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ivendarea · 5 years ago

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The Nathras

Making the Most out of Life

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The Nathras are at home by Ivendarea’s north-western shores and islands and one of the more reclusive population groups. Sticking to themselves and feeling a little detached from the events in the south and east of the nation, they are fairly independent, but a warm, creative, and community-oriented people nonetheless. In ancient times the Nathras used to be mostly nomads, but they also had small semi-permanent settlements along the northern shores, one of them developing into the city Westpoint.

Table of Contents:

Culture and History

Cultural Heritage

Language and Dialect

Shared Values

Common Etiquette

Major Organizations

Fashion

Art and Architecture

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

Courtship Ideals

Relationship Ideals

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Culture and History Isolated in Ivendareas northwest, yet still at the frontier and open to the world, the Nathras make up one of the more unique Ivendarean population groups. Not really fitting in with their own people, still proud of their Nyr heritage, they make the best of any situation and oppurtunity.

Cultural Heritage In ancient times the Nathras were predominantly fishermen. They were also the first to build ships and attempt to set sail to foreign shores (with mixed results). With the spread of Aman’s Teachings and more and more people becoming part of this new religion, the Nathras felt increasingly threatened in their way of life. While embracing any new knowledge, some of the rules proposed by Aman, such as not eating fish and meats, or hunting and fishing for food and leather, the Nathras struggled to adapt without any new means to sustain themselves in the cold north with infertile earth. Groups such as the Wylaai, who also had to deal with a too harsh environment for farming, received and embraced the support of southern communities to artificially create fertile land. The Nathras though were more hesitant to give up on their established way of life.

Until today there are many Nathras who call themselves devout followers of Aman’s Teachings while still continuing their traditional trade of fishing.

Despite their isolation, the Nathras were accidental ambassadors for their whole nation on two occasions. Both the Aapha of Darthonis and the Kitu from far away Drua Shye landed first on their shores. So while they are a little bit detached from the main portion of their continent, they are rather connected to dealings with the outside world and developed into versed traders.

Trade is actually spoken more commonly in Westpoint, the capital of the region, than any other language including Nyrval. Currently Westpoint also calls Ivendarea’s largest trade harbour its own, and to the outside world the Nathras enjoy a reputation of being the most laid-back and open-minded of the Nyr. Language and Dialect The accent of the Nathras is considered “flat” and a little monotonous combined with speaking rather fast. Since most Nathras speak Trade more commonly than Nyrval, elements of both languages are mixed into the other, creating a rather unique colour, sound, and vocabulary.

Shared Values Living conditions in the north are comparatively harsh, with unpredictable cold and storms, therefore it is important to the Nathras communities to be adaptable and keep a watchful eye. Courage is one of the most-taught virtues, and unselfish devotion is the most important service one could offer for the community.

The Nathras have a very relaxed view on life and death. Death is not the end of all things, and sometimes a noble sacrifice is necessary to prevent greater evils from happening. Life on the other hand is meant for joy. While not scared of hard work, a rather laid-back attitude is common in the northern villages.

The Nathras work to live, not the other way around. Also, not many would openly call themselves religious, but subconsciously many of their social conventions are actually tightly connected to the beliefs of the Aman’a Valeethi, and most do believe in the gods. They just don’t make a big deal out of it and don’t tend to pry into other people’s business. Accepting differences in regards to politics and religion is essential to the Nathras, particularly because as a people of traders they often have to deal with travellers and outsiders.

Similar to the Wylaai the Nathras are also known to be rather hospitable, and they enjoy fun and entertainment. Westpoint, the settlement with the highest percentage of Nathras among its population, is home to an arena where people can measure their strength in public battles for the entertainment ofma crowd and some coin. All on a voluntary basis of course.

Common Etiquette As much as the Nathras enjoy being part of a devoted community, they expect everyone within the community to contribute something, even if it is just a symbolic gesture. If everyone helps together to get unpleasant things done, the faster it is possible to devote oneself to the beautiful things in life again. While they have a rather relaxed relationship with death, it is not well-liked to talk ill of the dead. In fact, remembering them in a positive light is very important and if not in the local temple, at least in the deceased’s home a small space or shrine is dedicated to their memory.

Entertainment and hospitality are so important that it is rude to refuse an invitation or gifts. Furthermore, no food or drink should be wasted, it should be shared, re-purposed, or donated, never thrown away. The same goes for basically everything else, too: before throwing it out, consider if it could be of use for someone else or for a different purpose. And should someone unexpectedly gain riches, it is expected of them to invest into the community, not hoard their money.

Major Organizations Less an organization but still one of the major institutions in Westpoint, the Arena is the city’s centre of entertainment. No matter if as a spectator betting on contestants, or by entering the ring oneself, it is also a popular place to earn extra coin without big commitments.

Fashion The Nathras will wear their clothes until they’re literally falling apart - and then they’ll fix them as best as they can, use parts of different articles of clothing to make a new one, or find a new purpose for them. Nathras fashion is rugged and wayward, unconventional at best and questionable sometimes too. Influences from a variety of cultures and eras can be found in everyday clothing, the motto is: do what you like.

While most prefer practical clothing that doesn’t get in the way and is comfortable, there is not much the Nathras would frown upon in terms of colour and material combinations. Compared to most other groups of Nyr across the nation, the Nathras in particular prefer more fitted clothing and trousers over the flowing robes, wide sleeves, and huge scarves seen more often in central, southern, and western Ivendarea. Remarkably they are also the only group that very commonly wears clothing made of animal materials such as leather or bone. They don’t tend to make these clothes from scratch, but if a rich Assadin merchant throws out a still decent leather coat, it is going to be re-purposed and worn rather than wasted.

A Nathras worker dressed in a colourful mix of clothes from various cultures and second-hand items is wearing body paint and striking piercings. The woollen scarf has seen better days but was decorated with colourful pearls and pebbles found near Westpoint’s shores. The typically Assadin-style riding boots are commonly worn by soldiers and might have been won in the arena. The trousers are a patchwork of different materials, and the warm Aapha coat’s buttons don’t match, but the fur-lining certainly helps against the cold winter winds.

Art & Architecture The Nathras’ architecture is exactly as patchwork as one might think when looking at their clothing. Building materials are rare, everything is reused several times. Stones of crumbling ruins are turned into the foundation of a new family home, the wooden beams of sunken ships are salvaged, cleaned, and thoroughly dried, then used for building furniture. Driftwood is integrated into the buildings as are rocks dug up in fields. Some houses are built directly into the sides of cliffs where possible. There’s no limit to creativity in terms of housing. In Westpoint in particular nautical elements such as rope and even used fishing nets find their way into people’s homes and gardens. An old steering wheel makes an interesting dinner table.

The Nathras are inventive and creative, and they are known to have an eye for design and beauty. Creating jewellery and all sorts of petty wares and haberdashery from whatever they lie their hands on, their markets are a true paradise for everyone looking to spruce up their wardrobe or buy a unique piece of artwork. Known to have patience and a calm hand Nathras also have a reputation of creating particularly intricate and huge mosaics, incorporating them into their buildings and artwork. They find and create beauty in everything.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals Individuality is beauty, as is creativity and devotion to a cause... and all is subjective. Colourful body paint and makeup emphasizing the body’s anatomy - curves, muscles, tendons, and bone structure - are popular. Hair is adorned with little trinkets, natural or glass pearls, worn in braids, decorated or held together with colourful pieces of fabric, or flowing freely. A positive outlook on life, no matter the difficulties, is considered attractive.

Courtship Ideals Courtship is playful and passionate. Fun and experimenting are important, experiencing small adventures together and getting to know each other during those times. Directness is appreciated, as well as creativity in the way one is wooed, bold and brave is better than following strict traditions and social conventions.

Relationship Ideals It is rather unusual for the Nathras to begin living in a committed relationship in young years. Exploration and adventure are important before settling down, otherwise unrest might cause tension in the relationship later on. On-off-relationships are quite common, where couples cross paths several times before finally deciding to settle down together - if at all. Many actually never settle down, have children with several partners if they want them, and continue to live life relatively independently. It is very common among the Nathras that children are raised by several adults, related to them or not, rather than specific parents. The community is one big family that looks after each other, and its needs stand above individual relationships.

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sky-scribbles · 7 years ago

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The Shape of the Soul

Dragon Age Daemon AU, featuring the Origins and Awakening companions. Inspired by this amazing post by @piedpica (who tumblr won’t let me @ for some reason? but go check out their daemon headcanons, they’re amazing). Not included are Leliana, because I can’t top the idea from the above post, Anders, because he’ll be addressed in the DA2 instalment, and the dwarves, because I've adopted the idea from other Daemon AU makers that dwarves wouldn’t have daemons.)

Alistair

You wouldn’t think to look at Cara that she was the daemon of a King’s son. And that’s just how Alistair likes it.

He’s never asked anyone what Maric’s daemon was, and honestly, he doesn’t care. No doubt it was something very heroic and glorious, an eagle or a stag, fit to stand alongside his father in portraits, fit to be sung of in tales. But Alistair grew up sleeping in a kennel, and Cara was always going to settle as a dog.

She doesn’t stay as a dog all the time, of course, no child’s daemon can ever stay still. After he’s sent to the Chantry, after he hurls his mother’s amulet at the wall, they both go out of their way to cause as much trouble as possible. When the sisters gather them to pray, Cara pads in quietly as a cat or a little terrier. Then, halfway through the Canticle of Exaltations, she transforms into a great snorting druffalo or an ugly-faced wyvern or even a ridiculous nuggalope, and the drone of voices transforms into yelps of shock and shouts of anger. Alistair doubles up laughing, and keeps grinning even during the chores he’s given as punishment. ‘Worth it,’ Cara whispers, and he has to agree.

But for all the jokes she plays with her changing, she always seems to come back to dogs. Perhaps she's simply trying to be as un-King-like as is physically possible, perhaps she's just being a true Fereldan. It doesn't matter. There's a comfort in it that he finds nowhere else, in having her curled against him at night, warm fur against his skin to remind him that he is not quite alone.

He doesn’t even notice that she’s settled for days, the form she takes is so very like her. It takes him some time to realise she's stopped shifting, that she's taken on the shape of those Storm Coast retriever dogs. One of those none-too-smart looking ones, with the folded-over, floppy ears and the big brown eyes. ‘I wanted a mabari,’ he mock-moans, and Cara opens her mouth and hangs out her tongue in a dog’s way of laughing. ‘I wanted someone with brains,’ she sniggers, and Alistair pounces on her and wrestles her to the ground and they tussle like puppies, letting out breathless gasps of laughter.

It’s Cara that Alistair looks to for reassurance every time the insults fly his way, every time he hears a voice sneer idiot or sees the curl of a lip betray the thought of worthless. Cara is a creature bred on the wild seas, to drag in nets from icy waters and to retrieve hunters’ kills from tangled undergrowth. She rolls around with her eyes laughing and her legs waving in the air, a jester of a dog, but there’s a soldier underneath the creamy pelt. There's strength and endurance there, things that no one sees in him until the Templars press a sword into his hand and the weapon somehow feels like a perfect, natural extension of his arm, things that no one respects until Duncan passes him his Joining chalice. And Cara's pelt is thick, to hold out the cold of a frosted sea. Over the years, Alistair’s skin has grown just as thick against the whispers of bastard and fool.

Loghain betrays them, and Alistair feels like he’ll be snarling inside forever. Never betray a Fereldan, never betray someone with a dog-daemon, never incur the wrath of a man to whom loyalty comes before all else. The murmurs start, that the crown might fall to him, and he wants the earth to swallow him. His daemon is a dog, and dogs don't rule nations. They follow and they serve. ‘We’re not leaders,’ he whispers to Cara.

She rests her head on his knee. ‘We could be.’

And Alistair looks at her, and knows she's right. For all their games, for all their playful tail-wagging and soft fur, her breed are only jokers on the surface. At their core, they are workers, hunters - even guides to the blind. Dogs are made to serve, and surely that's what a king does, just as much as a Warden? Perhaps there’s more to him than he thinks. He already knows there’s more to him than people say. No one with a dog-daemon is a fool.

Morrigan

Gwydion settles as the mirror breaks.

He was always changing his shape, just as Morrigan did. She pities the children who can only watch the shifting of their daemons and envy them, the children who have never known what it is to feel flesh meld into fur, to spread wings against the sky or run on velvet paws through midnight forests. She and Gwydion have run together as wolves, flitted through the woods as bats, stalked the verges of villages on cats’ silent feet. They pride themselves on their closeness, and watch the outside world with scorn. None of these poor fools can be so close to their daemons, when they have never taken on their shapes, never seen the world through any eyes but their own.

When Flemeth’s hands cast the mirror down, everything changes. The glass shatters, and Morrigan’s world solidifies. Gwydion, cowering as a rat among the shards of the mirror, twists and flickers one last time, and then flies to her shoulder like a shadow, the dark beads of his eyes glittering at Flemeth across the fragments of her bond with her daughter. Morrigan watches her mother turn her back and leave her, then rises to her feet. She would like to cry, but she knows no one will come, and so she shifts her form into the one that her daemon has taken.

Together, the two ravens lift away into the night.

He could only ever have been a bird, for so it is with all mages. And perhaps he could only ever have been a raven, for Morrigan knows the old superstitions about them. Birds of the night, birds of magic, birds of wisdom and secrets, birds of death. They are not the brazen crows or showy magpies who strut around the cities – they are birds of wild places, birds of the untamed. And Morrigan is a child of the wilds.

Ravens have an eye, too, for precious things, things that shine. Morrigan clasps a thread of polished stones around her neck and weaves glossy feathers into her hair, but a part of her still hungers for the golden mirror that Flemeth dashed on the ground. And another part of her yearns to go beyond the trees, to find something beyond, something more, because birds were made for freedom and because a creature like Gwydion screams power in his every breath, because no one could look at the shadow-black feathers and vast wings and dagger beak and think that this is a bird that could live in a cage.

It is only after she meets the Warden that Morrigan discovers that Gwydion is a dancer.

The campfire is lit, and the wilds lie far behind them. Morrigan has a new mirror in a corner of her tent, a gift from the Warden, this strange wandering hero who has become, impossibly, a friend. Morrigan knows what happiness is – it is touching the sky on an eagle’s wings and slipping through the night as a fox, it is a spell cast to perfection, it is watching a moon rise in silver light while Gwydion perches on her shoulder. But what she feels as she and the Warden sit fireside together is something different, a kind of contentment that fills her and warms her, until she feels frighteningly comfortable and safe, until her mission and her task seem distant, even unimportant.

And as she wonders at this strange happiness, Gwydion leaps from her shoulder, shoots upwards, and starts to twist and roll in the darkening sky. He twirls wing over wing, diving and soaring and revelling in his mastery of the air.

Her daemon is an acrobat, a creature of joy, as well as a dark omen. And maybe she is more than a witch’s daughter.

Sten

She has no name, of course. She is the Sten, just as he is, one part of a greater whole.

The Tamassrans judge much on what shape your asala takes. The snakes and wildcats become Ben-Hassrath, the horses and oxen are clearly born for labour. He was always going to be a soldier, so he felt no great pride that day, long before he was the Sten, when he awoke to see his asala lying beside him in her true form. The golden fur, the heavy paws, the hooked talons – none of it was a surprise. ‘As it should be,’ he said, and the lioness inclined her head.

A lion is a soldier, but a lion is no brute – it is a strategist. It knows that to walk alone is death, that the one is never as strong as the many. It knows that ignorance is a disease, that only knowledge of the bush and the plains, knowledge of how prey thinks and how a hunter should act, will keep it from starving. And Sten, too, is a hunter of knowledge, learning to speak the bas tongue and asking about their world. Someday, the Qunari will rise to bring these people to the Qun, and he will stand in the front ranks of the charge. As a lion must know its prey to hunt it, so he must know his enemy to fight them.

The Arishok asks a question, and the Sten is sent to answer it, because his asala is a hunter and who better than a hunter to go on a search for truth? But then they learn the answer in the harshest way. What is the Blight? the Arishok asks, and Sten learns the answer: the Blight is the darkspawn, and the darkspawn are hunters too.

The Karashok’s buffalo blinks into nothingness as her other half’s head is torn from his body. Ashaad slumps motionless as an axe sinks into the side of his ape. Sten’s asala crouches over him long after he falls, curls over his wounds to keep the blood in, and when she sees the humans she runs to them, straining to the very edge of her bond with Sten, until they follow her and find him. He lives, yet he awakens incomplete. There is his asala, but not Asala.

Sten is a man in three parts – in his body, in his asala, and in his sword. Your weapon is your asala made metal, their strength given shape. He has lost his sword, and with it, the right to his glorious lion-soul. He is no longer a hunter who can track down the Arishok’s answer. He is worth only to be thrown in a cage to await death, and he cannot meet his asala’s eyes as they huddle inside the bars.

But then the Warden brings him into a kith, a new pride, and he no longer walks alone. His sword is returned to him, and he is complete, he is whole. On the road to Haven, he issues his challenge, the way any lion worth its claws will challenge an unworthy leader, for no pride can survive with weakness at the head. But the Warden’s words are enough for him to know that there is no weakness in his new kadan.

He always welcomed knowledge that would make him a better hunter, but now he welcomes knowledge of the Warden’s world for different reasons, because the Warden’s world has made them strong, and he wishes to understand that strength. For long nights by the fire, he and his asala listen to the Warden’s words, and they learn.

They are strange beasts, lions. They are cats like any other – proud, strong of will, free. And yet they know loyalty, and follow a leader who proves worthy.

The Warden is worthy, and Sten and his asala have a great deal of loyalty to give.

Wynne

Sometimes, Wynne wonders if it’s right. Daemons settle so early in life, before anyone can truly be who they will become, before anyone can truly know who they are.

She certainly didn’t, and when she looks at her daemon now, she sees something very different to what she saw back when Solomon settled. She was young, then, full of pride in herself and in her magic, in how her daemon settled so long before her Harrowing. She was proudest of all of what he became. So many of her fellows had to wait until they were thrown to the demons before they could know the shape of their souls, and so often they came back with ragged, nervous sparrows and terrified little wrens, scarred forever by what they’d seen.

But Solomon found his shape years before she was Harrowed, and it was a good shape for a girl so full of pride. Talons, and a little hook-bill, and great piercing black eyes. Mages have birds, it’s a rule of the world, and so Solomon became the newest addition to the Circle’s aviary, a beautiful tawny owl.

Wynne is rather ashamed to remember what she thought of him, back then. She saw only power and cunning, the marks of a predator. And so she snapped at Aneirin as she pushed him harder and harder still, while Solomon added screeches to her complaints. Only after Aneirin ran, and the Templars marched after him with steel glistening in their fists, did she remember those old superstitions about the wisdom of owls. Only then did she have the courage to feel ashamed.

She was not born with wisdom. There was so little wisdom in her the day that Solomon settled. Wisdom comes only from experience, from knowing that your fierceness has driven away an apprentice into the blades of the Templars, from having a son taken from your arms and into gauntleted hands, from decades of teaching pupils and coming to understand that it is not an owl’s sharp senses and cunning that she needs, but its patience. Owls can sit and watch for hours, so silent and still that you might not see them even if you walk right past them. And Wynne has learned to do the same, to sit back and watch, to perceive, to not judge the people around her but to know them.

Solomon is gone now, of course. When that demon fell upon her back in the Circle, she saw him reach feebly for her with one wing, then flicker out of sight and into nothingness.

It was the last thing she ever saw. And then a spirit embraced her, and she woke.

‘It’s a good shape for you,’ she says to Faith, who sits beside her in Solomon’s form. The Warden and the others mill about the fire, talking and laughing, utterly unaware that one of their companions is only alive because a spirit replaced her dead daemon an instant before the Maker could claim her.

Faith turns and looks at her. The spirit rarely speaks, but Wynne knows it’s waiting for an explanation, the way she so often knows what it’s thinking. It has become her soul, after all.

‘An owl is a creature of patience,’ Wynne says softly. ‘And faith is all about patience.’

Together, they sit in silence and watch.

Zevran Arainai

Elves are vermin, and their daemons prove it. Zevran has seen plenty of them in his time – ragged city elves with patch-furred rats clinging to their clothes, scruff-feathered pigeons on their shoulders, mangy cats slinking at their heels. His mother, with her fallow deer, was different. That’s the way it is with the Dalish. Their souls take the shape of forest creatures, creatures that can never be tamed.

Aeno both breaks the rules and keeps them. Dalish elves are forest creatures; city elves are vermin. Zevran is a city elf with Dalish blood, and Aeno becomes both.

An assassin can’t have some lumbering beast following them. As his peers’ daemons settle, the ones whose souls become clumsy dogs and horses are the first to go. Those who remain have sharp-taloned birds, venom-fanged snakes, cats that see in the dark. And then there’s Aeno, who switches one day into a sinuous little creature, creamy-white underbelly and dark russet back, tail-tip black as coal. She winds around his neck and bares her tiny dagger-fangs, and Zevran chuckles. Stoat is not a pretty name, but she’s a pretty creature, and more importantly, she is dangerous.

Weasels are vermin, that’s true for Aeno as it is for Rinna’s silky mink. But Aeno was not made to rummage through refuse or slink through street corners. Her place is the forest and the fields, where her wild kin hide among the long grass, waiting for prey. She’s a perfect companion for an assassin – small enough to meld with darkness, to scurry ahead through shadows to listen and watch, to carry a vial of poison in her teeth and slip the contents into a waiting cup. And those little teeth… they may not be long enough to tear open a throat, but just try fending off Zevran’s dagger when a stoat’s fangs are buried in your hand. And a stoat is really a lion, shrunk down to be pocket-size, all the ferocity and power crammed into the sleek little form. The meadows are its savanna, the fat rabbits its antelopes. But the stoat does not simply spring from cover and give chase. It bounds in twisting leaps in full view of its prey, not chasing them, but hypnotising them, entrancing them until the fangs are near enough to strike. A rabbit is twice a stoat’s size, and only wit brings them down. It’s the same with princes and noblemen, men and women who think their wealth and influence gives them armour. The stoat is a dancer, and so is Zevran. He knows that a word is as deadly as a dagger, a kiss as fatal as a knife. And so he and Aeno master all those things, he and his tiny little murderous soul forging a life for themselves in blood, until -

Until Rinna's mink twists away and drifts apart into nothingness, and even while Zevran laughs, Aeno is frozen and silent on his shoulder. And then they learn the truth. Death would be easier than life with the guilt, but Warden spares him, saves him, and makes him look at Aeno with new eyes. Without the eyes of the Crows upon him, she seems different. Less of the vermin, more of the beast of the wilds. A beast of freedom. The word is strange to him, almost foreign, something that sits uncomfortably on his tongue and yet is so very, very sweet to taste. When Taliesen falls still in the alleyway, the word becomes stronger, nearer, truer. And he and Aeno are facing new prey, very different prey to pompous nobles and former comrades.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Aeno says, and shows her teeth in a grin. ‘An archdemon will die like a prince.’

For the Warden’s sake, Zevran is willing to see if she’s right.

Nathaniel Howe

When a man grows up in a cage, no one should be surprised when he grows wings. Or talons.

Diana always favoured the shapes of hunting birds. The servants whisper behind their hands and his family brazenly speak the words aloud, he may be a mage, and the thought doesn't frighten him as much as it should. What would change, if he were taken to the Circle, if he swapped one prison for another? But as he grows older he sees that they’re wrong, that it’s not the spark of magic that gives Diana her wings, but a longing for freedom. He grows up crushed by his father’s glare, trapped by the resentment that hangs in the air between his parents. He sits in the trophy room, gazing at the prizes won by his ancestors and longing to share in their glory, and Diana perches beside him as a hawk, a kite, an eagle. And he thinks, this is the glory I am capable of. Look at my soul, look at the shapes she takes. Nothing can hold me back.

As soon as he’s old enough that people no longer suspect him of magic, it gets a little easier. The killers of the sky are good daemons for nobles, souls that mirror the falconry birds they carry on their gloves. His father tells him that Diana should become a gyrfalcon, the bird of the nobility, the glorious white-and-grey hunter kept by kings, and Diana tries, she does, she takes that shape again and again as if trying to force her body to stay in it. When she settles at last, though, her back is the dark blue-grey of slate, her form small and sleek, her eyes piercing yellow. His father purses his lips and turns away, because the peregrine falcon is a commoner's bird.

Despite all his father's disapproval - or maybe because of it - when Nathaniel is sent away to the Free Marches, he doesn’t learn a nobleman’s trades, doesn’t pick up the sword, the shield, the lance. He learns how to set a snare and follow a trail and make an infusion of herbs that will spell death for whoever drinks it – and he learns to fire an arrow, to place it so precisely that he can kill a dragonfly on the wing.

Diana is the soul of a man who is both nobleman and assassin. Something in him always wells up with joy when he sees her rising in the sky, sees her fold in her wings and drop, slamming towards the earth like a thunderbolt, the deadly stooping strike of the fastest animal in Thedas. She never falters, never slows. Never misses.

And yet their wings are still clipped, their freedom kept at bay by his father’s name.

The Warden comes and, impossibly, offers him forgiveness and a future. And for the first time, Nathaniel sees his daemon as she was meant to be, hunting free against truly dangerous prey. And the name Howe is no longer a shackle, because with every darkspawn he slays, every fragment of the truth he learns, every moment he spends in the Warden’s company, he purifies the name. And so at last he is free, and he knows that he doesn’t have to cast off his name to stay free, nor to be a good man.

‘I didn’t need to be a gyrfalcon,’ Diana tells him quietly, and he nods.

‘Nobility,’ he says, ‘has another meaning.’

Velanna

Again and again as they grow, Velanna and Nanlen hear the words, spoken and sighed and tutted by their clansmen. You never listen.

Which is true, and they are unashamed of it. What reason do they have to listen, when no one around seems to have anything to say to them? When no one has anything worth saying? The other children shun them, turn their backs because Velanna has no idea how to take part in their purposeless games, and so they stand apart and alone. They stand in silence, where they feel most comfortable, and they study the histories, hunting down knowledge and lost lore. Their solitude is met with rolling eyes and scornful glances, and none of them seem to care enough to realise how much it hurts. Pain hurts to live with, and it's easier to turn it into anger. And so they bristle and snap and insist that they know best, and Nanlen changes to show it, so that any other Dalish who tries to quarrel with them will be met with a snarling fox or hissing wildcat or a kestrel with glaring eyes. Even his very name burns. Nanlen, child of vengeance, a name that makes the hahrens swap glances and murmur their misgivings. Only Seranni can ever soften them, persuade them to stop a moment and think. They listen to Seranni, because Seranni cares enough to listen to them.

Nanlen settles not long after Velanna comes into her magic. The Clan seems to think that Velanna doesn’t hear the things they whisper to each other. ‘Keeper Ilshae’s got a struggle on her hands,’ she overhears one of the hahrens say. ‘Even the shems barely ever train goshawks. They never listen.’

But Velanna can be nothing but proud of her magnificent daemon, his feathers the colours of stormclouds and silver and snow. The goshawk is exactly what she is: the living embodiment of the wildest and most dangerous parts of the forest. Its talons are fierce as the thorns of the sylvans, the thorns that Velanna summons to her side in battle. And how can she not be proud of having a daemon who cannot be tamed or trained? The shemlen come and burn the forest, force her clan away with smoke and flames. Velanna aches to punish them, something within her crying out to tear and rend, and when the Keeper cowers away from dealing out justice she feels her rage erupt.

‘We’re Dalish,’ she snaps at the Keeper. ‘We are the last of the Elvhenan. Never again shall we submit.’

Nanlen throws out his wings and lets out a screech, and while Ilshae sighs, Velanna smiles. She pities the fool who thinks anyone could make a goshawk submit.

But then their pride kills their brothers and sisters, and Nanlen seems to change. ‘Velanna,’ he says, ‘we led them to death because we would not listen.’ But Velanna closes her ears to him, just as she always has to everyone. She doesn’t want to hear it, and she unleashes a hawk’s rage on the shemlen who made it happen, shreds them with her thorns the way Nanlen's wild cousins rip apart their kills in their claws, until –

Until she is made to see that she was wrong.

Ilshae was right. She was not ready to be Keeper. Because a Keeper’s task isn’t about being right. It’s about listening. Listening to the lessons of their ancestors, and listening to her fellows among the clan. Listening in the way that Velanna can never do, the way that a goshawk can only do if you show them patience and a reward.

The Warden offers her both.

‘It is not submitting to admit that we were wrong,’ Nanlen murmurs to her. ‘You can follow another without submitting to them.’

And so Velanna follows the Warden, and drains her Joining chalice, and marches out with the others against the darkspawn. To find Seranni, to avenge her kinsmen. To learn, at last, how to listen.

Justice

He knows much of demons. But these daemons – these strange, speaking, shifting creatures that the mortals call their souls - they are far, far beyond his understanding.

At first, when the Warden tells him what they are, he almost reaches for his weapon. ‘They’re not demons, they’re our daemons,’ the Warden tries to explain, tells him that they’re not the Fade’s dark entities masquerading as animals, that the spelling’s different, as if that matters – but in the end, it’s Kristoff’s memories that make him understand.

The dead Warden’s mind is full of images of his living soul, a dark-furred Orlesian shepherd dog. Her name was Mariette, and he adored her. It’s a love of a very different kind to that he felt for his wife, somehow less complicated, but no less intense. In every memory, in every vague glimmer of Kristoff’s childhood and in every vivid recollection of a battle fought, the daemon is there. A constant. Unchanging, like a Fade spirit.

From Kristoff’s memories, and from what the Warden tells him, he learns that no is quite sure what daemons are or where they come from, only that they are bound to the Fade, which is why Sigrun and Oghren walk alone, with no companion beside them or on their shoulder. These creatures are somehow linked to the Fade, to his home - but they are not demons, he realises. They are not spirits, either. They are exactly what his newfound mortal allies claim they are: souls.

Justice watches, and so he learns to respect them. For he sees how so very often they represent the better parts of his friends’ natures. He sees, for instance, how Velanna’s silvery hawk sometimes gives her a long, patient stare when her jaw clenches with anger, as if reminding her to be calm. And he sees how, when Anders tries to cast off his responsibility for his fellow mages – people suffering under an injustice that makes fury stir in Justice’s heart – the dark-eyed magpie on his shoulder turns to him and gives him a sharp, reprimanding peck.

And one night, as they travel across Amaranthine to their newest task, he sees how his friends’ daemons curl up against them, and he feels something that terrifies him. He envies them. He envies the completeness they seem to have, the closeness. Jealousy is for demons, and he tries to banish the thought, because it makes him fear what he could become, but it stays and it stays and it stays.

None of them are sure what will become of Themis, when Anders offers himself to Justice. ‘I’m willing to take the risk,’ she says. ‘Perhaps it won’t affect me at all.’ But it does, of course it does, because Themis is a part of Anders, and Justice becomes Anders, and so he becomes Themis too, and so he sees the suffering that has been wrought upon the mages, and the Templars will pay, and the Circle will be ripped apart, and he will tear down every last enemy until the mages are free, and the magpie screams like a mad thing as veins of blue flare beneath her feathers –

As they struggle through their life in Kirkwall, Justice looks at her through Anders’s eyes, and feels a terrible wrenching guilt. ‘I’ve changed you,’ Anders says, his face tear-streaked and flushed, after the night they lose control and attack the mage girl. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ And Justice wishes he could reply, I have changed you too. You are not the man you were when your daemon settled. I have made a distance between you, I have brought you farther from your own soul, and for that I am sorry.

And as if she knows his thoughts, Themis raises her head and looks sharply into his eyes – and yes, they are Anders’s eyes, but the part of Anders that is Justice knows she looks at him.

‘We are all one now,’ she says.

And Justice feels, despite everything, a faint pulse of pleasure. Because he no longer needs to feel the envy that he harboured, when he thought of Kristoff’s love for his breathing soul. Because Themis is his daemon now, just as much as she is Anders’s.

Perhaps I am not only becoming more demon, he thinks. Perhaps I am becoming more mortal.

Once the thought would have frightened him. But now, when he sees Themis, it gives him comfort.

#i'll post the next one soon #dragon age #daemon au #dragon age origins #dragon age awakening #alistair theirin #morrigan #sten #wynne #zevran arainai #nathaniel howe #velanna #justice #sky's writing

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luminousaaaa · 3 years ago

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dfroza · 4 years ago

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there were those who disliked God

when He arrived on earth as the Son. and there are those who dislike people who believe in the rebirth being offered by our Creator.

but no matter.

we just need to keep on trusting, to keep on believing as children who don’t belong to this world.

this is Light in its True illumination.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures is chapter 21 in the book of Luke:

[The Widow’s Offering]

Jesus was in the temple, observing all the wealthy wanting to be noticed as they came with their offerings. He noticed a very poor widow dropping two small copper coins in the offering box. “Listen to me,” he said. “This poor widow has given a larger offering than any of the wealthy. For the rich only gave out of their surplus, but she sacrificed out of her poverty and gave to God all that she had to live on.”

[The Signs of the End of the Age]

Some of the disciples remarked about the beauty of the temple. They pointed out all the lovely adornments and how it was built with excellence from the gifts given to God.

Jesus said, “The day will come that everything you admire here will be utterly destroyed. It will all become a heap of rubble!”

“Master, tell us,” they asked, “when exactly will this happen? Can you tell us what warning sign to look for when it is about to take place?”

Jesus responded, “Deception will run rampant with many who will appear on the scene, saying I have sent them, or saying about themselves, ‘I am the Messiah!’ And the doomsday deceivers will say, ‘The end of the age is now here!’ But listen to me. Don’t be fooled by these imposters.

“There will also be many wars and revolutions on every side, with rumors of more wars to come. Don’t panic or give in to your fears, for these things are bound to happen. This is still not the end yet.”

Jesus continued, “There will be upheavals of every kind. Nations will go to war against each other and kingdom against kingdom—and there will be terrible earthquakes, seismic events of epic proportion, resulting in famines in one place after another. There will be horrible plagues and epidemics, cataclysmic storms on the earth, and astonishing signs and cosmic disturbances in the heavens. But before all of this happens, you will be hunted down and arrested, persecuted by both civil and religious authorities, and thrown into prison. And because you follow me, you will be on trial before kings and governmental leaders as an opportunity to testify to them in my name. Yet determine in your hearts not to prepare for your own defense. Simply speak with the words of wisdom that I will give you that moment, and none of your persecutors will be able to withstand the grace and wisdom that comes from your mouths.

“You can expect betrayal even by your parents, your brothers, your relatives and friends—and yes, some of you will die as martyrs. You will be hated by all because of my life in you. But don’t worry. My grace will never desert you or depart from your life. And by standing firm with patient endurance you will find your souls’ deliverance.”

[The Destruction of Jerusalem]

“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know for sure that its devastation is imminent. At that time all who are living in Judea must flee to the mountains. Those who live inside the city gates, go out and flee, and those who live outside the city must not enter it seeking refuge. For these are the days of God’s vengeance to fulfill what has been written against Jerusalem. It will be extremely difficult for pregnant women and for those nursing little ones in that day, for there will be great persecution and wrath against this nation. Many will be cut down by the sword or scattered as prisoners in many countries. And Jerusalem shall be trampled down by nations until the days of world empires come to an end.”

[The Coming of the Son of Man]

“Expect to witness amazing and perplexing signs throughout the universe with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The raging of the sea will bring desperation and turmoil to many nations. Earthquakes will bring panic and disaster. What men see coming to the earth will cause the fear of doom to grip their hearts, for they will even see the powers of the heavenly realm shaken!

“And at last, when you see how the Son of Man comes—surrounded with a cloud, with great power and miracles, in the radiance of his splendor, and with great glory and praises—it will make you jump for joy! For the day of your full transformation has arrived.”

[The Lesson of the Fig Tree]

Jesus gave his disciples this parable:

“Haven’t you observed the fig tree, or any tree, that when it buds and blooms you realize that the season is changing and summer is near? In the same way, when you see these prophetic signs occurring, you realize the earth is yielding to the fullness of God’s kingdom realm. I assure you, the end of this age will not come until all I have spoken comes to pass. Earth and sky will wear out and fade away before one word I speak loses its power or fails to accomplish its purpose.”

[Guard Your Hearts]

“Be careful that you never allow your hearts to grow cold. Remain passionate and free from anxiety and the worries of this life. Then you will not be caught off guard by what happens. Don’t let me come and find you drunk or careless in living like everyone else. For that day will come as a shocking surprise to all, like a downpour that drenches everyone, catching many unaware and un-prepared. Keep a constant watch over your soul, and pray for the courage and grace to prevail over these things that are destined to occur and that you will stand before the presence of the Son of Man with a clear conscience.”

Each day, Jesus taught in the temple, and he spent his nights on the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early to the temple courts to listen to the words he taught.

The Book of Luke, Chapter 21 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is Joshua 18 that documents the surveying and dividing of the land of Israel:

[The Shiloh Survey]

Then the entire congregation of the People of Israel got together at Shiloh. They put up the Tent of Meeting.

The land was under their control but there were still seven Israelite tribes who had yet to receive their inheritance.

Joshua addressed the People of Israel: “How long are you going to sit around on your hands, putting off taking possession of the land that God, the God of your ancestors, has given you? Pick three men from each tribe so I can commission them. They will survey and map the land, showing the inheritance due each tribe, and report back to me. They will divide it into seven parts. Judah will stay in its territory in the south and the people of Joseph will keep to their place in the north.

“You are responsible for preparing a survey map showing seven portions. Then bring it to me so that I can cast lots for you here in the presence of our God.

“Only the Levites get no portion among you because the priesthood of God is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh already have their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan, given to them by Moses the servant of God.”

So the men set out. As they went out to survey the land, Joshua charged them: “Go. Survey the land and map it. Then come back to me and I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh in the presence of God.”

So off the men went. They covered the ground and mapped the country by towns in a scroll. Then they reported back to Joshua at the camp at Shiloh.

Joshua cast the lots for them at Shiloh in the presence of God. That’s where Joshua divided up the land to the People of Israel, according to their tribal divisions.

[Benjamin]

The first lot turned up for the tribe of Benjamin with its clans. The border of the allotment went between the peoples of Judah and Joseph.

The northern border began at the Jordan, then went up to the ridge north of Jericho, ascending west into the hill country into the wilderness of Beth Aven. From there the border went around to Luz, to its southern ridge (that is, Bethel), and then down from Ataroth Addar to the mountain to the south of Lower Beth Horon.

There the border took a turn on the west side and swung south from the mountain to the south of Beth Horon and ended at Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim), a town of the people of Judah. This was the west side.

The southern border began at the edge of Kiriath Jearim on the west, then ran west until it reached the spring, the Waters of Nephtoah. It then descended to the foot of the mountain opposite the Valley of Ben Hinnom (which flanks the Valley of Rephaim to the north), descended to the Hinnom Valley, just south of the Jebusite ridge, and went on to En Rogel. From there it curved north to En Shemesh and Geliloth, opposite the Red Pass (Adummim), down to the Stone of Bohan the son of Reuben, continued toward the north flank of Beth Arabah, then plunged to the Arabah. It then followed the slope of Beth Hoglah north and came out at the northern bay of the Salt Sea—the south end of the Jordan. This was the southern border.

The east border was formed by the Jordan.

This was the inheritance of the people of Benjamin for their clans, marked by these borders on all sides.

The cities of the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan, were:

Jericho, Beth Hoglah, Emek Keziz,

Beth Arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel,

Avvim, Parah, Ophrah,

Kephar Ammoni, Ophni, and Geba—

twelve towns with their villages.

Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth,

Mizpah, Kephirah, Mozah,

Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah,

Zelah, Haeleph, the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah, and Kiriath Jearim—

fourteen cities with their villages. This was the inheritance for Benjamin, according to its clans.

The Book of Joshua, Chapter 18 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, August 19 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s Message by the ICR:

August 19, 2020

Loving His Appearing

“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:8)

It is fascinating to learn that the Lord has a special reward for all those who “love his appearing.” The word “appearing” (Greek epiphaneia) can refer to either the first or second advent of Christ, depending on the context. Paul urges us to be “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). For “the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ...hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light” (2 Timothy 1:10).

Our text for the day obviously refers to His Second Coming “at that day,” exhorting us not only to look for but to love His appearing! At that great day, “the Lord, the righteous judge” will award to those who have loved His appearing a special crown of righteousness. We have already received the imputed “gift of righteousness” (Romans 5:17) by His grace and have been “made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21), so this crown of righteousness somehow must be (as a wreath encircling the head of a victor in a race) an enveloping glow of divine appreciation for a godly life lived in daily anticipation of the Lord’s return.

The apostle John beautifully expressed the way in which such a life, loving Christ’s coming, produces a growing righteousness now and perfected righteousness then. “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming....We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 2:28; 3:2-3). HMM

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ericngo-blog · 7 years ago

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Life update Hello friends and family,

Many seasons have past since I left California to start a new life in Paris. What started as a one year teaching assistant program turned into an adventure that has now lasted 6 years. At the age of 23, not knowing what to do with my life, I packed my bags to return to my birth country hoping to find answers to my cultural identity. Over the years, I’ve encountered many challenges, met amazing people, fought my way through adversity, and discovered new passions in life.

2011 was exciting and the start of something new. The idea of starting over in the city Paris was full of possibilities. With the hopeful innocence of my 23 year old self and a small amount of money, I took on a small studio apartment and taught English in a French public high school. To my surprise, the students listened to my teaching style and I was able to develop a passion for teaching. At the end of the teaching contract, I knew I wasn’t ready to go back home in California. Part of me had always wondered what it was like to be a waiter, so I took on a waiter job in a Japanese restaurant.

In the summer of 2012, I waited tables night and day, 6 days a week. It was brutal, but I absolutely would do it again because I met an my un-official god parents. Mr and Mrs Tan are also French/American/Chinese, like me, which made our relationship that much easier, and are the owners of the restaurant “Wrap N Roll” Sushi in Paris. They taught me how to be hard working and more responsible through their strict expectations as managers. One day, Mrs Tan treated me to a French pastry, and while I was savoring it’s delicious flavor, I said out loud, “You know, I’d like to learn how to make these”, and Mrs Tan replied, “Well, why don’t you?”. This was the defining moment when I realized that the dream of becoming a pastry chef was within reach. During my last months in college, I had described my ideal life to be “Live out my faith as a Christian somewhere in the world, serve in a church as a drummer and a leader for the younger generation, and to make a living, work as a baker/pastry chef”. After doing some research, I decided to apply to the most prestigious pastry school Paris had to offer, Ferrandi Paris. By the end of summer, I was hired to work as a salesman in the world famous pastry shop, “Pierre Hermé Paris”. It was there that I took my first steps towards becoming a pastry chef. Though this experience, I learned the values of customer service and how to sell a product.

My Career as a salesman last until the end of 2013. During this year, I went through many trials such as work drama, having my heart broken, and dealing with the feeling of loneliness. Don’t be fooled by the pictures that only show the happy moments, it’s the difficult moments that define who we truly are. Over the years, I had learned how to eat by myself, even at a restaurant, and just be by myself in general. But every once in a while, this feeling of homesickness just took over and I felt giving up. I was able to survive these moments because of the healthy community I was blessed to have here in Paris. I was also blessed to have a female companion by my side that made me feel loved. 2013 was probably the hardest year of my life. I felt like I was stuck as a salesman and that I would never get into pastry school. But I saw the light at the end of the tunnel by the end of the year. After refueling back in California I came back to Paris, and in the winter of 2013 I was admitted to pastry school. On top of that, I was able to move into a new place a lot closer to my school. (I live with an older woman, it’s just that she’s 80 years old, She’s like my French grandmother =P) God’s timing was perfect, all of this happened in the same week.

2014 was the start of my pastry career. The program in which I participated was an intensive one. Instead of a regular 2 year training, it would be over 5 months only because I already had a BA. Pastry school was amazing, I loved every moment. Starting at 6am and ending around 2pm, we learned and practiced the art of making French pastries. Even though I had little experience in baking, I was able to learn quickly and was blessed to have good instructors. Our classes were small, consisting of only 12 per class. At night, I would go back to waiting tables for the first couple of weeks of my semester to earn a living. However, Mrs Tan wanted me to focus on my studies and loaned me money for me to use until the rest of my school year. My initial reason for going to pastry school was to eventually open up shop in LA, but it changed as the months went by. My new vision was to get my pastry degree, train under big chefs for a couple of years, and eventually either open up my own shop or go back to teaching, this time, pastry. After earning my degree, I interned at my local bakery and started looking for work. At that time, my bank account was pretty dry and I had to wait tables once again full time in order to survive. There came a time where I had 10 euros in my bank account… The struggle was real. But, I was oddly at peace. I had experienced God’s grace so many times, that I knew something would come up. By the end of the summer, that opportunity came up. After being discouraged my not getting replies or getting rejected for work, a company reached out to me. It was the only company who was interested. That company was the cooking school “La Cuisine Paris”. We got to know each other and I was given the opportunity to teach pastry classes to an English speaking people. I will forever remember the day when the owner of the school told me, “Look Eric, I know you just got out of school, and that you have little work experience, but, I like you, and I’m willing to invest in you”. This was a defining moment in my life that I will forever cherish. On top of that, the teaching gig only involved a 20 hour work week with a good hourly rate that allowed me to live comfortably. Talk about a dream job.

2015 was all about looking for ways to honor God through my time and resources. Because of my 20 hour or less work weeks, I found myself with a lot of free time. I was able to be well rested all the time, see friends during their lunch breaks, read books I’ve been wanting to read, and just have a lot of “me” time in general. All that was great, but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I became aware that, my church had a women’s group, but no men’s group. After a couple of weeks of brainstorming and counseling, I decided to launch “E.P.I.C men’s group”. This acronym stood for “Edification.Perseverance.Integrity.Courage”, these were the four pillars and values of our group. Our vision was based on the Bible verse found in 2 Timothy 1:6-7

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline”

Our vision was to become men equipped to live out a Christ centered life, and to one day become men worth following. This concept was important to me because growing up, there were seasons where my age group did not have a mentor figure to whom we could look up to, and I didn’t want the younger generation to go through the same thing. Our vision as men was to accurately reflect the image of Jesus through our lifestyle. NOT EASY. But I had met people in life whom I thought were leaders worth following, and leader not worth following. What made the difference? I went on an adventure to find out. 2015 also came with the opportunity to go on missions. My home church in Paris organized its first overseas mission to Senegal, located on the coast of west Africa. This mission trip opened my eyes to Christianity that I was used to, and made me experience my faith in a different way. Till this day, my church in France sends out a missionary team each year to Senegal where we preach the gospel through children’s ministry, teacher training programs, medical consultations, and for me personally, sharing different baking recipes with the local bakers. These mission trips have touched me in a profound way through the relationship I’ve developed over the years. The thought that children from the “Lac Rose” village (the village we’ve worked with) welcoming me year after year by name, after my first visit brings me chills.

2016 was more of a routine type of year. I started getting comfortable with my lifestyle and time flew by at an incredible rate. I kept on teaching pastry classes, serving in a church through playing drums and leading the men’s ministry, going on the Senegal mission trip, and enjoying life in Paris. Friends and family kept on coming to Paris over the years, and it brought me joy to show them around! One of the highlights of the year came in September when my sister Diana flew to Paris to run the Disney Paris half marathon. I’ve never considered myself a long distance runner, but the idea of developing grit became that much more real when you experience a long distance race. It disciplined me during the year to increase my endurance to eventually run a half marathon. My sister Diana, a seasoned marathon runner, ran at my pace and encouraged me throughout the entire race which helped me persevere through the fatigue and guided me to the finish line.

So here we are in 2017. This is was by far the most I’ve ever traveled in my life. It started with a trip back from California in January, Lyon, road tripping from Italy to Switzerland, Senegal, and Hong Kong. It’s been great seeing so many friends from home in other parts of the world. And here I am writing this update letter while sitting in a plane on my way back to California. I needed to refuel. I was discouraged by the men’s group because of the lack of attendance and motivation, and I was struggling with my worship coordinating responsibilities. This is year has been especially hard for me ever since my 4 year relationship ended. I realized that over the years, my feeling of “home” rested on my girlfriend’s shoulders at that time, and now with that figure gone, I suddenly felt so alone. The Sunday before I flew to California, I ate diner by myself in a restaurant and watched a movie by myself in the movie theaters. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I actually don’t mind at all, and over the years I’ve done that plenty of times, that is, when it’s by choice. That lonely night, wasn’t by choice. I let it sink in deep and really felt like I was by myself and that one cared about me. I longed for this feeling of home, and I felt really alienated from the rest of the world. The timing of coming back to California was perfect.

This trip was exactly what I needed. My initial plan was to come back and surprise my mom for her birthday, surprise one of my best friends for his 30th, and attend a childhood friend’s wedding. Time flew by so quickly but I was able to see family and friends and surely enough, my “love tank” was full, I was refueled. I felt surrounded by a nurturing environment and felt appreciated through this time in California. I was able to reconnect with friendships that have lasted over decades and I felt so loved when people made the time to see me despite the long distance. My whole life has been about answering the question “Where is home?”, and the answer has always been “Home is where your loved ones are”. And to be more accurate, home is where there is a nurturing environment, because “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together”. These past 6 years in Paris have been absolutely amazing and will cherish these memories forever. I initially came back to my birth country to figure out where I wanted to settle down, and today I have an answer. I’ll be coming back to California in the near future. I’ve made myself a 2 year plan before officially departing, but there are still things I need to learn and do in Paris. Notably, acquire more experience as a pastry chef, to one day open up my own bakery in California. I’m also open to the idea of missionary work in other parts of the world such as west Africa, so who know’s where I’ll end up next.

Paris remains one of my favorite places on earth. It’s not the beauty that this charming city has, nor the amazing food it has to offer, but the friends I’ve made here that will make me miss this place. I’m determined to savor every minute I have here for the next years to come. Part of me is nervous to leave Paris because it’s my comfort zone, at the same time I’m confident that my family and friends will make moving back to LA a smooth transition. American friends see me as the “French guy”, French friends see me as the “American guy”, and to the rest of the world I’m just the “dark looking asian guy”. People with my background live with chronic homesickness, and I’m determined to build a place for them to feel at home in LA. That’s the new dream.

Thank you so much for your friendship and prayers of over the years. It’s been a delight catching up across the world, I wouldn’t be who I am and where I am without your counsel. I strongly encourage you to come to Paris before I make my move back to LA. You know it’s on your destination list and I would love to show you around the city have you see Paris through my eyes. (Preview* it involves eating the best the city has to offer for all budgets, picture memories, cooking/ baking classes, playing board games in cafés, meeting French people, strolling in tiny charming streets, having hilarious/ meaningful conversations).

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of this long update :)

Miss you guys, Eric Ngo

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stories1990 · 5 years ago

Text

"False heart beats"

Hymns _pen

____________________ ********** ______

Back-lit screen ..wanaml moving lightly on the phone keypad ... smile made its way to the oval face Lothario ..ltketb characters love and adoration

_ I love you !

Merely four letters to be the next corners of her life ... enter the hooligan ... it was consistent Buthaiabh heritage, making its appeal and that increase shawl over his head in an attractive way salary increased so .. light shone .. knock on the door fingertips to attract attention ... Fatah Vaha speaks quietly

_ I am hungry

Closed her Bagtdhab ... her eyes Nazerth Yemeni .. and uttered such as coffee alarm

_ Arak, I returned from my uncle s sons council ... I will be patient Ptdvith

D to it and pronounce his waist Bjunbah order

_ Ardjaaha place

Air Zfr angrily and took them silent and behind her silence a thousand words reproach to her mother that made the house girls served his children without a word whimper ... Maybe this was the case most of the families of the old city "Sanaa"

# Areej

Standing in front of the cook Anazer phone waiting eagerly reply to my last letter ...

_ Apologized dear delayed response ... I love you too!

He closed the phone and tightened to my chest and I felt Bdqath growing little by little ... nervously approached the gas switched off and threatening to pronounce flagrant

_ Not you know this gas crisis days? I need to tell my mother to break the phone one who stole your mind and your thoughts ...

He went after awhile

_ What are you doing it from Trusselan?

Pangs stopped Bhgay without paying attention .. I m trying to make my voice naturally busy making his tea

_ Who do you think my friends from high school!

_ Hehehehe only wish I know what is this modern Taathdtnh day by telephone or correspondence

I saw his voice unit eventually ... I took my phone and went speeding and uttered a blatant

_ Not like you

23/08/2012

I took my books Malam you have installed the black veil on my face I wore my bag and went to the room and opened weighs Tgra Pronounce telltale

_ Weighs no need to pick me up today my girlfriend Joanna will Baissala her car

_ Ooh Well .. not Taatochri

That rubbed his eyes and his voice like a child Drifter coarse morning

I went out and Astkulait bus to go to my kidney ... I opened my phone and you send a message to confirm the appointment

_ Do not forget at 11 in front of my kidneys

_ Did I forget my love?! Do not be afraid I ll be there definitely ahead of longing to see I feel very much a mental captive

My heart

11:14

Muscles in the eyes of prominent ... Cap green ... white silk ... highly remarkable Muluj color yellow sun and the color of the mountains ... Sanaa built Amishqrh ... black qualities Balabaah approached it ..hmlguet ... Econ is it?! I asked my voice soft feminine

_ UN You Hossam?

_ So must you to be Areej

I pulled the chair in front of me and sat on it .. We stayed minutes and silence makes us stomata ... Ptlosm unique Iraqi dialect ..sahr has fascinated me .. Blbagth ... Asloppe..samth ... everything ... the closest pronunciation to be an angel house heaven ... Nazert time delay time ... should not to be Cinderella now seriously ... I do not want. !

_Well .... meet Hossam to meet my brother Siqlq

Btawaiha with his hand and let me ... that we have identified on Wednesday of every week on our game so the cafe told me once ...

_ Do you know How beautiful?

_ Akhalna beautiful with all my details

He replied mischievously protester grief

_ And he denied he is blind, but he loved what you are those eyes colored Yemeni coffee

_ We learn Nkhtlt Turks since the Ottoman rule, so find the people of the city "Ibb" and some of the villages of "Sana a"

Turkish are characterized by the features of each I wish I have the then I ll be more beautiful but to tell you that his eyeballs coffee like ... I love it also became

Do not forget the days of my eyes every time we meet the beating of my heart Ktabol degree became afraid that Expose his sweet Asrna became like Wednesday and the dates I record my mind every word tells her to become a balance of happiness for me .. I loved it and loved him with all my heart beats

12/2/2014

#Weigh

The voice of a strong impact comes from the kitchen ... rushed speeding to find my mother dumped him down sweat profusely ... which slowed down my heart beats ...

_ Areej Ariège O Araj

Shook my cry home Vtvajot by Hisham initiates her pregnancy to the car then got a blow on my head and it roars loophole

_ Areej in college helped me, stupid

Behind the door of operations stood ... Bad concern on the face of each one of us ... I remembered Areej so I did make a connection ... it was her mood and her voice calm an improved ... I felt angry safer behind the door do not know Astaud or enter a refrigerator Alomuat..srecht strongly by telling them what happened and Monba them ... Hehgh issued them .. shut down the phone at her farewell speech without you and went to holistically haste was not too long ago .. I seem to go up the tower jinx today ... my sister sitting with a young cafe ????

# Areej

My finished ... my heart beat stopped for a moment ... bloodshot and his cheeks anger ... pulled out of the house of clouds ... my heart muscles constrict and flattens Hussam received ... crudely strikes many of the intervention weighs even people to resolve them ..binma Dmati were frantic quickly unconsciously, which has been or is being, or will be!

Between the corners of the room locked .. I do not know about my mother, or a sense of Hussam news .... all you have done is to bring out Hhqati

Transcendent ... Atrani promised a child or a baby crawling ... asking candy prevented them ??

_ Areej ... that my mother was fine Ahidia ..

I do not know basically no tears pouring ... quickly reared her body towards her slim Artmit ... about an hour and we are on that case .. I sat next to me .. and in particular horny stared, wiping my cheek .. I opened my sister Nour Vahaa pronounce

_ Pass moments of our lives are wrong .. built Adam mis enough unfasten a new page you girl adult Tdrkin ill Fltk and know our society ....

_ Spread ..br?

Looked down her head and pronounced Dully

_ You know, were not far from the university has gone through the incident a week ... my mother went out to safety and do not want to see you ..ozlk young

_ What you do?

Rapid Pink, which made it Tnazerna foolishly

_ You silly right Areej ... that your heart beats false ... all I have forced him to marry your order muzzles little people ... you know Nada and me now Gailltan because they look at their husbands Almshakrh ... we are in fact a problem Areej and you ll be aware of that is why your behavior mindless!

#After 2 manth

Yemeni traditional hype ... and the bride like a moon on the throne of heaven, 14 night ... not for the black under her eyes and withered outlook ..oottaghm the face of the groom, which was not worthy of him the night of joy

#Hymns_pen

Voice screams Akecart building inhabitants .. goggle jerseys which bemuse only a small curvature in it ... was severely beaten and devoid of any mercy ... Aiakl that his passion got a drug to reverse the effect of hatred filled his stomach ... were not a night or two nights each 6 months suffering from beating him and showered strange m wishes to divorce him one day ... How wonderful that the adoration and love sod wondrous!

#Arig

I took clear on my stomach ... and smile imposed on the teachings fatigued me .. Nazerth with joy and enthusiasm Tgra pronunciation

_ New Baby is coming to us after 6 months

Were not described the joy of letters or words or Soran Arouk first born to me from him .. Despite the lack of response and Tjahlhll subject, but I did not expect that and despite his knowledge of the next born whole thing

Kalshah drove to the airport ... and I can say that he has been expelled me to Iraq specifically .. "Baghdad" as a servant when his family ... is returned to Yemen without a word to say .. and my family Nbaroo me all my life has become hell because of him and I still love him nights fools. .. and that the poor, who Bohachaia I am almost certain that he will not regaining my parents warm embrace ..ao fresh word from the father of delight .. Khater was my feelings of remorse and happiness one capable of so that the gut ... but I did not feel hate or perhaps you still see only a little less on that feeling

#wgdan

Under the quilt ... and the darkness of the room ..ochach lit in front of me ... tears from my eyes apply a burning sensation on the scene of the hero dies in front of his beloved ... ooh did not dwell I am still the best dramas

Sad love with the failed .. Balbjamh loose cartoon drawings came down the stairs toward the kitchen to take a cup of cold water in this heat burning ... came across my aunt ..aktefit faint smile Badltinay them ... What we have received them, and my grandmother hemlock what taste and its impact is still in my throat and other Jsudai..tjahilt memories foolish. I returned to the dark room ... I am following Dramati

_ Wijdan where your father? Allen comes to the Council of Parents ??

_ That my father passengers to buy me gifts

Haha nights small lie ... that I was a girl blatantly lie is naive .. I m trying to convince my friends I did not believe her illusions .. What is the guilt of the child Hnt characters "Baba" as does the rest of the kids,!

_ My mother asked me where my friends and my parents tell me where he is ??

_ Dear traveler is in my country that we visited last year that is true Tzkrenha

Played with dust and uttered innocently

_ When he would not do if we meet? But my mother loves me?

I did not find them in response was a response time is the silence that made me ask again and I still can not find an answer ... heal Galili I remember once I saw him in my grandmother s mother Motk ... but my mother refused to news Lacan is whether or not ..ha do not deny that even did not cast a glance at the corner that we were out Yalschrih!

_ My mother what the meaning of my name?

Assigned her head with my head

YOU YOU sentimental .. My feelings are all in my child conscience .. Mama s feelings are scattered and gather Stadtha only my child conscience

Basma honest adorned on her face disappeared behind the slim ..gamalha premature wrinkles of her face and her eyes Almabeltan hah I can still remember the details ... inside and out her trouble ... Kmalh in the school as a cleaner ensure the comfort of the people of the house and despicable dealings with them ..

I opened the folded paper between the heritage of her clothes, which was your favorite ... prepared .. all I did folded is Dmotain even Nzlta down Zgueni..ontqa sarcastically

_ Qstkma was more drama sad my mother ... I am the victim ...

In front of her tomb stood ..obed flowers placed .. the usual began my speech to the spirit in the sky

_ Lamy graduation ceremony was wonderful but it was lacking in you .. I will finish Amabna and rode my life after Osora a respectable job ... I love my mother ..ohuzeinh to me sudden Vrack ..mte forcibly before the stroke of those damned Tamota ..haha goodbye to my mother, I will call you ..

Rustle behind me ... weak voice manly pronunciation

_ What she said before her death?

Without paying attention ... for fear of the noise of my feelings that Stddvq that Nazerth ... said now that he has Kainan Hayan here after he got married and lived his life comfortable with another family ... ironically has shaken my voice I replied

_ My heart beats ..kazbh!

~ Has ~

Like the rest of the story and the fact Ouseltni from a reliable source in fact the core of the story and the fact that the other drama of suspense

Jambiya: Yemeni heritage uniforms for men placed on a large waist with a sharp knife extracted from rhinoceros horn

The Ibb that green eyes are comparing Hussam .fahi Yemeni city known Balkhaddra because of the green Xaiha which capped throughout the year, almost

Lake + comments do you think of my dear ones to know and criticisms .. I liked the idea of the story Fjsdtha reality is happening and kills many

0 notes

coeurdastronaute · 8 years ago

Text

Essays in Existentialism: Monarchy

I know you did a royal one but how about a different spin where one isn’t suposed to get the crown maybe second or third and then they get it or will get it? And they have to grow up quick to take over?

Pulled back from the front, the shore was a paradise, compared to inland where the stalemate waged, waiting for the big push. The sun took its time dripping through the July sky. Frozen in the thick, heavy evening, it glowed and made the world red and blue and purple and golden, while the water licked at the burnt shore and tried to soothe a bit of the earth for the soldiers.

Finally, on a much needed reprieve, Lexa stretched out in the low chair, wiggling her toes in the warm sand until it was cool enough to relax her aching muscles. The sun still baked her skin, until her shoulders were dark brown and slowly peeling, with freckles speckled across every inch of shoulder that peeked out beneath tank top.

Sand kicked up between her and the ocean as her squad fought over a sliding tackle, half arguing for a penalty, the other insisting on its fairness. Lexa grabbed her camera and pushed her sunglasses over her hair, careful to find a few angles before joining in herself with a steal.

If she squinted hard enough, if she forgot what just the day before had entailed, she could convince herself that it was just a beach, and they were just friends, frittering the summer away with nothing else to do but soak up sun like turtles on rocks, and cool off in the shallows when it got to be too much.

“I could spend a whole war like this,” Gomez sighed, lounging in one of the many mismatched chairs at the impromptu bar on the edge of the base.

“It’s not a war,” Seif shook his head and scratched his cheek disinterestedly. “It’s a skirmish.”

“Feels like a war,” the squat gunner tweaked and eyebrow challengingly. “I mean, not right now, but it sure feels like it most of the time.”

“What do you say?”

“Don’t get Gus started,” Lexa groaned as she drank the terrible Castrilian beer that had been confiscated from an abandoned outpost miles west of their current position. The taste didn’t matter. It was cold, and strong, though she expected nothing less of the country she found herself in, so far away from home.

“Kids these days can’t even have a war right,” Fowler mimicked the oldest member of their squad. “Back in my day, we threw rocks and spears that we made ourselves.”

The table laughed, and he even earned a chuckle from the indomitable, grizzled veteran who had eyes that never stopped watching, and a guard that never went down. Lexa shook her head and surveyed the scene from behind her sunglasses, suddenly distracted by a pair of legs leaning by the bar.

At some point, Gus responded, arguing and earning laughs from the rest of the group. Lexa caught bits of a request to braid his beard. She didn’t care about a damn thing except the chill of the bottle against her own collarbone and the girl who sat in the corner and picked at the bottle label in the corner.

“Hmm?” she snapped her head back toward the conversation when her name was dropped. “No, that was the training in Denmark.”

“Right! Denmark!” her co-pilot nodded, returning to his argument.

The sun disappeared finally, dripping beneath the horizon, extinguished by the ocean, overcome by the welcomed relief from itself as the salve of night lathered the tired people who relished the reward of the salt and breeze. The lights were cast offs from vehicles, or generator parts, all hodgepodged together to create a cantina miles from the front. Lexa hid behind her sunglasses anyway, watching the stranger.

Every so often, she convinced herself that she had the nerve to introduce herself. Every time she got to that point, put her hands on her thighs, ready to push herself up, nodding gently as she prepared, rehearsed in her head, she remembered her own name and stopped forgetting what it meant.

Instead, she watched the girl at the bar nurse a drink and ask for seconds before anyone joined her. She had bruises on her arm, black and blue and ugly, up to her shoulder. Lexa wondered if there were more, hidden beneath the salty waves of blonde that was bleached by the equator and the ocean. The only thing Lexa could infer was that this stranger was not military. She did not carry herself like it.

When the laughter of her table barked out in the night, the stranger looked at the table and Lexa finally met her eyes. Mid-smile and suddenly flustered, she took a gulp and watched her look away, back to her friend at the bar.

“Ready to turn in?” Gus asked, leaning close after Lexa let her head slump back while she cursed herself.

“Yeah, why not,” she decided, adding another empty bottle to the completely covered table.

Finally able to push herself up, she shoved her hands in her pockets and followed the group toward their barracks. With a final glance over her shoulder, she watched the stranger not even notice she was leaving.

Safe and sterile, the hospital was finally, almost nearly completed. The staff was almost trained, they seemed almost capable, and with no recent major skirmishes or tragedies, the inane details were able to be worked out better.

Three weeks on the front lines working with triage units led to a welcomed day doing nothing but immunizing children and making supply orders for the next shipment.

Her father once told her that a day spent busy, spent breaking her back, spent exhausting herself was the best kind of gift she could give to the world. As she packed up the last few boxes of the night, as she ran a cloth over her sweaty neck and over her flushed face, she wondered if he ever considered how much the world exhausted her, and how to combat that. He hadn’t taught her that skill, though she was certain he never imagined her to volunteer for an assignment in a war-torn country, or to have the words ‘while under fire’ added to any story she may have, or to have seen the things she saw.

The sun wouldn’t set, but after checking her old watch, Clarke decided to call it a day, shouldered her bag, and walked out into the quiet. For two years, the city was her home, and for two years her love for it grew more and more. The city a few miles away was her home now, and the base was simply where she worked and begged for supplies, and trained new recruits from the surrounding villages.

“Can I have whatever you brewed last night?” Clarke asked as she took a seat at the makeshift bar on the beach.

“That bad of a day, doc?” the bartender asked with a smile. “Haven’t seen you for a few.”

“I was over in Teji, helping with the hospital there.”

“How is it?”

“Good,” she nodded, hissing at the drink. “We have a whole new round of volunteers, and the UN has sent in actual people. It finally feels like I’m not mashing my head against the wall.”

“Dr. Ardense would be impressed with all you’ve done.”

“She would have told me I should have stayed home,” the doctor disagreed with a smile. “Almost done with what she started.”

“On me,” he filled up the glass again.

With a grateful nod, Clarke sipped the second glass as the sun burned out once more, all pink and red and plunging the rest into the dark of night, upset only by the lights of the camp. A table of soldier enjoyed themselves behind her, while all Clarke could do was focus on two lists. One was the things to do tomorrow, the other was the things that would need to be figured out for when her job came to an end, if it ever came to an end.

All of it was exhausting, and too much for her brain. As she finished the second drink, she sighed and looked at the sky, and asked someone for just something, something good, and something that would make her feel human, to distract her from the numbness she discovered.

“Is this seat taken?”

“Hm?”

“Is this seat taken?” the voice asked again as Clarke looked up, suddenly sitting up and being surprised by the face the voice was attached. “I saw you hear a few days ago, and I couldn’t ask then, but I’m leaving for a few days...”

“No, it’s not.”

“Thank you,” she ducked her head as she took her seat, smiling to herself while Clarke watched it happen, watched her face before looking back at her drink quickly to avoid too much of those eyes. “Could I get you another?”

“Another?”

“Another drink.”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

With a confident wave of her hand, the soldier beckoned a few more drinks to appear. The doctor took the moment to size up the girl who now occupied the chair beside her, startled that prayers could be answered so literally and so quickly.

The tattoo wiggled on tan skin as bicep flexed with the movement. Shoulders were sprinkled with freckles from hours in the sun, half hidden under wavy, half-damp hair.

“I’m Lexa,” she finally introduced herself when the drinks were slid in front of them.

All Clarke could do was stare at the person who gave her a drink. She had eyes like stormy forests and a smile that took residence in them.

“I know who you are.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve watched the news at least once in my life.”

“I don’t know who you are though.”

“Does that line work?” Clarke asked as she took a sip of her drink.

“Never tried it, honestly. Should I try another? What brings a pretty girl to a place like this seems kind of relevant--”

“Clarke.”

“Clarke,” Lexa smiled as she sipped her drink and maintained the eyes on the girl who she would never admit she watched more than just one day a week ago.

“What brings you here, princess?”

“You’re good at deflecting, did you know that?”

“I’ve heard that before, but usually I deflect it.”

“A useful skill,” Lexa hummed, enjoying the way Clarke was amused by herself after drinking more. “Fine. I’ll go first. I enlisted after I told my mother that I was not interested in marrying some Duke’s son, and that I had a crush on my roommate in college. I always wanted to, just never could, and then I found some spine.”

“Sounds like you ran away.”

“Maybe a little. It all seems worth it tonight,” she confessed. “Since I’m disarmed and very honest with you, apparently.”

“We have a bit in common,” Clarke shrugged, twirling her drink around.

“You were going to marry a duke, too?”

“You’re funny, did you know that?”

“I don’t get that a lot.”

“I’m in the middle of a war getting chatted up by a princess. That’s funny enough, in a cosmic way.”

“It’s not a war,” Lexa interrupted. “Skirmish. That’s important.”

“Sure feels like one sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

“A duke, huh?” Clarke shook the thoughts from her head, let the drink linger a bit longer on her lips and watched the girl beside her blush a little.

The sun disappeared and everything dimmed until the bar felt as if it were just two people sitting there. Unsure of where she’d come from, Clarke wasn’t upset that she now had a way to spend the night. She definitely wasn’t bothered that the princess was humble and kind and funny and awkward and interesting.

Clarke stopped herself with drinks because her lips were numb and the heat of the night was worse than the day, with July roaring through, unrelenting and angry at everything.

“He comes with me everywhere,” Lexa offered as Clarke eyed the stoic man who lingered as they walked through the camp in the almost dark.

“He enlisted with you?”

“No, he has special clearance. He was enlisted before he signed up to work for my family. I do have about ten other agents who are here,” she rattled, meandering down the path.

“Seems like a lot of trouble.”

“You’ll learn that is all I am.”

The world was quiet, the bulk of the people already in bed, or already out on patrol. They shut down the bar and were thrust out into the world on their own, without much of a crutch. But Clarke learned that Lexa loved flying ever since she was young and her grandfather took her. And Clarke told her that she couldn’t remember much of her life before two years ago. And Lexa told her how much she loved the hot, sticky summer on the equator. And Clarke looked at the lights of the city just outside of the base and made Lexa stand still and listen to the world that still happened despite the terribleness of the world.

“I’m glad my squad made me buy you a drink,” Lexa offered as they reached the back of the visitor’s barracks that Clarke took her semi-permanent residence.

“I am, too,” Clarke smiled and leaned against the wall. “I’m still not used to that.”

“Gus?” Lexa looked over her shoulder. “He’s fine.”

“What if…” she stopped and looked around before leaning a little closer. “What if I wanted to try to kiss you?” Lexa chuckled at the whisper and blushed slightly. “It’s not funny. I take it back.”

“Give me a second.”

Oddly alarmed at to what she was doing, Clarke reconsidered everything in the few steps the princess took to her bodyguard. She talked herself back while they whispered, and by the time Lexa made it back to her, she thought she would work herself into the ground trying to figure out her own head. A charming princess with a tattoo and muscles and a jaw like that, gives a look like she did at the bar, and all sense went out the window.

“I’m going back home tomorrow,” Lexa said, shoving her hands in her pockets. “Just for a week. My sister is getting married.”

“I heard something about that.”

“In case you want to kiss me, and then don’t see me around, it’s not because I’m avoiding you or anything.”

“Just in case,” Clarke smiled and stared at her lips. “What did you tell him?”

“Not to wait up.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“Am I?”

There was a smirk. A moonshine-driven and infatuatedly-fueled smirk that made Clarke look away and gulp. The princess stood in front of her, honest and genuine. The doctor exhaled and pushed some of the hair from her forehead that stuck a bit in the heat. She looked at Lexa one last time before pushing herself from the wall. She took a step and opened the door to the small office that had once been the back room to the temporary clinic on post, but now turned into volunteers and storage.

“Wait, am I?” Lexa suddenly tensed and stood a little straighter.

“No.”

The middle of the night was his favorite time of day. It was quiet and honest. If anything, people succumbed to the silence of it, to the natural wayward wandering that lived at three in the morning, and could only spill their secrets, give up to the natural longing to unburden themselves. The inbetween hours were made for in between people, stuck between this or that, standing at the forks in life’s roads.

The king pulled his hat down and strolled through the streets of closing bars and all-night convenience marts, of single rider bus stops and empty taxis who trolled for any sign of life. It was not as if he was escaping, but that sometimes he just craved the smell of street food before it changed into fresh baked bread of morning. He longed for the terrible kind of coffee that came from the diner six blocks over from the palace and wet sidewalks licking the soles of his shoes.

It was well into dawn by the time he returned, relaxed and relieved from his wonderings. He cleared his mind from the jumble. He couldn’t sleep to save his life on a night like this, waiting.

“Nice walk, sir?” Agent Cooper greeted his mark inside the gate.

“I didn’t keep the boys out too late, did I?”

“Just a third of the night crew trailing you and clearing your path and sweeping the stops.”

“My daughter is coming home today,” the king smiled, wide and genuine and disinterested in the sarcasm of the agent.

“I heard a rumor.”

“Is everyone awake?”

“They are,” he was informed.

“Perfect,” he smiled. “It’s going to be a good day, Coop. A great day.”

“Yes, sir,” the agent agreed to the enthusiasm.

After a quick change, King Alexander, ruler for twenty-six glorious and prosperous years, the fifth of that name, descendant of the great clan who conquered this land, who lived his entire life in the very palace, who was tall and broad and square-jawed with eyes like mountains on maps, made his way through the familiar hallway to meet his family for breakfast. Dinner often meant some or half or a few were gone, pulled this way and that for their duties of the day, but come rain or sleet or snow, breakfast brought them back. An unspoken rule he had was to be uninterrupted during it, for just a half hour, he had his family.

“All night again?” his wife tsked, not even looking up from her paper as he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You could have at least brought ba--” a bag appeared in front of her face, where her husband earned a smile. He took the moment of distraction as his chance to steal a much better kiss until he heard a boo from the other end of the table.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Should we talk to the doctor again?” she whispered, looking back at those eyes before checking the bag.

“Just excited, love,” he promised. “How’s it going, kiddo?” the king asked, ruffling his son’s hair as he moved around the table.

“Do I have to go to school today?” Aden asked. The spitting image of his father, the sixteen year old’s voice cracked at the suggestion.

“Of course you do.”

“But Lexa is coming home today.”

“Aren’t we missing a kid?” the king asked, pretending to count before taking his seat at the head of the table.

“Good morning, Dad,” Anya strolled in a second later. She kissed her father’s cheek and slid into her seat a second later. “When does Lexa get back?”

“I think we should have a talk,” the queen decided, primly dusting her hands from the powdered donut her husband supplied her with, the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

The kids shared a look with their father, knowing full well what one of the matriarch’s cautionary tales would sound like. Their eyes bounced around until they were all smiling, frustrating the queen without a word.

“You all want to smother her and make a big deal, but that’s not Lexa, and you should know that. She’s low fuss and you’re all too excited.”

“We’re appropriately excited, Ev,” her husband explained reasonably, recognizing her own form of preparedness at the final return of the middle daughter. “Nearly eleven months is a long time.”

“I’ve read the reports. It wasn’t as if she was on a beach somewhere the whole time. Things were rough.”

“We know how to talk to our sister,” Anya scoffed, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“Just be gentle. She’s the quiet one.”

“The favourite,” Aden teased.

“The oldest,” the king pointed at Anya, who stuck out her tongue at her father. “The precious baby,” he pointed at Aden. “Naturally she’s the favourite.”

“That was a funny joke when we were kids,” Aden rolled his eyes. His sister looked over at her parents, amused that he refused to call himself a child despite living up to his title of baby of the brood.

Ten years stood between the siblings, but still they were close, though without their middle to balance them, they fought and complained. Both were eager for the sturdy part of the siblings to come back. Both missed her ferociously. Both were too stubborn to admit it.

“Okay, tell me about our days,” the king stopped the argument before it started.

“I’m at the Children’s Hospital luncheon, followed by planning for the holiday party,” the queen rattled off absently, earning a smile from her husband as he dusted the dust from her nose.

“I have that meeting with the security council, and then I’m having lunch with Bellamy and Katie. I think later I have another fitting. I don’t know.”

“School,” Aden grumbled.

The entire domestic scene was perfect, was exactly what she could remember, what she missed being a part of. Forever the voyeur, forever the watcher, her mother always said Lexa was born with big eyes and ears that were always open, always searching. Sometimes she remembered that. It didn’t stop her from watching her family have breakfast.

So many months away, and she was convinced they’d be different, and they were, but eerily enough, it felt as if only Lexa, herself, had changed. Her father seemed a bit more wrinkled, a bit wiser. The deep auburn of his hair somehow darker. Her mother seemed slimmer, seemed happier. People said that Anya took after her most. Lexa was this hodge podge of both, never looking enough like either. Anya teased her father, and looked radiant. Aden somehow sprouted four inches in as many months.

“Glad to know I’ve been pencilled in,” Lexa dropped her bag on the floor with a thud.

“Lexa!” voices joined up after a stretch of quiet.

A second later, the returning soldier was engulfed by arms and surprise. She swallowed it up and enjoyed it despite her natural aversion to huge displays. It was necessary and she closed her eyes and inhaled it all.

“You weren’t due in until tonight,” Alex smiled widely, hugging his daughter tighter.

“Are you okay? You’re not hurt?” her mother fret, scooping her up next.

“I called in a few favours,” Lexa shrugged.

“And Ironfell plays tonight,” Aden nudged her until she threw her arm around his neck and pretended to choke him.

“And I missed you all,” she teased. “But since you’re all busy, I guess I’m on my own.”

“I could ditch school!”

“No!” both parents furrowed and directed. Lexa winked at her brother.

All too soon, she was part of the panorama of her family, she was included once again, swallowed whole by them and loved even more for it. As much as she’d fled from it, she found that returning was a bitter kind of gentleness that she craved and gorged upon until it would make her sick.

Her brother handed her a cup while her father sat at the end of the table and realized how great of a day it was going to be.

“Well, I’d say that was a successful chat up,” Lexa swallowed and turned her head to look at the girl who tried to catch her breath beside her.

“I just slept with royalty. What the hell did I just do?”

“Deep breath,” the princess chuckled. “Just the spare.”

“I don’t usually do this.”

“Me neither.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t. Ask Gus. He’ll tell you.”

“I never do this,” Clarke turned her head and looked at the profile of the girl in her bed.

Lexa felt her eyes and met them with a smile before pushing the hair from Clarke’s face, a sweet gesture that did not go unnoticed by the doctor. The tiny back room that became the acting medical advisor’s quarters was bare, lit only by the light that snuck in through the windows near the ceiling. Slowly, she ran her hands down the doctor’s neck and to her chest. She earned a turn, earned a leg slipped between her own, pulling her closer.

“Save me a seat when I get back?”

“Getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been known to do that, yeah.”

With gentle fingertips moving up and down her back, Clarke closed her eyes and smiled, amused at herself. The pilot smelled like soap and summer, with the salt of sweat and the beach behind them lingering on her neck and skin.

“What brings a pretty girl like you to a place like this?” Lexa asked again. She smiled as hips pressed against her and lips trailed under her chin.

“Let me deflect.”

“Come on.”

Despite the hour, Lexa was eager to hear the answer. Everyone had a story for that question, and it said more about them than anything else. She felt hands on her hips, felt them grow restless with thoughts brewing. With a long, deep sigh, she heard Clarke start.

“I was in my second year of residency when this started. My professor, she was my godmother. She was here training students who were kicked out of school because of the fighting. She was killed in the first year, and I came down as soon as I finished. Been here nearly two years.”

“And you built all of this?”

“Most I was triaging at first. I got some time in up front. And then I was training. And then it was getting hospitals re-established.”

“Now?”

“Now I just sleep with helicopter pilots who buy me a drink.” Lexa didn’t care about much, except kissing her again, because she could. It felt nice. The thin sheet tangled up with their legs. “You kiss really good.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m heading back in a few months. I’m going to miss it here, is that weird?”

“Not at all.”

Lexa dipped her head and kissed the doctor again, because she could, because it felt nice. Her hip pressed against Clarke’s, and she felt palms ghosting over the scratches of her ribs and back. Cool in the hot summer midnight, the hands grabbed and held tighter as the kiss got deeper, mingling with words and thoughts and distracting each other from thinking too much.

“Tell me about the wedding,” Clarke decided, changing the subject away from her own worries. “Everyone here is excited.”

“We should keep kissing.”

“I’m enjoying it,” she nipped at lips and dragged nails down naked chest. “I’m deflecting.”

“There will be a big ceremony in St. Luke’s.”

“Oh, that little venue.”

“You’ve been?”

“Once, on a field trip. Did you know you can fit the entire Remembrance Memorial in it, four times?”

“I did know that,” Lexa chuckled and propped her head up on her hand, lazily running her hands against Clarke’s chest. “I have to wear a fancy dress. They’ll put makeup on my tattoo. And with any luck, in a year, I will be farther away from taking the throne.”

“A baby?”

“Hopefully.”

“You never told me why the call sign Wolf.”

“To make me sound tough to pretty girls in dive bars,” Lexa shrugged, toying with nipple, letting her fingers circle it lethargically, with little motivation other than she could and she wanted nothing else.

“Tell me.”

“You’re demanding. Normally, you can be convicted of treason for not at least adding your highness.”

“I couldn’t let something like that go to your head, in bed.”

“Fair enough,” she chuckled and sighed. “Haven’t you ever heard the story of my family?”

“The myth you mean?” Clarke corrected, pushing her chest out against her will, needing more of the touches. She moved against the thigh between her legs and pieced together Lexa’s face in the candles.

“It’s not a myth. Wolveshire Palace. The coat of arms. Wolfrik the Great.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Before the oceans were salty, before the mountains shrunk, people and animals were the same. We come from the great leaders of the wolf clan, animals that were six times as large as ones we have now. They said we lost the magic eventually, that let us change back and forth, but the truth is, we still have it. My grandfather said his father used to transform and run through the woods, across the country, and wake up on the border.”

“So you want me to believe you’re werewolves.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m ridiculous?” Clarke scoffed.

“We are descended from wolves. They say the wolves were born right from the earth itself. I kind of like that idea.”

“It’s cute.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Transform into a wolf.”

“I’ve never done it. I think each generation it gets harder. It’s a nice story, isn’t it?”

“I think you should show me how close you can get to being a wolf,” Clarke growled, sucking on the bare neck in response to nails skating down her side and cupping her teasingly. “Right now.”

“That story never got me laid before.”

“I’m a fan of fairytales.”

“I see that,” Lexa grinned as she bit jaw and kissed a trail lower.

Not one thing changed in her bedroom. Not one stitch was out of order, though Lexa knew it was completely cleaned and meticulously placed back in its proper order. With a sad kind of sigh, the returning occupant ran her fingers over the petals of the fresh lavender bouquet she knew her mother prepared herself that very morning, more than likely.

It felt like home.

With a deep breath, she held it all in her lungs and tossed her hat on the table before placing her bag on the couch. She unbuttoned her top button before hurrying to shed the rest of her camouflage shirt, as it suddenly felt stifling in the setting of her bedroom.

She ran her hand into her hair and remembered the feeling of Clarke tugging at it. In a flash she remembered all of it and swallowed. Just twenty-four hours ago, and she was pulling herself out of the tiny bed in the back of the supply office, away from the girl at the bar.

“Mom is going to kill you,” Anya interrupted her thoughts, quietly closing the door behind her.

“For what?”

“A tattoo?” her sister pointed at her ribs as Lexa tossed her shirt, leaving her in nothing more than a bra in her own room. “Two tattoos?”

“She’ll never know.”

“She always knows,” Anya rolled her eyes.

“I thought you had a security council meeting.”

“You were over there. Brief me.”

“There’s not one story from over there that I’d want to tell you about,” she shook her head. “I’m going to shower.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

“Not really. I’m home.”

Anya debated, but didn’t say anything else. Instead, she crossed her legs and draped herself over the couch, running her fingers over her mouth, the studious kind of way her father could be found mulling in his study. She listened to her sister move around the room behind her, propped her head up on her chin and absently perused the bunch of fresh flowers that reminded her of the summer house in the country, when they were twelve and eight and would run through the fields until they thought they were lost.

Without another word, Lexa turned the shower on in the adjoining room. Anya surveyed the duffle bag, the camo and the uniform. She didn’t have much time.

“You should stay home,” Anya decided, walking into the bathroom as her sister showered.

“I had more privacy in a tent,” Lexa grumbled.

“We miss you.”

“Can we do the whole sibling bonding after my shower?” Lexa asked, sticking her head out, shampoo slipping into her eye, making her squint.

Even sitting on the toilet, legs crossed and body sublimely languid, her sister looked regal, as if she truly were bred to always hold that kind of grace. Their mother was beautiful, was demure and sophisticated, with her pointed chin, and gentle jaw, polite brown eyes and porcelain skin. Anya followed her tradition, with dainty wrists and soft curves. Tall and with a stern glare, her sister was her favorite person on the planet, though moments like this tried her sisterly devotion. Beautiful and sitting on a toilet, disrupting her shower, Lexa smiled despite it, genuinely happy to have this problem.

“Have lunch with me and Bellamy.”

“Is that still happening?” Lexa teased, returning to the water.

“It’s a small wedding,” Anya dismissed it, waving her hand, smiling at her own disinterest in marriage. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I literally just walked in the door. I don’t have plans.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to tell me what I’ve missed?” Lexa sighed at the sing song nature of her sister’s return.

By the time she grabbed a towel, Lexa learned that the family was traveling in the new year. She learned that she was lucky enough to miss it. That her sister was running out of reasons to put off marrying Bellamy. Together since they were eleven, a perfect match in every way, the future ruler was most afraid of love, though she couldn’t admit it. She found out that her brother got caught smoking weed because he caught a four century old tapestry on fire. That news only made both sisters remember when got caught by leaving roaches in the bottom of a vase gifted to their family by a country that didn’t even exist any longer a thousand years ago.

“You’re different,” Anya accused, meeting her sister’s eyes through the mirror as she adjusted her make up. Lexa toweled at her hair and balked at the suggestion.

“What?”

Anya pushed on the bruise on Lexa’s neck, earning a wince and guilty smile.

“The makeup washed off, punk.”

“Just a bruise from the straps in the copter,” Lexa trailed off, stretching her neck and gently touching the bruise herself before sighing and walking into her bedroom.

It took a few more minutes, but her sister finished adjusting her eye shadow and followed. Lexa rummaged in a drawer and pulled on her pants.

“What?” the younger sister sighed as she pulled on a shirt. “Come on. Out with it. I shouldn’t be out drinking in public. I shouldn’t give in and sleep with someone--”

“I was going to ask about her.”

“Oh.”

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Delicately, Anya walked the thin line of trying to be there for her sister and not pressing her buttons.

If there was anything she knew about Lexa, it was that holding in the secret of Costia for so long made her almost unable to tell the truth, or at least, unable to know how to do it. The only reason she ran away was because of her mother’s reaction, and Anya hated that. But this Lexa, the one that returned, she was free, light even, with the gift of being exactly who she wanted to be.

Lexa was quiet, reserved. Anya knew it, and she worked hard at her in the gentlest way possible. If she had to describe it, she’d say getting information from Lexa was like assembling a ship in a bottle. Tedious and delicate work.

“Yeah,” Lexa smiled dreamily.

“You big nerd.”

“She’s… gorgeous, Anya. She has these eyes, and this… personality.”

“Do you mean personality? Or personality?” she made a movement in front of her chest, earning a pillow as Lexa flopped down on her bed.

“I seriously felt like such a loser the other night, chatting her up. I didn’t know what I was doing, but she kind of enjoyed it I think. It just happened.”

“You can be charming without meaning to.”

“It was a good night. She’s a doctor. Super smart. And funny.”

“Sometimes that’s how it happens,” Anya shrugged. “Are you going to see her again?”

“Do you think she’d want to see me again?”

“I don’t know. Did you tell her you’d see her again?”

“Yeah, but it was kind of off-handed, like when I get back, maybe I’ll see you around. How do you take anything seriously when that place is so removed from the world? Everything feels like it never happened. Everything feels so fleeting. Every day is a new slate, which sounds great, but it’s… draining.”

To her credit, the oldest tried to figure out that feeling, to understand the impossible to articulate. Mostly, she just wanted to help her sister with a girl because that was much easier than peace in their time.

“Do you want to?”

“Yeah.” She sighed and turned her head to find her big sister smiling.

“You’re seriously hopeless.”

“Mom won’t be happy.”

“She’s… been working on herself the past few months. I think you’ll be surprised,” Anya offered as she grabbed her phone and checked it. “I have to go, but we’re not done talking about this. I want to know more. Come to lunch.”

“I’ll see you tonight.”

“Fine.”

“I’m going to see Dad for lunch.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“Why would I be mad? You would rather hang out with Dad than me. It’s fine,” she feigned disappointment. “Maybe we’ll go grab some drinks tonight,” Anya smirked.

Lexa felt her cheeks flush before the realization of what Anya would spend her resources for the day investigating came to her and she shot out of bed.

The crowd yelled and shouted as they made their way into the store, but Lexa barely heard them. Her mother waved and smiled, did it all well enough. Even though it was late, well after the normal hours, they stayed open. Lexa wasn’t one for the spotlight if it could be avoided. She was barely one for time with her mother lately, but if the queen could try, then so could she.

“I don’t know what to get your father.”

“Don’t take my idea.”

“You get him a tie every year.”

“And he always says he needs them,” Lexa teased, holding the door for her to the department store.

“You have it easy. He’s so particular on his birthday and getting gifts.”

“Set the bar low and ride it.”

“How charming,” the queen rolled her eyes as she pulled off her gloves.

Empty except for a few shop girls and the secret service, the two perused uninterrupted, finding a kind of safe stillness between them where they avoided anything more than easy topics.

It didn’t hurt that things were different now. Before she left, there had been a tenseness with her mother. There was this quiet war that lingered. And then Lexa left, for the first time in her life honest, and told it would never be known. But her mother wrote her letters, as old fashioned as it had been. Words that she could never say, and now they shopped.

“I met this girl,” Lexa stated after an hour of chatter. She held up the ties in the mirror and debated which her father would like more. “I met a girl. Once. I met her once.”

“Oh?” her mother did her best to hide the startling tint to her voice. She thought she’d have time to prepare. She did her best.

“She went to Mammoth.”

“That’s a good school.”

“I know.”

“Your grandmother went there.”

“That’s what I said,” Lexa laughed, picking up two different colors. Her mother watched her debate and try again.

“Well, tell me about her.”

“It was just once. But I can’t stop thinking about her,” her daughter furrowed, both at the decision and the confession. “I mean. Maybe it was just the night. But. I don’t know. I liked talking to her.”

“It’s okay for you to ask her out.”

“Mom,” she groaned, making a weird face in the mirror. “I don’t… I don’t know. It’s not that simple.”

“I just mean that if you’re holding yourself back because of my reaction, you shouldn’t. I support you. Whatever makes you happy, honey.”

“I know, I know.”

“The yellow one, I think.”

“Yeah, that’s the one I like, too,” Lexa decided, holding the first one she picked up once more.

For a moment, the queen stood in the men’s department and watched her daughter politely smile and give her pick to the girl who waited on them. As a kid there were days when she was unsure where Lexa came from. Anya was easy. She needed her mother. And then Lexa came and didn’t need anyone or anything. She ran barefoot through the halls and fought brushing her hair, bore her duty and chomped at the bit, fighting against it in tiny ways. She was never her mother’s, and she was never her father’s. It often left the queen at a loss.

“I do only want you to be happy, you know that, don’t you?” the mother finally asked when her daughter caught her staring, thoughtful. “You have to know that.”

“I know,” Lexa nodded, eyes on fire and fearless. “I can take some getting used to.”

“You’re my favorite, did you know that?”

“I’m sure the other two have heard the same thing.”

“I know it’s a joke, but you’re the only one I ever think I mean it when I say it.”

“I’m not mad about before, Mom.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“You’re my daughter,” she balked at the question. “I should have… I should have been more understanding. Tried harder. I guess… I just have so many years, my whole life, actually, is about the proper way to do things. I never questioned it. You’ve been questioning everything since the day you were born.”

“I should thank you though,” Lexa fiddled with a tie, straightening it it back to the position. “If everything went smoothly, I wouldn’t have found this job I love.”

“Then I did it on purpose,” the queen decided, bowing to the imaginary crowd.

“We’ll go with that,” her daughter acquiesced before linking their arms. “Now pick out what you want me to get you.”

“Tell me about this girl.��

Even across the globe, the wedding was seen as a grand affair, warranting half of a holiday and half of a celebration for a party. Not much else was done for the day, though the flags were strung up and the bars were full.

Clarke made her way out into the city to her favorite café, oddly afraid to look at the television. She connected to the ancient internet and attempted to respond to emails she’d been avoiding. Something about a certain night just a week ago made her feel different, made her feel very disinterested in plans for the future. But her time was coming to an end, and she would have to get on a plane, and so plans had to be made.

In the little shop, on the tiny television, she looked up every so often from the emails she attempted to reply to, and allowed herself a few seconds of thinking of the helicopter pilot who had the eyes of the planet on her at that very moment.

So very far removed from their place, the room, that night, the princess stood primly before her sister marched down the aisle. With a small smile to herself, the doctor went back to her emails.

For the life of her, Lexa could never imagine a day in which her father was off limits. Whenever he was in the country, he never went a day without seeing his children, stealing as long as he could with them whenever he could. And that was what she always remembered as a child.

“You’ve been busy since you’ve been back,” the king observed. The city sprawled out sleepily before them, decked in its gayest apparel.

“Anya’s been dragging me around getting ready. There’s a lot that goes into getting married apparently. She didn’t get the memo on the whole heir and spare thing.”

“You know I hate when you call yourself that.”

“As much as when I call Aden spare squared?”

“Just about,” her father grumbled.

She had a secret weapon though, something he couldn’t resist, and so she pouted slightly and grabbed his arm, holding it to her against the weather. Sometimes she let herself pretend she was the favorite. She knew it didn’t exist, that each of them had their own special things with their father. It didn’t matter.

In the middle of the city, with security trialing behind and ahead, Lexa dug her nose into her father’s shoulder and inhaled the smell that was him, that was bore into his clothes.

“So do you want to tell me why I had to give away your cousin’s box seats to the Championship next week or should I just guess?” His daughter chuckled.

“I let someone beat me at a bar.”

“Let them?”

“They deserve to be at the game,” Lexa amended.

“As long as they deserve it.”

It wasn’t planned, that they strolled together. Both were prone to sleeplessness and wandering minds. Both were unable to fight it. Both found each other sneaking out.

“You keep safe out there, don’t you?” the king asked, kissing his daughter’s head.

“I’m good at my job.”

“I mean when you’re out in public. You’re safe? Gus does a good job?”

“I’m very safe,” she promised. “All of the time.”

“You know that I just want you to be happy, right?”

“You know I just want that for you too,” she offered, earning a chuckle from her father. “I’m happy. Happy as I can be, I think.”

“I’m glad you’re home.”

“Mom hasn’t scheduled me to do anything has she?”

“Oh, honey, you know better than that.” With a resigned growl of complaint, Lexa let her head drop and her father tug her along down the sidewalk. “Your mother mentioned something about a girl you met?”

“I think I liked it better when she hated the idea of me with anyone,” Lexa sighed, earning a kiss on the top of her head.

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minigiantsgiantblog · 8 years ago

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Index Astartes - Black Ronin (Written form)

“I’ll give you the answer to the question “What is most important to the heart of the Emperor?” The answer is, “To desire with one’s very soul every second of every day to accomplish His aim.””

Origins Created during the sixth founding of the Adeptus Astartes, the Black Ronin have earned a reputation as courageous and just guardians of the Imperium in the millennia since their inception. The Adeptus Mechanicus birthed the nascent Chapter from the gene-legacy of the Iron Snakes, and it is said that extra care was taken when selecting the progenoid glands. No risk was taken for there assignment would be of the upmost importance. Some within the Adepts Mechanicus have made unverifiable claims that many usable progenoid glands were dispossed of in the effort to create the purest chapter possible.

Founded to defend the Ouroborus stars from those that seek to harness its energy to the detriment of the Imperium. The Ouroborus stars consist of three Rubidium based white dwarfs stuck in a equilibrium state with one another, constantly tearing material from one another. The intrinsic forces between them breaks the universes rule of motion, creating negative mass. While the Mechanicus has so far failed to harness such energy, it was determined that the enemies of the Imperium could not be allowed to try. For if they did, the fate of the universe would lie in the balance.

The Chapter’s first Master was an Iron Snake by the name of Pheus. He was known to his men as ‘the Blademaster’, and was possessed with extraordinary skill and talent with the sword, an expert in using his blade to defend the Imperium from those that seek to tear it down. When given command of the nascent Chapter, he bestowed the name ‘Black Ronin’ upon it, inspired by the events that unfolded upon Otera during the Horus Heresy. Hoping the name would inspire the same sacrifice and honour in his warriors.

Forty Seven Blackshields “During one of the darkest parts of the Horus Heresy, Praetor Setesh of the XVth Legion, one of Magnus’ highest military officials was ordered to occupy the planet Otera, where they were tasked with locating the Kawari Kabuto Helm, a mighty artefact capable to turning the tide of the great events that were unfolding around them, an artefact Ahriman himself had narrowed down to the planet. Setesh’s secondary objective was to unravel the Ouroborus stars, and to determine the likelihood that they could be harnessed.

Planetary governor Asano Naganori, the Daimyo of the Planet was assigned in name only to assist the Praetor in any way possible. The meagre gifts Asano Naganori had presented did very little to soften Setesh presence in his lands. Asano Naganori had become deeply insulted by this but what was he to do, for he could not stand up to the might of these imposing giants clad in impenetrable armour, and capable of turning rock into dust with just their hands. No matter Asano Naganori’s approach, Setesh remained un-cooperative and scornful of Asano Naganori’s manners.

On the day Setesh learned that Asano Naganori was the only inhabitant to know of the whereabouts of the ancient helm they seeked, Asano Naganori only response to being asked where they were to find it was “You should have found out long ago, I am too busy to help you now.”

With his pride and his patience goaded beyond endurance, Setesh drew his sword in anger, lashing out and scaring Asano Naganori across his face before he restrained himself. For the crime of withholding information Asano Naganori was condemned to torture before being executing. However before Asano Naganori was able to be tortured, he enacted seppuku, or ritual suicide. That very day he forfeited his life, in belief it would be saving billions.

Whispers and gossip quickly carried the news of Asano Naganori’s death and the great sacrifice he had made for the Emperor. The situation was serious. Not only was their governor dead, but his lands and holdings were overrun and controlled by the fifteenth legion. The local inhabitants had lost all hope of this nightmare ending, with the little of what remained being in the prayers that the emperor would deliver them from evil. There prayers were not long answered.

An Imperial vessel carrying Legionnaires still loyal to the Emperor crash landed on the planet. Setesh redeployed some of his troops under his command from searching for the artefact to intercept the threat these new arrivals posed.

Giants clad in adamantium, scorched in fire, these soldiers loyal to the Emperor were outgunned, outnumber, and out positioned. There arrival at first seemed nothing more than arriving for their death. While many perished a small group managed to survive thanks to the bravery a handful of natives acting upon the honour and death of Asano Naganori.

Their survival drastically improved when news came through that the XVth legion was to withdraw and redeploy. While a blessing in disguise, from that news it was clear that Setesh had found the Helm and was preparing to deliver it right into the hands of Magnus himself.

This is where the remaining survivors of the crash, all forty seven of them prepared to lay down their lives to continue to give what remained of the Imperium a fighting chance to survive and repel the traitors they once called brothers. As snow sifted down on the evening before Setesh’s departure, the forty-seven Legionairres clad in armour as black as smoke met outside Tengu, then Oteras capital, and prepared for their attack. With information gathered from the native servants and artisans that had spied on Setesh.

Setesh garrisoned inside the Ninna-ji temple, the largest in the city. The black marines made their way through the city under the cover of darkness. Encountering very little resistance, the made their way up the temple until they finally made it to Setesh’s chamber. The marines clad in black made light work of Seteshs personal guard waiting outside his room. Inside Setesh unprepared to face any challenger in combat was still no easy challenge. One blackshield stepped forward and bought his sword down upon him for him to only parry it away with his strength and speed. The dual raged on between these two wrecking the room and destroying what would be now priceless relics. It was only when the two were held even with their blades was the Black Legionnaire able to grab Asano Naganori’s seppuku blade with their free hand and slice Seteshs throat. The Tyrant of Otera was slain

By the time of Setesh’s timely demise, Legionnaires under his command had organised and begun to repel the assault. Knowing there was no way of survival forty six Legionairres prepared to lay down their lives so one of their own could make it out of the city with the Helm, and hide it somewhere no one could possibly find it. It is said that one Legionnaire walked for thousands of miles to defend the Imperium. The XVth legion never found the surviving blackshield, nor the helm but it was not long without an established command, they received orders to leave. No Legionnaire loyal to Horus ever stepped foot on Otera ever again.”

Homeworld

Otera, homeworld of the Black Ronin is classified as a ? or feudal world in the Ouroborus system of the Ultima Segmentum. A small and impoverished world the primitive human population live on and cultivate small hilly areas. Upon the founding of the Black Ronin, the Oterans had only just begun to utilise black powder weaponry.

Otera’s settlements are surrounded by a sea of forests that are home to terrifying Wyrms. These beasts frequently descend upon and raze these villages to the ground. As a result Otera’s feudal nobility is heavily militarised. The warrior nobility that rules the planet have remained firmly traditionalist and prefer to engage in combat with their finely crafted curved, single-edged blades with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. In fact many of the elders’ tales spoke of great soldiers slaying the Wyrms with those very blades. What they knew though is that these Wyrms were nothing in comparison to the Wyrms that roam the Scorch.

Otera was located in Orbit around the Ouroborus stars. The Ouroborus stars are three Rubidium based white dwarfs stuck in a equilibrium state with one another, constantly tearing material from one another. The extreme gravitational energy being constantly released between them as long since prevented Otera from spinning on its Axis. Unlike its dark side, which is covered in vibrant forests, and snow-capped mountains, the side of the planet constantly exposed to the Ouroborus stars would be classified as a Death World, rightly referred to as the Scorch. An Arid landscape with sun baked earth, and no living organism apart from the Mighty Fire Wyrms.

The Ronins Fortress Monastery Tengu is built on top of and into the largest mountain on the planet; a stratovolcano that on a clear day can be seen from across the entire planet. For the natives Tengu’s mountain is the third and final holy mountain. Upon being selected to join the Ronin, an initiate’s very first test before they may enter the hallowed halls of the Ronin, one must climb the mountain.

Records suggest that Otera has only ever raised one regiment for the Astra Militarium. The 1st Oteran Light Infantry Regiment, known as the Ashigaru for there light of foot. The data banks on Terra reference only one campaign the regiment was involved in, the Coral Heights campaign. The Light Infantry managed to climb the mountainous passes on Ghof to secure a foothold for the siege regiments to use as a platform before the final assault. It is assumed that after the succesful reclaiming of Coral Heights for the Imperium, the 1st Oteran’s were folded into another regiment.

Recruitment

New Black Ronin initiates are recruited from the warrior nobility of the native humans on Otera. Apothecaries wonder from Tengu from time to time to immerse themselves amongst the inhabitants of their feudal world. Challenging the nobles children sword duels. Invariably, of course, the gene-enhanced Ronin will emerge victorious. Those that display the virtues of the Black Ronin will be taken as their prize, back to the halls of Tengu; a great honour for the nobles of Otera. As a sign of respect between the Oterans and the Ronin, the young noble shall present their sword as gift out of respect between the bond they already share. From there they will undertake the many gruelling trials to become an Astartes.

The Apothecaries keep an ever vigilant and watchful eye over Otera, for if a native was to ever slay a Wyrm, the Ronin shall descend to collect the warrior, and deliver him from death by giving him the chance to serve the chapter.

Once an initiate has passed all of the preliminary trials, and prior to starting hypnotherapy as part of their transformation into a weapon of the Emperor, they are required to undertake the Test of Honour. If they return to Tengu successful, they are accepted into the ranks of the Black Ronin with open arms, and the remaining procedures are undergone to turn the recruit into a fully-fledged warrior of the Emperor.

The Test of Honour is is a unique undetaking by Black Ronin initiates. With their family sword returned to them having been reinforced by the Chapters artificers, they a thrown into the wilderness of Otera tasked with saving a village from a deadly Wyrm. To defeat the Wyrm the Black Ronin believe at their stage of transformation they must display the five qualities; loyalty, courage, veracity, compassion, and honour. How an Initiate slays the Wyrm is entirely individual, some inspire a cohort of Ashigaru to assist them, whilst some are inspired by feats of great martial prowess. Whatever happens the Apothecaries are always watching. Those that slay the Wyrm without exhibiting the qualities, are assigned to the tenth clan to become the chapters scouts.

Battlefield Doctrine

Black Ronin have continued in the style of their first SeiiTaisho, preferring close combat over ranged warfare. This is further emphasised by the fanaticism of the Aonisaibushi, whose righteous ferver makes them impulsive and headstrong.

When making war, the Ronin will focus on one of two forms of combat. The first is orbital assault; where the Clan will use its drop pods and Thunderhawk gunships to perform a mass-landing in the wake of a heavy orbital bombardment. If resistance is still strong after this, the Ronin will land their heavy armour and launch an armoured spearhead against the weakest link in the enemy’s defensive line, using a multitude of Land Raider patterns.

As part of their dedication to the Emperor and their mission, the Black Ronin swear fell oaths of faith and protection. Before a battle, it is considered customary to renew one of these oaths, the particular vow serving as a focus on the particular aspect of their duties considered to be necessary to ensure success.

The Chapter’s armoury was noted to consist mostly of older-style suits of Power Armor and weaponary, a majority of which has proven particularly difficult to identify. What can be said is that each piece is increbibly ornate, the Ronin claimed they rivalled the works of art produced by the Salamanders chapter. Some reports even spoke of some nobles on Otera possessing a suit of armour worn by one of the original forty seven blackshields in the hope that one day one of their family will be selected to join the ranks of the Astartes and don their ancient heirloom.

Chapter Organisation

The Black Ronin have a unique structure that is notably different from a standard Codex Chapter. Rather than 10 companies of 100 marines, the Ronin consist of 10 Clans of varying strengths. Each Clan is based in Tengu, the Ronin’s Fortress-monastery and is led by a Daimyo, who answers only to the Seii Taisho.

Each Clan is a fully self-contained army, with all the troops, vehicles and equipment necessary to make war, as well as the spacecraft necessary to transport itself. They each have their own forges and customs. The size of each Clan is unknown but the Black Ronin is said to be one of the smaller Astartes chapters. As each Clan serves as an independent army, they maintain a much greater number of troops as opposed to codex companies.

Each Clan is made of a number of Space Marine squads just as it is laid out in the codex. However, their tactical usage varies greatly. Each squad is unique in that it rarely, if ever, will receive reinforcements, making the higher-level squads smaller in number compared to the lowest Aonisaibushi pack. Many Aonisaibushi squads could start with as many as fifteen marines. However, losses take their toll, and by the time a Aonisaibushi squad reaches the level of Chukanbushi, normally only 9 or 10 are left. This promotion is arguably the most important the Ronin will ever receive because it also welcomes him into the folds of the Brotherhood. As they age, further losses limit the squad sizes of Seieibushi down to just five or less.

Special cases may be made in certain or even dire circumstances to this process. In some situations reinforcements may be sent to current campaigns as reinforcements. Likewise, if a Daimyo deems an individual worthy and the rest of his squad is not he may elevate a an Astartes from Aonisaibushi to Chukanbushi. Normally he will not act in such manner without consulting both his first sergeant and the current members of the unit he wishes to transfer his prospect to.

Apart from this, a Ronin may find himself under direction of a Kodenbushi or a member of the Seii Taisho’s household. Some find themselves inducted into the Chapter Priesthood, Scouts, Calvaries, or should terrible wounds take their toll they may find themselves encased within mighty Dreadnought armour.

One of the ten Clans is that of the Seii Taisho, the Black Ronin’s Chapter Master. When the former Seii Taisho dies the new Master of the Chapter is selected from the other nine remaining Daimyo. Upon selection the new Seii Taisho, immediately embarks on retaking the Test of Honour, this time though, in the Scorch. Upon a successful return the new Seii Taisho’s Clan is expanded to include the household of the Chapter’s, Librarians, Apothecaries, Scouts, Techmarines, Dreadnoughts, and Chapter Relics.

Troop Types

Unlike a typical Codex Chapter, a Neophyte of the Ronin does not begin their service as a Scout.

Aonisaibushi are Neophyte Ronin who have just finished their most basic training and initiation rites, including passing the Test of Honour. They receive armament similar to Assault Squads in other chapters – a close combat weapon and bolt pistol, but they do not normally use jump packs. Instead of being assigned to a single Clan, Aonisaibushi are instead assigned to any one of the Clans. Their role is to charge headlong into battle, expending their youthful enthusiasm for battle on the enemy and hopefully learning the lessons of war that will enable them to survive.

Chukanbushi are comparable to Tactical Squad marines in other chapters and comprise the majority of any Clan. These are Aonisaibushi who have survived the trials on the field of battle, combat experience having made them less impulsive and thus less suited as a force of pure assault. In addition to their combat duties, the Chukanbushi’s role is to watch over the Aonisaibushi, reining in the worst of their reckless behaviour, and marking out those likely for advancement.

Seieibushi are the personal retinue and bodyguard of the Daimyo commanding the Clan, roughly equivalent to the Veterans or Command Squad units used by other chapters. Seieibushi are often the most senior and experienced Ronin in the chapter, though a younger Ronin may win elevation to the Seieibushi by performing an act of exceptional valour. Seieibushi are often granted Terminator Honours, though they make less use of them than the Veterans of other chapters.

The Ronin’s Scouts are Ronin that are recruited as neophyte’s who successfully pass the Test of Honour but yet to display the five qualities; loyalty, courage, veracity, compassion, and honour, needed to be a Black Ronin. As natural loners, they are ideally suited to work alone behind enemy lines for long periods of time. Ronin’s Scouts are not assigned to any of the Clans. They instead answer directly to the Seii Taisho and are under their sole command unless assigned to a Daimyo and his company on an as-needed basis.

Like everything having to do with the black Ronin, this hierarchy is not rigid; the Ronin value loyalty, courage, veracity, compassion, and honour, over seniority, and believe in advancing each warrior according to their merits.

Command Rank

Seii Taisho: The Chapter Master of the Black Ronin, the Seii Taisho is chosen from among the Daimyo, and leads his own Clan. It is customary for the Seii Taisho to wield the bushikatagi, one of the finest blades in the Imperium, that has a shard of Saint Asano Naganori’s Seppuko blade inlaid into the hilt. The final Seii Taisho is Sanada Yukimura who had held the position for only ten years.

Daimyo: each Clan has a commander (equivalent to a Captain in other chapters), chosen from that clan’s Seieibushi. It is their duty to organise their Clan, which adopts that Daimyo’s name and sigil, and often changes its battle tactics to reflect their personality and temperament.

Chapter Cult and Belief System

The Black Ronin do not seem to venerate any Primarch above the others, giving their devotion solely to the Emperor; Providing no further evidence to the gene-seed heritage of the Iron Snakes, their founding chapter. The preservation of their core values; loyalty, courage, veracity, compassion, and honour, is the Chapters core belief. The Ronin’s devotion to these values over millenia has made them isolationists, scorning those who they believe are less pure or deviate from the Codex. When a brother of the chapter falls in battle, they will exhaust great lengths to retrieve the body, so that the lifetime of loyalty, courage, veracity, compassion, and honour, the brother has bestowed upon themselves and the chapter can be venerated and recorded by the chapters Chaplains. They are also staunch traditionalists and protectors of authority, and are quick to aid Imperial governors or cardinals faced with rebellion.

The Ronin are also strongly influenced by their unique history as guardians of the Ouroborus starsa and protectors of its human population. Pheus founded a culture based on striving for the common good, and the Ronin are proud to uphold these beliefs. Where other Space Marines are aloof, and sometimes contemptuous of the Imperium’s “lesser” mortals, most Black Ronin are used to working closely with “ordinary” people on Otera and regard any human life, no matter how seemingly insignificant, as sacred and worthy of protection.They are also harshly intolerant when they encounter less altruistic behavior – greed, selfishness, corruption – on other planets in the Imperium.

Gene-seed

The Chapter is noted for the purity of geneseed tithes which is stems from their belief in the purity of the physical and of the spiritual. Partial records of an examination by the Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus Biologis claimed a purity rate of over ninety percent. The only flagged raised was of a slightly underactive Cataelpsean Node. It could be for this reason why the eventual Seii Taisho Sanada Yukimura so easily succumbed to the manifestation of an Emperors aspect on their second Test of Honour after five days without rest.

Notable Engagements and History

Over their long and illustrious existence the Black Ronin have bestowed great honour and respect upon themselves, the Adeptus Astartes, and the God Emperor himself.

Hive Fleet Rusalka

At the end of M38 the Black Ronin were called to protect the Scylla system, from Tyranid Hive Fleet Rusalka. The Scylla system consisting of numerous oceanic worlds vital to the supply of fish and fresh water for vast areas of the Imperium, their loss could prove fatal to billions of lives. Seii Taisho Hajime Masamune’s Clan of the White Tiger along with Yasuke Hideyoshi’s Clan of the Jade Dragon were dispatched to intercept and eradicate this Xenos threat. Hajime fatefully fell to the Tyranid threat, however Yasuke Hideyoshi would earn much honour to be annointed the Seii Taisho successor. Yasuke’s killing blow fell on the sea bed of Sirens Prime, with orbital bombardment pushing the creatures to the sea bed, their brothers engaged the beasts in combat, before retreating and triggering the underwater volcano, incinerating the last of the Xenos threat.

Gothic War

With the twelfth black crusade being fought so close to their system, the Black Ronin could not help but become engulfed in the years of war Abaddon and plunged the Imperium into. They were tested to the limit when Abaddon ordered some of his commanders to attempt to harness the Ouroborus stars with that of a Blackstone Fortress. Fortunately for the Ronin the Blackstone Fortress never made it to them, for if they had, it would have found the full might of the Ronins fleet lying in wait among the wreckage of Abaddons fleets. The Ronin had deployed half of their chapter to boarding the foul ships, the battle was only won when Seii Taisho Yasuke decapitated Abaddons lieutenant with Bushikatagi in single combat. As the Black Ronin disembarked from the ships, they programmed the ships to fly directly into the centre of the Ouroborus stars, where any hope of salvage was lost as their gravitational forces, to this day continue to tear them apart.

Ouroborus Perdition

COMING SOO

#40K #40000 #warhammer 40k #wh 40k #warhammer 40000 #adeptus astartes #space marines #Imperium #index astartes #fanfiction

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tragicbooks · 8 years ago

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17 delicious foods you can thank immigrants for.

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Immigrants are in the spotlight lately. And not in the good, Patti LuPone/Audra McDonald duet kind of way.

LuPone (left) and McDonald (right). Photo by Drama League/Flickr.

As promised, the Trump administration is advancing its plans to boot millions of immigrants from the United States — and reviving its order to stop them from coming here in the first place.

To hear all your Sean Spicers, your Stephen Millers, and your Kellyanne Conways tell it, the measures are necessary to stop, well, pretty much everything bad currently happening in America — from job-stealing to crime to terrorism.

Convincing Americans that immigrants are more than the sum of their worst stereotypes means winning back some hearts and minds, but these days, it can feel futile to appeal to America's heart or its brain.

But perhaps — perhaps America's stomach is still willing to listen.

Immigrants don't only make America great; they make it delicious. The people who risk their livelihoods and occasionally their lives to come here are often more than happy to share their secret recipes with us. Without them, we'd have nothing to eat ... nothing good, anyway.

Here are 17 of the top contributions to America's culinary scene by refugees, ex-pats, and immigrants.

Try not to drool on the keypad.

1. You wouldn't know about pretty much all the Chinese food you like if it weren't for refugee-turned-immigrant-turned-master chef Cecilia Chiang.

Chang and kung pao chicken. Photos by John Parra/Getty Images and Sodanie Chea/Flickr.

Chiang, who survived the Japanese invasion of China before immigrating to San Francisco in the 1960s, introduced America to the delicious, umami, stir-fried meat pile known as kung pao chicken at her restaurant, the Mandarin.

2. This giant paella wouldn't exist if chef Michael Mina hadn't moved here from Egypt.

Today was one for the books. #MinaMoments

A post shared by Michael Mina (@chefmichaelmina) on Sep 24, 2016 at 6:26pm PDT

Mina, the guy with the oar, was born in Cairo, immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Washington state, proceeded to open over a dozen restaurants in cities across the country, win a Michelin star, write a cookbook, appear on Gordon Ramsey's "Hell's Kitchen," launch a media company, and, in this photo, somehow managed to combine rice, shellfish, and nautical equipment into something so appetizing you would probably win a free T-shirt for finishing it.

3. Without lax 19th century immigration laws, America would have been denied its birthright: the Bud Light Straw-ber-Rita.

Anyone who watched this year's Super Bowl just for the commercials knows that Adolphus Busch was a hardscrabble German immigrant who trudged through miles of mud and ominously high grass to found the all-American beer company that makes the U.S. the perennial world leader in drunken high school reunion softball games.

4. You'd have to travel to an Eastern European war zone to enjoy these perogis.

Photo by Veselka/Facebook.

In 1954, Ukrainian refugees Wolodymyr and Olha Darmochawal came to New York City and founded Veselka in the East Village, serving these soul-altering fried meat, cheese, and potato pouches by the crock-load to NYU students who have crushed one too many Bud Light Lime Straw-ber-Ritas.

5. This ridiculous pulled turkey burger with Indian spices, candied bacon, and masala fries wouldn't be available in Elvis country.

Maneet Chauhan and the turkey burger. Photos by Theo Wargo/Getty Images and Chauhan Ale and Masala House/Facebook.

One great thing about being alive in 2017 is that you can find South Asian-Southern fusion sandwiches for less than $20 in the middle of the Bible Belt like it's no big deal thanks to immigrants like Indian-American chef Maneet Chauhan (you might know her as a frequent judge on "Chopped"), who opened Chauhan Ale and Masala House in Nashville in 2014.

6. We wouldn't know the gastronomic perfection that is surf and turf served over two cheese enchiladas.

Richard Sandoval and surf and turf. Photos by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images and La Hacienda/Facebook.

Before Richard Sandoval was a "Top Chef Masters" contestant, Bon Apetit Restaurateur-of-the-Year Award winner, and international food star, he was just a Mexico City kid with a dream. That dream? To put fried onions on top of steak on top of enchiladas with some lobster tail and risotto getting freaky on the side, as his La Hacienda in Scottsdale, Arizona, did on Valentine's Day 2017.

7. Anything with Huy Fong sriracha in it would have to be seasoned with a far lesser hot sauce.

Photo by Steven Depolo/Flickr.

Thanks to erstwhile humane values of decades past, America's hottest condiment was given unto us by a refugee — David Tran — who fled his native Vietnam on the ship Huy Fong in the 1970s. Had he come four-and-a-half decades later, it's likely he would have wound up in Canada and invented spicy maple syrup or whatever. (Actually, to be honest, that sounds pretty great. Please, immigrants from tropical climes living in Canada, invent spicy maple syrup.)

8. The Swedes might have chef Marcus Samuelsson's La Isla Bonita all to themselves.

Samuelsson and La Isla Bonita. Photos by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images and Red Rooster Harlem/Facebook.

With all the problems in Sweden that are totally so real that everyone knows about them, it's no wonder that Samuelsson (who was born in Ethiopia and is another frequent "Chopped" judge) skipped town for New York City, bringing his brand of soul food to Harlem's Red Rooster — including this otherworldy mashup of tres leches cake, rum, passion fruit, and banana.

9. Detroit would be bereft without its iconic chili-onion-mustard dogs.

Photo by Steven Depolo/Flickr.

The precise origin of the Michigan-favorite Coney dog has been debated for decades, but pretty much no one contests that it was invented by Greek immigrants, notably brothers Bill and Gust Keros around 1919, when they discovered — after millennia of flailing by the best chefs in the world — that the ideal condiment for meat was goopier meat.

10. You wouldn't even be able to dream about Jose Andres' ibérico bacon cristal bread uni.

Jose Andres (L) and tapas (R). Photo by Larry French/Getty Images; Jaleo/Facebook.

It's also known as coca con arizos de mar — or "expensive ham 'n fish pizza" — and Andres serves this magical creation at his D.C. tapas restaurant Jaleo. The award-winning chef, who hails from Spain, was one of several dozen who closed his restaurants on Feb. 16, 2017, in protest of the Trump administration's immigration policies.

11. Vending machines, bodegas, and gas station convenience stores nationwide would be thousands of dollars poorer without Flamin' Hot Cheetos on the shelves.

Photo by Calgary Reviews/Flickr.

More than "The Great Gatsby," more than "Rudy," even more than Katy Perry's "Roar," the story of Flamin' Hot Cheetos is the story of the American dream. Working full time as a janitor at a Cheetos factory (!), Mexican immigrant Richard Montañez took home some defective, un-dusted Cheetos after an equipment breakdown, sprinkled some chili spices on them, and presented his creation to corporate bigwigs, who promptly put them into production. The tangy corn tubelettes quickly became the company's #1 selling snack, and Montañez was promoted to executive vice present of multicultural sales and community activation, having successfully pulled himself up by his sticky-dusty bootsraps.

12. Cronuts would not be a thing.

Dominique Ansel and a cronut. Photos by Noam Galai/Getty Images and Chun Yip So/Flickr.

Assuming you could get a cronut, you would be first-born-child-level indebted to Dominique Ansel, the French-born chef who debuted the monstrously scrumptious croissant-donut hybrid in New York City in 2013. Unfortunately, four years later, you still can't get a cronut.

13. Your airport layover would be 1,000% less tolerable without this margherita pizza from Wolfgang Puck Express.

Puck and pizza. Photos by Michael Kovac/Getty Images and Jeff Christiansen/Flickr.

Stuck in Downtown Disney World or delayed getting back to Milwaukee? You could do a lot worse than this gorgeous bubbly cheese pie by Puck, Austria's greatest gift to America since the toaster strudel.

14. You'd have to eat this mouthwatering soft-serve in a cup instead of a cone.

Photo by Mark Buckawicki/Wikimedia Commons.

If there's one thing certain cable news outlets will never fail to remind you, it's that Syrian immigrants are very, very, super-duper scary. Perhaps nothing in history illustrates this better than their most terrifying invention to date, the ice cream cone. The edible frozen treat vessel was created by Abe Doumar, who debuted his creation at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, the culmination of the Middle Eastern migrant's dastardly plot to improve mankind and delight children of all ages around the world forever and always.

It's not just that immigrants invent food we like to eat. They pretty much cook everything we eat too.

Roughly 20% of restaurant cooks are undocumented, and an even greater share are foreign-born — up to 75% in some cities. That means that immigrants are responsible for feeding you even the down-home comfort food you enjoy, including...

15. This cheeseburger from Hardee's...

Photo by Mr. Gray/Flickr.

16. ...this stock photo apple pie....

Photo by mali maeder/Pexels.

17. ...and this American flag sheet cake.

Photo by Eugene Kim/Flickr.

Immigrants deserve a place in America. And not just because they fill our tummies with tasty victuals.

They enrich our communities and keep our culture varied and interesting. They do the jobs most of us don't want to do. They pay hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and contribute to our economy in countless measurable and immeasurable ways.

Immigrants and refugees don't come here to get Americans fired, steal our wallets, or blow us up. Most of them come here for a better, safer, more secure life.

They make all of our lives richer — and more delicious — in the process.

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globalpeacefoundationindia · 4 years ago

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FLESH IN TRANSACTION

“Life is a gift from Divine Source and should never be for sale”- Anonymous

Where age decides the price of their body, where the term ‘consent’ is unheard of, where ‘No’ is not an answer, welcome to the underground world of sex trafficking (forced prostitution). There are two faces of India- one that is influenced by the western forces and speaks of everything polished to the core, the other is a hidden reality driven by traditional forces encircling poverty and vulnerability. So can traditions lead to trafficking and prostitution?

By Megha

20 August 2020, 08:08 am

Prostitution is a historical reality subjugated by cultural connotations. The sex industry thrives on many aspects ranging from legal to illegal prostitution. Here voluntary sex work should not be confused with forced prostitution. In India, caste-based prostitution (ex. in Perna caste) and traditional ritual prostitution (Devdasi or Jogini system) is an ongoing practice generation after generation. In states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu prepubescent girls are dedicated to a goddess or married to a village deity as Devdasi/ Jogini. The word “Devdasi” (servant of God) had a high social status in Medieval India, but the paradox today is that all these girls belong to the Poor-Dalit families. They are Religious sex-slave deeply trapped in the caste system.

YELLAMMA CULT is one such religious cult of prostitution. The poor-illiterate family of these girls sees them as a financial burden where everything, including caste, class, and gender, plays against them. In a hope to find a means of survival, they dedicate these girls as Devdasis, eventually transforming them from liability to assets. In the name of Devdasi (love-servant), they become a sex-slave of the temple for the rest of their life. In return, their families are assured regular income by the landlords.

The festivals organized in celebration of goddess Yellamma also become a place for trafficking. Around 6000 new girls are dedicated to the temple every year in a belief that they’ll be born into a higher caste in the next incarnation. They are sexually harassed by priests and later on by others. Subsequently, these girls are trafficked to Red-light districts of big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. Trafficking is synonymous with forced prostitution, sexual exploitation, and sex tourism. In over 1,000 red-light districts all over India, a quarter of the total number of prostitutes are minors. On the contrary, the Indian constitution explicitly bans human trafficking under Right against exploitation (Article 23) and protects children from sexual abuse and exploitation under POCSO Act, 2012.

Prostitution is not explicitly illegal in India. Although, activities like soliciting in a public place, owning or managing brothel, trafficking, child prostitution, pimping, etc. are illegal under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA). But unfortunately, it’s practiced rampantly in India. On an international level, India also adopted the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000. In 2018, Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection, and Rehabilitation) Bill was also passed to address failed rehabilitation.

While some take prostitution as chosen work, but for the majority, it is no choice. According to CEDPA and PRIDE, every day around 200 girls and women in India enter prostitution, 80% of them against their will (The problem: Sex Trafficking in India). The Indian penal code, 1860 penalizes child prostitution and under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, Section 370A punishes the offender for the exploitation of a trafficked minor with imprisonment of 5-7 years. Nevertheless, in rural India, it is forced upon girls by their parents and they have no conception that this would be their profession. In urban India, vulnerable girls from poor socio-economic backgrounds are often sold, kidnapped, or lured into forced prostitution under false promises of marriage and well-paid jobs. They are frequently enslaved and raped daily, suffering from severe physical and psychological trauma (Free a Girl). Furthermore, Section 372 and Section 373 of the Code awards imprisonment for buying and selling a minor for prostitution. Despite these laws, about 7,000 girls from Nepal are trafficked into India every year; some are as young as of age 9 or 10.

Today sex trafficking is a globalized, high-tech market, and predators are involved at all levels. The feeble girls/boys/trans have no choices over their bodies or sexuality and are a victim of violent fetishes of demented individuals. Their health is compromised under a vortex of disease at the cost of survival. The STDs: AIDS, HIV is the deadly price tag of this system. Mumbai is the largest flesh market in the country and its major red light areas count up to 75,000 sex workers, wherein roughly 50% carry the HIV infection. The deeply entrenched caste system in India forgets the line between religion, devotion, and prostitution. The plight of the Devadasi is evident in the religious devotion that has been exploited for commercial gains. It’s a tradition that turns children into prostitutes and their parents into pimps. Who is accountable for this sorry state of affairs?

Recently Delhi High court gave a sex racketeer 24-yr jail for forcing a minor into prostitution (Asian News International, 2020). However, several similar cases go undiscovered regardless of the set up of Anti Trafficking Cell (ATC). There is a much larger subject in question and none of these superficial laws would be effective if the depth of the issue is not addressed. Had GoI provided these poverty-stricken families with enough employment opportunities and their children with free education, they wouldn’t have been compelled to sell their souls. This never-ending vicious circle of the Devadasi system and eventual sex trafficking will continue to haunt us if coordinated efforts of NGOs, civil society, pressure groups, and international bodies are not shown in action. There is more to these girls than mere flesh, only if we look beyond.

Bibliography

Asian News International. (2020, July 23). Delhi court gives sex racketeer Sonu Punjaban 24-yr jail for forcing minor into prostitution, says 'deserves no leniency'. Firstpost .

Free a Girl. (n.d.). Rescuing Girls from Forced Prostitution in India. Retrieved August 2020, from Global Giving: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/rescuing-girls-from-forced-prostitution-in-india/

The problem: Sex Trafficking in India. (n.d.). Retrieved August 20, 2020, from Asset India Foundation: https://assetindiafoundation.org/the-problem.php

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driftwork · 5 years ago

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a non-existant story - (three paragraphs)...

I have a no longer existing story I would like to tell in truncated version. It had a title which I have completely forgotten, and a replacement title which may be incorrectly remembered The Afterwork of an Engineer. I wrote it twenty years ago or perhaps more, over a three month period between a village in Umbria and a small town to the north-west of London. I am unsure what interested me any longer; memories, meetings and the uncertainty that my career made any sense as I flew between the USA and Europe. The memories are mixed up with fantasy and my imaginary and (as a consequence) are completely unreliable; the work itself was partly to document the work and the solitude of the engineer, which is always part of an engineers existence. It began as a story and ended up as a novel in three parts, a novella really. At the time I sent it to a couple of publishers who found it difficult and strange, it was probably a little indecipherable. At the time I didn't understand why they thought like that, only now as an ex-engineer do I understand what was meant. I accept that it has little or no value at all.

I left a copy of the story in the plan chest drawer, and a couple of un-annotated electronic copies on computers, I wondered at the time if leaving it untouched might help the story. I ignored it and let it age. Years later I found an electronic copy, which emerged from the depths of an old documents folder, like a forgotten systems specification which you look at after a few years and think that this is not dissimilar to the work you are about to embark on and wonder how much of the document is reusable. Printing it, holding it in your hands seemed like a justification, the guilt fades away (why do writers feel guilt over their texts?). I rewrite a few sentences, perhaps as many as twenty. And added a few ending paragraphs. After some discussions I took it with me over the summer on various work trips to Texas and promised to deliver the changed version in the autumn to a friend. So that summer I am working in Texas (meetings, more specifications, project management, code, financial negotiations, presentations, meetings and meetings, my Lamy pen writing and drawing on notebooks...) I felt that the story would be more cheerful if i was on a nice holiday by the sea, perhaps on the edges of an African desert, rather than in the ever-growing city of Dallas, after all it had been alone for a long time. Finally I read it again in early September, sitting outside with a baking hot wind blowing in from the west bringing in a storm, the place I was staying in was dry, windy and had weird neo-classical architectural fountains that did not in any sense belong there, I wasn't sure what was happening in the story as i read and reread it. The hotel had the soft groans of the lift which was just the other side of the wall, late at night drunken Americans would pass noisily by the door. Occasionally people would come to visit me and we'd eat in the restaurant downstairs, banal food, but the Vodka Martinis were lovely. Over the parkways was a field in which the local farmer kept some pet long horn cattle, which during the day would stand in the shade of the trees and flick their tails with contempt. I was alone most of the time when I wasn't in the office, i know that for certain and in my solitude the machines and the occasional person would speak to me. But they always failed to communicate because its impossible across such a content/expressional divide. The semiotics of presence always failed, our collective semiotics were too different, our tactics always failing. The headlights of cars passing down the all too straight roads, occasional motorbikes roaring as their light burned away the night. Often during this time I suffered from insomnia, unable to sleep I would read or flick through terrible late night TV. Reading books that I bought from large bookshops in the strip malls. Sometimes I would get up and go outside to walk around the edges of the hotels property, across the field in the pitch black, along the roads to the office buildings and mass housing estates. There was an electronic advertising board across the fields which I walked to at 3am one morning to try and decipher the advertisements. But some acts of reading are simply impossible. I received many messages during the night but few of them made any real sense. I listened and listened. Perhaps it was because of the number of messages I received that the story faded away. The new messages, some I admit were from work, but mostly they were communicated by cars driving romantically in the middle of the night to some assignation or other. Trying to decipher them, standing like a parasite listening to A and B attempting to communicate, I was the noise interfering with their communication. They were miserable messages for the most part, that was obviously certain. Hence autumn approached and it was time to leave for the final time and return home. That day there arrived with the western wind a violent storm. In the early evening there were Tornadoes a few miles to the north. Enormous clouds travelling eastwards across the plateaux, the hotel shook with the noise of the violent wind and the sounds of machinery and humans was gone. I took the novel outside and threw the pages into the wind which took them high into the sky. I have no idea why.

More than a decade has passed since then, I don't go (any longer) to engineering meetings, talking to the men and women of the liquid modern is no longer part of my everyday life. Sometimes I think of the story, it had elements of multicolored ink, like a dreamwork. It stands behind a veil that I cannot see through because its too faded and misty. There is a screen on which the text can be seem in black and white. Associated with it are the people I worked with in Plano, Texas, not that any of them exist their any longer or if they do they are not the people I knew. Either way to everyone who was there at the time I offer this no longer existing novel as a gift...

#everyday practices #fiction #everyday places

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jessicakehoe · 5 years ago

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6 Magical Holiday Markets Across Canada

It’s officially the time of year when holiday markets are popping up all around. The joyous offerings at these festive pop-ups make us want to put on our favourite ugly sweater and (try to) sing carols with friends and family over a cup of steaming hot chocolate. To help you get your cheer on, we rounded up some of the best markets across Canada where you can eat, drink, shop and be merry.

Toronto Christmas Market Toronto, Ont.

Located within the cobblestone alleys of Toronto’s Distillery District, this Christmas Market prides itself on offering loads of holiday magic and romance. With its iconic Ontario-grown Christmas tree standing tall as the centre of attention, plus the hundreds of twinkling lights, Christmas music and mistletoe, this isn’t one to be missed. Grab a delicious homemade snack from vendors like Santa’s BBQ, Schokoladen S’mores or the Wafel Bar, and browse the festive wares lining the streets. The market is open Tuesday through Sunday from November 14 to December 22.

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Yes, we know it’s September. Sorry. If Walmart has already put out holiday decorations, we’re okay to remind you that the Toronto Christmas Market is only 2 months away, right? Photo by @arjsun #curiocitytoronto

A post shared by Curiocity Toronto (@curiocitytoronto) on Sep 19, 2019 at 9:35am PDT

Vancouver Christmas Market Vancouver, B.C.

As part of the centuries-old tradition in German towns, the Vancouver Christmas Market is in its tenth year of hosting a Christkindlmarket. Celebrating German traditions and uniting them with modern Vancouver offerings, this European-inspired holiday village is decked with twinkling lights from November 20 to December 24. If the market-wide scavenger hunt doesn’t get your inner child excited, the hand-crafted gifts from local artisans and regionally sourced refreshments surely will.

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8 WEEKS TO #CHRISTMAS! 🎄 Who’s excited to celebrate the season with us? The #VanChristmas Market opens Nov 20 to Dec 24 at Jack Poole Plaza. 📷 @diaenchen2

A post shared by Vancouver Christmas Market (@vanchristmas) on Oct 29, 2019 at 8:44am PDT

Christkindl Kitchener, Ont.

Look within Ontario for more Yuletide celebrations of German origin. From December 5 to 8, wooden huts lining Kitchener’s Christkindl Outdoor Village offer goodies like butter tarts from Carla’s Cookie Box, hot mulled wine from Concordia Club, and Christmas decor, giftware, handmade clothing and more. Inside adjoining Kitchener City Hall are two floors of even more vendors (plus some warmth). Jenny & Fred’s G-Scale Model Railway is a major attraction within the market, bringing over 25,000 visitors to the train display.

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Sending you all a healthy dose of holiday cheer from the Christkindl Market in Kitchener today. Yes, that's my turkey leg. No, the dog did not lick it… even after I offered it to him. What kind of dog is that?? Thanks for the photoshoot @brian_limoyo !

A post shared by Matt Martin (@mattmartincountry) on Dec 8, 2018 at 2:46pm PST

Banff Christmas Market Banff, Alta

It’s hard to imagine a more magical location for a holiday market in Canada. Not only does the Banff Christmas Market offer classic tastings and crafts, but it does so in front of the snow-covered rocky peaks of Alberta. For two weekends in November (November 15 to 17 and November 22 to 24), enjoy the one-of-a-kind shopping experience, as well as the many scheduled activities like sleigh rides overlooking Banff National Park and outdoor bonfire lounges paired with warm beverages.

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Merry Christmas, from our magical little corner of the world. How lucky are we to spend Christmas here! We hope santa was good to you all this year! Have a wonderful holiday season. Merry merry Christmas! 🎅🏻🎄🇨🇦 📸: @joemackin

A post shared by Banff Christmas Market (@banffchristmasmarket) on Dec 25, 2018 at 5:52pm PST

Marché De Noël Allemand De Québec Québec City, Que.

Bringing to life a magical atmosphere just weeks before Christmas with twinkling lights and all the Christmas decorations you could possibly need is the Marché De Noël Allemand De Québec. The largest in the province, this German Christmas market will undoubtedly bring back some childhood nostalgia with its schedule of adult board game evenings and outdoor story times. The market also offers products from over 80 exhibitors from Québec, Germany and Europe, and runs from November 22 to December 23 in Old Québec.

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Le Marché reprend vie aujourd'hui, pour une dernière fin de semaine! #mnaq #noelallemand #quebec #villedequebec #noel #marchedenoel #christmas #allemand #magiedenoel #quebeccity

A post shared by Marché de Noël Allemand Québec (@noelallemandquebec) on Dec 20, 2018 at 5:08am PST

12 Days of Christmas Fireweed Market Whitehorse, Yukon

From December 12 to 23, a unique craft fair takes place in the Yukon. Featuring the wares of over 80 vendors, this market offers everything from arts and crafts to fresh baked goods, books and more, with a focus on Yukon handcrafted and grown items. Vendor K. Buerge of Poiema says “12 Days is a fun and welcoming venue where I love to stroll, socialize and leisurely admire local art and handcrafts.”

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we're guests again at #12daysofchristmasyxy. 📦🎅🏽. . See ya there!

A post shared by Firebean Coffee Roasters 🇨🇦 (@firebean_coffee_roasters) on Nov 20, 2018 at 5:12pm PST

The Halifax Lights Festival Halifax, N.S.

Twinkly lights are an instant emblem of the holiday season. Between November 30 and December 7, observe beautiful light displays at Halifax’s Splendour in the Park in Cornwallis Park. Don’t forget to bring your favourite family member (we’re talking about your pet!) to take a photo with Santa. Before enjoying a silent dance party, share the warmth in your heart by dropping off a donation for the Navigator Street Outreach Program.

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The #halifaxlightsfestival is looking extra pretty this evening 💜 • • • • #downtown #explorens #novascotia #downtownhalifax #dthalifax #dthali #haliwood #naturegram #halifax #exploringhalifax #naturesapparel #haligonia #myhalifax #halifaxnoise #igers_novascotia #novascotia @myhalifax_ @igers_novascotia @halifaxnoise @explorens @explorecanada #snow #snowymorning #snowday #dayoff #historicbuilding @haligonia.ca #cornwallispark

A post shared by Katie Ann 🌱 (@a.girl.and.her.curls_) on Dec 18, 2018 at 1:47pm PST

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Kim Jong Un’s Undercover Adolescent Years in Switzerland

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/kim-jong-uns-undercover-adolescent-years-in-switzerland/

Kim Jong Un’s Undercover Adolescent Years in Switzerland

João Micaelo, then the 14-year-old son of Portuguese immigrants, clearly remembered the Asian boy in a tracksuit and Nike shoes walking into 6A, a class of 22 students at his small public school in Bern,Switzerland, in 1998. The kids were already seated at their desks when the new boy was brought in and introduced as Pak Un, the son of North Korean diplomats. There was a spare seat next to João, so the new boy, who simply went by the name of Un, sat in it. The 12-year-old had a pudding-bowl haircut and the start of what would one day become a very pronounced double chin.

The pair soon became close, bonding because of their seat placement but also because neither was particularly academic. In sixth grade, classes were split into two streams, and both Un and João were sent to the group of academically weaker students. Un was embarrassed when he was called to answer questions in front of the class—not because he didn’t know the answers necessarily but because he couldn’t express himself. So João helped him with his German homework, while the newcomer helped his new friend with math. João remembers Un as quiet but said that he was very decisive and capable of making his point.

Story Continued Below

It wasn’t until years later that João and his other schoolmates from Bern realized who the new kid was: Kim Jong Un, the future leader of North Korea.

When he was announced as his father’s heir in 2010, some analysts hoped that Kim Jong Un, having spent four years in Switzerland during his formative teenage years, meant that he would be a more open-minded leader of North Korea. That he might embark on reforms that, while not turning his family’s Stalinist state into a liberal democracy, might make it a little less repressive. After all, in many ways,Kim’s time in Switzerland reveals an adolescence and education that was not so different from a typical Western one: There was a love of basketball, a curriculum that required him to learn about Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela and a wardrobe packed with brand-name tracksuits (jeans were still out of the question).

But these formative years, of which this is the most complete account to date, might have had the opposite effect on the future leader. Kim’s years in Switzerland, in which he was enrolled in both a tony private school and a small German-speaking public school, would have taught him that if he were to live in the outside world, he would have been entirely unremarkable. A nobody. Far from convincing him to change his country, these years would have shown him the necessity of perpetuating the system that had turned him and his father and grandfather into deities. The years also reveal some of the same interests and temperamental characteristics that would come to define the man who is the biggest foreign-policy thorn in the United States’ side. For instance, the same Kim Jong Un who had his uncle and half-brother killed was also known as a teenager for lashing out at his classmates when they spoke in German, a language that he had struggled to master himself.

Kim Jong Un was still very much a child when he departed for Bern, the capital of Switzerland, in the summer of 1996 to join his older brother Kim Jong Chol at school. He found himself in a chocolate-box picturesque city that that felt more like a quaint town than an international capital. Bern was famous for its clock tower, known as the Zytglogge, which had led a young patent clerk called Albert Einstein to discover the theory of relativity some 90 years earlier. Einstein, riding home from work on a tram one evening in 1905, solved the mystery of “space-time” that had been bothering him for years.

The August Kim Jong Un arrived in Switzerland, Mission Impossible was on at the movies, and Trainspotting was about to open. Top-of-the-line personal computers used floppy disks and ran on MS-DOS.

The North Korean princeling emerged from his cloistered childhood into this new, open world. It wasn’t his first time abroad—he had traveled to Europe and Japan before—but it was the first time he had lived outside the confines of the North Korean royal court.

He joined his older brother, who had been living in Liebefeld, a decidedly suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Bern, for two years with their maternal aunt, Ko Yong Suk, her husband, Ri Gang, and their three children. “We lived in a normal home and acted like a normal family. I acted like their mother,” Kim’s aunt told me when I tracked her down in the United States almost 20 years later. “Their friends would come over, and I would make them snacks. It was a very normal childhood with birthday parties and gifts and Swiss kids coming over to play.”

They spoke Korean at home and ate Korean food, and the boys’ friends didn’t know that Imo—as Jong Chol and Jong Un called her—was Korean for “Aunt,” not for “Mom.”

They enjoyed living in Europe and having money. Their family photo albums contain pictures of the future leader of North Korea swimming in the Mediterranean on the French Riviera, dining al fresco in Italy, going to Euro Disney in Paris—it wasn’t Kim Jong Un’s first trip there; his mother had already taken him a few years before—and skiing in the Swiss Alps. They relaxed at a luxury hotel in Interlaken, the swanky resort town outside Bern that is the gateway to the Jungfrau mountains and home to a famous amusement park.

All the members of the Kim family had carefully constructed identities to conceal who they really were. Ri was registered as a driver at the North Korean embassy and went by the name Pak Nam Chol. Pak is one of the most common Korean surnames after Kim. Ko, in keeping with Korean practice whereby women keep their surnames after marriage, had paperwork naming her as Chong Yong Hye.

Kim Jong Chol was officially Pak Chol, and Kim Jong Un was Pak Un. But the aliases were not new. All of them had been accredited to the North Korean mission to the United Nations in Geneva since 1991, and these diplomatic documents would have allowed them to travel freely in Europe.

Under this identity, Kim Jong Un settled in Liebefeld, where the architecture is more ’70s concrete block than Alpine village. It is not dissimilar to the brutalist style of Pyongyang. Behind the main street in an “industrial alley,” as the sign puts it, next door to a large wine trading company that looks like a monastery, is Number 10 Kirchstrasse. This was Kim Jong Un’s home while he was in Switzerland. It’s in a three-story, light-orange sandstone building surrounded by hydrangeas.

The North Korean regime had bought six apartments in the building shortly after their construction in 1989 for a price of 4 million francs—a little over $4 million at the time—for the family and some of the other North Korean dignitaries living in the Swiss capital.

The apartment was more modest than what he was used to back home, with no pictures on the walls, but the teenage Kim Jong Un had gadgets his classmates could only dream of: a mini-disc player, which was the cutting-edge way to store music in the years before iPods; a Sony PlayStation; and lots of movies that hadn’t yet been released in theaters. The few friends who went to his apartment loved watching his action films, especially those featuring Jackie Chan or the latest James Bond.

In Switzerland, Kim Jong Un could live a relatively normal existence. He joined his older brother at the International School of Berne, a private, English-language school attended by the children of diplomats and other expats in the capital. Tuition cost more than $20,000 a year.

No one batted an eyelid when Kim Jong Un, sometimes wearing the school T-shirt, complete with Swiss flag and a bear, the symbol of the capital, was delivered to school in a chauffeur-driven car. Many other diplomats’ kids arrived at school the same way.

The school, whose student population today contains about 40 nationalities, touts itself as being “perfectly situated in a neutral country.” Indeed, Switzerland, famous for its discretion about everything from bank accounts to the schooling of dictators’ children, was the ideal location for the secretive North Koreans.

When the news first emerged that Kim Jong Un would be the successor to Kim Jong Il, many former acquaintances, who had known both brothers under different names and were now unsure which one had been named the successor, reported tidbits of information that were in fact about his brother. Classmates recounted how the North Korean was introverted but was relatively fluent in English, but it turned out they were remembering the wrong North Korean, “Pak Chol” instead of “Pak Un.”

One snippet—a penchant for the action star Jean-Claude van Damme—did, however, appear to apply to the two boys, both of whom apparently loved to watch movies featuring the Belgian action star. In a coincidence that would play out later, van Damme costarred in a Hollywood movie called “Double Team” with a certain basketballer called Dennis Rodman. The film came out in 1997, while Kim Jong Un was in Switzerland.

Kim Jong Un was obsessed with basketball. He had a hoop outside the apartment and would play out there often, sometimes making more noise than the neighbors would have preferred.

Every day at 5:00 p.m., when the school bell rang, Kim Jong Un would head to the basketball courts at his school or at the high school in the nearby city of Lerbermatt, less than a 10-minute walk away. He always wore the same outfit for basketball: an authentic Chicago Bulls top with Michael Jordan’s number—23—and Bulls shorts and his Air Jordan shoes. His ball was also top of the line: a Spalding with the official mark of the NBA.

Kim’s competitive side came out on the basketball court. He could be aggressive and often indulged in trash talk. He was serious on the court, hardly ever laughing or even talking, just focused on the game. When things went badly for him, he would curse or even pound his head against the wall.

From his base in Europe, he was even able to see some of the greats. He had been to Paris to see an NBA exhibition game and had photos of himself standing with Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers.

It was his mother, Ko Yong Hui, who first sparked his interest in the sport. There’s an old tale that Korean mothers, North and South, like to tell their children: if you play basketball, you’ll grow taller.

Kim Jong Un was short as a child, and his father was not a tall man—he was only five foot three, and famously wore platform shoes to try to compensate—so Ko encouraged her son to play basketball in the hope the tale was true. He grew to be five foot seven, so maybe it worked a bit.

She was thrilled to see her son taking to basketball, a sport that she believed would help him clear his mind and loosen his childhood obsession with planes and engines. Instead, Kim Jong Un’s mother and aunt soon saw that basketball had become an addiction too—the boy was sleeping with his basketball in his bed—and one that came at the expense of his studies. His mother would visit Bern regularly to scold her son for playing too much and studying too little.

She arrived on a passport that declared her to be Chong Il Son, assigned to the North Korean mission at the United Nations in Geneva since 1987, but the Swiss knew exactly who she was. After all, she arrived in the country in a Russian-made Ilyushin 62 jet bearing the insignia of Air Koryo, the North Korean state airline. The plane, which bore the tail number P882, was for VIPs only. It even had a full bedroom onboard.

All sorts of bags and merchandise would be loaded on and off the plane, watched carefully by Swiss intelligence. They monitored Ko Yong Hui closely, keeping records of everything from her shopping expeditions on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world’s most exclusive shopping avenues, to her hospital bills at fancy private clinics on Lake Geneva.

They also knew who her children were. In private conversation, they called Kim Jong Chol “the tall, skinny one” and Kim Jong Un “the short, fat one.” But the new Swiss attorney general, Carla Del Ponte (who would later become chief prosecutor in the international criminal tribunals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda), had forbidden the Swiss authorities to monitor the children. In famously discreet Switzerland, they were allowed to just be children— even if they were the children of one of the world’s most notorious tyrants.

But two years into his stay in Switzerland, Kim Jong Un’s world was turned upside. His mother had been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer and was starting intensive medical treatment in France. Her prognosis wasn’t good.

The illness could also prove terminal for Kim Jong Un’s guardians, his maternal aunt and uncle.Their link to the regime, the relationship that had vaulted them into this privileged position, was becoming weaker by the day.

They decided to abandon their charges and make a dash for freedom.

So after nightfall on Sunday, May 17, Kim Jong Un’s aunt and uncle packed their three children into a taxi and went to the U.S. embassy. Only their oldest, who was then 14, the same age as Kim Jong Un, knew what was going to happen next.

When they arrived at the embassy, they explained that they were North Koreans, that Ko was the leader’s sister-in-law, and that they were seeking asylum in the United States. The U.S. government didn’t know at that stage who Kim Jong Un was, so Ko and Ri didn’t initially mention that part. They were granted asylum in the United States and settled down in Middle America, started a dry-cleaning store like so many other Korean immigrants and watching their children flourish in their new environment.

Kim Jong Un’s mother lived for another six years, dying in a hospital in Paris in 2004.

***

When he returned to Bern after spending the summer of 1998 in North Korea, Kim Jong Un did not go back to the private international school. Instead, he made a new start at the German-speaking public school in his neighborhood, Schule Liebefeld Steinhölzli. That way, he wouldn’t have to explain why his “parents” had changed.

The school was less than 400 yards from the apartment block where the North Koreans lived, a five-minute walk down the concrete staircase, past the supermarket and other shops, and around the traffic circle.

When Kim Jong Un attended the school, a cluster of two- and three-story functionally designed buildings, in the late 1990s, it had only 200 students and nine classes. The education department liked to have many small schools so that no student would have to travel too far each day.

When he first enrolled at the school in Liebefeld, Kim Jong Un started in a “reception” class for children who did not speak German, spending several months learning his lessons in German but at a slower pace with simpler instruction.

To find out more about what the young North Korean learned in school, I took the bus to Köniz one day and visited the municipality office. Marisa Vifian, head of the Köniz education department, pulled out a big white binder containing the school curriculum from the 1990s. There was the usual lineup of classes—German, math, science, health, foreign languages, music, art and sports—as well as units like “The World Around Us,” which taught world religions and cultures.

Once he finished in the preparatory reception class, Kim Jong Un joined the regular sixth-grade class.

While his friend João remembered Kim Jong Un as “ambitious but not aggressive,” according to an unpublished interview with a Swiss journalist, other students remember the new kid being forceful because he had trouble communicating. While lessons were in High German, the more formal variety of the language spoken in official situations in Switzerland, families and friends spoke to each other in Swiss German, former classmates recalled. This is technically a dialect, but to an outsider, it sounds so different that it may as well be Dutch. It was frustrating to Kim Jong Un, who resented his inability to understand. “He kicked us in the shins and even spat at us,” said one former classmate.

In addition to the communication problems, the other students tended to think of Kim Jong Un as a weird outsider, his school friends recall, not least because the North Korean always wore tracksuits, never jeans, the standard uniform of teenagers the world over. In North Korea, jeans are a symbol of the despised capitalists.

One classmate remembered him wearing Adidas tracksuits with three stripes down the side and the newest pair of Nike Air Jordans. The other kids in the school could only dream of having such shoes, said Nikola Kovacevic, another former classmate who often played basketball with Kim after school, estimating a pair cost more than $200 in Switzerland at the time.

A class photo from that time shows the teenagers decked out in an array of 1990s fashion, with chambray shirts and oversized sweatshirts, is assembled under a tree in the schoolyard. Kim Jong Un stands in the center of the back row wearing a tracksuit, gray and black with red piping and big red letters reading “NIKE” down the sleeve. He’s staring unsmiling at the camera.

Another photo taken around this time shows Kim with a smile, wearing a silver necklace over his black T-shirt and looking like a typical teenager. Another reveals some fuzz on his top lip and a smattering of pimples on his cheek.

As he moved into the upper years at school, Kim Jong Un improved his German enough that he was able to get by in class. Even the girl who got kicked and spat at conceded that he “thawed” over time as he became more sociable.

Still, he remained introverted. At a time when teenagers are usually pushing boundaries, Kim Jong Un was no party animal or playboy in training. He didn’t go to school camp, parties, or discos, and he didn’t touch a drop of alcohol.

Kim Jong Un “absolutely avoided contact with girls,” the former classmate said, adding that she never had a substantial conversation with him. “He was a loner and didn’t share anything about his private life.”

His test scores were never great, but Kim Jong Un went on to pass the seventh and eighth grades and was there for a part of the ninth grade at the high school, the Köniz education authorities confirmed.

The education that Kim received in Switzerland presented a very different worldview to the one he experienced in North Korea. Kim Jong Un’s lessons included human rights, women’s rights, and the development of democracy. One unit was even called “Happiness, Suffering, Life and Death.” Students learned about Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi. There was a strong emphasis on cultural diversity; religious, ethnic, and social groups; the rights of human beings; and standing in solidarity with the disadvantaged.

It’s hard to know what Kim Jong Un thought during these lessons. No such rights existed in North Korea. But this may not have been as jarring to Kim as it sounds because he had encountered very few North Koreans and almost none in situations outside of those that were carefully choreographed to show smiling citizens who beamed contentment at him. Kim could have told himself that his people didn’t need all those fine ideals because they were evidently very happy under his father’s leadership.

Anyway, Kim Jong Un didn’t stay at school for much longer.

One day, around Easter 2001, with only a couple of months to go until he completed ninth grade, Kim told Micaelo that his father had ordered him back to North Korea and that he would leave soon. He offered no explanation for his sudden recall.

Kim’s other friends received no such notice. The boy just stopped coming to school one day. Their teachers said they had no idea what happened to him either.

Just like that, Pak Un was gone. His classmates wouldn’t see him again for almost a decade, when he would appear on the balcony of a majestic building in the middle of Pyongyang with his father, having been crowned The Great Successor.

#Foreign #Politics #Switzerland #years

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erickmalpicaflores · 6 years ago

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Erik Malpica Flores Erik Malpica Flores recommends: What is Coming to Netflix in March 2019

QUEER EYE is returning to Netflix with a new season in March 2019, as is the second half of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT’s fifth season. The Netflix film THE DIRT will be a dramatization of Mötley Crüe’s autobiography, while Stella and Joel will also return for a new season of SANTA CLARITA DIET.

Related: What’s coming to Netflix Canada in March 2019?

March 1

A Clockwork Orange

Apollo 13

Budapest (FR) (Netflix Film): Two friends quit their boring jobs to start a company that plans bachelor parties in Budapest. Their wives, however, have mixed feelings about this.

Cricket Fever: Mumbai Indians (Netflix Original): In the world’s toughest cricket league, every game is a battle. Can Mumbai Indians come together and bring home another trophy?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks

Emma

Junebug

Larva Island: Season 2 (Netflix Original): A new season of hilariously zany adventures for larva pals Red and Yellow includes an invasion of their island!

Losers (Netflix Original): In a “winning is everything” society, how do we handle failure? Using sports as its guide, this documentary series examines the psychology of losing.

Music and Lyrics

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Northern Rescue (Netflix Original): After the sudden death of his wife, search and rescue commander John West relocates with his three kids to his rural hometown of Turtle Island Bay.

River’s Edge (JP) (Netflix Film): High schooler Haruna befriends loner Yamada, then is drawn into the tangled relationship between him, a model and the girl who loves him unreasonably.

Stuart Little

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Netflix Film): Inspired by a science book, 13-year-old William Kamkwamba builds a wind turbine to save his Malawian village from famine. Based on a true story.

The Hurt Locker

The Notebook

Tyson

Wet Hot American Summer

Winter’s Bone

Your Son (ES) (Netflix Film): After his son is brutally beaten outside a nightclub, a surgeon takes the law into his own hands and seeks vengeance against the perpetrators.

March 2

Romance is a Bonus Book (Korea) (Streaming Every Saturday) (Netflix Original): A gifted writer who’s the youngest editor-in-chief ever at his publishing company gets enmeshed in the life of a former copywriter desperate for a job.

March 3

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj: Volume 2 (Streaming Every Sunday) (Netflix Original): Hasan Minhaj returns with new episodes every Sunday, bringing his unique, unexpected comedic perspective to current global events and culture.

March 5

Disney’s Christopher Robin

March 6

Secret City: Under the Eagle: Season 2 (Netflix Original): Journalist Harriet Dunkley finds herself enmeshed in a conspiracy while striving to clear the name of a former cellmate accused of murder.

March 7

Doubt

The Order (Netflix Original): Out to avenge his mother’s death, a college student pledges a secret order and lands in a war between werewolves and practitioners of dark magic.

March 8

After Life (Netflix Original): Struggling to come to terms with his wife’s death, a writer for a newspaper adopts a gruff new persona in an effort to push away those trying to help.

Bangkok Love Stories: Hey You! (Netflix Original): A loving couple become rivals when Belle opens a fusion bistro next to her ex-boyfriend Kram’s traditional restaurant in Bangkok’s chic Ari district.

Bangkok Love Stories: Innocence (Netflix Original): From a teenage parkour enthusiast to a bawdy restaurateur, an eclectic group of characters find romance in Bangkok’s glittering Silom district.

Blue Jasmine

Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Netflix Original): Drivers, managers and team owners live life in the fast lane — both on and off the track during one cutthroat season of Formula 1 racing.

Hunter X Hunter (2011): Seasons 1-3

Immortals (Netflix Original): Driven by revenge, human-turned-vampire Mia sets out to vanquish Dmitry, a ruthless vampire leader who seeks an artifact that grants immortality.

Juanita (Netflix Film): Fed up with her life, Juanita leaves her grown kids behind and hits the road in search of a fresh start.

Lady J (FR) (Netflix Film): When her love affair with a lustful marquis takes a sudden turn, a wealthy widow concocts a scheme to get revenge — with help from a younger woman.

Shadow (Netflix Original): Haunted by a tragic loss, an ex-cop with a rare inability to feel pain strikes out on his own to catch offenders who’ve eluded Johannesburg police.

Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams

The Jane Austen Book Club

Walk. Ride. Rodeo. (Netflix Film): In the wake of an accident that leaves her paralyzed, a champion barrel racer is determined to get back on her horse and ride again.

March 12

Jimmy Carr: The Best of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits (Netflix Original): Jimmy Carr has gathered a selection of his very best jokes for the ultimate comedy special. A man who has devoted his life to crafting perfect gags and brutally brilliant one-liners, Jimmy’s new show distils everything we love to laugh at and be shocked by into one incredible stand-up special. Featuring clever jokes, rude jokes, and a few jokes that are totally unacceptable. Filmed at The Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, “The Best of, Ultimate, Gold, Greatest Hits” launches globally on Netflix, Tuesday, March 12th. Carr is also the host of the Netflix original show, “The Fix.”

Terrace House: Opening New Doors: Part 6 (Netflix Original): Kaito and Risako hang out with their housemates while Yui and Aio try to decide their next steps. Nothing is certain except their bonds of friendship.

March 13

Triple Frontier (Netflix Film): Struggling to make ends meet, five former U.S. soldiers set out to steal millions from a drug lord’s lair — and end up with a target on their backs.

March 15

A Separation

Arrested Development: Season 5 B (Netflix Original): As the Bluths continue to make a mess of their personal and professional lives, Michael again can’t quite abandon the family that makes him miserable.

Burn Out (FR) (Netflix Film): When his son’s mom runs afoul of Paris’s criminal underworld, a thrill-seeking superbike racer begins moonlighting as a drug courier to clear her debt.

Dry Martina (AR) (Netflix Film): An odd encounter with a fan and a tryst with that fan’s ex-boyfriend leads a sexually adventurous singer on an escapade in Chile.

Girl (BE) (Netflix Film): With the support of her father, a 15-year-old transgender girl pursues her dream of becoming a professional ballerina. Winner of the Camera d’Or for best first film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Actor Prize for Un Certain Regard, the FIPRESCI International Critics Award for Best Film (Un Certain Regard) and the Queer Palm. The feature directorial debut of Lukas Dhont, the film was written by Dhont and Angelo Tijssens, and produced by Dirk Impens (Menuet). Girl stars Victor Polster and Arieh Worthalter.

If I Hadn’t Met You (Netflix Original): Eduard, a husband and father who loses his family in a tragic accident, travels to parallel universes to seek a better fate for his beloved wife.

Kung Fu Hustle

Las muñecas de la mafia: Season 2 (Netflix Original): Lucrecia, Brenda and Olivia are once again entangled in the world of the drug lords as Janeth and Martha are introduced to its dark dangers.

Love, Death & Robots (Netflix Original): An animated anthology series presented by Tim Miller and David Fincher.

Paskal (MY) (Netflix Film): Naval unit PASKAL is among the most elite special forces in Malaysia. But all bets are off when one of its own stages a hijacking. Based on true events.

Queer Eye: Season 3 (Netflix Original): The Fab Five hit the road and head to Kansas City, Missouri, for another season of emotional makeovers and stunning transformations.

Robozuna: Season 2 (Netflix Original): Ariston, Mangle and the Freebot Fighters are back, but protecting their home gets tougher when evil Danuvia unveils a powerful robot named Dominatus.

The Lives of Others

Turn Up Charlie (Netflix Original): A down-and-out DJ plots to rebuild his music career while working as a nanny for his famous best friend’s wild 11-year-old daughter.

YooHoo to the Rescue (Netflix Original): Five cuddly pals from the magical land of YooTopia use teamwork and special gadgets to help animals in trouble and make new friends along the way!

March 16

Green Door (Netflix Original): A troubled psychologist returns from the U.S. and sets up a clinic in Taiwan, where mysterious patients and uncanny events shed light on his murky past.

March 19

Amy Schumer Growing (Netflix Original): Amy Schumer gives a refreshingly honest and hilarious take on marriage, pregnancy and personal growth in her new Netflix comedy special, Amy Schumer Growing. Filmed in front of a packed house in Chicago, the comedian talks about the joys of womanhood, settling into marital bliss, and yes also you guessed it, sex!

March 21

Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend (Netflix Original): With heart and determination, Antoine Griezmann overcame his small stature to become one of the world’s top soccer players and a World Cup champion.

March 22

Carlo & Malik (Netflix Original): A veteran homicide cop is forced to confront his own biases when he’s paired up with an Ivory Coast-born rookie on a string of murder cases in Rome.

Charlie’s Colorforms City (Netflix Original): Loveable, hilarious Charlie leads you on unpredictable and imaginative shape-filled story expeditions alongside a colorful cast of characters.

Delhi Crime (Netflix Original): As Delhi reels in the aftermath of a gang rape, a female police officer leads an eye-opening search for the culprits in this retelling of true events.

Historia de un crimen: Colosio (Netflix Original): Dramatization of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio’s 1994 assassination. Part of an anthology on unsolved crimes in Latin America.

Mirage (ES) (Netflix Film): A space-time continuum glitch allows Vera to save a boy’s life 25 years earlier, but results in the loss of her daughter, whom she fights to get back.

Most Beautiful Thing (Netflix Original): A sheltered woman moves to Rio to start a new life and a journey of self-discovery among the dreamy views of the city’s beaches and hills.

ReMastered: The Miami Showband Massacre (Netflix Original): Ambushed by Ulster loyalists, three members of the Miami Showband were killed in Northern Ireland in 1975. Was the crime linked to the government?

Selling Sunset (Netflix Original): The elite real estate brokers at the Oppenheim Group sell the luxe life to affluent buyers in LA. The drama ramps up when a new agent joins the team.

The Dirt (Netflix Film): In this dramatization of Mötley Crüe’s no-holds-barred autobiography, the band hits the monster highs and savage lows of heavy metal superstardom.

March 26

Nate Bargatze: The Tennessee Kid (Netflix Original): Comedian Nate Bargatze takes aim at the absurdity of everyday life in an approachable and deadpan stand-up set shot in Duluth, Georgia.

March 28

Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey: Season 2 (Netflix Original): The love wagon rides again! Seven strangers board the famous van on a journey through Asia in search of a ticket home to Japan with a partner.

March 29

15 August (IN) (Netflix Film): Veteran Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit turns producer for this lighthearted snapshot of life in the chawls of Mumbai.

Bayoneta (MX) (Netflix Film): A retired Mexican boxer living alone in Finland gets a shot to redeem himself in the ring, forcing him to confront his painful past in the process.

Osmosis (Netflix Original): In a near-future Paris, an app uses personal memories to decode the mysteries of love. But what happens if your memories, like all data, are subject to manipulation?

Santa Clarita Diet: Season 3 (Netflix Original): Sheila searches for meaning, Joel investigates a secret society, and Abby struggles with her feelings for Eric. Life and undeath can be so stressful.

The Highwaymen (Netflix Film): The outlaws made headlines. The lawmen made history. From director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), THE HIGHWAYMEN follows the untold true story of the legendary detectives who brought down Bonnie and Clyde. When the full force of the FBI and the latest forensic technology aren’t enough to capture the nation’s most notorious criminals, two former Texas Rangers (Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson) must rely on their gut instincts and old school skills to get the job done.

The Legend of Cocaine Island (Netflix Original): A businessman who is down on his luck hatches a plan to retrieve a mythical $2-million stash of cocaine from its reported hiding place in the Caribbean.

Traitors (Netflix Original): As World War II ends, a young English woman agrees to help an enigmatic American agent root out Russian infiltration of the British government.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

March 30

How to Get Away with Murder: Season 5

March 31

El sabor de las margaritas (Netflix Original): While investigating the disappearance of a teen girl in a tight-knit Galician town, a Civil Guard officer uncovers secrets linked to a loss of her own.

The Burial of Kojo

Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series (Netflix Original): The trailer park just got a lot weirder. Picking up where Season 12 left off — and higher than ever — the entire gang has turned into cartoons.

Last Call – Titles Rotating Off the Service in March 2019

March 1

Bruce Almighty

Fair Game – Director’s Cut

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters 2

Hostage

Pearl Harbor

The Breakfast Club

The Cider House Rules

The Gift

The Little Rascals

United 93

March 2

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Eighteenth Year

March 3

Drop Dead Diva: Seasons 1-6

March 4

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

March 5

Newsies: The Broadway Musical

March 8

March 16

Baby Mama

Charlie St. Cloud

Role Models

March 18

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

March 31

Party of Five: Seasons 1-6

The Real Ghostbusters: Seasons 1-5

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