#xviii legion

[fluentisonus]

imagining les mis from louis xviii's pov. really funny. napoleon is defeated & you are restored to the throne. fast forward four years & they tell you a successful businessman has come into public eye in montreuil-sur-mer so you have him appointed mayor. the guy refuses it. that same year you try to appoint a winner (?) of the industrial exhibition a chevalier of the legion of honor but he turns it down. it's the same guy. you have him appointed mayor again & he finally accepts. fast forward another four years. they tell you the same guy again confessed to being a former convict & a recidivist & has been sentenced to death. well okay you're a merciful king so you get out your pen or whatever & commute his sentence. less than a year later he's reported drowned & you're in your carriage in paris feeling sick & miserable & they point out to you a guy on the street in a horrible yellow coat. little do you know it's the same guy. you die before the rest of the book

[memories-of-ancients]

Roman cenotaph dedicated to Marcus Caelius, 1st Centurion of Legion XVIII who died at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD

[castellankurze]

"Warmaster, it's worse than we thought. The IV, X, and XVIII Legions have come to an agreement that they're sick of being called in as support elements when other Legions need a hard point broken."

"They've turned on us?!"

"No, milord, they're unionizing."

[gabriellerudessa]

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.

AO3 | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV | Part XVI | Part XVII | Part XVIII | Part XIX | Part XX | Part XXI (Smut) | Part XXII | Part XXIII | Part XXIV | Part XXV | Part XXVI (Smut) | Part XXVII | Part XXVIII | Part XXIX | Part XXX | Part XXXI | Part XXXII | Part XXXIII | Part XXXIV (Smut) | Part XXXV | Part XXXVI (END)

PLAYLIST ON YOUTUBE

Words: 4.597

Warnings: ... The start of emotional vulnerability lol

V

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.

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, hoping to one day come up and… Teach them civilization, apparently.

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.

[vapaus-ystavyys-tasaarvo]

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.

[alister-kane]

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

[lesmislettersdaily]

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.”

[wyrdstonethenovel]

Towards East

AN: Wyrdstone is a serial fantasy novel updating every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday right here on Tumblr. Wyrdstone is a classic rival's fighting for the throne TM. With magic. And oaths. And gods. And tomb raiding. And of course, they gayz. The stakes are about to be raised. Enjoy:

XVIII. TOWARDS EAST 

Clavo overlooked the workmen’s crates, his dirty fingers running along the seams of his eyepatch. Nia took another small pace back; when Clavo was in a mood this dark it normally preceded violence. Foreman Vir watched nervously as the legate paced around the crates. He held up a golden bangle, delicate and masterfully crafted with fine gems, and hurled it against the far wall. Vir flinched. Clavo grabbed the crate off the table and threw it to the ground. “It’s all useless! Get it out of here.”

The foreman whistled and two legionnaires carried out the crates. Clavo wiped the sweat off of his scalp. “And there isn’t any other tunnel we can shove her into?”

Nia frowned. Vir looked down at his boots. “We’ve already searched everywhere.”

“Well it has to be here.” 

Vir fidgeted with his cap. “We get the orders where to dig from the legion. Our sources have run dry. We have dug everywhere you have ordered us to.” 

“I’m well aware, thank you.” 

“My men tell me that the legendary general is deceased. Stormlord bless him.” Vir continued. Clavo’s jaw tightened. “Sir. He was our last tie to—”

“Don’t you think I know that? I’ve already written to my father.” Clavo snapped. 

Lero crossed his arms. “Legate, are we in danger?” 

Clavo glowered at him. “This conversation does not concern you.”

“I think it does. Is my sister, your wife, your son in danger?” Lero pushed. “Legate,  what is the Conqueror making us look for?” 

Clavo straightened his spine and faced them and for the first time Nia could see near panic in his eye. “A star.” He said shortly. “The Conqueror has ordered me to procure him a star.” 

“A star?” Lero couldn’t contain his surprise. “The Emperor’s having you dig up the desert for a star? Like one in the sky?” He pointed to the ceiling of the burial chamber. “What does that even mean?” 

Vir held his hands up defeated. “Only his esteemed imminence knows.”

“Foreman.” Clavo growled. 

“Well, do you know what this mythical weapon looks like? For all we know you just shattered it into a million pieces!” Vir pointed to the broken bangle. 

“That girlish bracelet is not what the Conqueror covers.” Clavo scoffed. 

“How do you know?” Vir’s voice squeaked. 

“I’m supposed to know when I see it!”  

“That’s not enough to go off of!” Vir said. “We’ve been at this for years.”

“No.” Clavo admitted. “I suppose not.” 

“Did Legate Xur not keep careful accounts of the siege of Anu-Uro-Set?” Vir asked. 

“Of course he did.” 

“And do you not have these records?”

“No. I?” Clavo began to pace. His hands ran along his bald scalp. Nia and Lero exchanged nervous looks. “The legate was the last one alive to see the star. His records are kept with the other histories in the great libraries. We could ask him ourselves had he not just died.” Clavo grit his teeth. “If we could get our hands on the journals then it could lead us where we need to look. The journals are property of the scholars.” 

“I have men to spare.” Vir offered. “To grab them.”

“I cannot send some legionnaire with a matter this important.” The Legate quickly dismissed. “And I can hardly go myself. There is so much that needs to be done here. I’d need to send a representative from the house directly, to show the Governor the severity of the situation.” Clavo’s pale eye landed on Nia and Lero. 

“Me?” Nia squeaked. 

“Yes. You’ve already been instrumental in the search, whether or not you realized it. You’ll both go. I’ll write you a letter to deliver to the Governor personally. You will go to Ash-Kai and request copies of Legate Xur’s siege of Anu-Uro-Set. With luck it will give us enough time to locate the Conqueror’s tribute by the time he arrives.” 

He wanted to send her to Ash-Kai. Nia swallowed her objections. She was bound by her mercy to Clavo. If she did not go, her family would be punished. If she failed to succeed her family would be punished. If Clavo did not find the star, whatever that was, then her family would be punished by the Conqueror. The ugly severity of the situation weighed down on her shoulders. She looked at the panic in Clavo’s pale eye. Maybe they were in even worse danger than she had realized. The thought of it slid chills down her spine. 

By the time they left the necropolis it was already late afternoon. Lero said nothing as he saddled his horse, his anger mirroring her own. At the top of the crater Nia cleared her throat. “I’m going to ride for a while, clearing my head.” 

Lero turned his head sharply. “You pick now to run?” He whispered furiously. 

Nia schooled her chin. “I’m not running.” But the aker wants to murder Clavo, and I need to go before I let her. 

“Let her go Lero. It is by my mercy you breathe. She knows the stakes.” Clavo nodded, as if it was his will being carried out. 

Nia hated him. The aker’s rage was so sharp, so close to the surface that she kicked into Ajaxi’s sides. She had to get away from the man who had cost her everything. 

As she rode she allowed her fury to fester. She could not believe that Clavo would send her to the Kai’s. Nia held no love for the House. They had surrendered to the Conqueror during the war. It was their fault that she had no control over her life. That Cythe was a wife and her brother a soldier and her a thief. 

It was nearly an hour later when Nia spotted the vertical structure. She spurred Ajaxi forward. The two story guard tower sunk into the earth at an uneven angle. Its spire, which one would have born a flag and firepit, laid further off in the dunes. Nia dismounted at her respite. The watchtower had been one of the first structures she had added to her maps when she had first started searching for a way through the Dunelands. It was far enough into the dunes that Clavo’s men wouldn’t strive from their familiar trails to find it. She had claimed the old building as her own. 

The first floor was covered in a thick layer of sand. Ajaxi harrumphed and laid in the shade. Nia wiped down his coat and fed him. Once he was content Nia climbed the ladder up to the next floor. The square room bore a similar scene to many she had discovered over the past four years. Remnants from a violent struggle.  On the far wall a soot covered mural displayed a ram. The watchtower had once bellowed to the Great House of Xur. When Nia had first discovered the space, she had twisted her ankle tripping over a legionnaire’s shield. 

Nia undressed slowly, placing her clothes neatly inside one of the cedar chests. Although she was prepared for it, the aiya still hurt like hell as the aker manifested. Her bones cracked as they were stretched and reformed; her mouth bled as teeth broke through her tender gums. She sank into the dark red sand of the Tuat as her consciousness was clawed away from her. 

Some time later Nia awoke naked. Her memory of the aker had already faded, but there were new scratch marks on the floor tiles. Nia got dressed and muscled herself up to where the roof had once been. She sat on the petrified wood support beam and dangled her feet in the open air. 

Night fell over the Dunelands. She fell deep in thought. The Conqueror’s legionnaires had torched every settlement north of De-Asha during the Conquering. Xur was nothing but rubble and sun dried corpses. Where was there to go but Aker-San? 

Nia let out a frustrated sigh. It was only a matter of time before she displeased the Legate, or the aker got its vengeance. Nia wasn’t strong enough to possibly stop the monster. And where in the Empire could she possibly go? She was kerai. Her existence was a death sentence. 

She was hit by the Peddler’s clear disappointment. And then Lero’s. Honestly, the two of them would have gotten along swimmingly. 

Promise me you won’t abandon us Nia. 

Was it abandonment if it was just survival? 

Nia unsheathed the Peddler’s dagger and spun it on the beam. Instinctively she knew the blade faced east. Nia tilted her head back out to the Dunelands. She could search them for a thousand lifetimes and still not find the pathia. She stared overhead at the Ashenian sky, out into the Ker dunes and back at the blade. Nia spun it again. East. A third time. East. 

Nia sheathed the dagger and frowned. Something niggled at the back of her mind. Something Clavo had said about the records from the Conquering being kept in Ash-Kai? The Conqueror had killed the navigators; burnt their schools; confiscated their maps. What if the way to Aker-San was not in the Dunelands, but on Ashenian soil? 

When Nia arrived back to De-Asha the following morning, her first stop was to confirm her working theory. “You’re still alive.” Merka said from behind his stall. 

“Is that anyway to greet an old friend?”

Merka waved her in from the street. He lifted up the countertop and walked Nia through the alleyway to his residence. He waved her inside. Nia coughed into her hand. The sweet smell of opium that clung to Merka and around his home always gave her a headache. 

The front room of Merka’s hair was sparse, intentionally bare. A small alcove by the door held a shrine to the Ashenian lars. Thick rugs covered the mud brick floor. Upstairs Nia heard his girls chatting as they prepared for another workday. Nia eased herself down onto a colorful indigo and turquoise cushion. She knew beneath the rug was a trapdoor that led to an underground storeroom packed to the brim with treasure and opium. Nia watched the stout merchant return from the back of the house with two cups. She scrunched her nose at the bitter tea. 

“I was beginning to think the Legate finally tired of you seeing how infrequently I see you.”

“He keeps me busy.” 

Merka eased down on his own cushion. “And here I thought you were neglecting our friendship.”

“Our friendship has not been neglected.” Nia cupped her mug. 

“If you’ve come to ask a favor I have half the mind to report you to the Legate myself.” The merchant said. 

“So we can both lose our fingers?” Nia’s eyes darted to his missing pinky. 

Merka frowned. “One was plenty.” He eased back onto his elbow. “Tell me. What service can I provide you? Perhaps you can finally take up my offer and journey upstairs?” 

His look was downright lecherous. Nia’s cheeks pinked. “I think I’ll pass.” 

“I have boys. Girls, too.” He said after a moment. “Both, if you’d prefer.” 

“I prefer neither, old friend.” 

“Perhaps if you preferred one or the other you’d stop being so tense.” Merka laughed at her expression. 

“If only it were that easy.” Nia said tightly. She cradled the tea cup closer to her chest. “I’ve come to ask you a question concerning our arrangement.”

“Oh?”

“I-” She paused. “After the war, the navigators were wiped out. But the maps, they had to have gone somewhere, yes?” 

Merka startled. “Of course they did. The Conqueror ordered all the maps to be centralized in Ash-Kai.” Merka tilted his head to the side. “Certainly you already know this? How else do you think your precious legate gets his routes? As to others, well, with influence? The rest of the Houses trade in goods, but the House of Kai trades in knowledge.”

“Of course.” Nia said hurriedly. “The Empire works to keep those maps under lock and key.”

“They do. Hya, it wouldn’t do for the conquered to relearn how to navigate the Dunelands. Might spur some dangerous ideas.” Merka’s brows rose. “Why do you have such thoughts in your womanish skull? You cannot possibly be thinking of stealing from the Kai’s!”

“What?” Nia squeaked. “Come now Merka. I'm not that stupid.” 

Merka looked doubtful. “So I will not be seeing you for some time.” 

Nia leaned forward. “No. The legate is sending me on business.” 

“I see.” Merka’s eyebrows narrowed. “Why are you telling me this?” 

“That’s not all.”

“More treason? How delightful.” 

“I want to see the rest of my supply.” She flipped over her satchel on the table. It was the collection of grave goods she had been keeping at the watchtower. Fine jewelry; necklaces, rings, bangles, earrings; golden shras, thin knives. Nia had thought she would need the items later. Later was now. 

Merka picked at a small lion amulet, turning it over in his palms. “You are planning on leaving soon, aren’t you?” His voice was gruff, but there was some unspoken emotional undertone to it. Merka sorted through the goods, his hands flying in and out of his robes. Onyx, gold, ivory. “My clients will not be interested in all of this.” He said coolly, four fingers holding up a coin. 

“I understand.” 

Merka met her eyes. “But I will buy it all. On one condition.” 

Nia bit her lip. The aker stirred. “Name it.” 

“While you are in As-Kai, you must keep an ear to the ground for information. Anything you find you must share. It’s for business you see.” 

Business. Nia gulped, her eyes traveling to the stairwell behind him. Upstairs the girls were no longer laughing. She found her resolve. This was the trade she would have to make for her freedom. “I accept.” 

[sonyclasica]

BRUNO WALTER

BRUNO WALTER CONDUCTS MOZART & HAYDN

Sony Classical publica BRUNO WALTER CONDUCTS MOZART & HAYDN – disponible el 22 de noviembre.

Resérvalo AQUÍ

En la época de los grandes directores de orquesta, muchos eran apreciados, admirados e incluso idolatrados. Bruno Walter era muy querido. Era tan severo en los ensayos, tan exigente con sus músicos, como cualquier director de orquesta, pero proyectaba un aire de bondad; afloraba con tanta fuerza en su personalidad que su rostro, de aspecto más bien duro, parecía brillar. Todo eso se reflejaba también -y se sigue reflejando- en sus actuaciones, tanto más cuanto más envejecía. En sus días de gloria con la Filarmónica de Nueva York, en los años 40 y 50, se le consideraba la antítesis de Arturo Toscanini, pero la comparación de sus grabaciones suele arrojar más similitudes que diferencias. Se admiraban mucho mutuamente; Toscanini admitía en privado que Walter podría haber encontrado algo más en la Novena de Beethoven ("quizá tenga razón..."). A medida que envejecían, Toscanini aceleraba, añadiendo cada vez más tensión a sus interpretaciones; Walter ralentizaba, irradiando cada vez más amor. Esto era especialmente evidente en su Mozart. Los clásicos románticos alemanes, Beethoven, Brahms y Mahler, habían sido fundamentales en sus años de madurez, pero su devoción de toda la vida por Mozart creció en sus días de "post-retiro".

Walter se había retirado en 1958, con las últimas actuaciones de la Filarmónica de Nueva York de la Novena de Bruckner y la Segunda de Mahler (demasiado pobre para asistir a ambas, elegí Bruckner, tras mucho meditarlo). El Mahler y un Schubert "Inacabado" de marzo de 1958 serían sus últimas grabaciones con la Filarmónica y sus dos únicas en estéreo, pero en 1960 volvería para dirigir y grabar Das Lied von der Erde. Cuando se retiró a California, los ejecutivos de Columbia Records intentaron convencerle de que el estéreo dejaría obsoletas sus grabaciones monoaurales y desdibujaría su lugar en la historia de la música. Le ofrecieron una orquesta improvisada, que se llamaría Sinfónica de Columbia. El tamaño de la orquesta variaba según el repertorio, y su personal variaba mucho de un día para otro. La Sinfonía "Praga", grabada en una sola sesión de cuatro horas, era típica de estas obras del siglo XVIII: Había 34 músicos, las cuerdas, 14 violines, 4 violas, 3 violonchelos, 2 contrabajos. El concertino era Israel Baker, pero todos los demás jefes de sección eran músicos de primera fila de la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles. El resto procedía de la inagotable oferta de músicos jubilados de Hollywood, muchos de los cuales tocaban para estudios cinematográficos.

De 1958 a 1961, Walter grabó 55 obras en el American Legion Auditorium de Hollywood, donde la reverberante acústica apoyaba y realzaba sus brillantes interpretaciones. Únicamente el final coral de la Novena de Beethoven resultó insatisfactorio, así que Walter hizo un viaje más a Nueva York, esta vez con una versión de la Costa Este de la Sinfónica de Columbia y el Coro Sinfónico de Westminster.

Los Mozart y Haydn de Walter son cualquier cosa menos una práctica históricamente informada. Sin embargo, ganan tanto que solo el más cascarrabias podría quejarse. Haydn requiere un ingenio rápido y dinámico que no encajaba con la personalidad musical de Walter. Sus dos sinfonías Haydn de la Filarmónica de Nueva York (nº 95 y 102) están más cerca del ideal que estas dos (nº 88 y 100) de Hollywood. Aun así, todos ellos ofrecen una escucha maravillosa, para el Haydn de Walter si no para el de Haydn. Sus sinfonías Mozart de Nueva York, grabadas a finales de los años 50, son similares a las de Hollywood, aunque la orquesta de Nueva York está un poco mejor integrada.

Zino Francescatti era un ardiente virtuoso francés que grabó para Columbia prácticamente todo el repertorio de conciertos para violín, desde Bach hasta Bernstein. También fue muy conocido por sus interpretaciones de sonatas con el pianista Robert Casadesus, amigo y colaborador durante mucho tiempo. Tocando su Stradivarius "Hart", Francescatti grabó con Walter en Hollywood un concierto de Beethoven excepcionalmente serio y profundamente sentido. En estos magníficos y cantarines Mozart, el tono brillante y chispeante de Francescatti anima las espumosas carreras de Walter en ambos conciertos.

Estos seis discos son un grato recuerdo de un director de orquesta muy querido.

James H. North

CONTENIDO DEL SET

DISC 1:

Mozart: Serenade No. 13 in G Major, K. 525 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (2019 Remastered Version)    

Mozart: Der Schauspieldirektor, K. 486: Overture (2019 Remastered Version)    

Mozart: Così fan tutte, K. 588: Overture (2019 Remastered Version)       

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492: Overture (2019 Remastered Version)               

Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K. 620: Overture (2019 Remastered Version)                   

Mozart: Maurerische Trauermusik, K. 477 (2019 Remastered Version)

DISC 2:

Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 "Jupiter" (2019 Remastered Version)           

Mozart: Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 "Haffner" (2019 Remastered Version)         

DISC 3:

Mozart: Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 "Linz" (2019 Remastered Version)                 

Mozart: Symphony No. 39 in E-Flat Major, K. 543 (2019 Remastered Version)

DISC 4:

Mozart: Symphony No. 38, K. 504 "Prague" (2019 Remastered Version)                

Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 (2019 Remastered Version)

DISC 5:

Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216 (2019 Remastered Version)      

Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major, K. 218 (2019 Remastered Version)

DISC 6:

Haydn: Symphony in G Major, Hob. I:88 (2019 Remastered Version)       

Haydn: Symphony in G Major, Hob. I:100 "Military" (2019 Remastered Version)                

[theironwarsmith]

Squad Sephutreish, the Ash-wake

Champion Berolock is a man who leads his squad with confidence, knowing that the other four members will follow him into the fires of hell. And fires there will be. What Berolock cannot destroy with bolt shell and prometheum, he pounds into submission with his clawed power fist. Extremely effective in Zone Mortalis areas and other close combat engagements. Which legion he originally came from is currently unknown, but there are mutterings that it could be the XVII Legion given his predeliction for speeches, especially about 'holding the line' in defensive situations.

Kelvie is a rare soul amongst the warband, well amongst traitors, outside of combat he is a gentle giant who uses his technical mind to aid his brethren in making repairs to their wargear or to add some flair to their wargear, however his smouldering red eyes do prevent any of the menials from approaching him for aide. It is this that give him away as a former member of the Salamander Chapter. The reasons for his treachery are known only to him. However, when in combat, his cackling is quite audible as he unleashes great gouts of flame onto enemy positions.

Mortepulax the Fair, formerly of the Emperor's Children, disassociated himself from his legion as it fell into degeneracy and Slaanesh worship, seeing this as the furthest thing from perfection. His path eventually led him to Be'Lakor, joining the Disciples and Squad Sephutreish to, as he put it, "bring some finesse" to the squad. Using his training, he quickly finishes his opponents and moves on before they have time to react. He is regularly found in the training rooms of the ships or fortresses, sparring and forming greater knowledge of close quarters combat so that he may become the best in the warband.

Antabar is one of few legionnaires of the XII Legion to escape the Butcher's Nails implantation. This was largely due to her ship and squad being on the furthest edges of the Great Crusade, in the company of a Rogue Trader. Upon their return to the parent legion, in the midst of the outbreak of the Heresy, they were set upon by their berserk brethren. She watched as her squad was torn apart. Knowing she had little chance of survival, she fled back into the Thunderhawk and back to the Rogue Trader fleet that was now in the process of being annihilated by the Legion's guns. Once on board, the ship broke into the warp, eldritch energies destroying the other vessels or dragging them in with it. In the warp, a voice promised her vengeance against the legion who tore her comrades apart. Lost with grief and despair, she shut the gellar field of the ship down and Be'Lakor opened the path to vengeance before her as his darkness enveloped the crew.

Tunax, former Alpha Legion, last surviving member of his cell. The other members of his squad trust him, unlike the rest of the Disciples, as he has shed the mysterious nature of the XX Legion. Whether this is true or not is subject to much debate to those outside of the squad. Inside the squad, it is a different matter, he is known for truthful opinions and answers as well as saving others lives. Whilst he does not speak about his time in the Alpha Legion, he does still bear his helmet's original colours which does make him a target for assassination from his former Legion. These attempts on his life fail to succeed because of his knowledge of Alpha Legion operational tactics, although he does know that this will inevitably fail and it is likely that he is being toyed with.

[because---yes-blog]

My first squad of salamanders, before bases and painting. Guns are just sitting in place and chain sword is held on with sticky tack.

[sieclesetcieux]

What would you say it’s the biggest misconception about French revolution?

The idea that the French Revolution changed nothing. That it was pointless. That everything reverted back to what it was.

It's a lie.

More than a lie, it's propaganda.

Louis XVIII and Charles X tried to go back, but they couldn't. The latter faced another revolution when he tried too hard. Over 30 years had gone by since 1789. 30 years is a generation. The fight would go on throughout the 19th century. Arguably, we're still fighting their fight. We're still trying to change the world to a freer, more equitable, more inclusive and supportive world. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.

There's always one anecdote I think of:

"Meanwhile, during the French Revolutionary Wars the French Army stopped floggings altogether. The King's German Legion (KGL), which were German units in British pay, did not flog. In one case, a British soldier on detached duty with the KGL was sentenced to be flogged, but the German commander refused to carry out the punishment. When the British 73rd Foot flogged a man in occupied France in 1814, disgusted French citizens protested against it."

Source: Rothenberg, Gunther E (1980). The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, p. 179.

Now, yes, I'm quoting this from Wikipedia but I did research it. They did discuss these things. Specifically, Camille Desmoulins talks about how vile it is that other armies do that.

So, yes, their thoughts had an impact, and shaped and changed the world.

Their ideas survived. Their speeches were collected, preserved, reprinted - Robespierre, Saint-Just, Marat, Babeuf. Their memory became a symbol. They went on to change the world.

This quote by Chateaubriand while reactionary in nature still illustrates it best in my opinion:

« Passe maintenant, lecteur ; franchis le fleuve de sang qui sépare à jamais le vieux monde dont tu sors, du monde nouveau à l'entrée duquel tu mourras. »

– Mémoires d'outre-tombe, Livre 5, Chapitre 7 – octobre 1821

[Pass on, now, Reader; cross the river of blood which separates forever the old world, which you are leaving, from the new world on whose threshold you will die.]

The world was changed forever.

[tagedeszorns]

Stained Glass Primarchs: Vulkan

The Lord of Drakes may not possess the dazzling charisma of Fulgrim or Horus, nor the angelic presence of Sanguinius. But his pure soul and intense honesty is just as inspiring to his gene-sons than any of those other traits could be.

The first meeting of the terran Salamanders with their nocturnean brothers and Vulkan after they fought a giant Waaagh, is very telling:

When the last of the greenskins was a smouldering corpse, the warriors of Terra and Nocturne regarded each other, and Vulkan saw the alloy he needed had been forged on the fields of Antaeum. Brother had encountered brother and known that they were no longer lost to each other. Numeon and Orasus had kept to within a few metres of Vulkan during the entire rout. Now they dropped to their knees before him. The entirety of the Terran XVIII did the same.

‘No,’ Vulkan said. ‘Rise, my sons. I am your father, not your king. We do not kneel in fealty.’ They looked up at him and, after a hesitation, got to their feet again. Vulkan was not finished. ‘Kneeling is an act of respect. It is a tribute that must be earned. And you have earned it.’ He knelt, and the Legion in its entirety murmured in awe.

Annandale, David. Vulkan: Lord of Drakes (The Horus Heresy Primarchs Book 9) . Games Workshop. Kindle-Version.

Artellus' willingness to make every sacrifice to bring back his Primarch is truly understandable.

If I'll ever go legit, it will be Salamanders.

[rogue-hammer]

++Vermillion Level Security Access granted++ +Subject: Age of Strife, Subsequent Unification Era+ ++ Ethnarch of the Caucasus Wastes++ -Searchable Subjects: Military records, combat analysis, unit classification- ++Primary Unit Classification++ -The Tech Msagortz:- The Tech Msagortz are a combat unit classification, who fought for the Caucasus Waste Barbarian State under the self titled ruler 'The Ethnarch' A Paleo Earth term believed to be translate roughly in Low Gothic to; The Butchers, or The Killers, these techno barbarians where conditioned and equipped to fight in the most dangerous and open areas of the wastes surrounding their strongholds, using guerilla style ambush and terror tactics against their enemies. Their main purpose is summarized to be that of a brute raiding force, or, if necessary skirmish/vanguard against invasion. The Msagortz were conditioned to survive in the harsh rad wastes and living off what little sustenance it provided while waiting in key locations to attack caravans, supply lines, or nomadic tribes that dared cross near.

Each warrior normally was enhanced via brutal cybernetic implants and close combat weapons, as well as hazard gear and medium ranged weapons. Once a target was selected, they would strike in a whirlwind of drug and stim infused carnage, shredding apart resistance and salvaging whatever remained to be brought back to their leaders. Far from Berserker troops, the Msagortz where hardy survivalists' and sadistic warrior killers, who, as soon as the combat lust of their drug ejectors faded would return to a state of "normalcy" and continue their operations until they had gained enough stolen salvage and slaves to have completed their missions.

During the era of Unification, these combat squads reaped a heavy toll on early Imperial Army elements, and even managed to inflict losses on the powerful [REDACTED] companies. Not until the warriors of the early XVIII legion, soon to be known as The Salamanders, where unleashed on the Ethnarch's empire did they face a foe they could not overcome. Data suggests most of these combatants faired poorly against the highly mobile and better equipped Astartes, though evidence suggests their leader, Hazat Moloc, led numerous resistance battles through the lesser Caucasus Mountains well into the years before total unification was declared. Records indicate he was captured and executed along with the last of the Msagortz.

[deflare]

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