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kjack89 · 3 years ago

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Did my dumb ass watch the season finale of Our Flag Means Death and immediately want soft pirates in all my fandoms?

You know I did.

...E/R pirate AU. Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me.

The young sailor in His Majesty’s Royal Navy tentatively set his empty tankard on the polished wooden bar of the tavern his crewmates had insisted they go to on their first stop off the ship. “Thank you,” he told the grizzled barkeep, not yet broken of his genteel ways.

The barkeep just grunted, not looking up from where he was wiping a glass, but the sailor’s eyes caught sight of the man’s tattoo, just peeking out from his shirt sleeve, and his eyes widened. “You’re a pirate,” he blurted.

Now the barkeep did look up, something almost like amusement crossing his creased face. “Well, at least I used to be,” he said before nodding at the empty tankard. “Can I get you another?”

Dumbstruck, the sailor nodded, watching as the barkeep filled his tankard and accepting it without comment, slinking back to where his crewmates were waiting. “What’s with you?” one asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“The barkeep,” the sailor said, his voice low. “He– he’s a pirate!”

The other men all glanced at the bar, instantly relaxing when they saw who it was. “Oh, him,” one said with a snort. “He was, once, but he’s nothing to worry about now.”

“Aren’t we supposed to capture or kill pirates?” the sailor asked, a little worriedly. Their orders from the Royal Navy had been fairly straightforward, after all.

But his crew mates seemed distinctly less concerned. “He’s retired,” one crewmate said. “No sense killing a man enjoying the rest of his life.”

The sailor glanced nervously at the bar again. “But how do you know he’s retired?”

“Don’t you know?” another crewmate asked, incredulous that he had apparently not heard the story. “He served on The Barricade under the Red Angel himself.”

Despite the serious way he said it, the sailor couldn't help but giggle at the name. “The Red Angel?” he repeated, though he quailed under the glares his crewmates gave him, some looking at the bar as if worried the barkeep had heard him.

“Do you not know who the Red Angel is?” one asked, his voice low and urgent. “He and his crew—“

“Les Amis,” another crew member added helpfully.

“Right, them – they terrorized the sea for years. Killed more men of His Majesty's Navy than any other crew. One sight of their red flag on the horizon caused braver men than you to abandon ship.”

“They were known for only ever attacking the richest ships,” a different crew member added. “And they could never be caught because they’d give half their takings away whenever they made landfall so no one would dare report them. It’s how he got the name Angel, too, or so I heard.”

The sailor looked at the barkeep with new respect. “Wow,” he said, taking a pull of ale. “But then shouldn’t we definitely arrest him?”

A crewmate shook his head. “Nah,” he said dismissively. “Ship went down at sea years ago, lost to cannon fire. The Red Angel and all his men perished.” He paused. “Well. All but one. Figure he's no danger by himself.”

“How’d he survive?”

The crewmate shook his head. “No one knows for sure, but I heard he fell asleep below deck with the wine and grog, and when a cannon hit the side of the ship, it blew them and him out to sea, and he wound up drifting on a barrel of wine.”

“Good riddance,” another crew mate interjected haughtily, his manner and accent indicating someone of higher birth than most of them. “I wish the sea had taken him along with his pirate brethren, scum that they were—“

“Aye,” a low growl of a voice interrupted and all the sailors froze, staring up at the barkeep, who stood behind them, smiling down at them with a horrible, twisted smile, “but then who would be here to pour your ale?”

The high born crew member let out a squeak and fell backward from his stool, scrambling to his feet as the rest of the crew laughed, though their laughs faded when they saw the barkeep was still standing at their table, still smiling that terrible smile.

"Sounds like you gentlemen have some questions," he said gruffly. "Seems I should answer them for myself, don't you think?"

Suddenly, no one seemed able to look him in the eye, everyone glancing down into their drinks. But the sailor swallowed nervously before asking, "Are you truly retired from your life of piracy?"

The barkeep looked at him and the sailor shrank back against the ferocity of his glare. Then he laughed, a full belly laugh that made him look years younger than he was. “Do you know, no one’s ever asked me that one,” he said, and some of the crew’s eyes darted between him and the pirate.

Then the barkeep shook his head. “Truth is, I have no need to pirate, lad,” he said evenly, pausing before adding, deliberately casual, “Not when they’re still out there.”

He nodded toward the window and the crew members shared confused glances before someone asked slowly, “Do you mean your crew?”

Another crew member gasped. “The Barricade?” he whispered, his eyes wide.

Murmurs broke out between the sailor and the barkeep just smiled slightly. “Oh, aye,” he said, his voice cutting through the murmurs like a knife. “What, you think a mere cannon should sink that ship?”

“But – but we’d’ve heard of The Barricade attacking someone, right?” the sailor asked, his eyes wide. “It’s been decades—”

“And how many ships have gone missing in that time under mysterious circumstances, with no crew left alive to tell their tale?” the barkeep interrupted, his lip curling. “The Red Angel hunts still, haunting the waters that they would claim him, and they say—” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “They say the last thing a sailor sees before he dies is his red flag.”

He straightened and shrugged. “Of course, it could just be a myth. But then again, you have to ask yourself, how’d I survive the sinking of The Barricade if not for a little something mythical at work?”

Most the crew stared at him, pale and quiet, and he smiled at them. “You’d best be heading back to your ship now. You wouldn’t want to be caught around these parts when night falls.”

They didn’t need a second warning, leaving their coins and their half-drunk tankards on the table and scurrying almost as one to leave the tavern and make it back to their ship. The barkeep chuckled, shaking his head as he gathered their coins.

He glanced up to see the sailor lingering in the doorway, staring at the barkeep with open curiosity in his expression. The barkeep let him stare for a moment before looking up at him and winking.

The sailor gulped and disappeared. “Oy, Grantaire, give us a drink!” someone called from the bar, and Grantaire shook his head once more before turning to head back to the bar and serve the rest of his customers.

— — — — —

Grantaire yawned as he let himself into the house that evening, grateful that the housekeeper had lit the lamps for him. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt as he headed automatically to the library on the far side of the house, facing the sea.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, watching with fond eyes as the man sitting at the desk scribbled carefully on a piece of parchment. Just as Grantaire’s hair was more salt than pepper these days, so too was the gold of the man’s hair fading to silver, tied back with a sloppy bow, though in the light of the setting sun, it still appeared as gold as it used to.

Suddenly, the man paused, lifting his head without turning around. “Grantaire?” he called, just a little hesitantly, and Grantaire smiled.

He could only imagine that if ever he were to hear the sirens like Odysseus, they would sing with Enjolras’s voice.

“Here, my love,” he said softly, and Enjolras turned, smiling as well.

“Well, are you going to come kiss me?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “Or are you going to make the blind man find you?”

Grantaire didn’t hesitate, crossing to him at once and pulling him up from his chair to kiss him properly. “Hello,” he murmured, his lips brushing against Enjolras’s.

“Hello yourself,” Enjolras said, kissing him before looping his arm through Grantaire’s. Grantaire led him over to the couch just as he had done for years now, and they sat down together, Enjolras automatically leaning back against Grantaire. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” Grantaire said with a shrug. “Mostly uneventful, save for putting the fear of ghosts into some young Navy recruits.”

Enjolras shook his head affectionately. “It’d be easier if you just poisoned them,” he said.

“They’re practically boys,” Grantaire said, a little stubbornly. “It’d be wrong to just kill them. Besides, this way some might desert and go on to spread the story of the Red Angel.”

“And with any luck, the rest will run into Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s ship,” Enjolras said, with a bit of grim satisfaction.

Grantaire just shook his head, reaching out to brush a strand of silver hair out of Enjolras’s unseeing eyes, running his fingers with gentle reverence over the burn scars that crisscrossed Enjolras’s face, the most lingering evidence of the cannon that had destroyed The Barricade and taken Enjolras’s sight with it.

Enjolras reached up, tangling his fingers with Grantaire’s before drawing his hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. “Do you ever miss it?” he asked, his voice low.

Grantaire rested his cheek against Enjolras’s head. “Miss what?”

“The sea,” Enjolras said, before adding, with a wry twist of his lips, “Piracy.”

Grantaire considered it for a moment. “Some days,” he said. “But I’d miss you more.”

Enjolras made a face. “Be serious. I know what you gave up for me. When I lost the ship—”

His voice broke, and Grantaire knew he referred not just to the ship, but to the lives they had, the friends they’d shared, and the mission that had driven Enjolras for most of his years.

Some days it was hard to say which Enjolras missed more.

“When I lost the ship and my eyes,” Enjolras continued after a moment, “I had no choice but to leave the sea. I couldn’t captain a ship anymore, not that there was a ship left to captain. But you—”

“There was never a choice for me,” Grantaire told him simply. “As much as I love the sea, I can live on land. I cannot live without you.”

Something tightened in Enjolras’s expression, and Grantaire knew that he was thinking that if their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t be able to say the same. Grantaire knew what he was thinking, because he’d had the same thought.

Once, it might’ve hurt him, to know that Enjolras didn’t feel that way, would choose the sea and piracy over him. But they’d had years together now, from stolen kisses underlight moonlight on the ship’s deck when neither man had silver in his hair, to quiet nights like this, tucked up on their island, watching crews come and go over the years.

Grantaire knew without question that while Enjolras might never have chosen it, he’d found a way to love their life, and to love Grantaire.

And to Grantaire, that would always be enough.

He nudged Enjolras companionably. “Besides,” he said, his tone turning brisk, “there are some perks to living on land.”

Enjolras barked a surprised laugh at the abrupt change in tone. “Like what?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, for starters, there’s more wine on land,” Grantaire pointed out. “Plus I can bathe with surprising frequency.”

Enjolras mock-scowled. “Grantaire.”

Grantaire laughed. “But most of all, I get to leave the tavern every day and return to you waiting for me,” he said, suddenly serious. “And as far as exchanges go, that’s one I’d take every time. Over any ship, on any sea, for any treasure. Coming home to you will always beat out.”

Enjolras shook his head but he didn’t argue further, instead leaning in to kiss Grantaire, a soft, sweet kiss. “On land, you get to come home,” he whispered, with an understanding that only could have come from their years together.

“Aye,” Grantaire said, turning to kiss Enjolras's temple. “I get to come home.”

#exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #enjolras #grantaire #les miserables #fanfiction #pirates au #blindness cw #injury cw #i don't know i just wanted soft old man pirates ok #come be soft and fragile with me #one shot #drabble

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roman-writing · 3 years ago

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the children we once were (part I)

Fandom: The Wheel of Time

Rating: G

Wordcount: 8,555

Summary: The first time Moiraine channels, she is ten years old and it is a complete accident. (set before 'kept impulse dormant')

Read it below or read it here on AO3

”The children we once were, she thought, live inside us like rings on a tree.”

-Simon Van Booy, ‘The Muse’

—

PART I: SUN

“I can’t let my sword be taken. Please, miss –”

“Lady,” Moiraine corrects him. “But right now, you will call me Ser.”

The squire quails a little more. He’s fourteen — older than her by four years — and gangly enough that he could tower over her should he straighten himself out, but he doesn’t. He holds a skinny ceremonial blade in both hands, hunched protectively over the sheathed weapon to defend it from Moiraine’s outstretched hand.

“Ser,” he says, suitably chagrined at needing to be reminded of exactly who it is he's speaking to. “I got in trouble last week talking to you.”

Hand still outstretched, Moiraine stamps her foot on the ground, and the oversize boots she wears slouch around her calves. “I don’t care.”

The squire looks near tears. He clasps the weapon to his chest like it’s his firstborn child. “Please. The Grand Ecuyer will beat me if you take it again.”

Moiraine sighs and rolls her eyes. Nevertheless, she lowers her hand. Today she has discarded her usual gowns and dresses and instead has stolen into Taringail’s rooms when he was out riding. Despite cuffing his leggings and shirtsleeves so that she can wear his clothes without stumbling, when she lowers her arm she scowls and has to lift it up again to shake her hand free of the rolled sleeve hanging beyond her wrist.

Already she has liberated the squire of his helmet and gorget, and she has belted his tabard as tightly around her waist as the polished leather belt would allow. Now they stand in a series of dingy side quarters by the royal armouries, where members of the ceremonial entourage live – heralds, pursuivants, and others Moiraine could name by heart but does not care to right this second.

Balancing the helmet beneath her arm, Moiraine jabs her finger at the nearby fireplace. “Give that to me, then.”

The squire peers around in confusion, then sees the blackened and iron-wrought fire poker leaning against the soot-streaked hearth. He slopes over, grabs it up, then returns. Nervously maintaining his distance, he holds it out towards her.

“Don’t just hand it to me like that!” she snaps. “Do it properly!”

Down he goes on one knee. For a moment he rests his sword upon the floor, notices the way Moiraine’s eyes drift towards it, then quickly traps it beneath his knee so she can’t grab it and flee.

She twists her mouth into a moue of displeasure, even as the squire lifts the poker towards her with both hands, his head bowed as though proffering a heron-marked blade to a queen. Moiraine jams the helmet atop her head, her long black curls bound loosely in a ribbon at the base of her neck. The helmet is pointed and curved like two ship’s prows joined together. The strap is too long to fit around her chin even at the tightest setting, so she lets it dangle freely and unclasped.

Reaching out, she takes the poker. The metal is warm on one side from where it had been exposed to the fire. Or perhaps it is from the overly warm sweatiness of the squire’s palms. She adjusts her grip and gives the poker an experimental swing to one side to test its weight. The squire winces, as if fully expecting it to strike him across the shoulders.

The helmet slips down over Moiraine’s forehead. She has to tilt it up to see. Lowering the poker, she taps it on the floor before the squire and says as imperiously as she knows how, “Rise.”

Slowly the squire stands, still clutching the ceremonial sword.

Moiraine levels the poker at his chest. “Now, fight me.”

His eyes go round as saucers. “Wh – What?”

“I want someone to play knights with me. So –” She prods his chest with the tip of the poker. “Play with me.”

He’s already shaking his head and backing away before she can even finish. “No, my Lady –”

“Ser,” Moiraine says, following him around the room with the tip of the poker aimed directly at his heart.

“My Ser –”

“Just Ser. Light, you’re dumb.”

“If I hurt you –”

“You won’t.”

“— I will be flayed alive. I can’t lose this position. My family needs me to be here to —” He cuts himself off before he can finish.

“What?” Moiraine asks. “Your family needs money?”

“Well, no. Not –”

“If I give you gold, will you play knights with me?”

“That’s –” He stumbles against a bench, his heel clipping one of the legs, and barely rights himself in time.

Moiraine grins and gestures towards his feet with the poker. “Not very graceful, are you? I can teach you to dance if you teach me to swordfight?”

He rounds the table in an attempt to put something between the two of them, as though she were a wild animal snapping her jaws, rather than a slip of a girl half his size. “I can’t be seen with you. I will be thrown out of the palace. I’ve given you my things, now please –” he points to the door “— leave me alone.”

Scowling, Moiraine asks, “Who spoke to you?”

“I don’t – what?”

“Who,” she says again enunciating the words with exaggerated slowness, “spoke to you?”

Sweat beads on the squire’s forehead and upper lip. He wipes at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Lady Damo –”

“Stop lying to me!” Moiraine slams the flat of the poker against the table, sending an empty cup clattering to the floor. The squire winces. “I heard you talking to someone three days ago by the stables! Was it the Grand Chamberlain? It sounded like him. Why does Lord Diarmadin care about what a lowborn squire does?”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken. My – My Lord Diarmadin hardly notices me. He – He —” the squire stutters.

Moiraine doesn’t wait for him to finish. She turns and storms out of the room. It is a long walk from the mustering grounds to the royal apartments, but she knows the way by heart. Servants hardly pause to look at her, dressed as she is. One does a double take, but Moiraine ignores him and continues to stomp down the hall, clutching the fire poker like a sword.

Ducking into an armament store, she crawls into a passage behind a false shelf when she’s sure nobody is watching. It’s a quick rummage through the dusty yet surprisingly broad space between the walls, and she tumbles out into a hall of mirrors. When she shuts one of the mirrors behind her, her reflection is turned around in long lengths of glass from every angle. Moiraine takes a moment to straighten the helmet upon her head, then strides confidently out of the nearest door towards the western royal apartments.

Here, a few more servants take notice. She receives more than one odd look — one servant nearly drops a platter of stuffed partridge on his way to the north wing — but none of them have enough stomach to question her. Finally, Moiraine arrives at the door she seeks. Music strums faintly on the other side. She bangs her fist upon the door fist before barging inside without waiting for an answer.

“Innloine! I want to – oh.”

Moiraine enters the room, then immediately stops. A man sits at the clavichord, playing from a bit of sheet music propped up before him. He pauses for a moment. Moiraine studies him askance before determining that he is — based on his liveried outfit — one of the Court musicians employed by her uncle. She can place him from a meeting not a month ago.

Doubtless he knows who she is as well. Doubtless he knows the names of every Damodred, every member of the King’s Household, no matter how high or how low.

“Keep playing,” a voice sighs, and a laconic hand waves from behind the high back of a cushioned seat on the other side of the sunny room.

Moiraine marches further into the room without a second glance in his direction. The musician does as he’s told, and the music resumes once more.

Her sister’s quarters are the same size and layout as her own, but Innloine has always preferred a softer taste than the rest of her siblings. Some of the furniture employs curves and warm velvet covers, items imported from Mayene and Arad Doman, rather than the strict straight lines that’s preferred in Cairhien. Innloine herself is draped in one such chair with its overabundance of plush lilac velvet. For all her taste in furniture and haberdashery, her garb adheres to the latest fashions without erring a stitch. She flutters a painted silk fan at her throat.

“Oh, good.” Innloine folds her fan shut when Moiraine steps into view. “I was just beginning to think boredom would swallow me up, and here you are to save me. What on earth are you wearing?”

Moiraine glances down at her own clothes, then has to tilt the helmet up when it slips down her forehead. “I’m a knight today.”

Innloine’s nose crinkles. “Ugh. How awful. Don’t tell me people saw you like this?”

Moiraine shrugs. “Nobody important.”

“Oh. Well, in that case.” Innloine gestures Moiraine towards a couch opposite her with the shut fan. “Now that you’re here, I have an excuse to order tea. It’s terribly lonely to have tea by yourself, don’t you think? Much better to share it with a drop of gossip. Gualter? Will you order us tea?”

The musician stands.

“No, I don’t want tea,” says Moiraine.

The musician sits back down.

Instead of taking the couch, Moiraine stands before her sister and says, "Come play outside with me."

Innloine opens her fan and begins to flutter it again. "We can't go out there. The weather is dreadful."

"It's sunny." Moiraine points out the windows to the brilliant spring day. A few wisps of cloud streak far overhead, marring an otherwise clear blue sky.

"Yes, precisely. Girls with complexions like ours oughtn't to go out in the sun. It does terrors to the skin."

"But I'm bored," Moiraine whines.

"Well, so am I. Honestly, haven't you been listening? There isn't a single thing to do in this palace for well-bred ladies. Light, I wish we could retire to our estates."

"You hate the countryside."

"Of course, I do. Uncivilised place, really."

"Then why do you -?"

"Oh, it's the principle of the thing!" Innloine says with a sudden snap of her fan shut. "Everybody with estates is supposed to visit this time of year, and we're trapped in this gilded cage with miserable old uncles and brothers for company!"

For once, Moiraine cannot find fault with that logic.

With a huff, Innloine sits up straighter in her seat. "Taringail can't keep his greedy little schemes to himself. Do you know, he stormed in here not long before you, full of fire and vinegar, accusing me of telling tales to Uncle Chretien? The gall!"

"And you didn't?" Moiraine asks, incredibly dubiously.

"Absolutely not!" insists Innloine, affronted. “I merely told him that I’d heard Taringail talking to Uncle Laman about a trip to Andor soon.”

Moiraine’s eyes widen and the notes tinkling from the clavichord skip a beat. She glances towards Gaulter, but the musician has recovered and is studiously feigning any interest in anything but his instrument. He isn’t very good at hiding it; he might as well be holding an ear trumpet to his head.

Stepping closer to her sister, Moiraine lowers her voice. “We shouldn’t speak of such things right now. I recognise that court musician from -”

But Innloine rolls her eyes and groans, "Ugh. Forbear me."

"This is serious!" Moiraine says. "He's acting as the ears for Lord - Stop doing that!"

Innloine lowers her hand from where she had been flapping her fingers to mock Moiraine's speech. "Lord Stop-Doing-That? Why, I haven’t yet had the pleasure of keeping that particular gentleman’s esteemed company!”

“You’re playing stupid on purpose. You must be.” Even as Moiraine says it she wonders. Some days she thinks Innloine must have them all fooled. Others, her sister will let slip a comment that brings such delusions crashing down in ruin.

“Oh, when did you lose your sense of humour? I get enough of this sort of carry on from Taringail. Honestly, you grow more and more like him every day!"

Heat floods Moiraine's face, and anger prickles up her spine. "That's -!" she splutters in utter outrage. "That's not true!"

“You even look like him, wearing all this.” Innloine reaches out and plucks at the loose sleeve at Moiraine’s wrist before Moiraine can snatch her arm away. “Perhaps you’ll join him in Caemlyn. You’ll fit right in with that stubborn, unfashionable lot.”

“Perhaps I shall! Perhaps I shall ask Uncle Laman to let me visit Caemlyn, too!”

“Good!” Innloine meets her sister’s raised voice with ire of her own. Where Moiraine grips an iron poker, Innloine grips her silk-painted fan like a weapon. “The palace will be so much less dreary without the pair of you haunting the bloody place!”

“Fine!” And without another word, Moiraine whirls about and storms towards the exit.

“I wish you a speedy journey! As speedy as humanly possible!” Innloine calls snidely after her.

“Anything to get away from you!”

The musician is still playing. His shoulders hunch a little higher over the ebony keys, when Moiraine shoots him a withering glare in passing. When she slams the door shut behind her, the muted strains of music follow after her. She stalks down the hall thinking to herself that if Innloine were a damsel in distress, she would simply let a Forsaken eat her.

It isn’t a long walk to the next room, but her temper has always burned hot and fast as pine, and she’s already down to a simmer by the time she arrives at her next destination. The door is identical to Innloine’s, but for the fact that there’s a crack running up the woodgrain near the handle, which is a shinier newer brass than the others that line the hallway. A mark of family history from the time Taringail had wailed on the locked door with a marble bust like a battering ram while Anvaere had shrieked at him on the other side. He’d nearly broken through by the time Uncle Chretien managed to haul him away, snarling and spitting like an angry cat, while their father spoke soothing words to Anvaere in an attempt to convince her to open the door.

Now, Moiraine pushes open the door without knocking. As she walks in, she calls out loudly, “Anvaere!”

“Ugh! Again?”

Moiraine freezes only two steps into her eldest sister’s rooms. Anvaere is lying on a couch and reading a book. Rather, she was reading a book. The moment Moiraine came into the room, she had heaved a dramatic sigh and let the book flop open over her face, and now she makes no effort to move in the slightest.

“Uh –” says Moiraine.

Anvaere’s voice is muffled through the pages. “Go away.”

Moiraine fiddles with the poker, shifting her grip upon it, momentarily stymied by this turn of events. She goes up on her toes, trying to get a better look at Anvaere’s posture, her clothes, her hair — anything that might indicate what sort of mood she’s in — to very little effect. Her sister’s dark hair is half up in a courtly style, yet she’s wearing thick stockings to account for the lingering spring chill in the draughty halls of the palace.

Done up enough to be seen in public, then. Therefore, only slightly liable to extend claws at her siblings.

With a shrug, Moiraine crosses the room and starts rummaging through one of Anvaere’s closets.

“That,” says Anvaere, “does not sound like you going away.”

Pulling out Anvaere’s preferred pair of polished leather riding boots, Moiraine walks over and drops them beside the couch. “I’m bored. Come play swords with me outside,” she demands.

When her sister doesn’t respond, Moiraine shakes her shoulder. Slowly, the book slips from Anvaere’s face and falls onto her chest, revealing an expression that somehow manages to be harried yet blank all at once.

“If you play swords with me,” Moiraine wheedles, “I’ll paint your nails for you again.”

With a sigh, Anvaere picks up the book from her chest. “First Uncle Aneirin, then Lady Turenne, then Uncle Chretien, and now —” Anvaere drops the book to the floor, “— you. Mother was right. It is impossible to have any peace and quiet here.”

Moiraine perks up. “You spoke to mother?”

Anvaere glares, then sits up on the couch. She plucks at her skirts so that they fall around her ankles. “I snuck into the city and saw her yesterday.”

Clambering onto the couch beside her, Moiraine tugs at Anvaere’s sleeve and asks, “What did she say? Where in the city? Did she ask after me? Why didn’t you take me with you?”

Anvaere pushes her away. “I didn’t take you because you would’ve gotten into mischief the moment we were out of the gates.”

Moiraine can’t deny that without outright lying. “I can keep secrets, though!” she insists. “I’m not like Innloine!”

“Light, you’re annoying. Mother thinks so, too.”

“No, she doesn’t!” Moiraine says, indignant.

With a groan, Anvaere rubs at her forehead. “Why don’t you go find father in the library and leave me alone?”

Moiraine pokes sullenly at Anvaere’s boots on the ground with the poker, then mumbles, “Uncle Laman told me last week I wasn’t to go back to the library.”

“And you listened to him?” Anvaere rolls her eyes. “Just tell him you need to practise the Old Tongue and go.”

“He already knows that’s a lie. He overheard me talking to father in the Old Tongue over lunch.”

“Well, then it’s your own fault for letting information like that slip, isn’t it? Maybe if you kept your dumb mouth shut, you would still be able to go.”

Moiraine’s lower lip juts out petulantly. “Why are you being so mean today?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I have a headache. Maybe I just want to be left alone for once. Maybe my annoying little sister barged into my room without knocking and started throwing my shoes around –”

“I didn’t ‘throw’ them!”

“—Maybe,” Anvaere continues, “Nobody will play with you because they don’t like you. Isn’t that a novel thought? Have you considered it?”

Moiraine’s face flushes bright red. Anger and shame twist together like strangling vines around her stomach, growing fast up the column of her windpipe. “Well, maybe Taringail is right,” she snaps in return. “Maybe you really are just a useless mean old cow!”

At the mention of their brother’s name, Anvaere’s expression darkens. She snatches up a pillow and swipes it at Moiraine’s face. With a yelp, Moiraine ducks, then scrambles from the couch. The pillow flies after her, hitting her square in the back. A boot follows, clipping her shoulder.

Straightening, hand clapping the helmet to her head, Moiraine yells, “Everyone says so! I hear all of them talking! All across the Palace! I heard Uncle Chretien saying they wanted to marry you off as soon as possible just to get rid of you! I bet that was why he was in here today, even!”

With a growl Anvaere chucks the other boot across the room at Moiraine, who dodges it narrowly. “Get out!”

Moiraine retreats towards the door, clutching the poker and using it like a bat to knock away the various items her sister is throwing at her. “I hope they do! I hope they marry you off to a mean old man like Lord Galldrian!”

“Get out!”

Fumbling at the handle, Moiraine wrenches the door open and then slams it shut just in time to hear a book thud heavily against the other side where her head had been not a moment before. Anvaere has excellent aim. Moiraine had seen her nail Taringail in the face with spare objects at twenty paces.

With a huff, Moiraine goes tearing down the corridor back towards the east wing. She doesn’t bother with shortcuts and secret doors this time. She simply marches straight into an armoury and begins hitting the nearest suit of armour on display she can find with the fire poker.

Every blow of the poker rings out like a dull bell. She circles round the armour, raining down blow after blow, as hard as she can and still she can leave only the barest scratch in the rattling plate. She continues until she is panting and red in the face, imagining that it’s the faces of her sisters, her brother, her uncles in the polished steel rather than her own muddied reflection.

“Having another one of your little temper tantrums, are we?”

At the sound of that voice Moiraine goes stock still. Slowly, she turns around.

Taringail is leaning in the doorway, wearing a black and richly embroidered coat with its collar rakishly unbuttoned. At sixteen, he’s taller than her by a good head and shoulders. In the far western parlour that also acts as an informal royal portrait gallery, a painting of their father in his youth hangs. Dark-haired and dark-eyed and graven-faced, Taringail is the very spit of Dalresin then, but there’s a cruelness inherent to the slant of his mouth that their father lacks. It’s there now in the way he smirks.

Swallowing, Moiraine shifts her sweaty grip upon the poker. She does not speak. When Taringail pushes away from the door and walks towards her, she stiffens and eyes his approach warily.

“One of the servants heard you clanging about,” he says. “I told her and the others to clear out and leave you for me to handle.”

Rather than answer, she counts the number of rank tabs on his coat, the slashes of their House colours far more prominently displayed than even he preferred to exhibit in the relative privacy of the Sun Palace when no visitors are expected. He’s even wearing his favourite boots, the pair buffed to a mirror shine and made with a wedged heel so that he appears taller than his wont.

“Why are you even here?” Moiraine asks with the best sneer she can muster. It doesn’t light a candle to what some of her relatives can achieve, but she is — she thinks — rather proficient at sneering if she tries. “I thought you’d be too busy pressing your ear to the door of Uncle Laman’s council meeting?”

His step falters momentarily. “What makes you think there’s a royal council meeting today?”

Moiraine arches an eyebrow at him in reply.

A muscle ticks in Taringail’s cheek. He stops only when he’s standing slightly too close to her for comfort, purely so he can loom over her. It doesn’t take much, given her height. She glowers up at him in sullen silence and refuses to step away no matter how much she wants to.

“Which of the servants told you?” he asks. There’s a soft and cultured edge to his voice that always means danger, like an elegant stiletto needling for gaps in plate armour.

“Isn’t it obvious?” It’s dangerous to mock him, but — oh, she does so love playing with fire. “You told me.”

His face screws up and he says, “What are you talking about? I haven’t told you anything.”

“People don’t need to talk to give you information,” says Moiraine, and she waves a dismissive hand at what he’s wearing.

He narrows his eyes at the long cuffed sleeves dangling around her wrists, at the oversized boots and baggy leggings. “Have you been snooping around my rooms again?” he asks, abruptly changing tack.

“No,” Moiraine is quick to lie.

“You’re a liar and a rat. A filthy little rat, who doesn’t know how to do as you’re told.”

“I got them from Jocelin,” she insists, tapping the gorget at her throat.

“Who? That gangly squire?” Taringail sneers, and he is far more skilled at sneering than she. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t spend time with him?”

“Why? Because he’s lowborn?”

“No, you idiot. Because his parents are allied to House Traighan. He’s been sent here to spy on us.”

“That’s –”

Moiraine pauses and thinks back to the squire’s panicked expression, the way he’d danced away from the topic of his family. His panic when she had accused him of talking to the Grand Chamberlain. His denial of any involvement with Lord Diarmadin. Odd that they would have been speaking at all; a squire would answer solely to the Grand Ecuyer. Odder still that he would be so vehement in his denial.

“Is Lord Diarmadin a spy for House Traighan, too?” she asks before she can stop herself.

Taringail’s eyes widen before he can school his features once more. “Did you hear something? What was it?”

Clamping her mouth, Moiraine shakes her head. All too suddenly the tables have turned. Taringail’s looming seems far more effective now.

“Tell me,” he says.

Moiraine sets her jaw stubbornly and remains silent. Then abruptly Taringail snatches the helmet from her head and holds it high enough that she can’t reach it no matter how high she jumps.

“Hey, give it back!”

“Don’t go dabbling in affairs you don’t understand!” he snaps, then shoves her away. “And stay out of my things!”

Stumbling back a step, Moiraine regains her balance. Fire poker trembling in a clenched fist, she tosses her head to get a loose lock of hair from her eyes. “I need to give that back before nightfall.”

“Or what?”

“Or Master Bhaltair will beat Jocelin.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll learn his lesson, then,” Taringail says. “Now, I need to go talk to Uncle Laman about Lord Diarmadin. Go back to your rooms. And you won’t tell anyone about what you heard, if you’re clever.” He turns and starts to walk away as though that’s the end of the conversation. She hears him mutter to himself, “Too bloody clever by half.”

Moiraine stomps after him. “You’re going to say you overheard it yourself, aren’t you? You’re going to try to take all the credit! I'm the one who discovered that the Grand Chamberlain is a spy! I’m the one who should tell Uncle Laman!”

Taringail’s steps don’t falter, and he doesn’t look at her. “Shut up and do as you’re told.”

She doesn’t do either of those things. Her mind races. “Why Uncle Laman? Why not Uncle Chretien?” Moiraine shuffles through the possibilities like a deck of cards to play Arrays, and a full set seems to fan out between her hands. “This is about your visit to Caemlyn, isn’t it? You don’t want father to know you’re still making a play for marriage to the Daughter-Heir of Andor!”

Abruptly Taringail whirls around. “Be quiet!” he hisses. He checks over his shoulder before turning back to glare at her and speak in a low tone, “Do not repeat that in these halls again unless you want your little squire to end up on the bloody block next to the Grand Chamberlain! Oh, you think I won’t?” he says when Moiraine opens her mouth to fire back a barbed retort. “I’ll drag him to the headsman myself, and when they push him to his knees I’ll tell him it was all your doing. Go on. See if I don’t.”

Moiraine closes her mouth so hard her teeth click. Her dark glower intensifies when Taringail’s mouth curls in a triumphant little smirk. She tightens her grip around the handle of the poker so hard her knuckles go white and the tendons creak.

“There, now. You’ve learned a valuable lesson today, haven’t you?” he gives her a sickly grin. “Don’t play The Game unless you’re willing to follow through.”

When Taringail pats her on the cheek, Moiraine’s lip curls and she jerks her head back. He seems to find this amusing for he huffs with laughter before turning to walk away once more.

Anger is a living thing beneath her skin, wrath a writhing bed of serpents in the pit of her stomach. She lifts the poker high overhead, and she is fury made flesh. With as much force as she can muster, she brings the poker down and the blow strikes across Taringail’s retreating back with a satisfyingly loud smack of cold hard iron against muscle and bone.

Taringail staggers with a low cry of surprise and the helmet goes clattering to the ground, spinning lazily against the polished floor. She is still aflush with the glow of victory, when he straightens and slowly turns, and all rush of exultation drains out of her as though someone has pulled a plug at her feet. The enormity of her rage is suddenly a speck of sand beside the terrible reality of consequence.

There’s nothing cultured and pointed about the way he’s watching her now. His ire is a blunt instrument, and one she has been on the wrong end of far too often to not immediately recognise.

Blanching, Moiraine takes a trembling step back. Then another, when he advances upon her, the two of them locked in a dance on the verge of the brutal.

“I’m –” she stammers. “I’m sorry.”

She drops the poker at his feet as though it were an offering to placate an angry god. Striding forward, he kicks it aside.

“No, you aren’t,” he growls. “But you will be.”

There’s a moment of absolute stillness where the acidic thrill of adrenaline builds in Moiraine’s chest. Then they both burst into motion.

Moiraine turns to run, but Taringail is much bigger and much faster. She barely makes it five paces — darting around a suit of armour — before he catches her, as easily as snatching up the hind legs of a hare. He grabs her by the hair, dragging her back. Whirling around, Moiraine strikes out with her elbow in a blind panic. It’s barely enough to break his grip, but the next step she takes has her trip over the boots that are several sizes too large for her, and she falls to the ground with a grunt.

She scrambles away on all fours, trying to stand again, but Taringail is there. He wrenches her onto her back and pins her between his knees. Teeth bared, he snarls, “Father isn’t here to save his favourite little princess again!”

Screaming, Moiraine thrashes and kicks wildly. Her brother struggles to do anything more than hold her still.

“Shut up!” he yells over her. “Nobody can hear you! Shut up!”

She bites at one of his hands, teeth digging into the meat of him. In retaliation he slaps her so hard across the face that she tastes something copper-bright on her tongue and spots dance across her vision. She lashes out with her foot, and her heel connects with his groin.

Immediately, Taringail curls into a ball on his side, face screwed up in a silent rictus of agony. Breathing heavily, Moiraine stumbles upright. She quickly kicks off the oversized boots and scampers away on bare feet to the sound of his pained swearing. Then comes the rapid cadence of footsteps chasing after her.

“Get back here, you little shit! Moiraine! Moiraine!”

Tearing through the halls of the palace as fast as her legs can carry her, Moiraine ducks through doors and skids beneath the legs of tall furniture. Behind her Taringail curses and has to navigate the warren her small size allows her to ignore. His footsteps echo along the walls and high ceilings. A servant presses herself against the wall and stares as Moiraine goes racing past, and behind her Moiraine can hear her brother shouting at the servant to get out of his way.

In the far western parlour, Moiraine yanks back a heavy tapestry and presses a false hinge in the wooden wall. It slides inwards with a soft thunk, and the corner of an enormous portrait of the stern-faced Queen Carewin Damodred creaks open. Moiraine grabs the edge of the gilded frame and heaves with all her might until the gap is just wide enough for her to slip through. She only just manages to pull the false picture frame shut when those footsteps drum to a halt.

In the dark narrow passage behind the walls, Moiraine covers her mouth with her hands to stopper her own noisy breathing. Her lungs scream for air, and she takes in sharp rapid breaths through her nose. Frozen in place, she watches the thin crack of light around the picture frame and her heart gallops in her chest. A shadow passes before her hiding place, followed by a thump and the sound of wood screeching against wood, as though someone had just kicked a piece of furniture.

“Little fucking -!” Taringail mutters to himself, swearing and pacing.

It takes an age before he gives up and leaves. Crouching down, hands planted on her knees, Moiraine gasps for breath. She trembles all over, and when she wipes a hand across her brow it comes away damp with sweat. She reaches out to push open the hidden door but stops, unable to shake herself of the irrational fear that her brother is merely just outside the room, waiting for her to reveal herself so he can pounce.

Straightening, she places her hand on the wall and instead feels her way further along the passage, following its sharp bends and curves. Unlike the other handful of secret ways through the Sun Palace, this one Moiraine has not explored beyond a few steps. Blindly she hazards a stumbling path. Her passing disturbs a crust of dust so thick it makes her eyes water. Wiping her runny nose on her sleeve, she continues on.

The walls narrow in around her. She is forced to a crouch, then to a crawl. When it grows so dark and so narrow she can hardly breathe, shivering and panicked, she needs to swallow down a tide of fear. Her cheeks are streaked with grime and tear tracks — from the dust or from what has become a truly terrible day, she can no longer tell the difference.

When she turns a cramped corner in the crawlspace, a needlepoint of light greets her. It's small as a distant star in an otherwise ink black sky, but it is there. Moiraine shuffles forward and presses with all her might. The sound of a faint click, and an opening in the wall slides up to let her out.

Moiraine squeezes through and collapses on the other side, breathing heavily. When she sneezes, a plume of dust shivers off of her like a second skin. The floor beneath her is polished marble in a deep blue and gold pattern. Moiraine would recognise it anywhere. The air around her seems to hum, as though a glass had been struck with the flat edge of a knife and the sound is forever on the brink of fading. With dread rising in her throat, she looks up and climbs to her feet.

Early afternoon light streams through the windows of the throne room, tall and bursting in radiant patterns to mimic the rays that shine through them. Every surface is polished until it feels like standing upon a pane of glass or perhaps still water. The squared pillars and the arched midnight ceiling reflect perfect inversions of themselves down into the ground, so that it is less like walking through a chamber and more like being hung between the infinite space between mirrors; she is an insect suspended in a sea of abyssal amber.

The throne itself is ensconced atop a low-slung dais. Plain and unadorned but for an enormous disk of pure gold that enshrines the head of whosoever dares sit there in a halo. The chamber is empty, but still she wraps her arms around herself, glancing about for sign of any royal guardsmen lurking in the usual places. There are none. Moiraine swallows nervously and replaces the panel that she had knocked loose in her desperation for freedom. She has to buff out the dust marks left from her fingers on the panel to hide her tampering.

Straightening, Moiraine turns to scurry away — the only entrances to the throne room, apart from that which she just had inadvertently discovered, are the main arched doors and a smaller door behind the throne, which leads to a smaller private audience chamber then to the King’s apartments — but she stops.

A sword that would most days grace her Uncle Laman’s hip is instead propped unceremoniously against one of the steps of the dais leading to the throne. She hesitates. Her eyes dart towards the door behind the throne, but no royal guardsmen flank the exit. The king is presumably in the east wing, a good distance from this place. Indeed, the people who visit this chamber the most are those servants tasked with polishing the marble.

Moiraine’s bare feet make no noise as she slowly approaches the dais. With every step, the hum grows louder, a faint sound, like the rising note of music through water. Her shadow slants like a long narrow blade in her wake, and at the base of the dais she stops. The last time she had stood this close to the throne, she had been seven years old, silent and surrounded by lords and ladies, courtiers and ambassadors, the subject of every set of eyes, of all scrutiny, curling her hands into fists to stifle down the urge to hide behind her father’s legs.

Her heart beats in her chest now just as it had then. The sword is bedecked and encrusted, gold-beaten and gem-studded. In a pool of sunlight, it seems to sing. As if stretching her hand into the cage of a wild animal, she reaches for the sword, keeping her gaze fixed upon the throne above before snatching the sword up. Moiraine backs hastily away, cradling the prize to her chest. It isn’t until she’s far enough from the throne that she inspects the blade.

The sword is nearly as long as she is, and when she draws it she drops the sheath and has to hold the hilt with two hands to keep the tip upright. Though it is much too heavy for her, she gives it an experimental flourish and is surprised when it slices through the air with a precision that Jocelin’s ceremonial toothpick lacks. The steel seems to sing. She tilts it to the side to better admire the little heron etched into the metal near the hilt. Her thumb drifts over the charming curve of its neck, as though it is about to strike at a fish through the reeds.

The hum in the air shimmers to a high whine. She turns the sword over in her hands until the single sharpened edge is held out, and the blade gleams as though in a glance of sunlight. The song swells, and when her fingers curl back around the hilt in a firm grip — silence.

A rush of warmth fills her up to the brim with sweetness, like lying in a pool of noonday sun after taking a step out from cold marble halls, and the sword answers. The gleam burnishes to a bold shine, bright as a star breaking the horizon upon a crested dawn. The sword gives off no heat, yet still the blade burns.

Moiraine flinches from the lance of sudden brightness, from the sweetness building in her chest to a bitter ache. She tries to drop the sword but can’t; it’s as though the hilt is fused to her palms. Her forearms shake. The sword blazes with a light so blinding, every shadow of the hall is banished, until nothing exists but the birth of the dawn in her grasp.

With a wordless cry, Moiraine flings the sword away. It clatters to the ground with a metallic ring. A few of the gems snap free and go spinning out along the polished marble ground. Too loud. Everything is too loud, too bright.

Staggering back a few steps, Moiraine breathes heavily. Tears prick at the corner of her eyes and her vision is shot through like the aftermath of lightning. She blinks it away. The sword looks now like any other sword. Its baubles dented and displaced, but otherwise – just a sword. Apart from the fact that its blade is smoking gently. Just as Moiraine’s hands trail with threads of pure white smoke.

In a swelling panic, Moiraine bats her hands against the flat of her thighs, like trying to put out a fire. The smoke refuses to dissipate; her wrists are wreathed like lace.

“What are you doing, child?”

Moiraine whirls around, shoving her own hands behind her back. With wide eyes, she looks up and her blood runs cold.

Aine Sedai hasn’t elected to wear her shawl today, but she doesn’t need it. Everyone in the Palace knows who and what she is. Her short-cropped hair matches the gown of finest grey silk that sweeps down to her ankles, and the great serpent ring gleams on her finger. On anyone else, the outfit would have appeared plain, but the Royal Advisor to the King of Cairhien is not the type of woman who needs adornment. Moiraine has seen her stand beside the richest of nobles from lands far and wide and made them seem like puffed up peacocks without even a word.

It is the first time Moiraine can recall ever being alone in the room with her. None of her previous strategies seem adequate now. This isn’t one of Moiraine’s siblings or some servant she can order about. Not even her Uncle Laman gives orders to this woman.

“Shouldn’t you be at the council meeting with my uncle?” Moiraine asks.

Aine Sedai tilts her head to one side, studying her.

Belatedly Moiraine remembers that such council meetings were supposedly secret. Which is silly, really. Anyone with eyes and ears could figure it out. Taringail’s clothing aside, how else would the kitchens know to bring up extra food and drink to Laman’s favoured meeting chamber in the north wing once a fortnight every fortnight? To say nothing of Uncle Aneirin and Chretien roaming the halls and meeting with both her sisters on the same day.

But Moiraine doesn’t say any of this. She holds her breath and prays that this scrutiny will pass.

“His Radiance decided to finish early today,” Aine Sedai finally says. She casts her gaze around the throne room. “Was there anyone else here with you?”

Moiraine stands straight and still and unanswering. She digs her fingernails into her palms to drive away the loudness of the silence in the aftermath of the song, and still the echo of it thrums in her ears like a fading chorus. She dares not check if the smoke has gone from her hands. She only hopes it has.

Aine Sedai steps to the side as though to circle around her, and Moiraine turns so that they remain facing one another. Something crosses Aine Sedai’s features — amusement, perhaps? Moiraine cannot tell. She appears so calm, so composed, and her face gives away so little.

“How old are you, child?” Aine Sedai asks and she continues to circle, like a handsome grey-feathered hawk in the sky. She doesn’t walk like anyone else Moiraine has seen; she glides.

Moiraine doesn’t answer.

The corner of Aine Sedai’s mouth twitches. “You know, I can just ask anyone in the palace and they’ll be sure to tell me.”

She isn’t wrong and it’s a simple enough question. Still Moiraine can’t help but feel like she is stepping into a steel-jawed trap. Exhaling shakily, she finally says, “Ten.”

“Ten,” Aine Sedai repeats. “Younger than I expected.” When Moiraine does not reply, she says, “The main entrance was locked. How did you get inside?”

“How did you?” Moiraine fires back in return.

Aine Sedai lifts an eyebrow and gives her a look that makes Moiraine feel the urge to squirm. “What if I told you I had a key?”

“Only the Grand Chamberlain has a key to the throne room.”

There’s no mistaking it now. Aine Sedai is definitely smiling. “Not that kind of key.”

Moiraine has read books about the One Power. She has heard tales of it from her family, from servants, from other nobles at Court. Yet of all the wonders such power has to offer, never has she heard of it used for so mundane a purpose as opening locked doors.

“I hear you can often be found in places you oughtn’t be,” Aine Sedai says. “Rooms with no keys. Chambers still barred from within. Tell me: do things just -” she snaps her fingers “- open when you want them to?”

Moiraine is about to shake her head but stops. A cold trickle of dread rolls down her spine. All too clearly she can recall how she stumbled across various secret passages. How the latches and false panels and candelabra switches simply popped loose when she walked near enough, like a button under too much pressure popping from its eyelet.

Aine Sedai’s graceful footsteps slow to a halt so that the sword lies between them like a line in the sand. She points down at it. “And what happened here?”

Though her voice is low and her question gentle, Moiraine has to swallow down a sudden tide of tears as though she has been yelled at. She blinks past the blurring of her vision and clenches her teeth so hard that her chin trembles. Then abruptly she drops to her knees and starts gathering up the gems from the floor. Her fingers shake so badly, a sapphire slips between them, rolls away, and she has to scramble to pick it up again.

“I – I didn’t mean to,” Moiraine stammers. “I was – I just wanted to —”

She takes one of the gems and tries to push it back into a setting along the cross guard. It refuses to stay put, tumbling back out no matter how desperately she tries to fix it. She flinches when a cool hand touches her own, when Aine Sedai kneels down beside her and stills her movements.

Without a word, Aine Sedai takes the sword and, one by one, places each gem back in place. Moiraine watches as the gold fittings close around the stones as if of their own accord, until but one gap remains on the centre of the hilt. The stone in question is not to be found.

When she’s finished, Aine Sedai rises to her feet. “You were doing this weapon a service by ridding it of these baubles.” She sheathes the blade in a smooth practised motion. “They were added later in its life, and they lend nothing to it but pride and arrogance.”

Moiraine isn’t listening. She’s still on the floor, searching desperately for the final missing jewel. Her stomach twists itself into knots. Her Uncle is going to be furious. She’s never going to be allowed to go back to the Royal Library. She’s never going to be allowed to go to Caemlyn. She’s going to be dragged away from her father by Aine Sedai to go live in the White Tower. She’s never going to –

The tip of the sword sheath taps her gently on the shoulder and Moiraine goes stock still. She looks up, and Aine Sedai is watching her with a curious tilt of her head that only makes Moiraine feel sick to the stomach.

“If you think I will tell anyone about this, you are mistaken.”

Moiraine doesn’t know what Aine Sedai is speaking of: breaking the sword or using the sword. Or using –

Frankly, she is terrified of either and both. Especially of the other thing. The impossible thing.

When Moiraine remains quiet, Aine Sedai sighs and gestures for Moiraine to stand. “Rise.”

Moiraine does so but avoids meeting her eye. Instead, she stares staunchly at the space where Aine Sedai’s hemline meets the floor.

“Go, child. Doubtless we’ll speak again.”

The sense of relief at hearing these words does little to combat the clamminess of Moiraine’s palms, the cold sweat that makes the shirt stick to her back and ribs. On instinct she drops into a perfect curtsy, then goes red in the face – she must look stupid, curtsying while wearing an oversized shirt and oversized trousers, smeared with dust and sweat and tears.

Still, Aine Sedai doesn’t make any sort of remark. Not daring to look her in the face, Moiraine turns and retreats as quickly as she can while still walking towards the large ornamental doors of the throne room.

At the threshold, she glances over her shoulder to find Aine Sedai still holding the sword and frowning at the throne. Aine Sedai climbs the dais and reaches up. She plucks the final missing gem from where it had somehow leapt up from the ground and landed so that it is balanced perfectly atop the central sunburst array. A single brilliant circular diamond. She turns it in her hand, and across the vast space between them it glitters like a fallen star, dreadful to behold.

Moiraine runs. She doesn’t stop until her lungs burn, until she bursts through one of the windowed doors, until she’s torn halfway across the sprawling palace grounds, where the sun sets the tops of the trees alight. The chill of spring and the warmth of the sun needle her skin, they echo the sweetness that had sprouted in the gab of her ribs – light without heat. Her stomach seethes and writhes. Her hands won’t stop shaking. And staggering over to one of the sculpted hedges, Moiraine empties her stomach amidst the foliage.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she straightens. Her stomach still lurches unpleasantly, but there’s nothing left for it to relieve. Others rarely come to this part of the grounds. The hedges are labyrinthine, jealously guarding their prize — a great tree rising up, its branches gold-dipped in sunlight. By the age of eight Moiraine had every route in and out of the grounds memorised right alongside lists of Old Tongue verb endings. It takes her less than a handful of minutes to find the centre of the maze.

There the great tree spreads its roots in a wild pattern across the ground. It seems to grip the whole world in a fist of roots, and its sun-gilded branches circle the sky like a crown. Even the sight of it softens the hunch of her shoulders. Clambering over a warren of roots, she sits beneath the tree’s wending boughs and huddles against the curve of its massive trunk.

The first new buds of growth rustle in a breeze carrying the promise of summer. Moiraine tilts her head back, looking up into the starburst array of green and gold trefoil leaves. Her stomach settles despite the acrid taste on the back of her tongue, and for the first time all day she feels a semblance of peace.

In the distance someone calls her name. Moiraine gathers her knees to her chest and hopes that nobody will think to look for her here, even knowing that eventually they will find her beneath its boughs.

They always do.

NOTES

~BOOK SPOILERS~

Not all power-wrought weapons have overtly magical qualities. Normally in the WoT books, they are heron-marked blades or other blades that never tarnish nor dull. Ashandarei and Mah’alleinir seem to be exceptions, though I like to believe that this is simply due to the fact that so many of these weapons were lost from the Age of Legends. We know that the Damodred power-wrought sword was carried by King Laman and later taken by the Aiel (and then given to Rand), but little else is known about its qualities.

I do not think it is an angreal of any kind. Rather, I think that the Aes Sedai who made this weapon would’ve imbued it with their hatred of the shadow just as Glamdring was imbued by its Elven smiths during its forging, and wielded by the King of Gondolin, shining with a white light in the presence of evil. I’ve chosen to embellish the Damodred sword’s reactions to the One Power because I think the narrative link between Cairhien, al’cair’rahien’allen, the Hill of the Golden Dawn, and all of its sunlight imagery is undercapitalised. Because I like to imagine the Hill of the Golden Dawn sheltered by one of Moiraine’s ancestors following the Breaking. A Channeler wielding a blade that shone like the sun itself in their hands in the fight against the shadow. A figure so ancient they’ve been lost to time and memory, reduced to nothing but a sigil for banners and heraldry. A dream of sunlight amidst the wasteland.

And in the end, this blade is carried into the Last Battle, where it may be a shining beacon against the darkness once more.

I like to think of Moiraine seeing that sword in Rand’s hands, the first time she’s seen it since she left her family at the age of sixteen. The jolt of atavistic childhood fear that races through her battling with the realisation that of course he has it, of course the blade of the Golden Dawn would fall into the hands of the Lord of the Morning, of course.

I like to imagine him trying to give it back to her and all of the Aiel watching this moment as the Treekiller’s niece presses the sword back into Rand’s possession, Moiraine holding his hands around the sheath and the hilt so that she never actually touches it, as though afraid of what even the graze of her fingers would mean, as though she knows how the sword would blaze like the dawn in her hands, like passing the duty of the Light itself into her nephew’s care.

And then only a few chapters later how she saves him from Lanfear, how she sacrifices herself after this symbolic gesture, when any shadow of doubt about her intentions is at last snuffed out.

#moiraine damodred #moiraine sedai #the wheel of time #wot #roman writes

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sparrtington · 4 years ago

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IN THIS HOUSE, WE WANT LOVE FOR LOKI IN EVERY REALM. *CHEF KISS**THROWS HANDS**WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE FACIAL HAIR*

Def a wip, I’ll probably clean it up later today as long as my entire be----ing decides to COOPERATE. (edit 2 hours later: apparently my brain turned off mid sentence)

More ranting under the cut...the ramblings of a very mentally unhinged quail WHO JUST LOVES THREE SPECIFIC LOKI SHIPS *CRIES*

In chronological order:

Dashingfrost is like...my OG Loki ship. Is it cause they’re both green based colour palettes? Both are narcissists' and like to dress well? That outfit to Jotunheim Josh Dallas wears in Thor 1? Fur shawl nonsense with double pauldron capes? HOLY SHIT. What a tool. Love it. And the Zachary Levi variant Fandral gets more intricate armor detailing and a full cape (which we respect) and his disheveled look is a great contrast to Loki with a more clean cut vibe. Again, the OG Asgard royalty/protector dynamic. The growing up to slow burn love each other over centuries. Easier to encapsulate a story about a more Norse myth centric story (If you don’t want to bother with super heroes in general). LOVE IT. Totally didn’t stay up till 11pm reading Dashingfrost. BTW, the name is charming. It’s a very Disney Prince(TM)-esque theme (lol cause Josh Dallas was Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time and Zachary Levi voices Flynn Rider in Tangled) It’s a very cute, charming name. It’s a charming ship that kinda ticks all the fairy tale, norse myth, potential centuries of tragedies, kinda stories. Also, out of all the Warriors Three, Fandral seems to be canonically (or fandom wise) the least hostile towards Loki as Thor’s best bros. He also has some banter with Loki in Dark World as well. We don’t talk about the untimely demise of the Three in Ragnarok. I felt so betrayed even tho I love Ragnarok as a movie.

---

Frostiron is that mid MCU ship that started with Loki throwing Tony out of a window by his neck, with one hand. (MARK ME DOWN AS SCARED AND HORNY) Fell for the ship hard even though it’s the most “never ever would be canon” air about it.

Different height dynamic. Loki tall, Tony smol. Both have equally massive egos and big brain energy for their respective crafts. BOTH OF THEM HAVE BIG DADDY ISSUES. All that potential childhood traumatic angst. A lot of angst in this ship...now that I think about it. Exploring their individual PTSD issues either with Tony and his impromptu trip to space and his anxiety attacks or Loki being mind melted and tortured by Thanos....etc. a lot of potential healing and comfort uwu. More suffering ideas? The concept of mortality. Loki lives a long time, Tony no lives a long time. MORE SUFFERING.

Tony and Loki can swap the sugar daddy role. If Loki is on midgard or if Tony is on Asgard, which ever poison you prefer. Uhhhh...I also enjoy the amount of snark you can get out of them. Both from completely different realms, but they are kind of the same kind of messed up, big brain, ego driven idiots. Also, their ship name is metal af.

Lokius, not as cool of a ship name because it’s just a traditional melding of their names, but we respect simplicity. Also, the most canon ship we’re gonna get. The coolest ship potential because VARIANTS. Not the other ships can’t be in AU’s, but Lokius is basically “You want an alternate universe? VARIANT THAT SHIT”. Love it.

Mobius is also a very patient, caring character in general. Besides knowing Loki’s entire story front to back, he’s just very sympathetic without being half hearted about it. Mobius is very much 1000% capybara energy. Loki, the hostile alligator sitting with a chill capybara. That’s it, thats why I love this ship. Capybara energy~

BUT THEN THEY ENDED THE SERIES WITH MOBIUS BEING LIKE “Who are you?” and I bout fuckin punched my monitor and screamed. I could eat my own teeth. LET. HIM. KISS. THE. COWBOY. anyway....Lokius, yesssss. A lot of potential with infinite and veritable possibilities.

Ok, that’s all. Thanks for coming to my ted talk, I need to lay down and cry over Loki shipping now.

#lokius #dashingfrost #frostiron #Loki Laufeyson #mobius m mobius #tony stark #fandral #suffering for loki multishipping aayyyeeee

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misscrawfords · 4 years ago

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17+32, Catherine and Henry (Northanger Abbey)?

War AU + Pregnancy fic

My anon, are you sure about this? Because this sounds hella angsty and if Catherine and Henry are anything, it's not angsty!

So I'm really sorry for completely ruining your desire for angst here.

Catherine goes to war in maternity leave.

Not literally, don't be ridiculous. She's an English teacher; what on earth would she be doing in a war zone? (She did once fancy herself a member of the Royal Navy but she had been 13 and mostly inspired by going on a high ropes adventure course on a school trip. The craze had not lasted.)

No, maternity leave is simultaneously boring and freeing. Since she started as a teacher, she's never had so much free time to just think. Henry's around some of the time, of course, but he has sermons to write and parishoners to see and tedious parish council meetings to chair. She flits in with cups of tea (waddles, really, at this point) and homemade cake that they at least pretend to like. (Sometimes she likes to give in to all the stereotypes of a vicar's wife. It makes her feel strangely cosy.) But when she isn't baking, she's at war.

At war on the internet. With the dog over her feet and a cup of tea at her side.

It started with a fun looking show on Netflix. Henry pointed it out to her one evening. "It's aimed at people who really loved Twilight when they were teengers and now lead depressingly generic lives in suburbia. People like you," he added pointedly.

Catherine narrowed her eyes and didn't let on that she'd already seen the trailer. "You're going to make fun of it."

"I mean... yes... obviously, but also, I really want to see whether the Dawn Angel gets together with the..." He squinted at the summary on his phone. "Immortal Night Demon or with her high school ex-boyfriend turned firefighter, Jordan. Golly, tough choice there, right? It's going to be compelling drama - breathtaking fight scenes, symbolic dark and light imagery, the epic highs and lows of high school football. You name it!"

They binged the whole thing in two days. Henry's next sermon, on the possibility of redemption even for demons and the devil himself, had been written in a fever dream by both of them at 2am after staying up far too late on Saturday arguing over the fate of the Night Demon and other related topics.

Old Mrs. Evans was heard to mutter sourly to her daughter Carys after the service, "That'll put the cat among the pigeons, that will alright. Too much Milton, not enough St Paul!"

"I always find Milton very inspiring!" Catherine replied bravely and loyally, as she helped them to a cup of tea in the church hall. She smiled at Carys, whom she'd taught Paradise Lost to at A Level a couple of years earlier. "St Paul too, of course," she added quickly, quailing under the mother's righteous glare. "Very inspiring."

But without marking or admin or driving to and from the high school in the large town half an hour away and without groups of teenagers to debate books with on a daily basis, Catherine found herself bored.

So she booted up her tumblr once again, abandoned since teaching had taken over her life and spending time with her wonderful, clever, funny, loving husband had seemed more interesting than scrolling aimlessly through social media, and discovered to her gleeful pleasure that fandom had not changed much and neither had she.

Or so she thought. Nowadays, she realises, everyone is moralising. The prevailing view seems to be that teenage girls in fandom aren't capable of distinguishing fact from fiction, that if they want a fictional heroine to rule hell with a sexy demon overlord at her side that must mean that that's what they want in real life. That the only moral thing to do here would be to marry the nice but boring guy who's been there for ever.

Catherine is an English teacher married to a vicar. If anyone knows anything about morality and fiction, it's her. This is all sounding very similar to the male critical outrage at women's novels in the 18th century. It seems nothing ever changes except that this time it's girls doing it to each other. Catherine writes several essays explaining all of this. She gets sent death threats and called an abuse apologist.

"It's so strange," she muses to Henry, as they eat homemade Thai curry in front of the aga.

"What is?" he replies. (She's told him everything, of course.) "The teenagers sending you anonymous death threats on tumblr? Because-"

"Nah, that's just standard for tumblr. I mean, it's so strange that anyone would want Griselda to be with Jordan. He's just so... normal and not in a good way. Just always going on about football and how great he was in high school. He really peaked then and he's a firefighter so that should make him brave but he never seems to actually do any fire fighting. He just talks about it as if we're meant to be impressed. We all know a Jordan and nobody wants to date him."

She'd know. Her first boyfriend had been a Jordan. They'd dated for five minutes. (Literally five minutes. Then she'd realised she'd been asked out and not to do a singing gig. Thorpy had been so subtle as to be unintelligible. Then she'd run for the hills, more disappointed in not having her vocal talents finally recognised than in being asked out by such a bore.)

"So a literal demon is a better bet?" Henry asks. "Just asking for clarification. Next year's Halloween costume depend on it."

"He's interesting and sexy and treats Griselda as an equal. What more do you want?"

"Well, speaking as a clergyman...." Henry begins with faux pomposity as he often does, his expression very fond.

She leaves him to do the washing up and lecture the dog. (She frequently hears him discussing doctrinal issues with the dog from the other room. It's adorable. She wonders if he'll be like this with the baby too. She can't wait.)

Back in her study, she boots the kitten off her chair and settles down for a long evening of defending a fictional relationship against antis, maybe reading a bit of a 52 chapter fanfiction where the Night Demon owns a tattoo parlour in New York City, and continuing to work a little on her new scheme of work for Year 9 when she eventually returns to work. It has the working title of "Sexy villains through history and why we should stan them".

She might need to edit that before she pitches it to her Head of Department.

There's a wonderful smell coming from downstairs: Henry is spontaneously baking apple cake. If she glances behind her computer monitor to the window, the graveyard looms dark and comforting in the autumn night, illuminated just by one of the outside lights on the old church. On a cushion by the bookcase, the kitten is lightly snoring and twitches in her sleep. She feels the baby shift slightly within her.

Shipping wars and the thrill of being so engaged in a fandom once more might fill a current space in her life, but goodness, she knows the difference between fact and fiction! Why would she want anything other than what she already has? Life is good.

#northanger abbey #jane austen #fanfiction #henry tilney #catherine morland #henry x catherine #i am strangely overcome by emotions at this sickly sweet and fluffy slice of life for modern married Henry and Catherine #I LOVE THEM SO MUCH #and sorry not sorry for the fandom meta #i actually love how modern AU Northanger Abbey just has to be about fandom #and attitudes towards certain kinds of YA fiction #and it just blows my mind that anyone doing a modern NA might think it was about anything ese #*else #rose writes

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jaybug-jabbers · 4 years ago

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Pokemon Gold/Silver Beta Pokemon: The April 2020 Leak

Look, 2020 was a rough year. So maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that the April 2020 Gold/Silver source code leak flew almost entirely under my radar. If you Google about it, you’re find it’s very rare for news outlets to cover it. This is probably because many folks are hesitant to cover leaks. Also, the US was warming up to a truly awful pandemic around that point, not to mention other civil unrest, so it’s no surprise some people were a tad distracted.

But the fact is, another leak turned up in April of last year, following a recent trend of huge Nintendo leaks. And this one was a doozy. I’ve only truly realized its full extent in the past few days. As such, I’d like to do a post that covers some of the new information. In particular, I’m focusing on beta pokemon that were cut or heavily reworked.

Now, back in 2018, the Spaceworld ‘97 Pokemon Gold/Silver Demo was leaked online. I made a post about some of my favorites. So, from this leak, we already knew of a while slew of beta pokemon. However, as it turns out, there were still more new faces to find-- and a lot of them! I list 45 new beta pokemon here, in fact!

In the April 2020 leak, several sprite sets were found as internal files, each at different phases of game production. The sprite sets were dated May 6, 1998, June 13, 1999, June 21, 1999, and September 17, 1999. The August 17, 1999 Spaceworld ‘99 Demo build was also found, so we have information on that as well.

Essentially, if you want to see this information at The Cutting Room Floor, then head to this page for the sprites discovered as internal backups/sprite banks. Head to this page for the Spaceworld ‘99 demo information page. And, if you need a refresher for the older leak, you can go to this page for the Spaceworld ‘97 demo build.

For this post, we will focus on the May 6, ‘98 set of sprites, which contain the vast majority of new faces. So, without further ado, onward to the pokemon!

(#300) Kokopelli Pokemon/Celebi

(May 6, ‘98) (Spaceworld ‘99 Demo)

This first pair of sprites looks very much like Kokopelli, a fertility deity of some Native American cultures. This deity can be seen in ancient Native American petroglyphs, as a humpbacked flute player with feathers on the head. Surprisingly, we find that Celebi in the Spaceworld ‘99 Demo seems to be an updated version of this design, making Celebi’s design origins much different than expected. However, its fertility diety inspiration is still somewhat apparant in the modern Celebi, as a creature that causes plant life to flourish.

(#301) Eel Pokemon

While the sprite files did not reveal a name or other data, this eel’s sprites were numbered right beside the Gurotesu (Grotess) and Ikari (Anchorage) sprites, suggesting it once was the start of their evolution chain.

(#304) Fire Fox Pokemon

This little fellow is a fox that seems to have a fiery tail. It’s possible this fire fox was inspired by kitsune (just as Vulpix/Ninetails were) and that it was later redesigned as Fennekin.

(#305 - 308) Snow Bunny Evolution Line

These four pokemon seem to belong to the same evolutionary line. The second one seems to based on the Yuki Usagi, a ‘Snow Bunny.’ In Japan, these cute little critters are made in the snow (using leaves for the ears). They also sometimes make these Yuki Usagi as little marshmallow or mochi treats. So this pokemon line could be inspired by either of these. Considering the leaves and the snow, I would guess these would have been Grass/Ice.

(#309) Elephant Pokemon

You might wonder if this chonky boy-- looking tough with horns on his head and back-- was an early version of Donphan, but Donphan and Phanpy were present in the Spaceworld ‘97 demo. Indeed, this elephant and Phanpy/Donphan both exist in the same set of sprites from May ‘98, so it was simply a case of two types of elephants. This pokemon also calls to mind a glimpse of a cut beta pokemon we saw from Generation 1 (from ‘Satoshi Tajiri: The Man Who Made Pokémon’):

Same fierce eyes, at any rate! Alas, these both never saw the light of day. However, it’s possible this elephant was reworked into Piloswine, which is not in the May ‘98 collection but does appear in the June 13 ‘99 collection (although Swinub is absent). While Piloswine and Swinub are more akin to wild boars, there is also some relation to mammoths (an inspiration more heavily leaned on with Mammoswine in later games). Then again, there’s another pokemon you’ll see a little further down this list that might have inspired Piloswine instead.

(#311) Natu/Xatu Mid-Evolution

What is clearly a mid-evolution (its file number sits between the two). Has a peacock-like tail. Honestly, I think this works really good as a mid-evolution, and I don’t know why it was cut. I want to name it “Watu.”

(#313) Drunk Kiwi Pokemon

This one is just hilarious to look at. It appears to probably be a kiwi-bird? A very crazy-eyed, loopy one. I can see why this one was cut. The goofy, simple design kind of looks like a knockoff cartoon character for children.

(#314) Scorpion Pokemon

A pretty badass-looking scorpion, although a rather basic design. I dig the funky head, though. It seems like it has a single, beady eye and is rather menacing. This pokemon may have been later reworked into Gligar, a pokemon that first appears after this sprite set, in the June 13 ‘99 group:

Admittedly this is rather different from the Gligar we know, but it is an early design.

Or, who knows-- maybe this little fellah was later reworked into Skorupi. (If so, it’s a shame, as I don’t dig the weird accordian-like design of its limbs and its evolution.)

(#315) Quail Pokemon

A pudgey little quail pokemon. Doesn’t seem related to the kiwi pokemon. It’s a very cute little thing, and has lots of potential to evolve into something interesting, but it seems they scrapped it pretty quickly.

(#316) Music Note Bird Pokemon

Although these sprites are numbered right after the quail, and they are both birds, the designs are very different, so they seem unrelated. It seems the beta pokemon were simply blessed with a lot of birds. This little bird is in the shape of a clef, giving this bird a musical theme. It seems very likely it was later reworked into Chatot, a bird with a music-note shaped head and metronome tail.

(#319) Boar Pokemon

A cute, grumpy little boar with antlers. Probably what eventually led to Piloswine found in the June 13 ‘99 group. A bit of a shame, in my mind, as I kind of prefer this design.

(#325) Spikey Dog Pokemon

The curious thing is that this dog looks very similar to “Pudi,” a pokemon we saw in the Spaceworld ‘97 demo, which was intended to be a pre-evolution of Growlithe. But Pudi is also in this same collection of sprites!

Perhaps they were toying with the idea of re-designing Pudi (and had already scrapped a bunch of baby pokemon) and just hadn’t bothered to remove the old Pudi yet. It’s hard to say. Ultimately, these both were scrapped, but at least we still have Subbull/Granbull.

(#331) Yūrei Ghost Pokemon

This little ghost has two things that are common in Japanese folklore: the hitaikakushi (the white cloth headband it wears) and the two little balls of fire called hitodama. It is unknown why this ghost pokemon was scrapped, but perhaps they thought the little fellow wouldn’t translate well overseas?

(#344) Viking Ship Pokemon

Look at this beauty! A pokemon based off some sort of Viking ship. I absolutely adore this one. It’s creative and charming. I hope to see it in the future.

(#349) Wooly Dog Pokemon

This canine-like creature is fluffy as all out. Honestly I think it’s a tad odd, with how tangled and disheveled its fur looks. I can’t help but compare it to the early desings of the three Legendary Beasts, since they also are very canine-like:

These three designs are present in this same May 6, 98′ sprite collection as the representations of Raikou, Entei, and Suicune. Were they possibly playing with a different design idea for the Legendary Beasts? Perhaps Suicune. The Wooly Dog is just such an imposing sprite, that I can’t help but wonder. All pure speculation, of course.

(#350) Rabbit Pokemon

This rabbit has a rather intense look about him, and it makes me curious what the ideas were behind it. TCRF suggests it’s a possible pikachu clone.

(#351) Snake Pokemon

This cute little worm or snake seems to be wearing a feather headdress, suggesting its design may also be Native American inspired, like the Natu line. On the other hand, this could be inspired by Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent deity in Aztec culture. I would have loved to see this little guy’s evolutions.

(#352) Scarecrow Bird

A bird with a hat that kind of looks like a scarecrow. Honestly, it’s a super-cute idea.

(#353) Gargoyle Pokemon

This crouching beastie sort of looks like a gargoyle with a long, sharp tail. I can’t quite tell if those bits on the side are little wings or just a part of its legs. It would be interesting to see this creature standing in a different position-- I feel like that would give us a better understanding of what it looks like. Interestingly, there are striking similarities with Aerodactyl:

I wonder why they are so similar?

(#354 - 356) Manbō Evolution Family

The first of these three fishies was someone we already met in the Spaceworld ‘97 demo-- it was named ‘Manbō 1.′ In the demo, it evolved into Ikari (Anchorage) and then Gurotesu (Grotess). It seems it’s now been split off from those and given a new evolution family here. While I find that neat, and I quite like the expressions on these fish, they are admittedly a little bland.

(#360) Flying Squirrel(?) Pokemon

TCRF guesses this is a flying squirrel, and it seems to be wearing a sheathed sword. Not sure about the headgear it’s sporting. Is that a ninja star?

(#364) Early Cyndaquil

So, this May 6, ‘98 collection is really exciting. The original Gold/Silver fire starter line we saw in Spaceworld ‘97 (Honooguma’s line) is still present in this collection (as is the water-type ‘Cruz’ line and Chikorita’s line). So, what we have here seems to be an early Cyndaquil before they decided to turn it into a fire type and make it the fire starter! In fact, those spikes might even be icicles (like Alolan Sandslash), for all we know. If so, Cyndaquil’s typing pulled a 180.

(#377) Early Furret?

Possibly an early Furret. Looks pretty awkward, not gonna lie; I’m glad it was probably refined into modern Furret, with more body definition between the head and tail.

(#378) Stork Pokemon

It’s a stork, based on the myth of where babies come from. A cute idea, although its curly ‘hair’ looks a little funny to me.

(#380) Squid Pokemon

A squid with drills for its mantle and arms. Since that’s kinda Beedrill’s thing, I’m glad they scrapped the idea. The backsprite lacks drills so it’s probably from a different design stage.

(#382 - 383) Early Burmy/Pineco

Burmy/Wormadam/Mothim is based off the bagworm. Bagworms are grubs that use silk and lots of bits of leaves, bark and other objects to create a camouflaged cocoon. When they turn into adults, some species of female bagworms just look like their larval stage, while the males turn into winged moths. That is why Burmy/Wormadam/Mothim have their unique evolution situation. Clearly, these two beta pokemon are playing around with the bagworm idea. They probably went on to inspire both Pineco (another pokemon based on bagworms!) and the Burmy line in gen 4.

(#386) Koala Pokemon

It’s so cool to see they were thinking about a koala pokemon this early. We would not finally get one until gen 7′s Komala.

(#387) Tanuki Pokemon

A Tanuki that is carrying campfire kindling on his back, but the kindling has caught fire. Apparently based on the Kachi-Kachi Yama folktale, which is a surprisingly violent story, but I suppose folktales often are. Who knows why it was cut, but Sentret is the closest thing we have to a tanuki pokemon for now.

(#392) Megaphone(?) Bird Pokemon

Yet another bird pokemon! There sure were a lot of beta birds. This one appears to have a megaphone-shaped beak. Or, possibly, its head is shaped like a gas mask (the strange eyes seem to support this idea). Honestly I really dig the look of this one.

(#397) Frog Pokemon

It’s tough to tell but it has a small horn on its head. It has a long tongue and is probably shouting “ribbithhhhhh!” It’s cute, but a little plain.

(#400) Tiny Hippo Pokemon

Look at this little weirdo. I think it’s a tiny hippo? With a mohawk and a big grin and wild eyes. It doesn’t really seem to have a head, its mouth/eyes/ears are just stuck directly to a body. Looks pretty awkward, probably needed some polish. No idea what they were going for with it, but it’s interesting.

(#401) Skeleton Pokemon

A very spooky, bipedal, living skeleton beast. It has a long snout and sharp teeth, almost like a crocodile or a dinosaur-like creature. Its head and shoulders have bony spikes and the front of its snout has markings that seem to be a nasal cavity. Very detailed. It also reminds me of Missingno, as some Missingno used the fossil skeletons as their front sprites. I would have loved to have this pokemon, and it’s a real shame they didn’t use it.

(#402) Rodent Pokemon

A mouse or bunny with gigantic, spotted ears and no arms. Those are some serious ears; it almost looks like it could fly with them.

(#403) Fly Pokemon

A bug-type!! It has a huge, creepy face, curly antenna and wings strangely really close to its head. I love it?? But it’s a bug, so of course I do.

(#404) Plant Pokemon

The Snow Bunny was likely part grass-type, but other than that, this is our first grass beta! It has one eye, a spikey head, and almost foot-like roots. I love how grumpy it looks. There’s a possibility it was a pre-evolution for Sunflora, before they had created the idea of Sunkern (which is not present in this collection).

(#405) Ant Pokemon

Another bug!! This one looks a lot like a winged ant. (Those do exist-- usually a temporary thing for mating flights) It’s possibly related to the fly pokemon above, sporting very similar wings. However, it doesn’t really seem like an evolution.

(#406) Dinosaur Pokemon

A little dinosaur-like pokemon, looking up at you. It’s unclear if that’s a tough, bony skull, or if it’s maybe a hat. The clubbed tail makes me wonder if it’s related to #415 below, but it’s probably unlikely. However, it is pretty likely that this later became Cranidos.

(#407) Early Cherrim

This clearly was a design that was picked up later, in gen 4, to create Cherubi/Cherrim’s sunshine form. I am glad the design was improved, because the lips on this one scare me.

(#412) Early Dunsparce

Dunsparce looking quite different. No wings, no drill tail, with a much more typical snake-like face.

(#415) Dinosaur Pokemon

It looks like an aquatic version of an Ankylosaurus or something similar. It’s possible it’s related to the Viking Ship pokemon (as a pre-evo), but there’s no way to know. I quite like it, though.

(#416) Flying Fish Pokemon

This magnificent beast, this miracle of creation, is surely my favorite beta pokemon of all time. Revel in its glory. You may not like it, but this is the ideal pokemon body. What a perfect way to round off our collection of betas.

#pokemon #pokemon gold/silver #beta pokemon #april 2020 leak #pokemon betas #pokemon beta content #mycontent #pokemon discussion

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jeeperso · 3 years ago

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D&D Quotes Without Context

Ravenloft, Dementlieu Arc, part 3

"Oh goodie, another witness." “Oh, goody, a victim.” “Now, I only need one of you to scream answers for me. I’ll let you choose.” "Sri Marshal of the Ordo Custodes Tenebris! Y'all are under arrest! Surrender now or Jonni will open fire!" Jonni casts fireball on them. "Sri Linxia, Order of the Rack Hellknights. YOU are under arrest." Marshal: "I am responding to a code nine-oh...and Jonni lit you on fire. Good, I needed some work therapy." "Row, row, row your boat until I get to the bigger one." Row! Row! Fight the power!" "Also, your Apparatus of Kwalish is illegally docked." OOC: Never underestimate Jonni's willingness to solve problems with fire. Also, Jonni's fireball incinerated all the bodies and the boat is now MORE on fire. “You guys go finish those losers off, but save the screamiest looking one for questioning. Jonni’s got this!" OOC: Again, lock, stock & two wands of fireball. Gorbash picks up the ticking device and hucks it overboard as far as he can. GM: It goes over with no trouble, but is still floating near the boat. GM: Which is still sinking by the way. GM: And on fire. Marshal: "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." Once you guys get on the rowboat, you manage to get away from the ship as the bomb goes off, putting ANOTHER hole in the ship, and causing it to sink beneath the waves. Irost: "Does... this kind of stuff usually happen on your missions?" Jonni: “Usually there’s more fire than that.” Gorbash: "But yeah, assholes and fire are a staple. Also Jonni applying fire to assholes." Jonni: “Literally if possible.” Alright, as you return to the docks, you begin to hear sirens in the distance, signaling the coming of the city guard, you also see several boats on the harbor now, probably the coast guard. "Cheese it!" GM: As said by the party Paladin. This man is a father now. Gorbash: "If anyone asks we saw nothing. Except a boat suddenly being on fire. Which we know nothing about." Jonni: "Right, the number 2." There is one thing though. Driven in the door of your wagon is a dagger, the same dagger that the Tiefling was using. “Hey, free knife.” Gorbash: "Really? This is supposed to scare us?" shakes his head "Amateurs." As soon as you say this, the Mantis head rips itself out of your hands, grows metal spider legs, gives off a high pitched giggle, then runs off into the night. “It’s okay, I’ve seen this play. Jon Voigt finishes him off in the third act." "Hey, anyone who knows me knows I like to be everyones friend. I especially want to be friends with a friend who has a friend with a knife to my back." "Yeah, that is Linxia alright. Bigot too, she encouraged us messing with Semprini just because of his race." “Yeah. We mess with him because we hate him.”

"My other business is that, for all your generosity, Lady Vesh, I recall something about our needing to be seen as big spenders." “Hey, I bribed those cops without even being asked.” "They keep a whale in captivity. Jail break! Who's with me?" Nyx says with a huge grin on her face. Jonni: “We’d need a D3 cruiser and plexiglass. Get that and I’m in.” OOC: Seriously considering Jonni showing up naked, wreathed in fire. Marshal: "We go into the dark places, bringing light. And fire. And sharp blades." Irost: "I bring more darkness and ice." "COWER BRIEF MORTALS!" Jonni makes a fire bird behind Marshall. "I COME FROM FUNDERTAINMENT'S THRONE OF THE BLACK ROSE!" Gorbash sighs. "...I know we need to make an entrance but really guys." Marshal slips on a pair of burning red Kamina glasses With Irost's help, ominous bogus latin chanting follows Marshal as he strides like a Death Knight through the crowd. Minor illusions, as Irost sneaks along behind Marshal to keep the chanting going. "THE BOY, MORTAL." “BEHOLD MARSHALL! PALADIN OF THE WATCH! I AM HIS HERALD, JONTHANA, SHE WHO MAKES TORCHES OF MEN!” He produces a Sending stone, grabs Marshal, and flashes a selfie with it and him. As you enter, you step in some pools of fetid slime. Irost: "I just got these shoes!" he laments, stepping more daintily. Nyx decides to go looking for something slimy on the food tables. Armor or no armor, Linxia is getting it down the back no matter what. Seeing what she's doing, Marshal goes full ham. OOC: So we finally stuffed him with meat to make him a meat shield? "So, want to hear about how Clerical Magic has been shown to cause early onset dementia? I have some pamphlets..." “Nah, that’s a hoax by big alchemy.” "Not even a whale, describe what it looks like, Irost." I don't know. Like a big fish, with tentacles, and a weird mouth.... kind of Kalimari-ish.... and three eyes." “Aaaaaaaand time for us to go.” “I heard stories about them. Their reign was only ended by a falling piece of god that caused a thousand years of darkness.” "A knight of Asmodeus fears no man or beast." “Yes, but you’re all morons.” Irost: "I believe I heard Marshall refer to it by its proper name... Apparatus of Quail Quiche."

#dungeons and dragons #dnd 5e #quotes without context #ravenloft

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badger-writes · 4 years ago

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Star Wars OC Ship Week 2021 - “for light and life”

Day 4 - Action/Adventure

Then...

Sskeer came at him like a feral Nexu, leveraging a ferocious primal strength into a totally unrelenting barrage of lightsaber strikes. He assaulted Kelto’s defense with a flurry of fast, sweeping slashes, battering his sides with wide swordstrokes and raining down heavy overhead blows from above - the hallmarks of the Aggression Form, Ataru, his skill at which he had honed to razor keenness over the long period of his Knighthood.

Kelto wished he had foreseen that the intensity of his friend’s fighting style would match that of his demeanor. More than that, though, he wished he had kept up with his saber practice. His style was that of Resilience, Soresu, a style which valued ultimate defense - a fitting form for a practitioner of the healing arts, but not for a duelist. As the Rodian himself now proved, being buffeted as he was around the sparring circle, preventing the Trandoshan from landing a blow by last-minute movement or the skin of his teeth.

Kelto had assumed working in the medical ward precluded the possibility of encountering lightsaber combat in his daily life. Sskeer had made it his mission to thoroughly deconstruct that notion.

“Focus,” he hissed over the electrical crash of their plasma blades. “Do not let the fight dictate your reality.”

“I’m not,” Kelto protested. “I’m - I’m enduring!”

“Survival alone will not guarantee victory. If you spend all your energy waiting for a counterblow, you will lose. You must seize control, not wait for it to be given!”

He lifted his blade as if to strike Kelto’s right quarter, then swung instead for his feet. The Rodian jumped back, landing unsteadily on his feet, and attempted to reestablish his guard. With a thrust, Sskeer pushed it away.

“Just give me a second,” Kelto grunted, swatting away another incoming blow.’

“Your opponent will show no mercy. Why should I?”

“Just - just slow down! I can’t - I can’t keep up with you!”

“You’re in over your head,” Sskeer lectured. “Becoming flustered. The fear, the anger - it is taking hold of you.”

“Sskeer, please--!”

“Without balance, we lose discipline. Without discipline, we lose control.”

With a cry, Kelto lashed out - a clumsy, sloppy swing that was born of no style save frustration. Sskeer dodged it easily. Then he reached out with his free hand and seized the front of the healer’s tunic in an iron-clawed grasp. This was followed with a leg sweep that knocked his feet out from under him and a simple throw that sent him definitively down to the mattress. The impact forced the breath from Kelto’s lungs and his lightsaber from his fingers, its training blade disappearing with a sad hiss as it deactivated.

Sskeer held the point of his own saber over Kelto’s heart where he lay. His reptilian face was sympathetic, but pitiless.

“And that is why we must drill,” he said.

Groaning, Kelto forced himself up on his elbows. He was panting hard, sweat shining on his face and darkening the collar of his robes. By contrast, Sskeer didn’t seem to have a hair out of place, insofar as one could say such a thing about a Trandoshan.

“Dammit,” the Rodian gasped. “I just -- I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“You were unwise to lower your defenses,” Sskeer began, fixing his hilt to his belt. “Your last swing created a clear angle of attack on your center.”

“I figured that part out, thanks,” Kelto snapped, drawing his knees to his chest. “It’s everything else that’s a problem.”

“The fault isn’t yours alone. Soresu prioritizes defense above all others, but a shield alone cannot win a battle. You must bring a sword as well. That is what I am trying to show you, Kelto.”

“Well, all you’re showing me right now is that my shield sucks.”

“A problem that can be solved. But not by ruminating on your failures.”

The Rodian sighed violently, glaring between his toes. Turning towards the edge of the circle, Sskeer reached out and used the Force to levitate a canister of water into his waiting hand. Then he sat cross-legged on the floor beside Kelto, offering Kelto the canteen. He took it like a secondhand trophy.

“This time you lasted much longer,” Sskeer informed him as he gulped down the cool liquid. “Against an Ataru as aggressive as my own, that is no easy feat. I commend you.”

“I still lost,” Kelto observed grumpily.

“This is true. When your attitude about saber combat changes, this will change, too.”

“That’s just it, Sskeer - I don’t think it will.” Kelto let out a guilty breath. “Saber combat was never important to me. It never felt - right. A pacifist shouldn’t carry a laser sword. And neither should a healer.”

“A pacifist can be a healer, and a peacekeeper as well. More than that, he ought to be able to defend himself. All of these concepts can coexist.”

“I understand that, but - come on, you don’t really believe we’ll be having lightsaber duels again, do you? The Sith have been extinct for ages by now. Who would strike at the Jedi or the Republic on such a scale again?”

“I don’t know,” Sskeer said slowly. “I hope such a conflict does not occur for many generations to come. But I believe in being prepared for the galaxy’s sake, if not only my own. And so should you.”

“But - but I barely leave the Temple,” Kelto protested. “I barely even leave my quarters!”

“You cannot rely on routine and habit to shield you from the world. The future will find bring you to many dangers, Kelto, whether that be a patrol in the Coruscant underworld or a mission of peace and relief to the Outer Rim. It may even bring danger to you, here, in the place where we Jedi feel safest. Will you feel very wise then, if you allow yourself to become comfortable and complacent? Will you feel safe? Will those in your care?”

Kelto had no answer. He went back to staring uncertainly at his toes.

Sskeer heaved a breath through his nostrils. “If I upset you, I apologize. It is a matter I care deeply about. For the sake of the galaxy - and for your own. It is… the way of the Guardian.”

“I know.”

“When we continue, I will… slow down, and offer more suggestions for improvement. From now on, we proceed at your pace, not mine.”

“...Thank you, Sskeer. That… means a lot.”

The Trandoshan reached out and rested a palm on Kelto’s shoulder. “I seek only to serve you, Healer. And to help.”

Kelto offered him a shaky smile, covering his hand with his own. “Don’t we all?”

Now…

Oh good. The pirates had sliced a loadlifter.

Kelto swore under his breath and ducked as a Class B medium cargo container went hurtling through the air overhead, smashing through part of the hastily-erected CSF barricade. The ziggurat platform of the derrick major squatted over them all, offering the criminals and their reprogrammed muscle an opportunity for raining blasterfire and shipping crates down upon the police frontline. The sting operation had clearly failed; the pirates weren’t leaving without a fight, and the police were horribly outnumbered.

And the only thing standing between them and death by volleys of laser fire was Kelto and Sskeer.

One thing Soresu was good for was deflection training. As bolts of sizzling red plasma plunged towards them, Kelto intercepted them with his blade, sending them harmlessly into the ground or off to the side. Beside him, Sskeer, too, was bouncing shots off the edge of his saber, though his technique lacked refinement; in trying, perhaps, to reflect the pirates’ own shots back at them, they instead bounced wildly back into the loading bay, spalling off chunks of permacrete or ricocheting off the surface of blast-resistant cargo pods.

“Injured to our left,” Kelto called out as he sensed them. “I’m going to get them.”

“I’ll give you cover,” Sskeer nodded. “Let’s move.”

Carefully, they sidestrafed through the wide open space of the cargo landing. Kelto relied on intuition to lead them to the wounded, and for intuition, he trusted the Force. It brought them to the foot of a gantry crane where two dockworkers and a security official were taking cover. The officer was slumped against its foot, bleeding slightly from the mouth, a darkly-singed crater on his stomach where a blaster bolt had breached his body armor.

“Give me cover,” Kelto ordered, and Sskeer obliged; he held his lightsaber out before him through the Force and made it spin until a single spear of light became a dazzling electric-blue shield, almost completely circular in the perfection of its cycle. Incoming fire was all but spattered harmlessly away.

Sheathing his own blade, Kelto crouched down beside the cop, examining his wound. “What’s your name, officer?”

“J-Joh,” the man sputtered. “Joh Andaris.”

“It’s good to meet you, Joh. I’m Kelto. You’re gonna be fine.” He took a stim-shot from a hip pouch and injected it into the man’s shoulder. “That’s to get you on your feet. In a couple of seconds my friend and I are going to have some words with those gentlemen up on the warehouse level, and when we do that I need you all to run back towards the police line, yes?”

“How are we supposed to get all the way back there?!” one of the workers, an Aqualish, quailed. “We’ll be ripped to shreds!”

“We’ll draw their fire.” Kelto lifted the man up onto his feet. “Be ready.”

“All by yourselves?!”

“It’s what we do. We are all the Republic.”

He turned back to Sskeer just in time to watch a blaster bolt slip through his defenses. It slid perfectly through a gap in his deflection pattern and sheared over the surface of his shoulder; the Trandoshan hissed, almost dropping his concentration, calling his saber back to his hand for a more conventional defense.

To the far right of their position, back across the way, Kelto sighted a Class C cargo unit - a long trapezoid of rust-colored durasteel, taller than him by quite a bit and by Sskeer by not much more. But size mattered not. He stretched out his hands and cradled it in the Force, lifting it - pulling it close to the point it blocked all the incoming fire that Sskeer was drawing.

The Rodian edged out behind it as the civilians used its cover to limp back to safety. Sskeer, in turn, took hold of the container as well; they moved in concert, step by step, pushing forward to the center of the plaza.

“How’s your shoulder?” Kelto called. He had to raise his voice, otherwise Sskeer might not have heard him over the hailstorm of blaster shots pitting the other side of their durasteel wall.

“I’ve had worse.”

Kelto glanced at the wound. It was oozing emerald green blood into Sskeer’s white-and-gold Jedi robes. “Not that by much,” he commented. “Sure you don’t want a stim?”

“Save it. Maybe one of the gentlemen shooting at us needs a pick-me-up,” the Trandoshan retorted.

“Hey, you wanted me out here!”

“Just be ready--”

“I’m with you--”

“For light and life!”

Together, they angled the container upwards - and hurled it through the air towards the pirates. They scattered back, falling away from the walkway above, as it crashed through the railing and rolled to a stop somewhere beyond the edge.

Leaping to a phenomenal height, Sskeer and Kelto followed after it.

Then…

When he landed, Kelto ducked into a roll, swiping out at Sskeer’s shins; the Trandoshan moved to push the blow away, realized there wasn’t enough time, and only just managed to jump back from it before it connected. He grinned even through his blocking when it was followed by an evenly-spaced series of strikes.

“Good,” he said over the clash of lightsabers. “Good! Seize the offensive. Build on your momentum.”

Kelto smirked at him through their blade lock. “Now who’s waiting for a countermove?”

In response Sskeer levered his blade away, moving his own smoothly back and up through the air for an overhead slash. Here, Kelto did something he did not expect; instead of intercepting his attack directly, he sidestepped to his right and brought his lightsaber upwards at a diagonal angle, following the edge of Sskeer’s blade in almost perfect parallel.

In spite of himself, Kelto grinned triumphantly as he made his attack. His saber’s edge would travel directly into Sskeer’s belly, framed by the position of his knees below and his arms above; it was a guaranteed hit. A guaranteed victory, even!

But then Sskeer reared back hard, forcing himself to bend at a near ninety-degree angle to the floor, supporting his body almost solely through pushing down through the balls of his feet. As Kelto’s strike swung harmlessly over him, brilliant turquoise energy passing right above his face, he pivoted hard on his toes, swinging out from under Kelto’s arms and pirouetting away from his opponent’s zone of control. Transforming a decisive blow into a near miss.

Spinning his saber in one-handed agitation, Kelto gave him a Rodian stink eye. “A giant like you,” he said crossly, “should not be allowed to move like that.”

Sskeer fixed him with a sly stare. “That’s not what you thought last Fete Week.”

“Don’t go there,” the healer laughed, pointing with his sword warningly. “Do not go there.”

“Try and stop me,” the Guardian said, huskily.

Kelto gave a cry of action and surged forward, clutching his sword like a spear--

And at the last moment Sskeer stepped to one side, and Kelto saw how close to the edge of the sparring circle he’d been standing. In a panic, he threw out his free hand and grabbed the front of Sskeer’s robe, his toes digging into the mat and dragging him to a stop, hanging almost completely over the short dip down to the floor below.

“Your next lesson,” Sskeer declared passively. Having an entire Rodian come to an emergency stop by clinging desperately to his shirt hadn’t so much as budged him. “Don’t blind yourself to your surroundings.”

“That’s not fair,” Kelto protested half-heartedly. “You distracted me.”

“That is the point.” He grabbed Kelto by the arm and pulled him back to his feet on the sparring mat. “I’m supposed to.”

“It wasn’t the fair kind of distraction.”

“No fight is fair, Kelto. You must adapt to anything and everything that your opponent may have in store for you. Focus on the reality of the fight, not temporary diversions.”

The healer crossed his arms, crinkling his snout puckishly. “Even if they’re big, tall, incorrigibly sexy distractions?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Especially then,” Sskeer chuffed, turning. “Now come - back to first position. Now that you’ve got the hang of things, let’s go again.”

“Lose the tunic first, big guy.”

He stopped, turning on his heel. “Exssssscuse me?”

“Hey - you wanted to train me to block out distractions, right?” Kelto strutted to his marker and crouched down into beginning stance, grinning. “So start being distracting already.”

Sskeer smirked. “As you wish,” he said, shrugging out of his top.

Now…

In the heat of the battle, Kelto’s awareness had developed into a kind of double vision - an immediate center of attention where his focus narrowed to encompass the most immediately pressing complication, and a wider, peripheral awareness where the details of his environment and surrounding happenings were sorted into neat piles to be confronted later.

The two men before him leveling carbines in his direction rated his immediate attention. Sskeer was to his right, on the other side of the warehouse; the pirates occupying that half, accordingly, became a secondary concern. The loading crane coming unmoored with an explosion and falling to the floor with a hideous crash was concerning - almost distracting - but ultimately of no consequence; he could safely ignore it, as it had landed on no one and nothing important.

The pirates in front of him didn’t realize this, and flinched, looking back over their shoulders. He seized the opportunity and sliced the barrels off their weapons before throwing them back against a cargo pod with a gesture, where they passed into unconsciousness and out of the fight. One of them had managed to pull the trigger before his saber ruined his gun; the bolt blazed a trail past his temple and nearly singed off his topknot, but aside from some lingering heat on the side of his face, he was otherwise okay.

Sidestepping to the right, Kelto next leapt the vertical meters up to the gantryway above, cresting the railing with a kick that caught a waiting sniper in the jaw and sent him sprawling over the side. The thump that he made when he hit the floor was a curiosity; equally unimportant, in the scheme of things, as the fallen loading arm. He duly discarded the thought.

Men shooting at him on his side of the catwalks? Immediate threat - he deflected their shots back at them in turn. Sskeer joining him on the upper level, opposite side, similarly engaged, carving through the opposition with his usual intensity? Important situational note - make an effort to link up as soon as possible.

A heavy repeater being wheeled out on a repulsorpad from behind a heavy warehouse door on their level?

Well, details like that tended to... confuse his ordering system, just a little.

“SSKEER!”, he shouted, pirouetting back towards a tall, thick support column. “E-WEB! E-WEB!”

Glancing, Sskeer saw - and jumped out of the line of fire just before the blaster cannon opened up. The warehouse rang from floor to ceiling with the staccato drone of its report as the dreadful weapon poured its destructive firepower into the Trandoshan’s general location; it pounded Kelto’s ears as he watched, heart in his throat, as Sskeer scrambled for cover.

The cannon’s operator must have been a genius among smugglers, for instead of trying to perforate a target that moved faster than he could aim, he shot the catwalk out from under him. It collapsed with a terrible crash and sent Sskeer spilling down to the floor; he recovered in a rolling crouch as the other gangsters, emboldened, turned all their attention to the fallen Jedi, blasters raised.

His partner was in danger. Intellectually, Kelto knew this should have bothered him. Instead he pushed through the spike of emotion and found his discipline again.

Then he went to work.

Darting out from behind the pillar, he sprinted at full tilt past one - two - three snipers on the catwalks, slashing each of them in passing. The cannon operator, he knew, would see him coming - and even now he was orienting the giant gun accordingly. He couldn’t possibly reach the cannon before it found a bead on him - so instead he brought the gun to him.

Kelto skidded to a halt, whipped out a hand, and pulled the mounted cannon towards him; the cannon, a slave to its hoverlift, jerked forward violently, throwing its gunner to the side when he had finished coming along for the ride. Sidestepping the drifting E-Web, Kelto slashed downwards through its barrel in passing, pivoted sharply on his heel, and delivered his booted heel to the pirate’s chin as he attempted to rush him with a vibroknife. The blow knocked him out cold, and Kelto noted with uncharacteristic satisfaction the crack it made when his foot collided with his jaw.

With the gun out of commission, he turned back to the warehouse floor below. He needn’t have worried, he realized; with brutal Trandoshan ferocity, Sskeer had made quick work of the pirates who had made the fatal tactical error of attempting to charge a single lightsaber-wielding opponent. He snarled his way through a final broad slash that sent two more men collapsing to the ground, growling in challenge at any unseen gangsters left bold enough or stupid enough to approach him.

“I got the gun,” Kelto reported, belatedly.

“Very good,” Sskeer called back up. “Lower floor is clear.”

“Was that all of them?”

“I believe so.”

Kelto vaulted the rail and dropped back down to the ground floor, softening his landing with the Force and landing in a crouch. “That’s a pity,” he commented, straightening and padding over to Sskeer. “I was hoping we could resolve this without much loss of life.”

“CSF casualties were low. And we are both still standing.”

“I meant on both sides.”

“Save your pity,” Sskeer sniffed. “If these Outer Rim scum are so low as to murder innocents for smuggled wealth, they deserve just what they got.”

“I suppose,” Kelto shrugged. “But I still feel conflicted.”

“Your compassion does you credit, Kelto. But don’t waste it on those who don’t seek it.”

“I offer it freely. It’s a healer thing.” He reached up to brush the suckers of his fingers against Sskeer’s injured shoulder. “A Jedi thing.”

The Trandoshan grunted, closing his eyes. “I know, I know. My… zeal, sometimes exceeds my beliefs.”

“We’re all the Republic, Sskeer. Even the baddies.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

Slowly, Sskeer’s fingers reached up to touch Kelto’s where they lingered at his collar, brushing the underside of his cheek.

Then Kelto said, “You don’t think we’re forgetting anything, do you?”

The loadlifter droid crashed through the ceiling, landing on the permacrete with enough force to create a small crater, screeching at them in corrupted Binary.

“Dammit,” Kelto grunted as they ignited their sabers once more. “Dammit dammit dammit.”

“Keep calm. It’s only a droid.”

“I know, I know. Just wishing I hadn’t broken the big gun.”

Then…

Only a few short months of consistent drilling later, and Kelto was already matching Sskeer step for step in the dueling ring. And from the look on his face, he knew it, too.

“Surprised I’m doing so well?” he asked, striking probingly at his opponent’s left and right quarters.

“On the contrary,” Sskeer replied, batting them away. “I couldn’t be prouder. You learn well.”

“I had a good teacher.” Kelto ducked under a first horizontal sweep, and punished the second by needling the point of his lightsaber into the joint of Sskeer’s shoulder; on training setting, it made contact with only an electrical sting. “But not that good, apparently.”

The Trandoshan growled, pacing in a circle and rolling his arm in its socket, working out the pain. “I don’t recognize that move,” he said wonderingly. “That wasn’t Soresu, was it?”

“I’ve been doing some research in my free time. Been looking into the Persistence Form - Shien. Do you know it?”

“Hm. A more aggressive style than what you’re used to.”

“Certain parts of it, yes, I agree. But you were right - you have to cover a good defense with a good offense. There’s no room for clinging to ideology in a real fight -- ”

Kelto flinched suddenly to the right, provoking Sskeer into following him with his guard - then he juked back the opposite direction, capitalizing on the fake-out by swinging his blade into the underside of his wrists.

“But being able to fight isn’t what defines you,” Kelto finished. “What you fight for does.”

“Yesss,” Sskeer rumbled. “Yes. Exactly what I’ve been trying to show you!”

He threw himself into another series of full-power overheads, and grinned widely as Kelto countered each of them in turn. Under locked blades, the Rodian beamed back at him.

“Though I can’t help but notice that this revelation comes after a steady string of losses,” the Guardian snorted.

“Every failure is an opportunity to learn,” Kelto replied smoothly. “And I’ve learned enough to finally beat you.”

“Then prove it,” Sskeer demanded.

“You know -- I think I will.”

And then it was Kelto who broke the block, with enough force to send Sskeer staggering back a half step; and when Sskeer attempted to counter with an overhead chop, he sidestepped the stroke before it arrived and leapt, corkscrewing up the air and planting himself on Sskeer’s shoulderblades, pushing hard through the balls of his feet. The Trandoshan grunted with the extra weight, wobbling fatefully on his feet before finally tipping and falling face first to the padded floor, saber jarring from his grasp on impact.

One foot on the small of Sskeer’s back and the other on the thick slope of his shoulders, Kelto lowered the edge of his blade to rest against his opponent’s neck. “And done,” he smirked.

From the floor, Sskeer glared - and then began to laugh. A deep, resonant sound, from the pit of his throat. “Well done, little healer. It seems your training is complete.”

“The student becomes the master,” the Rodian preened.

“Indeed. Let me up now, so I can congratulate you properly.”

Extinguishing his blade, Kelto said thoughtfully, “I don’t know - I worked pretty hard for this. Feel like I’ve earned the right to rub it in a little, don’t you?” And so even as he was stepping off of Sskeer’s back, he was plunking himself down to sit upon the curve of the Trandoshan’s spine.

“Urk-!”

“Oh, yes,” Kelto giggled. “That sound just made it all totally worth it.”

Sskeer glared at him warmly as he straightened up onto his elbows. “You are lucky to be pulling this juvenile nonsense on me and not someone like Master Engle.”

“After the protracted thrashing I just took, you’re lucky you’re still with me at all!”

He chuckled at that, softening. “I am, aren’t I.”

“And don’t you forget it, mister.” Kelto tapped the emitter of his lightsaber against his temple to underline the point. Then he stood, and offered his hand. “C’mon, up and at ‘em. Let’s go again.”

The disparity in their sizes and masses meant that Sskeer ended up doing most of the work of standing up. “Again? I thought your training was through.”

“My training. Now I help you work on your defense.”

“Ah, of course. How unexpectedly generous of you, ‘Master’ Lem.”

“Not generous at all. I plan on giving as good as I got.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

Smiling at each other, they folded their arms and bowed.

“Now look - it’s not so much about where you put your blade as where you put your feet, see? Watch…”

Now…

The loadlifter must have attempted to break through the police line; it was the only way to explain the amount of carbon scoring pitting its chassis. But the CSF’s sidearms had clearly failed to stop the berserk droid; if anything, they had only made it angrier.

The Jedi had two things working in their favor. First, the machine’s primary offensive implement, its two massive lifting arms, made its attack pattern slow & easy to predict; second, its sheer mass made it difficult for the droid to attack them with any kind of subtlety or dexterity. This meant much of the incoming danger would be coming from wide sweep attacks, and easily dodged. This was about where their list of advantages ended.

The droid, meanwhile, had been fitted by its criminal masters with heavy hydraulic legs and a microscopically thin layered shell of energy-resistant material - neuranium, perhaps, skimmed from shipments bound for projects related to the Republic’s Great Works initiative? Kelto wasn’t sure, and frankly, right now he didn’t care. Either way it meant their lightsabers weren’t easily cutting through its hide, and it had the speed to match and catch their every maneuver. It was a heavy bruiser, and no mistake.

If this was what they’d managed to cook up right under their noses on Coruscant, imagine what they were up to beyond the frontier?

The machine screeched and rushed them yet again, blitzing across the warehouse at a blistering pace in an attempt to pancake them against the wall. With scant seconds to spare they threw themselves in opposite directions, Kelto landing in a roll and turning sharply; the machine, split between two targets, chose to pursue Sskeer.

It shattered the ground around it with its huge fists, apelike bashing aimed at squashing the Trandoshan into the floor. Sskeer moved with a deftness that belied his own size; his feet carried him out of or around the rapidly-shifting crush zone with supreme economy of motion and exertion, and above them, his body shifted minutely to maximize his effective positioning. His arms, meanwhile, slashed and jabbed at the droid’s reinforced chassis with his lightsaber, creating trails of shallow gouges in the metal where his blade had passed.

Watching from the sidelines, Kelto almost wanted to cheer him on. Then the droid caught Sskeer in the gut with a side-swipe and sent him flying into the far wall.

His focus remained on Sskeer, sitting in his own impact crater, long enough to see his chest heave; he was badly shaken, possibly stunned, but still alive. Then his attention shifted back to the droid, which had taken its first step towards finishing the job.

The cowling around its shoulder joint had come loose. Not by much - but perhaps just enough.

Kelto charged. Sliding under a wild reactive swipe, he rolled to his feet and thrust the tip of his saber upwards, straight into the chink in the droid’s armor. In attempting to pull away, the droid inadvertently drew the unprotected coupling which lay beneath its shell across the edge of the energy blade, and the limb fell away lifelessly. It screamed in Binary, orienting to smash the offending Jedi with its other arm, but Kelto jump-flipped up and over its shoulder, shearing away the linkages connecting its armored collar to its vulnerable neck.

“Sskeer!”, he cried, landing as the armor segments clattered to the floor. “Now!”

The loadlifter reared back for one last overhead smash. It never got the chance to deliver the blow. Behind it, Sskeer bounded across the floor and sprang into a corkscrewing leap which carried his blade into position to strike the droid’s head from its shoulders. He executed the wayward machine with a roar.

The head landed with a dull clang and a dwindling electric whine; the rest of the body shuddered and ground to a complete halt, like a grotesque junkyard statue. The same could not be said for Sskeer, who came down heavily to his hands and knees upon returning to earth.

“Sskeer!” Kelto rushed to catch him, dropping his lightsaber and pushing him back up straight by his shoulders. “Are you alright?!”

“Y-yes,” Sskeer hissed. He clutched his head in one clawed hand and screwed his eyes shut, still sitting on his haunches. “I’m alright, it’s only -- nng-- a concussion, perhaps.”

“Sure you don’t want that stim now?”

“I’ve… reconsidered.”

Obligingly, Kelto injected him with an ampoule of kolto - and one more for good measure. Soon enough, Sskeer could see clearly again, though the ringing pain in his head still remained. The blaster wound, though, had almost completely closed over.

“Nice footwork back there,” Kelto murmured with a smile, massaging his uninjured shoulder. “Good placement, good tempo - ever consider taking up tap dancing? You’ve sure got the rhythm for it.”

“They don’t make patent synthleather in Trandoshan sizes.”

“Hey, you gotta have something to fall back on in case this Jedi thing falls through.”

Wearily, Sskeer met his eyes, grumbling in his throat. “Always the joker,” he said, tipping the underside of the Rodian’s jaw with his knuckle. Then he stood, groaning. “We should inform the police the situation is contained.”

Kelto tucked himself under his arm, half-carrying his weight across his shoulders - well, more like quarter-carrying. “Not bad for my first big patrol, huh?”

“You were more than capable. In some places, you surpassed even myself.” Sskeer slid his hand back to rest on the closer of Kelto’s shoulders. “As I said you would, if you trusted yourself to.”

“Ah, you’re just saying that.”

Sskeer stopped him in his tracks so he’d know he was being serious. “You would have made a fine Jedi Guardian, Kelto Lem. And should you ever desire such a path, I would be honored to walk it with you.”

He stared up at him, bug-eyed. “You… really mean that?”, he asked quietly.

Sskeer shrugged. “Consider it something to fall back on, in case being a healer doesn’t work out.”

“And I thought I was the joker around here,” Kelto snorted, as they left the ruined warehouse behind.

#StarWarsOCShipWeek2021 #star wars #high republic #sskeer #original character #oc x canon #fanfic

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busterkeatonfanfic · 4 years ago

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Chapter 23

Contrary to what he’d said while tired and sex-drunk, Buster did care about being seen with Nelly. After he’d driven her back to her apartment Monday morning and she’d hurried in to drop off her bags, then hurried back to the car, he dropped her off a few blocks from the United Artists lot. He hazarded a quick kiss on the lips, but that was it. He knew as well as anyone that to keep a mistress you had to be quiet about it, at least if your wife was as concerned about preserving the illusion of a happy marriage as Natalie was. It was a price he was willing to pay.

Now alone, he drove the half-hour to Culver City, reflecting on the weekend. It felt nice to be wild for a girl again, made him forget his troubles until the M-G-M sign loomed up ahead. His gut sank. Before he signed the contract, he’d asked for his team to be put on the payroll. The studio had granted his wish, but what he hadn’t bargained on was becoming the proud new recipient of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanted to make their mark in moving pictures gumming up his simple story with the goddamndest stuff: jewel heists, damsels in distress, a full military band. The days of Steamboat Bill seemed far, far away, and he longed for his old scenario department. Lately the mornings had consisted of sitting around a table with a baker’s dozen of men, including Thalberg, passing around a script that grew heavier and heavier with harebrained ideas with each passing day, like a ship sinking under the weight of too much cargo.

The image of that ship put him in mind of a gag. By the time he was inside and put in his standing order of coffee and donuts with a secretary, the gag had taken shape.

Bruckman was in the room with the big table. Buster could see that he was trying to pretend that things were as normal as they’d ever been, but he looked like he felt just as much like a fish out of water as Buster did. Some of the paid writers helloed Buster and asked him if he’d had a nice weekend.

“Sure. Did some quail-hunting in the Valley.” He smiled to himself, remembering a naked Nelly clinging to his neck in the lake.

Two young pretty girls came into the room with the coffee and donuts. Munching a donut, Buster wasted no time in introducing his idea to Bruckman.

“Suppose I start filming with my old camera to impress my girl, but I do it all wrong. Get into the craziest scrapes. I could be near a ship as it’s getting ready to be launched, thinking I’m about to get the shot of a lifetime, only the ship launches me with it,” he said.

“And you darn near topple off of it and lose your camera,” said Bruckman.

“Exactly,” Buster said.

“I’ve just written a part where your character bumps into a dame whose son has just been kidnapped,” one of the writers, a medium-height fellow with a brown mustache, chimed in. “She’s willing to give you all the tea in China if you just help her find her Billy. You’re willing to do it. It’s your chance for a ticker-tape parade if you find him. You know, to impress your girl.”

“Kidnapped?” Buster said, not sure he’d heard right.

“Sure. It fits perfectly.”

By now, Thalberg had entered the room and seated himself at the table. He took a donut and smiled in a benevolent way that spelled trouble.

“No, no. It’s the mob Buster comes up against. They think he’s a spy and take him for a hostage, but he’s more useful as a stooge, see?”

Buster found himself wishing he’d poured a little whiskey into his coffee when no one was looking. It was bad enough to have to put everything down on a script for the first time in his career in pictures and even worse to entertain this kind of dreck. He looked over to Bruckman, but he just gave him a helpless look. At this rate, they’d never get around to filming.

Filming. His mind crowded with everything he was obliged to do in the next six weeks, premieres (including Steamboat’s), parties, benefits, and not least of all traveling to New York City to begin filming. He thought sinkingly of Nelly.

The worries continued on the drive back home late that afternoon. He worried his nails with his teeth as he thought about juggling it all. At the Villa, he parked in the drive and bustled his way through the magnificent mahogany doors with his suitcases. Before departing from the studio, he’d checked the car for any trace of Nelly, a stray stocking, a dropped bracket, but there was nothing to give him away. As he stepped into the foyer, he was struck with an unfamiliarity that sometimes came over him. This big, clean, airy house, so cold and charmless—was it really his? He’d obsessed over it endlessly when it was being constructed, sparing no detail, never sure of what possessed him beyond the thrill that he could and a desire to impress. Impress his fellow stars? He thought, setting his suitcases down and running a hand across the back of his neck. No.

To impress Natalie.

He called for her. “Hello?” There was no answer and he tried again. “Hello?”

“Hello?” But it was only Eleanor, coming around the corner looking worried. “Mr. K—Buster, how are you? Shall I take your suitcases?” It had taken a while, but he’d finally gotten her to stop calling him Mr. Keaton.

“No, I’ll take care of that. Have you seen Natalie? Is she around?”

“She’s out I’m afraid,” Eleanor said, with an apologetic smile.

He could hear the kids outside somewhere, giggling and screaming. “Alright. If you see her, just tell her I’m home.”

He took his suitcases up to his room. It was cool and dark, and managed to smell both stale and clean at the same time. The bed was made, all the corners of the sheets tightly tucked. He drew his curtains and opened the balcony doors.

“Hey, you hooligans!” he cried down to Bobby and Jimmy, who were running around on the lawn under Connie’s watchful eye.

“Daddy!” they said, racing to the balcony.

He went down to them and allowed them to wrestle him to the ground where they swarmed on top of him, then demanded to be swung around by the arms in the dangerous way that Nate disapproved of. A little voice in the back of his head lectured him about his failures as a father and husband, but he let the feeling of his sons’ hands in his smother it. Nelly was distracted for her entire shift Monday, remembering moments from the weekend. The assistant prop manager had to remind her to get her head out of the clouds when she fetched the wrong dinner service twice in a row. She could scarcely wait to get home, where the phone would surely ring and Buster would be on the other line asking her how her day had been. He had promised to be in touch when he’d dropped her off a block before the studio. That night, however, she went to bed disappointed. A worming doubt began to spoil her recollections of their time at the cabin.

The phone did ring after work the next day, but it wasn’t Buster.

“Nelly, is that you?” her mother said on the other end. Barely waiting for an assurance, she cried, “Ruthie had the baby! It’s a girl and they haven’t named her yet, but they think Violet or Virginia, which do you like better? Virginia? I like Virginia myself. She’s seven pounds even. We think she might have brown hair instead of blonde; it’s rather dark if you ask me, but of course there’s not much of it.”

“Well that’s wonderful,” said Nelly, wondering why her heart wasn’t in the congratulations. “How’s she doing? How’s Ruthie?” She’d never been able to fathom the birth process, the pushing and tearing and bleeding and all the rest. With what mothers had to go through, it was a miracle anyone ever had a second child, let alone a third like Ruthie.

“Oh, she’s tired but she’s an old hand by now. It wasn’t an hour later she wanted some chicken broth and now she’s bullied Gerald into letting her have some ice cream. Lord knows where he found it this time of year but nothing’s too good for her where he’s concerned.”

“And June and Eddie?”

“Eddie wanted a brother and declares he won’t see the poor soul, but you can imagine June is over the moon. She’s brought up her dollies’ clothes for her. Thank goodness they’re too small or we’d be in for quite a fight.”

As Nelly stood in the hall with the receiver to her ear, her mother chattered on about what time Ruthie’s labor started, how it had progressed, and what the doctor had done when he’d gotten there. She plotted with some guilt about how to cut the conversation short; she was worried she’d miss Buster if he called.

“And you, how are you, dear?” her mother said, as if sensing Nelly’s intentions.

“Oh, I’m okay,” she said, a bit hastily.

“How are you getting on with the moving pictures?”

Nelly explained briefly about her role in Tempest, which she’d mentioned in her last letter home.

“What about that Keaton film? When will that come out? Your father says he intends to take the whole family to see it.”

“Buster—Mr. Keaton’s cutting it right now. April, I suspect.”

Not noticing her daughter’s slip, her mother pressed on. “When can we expect you back home?”

“I’m awful busy. Autumn?”

That was not good enough for Lena. “What’s wrong with summer? Or late spring? We miss you terribly and you know Harold Jenkins is wondering how you’ve been. I’ve given him your address so he can write. Have you gotten any letters yet?”

Nelly gritted her teeth unconsciously at the mention of Halitosis Harold. “Not yet. But Mother, I really have to be going.” She racked her brain for an excuse. “I’m having dinner tonight with a fellow I work with.” It was the wrong thing to say, because Lena became gleeful and effusive. “Oh Nelly, you didn’t mention you were seeing someone. What’s his name? Is he handsome?”

Nelly flushed. “It’s Joseph,” she said, thinking of Buster’s given name. “He’s very handsome, but he’ll be here any minute. I really must go.”

“I’ll call tomorrow, perhaps. I want you to tell me all about your new beau and I presume the baby will have a name by then.”

“That’s fine, Mother. I love you. I’ve got to go.” With a few more I-love-yous and talk-to-you-soons, Nelly was able to hang up the phone. The conversation had left her feeling unsettled and wrung-out. She supposed she should pick up a congratulations card for Ruthie on her lunch break tomorrow. Waiting for Buster to call, she was too nervous to eat anything more than an apple. She tried to read another chapter of Mistress Nell Gwyn, but couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was lying under the stars with Buster as he strummed his ukulele.

It was a severe blow when another night passed with no word from him. The doubts were full-blown now. Her biggest worry wasn’t that he was preoccupied with his wife or even another girl, but that their time together hadn’t meant what she thought it had and that she had handed him her heart when she should have kept it more carefully guarded, only giving it to him when they had been going together longer and he had proven his worth.

She went to work on Wednesday morning feeling blue despite the shining sun. The sensible part of her tried to push her out of her gloominess, reminding her that it had only been forty-eight hours and Buster was liable to be busy with his work, but nevertheless she moped around the prop department, not even caring to put on the radio for a diversion. On her lunch break she walked to a corner shop, having no appetite anyway, and chose a simple card to congratulate her sister. It had a Kewpie on the front clutching a telephone and read: I heard your home is honored / By a tiny little guest / I am rejoicing with you / That you are so greatly blest. As she walked back to the studio, she tried to get her head around the fact that she was an aunt three times over now.

She returned to the prop warehouse around half past noon. Immediately she noticed a large vase sitting on the desk where she did the books. It was heaped with a snowy mountain of gardenias, jasmine, and myrtle. She could smell the flowers from a yard away. Propped against the vase was a record in a paper sleeve, which she examined. There was a cartoon of Paul Whiteman’s fat, mustachioed face on the front of the record and on each side a different song, “ ‘Taint So, Honey, ‘Taint So” and “That’s My Weakness Now.” A small card with her name on it was tucked into the flowers. She looked around the room for a sign of who might have delivered it, but no one was in sight. Her heart beating faster, she opened the card.

She’s got eyes of blue, I never cared for eyes of blue but she’s got eyes of blue and that’s my weakness now.

P.S. See you tomorrow around 6?

“Got a beau now, huh?” said Gracie, one of the other girls who helped out in the department, walking into the room. Bold as brass, she leaned over Nelly’s shoulder to read the card. “Who’s BK?”

“Buddy King,” Nelly said, without a moment’s hesitation, blushing. “Did you see who delivered it?”

“I did,” said Gracie, rolling her eyes. “Florist dropped it off up front and I was the lucky gal told to bring it on back. Thought it was for me at first. ‘Course that would have been a shock. Bennie don’t do flowers or nothing like that. You’re lucky.”

“I am,” said Nelly, burying her face in the flowers. A waft of spring filled her sense and along with it a feeling that was very close to intoxication.

She was the center of attention during her walk to the tram and then her tram ride home, holding as she was such a huge arrangement of flowers. The commonest remark from strangers was, “Someone must care for you very much.”

And her face reddening, she would respond, “I guess he does.”

Note: Remember, Buster Keaton really did have a maid named Eleanor at the Villa. Confusing, but she wasn’t his Eleanor.

Also, after listening to this song since November, I finally have an excuse to share it with you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfVQpzQB3g

#Buster Keaton #fan fiction #RPF #Actor RPF #silent film #Golden Age Hollywood

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akumageist · 5 years ago

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I would die for Hitori Uzune. RIP to Kazuaki, but I’m different.

The Hatoful fandom consists of 13 people and a paperclip. It always has. Unfortunately, it probably always will. Where this is cause for some perks, it’s also some of its faults. In example, it’s still an anime game, made by a Japanese woman, and attracts weebs. Weebs tend to like to think of characters 2-Dimensionally, breaking the character down to what they think is their core personality traits. Hitori is no stranger to this, and is beaten down into this heartless, manipulative, selfish bastard. But I believe Moa is saying “anyone, even the best of us, is capable of becoming a monster if driven to it.” Let’s roll.

2162. Hitori was born into a world of war and hate, plopped into an orphanage at just 2 years old. This can be found in Moa’s canon spin-off manga, where Hitori at about ten years old is caring for the other war orphans along with the other older birds. Luckily for him, he was a genius. He was able to go out and get jobs tutoring birds and support his rag-tag family at his young age.

With that, we know Hitori was not originally cold and heartless, despite how the world may have birthed him. Especially when Nageki arrived frail and sickly. Hitori and the other birds were happy to put in overtime in an attempt to pay for the poor dove’s medications, even in his protest.

Then, 2180 happened. Imagine what sort of toll that would take on Hitori. he was absent. He was at work, unaware of the jeopardy that befell his family. What kind of horrible, mind-rattling survivors guilt must rack this bird’s brain, knowing he wasn’t there as his family was massacred one by one?

“What did we do? We had nothing. Our parents and homes had already been stolen by the humans. All we had left were each other.”

We can gather from this same scene Hitori blames himself for not being there. For not being able to protect his family, or even Nageki. Even though had he been there, he would have died alongside everybirdie else, and left Nageki to succumb to his illness alone. Something of this magnitude would create anxieties and trauma unfathomable to those who did not deal with it.

In Hitori, this manifested as full-blown helicopter mom. He can’t help but think of every little nit-pick detail over Nageki, terrified one feather out of place will kill him. The fandom is good about this side of his character! And of course, so is Moa. This may be the Summer Vacation Drama CD: Hitori The Worrywart (which takes place in MIRROR AU), but I love it’s portrayal of the anxious quail.

Hitori continued to care and ache over Nageki’s declining health. He was desperate. Begging doctors, even though deep in his little quail brain he knew Nageki was a lost cause, and that he was dying. But he couldn’t think of a life without Nageki, and did all in his power to try and keep the bird as well as he could. We can see a great example of this love in words you might not think of.

“How about this? From now on, ‘I’m fine’ is not allowed.”

I’ve always imagined Hitori getting mildly heated at Nageki in this conversation.The quail is on his last strands of stability, and the dove he cares endlessly for is trying to hide the very thing he ails himself over. The genuinity in his words shines through- telling Nageki he’d rather hear he’s bad and hurting.

So, in this desperation, Hitori carted Nageki off to some strange doctor in some strange prestigious school. And how couldn’t he? A doctor who claimed to know of the virus eating away at Nageki’s life, and how to cure it. Hitori’s beacon of hope in a sea of darkness. The only bird in the entire universe he had left to love, the one he had arguably always favored and adored, was dying. He would do anything in his power to keep the one thing he loved alive, no matter the irrationality or cost. No matter the very dying bird’s own lips saying “I… don’t want to go.”

Whether or not you ship these birds, I firmly believe Hitori is in love with Nageki in a romantic sense.

“I can no longer love another creature // I think we meant more to each other than anybirdie else in the world... // The love I felt soured into resentment // I should remember the beautiful face I knew, not… a photo covered in scribbles”

Not to mention admitting he can’t bear to live without the dove in BBL. And, in his route, Hiyoko goes as far as to refer to this bird as a female, which means he’s speaking so fondly she’s assuming it was a lover, and therefore a woman. Hitori’s stopped any sort of love at the idea he can only love Nageki post-mortem. That is canon. And well… that’s not very brotherly, no matter how good of a relationship you may have with your sibling (I speak from experience).

Okay, okay, this persuasive essay is NOT for convincing you of this ship, that is another essay for another time. I’ve only mentioned this opinion because I need you to understand his irrationality for the one thing he has left, and the fragility of it. And why it might drive anybirdie to… Hitori-level madness. Moving on.

2183. A mere 3 years after Hitori had lost the majority of his family to human terrorists. Nageki sends a coded letter, and… we can see Hitori’s anxieties outright.

“It’s happening again. Nageki needs me, and I’m not there.”

This is… a very powerful line in the game. We’re seeing just how vulnerable Hitori truly is. This is a traumatized individual in a panic attack- realizing the love of his goddamn life is once again faced with something horrible, and Hitori is once again absent from the scene.

And just like that, he’s gone.

The only thing. The only one Hitori had left in life to love. To live for. Taken from him without so much as a second chance. This is painful to write. This part of Hatoful is, without a doubt, the most agonizing. I know how it is to lose something so dear and feel as though maybe it’s not worth going on without them.

This is the peak of Moa’s tragedy writing ability (and yes, I’m including Holiday Star). But this is my point, is it not? Though his kanji may be “sun bird”, the actual word for his name “Hitori” quite literally means one, alone, solitary. He is now all alone in the universe, no family left. How can anybirdie even remotely remain in charge of their faculties (as Sakuya would put it) by now? You wouldn’t.

Hitori is now a husk of his former self. Anything he’s ever cared for is gone, he has nothing left to live for. He goes- my favorite coined term for him- absolutely batshit. He gets what we call “trauma-induced psychosis”, and begins to hallucinate very vividly, a form that he refers to as “Nageki”. We all know him of course, as Shadow. Shadow, from the little information we’re able to gather from BBL, is tormenting Hitori ruthlessly.

Shadow is easily misunderstood, because Moa made him fathomable, so the reader was able to understand exactly what was happening. What had become of Hitori Uzune. Shadow in all his simplicity- is Hitori. It is an introjection of Nageki, manifested to validate Hitori in his self-hatred. Don’t you get it? He hates himself just as much as you hate him!

Anything Hitori thinks of himself, Shadow is there to back up. He’s taunting him day in and day out, reminding him that he killed Nageki, and every ounce of Nageki’s suffering life was the fruit of Hitori’s inability to protect him. But again, it’s his own brain, telling him exactly what he wants to hear. What he truly believes. Telling himself what he’s done, and how he deserves this. ...And to seek revenge.

Hitori lost his mind. He had nothing else to lose, after all. He became obsessed with Nageki even moreso than he was in life, because there was no level-headed dove to calm him and tell him to stop worrying so much, or keep him at least reasonably held together by simply being there.

He listened to his psychosis, and when he made a friend (Moa gives evidence Hitori and Kazuaki were friends prior to Hitori’s ill-intentions), his psychosis got in the way of that, too. As he travelled down this relationship (which Moa herself says is pretty much romantic), we can assume he realized just how unable to love he was. He had Kazuaki around because, let’s face it. He wanted someone like Nageki who was incompetent so he could nurture and care for them. And for a while, it worked. But it didn’t. Hitori didn’t love Kazuaki. He couldn’t. He was too busy looking for Nageki.

So, you’re reading this in english. You speak english. At least a little, right? So maybe you played the english (and localized) version of the game. Well then you may not know the following. Please pay attention! This gets a bit rocky, and a bit more “Hitori...!”.

In the English version, Hitori disguised as Kazuaki is “tired”. In the Japanese version, he’s “sleepy” or “dreamy”. I’d describe him as ditsy, for sure. He kind of acts like an airhead who knows absolutely nothing, and his students don’t take him seriously. In the Hatomame Sweet Blend Drama CD, there is a track that follows Kazuaki on a little adventure of his narcolepsy, and going to Shuu for help.

In and out of comatose, Hitori, as himself, is there in his dreams as a separate bird.

“This bird with a face I had never seen spoke to me in a voice I had never heard, and this is what he said.”

“Nanaki-sensei” is clearly denying his own identity.

“I’ll sleep, just a little, and then leave… good… night…”

“But sleeping is my job… You still have a little longer. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that…”

This is dream Hitori telling himself that he has to continue his alias until his revenge is fulfilled. The quail that was once Hitori must remain dormant until he is reunited with Nageki again, and can be happy again. As a metaphor for depression… don’t you feel like you’re a shell of your former self?

So, going off this information… I believe Hitori has repressed himself. This is due to my own knowledge on psychology but-- Hitori doesn’t want to be Hitori anymore. It’s too hard. Hitori the war orphan. Hitori the lone survivor. Hitori the murderer and identity thief. It’s him not wanting to deal with his trauma in a healthy way, and instead locking it up and becoming somebirdie new and undamaged.

He killed Hitori.

This falls into the other delusion- that Nageki is somehow not completely dead and gone and ash- but still trapped, somehow, somewhere, and Hitori needs to find and get him. To kill Isa and the researchers who “killed” Nageki, and bring “Nageki” home. Whatever he believes Nageki is. In BBL, we see this quite literally varies! He tried to cut Ryouta open and steal his liver!

“Sir, Nageki would have never wanted this…!”

There is no difference between a serial killer and someone in a court room screaming for the serial killer to be murdered in turn. That mourning mother is then one in the same with that killer, is she not? She sees him, and wants him to die. She wants him to die and suffer. She believes that will bring her a sense of justice. Even though she knows it will not return her son to her. Hitori, is that mourning mother. He sees Isa, and all he can see is the man who murdered his dove.

I know the biggest aspect as to why the fandom hates Hitori is the sole factor that Kazuaki is #relatable. He’s a depressed college student who thinks he’s better off dead. Then, Hitori tricks him. But you’re not reading Kazuaki right. It’s okay, he’s easy to misread from Holiday Star’s plotline.

Holiday Star was written with Kazuaki as the villain, do you forget? A grey villain as well, but a villain nonetheless. He told his tragic sob story death in such a way, you can’t help but to cry. He’s the victim! I’m not saying he’s not. But he was written specifically to be pitied in Holiday Star, and as you continue on, you begin to see he’s actually just anti-self help. He doesn’t want to face his fears. He doesn’t want to leave his safe egg and take the risk he should have.

Kazuaki is meant to be pitied, yes, but just on the brink of annoying with his helplessness and self-deprecation. He’s, forgive me, a “sad sack of shit” who does nothing to help himself. Don’t come after me for being “ableist” or whatever- Moa literally wrote him this way.

This is also depicted in “Kazuaki-kun’s Book”. Now, this book takes place in the MIRROR AU, but it tells of how Kazuaki met Hitori. Moa starts the manga off by explaining Kazuaki had a great chickhood, a healthy life, and an easy, happy time. But then, he flunked his college exams and didn’t even get into his safety school. He lazed around, grew depressed, and let his apartment rot. He played video games until his online friends got jobs, and wasted any money he had on them as well. The only thing that scared him out of it is when his next door neighbor was found dead, having rotted into his own futon.

So imagine Hitori, who has worked so hard and lost everything he had done so for. Tirelessly, through his horrible, fucked up existence. Nageki, who had his short and miserable life robbed from him, had to die. Had to kill himself. And this random quail has the audacity to bitch and moan, thinking he’s got it bad? He’s a waste of space that could have been filled with Nageki. This is what Hitori’s brain is thinking. Hitori’s only ~20 years old when Nageki dies, after all.

I’m not saying this is cause for murder and identity theft. Don’t you dare misread me on this. But as I’ve stated prior- Hitori’s completely lost it. But you ship him with the chukar that literally ruined his life. Hitori’s a grey villain but holy fuck why would you want him to fuck the partridge that tortured and drove his only loved one to suicide?

It was wrong to trick Kazuaki. It was wrong to insult him as he died. It was wrong to steal his identity. That’s obvious and a given. But you all seem to look at that factoid alone, chalking it up to ‘preying on a poor mentally ill man” but not taking into consideration Hitori is mentally ill himself. ...Just not #relatable enough for you.

Hitori is suicidal as well. He’s been suicidal presumably since Nageki died. Don’t you dare say Hitori isn’t at least a little in the same boat. I don’t care if he’s not as soft and uwu and cuddly as Kazuaki. Mental illness is not rainbows and butterflies and emo hair (though Kazuaki is not portrayed this way).

Holiday star bears all the answers. I raise you important points, so pay close attention. The first key component is Hitori, found upside down in the pudding. He’s crying. Why is he crying? Because he’s lost his name? Oh, but think deeper.

“I’m Nemo”.

“Nemo” is latin for nothing, and his name translates to “nothing” in every language of HoliStar. The King has vomited him up in his kingdom, and robbed him back of what he stole from him. His identity.

But it goes even deeper than that.

“I’ve lost something, and so, I think I might cry.”

From this phrase alone, it’s painful to play this game. Nageki is right in front of his beak. But what did he do? He ate his own eyes. Hitori, in his refusal to identify with himself, has robbed himself of quite literally seeing the very bird he adores and sought after. Then, he is renamed his own identity by that bird (the only identity he accepts). How surreally real.

The second key component is when everybirdie is being rescued, but Leone warns Yuuya the quail is clearly falling more rapidly into a coma, and may not be able to awake. Why is this? Because Hitori wants to die. He’s fine with it, and Kazuaki is more than happy to keep him. When Yuuya finds him, Hitori is not at all alarmed as he should be. He seems passive, and simply wants to fall back to sleep. He’s to the point of trying to strangle Yuuya in attempt to let himself fall into eternal slumber (even if he thinks Yuuya is… Kazuaki..?).

Heed these next words carefully. When Yuuya asks if The King did something to him, Hitori replies-

“...No, all The King did was close the door.”

I am a firm believer this is Hitori indirectly saying “Kazuaki did nothing wrong, and I do not resent him for hating me.” Especially since Hitori shows signs of knowing it’s Kazuaki, and repenting.

“He said I need to be punished. Apparently I did something bad… and I think I know what it was.”

This is confirmed in my next point, so bear with me.

Hitori, in this same conversation, is admitting he wants to die. The only thing that stops him- as morbid as it may be, is remembering this takes place before the events of BBL. He hasn’t fulfilled what he believes is his “something I need to do”. Which is seek revenge, and bring Nageki home, as per Shadow’s orders.

Lastly, at the bitter end of Holiday Star when everybirdie is plummeting through the air from the false star, Hitori is still blind and confused. Suddenly, The King erupts from behind Hitori, and appears to be talking to him.

“Oh, is that right?”

“...I know, I know. ...but it’s still too soon. That’s right, I’ll be along soon. I’ll catch up with you. Someday…”

This is arguably my most prominent point in the entire essay. This is Hitori, admitting not only does he still plan to kill himself, but that he intends to keep his promise and reunite with Kazuaki in the afterlife. These are not the words of a heartless quail. These are the words of somebirdie who knows they’ve taken advantage of a friend, but is continuing to do their best to keep their promises and make amends. This is Hitori telling Kazuaki he still cares for him.

Hitori is the result of trauma and hardship beyond compare, and his inability to cope. He is not meant to be hated. He is meant to have shock value, yes. What he has done his disgusting, but you want to love him. Because he raised the sweetest bird in the entire game who would rather kill himself than hurt others.

Grey-villains are difficult, and because you can’t love them for being purely evil, you end up hating them for being a good person who’s done bad things. Hitori is a cracked window. Not quite shattered, but no longer whole, with a faulty image. Hitori is not just some heartless, manipulative, selfish bastard. He’s quite literally a bird with a broken wing (or entire ribcage more like), trying to… well, Live, and be happy.

#hitori uzune #uzune hitori #hatoful boyfriend #hatoful kareshi #hatoful #hatoful boyfriend bbl #kazuaki nanaki #nageki fujishiro #hatoful boyfriend holiday star

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