?"

She shook her head. "I just...didn't think. The lady had a knife to her throat--if I hadn't done anything, she might have been killed."

"And instead, you sacrificed one of us. Who, I will point out, you have a sacred duty to protect from harm."

"I just didn't think, all right? I forgot about the Jade Warrior, and I've always--"

Setto's voice was quiet. "And you've always had Lin to guide you, to keep you from doing something truly stupid. She kept you very young, but she also kept you out of serious trouble. Even though you're centuries old, you're still a pup. A one-tail. And for someone who is, really, quite clever, you certainly can be an idiot sometimes."

Reiko felt the lash of his anger in those words; had she been in fox form, she would have tucked her tail between her legs. She settled for pulling her knees to her chest and hiding her face in her hair. The place where Jin had been was a liquid fire on her spirit, the wounds across her back that were not yet completely healed ached. After she'd been roused back to consciousness by Funitsu, she'd refused any more healing, feeling somehow that there should be some physical punishment for losing one of her beloved spirits. "The others don't understand. Panda thought that I should be glad to be rid of you."

"They only see the strangeness that mortals call madness. Between your vixen nature and you talking to us aloud..." He shrugged. "Rei, you've never particularly worried about your differences."

Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I've never had this many people I could call friends all at once, either. And I need to protect them, as well as you, as well as the Lady."

"Don't worry about the rest; they seem more likely to end up defending you than the other way around. Yukiko and the child are your priority, and us. Let those with strength do the fighting. Your battleground is altogether different. Combat can sometimes be won before the swords are drawn. That's where you need to concentrate."

"And cleaning up afterwards." Reiko looked up at Setto, her hair falling over one eye. He still looked angry, his arms crossed. When he was alive, she remembered soothing him out of his anger with soft kisses, but that obviously wasn't going to work now. She tried to speak but was startled by a sudden flare of pain from the place Jin had been. "Ow! What the--" With an effort of will, she dropped into her magical Sight, scanning the place that hurt so badly.

The place that hurt was a sigil, burning into her with white fire. Concentrating, she looked at it, trying to comprehend the mind that had set these into her soul. Lin, Lin, what trap have you set for me? She thought the sigil was familiar--wait. It was the same sigil that had been set over Jin's heart. A quick check revealed that each of the spirits' heart sigils was inscribed in white fire somewhere on her body. She couldn't stop to think about that, though, because she saw--and felt--the mark that had matched Jin's pulse irregularly, burning her. "They must be connected somehow, and now that Jin's gone, the power's somehow unbalanced." She touched her pool of power, and hissed as she felt that it was much smaller than it had been this morning, and dwindling rapidly. This flaring, whatever it was, was drawing on her power; she had to stop it, and quickly. She drew a silver thread from the small pool that still existed, remembering the lesson that she'd learned the other day.

She threaded the sigil with her silver fire. It was difficult, more difficult than the last one has been, but she traced and traced it, silver swallowing white finally--

And darkness came abruptly as the sigil shot white sparks and disappeared, the rest of the sigils flaring bright as the sun as the power redistributed itself into the remaining bindings. Reiko's body sprawled to one side, limp, her spirits all regarding her worriedly, Miss M stooping and brushing her fingers against Reiko's hair.

Hiroshi had come up to the deck for a breath of air and to see what there was to be seen on the coast. He was leaning on the railing, enjoying the wind in his face, when all the of hairs on the back of his neck stood up. There was something wrong, somewhere, the part of him that was constantly evaluating even the safest of surroundings for signs of danger was prodding his attention. What was it...wait. There were air currents that weren't acting like they should, swirling around his face. He backed away from the railing, turning, trying to pinpoint a place that felt more wrong than right. He saw, from a niche made from several crates lashed to the deck, a small bare foot protruding, and the edge of some bright red cloth. He remembered that red, Reiko had been wearing it that morning when they'd all arisen. Crossing the deck with several long steps, he looked into the niche to find Reiko tumbled over on her side, breathing shallowly, obviously unconscious. He put a hand on her shoulder, saying her name, but she didn't awaken.

No obvious signs of injury, no indications of magical attack--what could be wrong with her? Well, he should probably get her somewhere safe and find Funitsu to see if he could figure out what was wrong with her. He eased an arm around her, resting her head against his shoulder, and was picking her up when the tiny woman jerked and thrashed, her eyes flying open. "Reiko! Reiko, it's all right, it's just me." He watched as recognition filtered into her yellow eyes and her body relaxed, breathing out.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure. I found you here, passed out, no sign of what had caused it around. What do you remember?"

Reiko thought, remembered the sigil, remembered tracing it, and---"Oh. Just a moment." She closed her eyes and used her magical sight to look at the place where the sigil she'd erased had been.

It was gone, completely, as were a number of other sigils that had been connected to it. In fact, there was a whole swath of her body that was now free of sigils, her right hip and leg bare of magical bindings. "That must have been a master mark," she murmured, forgetting that Hiroshi was next to her. "Take out the master, and the others fall. But the master sigils are somehow linked into my spirits...oh, Lin, you are an artist as obsessive as any I've ever met."

Hiroshi, confused, said, "Reiko, you're not making any sense." As usual, the thought came unbidden, but he didn't speak it.

"Oh!" Reminded of his presence, Reiko blinked. "Um. Do you want the long explanation or the short one?"

"Is either of them more likely to make sense?"

She thought. "Probably not."

"The short answer, then."

"How to sum it up...All right. You know Lin, the spirit of mine who left me, had ways of keeping my memories and powers bound, right?" At his nod, she continued. "She bound me using sigils, magical diagrams, all of them linked together over my body. There were seven master sigils, the ones that anchored all the rest. These sigils were somehow linked into each of my spirits, and they power them with their energy. When Jin was taken from me today, that master sigil somehow went haywire. I was able to erase it, but I think it discharged all of its energy into the rest of the bindings. For some reason, I passed out."

Hiroshi regarded her silently as she finished speaking. She rubbed her forehead, muttering, "And it's given me a wicked headache, as well."

He was suddenly aware of the fact that he still had his arm around her shoulders, and that her body was warm against his. He released her, sitting down with his back against a crate. "I have to confess that I don't really understand what you're talking about. But I am no magic-user, so."

She snorted. "At least you seem to believe that I have spirits. I overheard Funitsu referring to my spirits as my imaginary friends the other day. He'd better be careful who he calls imaginary, is all I have to say."

The archivist chose his words carefully. "The Scorpion is a skeptic when it comes to certain things, it seems. It may yet come back to haunt him, so to speak."

She shrugged. "I'm used to people thinking I'm crazy." She glanced at him, a rueful expression in her eyes. "You might still think I'm nuts, but thank you for at least believing I'm real. As for not understanding...what it really means is that there was a part of me that was locked away that is now free. I remember more, now, of what I am. Who I have been."

"What do you remember now?" His curiosity was getting the better of him. Perhaps, unlike the rest of her stories, this one might make sense. Such an optimist, Hiroshi, he chuckled to himself.

"I remember Jin. He was a retired samurai, widowed five years by the time I met him, living on his estate. His oldest son was running most of the family's affairs when I met him, so he had quite a bit of time on his hands. Time enough to notice the pretty apothecary in the village closest to his estate.

"Love between us grew softly and gently. I was going by Mei at that time, and I knew he loved me the day he brought me a branch of plum blossoms and told me that I was sweeter by far than my namesake. His family eventually found out and were properly scandalized, thinking that I was somehow taking advantage of him. They thought I was wanting to marry him and inherit from him. I never managed to convince them that I wanted nothing of the sort.

"He was very sweet, such strength held under perfect control. I loved him and thus I overstayed my welcome. A year after I met him, I drained him to death, not knowing what I did. And then Lin took everything away again. But now..." She closed her eyes. "I remember things about herbs and medicines that I didn't before. I remember the four systems of elements that are in wide use, and the places where each correspond. I remember how to cure illness with my herbs. And how to kill with them." She gave him a canny look. "I am certain you know of what I speak. Archivist."

He nodded, touching one finger to his lips in the universal gesture for silence. Amusement flashed in her eyes and lingered around the corners of her mouth, and she climbed to her feet. "I think I'm all right. A bit dizzy, but I'm sure it'll pass." Reiko stretched as Hiroshi got to his feet. She looked up at him, a small smile on her lips. "Thank you for checking on me."

He shrugged. "You're a friend, kitsune."

She looked away, out over the ocean. "Very few have ever said that to me, who knew what I am. Fewer still have meant it. The problem with being an immortal is that it can get very lonely." Then she blinked, her demeanor changing in a flash, and she was climbing barefooted into the rigging. Hiroshi watched her go, bemused.

He paused, waiting for Reiko to be safely out of earshot, and said, "Did you hear what you came for, Lady?"

Yukiko stepped around the crate, smiling perhaps a bit ruefully. "I did, thank you. How did you know I was there?"

He shrugged. "I have excellent hearing, Lady. But you knew that."

"So, what do you think of our little shaman, now? Do you have a verdict on her, as several of my retinue seem to?"

"No, Lady." He looked up into the rigging, where Reiko was talking animatedly to someone neither of them could see. "In all honesty, I'm not sure what to think."

Yukiko looked up, her expression unreadable. "I hope you meant what you said about being her friend, archivist. I have a feeling she's going to need all she can get soon enough. As will we all." She turned and walked away towards the bow of the ship.

Hiroshi returned to the railing, leaning on it, watching the coast slide by.

[terrysacia-blog-blog]

Why Is Divorce So Painful?

Why Is Divorce So Painful?

A wedding often represents a celebration of love and represents the beginning of a new page in life. This is a page full of anticipations of happiness, fulfilment, purpose, and sharing of life’s joys with your significant other. But sometimes these hopes and dreams are demolished and turn into big disappointments, making divorce so painful to bear.

Very rarely do people picture a divorce while getting married. But this is the harsh reality – things might never turn out as once envisioned. Unfortunately, one in every two American marriages will end up in divorce. And this ratio even gets worse for subsequent marriages.

Any way you slice it, divorce is tough and hard. It’s usually a tough process to go through, and emotional tremors can still be felt weeks, months, and even years after the initial divorce quake hits.

Going through a divorce can hurt so deeply that sometimes you may feel as though you’re being stretched beyond your limits – emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially. And even though both of you decided to part ways peacefully, divorce can sow all sorts of pain, which might take a long time to heal.

Clean and dirty pain

After going through a loss such as divorce (or any other loss such as death, separation, etc.), the natural byproducts are grief, physical pain, sorrow – which are commonly called “clean pain.” But the more onerous “dirty pain” is the type of pain we exert on ourselves as we process this pain. This might come from our internal dialogues and sometimes can include self-reproach, blame, feelings of unworthiness, and views of being judged by others. Staggeringly, it is this dirty pain that keeps us trapped even longer.

While divorce will cause some level of pain, it’s important to note that mental anguish is relative, and each divorce is unique. Here are some of the reasons why divorce is so painful, even though you’re the one who pushed for it.

One of the ways to reduce exhaustion and stress during a divorce process is actually finding a divorce lawyer near me who could offer professional advice. You will avoid unnecessary exhaustion once you know there’s someone else who thinks rationally on your behalf.

Suffering from a huge loss

Divorce means the one you once loved is gone – and perhaps you still love them. The kind of pain felt following divorce is similar to what we experience when we lose someone to death. This reality brings forth anger and you might be angry at just about anyone. You might even withdraw from friends and family in an attempt to protect yourself from any future hurt.

A divorce puts your life on a complete 180-degree turn. Suddenly, you’re surrounded by memories, in a new place, without the joys of marriage.

At this point, you need an honest self-reflection and, in some cases, a therapist to help you process such a grievous loss.

You feel like a failure

A broken marriage has a way of reminding people that they lost. Suddenly, you start feeling like you were not able to keep your marriage or work hard enough to keep it intact.

Most people begin to isolate themselves at this stage out of fear of being ridiculed or questioned. Others just stay away from people because they can’t wrap their minds around the thoughts of a future relationship.

Your family is fractured

Many parents today cling to the perfect family illusion – and when their families break, they are forced to see that they were never really perfect. A significant amount of time goes into raising the kids and keeping the family intact. But when divorce happens, people deal with the emotional fallout. And even though some try to devote time and energy towards their kids post-divorce, you’ll always feel like they’re missing out on something and you will continue to drown in guilt.

You have unrealized dreams

Every marriage lives in the present and future tense. Couples often lay down goals that give them some sort of direction. But suddenly, divorce revokes all these dreams that you two shared, leaving you all confused and forcing you to start building a brand new life that doesn’t carry your ex. This is the reason why newly divorced people find it difficult to move forward because they are stuck and caught up in their past as they continually replay in their minds what might have gone wrong.

You feel ashamed

Experiencing feelings of failure is normal after a divorce. They are part of the process and are the casualties of personal accountability – the role we played in the ending of the marriage. This admission to failure can leave a person with a huge amount of guilt. Even though divorce is common nowadays, there’s still a level of shame and embarrassment people feel because they feel “less capable” since they weren’t able to save their marriage. Facing your family members, friends, colleagues, or church mates can be extremely daunting as it brings forth your perceived shortcomings – especially if you perpetually beat yourself up over the issue.

Helpful tips

Experience your emotions so you can release them

Managing your emotions is different than controlling your emotions. When you manage your emotions, you allow yourself to experience them, but you contain them. For instance, you might tear up at work but you shouldn’t push them down and pretend to be okay. Allow them to flow and then wait to get home so that you can cry as loud as you want.

People who feel uncomfortable experiencing such negative emotions try to control these emotions and try to make them go away. Unluckily, these negative emotions never go away until they are expressed and acknowledged. Controlling and stuffing up emotions actually lengthens the grief process.

Talk to someone and share your feelings

Humans are social beings and asking for help is okay. Sometimes all we need is someone to talk to and share what we feel. Friends and family can be a great pillar to start with or even a support group that has people who have similar issues. Don’t allow your feelings to eat you inside as this can significantly damage you.    

Divorce can be so painful and tough. But the extent to which it can affect you totally depends on you. We must cultivate a willingness to heal from loss so that we can finally behold the happiness that waits.

Also, take a look at these steps to thriving after divorce.

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

for what it’s worth, i’m sorry for the hurt.

The end of September marks a few reminders of some of the significant change I've been through in the last few years. Sometimes when I feel really fed up and like nothing is moving on, I remember how far I've come and how much water has passed under the bridge, and it reminds me to sit back and take stock from time to time. 

I only have to look back at Facebook flashbacks and old diaries, even from a few years ago, to see a stark contrast between the "me then" and the "me now". The constant is my broad belief system, the baggage I bring with me (good and bad) from my upbringing, my value system, my sense of core identity, my general personality...but even these have shape shifted along the way. I can look at old photos and remember the story behind the picture, and where I was at in my life - how I was feeling, what big event was happening at the time that felt it would never end, or how easy it felt to truly be myself. It's so obvious it feels slightly trite to say it this way, but when I get the chance to mull it all over, it the reassuring constant is that I made it through these things. Not all of them are anywhere near as significant to me now as I thought they would always be, and I don't have many regrets (I never believe anybody that says they have "no regrets" - a post for another time!). But some of them were bitter pills to swallow. 

So what have I learnt? Of course, when you are in the middle of a defining moment, it doesn't feel like that at the time. It just feels really hard. But a few months or years on, for what it's worth, these are the top lessons I've learnt in life from my experiences...

Given the right circumstances, "good people" will do "bad" things

Working for 8 years in the addictions field helped me to establish a core belief that we can't put people in to neat categories of "good" and "bad", or even "evil". We can't even make the assumption that if something is important enough to someone, they will prioritise it. This argument often gets confused with "excusing people" from taking responsibility for their actions, and once again that's something I will write about another time, but to summarise for now, these are different topics that get conflated. 

Sometimes, when people are severely depressed, in the grasp of addiction, or have such low self worth, they will self-sabotage their life, because they don't believe they deserve happiness. This manifests itself in all sorts of behaviour, that whilst not taking away any issues of accountability, can wrongly convey that they do not care about the loved ones in their life. 

This is something I have tried to remember at times when I have felt wronged by other people. I try to think about the "back story" that got someone to this point. That's not to say I absolve them of all accountability, but I have become hyper-aware of the mitigating factors that influence all of our behaviour and interactions with other people. Not least because I know I've been prone to them myself, and I am no angel. The truth is, even good people will make poor choices or mistakes, or lash out when the mix of conditions is right. This may come down to survivalism, self-hatred, selfishness...but very rarely is it as simple as we want it to be.

 I work on what the evidence to date tells me about this person. Do they have a pattern of behaving this way or is it out of character? On balance, have they let me down or helped me out more often than not? Is there a possibility their action was misguided but their intentions were good? Asking myself these questions helps me clarify my position. 

It won't always hurt like this (but it might "ache")

There are sharp stabs and pangs in life. The huge traumas, the massive disappointments, the big conflict Really significant stuff that just seems like it could never feel any less intense. You tend to get people on 2 sides of the spectrum here - those that tell everyone to "put things in perspective" and minimise everything before the other person has had a second to grieve, and those who almost revel in self-martyrdom all their lives. I've known both.

I think it's too simple to say that one day, all of these things will just not matter anymore. I'm always very sceptical of those "I've completely changed my life around!" magazine articles where because people have

discovered yoga and eating avocado on toast for breakfast, their life is sparkly and fresh all day, every day. But what I can say, is that it does get better. 

Those stabs become a "dull ache". There are some things in life that won't leave you. Grief, loss, bereavement, trauma. And by the way, don't let anyone tell you there's a timeline on these things (there's not and you are perfectly entitled to feel whatever you feel, for as long as you need to feel it). But what you may find is that with time, what used to be at the forefront of your mind, will start to take back stage a little more. 

Yesterday marked a year since I ended a 30 day challenge where I blogged on my experience of infertility and my diagnosis of Premature Ovarian Failure. By that stage I had been diagnosed over 2 years and had already processed a lot of my grief, but even looking back at my blogs one year on, I can see there's been more progress, and my take on some of the issues I wrote about wouldn't be the same if I'd have written them this year. The overwhelming emotion I know I felt at that time was anger. And that was justified. It also allowed me to use it as a driving force to speak out and raise money for a good cause. But now some of that anger has faded away and I am left with a subtle pang at the back of my mind, that occasionally comes out to play when things trigger it. But I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say the central role my diagnosis plays in my life has diminished. Some of that is stability of my medication, and some of it's just the fact I have well and truly processed how I feel about it all. I took the time to do that and now it doesn't define me in the way it once did. A place I thought I'd never get to. 

There is no monopoly on grief

At any given moment, someone else in the world is in unimaginable physical or mental pain. People are living in war torn countries, are homeless, are being abused, all sorts of horrific things. It is a fact of life that there will always be someone "worse off than you". I do get a little frustrated with this "pull your socks up" mentality though, as firstly, trauma and grief are culturally and socially relative to the context we find ourselves in, and secondly, empathy is not mutually exclusive. You can empathise with the big, Earth shaking issues, and you can choose to empathise with your neighbour, friend, or relative who is going through a life crisis that feels significant for them. 

There is still very much a "stiff upper lip" mentality in our society about mental health issues, despite some good progress made in recent years - we still have a very long way to go. Coupled with this, it is human nature that we may find it very hard to empathise with issues we have not experienced directly ourselves. This means that we can project our own priorities and perception of what is worth grieving about on to other people in our lives and this can affect our ability to be truly there for them.

The easiest way to get around this is to accept that people are experts in their own grief, and what matters to them. It's not our job to help people "put things into perspective" - it's our job to listen and be there. And if we can't be there, help them to reach out to something or someone else. One day, when life hits us with what it chooses to, we can then expect that helping hand ourselves.

Family is what we make it

I come from a large, complicated family, that is no stranger to conflict. It's fair to say not all conflict is justified and is just a result of historic dynamics that are just so entrenched now, they're not going to change any time soon. I feel disappointed and sad about some people in my family who I really wish I saw, but I don't, for reasons that don't make much sense. Then there are family members I've made a conscious decision not to see such as my Dad, where there are legitimate boundaries I've had to set, to protect myself and others in my life, and to stay true to my morals. 

My infertility has also made me view the concept of family very differently, in that I have had time to learn about all the different ways a family can be put together. I think my experiences in my own family have helped me on this journey, in that I don't have a natural pre-set towards biological ties, and so I'm able to be open to whatever "family" will look like for me in the future. 

I am able to understand that blood is not thicker than water, and that in fact, family is made up of the people that truly care about your wellbeing and prove themselves to be there for you. This outlook has helped me in my world view, in that I don't believe in giving people a free ticket to being close to me because of sharing my blood type, or genetics. Some of the worst things that can happen in life happen to people under the protection of the nuclear family being untouchable, and I think that's a dangerous place to be. 

So when I think of family, I think of who I can trust, who has been there for me through thick and thin, and who makes me feel good about myself. I think that's a pretty good basis for any family.

Integrity is everything

Being true to yourself is really hard sometimes. When I think of the times I've really disappointed myself, it's when I've contradicted principles that are really important to me, like honesty, kindness, empathy. I make the best effort I can to live a life to be proud of, but we all have situations when we let our need for immediate approval or satisfaction get in the way of our beliefs, and that's my "red flag" for knowing I've not acted with integrity. 

I suppose this comes down to that cliché of treating others as you wish to be treated yourself. A lot easier said than done, I know. But it's all we have. If we're not acting with integrity, we don't really have a sense of self. There needs to be some sort of "code" or commitment we hold ourselves accountable to. This will change based around our particular beliefs, but there needs to be some kind of consistency as to how we act, so people know they can trust us. 

This is a lesson I've learnt many times over, in lots of different situations. And it shows up on people's faces if you look hard enough. I still haven't figured out why some people struggle with this more than others, but I think a lot of it comes down to a need for approval, and a tendency towards individualism which is just how some people operate. 

Integrity is a goal to work towards - I don't think it's possible to act with 100% integrity. As humans our actions will always somewhat contradict our ethos (for example, think how easy it is to blank out inconvenient truths about the clothes we buy, the drugs we use, the privileges we have), but being conscious and mindful of these contradictions is, I suppose, the first step. 

It can, and it will, disappear

There's no originality in my revelation that I've learnt not to take situations or people for granted, but it's a cliché worth repeating. If there's one constant in life, it's loss, and to protect ourselves from this reality, it's often easier to pretend everything's going to stay exactly the same until the day we die.

 But in reality we all do it - we take our partners for granted, we don't appreciate the smaller things in life, we make assumptions about how things like homelessness and addiction don't happen to "people like us". Until they do. 

Everything is transient, and nothing lasts forever. And I know I coasted through a lot of moments in my life I wish I could go back to and savour more, because now they're gone forever. Complacency has taught me harsh lessons at times and kept me stuck. There are plenty of situations I wish I had appreciated someone, or something, more - and then it's too late. The damage has been done.

 So I'm working on being much more present in the moment (which is tough for someone who always races ahead with my anxious thoughts!) and appreciating what I have right here, right now. Because I now have the knowledge that one day, the things and people I love could be lost, and I want to have made the most of every minute with them. 

I could go on...but these are the thoughts that ruminate in my head when I think about change and loss, and what I've learnt along the way. I'd be curious to know your thoughts, and your own life lessons.