#translations : ''yes that one'' / ''i searched for a sticker for five hours''

[crescentmp3]

good NEWS !!!

[ image desc: a whatsapp screenshot of two people talking. person op is talking with has sent a screenshot showing an online shopping website that shows the book letter to a hostage by antoine de saint-exupéry. op responds, "evet o", then sends a sticker of an anime girl, cheerful, with hearts around her. op then says, "beş saat sticker aradım". // end id ]

[beomgyushighlights]

Circus {H.K}

Day 4 (IX)

"all eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus"

in which the first words Nari's soulmate says to her are "free britney"

or

in which two idols find their soulmates in each other after thirteen days of little comments without knowing who the other was

-a short story soulmate au-

©beomgyushighlights 2021

do not translate or repost without permission

(can also be found on wattpad and ao3 under the same username)

masterlist

The next day, something seems off about Nari. She's dancing fine and her singing is fine but every once in a while she'll wince as though she's in pain, alarming her fellow band mates. At first, it wasn't obvious but as they practice more and more the sounds become more and more frequent. "Nari? Are you okay?" Osamu asks. "I'm fine." She replies, continuing to practice despite the fact that everyone stopped for a break.

"Nari is your foot hurting again? You told me you'd stop dancing on it when it hurt." Yejun asks, reminding Nari of the promise she made to them. "I'm fine, I don't know why you guys keep asking." She replies, continuing to run through the dance. After Yejun brought up her ankle, Hyejin started paying more attention to her footwork.

   Due to Nari being made a trainee for the band while Osamu and Yejun were serving their time, Hyejin and Eun were the ones who watched her practice on her foot when it was at its worst. "Nari, stop before you make it worse." Hyejin tells her. "I'm fine!" She exclaims, her foot giving out as she finishes.

Osamu quickly catches her to ease her fall. "Have you not been wearing your brace after practice?" Eun asks. Nari is silent, her hands covering her face. "I'm taking her to the dorm, you guys order lunch for yourselves, we'll eat at the dorm and i'll be back in like fifteen to twenty five minutes." Osamu says, picking Nari up so she doesn't put weight on her ankle.

   "Hyunggggg!!!!!" Someone yells down the hall. "What!?" Someone else yells back. "We're resuming practice!" The first person yells back. Nari looks but she doesn't see anybody in the halls to give away her soulmate.

"No walking, your crutches are still in your closet so I'll grab them. I want you to keep weight off of it until tomorrow because management isn't going to be happy if they get word that you haven't been taking care of yourself like you promised you would when you joined, they've already given you a warning once." Osamu tells her.

She just nods, trying not to focus on the pain. "From now until we finish preparing for the release I want your brace on all day unless you're showering or sleeping and I want you off it as much as possible, no practicing through water breaks, no walking around the dorm because you're bored, none of that. If it gets worse, tell management and go to a doctor." He says. Nari nods again, committing all the rules to memory.

   Osamu makes her a sandwich and brings her her crutches and brace before he makes a sandwich for himself, saying bye and eating it while he's on his way out. Nari puts on music and just stares at the ceiling. A knock on the door gets her attention. She makes her way to the door, looking outside she sees a few familiar faces. She sighs, turning the lock and moving back.

"It's open." She says. The door opens and the boys walk in, greeting her and going to the living room. Jimin is the last to enter and he locks the door behind him. "I'm guessing Yejun sent you guys?" Nari asks, sitting on the couch and moving her crutches out of the way.

"Yeah, they didn't trust you to actually stay off your foot so they sent me over and when the maknae line heard they wanted to come with and Hobi came because he adores you and then Joon and Jin didn't want to be left alone so everyone came." Yoongi says. "Fun." She says. Airplane comes on and everyone vibes while Hobi sings along.

"What playlist is this?" Jungkook asks after the song finishes. "My liked songs, it's really long and I was planning on sitting there for a while." She says, the boys replying with nods, knowing about her hatred for silence. "Let's play some games!" Taehyung says, walking to the shelf in the living room.

"Why is there a Felix photo card up here?" He asks. "Thats where Hyejin put it! For easter we hid photo cards like they were easter eggs and I couldn't find Felix, thanks for that." Nari says. "Easter was months ago." Jimin says. "Yes, and we're still finding some, mostly ones that Eun hid because she couldn't remember where they were." She replies.

"Hobi, can you please get my photo card collection, it's the blue binder on the top shelf of the first bookcase, the left corner. The spine is labeled it says 'back off bitches' so it should be easy to find." She says. He nods and brings it back to her. She looks through it for the IN LIFE section. After a while of flipping she notices something.

"Uhh, Hobi can you bring me all the binders on the top two shelves and the black marker next to them?" She asks. Confused, Hobi nods and walks off, coming back with many binders. "I have to start labeling these..." Nari mumbles. On the blue ones she writes twice edition, continuing to label each binder with the proper band until she gets to Stray Kids.

She labels it and then flips to find where Felix belongs. "Okay, pass the Felix." She says. Taehyung hands her the Felix card and she places it back in its proper place. "Do you know how many more there still are left around?" Jin asks.

"Yes, we only used my photo cards because I have the most and I made everyone write who they took and which album it was from." Nari says, flipping to the back of the Stray Kids binder to find the paper.

   "All the butter Namjoons, Dark and Wild Jimin, IN LIFE Hyunjin, Twicetagram Momo, all of my Taehyung, Bang chan, Sana, and Jake, and BE Hobi and Yoongi." She answers. "How many does that total out to?" Jungkook asks.

"Too many, wanna have a scavenger hunt? Whoever finds the most photo cards gets a free hug?" She suggests, knowing that everyone loves her hugs but she rarely hugs people. The boys agree and she sends them off, asking that they refrain from the bedrooms as they've all been searched extremely well. Jin brings back peaches and cream Joon after five minutes. "Where was he?" She asks. "The cereal cabinet behind the chex." He answers, going off to find more.

She writes a one next to Jin's name. When the other members come home, the BTS boys are still searching for photo cards. "What is going on?" Yejun asks. "They're finding all my photo cards that we couldn't find." Nari says. "How many are left?" Osamu asks.

"Peaches and cream Taehyung, Dark and Wild Taehyung, Twicetagram Sana, NOEASY Bang Chan, IN LIFE Hyunjin, and BE yoongi." She answers. "Oh wow so they found a lot." Hyejin says. "Mhm, who hid one behind the chex in the cereal cabinet?" Nari asks. "Me..." Eun answers. "How did this even happen?" Yejun asks.

"Taehyung wanted to play a game but instead he found IN LIFE Felix on the top game shelf and he asked me why there was a Felix photo card up there and then I brought up how many where missing and so they went to find them and whoever finds the most by dinner gets a free hug." She says. "Well, how long has this been going on?" Osamu asks.

"Since about fifteen minutes after you left." She replies. Osamu left three and a half hours ago. "They've been doing this four three hours and fifteen minutes?" He asks. "Yeah, but they're having fun and they like to tease each other when they find a card." She says. "HA! I found the last Sana!" Jungkook brags, presenting the card in a very extra way to Nari.

"Thank you very much." She smiles. He smiles back and goes back to trying to find more. "Five more minutes then I'm ordering dinner for everyone!" Hyejin yells. "You guys can check my room if you want to, I couldn't see on top the shelves where my old song books are!" Eun says.

"Feel free the check mine too because I'm short and couldn't find any in my room so there's probably at least one in there." Nari adds. Immediately Hobi and Yoongi go into the two rooms. When the food gets back there's only one missing photo card left.

"Who's missing? I cant eat knowing there's only one left." Jungkook asks. "IN LIFE Hyunjin." She says. He nods and immediately goes to the fridge. He climbs onto the counter and looks on top of the fridge. "Is his sleeve holo?" Jungkook asks. "No, mine are always in plain sleeves." Nari replies. "Well someone's got a Hyunjin pc up here in a holo sleeve." He says.

"Okay, mine are plain, Yejun has stickers on his, Eun uses colored sleeves, Osamu and Hyejin, who has holo?" Nari asks. "Mine." Hyejin says. "How did it end up there?" She asks. Jungkook hands it to her before he continues looking for the missing Hyunjin card. After Jimin finishes he goes to help Jungkook.

"FOUND IT!" Jungkook yells. "Thank you!" Nari replies. He brings it to her on the couch where she hasn't moved. She puts him in his place in the IN LIFE section of the SKZ binder. She adds the number to Jungkook and counts them up. "Jungkook wins by one photo card." She says. He does a happy dance and claims his free hug. "Free hugs for all Bangtan boys because they found all my missing photo cards." Nari says, giving each boy a hug before giving Jungkook a second one.

"You won so you get two." She says. After Jungkook eats, the Bangtan boys go home. Nari showers and then lays down on her bed, feeling content knowing her photo cards are safe in their respective places.

[scurvgirl]

What’s Normal Anyways?

More Wall AU!

Melarue belongs to @justanartsysideblog

They end up closing on the “modest” chateau quickly, and Melarue is quick to bring in contractors to get the work done in the house. The kitchen needs updating and a powder-bathroom needs to be added to the first floor as well as other general fixes around the house. The initial quote involved a six-week timeline that Melarue was not happy about. There were discussions that Kass was not a part of but the time has been halved and they will be moving in in three weeks. In the meantime, they live in the swanky apartment in the heart of Old Val Chevin.

There was a very polite argument on who should have the actual bedroom. Melarue won the argument and now Kass begrudgingly wakes up feeling ridiculously pampered in a gorgeous room bathed by warm morning sunlight. It’s not right, it’s their apartment, their money, they should be waking up in the gorgeous room bathed in warm sunlight, not lounging in the office that doesn’t even have a window.

They dedicate the rest of the house hunting day to procuring furniture and things to live by until they can move into the house. Among the things Melarue purchases are a TV, a large couch that she’s pretty sure they only purchased because she mentioned how nice it cushioned her back, and two thousand dollars’ worth of knives because “one should never skimp on proper cutlery.” By the end of the shopping trip, Kass felt sick – sticker sickness, she’s decided to call it, because it’s just…so much. Halfway through, they just started concealing price tags from her and always sent her on errands while they paid so she wouldn’t see how much they were spending.

It’s just another slap in the face of how ridiculously wealthy they are and how there is no way she is ever going to repay them. She locks herself in the bathroom that night and cries as quietly as she can, entirely too overwhelmed. It’s not that she isn’t grateful, or that she wants to leave them, just…she wants to know what it’s like to be completely free, to not be tied down by someone holding a chain or by guilt through a checkbook. And she knows that it isn’t going to fix itself immediately, that she needs to work and incur as few costs as possible, pay rent, her share of the utilities, buy her own food…but right now she feels like she can cry about it a bit. Also, she’s pregnant, she gets some leeway there she thinks.

To their credit, they don’t confront her about the crying and let her go to sleep without fuss. When she wakes up, she finds they’ve set the TV up. They smile at her and show her how to work the thing and together they find a movie they both like. They curl up on the large couch together and end up watching movies for the rest of the day, eating sandwiches for lunch and ordering cheap pizza for dinner. And by the end, she feels calmer, less shocked and more comfortable. They are wealthy, but not lofty, and they hold no ideas of keeping her captive or indebted.

The Monday after they arrive and settle on a house, Melarue’s job begins. They are bustling through the house, gathering their things, and eying her as they move from room to room. Kass sips her tea, curled up on the couch, trying not to chuckle.

“The first day is always the scariest, imekari. You’ll do fine,” she chides playfully. She sees them rolls their eyes as they pull out a pad and begin to write on it.

“I have a class from 10:30 to 11:30 then a class from 1:00 to 2:45, then I have office hours and meetings until six. Feel free to order any food you want, if you need me, you have my number, and my office is in Ameridan Hall, third floor, room 316.”

“I’ll be fine, Melarue,” she says, trying to ease some of the tension in them. She doubts they are nervous about their work which means they are nervous about her. For what? She is used to being left at home to her own devices. They went grocery shopping the other day, there is food and with the phones they just bought, she can order anything so…everything will be fine.

She has things to do, like job research and potentially looking into learning Orlesian. Still, Melarue pauses at the door.

“Have a good day, I know how to reach you if I need you. Go, mold the young minds of tomorrow!” She encourages them. Their lips twitch upwards.

“Alright. Do call if you need.” They turn and leave, taking a significant presence with them.

The apartment feels very, very large suddenly. The ceilings are impossibly high, the fireplace is too fine, and when she sneaks a peak at the street below from a window, she’s reminded very much of how she’s in Val Chevin. Adjustment is going to take an annoying amount of time.

Kass retreats from the window to the computer resting on the dining table and begins her search. She runs into the problem of not knowing Orlesian much more than she was expecting. Also, qualifications…she basically doesn’t have any. When she initially moved south with Qal, she worked at a sandwich shop. Then she got pregnant and Qal got a promotion at the same time, so…he wanted her to stop working.

Former Tamassrans don’t work in sandwich shops.

But now she needs work, but she doesn’t know the language, she doesn’t have a bank account, she doesn’t have really anything. Is she even here legally? She doesn’t know.

Panic tries to well up in her, but she squashes it quickly. Not the time, not the place. Instead, she pokes around until she finds the Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, and Vashoth Cultural Community Center of Val Chevin. It’s a mouthful, but everything on the website has Common and Qunlat translations available and they advertise aid in job finding, language courses, and even counseling.

Her day is decided then. Kass showers and dresses, then heads out with the directions to the community center written on a page from the notepad. Google told her that walking would only take twenty minutes, so she goes on foot, heading towards the university campus. The center is located across the street from the main library. It’s a beautiful area, with old roads and trimmed trees that are beginning to change in color with the season. There are students milling about, some are splayed out in the grassy areas with books surrounding them.

The center itself is slightly underwhelming. It’s a small white building with a modest sign out front declaring its name. She heads inside, a bell clinks announcing her presence and a cheery looking person pops up behind the welcome desk.

“Hello!” They say in accented Qunlat, “welcome to the together center!” They’re clearly vashoth, Kass thinks, with their accent and using the wrong word for ‘community’. That is a common mistake though, qunlat has roughly twenty different words surrounding the concept of community.

“Hi,” Kass replies and their eyes widen a bit.

“My name is Kassaran,” she says in Common. Qunlat, or at least the Qunlat she knows, doesn’t have phrases for names.

“A pleasure to meet you, Kassaran. I am Kalit, are you new to Val Chevin?”

Kass nods and her hand lands on her stomach, “I am. I um…it’s a bit of a complicated story…I was really just hoping to get some help with a few things?”

“Of course! What are you looking for?” Kalit shuffles over and sits expectantly at a computer.

“I need a job, but I don’t know Orlesian, and I don’t even know…” she purses her lips and wonders what she can and should not say. Her pause is long enough that Kalit stands up and comes around from the desk. They’re very short for a qunari, and they have exceptionally round features, she wonders if one of their parents is a dwarf.

They gently take her hands and smile up at her.

“You’re Tal-Vashoth, right?”

Kass nods.

“We don’t get many who have actually left the Qun, mostly we get vashoth students trying to find a place in a university that largely still doesn’t get it. But we can help, Shokrakar is in her office, who is really the best when it comes to counseling people on this.” Kalit releases one of Kass’s hands but holds the other as they lead her down the hall to a room with the door propped open.

“Dr. Valo?” Kalit says, pushing the door open.

“Yes, Kalit?”

“There is someone who could use your counseling services. This is Kassaran, she’s Tal-Vashoth.” Kalit guides Kass into the room. It’s a nice room, painted a soft blue decorated with black and white photos of various happy qunari people. Behind the large white desk sits an impressively tall qunari woman. Kass guesses her to be from Seheron, rather than Par Vollen with her black hair and dark eyes, the low-riding horns.

She looks up from her computer and smiles immediately Kass before rising.

“Hello, Kassaran. I’m Doctor Shokrakar Valo, please call me Shokrakar.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kass replies, shaking her hand. The doctor gestures for Kass to take a seat, thanks Kalit who leaves, shutting the door behind them.

“So, Kassaran, what can I help you with today?”

Kass swallows and fidgets with the hem of her shirt, “I really just need a job but I’m finding that to be unrealistic?”

Shokrakar nods, “Yes, unfortunately in Orlais, ninety-five percent of jobs require you speak Orlesian. But there are a few that don’t require it. I have a checklist of things I like to give people when looking for work – things like a bank account, payment plans for any debts, financial planning, those sorts of things that I have found many Tal-Vashoth specifically have a harder time with.”

“Yes, I…don’t really understand any of it. You know, under the Qun, everything is taken care of – you have your role, your monthly stipend dependent on your role that is attached to your citizen ID number, and that’s it.”

“Right, but it isn’t as different here as you think it is.”

For the next thirty minutes, Shokrakar explains as much as she can about the financial system in Orlais in how it will relate to Kass, even with the baby. There are apparently things like tax breaks for having children, and even programs for single parents to help support them – all dependent if she is here legally of course. Kass still doesn’t know, and she explains as best she can that this all happened in a way that she still doesn’t fully understand. The thirty minutes after that, Kass finds herself telling Shokrakar about how she left the Qun with Qal, to start a life happy and free from the toxicity plaguing their souls in the Qun.

“It wasn’t even a week ago that I was with my husband, locked in our apartment, and now I’m here and it’s great, but it’s just…”

“Overwhelming. You went from the Qun to Qal, that must have been…”

“Difficult, yes.” Kass rubs her stomach where the baby presses against.

“But I’m here now, and my…” what exactly is Melarue to her? Her friend? Rescuer? Roommate? None of the words seem right. Friend and roommate feel small for what Melarue is, and rescuer makes them seem like a superhero. Which…maybe they are, they have the aloofness of one, and the potential required tragic backstory – why else would they have their passenger? But friend…friend is closest.

“My friend, Melarue, they are very kind and are helping me.”

“So, you have a place to stay? Food? What about doctor appointments?”

Kass nods to the first two but pauses on the last. Doctor appointments, right. She shifts around and Shokrakar clicks around on her computer.

“I have doctor recommendations for you – when was your last appointment?”

Kass bites her lip. About that.

“Um. Qal said that women have been having babies since the beginning of time without doctors so…after we got the confirmation, he just said to keep indoors and eat well and I would be fine.”

Shokrakar blinks then nods very slowly, “…Alright. Well. That dathrasi can’t hurt you or your baby anymore. This is the information of a very trusted OB/GYN in the community. I will tell her to expect your call, she works at a clinic on the other side of campus that offers affordable care.” Kass takes the note, reading the name of the doctor carefully. Her brow furrows and while it seems like such an odd thing to be able to pick out….

“Forgive me, and you don’t have to answer, but…were you trained as a priestess?” She asks softly. Priestesses always had very specific looking handwriting, it was supposed to mirror that of Koslun’s.

Shokrakar pauses for a moment then smiles the sort of smile that Kass knows too well.

“Yes. But I loved science and the Qun and the priesthood…you know. I left to pursue science. I got a doctorate in sociology and now here I am, guiding people like a priestess would.” Her face is sad for a moment before she shakes it off.

“I think that’s good. The rest of us…we still need guidance, and while you aren’t serving the Qun, you’re still serving, you’re being true to yourself, and no matter what the Qun says – that’s good. You make the community strong.” It is a favored saying in qunlat to describe one who is valued and good. While it’s a remnant of the qun, she can see it light Shokrakar’s face up.

“Thank you, tama,” she replies. Kass’s face flushes, not in embarrassment but in acknowledgement of what she was. She knows that certain habits die hard, and some ways of being never change.

The rest of their talk goes well, she gets some information on how to enroll in Orlesian classes and some places that will hire her. Shokrakar tells her about a support group she has for specifically Tal-Vashoth persons. There is a qunari women’s support group as well, though it isn’t specifically Tal-Vashoth.

After their talk, Shokrakar decides to take her out for lunch. Because she has a class after lunch, they head to a café attached to the library where Kass orders a large spinach salad.

By the end of lunch, Kass feels like she’s made a friend and promises to keep in touch. Shokrakar suggests that perhaps Kass and Melarue come over for dinner some time. Shokrakar’s wife, Aada, would be more than happy to have them.

“It’s been great meeting you, Kassaran, feel free to call or text or email me any time – Tal-Vashoth have to stick together right?” Shokrakar jokes and Kass nods.

“Definitely. Thank you for everything!” Kass replies. They part ways, Shokrakar heading to her class and Kass heading back to the apartment. It is a beautiful day, the sky is filled with soft white puffy clouds, barely concealing any of the sun’s light. There is a gentle breeze rolling through the streets, ruffling Kass’s hair.

Today’s already been a good day, and it still has hours left! Speaking with Shokrakar has made her nostalgic for the better parts of the qun. Like the food. Kass believes that everyone is preferential to the food native where they grew up, there’s emotions and flavors there that other cuisines don’t have. And while the qun didn’t work out for her adult life, it wasn’t bad for her childhood. Like most children under the Qun, she enjoyed the feeling of having many children her age to play with, all under the care of the same Tamassrans.

When Kass arrives back at the apartment, she sets to work to creating a dish that takes hours upon hours to make. Not all the ingredients can be found at Orlesian grocery stores, she found, but she makes do with what was available.

She turns on some music and dances along as she cooks, feeling light and bright and happy. The apartment is filled with music and the smell of spices by the time Melarue arrives home. She hears them stop and pauses her singing before leaning over the kitchen island to wave at them.

“Welcome home! I hope you don’t mind, I went to the Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, and Vashoth Cultural Community Center today and it made me miss traditional foods so much. I hope you like spice!” She declares happily, dancing back to the large pot on the stove. She stirs the pot then tosses in the chicken that had been previously pan-frying. She covers the pot, checks on the rice, then sets to heating up some bread to go along with it all.

She turns to see Melarue’s wandered into the kitchen, sniffing the air with a smile.

“That smells delicious,” they say and she beams in return.

“Good! I hope you like it, if you don’t that’s fine though! Qunari foods tend to be polarizing for non-qunari,” she babbles, reaching up into the cabinets, pulling out several dishes for them to use.

“Normally there are several other spices, but I understand that Par Vollen doesn’t quite like letting them go. If you leave the qun you shouldn’t have any of its comforts – as if the qun owns the plants on the island as well,” she continues, bitterness lacing her tone. She blinks then shakes her head.

“It still has fifteen more minutes, if you would like to get changed into something more comfortable.”

“I can help, if you need. I was not expecting you to cook dinner,” they tell her, rolling up their sleeves, revealing long elegant hands.

“Um,” she hums, trying to think of things for them to do. She ends up handing over the warming of the bread which is busy work at this point. She apologizes though, it’s just that this last part is really nothing – the chicken just needs to simmer in the pot with the sauce for a bit. They seem understanding enough about it though, which is reassuring.

They do end up changing before dinner and by the time they’re back, she’s making their plate. They take a bite and hum in happiness.

“This is delicious, Kassaran, thank you.”

A small flicker of pride and happiness flares up in her chest, as well as some surprise. Qal had always expected dinner when he came home. But Melarue seems surprised and to be genuinely enjoying what she’s made.

Worry and tension eases from her shoulders as she digs into her own food.

“What did you do at the Community Center?” They ask.

“I talked with a Dr. Valo? She’s a sociology professor at the university. I wanted to see if they could help me find a job. Um, I…don’t think it is going to be simple? A lot of jobs require proficiency in Orlesian, which I am going to learn. Dr. Valo said she could get me enrolled in language classes at the university, so…hopefully I’ll be able to get a job and start maybe paying you back for everything you’ve done and that’s a lot and I am so thankful for everything really and I want to pay you back but it’s probably going to take some time and I am really rambling, I’m sorry!”

Melarue blinks then wipes at their mouth a napkin, “Kassaran, you don’t need to feel indebted to me. If you acquire a job and find means to leave and that is what you want, I will not stop you. I will not hold any debt over you. But thank you, you are very kind to want to pay me back.”

“I want to pay rent,” she blurts.

They pause then nod, “That is fine, as long as it is proportional to your income and does not impair you.” That is more than fair and she bows her head in thanks.

“I-I also need to go see the doctor.”

Their attention snaps to a point at that, “Is something wrong? We can go now.”

“No, no, everything is fine right now, I just…haven’t been able to go since getting the pregnancy confirmed…” The concern in their face does not wane, if anything they look even more concerned. After a moment, they release a long breath.

“Did Dr. Valo give you any recommendations?” Their voice is even but there is a sharpness to it and Kass wonders if their passenger is responsible for it. But there aren’t any cloying shadows or anything and their nails a normal length, so…maybe not?

“She did. A Dr. Merev – she works at the clinic on the south end of campus?”

“Alright. Do you know if you’ll need payment for it?”

“Probably, Shokrakar, uh Dr. Valo, said that she is affordable but probably still needs money, I’m sorry.”

Melarue waves her off, “It is no trouble, you and the baby need care, I’m more than happy to help.”

“Do…do you want to go with me then? Since it’ll be your payment information. I-I wouldn’t feel comfortable just using it myself,” she says, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“I can go depending on the time.”

“What time would work for you?”

“I have nothing on Friday after three.”

“I will shoot for something after three on Friday, then.” Kass smiles and they both return to their food. After a few minutes, the silence draws on for what feels like a damning amount of time.

“How was your first day?” She asks.

Melarue shrugs, “It was good. I’m excited to be teaching again, even if some of the professors are…well let’s just say not all of them are aware of their history as they should be.”

“Oh dear.”

“It’s nothing dire, more annoying than anything. I’m afraid I frightened some of my human students off already,” they chuckle in a way that say that they are not in fact afraid about anything, or annoyed, but delighted at their current state of affairs.

“Well it sounds you are where you’re supposed to be. Those kids are lucky to have you,” as am I, she thinks.

“What classes did you have today?”

“Introduction to Elven History and a seminar course – The Dales: An Elven Perspective. The introduction course is the one where I am sure some of the human students are less than pleased, but then if they want their human-centric and friendly history they can take that oaf Dr. Renaudin’s class.”

Kass chuckles, they are so passionate about it!

“They would be fools to miss out on your class. But then, oafs do tend to attract fellow fools.” She tears her bread and begins to sop up the sauce, spooning some chicken along with it.

“What makes him oafish?”

They finish chewing and sigh, “Where do I start?”

As it turns out, there are many things that make Marcel Renaudin an oaf – an ignorant, racist oaf at that. Kass is by no means an expert on history, particularly elven history, but she knows that marginalized populations often get their history…reworked to fit in with the oppressors’ history. It happens in the Qun, even, mostly erasing the legitimacy of rebellions lead by Tal-Vashoth and Saare – mages.

This Marcel Renaudin is the sort of historian to endorse such…revisionist history as far as Kass can tell. Sure, Melarue is biased but Melarue is also sharp and Kass suspects they have lived through a lot of the history they’re talking about. So…she’s going to take their word over his.

Their conversation lasts past dinner, and they help her clean up. They’re rather insistent about it since she cooked. She “needs to get off her feet”. It is…a very different change of pace. She’s used to cleaning up. Qal would sit in the living room, winding down from the day, watching TV, and then she’d slip into the bedroom to read.

But Qal isn’t here and Melarue is kind. Kass sits down on the couch and clicks on the TV. There is…a ridiculous number of channels. How does she even choose? She settles eventually on the Home and Gardening channel. There is a show featuring a couple searching for a home in Denerim, Ferelden.

After Melarue finishes with the dishes, they take a seat next to her with a stack of papers.

“You already have things to grade?” She asks incredulously.

“No, I took a survey in the classes on some of the common misconceptions about elven history. I’m going through them, taking notes to see what I need to focus on.”

“That’s clever,” she says. They smile and they fall into a companionable silence as Kass watches her show and Melarue works through their papers. Every so often she looks over at them, sometimes their face is relaxed and simply reading, nodding along and making marks on a little notepad, others their brows are drawn and their lips are pursed. Sometimes they look to be incredulous, pen hovering indecisively over the notepad.

Their eyes flick up to hers behind their glasses, and she blushes. She quickly turns back to her show – the couple picks the second house, which seems silly to Kass since it was so out of budget.

The night continues quietly like that until Kass decides to head to bed. Melarue smiles at her and tells her to sleep well. For the first time in forever, Kass sleeps diagonally on a bed and it is glorious. She wakes up with a smile, stretching her body out over the bed. It is her domain! Her little kingdom of sheets and blankets and pillows – and she is the queen of all things soft and happy…for all of five minutes before her bladder screams in protest.

She relieves herself, showers, then heads into the kitchen for breakfast and her morning tea. Melarue’s nose wrinkles at her tea and she cocks her head.

“Do you not like tea?”

“No, it is odorous leaf water.”

She laughs at that, “It can be stinky, this is true. This blend is supposed to help the baby though, so, down it goes.”

“Well, of course if it’s for the baby,” they reply, reaching for their travel mug of not-tea.

“Did you eat breakfast? I’m going to scramble up some eggs if you’d like some,” she offers.

“Not this morning, I have early class, but I will be home earlier.”

“Alright, I was thinking maybe pasta for dinner?”

“Sounds delicious.” They grab their bag and wave bye to her as they leave, much easier today than yesterday she notes. Good, she doesn’t want them to worry.

The rest of the week follows in a similar pattern – she wakes up in time to tell Melarue to have a good day, she has breakfast, then leaves to go explore the city. She finds she really likes the university campus and a small square that’s a five-minute walk from campus. She enjoys getting all the fresh air and she spends a fair amount of time of walking through the university’s gardens. The house has such potential for a truly lovely garden, she needs ideas of what grows well down here.

She brings up the gardening ideas with Melarue who seems very eager to begin their garden. Wonderful! It’ll be a good weekend activity, and if she stays with them, the baby will have a gorgeous garden to grow up in and hopefully tend to themselves.

Kass makes dinner each night and Melarue cleans up. She begins to explore more of the channels and finds some programs she likes. It is amazing to her that there is a section dedicated to being ‘on demand’, full of shows and movies that she can just say ‘I want to watch this’ and boom – she can.

She discovers the amazing terrible-ness of Lifetime movies and honestly? She’s hooked.

The only day that ends up being a bit odd is Friday when she heads to the clinic with Melarue for her 3:30 appointment.

She wasn’t nervous before about it, partially because she hasn’t felt bad because of the pregnancy. She had some morning sickness at the beginning, but everything she read said that was normal. But now she keeps fidgeting with her sleeves, her purse, nibbling on her lip. The baby moves, seeming to know that their mama is nervous.

They take a seat in the waiting room and Melarue sets to filling out financial information.

She’s called back at 3:45. She stands up but Melarue does not, she looks at them quizzically.

“Do…would you rather not come back?” She asks. She knows that it is a bit…out of the ordinary to ask a friend to come back with her, but, well…she could use the support. But only if they don’t mind!

“I can come back if you’d like,” they offer carefully and she bites her lip before nodding wordlessly. Asking for help is difficult, particularly after everything else. But Melarue doesn’t hesitate – they grab their things and step up next to her. They follow a nurse back into a room where various measurements are taken. Blood pressure, height, weight, oral medical history (that is difficult to give since she has to translate everything from qunlat and medical terminology is always weird with that).

She changes into the typical paper gown for gynecological visits.

“Why are these offices always cold for these visits? Like they know we’re going to be pretty much naked, why is it cold?” She bemoans, pulling the robe closer to her body in a vain attempt to feel warmer.

“Like they expect me to expose myself not just their prying eyes but also to the cold air? They are asking too much,” yes she is whining, and no she doesn’t care. She’s cold, she’s pregnant, and she’s freaked out. She can whine.

“It is oddly chilly in here,” Melarue murmurs, looking up. They cock their head and their eyes flutter shut. After a moment, Kass hears something shift in the ceiling. Melarue opens their eyes and warmer air begins to flow out from a vent in the ceiling.

“OH!” She turns to them, “you’re too sweet! Thank you…and thank you for coming back, I know it’s weird but…we’re not exactly normal.”

“I do not mind, Kassaran. I’m…glad you feel comfortable having me here.”

There is a nervousness to them that has been present all week. As concerned as she has been about them letting her stay, she’s beginning to think they’ve been equally concerned on her leaving or somehow rejecting them over their condition. And her insistence on getting independent can’t be helping that.

“I really appreciate it, everything. You’re a wonderful friend.”

The doctor of course decides to come in before they can reply.

“Hello! I’m Dr. Merev.” The doctor billows in, quickly shaking Melarue and Kassaran’s hand. She looks down at Kass’s belly and glances at Melarue.

“Is the baby –

“Not theirs! Um, I mean…I have, had, a husband and he’s qunari so the baby is on a total qunari baby track. Ten months.”

“I’m a friend,” Melarue clarifies and the doctor nods, going along with it while she pulls on some gloves.

“That’s fine, I was just checking because elven-qunari children usually have different gestation than a qunari-qunari baby. Normally shorter with more heartburn for some reason, but that’s not the case. So, how far along are you?”

“Twenty-one weeks and…six days,” Kass answers. Dr. Merev goes through several more questions and it doesn’t take long before Kass has to explain that no, she hasn’t had doctor appointments because of Qal. Like Shokrakar and Melarue, Dr. Merev pauses for a moment and Kass shifts around awkwardly.

“Alright, you’re here now and we’re going to make sure you and the baby are healthy.” Dr. Merev goes through what feels like pages of questions, everything from diet to lifestyle to how easily Kass conceived, if she’s noticed anything unusual, as well as any pre-existing conditions she’s aware of.

Then comes the joy of having cold goo being squirted onto her abdomen.

“Since you haven’t had any doctor appointments, I’m guessing you haven’t heard your baby’s heartbeat.” Kass shakes her head. She knows that it’s normal to have heard the heartbeat months before now but then again, ‘normal’ doesn’t include Qal, she guesses. Dr. Merev moves the wand thing over Kass’s abdomen and then –

Wub wub wub wub wub wub.

“Oh,” she breathes. She’s not sure if the reaction is the same since she’s felt her little baby moving and kicking around already, so this isn’t the first real confirmation of life in her but it is…something else. That’s her baby’s heartbeat, a strong, happy heartbeat. She stares at the screen, watching her little one’s head and body and oh! There’s a little hand!

“Good news, everything looks good – ten fingers, ten toes, the skull looks good for proper future horn development. Your child is not going to be hornless,” Dr. Merev says, which Kass was expecting. Hornless children are rare for qunari, hence the stance that hornless children are ‘special’. She likes the horns anyways.

“A very normal looking baby, congratulations. Now, for some news you may not like – because of the lack of prenatal care, and because of the high stress environment you have been in, it has greatly increased the risk of this pregnancy. Your blood pressure is high, which is a risk factor for preeclampsia. Qunari pregnancies outside of the Qun are already higher risk pregnancies that human, elven, and dwarven pregnancies. So, you need to be in low stress environments. Not bed rest, but no strenuous work, low sodium diet, make sure you take your prenatal vitamins.”

Kass nods, she will make sure to take the vitamins, but the low stress environment…

“We just moved here and I don’t have a job, I wanted to get one, help pay rent, utilities, can I still do that?”

“I would strongly advise against it. If you need it to live, then do what you need to do.”

She leans back against the examination table and takes a deep breath. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

You can’t work while pregnant! Qal had yelled at her, demanding she turn in her notice at the sandwich shop. In some sick way, he was right – but because of what he has done. She knows that. It’s not…he’s…. Just dammit. Dammit it all.

She can just see her debt to Melarue, whether they recognize it or not, rising and rising. She’s not a small woman, she eats, and she’s growing a person, so she’s probably eating more than normal. She incurs a cost of utilities, shit they even bought a house because of her and she can’t even work to help them.

“Kassaran, there is no issue with this. Your and the baby’s health come first, I am happy to share my home with you,” Melarue tells her softly. She covers her face and works on breathing so she doesn’t cry.

“I know, and I am so, so thankful. I just…I’m this lump. I don’t want to be this burden that just weighs you down when you want to do things.” She sniffles and tries to hold the deluge back. It’s just not fair to them to have her laying around the apartment or the house doing nothing. Sure, she can cook and clean for them but she hardly sees that as enough.

“No, no, you are not a burden, Kass. The farthest thing from it. Even when we had that wall between us, you made every day better. I am more than happy to help you.” She feels their hand gently rest on her left horn, slowly running their hand back in a reassuring gesture. She leans into their touch for a moment before moving her hands from her face.

“…Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

They haven’t given her any reason to doubt them. From just taking her all the way here to buying the house to…every day, spending time with her.

She exhales a long breath and turns to the doctor.

“Alright, but I am going to take Orlesian classes, I might as well with all this down time for the next five months.”

“That is an excellent plan,” Dr. Merev says and proceeds to clean Kass up and revert the room back to normalcy. Kass is given a prescription for her prenatal vitamins and sets up her next appointments before leaving with a cute little sonogram of her baby.

She can’t work but…she’ll make it work. She’ll cook, clean, keep the house, and it’s just because it seems fair. If Melarue is going to be working and bringing home the bacon, so to speak, then she can keep a nice home for them.  

[acheaptrickandacheesyoneline]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Arrow (TV 2012) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak Characters: Oliver Queen, Slade Wilson, Patience and Fortitude the New York Library Lions, Felicity Smoak Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Remember the fic I've been talking about only as IndyFic, This is Indyfic, Indiana Jones inspired, If you think you recognize a plot device or nod from somewhere you're probably right, I have stol...Borrowed so much, From Uncharted to Indiana Jones to The Mummy to Clive Cussler books to Aladdin Summary:

She didn’t plan on ever having an adventure unless it said ‘turn to page 34 to open the door’, but somewhere between being kissed in the library and running from a one-eyed man with a gun, Felicity was pretty sure adventure had found her whether she wanted it or not.

It's like The Mummy, only not really.

Here’s chapter two. As always, thank you to @adiwriting and @ohemgeeitscoley for catching tense and grammar mistakes, and to @dettiot for telling me what train lines go where!

Chapter Art by the wonderful @nightkeepyr!

It was a stop or two before Citi Field when Felicity found herself able to breathe without feeling like she was going to shake apart again. It was good timing on her body’s part as the next stop, Flushing—Main Street, was hers. Motioning to Oliver, who had stood up a while ago to make room for those who had to sit, she led them to the doors. It hadn’t taken long at all for Oliver to master the subway surfing way of walking, though watching him almost fall over the first few starts and stops at the stations had been fun.

The five or six blocks to her apartment building made for a quick walk. The path was ingrained at this point for her. It led to Felicity pointing out some of the neighborhood oddities of her little corner of Flushing, like the bodega on the corner that was, for some reason, always out of ketchup. Or the small Chinese delivery that was never busy, but never went out of business.

“It has to be a front of some sort,” Felicity explained as she turned towards her apartment building’s door, reaching for her keys. “It’s the only reason I can come up….” She trailed off, suddenly realizing that in the rush of being shot at, she hadn’t stopped to grab her bag.

Which had her keys in them.

Her keys and the cute little keychain of the Statue of Liberty she had bought her first day in the city. It was a way to quickly be able to pull her keys out of her bag without having to search for anything. Just reach in, grab the statue, and poof, she would have keys.

Keys that were back in the library under the desk.

The good news was that there was a way to get the outside door open without keys. Her upstairs neighbor had showed it to her one time when they both had their hands full and neither could easily reach their keys. Felicity hip-checked the door, lifting and turning the knob at the same time before giving it a sharp tug. With a slight pop, the lock disengaged and she was able to motion to Oliver to follow her inside.

“That doesn’t seem safe,” he told her, following her up the stairs. She glanced over her shoulder to see him peering at the outside door.

“It won’t open like that unless you know the secret to it. A good thing too, since my keys are at the library.” Felicity gave a sigh outside her door when she automatically started searching pockets for her keys again. “I’m going to have to go see if Mrs. Phillips in 4C is home,” she told Oliver after a moment. “She has my spare key, just in case.”

She felt Oliver gently grab at her upper arm as she turned away. “Let me take a crack at it,” he told her.

Take a crack at it? He wasn’t going to try to go all macho on it and try to batter the door down on her, was he? Given everything else that had just happened, it wouldn’t have surprised her. She was more than pleasantly surprised to see him kneel down in front of her door and jiggle the knob for a moment. No door bursting. She would get to keep her security deposit if she ever moved out.

“It doesn’t have a trick to opening like the front door does,” Felicity mentioned. Oliver nodded, but didn’t respond. He instead reached into an inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a small leather case. He gave the knob one last measuring look before opening the case and pulling two lockpicks out of it.

“Give me two minutes,” he told her.

“You can pick a lock in two minutes?”

Oliver flashed her a smile. “What can I say? I’m good with my hands.”

She could feel herself turning red as the implication of what he said hit her. Not facing him was clearly a better option, she decided, turning to look down the hallway. She could act as a lookout for him, just in case any of her neighbors happened upon them.

Watching him from the corner of her eye, Felicity did have to admit he knew what he was doing. One of the two picks was dangling out of his mouth as he gently twisted and finagled with the other in her lock. He paused turning the thingy a moment to switch between the two picks, and she had to force herself to stop staring at him. And to stop thinking about how that tongue had...nope. Not thinking about it.

Oliver’s excited “ha” from her door had her turning around to see her accidental guest pushing her door open, a grin on his face. “Told you I could get it,” he said.

“Yes,” Felicity nodded, “I am suitably impressed with your finger skills.” She paused in her doorway, replaying her last words in her head. “If I ask you to please forget that I said anything in the last minute and a half, is there a chance you would?”

“I could be persuaded to, if you order some sort of food,” he said. He walked past her into her apartment, bushing against her as he did.

Felicity kicked her shoes off as she closed the door and made her way into the small kitchen nook to grab her stack of take-out menus. She tossed them onto the small table in the corner of the apartment and motioned to Oliver.

“If you want something, there you go.” She didn’t wait for an answer before heading to her bedroom and the comfy clothes she knew she would find in it. After quickly changing, she sat on the edge of her bed for a moment, organizing her thoughts.

On the one hand, Felicity really did want to help decode the journal, see what de Ordaz had found. It probably wouldn’t be as simple as following a GPS to the local bakery. She was under no illusions what Oliver would do with the information after she translated it to English. It would be stupid to even think that he would consider not going after El Dorado.

And Felicity Megan Smoak was not stupid by any means.

She absently played with the ties of the quilt on her bed. If she did help Oliver by translating it, she might have an idea of where he was going next. She might not have the resources the Queen Family had when it came to treasure hunting and tomb raiding — Lara Croft she was not — but it wouldn’t be too hard to get through UN security protocols and send an anonymous message about the location.

Then she wouldn’t have to feel bad for helping him decode the journal. It wouldn’t be doing it for him, it would really be doing it for the world as a whole. Or what if it didn’t lead him to El Dorado? What if it was just some sort of joke that boiled down to a centuries old “ha ha made you look” moment? She would finally be able to put that myth to rest in her head, maybe refocus her energies back on looking for tech-related jobs.

She flopped onto her back and stared up at her ceiling. Tiny sticker stars reflected light back at her, perfectly and painstakingly arranged to mirror the night sky from home. She knew her mom would be the first to say do it, to take the risk, rather than playing it safe. The more she debated the pros and cons, the more she could feel her heart trying to outweigh her brain in her arguments.  She had made it a point to always follow her brain instead of her heart. After her dad had left her mom and her when she was seven, she learned quickly that following her heart didn’t always lead to good things.

But more and more, Felicity decided, she wanted to decode the journal. There wouldn’t be much harm in it, not really. Maybe she could even convince him to not go to El Dorado on his own, to take a team of actual archaeologists or historians with him.

With a determined nod to herself, she rose off the bed and returned to the kitchen.

“I’ll help you,” she told Oliver by way of greeting. “With the translating and decoding.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. Snapping his flip phone shut — good Google, had he been on an island for the past five years while technology moved on — he slid it into his pocket to focus on her. Which was a very disconcerting feeling, being on the receiving end of Oliver’s full attention and focus.

“I thought you weren’t planning on helping, due to me being a Queen and all?”

“Well, you clearly need my help if you are using that,” she told him, motioning to the phone sticking out of his jeans. “How you have not upgraded to something from the current decade is beyond me.”

He looked so confused at her comments, bless him. “Why would I upgrade? It works just fine.”

“Oh Oliver,” Felicity sighed. She pulled out her chair at the table and sat down, tapping the tabletop next to her. “Let’s start by talking about the importance of technology in your life.”

~~~

They found a working system early on, switching from them both using the arrowhead to decode the words hidden into the journal, to Oliver decoding and Felicity translating.

While at first she had been wracking her brain, trying to remember a language she hadn’t studied in years, it started to flow somewhere around hour two. As did the conversation between the two of them. It didn’t take long for their conversations to turn towards their family, given that was the whole reason Oliver was doing this in the first place.

“Why didn’t you just go ask your mom and dad for help,” she asked him around a bite of pepperoni pizza. “You’re rich, it can’t be that hard to get a translator.”

“It’s something I have to do on my own,” he shared after a moment. “To prove that I’m not just Robert’s son.”

“To him or to yourself?”

Oliver let out a small huff of laughter. “Maybe a bit of both?” He pushed his paper plate off to the side. “I don’t have the resources they did when it comes to research. They had contacts they could trust all over, favors they could call in. I don’t. And the person I had been working with…” He trailed off and waved his hand.

Given his old partner had tried to kill them both earlier that day, not having people to trust was something that made sense to her. But if she was understanding him correctly, it sounded like he didn’t have the money to hire people for research either. Felicity gnawed on her bottom lip a moment as she reached for another slice.

“But aren’t the Queens rich?”

“Oh, we are. Don’t get me wrong,” Oliver told her. He didn’t seem to be bragging about how much money he had. It was far closer to the way she might state a fact, such as she had grown up in Vegas, than anything else. “What I have in my name is nothing compared to what my parents had in their name though. And most of mine is being held in trust until I’m 30.”

“Had,” Felicity asked. She winced. “Probably not a socially acceptable thing to ask, is it?”

She watched as he toyed with the arrowhead in his hands, turning it over again and again. He had nice hands, if such a thing was possible to say. Large, but not oversized. They had a few cuts and scrapes, and dirt under his nails. It was clear that he used them, worked with them, instead of letting other people do things for him. It wasn’t what she expected for a member of the Queen family, regardless of their treasure hunting reputation.

After all, it wasn’t like they had to sail the boat themselves to go out and find a wreck.

“They did sail it themselves, actually.” Oliver’s voice broke into her thoughts and she realized she had spoken aloud again. Hopefully not about everything. She really hoped it was only the last bit about sailing she had said. He didn’t need to know that she was thinking about his fingers. Hands. His hands.

“What happened?”

“Dad and Mom were out looking for a wreck in the Pacific. I honestly don’t remember what one. They were out on their own for this one. Storm swept through.” Oliver looked over at her, a sad sort of smile on his face that made her heart hurt for him. “If there aren’t any signs of bodies, it can take at least seven years for a person to be declared legally dead.”

“I’m...I’m sorry,” she told him. What else could she say?

He gave her a small shrug. “I’m fine,” he assured her, even though she could hear he was anything but fine. Helping himself to the last piece of pizza, he motioned to the journal that he had pulled out before their dinner had arrived. “Ready to start work?”

Tossing her plate into her recycling bag, Felicity gave him a nod. “Let’s go.”

While it normally would have been easy for her to switch gears and start working, she found herself distracted by a smudge of marinara sauce on the corner of his mouth. She should probably stop staring at it, really. At him in general.

“Oliver? You have a bit of schmutz on your…” she tapped her own lips with her fingers.

“Hmm?” He looked over at her and she went to hand him a napkin. “Oh, thanks.”

His tongue darted out to lick it up before she could offer the napkin. Oliver’s attention went back towards the journal and the arrowhead key to the code, leaving Felicity to continue to stare at him, where the pizza sauce had been before…

“Felicity?” She swallowed and looked up, meeting Oliver’s eyes. “This is me noticing you staring.”

Before her mouth could override her mental filter, Felicity forced her attention back to her notes in front of her. There had to be a limit on the number of times a person could be embarrassed in a day. She had been carried out of her job after running from a crazy one-eyed man with a gun though. So maybe the universe just wasn’t on her side at all today.

Translation work, at least, would keep her busy. Even if she was quickly reminded how boring it could be. It was a bit like coding in that once she was in a certain headspace, she could do it without actively thinking. But until that headspace was reached, it was an endless repetition of look at word, attempt to remember meaning, double check the meaning, write it down, notice it wasn’t right in the sentence and find a new meaning before moving onto the next word.

Much like her computer skills and coding, it did come back to her. Especially when she found her old translation program hidden in the files on her tablet. It was crude programming by her current standards, but undergrad her had appreciated having a way to move words around right on the screen, rather than having to rewrite entire sentences. It was something current her was also finding useful.

The one thing that was unlike her college days was that she was finding it really hard to pull an all nighter. She had taken off her glasses a bit ago to rub at her eyes, trying to keep them open, and hadn’t put them back on. It felt like little grains of sand were stuck in her eyes. Every time she blinked, Felicity just wanted to keep them closed. It felt so good to just relax, to not have words and languages swimming in front of her face.

It was close to three in the morning by the time they had gone through the journal. The pizza Oliver had ordered had been devoured hours ago, as had the midnight snack of chinese she had gone down to the corner to pick up.

A shake of her shoulder woke Felicity out of the half doze she had found herself in. “Whassat?”

“I know what he’s talking about. In the journal,” Oliver repeated. “The knotted map.”

“Coffee. I need coffee or this won’t make sense.”

Absently, Oliver pushed his half filled cup through the empty takeout containers towards her. She gave it a look before deciding that cold coffee was better than no coffee and took a sip.

No. No coffee was better than cold coffee.

“I remember my dad coming back home after finding this Spanish galleon,” he told her. “One of the things he found in it was this box that had a whole bunch of cords with knots all over them.”

“A quipu ,” Felicity cut in. “That’s what the Incans called them. Or talking knots.” She reached for her tablet again and began pulling up various bits of information on them.

Oliver paused, then nodded. “Exactly. That.” He pulled the translation over in front of him and pointed to another section. “I think that this section here is talking about how to get into the city itself, after you have your hands on the---the..”

“The quipu ,” she reminded him.

“The quipu .”

Oliver pushed his chair away from the table and rose. Felicity was struck once again at just how large of a person he was in her small kitchen, seeming to take up all the space there was. Running a hand across the scruff on his jaw, he turned to look at her.

“I think the one he’s talking about is back in Star City too, part of the private collection of Merlyn Global.”

“Of course it’s in a private collection,” she sighed. “Because why put it in a museum where everyone can see it and it could be studied and have new things found out?”

“It was sold at auction,” Oliver protested. “Everyone had a perfectly fair chance of buying it.”

“Fair?” She stood up quickly, almost knocking her chair over in the process. Her bunny slippers made little swick swick noises across the linoleum as she strode towards him, anger and frustration making her shoulders tense. If it wasn’t for the fact it was three thirty in the morning, he would have been feeling the full volume of her Loud Voice.

“Fair?” she questioned again, poking her finger into his chest. “How is it fair, making it people pay for something that should belong to everyone?”

And Oliver, the big dumb dummy, just gave her a look that was half smirk, half laugh, and annoyingly sexy in a way that he had no right to be when she had spent the last six hours helping him translate Portuguese.

“It’s really not my fault, Felicity. It’s an open auction. Anyone can bid. Is it my fault that private collectors can pay more than public facilities?”

“You...You Tomb Raider,” she nearly yelled at him. Taking a few steps back and a deep breath, Felicity tried to calm herself down. “Well, then congratulations Mister Queen. You now know how to go about finding your golden city. I hope you and your buddy Scrooge McDuck have fun swimming around in your piles of gold together!”

She could feel Oliver’s eyes following her as she pushed past him and swore that she heard a small laugh before she closed the door to her bedroom behind her. That’s what she got for trying to help someone who came from a family like his. It was her fault for falling for the ‘aw shucks I’m nothing special’ routine he probably used on everyone to get whatever he wanted.

That damn kiss that had started all of this was just a way to get attention off of him after all. It had been stupid of her to think that he was attracted to her. She had just been...convenient in getting Slade’s men off of his trail.

Oliver didn’t even know what a quipu was, the very thing that showed the way to El Dorado. She could probably do a better job at this, and the closest thing she had ever come to going exploring was wandering around MIT without a map the first time she had got onto campus.

Felicity sat up as the realization hit. She could do a better job. Heck, she had done most of the work on this so far. Translating, finding the journal. And Oliver had mentioned that the box his father had found was in Star City. It wouldn’t be that hard to find out who owned it. Or who owned any other the others that might have been found. Not now that she had the name of Merlyn Global.  A quick search on her tablet tonight would take care of it.

She fell backwards onto her bed with a low groan. Her tablet was still out there in the kitchen. Where Oliver was probably still sitting, making plans on who to sell what to so that he could make the most money and add to his family’s fortune and to his own fame. With a grumpy sort of look at her door, and the man behind it, she rolled over and pulled her covers up.

Tomorrow. She could deal with it all tomorrow.

“Or today,” she muttered, catching sight of her alarm clock blaring out 4:00am with its bright red evil numbers. “But not right now today. After sleep today.”

At about the crack of noon, Felicity, still bleary eyed but unable to sleep anymore, slowly wandered out into the living room, expecting to see Oliver still asleep on her couch, or working at her table. Instead, the de Ordaz journal was closed, in the middle of it, her badge on top. There was a muffin from her favorite bakery down the road she had pointed out to him the night before. There was a folded scrap of paper with her name on it, edges ragged, like it had been ripped from a bound notebook.

In Oliver's neat scrawl, he had written that her coffee maker was all set up, all she had to do was press start. He apologized for stealing her badge for the library earlier that morning, but had wanted to get her keys back to her.

She glanced up and noticed that her keys were indeed hanging from their normal hook by the door.

‘Finally, thank you for the translation, Felicity. Please accept the muffin and the bag of french roast in your cupboard as payment.’

The note wasn't signed with anything other than his initials, nothing to prove that it actually had been written by him aside from his meticulous writing she had become incredibly familiar with the night before.

Eyeing the large double chocolate chip muffin on her table, Felicity decided that he was making it very hard for her to hate him.

~~~

One of the best things about working at a library was that Felicity had access to computers and records and journals that it would have otherwise taken a while to get. The downside was that it was often too busy to really take advantage of it. Which meant sacrificing her lunch to the whims of the eternally slow wifi of the Public Library System in hopes that she could find information before it was time to go back to work.

Google, however, was a kind mistress that day, and her first attempt at searching Merlyn Global and quipu brought up a series of news briefs regarding the acquisition of the piece. As a bonus, Merlyn Global ’s website had an entire page dedicated to the history of the talking knots, with photos, linked directly from their homepage.

Felicity absently chewed on the edge of her thumbnail as she scrolled down the page. The information she was getting from it wasn’t anything more than a near copy paste from the wikipedia article she had shown to Mister Tomb Raider the other day — she refused to think of him as Oliver — but the photos were what interested her the most. If they had one at a high enough resolution, there was a chance that she would be able to start trying to figure out the next step of the treasure hunt without needing to look at it in person.

She was determined now, even more so than when Oliver had first explained what he was doing. There was no chance that she was going to allow something of this magnitude to be just a photo on a computer screen, locked away in a vault until the owner wanted to remind themselves how rich they were by staring at it and rubbing their hands together.

Of course, her idea on what rich people did might have been slightly skewed based on too many late night viewings of the old Bond movies as a kid, but the idea remained the same. She wanted to make sure that if El Dorado was real, it would be something that not only everyone could see, but that its discovery would be something the world could benefit from.

It seemed as though Merlyn Global hadn’t sprung for the really good servers though. The quality of the photos they were hosting weren’t much better than what she could have taken with her cell phone back in 2006, and there was no way she was going to get a good zoom on that.

There was a link at the bottom of the page that took her to the Star City Museum of History’s homepage, where a large banner across it proclaimed the opening of a new exhibit on South America History. Merlyn Global had graciously donated a few of their own items for the opening of it, including the quipu itself. There was going to be a dinner and auction to benefit the museum itself on the evening of opening, during which the quipu would be on full display.

A half a second later, Felicity was pulling up the calendar on her tablet. The opening night event was a bit over a month away, plenty of time to find plane tickets and ask Mrs. Phillips if she could water her basil plant while she was gone. Honestly, the hardest part would probably be getting time off. She hadn’t taken a vacation since she had started work though, so maybe her request of a week and a half would actually be considered.

Not that she needed a week to go to Star City. But if she was going to take a vacation, then she was going to take a vacation and not have to worry about rushing around and not enjoying herself. Just because she was trying to find the lost city of El Dorado didn’t mean she didn’t deserve to treat herself to a day off of doing anything but playing tourist.

Which meant that it all boiled down to Felicity almost forgetting her clutch in her hotel room on her way out to catch a cab to the museum, barely managed to catch the door from closing the whole way by shoving her foot in — which, ow — and then having to almost limp from the cab to the doors of the museum. Her shoes were cute, but they were not designed for holding open doors, and the way her right little toe was throbbing, it might have been better to have left the clutch in the room and have just asked the front desk for an extra key.

The feeling that she would have been better off to just stay in her hotel room was compounded when she walked through the museum doors. While her dress was nothing to sneeze at, it was very clearly not in the same category as the dresses the upper levels Star City women wore. Not the same zip code, and probably not even the same state. Her halter-top dress from Saks Fifth Avenue had taken a large chunk of her paycheck to get, so she couldn’t imagine how much some of the other dresses must have cost.

The good news was that she wouldn’t have to wait in a line for coat check when she was done with her evening here. Given the amount of guests circling that area, diving in whenever there was an opening to divest themselves of furs and fancy woolen coats, it counted as a win in her book.

With the amount of money she had donated to the museum in order to attend tonight, it made sense that most of the attendees were from the higher classes. Felicity had decided that it was worth it to get a closer look at the quipu , snap her own photos with her phone, and to really enjoy the first vacation in a long time. There were plans that involved eating her way around the buffet, and maybe going twice to the dessert table.

The main hall of the museum was already bustling with people and full of noise as she made her way inside. High topped cocktail tables were scattered around the perimeter, and a raised platform held a small string group — five was a quintet, right? — quietly playing as people moved about. A waiter passing her by offered her a glass of wine that she happily took. Not only would it serve as a drink, but it could double as a social shield if it was needed.

Her plate full of nibbles, Felicity took a spot at an empty table close to the band and tried to get some weight off of her foot. Though, was it a band if there was only one sort of instrument being played? Mind half on the music, she let her gaze fall over the room, taking it in, mapping out her path for the evening.

The items that were up for auction that night were spread around the main hall in their various cases and stands. Directly across from her, but on the other side of the marble floor, was the entryway into the new exhibit hall, a banner proclaiming the opening date as tomorrow. She knew that eventually she would have to join the crush of people trying to get through the bottleneck that was beginning to form at the entryway. Maybe during the auction itself things would be less busy, and she would be able to make her way in. The quipu itself was somewhere in the exhibit hall, allowing full access to the attendees.

Although, she hadn’t thought ahead this far. What if they didn’t display it with the lid off? What if there were too many people for the delicate metal formed into knots to be left out to the air? She didn’t think there would be time for a specially sealed case to have been made to put it in, at least not here. It wasn’t a new development though, that it was going to be on display tonight. Given what she had read about the Merlyn family, it also seemed highly unlikely that Malcolm Merlyn would let a very valuable piece of a private collection out of his hands, even if just for an evening, if every safeguard possible hadn’t been in place.

Felicity let out a deep breath she hadn’t been completely aware she had been holding. Crisis averted. Of course the insides and the knots would be on display. Otherwise it would be just a wooden box, and while old, would not be nearly as interesting.

Even she would not have been excited to see it if it was just a wooden box, regardless of its age or importance.

Finishing her drink, she glanced around, trying to see where others were bringing their dishes. The elite forces of Star City never had to bus a table a day in their life, it seemed, and they certainly weren’t about to start that now. Plates were haphazardly strewn around the table, napkins half on them while they rested on uneaten food. Feeling more than slightly upset with herself, Felicity left her dirty dishes at the table, abandoning them in favor of mingling now that her foot wasn’t throbbing.

Other attendees were either at their tables, talking with friends and acquaintances, though a few were starting to take turns around the open floor space in front of the orchestra. Off to her right was a display case that was surrounded by attendees gesturing at it in excitement. She could have sworn that she heard the name Queen mentioned, and in retrospect, it was probably the reason Felicity found herself going closer to the group.

An imposing man was standing within arm’s reach of the stand, clearly some sort of security judging on how he was holding himself. While she knew that she was short, Felicity had thought she looked as though she was closer to average height with her heels on. It was a big reason she enjoyed wearing them as much as they did try to murder her toes. Standing next to Security Guy, she felt like he could have crushed her between his forearm and bicep and not have broken a sweat. He was Gulliver to her Lilliputian stature.

The only thing that saved him from looking terrifying was a bored, but amused look on his face as he surveyed the room. Then he caught her staring at him and gave Felicity a smile. She felt her face heat up a moment at being noticed staring like that, and quickly turned her attention to the item that he was guarding.

It was an arrow head.

Not just a random arrow head either. No, it was the arrow head that the Tomb Raider Queen had used to decipher the journal at her kitchen table. The arrow head that had started this whole fiasco and had her taking days off of work in order to fly across the country to stare at a box with knots to find a city that probably didn’t even exist.

On a lovely little plaque under the artifact itself was written “donated by O. Queen” which really just sealed the deal there. He hadn’t needed it after she had finished with her translation, and instead of bringing it back to wherever he had found it, he had donated it for auctioning that night.

At least he did donate it for auction, Felicity thought. He didn’t just sell it and pocket the cash for his own expenses. Unless he got some of the proceeds from the sale tonight. He probably would earn at least a percentage, if only as a thank you sort of thing. She closed her eyes and counted in a deep breath before counting it out. What he had done with his property was neither here nor there. Even if he had done better than what she had originally expected of him.

No, the problem was that if he had donated the arrow head for tonight, then he was probably here too. Probably to look at the quipu just as she was.

Turning her back on the arrow head, Felicity made her way over to the entrance of the exhibit hall, joining the line to get inside. It would be better to get this all out of the way now, when she could use the crowd of people to hide in. She really didn’t want to run into Oliver again, to have to be reminded about how he had kissed her, then left her breakfast as thank you. And while she wasn’t a spy or an explorer or anything like that, she, Felicity Megan Smoak, was a certified genius and knew how to blend in. If nothing else, marathon viewings of Chuck,Alias and Burn Notice had at least instilled some knowledge of hiding in plain sight into her.

[cloakedsparrow]

Sometimes you watch a movie, and between the seemingly endless screentime of criminally dull characters spouting nonsense dialogue, you marvel how something so lame and expensive got made. It takes a lot of people to make a movie as big as Paramount’s “Ghost In The Shell,” which is estimated to have cost upwards of $110 million. It also takes a lot of bad choices to make a movie this unrelentingly boring and, ultimately, astonishingly offensive.

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow, “Ghost In The Shell” follows Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson), a groundbreaking cyborg that combines a robot body (that looks like Scarlett Johansson) with a human mind. The mind is her ghost, her soul, her humanity. The shell is robot vessel, which holds her brain and pushes Major to understand her identity in a world where humans race to upgrade themselves with cyber tech like x-ray eyes and drink-all-you-want livers, but robots are treated as slaves. When hunting down a terrorist hacker called Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt), Major is forced to confront how she doesn’t really belong in either world. This sends her down a path to uncover her human past.

The great irony of the film is that while its plot is all about the search for soul, “Ghost In The Shell” is all style, no soul — or, rather, all shell, no ghost.

Director Rupert Sanders made his name helming commercials, most famously one for the video game “Halo 3: ODST.” But when it comes to his filmography, all he’s got to offer is “Snow White and the Huntsman,” a battle-studded fairy tale re-imagining, which crammed its princess in jeans and pitched her into chilly CGI landscape to create a stylish but stilted adventure. That film was critically panned and considered only a modest box office success. Yet somehow Sanders was gifted a second chance. And what he gave us was the same superficial showmanship.

Set in a futuristic Tokyo, “Ghost In The Shell” drapes the city in giant holograms of robot geishas, smiling bodybuilders, and a drooling corgi. A skeezy bar boasts holograms of strippers (glitchy enough to appease its PG-13 rating), and boxers battling (presumably the future’s pay-per-view fight night system). While some of the production design is gorgeous–the robo-geisha teased in trailers is a highlight–most of the designs seem to have no function beyond looking cool. They tell us little about this world.

With all the holograms and cyber punk flare of “Ghost In The Shell,” I thought of the aesthetic of The Wachowski sisters, who’ve created rich sci-fi worlds with “The Matrix” trilogy, “Cloud Atlas,” and “Jupiter Ascending.” But there’s a huge difference between their designs and Sanders’, in that the Wachowskis’ designs give their world context, life, and depth. Every detail seems to fit and function, and gives audiences some little insight into this fictional universe. Sanders’ stuff just looks like CGI stickers thrown around his dazzling Hollywood star, lacking any purpose beyond wow factor. It makes for a hollow viewing experience, especially when paired with performance styles that feel lost in translation.

From the Marvel movies to the trippy action-adventure “Lucy,” Johansson has brought dizzying charisma to heroines who use their incredible abilities–be it sharpshooting or telekinesis–to topple tyrants and take down armies of armed baddies. In “Ghost in the Shell” she wears a barely-there body suit and scales walls while firing a gun right into the brainstem of any who’d oppose her. She punches out terrorists and single-handedly downs a tank, even when it risks tearing her shell asunder. And yet I felt nothing. Johansson’s charm seems in sleep mode as she struts vacantly through this tedious journey that boasts more tech talk than interesting action. Sanders has somehow drained away the very star power Johansson was supposedly cast to deliver. And that brings us to the scandal that’s followed the film since its earliest casting rumors: Yes. This is an example of whitewashing.

This issue has raging online for years, before the film even went into production. One side insisted that because the Manga — and its resulting 1995 anime — were Japanese, so too should be the heroine of its live-action, American-made adaptation. Others claimed that because the character is just a brain in a robot body, anyone could play the role, so why not Johansson who has a big fan base and a storied history in the action genre? Before seeing the movie, I understood both sides. But after?

This is hands down Asian erasure.

It’s not just that Major was renamed the white-coded “Mira Killian” instead of the original Japanese name Motoko Kusanagi, “Ghost In the Shell” is set in Tokyo. The film is dripping in elements of Japanese culture, from the anime iconography to geishas, and koi fish to traditional sushi restaurants with low tables and visitors in elaborate robes and obis. And yet most of the main characters are white; not just Major, but also her best friend Batou (Pilou Asbæk), her mother-figure Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche), her antagonizing boss (Peter Ferdinando), and the aforementioned terrorist she’s charged to track down (Pitt).

So even if anybody could have theoretically been cast to play the fully robo-figured Major, Paramount chose to cast a movie set in Japan, telling a Japanese story, and steeped in Japanese culture using primarily white actors. That sends a message about who is valued and not, and it’s a pretty insulting one that only gets more clear and offensive as the movie goes on. There are people of color in the film, filling out Major’s team. But aside from her handler (Takeshi Kitano), they barely get five lines to share between the three of them. I couldn’t tell you any of their names, because the movie only cares about them in the rare instances where Major and Batou need back-up. They’re not characters as much as conveniences.

Another shocking scene involves Major hiring a sex worker so she might touch human flesh. Instead of the short-circuiting lesbian scene from the comic, Major — who absolutely reads as a White woman — hires a Black woman so she can poke her and experiment. The optics are bad, especially in the wake of such a successful and woke film as “Get Out.”

And then things get worse!

Spoilers for the third act of “Ghost In The Shell.”

I rarely get into third act reveals. But as was the case with “Passengers,” it’s necessary to discuss the vile story lurking beneath the slick ad campaign. When Major discovers her past, she finds out she’s actually Japanese. Her name was Motoko Kusanagi. She has a living mother who speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent. Her childhood bedroom is decked out with Japanese knickknacks, as if it’s a souvenir shop for tourists. Major is secretly Asian! And still, the filmmakers felt totally comfortable casting her as white. This reveal hits in waves of “no they didn’t” that don’t peak when Kuze discovers he’s also actually Japanese (“Your name is Hideko!”), but when Major visits her own grave, then embraces her mother as if to say, “It’s cool. I’m your rebooted white daughter! I test better globally.”

End of spoilers.

If the social politics of this property bore you, so will the movie itself. Sanders seems to have urged all of the cast to speak in the same deadpan delivery, making every line feel like an afterthought. And with dialogue like, “I don’t think of her as a machine. She’s a weapon,” the script could have desperately used some energy. Instead, the actors, Japanese culture, and story are all put in service to build to action set pieces that are sometimes visually stunning, yet never hit hard because Sanders hasn’t bothered to build the world or develop compelling characters.

I rarely check my watch during movies, but this movie is so gruelingly slow-moving that I had to, if only to assure myself it was almost over. It wasn’t. When I checked, I assumed we were nearly a two-hour mark. It had been 72 minutes. I still had 35 to go, and every one — whether made of quick-cut action, bland banter, or leering shots of Johansson in that high-tech leotard — felt like a unique bit of torture; vapid, yet self-aggrandizing.

In only keeping mildly true to the source material’s aesthetic, Sanders created a film that has spectacle and action, but no excitement. How he was allowed a second chance at a big-budget remake after the mediocrity of “Snow White and The Huntsman” is beyond me. How Paramount poured this much money into a script that reads like a sloppy translation, and action scenes that are so CGI-enhanced they look like video games, I can’t even begin. I’m genuinely astonished a studio movie in the age of incredible offerings like “Logan,” ��John Wick,” and the upcoming “Atomic Blonde” can be this totally, absolutely and utterly garbage.

“A Ghost In The Shell” opens Friday, March 31.