#xviii legion | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gabriellerudessa · 6 months ago

Text

Compass (Norm Maclean x OC) - V

“Last vestiges of civilization”, Betty had called their Vaults. Not much different from what his father had said.

How much of a lie that line of thinking was. It didn’t matter the radiation and everything else, the surface was surviving, while they all were holed in the ground and followed a routine determined by people that had been alive before the bombs.

PLAYLIST ON YOUTUBE

Words: 4.597

Warnings: ... The start of emotional vulnerability lol

They walked for the whole second day, stopping at a half fallen house for the night, and Marigold had explained some more – Legion. Enclave. NCR and Shady Sands, mainly.

Half of everything Norm heard were snippets Marigold had heard from travelling merchants or Dad Francesco, that had travelled a lot before settling down with Ma Guadalupe. Marigold herself had never travelled too far.

Some factions were in decline, like the NCR, especially after how Shady Sands had been bombed. Marigold’s parents had visited it sometimes, before it, and Norm was actually shocked at how many people had been there. “Who bombed it?” “No one knows.”

He had a sinking feeling in his stomach after that.

Others hadn’t reached the region, like the Legion – “Thank God”, her exact words –, and others like the so called Enclave were too secretive for anything beyond rumors be able to travel far.

His last question, as they had stopped, had been “How does one end with two husbands?” Both to try and clear the air after the heavy talks about those factions, and because it was just… Too weird for him not to ask about.

Marigold had to actually use a hand to muffle her laugh, and Norm almost felt embarrassed.

“Why the question, thinking of finding two for yourself?” She was giving the extra trouble cheeky grin.

Norm spluttered at that, cheeks flaming.

“What-? No! Why would you-? No!”

Her mirth dissipated, mismatched eyes blinking at him.

“Wait… That’s really something that doesn’t happen in the Vault?” Norm shook his head, fast, and Marigold grimaced, scratching at her nape. “Uh… Then sorry for, you know, everything I just did. Last time I heard this question, my brother Ed was trying to get council for a situation of the type.”

Norm nodded at the apology, trying to get his embarrassment under control.

“And… What was his situation?” he managed after some moments.

“In love with two women. The three of them are now a trading caravan. As far as I know, that’s all it needs. More than two people in love with each other.”

“Really? That just sounds… So simple.”

“It does… And, I mean, I never really stopped to think about this… I was four when Ma told me ‘hey now you and Catarina have another Dad and a stepbrother’. It was… Just our reality, three parents at home.” She shrugged, and Norm nodded, slowly.

“And I mean…”

“What?”

“It’s just… Like… Your dads, are they… You know… Married, to each other, or…?”

“Oh. Yeah, in our home, yeah… Why? Same-sex couples not something on the Vault too?”

“No… It’s all about the ‘having kids and perpetuating America’.” Norm shrugged.

“Seems stressing.” She grimaced, and Norm chuckled with a nod.

He could get what she had said; “just our reality”. If it’s how you grew up, and it was treated as the normal, why would you find it weird, unless something actively made you question it? It wasn’t even as if her parents had been overtly in their affections, just casual romantic touches and words that were, in retrospect, more laidback than he had sometimes seen in the Vault.

And still Ed had asked council.

“… Ed is a dragged one, isn’t him?”

“Spot on, Norm-boy.” She grinned, making finger guns at him.

---------

On the start of the third day, they entered a forested area.

“It’s not long now. Stay sharp and close, Norm-boy.”

He did, and after remembering her explanations about the Brotherhood of Steel, unbuckled and stored the Pip-Boy in his sidebag. Marigold gave him a respectful nod, hand at the top of his back to keep him close every time the path narrowed and they ended farther apart than some few steps.

As they crossed the forested area, small shelters started to appear in between the trees, strung clothes all around, small unlit fires… A community, or at least the signs of one, because it was empty of people.

Groups started to appear, walking around and verifying what was on the shelters. Most of them were covered in color-coded overalls, looking at both of them either with curiosity or animosity.

“From what I know, most of them look like Squires and Scribes, but some also look like Lancers.” Marigold whispered once they were away enough to not be heard. Norm didn’t bother to try and tell that she hadn’t explained their ranks and those were just words to him. “Any Knights and Clerics must be inside. From what I heard, I don’t think they brought in Aspirants or lower.”

They reached a metal tunnel, two Brotherhood members acting as guards, blocking them from going ahead.

“Name and business.” The one to the right said, his voice bored, and Marigold and Norm looked at each other for a moment.

“Marigold and Norm. Trading.” The one to the left took notes in a clipboard, eyes tired, and something in the gesture was so mundane that it surprised Norm.

“Allegiance?”

“Bear Family Ranch.”

“Never heard of it.”

That made Marigold roll her eyes so hard that Norm was certain she saw the insides of her brain. He bit his lip to keep his chuckle inside.

“Because you’re newcomers. We’re the most stable source of game meat and leather around here, ask any resident of Filly.”

The guards looked as if they preferred to eat glass than talk with such peasants.

“I can buy you being a hunter, but not him.” The one that had been taking notes talked, using the pencil to point Norm.

“I’m the family’s accountant.” The words escaped before Norm could actually think them through, the lie leaving his lips smoothly.

The two guards looked him over, then at each other, then back, taking in the carefully combed hair, his hands in the coat’s pockets, the straight posture, overall clean appearance with fitted clothes… And it all should fit into their idea of what an accountant looked like, because they just waved them in with a grumble.

Oh God, that had worked, thank God.

Marigold gave him a shining smile, gap visible, a double thumbs up alongside once they were through. Something in the smile made his cheeks heat up. He forced himself to give a brief nod, then snapped his head to look ahead.

The city was in a hole in the ground, big enough that he couldn’t see its end, and it managed to surprise him more than the ranch with how lively it looked. People of all the types wandered about, going out and about the buildings, but the ones using the Brotherhood’s overalls were the majority, with some using long clerical tunics, and a few Power-Armors. Marigold had warned, but it was still a shock, especially with how well preserved and cared for those looked.

“Last vestiges of civilization”, Betty had called their Vaults. Not much different from what his father had said.

They descended a staircase to the bottom of the hole, Marigold ahead, and Norm easily saw their destiny: “Ma June’s Sundries – Caps only – Thieves will be shot”. People looked at them, one Brotherhood member outright staring – probably because Marigold was one of the tallest people around, just one head shorter than the Power-Armors they saw –, but no one stopped them.

The store was a mishmash of things, and he noticed some Vault-Tec products exposed. And he could easily imagine what Lucy had said about that, damn it.

Still, what really caught his attention was a box of Sugar Bombs, dusty but closed, with a plaque under it: “Pre-war food, perfectly sealed and edible. Only six caps each.”

Pre-war. Edible.

He understood in the Vault, with its hermetic freezers and storages, but on the surface? Two hundred years after the bombs, as found? How the hell was it still edible?

What exactly had he been eating all his life?

Now Marigold’s snickers every time he ate something pre-war made so much more sense.

“Ma June! It’s Marigold! Barv, you there too?!” The scream snapped him to look ahead, Marigold by a counter, tapping her nails against the wood.

Norm stopped by her side, sighing when he could just barely look over the counter.

A woman limped towards them from the back, white hair a frizzy cloud above her head, a heavy scowl towards them.

“You better have some of those meds Goose makes. And who’s the boy?”

Marigold gave the extra trouble grin.

“We heard about the shot out, so you bet I have. And he’s Norm, helped us big. He needs some information we think you have, so…” Marigold shrugged.

Norm tried to keep as immobile as possible under the older woman heavy stare and scowl. Then she looked to the front of the store, letting out a heavy “humpf”.

“Come to the back, both of you.” She didn’t wait for an answer, turning and limping away.

Marigold nodded for him to go ahead, following close behind.

They ended in what looked like a kitchen area, a big white table in the middle. Ma June sat at a stool, the bad leg over another, grimacing.

From his place, Norm saw another woman appear, hair long and thinning, just out of the way.

“Let’s take a look at what you’ve brought.”

It was Marigold’s clue to land the backpack heavily over the table, immediately starting to take things out of it: soda bottles filled with animal fat for cooking, rolls of treated leather, tin cans manually welded with cooked radroach, ant and bloatfly, fabric packets with dried radroaches, no wings or antennae in sight, and strips of dried and salted radstag, molerat and yao guai meat… And small fabric bags with the healing powder he had seen Goose make.

Norm blinked at all that and asked how the hell it had all fit.

Ma June tried to catch one of the healing powders, and Marigold expertly moved it out from her reach, cheeky grin in place, even as Ma June’s scowl deepened.

“As you see, it’s the usual haul, plus some more animal fat, the yao guai, and the healing powder. Going by our usual rates, a hundred and fifty caps added to the usual six hundred should cover it all.”

Ma June’s scowl remained, but she nodded.

“Done. Barv, Marigold’s payment.”

The other woman started counting the so called caps, her movements fast, and soon she was delivering a small bag filled with them to Marigold. She nodded towards Ma June to get the powder, and then started to verify the caps.

Ma June’s hand took hold of one of the fabric bags, raising the pant of the leg and applying it to a wound to the side of her knee. Norm wasn’t sure if it would do much; it was stitched, but the edges were red and he was pretty sure it was starting to get infected.

“Fuck, Ma June. The powder is not enough for this type of thing. You need stimpaks.”

“I fucking know, but theses dipshits” she waved a hand to indicate the Brotherhood in Filly “fought not long ago and took all our stimpaks and didn’t even pay us right.”

“Motherfuckers.” Marigold glowered at the infected wound, still counting the caps.

Norm looked at the wound again, trying to hold in his grimace. He had three stimpaks, and he still needed information. He doubted the woman would just tell what he needed, even if he had arrived with Marigold.

How much Goose had said they could reach? 75 caps each? There were no stimpaks in the city, the Brotherhood with all of them. He would need some form of currency with him to keep going.

“I can trade you two stimpaks for the information I need plus forty caps for each one.”

Both of them looked him over, Ma June in disbelief, Marigold… He was pretty sure that what he caught in her mismatched eyes and face was heat. Oh God, he wasn’t good with this…Swallowing, he kept his chin up and stared at Ma June.

Posture, Norm. It had gotten him through the guards. It would get him through now.

Ma June pressed her lips.

“Fuck. Done. BARV! Eighty caps to the boy! Where the fuck did you find him, Marigold?”

Talking about him as if he was a stray animal just adopted.

Which, in retrospect, after what he had seen of Marigold’s family, wasn’t too far of.

“By the ruins, close to one of my traps.” Marigold smiled at him as she stored the caps, and the only word he could associate to that smile was “proud”.

The other woman approached, grumbling, and the caps and stimpaks exchanged hands. Barv immediately jabbed one into Ma June’s leg, the angry-red edges improving, not looking infected anymore.

“Fuck. What the hell do you need to know, boy?”

“My sister, Lucy. I know she was seen talking with you the day of the shot out. What happened with her after?”

Ma June squinted and scowled harder at him.

“Motherfucker, another Vaultie?” a dirty look towards Marigold. It didn’t dampen her mood in the slightest, still that proud smile and heated look towards him. “I sent her with a wounded bounty to Moldaver in the Observatory.”

Norm stiffened at the name, and Marigold’s look moved to Ma June, squinting.

“If it involves a bounty, I’m surprised you just told us that much.”

Ma June barked a dry laugh.

“You didn’t hear this part then. The shot out was because of this Enclave scientist, the bounty. The Ghoul was here for him, started the fucking shot out, and the dipshits appeared later for the bounty.”

“The Ghoul? Last Dad heard he was buried.” Marigold grimaced heavily at that, crossing her arms, body leaning back.

“Who is this?” Norm forced it out, frowning, half of him still caught in Moldaver’s name.

“Bounty Hunter. Pre-war Ghoul. Fucking dangerous.” Marigold pressed her lips.

---------

“Your sister and the scientist got a head start during the shot out, but that’s about what I know. And the dipshits attacked the Observatory and killed Moldaver, so I don’t even know if they arrived or what.”

Those words cut short Marigold’s thoughts about “reward Norm-boy with a kiss for his smart mouth and trading skills”.

“What?” her words were too loud even for her.

Oh fuck. The Observatory.

“What you heard, Marigold. What’s the problem?”

How that piece of news hadn’t reached them yet?

“Marigold, are you okay?” Norm, his voice the most worried she had heard from him.

With a fast calculus, she started counting from the paid caps.

“Do you still have a courier for messages?”

“Of course. What the fuck is wrong with you, Marigold?” She ignored Ma June’s question and Norm worried stare.

“Here. Five hundred of what you paid for the haul, and fifty for a message. Send a message to the ranch: Observatory was attacked. Marigold going down there with Norm. Send someone to take the rest of the caps.”

“Will do it, but why? Is it about Catarina? She lives outside the Observatory and without NCR colors, she must be fine.” Ma June, didn’t hesitating on collecting the caps.

Marigold wanted to scream in her face. For fuck’s sake. Really?

“Yeah, but she’s married to a Ghoul, or you conveniently forgot that’s why she moved there? You know how these dipshits are with Ghouls, I’m not taking chances. Let’s go, Norm-boy.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, turning to leave with hard steps, throwing the backpack over her shoulders as she walked. She faintly heard Norm say “Thanks for the information”.

Then he was walking ahead of her, opening the door for her with a nod, worried frown in place.

How funny. Both of them with sisters they didn’t know if they were alive or not in the same general region.

---------

They didn’t have trouble leaving the city, the Brotherhood guards looking damn happy at it, actually. It was a relief, because neither of them would be able to actually deal with them – Norm couldn’t stop thinking that Lucy had been sent directly towards Moldaver, and he could see Marigold was with her head on the news about the attack, on her own sister.

Marigold had picked a direction and started walking, steps just shy of too fast for Norm, silent and tense, instead of the relaxed and sure pace he had grown used to.

They left the forested area and went into the desert, when he buckled the Pip-Boy again; Marigold was still like that, nothing of the way she had owned the desert before Filly.

It made him worried.

Norm made sure they were safe before intervening, getting a hold of her hand – the leather of her fingerless gloves soft and supple, the skin of her fingers calloused and weathered. Marigold stopped as if struck, looking at him with shock, as if she had forgot he was supposed to be besides her.

“Are you okay?”

She swallowed, looking at the hand he was still holding; before he could let it go, she squeezed it, and Norm let it be, trying to ignore how it made his heart kick inside his chest.

“Not exactly… Sorry.”

“Don’t. You just heard the region where your sister lives was attacked. It’s all right not being okay.”

“Thanks.” She gave a self deprecating smile. “But I am putting both of us in risk. Thanks for the wake up.”

Norm nodded and she let go of his hand, breathing in as they started walking side by side again. Her face was still worried, eyebrows frowning, but her steps were slower, attentive to their surroundings, owning the desert again.

---------

“I heard you and the others mention Catarina. Another sister, right?” Norm asked after some time of walking, this side of the desert seeming to have more sparse ruins.

Marigold nodded at that, face slowly relaxing.

“Oldest sister, actually. A pain in the ass…” Marigold grinned at him. “… But our pain in the ass.”

Norm chuckled at that.

“Lucy’s also my oldest sister. Well, older, it’s just the two of us.” He looked at her, smiling. “Also my pain in the ass.”

That made her laugh.

“Older sisters, hm? Our pain in the asses, no one else can mess with them. Vice-versa too.”

“Absolutely.”

Marigold touched his shoulder, making him stop, and held her hand out, smiling.

“We will find the both of them. Preferably alive.”

Norm shook her hand, the squeeze firm – and Norm tried not to get too focused on the controlled strength he could feel through that.

“They better be, or we will bring them back to kill them ourselves for the scare.”

“Damn righty.”

---------

They spent the rest of the afternoon exchanging sibling stories – Catarina telling Marigold terminals were “magic”, him helping Lucy escape the Vault, Goose slipping extra pepper on the food as a prank, when Lucy and Chet had been caught in a storage room by all the older residents of the Vault, Regina braiding Marigold’s hair around the bed’s metal frame, he and Lucy putting shaving cream in his father’s shampoo…

He could barely remember the last time he had laughed so much. Norm was pretty sure it had been before the attack. It also had done well to Marigold; she had laughed almost as much as him, her whole face and body relaxing.

They stopped at an old two-floor home as night was starting to fall. The roof had collapsed and most of the second floor was inaccessible, while at the first all the windows had been broken, even if the door was still miraculously standing. The fact that it was the most intact building close to all the others was disheartening.

The wind twirled around them, and Norm remembered that first night in the Wasteland, the cold he had noticed only when in shelter.

“No light tonight, I presume?”

“Nope.” Marigold cleaned a place between a broken refrigerator and a still standing internal wall. “Also better if we stick close, the cold will be bad once night fully falls.” She looked around and nodded once. “Here, it’s the most hidden spot.”

Marigold put the backpack on the front of her body and sat down. Norm sat beside her, and the space was… Cozy, to say the least, the refrigerator pressed against him on one side and Marigold on the other.

“That’s how it is when you and your siblings need to stop at a place like this?” he whispered, and Marigold chuckled.

“Oh, worse. You saw how big we all are. It’s not so bad with Regina or Mika, but Moose? God, we always end up kicking each other.”

She got one of the strips of dried meat and started munching. Norm sighed as he opened his sidebag and looked at yet more pre-war food from the Vault. He had barely stopped to think during the brief stop for lunch, but now the Sugar Bombs box in Ma June’s Sundries was flashing in his mind.

“Not hungry?”

“It’s not that.”

Long seconds with only Marigold’s chewing audible.

“What then?”

Norm pressed his lips in a line. Would she laugh as when he asked about the curious situation of her three parents?

Well… She had been fast to apologize, at least.

“We plant things in the Vault, but a lot of what we eat is pre-war. And… It looks as if here on the surface too.”

“Oh. You saw some on Ma June’s, I bet.”

“Sugar bombs.” He looked at her, and Marigold blinked at him, still chewing the meat he knew the Bears themselves had hunted and preserved. “Your family doesn’t eat pre-war food, from what I saw.”

“Grandpa Juan doing. Really suspicious of the whole ‘edible more than a hundred years after the bombs’. But don’t be mistaken, occasionally we don’t resist and take a bite.” She answered with a small chuckle, then got serious. “It’s food from the place you grew up, Norm-boy. I bet it was properly stored and so on. And it didn’t go through bombs and nuclear winter.”

Norm looked again at the package in his hands. Fancy Lads Snack Cakes. One of his favorites.

“What’s that you’re having?”

“Radstag. Basically four legged and two headed. Oh wait, there’s two extra non-functional legs too.”

“Can I experiment?” and the Cakes would be after. He wasn’t sure he would be able to eat them without another thing now that he had seen the box.

“Sure, but I warn you, it’s tasty, but it’s dried so it’s also hard on the teeth.” She got another strip from the package and handed it to him.

Norm bit experimentally into it. And chewed and chewed and chewed some more. Tasty, salty, but yeah, hard on the teeth. He offered one of the cakes as he gave the second bite, and Marigold shook her head.

“Thanks, but I had it once. Too sweet for me. Dandy Boy Apples are more my taste, if we’re talking about pre-war food.”

---------

They kept eating in silence; night had fallen when they finished, the darkness not as all-encompassing as it could because of the slivers of moonlight entering through the broken windows.

Marigold made sure her backpack was closed and the hunting rifle was between her and Norm, hidden from anyone that entered the house.

“We will have to sleep in shifts, Norm-boy.”

A sigh.

“Don’t know if you noticed, but I’m pretty useless with fighting.” Marigold grinned at the sarcasm in his voice.

“You don’t need to fight. Just be awake and wake me if you hear something weird. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“… Sure. I can do that.” A clearing throat sound. “So…”

“You sleep first. I’ll wake you some time after midnight.”

“All right. Thanks.”

Silence, but with the proximity she could feel how tense he was, and Marigold started listing the possibilities in her mind – worried about his sister, fear for sleeping with a lack of walls, cold…

“I didn’t tell you everything.” He started after some time, voice quiet.

“Hm?”

“About my sister being up here.”

“I had imagined, but I’m a stranger to you. You have a right to your secrets. Everyone does.” Marigold shrugged, conscious of how he had frozen with Moldaver’s name. Conscious of her own secrets.

Maybe because of her words, maybe her laid back way, but he relaxed.

“I’m also a stranger and you still invited me into your home.”

“Flashing news, Norm-boy, I can afford to take such a risk with you, but I can totally get why you didn’t.” Watching him, she raised the arm closest to him, flexing it jokingly, the muscles visible even through the cape.

Something flashed in his face at the movement, but the lack of light made it impossible to say what.

“Still. There’s you sister and mine in all this.” His voice was soft, and he started talking.

---------

Marigold raised her arm, almost absentmindedly, making sure Norm’s head remained against her shoulder as he slept, instead of bent towards his chest. A sore neck from bad sleeping posture would make survival a little bit harder.

Even as she did it, her mind went over everything Norm had said. His sister’s marriage; the attack by Moldaver and what Marigold was pretty sure were raiders and not NCR; his father, Hank, kidnapped by Moldaver; his sister hiding him; Lucy leaving to rescue their father; the bodies he had found on Vault 32 – Regina’s routes; had she noticed something in the door? –, how the Vaulties there had all killed each other even before…

How he had asked questions, suggested the raiders were to be executed, hadn’t been the perfect Vault-Dweller, and then the raiders they had captured had been poisoned, and he was the one that carried their food but “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t”. She believed him. He still lacked that edge she recognized in people that had killed others. Rare enough to stand out in the Wasteland.

He was pretty sure he would be incriminated by that, and that’s why he had left to find his sister.

Marigold couldn’t help but think there was more he wasn’t saying; a certainty that he had discovered why the residents of Vault 32 had killed each other. She wouldn’t force him to say what, but she hopped he slept well – he had been clearly exhausted after telling her everything.

She looked over at him, the hair crumpling against her shoulder, eyelashes softly against his cheekbones, not a single frown on his forehead.

Peaceful. Just like the night in her home – Mika had caught her staring and had given her so much shit over it, saying she had “finally found a hobbit for herself”.

As if he could say much. He had been the one to give her the books and was in love with a five foot nothing guard caravan. There would be pay back when she went back home.

A sound outside the house made her raise her head… Wings. Bird wings. Far enough away. Not a danger.

Marigold felt his head sliding, and moved her arm again, not even looking.

She was glad she had been the one to find him. One of the few times her luck had held, instead of showing to be fucking rotten.

#norm maclean #norm maclean x oc #fallout #fallout series #fallout prime

15 notes · View notes

vapaus-ystavyys-tasaarvo · 2 years ago

Text

My Les Mis Letters annotations for 1.1.11! (I really hope next chapter won’t have this many... orz)

“a philosophical bishop,” or a “patriotic curé.”

I'm not sure about the philosophical here, but "patriotic" is often used in a revolutionary context in this era. The idea being to be loyal to your country rather than a king I guess? Or that's how I always understood it. I assume “philosophical“ has as similar connotation in context.

"baron of the Empire"

After declaring himself emperor, Napoleon started building up his own class of nobility, so you see these noble titles being granted. (Especially for military service but for other kinds of service to the Empire as well, as we see here with Myriel.)

As far as I understand, these titles came with land and certain ceremonial rights, but not the kinds of privileges that the old nobility had. No tax exemptions or anything.

Hugo doesn't talk about Myriel's reaction to the title here, but obviously royalists in general were not super into this concept, as we’ll see later.

The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on the night of the 5th to the 6th of July, 1809

All this stuff about the arrest of the pope and the synod and Cardinal Fesch.... I’m apparently not “every one” because don't know anything about it.

"I am only a poor peasant bishop.”

I hope it's become pretty evident by now that bishops, even “peasant bishops”, were not poor lol

Myriel is a very special case and even he is so purely voluntarily.

"it seems that he would have been found to be an ultramontane rather than a gallican"

Straight from Wikipedia: Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. It contrasts with Gallicanism, the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarch's or state's authority—over the Church is comparable to that of the Pope.

“The ideas of the century” might also be used with a more general meaning here, though? Encompassing all the various new ideologies that arose from the French Revolution? But idk.

"on his return from the island of Elba"

Elba is an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy where Napoleon was originally exiled after his defeat in 1814. He escaped in February 1815 and returned to France on 1 March (another date Hugo likes to reference). He did indeed pass through Digne on his way back to Paris! And it is also true that in Province he wasn't quite so warmly received as elsewhere along his route (Province being very royalist in general.)

"a person whom one is desirous of allowing to escape"

This tension between Myriel and his general brother is a rather mild example of how politics could divide families in this era, something Hugo himself was very familiar with. We will see other examples later.

The French army was still harbouring a lot of sympathies for Napoleon. The troops sent to capture him ended up joining him instead, or I guess "pursuing" him in the aforementioned style. Louis XVIII gave up without a fight and fled before Napoleon made it to Paris, choosing to wait for an opportune moment to return. (Which he got about three months later.)

"as much of a Bonapartist as the eagle"

Eagle was one of Napoleon's imperial symbols, chosen as a reference to Roman legions. (The other one was bees. No, I'm not kidding.)

Bees.

“I will die,” he said, “rather than wear the three frogs upon my heart!”

Louis XVIII replaced the imperial eagle on the Cross of the Legion of Honour with three fleurs de lys. I guess this guy thought they looked like frogs? I don’t see it but okay

"the good and weakly flock who adored their emperor"

Napoleon really was wildly popular among the regular people of France. He was a very charismatic leader who had given them reasons to be proud to be French. I think that's mostly what it was? And for many people he still represented a kind of continuation of the Revolution that had enabled his rise to power, despite being another monarch.

Although I guess his legal code was pretty much just the legal code that had been in the works and mostly finished before he even came to power, with some changes from him (mostly bad changes from what I’ve heard tbh), so in a way he was, sort of, continuing at least something that the revolution had started. And although the Napoleonic Code, as it ended up getting called, was deeply flawed in many ways, it did codify the abolishment of the feudal system and its privileges.

I don’t know if it’s even that deep, though, people just thought he was cool and that he would bring glory to France. In any case his popularity lasted for a long time. Its ripple effects were enough to affect the course of history even decades after his death.

#les mis letters #les mis letters annotations #corrections and additions welcome as usual

79 notes · View notes

alister-kane · 2 years ago

Text

On the Anvil of War are the strong tempered and the weak made to perish, thus are men's souls tested as metal in the forge's fire.

The Primarch Vulkan

You have suffered. I know this. You have come to the abyss, and almost surrendered yourselves to it. That changes now. I am father, general, lord and mentor. I shall teach you if I can, and pass on the knowledge I have gained. Honour, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, brotherhood. It is our Promethean creed and all must adhere to it if we are to prosper. Let this be the first lesson...

Primarch Vulkan in his inaugural address on Nocturne to the Survivors of the XVIII Legion

I can scarcely imagine what inspired Horus to this madness. In truth, the very fact of it frightens me. For if even the best of us can falter, what does that mean for the rest? Lord Manus will lead us in. Seven Legions against his four. Horus will regret rebellion.

Vulkan, Primarch of the Salamanders Legion

#warhammer #warhammer 40k #wh40k #warhammer 40000 #adeptus astartes #loyalist astartes #space marines #salamanders #vulcan

26 notes · View notes

lesmislettersdaily · 2 years ago

Text

The Year 1817

Volume 1: Fantine; Book 3: In The Year 1817; Chapter 1: The Year 1817

1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. It is the year in which M. Bruguière de Sorsum was celebrated. All the hairdressers’ shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys. It was the candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as church-warden in the church-warden’s pew of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in his costume of a peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose and the majesty of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a brilliant action. The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this: being mayor of Bordeaux, on the 12th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a little too promptly to M. the Duke d’Angoulême. Hence his peerage. In 1817 fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six years of age in vast caps of morocco leather with ear-tabs resembling Esquimaux mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode of the Austrian; the regiments were called legions; instead of numbers they bore the names of departments; Napoleon was at St. Helena; and since England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats turned. In 1817 Pelligrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; Odry did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso. There were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the head, of Pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The Prince de Talleyrand, grand chamberlain, and the Abbé Louis, appointed minister of finance, laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the two augurs; both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of July, 1790, the mass of federation in the Champ de Mars; Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis had served it in the capacity of deacon. In 1817, in the side-alleys of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted blue, with traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was falling. These were the columns which two years before had upheld the Emperor’s platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and there with the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near Gros-Caillou. Two or three of these columns had disappeared in these bivouac fires, and had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops. The Field of May had this remarkable point: that it had been held in the month of June and in the Field of March (Mars). In this year, 1817, two things were popular: the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box à la Charter. The most recent Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother’s head into the fountain of the Flower-Market.

They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Géricault with glory. Colonel Selves was going to Egypt to become Soliman-Pasha. The palace of Thermes, in the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On the platform of the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed of boards, which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval astronomer under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse de Duras read to three or four friends her unpublished Ourika, in her boudoir furnished by X. in sky-blue satin. The N’s were scratched off the Louvre. The bridge of Austerlitz had abdicated, and was entitled the bridge of the King’s Garden [du Jardin du Roi], a double enigma, which disguised the bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin des Plantes at one stroke. Louis XVIII., much preoccupied while annotating Horace with the corner of his finger-nail, heroes who have become emperors, and makers of wooden shoes who have become dauphins, had two anxieties,—Napoleon and Mathurin Bruneau. The French Academy had given for its prize subject, The Happiness procured through Study. M. Bellart was officially eloquent. In his shadow could be seen germinating that future advocate-general of Broë, dedicated to the sarcasms of Paul-Louis Courier. There was a false Chateaubriand, named Marchangy, in the interim, until there should be a false Marchangy, named d’Arlincourt. Claire d’Albe and Malek-Adel were masterpieces; Madame Cottin was proclaimed the chief writer of the epoch. The Institute had the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken from its list of members. A royal ordinance erected Angoulême into a naval school; for the Duc d’Angoulême, being lord high admiral, it was evident that the city of Angoulême had all the qualities of a seaport; otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In the Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes representing slack-rope performances, which adorned Franconi’s advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins, should be tolerated. M. Paër, the author of Agnese, a good sort of fellow, with a square face and a wart on his cheek, directed the little private concerts of the Marquise de Sasenaye in the Rue Ville l’Évêque. All the young girls were singing the Hermit of Saint-Avelle, with words by Edmond Géraud. The Yellow Dwarf was transferred into Mirror. The Café Lemblin stood up for the Emperor, against the Café Valois, which upheld the Bourbons. The Duc de Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by Louvel, had just been married to a princess of Sicily. Madame de Staël had died a year previously. The body-guard hissed Mademoiselle Mars. The grand newspapers were all very small. Their form was restricted, but their liberty was great. The Constitutionnel was constitutional. La Minerve called Chateaubriand Chateaubriant. That t made the good middle-class people laugh heartily at the expense of the great writer. In journals which sold themselves, prostituted journalists, insulted the exiles of 1815.

David had no longer any talent, Arnault had no longer any wit, Carnot was no longer honest, Soult had won no battles; it is true that Napoleon had no longer any genius. No one is ignorant of the fact that letters sent to an exile by post very rarely reached him, as the police made it their religious duty to intercept them. This is no new fact; Descartes complained of it in his exile. Now David, having, in a Belgian publication, shown some displeasure at not receiving letters which had been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as amusing; and they derided the prescribed man well on this occasion. What separated two men more than an abyss was to say, the regicides, or to say the voters; to say the enemies, or to say the allies; to say Napoleon, or to say Buonaparte. All sensible people were agreed that the era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis XVIII., surnamed “The Immortal Author of the Charter.” On the platform of the Pont-Neuf, the word Redivivus was carved on the pedestal that awaited the statue of Henry IV. M. Piet, in the Rue Thérèse, No. 4, was making the rough draft of his privy assembly to consolidate the monarchy. The leaders of the Right said at grave conjunctures, “We must write to Bacot.” MM. Canuel, O’Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were preparing the sketch, to some extent with Monsieur’s approval, of what was to become later on “The Conspiracy of the Bord de l’Eau”—of the waterside. L’Épingle Noire was already plotting in his own quarter. Delaverderie was conferring with Trogoff. M. Decazes, who was liberal to a degree, reigned. Chateaubriand stood every morning at his window at No. 27 Rue Saint-Dominique, clad in footed trousers, and slippers, with a madras kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, a complete set of dentist’s instruments spread out before him, cleaning his teeth, which were charming, while he dictated The Monarchy according to the Charter to M. Pilorge, his secretary. Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Féletez signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann signed himself Z. Charles Nodier wrote Thérèse Aubert. Divorce was abolished. Lyceums called themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated on the collar with a golden fleur-de-lys, fought each other apropos of the King of Rome. The counter-police of the château had denounced to her Royal Highness Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d’Orléans, who made a better appearance in his uniform of a colonel-general of hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of colonel-general of dragoons—a serious inconvenience. The city of Paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or such an occasion; M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points from M. Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. The comedian Picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Molière had not been able to do, had The Two Philiberts played at the Odéon, upon whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF THE EMPRESS to be plainly read. People took part for or against Cugnet de Montarlot. Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The Liberal, Pélicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title: Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy. “That will attract purchasers,” said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M. Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning to gnaw at him—a sign of glory; and this verse was composed on him:—

“Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws.”

As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie, administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of Dappes was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from Captain, afterwards General Dufour. Saint-Simon, ignored, was erecting his sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of Science, whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure Fourier, whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark; a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in these terms: a certain Lord Baron. David d’Angers was trying to work in marble. The Abbé Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a private gathering of seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines, of an unknown priest, named Félicité-Robert, who, at a latter date, became Lamennais. A thing which smoked and clattered on the Seine with the noise of a swimming dog went and came beneath the windows of the Tuileries, from the Pont Royal to the Pont Louis XV.; it was a piece of mechanism which was not good for much; a sort of plaything, the idle dream of a dream-ridden inventor; an utopia—a steamboat. The Parisians stared indifferently at this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the reformer of the Institute by a coup d’état, the distinguished author of numerous academicians, ordinances, and batches of members, after having created them, could not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg Saint-Germain and the pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for prefect of police, on account of his piety. Dupuytren and Récamier entered into a quarrel in the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other with their fists on the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Cuvier, with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, tried to please bigoted reaction by reconciling fossils with texts and by making mastodons flatter Moses.

M. François de Neufchâteau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory of Parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have pomme de terre [potato] pronounced parmentière, and succeeded therein not at all. The Abbé Grégoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed, in the royalist polemics, to the state of “Infamous Grégoire.” The locution of which we have made use—passed to the state of—has been condemned as a neologism by M. Royer Collard. Under the third arch of the Pont de Jéna, the new stone with which, the two years previously, the mining aperture made by Blücher to blow up the bridge had been stopped up, was still recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice summoned to its bar a man who, on seeing the Comte d’Artois enter Notre Dame, had said aloud: “Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma enter the Bel Sauvage, arm in arm.” A seditious utterance. Six months in prison. Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned; men who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of battle made no secret of their recompense, and strutted immodestly in the light of day, in the cynicism of riches and dignities; deserters from Ligny and Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of their well-paid turpitude, exhibited their devotion to the monarchy in the most barefaced manner.

This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless, these details, which are wrongly called trivial,—there are no trivial facts in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,—are useful. It is of the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged “a fine farce.”

#les mis #les mis letters #volume 1: fantine #book 3: in the year 1817 #chapter 1

13 notes · View notes

deflare · 2 years ago

Photo

Day 6 means it’s time for the VI Legion, the Space Wolves!

Awoooooo!

When the Emperor was making the Legiones Astartes, three of them were reserved for some secretive purpose--the VI, the XVIII, and the XX. The first time that the VI were released onto the battlefield, they were a bunch of vicious douchebags who tore apart soldiers and civilians alike in close combat, showing no discipline or restraint. That was apparently what Big E wanted.

In case it isn’t clear, the Emperor was a total asshole.

They were united with their Primarch Leman Russ pretty early, and he started to instill some culture into them. Russ grew up on the icy death-world of Fenris, where he ruled over a planet of pseudo-vikings. That’s the culture he impressed into his legion, pumping them full of Norse language, a skaldic tradition, and a deep fascination with wolves. Russ denounced the use of psykers under other legions, while also promoting his own legion’s Rune Priests, who were literally just psykers with a viking religious skin. Under Russ, the legion developed a grim reputation as the Emperor’s Executioners, his attack dogs ready to slip the leash at a moment’s notice. The Space Wolves were the first Space Marines known to partake in combat against other Space Marines, and it’d all come to a head at Prospero.

I mentioned the XV Legion, the Thousand Sons, who may or may not be the precursors of the Blood Ravens. Just before the start of the Horus Heresy, the Primarch of the Thousands Sons made a big mistake, and Big E sent Russ to go arrest him. Russ was an asshole, and Horus used that to his advantage, changing Russ’ orders to try to kill the Thousand Sons’ leadership. It turned into a big fucking mess that badly weakened the Wolves, and they wouldn’t play a huge part in the rest of the Heresy. Afterward, Russ fucked off into the Warp, with a promise to return in the Final Days.

When all the other legions were broken up into Chapters, the Space Wolves said “fuck that”. It almost sparked another civil war, until a compromise was reached that the Wolves could do whatever they wanted. They thus maintain an absolutely huge chapter, with a wildly different structure form a ‘normal’ chapter, and a different induction method (newbie Space Wolves are organized into close-combat squads, where they tend to die fast and survivors grow up to become ‘real’ Marines). They also developed a lamentable problem with over-theming. Everything in the Space Wolves is wolf-related. They’re led by the Great Wolf, who appoints the Wolf Lord, their medics are Wolf Priests, their veterans are Long Fangs, their home fortress is the Fang. Every chapter becomes kind of a caricature of itself, but when you have the Wolf Lord getting pulled in a floating chariot pulled by giant wolves with a wolf on the prow, it feels like you’ve sorta lost the plot.

Too many wolves.

Hell, even their troops become wolves. Space Wolf genetics are unique, giving them unusually strong senses of smell and long canine fangs. Sometimes the gene implantation goes wrong, and they transform into Wulfen, who’re basically werewolves--extra hairy and fangy Marines who get used as shock troops (basically every special unit in the Space Wolves is a shock troop). This genetic weirdness is part of why the Wolves don’t have many successor chapters; for whatever reason, only Fenrisians take well to the genetic uplifting process.

Despite everything, the Space Wolves have some cool elements. While once they were the vicious civilian-butchering Rout, they’ve grown some nobility. They have a bit of an anti-authority streak, perhaps best exemplified during the Months of Shame. There was a war on a planet called Armageddon against a Chaos incursion. A frequent result of such wars is for the Inquisition* to murder anyone who was on the battlefield, so they can’t spread any hints of heresy abroad, and they planned to do the same at Armageddon. After fighting alongside these soldiers, though, the Space Wolves said “fuck that”. When the Inquisition moved to destroy the leaving troop transports, the Wolves moved their ships in to block them, taking heavy fire and refusing to fire a shot in return. Many Space Wolves died to let normal humans survive and flee, which is not common among civilians. This escalated into a small-scale civil war between the Wolves and the Inquisition. This ended relatively quickly with a negotiated peace, but a bunch of people died in the process. There’s a fan-made song about it, it’s pretty cool.

So, Space Wolves. Space viking werewolves. Both vicious murderers and noble defenders of the common person. They’re one of the most popular chapters. They’re also broadly mocked, because wolf wolf wolfy wolf. I feel like both takes are fair.

*What’s the Inquisition?

The Imperium is a monstrously huge shambling corpse of an empire stumbling forward on inertia. The Inquisition are the secret police of the Imperium, whose job is to keep it shambling for just a little bit longer. They watch the populace for signs of secret deviancy. They see themselves as surgeons, cutting cancers out of the Imperium before they bring the whole thing down. If some innocents get caught up in the crossfire, well, innocence proves nothing (an actual Inquisitorial motto).

The Inquisition is split into several Ordos, with three really big one. The Ordo Malleus hunts down daemons; the Ordo Xenos hunts down aliens and alien sympathizers; and the Ordo Hereticus hunts down witches, mutants, and Chaos cults. Within each Ordo, there’s a small cadre of Inquisitors, who’re powerful people with decades or centuries of experience who have greater freedom of action than almost anyone in the Imperium. Inquisitors then have their retinues, a hodge-podge of people who’ve been recruited to act as the Inquisitors’ agents (this is a common basis for RPGs set in the 40k universe). Inquisitors have broad license to do whatever they want in the name of preserving the Imperium, up to and including ‘exterminatus’, the eradication of all life on a planet to deny it to enemies of the Imperium.

The Inquisition is also home to a bunch of weirdo cults and philosophies, who contemplate big weighty matters of galactic importance, since the Inquisition is basically the only group that’s allowed to know enough about the secrets of the universe to comment on things like “humanity seems to be evolving into a fully psychic species” or “hey, maybe the Emperor being frozen in half-death is a bad thing for his plans”. Inquisitors generally fall on a spectrum of two extremes: Puritans (who are firm followers of the “suffer not the alien, the mutant, or the heretic to live” and view anyone who’d even think of deviating from that path as anathema) and Radicals (who’re more pragmatic about using any tools necessary, like employing alien weaponsmiths rather than just murdering said aliens).

We’ll be talking about the Inquisition again; they have multiple Space Marine chapters whose whole job is to help them out, and they’ve also come into conflict with plenty of Space Marines. Especially the Space Wolves--the Months of Shame aren’t their first or last conflict with Russ’s boys. They’re a pretty big deal.

Master post here

#warhammer 40k #space marines #advent calendar #text heavy #lore dump #40k advent #space wolves #inquisition

9 notes · View notes

385bookreviews · 2 years ago

Text

1.3.3 Morning Star by Pierce Brown

SPOILERS

Pages: 518

Read Time: 11 hour and 4 minutes

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ Storyline: ★★★★★ Dialogue: ★★★★★ Characters: ★★★★★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Violence, war, torture, gore, death, murder, blood, su*c*de, confinement, paranoia, cursing, classism, gun violence, slavery, kidnapping, body horror, emotional abuse, genocide, physical abuse, racial slurs (in accordance with the races of this universe), sexism, su*c*dal thoughts, xenophobia, grief, cannibalism, medical trauma, colonization, drug use, self harm, PTSD

POV: First person; Darrow

Time Period/Location: A future of genetically enhanced and segregated humans across the Solar System, including Mars, Io, Earth, Luna (Earth’s Moon), and the outskirts of Jupiter.

First Line: I rise into darkness, away from the garden they watered with the blood of my friends.

After the tragedy of the Triumph at the end of Golden Son, Morning Star opens a year later, with Darrow imprisoned by the Jackal in a stone box. He is slowly going insane from the darkness, but, just as he is about to end it all, he is slowly lifted from it. The entire time he was inside a stone table, and it has been 9 months that he has been in the box, after being tortured for 3. He is being given by the Jackal to Cassius au Bellona and Aja au Grimmus so the Sovereign can have him dissected. He is taken by Legion XVIII Grays, and during this, rescued by two of them, brother and sister, Holiday and Trigg ti Nakamura. On their way out they encounter Vixus, who reveals that Victra is alive. Darrow demands they free her, which reveals their escape. Darrow kills Vixus, and they escape into a tunnel dug by clawDrills with the help of Ragnar, Sevro, and the Sons of Ares, who Sevro now leads as Ares. This, however, costs Trigg’s life. Darrow awakes in the underground Sons of Ares run city of Tinos. His entire Red family is there, as is Dancer, Sevro, and Ragnar. Sevro reveals to Darrow a lot of things, such as Darrow’s Carving being made public after the Society fake executed him as a Gold and not a Red spy, that the Moon Lords of Jupiter and the rest of the outer Rim planets had rebelled with the aid of Mustang and the Telemanus family, and that Sevro had taken Darrow’s original Red eyes in place of his Gold ones. Darrow undergoes another carving by Mickey to restore him back to how he was, but has his sigils removed so his hands are bare. They go on bigger and bigger missions till Darrow, Victra, and Holiday are inducted as Howlers. Sevro then decides to move on with their mission to economically collapse the society by kidnapping Quicksilver, the richest Silver in the Solar System and the Jackal’s silent partner, and bombing Phobos. They smuggle into Phobos and find Matteo, the pink that trained Darrow in Aureate society before he went to the Institute, but Sevro breaks his jaw when he doesn’t know where Quicksilver is. They head to his office, and are shocked to find Mustang, Kavax au Telemanus, Moira au Grimmus (sister to Aja), and Cassius brokering a peace treaty between the Moon Lords and the Sovereign. Sevro goes off the walls, drunk on power, and begins a battle. Moira dies, Cassius and Mustang escape, and Kavax, Matteo, and Quicksilver are taken prisoner. Darrow assumes control from Sevro and they escape in the void of space out the window and into the back of Holiday’s ship. Once back in the Sons of Ares safe house, they stress on how to escape, and then go to question Quicksilver. He reveals he was the original Son of Ares all along after having found it with Fitchner. Darrow and Sevro fight, and Sevro defers leadership to Darrow. In order to save the Sons of Ares on Phobos and cause a ruse for another plan, he starts a rebellion of all the lowColors on the moon. As the rebellion rages and he is assumed to be on Phobos, him, Holiday, and Ragnar escape in a ship headed for the south pole of Mars, where they plan to raise an Obsidian army and lead them out of slavery. Mustang also accompanies them on this journey, saying she needs proof that Darrow is fighting for the right cause. After the Obsidians challenged Gold years back, the Golds had marooned them on the poles of the planets, brainwashing them into thinking Golds are Asgardian gods and that their technology is magic to keep them in check. Ragnar intends to show his tribe the way to freedom and have them join the Rising, but they are shot down by Cassius and Aja. They fight off cannibals and snow storms and Carved monsters, but eventually track down Cassius and Aja. Mustang shoots Cassius through the throat and he survives but is subdued, and Aja brings down Ragnar before stumbling off of a cliff. As he lay dying, his sister and her Valkyrie arrive on griffins. He tells her to live for more, and then dies. This leaves Darrow, Holiday, and Mustang to entreat Ragnar and Sefi’s mother, Alia Snowsparrow, to join their cause and tell her people the Golds are false gods. She knew already, however, and tells Sefi to turn them into the Golds on the floating mountain of Asgard. Sefi takes them, but not before making a deal with Darrow to let him prove to her the gods are false, and he does, killing Procter Mercury, who was disguised as Loki, and another Gold disguised as Freya. They capture the rest of the Golds in the mountain, return to the tribe, and present them to the war council and Alia. She demands the Golds freed so Sefi beheads Alia, and then slowly kills all of the Golds. Several weeks later, she has united the Obsidian tribes of south Mars, and leads them all back to Tinos. Their next move is to sail to Io to convince Romulus au Raa to ally with them against the Society’s Sword Armada, led by none other than Roque au Fabii. Darrow convinces/tricks them into an alliance, and they defeat the Sword Armada. Roque kills himself before being taken prisoner or disgraced, and Antonia flees, but is soon caught. Darrow destroys Romulus’s ship port, framing Roque for it, so the Moon Lords will not be a threat to him for the rest of the war. They broadcast that they are sailing to Mars when they actually sail for Luna. During this time, the Obsidians revolt after Darrow’s uncle Narol was publicly executed by the Jackal. They hang Gold prisoners and attempt to hang Cassius, but Sevro proves a point that they need to be better by hanging himself. Cassius and Sevro fortunately survive the display, and shortly after Victra and Sevro are married. They sail on Luna, and, after rebonding with Cassius, Darrow decides to let him go before one of the Obsidians or Reds sneak into the prison during the battle and kills him. He betrays them however, and kills Sevro, captures Darrow and Mustang, frees Antonia, and escapes. They bring Darrow, Mustang, and Sevro’s body before the Jackal, and the Jackal demands Cassius to cut off Darrow’s sword hand, which he does. He then takes them before the Sovereign. Octavia executes Antonia for her cowardice during the battle in the Rim, and then starts live-streaming the execution of Darrow. The Jackal demands to put him down, but instead, Cassius reveals the entire thing was a trick and starts killing the Praetorians in the room. Together, Darrow, Mustang, Cassius, and the now revived, not dead at all Sevro take down the Truth Knight and the Joy Knight, pin the Jackal to the floor, cut Octavia’s belly open, and kill Aja. They let the Sovereign die, leaving her grandson Lysander alive, and then hear the Jackal laugh. He begins to instruct his Bonerider, Lilath, to detonate 30 megaton nuclear warheads all over Luna. He gets around 15 of them off before Darrow rips out his tongue and the Ash Lord destroys Lilath’s ship. Mustang becomes the new Sovereign of the Society, and the Jackal is hanged. The Ash Lord flees to Mercury, and Cassius takes Lysander with him to start a new life. At the end of the book, Mustang and Darrow are on Earth where she reveals that she has been keeping a secret from him. Another ship with Darrow’s family and the Telemanus family arrive, and he is introduced to his and Mustang’s son, Pax.

Darrow O’Lykos (The Reaper of Mars; The Morning Star): Darrow’s humbling at the hands of the Jackal is some serious character growth that was much needed. He realizes that he and the people around him are not invincible, and is more willing to make sacrifices and smarter decisions. The reveal of him having a son with Mustang is a lovely closing arc (despite there being more books). Eo and their child was lost, but he gained a new life, in a better world with Mustang and their son, the ultimate reward for his sacrifices. The grace he shows for Roque, Cassius, and Thistle despite what they have done to him show him to be a true judge of character. The only thing I wish had been shown more was his PTSD from the Jackal. Granted he does have it, and it is shown, but I felt as though there could have been better representation of that.

Cassius au Bellona (The Morning Knight): Cassius has one of the best redemption arcs I have ever seen, starting with when he covers the naked and tortured Darrow after he is brought out of the Jackal’s box with his own Morning Knight cloak. Darrow never gives up on him, even when they are enemies, and it eventually gets through to him. He shows grace, mercy, true honor, and a lack of the “revenge/blood for blood” motto he has in the first and second book. It was a really scary plot twist to go from Cassius being good, to him “killing” Sevro and “capturing Mustang and Darrow”, to him then being revealed as good again.

Sevro au Barca (Goblin; Ares): I’m sorry but you will be hard pressed to find a more badass scene than when Sevro hangs himself to save Cassius.

Storyline: The storyline of this book is exquisite. It keeps you on your toes the whole time, and everything flows together really well. Everything makes sense (no “Game of Thrones finale” endings here). Nothing magically resolves itself, there are no plot holes, and the author isn’t shy about killing major characters (RIP Ragnar, Roque, Lorn, Tactus, Quinn, Lea, Pax, Fitchner, and Uncle Narol).

Representation: Orion xe Aquarii, Thistle, and Aja au Grimmus are the only people of color explicitly mentioned. Quicksilver proclaims very proudly that Matteo is his husband. Holiday explains that her brother Trigg was engaged to a man named Ephraim. There are more comments alluding to the fact that Roque and Tactus were involved, and Tactus’ brother makes a joke asking if him and Darrow were involved, as Darrow “wouldn’t have been the first.”

Summary: The plot twists of this book, the secret plans, the bold moves, the character development, the gut wrenching emotions, the entertaining and powerful dialogue, all combines into a serious masterpiece of a book and a great ending to the first part of the series. It has a heavy happy ending; there are still problems, nothing is perfect, they only arrived there through blood, sweat, tears, and death, but everything is good, because they have won, and Darrow has gotten back what he lost in a new way.

Quotes: “All deeds that last are painted in blood.” (pg. 5) “’I will give Eo your love. I will make a house for you in the Vale of your fathers. It will be beside my own. Join me there when you die.’ He grins. ‘But I am no builder. So take your time. We will wait.’”-Ragnar Volarus (pg. 237) “’This is always how the story would end, Adrius,’ I say down to him. ‘Not with your screams. Not with your rage. But with your silence.’”-Darrow O’Lykos (to Adrius au Augustus) (pg. 501) “’A man thinks he can fly, but he is afraid to jump. A poor friend pushes him from behind.’ He looks up at me. ‘A good friend jumps with.’” “Justice isn’t about fixing the past, it’s about fixing the future. We’re not fighting for the dead. We’re fighting for the living. And for those who aren’t yet born.”-Darrow O’Lykos “And I wonder, in my last moments, if the planet does not mind that we wound her surface or pillage her bounty, because she knows we silly warm things are not even a breath in her cosmic life. We have grown and spread, and will rage and die. And when all that remains of us is our steel monuments and plastic idols, her winds will whisper, her sands will shift, and she will spin on and on, forgetting about the bold, hairless apes who thought they deserved immortality.”-Darrow O’Lykos “If your heart beats like a drum, and your legs a little wet, it’s because the Reaper’s come to collect a little debt.”-Sevro au Barca “Man is no island. We need those who love us. We need those who hate us. We need others to tether us to life, to give us a reason to live, to feel.” “What is pride without honor? What is honor without truth? Honor is not what you say. It is not what you read.” Romulus thumps his chest. “Honor is what you do.”-Romulus au Raa

#red rising #golden son #morning star #iron gold #dark age #pierce brown #red rising series #booklr #book review #book blog #sci fi #science fiction #third book #darrow of lykos #sevro au barca

4 notes · View notes