#to grieve for something more to mourn another proof that his brother is not coming back that he's gone for real

[lloydfrontera]

i don't know what would've been worse. if the summons vanished along with rakiel so there was no real sign of him still being alive somewhere out there. or if they were also left behind, waiting for him to come back from a place they couldn't follow him to. either way the possibilities are devastating <3

[deejadabbles]

Echo and Comms (Echo x Reader) Chapter Three

Summary: Who could know that a simple night out with your friend would lead to this? A life of danger and the man of your dreams. Echo x Communications Officer Reader (gender neutral). Friends to lovers/star-crossed lovers. A.N: First off I would like say I'm so sorry (!!!) this took so long to get out to anyone interested in this series! If I'm being blunt, I've been feeling rather discouraged over my Echo content. But, I still adore this man and have so many ideas on where to take this series, so, thank you to everyone who shows interest in this story! I appreciate the reblogs and comments so much! Secondly, the emotions of this chapter got away from me and before I knew it I was 3k words deep, so I'm warning you now that this is a heavy chapter, but I promise the sweet reunion and happy times are coming! I promise Word count: 3,814 Songs for listening: What Hurts the Most and Experience . Warnings: mentions and explorations of grief/loss, mentions of drinking as a coping mechanism, very heavy topics in general.

Part One /// Part Two /// Part Three /// [Part Four coming soon]

There was nothing to mourn.

That’s the reality that hit you hardest.

The clones gave everything to the republic, to the people, to the war, and they got nothing in return. You had always known that, of course. The debate of clone rights and personhood was always a raring topic since the start of the war, not that the question of their rights should be a debate at all. You had always known they were dealt a shitty hand in life, but it was never more apparent than now.

Now that there was nothing of your sweet, brave Echo to mourn.

There was no funeral, no last rites, no medals or flags given in his honor, not even a damn word of thanks for his sacrifice. His brothers would grieve for him, of course, perhaps the Jedi who had led him too, Echo had always spoken fondly of Skywalker, after all, but his brothers had no means to mourn. Not really. And no other family could offer you their shoulder, no mother or father, no one but soldiers who weren’t allowed to wear their sorrows on their sleeves.

There was nothing of Echo’s to mourn, nothing but the messages and pictures he had sent you.

They were the only proof of his existence, of his memory. That he wasn’t another number, that he was sweet and charming and smart, that he was awkward and rule-following and so damn caring. He had worried so much about his brothers, about them being remembered, and now, these communications were the only remembrance of him, of your Echo.

Eventually, you had to force yourself to stop looking them over for hours every night. Stop yourself from hoping that you would get one last comm from him. One last picture of his dorky smile, of him and Fives causing havoc. One last call to tell you he missed you, to tell you he loved you. 

Echo had loved you. 

And you, oh, how you had loved him too. You had fallen for him fast and hard, and now this pain was the unyielding ground at the end of that fall.

Work was your only solace. Work was an escape, a place where your mind couldn’t wander, couldn’t focus on the grief, couldn’t muse over your loss, your work was too important for that.

Mavis was your anchor, she gave you space and distractions in a good balance. Space to be alone so you weren’t just cramming your feelings in a box all day, and distractions when she knew you needed something that wasn’t work or grief. 

You weren’t proud of the way you were careless with your drinks at the bar on those nights, but somehow, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care most of the time.

Days turned into weeks. The war stretched on, and death tolls rolled in every day, just numbers, faceless, dehumanized numbers. Just like your Echo.

Weeks turned into months. Work continued, a decryption there, a few lives saved here, small victories, victories that helped your pain. Each one was for your Echo now.

You had always taken pride in your work, pride in doing your part to ease this war, to win battles, but now this was just an extra layer of it, pride that you could help the brothers he had held so dear. It helped, and those around you started to notice. 

Eventually, it got easier to smile throughout the day, and you started to feel less guilty over that ease. Though, you still couldn’t crack jokes quite like you used to. At some point, your trips to the bar became less about drowning your sorrow and more about spending time with friends. Though, you still recoiled every time someone tried to flirt with you.

You hoped that things could get better.

The trouble was that no one told you that hope was a dangerous thing.

A sigh pushed itself past your teeth as you leaned back, rubbing your eyes to wash away the imprint of data streams behind your lids. Just a few more hours and you could go to that nice dinner Mavis had invited you to. It was a decent day, and you felt like eating.

The break from your work must have caught attention because someone cleared their throat beside you. Moving only one hand, you cracked an eye open toward the noise. It was Taan, a young and brilliant decrypter who had been placed under your care until he learned the ropes enough to work on his own. He was holding his data pad with a question burning in his eyes.

“Yeah, kid?” you asked, fighting a yawn.

“Do you have a minute to look something over?”

Silently, you sat upright again and waved him forward, letting your other hand drop.

He paused for just a moment, thought, then must have decided it was now or never, “Do you remember last week, when we decrypted that resource update?”

“You mean the one from the techno union, advertising their fancy new battle tactic algorithm?”

“Yeah, that one! See, I was taking another look at it, and…something doesn’t fit. It bothered me the first time we looked at it, but we were too busy relaying the new information to command for me to think about at the time, but now I looked it over again and…” Fingers tapped on the underside of the data pad as he bit his lip, then he shoved it towards you, “here just look for yourself, look at the developer signatures.”

You did as asked, eyes going to the bottom of the page where the techno union had listed the people involved with creating the algorithm. If you weren’t so used to decoding the various numeric-heavy code names those tech creeps used, it would have looked like gibberish. Wat Tambor’s was the only code name you had memorized and without your key, you weren’t sure who the others were….expect.

Your chair gave a creak as you jolted forward, a little shocked.

“See it?” Taan was trying to contain his excitement at your reaction, obviously glad he wasn’t going crazy. 

He wasn’t. There, right in the middle of the long list of contributors, was a strange name, not coded like the rest. ‘T1b3r’ It only had two numbers, unlike the others, meaning it had to be using a different cipher. Among the dozen confusing names, it was easy to miss.

Your mind was working overtime and you didn’t answer the kid quite yet as you pulled your chair back to your workstation, fingers dancing away at your desk unit. That didn’t stop Taan from rambling in your silence.

“I ran it through our other keys but it still didn’t make any sense, then I thought, maybe this guy’s using a whole new code we haven’t cracked yet? But in that case, why? Like why sign your contribution and make it harder to recognize your name and-”

“That’s because it’s not encoded at all,” you offered, “or at least, not a complicated code.”

“Huh?”

“You play Alderaan Gambit at all, kid?”

Taan hummed, “You mean that weird, over-complicated version of holochess? No, not really.”

Since your quick search on the net confirmed your suspicions, you leaned back in your chair again, “Well, one of the elements of the game is capturing each other’s pieces and holding them behind your ‘enemy line’ so to speak. The pieces aren’t just removed from play, they stay on the board and there are all kinds of strategies players can use to win the game with them. You know what those captured pieces are called?”

He shook his head.

“Tibers.”

Taan’s eyes went wide, “T1b3r!” he snatched his datapad back from your hands, “So… you don’t think that…?”

You hesitated, pulling your lip between your teeth, “That one of our own is being used behind enemy lines? Yeah…maybe.”

A fist slammed against your desk, nearly hitting your keyboard, and a growl pushed its way through your teeth. It was late, much later than you usually stayed, and well past your shift. You had told Taan to go home hours ago, insisting that you could wait for the response alone. 

After your litter discovery, you sent it up the chain of command and leveraged your reputation to get the report marked as a priority. You knew there was a chance that, even if they did look it over today, that they may not see what the two of you saw.

The response to your report was clear: there wasn’t enough evidence to warrant further investigation.

If you weren’t running on so little sleep and half blind from staring at the screen of your desk unit for 12 hours, you might have been able to see their point. It was, admittedly, a weak connection. There were countless languages and cultures in the galaxy, so even if the code name was meant to spell out ‘Tiber’ there was little reason to think it was in reference to a strategy game and not just a birth-given name.

But still, something just didn’t sit right with you. Something was off, you could feel it in your gut, and after years of trusting your gut to stay alive, you weren’t in the habit of ignoring it.

You rubbed the corners of your tired eyes, hoping to alleviate the pressure growing there. The supervisors weren’t any help to you now, but you weren’t ready to let this go just yet. You just had to think- think of who you could go to for another opinion!

After a moment, your head jerked back up, eyes still stinging as they met your holoscreen again. A quick search in the GAR records would give you your answer, they kept close track of what battalion was where at any given moment. It was serendipitous, or maybe it was fate telling you that you were right to push this further, either way, you practically lept from your chair when you saw that the 501st were currently on Coruscant.

Even if you could let this go until tomorrow (which you couldn’t), you had to go to them tonight, they were shipping out for Ringo Vinda in the morning to aid General’s Tiplee and Tiplar.

You were already clocking out with the Corrie guards on duty before you realized you weren’t even sure who to contact or how. A part of you felt like you knew the men of the 501st, especially Torrent company. 

The number of times Echo had talked about them, all the pictures he sent, the videos he recorded of their antics, they felt like old friends. Echo had wanted you to meet them all, mentioned all the time of plans for you to join his brothers on shore leave the next time they came home. A chance you two never got.

There was a sudden shake of your head as if that could brush the spiraling thoughts away. You had to focus, this wasn’t about your lost chances.

You thought about asking Mavis for Fives’ comm code, but that felt a little trange. So, instead, you checked the time and, when you realized drinking hours were just starting, you headed for your speeder bike.

You hadn’t been back to 79’s since the night you met Echo. When you two were together, it was simply because there were other bars you and your friends preferred more and now that he was gone, no one even dared mention the name of the place.

It wasn’t nearly as hard to walk in as you thought it would be. Though, that was mostly due to the fact that you were avoiding looking at any of the patrons in armor for too long. That wouldn’t last forever, of course, the whole reason you were here was to talk to someone who had the same face as him.

There wasn’t much wandering needed before you spotted a group in blue, downing shots and making a general ruckus at the bar. You recognized the large tattoo on one of them and actually smiled to yourself. A picture came to the surface of your mind, one with three of Echo’s brothers standing in a smoke-filled kitchen. The corner of Echo’s laughing face had been beside the caption: ‘They were betting on who the better cook was. They all lost’.

Again you had to tamp down the feelings welling up inside and once you had, you marched to the bar. You tapped on the armored shoulder, just before he grabbed another shot.

When he looked over his shoulder at you, you said, “Are you Jesse?”

He arched an eyebrow, then turned to face you fully, eyes scanning up and down, “Hey, you aren’t a clone.”

“Observant one, aren’t you?”

That made him smirk, “Just not used to seeing natborns in those uniforms- but yeah, I’m Jesse, what’s your name, hot lips?”

You opened your mouth, but it wasn’t your voice that called your name, instead, a hand gripped your shoulder and you turned to see Fives with concern written on his face. The moment you saw him, something that wasn’t there when you looked at Jesse gripped your heart, but like the other emotions, you swallowed it.

“Fives, is your captain here? I need to speak with Rex.”

His eyes narrowed, “Rex? Why?”

You hesitated, and the moment you did, Fives handed his drink off to someone else and guided you away from the heart of the ruckus (leaving Jesse ignored and a little bewildered).

“I just need to talk to him. Something was brought to my attention at work today and I think he might be able to help me.”

Again, Fives just stared at you, but when you only answered him with a hard stare, he sighed. “Rex is having a drink with Commander Bly,” he jabbed his thumb towards a two-seat table near the corner. Before you could shove past him, however, his grip on your arm tightened a bit. “Hey- just hold on a sec, will you? Can I at least ask how you’re doing?”

You didn’t miss the way he tried to duck into your vision, to lock his gaze with the eyes that were avoiding him. It wasn’t his fault, the emotion welling up inside, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. Fives was just too wrapped up in everything that reminded you of him.

But, he still deserved an answer.

“I’m…better. Things aren’t perfect, but,” with a calming breath, you looked up as close to his eyes as possible, focusing on all the little details of his face that distinguished him from Echo. “But they’re better.”

You knew he was staring at you still, maybe searching your face, maybe looking for signs of a lie or cover-up. After a moment, though, he sighed and straightened up. “Alright. Hey, before you leave, tell me, I’ll walk you home, okay?”

A smile flickered across your lips, Fives really was sweet, despite his playboy bravado. After giving his arm a gentle squeeze, you moved past him toward where Rex and his friend sat. As if by fate, the other man, Bly, got up before you closed in, heading for the bar for another round.

Rex’s gaze flicked up from his empty glass when he caught your movement in the corner of his eye.

“Captain Rex?”

“Yes, may I help you?” he asked, looking you over.

You held your hand out, and when you gave your name, his eyes widened. So, he did know of you. That made sense, Echo once said that he ‘bragged’ about you every chance he got, even to his captain. Before Rex could say anything, however, you got to business, “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, Captain, but I need your help with something, do you have a moment?”

Rex didn’t hesitate, after casting a eyes to the bar and sharing a look with someone, presumably his friend, he waved for you to take a seat.

“Did you receive the report on the Techno Union’s new battle algorithm?” you asked once settled in the seat. He nodded, and so, you explained your situation, your theory, and what brought you to it, and how the higher-ups didn’t think it important enough to investigate. 

When you finished, Rex continued to stare at you for a moment, then, “Alright, so why have you come to me?”

“Because I-” you paused, mind faltering. You had a reason, of course you did, but how to put it? Your eyes dropped to the table for a moment, you thought, then darted your gaze back up to his with a sign, “Maybe I just want to know if I’m wasting my time. Captain, do you think a trooper would send a message like that? Or am I drawing conclusions where there aren’t any?”

For a moment, all Rex did was stare back at you, maybe mulling over his answer, maybe considering you, personally. Maybe both. “I mean, it’s possible. Anything is, I suppose. It would have to be a clone with advanced training, like a commando, or an ARC, and of course, to even know the reference to a tiber piece, they’d have to be familiar with Alderaan Gambit in the first-”

Rex cut himself off, mouth clapping shut and eyes going wide again.

That’s when it hit you too.

“Echo,” you breathed, mind connecting this line and that rapidly. “Why didn’t I think of it before?” Something warm flickered in your chest, something small but blooming as you thought over the possibility of your beloved. 

Hope. It was a spark of hope. 

Your rambling continued as the blanks filled themselves in, “Echo used to talk about how he played Alderaan Gambit with- with you, Rex! How you used to come up with battle strategies together while playing. If he was captured, maybe they realized his strategic skills, and now-!”

The spark was fanning itself by this point.

“Now he’s trapped, somehow forced to help their own battle strategies. But he’s too smart to let them get away with it.”

“Stop.”

“And not to mention his ARC training would include advanced splicing, which he’d need to hack into their reports to alter them. He would have all the skills to send us a message. And he would-”

“Stop!”

The sharp firmness of Rex’s tone caught you off guard, words fumbling in your mouth as your mind came to a screeching halt. When your eyes snapped up to his, a hard expression that had taken over his features. It softened a little, but his gaze said it all and you felt oddly chastised under it. 

Echo is gone. Echo is dead.

That spark in your chest dimmed.

Then, Rex sighed and placed a hand on your shoulder. “You can’t do that to yourself, little one. Believe me.” He paused for a moment, perhaps thinking, maybe collecting himself. “You can’t… hold on to the dead. It will tear you up inside more than anything. More than the loss, more than the grief, even the memories. Holding on will hurt you most in the end.” 

The hand tightened a little, almost affectionate, almost… paternal. His eyes were soft and full of years of hard-earned experience. Years of his own grief, of his own loss.

“Echo wouldn’t want that for you. He would want you to let him go, so you can heal.” Rex let his hand fall, gaze fixed on his drink again and you found that you were swallowing a sour taste in your throat. “We all have to move on. It’s the only way we can survive.”

The lining of sorrow in his words was the water that doused the remainder of that spark. Hope melted away like snow on skin and it stung just the same.

Again you found yourself choking on something in your throat; the bitterness of rising tears.

The way Rex kept his eyes unfocused on his hands said all that needed to be said, so you stood rather abruptly. “I’m sorry for taking up your time, Captain. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

You thought he might have tilted his head back up to you as you turned to leave, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. Besides that, he didn’t say or do anything as you walked away. There was a ringing in your ears as you went, and suddenly, wading through the crowd of patrons made your skin feel like it was on fire.

Everything was too loud now, the music pressing in on your ears, the lights burning your eyes. You felt dizzy as something else stung your eyes, that sour taste thickening in your throat as you burst through the doors. The stale city air did little to calm you, and you found yourself staggering to the side, trying to find any sort of privacy as your chest clawed itself with pain.

You had just ducked behind a row of speeder bikes when the tears broke free, a sob ripping your throat apart from the effort of holding it in. The sound bounced off the side of the building and echoed down the alley, just as the tears soaked into the permacrete without a care. 

The grief that had gotten better rolled over you like a tidal wave. Once again it pulled you under as if you hadn’t made any progress at all.

How could you be so stupid? How could you think that he was alive, that he had defied all odds and sent you some secret message? This wasn’t some romance novel, love and hope couldn’t change reality. Death didn’t just reverse because you begged it to. Stupid stupid stupid-

Once again your mind stalled as arms, warm and gentle, closed around you. Someone guided you to sit, calling your name so softly you almost couldn’t hear it over your own ragging thoughts. A hand tucked you close to an armored chest as they started a slow rocking motion with your bodies.

Stunned, you looked up past the armor and through the tears to find the kindest brown eyes you had seen since your last call with Echo.

“It’s alright, vod’ika,” he whispered, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Fives tucked your head under his chin, still rocking you as he rubbed your back and repeated his assurances.

The waves came again with a vengeance and this time, you let it happen. You curled into his embrace and wept, tears and sobs coming without restraint. It didn’t matter how long you two sat there like that, Fives held you the entire time. It didn’t matter that he was shipping out in the morning, he spent his night comforting you through every moment of the reopening wounds.

Hope was a dangerous thing. It hadn’t been a spark inside you, it had been a fire. 

And you know what they say about fire.

Tag List: @blueink-bluesoul @anxiouspineapple99 @starrylothcat @sinfulsalutations @commander-sunshine @dystopicjumpsuit @wolffegirlsunite @sunshinesdaydream @arcsimper5 @littlemissmanga @wings-and-beskar @clonemedickix

[nonaonann]

Another tidbit from my original musings I've kept:

...Death was something that was everything and nothing.

Tim had watched the tragedy of the Flying Graysons, the death of another’s parents, when he wasn’t even three years old, right in front of his eyes. It shook him like nothing else ever could, even years later.

But Dick Grayson, only six years older, grieved, then he went on to create Robin, to pave a path so many would attempt to follow—would preach—would idolize, and then he did more. He was a force of nature gravity fell flat to when compared.

He was Robin. He was Nightwing.

He was the epitome of what it meant to be a hero in the eyes of many.

His death was one the only ones Tim could almost wrap his head around.

Dick was one of the first stars in the sky, and he was one of the biggest: a blue giant. Stars like that, the ones that burn and burn so hot it seems impossible to near something so impressive, the ones that shined so brightly you were blinded, they don’t just keep burning and burning and shining and shining. They collapse before you know it. They go supernova.

Dick’s death, his true death, because this wasn’t the same as Spyral, was felt in ripples so strong you’d think the whole world was sinking, having lost its Atlas.

The caped community was in shambles: violence and infighting becoming less restrained, avoidable injuries obtained in a plethora, more and more heroes being benched, taking breaks, going into retirement. The fans of the Flying Graysons that still existed, they watched it come full circle: the end of the trapeze greats, a legacy left for an eight-year-old child, a cycle repeated.

Every Titans Tower was surrounded by gifts, people coming from out of state to reach the nearest one just to put a thing of thanks and mourning against where they thought it could reach the one it was meant for. There were photos of it on every platform, and soon, Tim was carrying his camera everywhere he went again, like he was nine years old instead of twenty-four, trying to hold onto the love for his brother who couldn’t even see it.

Bludhaven is where he took the most pictures.

He thinks Dick would be happy about that.

The people of Bludhaven, they grieved their guardian angel—their hero—throwing hundreds of blue hydrangeas (Steph had said they meant gratitude and apology) off the pier or bundled around the fountain at the center of the city. And even then that wasn’t enough. They were placed at every corner, around street signs, in store fronts, on tables, graffitied on walls even.

There were people sharing stories of the times Nightwing—of the times Dick Grayson—saved them, and Tim took their pictures too, wanting proof his brother was loved.

And Gotham. Gotham wailed for their son, their prince, their first bird, and for a single day, a complete 24 hours, not a single crime was committed.

It was a miracle only two men could accomplish, because to the people they save, Dick and Nightwing were still two different stars, two different sons. Two deaths, announced on the same day, hours apart despite the protocol for otherwise.

Tim thinks Jason felt bitter about that, angry to an extent, for a moment at least, maybe because when he died all those years ago, it wasn’t the same, but Tim didn’t watch Jason like he watched Dick, and soon, his focus shifted.

Tidbit from my dead Dick Grayson AU I set aside. I started over a few times cuz I couldn't get the flow and idea quite right, but this is one of my favorite attempts (that I might revisit).

Tim doesn’t remember the last thing he said to his brother.

It must have been something mundane for that to be the case, or something normal enough not to be seared into his brain, meaning it could have been an, “I love you,” or a, “love you too,” but that means the opposite could be the case as well. Maybe it’s his guilt that tells him it wasn’t a variation of those three simple words, but Tim can’t remember, not really.

The fact that his near perfect memory is failing him should probably eat him up more. It should feel like his stomach acid finally beat that wall of protective mucus, burning his organs to sludge until his skin bursts, revealing just how awful of a man Timothy Drake-Wayne is for not remembering if he told his brother he loves him or not, but it doesn’t feel like that, not in the way it should.

Tim misses his big brother in a way that’s suffocating if he stews and thinks, but it’s also something he’s compartmentalized. The box he places the epitaph in is dressed up in reasoning and logic. (The box is wood, made of black chestnut. It’s adorned in a navy suit, paired with a Nightwing blue tie.)

He realistically knows his big brother was just a man; that death doesn’t listen to the pleas of brothers and sisters, or its victims, and it doesn’t always allow for resurrections.

But, Dick Grayson was a force of nature gravity fell flat to when compared. For him to be dead, it doesn’t really make sense. Tim doesn’t know why, but he expected Dick to be the last of them to stay in the game, or at least for the longest, aged 60 with silver hair and still doing joint deteriorating flips. Maybe it’s because Dick is Nightwing in a way that’s different from Tim being Cardinal, from a way that’s different from Bruce being Batman; this has always been his life.

[peeterparkr]

jaundiced & surreptitious; Anthony Bridgerton

sham, pride and illicit affairs | fic masterlist

read part one here read part two here read part three here read part four here

summary: you once loved each other, your hand belongs to him but it’s promised to another. 

jaundiced: affected by bitterness, resentment, or envy. surreptitious:  kept secret, especially because it would not be approved of.

word count: 8.3k (sorry I like writing)

pairing: anthony bridgerton x reader

warnings: anthony is an idiot, this is really idiots who are lovers, like genuinely they’re so stupid. poor benedict has to deal with him. 

wanna be tagged?

read part one here  read part two here   read part three here

next part.

Okaaaay so thank you so much for your support! I can’t believe you guys liked it as much as I did! Especial thanks to @steve-harringtonnn​ and @erodasghosts for helping me out with this chapter!!! 

Anthony would often disregard the pain he’d felt before. He would never say it out loud but he had lost faith after his heart had been broken. The sun had never been as warm. Grieving was one of his favorite activities to live by, silently, to himself. The bloody-minded Anthony would die before ever admitting that his feelings had been impaired.

He was obstinate, he was well aware of that. And he was scared, and he wondered where he’d gathered the courage to walk through the crowds to her two nights before, as if it hadn’t pained him. Perchance his pride had led him there, or maybe his broken heart looking to be healed did. The wandering thoughts that would cease every so often. 

Anthony loved to mourn, or make sure people think he was mourning. He often tried to be the smartest person in the room, he always failed. But he tried, and he counted himself on it. 

He was flawed, he knew that. But he would try his best, so he’d pride himself on.  However he could not forgive himself for being flawed enough to be rejected by Y/N. 

Her eyes were carved in his mind, and he’d be reminded of her every morning when the sun dared to warm his skin, and with every flower petal that he saw her eyes would find their way back to his most wounded intellect, her eyes were her biggest sin, though he could be blamed for other blunders, he thought her sight was the biggest offense, for her eyes could see through any of his lies and hypnotize him enough to lose his reason, or the lack of it. How inconvenient he found that every beautiful morning belonged to her, and it would only hurt his heart. How inconvenient was it that her entire soul mesmerized him. 

It was hard not to see her as a villain, however, maybe that’s why he tried avoiding the music, dancing was but another warning, triggering him of the night he’d seen the dress flying as she vacated the ballroom. And every time he found himself in the middle of a ballroom, he felt agony and despair. Anthony had always feared death, but he realized that he had already died once, when she’d left the ballroom. Being away from her had killed Anthony, and to be dead while still having to survive could be one of the most dreadful and painful things to endure. Anthony was now sure he’d died on that night, and he was sure that whatever death might feel like it wouldn’t be as painful as to be away from her. He thought his pain would be forever, that eternal sorrow. 

His hand had felt cold since she’d left. Though, one could argue that his hand had been warm since the night before, as if he’d finally come back to life. The act, as most immoral as it was, had been the closest he’d been to a heavenly discovery of love and life. A very magnificent distraction. 

There was light again. 

He would deny it, but the darkness was the time he felt the loneliest, hence why he had searched for Sienna’s love, an escape from the life he would’ve loved with y/n. He was so desperate to be covered on something else, to erase y/n from his body that he’d try to find the closest thing to love on someone. 

Worst thing had been he did find it, in a very unconventional way. 

He would rather be a rake to the world than to ever admit that he had been broken-hearted. A man shall never seem weak to the world, though he was broken. Hushed to the night. 

Yet, now he wanted to scream to the world that he was loved by the woman he loved. An iridescent glow coming from his chest, as he rode back home. 

He had chosen the prettiest of the flowers, though they were very little to recommend and they’d look pathetic and sad beside the beautiful woman. 

Anthony never liked being seen as a fool, yet he should not mind looking like one with her. Why would he be ashamed to say he’d fallen for such a remarkable lady. 

Gardenias and peonies. He knew she’d love them. Not roses this time, he found the roses to be very contrasting to the delicate gardenias. 

He couldn’t hide his eagerness as he’d arrived at his former household. Though he had not slept, he couldn’t have more energy. He hopped to the drawing room, in expectation to see the possible suitors that would come for Eloise, though she was not eager for them, and was rather trying to avoid any significant encounter. 

Anthony couldn’t hide the beam, as he tried the sweets that his mama had displayed. 

Eloise was plopped on the couch beside Benedict, as Violet tried to beg her to sit with grace and poise. Eloise had the latest copy of Lady Whistledown as Benedict tried to peek and read. 

“Stop reading that nonsense,” Anthony said. “Such a lovely morning, is it not?” 

Benedict scrunched his nose at his brother, mostly confused. Anthony stole one of the desserts Benedict had on his plate earning a groan from him. 

Lady Violet watched her son, “I would like to address your behavior last night.” 

The younger siblings smirked, knowing well that though their brother was an adult, he would often yet be scolded by their mama. 

Benedict chuckled, “How come, mama, his behavior was rather impeccable.” 

Eloise giggled. Anthony glared at his siblings. 

“To suggest a fake proposal,” Lady Violet said with severity. “Most imposing irrationality. You shall not play with such calamities.” 

“Do not worry, mama, a real proposal shall come soon enough, I shall be more rational in the future, ” Anthony declared. “Just this morning I sent Lady y/n flowers to thank her for her… most stimulating company,”  Anthony coughed. “And as an apology for my behavior.”  

His younger siblings looked up with confusion. 

“Are you going to propose to Lady Y/N?” Asked Eloise. 

Anthony cleared his throat, “I did not… say that.” 

Eloise frowned. “Did you not find her disagreeable? Or why else were you bickering-?” 

“Please, Eloise, that is Anthony’s way of courting, and I’m sure Y/N found it just as stimulating and flattering,” Benedict hissed. 

Eloise cackled, “as if y/n would rejoice in any avow Anthony could make.” 

“How come, brother you seem to be captured again in some possible infatuation when only last night you merely only barked towards the Lady?” Benedict inquired. Anthony tried to avoid his brother’s remarks. 

Of course, he would not tell them how his night had been accomplished, and how the despair had transformed into a very pleasant evening. He shall keep the secret for it was, though most pleasant, very unsuitable and outrageous for the standards of the society. Though Anthony did bear some guilt for the scandal and the impropriety he thought it was most  formidable to try and deny the linkage had been but an ardent reminder of his noble sentiments for the woman. 

“As you mentioned, brother,” Anthony remarked snarkly, “Lady y/n and I share a very perplexing demeanor to show our affection towards each other.” 

“Perplexing? Stupid, you mean,” Benedict mocked. 

“Is there affection?” Lady Violet inquired. 

Anthony huffed, “I guess there is no reason for me to harbor and censure my sentiments anymore,” he admitted. “However I shall not give any other explanation to this subject.” 

Benedict glared, “Why the sudden change? I thought you did not regard y/n so dearly.” 

Anthony paced around the room nervously, he did not want to address his feelings. How stupid would it be to admit he felt alive, and that he was entranced by her. 

“She is a good friend,” Anthony alleged. “Why are you enquiring my sentiments? I would’ve believed you’d be wallowed with my announcement.” 

His mother grinned, “I am.” 

“I am not,” Benedict laughed. “Forgive me, but you can understand my confusion, are you suggesting you are friends now?” 

“We have been,” Anthony hissed. “In any case, I’ve always been fond of her.” 

“I must signal how your bickering has hindered us from believing there is some kind of attachment,” Eloise pointed out as she watched her eldest brother. 

Anthony rolled his eyes, it had been a point in their bickering, to hide to them and themselves really.  But really, challenging each other was but their way of admiring their wit.  Anthony was stunned, not only with her beauty but with the way she spoke her mind. He was always left wanting more when it came to her, she rarely gave him anything but a headache, and apparently that was something very compelling to earn his heart. Not sure why. 

Benedict laughed, “I think I understand now Eloise, we seem to have forgotten how big of a fool our brother is,  the elusiveness Anthony has shown towards Lady Y/N has been but a lame attempt to tempt Miss Y/N and delude her enough for her to give some attention to our brother. Has it not?” 

“Has it succeeded?” Inquired Eloise. 

The night before was only proof it had. And it had not been elusiveness, he was transfixed on the lady’s wit, he couldn’t keep up with her, that was the reason. He was dotted with her surliness, the way she’d wag his words. Anthony loved being a fool for her, such a capable woman she was. However, it shall be noted he loved being fooled by her intellect and the false peevishness, not by her exclusion.

“What has?” Questioned Colin, as he had walked into the drawing room. Lady Violet was rather annoyed the only men in the room were but her own children and not any possible suitor for Eloise. 

“Anthony’s bickering,” Eloise looked up, as she reached for a box of sweets to nibble by her own. “Apparently his arrogance and stupidity were but to woo Miss Y/N,” explained Eloise. 

Anthony winced,“May we change the subject? I believe it is a matter of more importance—“

Colin laughed, interrupting him. “I believe those attempts have succeeded, were you not here last night? Was Miss Y/N not looking forward to not running away this time? Even after Anthony suggested such a scandalous scheme?” 

Anthony rolled his eyes, “Are you not to go elsewhere?” 

Benedict grinned, “Why? Are you not to share with him your news?” 

“News?” Colin frowned with curiosity. 

“Apparently our brother might attempt to court Miss Y/N,” Benedict mocked. “I believe.” 

Colin faked surprise, “Really? Are we suggesting that Anthony could have any sort of sentiments that aren't self depreciation and remorse?”  

Benedict and Eloise laughed, hardly. Their mother only directed a glare towards them. 

“How amusing,” Anthony barked. “However, if you must know, there is affection towards her and I must try and delight her,” Anthony cleared his throat, Benedict snickered. “And I hope she gives me the honour of accepting my hand.” 

He knew that the bomb he had dropped would be enough to shut his siblings. And it was. 

Lady Violet smiled, ignoring her sons and daughter’s remarks. “Are you really planning on proposing?” 

Anthony tried to hide his excitement, and embarrassment, for the matter, he’d never been keen on showing any kind of excitement for any infatuation. Besides, he didn’t believe it himself, how he would dare to propose. “I am not sure where my compliments might take me, however I am not here to talk about my attention and regards to Lady Y/N, we are here to try and persuade any respectable man to bestow any attention to our lovely sister.” 

“However, you shall make sure your infatuation is reciprocated,” Benedict advised. “Be sure the lady will not leave amidst dancing.” 

“I believe it was Anthony  the person who gave me the advice that eventually my heartbreak from Miss Thompson would disappear, and that it would be as if I had never loved her at all.” 

Anthony glared. 

“Yet he is going after the person who broke his heart, did your own precepts fail you?” Colin asked. 

It  was something that did bother Anthony, and that he did fear, he knew y/n to be the most unexpected and inopportune to make her decisions. She often hesitated and reconsidered her thoughts Y/N was very volatile and her emotions would go from extreme affection to utter rage and while it was something he often appreciated, it was something he feared now. He feared the remainder of his heart would be scattered across the place. Anthony would never say out loud how much he feared ballrooms now. Almost as much as he feared bees, but he wouldn’t ever admit it. He knew he was but a fool to fall for y/n, eerie and untamable. He didn’t regret it, however. 

Anthony coughed, “I could’ve never erased my feelings for her.” 

Eloise glared at him and then finally turned to her copy of Lady Whistledown. Anthony rolled his eyes, it was no secret he didn’t like reading Lady Whistledown. He would try and not feed her with anything. He was definitely not a vivid reader. He found her rather vapid, if he were honest. He was never a fan of gossip and avoided it, most of the time. However, since Lady Y/N’s arrival, he could not help but read whatever Lady Whistledown could say of her, just to feed his dislike against her. She spoke of y/n in a way that was most repulsive. Derision seemed to be the only language the woman spoke. 

He did not like the way the pesky Lady Whistledown spoke of y/n, or her history with him, if he was to be honest. Anthony resented that she’d written about his own pride and his heartbreak when there was barely any information he understood himself about it. It was for them to know. 

However, he was rather relieved that Lady Whistledown did not know of the… affairs he’d held with Lady Y/N. Though now guilt was killing him, he did not regret it. He felt alive whenever he was with her, and he didn’t feel alive often.

After the heartbreak, he had decided to lock his heart and never use it again. Though Sienna had managed to almost get it back, his heart had not felt the warmest but until the night before. 

 And though he had promised to never use his heart again, there he was again, with a foolish smile. 

“She is talking about you again,” Eloise pointed out. “And Lady Y/N-” 

Anthony chuckled, “Expected,” he commented. “Now, dear sister, there is no soul here and I must say this is not my fault,” he cleared out. “I have not jostled any suitors from you, I know better.” 

Benedict scoffed, “She jostles them herself, no need for us to.” 

Violet took a deep breath. Anthony smirked as he picked up a cup of tea. 

Eloise turned cold as she finished reading. “She is to be married-” 

“Who is?” Violet grinned. “You? Most certainly-”

“No, mama,” Eloise commented, and then watched Anthony. “Y/N’s hand is promised to Lord Collins.” 

The cup of tea shattered on the floor, though the Bridgertons were not sure if the shattering porcelain had been what they’d heard breaking. Anthony’s face had gone stiff and pale. 

“I beg your pardon?” Was all he managed to ask. 

“It says it here,” Eloise explained. 

Violet snatched the paper from her daughter, “Is she toying with the lack of heart Anthony Bridgerton holds and is she trying to fool everyone just to appeal more to Lord Collins, who according to the ton has her hand promised already?” Read out loud. 

“Did you know about this, mama?” Questioned Collin. 

“I certainly did not,” Violet assured her son, and turned to the eldest who was going through a very familiar feeling. He did not say a thing, he only clenched his jaw and widened his eyes. 

There he was again, transported back to the night when the moon had not made an appearance, and when the poison had flourished from the floor to apprehend him down to his sorrow. He felt as he had been pushed off yet again down a precipice. 

Benedict and Colin only watched him, expecting the very worst. Instead, Anthony only took a deep breath. Anthony despised having his heart broken, and instead decided to be angry, for its a manlier sentiment. He stormed off the room anyway, quietly. 

“Am I supposed to follow after?” Questioned Benedict, and then proceeded to, seeing as his brother rushed down the stairs and off the household. “Anthony!” He broodingly called. 

Anthony pushed his way through, not noticing there were gentlemen going up to see his sister, he was rather too angry to even add more jealousy to his displeasure. 

“Anthony,” Benedict called again. 

Anthony ignored. 

Benedict ran this time to stop his brother, stopping the fuming man as he glared at him. “What?” 

“I believe I should stop you before you do anything stupid, which judging by your look, you’re on your way to do so,” Benedict barked not letting Anthony through. 

Anthony gave him a warning glare, “Let me through.” 

“You’re being an idiot,” Benedict said. 

“You don’t even know what I’m going to do,” Anthony said 

“And that is why I must stop you,” Benedict said. “If I don’t know you any better you’re on your way to kill Lord Collins.” 

Anthony scoffed, he had not thought of that idea but now he found it rather exhorting. “I am on my way to speak to the Lady,” he tried walking through but Benedict stopped him once again. 

“Shall I know what’s going on through your head? Last night you both were  opposed to even being on the same room and then this morning you come with the idea of proposing, I do not even know what is-” 

“I love her,” Anthony snapped. “That is what is going on through my head.” 

“How did you even change your mind-” Benedict paused and then watched his brother. “Did you go and see her?” He asked in a faint whisper. 

Anthony coughed and looked elsewhere, “I did not, I just realized my childish act was but an antic to evade my actual feelings for her.” 

Benedict did not buy it. “Do you really expect me to believe that?” 

“I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t,” Anthony glowered. 

“You really don’t?” Benedict bristled. “What amuses me is that you try to justify your childish acts and stupidity with love when we are both aware those are but a matter of your personality.” 

“How amusing,” Anthony scowled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” 

Benedict grabbed him by his arm, “I shall think you know better than to go and throw a tantrum to Miss Y/N. I know you’re capable of fucking up, but this goes beyond your usual behavior.” 

Anthony opened his mouth to defend himself but knew he couldn’t actually contradict him. “I do not plan on throwing a tantrum, I will only recover the flowers I sent her this morning, I find it improper to try and court an engaged lady.” 

“So you will not fight for her, then?” Benedict queried, astonied. 

Anthony did not know if he could. “Shall you suggest I do?” 

Benedict coughed, “I would think it would be reasonable but… In a civil way, not in an Anthony way.” 

“An Anthony way?” He questioned. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Since her arrival your stupidity has escalated in immeasurable ways, I certainly am very impressed because I did not believe that to be possible and yet you are here,” Benedict cackled. 

Anthony glared. 

“Look,” Benedict sighed. “We could give this more thoughts, and see the best way we can proceed with this, however, today we shall get our lovely sister to the park, she needs to be seen,” he reminded him. “You can be stupid later.” 

He would, Anthony knew. He was the most illogical human being when it came to Lady Y/N, and he did not know how to proceed. He was lying, he actually had planned on throwing a tantrum to her, for he was not yet to be fooled again and let there standing like a complete idiot. 

And a complete idiot you were too, you were the one in need to throw a tantrum, for you did not want to meet Lord Collins and you certainly did not want to be betrothed to him. You were well aware that he was a fair gentleman, and you knew he was one of the most eligible bachelors the ravenous mamas were hunting for, but you did not want anything to do with him. 

You thought of it, the possibility to ruin your reputation, it could be a way to untangle yourself from said arrangement. What if you admitted that you were corrupted? How big of a scandal would it be? 

No, you would not dare to bring Anthony down. Not now that he was being so soft to you, and that was not Anthony in the slightest. Though it did surprise you he had not yet stormed into the room like the complete idiot he was. 

Had he… read it? 

You knew Anthony better, he probably did not follow the gossip, and if you were lucky he’d think that Lady Whistledown was but inventing things. She was not but if he used any kind of reasonable sense he would know better. But this was Anthony and he used anything but his mind to think, and he would not be reasonable. He never was before and you doubted he’d be now. 

“I cannot marry him,” you said to Lady Danbury, who had been watching you pace around the drawing room for a while now. The flowers Anthony had sent were displayed in the middle of the room. 

You were not sure but you could tell Lady Danbury suspected something, she’d always been observant but the woman’s stare was telling, she could easily see past your sweating hands. 

“I’m afraid I’m not the one to make that decision,” Lady Danbury commented. 

“Shall I write a letter to my father to beg him to not offer my hand?” You asked. “Don’t I have any saying on it? It’s my hand.” 

“I would think you’d need to have another proposal,” The woman explained to you. “However, I am not sure if there will be any more.” 

“There might be,” you mumbled, and continued to rush through the room, as if moving faster would get your thoughts fast, too.  “Can I reject his hand?” You questioned. 

“He will grant you security,” Lady Danbury watched you, “He is a respectable man.” 

“I am well aware he is.” 

But I do not… love him, you thought. 

Yes, the man was respectable, and a very handsome one, but rather cliched. Eager, but the man was rather thoughtless. You knew his conversation was boring, only compliments and questions about the weather, he was very boring. Always agreeing, and what fun was it in someone always agreeing with you. And he liked to talk about the moon and made it seem like the most horrendous and tedious thing to ever be seen, he liked to talk about anything, but not any kind of pleasant conversation. Very tiresome if you must admit, full of banalities. 

Probably you’d have a very insipid life if you were to marry such a bland and hacky man. One that most ladies would want, however. 

Anthony, on the other hand, the brooding and plucky man, always had you on the edge. He was an adventure for you. He was incredibly handsome. Or maybe he wasn’t and it was just your nonsensical sentiments for him blinding you. 

“Lord Collins can offer an idyllic calm life.” 

“I can recognize that,” You admitted, you made your way to the window, a window where you’d talked to Anthony the day before. You took a deep breath, you could see the back house in the garden, a place that you found most intimate now. That was idyllic for you, the taste of his lips, to feel like it’s a June afternoon when it’s a cold December morning only because his smile warned your heart just enough. 

You were sure Lord Collins wouldn’t be able to offer that, and that he would not like to avoid the balls because he loved them, though you despised them. You knew he would not listen to your piano forte, though the melodies you played were very tepid, and telling. 

You knew you’d have to walk through his household, bored every morning and share the most ordinary conversations, leading to a miserable life, only because your hand had been promised to a man who you did not love, but who was adequate. Only because your instability had not been able to accept the proposal of whom your heart held dear. 

You still stared at the cottage where you could see the shadows of your hands. What if you escaped? Forever. Would he escape with you if you dared to ask him? 

“I presume security is the outcome expected from a marriage,” you said. “Love is a bonus, is it not?” 

Lady Danbury yanked her head. “I suppose so.” 

“Is marriage really only but a security arrangement? Or is it merely to satisfy men's lust and appetite.” 

The woman coughed in surprisement, “I would rather not engage on such improper subjects of conversation.” 

“Is it not?” You frowned. “I believe marriage to be only that, to bare children, to relieve men from their sins. Build a legacy.” 

“I believe marriage is also to prospere,” Lady Danbury added. “When a marriage is founded on love then it shall be the most prosperous, not sinful.” 

“Yet here I am, with an offer to a disagreeable partnership,” you barked. “I thought those arrangements to be deemed contemptible.

“Lord Collins is not disagreeable,” Lady Danbury coaxed. 

You sighed, “I guess not, he is a fair man, and most kind,” you admitted. You didn’t want to give in to your fate just yet. Seemed old fashioned, very 18th century. You were assumed to tolerate him, and you knew your father would not choose a beast for a husband for you. However, you did not want to dread this, to be offered tolerance and not love was an atrocious destiny. “I presume he can offer me a calm life.” 

Lady Danbury watched you, “However, Lord Bridgerton might be able to offer such a life, too.” 

You smiled, “He most certainly would not.” 

She raised her eyebrows, “Oh?” 

“No, not calm, Anthony is anything but calm,” you chuckled. “Maybe that is why the life he could offer me would be most enticing.” 

You knew that it would be fun, exciting. And that he would not mind if you woke up early to see the dawn, and he would join you and not expect you to be the most respectable lady, but he’d respect you, if you wanted to be respected that is .  

Lady Danbury only caressed the flower petals and walked to you. You needed to perish the thoughts of love, though. 

 “You’re never one to watch with melancholy,” She pointed out. 

“Oh, I certainly am, gloomy as I can be, and am I expected not to?” You wondered. It was the worst chastise one could have possibly thought for you, to marry a boring man. To marry to tolerate. 

“I guess not,” she admitted. 

You sighed. 

“He is yet to propose,” Lady Dabury remarked with mischief. “I know Lord Collins is respectable enough to want to court you properly.” 

“He wants to court me?” You questioned. 

Lady Danbury smirked. “Yes, though he is aware your hand is promised to him, he is someone who will pursue your love.” 

“My heart belongs to another,” you stated. “He will find it rather impossible to pursue my love.” 

Lady Danbury chuckled, “How impossible?” 

“Only one man has been able to conquer my heart, and his way of doing so was rather eerie and unusual.” 

Lady Danbury smiled. 

“I must ask, do you believe that if I ensure another proposal I might be able to rid myself of such entanglement?” You questioned. “After all, he’s not yet asked for my hand.” 

“Do you think you could ensure it?” 

“Probably already have,” you said. 

“And who may that be?” Lady Danbury asked, not because she did not know but because she wanted you to say it out loud. 

Before you could, a servant announced, “Lord Collins is here.” 

Your heart stopped, your bethrote. And suddenly the perfect morning you had had just hours ago had disappeared. You knew you could not stop the rain from falling but this particular sorrow was not the best way to receive the man who had your hand promised. You would not be able to smile and you would not be able to have any kind of courtesy. 

He walked in, though, the man was clean and proper. Handsome, with flowers. Red roses, freshly cut you could see. You saw one petal fall down as he approached you. How convenient, you thought, for you could find the petal on the floor more interesting. 

It felt cold, and you were unaware why. You’d fancied yourself in love with another man who was not offered your hand. 

“Lady y/n, good morning,” he said. “How radiant you are this morning.” 

You suppressed the urge to roll your eyes, you were never fond of compliments. You also had the urge to run away. You wouldn’t, though it was tempting. He was a respectable gentleman, and respected he should be, no matter the opinions you held of him.  You found him very dull. 

Lady Danbury nudged you lightly, seeing as you had only remained quiet with your eyes wide open and with a wide strained smile. 

“My apologies, I seem to be inattentive this morning,” you answered. “Good Morning, my Lord,” you said. “Thank you for your compliments, and flowers.” 

Lady Danbury watched you with dashing hopes. 

“I was hoping I could tempt you with a promenade on this fine day,” Lord Collins grinned. “I know how fond you are of walking.” 

“How lovely,” you said. 

How dreadful, you thought. You were, though, fond of walking. Gave peace to your mind, and it had helped you those months before, to try and suppress the memory of the eldest Bridgerton. It had most certainly failed you.  

Before you could even think of escaping, you found yourself promenading with Lord Collins, the sunlight was indeed lovely, and there was barely any sign of the storm from the night before. Lady Danbury was following shortly behind. 

Was there any sign of your compromised body? You wondered if they could tell, maybe it was noticeable.

You wondered if Lady Danbury noticed how jaded you were, as you faked to listen to the man talk, and talk, and talk. Whoever told men they were interesting to listen to was clearly deaf or another idiotic man, for who could ever find joy in listening to such banal and brainless individuals. However,  he did not cease his talking. He never listened to you, you’d barely said any words. 

It gave you time to go away to whatever world you could escape to, and you thought about how much Anthony did listen. He did converse with you, and he did listen, mostly, you knew, because he loved to pride himself on being brooding and pensive and quiet. You could say that it was because he was but a fool and not a single thought roamed his mind, but whatever his reasons were, you loved that he would listen, even if it was only to contend and fuss you. 

There was magic in Lord Collins, you had to accept that. The man was so interested in listening to his own thoughts that he did not realize you were not nearly even paying a gram of attention to him. You guessed that if you did end up wedded to this man, the positive outcome was you did not have to try and pretend to be interested, for he would not notice. 

Your mind was trying to find a way to reject him, knowing that Lord Collins was honorable enough to accept your rejection. But how would you reject him? 

Why had it been so easy to reject Anthony, the man you loved, but it came nowhere as easy to reject Lord Collins, a man who you had no sentiment for,  perchance just indifference. And would you even be able to? Your hand was promised, and though you believed Lord Collins to be a fine gentleman, you knew he could show his dark side, every man had one. 

Though you’d met him before, he had claimed to love you. Lord Collins had once said it to you. 

But you didn’t love him, you couldn’t possibly. How could you? After Anthony, no one would ever touch your soul and heart  like he had. Though he was a wrecked mess, he was the man who you decided to hold dear to your heart. 

Perhaps you could admit you were corrupted, and maybe Lord Collins would end the disgraceful engagement that was yet to come. 

Your glance diverted on the park, the trees and the flowers that had bloomed this season, lovely, or so bad Lord Collins pointed out. The other couples trying to court, and their respective chaperones. Vicious mamas in the haunt, some of them sending you the most unwelcoming glares. 

You were walking near the tents, you  saw the Featheringtons’, with their bright colored clothing, you wondered how they could be so deficient in their clothing taste. You did not know what had happened to them, a man was standing nearby and you knew barely anything about their story after Lord Featherington passed. Penelope was your favorite of the Featheringtons, you often believed her to not belong in such a pitiful family. You acquainted them from before, knowing that Prudcence and Philippa often showed their slight infatuation with Anthony. You never blamed them but thought of it rather foolishly.  Though at some point you did find it annoying, how dare them fancy the same man you did, though you were thankful that Anthony saw them as piteous as you did. You wondered if they had continued to try and impress them with their dubious talents, you had nothing against them, honestly, before you’d learned their infatuation you liked them just fine, however after learning they fancied him, you were not as courteous with your regards. 

It was no secret you were a jealous person, but Anthony was, too so it balanced. You always were thankful that Anthony despised dancing, as much as you did. You barely could deny any invitation to dance but at least he did not dance with anyone else. 

You kept your way, and then another tent was seen, the Bridgertons. Displaying the family in their splendour, as they were sitting , with Eloise quite unamused. You knew she’d rather be dead than to face any possible forms of courting. 

Your breath failed you, as the dress felt rather tense. You did not want to see the Bridgertons and you knew Eloise had most definitely already read Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers. She would know, and besides, the man was by your own side. 

Lord Collins, still absorbed in his own conversation, pranced beside you. You tried not to see the family, knowing that they’d end up feeling your stare and Anthony would see you. 

Did he know? 

But your glance could not be stopped, as you then glanced again, and it had been as if it was planned, for his sight was locked with yours. His eyes widened as he watched you. With terror. 

In all honesty, all you wanted to do was to drop and shove Lord Collins out of the way and run to the man who’d compromised you, body and soul, but who you loved nonetheless. 

But he was glaring at you. Or at Lord Collins, or at both. 

You saw him quickly rise to his feet, for he had been plopped on a stool. He didn’t do anything but to stare at you, as if with merely staring he’d be able to get the man away from you. His eyes tried to work as daggers, and they often did, his glance though most adoring to you, was now nothing but frightening. 

You knew Anthony well enough to know he was tormenting with jealousy, and if you knew him well enough, you could tell he was idiotic enough to believe that Lord Collin’s sentiments were reciprocated. 

Anthony was fuming, though you were not sure if it was jealousy, or if he believed to be fooled again. You wished it was only jealousy. 

He was about to walk your way, but you saw Benedict rise to stop him, he failed. 

Anthony was making his way to you even when his family had tried to call for him. He ignored them, he was good at doing that. 

Lord Collins wasn’t even aware of how you had lost your breath and how you had held some type of staring contest with the oldest Bridgerton, whose hands were in fists as he decided to go on a different route instead, Benedict on his heels. You watched him approach the Featheringtons, you saw eagerness in Lady Featherington as she ushered Philippa to join Anthony. 

You scowled, what in the world was the man doing? You believed him to be stupid, but stupid enough to make a Featherington join him in his promenade was rather a most idiotic decision. 

Your eyes were glued to him, unbeknownst to Lord Collins, as Philippa was rather ungraceful as she walked along Anthony. Benedict was also joined by the other sister, Prudence, who also seemed to be happy to be joined by a Bridgerton. You could listen to their absurd giggles from afar. 

Did Lord Bridgerton think the Featheringtons would bring you jealousy? If anything the animosity was for the thought alone that he would think it would bother you. 

But Anthony was walking fast, and poor Philippa could barely keep up with him, you chuckled to yourself, it was amusing to think the poor girl believed she was actually being courted and rather not used as a jealousy device. 

“Collins,” Anthony called as he was close enough, Philippa watched you. “Lady Y/N, how delightful to see you both here.” 

Benedict threw an apologetic stare at you, before yanking his brother’s arm. Prudence gushed after. 

“Lord Bridgerton,” Collins gave him an unfeigned smile, as he was finally restored from his conversation. “Such a fortunate coincidence, ladies, how beautiful you look this morning.” 

You wondered how big of a coincidence it was. 

“Anthony,” you quickly said but then cleared your throat, “My apologies, Lord Bridgerton, how delightful to encounter you,” you said. “Philippa, Prudence,” you smiled at them as they tried to not glare at you. “Lord Bridgerton,” you saw Benedict struggling to keep a calm facade. 

“Forgive me, I shall defer my raptures for another occasion,” Benedict said. “I’m afraid we are promenading with these ladies,,” he tried pulling Anthony back but the man did not move. 

“I am sure you can keep promenading just fine, Benedict,” Anthony warned. “It won’t hurt us to engage in some conversation.” 

“Who would’ve thought we would concur here?” Lady Danbury said from behind as she approached you. “Lords Bridgerton, ladies.” 

“Lady Danbury, may I say you look astonishing,” Anthony said and then directed his glance at you. 

Lady Danbury watched him with suspicion. “I’m flattered,” she said. “I’m pleased to see you gentlemen opportuning this lovely day to parade with these ladies.” 

Philippa grinned, as she kept watching Lord Bridgerton’s face, as if his face had some kind of magnet she had to be glued to. 

You thought of it pathetic, from Anthony of course, as you could see his obvious chagrin. You knew that he was not fond of them, because they were always trying to raise their… talents, if one must call it that way, to find a proper husband. They often failed. 

“It is a lovely day,” Anthony agreed. “Seems to be the proper weather after having to engage on such a turbulent night, the storm was unpleasant.” 

“Was it, my Lord?” You quickly enquired. “I would have believed you were very fond of the rain, and… turbulent storms.” 

Anthony glanced at you, he was disappointed but he knew you did not talk about the rain.  “You are mistaken,” he said severely. “I do not like to fret on the rain when I am not well aware if it will cease. I find uncertainty disturbing.” 

“I believe the rain to be rather bitter,” Philippa intruded. 

You did not even look at her, “I do not,” you said. “I believe we can find beauty in the rain for most dreary that it can be, especially when it offers such a sight.” 

Lord Collins grinned, “I agree with Miss Y/N, the rain is rather soothing.” 

Anthony scoffed, “Of course it is soothing, when you’re aware the sun will eventually dawn.” 

This was not about the rain. But neither the Featheringtons or Lord Collins was aware of that. 

“I believe the rain to be essential,” Lady Danbury interrupted. “We shall enjoy the beauty of it when it starts and when it dares to cease,” she spoke starkly. “However, Lord Bridgerton, I must praise you for the flowers you sent this morning, they were lovely, were they not, Miss Y/N?” 

Lord Collins blinked in surprise. “Flowers?” 

Philippa scowled at you. 

“Lovely, indeed, thank you, Lord Bridgerton for the most exquisite flowers,” you said. 

Anthony ignored your sight. 

“Flowers?” Lord Collins asked again. 

“Yes, I sent Miss Y/N some flowers to thank her for her company last night,” Anthony said with  arrogance, you blushed immediately knowing exactly for what company he was thanking you for. “She joined my family and I for a lovely dinner. Besides I find the lady to be deserving of the most magnificent flowers.” 

Benedict frowned watching between Anthony and you. 

Philippa cleared her throat, “I love flowers,” she commented. 

“How considerate,” Lord Collins said, you could tell he was not fond of Anthony. He was probably aware of Anthony’s proposal, or attempt to propose, and it was no secret that in your past season, Anthony would not leave your side. 

“Yes, her favorite,” Anthony continued, ignoring the lady beside him. 

“Roses?” Lord Collins questioned. 

“I like roses,” Philippa commented. 

“Gardenias,” Anthony snarked with a smirk. “She’s fond of gardenias, are you not, Miss?” 

“I find all flowers delightful, however I do have an attachment for gardenias,” you admitted. “Thank you, Lord Bridgerton for remembering.” 

He wanted to scoff, he cleared his throat instead. “My pleasure,” he said. “ I must admit the true reason for me to approach you,” Anthony slurred his words with poison. “I recently became acquainted with the news, so I am here to congratulate the two of you, I heard about your engagement.” 

He knew, then. 

Benedict squeezed his eyes shut, he seemed tired of his brother. 

You blinked with fake surprise, “Engagement? Oh, we are but promenading, I was not aware walking led to a betrothal. Shall I assume you and lovely Philippa are to be married as well?” You asked with a smug smirk, knowing he’d be bothered. 

He was, Anthony glared at you. He knew you were faking ignorance. 

Lord Collins huffed, “You flatter me, Bridgerton, thinking I am already to be married to this beautiful lady, however, I know better than to assume the Lady will marry me without a proper proposal.” 

“I think I’d be aware if I was to be married,” you hissed. 

“Absolutely, you would be aware, how could you not?” Anthony raised his eyebrow.

Benedict watched, “Seems that this is the first time the lady hears of the news.” 

“It happens to be the first time,” you lied. 

“How convenient,” Anthony said with gritted teeth.  “Well, I am not to engage in gossip, however-” 

“Lady Whistledown announced it,” Philippa commented 

“Yes,” Anthony confirmed. “The ton happened to be loud enough for your engagement to be announced on Lady Whistledown’s society papers.” 

“Well, if we were to believe everything she writes then I’d be worried if I were you,” You claimed watching Anthony. “She seems to not be fond of you, my Lord. Are you suggesting we shall believe everything she writes?” 

Anthony clenched his jaw. 

“The Lady’s right,” Lord Collins said. 

Anthony cackled, “Excellent news then,” Anthony said. “I offer my apologies to you, both.” 

Lord Collins watched him with disdain.

“Is your hand not promised, then?” Asked Prudence, finally making an appearance behind Benedict. 

Everyone turned to her, but Anthony directed the most special glare at her. No one dared to say a thing. 

“Fair question,” Anthony intruded. 

“And one that is too bold to be enquired,” Lady Danbury stepped in. “I advice you young Lady not to meddle in Miss Y/N’s business, and rather take care of your own matters.” 

“The Lady shall decide if she concedes me the honor to take her hand,” Lord Collins answered. 

Anthony chuckled, “I shall wish you good fortunes.” 

You took a deep breath. 

Benedict cleared his throat, “I believe we shall continue our stroll.” 

Anthony did not move. 

“Excellent idea,” You conceded. “We shall not waste the lovely weather, a promenade is most invigorating.”  

“Shall I suggest walking and talking, then?” Offered Anthony. “I think the activities are not exclusive.” 

You closed your eyes, you did not want to continue engaging in the conversation. 

“How amusing you’re suggesting that, Lord Bridgerton,” You poisoned. “Here I would have assumed you’d rather have some solitary time with ravishing Miss Featherington here,” you derided. 

Philippa grinned. 

He raised his eyebrows, he was trying to tell if you were jealous. You were not, if anything you were amused of the entanglement he’d dragged himself into with his attempt of bothering you.  

“Are you not finding this conversation pleasing?” Anthony questioned you. “I would have believed you to be more fond of conversing.” 

You chuckled, “I rather be taciturn and quiet.” 

“I find that hard to believe,” he smirked. “Shall we?” He started to walk. You directed a glare at his younger brother who only sighed. 

Lord Collins raised his brow, “The Lady is quiet, I do not know why you’d find that hard to believe.” 

Anthony laughed somberly,  “You seem to be puzzled, Collins,” Anthony remarked. “Miss y/l/n is never quiet, unless she is engaged in other kinds of activities.” 

He was being an arse. 

“Other activities?” Philippa questioned. 

“Lord Bridgerton is speculating,” You cleared up. “I assume he is suggesting I’m quiet when I play the pianoforte, or embroider.” 

“Absolutely,” Anthony grinned. “However, I’ve been acquainted with you my whole life and I must remark you’re a woman who finds interest in chatter.” 

He was mocking you. 

“Not when I find it impertinent,” you sassed. 

Lord Collins smiled, “A talented and accomplished woman.” 

Anthony raised his brow, watching him. He was hurt, but he then proceeded to watch you as if asking you if you were serious with this. 

 You tried to look away, you could not believe how big of an arse he was and you could not believe his stupidity. Had he suggested you were aware of the engagement? And would he do anything about it or just keep being an arse? If he rushed his proposal he might be able to free you, however you knew Anthony to be an idiot. And you knew the man to be su full of his pride, that he would possibly try to be the biggest idiot he could before making any reasonable statements. You were in the need to have a word with him. 

Lord Collins started talking again, Philippa listened this time. Eagerly. Seemed like the pair was rather absorbed in their own conversation for your own fortune. Behind, Benedict was trying to not die of awkwardness as Prudence and him were not even trying to engage in small talk. Not even about the weather. 

Anthony was only peeping at you every now and then, brows furrowed. You slowed your pace, letting Lord Collins be wrapped in his words enough to not notice you’d fallen behind with Anthony. 

“I suppose it is unworthy to try and explain I was oblivious to it,” you whispered. 

Anthony shrugged, “You must understand why said statement is hard to believe,” he growled.

“It is honest,” you said. 

“I’ve always known how fond you are of keeping secrets,” he barked. “Forgive my hesitation, but my doubts are not unwarranted.” 

You glared. “Your behavior is.” 

He grinned, “Fine, then I shall withdraw, I do not wish to vex your pleasant morning,” he said. 

“Anthony,” you bellowed. 

“I must excuse myself,” Anthony announced loudly for Lord Collins to turn around, it seemed Lord Collins only listened when it was another man speaking. “I need to disengage from this pleasant promenade.” 

You rolled your eyes. 

“Lord Collins, always a pleasure, I hope we can meet again soon, perchance at the ball this weekend, however I shall not retire without giving you fair advice over Lady Y/N, be careful, for her hand and heart always seem to belong to someone else,” he hissed. “Excuse me,” he then said softly and smiled at Lady Danbury cynically before storming off, leaving everyone in shock. 

Benedict closed his eyes with strain as he was left with the two Featheringtons now at his care. 

“I despise my brother,” he declared. 

You only clenched your jaw, you agreed, you despised him, too. 

next part

ext part (coming soon) feedback is appreciated!

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[ladycatofwinterfell]

Sweet dreams

Ned does return to her. He comes back from the dead. He comes to her arms, holds her close and loves her. Nothing has ever been sweeter or more cruel.

Okay, so I wrote this last year for no one other than myself. I’m gonna post it now because I haven’t been writing much lately, but I still wanted you to have a little something. Enjoy!

The last time Catelyn had seen Ned he had been well. He had been strong, full of life. He had looked tired, but he had been very much alive. He had kissed her. And told her about his plans, how he would tell the king about all the horrible deeds the Lannisters had done once he found proof. He had found it. And now all that remained of him was bones.

She slowly raised a hand and touched the silver wire that linked his head to his body. They had chopped his head off with a clean blow from his own sword. She had sat next to him in the godswood and watched him clean Ice so many times. Both of them unaware of that it was the thing that would take his life. But no. His sword had not killed him. The Lannisters had.

She had never felt such intense hatred as she did in that moment. She could feel it burn in her. They had killed her husband. They had taken his head and put it on a spike up on the walls of the Red Keep. And when it was all over, she would make sure that the same thing happened to them. 

She traced her hand up his face. Or what had been his face and was now simply a skull. There was no trace of him left. Just cold bone and empty hollows. She pulled back her hand and held it to her chest. She could feel how his cold spread through her. He had never made her cold, he was always so warm. But he was gone. She would never feel his heat again.

Tears started to rise in her eyes and she let them. When had she last wept? She didn’t know, she had forced herself to be strong in front of everyone. For the sake of Robb. And for her own sake. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to stop the tears once they started.

But she was alone in the room. There was not a soul in there that she needed to be strong in front of. So for once she just stopped holding back and let the tears run down her face.

”Oh Ned” she sobbed. ”How did we get here? And how do we make it go back to how it was before this madness started?”

That was all she wished for when she stood there and looked down at him. That he would come back to her. She wanted to feel safe and protected and loved. Feelings she hadn’t felt for quite some time.

”You left me too early. I can’t do this on my own. And our children... they also need you. The crown on Robb’s head weighs too much for him, I can see how heavy it is to bear. And still he won’t take the help I try to give him. He would have listened to you, I know that. He always listened to you. Everyone always listened to you.”

She smiled just a little through her tears then, even though it faltered quickly. Ned’s people had loved him so much. She had never seen a people mourn their dead leader the way the northerners had mourned Ned. She remembered how they had all kneeled before the heart tree in the godswood with their swords on the ground in front of them.

”They loved you. Just as I did. Still do. I love you so much, but you died on me. Long before we were finished. We didn’t get to grow old together. You won’t see our children grow into adults. You won’t see them at their weddings and when they have babies of their own... and you... you...”

She could barely see him anymore, her vision was blurred with tears. And the feeling of that the room was spinning around her didn’t help. She tried to take a deep breath, but it got stuck in her throat. It was as though there was a stone laying on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She desperately tried to suck in air, but all she managed to do was wheeze. She fell down on a chair, clinging to the armrests in order to not slide of it and down on the floor. She needed Ned. She needed his strong arms around her. She needed his warmth. She needed him to soothe her.

”Please come back” she whispered. ”Please come back to me.”

She knew it was impossible. She knew that better than anyone. But she had lost her Ned. Her stable and safe rock. Her love. She had almost thought that her heart was gone, but she could feel it ache. And then she almost wished that it would actually disappear so that she wouldn’t have to feel it.

The door creaked open and she looked up. Her brother walked in together with a man in a dirty cloak. It might have been gray under all the filth that covered it. She guessed he had a badly injured leg because he limped. A hood covered the man’s face, so she couldn’t see how he looked. She didn’t really care for how he looked either. She had told them she wanted to be alone. And still Edmure came walking in with a dirty stranger. She wasn’t overly happy with being disturbed.

She didn’t bother with even trying to dry her tears. And she didn’t rise from her chair. Who could blame her for crying over her husband’s bones?

”What is this, Edmure?” she asked weakly. ”I asked for the night alone with my husband.”

She made a tine gesture towards the bones on the table next to her. And when she looked back at Edmure, he smiled. He actually smiled at her. That lit a spark of anger in her. How dared he smile? How dared he smile at her when she was grieving her husband!

”Get out!” she said sharply.

”I do believe–”

”I said two words, which one of them did you not understand? Get. Out.”

But neither Edmure nor the man moved.

”Catelyn, I really–”

”Get out!” she shouted and pushed herself up from the chair. ”Seven hells, just leave me alone! I don’t want to speak to you and I won’t! I want you to get out of here!”

Had she had something in her hand at the time she would have thrown it at him. What was it that he didn’t understand? Couldn’t they just speak on the morrow? It must have been in the middle of the night, she just wanted those last hours with Ned before he was put to rest in the crypts beneath Winterfell. After that, she could speak. After that, she would go back to how it had been before the Silent Sisters had came.

She turned her back to them, holding back another wave of tears. She looked down at Ned again.

”This man was seeking you” she heard Edmure say. ”And I will leave you now.”

The door closed again. She hated the dirty stranger in that moment. What was so important that he had to see her in the middle of the night? Who was he? Why had he been allowed to see her? She had so many questions. But she remained quiet. He could speak first if what he had to say was so incredibly important.

”You always had a quick temper, Cat” a low voice said.

And she stopped breathing. No. She had misheard. One voice sounded much like another, she just hadn’t properly heard it. The man had mumbled. That was it. He had just spoken in a very low voice, just like Ned used to do and therefore she had misheard.

”It’s Lady Stark to you” she said and turned to him once more. ”And please remove your hood. I want to know who is stubbornly seeking me when I have told I don’t want to be disturbed.”

He reached up and pulled back his hood. And once more she stopped breathing. And it felt like her heart stopped too. She stumbled backwards and hit the table with bones on it. She heard how they moved and rattled. Panicked, she looked down at it. And then up at the man. She was going mad. All the bad that had happened had drove her mad, she was sure of it. She was imagining things. She missed Ned so much that she started to see him even though he was dead.

She tried to form words, tried to force her mind to make sense of all of it. But she couldn’t make Ned go away. She closed her eyes and opened them again, but he was still there. He stood there and looked at her with his gray eyes. He looked so real. He was dirty, his beard was shaggy and his hair was long and tangled. But it was still him, she was sure of it. She would always recognize him, no matter what. But it couldn’t be him. He was dead.

”I have always called you Cat” he said.

She took a deep breath and slowly walked over to him. She had to control her breathing to not hyperventilate when she raised a hand and touched him. He was there. He was real. And as her hand had traced the bones, it traced his real face. She felt his nose and his lips and his eyebrows. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. And she almost laughed. It was so surreal. Her husband had came back from the dead.

”You’re real. You’re not a part of my imagination” she whispered. ”But they killed you, how can you be real?”

”I don’t know whose bones they have dressed up in my clothes, but I am not laying on that table. I escaped from the black cells. I escaped and I have walked through the wilderness from King’s Landing to here. And now I am back with you” he mumbled.

She couldn’t get out words. She felt so many emotions at once that everything she wanted to say got stuck in her throat. So she simply reached up and kissed him, like she had done so many times before. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as possible.

”Don’t ever do that to me again” she mumbled when they broke the kiss.

She rested her forehead against his.

”Promise me, Ned. Promise me that you will never do that to me again.”

”I promise that I will, to the best of my ability, try to never do that to you again” he told her. ”I’m telling you, it wasn’t very pleasant for me either.”

She never wanted to let him go. She didn’t understand how she would ever be able to let him out of sight again. Because the pain she had felt while she believed that he was dead had been so incredible that she couldn’t find words for it. She had felt that pain just a few minutes earlier. He had been dead just a few minutes earlier. But he was holding her in his arms. He was right there with her. He had came back to her.

”I missed you so much” she said.

”I missed you too. I thought about you every day and every night. You and our children” he said.

Their children. Catelyn only had one of them close to her. Her girls were trapped in the capital, her youngest boys were up in the North, thousands of miles away. What a bad mother she was. She couldn’t even protect her children.

”Sansa and Arya” she said. ”Do you know if they’re alright?”

”According to the Spider Arya escaped King’s Landing after my capture” he said. ”I don’t know where she is.”

”We have to send out men to look for her then. She might be around here” Catelyn said, with a spark of hope slowly lighting in her chest. 

Just maybe they could find Arya and bring her to Riverrun. Maybe she was already trying to get there. There was a small chance, but there was a chance. And Catelyn would take whatever positive news she could.

”And Sansa?” she asked hopefully.

”Still in King’s Landing for all I know. I’m so sorry, my love, but I have only heard rumors since I left the capital, no words that you could trust.”

She took a deep breath, tried to not be disappointed. Ned had had no connection to anyone since he escaped. She probably knew more about what was going on in Westeros than he did. But she had wished that he would have been able to say that at least Sansa was alive and alright.

”I’ll have to trust the Lannisters when they say that Sansa is well then” she muttered.

Those words left a bitter taste in her mouth. She had never trusted the Lannisters, not even in the beginning. Not after her sister’s letter and especially not after her son’s fall. And still she had told Ned to go South. To investigate in the murder of Jon Arryn. Oh how bitterly she regretted that.

”We will get them back. We will defeat the Lannisters and get our girls back” Ned said. “And then we will return to Winterfell.”

They had a chance of winning. Robb had not done badly, he had won all of his battles. But as long as he was at war, she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. She constantly feared for his life. She feared for the lives of everyone she loved. So no matter how bright it looked, she was terrified. And she would be terrified until they were all safely back in Winterfell or until the moment she lost her head. But the fact that Ned magically came back to them made her a little bit more hopeful. He had came back from the dead, they could take Sansa and Arya back from the Lannisters. They could win.

”Yes. We will get Arya and Sansa back to us unharmed. And the Lannisters will have to pay for what they did to our family” she said.

They couldn’t do much until Robb returned to Riverrun though. He had all their men. Edmure had some, but they were very much needed to protect the Riverlands and Riverrun. Catelyn only had one man, or woman, actually. And that woman was probably the best fighter Catelyn had ever seen, she was sure of that Brienne would knock most men into the dirt. But in a war you couldn’t do much with one fighter, no matter how good that fighter was.

”But no matter how much I want it, we can’t do that now. So I suggest that we take you up to the maester so that he can look at your leg. And then we draw you a bath and get some food for you” she told Ned and smiled. ”No offense, my lord, but you look like you might need it.”

He raised a hand and dried the tears on her cheeks.

***

Ned was thinner than Catelyn had ever seen him and it made her heart ache to see how his bones poked through his skin. How close had he been to starvation in the Black Cells? How close had he been to starvation as he made his way to Riverrun? But she almost forgot all about that when she saw his leg. It had clearly been broken and healed, but it had not healed correctly, it was all twisted. It hurt to look upon it. How had he managed to walk all the way from King’s Landing to Riverrun on that leg.

“How were you able to stand on it?” Catelyn asked with a hand over her mouth.

She looked as Maester Vyman examined the leg with a frown on his wrinkled face.

“It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to” Ned said. “The pain was terrible in the beginning, but the worst has passed. The only thing is that I limp.”

“I could break the leg again and try to set the bone straight so that it heals correctly. But I can’t assure that it will fix the limping” Maester Vyman said. 

“I’m not interested in breaking it again. It hurt enough the first time” Ned told him. “If I have to live with a crooked leg, so be it. What matters is that I can stand and walk upon it.”

“Might I ask about what happened that broke the leg?”

“A horse fell on it.”

“Oh. Well, I can give you dreamwine or milk of the poppy for the pain.”

“No” Ned said shortly. “The pain will pass eventually.”

“Would you at least consider it?” Catelyn said and laid a hand on his arm. “You shouldn’t be in pain. You have had enough of pain.”

“I have had enough of milk of the poppy. I was force fed the damn thing by the maesters in King’s Landing” he growled in response. “I want no more of it.”

“Then I can’t do anything for you, my lord. I apologize.” 

The maester bowed his head down. 

“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault my leg was broken. I lay that at Jaime Lannister’s feet.”

***

Catelyn felt calm for the first time in many moons. It was quiet in her bedchamber, except for the fire that crackled in the hearth and the sound of when Ned moved in the water. And it smelled of oils and flowers in there, a very soothing scent. It was like a bubble of peace in the troubled time that they lived in.

She hummed quietly as she washed his hair and carefully untangled all the knots with her fingers. She didn’t even know what song she was humming on, she couldn’t fine any words to it, but she liked the melody. 

”They say you killed Renly, is it true?” Ned suddenly asked.

”No” she told him and poured water over his head. ”I was there, but I did not kill him. It was a shadow in the shape of a man, some sort of dark magic. And Stannis is to blame. But only Brienne and I witnessed it, and spreading the word is hard when you’re running so that you won’t be killed for a murder you did not commit.”

”Dark magic” Ned repeated. ”That one I haven’t heard. I heard a lot of stories about it, the commoners like to speculate about the death of a king. But I heard of this Brienne of Tarth, she was a part of Renly’s king’s guard, was she not?”

Catelyn remembered when she had first arrived at Renly’s camp and watched Brienne beat Loras Tyrell. She was still amazed by how a woman had defeated the Knight of the Flowers, who was known all over Westeros even though he wasn’t even twenty yet. Brienne had made it clear that despite his fame, Loras Tyrell was still just a green boy.

”She was. She’s a great fighter, I have seen it myself. I bet she would have you on your back in just a few seconds” she said and smiled.

”Anyone would have me on my back in just a few seconds with my leg” he replied. “So it’s good I’ll probably never meet her.”

”Oh, it’s funny you said that. Because she swore fealty to me. She’s in the castle, you will meet her quite soon” Catelyn said. ”Lean forward, my lord, I need to scrub your back.”

”Did she swear fealty to House Tully or House Stark?” he asked as he did what she had told him.

She had watched him accept other men’s oaths of loyalty so many times. She wished he had been there to see when someone swore their fealty to her. She couldn’t really describe what she had felt when Brienne kneeled in front of her. One moment it was like she had her own army, the next it was like she had another girl she felt the need to protect. Even though it was the other way around, Brienne protected her. But no matter everything else, she felt proud of herself. Brienne wanted to serve her. No house, just her.

”Neither. She serves no house. She serves me” Catelyn said.

”Clever woman, Brienne of Tarth. You are a lady worth serving.”

”I believe many disagree” she told him and laughed a little. ”I’m not very well liked south of here, I fear.”

Not that she was very liked there either. Robb’s men were not overly happy about her want to always know the plans. And Robb had not been overly happy when she had tried to give him advice.

”People south of here are stupid.”

”I don’t disagree” she mumbled, thinking of her meeting with Stannis and Renly.

Ned chuckled and looked up at her. His eyes were soft as fog, it made her melt inside, she had missed those eyes. She had thought she would never see those eyes again, but there they were. She leaned down and kissed him before she could stop herself. He reached up and snaked an arm around her neck in order to get her closer. Catelyn stumbled forward, hit the edge of the bathtub and before she knew it, she fell.

”Seven hells” she spluttered as she pulled herself up in a sitting position. ”Do you want to drown me?”

She coughed and blinked water out of her eyes as Ned laughed at her. She was soaked from top to toe. The wet fabric of her gown was clinging to her skin, water was running down her face, her hair was dripping.

”Don’t laugh!” she exclaimed and slapped his chest, but it was ruined by that she couldn’t hold back a giggle.

”I’m sorry” he said and stroke a strand of wet hair from her face ”I was a little too eager.”

It was ridiculous. There she was, in a bathtub, with all her clothes on. She was straddling Ned’s legs and the position had made her skirts slide up to her thighs. There was room for both of them, she didn’t have to sit in his lap. But she wanted to, she wanted to sit close to him. Though she remembered about his leg and quickly pushed herself up on her knees so that she hovered above him.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked worriedly.

“No, Cat. Having you close will never hurt me” he said and pulled her down again. 

He ran his hands up her thighs so that the dress went even further up and his face was so close to hers that their noses almost touched. And suddenly she was very aware of that he was naked. 

”I’m going to tell you something” she whispered with a smile, leaning even closer to him. ”I am eager too.”

A warm feeling spread in her, she had not felt that in quite some time. It was a very sweet feeling, and she wanted him to feel it too. She wanted them to feel it together. With one hand she fumbled in the water between them and found what she was looking for.

”You are wearing far too much clothes” Ned gasped as she stroke him.

It would take too much time to struggle out of the wet gown, leaving it on was easier. Getting her smallclothes off was hard enough, with her stockings and boots still on, but she managed to get them off all while Ned’s lips was on hers. His tongue was in her mouth, his hands were in her hair, he was inside her. He was everywhere. And it felt good. So so good. She had missed him so much.

She left the bath when they had both finished just so that she could take the damn dress off. She wanted to sit in the hot water with her bare back against his chest and his arms around her.

”Where are you going?” Ned asked when she stepped out of the tub.

”Nowhere. I’m taking everything off” she said and sat on a chair and pulled off her boots.

Water poured out of them. She was surprised by how much water had fit in there with her feet.

”Sorry about that” Ned chuckled when she put them down in front of the hearth so that maybe they would dry before the morrow.

Her stockings also came off and she hung them on the chair that she had placed in front of the hearth. The gown proved to be a bigger challenge. It stubbornly clung to her as if though she was sticky. She had to wriggle in order to even make it move. Ned only laughed at her. She must have looked funny. After a while she finally managed to free herself from her prison and hung it on the chair. Then she returned to Ned.

”I love you” he mumbled.

”I love you too” she replied.

For a moment it was as though everything was back to normal. As if though they were at Winterfell. She could almost convince herself of that all of her children was sleeping peacefully in their chambers just down the corridor.

”I long until all of this is over” she said. ”I want to go home, I don’t want Robb to be king anymore. I never wanted him to be king. You need to speak to him when he gets back, he doesn’t listen to me and he doesn’t talk to me. I have no idea of what he’s doing. I know where he’s going and I know who he’s fighting, but I don’t know what he’s doing. Because his men doesn’t think that I should be involved because I’m a woman and it’s none of my business. But I want to know what my son is doing!”

She splashed the water in frustration. Ned didn’t say anything, just rested his chin on the top of her head. It calmed her down a little. His presence soothed her. Even if Robb and all the men made her frustrated and angry, he soothed her by just sitting there with her.

”You’re so much more than just a woman” he said after a while. ”You’re more clever than all of the lords that are involved in this. You are strong and brave and you fight with teeth and nails to protect the ones you love. I understand that you want to know what is going on, I know you hate not knowing. But I really do believe that you should go back to Winterfell, it’s safer there.”

Robb had also told her that. And she would have done it no matter what they told her, she knew her place was with Bran and Rickon. At home, away from the war.

”Well, Robb is his father’s son” she said bitterly. ”I will go back to Winterfell soon. I’m just waiting for my father. He’s very sick. He just sleeps and talks like it’s twenty years ago and drinks milk of the poppy. I want to be here when he dies. Family, duty, honor. Family always comes first, no matter what.”

”I’m sorry.”

”It’s okay. He’s in a lot of pain, it will be a relief for him.”

Earlier her father had mistaken her for Lysa. He wasn’t sane anymore, it was sad to see him. She didn’t want him to be in pain. It was a mercy from the gods to just kill him already. She loved her father, but it wasn’t him anymore.

”Smother me with a pillow the second I start mistaking Bran for Rickon” she told him.

”Oh you know I will keep you alive for as long as I possibly can. I love you and I’m selfish” he said and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

”Then at least do me a favor and drug me with milk of the poppy so that I don’t have to feel it.”

”Of course, I would never let you be in pain.”

”When did you become such a romantic?” she asked with a smile.

”I missed you a lot when I was in King’s Landing. And when I was running around in the wilderness.”

”I missed you too.”

They were quiet after that. Catelyn closed her eyes for a moment, just enjoyed the feeling of Ned close to her again. She had missed him so much. She would never let him leave her again. Never.

***

Catelyn woke with a startle and immediately reached out for Ned. Only to find nothing. In a heartbeat she was completely awake, frantically searching the room. She couldn’t find him. Where had he gone? Why had he just left her in the middle of the night?

She found a robe, pulled it on and left the chamber. She walked through the empty halls and corridors, tried to find a clue of where he might have walked off to.

She almost ran into a very startled guard.

“Have you seen Lord Stark?” she asked.

He only looked at her and frowned.

“King Robb has not yet returned to Riverrun, my lady.”

“No” Catelyn sighed. “Not that Lord Stark. I meant my husband.”

His frown was replaced by a very worried look. Couldn’t he just say no or yes? She didn’t have time for whatever he was doing.

“Eddard Stark is dead” he said slowly.

And it struck her that most probably didn’t know of Ned’s return.

“Well, thank you.”

And then she continued walking. Maybe he had gone to the godswood so that he could pray. She didn’t understand why he would do it, but sometimes her husband could be a strange man.

The godswood was just as empty as the rest of the castle, to her great disappointment. Where could he be? She searched the godswood thoroughly, just to be sure, but there were only crows and silence.

“Cat?”

She looked up, hopeful for a moment, only to find that it’s Edmure and not her husband.

“Have you seen Ned?”

“What are you talking about?”

Catelyn rolled her eyes, wasn’t it quite obvious what she was talking about?

“Don’t be stupid. Have you seen my husband? I don’t know where he is.”

For a moment something very similar to fear showed on Edmure’s face. Then he slowly came closer to her.

“Cat. Your husband is dead.”

It seemed like Edmure must have had too much to drink.

“No, he’s not. You brought him to me last night, remember?”

“I have done no such thing.”

“Yes, you did.”

He took her hand.

“I think you should go to bed again” he said softly.

“Not before I find Ned.”

“Catelyn. Listen to me. You won’t find him. He’s dead. You must have been dreaming. Because of the bones.”

“They weren’t his bones. He escaped King’s Landing, he came back to us.”

“No, Cat. I know how much you miss him, I can’t even imagine the pain you feel. But it was a dream. I’m sorry.”

She was growing desperate. Why wasn't he listening to her? Why couldn't he just help her find Ned? And why was he saying that he was dead? She turned away from her brother, tears stinging in her eyes. She couldn't really understand why, but something was gnawing in her, hurting her. Why did it hurt so much to think of Ned?

"Are you well?"

"Why do you think I'm not?"

"Because your husband has been dead for months and you are out here looking for him as if though he was still alive. He was beheaded, Catelyn! The Lannisters killed him! And he's not coming back!"

A dream, was that all it had been? The rising sun almost felt like a mockery. She watched it through a haze of tears as her brother held her. How dared it just rise like everything was normal and as it was supposed to be? Half a heartbeat. That was how long it had taken for Catelyn’s world to fall apart yet another time.

[bigskydreaming]

For that matter, I also kinda wish we saw more of like....characters during the time period Dick was believed dead, looking at Bruce’s behavior and feeling it was just plain WEIRD given how it differed from his behavior after Jason and Damian’s deaths. Did nobody really go....hey, something is fucked up here, that Bruce hardly seems phased that Dick’s dead, when he completely lost his shit the two previous times his sons died?

Tbh, most of my issues with the reactions of various characters to Dick’s return, like....a lot of it has to do with how they made themselves out to be the victims of HIS callous lies or whatever, with zero regard to what he’d suffered and what all of that had cost him, yes, true. 

But beyond that, a large gripe of mine is how none of their reactions led to any kind of....awareness about their own past histories with Dick and the double standards they held within their own personal dynamics with him.

The way Jason punched Dick and gave him shit for letting him believe he was dead, that Jason mourned him, grieved for him, that you just don’t do that to your brother, to another Robin....but nowhere in canon or fanon did this ever lead to Jason reflecting on his and Dick’s history together and from this and his experiences here, like....revising his impression of the time HE was believed dead and what Dick must have felt and gone through....when for several years, Jason was off training with the League while Dick still believed him dead, still mourned him, grieved for him, even though Jason could have at any point revealed to him that he was alive.

The way Tim judged Dick for doing what they all would have expected Bruce to do, but never Dick to do.....but nowhere in canon or fanon did this ever lead to Tim reflecting on their past conflicts and examining past expectations he’d held that had led to problems between them. Like the fact that Tim historically has a hard time accepting any loved ones’ deaths, especially in light of how often heroes come back from the dead, and all of that was a huge part of what he cited as his problem with Dick not believing him about Bruce being alive....and yet none of that behavior was on display in Tim’s own reaction to being told Dick was dead. 

There was no sign of Tim ever having doubts about Dick being dead, searching for alternative explanations, when the one he and the others were given had to be extremely flimsy at best, just to begin with. That there was no hint of Tim ever having considered going to extreme lengths to bring Dick back, like when he’d tried to clone Kon, or contemplated using the Lazarus Pit to revive his parents, or tirelessly searched around the globe for proof that Bruce was alive even when all he really had at first was a hunch and was looking for anything he could hold up as evidence he was right, when pretty much no one believed him.

The way Barbara said Dick Grayson managed to disappoint her yet again.....but nowhere in canon or fanon did this ever lead to Barbara asking herself or explaining to anyone else just what the hell has Dick ever done to her that counts as such a massive disappointment that her first reaction to seeing one of her oldest friends alive and back from the dead is disappointment, rather than celebration? And that similarly, nowhere in canon or fanon did this ever get examined in reverse, to ask if Barbara has ever been the one disappointing Dick instead - did he maybe hope for her to take his side when Bruce fired him, instead of Barbara continuing to work alongside Batman and offer no actual objection to Bruce giving away a name and title she knew didn’t belong to him, to give out to someone else? 

In fanon mergings of timelines, did he maybe resent her for sending him away when Firefly burned down his circus, or other times he tried turning to her but got rebuffed? Again, nothing about Barbara’s reaction, just like Jason and Tim’s, ever led to an honest examination of their dynamic or deepening of it by acknowledging that things are a two way street - instead it was just accepted, noted and moved past, all at face value: Dick’s return after being believed dead was obviously just evidence of him having disappointed her yet again - without even mention of what those previous disappointments on this level were supposed to have been.

Like, I’m just saying....post-Spyral is hardly the only time I think the characters have been too quick to view their dynamics with Dick as a one way street, and them somehow always the ones who are being subjected to his actions, and never the other way around.....but it is one of the most evident examples of it, IMO, and how rarely its picked up on...let alone capitalized on as an opportunity to explore the reverse for a change.

[alyblacklist]

Ressler & Liz and the “light”

There’s been a lot of discussion/debate both here and on Twitter about JB’s recent end-of-season interview where he discussed that final Ressler/Liz scene of “Brothers” and said:

The original break of the story, [Ressler] did call Red and – and that’s what the original move – that’s what the move is, you know, and with where we were going in mind, it felt like maybe we need to – you know, it needs to be her that he calls and that’s actually my favorite scene in the whole episode. I thought she was fantastic and – and, um, their sort of relationship this season has been very unusual and – and as she’s sort of drifting away and - or closer to, you know, whatever is this sort of organic, you know, DNA part of her, he’s this like light that is – represents good and the Boy Scout and all the stuff and, and um, I think that’s why he’s sort of become more interesting to her, uh, more special in a way, because of the contrast, you know, that juxtaposition. I think it’s interesting, their relationship’s interesting.

Below are my thoughts on Jon’s reference to Ressler as a source of “light” for Liz and why I was happy to hear him say it and felt it was consistent both with the evolution of those characters and their relationship over the seasons. I welcome constructive discussion (and criticism), but it’s no secret that I am a Ressler fan, and a Keenler shipper, so if you absolutely hate one or both of those things, you probably won’t like this post (also fair warning - it’s a long post).

The show continually draws on the classic literary themes of light and dark, in which “light” typically represents good, positivity, happiness, hope etc. while “dark” typically represents bad, negativity, sadness, despair, etc.  Each of the main characters have struggled internally with balancing the light and dark over the seasons but for purposes of this post, I am focusing on Liz and Ressler. 

In Mako Tanida (1x16) when Ressler was hell-bent on revenge for Audrey’s death, Red warned him:   

“Agent Ressler. Once you cross over, there are things in the darkness that can keep your heart from ever feeling the light again.”

In the back half of Season 5, when Liz was basically in the same situation that Ressler was in back in S1, Red similarly cautioned her in Ruin (5x09): 

Red: I want you to promise me something. Liz: What? Red: That you’ll grieve. Liz: Of course I’ll grieve. What is this that you think I’m doing? Red: I think you’re running away from your problems when you should be facing them. I’m sure it feels like you’re staring into an abyss, but until you mourn, you won’t be able to cross it. Liz: What’s so great about crossing it? What’s on the other side? Peace? Tranquility? Red: Some. Liz: I prefer revenge. Red: That’s what I’m afraid of. Liz: Really? ‘Cause imagining what I’m gonna do to Tom’s killers is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. Red: Don’t just go off and hide in the dark. Wherever you go, look for some light.

Red knows this struggle all too well, because he has already gone down that path. He’s already landed in the darkness, as he explained so eloquently to Liz in Luther Braxton (2x09):

Red: It may be hard for you to imagine, but I once had a relatively normal life– bills to pay, playdates, family, some friends, people to care about. Lost all that. Liz: Lost how? Red: In Mexico, there are these fish that have colonized the freshwater caves along Sierra del Abra.They were lost. They found themselves living in complete darkness. But they didn’t die. Instead, they thrived. They adapted. They lost their pigmentation, their sight, eventually even their eyes. With survival, they became hideous. I’ve rarely thought about what I once was. But I wonder if a ray of light were to make it into the cave, would I be able to see it? Or feel it? Would I gravitate to its warmth? And if I did, would I become less hideous?

These themes of light and dark also intersect with the themes of forgiveness, salvation and redemption. As Red explains to Liz in Tom Connolly (2x22):

I’m a sin eater. I absorb the misdeeds of others, darkening my soul to keep theirs pure.

And in The Kilgannon Corporation (5x07), Red explains to Liz how Dembe tries to save Red’s soul from the darkness:

Red: You ever wonder why Dembe stays with me? Why anyone so decent would spend his days at the side of someone so indecent? Liz: You saved him. He owes you his life. He protects you because you protected him. Red: No, Elizabeth. Dembe didn’t stay with me because he saw me as his savior. He stayed with me because he saw me for the man I really was – a man surrounded by darkness. No friends who could be trusted, no faith that loyalty or love could ever truly exist. I was– Well, I was younger then. Angrier. Dembe connected his life with mine to show me, that day and every day, that the world is not what I fear it to be. He is the light in the darkness. Living proof that there is another way, that life can be good, that people can be kind, that a man like me might one day dream of becoming a man like him. He pledged his life, offered it up as evidence that I was wrong about this world. Dembe guards my life because he’s determined to save my soul.

At the end of Ruin, Liz returns from Alaska and admits to Red that she’s still in a dark place:

Liz: I tried. I really did. I didn’t go looking for trouble. But it found me. And I’m glad it did. Red: What happened? Liz: I killed some men. Doesn’t matter that they were bad. That it was them or me. What matters is that I did it and I was good at it. And I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Red: You will. One of these nights you will. It’s just a matter of when. Liz: Maybe. Later. After I’ve crossed the abyss. But from the side I’m on now, all that matters is that I’m healed and – I’m back. And I’m coming for Tom’s killers. Like I said, I couldn’t keep my promise. Can you forgive me? Red: Yes. Will you be able to forgive yourself?

And in the next episode, The Informant, as Ressler is struggling with how to handle Prescott, Red also discusses forgiveness:

Forgiveness doesn’t mean accepting what you’ve done, Donald. It means understanding that the line dividing good and evil cuts through the hearts of all of us.

This is important for Ressler, who has struggled to accept that mixture of each, both in himself and in others. But by the end of the episode, Ressler is ready to choose the light, to do the right thing, to try to pull himself out of the darkness he’s been living in:

Red: You were preoccupied. Ressler: I was crazed. And convinced I should kill the man who shot her. Do you remember what you told me to do? Red: I told you to go home. You didn’t. Ressler: You said that once you cross over, there are things in the darkness that can keep your heart from ever feeling the light again. I didn’t go home, but I never crossed over. I never thanked you for that. Red: Nor should you. Your circumspection afforded me the opportunity to take care of Audrey’s killer myself. It was a win-win. Ressler: I didn’t want Prescott’s real name so that I could kill him. I wanted it so I could arrest him. Red: He goes to prison, so will you. Ressler: I know, but I’m in the darkness, and doing the right thing is the only way I’ll ever feel the light again.

Against Ressler’s wishes, Red acts as sin eater again (as does Cooper in accepting Ressler’s confession but refusing to pass it through the proper channels).  Because in Red’s view:

Sins should be buried like the dead. Not that they may be forgotten, but that we may remember them and find our way forward nonetheless.

In Season 7, in Brothers (7x17), we learn that Ressler has an even larger skeleton in his closet. Once again, he is concerned about doing the “right thing,” because he can’t live with the secret hanging over him any longer. This is his way forward, back into the light.

Ressler: Well, say you agree with me about how we should handle this. I mean, we arrest those bastards who took the car – for theft, for extortion, for all the other poison they pump into the city. And then after that – my brother and I come clean about what we’ve done. Liz: I don’t know that I do agree. After the story you told me, after what you’ve been through – both of you– Ressler: No, we have to do the right thing. It’s important. Liz: Of course, yes, I will help you. I just want to make sure you’re prepared to face the consequences when the FBI gets their hands on that vehicle and that body. Because if we go in and arrest those people, eventually, the FBI’s gonna open up that trunk. Ressler: And find Tommy Markin. I know. Liz: Are you really okay with dealing with the consequences of that? Ressler: I’ve been running from this my whole life. I need it to be done. We both need it to be done.

This time, Liz acts as his sin-eater and makes the body disappear. So how does this all fit together in terms of Ressler and Liz and their relationship?

Liz has always seen Ressler as a good person, as someone on the side of light rather than dark.  Even when he was hunting her as a fugitive in Season 3, she still defended him in Eli Matchett (3x03) after Red questioned why she reached out to Ressler for help:

Red: Ressler is a law-enforcement robot. The FBI winds him up– Liz: That’s not true. He’s a person. He’s a good person. Red: Look at me. You need to let that go, Lizzy. I have survived for a very long time now, and I assure you, I didn’t do it by relying on the goodness in people.

At the same time, she’s questioning whether she herself is still a good person. 

Liz: I shot a cop. Red: Yes, you did. Liz: And killed the Attorney General of the United States. Red: Yes. And when you did that you crossed a threshold, leaving your world, entering mine. Bad things are gonna find you now, Lizzy. This life has a mind and a momentum of its own. That’s a reality you need to accept. Bad things happen to good people. Liz: Am I a good person? I’m not so sure anymore.

By the time we get to Season 7, and Brothers, Ressler is the one calling Liz the better person as he prepares to turn himself in:

You know, Keen– I didn’t like you when we first met. I was wrong. You’re a good agent. You’re the kind of agent that – people join the FBI to try to become. But you’re also a good person. Much better person than I am. So, whatever happens out there today, the Task Force is gonna be in good hands with you.

But she doesn’t let him - as she explains later, for herself, not for him, because she needs the peace and stability that he provides in her life, she needs that “tiny island of calm,” amidst the dark forces that surround her. 

Liz: Have you looked at my life? I’m a widow and a single mom. A marionette – with a high-functioning sociopath pulling my strings. My grandfather tried to murder my mother, and my mother is a legendarily lethal Russian spy – who moved in next door without even telling me who she was. I mean it. Have you looked at my life? I mean, really taken a close look. Because it’s like I’m in the middle of a monsoon that’s constantly threatening to drown me in bad news. And somewhere in the middle of that FEMA disaster of a life–  Somewhere is just – a tiny island of calm. And if that weren’t there, I would be swept out to sea. Ressler: No, that’s never gonna happen– Liz: It would if you weren’t here. Ressler: But I am. And it won’t. Come here. It’s never gonna happen. Not on my watch.

Ressler has consistently represented peace and calm and stability to Liz amidst the chaos. It’s there from the very beginning when she clings to him after the Stewmaker ordeal at the end of 1x04, it’s there again when they hug in Mato 4x02 after he shows up at the Summer Palace, it’s there in Dr. Bodgan Krilov (4x19) when she envisions a peaceful future for Ressler watching the sunset from his lake house while Hitchin goes to jail:

Liz: I didn’t do it for you. I did it for him. Hitchin: Fair enough, but you did it, and for that, I’m grateful. Liz: Donald Ressler represents what’s best about this country. He’s loyal and honest, and he believes that no one – no one – is above the law. And I believe that one day, you’ll be the one being dragged off in handcuffs. And he’ll be walking into his lake house to watch the sunset.

It’s there in Season 5, the first episode that they share a meaningful scene together after Ruin, and The Informant, when Ressler is talking about “silver linings,” in the Capricorn Killer (5x16) as he wraps his arm around her.

So for me, Jon calling Ressler a "light that is – represents good and the Boy Scout and all the stuff” is completely consistent with all of that has come before between these two characters and isn’t something Jon just made up out of whole cloth.  More importantly, the fact that he characterizes Ressler as “more interesting” to Liz now because of the contrast, and the juxtaposition between her darkness and his “light” is also encouraging to me insofar as I don’t want to see the show end violently - I want to see it end with Red and Liz at peace and with Liz achieving the calm, normal life she’s always wanted (and which Red has promised her for seasons now she will have in the end). So the fact that she’s still interested in light and peace and calm, despite her step further into the darkness at the end of 7.19, is an encouraging sign to me that Liz is not entirely lost.

Back in Season 3, in a midseason interview with The Blacklist Exposed between episodes 3x08 and 3x09, Jon said that Liz “is definitely on a dark path...and I think she will continue to be,” and that “it’s a battle for her soul, it’s a battle for can she survive going through this process.”  

There’s a conversation between Ressler and Cooper in the comics (The Arsonist, #6) that illustrates that Ressler’s concern back then wasn’t just preventing Liz from being physically killed, or “beating” Red, but more a fear of losing her to Red’s world - that the darkness would overtake her.

Ressler: I want to bring her in while she’s still...her. Every second she’s out there Reddington’s turning her into someone else. Cooper: That may be, but it’s your job to catch her Donald. It’s not your job to save her.

Four seasons later, I think it’s still a battle for Liz’s soul, but an internal battle that has never really gone away.  The battle is not Reddington turning her into someone else, but rather own struggle against her dark impulses, her own struggle to fight for some light, some peace, some calm in her life amidst the chaos. And for that, I think she needs someone to help pull her back from the brink before she takes that step too far, someone to remind her that there is another way.

I hope going forward into next season, that will be Ressler, who will draw on his own experience battling his own demons and help prevent Liz from slipping into the abyss. Does that mean that Keenler will end up a romantic couple in the end? Not necessarily (though personally I hope so). But I take Jon’s comments as a positive sign that Ressler will be a positive force in her life as she steps into yet another battle.

Wine for all those who made it this far!

[aph1wonderland]

Achilles Come Down(Songfic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_V76Dm42bY

(by Gangs Of Youths) Happy late birthday Kay {1/11}]

Achilles

Achilles

Achilles come down, won't you

Get up off

Get up off the roof?

She heard stories, how people get visions blessed by archons, when they know they have lost something dear to them. It's selfish for her to claim she has so much, but how can she bare face with the honorless daughter who selfishly granted a wish to her desperate mother? To be given freedom, but at what cost? The obedient daughter can no longer learn because her household refused her to excel in her gifts they sold her.

You're scaring us

And all of us

Some of us love you

Achilles, it's not much but there's proof

She could only acknowledge the sacrifices of her mother’s paranoia and insanity driving her to act out of her driven mind. Forced to push her first daughter gifted to leave the nest before the danger of a curse to seal her away. What a feeling she learned when fought as a child, not entirely understanding why her fragile and injured mother could dare teach her violent arts of breaking bones. No matter what she could with the trait passed down to obey like she did, the inhuman strength was supposed to be her brother’s. Was she supposed to be a man, or play a coward of a woman like she was last time she saw her.

You crazy assed cosmonaut

Remember your virtue

Redemption lies plainly in truth

Perhaps it was insane to teach her child to fight and out of turn for her to act this way on the day she was supposed to depart away to Fontaine.  To run, a virtue truly from her heart, passion but plainly she didn’t know how to fly by herself if she nested warmly alone in her noble home. But maybe it was a better hesitation than she thought distracted by the differences of Liyue Harbor the sounds, the unknown to the factors of cultures shifted from them and herself. 

Just humour us

Achilles

Achilles come down

Won't you get up off

Get up off the roof

She was bringing too much attention to herself. A distraction to few of the many bustling crowds, it did not help if she was holding her vision from Inazuma. The crafted origin of her homelands if only it was possible to cover it up, but she cannot do anything to god blessed item. Afraid to break such a glorified object that could possibly bring her even more fear brought among her. She could not say much but the expensive silks of her layers of clothing on her and mora tied as the side of her sash. Perhaps this was a better choice to exchange for more temporary stability.

Achilles

Achilles

Achilles come down, won't you

Get up off

Get up off the roof?

Parting for her meticulous layers, as if she felt bare to foreign weather. It was an uncommonly shifted need to adapt. To live is to survive the world that felt dangerous in the as if shores she arrived at the port, soaking her soles. As the hydro element felt attuned as she gazed over it, perhaps she mistaken it for cryo for a few seconds. The newly acquired clothing felt perhaps embarrassing to be seen wearing it, but it must be done. Exposing skin could throw them off of her, needing eyes to attend too afforded a pair of glasses to wear. No longer blinded and blurred by the setback. 

The self is not so weightless

Nor whole and unbroken

Remember the pact of our youth

She planned back to see the village of her mother, in which she thought would be best to rely on them for a settlement. As quick she wanted to live again, the feeling of the forest life once again she’ll dearly make it possible to work away her favor and honor. The face of her selfish wish from her mother’s demands, for once she’ll do her justice in living in the truth then the lie. She was the selfish one in the end to drink the god’s gift in the journey of living outside the box.

Where you go

I'm going

So jump and I'm jumping

Since there is no me without you

The hardest part was truly talking to the leader of the community of Qingce Village. Basic knowledge of contract is the word of the old in Liyue, for that it must be fair to do so as a way to be accepted. As long as she can work what she can there’ll be no one to stop her from becoming something unexpected. Perhaps if she’ll survive the jump she’s making herself take, someday she’ll see her mother smile once more. One day she will not need to hear rumors of the walls that could speak about her siblings and the warmth of the sun not the gaze of cold expectations.

Soldier on

Achilles

Achilles come down

Won't you get up off

Get up off the roof?

As if her eyes hesitated at the time she heard from the old woman, she warmly laughed off her noble character she played. She felt warm, her own layer of her mask cracking and her face wrinkling in confusion. Perhaps one day she’ll understand why she left, accepted into the community and warm tears to the location to her new home. Gazing at the moon and the stars  among the indigo sky, on the roof. Feeling alone at the end of the ledge wondering why does she feel this sadness?

Loathe the way they light candles in Rome

But love the sweet air of the votives

Hurt and grieve but don't suffer alone

Engage with the pain as a motive

It had been an additional two years she had hesitated a few times to work her way into the community  once again, when the old woman told her to visit the night of the lantern festival and live a bit. Scolding her for something as tedious as working too much for others and not herself. She wishes to stay, tending her home, to the children in the village. Listen over to the elderly and middle aged for things to do, when she returns from the commissions in the early morning before. She could not see herself anymore as a woman who could stand sitting looking beautiful in wealth in silken in silence without someone or a book in hand. Yet here she is fidgeting to do something in Liyue Harbor, gazing at the port away from the festivity waiting for it to end. Hands shaking over the candle lights, flashing sounds of fireworks behind her. 

Today of all days

See

Leaning against the stone fencing far away from the peaceful cold tones wondering about Inazuma. Her 2nd younger sister, Kaori was already sent to Fontaine after her brother 3rd youngest Daichi was prepared. Who knows where, but hope the best for him. That his wife would not stop him from doing what he loved in the end. Becoming an alchemist and a doctor, something she felt taken from her life however perhaps this is the exchange of her natural build taking away his inhuman strength. She loved every single child born in that house. Chie, she has yet to entirely meet, but she must have been close to a mischievous child she was when she was younger running in the fields. Last time she remembered from her nanny telling her before sending her off from the interception of her mother that week she fled.

How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above

Thinking about it now she was alone on the side of this world, the chills returned. It felt suffocating and an uncomfortable delusion to find herself drowning in the sea of doubt. The constellation of her verse was a siren, or a mermaid. They long and lost their dreams and here she was living the dream not of hers but someone else's, what could she say now but choke back the mourning not of death but the new life given to her. Perhaps she’ll love the gods for this life for hers, the opportunities to breath in the beauty of Liyue. Live for the virtues of Justice, but for now she shall wait for the day to be taken back home, not alone but with others in strength. 

Achilles

Achilles

Achilles

Jump now

You are absent of cause

Or excuse

She flinched when she turned to look to the side to see a tall man, he was beautiful. Awed at the sight of the strangely encapsulating man who was glowing entrancingly from the lights and the moon as well. Mostly his vision of his eyes from the mid ranged distance, she panicked once again when he caught her staring. Flustered in beyond her life had she met a man who made her feel so out of place. He was confused why she suddenly looked away, “Miss? Perhaps you are a traveler? Considering I have yet to see you before in this country? Have finished experiencing the festival in Liyue?” She froze, right the festival that is taking place right now. Was she dreading for so long to not realize the time?

So self-indulgent

And self-referential

No audience could ever want you

One thing is for sure she was embarrassed herself once again, no way to correct the fact she had nothing to tell this man to answer that. “Perhaps you are asking for an introduction from a stranger like myself, but it does not seem fair if you do not return the favor first. In all honesty I did not partake in the event, I tend to busy myself too much in working around Liyue as an Adventurer from the guild. Well I don’t know how to experience these events. It’s best for me not to attend and perhaps ruin it all. Good night Sir.” She shouldn’t bother this man at all, leaving was the only thing on her mind.

You crave the applause

Yet hate the attention

Then miss it, your act is a ruse

“Would it be possible for me to guide you through the festival? Of course I am Zhongli of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, a consultant, may I ask for the name of your Miss?” She stopped, “I would not mind if you were to show me the knowledge of yours of your beloved Liyue. I am Kay of Haru, please do not mind my hesitancy and not honor among me to be called anything as Miss. Kay is enough for me to be called in such a fluency.” Returning a feeble gaze up to him, taking him as her guide for that night to return alive that day. 

It is empty, Achilles

So end it all now

It's a pointless resistance

For you

Achilles

Achilles

Just put down the bottle

Don't listen to what you've consumed

Open to opportunities and refreshed and ready to work her life for another day to look for Mister Zhongli had inspired her to take on learning the world the best she can starting with Liyue. From the whole trip listening to him speak the loveliest tunes of a tone, enchanted possibly. Yet she began to notice how little time she spent on her commissions in which she decided to ask Katherine in a few hours for more things to do. In which she began to enjoy the thrill of control she realized of her life envirgated by the thought itself grew her confidence and growth in her skills. Passing 5 years had affected her bond with Mister Zhongli to increase in size on her personal affections to his personal side of feelings towards simple things in life. Someone who could answer her curiosities in the best way they could and confide, not once thought about leaving the country of Liyue.

It's chaos, confusion

And wholly unworthy

Of feeding and it's wholly untrue

Yet with few time he found her as often as he could in Liyue in finding her in returning to Katherine filing in the many commissions built as she carried on her shoulders. He gave her glaze lilies on her birthday each year, not sure how he knew, but perhaps the old woman told him. Cooking was one her specialties in which she began collecting recipes after trying to find a way to return back to Mister Zhongli to acknowledge his distaste in seafood as a reminder. Perhaps he was too addicting to let go, however was that alright to call him something close to a friend. Would that be alright with him?

You may feel no purpose

Nor a point for existing

It's all just conjecture and gloom

Yet she would miss him as much as she thought when Childe took on his arrival. Perhaps the fact alone that she took on now is the gnawing hunger, she was childish to share a desire of hers with him. Considering the truth, he always found her and never the other way around. She did not see him that much anymore, feeling like a distant memory that returns every week he does. Never once complained for the fact she enjoyed his company, for the returning fact, she was lonely.

And there may not be meaning

So find one and seize it

Do not waste your self on this roof

Perhaps for once a longing will not leave her and let her stay on the roof of her home given to her and the children of those who breathed in this village. The moon was always lucky to know it was never alone, possibilities of her insecurities to eat her. Was she not worthy to know the fact she is not considered in the spotlight, but entirely on being known? Still he gave her glaze lilies on her birthday.

Hear those bells ring deep in the soul

Chiming away for a moment

Feel your breath course frankly below

See life as a worthy opponent

Driven to bite back the petty thieves in Liyue with her strength reporting to the adventurer’s guild and stealing treasures and effort from others. She did not like them, she made sure to take note of base locations from each leader she fought, monsters she battled and planned meticulously in a clean beat down. Same old same old, spending Mora on things she could think of. To one she could tend to a bird; Kyu a loving bird with a blank expression but a silent affectionate one in the end of it all, who carries packages and wordless secrets of her loneliness. Perhaps her own feelings she can express is what tearing her apart over and over again. Life was hers to learn more of as her commissions made her wander to Monstadt’s region but never once thought about entering into the city of freedom.

Today of all days

See

How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above

Crowned by an overture bold and beyond

Ah, it's more courageous to overcome

She faced Childe in a confrontation when Mister Zhongli brought him over for dinner that week at her home. Why did it take a year for her to finally meet Childe, Mister Zhongli? She frowned, but bonded slowly with Childe, he was pretty sketchy around her, but nonetheless she wasn’t alone if Childe actually had something to confide with family. Considering they had similar visions from the same values of Justice but different archons blessed. He gave white lies with reason, sometimes it was cruel to keep to himself. While Kay herself was one who hesitates but nevertheless her strength is for the good reasons that are proven. Yet even the harder things get she won’t give in so easily she rather die fighting for things that are right, failing to do so does not mean she’ll stop. The moment she’ll stop if she dies breathing blood. Perhaps that’s why she talks with him often, even that does not satisfy her.

You want the acclaim

The mother of mothers (it's not worth it Achilles)

More poignant than fame

Or the taste of another (don't listen Achilles)

But be real and just jump

You dense motherf*cker (you're worth more, Achilles)

You will not be more

Than a rat in the gutter (so much more than a rat)

You want my opinion (no one asked your opinion)

My opinion you've got

You asked for my counsel (no one asked for your thoughts)

I gave you my thoughts

Be done with this now

And jump off the roof

Can you hear me Achilles?

Mister Zhongli lowered his visits to her compared to Childe who was able to find him whenever he needed to talk to him. However another person, the traveler, arrived in Liyue a few weeks ago. However Mister Zhongli had briefly mentioned her if they needed any assistance. Not sure how to feel if he was using her, unsure if their bond would be truly mended and here she was letting him into her own heart every time he came. Why does she hesitate when it comes to him? Someone who could destroy all her defenses and weaken her to the point she doesn’t help but stutter. She’s not sure if Mister Zhongli realizes as she doesn’t entirely, she is hurting. She is selfish to continue this cycle she let herself eat till he leaves her. This is not entirely healthy, she’s disgusted to look how encapsulated when it comes to him. Perhaps it’s better to give up before it ruins her, she thought. She’s selfish to think he would see her again. Does this mean she’s drowning by the sea  with no shores for her to rely on.

I'm talking to you

I'm talking to you

I'm talking to you

I'm talking to you

Achilles come down

Achilles come down

“Kay.” She stood by the cliffs and turned around to see Mister Zhongli with the Traveler. She is confused yet a bit sad by her own thoughts of self pity. “Mister Zhongli. It’s been too long hasn’t it?” The Traveler worriedly looked in between them. “Hello dear Traveler, I hope you’ve been well, I hope I did well to help you in Liyue.” She ignored the fact Zhongli was about to respond to her, but ended letting him continue since the Traveler nudged him to do so. “I apologize, if I left you too much in the dark. Perhaps we could mend for a few moments with a story to tell. I will confess the fact I was not honest in my reasons for disappearing too much.” Her eyes conflicted, whether or not he was truly speaking his mind, but knowing him for years regardless of his disappearance. She sighs, bitterly but allowing his invitation to tell about the salt goddess that late evening. 

Throw yourself into the unknown

With pace and a fury defiant

Clothe yourself in beauty untold

And see life as a means to a triumph

Today of all days

See

One thing she could even do was not judge him, but comfort him as a human like she was born to do. Sure she was angry, but nothing could compare over the immortal and emotional wounds that cut deeply over time and left a swollen temperament of a situation. She cannot help but relate once again leaving her fragile over the fact she wasn’t smart enough to understand him, but connect through the empathic nature she was. In the end she knew she'd join the Traveler to Inazuma to finish her parting justice for her country. Perhaps one day she’ll understand to feel more, if they joined them. Perhaps she’ll tell people in Liyue about her choice in following the Traveler.

How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above

Crowned by an overture bold and beyond

Ah, it's more courageous to overcome

She loved this man to the end of her aging life, even if he would not take it for granted compared to her existence. After following her beloved traveler to the end of their journey, healing her country she must take over duties as next head with the revived honor of her clan. She realizes Mister Zhongli will wait for her, not the reason she wants to believe. In which she cannot return the sentiment that he plans to give back in the end. That is not the love she needed from him, nor can force it. For that she will settle for another, her children will remember the age or gods in her place. She will heal and forgive him over and over again. For she will love him to not feel forgotten for eternity. Perhaps he was right to compare her to glaze lilies on her birthdays.

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Chapter 3

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We’d held hands in the darkness. The only proof that we were alive had been our body temperature. Whenever she’d say that she was scared, I’d reply with, “It’s all right”. “Your Big Bro will do something about this,” I’d tell her.

The one who’d affirmed my existence was my little sister. I’d managed to get courage from the fact that I could be relied on. That, yeah, I was an older brother. That she was no good without me, so I had to keep on living.

But I didn’t remember. I didn’t know.

Had someone broken me? Had I broken on my own? I didn’t know.

Still, she definitely existed. If I met her someday, I’d know it was her for sure. Even if I had forgotten, even if I couldn’t remember her, I’d recognize her if I saw her. I wished the same to be valid for her.

That feeling alone stayed inside me like a bonfire.

Whether the continents scattered around the world were big or small made no particular difference for the people living in them. Any place was the same should there be humans living in it. They would plow and grow. Harvest, build and color. Create and fail. Hide, interact, destroy, starve, succeed. Become depressed. Shed tears, coerce. Sparkle, act immoral. Repent, depart, worship. Acclaim, breed, mourn. Become idle. Become nostalgic. They would love each other and kill each other.

And so would he.

Back when a certain continent put an end for once to a war that had extended for a long time, the “Continental War”, battles continued happening in another continent as if it were natural. On the topic of occupations that had deep ties with so-called “wars”, there were mercenaries.

Although there existed different types of them, the mercenaries who wandered that continent were in majority freely warriors who would join any faction depending on the pay. They would head east today and west tomorrow. It did not matter if, for instance, a fellow mercenary with who they had drank together turned into an enemy. They would also not care for whatever happened to the head of the lord whose favor they had earned, or to the village of the woman they had slept with, depending on the money.

And right now, too, a single mercenary was being led to the death that would certainly come to many others.

“So cold.”

Sandy blond hair swayed in the wind mixed with ashen dust. A man with looks that would be a waste should he perish in such a place lay collapsed the way he had been born. His ivory skin, in which golden hair stood on end, was exposed mercilessly to natural threats. The man groaned amidst his clouded memories, asking himself how on Earth things had turned out as such.

——Three days ago, I was killing. Two days ago, also killing.

He recalled several battles that he had surrendered his body to joining in a spur of the moment.

——Yesterday... that’s right, I was in the bar of a small highway town dancing with women, drinking...

The man could more or less understand what had happened. He had extravagantly squandered to his heart’s contentment the reward he received for surviving wartime fire and spent the night with an absurdly fine woman, who had taken notice of his lavish feasting. His lodging and the drinks he had consumed were arranged by said woman. She had most likely administrated some sort of drug into them.

“I feel sick... oeh...”

The fact that all of his belongings had been stripped off him, that the bounty he had earned at the cost of his life had been snatched away, and that he had been left to chance in such a place without anyone bothering to finish him off could not be called anything other than misfortune. Only that his body was not tied up was good luck, but even if it were, he would not have moved. It seemed he had by no means the energy to stand up.

“Some...” he attempted to say, but closed his mouth.

——Even if I call for somebody, there ain’t anyone around. Who even is “somebody” to me, anyway?

The man did not have comrades or family to aid him in such a time.

That was what it meant to live as one pleased. He would make his baggage as light as possible and simply move forward to wherever he saw fit. If he had some sort of grandiose goal, it might lead him to good results. A lukewarm existence would sometimes turn into a hindrance for life decisions. Those who had nothing could probably see a world far broader than those who had everything. However, having no one to grieve for them when tasting such final moments was lonesome.

A pain ran through somewhere in the depths of his chest – the spot that was called “heart”.

“Nope, I ain’t dying.”

The pain ran through, but the man did not have the spirit of someone who obediently perceived fate as fate. He balled his fists, exhorting his body and attempting to stand up somehow.

“As if I’d die... As if I’d die; as if I’d die!”

Perhaps because that roar had been the last of the strength he had left, from head down, the man collapsed onto his back once again after just yelling. Buried by sand, he lost consciousness. In his primary circumstances, he would have died there. Nevertheless, there was a certain number of individuals beloved by the Goddess of Fortune to the point of it twisting their destinies. The fact that a motorcycle was transiting the road-less way and that he met a passerby with a good heart who stopped upon finding him were all the work of the Goddess of Fortune.

The man opened his eyes again after few hours had gone by.

“Who... are you, seriously?” Due to the surprise, but also because he was sitting up, his voice was hoarse.

“I’m Hodgins, a veteran in the middle of a trip. I’m the one you owe your life to for picking up your butt-naked self from the desert.”

He was a bit of a rich man, an easy-going one who could easily chime in with others, extremely calculating and intrigue-loving, who scored a large profit in war gambles and had an upstart. He was an entrepreneur currently in the middle of stablishing his business. That was the man’s first encounter with Hodgins, his lifesaver.

“Why’d you help me, Old Man?!” his harsh voice echoed throughout the interior of the shop.

The two were in an open-terrace restaurant located at the first floor of an inn to which the man had been heading. It was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. The man was conspicuous. After all, no matter how one looked at it, he was dressed in baggy, obviously borrowed shirt and trousers.

“Ah, I’m sorry. This kid is a bit ill-mannered. Yes, he’ll quiet down... Hm? Wait a minute. ‘Old man’...!? Me...?” Hodgins opened his eyes wide and leaned closer to the man.

That was what he was going to react to?

The youth and the overly cheerful man were a mismatched combination inside the refined inn. It was inevitable that the gazes of the customers would gather upon them in a natural manner, but at a growl of, “We ain’t for display!” from the young man, everyone looked away.

“Old Man, listen to me.”

“No, no, more importantly, how about we clear up the issue of whether or not I look like an old man? I’m indeed past my twenties already, but I’m younger than the people from my generation who are married, my stomach doesn’t stick out yet, and more than anything, I’m a fine man, right? Do I really seem like an old man? Not a big bro? How about you try thinking it over? Ready, set—”

“OLD. MAN!”

As if stabbed in the heart by his words, Hodgins clutched his chest and moaned. “What is it... young man...?” Even his voice was pained.

“Why’d you help me? You’re even treating me to food... What’cha after? I’m telling you I’ve got no money.”

It was true. If the man were billed for a meal in that place now, it would be the end of the line for him.

In contraposition, Hodgins waved his hand to the side. “Nah, I’m not after anything.”

“Then you want my body?”

“You’ve... got too much confidence in yourself. Well, when I first saw you, your body was buried in sand and I couldn’t properly see anything other than your face... so, I thought you were a naked pretty girl who had passed out.” After glancing fleetingly at the man, he turned his head to a different direction, eyes far-off. “When I lifted you in my arms, I noticed you had something extra there... but you were still alive, so I brought you back to the inn with me, stroked your body since you were with hypothermia... and when I realized, it was morning. I knew you had no money just by looking. You had nothing with you.”

This time, the one with an aching chest was the man. “My bad. For... not having anything.” As his voice tone changed quite a bit, perhaps what had been rubbed was a very sore spot.

“Young man, why were you asleep in that place?”

“‘Why,’ you ask...?”

Albeit hesitating to discuss his misfortune, he talked about his situation in a summarized way. Hodgins had listened seriously at the beginning, but from the middle onward, he turned his face to the side and his shoulders trembled as if he were holding back laughter.

“If you wanna laugh, just do it...!”

“Eh, can I? Ahah! Ahahahah! You’d finally earned some and lost all of it?! That’s too pitiful! My stomach hurts... Ah, hold o—hold o—wait up. How about you stop lifting that chair? Let’s calm down? It was terrible, wasn’t it? You’re hungry too, right? Eat up, eat up. Speaking of which, I didn’t ask your name either. Young man, what’s your name?”

Silence.

“Hey, hey, no matter how badly behaved you are, you should at least give your name.”

Pouting, the man muttered curtly, “Ain’t got it.” Seeming to have been made from the colors of the summer sky and blown into a glass ball, his remarkable eyes clouded over, and he defiantly spoke one more time. Crossing his arms, he rested his feet on the table. “I ain’t got a name. I might’ve been given one, but I don’t have any. Call me whatever you want. My registration name from when I used to be a mercenary was ‘Blue’. Since I dunno my name... I went with my eye color.”

Hodgins showed agitation for the first time in front of the man, who had turned into a lump of displeasure. “‘Don’t have any’... What do you mean?”

“Amnesia. My memory’s got nothing but what happened starting from a few years back. I dunno where I was, what I was doing, where I’m from or who I was before this. When I came to, I was lying on a riverbank at the borders of this continent. Back then, I was wearing an armor and a cape... If I hadn’t been picked by a woman gypsy, I’d have died just like that.”

Hodgins at last realized his own words to have been a verbal gaffe.

“You don’t remember anything? Not a single thing?”

Silence.

“Is there something you do?”

That might have been important to the man enough to make him falter even at putting it into words. After showing an expression of hesitation, he finally opened his mouth. “I probably... had a... little sister.” His attitude was almost that of confessing a sin. “Still, I don’t remember her. I just have the memory that she existed, and I dunno what kinda person she was. But she was definitely there. I remember that.”

Hodgins wound up gripping his own shirt at the chest area.

“I tagged along with the gypsies for a while, learning from them how to sing, dance and stuff. Then, in the end, I changed jobs to mercenary. Looked like fighting fit my nature better, y’see. ‘Battle-Hungry Freak’ is my nickname. I’m famous in the mercenary world.” Upon saying so, the man shrugged. “Well, that ain’t a name, though...”

He did not know who he was. Just how worrisome was that for him? The man did not seem to have a commendable personality at all, yet he was apparently concerned about not having a name.

“Hu~n... that so? So, you... were a mercenary, yeah?”

“That’s right. Is it bad?”

“I’m not saying that it’s bad per se. But even so, you got no money, no name or anything at all?”

“No”, “no”, “no”. The man’s rage towards his own life was present at the many sorts of “no”.

“You wanna get killed, Old Man? Just saying it, but I don’t have any sense of moral obligation, so if I don’t like someone, I’m fine with beating them up.”

“Yep, you’re like that. Not a single ‘thank you’. But I... don’t hate insincere guys like you.”

“What’s with that?”

“Also, you see, I have an acquaintance... it’s a girl who resembles you... Even though I’m her legal guardian, I left her with other people and went on a journey as if running away. I sort of got the feeling I couldn’t leave her by herself.”

——Someone who resembles me?

Was there any such person in the world?

“What kinda fella is she?”

Not answering the man’s question, Hodgins gave breadcrumbs to a dove that lay in waiting at his feet for his meal’s leftovers to fall down. Whatever he was thinking, he stayed quiet for a while and suddenly rose from his seat, chasing after the dove. The other doves could not stand his imposing action, batting their wings and fleeing into the sky.

“Hey, what kinda fella is she!?” his angry shout overlapped with Hodgins’s innocent laughter and the sound of bird feathers.

With the town that the doves had flown toward at his back, Hodgins turned around. His eyes seemed to be looking at the man, but were not.

“The strongest and weakest in the world.” As expected, Hodgins was smiling, but his eyes did not form an arc. Regardless of whether the person he referred to was evil or good, the air around him transmitted the fact that she was someone important.

The man frowned.

——What’s that...? A riddle...?

He became even less able to understand the lifesaver in front of him.

“I also have to just go and face her already.” Hodgins had said he was in his thirties, but he seemed older than that as he talked about the “strongest and weakest in the world”. “I can’t tell her... that it’s hard for me to look at her face when she seems sad.”

Eyes crinkling, the man thought:

——This dude... he pretends to be decent but something’s up with him.

He sensed a twist from the laughing other man. The latter spoke a lot at first, but he had seemed to be giving vent to his thoughts rather than having a conversation. Was he not burdened with some sort of enormous problem? One that he truly could do nothing about, no less.

“It’s settled.” Hodgins pointed an index finger at the man and snapped one of his eyelids closed. “If you aren’t anything, won’t you tag along with me?”

“Meaning... you’re gonna hire me?”

“That’s right. You lack too much of everything. Come to my place earn money. You need cash to search for your sister and to get revenge from the guys that threw you naked into the desert, don’t you? In exchange, can you lend me your life for a bit?”

“Hah?”

“Right now, you only have your life, yeah? I’ll buy that.”

At those words, the man’s heart started making astir sounds. He was supposedly used to having his life bought with money, but when asked for it face-to-face, his breathing felt as if it would stop.

“How much is it?”

Upon being asked so, the man was at loss for an answer.

Afterward, the man acquired a name.

“Benedict Blue”.

He also secured a profession and a place to sleep.

The CH Postal Company.

He had a lifesaver who was dear to him.

Claudia Hodgins.

He obtained comrades as well.

He had treaded a long prologue, but that was his story.

Benedict Blue

“The rough explanation ends here. The client who made this request just wants the letter sent definitively. Little Violet will do the ghostwriting. Benedict will do the delivery. It’s a sudden commission, but it’s good that you two were going to work in the same place. I can also count with Benedict for seeing off and meeting on return with Little Violet. I’ll give you a few days’ break when you’re done, so do your best. How’s that? Does it seem okay?”

Benedict observed the golden-haired girl who immediately answered, “Yes” with blue eyes similar to hers. They sat next to each other on a sofa in Hodgins’s room. It was a languid early morning. Work was about to begin that day as well.

The climate, atmosphere and food of Leidenschaftlich, which Benedict was once not used to due to having come from a different continent, now penetrated his body without any sense of displacement.

“Fine.”

He had no reason and was not in the position to refuse. The one in front of him was his lifesaver and superior. He did not show respect for the latter, but felt familiarity from him. Most likely, of the highest degree.

“V, don’t make your luggage too heavy. It’ll weaken my beloved bike’s movements.”

The girl beside the amnesiac Benedict was an individual who had only just appeared into his short life. From the time they had first met, to Benedict, she had rooted herself in the classification of people whom he “somehow could not leave on their own”. She was a stunning Auto-Memories Doll. Her impudence aside, she was an ignorant child unknowing of the ways of society. In the beginning, he had doubted that such a machine-like person come from the military would manage working in the service business, but she was currently the most popular figure of the CH Postal Company.

“That is true. I shall reduce the firearms to the minimum equipment. My body weight is also heavy due to the prosthetics, so it will increase the burden on Benedict’s motorcycle.”

Her fine appearance had always stolen the eyes of whoever looked at her, but lately, he had the feeling that her charm had increased. It was as if spring had been born from within her cold beauty.

“Even if the equipment is scarce, if I am with Benedict, I will probably not struggle in case of emergencies.”

She had become able to smile faintly on occasion.

The biggest incident amongst the ones that they had just recently experienced in person – the Intercontinental Train’s hijacking – crossed Benedict’s mind. And so did a man with an eyepatch, who had showed up embracing Violet sideways as she had lost an arm, and taken his leave.

He had not heard everything about the past of the two, but Hodgins had told him the general story afterward. They were in love with each other. There was no room for anyone to come in-between. Their colleague, Cattleya, had said that the two apparently started seeing each other on off days. “I’m glad,” Cattleya had laughed.

Benedict did not deem it as good.

That was probably the reason why looking at Violet felt somewhat unamusing as of late. He suspected that she was being deceived by a much older man who had conveniently vanished and come about once again.

Putting it positively, he was worried.

Benedict tautly flicked Violet, who had no idea about his feelings, on the forehead with his fingertips. “Not really; you’re light. It’s just that your bag’s heavy. Old Man, you ever lifted V’s luggage? Swing that thing around and it’s like a normal blunt weapon; a blunt weapon. There’s a ton of weapons in it under her clothes.”

Hodgins made an all but deplorable face. “Little Violet... you buy guns with your salary, right...?”

“They were distributed to us back when we were in the military, but now I have no option except purchase them myself. I can only take Witchcraft when President Hodgins grants me permission, after all. I have recently purchased a long-range shotgun. My hands are actually more accustomed to wide-swing maces, however...” Perhaps due to having a desire to acquire large weaponry, Violet moved as though wielding the real thing, staring fixedly at the imaginary weapon.

“No can do, no can do. I’ve gone through the trouble of getting you a cute look, so don’t take stuff like that with you aside from emergency cases.”

“Stop, stop. Giving you a ride would get even heavier.”

Completely shut down by the two men, Violet put on a disappointed expression, as if disheartened. “I am prepared to explain the advantage points of the mace, though...”

Without her having the opportunity to give said explanation, the two were set to depart in haste. Seen off by Hodgins and after Lux, who was on phone duty, waved at them, Benedict and Violet left the agency.

The blond duo swayed on the motorcycle towards wherever.

Autumn had ended, the seasons changing into winter. Leidenschaftlich usually did not witness snowfall, yet icy winds were blowing. Gloves, scarves, hooded coats – even if the protection measures against low temperatures were appropriate, cold was cold. As the one driving, Benedict had no choice but simply endure the chilly gusts head-on. Violet’s artificial arms around his torso were gelid as well. The heat from the part of her actual body that was in contact with his back was the only warmth. He could feel the hold of her arms more firmly than when giving her rides back in summer. Was it because of the coolness or because of her trust in him?

Feeling an itch, Benedict sneezed, “Achoo!” While vigorously speeding up the motorcycle over the vast land, he initiated a conversation for no particular reason, “It’s cold!”

“Yes.”

“V, your prosthetics okay? Ain’t there any downsides or something if they get too chilled?”

“It is bad if the joints freeze, but that will not happen as long as the coldness is not extreme.”

“Hu~n.”

“We mostly roamed around northern lands during the Continental War, so I am knowledgeable of the protections against cold.”

“Well, the place we’re going to – Lontano – is inside Leidenschaftlich, so for starters, it won’t be snowing there this time of the year. As long as the weather isn’t abnormal, that is. There’ll also be no obstacles to my delivery duties.”

“Yes. This is reassuring.”

“Hey, don’t say that.”

“Why not? The climate is stable. The one who said that there would be no obstacles to the delivery duties was you, Benedict.”

“That’s not it; it’s ‘cause you’re with me. When you say stuff of the sort, it feels like something will happen instead.”

“So the weather will become abnormal because of what I said?”

Benedict knew that Violet’s eyebrows were furrowing even without looking at her. He laughed aloud. “Stu~pid. You’ve got it wrong. I’m saying that ‘cause it’s easy for some kinda problem to happen when I’m with you. To make up for your luggage being lighter, we got ready to manage at least an interception if anything in general goes down, but... Lontano is a pretty big city, so there’s lots of thugs. Flashy towns also got many dark sides.”

“What an issue...”

“You got picked by some weirdo and it was fight on; you were attacked by a bandit and it was fight on; the motorcycle broke and we got stuck in some field. Also, what else...? You raise one small thing and there’s no end to it.”

As if to protest, Violet alleged, “I cannot agree with this. Benedict, the fights that you started one-sidedly are also included.”

“That so? Might be bad for me to get teamed up with you.”

After a short pause, Violet objected again – to the part about teaming up with Benedict being a “bad” thing, “I cannot agree with this either... Indeed, I can assume there is a factor in us that makes it easy to bring about some sort of conflict. However, we were able to deal with them. We, the two of us... can deal with it if something happens again.”

It was difficult to tell what she was thinking, and she might well have been merely protesting against the negative reputation of her own abilities. Still, Benedict somehow heard it as something other than that.

“Heheh,” laughter leaked from him in a natural manner.

Her breath coming out in white puffs behind him, Violet added as if just recalling it, “This applies to times of war and not to times of peace, but... we would have even less enemies if Cattleya were included,” she whispered intermittently and Benedict smiled.

“If that happened, there’d really be no match for us,” he chuckled.

From that point onward, the way to their destination took a couple of hours.

The place that the Auto-Memories Doll and postman from CH Postal Company headed to was Lontano. Small in comparison with the capital Leiden, it was the most prosperous city amongst the neighboring ones. The houses formed circles as if to surround an old castle sitting on top of a slightly elevated hill that extended itself for about a hundred meters, a river with the same name as the country flowing nearby.

Enshrined within a solemn atmosphere, said old castle was a famous attraction of the city. While holding the rights to it themselves, the clan that formerly owned it had handed its management over to the city, and the city allowed people to tour inside of it for cheap admission fees. The old castle had become a grandiose touristic spot, for the one who had built it was a well-known architect.

Places with renowned attractions that had cultural value were easy to turn into the aspired cities of young artists. Not an exception to this, Lontano had art and history museums, theatre venues and a market of ancient books, making the urban area into one where lovers of such things would be unable to help themselves just from strolling through it. Before entering the city gates, one could overhear music as young people played instruments by the road, and walking a little into the city, one would find bookstore after bookstore. The vicinities of statues and fountains were packed with people drawing sketches. It was city of gorgeous structure, yet gloomy and easy to get lost in if one wandered into an alley. Albeit a small ward, there was also a red-light district, which was more popular amongst those who had no interest in arts.

“Now...”

Benedict dropped Violet off at the city’s entrance. She would then rush over to the customer who lived in that city and ghostwrite for them. Benedict himself had several packages to deliver around the city. Once the work there ended, they would return to Leiden, where the submission of reports and delivery of more letters would be waiting for them. That was why Hodgins had ordered the two of them to go to that city. It was more efficient than going through the trouble of having Violet use public transportation, as it there was no fare and took less time.

The current time was right before noon, the tourists gradually forming a lively crowd.

“Where. Should. It. Be?”

Benedict’s sky-blue eyes traveled about in search for a good meeting spot. There was a bank, a bakery, a souvenir store, and a statue of a naked woman carrying a child. The bakery also seemed to have a café, and people could be seen enjoying the apparently warm interior and freshly baked bread from the glass windows.

“It’s settled. V, let’s make the bakery our meeting spot. No matter who arrives first, we wait inside.”

Violet nodded curtly. “You want to eat bread, right?”

“I do. That bakery’s bread is tasty. I never went inside to eat it, though. But it’s delicious enough that making sure to buy something there and bring it over if we have deliveries to do in Lontano is almost common sense among fellow postmen. That one with melted cheese on it... let’s make it a souvenir for Old Man.”

Hearing Benedict talk about purchasing a souvenir, Violet blinked. “I comply. But Benedict, did something happen?” Her reaction all but asked if he had gone crazy.

“You’re being the rudest possible to me with that, y’know?”

“I apologize... Well, did anything happen?” Benedict’s act of buying souvenirs for Hodgins purely out of goodwill seemed unbelievable for Violet. Therefore, she uttered her concern for a malfunction in either his body or mind.

Benedict struck the top of her head with a light knife-hand in an expression of sympathy. “Nothing’s up! You just don’t know it, but I sometimes give the Old Man souvenirs! Even Auto-Memories Dolls buy souvenirs to the agency if they go to some exotic place, right? It’s the same as that. The Old Man treats me to food and stuff before payday too... Like lunch, well, pretty often...”

“President Hodgins tends to give Benedict a special treatment.”

——Don’t wanna hear that from you who he treats like a daughter, Benedict thought.

He spoke while turning to the other side, “Welp, he went as far as taking in an amnesiac like me and giving me a name... He might be special to me, and I to him.”

He accidentally, unintentionally voiced it.

“Is that so?” Violet threw in an interjection quite like normal and Benedict was taken aback.

It was not as if he were hiding the fact he had amnesia or that the name “Benedict” had been given to him by Hodgins, but he had never talked about it to his work colleagues. That was because he had until now no trials of explaining he had amnesia in which he had received a decent response. He would either earn uncalled-for looks or have condolence-like words of pity spat at him. Whichever it was, Benedict was the kind of person who would end up irritated at the other party.

He already had a name and social position. No longer was he the “Blue” who had nothing. He did not want to feel ashamed of back when he had lived by his eye color’s name.

——I wonder...

He was not proud of it either.

——I wonder how she’ll react.

She would certainly not make a big scandal, but would probably say something annoyingly depressing. While embracing uncomfortable feelings, Benedict waited for her response.

However, no matter how long he waited, there was no reaction after that.

Their blue eyes repeatedly exchanged stares. A prolonged silence ensued between them.

Finally, Violet tilted her head slightly as if to ask, “Is something the matter?”

Benedict wound up delving into it without thinking. “Hey, anything to say on me having amnesia?”

Violet’s golden eyelashes batted. “‘Anything’...?”

“There is, right? It’s amnesia we’re talking about. That’s rare, ain’t it?” Saying it himself was somewhat embarrassing and pathetic.

Did that mean she was not too interested in his past? He felt a little let-down.

“That is not true.”

The next words he heard changed his feelings.

“It is indeed uncommon, but in my personal subjectivity, this is not odd.” Violet susurrated with a tone that sounded somehow happy, “I also do not have any memories from before a certain point in time. I did not know how to speak, either. Major bestowed me with the name of a flower goddess. Benedict, what meaning was yours given with?”

——That’s right.

It seemed that Benedict having amnesia was not a big issue for Violet.

——That was it.

The girl so-called Violet Evergarden also used to be not even a person, but a weapon, during the time she had no name. And she spoke of it without any pretension. She did not think of it as a shame.

“This is President Hodgins who we are talking about, so he must have given it with some sort of meaning. The two of us can be said to be very fortunate, right? If I had been used by anyone other than Major, I do not know what would be of me as of now.”

If anything, she thought of it as merely a process for until meeting the person she loved most.

“Oh.”

Violet, who was innocent and indeed lacked something somewhere, felt sorrowful and precious.

“So, what is the meaning of your name?”

“I forgot!”

“Then, let’s ask President Hodgins when we return. I want to know.”

“No, no, no! Don’t ask! Well, I’ll go do the deliveries, so you go to your client too! See ya later!” Benedict mounted the motorcycle once again and waved a hand at Violet.

“Understood. I shall leave the name matter for later as well.”

“You’re stubborn.”

Thus, the two headed to work, each on a different direction.

Benedict’s deliveries did not take too long. One house received a package with an assortment of supplies from a mother living in Leiden to her son working in Lontano. Three buildings received documents exchanged between offices. Five residences received letters. In case of absences, he would have a little bit of work either taking the delivery back with him or asking the person’s neighbors about where they had gone to, yet he finished earlier than he had presumed without the need for such things.

He soon entered the meeting-spot bakery, taking a seat from where he could see the situation outside through the glass and drinking coffee. It seemed Violet’s ghostwriting job would still take some time.

——Guess I’ll pick the souvenir first, then.

He was not able to imagine Violet enjoyably choosing a gift, so picking one by himself was probably more efficient. Thinking so, Benedict selected a few items that he had deemed savory from his own experience eating them. As per a request to the clerk, he had Hodgins’s part of the bread wrapped.

“Is this all?”

Sensing the plainness in color of the goods that he had chosen, Benedict tilted his neck. “Hn~, anything else you recommend?”

“How about a pie or tart? Also, these aren’t bread, but I recommend our cookies as well. There are people who come here just to buy them.”

“Ah~...”

“They’re popular among girls. The ribbons are cute, too.”

One woman surfaced in Benedict’s head.

“I’ve got someone who’d like them, but she’s far away now. All right. Just add this pie.”

In the end, he had an apple pie as addition. He then returned to his seat and calmly savored the coffee.

While observing the packet in which he had requested it to be wrapped, he faintly wondered if the person on the receiving end would be pleased with it. He was soon able to imagine Hodgins smiling broadly and taking into his hands the souvenir offered by his brusque self. He could picture the other being a little surprised, and then slowly breaking into a smile after being told what it was. Even the other saying, “Thanks, Benedict”, and himself turning to the side while replying, “It’s nothing”. He would have also been glad to take money out of his deserted wallet for the cookies if there were anybody to receive them, yet...

——She’s hella far away right now, huh.

The one who came to his mind was a girl of dark hair and purple eyes, Cattleya Baudelaire. Much like Benedict, she has been a colleague from since CH Postal Company’s foundation day. She liked sweets, was bad at dealing with hardships, was a scaredy-cat despite looking daring and fearless, and had a childish side as opposed to her appearance.

——Well, guess she wouldn’t be too happy if she got them from me.

They would quarrel as soon as they saw each other. Enough to turn it into a common occurrence within the CH Postal Company. It was easy to tell just by looking that they did not actually do it due to truly detesting one another, however...

——I wonder if she hates me.

...they could not tell it so easily themselves. Although they were in the same agency, they had different occupations, therefore missed each other often. Theirs was a repetition in which dawn would break after the previous time they had fought, and they would forget that the fight had happened and start another fight yet again. Regardless, they would end up talking to one another on sight, unable to ignore each other, and so he thought of pleasing her with something.

——I don’t hate her, though.

For Benedict, the sense of distance between himself and she, who was worthy of being considered a new breed of human being, was something complicated.

——Things just kinda don’t go well with us. I can’t treat her like other women.

As he had never experienced a proper romance, he had no way of knowing what that meant.

After he reflected on all sorts of things, a big yawn left his mouth. He stretched both arms towards the sky with a jerk and arched his body like a cat. And then relaxed once more. Thinking of taking a break from work had all of his strained feelings and body slackening up.

——I’m getting kinda sleepy.

As he had to work since early in the morning and his daily duties had overlapped, the sense of satisfaction from having a full stomach and the gently warm room caused his eyelids to naturally lower. His body was slowly, slowly stolen by drowsiness and he wound up unable to keep his eyes open. The scent of the shop’s interior was fragrant, people’s conversations sounding fun. The elements composing an atmosphere that could be understood from one’s heart loosened Benedict’s caution.

——Even though... V’s coming...

A golden-haired girl surfaced in Benedict’s head.

——If it’s her, well, guess she’ll soon find me.

The café inside the shop was crowded. Still, he believed that, since it was her, she would come to that place at full speed.

——She’ll... look for me.

After he became amnesic, no matter whom he asked, there was no one who knew him.

——It’s okay if I nap, right?

No one had looked for him.

——It’s okay, right?

However, Violet Evergarden probably would. Thinking so, Benedict closed his eyes. He yawned sudden and widely, falling asleep altogether as if he were dead. Consciousness distant, his line of thought floated into the air. He forgot what he was thinking about midway, invited into the realm of dreams.

Calling them “dreams” might be a faulty form of expression. In his case, they were reproductions of memory fragments that he had ended up shutting down. Once released from the real world, the past would come chasing after him and softly tap on his back.

A film that felt like an old friend returning from far away played in his mind. “Why, welcome back, my mate who no longer remembers his own name,” it said. The film would repeat itself over and over inside Benedict’s head.

His reunion with his friend named past would begin with a night sky.

It was a beautiful nighttime, in which a full moon had appeared. His memory version crawled out of an extremely, extremely dark place, and so he was startled at the bright light of said moon for an instant and shuddered.

There was a sandy beach under his feet. Stomping onto it, his shoes were blemished with mud and bloodstains. The dull ache in his entire body was agonizing. He might have earned himself a serious injury. Nevertheless, his legs moved without him being able to mind the pain.

His hand was holding onto something. Something smooth and small that had body temperature.

He looked back. A little girl came into sight. The girl had blond hair much like Benedict, but of a slightly different shade. Her hair was bundled up in a black velvet ribbon.

As their eyes met, she nodded as if to say, “I’m fine”. After confirming so, Benedict ran faster. He trusted the girl following him.

Eventually, his gaze moved ahead. A single boat was fluctuating on the surface of the sea.

——There, we can escape with that, he thought.

He did not know what they were fleeing from. However, if it was something frightening enough to scare him, whether it was someone horrifyingly strong or a large-numbers-against-small-numbers situation, their circumstances were that they had to run away. But that was not the issue.

Benedict turned around and said, “We’re escaping on that thing,     ”

As if having erased it, he was unable to hear her name.

“     , you’re coming too?”

He also could not hear his own name as spoken by the other.

“That’s right. I won’t abandon you. We’ll end up ————. ‘Cause that’s ————’s way of doing things. Without that drug, you ————.”

The color of her hair, eyes and lips – he could see those splintered things.

“But... But even if you ————, even I stop recognizing you as my little sister, even if you stop recognizing me as your big brother, it’s fine. We’re siblings, after all.”

But he could not see her face.

“Even if we forget, I’m sure we’ll recognize each other on sight.”

He could not tell how her face looked. The hues of her ribbon and orbs were fragmented.

“Isn’t that right? If we’re together, even if we forget, we can remember each other as many times as we need. If you find a man that you like or something, you can forget and throw me away. But until then...”

The shades of her hair, her voice and intonation – he could only tell those kinds of things apart.

“...don’t let go of this hand no matter what. If you do that, we’ll really end up forgetting everything,” the past Benedict said as if making a threat.

“I understand,     .”

The two boarded the boat and started rowing toward the open sea.

At last, things would always end at a point where he was looking up at the boat from the bottom of the ocean. And so, he would think that, aah, they had failed.

His body convulsed with a start. The film reproduced inside his head did not go for more than a few minutes, yet Benedict awoke accompanied by a sense of fatigue, almost as if he had gone on a long journey.

Eyes half-open, he looked about the surroundings. Violet was nowhere to be seen. He checked the shop’s clock. Not even ten minutes had passed since he had begun drinking his coffee.

Poising himself calmly, he took the only slightly cold coffee into his mouth. Upon drinking a mouthful of it, he became unable to settle with just a little and downed it in gulps as if it were water.

“One more,” he asked for another of the same thing, raising his hand to one of the shop’s waiters. He had wanted the bitterness of reality, enough for him not to be invited by sleepiness anymore.

——You’ve seen this so many times, yet you’re still scared of it?

Although he had been thinking until just a moment before that she did not have to come, he now wished to see that blunt girl very much.

——It’s fine.

Not even he knew what was fine exactly, but he told himself so.

——It’s fine.

He needed those words.

——I’m... fine. Ain’t that right?

He himself did not give an answer to the question asked.

Benedict wound up sneering. He did not use to be so agitated even back when he worked as a mercenary for the first time.

He looked around again. Nobody was a target of dread. Nothing was currently happening. It was not as if he were rushing through a battlefield in order to earn money either, nor had he been abandoned in a desert completely naked. He could tell as much even without sorting out the situation. He was blessed now and nothing was terrifying. Things were finally peaceful. Too peaceful.

However, Benedict did not know that, the more peaceful times were, the more often would the pain of the scars marking him end up coming back.

——Ever since he took me in, haven’t I grown weak?

Oddly enough, be it mental or physically, wounds were not curable. Their visible parts would heal. However, even if they healed on the surface, just by the atmosphere and the people and things involved when the injury happened overlapping with one another, the truth that “a wound was earned” would return. The figurative scars would chase after people forever like the Moon floating in the sky. And they would ache.

Even if the injury took but an instant, the truth that one had been wounded was eternal.

——When... will I get to remember everything?

The scar from forgetting the one person that he absolutely should not have forgotten was causing Benedict’s heart to self-mutilate without him realizing. If the replaying of his memories had already happened thousands of times, then for those thousands of times, Benedict had been attacking himself.

Without knowing why he would become so flustered, he reproduced his recollections again. They were a repetition of the previous ones. As seen from the sidelines, things were obvious to those who knew of his circumstances.

A new coffee was brought over, but he did not feel like drinking it in that warm place. It was Benedict who had come up with the arrangement, saying that one should wait for the other inside, yet he had decided to wait in front of the shop mounted on his motorcycle. Breathing in amidst the coldness, he calmed down a little. The perfectly clean, icy air within his body cooled down his head. Even if his body shook, it was because of the chilliness.

Suddenly, Benedict looked straight to the side. It was due to him feeling a stare for some reason.

A short-haired blonde girl was standing there. Hers was an unnatural shade of blond, so it was most likely a wig. She was dressed in a milky white satin dress similar to the tone of her skin under a black trench coat. She seemed like the kind of woman who led a life of having her praises sung by men in that city of artists. With a cigarette between her fingers, she blew tobacco smoke out of her bright red lips. Being in a bar surrounded by men all around and laughing elegantly would suit her. The front of a bakery was not fitting of her...

“Y-You—” the woman mustered out at Benedict, with an aspect that seemed to say she had done so unwittingly. Her voice was husky.

Benedict returned her gaze. The woman gave him an odd feeling of déjà vu. Had they not met somewhere before, his sixth sense whispered.

Subconsciously, his eyes went to her hair. If that sister of his had grown up, was a woman with such appearance too old to be her? Still, women could change the age suggested by their looks however they wanted with make-up and clothes. Benedict knew the morning-to-night faces of the women he had spent time with until now. Should he not discard the possibility that she was his younger sister?

Perhaps because the glint in Benedict’s eyes had sharpened, the woman took a step backward, and then threw the cigarette away, leaving the spot. At first, she walked slowly, gradually going in small trots.

“Hey,” when he realized it, Benedict had hopped off his motorcycle and was calling out to her. “Hey, wait.”

He pursued the woman as she ran, grabbing her arm by force. Not liking it, the woman attempted to shake free from him, but Benedict bound her arms behind her back. As she smelled of sickly sweet perfume, it felt as if he was about to suffocate.

“Let me go!”

“You know me, right?!”

“I don’t!”

“You definitely do, don’t you?! No, I... I...!”

——I feel like I know you.

“You... Are you...”

He might have been jumping to conclusions. He was fine with it being a misunderstanding. However, if that was not the case, then he certainly did not want to lose such information by mistake.

“Are you... my little... sister?”

Upon being asked so, the woman covered her mouth with her two hands.

The way back was extremely quiet on that day.

Having finished the ghostwriting for her client, Violet called over to Benedict, who was exhaling white puffs outside. It took him a few seconds to react back, and his face looked almost as if he had seen a ghost. She noticed he had nothing in hands despite having said that he would buy Hodgins a souvenir, and as they went back into the shop, the clerk was looking after it. As Benedict said nothing, Violet was the one to thank her.

Even as she told him, “Well, then, let us go home,” while mounting on the backseat, he was out of it and did not take off.  And even as the motorcycle finally moved, he stopped driving without as much as one minute passing.

“V, my bad. I’m... feeling awful right now. I might cause an accident and get you hurt.”

Violet did not ask if something had happened. As he was certainly pale-faced, Violet changed seats with a, “Then, I will do the driving”, adapting to the necessities of the moment. She had learned how to ride horses and vehicles to an extent during her soldier days. Even as it had been a while since then, she had confidence that she could do it.

“Benedict. You will fall like this, so please hold tighter.”

“My bad...”

“No, if you feel sick from the swaying, I will stop. Please say it.”

“Aah. My head’s kinda hurting a lot. Can I... close my eyes for a bit?”

“That is all right.”

After saying so, Violet looked up at the sky. As dusk approached, the sky was shrouded in clouds, but it did not seem as if rain, snow or abnormalities in the weather would occur.

It was awfully rare of Benedict to candidly bask on people’s goodwill and apologize. Since he was feeling unwell, it was impressive that he had not yet lost only his judgement of having her replace him as the driver. However, the fact that Benedict, who normally had but a big attitude, stayed silent the whole trip, clung onto a girl younger than him and sat on the backseat would be considered a state of emergency by the staff of the CH Postal Company if they saw him.

Of course, Violet Evergarden also understood that it was an emergency.

Somewhat tired as he might be, drowsy as he might be, that man would never let someone else drive his beloved bike. It was a personal vehicle given to him by Claudia Hodgins when the latter was starting his business.

Violet merely spoke to him dispassionately, “Benedict, were you talking to anyone before I had arrived?”

“Yeah.”

“I have good ears.”

“Yeah, you’re like a wild animal.”

“‘I want to run away from here’. ‘I want you to buy me time’. ‘I want you to help me’ – things like that?”

Rather than being a poor talker, Violet was not as proficient at conversational skills as most people, and so she did not know the right way to speak to him at such a time.

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” Benedict replied coldly in a low voice that sounded as if he were repelling her.

As the talk ended there, a curtain of silence descended upon them once more.

Violet was deep in thought. She almost never put effort into conversations. If she was told not to speak, she would not speak. When asked a question, she would answer. She would inquire what was necessary. That was what conversations used to be about. For her, at least.

However, the grown-up Violet now understood things could not be that way.

She spoke to Benedict again, “That lady called you her brother, Benedict, but you have amnesia, right? Is that person your younger sister? Rather... did you really have a younger sister?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I was observing from nearby as you were binding that woman’s arms behind her back. I learned from President Hodgins that no one should intervene on male-female relationships. Therefore, I stood in waiting on the spot and watched over you, so as to mediate if it were necessary.”

“What’s the Old Man doing...? Speaking of that, this kinda thing’s called ‘eavesdropping’.”

“Was that person your younger sister? Your appearances when you were side by side did not strike me as...”

The motorcycle passed over a rock while she was speaking, and so the vehicle’s frame floated buoyantly for an instant. It landed roughly and started running once more.

“She did not seem to be your younger sister to me. This is but my assumption, but I believe she is older than you are. To begin with, you have amnesia, so even if you did have a younger sister living separately from you, is there no need for further investigation since you do not remember her?” Violet was much too indifferent. Without any compassion or curiosity regarding whatever was happening to Benedict, she levelly stated her conclusions. Even if should it rub Benedict’s nerves the wrong way.

“Shut up! You don’t know that! She might be the one!” Benedict hit Violet’s back with his fists. “I have a little sister! I have memories of her! That’s the only thing I’m definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely sure of!”

“How come? You don’t have memories.”

“I can tell!”

“How?”

When asked so, he had no choice but speak sentimentally.

“‘Cause I feel love for her!”

Violet dry-swallowed curtly at the word “love”.

“It stayed in me! Even if I don’t have my memories, I have this!”

It was embarrassing and foolish.

“It’s the only thing that’s definitely, definitely not a lie!”

He normally never spoke of love, yet he desperately resorted to it only for now.

——I mean, we held hands in the darkness. The only proof that we were alive was our body temperature. Whenever she’d say that she was scared, I’d reply with, “It’s all right”. “Your Big Bro will do something about this,” I’d tell her. The one who’d affirmed my existence was my little sister. I’d managed to get courage from the fact that I could be relied on. That, yeah, I was an older brother. That she was no good without me, so I had to keep on living. Still...

“I had a sister, and I don’t really get it, but I was protecting her! I was thinking about protecting her no matter what, no matter what...! I don’t know why I’m living by myself like this...! Memory—I don’t have memory!”

——I don’t remember.

“Protect her from what...?”

——I don’t know. Did someone break me? Did I break on my own?

“I don’t know! Could be anything... That’s—That’s not what’s important to me! I don’t care about how I used to live when I was a brat... I supposedly used to have a sister, and the fact she’s not here is a problem for me! I’m amnesiac, and when I woke up, my sister wasn’t by my side; I’d turned into an idiot who didn’t know anything about myself or my sister! I have nothing! But...!”

——I don’t know. But...

“But, I definitely... have a little sister.”

——She definitely existed. If I meet her someday, I’ll know it’s her for sure. Even if I forgot, even if I can’t remember her, I’ll recognize her if I see her. I want the same to be valid for her.

With that thought, all along, he had lived on as if praying.

“That woman said she knows me... I’ve also—I’ve also seen her before somehow. I don’t know whether she’s my sister or not. But even if she isn’t... when that time comes, I don’t wanna have regrets!”

After saying so, Benedict had his face slammed against Violet’s back. That was because the motorcycle came to a sudden, abrupt stop. Benedict’s nose, neither too high nor too low, was smashed, and he anguished for a brief moment.

Violet, the driver and the cause of his pain, turned backward and reached a hand out to Benedict. Their faces were close enough that her golden hair, burning against the madder red sky, brushed the tip of his nose. Violet gripped Benedict’s shoulder as if to tell him, “Don’t run away”.

“Benedict.”

Her eyes – her blue orbs – pierced him like a blade.

“Please listen. I have told you before that I am also an orphan, was taken in and raised, and do not know who my parents are, right? From my experience, individuals who ‘tend to presume on their memories’ will come in contact with vagabonds attempting to do inexcusable things. Those who invited me into the dark by claiming to know me and proposing to discuss it in detail were neither one nor two people.”

Violet Evergarden desperately trying to convey her own words to the other party was just as unusual as Benedict entrusting his beloved bike to someone.

“During my days as a soldier, Major always bore the full brunt of it and protected me.”

That was precisely why, with her rapid-fire speech, Benedict could not seal her lips using stern persuasion.

“After growing up, I was almost murdered by a cultist organization that claimed I was not a human being but a demigod. I know nothing of my past, so even if I am told such things, I find myself thinking that they might be true. Benedict, are you not the same as me in this aspect? There are probably many women who know you. The women that you have dated, the people you have spent the night with until now – do you recall every one of them? You and President Hodgins are similar. In the past, President Hodgins came to the hospital room where I was hospitalized in a state of having drunk his regrets away and talked torrentially. Have you never done something like this? Even if you leave out the likelihood of being deceived by that person... if you are still thinking about doing something...”

Violet’s words were not gentle in the slightest.

“Benedict.”

However, within her own possibilities, she was thinking, thinking and thinking.

“Benedict, do you need back-up fire?”

Currently, she was attempting to do whatever she could to the maximum degree.

“I do not... know whether or not I am your friend. Lux seems all right with being my friend. Cattleya called me a friend too. Benedict, I do not know about you. We spend a large amount of time together, but even now, I still cannot say for sure what definition I should give to others. To me, the people who have told me that I am their friend are my friends as of late.”

What lay between the two of them was their time spent together. From the moment they had first met until now, they had built a relationship of trust.

“That is why, for me, even if you are not my friend, in case there is anything troubling you...”

Just as the forgotten nurturing between Benedict and his sister, it was something precious.

“No, regardless of what the definition of our relationship is, I... I... if there is something causing you to be like this... and if... it is an enemy that I must fight...”

Even if he did not have a past, Benedict had a present.

“...then I will attack it with everything I have.”

He had an ally named Violet Evergarden.

Under the dusky sky, the still young duo lay themselves bare to each other and made one decision.

“Hoo, hoo, hoo,” the low whispering of birds staged the night as something somewhat eerie.

The evenings at Lontano were like those of night-less cities, in which the lights of bars did not turn off even in the dead of the night. What a place so resplendent needed were attention-grabbing buildings, high-grade alcohol and beautiful women. Until the men went to sleep, the women hired to entertain them could not sleep either.

At present, a lone woman was coming out of a bar that still had its lights on, clad in a black trench coat that could as much as melt into the nightly darkness. She was a captivating blonde beauty.

“Where you going?” asked a man who stood by the entrance of the bar with a fierce look.

The woman showed him an empty box of tobacco that belonged to a regular costumer of the bar. “Cigarettes.”

The women who worked in bars had to report everything they did. Their bodies themselves were the merchandize. Unlike normal goods, bodies could walk on their own will.

Should they disappear somewhere, there would be no business.

“Linda’s store is still open. I was told to go buy more. If you don’t hurry and let me go, you’ll get scolded for stopping me.”

She had intended to speak nonchalantly, yet her frame trembled underneath the trench coat. The man eyed her body from head to toe.

“It’s nighttime. That’s not like the middle of the day. I’ll go. Can’t let you go by yourself.”

“I want to smoke outside for a bit.”

“You, it can’t be that you’re planning to run away again, right? You were almost killed before, weren’t you? If you haven’t learned the hard way after that, you’re an idiot. Until you pay your debts, you’re the same as livestock.”

The woman’s lips trembled at being called “livestock”. “It’s not my debt.”

“It’s your man’s, right? He’s the worst kind of bastard who sells women from a continent he never even walked on.”

“I don’t care about him anymore.”

“Even if he no longer comes to see you, you brought this upon yourself. Got no choice but make up for it. Don’t go thinking of stupid stuff... Hitting women ain’t our thing either.”

The woman thrust the empty tobacco box at him as if to hand it over. “I really was asked to get the cigarettes. If you think it’s a lie, go ask about it inside. If you believe me, you can come along. Then I can breathe the air outside a little, and you don’t have to worry about me running away. We’re settled with that, right?”

The man clicked his tongue at the provocative wording, yet seemed to have complied. He asked another employee to take over his post and made an agreement.

“If you take too long...”

The woman waited stiffly as the men talked. Eventually, the two started walking down the stone-paved road illuminated by streetlights.

The woman observed the man. She was there due to being sold by the person she used to be in love with, but she suspected that the man was also being made to work in that shop because of some reason. She might be wrong.

Even if that were the case, in her present condition, she did not have the compassion of others. If she wanted to break free from her current state, which, as the man said, had unfolded from something that she herself had done...

“It’s cold... Aren’t you chilly?”

...she had to act on her own. Even if she was counting with the assistance of a savior, since she had devised the plan by herself, it was her own power.

The lights of the tobacco store became visible. Just a bit more and they would reach it.

——Please, please, please, help me, God.

“You can smoke one cigarette, but we’re going back as soon as you’re done.”

——Help me, help me, help me!

The reason why the woman firmly squeezed her eyes shut was to deliver her wish to the God that resided somewhere out there, but even if she were not doing so, she surely would have closed her eyes either way.

That was because someone had abruptly come running from an alley and whispered, “Yo, the meeting spot was here, right?”

Since the one who had spoken was of a much shorter stature than the man, the kick lunged at him crushed his nether regions, and so the former immediately put a hand over his mouth. As she recognized the face of the person applying force so that the man would not let out a single scream, the woman said, “P-Please! Stop! He’s not a bad person!”

Until a while before, she had not cared for the other, but upon actually seeing something terrible happen to him, that feeling flew off the nest. Perhaps listening to her plea, the lout who had appeared so suddenly took her hand and vanished into the alley from which he had come.

The golden hair of the man running in front of her shone glisteningly even at night, within an alley that did not have illumination. Unlike her wig, it was a natural sandy-blond.

“B-Big Brother,” the woman called the man going ahead with a tone mixed in rapture.

However, what she received in return was gunfire, “Drop it; that’s gross.” While running, the lout – Benedict Blue – clicked his tongue. As the woman was slow at running, he pulled her forward roughly.

A shoe came off the woman’s foot. It was a high-heel one. She wore it because it made the shape of her legs seem bewitching and pleased men. It was not suited for running.

“My shoe came off!”

“Take off the other!”

Being yelled at, the woman did as told and took off the other pair while crying. They were shoes that gleamed silver of which she was fond. However, at the moment, she did not need beauty. She resumed running with all her might.

“H-Hey. W-Why... are you being so cold? You’re going to help me, right? I’m your sister, after all.”

At the question asked with restraint, Benedict answered with a disappointed voice, “Ah, about that: it was my misunderstanding.”

After taking off her shoe, she was fast at running. The woman increased her speed, as to be side-by-side with the one pulling her arm. “Eh?” Her voice reversed to her original one in lieu of the extreme course of events.

“I kinda thought I’d seen you before... but my colleague told me to trace back the few memories I have of my life, and when I tried doing that, you were there. I did know you. But you ain’t my sister.”

Silence.

“You’re the one who ripped off everything I had on me and threw me away in the Inkar-usi desert, aren’t you?”

Still silence.

“I remember until the point where I slept with a fine woman. I don’t recall her face. But, this... blond hair that looks fake... tangled in my fingers big time when I stroked it; that’s the only thing that stayed in my memory. I was mad drunk, wasn’t I? I’d earned the biggest amount of reward money until then, so I guess I got cocky.”

The woman tried to halt on the spot. However, Benedict forcefully pulled her along.

“Don’t stop! Run!”

“I don’t want to! You’re telling me you’ll make me yours next!? I won’t be anyone’s any longer! I hate men! I don’t want to live through being used by someone anymore! I want to go back to me homeland!”

There were tears surfacing in the woman’s eyes, but Benedict was not the type of man to falter at such a thing. He grabbed the woman’s dress by the collar, and after snapping his head backward at once, he followed the momentum and head-butted her.

The two writhed in pain.

“That’s why I said I’m taking you back! Who needs someone like you, shithead!? It’s not like I’ve forgiven you! If I hadn’t been picked up by one hell of a good guy after that, I would’ve killed you a long time ago!”

“If you’ve found out about my lie, then why...!? I pretended to be your sister and asked you to break me out, y’know!?”

“I just told you, didn’t I!? Thanks to you abandoning me in a desert, I’m the most blessed ever now! If I hadn’t met that guy back there, I wouldn’t even have a name and would be sleeping with women somewhere and waking up completely broke! All because I ended up scoring a fate good enough to rewind my life until that point from a shitty goddess like you! It only so happens that you almost tricked me, but I felt like saving you! Okay?! I hate you, so keep just that in mind! Once I help you out, be careful of the roads at night!”

After spitting out abusive language again with another “shithead”, Benedict made the woman run. The woman could not believe it. Up until now, she had told countless men who had slipped into her body about her personal history and attempted to earn their help. However, she had no one.

“You’ve got a terrible look in your eyes, huh. Mine’s pretty terrible too.”

She had no one.

“I have amnesia. I used to have a little sister... but I can’t remember her.”

She had no one.

“Hey, your hair reminds me of my sister’s; can I stroke it?”

She had no one.

“I’ll raise your pay if you stay until morning, so be here. It’s been a while since the last time I wasn’t alone.”

She had no one, and so, she had thought it would be all right to deceive somebody.

Her tears poured incessantly. They flowed down as if to block her mouth and nose. It was hard to breathe. Even so, she had to say it.

“I’m sorry!” while sobbing, the woman apologized to Benedict.

“Aah!?”

“I’m sorry for lying to you! I’m sorry for those two times!”

“Shut up! I told you I wouldn’t forgive you, didn’t I!? Those two times! I won’t forgive for the rest of my life!”

“But—But, I’m sorry! Sorry for pretending to be your sister!”

In the middle of passing through the alley, they heard gunshots from behind for some reason. The ones who monitored her – a merchandize – had probably come chasing the two. Benedict took a peek backwards, but continued running without minding it.

“They’ve come after us!”

Benedict was already replying to the woman’s shouts with a, “Shut up!” as easily as breathing.

Bullets went past their feet and sides. However, the gunning that was intense at first gradually diminished as the two rushed through the alley. Benedict shot back behind his shoulder as a diversionary action, but did not attempt to hit the other party at all.

Once they reached the end of the alley, Benedict kicked off the half-open lid of a skewer route and opened it fully. “Now, fall!” He kicked the woman into it. He did hear her scream, but having climbed the way up, he was aware that it was not too great a descent. Before going down as well himself, he looked at a certain direction. “V...”

Beyond his gaze was a comrade of his, who had promised to hit his enemies with all of her power as an interceptor.

She was on the top of a tree far away from the current position of Benedict and the woman. Violet Evergarden, who was sniping the group that chased after them, had taken aim upon confirming that gunshots were coming from said group. She targeted the firearm in their hands and pulled the trigger. The perfect trajectory of her bullets passed by Benedict and the woman’s sides, hindering the people that obstructed their way.

Realizing that his own gun had been flicked away by someone, the man who had fired the first shot raised his voice in astonishment, “You’re kidding me, right!?”

While he was in shock, the unseen sniper continued attacking. One of them attempted to target and shoot at the back of the woman, who was falling behind as she ran, but also had his weapon destroyed before he fired, and although he was attacked, he was easily able to defend himself against it.

“Don’t shoot without thinking! We’re under aim!” another yelled, but on such a dark night in an alley like that, the panic of having someone snipe only their weapons so precisely caused the men to lose their normal nature.

“STAY AWAAAAY!”

A legend of the battlefields, unknown to those who lived in cities through making women into food, was making them insane. They blindly faced the sky and shot at random. Bullets came flying to Violet’s direction as well, but did not as much as touch her body.

Guns had something called “effective range distance”. The guns used by the men were not suited for long-range shooting. Things also depended on the skills of the person using it, so differences in distance occurred even with that type of gun.

With a long-range rifle adopted by the military, Violet was taking aim from her position on a tree that the men absolutely could not see. “Target seized... Fire.”

The sounds of shooting echoed.

From far away, she could see someone’s gun falling down from his hand. “Fire, hit.” She moved mute and quickly, as if carrying out a simple job. “Fire, hit, fire.”

It would be fine if her face distorted in pain from the impact of shooting.

“Fire.”

However, Violet’s facial expression bore no emotion.

“Fire.”

Eventually, as everything became quiet, while exhaling a deep breath, Violet ceased to shoot and descended to the root of the tree. It would seem that the long-range shotgun she had bought just recently with her own salary had done a satisfactory work for her.

As she succeeded at the “back-up fire” in the literal sense of the term, she immediately left the spot.

The shooting battle that took place in the city of Lontano over the night turned into a much bigger occurrence than Benedict and the others had imagined, and the situation got to the point of the military police being dispatched. It so happened that people other than the woman behind the scandal had blended with the confusion of the turmoil and fled the city from the shadows, but those were stories unknown to Benedict and Violet.

A few hours had passed since the troublesome escape feat.

“Ouch!”

“Shut up! Hurry and put them on!” In a world wherein flowed the light of dawn, Benedict threw the shoes he had been wearing on the woman’s face.

While muttering complaints about him flinging the shoes at her, the woman tied them on. She had been running around the whole night and shaking off their chasers with Benedict, so her feet were injured and wet with blood. The pain was severe, but the exhilaration of managing to escape allowed her to feel as if it did not matter. Moreover, as she put on Benedict’s shoes, although they were too big, it became easier for her to walk in comparison to when she was not wearing anything on her feet.

Benedict was shoeless instead. He had cut wounds in his entire body. His clothes were ripped everywhere as well.

“Hey, why?”

“Shut up... Don’t ask so many times.”

“But, it’s just... I keep wondering why. Until now, nobody had helped me out, so it’s very strange to me.”

At those words, the face of Claudia Hodgins crossed Benedict’s mind. His good-natured employer and lifesaver. He, too, had bestowed Benedict with clothes and shoes when the latter was naked.

——I also kept asking why, I guess.

People who had never been treated kindly would think of unconditional love as the beginning of something terrifying. They firmly believed that everything others would bring them was either reprimanding or abuse.

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s ‘cause I was picked up by a good guy. That’s why.” A small smile escaped him.

“Benedict.”

His name called from behind, Benedict turned around.

With leaves on her head, their accomplice of the day, Violet Evergarden, was holding out tickets for the first train of the morning, which would now depart. “Also, take this as well.” Together with the ticket, she left in the woman’s hands a bag of freshly baked bread presumably bought in a nearby shop.

The woman eyed the bread and Violet alternately, tears forming in her eyes. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Be careful on your way...”

“You’re the one that had least to do with this... Thank you, really.”

“No. It has to do with me. I was his ‘back-up fire’, after all.”

Hearing that, Benedict laughed loudly. When she had talked about being his back-up fire, the connotation was simply of lending a hand, and he had not thought she would actually put it to practice.

As Violet and Benedict were the only ones who knew the meaning of that, the woman tilted her neck. “Benedict... you too.”

“Use ‘Mister’.”

“Mr. Benedict, you too, thank you very much...!”

“Again, be careful on the roads at night,” Benedict replied with a threat incorporated to it.

The time of depart had still not come. The duo, having decided to leave her there and disperse, finished their farewells with a “see ya” and started walking away.

“H-Hum! Mr. Benedict.” Perhaps still having something to say, once Benedict turned around, the woman was smiling, her blond hair fluttering in the morning wind. “You see, I had an older brother... I haven’t seen him for years now, so I can’t remember him, but when I was a child, I used to call him ‘Big Bro’... I really did have those feelings in mind when I called you that.”

“So what?”

“If I were your little sister, I’d definitely search the whole world for a big brother like you!”

“You ain’t her, though.”

“I’m not! But one day, for sure—!”

One day, you will find her, the woman smiled faintly.

At that moment, Benedict’s sky-blue orbs opened wide. An indescribable, strange feeling rushed throughout his body. If so-called memories were provided to people by traveling across not only their souls but also the particulars of their bodies, and if they could be remembered through a small trigger in case something was forgotten, it might turn out as that sort of feeling, like a tingle from an electric shock.

The woman waved, still smiling. He did not tell her to shut up.

“Stu~pid.” His voice trembled. Turning roundly on his heels, Benedict started walking.

Violet followed him from behind.

——Aah, I…

His vision was shaky.

——Why? Why did I think she was my little sister?

He could now clearly tell. She was not at all like his sister. Firstly, although both were blonde, the shades of their hair were completely different, and although his sister was also fine-looking, she and that woman had different characteristics.

“Benedict?”

Yes, his sister was not such a lustful beauty, but instead had more of a fickle appearance. She had a well-behaved voice tone and demeanor, and was not the kind of person who would refer to others as “you”.

“Benedict, please wait.”

To begin with, she rarely ever called him “Big Bro” and mostly called him by his name. He did not remember that name, but he remembered her calling it.

“Benedict, you will trip if you walk like this.”

——Aah, out of all things... out of all things...

“Benedict, why are you crying?”

Out of all things, he just had to remember his little sister because of a smile from the woman who had knocked him off into hell.

“My, welcome back, my friend who no longer knows his own name.”

——She was a crybaby and a scaredy-cat. She’d always hide behind my back and follow me in trots. I liked the most when she’d come running at my direction after spotting me. That’s why I’d make her look for me on purpose sometimes. The times when we were together were happy, and he rest was hell.

I did have a little sister. She was there all the time. That’s for sure.

In my oldest memory, she was by my side. It was really cold when we woke up. We were in a place that was like a stone tower. She was the closest to me, and was shivering too. The adults hadn’t given us any blankets, so I called her over and the two of us clung to each other. When I asked, “Who are you again?”, her face looked like she was about to cry and she said, “Don’t forget me”.

I was told afterward that she was my little sister, so I thought, “That’s right”. She said I was in a pretty bad condition. That I’d almost died because of a head injury that apparently I myself had earned. That I was quick to want to die when my ego blew off. I’d get disposed of if I went crazy just one more time. That’s why she cried to me, begging me to stay sane.

My sister remembered a lot more than I did. We actually didn’t live in that place and we did have a family. But people would forget things little by little in that place. When I asked if she was certain that I was her older brother, she replied that she was. “You’re forgetting stuff too, right? How do you know?” I asked. When I pressed with a, “That’s right, how can you know?”, she cried even more that, “I have the feeling of love left in me, so we’re family”. She had a weird personality, but after those words, I thought I just had to protect my sister.

The adults called the tower “home”. At “home”, small children were recruited to do adult works. There were all kinds of jobs. Like delivering things, or retrieving them. Jobs in which someone would die when I performed that sorta labor. Those who were good at work were also ordered more direct stuff. It seems I’d gone nuts when they piled up. If you failed your duties, your little brother, little sister, older brother or older sister – the smallest numbers of each of our family members – would get killed. The people that knew and loved us were hostages. Well, that does make people go mad.

“Home” was like a tiny military unit. We always went to different places. From what the adults would say, “home” was a temporary employee placement livelihood. They were preparing human resources able to endure any type of battle mission from scratch. Come to think of it now, they’d give me medicines and incense without a break every day for some reason.

My sister, myself and the others, who were forgetting a lot of things, were apparently human resource pupils. From what my sister told me, in that jumble of children, I was the most apt for those jobs. It seemed I was the one who took the biggest amount of medicine, so my forgetfulness was pretty bad.

Could humans be created from scratch after being made to forget everything? On top of that, could they be raised into the strongest human resources? The answers were “yes” and “no” – you could say both.

We’d end up going crazy at just one cogitation. We were quick to become suicidal. There was no meaning in soldiers who couldn’t be used for long. I was probably insane but pretended to be normal for my sister’s sake.

The adults would say that they’d hire us once we grew up. That, for the moment, we were livestock.

It seemed that the adults monitoring us had lived like us in the past. “Aren’t there only idiots here?” I thought. They hadn’t learned anything even after those horrible things were done to them.

I decided that, if we had to become adults in that hell, we’d better run away. My sister was crying. If we tried to escape, the adults would come to kill us for sure.

The feeling of wanting to die had always been in me. If I was gonna die anyway, I’d wanted to die for my sister. Whoever did something to her that she didn’t want to was shit. I wanted to kill them.

She was the only pretty thing in that pathetic world. I don’t know if she was really my sister. But even if we just happened to have the same hair and eye color, she was my everything. She was the girl I’d wanted to protect the most in the world. Even though she was all I had...

“Your Big Bro will protect you,     , okay?”

Even though she was all I had... I’d surely failed to set my sister free.

Tears poured from Benedict’s eyes.

“Shit…”

The tears that poured from them flowed continuously, eventually penetrating the earth and disappearing without fulfilling any purpose. They would nevermore return. Never would they go back to the eyes that had produced them. Similarly, the important person who had poured out of Benedict’s life would surely not return.

——Life... is shit.

In his memory of taking her by the hand amidst the night, running away and, lastly, watching the boat from the bottom of the sea, if his sister was on that boat, just how would her young self have survived afterward? Had she drifted and been picked up by some kindhearted person? Had his overprescribed sibling survived just fine after forgetting about him and about herself? Was she living well somewhere under that same sky even as they were unable to see each other?

That was but a dream story.

The world seemed filled with happy stories, but they were actually very few. Stories and real life were...

——I didn’t need a life like that.

At the very least, Benedict’s life tasted of the sea. It was too salty and undrinkable. Such was it even now. The tear droplets that spilled down his cheeks, passed by his lips and dripped from his chin had the flavor of the ocean. Benedict’s past was chasing him and strangling his neck, so as to kill him from sadness. He wanted to scream and break into wails, asking, “Why?”.

——End it right now. God, why’re you doing this? End it right now. God, there’s no salvation for me. Please help me. End it right now. God, I can’t breathe because of the pain in my chest brought by this sadness. Hurry, as soon as possible, right now, bring this life…

“Don’t go crazy; don’t die,” she had asked of him.

——...to an end...!

Yet he chose death. After all, surely, his sister had already died long before.

He had always fled from such truth. He had merely forgotten about it. Things such as wishing that he would not die in a desert and thinking about eating bread with someone had stemmed from his made-up other self. He was simply a fake that had pretended to be sane and survived somehow. Even if he was in the past, his original self had yearned to die for a long time. It was false of him to be currently living and showing gratitude to somebody. He certainly had forgotten what should not have been forgotten because it was easier that way.

The painful and the easy. When sorting them out, he had picked the easy. There was no mistaking that he had wanted to try forgetting everything and live freely.

He was cursed for it.

“Was it fun?” If he were asked so, he could answer that it was great fun.

——Yeah, all of it was fun.

In his new life, after meeting that man, the humidity and temperature of the of the continent he was brought to upon being picked up were different, and everything was fresh. The motorcycle that he was granted in place of holding onto a gun or sword had showed him many worlds.

He merely delivered things. He had thought it was only that, but upon seeing it for the first time, being a postman was difficult. Every day, he was at loss from being scolded by the clients or receiving excessive gratitude. It was strange for someone like him, who had never gotten a letter, to be delivering them.

Oddly enough, whenever he saw the smiles of the people on the receiving end, he would feel as if he were doing an extremely good deed. He had found it weird that a postal agency had been chosen for starting a business and was unused to it, but he had come to understand that the reason for being of such job was to perform labor.

It was simply delivery. If one was able to walk or to ride a motorcycle, be it a woman, man, child or elder – anyone could do it. It did not have to be him. It was not a work that only he could do. However, he thought that this mere delivery was not bad. He deemed it as fun. Deliveries in which he was able to please others were enjoyable.

No matter what he did, the sights he would see were unlike the ones from when he was a mercenary. The small discoveries that he would find during a delivery – minor things such as there being a delicious bakery or going faster by taking a certain road – were fun. But more enjoyable than anything else was that he had a place to go back to, no matter to what part of the world he went. Even as he returned in tatters, once he opened the office’s door, there was someone who would say, “Aah, welcome back, Benedict. Good work”.

In the world where he had started walking as if he had suddenly been born, ever since he had met that man, yes, it did seem foolish, but the world had gained colors as though he had met his fated woman.

——It was fun, it was fun, it was fun, it was fun, it was fun. I shouldn’t have enjoyed himself, and yet, I had so much fun. What have you been doing? Why were you enjoying it? You weren’t in position to. You’re a person who should’ve died without knowing what “fun” was. Be over, be over, be over, be over. Everything should come to an end. Let’s end this version of me now. Ain’t that better for everyone? There’d be no harm for anybody if there was one less person like me, with no family or lover, in the world. I’ve had enough fun. As for the people who’ll be sad for me, it’s enough if I can count them with one hand. I’ll erase myself and make this dirty world clean in the end. You shouldn’t be having fun. What you gotta do is just one thing: go face your sister, who’s smiling inside your head.

That was why Benedict impulsively searched for his gun with one of his hands.

Surely, people died that way. Sorrow would seal their throats and they would die unable to breathe. They would die from having more sad moments than happy moments.

He felt that he would not be able to live even if for another second. It was not that he wished to die. Rather, he was taking a decision for himself that he had to die.

Was there any living being that wanted to die as soon as it was born? Most of them supposedly wanted to live. Yes, they wanted to live. Live a wonderful life, if possible. A life that would make being born worthwhile.

However, it by no means went well all the time. Life was not something that one would prepare beforehand.

“Ugh... uuugh...”

As a result of choices made, there were countless changes. There were times in which only grievous things would happen. A series of things such as regretting being born.

Hardships were like gelid rain that God would pour over anyone. It would be great there was a place to take shelter from it or an umbrella, but there were times when one could not find them. The prolonged rain would cause one’s body to grow cold and the roots of their teeth to shake. For people, it was something difficult to endure. When it became impossible to withstand, people...

“Sto... p.”

...would crave death.

“St... o...”

When living became hard, they tended to look for what was easier. It was nothing strange. What was wrong with running away? The least amount of pain was better. The shortest suffering was better.

The purpose of living creatures was something that they decided on themselves.

“Sto... p.”

Still, yes...

“Stop.”

...the same had happened when he was in that desert.

“Stop it; why...?”

A certain number of people, beloved by the Goddess of Fortune, were able to filter out of such instance. If one thoroughly prodded into it, they would find it was but the result of something that had been piling up.

The work of the Goddess happened in a vivid way. If one were to ask what exactly that was...

“V...”

...it would be somebody showing up to hold whoever’s hand when they attempted to die.

At the cliff of his life, the one who had acted as his back-up fire appeared.

What the Goddess brought about was different for each person. For Benedict Blue, in the present moment...

“Benedict.”

...it was Violet Evergarden.

——Why’re you holding my hand, out of all things?

Just as the older brother who had grabbed onto his younger sister’s hand in the darkness, Violet gripped Benedict’s. Upon squeezing it once, she changed her hold into that of lacing fingers together and walked on, guiding him. “Benedict, let’s go home.”

Even though he had been unable to take a single step, he wound up walking.

“That is no good.”

He could not take his gun while she was holding his hand.

“If you are crying, you cannot see what lies ahead.”

Although he wanted to shoot a bullet into his head, he could not.

“I will pull you by the hand, yes?”

Upon being told by that girl, who resembled his sister, to return home…

“Let’s go home.”

...he wound up thinking that, aah, he had to live.

“V...”

The reason why he had not been able to leave her on her own one way or another from the first time he had seen her was that their appearances were similar. Both had golden hair and blue eyes, and were somewhat lonely. He felt as if he had always, always made of her something like a substitute for his sister.

“V... I...”

He was unable to take his eyes off her and even referred to her by a nickname.

“I... probably... killed... my little sister... I’ve remembered it...”

Although he had forgotten his sister, some part of him ended up thinking that, if she were alive, she would have turned out that way. His tears became unstoppable at his own idiocy. He would wonder, “Why did my past self fail if she was so important to me?”

“We abated halfway, and I got separated from her... U-Uugh... It’s... It’s like I killed her...”

Violet clasped his hand even tighter. “You do not know that yet, right?” Rather than like a younger sister, she was like an older one. “Just as that person said, you might meet her again one day,” she whispered as if to admonish him, as if to soothe him.

“Impossible... Impossible... I was definitely the only one... the only one who survived... I... I was...” He shed too many tears, the words cut off by his weeping. It was suffocating. He wanted that suffocation to end.

“Benedict, nothing is definite. My Major was alive too. Who can 'definitely’ say that your sister is dead?”

The hand that she had joined fingers with throbbed. However, were it not for that pain, it felt as if he would soon let go and kill himself.

“But... But y'know...”

“We have dealt with quite a lot today. We can deal with it from now on too. Is that not right?”

“I was... I was... better off dead...!”

Crying that way, just like a child, was foolish, Benedict thought. There was no turning back anything anymore.

“I was better off dead!”

Even if he cried, he had already lost her. He had no idea where in the world to look for her either. Should joined hands let go, if the other party was not nearby, they could not be joined again.

“Benedict.”

Violet’s legs stopped completely. Did the crying Benedict look like a little boy to her? She came closer, forcing his head over her shoulder. “Let’s go back, Benedict.”

“Where to?”

“To the company. You and I only have that place.”

Silence.

Indeed, they did not have anywhere else. The people who would wait for them and hold their ground without going insane were indeed nowhere but there.

——But is it okay for me to go back?

“I’ve... done horrible things in the past. It’s just nobody knows that I... when I was mercenary...”

“Yes.”

“I did a lot of stupid stuff. It’s not forgivable just ‘cause I was a kid.”

“Yes.”

“I... But...”

The face of Claudia Hodgins crossed his mind.

——I shouldn’t... go back.

The sense of exhilaration as he walked for the first time with the loose-fitting shoes that man gave him. The jokes the other would tell while spewing complaints when hanging out with him. The laughter from when they would drink and make a ruckus together.

——But...

His eyebrows lowering whenever he was troubled. His back arching whenever Lux was angry with him. The sweet voice he used only for women. The strength he showed to him. He was the only good-natured person in the world that could become attached to an amnesiac man who had nothing.

——I do wanna go back.

He wanted to return to that good-natured person so, so keenly that it filled him with tears.

“But even so, you will live, right?”

Benedict dry-swallowed. Those words almost felt like a bullet shot into his chest. He was so surprised that he became wordless. She was normally a taciturn and did not use decorated words. But she would sometimes boldly bring the truth to light.

“You will live, right?” A little bit of pleading was mixed in Violet’s voice.

The hand that Violet had joined with his. Her artificial fingers.

“Let’s count the things you have done and the things you will do from now on, so that you shall not forget.”

They were proof of the things she had lost and the things she had broken. As well as a symbol of regeneration. Such fingers delicately laced him in place.

“Until you die someday.”

The girl in front of him had accepted that agony much sooner than he had, without running away or averting her eyes from it, and simply stayed amidst the sadness.

“Today... For today, let’s go home.”

That was Violet Evergarden.

“Now, let’s walk. Do you recall that our shift was only until morning and that our day off would start at noon?” Gradually, but still by pulling his hand, she guided Benedict. “Yesterday, we wound up going back to Lontano without finishing our reports. We had promised Lux that we would submit them today without fail. We are too tattered to go to work looking like nothing happened. Surely, if we show up to work like this, there might be a huge scandal, right?”

As Benedict was told so, they surfaced in his head – his quarreling comrade from the founding day, Cattleya; Lux, who had been picked up from an isolated island; their colleagues from CH Postal Company; the city of Leidenschaftlich; his own past; his current occupation; his new name and the man who had given it to him.

“I wonder if Old Man will be mad...”

Claudia Hodgins. The man who gave him everything he had now. He wanted to see the other very much. As he reminisced to the other’s voice and face, his chest seemed about to burst.

In Benedict’s life, his past included, Hodgins had been the only adult to provide for and protect him.

“You were able to meet President Hodgins because you were alive. You can find your sister as well. Surely... People like us are no good if we do not believe so, Benedict.”

He had enough strength to live by himself, no matter where.

“Today was very tiring, right? Let’s go home.”

However, the warmth of having a guardian changed Benedict, who used to loathe ties of obligation. The CH Postal Company, which Violet said to go back to, had already become his place of return.

Benedict looked at the sky. The Sun was rising. Behind him, the shadow that the night had melted into was now reflected richly. The road ahead was brightly illuminated. Just like the past and the present.

“Hey, V.” As Violet asked what the matter was, he muttered while wiping his tears with the sleeve of his shirt, “The thing about me crying is a secret between us two.”

The figures of the two as they walked on holding hands probably looked like that of siblings who got along well.

   “Right now, your life is all you have, isn’t it? I’ll buy that.”

At those words, the man’s heart started making loud noises. He was supposedly used to exchanging his life for money, but he seemed about to stop breathing at being asked for it face-to-face.

“How much?”

Upon being asked, the man was at loss. “Dunno.”

As he answered seriously, Hodgins laughed, “What a fool; give a high price.”

“Why?”

“You could give a sum that I can’t pay for, so that I’d have to hire you for the rest of my life.”

For an instant, he had not understood what was said, and so he answered after a moment, “Don’t wanna! Whatcha saying!?”

“I mean, you have nothing, right?”

“Don’t keep saying 'nothing’!”

“We’d be like a family if we’re together, even if we aren’t related by blood. Just give a price that I can’t pay.”

“Hah?”

“Like I said, we could be like a family. Well, that’s fine. More importantly, your name.”

“No, no, hey, you’re definitely a weirdo, right?”

“It’s come to me!”

“Old Man! It’s like you’re not listening to what I say, ain’t it!?”

“All right. Listen ve~ry well.”

“You listen well!”

With an extremely happy-looking face and little shyly, Hodgins said, “It might be a bit pretentious. I understand his feelings now. Ah, no, y’see, it’s my own feelings, so to say. I’m putting into it my wish of wanting a young one like you to be this way.”

At that second, the only one in the world who witnessed the shine in those blue eyes was Claudia Hodgins.

“It means ‘blessed’; how about ‘Benedict’?”

He knew for the first time the joy of having his life blessed by someone at that moment.

“Let’s take it after the god that administers divine protection. Leave ‘Blue’ to be your surname. The name you gave yourself plus my ‘Benedict’. ‘Benedict Blue’. Yup, it’s a good name. Nice to meet ya, Benedict.”

Even as he became hurt when replaying his memories, he would be blessed whenever someone called his name.

“Stu~pid.”

 He did not want to let go of that blessing ever again.

“Aah, Benedict and Little Violet. Welcome ba... Hey, this isn’t okay! What happened...!? You two come here! Little Lux, the first-aid kit!”

Albeit a little long, that was the story of Benedict Blue.

[newtxtinaforever]

Happy New Year’s Eve!

🎉🎉🎉

I wrote a songfic for the Newtina Christmas Exchange, so here it is! My recipient is @bananachef. I hope you like this! Lyrics from the songs If I Could Tell Her and Only Us (written for the musical Dear Evan Hansen) are italicized. Enjoy!

Enough

~~~~~~~~~

He said

There's nothing like your smile

Sort of subtle and perfect and real

He said

You never knew how wonderful

That smile could make someone feel

~~~~~~~~~

Newt's POV

Not again. The attempt to reinstate my travel permit was denied for the fourth time, and I had begun to lose hope of ever seeing Tina Goldstein. Her picture in January's paper haunted me as the weeks passed by. I made Tina a promise, one I intended to keep no matter how long it took. I would personally deliver her a copy of my book. I just hoped it wouldn't be too late.

Taking a deep breath, I sighed as I caught a glimpse of Tina's face. Her cheeks weren't pink like they were that day on the docks. No, this photograph was an injustice. As thankful as I was to have a reminder of her, there were so many things the picture simply couldn't capture. Like the way the edge of her lips twitched when she smirked. Or how her eyes deepened the happier she became. There was so much to uncover within Tina, and I wanted to explore her world just like I would with any other creature.

Yet I stood in my basement, staring at Tina's photo. If I could talk to her at the moment, what would I say? 'I'm sorry', even though I hadn't the faintest idea what I had done to scare Tina away. Perhaps she had other reasons for not writing back, but I had a feeling that whatever it was had to do with my book release. After all, the letters had stopped coming nearly a week afterwards. Had Tina decided she no longer wanted to be friends with a Magizoologist? Were her coworkers giving her flack for it? Whatever the reason, I longed for any sign of Tina's presence. Life hadn't been the same since I left New York, and I had a feeling that things were about to shift once more.

What would it take for me to get back on speaking terms with Tina? I had considered the possibility of us being more than friends, but that didn't seem probable at the moment. Unfortunately, I continued to go through days where I wished she were here with me in London. I'd invite her if she weren't in the habit of ignoring my letters. Who was I kidding? I could barely look her in the eye, let alone have a decent conversation with her. Why did I think I could be open about my feelings for Ms. Goldstein? I've heard it said that acting on internal desires can often lead to fulfillment or regret. I could only hope the latter wouldn't be true if I ever plucked up the courage to… well, you know…

~~~~~~~~~~

If I could tell her

Tell her everything I see

If I could tell her

How she's everything to me

But we're a million worlds apart

And I don't know how I would even start

If I could tell her

If I could tell her

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tina's POV

It had been four months since that night in Père Lachaise. Four months since Grindelwald escaped yet again, since Leta sacrificed herself to help us escape. But most importantly, four months since Queenie had joined the darkest wizard ever known to man. I was at a loss for words, and the weeks that passed by did little to ease the pain. What must have been going through Queenie’s mind for her to have made a decision like that? There were so many possibilities—every one of them more appalling than the last— and somehow I blamed myself.

I blamed myself because I should’ve made better decisions. Sure, I had tried to keep her from seeing Jacob, and I stood by my decision wholeheartedly at the time. After all, I was only trying to protect them, to protect Queenie from getting thrown in jail. As much as I loved my job, I knew how ruthless MACUSA officials could be. They had no sympathy in matters like this.

But I should’ve done more to stop her. I should’ve spent more time with her, should’ve screamed at Jacob not to let her go or...

There was no use now. Queenie was gone, and I doubted even she knew whether or not she was coming back. It was hard to tell. Fortunately Newt’s kept me busy.

Ever since that terrible night, we’ve been picking up the pieces and shoving them below the surface again and again. No one dares to speak of it for fear of reawakening the nightmares. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed someone to lean on. With Queenie no longer by my side, I felt alone and more misunderstood than ever before. When would my attempts to help another actually succeed?

Meanwhile, Newt grieved over the loss of his childhood friend. It wasn’t open in the manner that his brother was accustomed to, yet it was his way of coping. Even in my own bubble of misery, I could tell that he needed someone to lean on, too. So many of us were left scarred, and we wanted to be there for one another. But how could we do that when we could barely take care of ourselves? I suppose we could lean on one another for support, allowing the pain to pour from one broken body to the next. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was better than nothing.

~~~~~~~~~

I don't need you to sell me on reasons to want you

I don't need you to search for the proof that I should

You don't have to convince me

You don't have to be scared you're not enough

'Cause what we've got going is good

I don't need more reminders of all that's been broken

I don't need you to fix what I'd rather forget

Clear the slate and start over

Try to quiet the noises in your head

We can't compete with all that

~~~~~~~~~

In light of all that had happened recently, I wished Newt would be more open with me. With every passing day came new challenges and difficulties; we needed to lean on each other. These last few months had been unbearable, yet it seemed like we were finally numb to the pain. We had felt too much for too long, and now we had only the knowledge of the unthinkable events. Despite that, Newt and I were determined to move forward.

There hadn’t been much to say in the days following Leta’s death. A memorial service was put together by Newt's parents, and a small group of us mourned the loss. I tried my best to be there for Newt just as he tried to be there for his brother Theseus. We all had a lot on our minds that week. Since then, things have returned to normal. Well, as normal as they could be with an extremely dark wizard at large.

Nothing would ever be the same, that much I knew. Yet wasn't life always full of unexpected twists and turns? Leta's death impacted Newt greatly; I felt him becoming more and more withdrawn every day. My own thoughts and emotions were often directed towards Queenie, not to mention Credence and the impending search for Grindelwald. There was so much at stake, and I felt helpless.

Thankfully, the weeks passed by and I clung to Newt just as he clung to me. I'd had to return to New York after a while, but our correspondence continued through letters. Much like before, but with a more positive outcome. The two of us had finally put the past where it belonged and worked towards a new future together. A future where concerns would be voiced and feelings would be validated. After all, who knows what tomorrow will bring? Might as well live in the present and make the most of every moment because you never know if it'll be your last.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3rd POV

Picture it. Two lovers working on assignments at home in separate offices. Not because they couldn't stand to be in the other's presence, but because one of them had a harder time concentrating when the other was in the same room as them. Newt Scamander found the ever beautiful Porpentina to be very much of a distraction whenever he needed to work on something at home. He didn’t blame her for it, yet there was a sense of obligation to admire her beauty in every moment. After all, Grindelwald’s crimes against anyone who stood in his way were as dangerous as ever, and there wasn’t much spare time for Newt or Tina to enjoy the other’s presence. That’s why both of them (Newt especially) loved after-work hours. He could watch Tina brush stray hairs out of her face and bite her lip out of a mixture of frustration and determination. The previously unspoken couple had since admitted their feelings for one another, which led to their current living situation.

A little over two years had passed since the rally at Père Lachaise. Newt and Tina shared a place in London, and they were as happy as they could be with a war raging around them. Domestic life wasn’t a strong suit for either of them, yet they managed to make the most of it. Each spent their day working for the Ministry—Tina on Theseus’ task force and Newt on whatever special assignment he had been given to aid in Grindelwald's defeat. At night, they came together for dinner and brief conversations. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Newt smiled as he stood in the doorway of Tina’s home office. She scribbled notes and suggestions based off of the latest attack, her shoulders hunched and nose nearly brushing the edge of the parchment. Sometimes there was no telling when Tina would call it a night; her work often led her to stay up late following leads. Yet she always managed to spare a moment for Newt and his creatures, which reminded her that life existed outside of work. For now, however, work was what paid the bills and allowed the wizarding world to be one step closer to defeating Grindelwald and his regime.

Tina’s desk was modest, and stacks of papers neatly lined the sides of the desk. It was clearly well-organized, although just as worn-in as her desk at the Ministry. Both were much cleaner than the desk in a large closet that Newt liked to call his office. Back when both desks were in one room, the sight of Newt’s workstation would vex Tina terribly due to its constant disorganization. She offered to straighten it up for him one night, but the next morning revealed her efforts were in vain.

“Tina, where are my notes on a new habitat for the graphorns?”

“They’re in the second drawer, third folder.”

“And the sketches as well?”

“First drawer, fourth folder.”

Tina tried to pretend she couldn’t hear Newt sigh.

Life wasn't easy; it never would be. But at least they had each other, and somehow, that was enough.

[trishmilburn]

An Exploration of The Untamed’s Romance & Mystery, Episode 2

Disclaimer: This post and others in this series will be filled with loads of spoilers if you haven’t seen The Untamed, the Chinese drama based on Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s novel, Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation). My chief interest in doing this series is to chronicle the development of the romance between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, but I also highlight the progression of the mystery that helps bring them together. Keep in mind that I’m writing these posts with the knowledge of what’s going to happen throughout the series and having read the novel. If you’d like to read my post on Episode 1 first, you can see it here.

On to Episode 2 (as I listen to the lovely soundtrack to The Untamed)…

Having left Mo Manor, we see Wei Ying traveling through the beautiful countryside with his donkey companion. While resting at a roadside well, he hears people approaching and soon ascertains some of them are fellow cultivators. One of the guys in the group says to another that his compass still isn’t working. Wei Ying learns from them that they’ve heard about a soul-eating fiend at nearby Brahma Mountain, but another guy says there has been no strange movements in the Compass of Evil (yet something else invented by Wei Ying that is still in use, along with those Spirit Attraction Flags from Episode 1). First guy mentions that Wei Wuxian (aka Wei Ying) is his idol. Now that’s not something you hear every day.

Another one of the travelers, a woman named Ah Yan gives Wei Ying an apple to get his stubborn donkey to move, and thus the nameless donkey becomes Little Apple. A little while later, after Wei Ying climbs to the top of a hill, Ah Yan joins him and starts dancing while facing Great Brahman Mountain, at one point striking a pose that is foreshadowing for what’s to come. Her mother tells Wei Ying that Ah Yan hasn’t been right since she recently lost her husband and father.

Wei Ying hears people calling for help, and when he arrives he finds several people hanging in the air inside Immortal Binding Nets. A teenage guy shows up, and we the audience know this is Jin Ling, even if Wei Ying doesn’t at this point. Jin Ling recognizes Wei Ying as Mo Xuanyu (remember, he’s wearing a mask and Jin Ling was just a baby when Wei Ying died so wouldn’t recognize him anyway). Little does Jin Ling know that he’s talking to basically his uncle. Wei Ying isn’t a Jiang by birth, but he was raised alongside Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli (who is Jin Ling’s mother), and Yanli especially considered Wei Ying her brother.

When Wei Ying puts a paper man talisman on mouthy little Jin Ling’s back to keep him down, Jin Ling is furious and warns Wei Ying that he’s in trouble when his uncle gets there. During this conversation, Wei Ying, not knowing who Jin Ling is, gets in a couple of digs about his parents or absence thereof, which understandably upsets Jin Ling. And then the uncle arrives, and Wei Ying is stunned when he hears Jiang Cheng’s voice. And the intervening years have just made Wei Ying’s adoptive brother more bitter and harsh. There’s no hint of the playful, smiling side of Jiang Cheng we’ll soon see when the show goes back in time to show us the characters’ formative years and the beginning of the love story between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan.

Jiang Cheng is upset that Jin Ling let Wei Ying (who he doesn’t know is Wei Ying yet) get the better of him, but the fact that this unknown person has used evil sorcery means that he must be immediately killed and fed to the dogs. Jin Ling thus starts to attack Wei Ying, but his sword is knocked away by a blast of familiar energy from Lan Zhan’s guqin (a type of zither). Lan Zhan arrives with the Lan disciples while the soundtrack plays the beautiful zither music associated with him.

Showing some of his natural humorous personality, Wei Ying thinks to himself, “I should have checked my horoscope for any bad luck before heading out today.”

Jiang Cheng accuses Lan Zhan of being in the woods to look for someone (we all know he means Wei Ying) and mentions how Lan Zhan has done a lot of traveling around the world the past 16 years (also looking for Wei Ying or some piece of his soul). When Lan Jingyi asks Jiang Cheng what he means by that, Jiang Cheng says Lan Zhan knows what he means. And there’s no denying this infuriates him.

Lan Sizhui directs the conversation away from the tense moment between these two men who obviously do not like each other. Sizhui notes that the monster hunt they were all taking part in was supposed to be a fair game, but Jin Ling put nets all over the mountain. Wei Ying is amused when someone in the Lan clan uses the muting spell on Little Lord Mouthypants (Jin Ling). Still stewing, Jiang Cheng looks at Jin Ling and says that if he doesn’t capture the thing wrecking havoc on the mountain to not bother coming to see him. Poor Jin Ling, even though he’s annoying in these early episodes, you grow to love him because not only was he orphaned while a baby, his uncle is an unforgiving ass. His character is one about whom I changed my opinion the most, and you’ll see why in my future posts.

When everyone else leaves, Lan Zhan looks toward where Wei Ying is hiding behind a tree. But when Wei Ying turns away, Lan Zhan lets him be and walks away. He either knows in his heart or at least greatly suspects that he’s Wei Ying, but he doesn’t have conclusive proof yet. And obviously Wei Ying isn’t ready to reveal himself to him. It’s got to be hard for Lan Zhan to walk away when he’s that close after all those years of grieving and looking for some piece of Wei Ying to hold on to.

Next we see Wei Ying walking beside a river. He takes off the mask as he bends down beside the water. In the reflection he sees memories of Jiang Cheng scolding him about assisting him and Yanli saying that she, Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng would be together forever. But that’s not true because he’s lost them both. He overhears someone on the road nearby say that both the Jin and Jiang families are spoiling Jin Ling too much, to which a woman replies that it’s understandable since he lost his parents when he was just a baby. Another man notes how Jin Ling’s dad died because of Wei Wuxian and then his mother, Yanli, also died because Wei Wuxian. The painful truth of Jin Ling’s identity hits Wei Ying hard, and he slaps himself for the comments he’d made to Jin Ling about his missing parents.

The Lan disciples encounter an old man in a graveyard, and Jingyi asks why he’s sneaking around. After learning he’s the caretaker for the graveyard, Sizhui asks if anything strange has been going on in the area. The man says they should check out the Goddess Temple up the mountain, but it’s not until they walk away that he reveals that the dancing goddess statue can move.

Wei Ying sees Little Apple eating Spirit Gathering Grass that can collect the spiritual energy from the soil near cultivators’ graves. He soon shows up at the same graveyard and encounters the same old man, but Wei Ying can tell that the area is masked with a black aura. When the old man tells him this is the Wen clan’s graveyard, he sees a vision of Wen Qing, a woman he knew in his past. She tells him that this is her ancestors’ graves, and Wei Ying realizes the young disciples are headed for a bigger danger than they realize.

The Lan and Jin disciples are in the Goddess Temple, talking about local legends that say the people in the area come to the temple to pray to the goddess who grants wishes. Jin Ling, being his smartypants self, says he wishes the entity causing all the trouble would reveal itself to him right then. And thus the dancing goddess statue starts to move. Wei Ying shows up, starts throwing talismans at the statute and tells the kids to get out of the cave. Once they are outside, he tells the Lans to send up a signal flare to call Lan Zhan, but the disciples realize they don’t have any. They used the last ones during the battle at Mo Manor and didn’t replenish them. Remembering all the trouble he got into as a teen studying in Gusu with the Lans, Wei Ying teases the boys that they’re going to be in trouble when Lan Zhan finds out.

Wei Ying tells them how he knew the goddess statue was the one eating souls – soul-eating beasts and fiends thrive off absorbing spiritual consciousness that has not departed from dead people. If there are so many dead people buried nearby, why take souls from the living? Something be fishy.

We next see a brief scene of Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan sitting at different tables at what looks like a rural tea house/eatery. It’s abundantly clear that they do not like each other, which is understandable. After all, Jiang Cheng is the reason that the man Lan Zhan loves fell to his death and he’s had to mourn his loss for the past 16 years. This was made even more heartbreaking considering how until he met and started falling for Wei Ying, Lan Zhan was a very closed-off person. Some would say he was even emotionless, but he really had a big heart hidden away. But Wei Ying gradually wormed his way into that heart, filling it, and to have him suddenly ripped away forever was unbearably cruel.

Then we’re back to Wei Ying telling the boys about how Ah Yan prayed to the goddess for her husband, and her spiritual consciousness was taken. Her father, seeing this, went to pray for his daughter to get her spiritual consciousness back. She did, but it was damaged when the goddess spit it back out, and her father’s was taken instead. Ah Yan’s experience was why she was able to pose and smile like the goddess statue.

Wei Ying realizes Jin Ling is missing just before the goddess statue shows up outside chasing some of the Jin clan members. Jin Ling flies through the air and starts shooting arrows at the statue. I have to admit, this looked pretty darn cool. Wei Ying thinks, “Something’s not right. Lan Zhan and I sealed her up.” He takes Jingyi’s sword and cuts a section of bamboo to make an improvised flute, his musical weapon the same way Lan Zhan’s is the guqin. Jin Ling is about to be trampled by the goddess statue when, to everyone’s surprise, including Wei Ying’s, his flute playing causes Wen Ning, aka the Ghost General, to show up. Wen Ning was the first fierce corpse Wei Ying created as the Yiling Patriarch. I must pause here to just share how much I love Wen Ning’s character and Yu Bin’s portrayal of him. Even though he can be unbelievably deadly in his Ghost General persona, he’s an adorable cinnamon roll of a guy with the world’s biggest heart otherwise. It’s a wild contrast. Anyway, the kicking-ass version of Wen Ning saves Jin Ling and destroys the goddess statue, but still everyone except for Wei Ying turns on him. Seeing this, Wei Ying realizes he needs to play a calmer tune to cool Wen Ning’s bloodlust and lead him away from the others.

And the playing of that particular tune is the confirmation that Lan Zhan needs to know for certain this is Wei Ying. It’s a song Lan Zhan wrote and played for only Wei Ying at a moment when the two were in a dangerous situation (which we’ll see in a later episode). It’s a love song named “Wangxian,” a combination of both of their names, though Wei Ying doesn’t know that or that this is how he’s finally revealed to Lan Zhan who he is. (Note: On the soundtrack, this song is called “WuJi” and is sung by Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, who play Wei Ying and Lan Zhan.) Lan Zhan shows up and grabs Wei Ying’s wrist. Wei Ying stops playing the flute and looks into the eyes of the last person he saw before he died, the person who tried to save him, the person who evidently has been searching for him ever since that moment he fell off that cliff. Lan Zhan looks at Wei Ying as if convincing himself he’s real, that he’s finally found him.

Wen Ning flies off and when Lan Zhan turns to pursue, Wei Ying drops his flute and this time he’s the one who grabs Lan Zhan’s wrist, his eyes pleading with him to let Wen Ning go.

All this Wen Ning action and obvious touching and feelings between Lan Zhan and the masked dude is too much for Jiang Cheng, who has arrived just in time to make a hateful ass of himself. Convinced the masked dude is Wei Ying, and determined to get rid of him once again, he uses Zidian, his weapon that usually resides on his wrist as a bracelet but can turn into a whip of purple lightning, to prove Wei Ying’s identity. You see, Zidian has the ability to separate a soul from a body they’ve seized. When he tries to use the whip on Wei Ying, however, Lan Zhan steps in between them and sends out a wave of power from his guqin, blocking Zidian. This is the second time that Lan Zhan has protected Wei Ying in this episode, and you’ll see him protecting him a lot more. It’s his thing – protect Wei Ying at all costs. After all, that’s what you do for the person who owns your heart. Wei Ying, the adorable dummy, makes a break for it. Jiang Cheng, seeing another chance, slashes him with Zidian. But when Wei Ying gets up and no soul pops out of the body, Jiang Cheng is stunned. How did Zidian not work? The technicality he doesn’t think of is Wei Ying didn’t seize Mo Xuanyu’s body. It was willingly offered. Big difference.

Furious, Jiang Cheng makes a move to strike him again, but Jingyi steps forward and says it’s already proven that Wei Ying hasn’t possessed Mo Xuanyu’s body, that Wei Ying is dead. To which Jiang Cheng asks him how he knows he’s dead. Jingyi says, uh, weren’t you the one who killed him? And thus begins my love of the Sassy Lan.

During all this, Wei Ying wishes he could go back to 16 years before, back to his home at the Lotus Pier in Yunmeng. And with that wish we are taken back to that happier time, where we will stay for quite a while as we see the characters’ teen years and how this whole story started.

We see Wei Ying lying in a boat with a big lotus leaf covering his face. Jiang Cheng and Yanli are teasing him to wake him up, telling him they’ve arrived at a town in Gusu on their way to study at the Cloud Recesses with the Lan Clan. As they walk through the streets of the town, Wei Ying spots a vendor stall where carvings of little animals on sticks draw his attention. He immediately zeroes in on a bunny one, and this is also foreshadowing. Bunnies will play a part in his story with Lan Zhan. Another bit of foreshadowing is when Jiang Cheng tells his sister that he’s afraid Wei Ying will cause chaos at the Cloud Recesses. Yanli, being her sweet and caring self, responds that Wei Ying just has a lively personality and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But even the sweetest, most fun-loving people can be driven to take dark paths when they are backed into a corner and lose too much.

[kiara-carrera]

mere monstrosity

pairing: sweet pea x brooke holliday warnings: mentions of blood and gore, minor character death word count: 4,890 author’s note: for the southside archive’s weekly au ‘werewolf’. very loosely based off the 2011 red riding hood movie, as well as that one episode of tw set in france. but like, very barely. like the aesthetic is there, not much more. also reggie exudes some major gaston energy, but that’s unrelated. a part two to this will come eventually if i can find enough inspo and if people like it enough!

read on ao3 or continue on under the cut!

Everyone in the village of Riverdale has heard the tales.

The story of the wolves and the man. A story — the telling of a nightmare, really — of men who could transform in the light of the moon. Stories of beastly creatures that walk silently and discreetly among them in the daylight, but who become something entirely different at night.

Some say it’s only under the light of the full moon, some believe it to be at will. The ones said to bend a will are always more terrifying because there’s an added element of surprise, no planning that can be done. But all the same, the stories are always tales of horror, never heartwarming. Stories of unearthly creatures never are. It’s always about the beast murdering and hunting and then being hunted right back. Man is always made to be the victor, vanquishing the beast back to the hell it came from.

They go by many names, every iteration having a different title. Shapeshifter. Lycanthrope. Wolf-man. Beasts. Half breeds. But most of the storytellers in Riverdale had taken to calling them one thing and one thing only: monsters.

Each and every tale, while following different paths, all have the same patterns when you looked past the gory details and frightening endings. A man, a wolf, a moon. The darkest of nights come to bring the darkest of creatures. A man and a wolf, one and the same. Flesh by day, fur by night. The sharpest teeth imaginable, maw slick with the blood of its victim. Claws as pointed as blades, a way to rip through chest cavities to the beating hearts of the pure and for leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. A man, a wolf, a murderer.

Some perceive these creatures to be the work of the Devil, embedding demonic entities into poor, unfortunate souls. Other believe it to be the work of witchcraft, curses placed upon those who made enemies of the old crones. Most just see it for what they think all tales like these are — fiction.

Because everything can be fiction until it happens, right?

That’s what the people of Riverdale used to believe. Their land has always always been peaceful. Quiet. Safe. Nothing bad ever happens in the village situated along the river and the thick groves of trees known as Fox Forest. Children are free to roam the forests without fear of danger. Nights hang over the village, the sky inky black canvases dotted with crystalline stars, and all they are followed by is the rise of the sun. The night doesn’t bring fear, no more than the day does.

And then the deaths began.

The first victim that death claims is none other than Jason Blossom, the son of an affluent family. The Blossoms have lived in the northern part of Riverdale for years, the stories detailing that it’s their ancestors who settled the village to begin with. But while Great Grandfather Blossom achieved a memory linked with the settlement, his descendant finds a legacy enriched with darkness.

Jason came into the world with his twin sister and had left alone, found at the banks of the river, just outside the tree line. His chest had been torn open, face mangled and body nearly unrecognizable. He was in pieces when they found him, or so the rumor goes. His heart was missing and a trail of blood scattered off in tracks amongst the once virgin snow.

Tracks that suspiciously resembled wolf tracks. Tracks that resemble the paws of a wolf that trail off into the snow, less thick with Blossom blood the further they lead away from the body. Tracks that, eventually, morph into footprints.

Human footprints.

Fiction and reality seem to blur when this detail comes to light. And yet, all the same, fiction and reality seem to be separated in the minds of the villagers.

The village was sent up into an uproar with the death of the Blossom boy, villagers crying out about the animal attack that had to have taken place. For it had to be an animal, nothing more and nothing less. That’s how it always starts with these stories. A man, a wolf, a moon, a death. Animal attack. That’s what they’ll always call it. The superstitious will try to make the people see past the obvious answer that an animal is the cause, but no one ever believes them.

Because again, everything is fictional until it’s not.

The authority of the village puts out a search for an animal that supposedly took Jason’s life. They round up a few of the strongest boys in the village, the ones not too sickly and frail to hunt the beast. The sons of the families Mantle, Mason, and Clayton enter the woods with nothing but a vague idea of what they’re hunting and a belly full of fire and revenge at the thought of their fallen comrade. It takes two days, a group situated in the thick of the forest with weapons before they return dragging the carcass of a wolf as if it’s some sort of prize.

Weeks go by. Jason is buried. He’s buried in the cemetery that’s behind the Church, Father Solomon blessing his spirit to find peace. His sister, a pretty redhead named Cheryl, seems to be eternally on the verge of going off the deep end, dressed in long black dresses every time she’s seen out in village. Cheryl’s probably the first who feeds into the hysteria, not believing the elders and village leaders for a minute when her brother’s death is regarded as an accident.

She doesn’t say the words, but people can tell what she’s thinking most days. On good days, she’ll be silent in her suffering. On the bad days, her curls have sprigs of monkshood — wolfsbane — woven into them, toxically beautiful plants obtained from her mother’s garden. No one asks her why wolfsbane — they know. She believes the old wives tales, the horror stories. People call Cheryl crazy and parents warn their children to avoid her.

She’s not crazy. She’s not. They just don’t have reason to believe otherwise yet.

And then death claims another. Dilton Doiley, a scrawny boy at the top of his class at the local schoolhouse, is found deeper in the forest, hundreds of feet from where Jason was found. The scene is almost identical to when they found Jason. Chest ripped open, covered in blood, left to rot amongst the rows of maples. Wolf tracks. Human tracks. One and the same. A man, a wolf, a death. He’s buried and it’s like repeating the same brutal history.

Except … except Dilton’s death comes far more unexpected than Jason’s did. Jason was thought to be a freak accident. But Dilton’s passing slaps the village in the face, for they believed they vanquished the beast. Suddenly, the carcass that Reginald Mantle toted into the village’s center is nothing more than a mere animal killed in vain. Suddenly, another mother has lost her son.

His mother’s already used to grief, losing her husband years prior, but it’s her son that seems to do her in. She spirals and suddenly Cheryl’s not the grieving madwoman of the village anymore. Old Mrs. Doiley will scream her suspicions at anyone who will listen. She theorizes and points fingers, shunning people she believes responsible and demanding justice for her son. The elders of the village, ones whose ancestry stems from the wicked village across the river whisper how it reminds them of the stories of witch trials that once occurred many, many years ago.

She points fingers and she wails most days and it’s become commonplace in the village for her to do so. The only one who doesn’t seem to watch her with ridicule or fear is Cheryl. The village now has two firm believers in the stories that the elders used to tell to scare the children into obeying their parents. Two believers and a village of people clinging onto a reality that unravels more and more as the snow falls over the land.

The longer the winter rages on, the longer the list of victims become. The bodies pile up, the time between deaths ranging anywhere from weeks to mere hours between corpses being found. Corpses that were once people now just become names and little wooden crosses embedded above graves. They become stories to their friends and families. They become warnings to little kids, proof that you cannot go out safely anymore. And eventually, they just become afterthoughts.

Ben Button, a tall and gangly blonde who was a little odd, but meant well. Little knew him, so little mourn him. The few friends he did have will raise a glass to him and then try to move on.

Midge Klump, an angelic beauty who’s death seemed to rock the village to its core. Her passing sees a lengthy farewell, a long drawn out day of sobs to accompany rivers of tears.

A drifter named Kurtz, who had been once accused of robbing the apothecary and offering strange elixirs to adolescents. His death is almost rejoiced, although done in secret. He receives a burial as a means of disposing the body. There is no funeral, there is no grave marker, there is no one to remember him.

Joseph Svenson, who had once been regarded as the village degenerate. He lost his family when he was younger and never married, so there’s no one present when he’s buried.

By this point, the village is in shambles. No one goes out after dark. No one steps near or beyond the tree line of Fox Forest if they can help it, no longer believing the deity they once prayed to in order to keep them safe. For if the gods could create such a monster, how could they be trusted with prayers?

Father Solomon, bless his heart, tries to instill faith in the villagers, to keep their connections to their god strong in these troubling times. Some turn to religion, as people in chaos always do, but the deaths continue anyways. There is no god that can save them now.

Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Third begins his conspiracy novel for the sake of having something to do. He sits in the dark corners of the local pub, fingers stained black from his inkwell, surrounded by stacks of filled pages. No one knows if he’s truly a believer or if he’s just looking for a story to tell, but there isn’t a single person who questions why he insists on documenting this part of Riverdale’s twisted existence. He spends most of his time at the pub or down in the southern area of the village, his home, discussing the old tales with elders like Thomas Topaz.

No one calls him crazy. And no one calls Cheryl crazy anymore or even little Old Mrs. Doiley. In Riverdale, no one’s crazy anymore.

They’re just afraid.

Everyone’s afraid and the madness seeps into the village easily and it’s clear as day on everyone’s face. No one knows what to believe, no one knows where to put their faith, and everyone goes to sleep at night surrounded by unease. Some try to act like everything’s normal, like the village suddenly has a wolf problem. As if there’s something in the water making them crazed.

Most try to live their lives, but it’s hard. There are children to think about. Livelihoods. Some wonder if the village will make it to spring or if…whatever’s hunting them will pick them off one by one before silver snows can melt into flower buds and greenery.

Brooke Holliday just tries to keep living, day by day. She gets up and ties back her hair and puts on her dresses and tries to pretend that her village hasn’t fallen into a rut of hysteria. She doesn’t voice her opinions on the death and no one bothers to ask.

There’s something…different in the way Brooke operates under all of this chaos. She goes about her days, not feeding into the fear that people have but also not discounting how they’re feeling. Somewhere, embedded deep within the pages of Forsythe’s novel, there’s a mention as to how the blonde carries herself throughout this. More than a footnote, shorter than a chapter. He watches her carefully, never too long to dive deeper into what’s different about her during these dark times, but enough to notice. She’s different, calm but on edge at the same time…almost as if she knows more than she lets on.

He chalks this up to the fact that she hears everything. Not because she’s a good listener, but because she’s employed under old man Tate at the local pub, the same one where she can see her friend add another twenty pages to his manuscript over the course of days, not knowing she’s mentioned among his pages. The same pub where she hears family men bemoan about keeping their wives and children safe. The same one where she can hear some boasting arrogantly that they’d take down the beast one-handed if they came across it.

Reginald Mantle, the same Mantle who took the life of the wrong animal, falls into that last category. He’s always been a bit of a loose cannon. Devilishly handsome, well built, and from a respected family from the northern part of the village, he’s the kind of good stock that Brooke assumes she’s expected to be interested in. Even more so now that’s he’s begun to spout his tales of would-be heroics. Frankly, she just thinks he’s full of it.

Tonight is no different as she brings him and his companions another round of steins filled to the brim with amber liquid. Mantle’s been here for over an hour, prattling on to anyone who will listen. His dimwitted companions hang onto his every word and the few girls in the village who are of age and not in a courtship seem to flock to wherever the dark-haired man goes.

“Wherever this beast is,” Reginald begins to boast, a smug expression on his face as not one, but two — deeply misguided, Brooke assumes — maidens fawn over him. “I will find him and his head will have a place above my fireplace. A story to tell my grandchildren.”

Brooke tries her hardest not to roll her eyes. She figures that he got lucky during the last outing into the woods. Try that again and he’d probably ended up maimed or worse. She sets down the drinks, before wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist.

“You’d do well not to go in the forest looking for a fight you could potentially lose, Reginald,” Brooke quips. “Wouldn’t want that pretty little face of yours to be ruined.”

The two women dangling off Reginald’s arms glare up at Brooke, while most of his companions burst into laughter at the anger blooming on their friend’s face. He wears the kind of expression he dons when he expects his opponent to back down, bow out. But Brooke’s known him since childhood and frankly, she’s never been one to be afraid of the self-proclaimed Mantle the Magnificent.

“Laugh all you want,” he sneers at her. She wants to interject that his friends are actually the ones laughing, but she bites her tongue. “But it will be an entirely different story, Miss Holliday, when that beast comes for you next and you need a rescue.”

Rescue? From him? She’d sooner want to be the wolf’s next meal. “You mistake for a damsel and that’s your first mistake, Reginald,” she tells him, before drifting away to another table that needs drinks.

Brooke keeps her head high, not caring that she can most definitely hear the sneers that Mantle throws her way under his breath. She pays little mind to the opinions of oafs like him. Once upon a time, Reginald had been tolerable. But over the course of this bloody winter, things in Riverdale have changed.

She figures it’s only natural for something like this to change people. In a way, it makes sense. Once deaths like this occur, with so much superstitious lore filling the blank spaces in between, it’s only natural that people’s true colors would spill out over the page. Reginald’s always felt that he had something to prove. It only makes sense he’d choose now to be the time to do it.

The doors to the pub burst open, winter winds whipping through the bar easily, flakes of fresh snow drifting in as well. Everyone’s eyes seem to fall on the group slipping in out of the cold and Brooke can feel her heart pick up as she sees who’s made themselves known.

It’s a group of men, the ages of them ranging from young to old, who hail from the southernmost tips of the village. For years, even before the hysteria that started with Jason Blossom’s death, the southern villagers have always been detested by the northern residents. No one’s exactly sure why it happened this way, but it’s always been the unspoken way of the land.

At the schoolhouse, the rooms were divided. At the church, they sat in different rows. The children were warned against playing together once they started to reach certain ages and most young companionships faded out by certain ages. Northern men are taught to turn their noses up to southern women. Northern maidens were always warned against the men of the south. Crossing over lines like that would be blasphemous to most and it’s gotten to the point where there’s a clear divide in the village. But old man Tate’s pub has always been common ground between the north and south and that’s where the trouble for Brooke always seemed to begin.

Trouble, all six foot three of it, that had just walked into the bar.

His name is Nathan, but he’s known amongst his friends by the nickname of Sweet Pea. His hands rub together feverishly, trying to bring quick warmth to the near frozen digits. He trails behind his friends, but he moves slowly, eyes scanning the bar until he lands on the blonde barmaid. And almost as she couldn’t help it, her eyes lock with his.

Brooke swallows thickly as she watches him from across the bar, hand still gripping the drink she had brought to the table beside her. Her heart feels like it’s running a race alongside the fastest horses and she knows her cheeks are warming with a blush as a ghost of a smile carves across his lips. An almost imperceptible nod is thrown her way before he licks his lips.

Almost instinctively, she’s pulled into a daydream, hidden memories playing out in her mind for her almost tauntingly. She can still feel his hands gripping her hips through the layers of her dress, can feel the way his lips slot against hers as if they were made to be together. Her hands in his hair, his rucking up her skirt. Whispered sweet nothings, hush filthy phrases in her ear. Kisses down her collarbone, devilish lips sucking purples and reds into her milky skin. Dark corners, the back room of the bar after closing, the shed behind her house, anywhere that no one’s likely to intrude upon.

Him, all of him, just for her. For all the moments they share, she is his and he is hers and nothing can take that away from her until it’s over. Her mind is a filthy place as she watches him cross the bar and slip in beside Forsythe and his other companion, sweat-slick nights of passion playing over and over again until she’s certain her grip on the beer stein will shatter the glass.

Her blush darkens by the second as she finally turns away from his gaze, knowing he’s most likely chuckling to himself as she makes her way back behind the counter where some men sit. She’s fighting a growing grin that wants to cover her lips, the same grin she has any time he’s near. Her memories dance across her mind, taunting and teasing when she feels a familiar heat pulsing inside of her at the thought of them. Under the layers of her skirt, her thighs press together a little tighter.

It’s sinful, what they have. Countless nights together, nothing between them but skin and sweat and heat. Sinful. Forbidden. It’s secret, what they have. She’s expected to marry someone from the northern edge of the village and he’s expected to stay away from her. If anyone were to find out that they were together, that he had deflowered her…Brooke doesn’t even want to know the consequences of that.

So, what they have is secret. Forbidden. Sinful. Delicious. Heart racing. Love. Brooke loves him and Nathan loves her and one day they’ll be together. One day, they’ll leave this all behind. That’s her fantasy. That’s her dream. That’s their future. But for now, it’s late-night trysts and hushed confessions of love in the darkest of corners. For them, that’s perfect. It’s perfect.

But like all love stories, soon it will be threatened. Compromised.

For there’s a secret that they share that’s far more dangerous than sex and love. A secret about him, his friends, one he entrusted her with the day he declared her love. One that frightened her, but not because she was afraid of him. Because she was afraid for him. Afraid for what this hysteria meant for him.

A man, a wolf, a moon. This is how it starts. Man hails from a pack with a long lineage of shifting. Man and pack do not hunt humans, do not threaten the ways of nature, merely only serving to protect. Protect against the feral ones, the packless, the murderers. Man falls in love with a beautiful girl. Full moons come and go, murders start. This is the end of all things for them.

The end begins now.

The doors burst open to the bar again, but this time, there is no joyful laughter or hands rubbed together to gain back warmth. There’s only gargled shouts, crimson blood dripping on the hardwood floor that tracks in from the snow. There’s only Archibald Andrews clutching his chest tightly, blood seeping through his fingers. There’s only Andrews calling for help through a mouthful of blood with horror in his eyes.

“Andrews!”

The shout comes from Reginald, who’s up in an instant and sprinting to his side. His friends follow closely behind and soon the redheaded Andrews man is being lowered to the ground as everyone’s sent into a panic. It’s almost nightfall, that much can be gleaned from the still open door. Nightfall. Monsters always come out at nightfall.

Brooke moves across the bar in a flurry, carrying multiple rags behind the counter. She’s on her knees beside Archibald within seconds, shoving his hands out of the way and pressing the clean rags against his wound. It’s large, covering the left side of his chest, in the shape of claw marks. Her heart drops at that, but she tries to focus on anything else while someone sprints out of the bar and down the road towards the village healer’s home.

Staunch the blood flow, staunch the blood flow, she tells herself. He can be bandaged later. Her hands are shaking as she presses down even harder.

She seems to be the only one focused on the blood.

“Who did this?” Reginald snaps at Archibald, eyes alight with fury. “What happened?”

Brooke’s eyes narrow in a glare as she turns her head up to look at him while still pressing down on the blood flow. Her hands are stained crimson and so is her dress, but all she can think about is how insensitive Mantle’s being. “Reginald, he—”

Archibald murmurs something then. The crowd huddled around them falls silent, every set of eyes flickering down the boy who might not make it through the night.

“Arch?” Brooke mumbles, his childhood nickname falling off her lips. “What…what did you say?”

This time, he murmurs louder. His voice is hoarse and his eyes are fighting to stay open, but he looks directly at her when he says it. “M…Monster. Men turning to w…wolves…back to men…”

And there it is. The big grand reveal. Brooke feels her heart stop at that moment. They say the truth will set you free, but all she can feel in that moment is the crushing fear that stems from this coming out. Wolves and man, one and the same. Wolves and man, responsible for the many murders that have haunted their village over the course of a frigid winter. Jason, Dilton, Ben, Midge, Kurtz, Svenson. All fell to the hand — claw — of the beast, the shapeshifter, the werewolf.

The monster.

She can hear every story the elders have ever told, can see the wolfsbane woven in the Blossom girl’s hair, can feel the grief that radiates off of Old Mrs. Doiley. For everyone in Riverdale has heard the tales.

Including Reginald Mantle.

Fury licks across his features, dark eyes almost turning black in rage as Andrews’ confession sinks in for him. Monster. It’s the only echoing in his mind as anger burns through him. A monster, in his village, killing his friends and people.

“I knew it!” he sneers, getting to his feet faster than Brooke was aware anyone could move. His foot kicks out, sending a chair sailing across the room. “I knew the second that Blossom died it wasn’t just some ordinary wolf. There’s some fucked up creature running around our village killing people!”

It’s a bold claim he’s making, Brooke notes, saying that he knew. He was one of the ones who went into Fox Forest after Jason died looking for a wolf, an ordinary wolf. But Reginald, he always has to appear ten steps ahead because he has something to prove.

“This ends now,” he thunders, hand tossing out to gesture at where Archibald’s barely clinging to life. “These monsters already killed enough of us and tonight they tried to take Andrews too. But I say no more. No more death. No more monsters!”

He’s met with a round of cheers, mostly from older northern men and his friends. No one notices the way that the table of men who just entered the bar not too long before Archie say nothing. Forsythe watches with cold, calculating eyes. Nathan watches with a blank expression, arms crossed. But that’s overpowered by the way of the ones following Reginald’s lead.

Anger seems to flare through the bar like a stroke of lightning, men angrily scowling and clenching their fists. Archibald’s blood flow seems to be slowing down a bit and it’s that fact that lets Brooke focus more on what’s happening around her. With so few words, Reginald has seemed to instill fury into those around her. A domino effect of anger, fear of the creature turning into the need to destroy what’s different.

“What should we do?” Mason asks, narrowed eyes turning to Reginald. Other’s follow suit, people looking to Mantle as if his word is law.

For a moment, Mantle says nothing, deep in thought. And then all at once, it seems to come to him. His eyes narrow. Clambering up onto a table, raising his fist in the air, Reginald shouts. “I say we kill the beast!"

He’s met by more cheers. A mob seems to be forming, for there is a beast on the loose. In some sense, it only makes sense for the wolf to be hunted. It’s caused chaos and strife and pain and grief and it needs to end. This winter cannot go on with so much red staining the white snow. People will not be able to live if they are afraid.

Fear is a powerful thing. It makes people do stupid things or it can make them do horrible things. Riverdale is a village that’s filled with so much fear. So what stupid or horrible thing will they do with it?

Brooke has an idea of how it will go, thoughts fueled by everything she’s ever known from stories. The tales always go the same way, follow the same structures and patterns. The death comes first, it always comes first. But then the full moon rises again and the people, they’re ready now. Ready to face their fears and the monsters. The beast is discovered. The beast is killed. But what happens when there’s more than one wolf and only one is a monster? What then becomes of the wolf who does nothing more than protect his loved ones?

Across the bar, through crowds of angry men, Brooke’s eyes lock with Sweet Pea’s. This time, there’s no sexual charged daydreams. There’s only fear.

Fear for him. It blossoms in her chest, sprouting from the seedlings of fear she carried for him every day. It’s sad to say, but it’s almost as if Brooke’s been waiting for this to happen.

For this is how it starts. A man, a wolf, a moon. A list of murders not at his hand or his pack, but ones that will surely be placed upon them if they’re discovered.

A man, a wolf, a moon. The woman who loves him and a village full of men who wish to destroy him.

[ananas-pineapple-thing]

in defense of the ending to deh: with evan being the sole protagonist, it really only makes sense for it primarily to be from his point of view. in a limited runtime a piece of fiction has to get the most coherent narrative across. i’ve always seen the ending as closure for her (and others) as well—i don’t believe it excuses evans wrongdoings, more just shows them both moving past the happenings in the show. zoe says they have picnics at the orchard, they’re doing alright. THAT is their closure

to tack onto that, completely understand where you’re coming from and also come away from the show with a need for More but sometimes it’s best to realize that’s not a failing in the storytelling but rather a strength. you get to come up with your own conclusions for majority of the characters, while the show maintains its artistic integrity with a clean ending. THATS whats supposed to happen!!! make art, write fanfic, fill in the gaps yourself (the deh novel is a good example of tmi being Bad)

thanks for this ask! i feel a bit more at peace with the ending after reading this- i totally didn’t consider the time constraints.  

the ending of the show is absolutely gorgeous, and the perfect ending for Evan as a character. hopeful and bittersweet with that Letter Parallel!!! seeing that live for the first time made me cry!!! the thing is, it’s Evan's perfect ending and Evan's only. which of course as you said makes the most sense: he is the main character, there is limited time, and we gotta wrap up his story in the cleanest way. except that his journey throughout the show was so closely intertwined with the Murphys and what they were feeling and how they treated them, that i feel like nothing really justifies where the ending left them.

like. Words Fail and the scene before is the Murphys’ lowest point in the show. they're being harassed online (which is really creepy! people are saying they wanna make them feel what Connor felt! they're basically saying they want the rest of the Murphys to feel suicidal which is awful), what they believe are their son/brother’s last words are on the internet for the world to see and judge them for, and before Evan confesses Larry and Cynthia are having that fight about whether or not they failed Connor, and when he does confess, their ‘version’ of Connor is ripped away and they lose him all. over. again. (and Larry and Cynthia lose their new ‘son’ and Zoe loses her boyfriend). we see them run out and that’s it. 

Evan did wrong, but in the show you see how he just wants to help people and to make them happy, that seeing Cynthia cry over Connor hurt him so much. i definitely think he needs to move past what happened, to forgive and love himself despite his flaws and mistakes. however he screwed the Murphys over so badly. what he started as help for them just turned to guilt by the end of the show, and of course it did! In the case of Cynthia, telling her that Connor wanted and tried so hard to get better in the way that Evan framed it is obviously going to make her think that she didn’t try enough even if she did. (maybe she didn’t, we don’t really know, but i think she did try as much as she knew how)

i don’t think they should have to really move pass what happened, at least not after just one year. they have to like, reassess their feelings towards Connor, processes all the guilt and whatever peace or forgiveness they found. i honestly don’t understand how this saved Larry and Cynthia (according to Zoe in the epilogue). i hope they got like. family therapy or something and THAT saved them, and then they moved onto visiting the orchard. without recognizing this it sounds kind of like they’re still living in that lie, in a way.

i like that theyre having picnics and Are Okay! it’s just like- really?? they are?? the fact that Zoe verbalized that the Connor Project did good and helped people sits wrong with me. it did do good! it did SO MUCH good! but it straight up ruined the Murphys life after it went downhill and specifically in the case of Zoe and Evan, Evan took her victimhood and her understandable anger and turned it around on her until she forgave Connor, and now it turned out to be fake and that sits so wrong with me. Connor is a fascinating, tragic character, but Zoe was scared of him for a reason and was willing to fight her mother on her right to her anger, and Evan took that from her. I feel like the audience should understand how complicated the Connor Project and its affects were by themselves. Zoe shouldn’t have had to say that. It felt like it was for Evan’s benefit only. it felt unfair.

i have no idea exactly how i would change it, because this show is so well written and it really is just this One Thing that i’m not a fan of. maybe if like, during So Big So Small, at the ending few lines, a light could shine on the Murphys on the other side of the stage? just them hugging each other and silently crying. because they feel so small too! but at least, this time, you know theyre gonna grieve together, unlike in Requiem when they were so divided. have them be comforted the way Evan is. and have that light go off before Heidi says her spoken line to Evan.

and then at the orchard, give Evan’s line about Connor’s favorite books to Zoe! i was talking about this with my older sister today, and, for a lack of a better phrase, Evan really just stomped all over Connor’s grave during the show, and this just feels like its not his place. of course he wants to know the real Connor! but i just feel like he needs to put this behind him. stop focusing on the dead kid you never knew. you’re not gonna know him ever and that’s okay. just please, please move on Evan so you can forgive yourself.

on the other hand, Zoe is left without any of the positive connections Connor that she so eagerly wanted, and yet she’s lost most of her anger, too. she wanted to know him so badly, she wanted to have some proof that he was a human and not a monster. the books are perfect for this! she can read them with her family. that’s the real Connor none of them truly knew, and it’ll bring them peace. they can mourn him. she’ll have a connection to him that isn’t anger and hurt. like?? she can think of him and think of him loving The Little Prince that would mean a lot to Zoe. i don’t think the Murphys would be able to move on, but it would be nice to know that in the end they got something real about Connor. That would be a good closure. and i think Evan would find peace in knowing that they have a piece of Real Connor with them, too.

i do really like your take on the ending, though. i totally see the point you’ve made. (also LOL @ the novel, i went from “yay Connor POV” to “Oh No” in like ten minutes). maybe it is better to fill in the gaps yourself!! healing is a hard thing to depict and it would be hard to show Evan and the Murphys in a way that felt Real and Not Rushed. so in that case this ending would 100% be a strength. just. i love this show SO MUCH, and i really wish they couldve taken an extra minute to give us just a little bit more.

i’m sorry for rambling so much about this!! i just couldn’t figure out how to properly articulate this let alone concisely lol 

if you have anything to say about this or anything else feel free to shoot me another ask!

[joyful-voyager]

DVD Commentary

@devoverest wrote:

"Grief," sections 5 ("They hauled me in for a physical today") through 8 ("But it's so hard to accept without proof.")

I've chosen that passage to stay within the stated 500-word limit, but if you want to commentate the whole story I surely would not object. Or, please feel free to pick a different passage from "Grief" if you want to. I just didn't want to pick the ending because spoilers, but it gives me chills every time I read it.

And here is my overwritten response!

Whoa. I need a time machine for this one! We're going back 21 years to the heady days of Voyager's second season, when the fandom was new and the fanfic newer, and Seven of Nine wasn't even a nasty little gleam in Brannon Braga's shifty little eye. Weirdly enough, though, there are about three stories that I can remember the exact circumstances that surrounded their creation. This happens to be one of them, and you'll find out why in a minute.

So. “Grief." This was part of a bigger project that was inspired by Sue Love's story “Period of Mourning." That one story spawned a ton of other fanfic, from straight-up knock offs to gut-wrenching counterpoints (see Michele Masterson's “Contrition“ if you can find it), to a multi-author project in which several people told this same story from a single character's point of view. Sue's style was first person by Tom Paris as a series of personal logs. Over the course of a few days, a bunch of other authors jumped in and “claimed“ a character and got to work in the same style.

Probably because I was young and arrogant and really naïve, I immediately claimed the one character whose point of view I had no business examining: Chakotay's. I was only 26 years old, after all, and I'd never experienced the kind of grief I imagined he would go through. Not even close. But like the idiot that I was, I thought I was good enough to write it anyway.

Sure. Right. At 26 years old, having never been in a long-term relationship, much less having lost a lover to death. Boy, was this a bad move. I knew it right away, too. Whenever I sat down to write, there was so much nothing in my brain it was horrifying. I was in way, way over my head.

Fortunately, at the time I was working in a small, independent bookshop. The weekend that I wrote “Grief,“ I had to work a Friday night shift that kept me in the shop until almost midnight. I am decidedly not a night owl, and the shop was rarely busy on Friday nights. Even worse, I was in charge of the Special Orders desk that night, which was way back in the hinterlands of the shop, between Foreign Language Dictionaries and Psychology. By about 7:00 I was bored and desperate to stay awake. I was rearranging Psychology just for something to do when I realized: “Hey, dumbass, you've got a whole shelf full of books on grieving right here. What kind of ex-librarian/ex-M.F.A. student/bookseller are you anyway? Research." So that's what I did. I grabbed a couple short little books on grief and went back to the desk and started reading. By the time the shop closed, I had a pocketful of handwritten notes on grief and the grieving process. When I got back to my apartment, I opened my notebook and wrote one line: “I am in someone's nightmare." And then I went to bed.

The entire story, virtually every single word of it, was in my head when I woke up. No lie. I think what happened was that all the research I'd done about grief and the grieving process matched itself up in my sleeping brain to things I'd heard family members say over the seven years prior to writing the story. See, when I was 19, a beloved cousin of mine was murdered by a drunk driver. She was 22. My family took it extremely hard. We are a large but close-knit bunch, and over the next months and years I spent a lot of time with that wing of the family – the deceased's parents and in particular her two brothers, who were 19 and 20 at the time. I remember my uncle chain-smoking and saying, “This feels like it's happening to someone else." I remember one of my cousins saying that he couldn't get warm even though it happened in the middle of an extra-sultry Indiana summer. I remember my sisters driving my aunt to the spot where it happened because she wanted to visualize what her daughter had seen at that moment. Most of all, I remember my 20-year-old cousin having to take charge of the situation because his parents were so leveled by grief that they couldn't function. He was the one who identified what was left of his sister's body, made all the phone calls, arranged the Mass and the interment, etc. I asked him how he managed all that. He said, “I didn't have a choice. I put my best suit on and I just did it. I did it for her. But it was the hardest thing I've ever done." And I also remember how, a couple years later, that same cousin started to get into all kinds of trouble for rage-related incidents that he later, with therapy, traced back to not grieving properly for his sister. Somehow, all of these memories just…hooked up in my head with the facts of grief – you know, denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, etc. – and turned themselves into this story. All I had to do was transcribe it.

As for the techniques and tools part of it: The first person POV was a given, since that's how the project was working. I purposefully kept the early sections short and the language sort of staccato to show how Chakotay was still in the thick of his emotions even though he wasn't dealing with them. He was keeping a very tight rein on himself and even sort of fooling himself, and I wanted to show that in the beginning. The turning point, of course, is his collapse in front of B'Elanna. I imagine the walls really closing in on him at that moment. Weeks have passed, maybe months, and he has done what he thought he had to do: Perform for the crew, do what Kathryn would have done, and not show anyone how her loss was affecting him. When he shouts at B'Elanna, it's a moment of stepping outside of his self-protective shell just long enough to express an honest emotion. And even though it's anger he's expressing, the floodgates are then open. The rest of his suppressed feelings aren't far behind, and they soon come pouring out in his screams, and later his plaintive cries, for Kathryn. The language gets more lyrical then, more self aware and self reflective. He's gone as far down into his grief as he can go and he's slowly coming back to himself. When Kathryn does eventually return, I imagine that he's overjoyed, yes, but also very cognizant of his newfound strength. He can lose someone he loves deeply and still survive it and carry on. (This is part of the reason the reunion scene in The Eternal Tide drives me up a freaking tree, but that's a whole different and equally long-winded post for another time.)

One other technical note: Having the other characters move in and out of his peripheral vision was my way of hopefully making the reader aware that Chakotay's attempts to keep his grief hidden weren't working at all. Tom and B'Elanna and Harry and Kes and Tuvok? They know. They all know, which somehow makes Chakotay's self-delusion more painful. Or at least it was supposed to. Upon rereading the story just now, I'm not sure I fully succeeded at that, but overall I think the story still works.

Thanks for the ask! And sorry the answer is so long. I have nothing to do at work today, it's freezing in my office, and I'm bored out of my mind!

[camillelafaye]

Can you brief me on the dynamic with Cam and Wood, like what happened she hates him?

i’ma copy paste some snippets from a lil thread @dontkillourvibe  and I did on their background, it’s JUICAAYYYYYY and it’s a good read but it’s pretty long so i’ll put it under a readmore!! 

The beginning…

When Wood was taken in by his Auntie Colleen (Drick’s mother - Detroit) he was a shattered pre-teen and met Camille just from being in the same neighborhood. Block actually. Once they became somewhat friends, he used to sneak out late at night, and jot a few houses down to her bedroom window.  He’d linger outside for hours just talking to her through the screen about things she had experienced and he’d even share personal and in depth stories of his experiences - his mother abandoning him and his brother and sister, the abuse he endured from his father, and the treatment of being in protective services and foster care. And these weren’t things that came easy to talk about from Wood, but Camille was his touch stone. She’d listen without pity or judgement. They had a connection - a solid connection he’s never had with anyone. And this was a huge honor as Wood’s mother ruined him of trusting any girl, or later in life, women.

Sure as to what brushed Camille away was his inconsistency. He was only sweet and sincere when they were alone, but around others, he’d front like she wasn’t anything special. He wasn’t mean to her, just closed off. This would be the start of what drove her mad about Wood. However, she’d still defended him to her friends and say ‘he’ll be all at mah house t’night, watch’. And he would be. She was confident in what they had together regardless of his behavior toward her during school or neighborhood friends. To Wood, he refused to let that guard down publicly but she understood, because she knew what he had gone through and no one else did.

A little later, he would become troublesome at home and in school and Camille would worry and try and speak some sense into him. He’d cool down for a bit, but it never lasted before he’d get into some trouble again. Then finally, Wood was gone. Rumor has it he had beaten a bully of Drick’s near death. Earlier at school while passing each other in the hallway, would be the last time Wood and Camille would see each other as young teenagers.

Drick would keep Camille informed of his case and whereabouts and Wood and Camille would eventually began writing back and forth. But as all good things come to an end, the writing became less and less over time. After all, 6 years in prison is a long time. Wood had been charged as an adult for the assault of the bully. And to this day, the bully has no memory of the incident and is also mentally impaired. Wood and his trusty baseball bat were famous in the neighborhood and no one ever messed with Drick again.

19 and free, Wood is back at Auntie Colleen’s and while he’s tethered, he can still go out for work. Instead, he travels down the street to Camille. They’ve both grown and filled out and immediately, there’s strong physical attraction unlike he’s ever felt.

This attraction isn’t anything less than fully returned by Camille. Even from before her maturing and noting what caught her eye about him physically, there were much more deeply rooted sources of her gravitation toward him. With how unorthodox her own rearing was, Camille was predisposed to male company. It was her norm–as she was reared, and mostly in the company of, men far older than herself. Wood (unknowingly, perhaps) shared far too many traits of Camille’s grandfather for her not to be drawn to him inexplicably, and to the point of a fairly swift-established devotion on her end. His attitude, his reputation, the manner in which he carried himself and looked out for whom he considered his own was all that she’d known the model of a man to be, and with her own paternal connection having passed so early on, she clung–not yet fully matured neither in mind or emotion–to the one boy who seemed to be a living echo of Etienne’s ghost.

But now, with these years gained between she and Wood, physical attraction comes into play. And with her newfound womanhood, Camille was especially careful to keep her entire virtue intact. (Though her grandfather left the most profound imprint on her in some senses, her grandmother’s teachings of chastity, and of the importance of a woman’s “cleanliness” were still branded permanently in her conscious.) Even from their younger days, she knew it best for their talks to take place as JUST they did: she inside and he outdoors. But now, she was careful even with their physical cues as they could be construed by others. ‘Quit standin’ all up on me–! An’ don’t lick yo’ damn lips nea’ me ; folks gon’ think I’m out hea’ bein’ loose witchu!”

It does well enough for her at first. But news of this sort does not take long to travel through the grapevine. Men talk, and she knows men talk. She knows even more so because the word creeps ever closer through their side of Detroit, until it’s on the breaths of those just behind her shoulder. “Nah, she ain’t givin’ up shit.” “–The hell with her ass, then! Man, if I can’t get it from one I’ll damn sure get it from anotha’ one!”

Something in this acts as a trigger. Suddenly, she remembers words vaguely similar to these within her own home. More than once she could recall occasions of Etienne yelling to Claudine, being vehementin the fact that she never “gave him what he needed”. The thought never crossed her mind before then; she hadn’t the first inkling of what the terming could even have meant–not at that young. But now realization hit her like icy lead, and it told her she was quickly approaching a second abandonment by a man she felt she needed.

Days. Weeks. Months of her crying, and contemplating, and deliberating lead up to her finally relinquishing herself to him; making him her first. And then those same days, those same weeks, those same months of her crying followed, mourning what it was that kept her tethered to goodness, and wholeness, and grieving what would drive her into her grandmother’s shame.

She hadn’t known that this advice she’d heard from other men had (evidently) already been taken by Wood. But proof came steadily to her face that he had been getting plenty of “what he’d needed”. It came charging her, almost at a weekly basis, with pretty boots and flowing hair, balling up fists with manicured nails. A single one this Friday, one with her best friend alongside her the following Saturday. All of them ready to size up, and swing for who Camille had claimed as her own, but whom also obviously hadn’t shared this same view. But even then, she held her own with some. And with some, she was dealt beatings the likes of which she hadn’t been given since her Louisiana youth. It still wasn’t enough to turn her away. Not until the last one she would knuckle up with. She’d stricken her down with what no one else could.

“He’s fuckin’ you just like he fuck any other bitch around here!”

Just that. It knocked more out of her than any blow she’d taken. It took the words to cement it to her, but now it’d been spelled out clear. It marked the first chill she felt of Michigan’s winter without a heart behind her ribs to warm her. It was twisted, and wrenched from her with the whipping snow about her ears. And all she could do was come to terms with what she’d done… what she’d let him do… and how she’d given her purity away on a whim: the only trace she had of worth about herself. And to one who ultimately valued the pavement he walked on more highly.

Now a man and without a care, public flirtation and meaningless affection took place from Wood to any pretty, hood-rat that came through sashaying her goods. Though Camille wasn’t one to flaunt, Wood didn’t give in the slightest bit with her. It didn’t matter where they were or what the scene, he was poking at her, tugging on her - clearing over stepping his boundaries.

The funny thing is (not funny at all), Wood never thought Camille would give in to him. She was steady and focused unlike the other hood-squirrels trying to get a nut. But the thirst was real as the ‘try’ and or ‘chase’ fueled him - bound and determined to break her like some damn ‘cruel intentions’ episode.

Then finally, after the longing, it happened. Surprisingly enough, Wood didn’t get scared, or turn cold toward her after the success, but he refused to be ‘tied-down’ - a way of avoiding his feelings for her, in other words. It was also a way of keeping himself protected. Learning from his mother a woman can’t be trusted; the only way to keep that barrier, is to have more than one option on hand. All the while, Camille was his ride-or-die, his number one, his - ‘loving’ touch stone. So the fights with other women were nothing more but comical to him - silently rooting for her. The only time he recognized guilt was when she had lost a match. But she was the one. The only one. He just didn’t know how to tell her, or even more so, show her.

On this day, Wood realized he hadn’t seen or heard from Camille in a few days. They’d have their arguments and not see one another for a couple days, or until Wood could sweet-talk her into forgiveness, but he hadn’t even seen her outside her house. This, was unusual to him. He also wasn’t aware of the dispute that took place between Camille and one of his other, options.

Later that night, after lounging on Auntie and Unc’s sofa, a smile rears to a thought and instantly, he gets up, gets himself together and wanders down to Camille’s bedroom window. Just like he did as a young teenager.

Not only is it dark outside with traces of street light, it’s also dark in her room from what he can see, but that doesn’t stop him from gently knocking on her window.

Notwithstanding her blatant avoidance of him the weeks that followed her confrontation, the second she heard a knock at her window, Camille rushed to snatch it from where it lay locked by its pane. It was better for all involved that she had the time to cool down, the time to drink herself out of the full potency of her wrath. Her physical wrath, that was. Not her scorn.

Her nostrils were flared, her lashes still were glistening, and darkened from where she’d released her lament down the plump of her cheeks. The cold didn’t help, it only deepened the pink heat behind her face and the veins spread in her eyes. Camille has never been able to shake how raw her emotions were displayed over her face, nor through her body language or voice. She was a musician, and a woman who never restrained herself in the sense of her feelings. Hurt, betrayal, heartbreak, lividity, dismay–all blared from just the look she could scream into another, and without a word uttered from her. She did it all then, especially at the sight of him wearing that same ‘I can get away with this’ expression. It would end tonight. It had ended before, truthfully, from that nameless girl. But she’d let him know now that he had destroyed all sense of security, of trust, of any trace of their courtship or her devotion to him that remained.

But she couldn’t limit herself to a ‘leave me alone’, or to even an ‘i hate you’. Those were too light for what damage he’d done and how deep it had gone. Those he could brush off, and play his way around. Camille sought to rip into his chest with what she said, but she doubted she could even do that.

“Why is you hea’? What–she came an’ toldju? That last one you had run up on me!? –so y’all could jus’ sit up an’ laugh at my stupid ass!?”

All between broken inhales and streaming crystal lines falling to her chin, she tried to verbally beat her heart into him.

“MothaFUCK you–I ain’ NEVA’ did no wrong to you! I ain’ did SHIT to you! I’d’a hurt my damn SELF befo’ I EVA’ did somethin’ to hurt you! What’d I do to you!? Except give you all’a me?! YOU’ONT E’EM KNOW WHAT I GAVE YOU. YOU DONE TOOK ALL I HAD TO GIVE ANYBODY–I AIN’T GOT NUTTIN’ ELSE, NOW! An’ all dis time I ain’t been SHIT to you! You had me out hea’ in love witcho ass an’ you out hea’ doin’ me like I ain’t SHIT! An’ now I AIN’T.”

She yelled until her already crackling voice gave out–pointing for emphasis, slapping her hand to bruising extremes against the brick of her wall, punching a fist into her palm to punctuate her sob-racked words, until there were only whistles and airy wheezing to carry her grievances to him.

“Get away from me. Go away, dontchu come nea’ me again–not eva’, do you hea’ me? Don’ come nea’ my house, don’t say my damn name, don’t look at me no mo’–I’m dead to you, nigga. Dis th’last time, you unnastand? You know what–an’ it ain’ nobody fault but mines, you prolly knew I was dumb this whole time. You knew it. You knew I was stupid an’ you played me dirty cause you KNEW I was. You ain’ doin’ it again, this the last I’m givin’ you.– It’s prolly a man out hea’ who might love me forreal one day… an I mean love me. An’ I cain’t give him shit ‘cause you done stole it from me. I hatechu. I hatechu. I can’t even lookatcho ass… you makin’ me sick. I ain’ neva’ thoughtchu would do me like you did. I’da killed somebody if they tol’ me you was doin’ me wrong, an’ you done spat in my mothafuckin’ face. I ain’ nuttin’ to you–I ain’ NEVA meant shit to you.”

That, and her weeping would be all that came before the shutting of her window. And the sight of her hurling ice and her empty glass toward her opposite wall would be the last sight he’d have of her before she retreated to where his eyes could not penetrate her home.

She might as well have dug her claws into his chest and ripped out his heart in one lashing, because her words were just that. For the first time, the deep, dark depths of Wood that had been closed off from ‘feeling’, had been woken and he was now receiving in return the disappointment and pain he deposits onto another. He had been yelled at, screamed at, called every demeaning word in the book by women and none of it or them, made any difference. His usual response would be nothing more than a crooked smirk or an outright laugh. But Camille, she had shown him the tormenting heartbreak he had wreaked over her.

———-

After the knock, immediately Camille came to light; although, Wood’s dark eyes dimmed slowly as he began to spy the rage in her features and fury in her expressions. He didn’t understand. Even when she flogged him with hints, he still didn’t understand. Not until he witnessed the tiny scratches over her neck and arms, then he realized.

Taking a safe step back, Wood does nothing but draws in all her anger. His eyes are soft, his mouth closed and all he can do, is listen. He wouldn’t dare speak a word or make a move to calm her, nor would he use his reeling techniques of charm to persuade her differently. This was beyond denying and there were no excuses. All the fights she had been in over him, he could assume she knew he was fuckin’ on other women, but he could also assume she had to know where his heart actually lyed. This was something more. Something else happened that has her filled with such hate for him. Maybe it was only a matter of time before she would crack and have enough.

After she had finished and left from his sights, Wood was too stunned to move. All her words repeated, over and over, echoing for miles in his head like he was standing alone in a dark, hollowed cavern. There was nothing he could give to lift this pain from her. Eventually, he found himself back at home and on the couch, flicking through channel after channel but his only visions were the replays of Camille and her suffering.

He stayed away after that.

She’d noticed his absence, too. But it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t have been, now, even if he’d never shown his face to her for the remainder of his living days. She had been tainted by him. Camille wouldn’t be able to know a moment’s peace, not with the knowledge that every pair of eyes she passed in Detroit would know that she had been made a creature unclean. She was haunted here; everyone would know that she was tarnished; she would be little more than object of gossip, and open shame every tormented day from here on.

Atop of this, her short-lived career as a session bassist had bottomed out–the only reason at all that she’d been a resident so far away from her only home. There was nothing anchoring her there, and Camille would have withered to her very death had she stayed a moment longer.

Though now, she hadn’t even the option to retreat, beaten and defeated, to her beloved New Orleans. Camille’s logic dictated that the second she was in her grandmother’s sight, Claudine would know instantly that her baby had no innocence left about her–that she’d allowed herself to sink into and become all that she had taught her against. This wasn’t a disappointment she could live through; and as fragile as Camille proved to be in this state, she doubted her own heart could handle the weight.

So she turned her sights to the place nearest her with reasonable connections to the musical circuit. New York birthed many of the jazz greats she yearned to emulate. Her finances were slim, to put it glamourously, but there were assisted housing projects that she could find, the more she looked… she was certain she could find a place there to settle in. She honestly gave herself no choice. Her days in Detroit were finished.

She packed quietly, kept her intentions under wraps, let no one in on her plans. Though, she had none that she could label ‘friends’ in the area at all to even tell… perhaps a handful of connections, acquaintances. But none too greater than that title.

The night she was to leave, she dug within the remaining decency in her to get Drick on the phone. She would have gleefully left without a trace, had her only tie been Wood, but his family deserved better than to wonder over her fate, or worry that some darker circumstance had befallen her. Though that reassurance that she was well was as far as she offered this decency.

Camille lied openly about her departure–telling him she’d be setting off for New York by the month’s end, when her Greyhound was scheduled to leave in what was less than an hour.

“You can tell ‘im I’m fine, if he get t’askin a’whateva’. You can tell ‘im I calledju, jus’ don’ tell ‘im whea’ I went. I don’t wanna see ‘im again. I meant when I said it.”

She knew he wouldn’t hold to that, even if he assured her otherwise. They were too closely bound, and far too caring for the other for her confidence to have any bearings on. But it was a solid enough way to end the conversation. Camille didn’t want to talk anymore, especially now that her throat was tightening, and now that she felt heat building behind her eyes.

“Thank you…” she offered, like a weepy toddler, squeaking the tears that wrenched in her voice, “All y’all. I ain’ had nobody up hea’… Y’all gave me more than y’all had to. I’ma miss y’.”

She hung up after that. And the hiss of her bus brought the close her life in the Motor City. 

Without asking any questions, Drick himself, knew it was only a matter of time before Wood would lose the one good, solid woman in his life. TJ, Roxie, Drick, Colleen and Cy, all saw it coming. Rauly was too involved with his own young life to pay any attention; although, he looked up to Wood a great deal. Thankfully, Rauly also looked up to his own big brother more.

After the call ended, Drick sat on the front porch steps reflecting on their conversation; glad he told Camille if she needed anything, to not hesitate to call. The family had grown to love and value Camille as their own, and helped her in any way she needed. Something told Drick, even though he told Camille to at least come by and give Colleen a hug before leaving, she wouldn’t. He could hear in her voice she was done.

———-

Nearly two weeks had passed before Wood’s intuition had finally spoke to him, causing him to gain the courage he needed to go down to Camille’s. And just as he suspected, she was gone. His initial thought was he could go on as if she didn’t matter and as long as he had another, he’d be alright. But the truth would set in that she did matter and he’d feel it every time he’d pass her house. And the memories are vivid each time - her bouncing, natural hair; her bright, wide smile and the laughs they shared - all so too damn vivid, he wishes he could forget.

He held back on asking anyone about her, but a night of heavy drinking with Drick, he broke and asked if he was aware she was gone. Drick sighed and nodded, and Wood sat up as if he was hit with sobering bucket of iced water.

“Wat? You tellin’ me you knew she gon’ an’ didn’ say nuttin’?”

“Wat was I ‘posed ta do,” he says with a set of high, shrugging shoulders. “She asks me not ta.”

Wood turns down, shaking his head. “How lon’ she been gon’?”

“A whi’e now.”

“Where she go?”

Another sigh from Drick. “I dunno– she didn’ say. But she tol’ me ta tell ya… she fine. F’you asked.”

Wood huffed. And that was the last he spoke of her - pretending to move on as if something (someone) wasn’t missing.

[arielsojourner]

Vader Strikes Back - Part the Second

So again, not beta read/really rough/not really proof read and OUT of order.  Not even sure any of these scenes will make it into any final story of any kind. 

Just using Tumblr as a way to jump start the muse by writing out scenes that I may or may not use later.

Also spoilers for the original first story in AO3 Back From the Future: Episode VI The Clone Wars.  Do NOT read this if you haven’t read that story since otherwise this will NOT make any sense.

If you want to read Part 1 and the Prologue, check the tag #vader strikes back on my page. Again I value feedback and ideas if you have any. 

*

After the tenth body dropped, certain people started leaving Coruscant: human male natural born officers of the GAR, certain scientists, more than a few aids and lower ranking legislators and representatives and an exodus of Senators including Senator Orn Free Ta of Ryloth and Senator Sweitt Concorkill of Vurk. Oh, they all had excuses but nothing could disguise or hide the fear in their eyes.

They feared they would be next to die

Bail Organa was doing all he could to calm the public and hold the Republic together but it didn’t help that one of the key members of the Loyalist Committee, Senator Ta was fleeing Coruscant as if he feared his life would be taken next. That left Bail with limited allies and right now; he wasn’t even sure he could trust the Delegation of 2,000 with Senator Concorkill and Representative Nee Alavar fleeing the system. 

If only Senator Amidala had not mysteriously left. They had been mere hours away from the vote to cease hostilities and start the peace process when everything had gone straight to hell. Bail was left to pick up the pieces and worst of all, it meant he was the one that the Jedi Order was calling upon now and he really didn’t have the time

“Master Yoda, Master Windu,” he greeted them perfunctorily. “Please forgive me, but I am due in the Senate in less than an hour.”

“Keep you long, we will not,” Master Yoda said  walking slowly into Bail’s office. “Help we are offering.”

The Senator paused. “Help? What kind of help?” 

“We believe we know who is behind the string of assassinations on Coruscant,” Master Windu explained.

Bail put down his datapad. “Master Jedi, I think every sentient in the galaxy knows who is is behind the assassinations.”

“Vader,” Yoda intoned.

“Vader,” Bail agreed. “What sort of help then is the Order offering? Do you know who is on his list of targets? Do you have the evidence supporting the crimes of his future targets? I admit that given the state of the Judiciary right now and how many people the Coruscant Guard have arrested, I am not sure the Senate is in any position to step in to deal with the situation.”

This seemed to stop both Jedi in their tracks. They shared a silent look. “Why would you think that the Order would have such evidence?” Mace asked sharply.

“Why wouldn’t you have knowledge of who he intends to kill next?” Bail asked, growing more confused as the conversation progressed.

“In support of his action, you believe the Order is? That his conduct, we sanction?” 

“Vader defeated Palpatine. He was working with a Jedi Knight when he confronted the Sith Master, leading GAR troops.  While I find Vader’s methods to be extreme, I have been privy to enough Senate Arms Committee briefings to know that  harsher methods are sometimes necessary to deal with threats to the Republic. I thought they were working under the auspices of the Order and military authority when they uncovered who Palpatine truly was. Wait, are you now saying that’s not true? Are you saying the Order didn’t know?” 

“Senator Organa, Vader is a Sith Lord. He didn’t save the Republic. He killed Chancellor Palpatine because that is how Sith take power. The student kills the master. He just happened to do it very publicly for reasons we cannot explain as of yet.”

Bail looked from one Jedi to another, in shock. “You’re joking,” he said flatly.

Yoda slammed his cane tip into the floor. “Joking we are not, Sith he is.”

“No, he’s not. He can’t be,” Bail argued. He stood and went to the holoscreen which showed multiple news feeds on mute, many of which were replaying Palpatine’s unmasking and subsequent death. “Have you watched the holovid of the fight? What they said to each other? He fought side by side with a Jedi Knight. Just because his lightsaber is red--”

“That boy was no Jedi,” Yoda says firmly.

“Senator, we do not need you to lecture us on who is or is not a Sith. Vader is a Sith Lord and he is planning to take over the Republic in a critical moment of weakness. The deaths are part of a larger plan to--”

“Master Windu,” Bail stopped him with a raised hand. “With all due respect, I admit to being a bit skeptical of the Order’s knowledge of who is or is not a Sith. You have just admitted to me that you didn’t even know that the Chancellor was the mastermind behind anything until after Vader and Luke confronted him on te Galactic Holonet!”

Yoda shook his head and began heading for the door. “Apprised of this situation, you seem to be. Leave you to your busy schedule, we will.”

“Wait, I have questions. The Senate needs to know--”

“The Order will take care of Vader,” Master Windu said with a shallow bow. “We will leave you to your work.

Bail watched them both leave, his mind traveling the speed of light. “What just happened here?” he asked the empty office aloud. “And what the hell is going on?”

*

Obi-Wan knows there was something that Anakin isn’t telling him and it isn’t just because Anakin still hasn’t said a word since Palpatine’s death. He isn’t blind. He’s raised the boy for over a decade and now and . . .

Well, all right. Perhaps he was a little unaware when it came to Anakin since he hadn’t known until very recently that his Padawan was actually legally married and now has children or that his relationship with Chancellor Palpatine was a toxic mess of dark influences that caused untold damage or that Anakin’s indomitable spirit on the battlefield covered up deep trauma.

Perhaps he is a lot unaware when he thought about it.

But be that as it may, his eyes are open now and he is paying attention and he isn’t just trying to ignore things going wrong with Anakin any longer, and clearly there is something else troubling him.

And worse still, Padme obviously knows what it is and she isn’t saying.

After several days of following them around the Lake House, waiting for one or both of them to confide in him, Obi-Wan finally confronts Padme.  He has to give it to her, for all of his Jedi impassiveness, even he has never mastered her level of control.  But this was Anakin and Obi-Wan isn’t going to give up so easily. 

“The issue is Anakin is deeply troubled. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he is in . . . pain, grieving, actually grieving,” Obi-Wan says with growing astonishment, the realization of what he was seeing crystallizing and coming into focus as he spoke his thoughts aloud. “Both of you are. For whom? Not Palpatine?” he asks.

Padme scoffs openly, eyes flashing with fury. “Don’t be obscene. As if we would mourn him.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. You’re right,” he apologizes hurriedly. “But please, there is something. I can sense it. Neither of you are sleeping. He won’t let the twins out of his sight. Just tell me. I can help. I want to help.”

“Have you been watching the holo news lately?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. No, he hasn’t. It had been showing nothing but the death of Palpatine on repeat. He had no desire to see the vid  and be reminded of literally trying to hold onto Anakin to keep him from Falling.

She purses her lips together and is silent for a long movement. “You should watch it.”

Obi-Wan takes her advice and watches the vid from start to finish.

He wishes he hadn’t because somehow, in some way that makes no sense, all he sees on the holoscreen is Anakin.

Anakin is fighting a Sith Master. 

Anakin is throwing himself out of a window to protect his son, Luke.

Anakin is suffering under an attack of Sith lightning. 

Anakin is wielding a red lightsaber using Djem So forms that Anakin had modified from Form V. 

Obi-Wan buries his head in his hands, wishing he could unsee what he has seen, forget what he now knows.  

(“Sidious cares for nothing but himself and the Rule of Two. To finally accomplish his goals he has only ever really lacked one thing, a true apprentice,” Dooku had said.)

Not Anakin, oh Force please, not Anakin. It can’t be.  Obi-Wan is just tired. He’s seeing things that are not there. The stress of the past three years is obviously affecting him. His mind is playing tricks. There is no way, just no way that this can be real.

(”“We've seen your future. We don’t want it,” Luke says fiercely to Palpatine as the vid repeats. “You have nothing we want.”

“Don’t I?” the Chancellor says with a vicious smile. “You hate me, you both do. The hate is welling in you now. Why pretend? You think the Order will accept you? You are nothing more than a heretic, a poorly trained tainted novice who they will shun at best, hunt down at worst. And you, a Sith Lord-- there is no future for you without me. Join me and together we will rule the galaxy as it was meant to be ruled!”)

Anakin is a Sith Lord. Even entombed in a monstrous black shell, masked from the world, even torn out of some other horrible time, Sidious recognizes one of his own.

(On the holoscreen, Vader presses his blade forward and spits back at Palpatine, “I will never join you!”)

Obi-Wan waves his hand and the screen goes dark.He’s offered Padme his help. He’s sworn to Anakin that day at 500 Republica that he would stay with him and make it all right. But this is too much, this is too big. He can’t possibly--

(“He is your brother!? Your Chosen One!? He's supposed to SAVE you and your wretched Order?! YOU LOVE HIM?!” Vader screamed at him.)

He touches his throat gingerly. 

Liar, Vader called him.

Later, Obi-Wan had promised himself over and over again over the past few years, pushing aside his guilt. Later, he would have time to really talk and help Anakin.

No, Obi-Wan decides. He is no liar. He will keep his promise and make things right. If Vader could do it, (and how horrible must the future have been for one lost to the Dark to find a way to save the entire galaxy?) then so could he.

He stands and goes to find his Padawan.