#Gil emerges like yOu SpEaK tO mY wIfE?!?!??

[softquietsteadylove]

For the Thenamesh doctor AU. There is this patient (adult or kid) who has a mental breakdown and nobody can calm him down. So Thena calls Gil and ask him if he can give it a try :)

Maybe you can put a soft moment in the end?

"Gil?"

"Hey Honey," he grins at her, dropping his sandwich and wiping off his hands. He frowns at the look on her face. "What's wrong?"

Thena nods her head for him to come with her, which he does in an instant. "Husband of a patient in surgery. He's utterly beside himself and no one can get him to calm down."

"No one?"

"Not even Ajak," Thena pauses and looks up at him before they cross into the waiting room, "not even Sersi."

This is bad. Gil looks through the window of the swinging door and back to her. "And you think I can help?"

Thena shrugs one shoulder and looks up at him. He can't be sure, but he swears she's trying to look extra cute. "Well, you're the best at calming patients on the way here."

"That's-" he pauses, looking down as she rubs the zipper of his hoodie between her thumb and finger.

"I always find your company very soothing."

Dammit. She has to know how cute she is--she just has to! Gil sighs, "I'll try."

He pushes through the door and walks over to the man with his whole head in his hands, weeping and gasping for air. Sersi is beside him, speaking softly in that gentle accent of hers. But if not even she - the GP known for being as gentle as a butterfly - can calm him down, Gil really doesn't know what he's supposed to be able to do.

Thena must have told Sersi she was going for him specifically, though, because Sersi catches his eye and nods him over.

"Gil, this is Mister Wells. He's waiting for his wife to get out of an emergency bypass."

"Hi there," Gil begins gently, sitting in the seat Sersi vacates for him as she returns to her work. He leans forward in hopes of getting a look at the poor guy. "I'm a paramedic here at the hospital. Your wife is in surgery?"

The man mumbles something, still holding his head in his hands and now pulling faintly at his hair.

"Listen, I know you've been told a million times that we're doing everything we can, but," Gil pauses. It's true, sure. But that doesn't mean anything to this poor man. This poor bastard who is beside himself, sitting out here, unable to do anything. "But I guess I can't really promise you anything, huh?"

The absolutely haggard man finally pulls his head up and looks at Gil. At the very least, he definitely heard what he said, because he looks nothing short of aghast. "They sent you to comfort me?"

"I know," Gil shrugs, his hands in his hoodie pockets as he moves. "But my...someone asked me to come and talk to you. So I did."

His eyes run over Gil critically, "and what makes you so special?"

"Well, nothing, I guess," Gil purses his lips momentarily. "I'm not even a doctor, so I'm not really obliged to have any bedside manner or anything."

"I'll say."

"But," Gil pauses, his smile fading. "A few weeks ago...I guess I found myself in a situation a little like this. Nothing quite as serious, but...sure did scare me."

The older man finally looks at Gil--really looks at him. He sits up just a little, looking somewhat more like a human and less like a broken shell of a man. "Yeah?"

Gil nods, still haunted by the sight of Thena under that car. "Have nightmares about it and everything."

Mister Wells thinks for a second, sidestepping the question of what actually happened. "How'd you get through it?--the wondering, I mean. How'd you get through the...the what ifs?"

Gil takes a deep breath, thinking about the feeling of Thena's freezing cold hand in his and how she had let just a few tears slip out. "I...I guess I couldn't really get all the way there. I couldn't fully imagine what my life would be like without her."

Tears come to the poor man's eyes as he starts to curl up again. "I-I don't know-! I don't know what I'll do without her!"

Gil just pats the man's shoulder, letting him cry. He's sure that's all he would be capable of if Thena...

He had said those exact words to her; he had told her that nothing would happen to her, because he was there. But he didn't actually have that power to guarantee that. He would have put his very life on the line to do so, but sometimes things just don't work out that way.

It is true: he has had nightmares. Dreams of walking into the hospital and feeling something wasn't right. Looking for someone he can't name and yet whose absence he feels like a hole in his chest. He's had dreams of her dying in his arms, under that car, in the rain, and the cold, and him trying to help her entirely in vain.

"I can't tell you either," Gil offers, rather lamely, if he's being honest. Which he is. "But I can tell you that she'd tell you she loves you."

He looks at Gil again. "What?"

"She would tell you she loves you," Gil can guarantee. "And I'm sure she wouldn't want you out here tearing out the rest of your hair over it."

Wells gives Gil a look, which only encourages him.

"Look, I don't know what I'd do without Thena either," he professes entirely truthfully, hand - out of his pocket - to his heart. "But while she was in her surgery, I thought about all the things I love about her."

Finally - at long fucking last - the guy smiles a little.

Gil smiles too. "I thought about her laugh, about what jokes make her smile and which ones make her slap me on the arm."

Wells almost chuckles at that one.

"I thought about how I would tell her how beautiful she is, and how I can't imagine a single day without her."

The greying man nods, tears in his eyes, a smile on his face. Gil has finally found the right chord to strike.

"I thought about all the time we've had, all my favourite things about her," Gil sits back again, "and then, just like that, she was out. She was right in front of me again."

Wells sniffles a little, blinking away the last of his tears. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Gil nods. "And I guess I should promise that it'll happen for you too."

Wells shrugs. He knows just as well as Gil does that there's no such guarantee.

"But," Gil shifts uncomfortably. He hasn't let himself think about this much since it happened. Why would he? "But if she...if she hadn't..."

Wells doesn't press him.

Gil leaves the statement as it is, but looks up and smiles at him as best he can. "I think I'd just keep thinking all that stuff. I would think about her every second, of every minute, until the day I die."

Both men nod, a level of understanding passing between them that far exceeds any well wishes or empty promises. Gil has offered what he can, and nothing more.

Wells extends his hand, which Gil shakes firmly. "Thank you."

Gil raises his brows, "I don't know if I can say I'm happy to help, but I'm glad I got to talk to you."

"I-"

"Mister Wells?"

Gil stands with him as Eros comes into view. He's not Gil's favourite of their co-workers, but the guy knows his way around a heart.

The Brit pulls off his mask to give the man a smile, "your wife has pulled through rather beautifully, sir. She'll be back in her room by the time you get up there, then I'll come see you about the plan moving forward."

Gil catches Wells before he can collapse to the floor in relief. Gil tries to keep the completely boneless man upright and nods to the surgeon, "thanks, man."

Eros offers Gil a stiff nod and leaves.

"Hey," Gil gets Wells back in his chair and pats his back. "Hey, it's okay. Everything worked out."

He nods, at least, his head in his hands again, although at least the tears are happy this time.

"Come on, you've gotta get hydrated," Gil pats his shoulder, offering his arm to help the man to go see his wife (and any water coolers they can find along the way).

"Th-Thank you," he pats Gil's arm as they shuffle along in elation.

Gil smiles at the man, happy he can go tell Thena all the good news. And finish his sandwich. "I'm happy I could help, sir."

#Thenamesh Doctor AU #Gil is the best man for the job #because Gil is best husband #They said you know who will understand a husband beside himself with worry? Gilgamesh #and that was so real of them #they tell Thena to go ask him #and she's like why me? #why him? #but of course she does #and of course he says yes for his work wife #and the chance to get to talk to someone about how great she is?! #let Gil at it! #he goes and visits them when they're cleared for visitors #he and Wells are friends I think #it's cute #I don't usually name the supporting characters in fics #but I can't call him a poor bastard the whole time #and also #I thought to myself #well who would handle hearts? #and immediately there is only one answer #because listen #this movie cast is not large

[neomikey]

Contributing to the #RyukoPrompts this month (albeit belatedly), Final Fantasy 14 with my wife and sister-in-law has been helping us to get through the lockdown!  After all our time spent running through Eorzea, original adventures inspired by our time playing came to mind...and I thought to write one out.

Enjoy~!  :)

The following story’s canon is questionable,

both with the in-game lore and how the characters are presented.

Viewer discretion is advised, void where prohibited,

see store for details, careful of wet floor.

~

Hear...

Her voice was calm and crystalline.

Hear.... Feel....

The air was warm.

Hear.... Feel....  Listen....

There was great weight to her tone and a quiet urgency.

I am Hydaelyn. I know all...see all...I have seen you...and you are needed.

You will be required for a great task.  One of which you must not fail, for to do so would bring great ruin.

The task which you have been given is monumental – you will help to stop a primal where no one else can.

My words...keep them.  Remember them. Heed them.

You must not forget, Muto. You must not forget.

~

Muto blearily opened his eyes.  Outside the world was waking.  Light was coming in through the window, still orange as the sun started its journey above the horizon.  Birds were already in song, announcing to the world that they had survived the dark night.  Windows were beginning to light as the people of Gridania awoke.

As he lied in bed, something urgently tugged at Muto's mind.  Something desperate. Something important.  His eyes shot open.

He was out of toilet tissue.

This was the fourth attempt that Hydaelyn had made to spur the Hrothgar toward his quest.

Stumbling out of bed in his boxers, he rushed for the door and threw it open. Rushing across the small house, he passed by another white-furred Hrothgar and a tired-looking Lalafell who were sitting at a table with mugs.  On the side of the beastman's in large block lettering had originally been “#One Brother,” but the number had been messily scratched out and replaced by “#1st”.  It was a gift Muto had made while still learning to read and write Eorzean.  The Lalafell, meanwhile, had a tankard large enough for a Roegadyn filled to the brim with coffee.

“Just one morning,” Lalinu sighed, “I would like for him to be decent when he comes out of there.”

“Muto is not naked,” Tahro observed.

“A marked improvement,” the Lalafell admitted.

The door to the back was flung open and Muto rushed out.  A minute later, he rushed back and stood before them, eyes wide with excitement.  “No more emergency!” he announced.

“...I'm sorry?” Lalinu asked.  “Wait, no, forget I—”

“Muto thought there was no more toilet tissue, but Muto was wrong!”

“You were wrong about something.”  She went to have a drink of coffee.  “How about that.”

“Tahro buy,” Tahro informed him.  “Tahro also fill up larder.  Get groceries. Get good deals.”

“While somebody was out playing adventurer.”

“Muto is real adventurer....” Muto insisted.

“If you got sustainably paid, you could be considered a 'professional' adventurer.  Just like how I'm supposed to be a 'professional' accountant.”  She had another drink of coffee.  “Though I currently lack the dignity that comes with such a position.”

“Muto think Lalinu is great!”  He grinned brightly, hoping the smile would affect her mood.  It remained as dark as her coffee.

“Muto need a good job,” Tahro informed him.  “Get good money.  Money not lasting.”

“He's right.  It's not.”  Lalinu swiveled in her chair, then hopped off. She walked across the kitchen to where her desk was set up, which was a little lower than the Hrothgars' knees.  She sifted through the stacks of papers, brought up one, then put on her glasses.  “After your last trip to...hold on....”  She squinted and leaned in, then removed her glasses and sighed.  “I can't even pronounce half these names....  Anyways, your exploits are currently not economically self-sustaining, even cutting back on everything – including feeding that beast in the barn – and your queen's 'adventuring grant' won't last forever.”

“Muto need to do more,” Tahro gently informed Muto.  “Cannot keep doing light duties.”

“Grand company have nothing but light duties for Muto!” Muto protested.  “So many adventurers in Eorzea!  So many legends!” He put a hand to his chest.  “But Muto is legend in heart.”

“We know how great you think you are,” Lalinu said after another drink of coffee, “but until you make that a reality, you're under a ticking clock.”

Muto looked above himself.  “...where is clock?”

Lalinu gave a throaty sigh of frustration, but Tahro spoke up in her stead. “Lalinu mean...get big job...or no more adventuring.”

It looked for a moment like someone had slapped Muto, as his expression went from shock to heart-rending sadness.  His ears drooped, his tail went limp, and he looked like he was about to cry.  However, the moment was brief, as moments later, his ears went back up, he brought his fists near his chest, and he bore a determined expression.

“Muto get help!”

~

The world was warm and comfortable.  She was a ball.  A warm, fluffy, pink ball.  All was well in the world.

And then she woke up.

“Miyu...!”

“Mm....”

“Miyu, hey...!”

“Nuhhhh....”

“Come on, it's time to get up.”

“Nuhhhhh...!”

“Don't 'nuhhhh' me.  You asked me to get you up.”

A pink tail emerged from the blanket ball and began to angrily swish.  “That was before it was morning....”

“I even let you sleep in a little,” Ryuko said, poking Miyu through her hammock.

The blanket ball tightened.  “Then you can let me sleep in more.”

“If you sleep in more, you're going to miss all the good jobs.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmhh.” The blanket ball loosened and Miyu's head poked out.  Her hair was skewed to one side and only one eye was open.  “You know how unfair this is.”

Ryuko stood before her already clad in her dragoon armor, leaning on her spear.  “Oh, I know, but Eorzea isn't gonna help itself.”

“Why not?”  Miyu tucked herself back into the blanket ball.  “Seriously.  People treat us like their servants sometimes.  Like...picking mushrooms a little outside the city's walls.  'I'll give you 50 gil to get ten for me!' Get them yourself! Seriously, the creatures outside are not bad if you don't bother them.  We have other things to worry about, we're not here to do your chores for you.”

She heard the Au Ra's boots walking away.  “Technically speaking, that's exactly what we're here to do – do whatever people pay us to.”

“Well, some of us have standards....”

Ryuko's boots came back.  “Are you getting up?”

“In a moment....”

There was a pause. “Moment's up!”

The carbuncle was dropped into the hammock and immediately starting rooting through the blanket to find an opening, while Miyu's limbs flailed.  “Ack! Twitchums!  No! Stop!  Off!” His nose found Miyu's face, then eagerly started licking. “TWITCHUMS!!”

The hammock twisted from all the activity, dumping Miyu and Twitchums on the floor, followed by the blanket, which fell and draped over half of Miyu's face.  Ryuko did her best to hide her amusement.  “Glad you're up!”

“That was meeeeaaan...!” Miyu whined, pushing Twitchums away.  He was trying to jump up on her chest to lick her face, both because he loved her and because it was time for breakfast.  He was a bright, shining topaz color, indicating how thrilled he was to see the Miqo'te.

“You asked me to get you up,” said Ryuko as she turned and headed for the door.

“I'm asking you for less next time...” grumbled Miyu.  She stroked Twitchums's head, making his tails twitch in delight.

“Go and get ready soon!”  Ryuko waved from the door.  “I'm sure you're gonna get a great job today!”

~

“It's Declan,” he said, flashing a bright, sly smile, “but you can call me 'Dec.'”

The Viera lady looked to the Miqo'te less than enthused.

“Y'know, I'm kinda big around these parts,” Declan went on.  “I took out some primals singlehandedly, you know.  Like Titan?  Yeah, that was me.  I even took his crystal, just because I felt like it.  I sold it for a million gil, even though I didn't need the money.  Did I mention I was rich?”  He flashed the Viera a bright smile again, who returned a flat stare.

“Declan,” said someone behind him.

“Not now,” he said, waving the person away.  “Okay, okay,” he went on to the Viera, “I've got a secret...but you've gotta promise not to tell anyone.”

She just stared.

“I...am actually one of the original Warriors of Light.  I know!  I know, but it's true!  I was there when Bahamut broke out.  I was actually right by Louisoix's side.  I told everyone, 'Get out of here and I'll protect you!'  I was gonna save everyone, but Louisoix decided to hog the glory.  He totally stole my idea.”

“Declan.”

“Not now.”  He leaned against the wall, still eyeing the Viera.  “So, I wouldn't call myself a 'legendary hero,' but some people do.  I just was trying to do what was right, y'know?  However, I'd love to have lunch with ya.  I know this lovely place near the Steps of Nald.  My treat! You like Lalafell cooking?”

The lady sighed. “I'm gay.”  Then she walked off.

“All right!  All right, that's fine!  Hey, you do you!  Just making polite conversation!”  She wasn't stopping.  Declan sighed, his ears lowering a bit, then looked to a nearby man in a hooded white robe with glasses.  “What do you think, Bo?  You wanna try?”

“No, Declan...” he wearily sighed.  

“Awww, you're no fun....”  Bo hadn't been “fun” ever since he had become a white mage and swore a vow of celibacy.  Declan ran his fingers through his hair, then turned to face the young, dark-skinned man.  He had a metal-clad grimoire hanging from his belt and waiting with his arms crossed.  “Yeah?”

“About time.”

“I was doing important business, thank you.”

Enzo took a hardboiled egg out of his pocket and bit into it through the shell. “Does Kijhon'a know about this 'business?'”

“Hey, I was just being friendly is all!  Just making a lady feel welcome!”

“Sure, whatever.” Enzo tilted his head.  “I've got a lead on a job.  A big one, and I could use your help.”

“Ehh?”  Declan arched a brow.  “Well...maybe.  Maybe.  What's it paying?”

Enzo inwardly cringed.  He knew this might be where things fell apart. “Technically, it doesn't.”

“Not interested,” Declan immediately responded.

“It's a Garlean facility,” Enzo went on.  “It's currently lightly guarded.  I've got a lead on—”

“Ehh....” Declan gave a dismissive wave, then walked off.

“You can have a share of whatever we find inside!” Enzo called after him.  Declan turned a corner, then was gone.  Enzo's ears flattened, while his hand went to the ring on his necklace and rubbed it while in thought.  As much of a blowhard as Declan was, he did have considerable skill, which was exactly what Enzo needed right then.

Enzo popped the rest of the egg into his mouth.  If Declan was out, what other options did Enzo have?  His sister, sure, but he could guarantee she would say “no” straight-out.  This wasn't something that he could entrust to just anyone at the grand company either, as secrecy and decorum would be needed, and the grand companies documented everything.

“Hmm....”

There was an idea.  Not the best one, but it would work...enough.

~

Miyu waded through the crowds.  She was running a little behind, both because she had been tired, plus Twitchums had decided to take his time with “doing his business.”  What made this situation all the worse is that it was Tuesday, meaning that all the week's fresh jobs were just posted. Miyu mused that maybe this week, people were still recovering from the last one and weren't likely to be out there this early.

Seeing the grand company's building, her heart sank.  She was definitely wrong.

A large crowd of adventurers clustered in front of the building.  Some were crowding around the posting boards, while others were waiting in line to talk with representatives.  It was always surprising to her how most of the larger races hardly ever stepped on the smaller ones, particularly the Lalafell.  If she were a giant, she could see herself being lost in her own world, but then again, it was likely taught to them from a young age to be mindful of the small ones.

Getting to the board, she likely wouldn't find too many good postings left. Her best bet would be to wait in line with everyone and to see what someone of her rank could get.  Given her record of...nothing big or impressive...it likely wouldn't be much.  But she had been consistent, at least!

Speaking of which....

Someone who was determined to be an adventurer, even if he just got duties picking mushrooms, was a Hrothgar she was always happy to see.  Regular as ever, she always saw him in line at this time.  While waiting, he was looking to the large postings, reading them and slowly sounding out the words to himself as he did.

“Muto!” Miyu called, jumped, and waved.  Despite her best efforts, it was all for naught.  His full concentration was on trying to sound out “tyrannic coeurl.”

Miyu knit her brows, then knelt down and gave Twitchums a stroke from head to tail.  “Eee!” squeaked the carbuncle.

“Where's Muto?” she asked. Twitchums's tails went up.  “Wheeeeere's Muto?” The carbuncle eagerly looked about, his nose snuffling at a surprising speed.  His tails flicked about wildly as he concentrated, seeking out his quarry, until his eyes locked on the Hrothgar. “There he is!”

Twitchums shot off like a bullet.  He nearly collided with a Lalafell as he went past, snaked through the crowd, and the next thing Muto knew, there was a carbuncle who was so happy it was bordering on gold pawing at his leg.  It took Muto a moment to realize he knew this carbuncle, then broke into a wide smile.

“Oh!! Is Twitchums!!”  He bent down and scooped up Twitchums, who eagerly went to wash Muto's face.  “Are here alone?  Is not good to be alone!  ...wait, is Twitchums here to be adventurer?!” The Hrothgar became incredibly excited.  “Oh!! Muto teach you everything!!”

“Mutooooo!!”

The carbuncle's ears flicked, then wriggled out of Muto's grip and ran back towards Miyu.  The Hrothgar followed his path, then brightened up.

“Is Miyu!! Hello!!”

“Muto!” Miyu called over the din of the crowd.  “Wanna adventure together?”

“Miyu and Muto be party?”

“Yeah!”  She nodded.  “Let's party up!”

“Join Muto!!”

The crowd was thick and unmoving, and prodding a couple Hyur's in fur-trimmed armor to ask to get by only got Miyu dirty looks.  She then eyed a nearby street lamp, shimmied up it, then – at Muto's encouragement – leapt straight for him.  He caught Miyu, and after a bit of shuffling, she crouched perched on his shoulders while holding onto his horn for support.  She could feel the glares of the Hyurs who initially spurned her, and simply playfully swished her tail back and forth at them.

“Next.”

“Hello!” Muto greeted the Elezen representative.

She blinked in surprise at seeing the Miqo'te perched on top of the Hrothgar, but neither of the pair paid it any mind.

“Badges, please.”

Muto passed hers down to Muto, then he placed them onto the counter, smiling brightly to her, hoping his smile could at least pass on to this person.  As it turned out, working customer service did not make the Elezen feel like smiling.

“Okay, two one-stars.  Are you working together?”

“Muto and Miyu make best team!” Muto affirmed.

“Uh huh.  All right, we have plenty of one-star jobs.  If you're interested in working locally, there's a farmer who has had some kobolds spotted near her farm.  It looks like she'd love to have some able-bodied adventurers on hand to scare them off...or permanently deal with them if it comes down to it.  Until they make a move, though, she would love to have some help harvesting her crops.  That will be 200 gil and 50 points towards your next rank.  Sound good?”

Muto perked up, happy to have work at all, completely forgetting what Tahro and Lalinu had said earlier.  “Muto think sounds g—”

“Wait...wait, wait, hold on.” Miyu's tail began to angrily swish.  “You're dealing with two one-stars...and you're giving us farm duty? That should be a zero-star job!  We qualify for at least a two-star.”

The Elezen gave a weary sigh, and in her best customer service voice, she repeated what she had many times before.  “The stars in your rank do not accumulate when doing jobs together.  You can only do jobs at your current rank or below, except in special exceptions.  Those exceptions are when requested specifically by a higher-ranking adventurer or in times of great peril.  Is there a third member to your party who is above you in rank?”  She paused only long enough to see the tell-tale facial expressions that said “no.”  “Then in that case, you'll have to take one of the one- or zero-star jobs, and at the moment, this farm job is the best one I have to offer you. Tuesday jobs are first-come, first-serve.”

“Muto think that sounds gr—”

“Come on!” Miyu pleaded, leaning further down and out, yet somehow keeping her balance.  “Do you know how long we've been working?  How much we've been trying and trying to rank up?  We've been grinding for who knows how long!  Week after week doing these one- and zero-stars, just wanting a chance at a two star!  Just a chance to make an impression, to show how truly amazing we are!  Haven't you ever wanted just a chance?  And here you are, the only person able to give us – us great adventurers with greater promise – that chance we need.  You are the gatekeeper and we are horses, only wanting to get through the doors, wanting to gallop on our way through to the beflowered fields promised to us.  We want to truly spread our wings in the skies of—”

“If I give you a two-star, will you stop the monologue?”

“Yes.”

A paper was shoved towards Muto.

“Next,” she called, looking past the pair.

Muto and Miyu made their way out, looking over the assignment.

“M-mee...” Muto sounded out.  “...meerk...meer-ka-haynt....”

Finally hopping off his shoulders, Miyu leaned into Muto and dragged her finger along the page.  “Merchant seeking protection along road from Gridania to Ul'dah.  See, says here they're departing tonight and are looking for at least two guards.  Well...with you, me, Twitchums, and maybe some friends, I'd say we have this one in the bag!”

A fairy flew by, making tinkling noises and illuminating the page before flying off.

“Muto did not bring bag....” said Muto bashfully, suddenly worried about his bag-less status.

“No, it's...ahh, nevermind.”  Miyu had tried explaining metaphors before, including cracking the joke “I never metaphor I didn't like!”  In response, Muto had given the smile that said he had no idea what Miyu was saying, but he was very happy that she was enjoying herself.  “Either way, we have an actual two-star! Sheesh, trying to give us farm duty, pff, go eat a chode, we're adventurers, not bloody farmers.”

“Muto sometimes get bloody when doing farm work!  Weeds are spiky....”

“That's why you wear gloves, Muto.”

“Muto strong.  What does not kill Muto make three mistakes – not kill Muto, make Muto stronger, make Muto angry!”  He grinned, showing off his teeth, then punched into his palm.  “Muto kill and eat, just to show how tough Muto is! Weeds taste bad, though.  And make tongue bleed.  But Muto show them.”

“Muto, please don't say not killing you is a mistake.”  Miyu rubbed at his arm. “The world would be less without you in it.”

“Oh, Muto not leaving!”  He flexed hard and showed off his bicep.  “Muto too strong for that!  Plus Muto have Miyu!”

“And Enzo?” said another voice.

“Enzo?” Both Muto and Miyu looked over.  The Hrothgar immediately reacted upon seeing the dark-skinned Miqo'te.  “Oh!! Muto have Enzo today!!”

Enzo was leaning against a nearby building with his fairy Eos fluttering near his shoulder.  “Meowdy.”  His cool demeanor was quickly replaced by mild panic as the ground shook and a shadow overtook him. The next moment, he found his feet off the ground and himself in Muto's tight embrace.  “Hrrk!!”

“Enzo, hey!” Miyu greeted him.  “You already go through the line?”

“Hhhhhh...!”

“Muto, let go.”

Muto did.  Enzo took a moment to get air back into his lungs and straightened out his coat.  “Good to see you guys too.  Bit...less tight next time, hey, Muto?”

“Muto sorry.” He grinned brightly, showing off his fangs.  “Just happy to see Enzo!”

“Always mutual.” He flicked an ear, then took a boiled egg out of his pocket.  “Egg?”

“Okay!”  Muto took it and shoved it into his pocket.  “Have later.”

Enzo brought out another.  “You?”

Miyu lowered an ear.  “I'm...fine, thanks.”

Enzo shrugged, then bit into the shell.  “To answer your question, no, I haven't gone through the line.  I don't need to.  Came here to get some help, actually....”

Miyu squinted, suddenly very suspicious.  “You didn't 'need' to go through the line?  What, did you get a job elsewhere?”

“More or less.” He quirked a brow.  “You two interested?”

Muto looked down at the paper in his hands.  His ears went back slightly as he concentrated, trying to decide.

“Well, first off, what kind of job are we looking at here?” asked Miyu.  “This have a ranking?”

“It's...an independent venture.”

That term – sometimes called an IV – was always a bit scary.  Adventurers may come upon a task that needed doing, and instead of going through the paperwork of posting a job and seeking additional adventurers in an officially sanctioned job, they sought to resolve the problems themselves.  Once the IV had finished, it was documented, submitted, and appropriate ranking points were assigned.

While in the past, adventurers had said certain troublesome events were “IVs” to give themselves an excuse, the grand companies quickly put harsh restrictions and punishments into place.  Extremely foolhardy ventures – such as trying to assassinate a foreign dignitary and potentially starting a war – were punished so severely that getting put to death was an option.  Retroactively saying something was an IV as an excuse for causing trouble or damage was severely punished, with it not uncommon to to lose one's adventuring license entirely, or at least a few ranks.  The same punishment went with falsified IVs.

IVs were always a gamble, though.  While the grand companies could at least guarantee payment and ranking points, there was no such guarantee in an IV.  Even if adventurers barely made it out by the skin of their teeth, if they accomplished little or had nothing to show for their time, they would likely get little in regards to advancing their rank.  However, the benefit was that IVs were not limited by rank or the number of adventurers allowed to join, meaning a great amount of money and advancement could be open to anyone.

“Go on...” Miyu said slowly.

“Not just yet. This's a hot job, big reward, and shouldn't be too tough, but I first need to know if you want to join me.”

“Sounds too good to be true.  Where'd you get this?”

“Long story.”

“Shorten it.”

“I've got sources.  Good and reliable ones.”  He reached into his pocket, dug around, then made a face.  He pulled out a white rat, which looked at him with wide, curious eyes, then handed it to Miyu.  “Hold this, would ya?”

“Wh—?”

He then pulled out a rolled-up communique.  “A little chocobo told me about a nearly abandoned facility that's ripe for picking through.”

“'Nearly' abandoned?”  The rat scampered to Miyu's shoulder.

“A couple leftover guards, they're basically just babysitting the place now. Easy pickings.  And you don't have to worry, they're not 'good guys' by any stretch.”

“Mmmmm...”

Enzo motioned with his chin at Muto's paper.  “What rank's that mission?”

“Oh!” Muto held out the paper proudly.  “Is two-star! Miyu is best ne-go-shee-ater!”

Enzo got a lopsided smile, proud of their accomplishment.  “Well look at you!  You're moving up!”

The rat climbed up to Miyu's head, where Eos flitted near to investigate. “We're looking at 700 points for this job.”  Miyu then snorted derisively.  “She was trying to give us something with 50, can you believe that?”

“Yeah.” Enzo shrugged.  “It's kinda unfair to us lowbies like that.”  He took a moment to look between them with a twinkle in his eye. “...but what would you two say to a four-star?”

“...I'm sorry?”

“IS FOUR-STAR?!”

“Shhhh!!” Enzo and Miyu hissed at Muto.

Muto clapped his hands over his mouth, while Miyu recomposed herself. “Okay, this is definitely sounding too good to be true.  How is it a four-star?”

He moved the hand holding the communique, showing the emblem stamped beneath.  “It's Garlean, but don't let that scare you.”

“Don't let that scare me?!  Just the Garlean empire, nothing threatening....” Her sarcasm was interrupted as another thought came to her.  “And what's the pay?”

“A third of whatever we find over there.”

“And what should we expect to find?”

“That's all a bit—”

The unseen hand of Hydaelyn nudged Muto's memory.

Muto gasped and clapped a hand heavily on Miyu's shoulder.  “Oh!! Muto remember!!  Tahro say to get big job!  Or Muto have to stop adventuring!” He shook Miyu, making her head bounce about and dislodged the rat. “Is Muto's big chance!  Show Tahro!  Show Lalinu!  Show queen!  Show the world!”

“M-Muto....”

“Muto help Enzo!”

“But what about our job tonight?”

“Muto know math!” He was excited to share his academics.  “Four is bigger than two!”

“He has a point,” Enzo chimed in.

Miyu looked between the two.  They were both looking at her with wide, expectant faces.  She gave a heavy sigh, then poked a finger into Enzo's chest.  “All right...but we're trusting you!  If this IV is a bust, you're going to be the one to pay the gil, all right?”

“Sure, yeah, that's fine!  Let's say...500 gil if things don't pan out?”

Miyu squinted.  Her shrewdness was kicking in.  She knew she could negotiate for something a great deal higher, but Enzo was a friend...and she was curious exactly what they would find in this Garlean place anyways.

“Deal.”

“And you, Muto?”

“Huh?”  His attention had gone to Eos, hovering above Enzo's head.

“Is 500 gil acceptable?”

“Okay!  Umm....” He held up the paper with the two-star adventure.  “Should Muto share?”

“Oh, that?” Enzo shrugged.  “Yeah, just pass it along to someone else.”  He turned to Miyu.  “So...out in eastern Thanalan, there's this Garlean lab....”

While Enzo explained the job, Muto looked down at the two-star adventure, then to the crowd.  He saw a frustrated Au Ra wandering away from the company building.  It was the telltale sign of a poor adventure...and Muto had the solution.  He wandered away, while Enzo continued his explanation.

~

Its breath was thick, and stank of blood and meat.  Its lip were curled back in a permanent snarl,  showing every single dagger-like tooth, while ichor-like saliva dripped from between them.  Its teeth were literally the subject of horror stories, capable of piercing flesh and bone easily.  Its jaws were powerful enough to crunch all manner of alloyed metal, whether it was armor or the side of an airship. Each claw was like a curved saber, able to rend its prey to pieces with a single swipe.  Its muscles were beyond natural, fueled purely by aether and pure menace.  Its kind had killed countless and would kill countless more.  “Nightmare” was not enough of a description for the beast.  To be seen by one was to already be counted as dead.

“Smoo-thie!”

It was an odd stroke of fate that a behemoth had ended up in the care of Muto.  It was a hassle to care for, but nobody wanted to take it for domestic purposes, Muto refused to give it to those who intended it for battle, and him and Tahro seemed to be the only ones to whom Smoothie seemed to listen.

Pupil-less eyes swiveled onto Muto as he approached, carrying a fresh pig carcass behind him.  Smoothie growled, and even in the warm climate, a cloud of breath could be seen.

“Muto got you nummies!”

He tossed the pig over the top of the cage, where it slipped through the bars before falling.  Smoothie caught it in its jaws, and bit down, causing a small spray of blood against the side of its enclosure.  Muto leaned against the outside of the stall, his tail swishing back and forth contentedly as he watched the behemoth feed.

“Are hungry, neh?  No worries!  Muto off to do big job!  Can get even bigger pig next time!”  He reached through a patted one of the behemoth's horns.  “But am sorry, is in Thanalanalan.  Smoothie is too big to go on airship!”

There was a loud crack of bone and spray of viscera.

“Awww, don't be sad!  Muto is sorry, but will definitely try to take Smoothie on next big mission!  Will try to get one in Gridania!  Muto knows Smoothie likes hunting for deer!”

Smoothie shook its head, flicking droplets of blood across Muto's armor.

“There you go! Now you behave!  Muto loves you!”  He kissed his fingers, then put them to Smoothie's horn, before absently wiping away the blood.

He walked to the neighboring stall where his chocobo was caged.  For some reason, it was always wide-eyed and nervous.

“Hello, Legbird! Time for adventure!”

~

The desert sun was high, but it barely reached them.

The storm had been sudden and filled with rage.  The world was roaring.  Wind violently whipped the sand about, shoving them about as their chocobos struggled onward.  Enzo led the pack, all while keeping his grimoire open, its pages emitting a barely visible light.

Each of them wore caps that had been customized to fit over their cat ears, while goggles protected their eyes and scarves covered their lower faces. The chocobos had been given similar head protection, with glass shielding over their eyes and an insulated covering that went over their beaks.

Enzo held up a hand to halt.  With one hand holding the grimoire open, the other reached into his pocket, then withdrew a scope.  He scanned in the distance, tapped a switch a few times, then grinned to himself.

Turning to the others, he gave a thumbs-up and enthusiastic nod.

~

“You'd think there would've been something in the weather report.”

“What?”

“I said, you'd think there would have been something in the weather report!”

The other man gave a helpless shrug.  He only heard half of what was said, but agreed with the sentiment.  Things had been miserable ever since the main arm of the Garlean empire had pulled out.  Insurgent forces had set up a fantastic base there in Thanalan, which was to be a hub of operations.  However, due to a lack of resources – both material and personnel – and with the staff already there, it instead became a self-sufficient laboratory.

It was a risk having a lightly guarded Garlean base so close to Ul'dah, but it was a calculated risk.  They were able to glean bits of intel regarding Ul'dah to occasionally send back to Garlemald, while the handful of scientists continued their research.

All the while, they held onto hope that the Garlean empire would make a push into central Eorzean lands once again, they would have a seat of power in Thanalan already ready for them, and everyone there could finally return to their lives in Garlemald.

Admittedly, life hadn't been too bad.  It could be boring, even.  The guards took shifts in their camouflaged watch box, nestled under an outcrop of rock that disguised the entrance and gave them shade.  Cooled air piped in from the main facility made even the hottest days pleasant. All the while, the scientists continued working on...whatever it was they did.  Something about crystals...of course.  It was always crystals.

This sandstorm had rattled the guards, though, because their schedules depended upon sandstorms.  Every time there was to be one, a cart would either leave or return with supplies hours before a storm hit, which would then hide the tracks leading to the base.  Sure, someone could follow the cart, but they had had training and tools to help them detect when they were being followed or spied upon.  This system had been working for them for years.  However, the sandstorm predictions had been inaccurate before.  This one, though, was particularly harsh.

One of the guards squinted out through his view port, then turned to his comrade.  “I thought I saw movement!” he shouted over the rush of the storm.

“There's a lot of movement!”  The man smiled.  “It's the sand!”

He just got a flat glare in response.

A Miqo'te stumbled through the sand to the shelter of the overhanging rock.  It wasn't much, but it was at least some kind of shelter.  Her face was bare and grimacing, and she held her hands over her ears to prevent sand from getting in.  She drew close against the wall and tightly pulled her knees to her chest with her eyes closed.

The two guards looked to each other.  This was a problem.  They could wait out the storm and hope she left once it had passed.  However, if she stayed there long enough, she might take notice of the disguised doors.  They had done what they could to keep up maintenance, but years with only what scant supplies they could get from Ul'dah without raising suspicion had left some telltale chipping, uneven edges, and a silhouette if you knew what to look for.

The guards pantomimed to each other about what to do.  One was silently saying they should kill her, while the other one was pleading to leave her alone.  Their silent argument was becoming more heated, until they heard her speaking.

“Please...! Please help...!”

Their hands froze mid-conversation.

Was she talking to them or praying?

A large stone punched through the wall of the watch box, hitting the one guard in the face, rocking his head back and into the wall, where he slid to the floor.

“Witch, you're about to—!”

The remaining guard took up his rifle, wrenched open the door, and ran into a wall of armor and muscle.  Muto picked him up by the face, slammed his head into the rock wall, then let him fall.

Twitchums was low the ground, wearing his own pair of custom goggles.  Flecks of energy came off him, fresh from manipulating the earth.  Miyu walked over and eagerly petted him.  “Good boy...!”  He eagerly twitched his tails, then sneezed, sending out sparks.

Within moments, the sandstorm was gone, revealing Enzo in the midst of it.  He brought up the grimoire, blew off the remaining sand, then clapped it shut. “That's always a fun spell...!”

He opened a pouch, allowing Eos to fly out and perch on his shoulder.  Muto, meanwhile, raised up the goggles and lowered his scarf, then looked to the body at his feet.  “Muto hit harder than meant to....”

“They're bad guys,” Miyu said, doing her best to empty out all the sand that had collected in her robes.  “It's okay.”

“Should Muto kill?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” said Enzo disinterestedly.

“No!” Miyu shot him a glare, then looked up to Muto.  “Only kill if you have to.”

Enzo sighed, looking up.  “You know they're gonna wake up eventually....”

“Yeah, but we don't have to be murderers!  We're better than that!”

“And what would you suggest?”

Miyu thought a moment, then snapped her fingers.  Not even a minute later, thanks to Twitchums manipulating the sand, the two unconscious guards were buried up to their necks in the sand, and thanks to a magic marker, each one bore three whisker marks on their cheeks.

“Perfect!”

“Happy?”

“Very.”

Miyu handed the marker back to Enzo, who put it back in his pocket.  Enzo procured an egg from his pocket, did his best to dust off the sand, then bit into it.  “So inside, there'll likely be a small leftover contingent of guards, but they're not on active duty, so we hit them hard...and after that'll just be the scientists.  We should be able to deal with them.”

“'Deal' how?” asked Miyu, squinting at Enzo.

“Just trust me.”

“No killing.”

“Trust me.”

“Muto trust!” offered Muto.

“Muto trusts me,” repeated Enzo.

“Mmmmm....” Miyu stayed squinting for a long moment, pointed to her eyes, then pointed to Enzo.

“Oh, stop that,” he said, carelessly waving her away and stepping past.  “I'm not a monster.”

“Muto is not monster either!”  He seemed eager to share that bit of information. “Am beast.  Is like monster, but with better manners.”

Going inside the wrecked watch box, Enzo found a keypad.  He unrolled the communique, then tapped in the code.

“Anything complicated?” asked Miyu.

“Just an alphanumeric code,” shrugged Enzo.  “It's literally 'G1234.'”

Hitting the final key, there was a heavy “ch-chunk” from the outside wall, a hiss, then the rock face slowly slid open, revealing the way inside. The interior was a mix of rock and metal with bright lights evenly spaced along the ceiling, with occasional signs marking the way to various areas.

“You take point, Muto,” instructed Enzo.

“Huh?”

“You stay in the front and protect us,” Miyu clarified.

“Okay!”

Muto unsheathed his axe, Miyu and Enzo opened their grimoires, and slowly they started down the hall.  They froze as they heard approaching footsteps.

“Nar,” came a sleepy grumble, “I swear, if you're coming in to use the can again—”

She emerged from a side door, where her eyes met Muto's.

Muto smiled.

The lady pulled her head back just in time to avoid the axe swinging down.  Se turned and started to run towards a security alcove.  Muto grabbed a hand axe from his belt and lobbed it at the retreating woman's head.  The axe whirled end over end, before it impacted into her head...with the handle.  She stumbled, which was further exacerbated by rising stones.  Twitchums was at Miyu's feet, hunched down, glowing, and growling.

The guard recovered just in time to see a charging Muto bearing down on her, and the last thing she saw was a fist the size of her head flying right at her face.  She was knocked back into a rack where a number of cards were hung, knocking them all to the floor, then fell to the floor herself.

There was a door next to the rack.  The large squad of guards within and the three adventurers saw each other.

“Uhh....” said everyone.

The guards grabbed their rifles and Muto slammed the metal door.  He pressed himself hard against it, while feeling the guards behind it hammering on and slamming into the door.

“Muto cannot hold forever!”  There was the sound of gunfire and divots appearing on the door.  “Muto does not want to get shot!”

Enzo's eyes went to the pile of cards on the floor.  “Help him with the door!” he ordered Miyu.

“Twitchums, go!” Her command sounded in the carbuncle's mind.  Twitchums turned red, a chunk of the bare rock wall came loose, then flew forward to help pin the door in place.

Sifting through the keycards, Enzo found the one he was looking for, slotted it into a nearby console, and his fingers danced across the keys.

Deet. Click-ck.

“There. You two can stop.”  He looked flatly to Miyu.  “And without killing.”

“Thank you,” she chirped.  Twitchums went from red to a light topaz, twitching his tails gleefully.

Enzo rolled his eyes, then began sifting through the pile of cards.  “You know, trying not to kill anyone is going to make going through here that much harder.  We're here to finish a mission, not make friends with literal villains.” He turned his mouth.  “...and how many bloody duplicate cards are there?!”

“Muto wouldn't mind making friends....”  He crouched near the unconscious lady. “Should Muto take her back?”  He started contemplating if it would be easy to add a new friend to the loot they would be taking back.

“Don't,” Enzo said, distractedly, “she probably has diseases.  There!” He was finding card after card with A, B, and D, but only then did he find C.

There was a lot of yelling behind the locked door.  Muto looked to it, then pointed his thumb to it.  “Should Muto open door and quiet them?”

Enzo groaned and started off.  “Come on,” coaxed Miyu, gently taking his wrist and leading him on.

~

As they walked the halls, it was rather obvious the place was unfinished.  Garlemald had sent what supplies they could, but when the supply route had been disrupted, those who were left there made due with what they could. The base had seemingly been integrated into a cave system, and many walls had been left exposed to the rock surfaces beneath.  A surprising number of halls ended up going to dead ends.

It helped with navigation, as construction had prioritized lighting in areas where people worked or traveled.  There were occasional maps posted, though most had been minorly vandalized, both because many of the places on there had never been built, the staff did get bored, and it wasn't like any Garlean officials were there to stop them.

“We're aiming to go...here.”  Enzo pointed to a large circular room.  “This's where their main project should be.”

“Wait, there's a project?” Miyu guffawed.

“Well, yeah.” Enzo raised an eyebrow.  “What, you thought it was just a no-name lab we were going to loot?  Take some cool science equipment, take the Garlean empire down a beg?”

“You didn't specify!”

“You didn't ask.”  Miyu made a strangled noise of frustration, with her tail shooting up behind her in annoyance, while Enzo went on unabated.  “It's a little bit of navigating, as you can see, but that shouldn't be too bad.  Thanks to my friends—”  He fanned out the key cards.  “—it'll be a straight shot through.   Here, though...we'll be passing by the main lab.  We'll likely be dealing with quite a few scientists then.”

“Muto need to deal with?”  He looked between Enzo and Miyu, unsure how he should define “deal with.”

“I've got this,” Enzo said coolly before confidently walking on.  Miyu squinted judgmentally from behind him while Muto looked about wide-eyed.  He'd never been in a secret base before!

Eventually, there was noise ahead.  Enzo looked around the corner, then sighed in frustration.  There were so many more down there than he had anticipated.

“The scientists?” asked Miyu.

“The scientists,” confirmed Enzo.  Miyu crossed her arms in thought, followed by Muto doing the same, imitating her.

“It would be a bad idea if we were to go in with weapons swinging,” Enzo sighed. “They could trigger an alarm or could fight back.  I'm sure there's plenty of Garlean fighting tactics in their heads....”

“Muto fight them all?” offered the Hrothgar.  “Muto is best at fighting!”

“No,” Enzo and Miyu said at the same time.

They stood there together in silence, thinking on how best to proceed.  As they did, Enzo noted Eos floating past his vision.

“Hmmm....”

Miyu was looking down at her feet and saw Twitchums staring up inquisitively at her.

“Hmmm....”

Muto looked between his companions, confused.

“Hmmm?”

~

It was an average day for the Garlean scientists.  They had several crystals hooked up to various electrodes, screens with graphs, and nearly incalculable amounts of data pouring through their system.  It was entirely normal.  Almost boring.

“WHY IS THAT IN HERE?!”

And then there was a fairy riding a carbuncle through the lab.

Twitchums burst through the door, running as hard as he could, while Eos did her best to steer him.  They specifically darted between and near people's legs, leaving a trail of chaos.  Under chairs, over tables, through carefully calibrated equipment.  One scientist went to bar their way, but Twitchums jumped on his face, then springboarded over a handful of others behind him.

Twitchums was having the time of his life.

Eos looked bored.

While the scientists had been going about their business in labs and walking in the halls, they were now clustering together, trying to capture this wild animal.  People were crowding into the lab, aiming to block the doors or to help catch the carbuncle.

Eos piloted Twitchums for the door, and with a kick of her heels, urged him to ride as hard as he could.

“Ready?” someone asked.  They had a labcoat spread out, ready to use as a makeshift net.  Twitchums and Eos drew closer, and they weren't stopping.

“Now!”

There was a fierce roar behind them.  They stumbled and turned back to see a Hrothgar towering over them, fangs bared, eyes fierce, and axe in hand. Twitchums jumped over the startled scientists onto Muto's shoulder. Looking to the crowd of people, he twitched his tails in satisfaction.

Deet.

The fire shutters slammed down across all windows and doors, trapping all the scientists within the lab.

Enzo shoved the keycard in his pocket, withdrew another hardboiled egg, then popped it entirely in his mouth.  “Tha' wash ee-ee....”

“Twitchums, you were so good!” Miyu cooed, walking over to him perched atop Muto's shoulder.  Eos took flight, dutifully resuming her place by Enzo's side.  Twitchums hopped down from Muto's shoulder to Miyu's awaiting arms, then eagerly licked her face.  Enzo, meanwhile, nodded to Eos and she nodded back.

After that, it was no problem continuing through the facility.  Behind the fire shutters, the trio could hear the trapped scientists banging and shouting.  Twitchums walked alongside Miyu with a proud step, satisfied with the chaos he had caused, while Eos hovered along stoically.  Muto followed along, though occasionally stopping and pressing his ear against one of the shutters.

At one point, he pulled back his fist, about to bang back, but Miyu caught his arm and lead him on.  “Leave them alone for now,” she gently goaded.

Cables and general wiring grew more and more condensed as they continued along the hall. Enzo's pace picked up as they grew closer.

“You never told us about what we're specifically trying to find....”

“It's condensed aether,” Enzo casually said.  “Pooled and experimented on. Basically, a certain crystal.  All I want from here is that, and literally everything else here can be yours.”

“Ohhhhh...!” Muto's eyes were wide.  “Muto get secret base...!”

“Probably...not,” Miyu corrected.  “Ul'dah is more than likely to come down hard on this place.  This is in their jurisdiction and is a matter of national security, so they'll likely have their army take it over and conduct a thorough investigation.”  She quirked a smile.  “However, before they get here, there's nothing saying that if it's not nailed down, you can't take it...!”

“It's mostly rivets here anyways...” Enzo observed.

“Muto get so much stuff...!”

The hallway wound around, until they arrived at a heavy industrial door with a console to the side.  Above the door in large, block letters was “INCUBATION CHAMBER.”

“In...in...innnnkoooo....”

“What...form is your aether?” Miyu asked hesitantly.

Enzo slid the D card through the console, his fingers danced across the keys, and the door hissed open, followed by two more doors.

The chamber within was enormous.  It was a large concrete dome.  The floor of the chamber was almost entirely sand, with raised platforms going around the perimeter and a walkway leading straight into the middle.

“There we are....” Enzo said, smiling to himself, confidently walking in and starting down the central walkway.

“Enzo, what's going on?” Miyu demanded.

“Just here for the aether is all.”

At the end of the walkway in the center of the chamber was something organic.  As they drew closer, they found it was...a creature.  It was short, fat, large, and fleshy.  It was reminiscent of a large brown toad, in that it's head seemed to take up most of its body.  In fact, the party wasn't sure where its arms and legs were.  It had brown skin, four deformed horns that wound about in random directions, and large bulbous eyes that stared in different directions.  It looked incredibly dumb.

“Hack!” it noised.

“What...is that?”

“Hack!”

“A massive repository of experimental aether,” Enzo said matter-of-factly. “Drawing upon the streams deep within the planet, they twisted and gave the energy form, and it's what you see here.”

“They created a creature?” Miyu leaned over, trying not to step on the sand.

“In a sense.”

“Hack!”

Twitchums leaned in and sniffed eagerly at the thing, nose to nose.  One eye briefly looked to the carbuncle, then back to staring at nothing in particular.

“Wait....” Miyu squinted at him.  “You want us to take this thing with us?  It's huge!  And, y'know, alive!”

“Oh, that won't be a problem.”  Enzo motioned to the creature.  “Muto, please kill it.”

“Okay!” Muto eagerly agreed.

“What?!” Miyu protested.  “No, don't!”

“Okay!” Muto eagerly agreed.

Enzo sighed, then turned to Miyu.  “I can tell you for a fact it's in pain.  It's not sentient, it's not a person, it's a thing that would be best for everyone if we were to end it here.”

“How do you know—?”

“You'll do no such thing!” came a voice over the speaker system.

The three immediately readied their weapons and looked around.

“Up here...up here...!”

“Oh!” Muto eagerly pointed to an observation room high up with large windows.  Inside was a tall Roegadyn lady in a lab coat speaking into a wall-mounted microphone.  Muto happily waved to her.

“What you're doing here is wrong,” Enzo shouted at her.

“Who are you to decide what is right and wrong?” the lady snarled.  “We gave PP0 life only technically speaking.  It has no idea what it is, nor does it care.  It knows nothing, feels nothing, except what we tell it to.  Sentient thought is beyond us to create anyways...which works out well for you bleeding heart types, doesn't it.”

“PP0?” Miyu asked Enzo.

“Oh...wait, you don't even know what it is?!”

“Not...exactly,” Miyu responded.

“Well!” The scientist paused, then hit a few keys on the nearby console. The multiple doors at the entrance slammed shut.  “In that case, I need to tell you! It's really exciting!  We haven't had visitors in years, so this is actually pretty nice to get to see somebody new for once!”

Enzo glared flatly at the Roegadyn, then sighed to himself.  He gestured for Miyu and Muto to come with him, then hopped off walkway to the sand and started towards a door at the opposite end of the room, presumably which led up to the Roegadyn.

“See, we were kinda stuck here, since Garlemald kinda got cut off from us, and we're all, 'What do we do?'  But then we found that with our set-up, we could hypothetically infuse aether energy from our reactor into something! Wasn't tough at all! So at that point, it's like, 'What can't we do, y'know?' Well...I mean, not much, we're all stuck here, but then, then we get this super cool idea, right? And we sent out a secret communique back to the empire asking for this one thing, and we didn't think they were going to, but they did!”

They got to the walkway in front of the door, then Enzo swiped a cardkey through the console.  He blinked when the display came up with the error “INCORRECT CLEARANCE.”  Confused, he tried again.  That was supposed to be the maximum clearance card.

“Things...okay?” Miyu asked.

Enzo just furrowed his brow and tried another card.  INCORRECT CLEARANCE.

“I mean, it took awhile, but they delivered it, and we were super excited!  A scale from Bahamut!  Like, who'd have thought, right? But, I mean, doing genetic stuff with Bahamut isn't anything new, but now we get to!”

Miyu's eyes went wide.  “Wait...Bahamut?!”

While Muto didn't entirely understand everything going on, he understood at least that. “Uh oh....”

INCORRECT CLEARANCE.

“So we have some cloning technology, which was kinda-sorta based off the Allagan process, and, c'mon, that stuff is ancient, and we only kinda-sorta understand it, but we were able to modify it and use the modified aether to infuse into Personal Project 0 – or PP0 – and that's where its nickname came from – and I know it's not the best acronym, but Garlemald isn't exactly here watching over our shoulders for the best naming conventions – but I guess he also has those giant peepers – but anyways—”

A small pile was forming at Enzo's feet.  There were a few suspiciously large money pouches, three full-sized books, a collapsible staff, a surprising number of keys, a melon, three cartons of boiled eggs, a light back-up robe, a few squirming malboro hatchlings, several keycards, a unicolt figurine, a wind-up soldier, and a few flowers with attached tags labeled “Corpse.”

“WHERE'S THE BLOODY KEY?!” he snarled.

~

The guards continued banging on the door of their barracks, hollering for help, shouting threats, and making noises of utter frustration.

In front of the door was the pile of keycards.  Towards the bottom was a key labeled “E.”

~

“—but anyways, it was nice to have visitors, but it's kiiiiiinda our policy that intruders aren't allowed to leave, or at least leave alive, and PP0 has never had proper combat testing, so this is probably where you're going to die. I'm sorry, but not really, but also am.”

She tapped a few keys and the entire room began to hum.  Moments later, the sand began to bubble.  Large amounts of air were getting pumped in beneath the sand, causing it to go from being a settled, solid mass to a liquid. Muto had been standing in the stand, quickly began sinking, then jumped up to the walkway.

His axe was immediately readied.  “No worries!” he said with an eager swish of his tail.  “Miyu and Enzo are safe!  Muto protect you all!”

What they thought had been a whole creature ended up being only its head.  It began to raise, attached to a long neck.  Massive claws burst through the sand, struggling to raise up its large body in full.  The tips of the wings were visible next, with one wing much smaller than the other. Thick cables emerged from the sand as well, plugged into the creature's arms and back.  The dragon's proportions were all wrong, with some muscles incredibly large, while others were noticeably underdeveloped.  Once it had climbed to the top and its body was fully visible, the sand stopped bubbling.  The artificial dragon stood nearly as tall as the dome.

The three stood there wide-eyed, ears lowered, and with bushed tails jetting out from behind them.  Twitchums had gone from growling and being a deep red to whimpering and turning white.

“Muto...maybe not able to protect...from that.”

Without the body moving, the head spun around on its neck to look down at the adventurers.  Its body then slowly lumbered around to face them. Energy flowed through the cables and its bulbous eyes went red.

“Behold!” the scientist bellowed into her microphone.  “PEEPO!!”

“HAAAAAAAHCK!!!” it roared, then blinked an eye.

“Mew...!” mewed Miyu.

“This could get messy, so if you'll excuse me.”  A fire shutter slammed in front of the large window.  A few cameras positioned around the room blinked to life.  “Make sure to have good deaths.   This is all getting recorded for our records! PEEPO, KILL!”

“MOVE!!”

Peepo's neck glowed before letting forth a jet of flame.  The group scattered, feeling the white-hot heat on their backs.  The wall where the flames had hit had partially melted the metal and crystallized the scattered sand.

“I can't believe we're about to get killed by something so stupid-looking!” Miyu yelled in aggravation.

“If you had just let Muto kill it, we wouldn't be here!” Enzo snapped.

“Whatever Muto did, Muto sorryyyyyy!” Muto wailed.

They were running across the sand for the exit door.  The exit may have been blocked by several locked doors, but with Enzo's keycards, they could at least escape.

Muto gasped.  “DOWN, NOW!!” He palmed the backs of Miyu and Enzo's heads, then fell forward, making them faceplant into the sand.  Peepo's tail whooshed just over them, then impacted heavily into the wall.  Enzo rubbed the sand out of his eyes, then his ears went limp.  The console in the wall near the door had been destroyed.

“It's him or us right now,” Miyu sighed defeatedly.  She looked back up to Peepo and whined to herself.  She always hated fighting dragons.  Twitchums pressed himself up against Miyu's side, both for comfort and seeking instruction.

“Muto choose us!”

Muto got to his feet, axe in hand, then charged Peepo.

“Muto, wait!” Miyu looked agog to the Hrothgar, then to Enzo.  “Does he seriously think he can beat that thing?!”

“Maybe....” Enzo took in the room.  “...but more importantly, he's keeping its attention off us.”

“HRAAAAAAA!!”

Muto rolled out of the way as Peepo went to smash down with its claws.  Muto swung down, his axe biting in deeply in the back of Peepo's hand.  In return, the artificial dragon's neck glowed again, then spewed down fire at Muto. The Hrothgar knew the creature had limited mobility when using its breath weapon and darted for Peepo's legs.  The stream of fire followed him, until it started to cook Peepo's feet.  Being right by the artifical dragon's backside, Muto swung back and took a couple hacks at Peepo's tail.  In response, the dragon went to heavily sit down, aiming to crush Muto.

Sand was tossed up and hung in the air briefly.  Silence had descended upon the cavern...until a fierce battle cry pierced the din and Peepo bucked. Muto had climbed several cables and was hacking at its back.

Enzo stood with Miyu, Twitchums, and Eos against the wall watching the fight ensue.

“Kinda impressive...” he mused.

“That's what you're thinking during all this?!” Miyu snapped.

Peepo flapped its mismatched wings desperately, trying to dislodge the attacker.  It craned its neck to see and possibly bite Muto, but couldn't quite reach.  It finally settled with launching itself back and slamming its back into the wall of the dome.  The room shook violently, with dust falling from the ceiling.

“Muto!”  Enzo called.  “Are you alive still?”

Peepo did not seem in distress anymore, and was repositioning itself to try and get a better view of what happened to Muto.

“Enzo, Muto hurt!” the Hrothgar called.  “Muto...really hurt!”

“Go.”  Eos flew.

The Hrothgar was lying in the sand, with his leg badly damaged.  His axe was just out of reach and he looked terrified.  Peepo, meanwhile, was waiting for the dust and sand in the air to settle, trying to spy Muto.

Eos found Muto, then flew in front of his face.

“Mmm?”

Eos slapped Muto across the face.  It was a tiny fairy, but she hit hard.

“Ow!”  He rubbed his face.  “Was mean!”

“Are you still hurt bad?” called Enzo.

“Huh?”  He looked down.  Any blood and damage to his leg was now gone.  Eos had channeled her healing energy when she had made contact.  “Ohhhh....”

“Keep fighting him!” Enzo called.

“Okay!”

“And don't die!” Miyu added.

“Okay!”

He grabbed his axe and rolled out of the way as another jet of flame scorched the sands.

“Its aethereal energy is too complex to hold steady on its own,” Enzo said, rubbing his chin.  “So the cables—”

“Attack the cables?” Miyu interrupted.

“Go for the connection ports.”

As Muto and Peepo battled, they could see that when it had rammed itself against the wall, several ports had been damaged and cables had fallen away. They briefly spewed aethereal mist before the emergency shut-offs initiated.  While the cables had been heavily insulated to keep in the aether, the ends were less so to allow for flexibility and movement.

“Get 'im, Twitchums!”

The carbuncle, while still scared, was bolstered by Miyu's command.  It gave a fearsome squeak before launching itself forward.  Sand began to gather in the air, hovering next to him, and coalescing into crude spears.

Muto was flung across the room and hit the wall hard enough to leave a crater in the concrete before falling to the sand.  He lied there groaning, bones shattered, life leaving him.

Eos flew over and kicked him.

Healed, Muto grabbed up his axe and charged again at Peepo.

Twitchums drew upon Peepo.  It was so, so much bigger than expected.  Miyu's voice directing him in his mind steeled his courage and pushed him on. With the artificial dragon's attention on Muto, Twitchums had a clear shot along Peepo's arm.  The sand spears launched forward.  Several missed, impaling into Peepo's arm, but a few hit home.  Cables came lose, briefly spewing aethereal mist, before stopping.

Peepo's head swiveled to look to Twitchums before a thrown hand axe hit it in the face.

“NO!” Muto scolded.  “Fight Muto!”

“HAAAAAAAHCK!!”

“Stop! STOP!!” pleaded the voice over the speaker system.  “You don't know what you're doing!”

“We're winning,” Enzo observed with a smirk.

“No, you don't understand!” The Roegadyn was in a panic.  “This is years' worth of research and experimentation! You'll destroy everything! And if you—”

Muto was airborne and Peepo plunged its hand at him.  The Hrothgar just barely missed it.  The artificial dragon's sword-like claws thrusted deeply into the concrete dome.  Unsure if it had grabbed him, Peepo squeezed, then yanked back, ripping out a huge boulder of concrete and wiring. The room's speakers went immediately silent, all camera lights dimmed, and the lights about the room began to flicker.

“Hit it faster!” Enzo instructed.  “Burn it down!”

Twitchum heard Miyu's command in its mind, and gave a mighty squeak.  Sandstone spears materialized and flew in violent waves at Peepo's back.  The creature's attention was divided between what was happening behind it and the very loud and angry Hrothgar.  Peepo's actions were also becoming more and more sluggish, as less aether was pumped into it.

A jet of flame followed Muto as he charged directly for Peepo.  He was barely staying ahead of it.

“Muto also have flame!” Muto roared.  “Flame is inside!”

Cable after cable was severed from Peepo's back.

“Flame is Muto!”

He jumped.

“Flame is friends!”

The final cable was severed.

“Flame is hotter than dragon's!”

His axe went straight into Peepo's chest.  The artificial dragon stood there stunned and wobbling as the last of its aether had dissipated. Muto's axe was lodged deeply in Peepo and refused to come out.  Muto took the opportunity to push his feet off the creature's chest, pivot off his axe handle, and launch himself upwards.  He reared back his fist and uppercutted Peepo in the chin.

The artificial dragon dissipated into aethereal mist.  A moment later, Muto's axe hit the sand, followed by Muto, landing in a crouch.  He stood to his full height, thumped his chest, then gave a bestial roar of victory.

“MUTO!!” he announced.  “WIN!!”

As the echo died down, Enzo muttered, “It was technically Twitchums who killed the thing....”

“Shhh,” Miyu whispered back.  “Let him have this....”

Enzo's attention went to the aethereal mist.  He squinted, waiting for it to start...and there it was.  It all began to come together to form a crystal.

...and then the lights went out.

“Ehh?”  Miyu looked around.  “Twitchums!  Light!”

The carbuncle's forehead gem lit up.  It was in the middle of the room, looking around confusedly.

“Everyone okay?”

“Muto is fine!” announced Muto, somewhere in the darkness.  “Muto and friends have great victory!  Oh!!  So many stars!!  Muto and friends level up for sure!”

The dome lit up in red.

Enzo was crouched in the middle, holding a crystal.  Miyu was against the back wall. Muto was on his hands and knees, looking in the sand for a trophy from the fight.

“That...can't be good,” muttered Enzo before shoving the crystal into his pocket. Miyu found herself wondering exactly how he had so much space in that pocket.

“AETHEREAL OVERLOAD,” came an announcement outside the room.  “UNABLE TO CONTAIN.  200 SECONDS UNTIL MELTDOWN.”

Something that many of the base's workers had feared was that many basic safety features had never been implemented into the base's hasty construction.  For example, there was the matter of being unable to access overrides for locked doors and fire shutters from within the affected rooms. Another big issue was that of the base's power.  Since the aether was not being pumped into the PP0 project anymore, it was instead getting pumped in massive quantities back into the reactor.  It couldn't handle it...and there was no way to either stop the flow of aether or shut down the reactor.

“Uhhhhhh....”

The exit doors made a noise, then despite being damaged, partially opened.  It was big enough for all of them to get through, if barely.  At least it had been built in the emergency systems that in the event of a catastrophic failure, everything would be automatically opened.

“GO GO GO GO!!” shrieked Enzo, making a mad dash for the exit.

All of them ran across the sand, kicking up clouds behind them.  Enzo, Miyu, Eos, and Twitchums had no problem getting through the gap.  Muto threw his axe through first, then went to squeeze past...and became stuck.  He struggled, but barely budged.  Instead of fear, he looked confused.

“Is Muto getting fat?”

Enzo had been running ahead, but stopped to run back.  He and Miyu grabbed Muto's wrist, and pulling together, got him dislodged.

“120...119...118,” counted the speakers.

Down the halls they ran, with Miyu glaring at Enzo.  “You have so much explaining to do,” she demanded.

“I didn't know this would happen!” Enzo insisted.  “In case you haven't noticed, I'm also fleeing for my life!”

“You're paying us double!” Miyu snapped.  “If I die, it'll be triple!”

“Oh!!” Muto had a revelation.  “Loot!!”

“Please, Muto, now is not the time for—”

He skidded to a halt in front of a computer console.

“No, leave it alo—!”

He grabbed the sides, groaned, and pulled.  Nothing happened...then with a terrible shriek of protest, the metal ripped from the wall.  He held the console over his head and started running again.  “Okay, Muto good!”

“70...69...68....”

Down the halls they ran.  Emergency lights pointed the proper directions to the exit. They passed the labs, which were now empty, as the shutters had retracted and the scientists had escaped.  A few tried to remain behind to rescue their data, but others had pulled them along, telling them their lives were worth more.

The halls wound round, until they could see daylight ahead, blocked partially by the last remnants of fleeing scientists.  “There!  There!” Miyu eagerly pointed forward.  “We're gonna make it!”

“15...14...13....”

“It's them!!”

Some scientists stopped, considering trying to fight them off in revenge for ruining all their research.  However, the prospect of remaining in an exploding base urged them to quickly leave.

Catching up with the scientists, the crowd fanned out into the Thanalan desert.

“4.”

People were running as hard as they could.

“3.”

They couldn't put enough space between themselves and the base.

“2.”

There was no shelter.

“1.”

Sand dunes were the best they could find.

“MELTDOWN COMMENCING.”

There were screams. Some dove for the ground and covered their heads.  This would be huge.

...

And then nothing happened.

What was to be anxiety and fear for their lives turned into confusion, then frustration.  There wasn't going to be an explosion.  The countdown system had been implemented, but must have been faulty.  There was no danger.  And it was a bit too perfect for there to have been a countdown with a round number like 200 seconds.  Everyone was safe.

And then all attention drew focused on the small party of adventurers in the middle of all of them.  Muto was still holding the ripped-out computer console above his head.  Then there came the noise of several rifles cocking.

Miyu nervously laughed, “Eh heh...!” then raised her hands.

Enzo, meanwhile, squinted at everyone.  A dark expression came over his features.

Miyu elbowed him, then hissed, “Do you wanna die today?  Put them up...!”

“No....”

“Muto's hands are up!” declared Muto cheerfully, still not putting down the console.

“Do you have any idea...” said a guard approaching them, gun pointed at them, “...what you have done?”  His cheeks still had the drawn-on whiskers.

“To be fair,” Miyu squeaked, “we were kinda hired to?  I-it was nothing personal?”

“Ready!”

Rifles were raised, safeties were removed.

SHOOM!!

A mushroom of fire erupted from the base, shooting debris and sand into the day sky, blocking out the sun.  A visible shockwave went out, kicking up sand and knocking a number of people over.  There was a climbing roar, which was then followed by an explosion of blue flame that erupted from the base's entrance.

Chaos had taken control of the crowd once again, before everyone had calmed once again.

“Wait...where—?”

“Buh-bye!”  Muto was up on his chocobo, alongside the others on theirs.  The console had been awkwardly shoved into the chocobo's pouch.

Enzo looked over the group and gave a smirk.  Not saying another word, he put on his goggles, pulled the reins, and headed off into the desert.

“You can fake your own deaths here if you want!” Miyu said with a wave.  “Start new lives!”

“Wait!!”

They didn't stop.  The chocobos were running.  Moments later, Enzo began the spell to again create a sandstorm.  Their tracks would be covered and hopefully, they would never see anyone from the base ever again.

Silence descended over the base's staff.

“I forgot my Triple Triad deck in there...” lamented a guard.

~

Standing in Ul'dah at the airship station, they gathered around their pilfered crystal.  The sky was darkening, as the sun was just disappearing behind the horizon.

“So in the end...it wasn't anything special,” lamented Enzo.

“It's just a normal fire crystal?!” groaned Miyu.

“Ehhhhh...yee-eahhhhhhh....”

“Anything special about it?” she demanded.

“I mean...it might have a bit more of aethereal concentration?” shrugged Enzo.  He passed over his scope.  “But if you look at the aethereal mapping on it, there's literally nothing out of the ordinary.  You could find this in anything.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said,” he grumbled in aggravation, “but despite them altering the aether they were pumping into...that thing...it ended up having absolutely no effect on the crystal it left behind.”  He wiped his face frustratedly, then pushed the crystal away.  “Honestly, you two can keep it and turn it into the grand company, have more 'proof' of this whole misadventure.  Put it right beside that console Muto grabbed.”

“Thank you, Enzo,” Miyu said quietly.  “But you really don't have to.”

“I'm going to,” he insisted, “and I'm going to pay you too. Just as agreed.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Though...that might take a bit.  All my money was kinda left in the base....”

“Take whatever time you need, all right?”  Miyu gave a consoling smile.  “I'm sorry this all happened like it did, but we...made some kind of difference, right?  And this should get us some advancement, at least!  I mean, once we document it all.  Right, Muto?”

They both looked up to the Hrothgar, who was standing with the biggest smile on his face.

“Why're you so happy?” asked Enzo.

“Muto go on adventure with bestest friends!” declared Muto, barely able to contain his glee.  “Muto and friends fight bad guys!  Muto and friends defeat dragon! Muto and friends—”  He made an enthusiastic explosion noise. “—blow up secret base! Muto and friends real adventurers!  Real heroes!”

Enzo, despite his disappointment, smiled.  “Well...I'm glad you guys had such a great time.  Sorry you missed out on your other mission.”

“Is okay!” Muto said with a bright smile.  “Muto helped Au Ra!  Muto help community!  Oh!” He remembered something incredibly important.  “Muto now can have egg!”  The hard-boiled egg Enzo gave him hours ago had been sitting in his pocket the entire adventure...and was likely destroyed, but that didn't stop Muto's enthusiasm.  He reached in, then looked confused.  Grabbing a hold, he pulled out a wadded piece of paper.

~

While Enzo explained the job, Muto looked down at the two-star adventure.  If they were doing something else, then it would be a waste to hold onto it.  He saw a frustrated Au Ra wandering away from the building.  It was the telltale sign of a poor adventure...and Muto had the solution.  He wandered away, while Enzo continued his explanation.

“Are okay?” asked Muto.

“Ehhhh....”  She shrugged.  “My fifth week in a row with a zero-star.”

“What is rank?”

“I'm almost to my first level,” she shrugged, “which kinda is awful, because I was doing adventuring for years before. Just...it never got documented and there's such a backlog with level appeals.”

“Oh!”  Muto held out the paper with the two-star adventure. “Muto have solution!  Au Ra friend can have adventure!  Is two-star!”

She blinked, taken aback.  “Wait...really?”

“Uh huh!”

“You're sure?”

“Uh huh!”

“Because I know how hard it can be to get these kinds of missions if you're not leveled up...a-and if you don't want to, you really don't have to, it's okay!  I mean, of course I want the mission, but it's fine if you'd rather not—”

“Muto!” called Miyu.  “We're leaving!”

“Oh!!  Coming!!”  He absently shoved the mission in his pocket, then ran after the others, leaving a confused Au Ra behind.

“Umm....”

~

“Muto...have mission.”

“I'm sorry?” asked Miyu.

“Muto still have mission.”

“You what?”

“Muto still have two-star mission.”

“You what?”

“Muto not mean to!”  He held out the paper, crumpled up, covered in smashed hard-boiled egg and eggshell shards.  “Was accident!”

“That's—!”

“Muto screw up again?!”  He looked absolutely terrified.

“No, no!” soothed Miyu.  “It's okay!  Just—”

“Where is the mission again?” asked Enzo.

“Ummmm!!”  He opened the paper and did his best to read. “Um...um—”

“Gridania!” cut in Miyu.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“I think so?”

“Are you sure?”

“Um, yeah, sure!  Wh—?”

He shoved the fire crystal towards Miyu, who took it confusedly. Enzo's grimoire was thrown open.  He channeled his magic, then uttered the words, “Oovoo javer!”

Space folded around Miyu and Muto, and not even a moment later, Enzo was there on his own at the table.

They were only a little late.  Not even twenty minutes later, the two adventurers were on the merchant's carriage with Muto blowing a melody into a bone flute, serenading his companions and the darkening sky.  The mission was only beginning.

~

It was utterly still and dark.  There wasn't a single noise in the house.  It wasn't because it was abandoned, but because he chose for his footsteps to be silent.

A light source was approaching, illuminating the neighboring room. Instead of trying to hide from it, Enzo waited and crossed his arms confidently.

A young dark-skinned lady entered the room holding a lit lantern. She saw Enzo, then deeply frowned.

“Thanks for letting me know you're home...” grumbled Emory. “Where were you?”

“Oh, out,” Enzo shrugged.  “Nothing big.”

Emory scowled at him.  “I know that look.  What did you do?”  She sighed with frustration.  “Who did you kill?”

He put up his hands, palms out.  “Nobody this time!”

“Don't you lie to me!  How many was it?”

“Seriously, Em, it's not actually not a lie!”  He gave a wide grin.  His teeth were pointier than they had been earlier.  “You should tell your brother what a good boy he's been!”

“Oh, shove it...” she grumbled.  “What did you do?”

“Wanna see something amazing?”

She just raised an eyebrow.

He reached into his pocket, where he had a small portal to the Void, and withdrew a crystal, then set it on the nearby table.  It glowed a dull red and was lined with veins.  Emory looked at it, and moments later, recoiled.  The shadows cast behind her from the lantern twisted for a moment before resuming that of a normal lady.

“What did you do, Enzo?” she snapped.  “What is this?!”

“Aether!”  His grin widened.  “Can't you tell?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about!” she snarled.

“Oh, come on, Em!”  He nudged the crystal, making it spin in place.  “Just a little crystallized aether!”

He noted the shadows behind her were growing and darkening.  Spiky protrusions were twisting and forming in the dark.

“Fine, fine,” he lamented.  He flicked the crystal to spin it the opposite way.  “So I have to say the people of this plane can be absolutely brilliant and incredibly stupid.  They had no idea what they had.  They were taking aether from the planet and corrupting it.  Corrupted aether is nothing new, sure, but the way they were doing it was...certainly unique.  They absolutely ruined it, depriving it of being aspected, while maintaining the energy and refusing to adapt to any other aspect.  And then they channeled it through a remnant of Bahamut, who was able to amplify it so much more than I thought possible.  Even with just one of his scales.”

“How'd you get it?”

“Ohhhh, you know....”  His tail flicked playfully.

“Do not make me ask again.”  Emory glared.  “Or I will make you tell me.”

“My friends just helped me get into a Garlean base is all!”

“We don't have 'friends,'” she stated flatly.

“I like to think Miyu and Muto are.”  He received a withering glare from Emory.  “Oh, come on, I don't consider them as equals! They're just useful!  Entertaining too.”

He picked up the crystal and turned it about, so that both he and Emory could get a better look at it.

“Anyways, I don't entirely understand everything those mortals did to the crystal, but long story short, they basically created something that is outside the six elements.  And I'm not even talking about unaspected aether.  I'm talking about technically a seventh element....”  His smirk grew wider.  “...which should provide for some interesting possibilities.”

“Do whatever you want with it,” grumbled Emory.  “Just keep that thing away from me.”

“Oh, this thing?”  He held it out just a hair more.

Emory glowered at him, then turned and left in a huff, leaving the room.  It was pitch-black in the room once again...save for a glowing pair of red eyes.

~

Thanalan Desert.

“I have a suspicion...” murmured the gentleman to himself.

“What kind of suspicion?” asked an eager Miqo'te.

“I believe....”  Hildibrand suddenly gave a wide sweep with his arm.  “...that there was an explosion.”

The two of them were standing at the bottom of a crater, surrounded by debris.

“And where there are explosions, there are crimes.”

“What about Bahamut?”

A finger was thrust into the sky.  “He is the greatest criminal of them all!”

Some of the debris moved.  The finger was lowered and pointed to it.

“A clue!” both of them said together.

A hand eventually came forth from under the rubble, followed by a ragged sleeve.

“Nashu!”

“Yes, sir!”

“We must assist!”

They crouched next to the hand and pulled away concrete, stones, and all manner of debris.  A Roegadyn lady in a torn white lab coat lied underneath.

“Who...?” she croaked.  “What...?”

“My lady, you have stumbled into the authorities!”

“We have authority?” asked Nashu.

“Absolutely!  All of Eorzea is ours to patrol and to bring justice to!  And you, my lady!”  He dramatically pointed down to the scientist.

She just stared blankly at him.

He knelt next to her, then reached for her hand.  “...are most obviously the victim of a terrible, terrible crime. Pray, tell me...who did this to you?”

The Roegadyn looked at him blankly as her thoughts started to come together.  What were the names the Hrothgar said?

“Muto,” she finally managed.  “Muto, Miyu, and Enzo.”

Click!

#final fantasy 14 #miqo'te #hrothgar #squaresoft #square enix #squeenix #miyu #enzo #muto #fanfiction #funny #adventure #ryukoprompts #miyu pokett #enzo anwir #e'zraka tia #muto khaghh #hildibrand manderville #nashu mhakaracca #story #long #long post

[ohmyprodigalson]

No one did anything wrong.

This is a fic in response to the prompt discussed in this post by @fueled-by-fanfic. It contains very sensitive content, which I have kept hidden under the ‘keep reading’ line. Please take the trigger warnings very seriously.

Trigger Warnings: Implications of unprotected sex, detailed descriptions of a miscarriage as well as the sorrow and guilt that follows.

Word Count: 1,885

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(Y/N) loved baking, so instead of relaxing and propping up her swollen feet, she was standing in the kitchen baking cookies. She was quite a few months along in her pregnancy, so she was learning how to reach over her baby-bump to work with the dough on the counter. Her phone was placed on the kitchen island behind her, blaring some of her favorite songs. In this moment, she was happy.

She felt a sudden cramp in her lower abdomen, and she held her baby-bump instinctively. Was the baby even big enough to kick? And would it feel this way? Maybe she had something else because of her hormones, like an ovarian cyst? The cramping soon dissipated, and (Y/N) decided it was probably some random occurrence. But then it happened again, and this time it was strong enough to cause her to cry out in pain. She held her abdomen in one hand, and braced herself with the other tightly gripping the counter top. The cramping grew in intensity, and (Y/N) found herself falling slowly to the ground.

(Y/N) started to cry as she held her baby-bump. She was absorbed by the pain and deeply confused and concerned. Blood started to seep out of her through her pants as it formed a puddle on the ground. She had a moment of clarity during her pain, and knew she had to call for help. Her baby’s life was on the line if she was bleeding this much.

It took every ounce of strength she possessed to drag herself across the floor to reach her phone on top of the kitchen island. She hoisted herself upwards, gripping the cabinet and drawer handles to reach high enough. (Y/N) was finally successful, and she slumped back down to the ground. She called 911, and passed out immediately afterward. She was surrounded by blood, smeared all over the kitchen floor.

Malcolm came home to a busted front door. His heart sank as he cried out (Y/N)’s name. What happened here? Did someone break in? Did they hurt her or the baby? He stopped in his tracks when he saw the kitchen. It was covered in blood; too much blood. Malcolm’s eyes were wide in shock and he was speechless. Just as he was beginning to form his first hysterical thought, his cell phone rang. The caller ID said it was from (Y/N), and he answered immediately.

“(Y/N)?! Where are you?!”

“Sir, my name is Jamie and I’m with emergency medical services. Your wife is on her way to the hospital right now…”

The rest of Jamie’s words fell onto deaf ears. His worst fears were coming true - the happy family he finally created for himself was being taken away. But he pulled himself together because they needed him right now. He needed to be the strong one to support them both.

Malcolm got to the hospital as quickly as he could and ran into the emergency room in a frenzy. He was led back to her room, and he found her sitting in a hospital bed, knees pulled as closely to her chest as she could manage with her abdomen. Malcolm arrived in time to hear what the doctor had to say, but (Y/N) already knew what had happened to her.

“I’m very sorry, but you have experienced a miscarriage. Your blood loss was great, but we have remedied that. Still, you should take it easy for a couple of days. I will prescribe a medication that will help your body to… continue through the miscarriage.”

Malcolm’s entire body was numb and (Y/N) sat motionless on the bed. The doctor continued to speak with a gentle voice. “Do either of you have any questions? Would you like to speak with our chaplain?”

“No.” (Y/N)’s voice was quiet. She refused to cry in public even though she knew there was nothing wrong with doing so. Malcolm knew this, so he didn’t push her. He knew they could process their feelings together once they got out of the hospital.

It was very late in the night when they returned home. Neither of them had spoken a word since leaving the hospital. They barely crossed the threshold before tears started to fall from her eyes. Malcolm could feel her sadness in the air. It was so palpable, and it made the room temperature seemingly drop by five degrees.

In his rush to get to the hospital, Malcolm hadn’t done anything about the kitchen floor. (Y/N) walked over to it and saw the dried blood smeared everywhere. But it was more than just blood to her; it was the remnants of the baby she lost.

(Y/N) fell to the ground in front of the dried blood and held her hands out into the air. She wanted to reach out and hold her baby, but she couldn’t hold the dried blood staining the ground before her. Finally, after holding in all of her emotions, she let out a gut-wrenching cry. It was loud and desperate, like a scream, but it was drenched with sorrow like a sob. Malcolm’s heart had been held together by a single thread this whole time, and it snapped when he heard her cry. He ran to her and kneeled down beside her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and chest. He held her firmly against him, and she held onto him with the hands that could not hold her baby.

She took a deep, shaky breath, and she let out another cry, this time forming the word, “No!!!” She started sobbing and hyperventilating as she chanted, “My baby,” as if it would bring them back to life. Malcolm was speechless. His own hot tears stained every inch of his face as he began to hyperventilate, too. She could hear him crying in her ear, and it only encouraged her.

(Y/N)’s thoughts began to race, and she blurted out the words that came to her mind. “I lost our baby! It was my fault. I must have done something wrong. You were going to be such an amazing father, and I took that away from you.”

Her words deeply disturbed him. She thought all of this was her fault? Malcolm was quick to respond. “No, WE lost our baby, and you did nothing wrong. No one did anything wrong.” He began to pet her hair with one of his hands. Her words about his ability to be a good father struck him deep within his heart. He had been so nervous about raising a child because of what his own father had done to him, but (Y/N) always encouraged him to think positively. She reminded him that he had an excellent father figure in Gil, and she had no doubt that he would be successful in raising a happy, healthy, and loving child. Malcolm hated himself for it, but at least now he knew he would never damage his child the way he had been damaged. He was repulsed by this thought. His child was dead. How could he be so selfish in a time like this?

Both of them spiraled out of control with their own thoughts of guilt. He held her as she clung to him and they both cried until their tears ran out. (Y/N) was exhausted, both from her cries and from her blood loss. Malcolm carried her to bed and helped her change into a nightgown. He waited, sitting on the bed beside her, until he heard her deep breathing. Despite everything that had happened, she still fell asleep.

Malcolm wasn’t so lucky. He returned to the kitchen and gazed upon the large blood stain. He needed to clean it up before (Y/N) saw it again, but he also couldn’t bear to get rid of the last traces of his unborn baby. He knew (Y/N) would feel the same way because she was always so sentimental. Malcolm thought for a moment while staring at the floor, arms crossed. That’s when he came upon an idea.

He spoke quietly into his phone so as not to disturb (Y/N)’s much needed sleep. “Edrisa, I need your help.”

The next few days passed by and the apartment was plagued with deafening silence. Malcolm and (Y/N) knew they needed to talk to each other and help one another grieve, but they couldn’t bring themselves to say the words out loud because it was further confirmation that their baby was dead. The kitchen floor was spotless, and (Y/N) tried not to think of what Malcolm must have gone through when he had it cleaned.

(Y/N) was sitting on the bed, looking out the window beside her. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she had her arms wrapped around her legs. She sat in that exact position at the hospital, and she could already tell that her baby-bump was deflating. Malcolm quietly entered the apartment and found her there.

He sat on the bed beside her and spoke quietly. “I have something for you. It’s a sad present, but I hope you like it anyway.” Malcolm held a jewelry box in front of her, the kind used for necklaces. She took it, but she was bewildered. Malcolm wasn’t the kind of person to fix problems with material items, so what was this? Was it supposed to make her feel better?

(Y/N) gingerly opened it with shaking hands. She was still weak from all of her blood loss. Inside she found a beautiful yet strange necklace. It had a dainty gold chain and what appeared to be some kind of vial as the centerpiece. The vial had two pointed end caps, one on the top and one on the bottom, and it had a very hard clear plastic cylinder as the body. Within the vial was a strip with horizontal lines on it, and they were either dark blue, very light blue, or white. This strip was held in the vial, which also appeared to be filled with water.

She was speechless as she analyzed it. Malcolm decided to speak before she could, and his words were deliberate and slow. “This strip shows the DNA sequencing of our baby.”

(Y/N) whipped her head around to look at Malcolm with wide eyes and mouth slightly agape. Malcolm continued. “That night, I asked Edrisa to get a sample of the blood from the floor, and I asked her to separate the baby’s DNA from yours. She did, and the strip in this necklace is a picture of her DNA.”

(Y/N) started to cry hot tears, but she squeaked out, “Her?”

Malcolm nodded. “She was our baby girl. And now we have physical evidence that she will always be in our hearts.” He opened his shirt slightly to reveal that he was also wearing the same necklace, and the chain was long enough for the vial to sit next to his heart.

She had no words. All she could do was wrap her arms around Malcolm and cry. After a brief moment, she whispered in his ear, “Thank you.”

He spoke quietly to her. “I love you, and we will always love her.” (Y/N) could hear his voice cracking as he cried with her. She hugged him tightly as she sobbed. Malcolm had given her the most prized possession she would ever own.

#why do i make myself cry like this #something is wrong with me i can feel it #prodigal son #malcolm bright #malcolm x reader #prodigal son imagine #prodigal son fanfic #fanfic #imagine

[royalcordelia]

If the Sea Should Part (3/5)

Summary: Anne finds herself caught up in whirl of romance and adventure after rescuing Dr. Gilbert Blythe from the sea during a storm. She should let him go, but when she finds out Billy Andrews is plotting to take Gilbert’s life and estate, she realizes there’s nothing that can keep her from protecting him.

• Rated G • 6k words •  Read on ao3 • Read on ff.net •

Anne wasn’t sure if it was her wretched parting from Green Gables or the rumbling train that made her feel sick on the way to the Glen. She leaned her head against the window and let the cold pane cool her forehead. Eventually, the rhythm of the train was enough to lull her to sleep - eyes squeezed shut, hands clutching her bag.

She woke the next morning right at the early dawn, bleary and exhausted as if she hadn’t slept at all. Taking nervous steps onto the railway platform, Anne looked out over the Glen. The last time she’d been in a place so foreign, she’d come to Avonlea for the first time, a sparkling-eyed, hopeful child. Now, there was no promise of Matthew Cuthbert and home. She only had herself on this unfamiliar corner of her island.

The landscape was a picture of green delight. Thin fog rose from the warm ground, lilting like songs around the trees bathing in yellow morning sun. The hills bore billowing patches of crops and wildflowers. A faint breeze carried with it the salty spray, rolling the sunrise laden clouds above her head. Clutching her carpet bag just the right way, Anne set off.

It wasn’t as hard to find the Blythe estate as she thought. It took only asking one polite passerby with just enough panicked desperation and she was pointed in the right direction.

Relief ran through her when she finally arrived. By then, her legs were tired, her eyes were red from exhaustion, and her hand was cramping from holding onto her bag so tightly. The soles of her feet made her want to saw off her entire foot and she was in desperate need of something to drink. She nearly cried in relief when she saw a large brick fence with a plaque across the front that read: J. Blythe Estate.

The main entrance waited for her at the end of a driveway high on a hill covered with trees. A grand front door that was right out of Anne’s best imaginations waited for her, though the entirety of the house was just as lovely - cream colored bricks, dozens of windows and towers, ivy growing up the sides. The rest of the property was blocked off by the fence, tall enough that she couldn’t quite see what was hiding behind it.

Taking a deep breath, Anne moved up the steps, heels echoing off of the high ceiling of the porch. She rose her hand to the door knocker and banged it thrice. The door swung open almost immediately and an aged man in a black suit stood, eyeing Anne warily.

“May I help you?” his baritone voice boomed.

“Good day sir,” Anne greeted as evenly as she could. “I was wondering if I might speak with Dr. Blythe.”

“The doctor is out on his calls. Are you in a medical emergency?”

Anne blinked. Did she appear as though she was in a medical emergency?

“Well no, but it’s quite urgent-”

“Miss,” the man interrupted. “Dr. Blythe is an incredibly busy man. If his medical services are required, then you may place an appointment like everyone else. Otherwise, I’m afraid I cannot help you.”

He moved to shut the door, but Anne caught a flash of someone passing by in the background.

“Bash!” she cried out. Bash poked leaned back at the sound coming from his front door, only to be lit up at the sight of her. He looked much the same as he did the day he visited Green Gables, but something about his demeanor was much more businesslike.

“Queen Anne!” he delighted. He walked up and placed a hand on the butler’s shoulder, who eyed Anne with hearty suspicion. His eyes seemed to say - Queen?  “Mr. Laurent, this woman is an honored guest of Dr. Blythe’s. Please, if you would accept her as such.”

“Of course, sir. Right away, sir.”

Anne was ushered in, bag taken out of her hands before she could say Careful, the seam in the corner is loose and if you don’t hold it just the right way -

“Miss Shirley Cuthbert, to what do we owe this pleasant surprise?” Bash asked. She must’ve appeared as though she were on the verge of collapse, because his face suddenly turned downward. He gently took Anne by the elbow and ushered her into the sitting room just off of the main hall. “Come, let’s sit you down.”

Anne peered around, admiring the lush room with the eyes of a dreamer. The Blythes had lined many of the walls with bookcases and filled them so tightly with texts that Anne wondered how they didn’t collapse. It was everything the storybooks had described about wealth, everything she’d dreamed in the dimmest days of her childhood.

“I know, I thought the same thing when I first came to live here,” Bash said. “It takes some getting used to, but when you come from where I did, it’s a nice change.”

Anne smiled sheepishly into her lap, wringing her hands nervously.

“I’m sorry to drop in unexpected. I promise had it not been urgent, I would’ve written.”

“You know you’re welcome here any time. Are you in trouble?” Bash asked, leaning forward.

“No!” Anne said quickly. It must’ve been how it looked, receiving her unexpectedly in a disheveled state of distress. “No, I’m not in any trouble. But I do need to speak with Gilbert. When does he return from his calls?”

“It’s hard to say. Sometimes he arrives home in the early afternoon, sometimes not until the middle of the night. What’s the matter, Anne?”

Anne wondered if she ought to get it out of the way and just tell Bash what she’d heard, but before she could, a woman burst into the room with a sheepish young boy at her side.

“Bash baby, I’m leaving this boy in your hands so you can deal with him. Keep him out of the kitchen,” she said in a warning tone. “Paul, you’ll listen to Mr. LaCroix or you won’t be allowed in the main house. That clear?”

Anne stared in awe at the woman and the strength of her fiery eyes. She clearly meant business, hip popped and brow cocked as if she was daring someone to go against her. It reminded her of her Avonlea schoolmarm days, but she hadn’t been nearly so compelling as this woman.

“Yes, Mrs. Lacroix,” Paul murmured ashamed. Anne recognized the woman as Mary, Bash’s wife, from Gilbert’s stories. She certainly lived up to his high praise of her.

When Mary was out of earthshot, Paul turned to Bash and all but fell to his knees to prostrate.

“Bash, I promise I just wanted someone quiet to write and the other boys are everywhere! And I can’t get poetry written if they’re looking over my shoulder, but they always do and I just thought that the kitchen has a few little nooks where I could write.”

This boy, Anne appraised, seemed to be kindred as well.

“Paul, we’ve been over this,” Bash said patiently. “If you go in there when the ladies are cooking, you could get burned or stepped on or worse. Dr. Blythe doesn’t want you hiding where you can get hurt.”

“Dr. Blythe doesn’t understand!” Paul argued.

“Mr. Irving.” Bash’s tone had changed at the drop of a hat. “My word is final. You mean to tell me that in this entire property, you cannot find one spot to write in?”

Paul shifted his weight, red faced and frustrated. His eyes glanced over at the lady sitting the chair watching him with amusement, and some of the annoyance dissipated.

“I’ll look again.”

He stomped off, tossing Anne a little glance of sparked interest as he passed her.

“Sometimes I wonder what Gil was about when he wanted to take on the harbor, his medical practice, and these boys,” Bash sighed.

“If I may ask, how does that work?” Anne asked. Bash rose a brow, so she stumbled to clarify. “Well, I just mean, if you’re the business director of the harbor, and Gilbert is the Glen doctor, then who educates the boys?”

“We haven’t found someone to educate them quite yet. Gilbert was waiting to find someone trustworthy out of Queens, but each candidate refuses to either associate with the boys or associate with me.” He paused. “Or both.”

“But if you could find someone, you’d hire them?” Anne said carefully.

“Of course. We’ve been anxious to educate these boys so they’re not completely hopeless when they go off into the real world.”

“I know the feeling,” she murmured, remembering how far behind she’d been when she first began school. “You know, Bash, I’m a schoolteacher. I used to have the Avonlea school. I taught there for quite some time before the board decided to give it to someone who wanted to save money to attend Redmond.”

“Is that why you came? For a job?” Bash asked, but he didn’t seem irritated or offended at the prospect. In fact, he seemed interested.

“No, I really do need to speak with Gilbert,” Anne answered. “But I packed everything I owned in that carpet bag of mine and decided to take some time away from home for a while. If you need someone to educate the boys, I’d be more than happy to. I love teaching.”

“That...that actually sounds like it would work quite nicely. You’re sure you won’t mind working with orphan children? They can be quite a handful.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve all the experience I need and then some.”

“I’ll have to discuss it with Gilbert, but I don’t think he’ll have any arguments.”

She might’ve said something, but Anne’s heart tugged the way it did when she felt him before she saw him. Gilbert was home.

“I’m always in the mood for a good debate, Bash. What are we arguing?” he said, sweeping into the room and rolling down the sleeves at his elbows. When he met eyes with Anne, his face turned into liquid sunlight, appearing so happy he might burst.

“Anne,” he murmured, dazed with happiness.

“I doubt you’ll want to argue with me on this one, chief. Queen Anne is a very qualified, very accepting, very lovely schoolteacher. Perfect for one house of boys, no?” 

Gilbert laughed, shaking his head to make sense of Bash's implication. 

“So many surprises at once! Hello, Anne. You are a sight for very sore eyes.” He reached for her hand, kissing it gently when she offered it. “I didn’t know you were a schoolteacher. I thought you went to Redmond for English.”

“Yes, after attending Queen’s Academy for teaching,” she explained. “Oh, Gil, all that can wait. There is something I simply must discuss with you.”

Sensing the impending importance of her news, Gilbert glanced around at the busy house and nodded. He squeezed her hand, which he hadn’t let go, and said, “Right then, let’s go talk somewhere private.”

With a thankful acknowledgement to Bash as she was tugged away, Anne followed behind Gilbert. Watchful eyes fell on them as they journeyed through the house of long, resplendently adorned hallways, so Gilbert released her hand and gave her a shy smile. As they walked, Anne couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was from this angle, with his soft, brown hair and splendid chin. Gilbert opened the door to a room that could only be the house library. He stood in the entrance that she might walk in before him and take in the sights. 

“I do believe we should be able to talk in here undisturbed,” he said sheepishly. Anne’s eyes were fixed on a scenic painting on the wall that looked astonishingly like an orchard in Avonlea.

“It’s my fault for dropping in without warning,” she replied, just as meek. She turned to look at him and found him gazing upon her with unmistakably smitten eyes. Experiencing a lapse in self control, Anne returned the expression with a shy smile. Gilbert let out a joyous laugh, soared forward, and collected her into a warm embrace. She received him in tender happiness, and for the first time since she’d left home, she felt she might truly relax.

“I’m so happy to see you!” he said earnestly.

“And I you!” She pulled herself out of the embrace so she could fix her eyes on him. “But I must tell you something. May we sit?”

At the change in her tone, Gilbert’s smile lost its mirth. He nodded and gestured down to the velvety chaise. When they were seated, Anne collected herself, clutching her fists together so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale.

“Do you know Billy Andrews?” she asked slowly. Gilbert grew his clasped fingers under his nose as he thought.

“Billy...You mean William Andrews? Harmon’s son?”

“Yes, the very same! He’s an Avonlea boy. I grew up with him and he’s as horrible as they come.”

“Why come all this way to tell me this, Anne?” Anne blinked long, trying to keep her thoughts steady.

“Did you know your father was good friends with Harmon Andrews?”

“I had a faint idea. He often told stories of the mischief they got into together.”

“His son, Billy, is second in line for the harbor and the estate. Your father wrote him into his will, likely as tribute to his friendship with Harmon.” Gilbert’s brows cinched together at this. It was clearly news to him. The lawyers had explained the will to him in common language, but they’d left out all mention of Billy Andrews’ role in the proceedings.  

“How could you possibly know that? Why, you didn’t even know who I was until after you and I met.”

“I heard Billy talking in town about how he’s interested in taking the estate from you,” Anne explained.

Gilbert scoffed.

“I hardly think a lifestyle as a farm hand gives a man the funds required to buy the harbor and estate. Besides, I’d never leave, especially since the boys are here.”

“That’s just it, Gilbert! Billy doesn’t intend to take it with funds . He says he’s got a rifle, and he spoke as if he was truly intending to use to it.”

Anne’s eyes were wild with fear now, staring back at a jolted Gilbert.

“You say he wants to...to kill me?” he murmured. “He doesn’t even know me."

A tear trickled down her cheek as she took a steadying breath.

“He didn’t know me when he tried to tell the whole town that I was a harlot. He didn’t know my close friend when he pushed him off a ladder, injuring him permanently.” Anger was flaring in Gilbert’s eyes, but not at her. Sensing his rising fury, she took his hand. “Gilbert, I didn’t come all the way across the island to make unfounded claims. I came to tell you what I heard him say, because I couldn’t rest until you knew. Billy Andrews has always been unpredictable and violent. I don’t know if this is something he’s capable of, but if he did something to you and I never told you...”

“I believe you, Anne. You did the right thing by coming here,” he said seriously. “It seems Providence really did make you my guardian angel. You must let me repay you somehow.”

Anne thought this over for a moment, then smiled.

“Well...there is that teaching position that Bash mentioned. You needed someone to educate the boys?” Gilbert smiled and nodded.

“Done.”

* # * # *

Anne could nearly see the sea breeze sweeping into the room on a waltz, gliding around the curtains through the empty space in rhythmic time. Her heeled shoes certainly weren’t clacking into completely silence when she took a few awed steps forward, the sound of them echoing against the walls.

“How do you like it?” Gilbert asked behind her. Not yet turning to face him, Anne allowed herself to smile at the intricacies of the baby blue wallpaper, the grand size of the bay window that looked out over the sea, and the cloud-like softness of the bed. The good doctor had added his own personal touches to the room in a small vase of wildflowers that sat on the bedside table. “Anne?”

She spun around and gaped.

“I’m sure I don’t know what to say,” she stuttered out finally. “It’s all out of a dream. Are you sure you want to give up this blessed space to a lowly school teacher?”

“Anne, you of all people should know how much I esteem school teachers. And you. If you like the room, then it’s yours.” Gilbert sighed, running his fingers along one of the smooth wooden tables along the wall. “This room was my mother’s personal study. I wasn’t alive when she used it, but from what I understand, it was sacred to her. Something about being so close to the beach. There are stairs to the water, you know. I had my staff bring in a bed for you, but if it isn't comfortable, please tell me. My mother always just slept on the chaise.”

Anne gave a small smile, white sunlight reflecting into the room onto her rosy face. Gilbert couldn’t help but feel himself thawing into raw tenderness at the sight of her.

“I’m honored, Gil, truly. I shall read and dream and imagine in this room with as much reverence and sanctity as it deserves. Thank you for preparing it for me, and for the adding the bed. I’ve never been much of a couch sleeper,” she chuckled. Gilbert’s cheeks dimpled, a sight that sent an odd delight through Anne.

“Of course, Anne. If you find you need anything, simply ask.”

“May I trouble you for some ink and a quill, then? I ought to write to Marilla and tell her I’ve made it safely.”

“Already thought of that,” Gilbert boasted, pointing to the desk near the window. “A typewriter for all those lovely musings and thoughts you’d like to write down, and an ink and quill in the drawer for your pen tip to dictate your words.”

“Thank you, Dr. Blythe,” Anne laughed. “I fear you’ve anticipated all my needs and I’ve not realized it!”

“Maybe some,” he admitted with a shy shrug. “Like your need to eat. Dinner is at six, so take your time to get comfortable. I’m just down the hall if you need anything.”

After another humble thank you from Anne, Gilbert left the euphoric redhead to the splendor of the room. Stunned, she tiptoed across the wooden floors as if she were in church and settled on the couch by the window. To think, this breathtaking space was all her own!

When her excitement had been contained, Anne remembered her responsibility. She settled at her new desk with a weighted heart, pulled the materials from the drawer, and began to write.

* # * # *

Blythe Estate North Blythe Harbor Rd. Glen St. Mary, PEI Tuesday, September 26th.

Dearest Marilla,

No doubt you have taken one long look at the return address atop this letter and realized that I have successfully arrived at my destination. I made it here with little difficulty, if not a touch battered and hungry.

I will not trouble you with the grueling details of train-sickness or my unfamiliarity with the Glen. (In truth, the ride was lovely and the Glen is even moreso.) I shall keep my words brief and inform you that Dr. Blythe has been made aware of the situation and intends to begin necessary precautions this evening. There is, however, some news that I fear will send Mrs. Lynde into what Gilbert calls “conniptions.”

I intend to stay here at the estate until further notice. You see, Gilbert has taken on forty-three orphan asylum boys with intentions to care for them, but had no suitable means to educate them. I happened to know a very unemployed, yet very qualified young schoolmarm who has plenty of experience with orphan children. To answer Mrs. Lynde’s inevitable questions - as well to alleviate your assured worries- no, the doctor and I are not involved. Propriety is upheld to the utmost here, as you will recall the Blythes are good Presbyterians, just like you and I.

I am safe here, Marilla. I am happy, well-fed, and employed. I am with people who cherish me as I deserve and excited to spread some of that love to young souls who have had beginnings much like my own. When you have forgiven me for my unpleasant leaving of Green Gables, remind me to tell you of darling Paul Irving, of my seaside bedroom, of the extravagant chandeliers, and of Dr. Blythe - of whom I am increasingly fond and impressed. I would be pleased to receive any response you’re willing to send. I remain

Ever yours,

Anne

(PS - It’s fortunate Gilbert and I did not grow up in the same classroom, for I fear I would have developed a stormy envy towards him. Or maybe it would have been better that way. I wouldn’t feel like such a imposter of elegance and beauty in this home. Oh, Marilla, please do forgive me. I need you desperately. - AS)

* # * # *

Just outside the door of the schoolroom, Anne stood with her eyes closed and her heart only seconds away from bursting out of her chest. She’d never been this nervous with students before, but the circumstances of her students had never felt so dire before. All these young boys, unfamiliar and rough around the edges, weren’t just to be taught their curriculum. They needed to be taught to love and to trust, that their lives were worthwhile and had meaning. Could she do it? Was she strong enough?

Gilbert had all but promised to be by her side on this first day - promises cannot be made when you hold the medical safety of a town in your hands - but had been pulled away with a patient, leaving Anne to weather this storm by herself. She’d be fine, she told herself, she’d weathered worse before.

Pushing open the door, Anne quickly noticed the silence that befell the forty-three boys, their messy heads of hair spinning to the front chalkboard all at once. She caught sneaky sideways glances at her as she walked up the middle aisle. The muscles in her shoulders felt tense, so she took another deep breath, held the edge of her desk with tight fingers, and faced the boys.

They were practically purple, holding their breath as not to be reprimanded.

“Alright lads, let’s all take a keep breath together. I feel we all could use one,” she said finally. Inhaling a stream of air into her lungs, she gestured for the boys to follow. “Deep breath in, fill up those lungs.”

One by one the boys followed.

“Hold it,” she said tersely. “Now let it out, nice and strong.”

All at once, exhales flung out of the boys like slingshots, carrying with them the heaviness of their worries and fears.

“There, doesn’t that feel better?” A few shy smiles greeted her, and Anne felt her heart warming. “I am Miss Shirley. The forty-four of us will be embarking on an academic adventure over the next few months, but trust me when I say that we will be journeying side by side. I won’t leave any of you behind.” Anne brushed a strand of hair away from her face and side. “Easy for me to just throw the word trust around, isn’t it? Let me prove myself to you all.”

Then, surprising all the boys - and perhaps even herself - Anne walked to the front of her desk and sat right upon the top of it, crossing her ankles and folding her hands. The boys gawked; half filled with shock and a delighted thrill.

“Dr. Blythe did not want to trust just anyone with the safety of your futures. I know you boys have seen a dozen faces standing here with the same promises I offer now. You’ve seen stiff-necked, older gentlemen who thrive off of dull memorization. Mustachey, bird-nosed fellows who would rather ridicule than teach. Voluptuous schoolmarms with a proclivity for whooping. Believe me, I have met them all. I met them all when I sat where you sit now, a nervous orphan child with a hunger for knowledge and a desire to gain worth.”

A wave of understanding swelled over the class.

“So every little feeling of inadequacy you’ve got, I’ve felt and overcome it. Every frustration with geometry and latin spelling, I’ve fumed it. I am here to help you with all the challenges you meet this year, because I know you boys are more than capable of achieving great things,” Anne continued. Then, she cocked a brow and threw a warning glance over the crowd. “But I’ll have you know, that means I’ve also heard every shocking word you could utter and thought of every cruel little prank your minds could think of. I will not tolerate such impediments to our goal in this classroom, and if see such happenings, I’ll report it to Dr. Blythe who I’m told was once a schoolteacher himself.”

Anne wasn’t sure if the atmosphere was filled with fear or respect. She was quite ready to show her new students that fear was no place for a classroom. Instead, they could all be comrades in the quest for knowledge and achievement.

“But enough of such introductory nonsense. Grab your slates and a piece of chalk. We’re going outside! Have you fellows ever learned anything about plant cells?”

* # * # * 

The next month passed in a flurry of autumn leaves, beautiful while it was there but flown away before Anne could stop to enjoy it. Through means of fate, she’d ended up a member of this beautiful, sundry family with all forty-seven of its members. Sometimes she wondered if it was all real, the kindred connection with her students or the early mornings spent in the kitchen with Mary helping her prepare breakfast for the boys.

Then there was Gilbert - sweet, compassionate, intelligent Gilbert who had a sense of a humor that sent each of the boys howling. Dr. Blythe was most beloved to the boys, a true gentleman that they strived to impress. He still had moved around on his crutch, but was in the latter stages of his healing. Anne found herself in Gilbert’s library at strange hours of the day, mostly during the late nightfall after he returned from doctoring duties. Together they sat in moonshine and candlelight, telling stories and unfolding each other like a damp letter, carefully and reverently.

One night, Anne had been wrapped in the marshy softness of her blankets and bedding when she heard the door down the hall clip shut. Oftentimes, this sound came welcomed to her, for it meant that Gilbert had returned home safely, but on this particular evening, Anne felt a strange sense that she ought so seek him out. Slipping on her robe, she ignored her bare feet and loose cascades of red hair, and made her way to his bedroom door.

He answered immediately when she knocked. He took one long look down at her with a surprisingly hard and unreadable expression and moved that she might sneak in.

“If Mrs. Lynde knew you were here at this hour, she’d certainly drag you home herself,” he muttered quietly, unable to look her in the eye. Anne tucked her arms protectively across her chest and shrugged.

“That would involve her coming into this room at this hour, and I think we’re quite safe from that.” He couldn’t help but smile at that. Anne tilted her head as she peered curiously at him, candlelight turning her face into a half-lit moon. “What’s the matter, Gil?”

Gilbert released a dejected sigh that he’d been holding onto and plopped back onto one of his heavily upholstered sofas. Anne sat beside him, patiently waiting for the man to open himself for her tender analysis.

“Nothing is wrong,” he said finally.

“ Gilbert, you are positively-”

“Alright, alright!” he admonished, running his hand through the messy curls atop his head. “Aside from the terrible ache in my leg and the fact that my father passed away five years ago today” - Anne sucked in a sharp breath - “I lost a patient today. A patient I was positive I could save. I even made the mistake of telling her husband so, and getting his hopes up. But to tell him I’d been wrong and that she wouldn’t…” Gilbert’s lips clamped shut and he swallowed. “I think I took on too much. I can’t be a doctor and run this harbor. I can’t.”

Anne didn’t hold any answers to his problems. His grief was all his own, insecurities too strong a storm for even her to pull him out of. But while Gilbert knew how to treat matters of physical pain, Anne knew a thing or two about aches of the heart.

At first, she simply stayed with him and allowed him to dwell on his thoughts without judgment. In those moments, she was attuned to his shallow breaths and furrowed brow, as well as the wax dripping from the candle on the table beside them.

“Wait here,” she said after a silence. He nodded, barely aware of the ten minutes she was gone as if they passed by in years of haze and cloudiness. When she slipped back into the room, she was a sight that brought relief to him, rosy skin dewy in the evenlight. In her hands she carried a small tray with a sandwich, a steaming hot chocolate, and some of the buttered vegetables they’d had at dinner without him. On the side of the tray, Anne had dropped some of the small chocolate sweeties that she’d used to make the rich beverage in a neat little smiling face. She set the tray down on the table in front of him.

“It’s much harder to think sad thoughts when your stomach is full,” she said simply. “I know you didn’t eat dinner.”

Gilbert’s small smile was her undoing, soft around the edges and genuine in its appreciation. He began to eat, moaning at the first sip of hot chocolate in a way that made Anne look away lest she burn alive.

“Do you think you could talk about it?” Anne asked when most of the meal was eaten. Gilbert set down his ceramic tankard and let out another sigh.

“Mrs. Graham died today of the same thing that killed my father. The same respiratory disease that made me decide to become a doctor. In many cases, it can be cured if caught early enough, but let unattended, it's nearly impossible to manage. I was so sure that I caught it early enough and that I had finally conquered it. But I miscalculated, observed the symptoms incorrectly.” His voice broke, so he took another sip of hot chocolate. “It all hit too closely to home, I suppose.”

“I understand the feeling,” Anne empathized. “Being around the boys and teaching them is like looking in the mirror and seeing my eleven-year-old self. You and I are putting ourselves close to the things that hurt us in hopes that it helps other people. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not worth anything if I’m not successful,” Gilbert lamented. "People die when I fail, Anne." 

“No, I think it’s worth everything no matter the outcome. Tell me, did you ease Mrs. Graham’s pain?”

“Well, yes, as much as I could-”

“And you ensured she was in conditions that made her feel safe and comfortable?”

“Yes. Anne, I know where you’re going with this and-”

“Her husband was there? Maybe her children?” Gilbert held his tongue, giving in after a moment.

“All of them,” he answered finally. “They were all there.”

“ You gave them that. That woman’s soul was content and safe when the night swept her away. You can’t control death, Gilbert, but you can do everything you can to make a person feel like they’re worth something. That’s what your speciality is, I think. And for what it’s worth, I truly cannot believe that her death was by a folly of yours. Sometimes the Almighty just makes up his mind about a thing and we can’t do anything but accept it.”

Gilbert’s jaw tightened as Anne watched one tear trickle down his face. Feeling it hit his nose, he gave a sharp inhale, then brushed it aside with a hand and chuckled.

“I’m in awe of you, Anne Shirley, truly,” he murmured gently. Anne felt like steam rising up and away, smooth in its curve toward dissipation. Gilbert brought the tray of food back to the table, then collapsed back against the couch, leaning his head to the side to stretch the muscles of his neck. A hiss escaped his lips when he shifted his injured leg beneath him.

“Where does it hurt? Just your leg?” Anne asked.

“Everywhere,” he admitted, and Anne wondered if he was talking about more than just his body. Though she was ready to go to sleep, she couldn’t leave him when he was like this, not when his eyes were silently asking for her to stay.

“Turn this way,” she instructed, trying her best not to sound too much like a schoolmarm.

“What are you-”

“Gil, for once will you just listen without question?”

The man gave her an exhausted look, finally giving into her request and turning so that his back was facing her. He sucked in a sharp breath when her hands trailed up his back and neck.

“Do you trust me?” she whispered near his ear. His answer came almost immediately, breathy and broken.

“Yes.”

“Then close your eyes and relax. I won’t hurt you.”

Like the tide rising up at the first hints of the moon, Anne’s hands made a slow ascent through his brown curls, nails dragging along his scalp, until her fingers were pressed up against his temples. His head fell back, a small sigh escaped in resignation to the bliss of her touch.  Slowly, her fingers moved in small circles against his head, releasing the tension of five years of mourning and of this new grief. The swirls and tugs of her touch eased the soreness like a hot compress. When the pressure had released, she moved her fingers down the side of his face in a featherlight touch that turned him to fire.

“Where did you learn to do this?” he slurred, drunk on the pleasure of it.

“When I was younger, I often got headaches because I cried so frequently. Matthew did this to ease the pain, to make me feel loved.”

Gilbert shivered. He felt loved, more than loved - encaptured in her tender touch, safe in her ministrations. As her hands carefully massaged the muscles in his neck, Gilbert paid close attention to the electric delight of his nerves wherever her fingers made contact with his skin. He let out another breathy sound when she pressed her thumbs into a tightness in his back, smoothing out the skin until the tension had drained from him like a stormcloud abandoning all its rain unto the ground.

“You’re a good man,” Anne said slow and soft to him as she pressed her palms into his back, her nails trailing behind. “A capable doctor, a kind soul. You are exactly where you need to be. You’ll be okay.”

She could see a salty tear catch the underside of his jaw, then brushed it away. Nudging him so he might turn back to her, she found him looking at her as if his soul had been newly born - vulnerable and tender.

“Close your eyes,” she murmured kindly. He complied immediately this time.

An unexpected thought crossed Anne’s mind. What would happen if she kissed him? Would he recoil away? Take her into his arms and return it sevenfold? The uncertainty frightened her.

Instead, she pressed her thumbs onto his eyelids as gently as she could and rubbed in small circles.

“Do you think you can rest now?” her gentle voice asked when she pulled her hands away.

“I think so,” he replied. Blue eyes slowly slid open to meet hers, more content than they were when she first began. The trouble had left him, leaving behind an exhausted Gilbert Blythe in need of a good night’s rest. Anne reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a little.

“I’ll tell the housemaids not to wake you unless there’s a medical call. Goodnight, Gilbert.”

She had released his hand and closed the door behind her when finally Gilbert had found the strength in his to whisper, “Goodnight Anne.”

#anne of green gables #anne with an e #shirbert #shirbert ff #shirbert fic #tessa writes

[siren-dragon]

Anniversary (Ardyn Izunia x Reader) -  oneshot

Okay everyone, a little while ago I asked if anyone had any requests for me to write, and someone has come forward! @valkyrieofardyn, this is dedicated to you for your lovely request on Ardyn being the owner of the katana royal weapon.

Now, this is my first angst Ardyn fanfic, so I am stepping out of my comfort zone and I do apologize if it’s a little bad. Also, kudo’s to whoever recognizes one of the lines within the story, as it is quoted from a movie.

Anyway, let’s get started!

He couldn’t help but smirk at the sight before him, the humor of the situation nearly causing him to laugh aloud. Long standing foes forced to mingle alongside each other as they drank to a false peace. Ardyn raised his champagne flute at the two rulers, toasting his lovely pawns before placing the flute upon the balcony railing. With all his careful planning finally coming together, there was just one thing left to do….

Ardyn strolled lazily across the ballroom, the other guests giving the eccentric Chancellor a wide berth. He bowed politely and wished both King and Emperor a fair evening before retreating to his provided quarters. Once Ardyn arrived at the hotel suite, he retrieved a small wooden box before sliding into a time-stitch. Returning to the corridor, he couldn’t help but laugh as he walked past the patrolling guards and drunken guests, all frozen in time. It wasn’t until he was a few blocks away from the Caelum Via that Ardyn returned to the present, the crowded streets of Insomnia coming to life once more.

“Come get your produce here! Our stock is fresh, straight from Duscae!” a street vendor shouted merrily.

“Pardon me, my good sir, but would you happen to have any Ulwatt berries?”

“Sure do! Managed to get the last shipment from Tenebrae, they’re selling like hot-cakes with Lady Lunafreya being here.”

“Excellent, I would like to purchase a box.” Ardyn replied, fishing for his wallet. He handed the man a 2000 gil bank note, muttering a simple; “keep the change,” before leaving with his purchase.

He walked toward South Insomnia, the busy streets of the metropolis thinning out to simple suburban roads. Ardyn hummed merrily as he journeyed down the familiar streets before passing by another store, this one a florist. The scent of multiple flowers wafted through the air, giving him pause, one gaining all his attention. A bouquet of white roses laid unattended amongst the bundles of sylleblossoms, a memory from an age long past returning to his mind…

“Come now brother, surely one maiden has managed to ensnare the elusive Ardyn Lucis Caelum.” Izunia crowed jovially.

Ardyn smirked up at his older brother. “I believe it is I who is ensnaring them, brother.”

Izunia laughed, clapping a hand on his brother’s back. “That charm will be the death of you Ardyn, mark my words.”

“Considered them marked.” Ardyn grinned, “though I believe it is now your turn to entertain our guests.”

Izunia shook his head at his brother’s antics before returning to banquet, multiple women flocking to him like lost chickatrice’s. Ardyn took another sip from his glass of wine before moving to follow his brother, only to collide with another, the wine glass slipping from his hand and falling to the floor.

“Oh, damn it. I’m so sorry, wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you alright? Oh shit, I’ve spilt your wine…” a feminine voice spoke.

Ardyn blinked in surprise at the casual manner this woman was speaking to him. No one spoke to him in such a way except for Izunia, and even his brother did not curse so frequently. The prince of Lucis looked to see who is assailant was, the young maid trying to pick up fallen glass shards of his wine glass. Her (h/c) was tied into a simple braid, the end thrown over her right shoulder, with a single white rose tucked behind left ear. She glanced up at him, (e/c) widening in shock before standing up right immediately, and bowing to him.

“I am sorry my Prince, I was not aware it was you. Please, forgive my rude behavior.” The girl spoke, refusing to meet his gaze.

Ardyn chuckled, “Fret not, my dear, it is no trouble. I myself was distracted as well.”

“I suppose we both should watch where we are going.” She laughed, standing upright and allowing Ardyn to see her (e/c) eyes once more. “Farewell, my Prince, and please enjoy the rest of the festivities.”

Before Ardyn could say more, the girl disappeared into the shadows of the palace and away from the banquet hall. The scent of roses still lingering in the evening air….

“Hello sir,” the young florist smiled. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“That bouquet of roses…might I enquire its price. I would like to purchase it.”

“250 gil, they haven’t really been selling what with everyone wanting sylleblossoms.” The florist said, collecting the requested flowers. “This for someone special?”

“Oh yes, very special,” Ardyn smiled. “Let us hope she forgives me for being late.”

“With a gift like this, I’m sure she will.”

Ardyn took hold of the bouquet, tipped hat in farewell, before continuing to his destination. He hummed under his breath as he walked; his mind lost in memories.

“Where are we going Ardyn?” (f/n) asked, curiously gazing around the scenery you blazed past on Chocobo-back. “We aren’t even within Insomnia anymore.

“It’s a surprise, my dear.” He replied with a smile.

You raised a skeptic eyebrow, your lips twitching slightly in amusement, “cheeky man.”

Ardyn grinned at you before snapping the reins of his beloved Ebony, the black-chocobo sprinting off, causing your arms to cling tightly around his waist. When the two of you finally arrived at your destination, Ardyn dismounted first before grabbing hold of your waist and slowly helping you off. “It is not far now, come.”

“Lead the way, my love.”

He took hold of your (s/c) hand, guiding you through a small thicket of trees before emerging within a large clearing. Atop the hill you gasped at the sight of all of Insomnia, the setting sun shining beautifully across the Crown-City. The flickering torches shinned like fallen stars around the capital city, the sight taking your very breathe away. “It’s beautiful…” you spoke, at a loss for words.

“This is where I come to think…do you like it?”

“Ardyn, this is amazing. I don’t know how you could improve on such a sight.”

He smirked, “Well, I will most certainly try.”

You frowned in confusion as Ardyn stepped away from you, your expression turning to one of surprise and joy as he fell to one knee. He retrieved the small box from his pocket, revealing a simple diamond ring. Ardyn smiled up at you as tears began to fall from your eyes, a bright smile spread across your lips. “I kneel before you, not as a prince…but as a man in love. And I would feel like a king, if you, my sweet (f/n …would become my wife.”

You nodded your head before launching yourself toward him, the two of you laughing merrily as you kissed him.

The sun had officially set by the time Ardyn arrived at the outskirts of Insomnia, the moonlight illuminating the barren park. The items in his hands felt like lead as he gazed upon the familiar hilltop before beginning on his trek once more. He was almost there…. How long has it been since they had seen one another?

“About a lifetime ago.” Ardyn murmured as he continued the climb.

Ardyn paced feverishly around his chambers, still in shock at the occurrence of that morning. Him? The Crystal’s Chosen? The thought was too unrealistic for him to even comprehend. It was true he desired to help his people, this foul plague claiming too many lives already. Yet to do so as King was a mantle he was not prepared for. And Izunia…his brother remained inside his quarters, refusing to speak to anyone after Bahamut’s decision.

“My love?” came your soft voice, walking slowly into your shared quarters. “Are you alright?”

He turned to face you, a sorrow filling his heart. The Astral had declared that he was to leave all behind for this pilgrimage…including you. “I don’t understand. Why would the gods choose me for such a task? He sighed, falling heavily unto the bed, his head falling into his hands. “What if they are mistaken?”

“I think I know why.” You spoke, kneeling before him, raising his head so his golden eyes met your own (e/c) eyes. “They see not a prince of a nation, but an honorable and kind man who loves his people. The one who will stand tall against the darkness….and so do I.”

Ardyn gave you a sad smile, kissing your forehead. “I will have to leave you (f/n) ….”

“I will be safe here. But there are many dangers where you go.” You stood up and retreated to the wardrobe, retrieving the item within. An expression of shock fell across Ardyn’s face as you removed a beautiful katana, holding out the weapon to him with a smile on your face. “I cannot be there to protect you…but I can give you a means in which to keep yourself safe. After all, what kind of King travels without his sword.”

He took the weapon from your hands, unsheathing the blade to admire its craftsmanship. It was truly a beautiful sword, perfectly balanced and freshly sharpened. Ardyn looked back at your beaming face and sheathed the blade once more before enveloping you into an embrace. “I will return, I promise.”

“I will be waiting.”

Ardyn stood within the clearing, watching the now towering city of Insomnia as it enjoyed its final evening. He gazed upon the sprawling metropolis one last time before turning to face the small stone marker, half buried beneath the roots of a tree and dead fallen leaves. He swept away the dead leaves and ran a hand across the worn lettering that was written into the chipped and weathered rock face. The words still felt as fresh as the day he had carved them.

                   Here lies a young maiden, taken too soon from life.                     Now her King waits, to be reunited with his wife.

“Hello my dear….it’s been a long time.” Ardyn spoke, gazing down at the forgotten tombstone.

“Your Majesty! A message from the Crown-City!”

“Give it here soldier.” The ever-faithful Gilgamesh spoke, accepting the sealed letter.

Ardyn looked toward his Shield with weary eyes. He had been traveling for months on end, healing all that came before him, and there was still more. They had only just reached the Cleigne Region and more awaited beyond the seas where Solheim and Tenebrae resided. Though Ardyn refused to turn away anyone, deeming none too late and often being bedridden for days due to the fatigue. But still he returned to his duty, knowing that his people needed him. And though a letter from the Crown-City was not uncommon, as Ardyn often wrote to his beloved wife at every spared moment, her letters often took a week at the most to arrive to him. Gilgamesh scanned the letter quickly, his eyes hardening at the sight of the words printed on it. He glanced at Ardyn, who snatched the letter from his friend’s hand.

Dear Brother,

Your wife has fallen ill to the Starscourge. Return post haste.

Izunia

“Ready the chocobo’s at once.” Ardyn commanded, exiting the small rest stop.

“Yes, your Majesty!”

“Where is she?!” Ardyn shouted, panting heavily as he ran through the Royal Wing within the upper levels of the Citadel.

Izunia was leaning against the wall, arms crossed as he gave his younger brother a look of mock pity. He jerked his head toward the bedroom door, “in there.”

Ardyn burst through the door without a second thought, the room filled with physicians as they spoke in hushed whispers, silencing themselves immediately at the sight of their King. He looked to the bed where you laid, pale as a ghost with the veins of your arms colored black and visible through your skin. You slowly blinked up at him, smiling at the sight of your husband as he knelt beside you. “Ardyn…you’ve returned…”

“Of course, I did, my dear. I promised, did I not? Don’t worry, you will be alright.”

You shook your head. “No, my love, I’m afraid my time is up.”

“Don’t be absurd! You will be fine, (f/n), I will see to it!” He shouted, tears starting to spill from his eyes as his hands began to glow with the familiar healing magic.

“Oh, my beloved King, I wish it was not so.” You lifted a weak hand to his face, Ardyn leaning into your touch. He placed his own hands against your own as you rubbed your thumb across his stubble. “I am sorry I must leave you now…. I will always love you…my sweet Ardyn…” you whispered before your vision went black.

Ardyn watched in horror as your (e/c) closed for the final time, your hand becoming still within his own. The physicians all left the room, heads bowed in reverence at the passing of their King’s wife. Izunia watched as his dear younger brother sobbed across your still body, trying in vain to heal what was no longer there. A slight smirk appeared on his lips before he left the room, walking toward the throne room. “Savior King? If a king cannot protect that which he holds most dear, how is he to protect others?”

Outside, even the heavens cried alongside the Crystal’s Chosen.

“I apologize my dear, it has been some time has it not. I would say 30 years have passed since my last visit…my how time flies….” Ardyn spoke, placing the roses and box of Ulwatt berries before the grave. “I brought your favorites: white roses, though I will admit the Ulwatt berries are for myself. But fret not my dear, these roses pale in comparison to you.”

Ardyn stared at the grave before him, the silence causing him to sigh. “I…I am sorry. I know I couldn’t be there for you…yet still you waited.” A sob tore through his throat, “I miss you so much, my dear (f/n). It was so hard, without you beside me. But soon....I will hold you within my arms once more.”

He pulled out the small box from within the confines of his coat, opening it to reveal a beautiful, yet simple diamond ring. The very same one he had gifted you all those years ago. “The end is near my dear, and I will return to you my Queen…I swear it.”

Ardyn then returned the ring to his coat before spinning on his heel, returning to the Caelum Via instantly, the warp stirring the dead leaves laying upon the ground. Beside the tree stood a silent, silver shadow; silver tears falling from her transparent face.

“I will be waiting…my King.”

There we go, the end of the story. I hope you all enjoyed it and if you all have any requests, feel free to message me. See ya! ^_^

#ffxv #ardyn izunia #ardyn lucis caelum #ardyn izunia x reader #angst #fanfiction

[iamthechocobabe]

We All Have Battle Scars

Almost done. Holy shit. Just a few more. 

Then a nap. 

The longest motherfucking nap. 

I had to split the epilogue into two parts because it was so damn long. Sorry, but not sorry because I BAWLED LIKE A BABY HOLY SHIT.

We All Have Battle Scars A PromptoXOC Soulmate AU based on We Intertwined ~Epilogue: Part 1~ Slight NSFW (like, it’s barely there) Word Count: 3,368

One thing about having a husband whose hobby was photography meant that the apartment was now covered in pictures and Alaea was going broke trying to keep up with constantly buying frames. 

Alaea walked through the hallway, dusting the frames with cleaner to occupy herself, looking at her favorites: the photos of Prompto and his friends when they were on their journey, the pictures he took of Alaea while she slept, Libby and her new wife Kris when they got their new apartment, Prompto and Alaea's wedding photo that was captured just as Prompto bent down to kiss Alaea after they were declared husband and wife. Alaea even managed to look beautiful that day, her scar being blended well with the make up to the point where it was only a little noticeable, with her hair pulled back away from her face and the veil that was made from leftover lace after altering her mother's wedding dress was attached to a clip that held her hair back. 

But she didn't care about the plethora of pictures-Alaea loved all of the pictures Prompto took, though her favorite would always be the first one he took of her and him together, back at the Chocobo Outpost almost ten years ago. It now sat in a simple black frame, taped back together with scotch tape on their dresser so that they could look at it each and every night before going to bed, knowing that they were together where they belonged. 

"Ow," Alaea flinched again at the next kick in her stomach, starting to get tired of always being beat up. "Easy, already, quit kicking me," 

It had been over six months since Alaea had first discovered she was pregnant, and she wasn't surprised when Gina explained the reason she was constantly puking up a storm every morning for three months straight. While Alaea and Prompto had agreed that they wanted to wait and not have children when the world was so dangerous right outside the city, it was easy to let lust get in the way of those plans.  

Especially when Alaea had bound Prompto's wrists to the headboard that night with the bandanna he always had on his arm, denying him orgasm time and time again until the headboard cracked with him constantly yanking on the ties. When she finally gave him what he wanted and rode with him to the edge, they had forgotten to use a condom and spent the next few months insisting that one time without a condom wouldn't hurt anything. 

Then again, it only takes once. 

But it was hard to regret having a child with Prompto, even when Alaea was about to pop any day now, she was so big. Her maternity pants and shirt no longer fit her, so she was forced to wear big dresses and stretchy skirts that made her feel like a balloon. 

Alaea put the squirt bottle down when she heard the front door to the apartment open and waddled towards the entrance, feeling more and more like a penguin each day. 

"Hey, babe," Prompto walked through with a plastic bag and pecked Alaea's lips, tired from a hunt that happened at HQ-ever since Prompto joined the Hunter's after the Starscourge, he was gone more and more often to help others out, though when he found out Alaea was pregnant, he requested that they send him on hunts closer to home. "How are my Chocolings?" he asked, rubbing Alaea's stomach softly. 

"One is trying to kick their way out of the other, I swear to the Gods," Alaea grumbled. "It's been like this for three days, you'd think they'd settle down by now," 

"Remember what Gina said? It's probably because you're gonna be due soon-I already requested that they don't send me on any more hunts until after the baby's born. Speaking of Gina-" 

Alaea groaned, walking away from Prompto into the living room to collapse onto the couch, exhausted from being on her feet for more than thirty minutes (Alaea had decided a few weeks ago that this kid needed to get out or she was gonna go crazy). "If this is about my dad, I'm gonna pop you-don't think I won't just because I've got a baby in me," 

"They've been dating for almost three months, Chocobee-" 

Alaea shook her head, loosening one of the curls from her messy bun. "It's fucking creepy, Prompto! She's his ex-wife's sister," 

"Swear jar," Prompto reached over to a jar they had that was already filling up quite a bit so Alaea could drop a few gil into their emergency funds. "He's happy-isn't that all that matters?" 

"When it's not my aunt, sure," Alaea only partially meant this because she knew how happy her dad was and how hard it was for him and Gina to open themselves up to trust each other-they had bonded when Alaea had a fever shortly after discovering she was pregnant and had agreed to watch her until Prompto could get back from a hunt. Next thing Alaea knew, she was waking up to the sight of them practically making out on the couch. 

Alaea swore that it was morning sickness that made her go to the bathroom to vomit, but Gina and Wiz didn't believe her. 

Prompto sighed, bringing the plastic bag he was carrying closer. "I got dinner," he brought out the two Cup Noodles, smiling at Alaea to hope to cheer her up. 

It worked-despite her hating Cup Noodles, she'd done nothing but crave the damn stuff while pregnant. "Get over here so I can kiss you," 

"Much obliged," Prompto was all too eager to peck Alaea's mouth, then ease more into the kiss while he leaned over her on the couch. He snaked his tongue into her mouth, exploring while he cupped her cheek with his right hand, tracing the ridges in her scar gently with his fingertips. When he broke away after a playful bite to her bottom lip, he smiled teasingly at her. "You've already eaten Cup Noodles," 

"I was hungry and couldn't wait for you," Alaea grumbled, rubbing her chin that was a little raw from Prompto's goatee. "I wish you'd shave that thing, it's hard to kiss you when you're giving me a beard burn," 

"Goatee burn," 

"Tomatoe, Tomato," Alaea watched Prompto as he boiled some water on the stove, feeling the same love for him that she felt every day, happier than she'd ever been. Happy that she had trusted him with her heart. "Seriously, I'm shaving that thing in your sleep," 

"Then you're gonna be stuck changing the diapers until I grow it back-that's the deal," 

"Fuck it," Alaea stood up to hobble over to Prompto. "I'll just toss the diapers into the sink and poor some tequila on it-we'll light 'em up like Chocobo Moogle Carnival fireworks," 

Prompto snickered as Alaea wrapped her arm around Prompto's side, trying to hug him close to her despite her large stomach and Prompto squeezed her back. "Swear jar-and we're out of tequila," 

"Go buy some-also, you're bankrupting me," 

Prompto smirked and glanced down at her stomach once again, his face full of love as he reached down to coo at the baby inside. "Has my little Ellie been giving her mommy a hard time?" he placed a gentle kiss on Alaea's stomach. 

Alaea grimaced once again at the name Prompto wanted to pick if the baby was a girl. "Noctis is being an absolute nightmare-do they bring soccer balls in there with them or something? Also, again, we're not calling her Ellie if it's a girl," Prompto pouted to show his frustration and Alaea rolled her eyes while giggling. "Come on, Prompt-Ellie, Ali, it'll be too confusing," 

"You know what'll be confusing? When she goes to school and other kids finds out her name is 'Wendy'-what kind of a name is that, anyway?" 

"Uh, classy," Alaea pointed out. "It was my grandmother's name, after all," 

Prompto was about to respond when his phone rang-stepping away from the stove, Prompto answered it, listening to the person as Alaea poured the now hot pot of water into the two Cup Noodles, placing some chop sticks on top and moving it to the counter. 

"Alright-yeah, I'll be there soon. Thanks," Prompto hung up, not saying anything as he turned to look at Alaea, his eyes now red. Prompto stared at Alaea for almost a full minute before looking down at her full stomach, his face full of hurt and contempt. 

"What is it?" Alaea asked, already knowing what it was. "Is it..." 

"They found him," Prompto's voice was now husky as he held back tears and wiped his eyes. "He's on his way to Hammerhead right now with Talcott...I...I have to go," 

Alaea had been prepared for this, she had mentally prepared herself to face this if and when Noctis came back from being in the crystal, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. "Go," 

"I..." Prompto went over and wrapped Alaea in his arms, careful to move around her full tummy and squeezed her so tightly that she had difficulty breathing. "Ali, I can't promise I'll come back this time," 

Alaea hugged him back just as tightly to show her support, despite her heart feeling like it was caving in on her. "I know," 

Pulling her back, Prompto cradled her face in his hands, memorizing every curve, dip and pattern in her face so that he would remember it always. "I love you," 

Alaea nodded, smiling the beautiful smile that never faded or darkened in ten years. "I love you, too,"

Alaea had pulled a chair up to the window that overlooked Lestallum and was angled towards the meteor, though it was now drenched in darkness and daemon's. She didn't know how long she sat there, only getting up occasionally to munch on some food or going to the bathroom, then returning to her seat to continue staring. 

Prompto had called Libby, Gina and Wiz to let them know he was leaving. Gina had been on a hunt, so Wiz and Libby came over to help Alaea and make sure she was alright, but they only found her staring out the window. Waiting was unbearable, but that was all Alaea could do. 

"He's a slippery fish," Wiz said for the fourteenth time. "He'll come back," 

Alaea nodded to show that she heard him, but didn't say anything-the truth was that even the most slippery of fish would struggle with what was going to happen, with the fight Noctis would have to face. The thought of being a widow with a child to look after alone made Alaea want to scream, but she knew that Prompto was needed-that the world needed him. Asking him to stay and choose his family over the world felt unfair, even though Alaea wanted to beg him to stay. 

The door to the apartment opened, so Alaea turned her head to see Gina walk in with a few books and some CD's to calm everyone's nerves. "Hey-I brought scented candles," 

"Ew," Libby scrunched up her nose, always and forever sensitive to strong smells. 

"Thanks, Gina," Wiz reached over and pecked Gina's lips and it turned Alaea's stomach at the sight. 

"Gods, not in front of me. You guys are disgusting," Alaea shivered and focused her attention back on the window, fighting the urge to get up and go to the bathroom to throw up. 

"Who caught who in a compromising position again?" Gina asked after a soft swat to the back of Alaea's head. 

"What compromising position?" Wiz asked. 

Alaea rolled her eyes-it figures Gina would bring that up. "Thanks, Gina," she said with sarcasm on her tongue. 

Alaea kept her chair to the window as Libby, Wiz and Gina all sat down to talk about things-whenever the subject of Noctis or Prompto came up, their voices went to whispers, irritating Alaea that they thought she was so absorbed in her own misery that she couldn't hear them. 

Alaea finally stood up to use the bathroom, hobbling over to the small room in the back of the apartment that was littered with even more pictures and a collage Prompto had made that had a poloroid picture that Prompto took every day ever since Alaea found out she was pregnant, showing her belly growth. 

"Ow," Alaea hissed when the kick she felt this time was extremely sharp and she swore this kid was playing soccer in there. "Give it a rest, Noctis-or Ellie...Wendy. Whatever," Alaea would never admit that she actually adored the name Ellie when Prompto suggested it, mostly because she knew it actually would be too confusing when people would start calling her Ellie and Alaea would think they were saying 'Ali' or vice versa. 

But they had both agreed on the name if the baby was a boy. 

Alaea sat on the toilet seat to breathe during the intense kicking and started singing to the baby softly as she often did when he or she was restless, a specific song she loved to sing to try and get him/her to relax. 

Baby mine, don't you cry, Baby mine, dry your eyes, Rest your head close to my heart, Never to part,  Baby of mine. 

Normally, the song would soothe the baby into calming down, but this time the baby insisted on kicking Alaea despite it all. Flinching again, Alaea patted her stomach and focused on controlling her breathing. "I know-it's better when you're dad sings it," 

Sighing, Alaea looked at the wall of pictures, her eyes drawn to the one right after their wedding-one side of the photo frame revealed Prompto carrying Alaea bridal style as they entered their apartment and the other had Alaea trying and failing to carry Prompto on her back. Libby had to back away as the two fell so that they didn't break the camera. 

"I know," Alaea mumbled as the baby continued to kick and squirm. "I miss him too," 

Alaea often talked to the baby whenever she was alone after hearing that it helped soothe the baby to memorize their parent's voice. She would talk about random little things, like her life back with the Chocobo's, how she discovered she loved singing, things of the nature. But as Alaea sat there, looking at the pictures, she began to cry as the realization of facts began to hit her. 

She had tried to be brave when Prompto left, but now it was clear-there really was a good chance he wasn't going to come back. The thought of that monster, Ardyn, sitting in the city...what if Prompto was caught? What if he had to endure the nightmarish torture like he had ten years ago? Prompto still had nightmares about it, waking up screaming like he was on fire. 

"You know I was your dad's soulmate?" Alaea said softly, her voice soothing and gentle to the baby and it began to calm down as Alaea talked. "He came up to me one day and thought we were gonna be together forever, expecting me to be overjoyed when I found out we were soulmates. But I was scared-I had seen the pain soulmates brought to others, the pain people brought to each other and was determined your dad was just playing some sick joke on me," Alaea paused and looked down at her stomach. "Do you even know what determined means? Do you know anything about what I'm-well, I guess it doesn't matter," 

Alaea looked up at another one of her favorites, one that Gina had taken shortly after the Darkness. Prompto had insisted on teaching Alaea how to shoot a gun, despite her being too much of a chicken to join the hunter's, but he still wanted her to know in case of emergencies. They were at a shooting range in Lestallum, with Prompto standing behind her and positioning her elbows and showing her how to have a steady aim; the picture had been snapped shortly after Alaea hit the target and she was beaming with excitement and pride. 

But it was Prompto who stole the show on that picture-he was looking at Alaea with such a look of love and adoration, it was almost ridiculous. He looked at her like she was the sun, the stars and the moon all combined into one. To this day, Alaea had a hard time believing sincerely that all that love was meant for her. 

"Were your dad and I meant to be together? Did the Gods match us specifically?" Alaea rubbed her stomach after another sharp kick, trying to soothe the baby once again with her voice. "I wish I could say I knew, but I don't, not really. But one thing I will say," 

Alaea glanced at the memorial wall full of pictures, some not even having frames and smiled to herself. "Without the soulmate mark, I wouldn't have met him. Without the soulmate mark, I wouldn't have you growing in my tummy right now. Without it, I wouldn't be as happy as I am right now...so, that's gotta be worth something, right?" 

Another sharp kick landed inside Alaea and she laughed, a tear falling and she rubbed it away with a finger. "Are you telling me to shut up or are you agreeing with me?" Rubbing her tummy, she continued to sing, picturing Prompto next to her and singing with her as well. 

Little one, when you play, Don't you mind what they say. Let those eyes sparkle and shine, Never a tear, Baby of mine. 

Alaea was about to continue the song when Libby burst in through the door without knocking. "Ali! It's the sun!"

Alaea watched from the window as the sun gently rose into the sky-at first, Wiz had thought maybe it was just some large explosion out to the West, but after the sky began to lighten more and more, it was clear that the sun was coming up. 

They did it. 

People gathered in the street to watch, though Alaea chose to stay inside because her legs were weak. Even though Alaea wasn't facing the sun, she still heard the city cheer and roar when the first rays of sunlight peaked over the mountains, the darkness and Starscourge now gone forever. Looking over the valley, Alaea began to notice the constant crowd of daemon's slowly disappearing, as if fading from light. 

Alaea leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes and unable to wipe the smile off her face. 

But with every high, there was an equal low. 

Alaea suddenly felt an intense fear and anguish, a feeling unlike anything she'd ever known before. The fear Prompto had felt when Ardyn had threated Alaea was nothing compared to this, the anguish he felt when Noctis knocked him off the train was nothing compared to this. 

This was heartbreak. 

And Alaea could practically hear Prompto's mind at that moment, that intense feeling that he was going to die. The feelings he felt-the regret of all the things he was unable to do, the sorrow from leaving his wife and child alone, the anguish that he would never see the woman he loved again, the heartbreak from never being able to meet his child. 

But, strangely, there was happiness. 

Happiness that he at least left his wife and child in a safe world filled with sunlight. And Alaea knew she felt Prompto thinking that it was all worth it, in the end. 

"Ali," Libby had stayed in the apartment with Alaea while Wiz and Gina went out to watch the sunrise, Kris joining soon after, but Alaea didn't care as she felt herself collapse against the wall, fighting the urge to slide down into a massive heap due to her enlarged stomach. 

"He's gone," Alaea whimpered and a sob ripped through her chest. "He's...he's gone," 

"Alaea," Libby said and Alaea looked to her, expecting to see Libby with comforting eyes and would go over and hug Alaea before going to get Wiz and Gina. 

But instead, Libby was staring down at the floor, right at Alaea's feet. Looking down, Alaea saw what Libby was staring at. 

A small puddle of water.

#ffxv #ffxv fanfiction #prompto #prompto argentum #prompto argentum soulmate #prompto argentum soulmate au #soulmate au #IS PROMPTO REALLY DEAD? #if i was evil i'd post part 2 tomorrow #lucky for you i'm not

[lifeofaernthota]

Peach Sorbet (PG-13 Please Read The Warnings Ya’ll)

title from Girls With Slingshots

this is like pg-13 maybe a little R but there’s definitely vague references to silver’s dick so read at your own risk. uhhh warnings? kink play, begrudging acceptance of said kink play, and comedy so please don’t come in expecting to fap this time just hold off on that.

I finally got this thing edited and got @kurt-l-fahrenheit‘s approval.

also bless @silverlining-ffxiv for being the best husbando on earth and letting me vaguely humiliate our roes together. 

Evenings passed slowly in the comfort of the mismatched basement. This suited Silver well enough; a few moments without the world ending were rare these days it seemed. But there were still comfortable chairs, finely upholstered and sturdy enough for the large Roegadyn to relax upon, and piles of books to tear through at his leisure. It was a bit of the homey comforts he’d left behind in Thanalan when he began his adventure, some he wasn’t going to give up on so easily.

Of course, it also helped that Aernthota was there as well. Sprawled across the couch, her feet resting in Silver’s lap as she too enjoyed the moments of stillness.  They could always find time to linger in each other’s presence; usually with Silver busying himself with notes and thick tomes he’d snatched from somewhere while Aern devoured serials and transcriptions from wandering bards. As much as she complained about her perpetually low funds, Aern could always scrape together enough gil to snag a new book when the travellers came to town (though she had to believe that Silver had something to do with that since he never seemed to be as shocked as she was). For hours, the pair would sit in relative silence and enjoy their books and each other’s company; their only breaks were to eventually eat and then sleep.

But that evening felt… well, off.

Not in the traditional sense of panic and terror; those were things that they had both grown used to and were ready to jump into action over. Instead this was closer to tension, something that Silver noticed as he finally broke away from his own work. It prickled the back of his neck a bit and he glanced over to where Aern’s head rested against the arm of the large couch. Unusually, she hadn’t said much since they had both settled in… Her attention hadn’t shifted once from the thin book she’d picked up from the last trip out. There were no markings on the spine or the cover, only black leather embossed with a simple flourish. For all Silver knew, there were untold secret hidden on those pages… or something worth giving a look at himself.

“New? I don’t think I’ve seen you reading that one before.” His eyes lingered for a moment on her, caught the gentle bob of her head as she nodded wordlessly. But nothing more in response beyond a slight shift of her legs in his lap.

A few more seconds of silence fell, and Silver finally gave up on making more progress in his own reading. This newfound mystery was so much more interesting…

“Speechless huh? If it’s that good, I might just have to read it myself someti-”

He was cut off by a small squeak from the other side of the couch as Aern straightened up and finally looked up at her husband. “Ah! N-No need! It… I mean you know bards; they always just embellish. All fluff and no substance… Ahaha…”

And that’s when he knew that something was very seriously amiss. Aernthota was never the type to be so coy, especially not in private. Not to mention, she constantly encouraged him to indulge in her low brow fiction to “broaden his horizons.” She was definitely hiding something, but he knew Aern well enough to not press any further. She would crack sooner rather than later. Until then, Silver only had to wait for her to crumble. He gave her a nod before picking up his own book and returning back to his reading.

A few minutes later, almost as if he’d planned it himself, Silver heard the small thump of a book being closed. He kept his head down, smirk hidden by a thoughtful hand as Aern began to shift some on the couch. Finally she settled back, her head in his lap and her eyes shut. The hand to his mouth drifted down to her hair and began to stroke languidly. Whatever tension seemed to come from the book in question was quickly dissipating. “Finished already, dew drop?” His voice was soft and playful, hopefully enough to coax out whatever seemed to be bothering her.

Aern stay silent for a moment, humming listlessly as she enjoyed the affection. Eventually, she spoke up. “Mmm… Just curious. In my reading, lovely stuff really.”

An eye cracked open to look up at Silver’s face, and he shut the book he was no longer focused on. As soon as she was certain his full attention was upon her, she continued speaking. “It… Well it works on a theory on how if someone loses a sense… the others. Ah… The others kinda… kick it up a notch. Is that…. Well does that sound about right to you?”

“I… suppose. Though that seems a little heavy for a bard to be selling in some bar. If you’re interested in medical information, starlight, there is plenty to be discovered.”

Aern’s cheeks grew slightly red at this and she shook her head (gently as there were some very important things nearby that she wanted to keep in good shape). “It… It’s less medical and more… Well… Say you weren’t able to see? That would make you hear better and ah… make you feel more right?”

Well… This was going somewhere and Silver wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it. His hand paused against her head and he looked down into the eye looking back up at him. “Are you plannin’ on me going blind anytime soon? I am older than you, yes, but I’m still pretty far from the grave.”

“N-No! Just… ah… Nophica’s thighs how in the wor-just!” She sat up, careful to not smack anything as she leaned over to grab the small black book from the floor. With a small guilty smile, Aern pressed into Silver’s hands. He opened up to a page at random and began to read the tiny text.

And he too quickly found his face growing hot.

“Master Momomi, please be gentle. The cruelty of my Nuhn has left me so delicate there. Even the ministrations of my fellow Seeker females is almost too much to bear!” The miqo’te girl trembled as her new master approached her with a thin strip of linen held between his hands. Her eyes closed as he stood before her and the soft fabric settled over her eyes, blocking anything from sight.

“Come now L’fsor. For I am born and raised of Ul’dahan merchantry and am familiar with your people. Know that while it may be strange, you will feel nothing but pleasure by my hands.” Quickly, a strip of leather wrapped around her wrists as the Lalafellan noble began to kiss his newest prize.

Silver had to pause at that point, if only because his laughter kept his eyes from following along any further. Aern’s sound of displeasure was smothered in a giggle of her own when the sudden outburst hit the silence that had fallen around them. A few seconds of Silver’s untamed laughter quieted as he wiped his eyes and carefully held the book up to check the front cover for a possible source of such drivel.

“S-So… Do you often have fantasies of being a ravished Miqo’te maiden? Or can I blame a wandering minstrel for instilling such ideas in you?”

Aern responded by snatching the book out of his hands and turning away from him. For a brief moment, Silver actually wondered if there was a nerve he’d pressed a little too hard before her shoulders began to shake with silent laughter.

“Gods forbid, could you imagine me turnin’ into one of those types? No it’s… Well I’m not gonna make you read any more of that but it… Well.” Aern turned back around, her cheeks a little less red but her eyes still not fully meeting Silver’s. “It’s more just somethin’ to try. What’s the worst that could happen? I mean besides the terrible dirty talk but ah… What’s t’say being tied up and a little helpless wouldn’t be fun.”

“Er… Aernthota, not to say I’m not fascinated with the whole idea, but are you sure you really want to try this? You said it yourself, they tend to embellish this sort thing. what if you start to panic some when you can’t see? Or some kind of emergency crops up? I’d hate for y-”

Aern leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the tip of her husband’s nose, enough to make him trail off into silence for a few moments and allow her to speak up. “Oh but my dear sweet Sylb, there’s no way I’d be the one tied up.”

And before Silver could even force a distressed sound out, Aern stood and headed for the stairs.

And then there was silence on the topic for a few days. Given her initial embarrassment over the subject, Aern seemed to maintain her regular jovial attitude around the group. Silver did as well, though he was constantly on the lookout for any shifts in her demeanor. Every time she spoke to David or Popola, he watched carefully. Any giggles shared between her and A’onisya were treated with mild suspicion. If his wife was planning on tying him up like some parcel, he wouldn’t be caught unaware under any circumstances.

But days passed with the same normalcy as ever. The routine of gathering and hunting and being social kept them secure and eventually Silver assumed that, like most things, Aern had let the entire situation slip her mind.

Until the package arrived.

It was too large to fit inside the mailbox, so the helpful delivery moogle had placed it upon the steps for the first resident to retrieve when they returned home. Silver had almost tripped over it and brought it inside to Aern who was carefully brewing something on the stove.

“Those damned pombrains… Nearly killed myself over this. Were you expecting anything? It’s a bit hefty if you ask m-”

There was a small clink of glass against glass as Aernthota hastily sat down her half full vials and wiped her hands against the thick leather of her coat. “Ah! I was waitin’ for that! Let me!” She took the package from him with a small kiss to his cheek and rushed down the stairs. Silver, a bit dumbfounded, watched for a few moments before simply ensuring the heat had been turned off on her potion mix and pulling off his long casting gloves.

When she appeared again, Aern’s expression was impish. The package had been left behind as she stepped out into the room to greet her husband. “So my love… Ah… D’you have any plans for tomorrow? Specifically tomorrow evening. I know you’ve had a long day and I’d hate t’rush into somethin’ brand new but ah…”

“... Sunshine is this about that book?”

“I-I’m just sayin’ I’ve had a few things… prepared for th’whole thing an-”

“Oh gods be good I just assumed you’d lost your nerve over the whole thing. You hadn’t spoken about it in a few da-”

“Lost my nerve? With you involved? There’s no way, Sylb… I want to do this with you, love. Yer th’ one I want t’feel good a-and if y’really really don’t wanna try this, then I’d just appreciate ye sayin’ somethin’ a-”

As she felt her tongue growing looser and falling back into the thick Limsa accent she’d tried so hard to lose, Silver’s finger pressed to her lips. She faltered and grew silent, and he leaned in to kiss her cheek softly.

“Aernthota, we promised each other, before the Twelve and everyone else, to go wherever the other one traveled. That we would explore this whole world hand in hand.” A sigh punctuated his words but there was a smile that crept upon his face as he continued. “So as… hesitant… as I am about trying to recreate something you saw in a shoddy novel, I’m willing to… try.”

Joy blossomed across her face, and she brought the back of his hand up to her lips in silence. Silver couldn’t help but pull her in closer for a few soft kisses against what parts of her face he could reach amid playful giggles. Hopefully those would stifle the bubble of nerves that poked at him.

The following day had an air of excitement buzzing around the home. The pair made their usual rounds of gathering and housekeeping, all the while subtly hinting at plans to those most likely to call upon them that evening. (Which was received quite well by Niah’tan and A’onisya and elicited a few laughs and nudges from Renaud). Once they were certain the night would pass in relative silence, they finished up their daily duties. Late afternoon came, signaling the final sweep of Dravania for any minerals Silver may have needed to collect before heading home to settle in for the night. He flew with a sort of slow urgency, as if heading back to the Lavender Beds was both exciting and nerve wracking. He knew that he had agreed but…

“Sylb, is everything okay?” The ping in his linkpearl almost startled him off the back of his chocobo.

“Ah of course, starlight. Just one final check of the area and then straight back home to you. Are you… Preparing?”

“... Ah… I think. I was wondering if I should bathe before you get here but I think everything else is ready.”

“Oh? And have me miss a show? I’m certain that if you just wait for me to get back, we could share the tub.” Silver’s voice took on a cheeky tone, perhaps in an effort to persuade her to hold off on washing up so they could just relax together.

With a small squawk from Aern on the other side, the pearl went quiet. As much as he hoped, there was no dodging what she had planned for so carefully. No amount of mining would take away from that. And so Silver waited around for the sun to sink down beyond the horizon before concentrating on his home and carefully teleporting himself to his front step. The chilly Dravanian air shifted to the gentle breeze of the Lavender Beds, and he opened his eyes to see Aern leaning against the doorframe, wrapped up in one of Silver’s many robes. He approached her with a smile, carefully pulled her into his arms, and whispered low and rough into her ear. “Gods be good, if I could see you like this after every long day…”

Even with her gentle laugh, there was an edge of excitement in her voice as she fumbled for the doorknob behind her while still keeping a tight grip on the cloth around her shoulders. “Eat something… Wash up… And then…” She sighed as Silver kissed her clavicle, and pressed her way back into the cottage.

Silver looked up while stepping inside, careful to note that the helpers they employed around the home had been dismissed early. It sent a small jolt through his chest, his heartbeat picking up as he followed her downstairs. There were plates set up at the table, obviously cooked with a touch of assistance from somewhere since Aernthota could barely boil water without smoke. It wasn’t a perfect meal by any stretch of the imagination, but Silver could sit there and get through the slightly overcooked dodo and the strangely seasoned vegetables by keeping his focus on the next step.

This would be much easier if it was broken down into steps after all.

Their conversation was sparse, food and nerves keeping their mouths relatively busy. It was only when Aern stood and grabbed her plate did Silver find the words that had been lost. “Wash. I uh… I’m going.” And without waiting for so much as a nod, Silver bolted towards the door into their chamber. The comfort of the close quarters helped him center; pulling off his gear also gave him the chance to relish in the excitement of this new turn, for better or worse. It almost made him nostalgic for their first night together, that thrill of newness coupled with worry. It wasn’t an unwelcome feeling, just one that he hadn’t been anticipating ever again.

And sinking down into the hot water with a groan, Silver allowed himself to drift away from the impending moment for a few long minutes of silence. The creak of Aern’s pacing upstairs seemed to die down after a bit, leaving nothing but the sound of Silver’s breathing, the soft crackle of the hearth, and the gentle drips from the faucet. The perfect storm of soothing made Silver’s eyes droop and the tension in his neck slowly ease. The day’s worry and hesitation melted away; hell he could almost feel a shudder of excitement at the prospect of his wife waiting for him on the other side creep down his thighs when...

“Sylb…” Silver started a touch as Aern’s voice came from the door. “When you’re finished up ah… Come out here?”

He grunted in response and stood, the crash of water breaking the peaceful silence. He wasn’t entirely sure he was finished with his bath, but the request was made and any further contemplation in the water was sure to be a bad decision. Grabbing a well worn cotton shirt and simple clean breeches was obvious; there was no point in risking the gear he had fought so hard for when something simple (and easy to remove) would suffice. This was a comfortable night together, a night the pair would have more pressing issues which would preoccupy them. It didn’t matter how they looked at the end of it all. But Silver paused at the closed door for a few seconds to smooth his beard and run his hands through his damp hair. He wasn’t hoping to look put together by any means, but felt right to fake his way into some semblance of “composed” before opening the door back out into their living space.

And he was so very grateful he did when he saw Aern standing there waiting. His old robe that had been around her had been discarded for something impossibly thin and lacy, something he was certain he’d spied upon an Au Ra woman lurking by a market board one evening, but in Aern’s carefully measured sizes. Enough to keep her decent but only just. He felt himself stare for a second, doing his best to discern what fabric it could possibly be made of that would hold the deep green color so well but still show the delicate tone of her stomach (as well as shamelessly oogle his wife’s body no longer under layers of boots and stiff robes) before stepping forward towards her. “Is this what came in that package? Because there was no need to hide this from me when we could have gotten plenty of use out of it already…”

Aern shook her head and beamed. It was clear that if nerves plagued her, they hadn’t worked their way to the surface yet. “S’not the only thing… But now’s not the time. Come over here an’ sit.” She pointed to one of their dining chairs, a terribly delicate sylphic thing that she swore had character. Silver followed the request with a curious smile.

Looking over to the table, several new things occupied their previous dinner space. A chunk of finely worked material, a thick set of leather wristguards connected by simple rings in the middle, and a small pot of something milky white sat there, their presence alone making Silver’s throat catch. “Deviating from the source text, eh? What would that Miqo’te maiden say if she saw your arsenal of new tools?” Hopefully humor would be enough for smooth sailing.

Aern offered another bright smile before simply grabbing the cuffs and stepping behind him. She was gentle but purposeful when she took his hands and placed them behind his back. The movement made Silver stiffen for a moment until the touch of fingers against his neck. A gentle pulse of something he’d grown to recognize as regenerative magic washed over him, and he couldn’t hold in the chuckle any longer.

“Oh hush you. Y’always seem to feel a bit better when I do that… Is… Is this position okay? Don’t wanna hurt shoulders or anythin’ else.” Aern squeezed his hands, waiting for some kind of response. When Silver nodded, he felt the thick leather close around his wrists and tighten down. He could wiggle his fingers, which he did to brush against the fine fabric of Aern’s new attire and tickle her just to hear her laughter near his ear again. As she pulled away, it hit Silver that this wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. No, his arms weren’t accustomed to this yet and there was a gentle burn starting, but it was something he could endure for as long as Aern needed him to.

At least, he could endure if he could continue to shift on occasion.

“Now ah...  Here. Lemme just…” Amid Silver’s shifts and settling, Aern had picked up the fabric and stood before him to wait. As soon as it was clear that he wasn’t in a state of panic or shock, he nodded for her to continue. She leaned and took his face to kiss him softly, the brush of silk against his cheek and the warmth of Aern’s skin too fleeting for his taste. And yet as he leaned to press in further, she pulled back until the soft clunk of cuffs hitting chair stopped him. She grinned down at him with excitement before slipping the cloth over his lovely green eyes and tying it behind his head. It was a little tight, something Silver was certain would loosen over time but still shook his head to alleviate. The pressure was enough to keep his eyes closed, which apparently meant the blindfold had been doing its job well.

But then, there was only silence. He knew that Aern couldn’t have gone terribly far away from him, but it was the first time he hadn’t felt her presence nearby. He breathed for a few seconds before asking (in what he hoped was the proper direction before him) “Aernthota? Are you there?”

His answer was gentle pressure against his neck. Something warm pressed carefully down to his shoulder, light and fleeting but enough to make Silver’s head roll to the side. The giggle he heard from just above him was a relief, and the soft thump of footsteps around him trailed off as he assumed she hit the rug. And perhaps that’s when he noticed (or rather tricked himself into believing) that he could hear more. Tiny things like that sounding so clear… Maybe there was some validity to this whole thi-

While he had busied himself with reassuring thoughts of success in their experiment, Aern had moved on from his neck and suddenly there was much more pressure against his dick than he was anticipating. That caught him off guard and with a soft hiss, his shoulders tensed up and the rings of the cuffs behind him clinked. “Thal’s balls, wh-what are you doing?” Again, no response came from his wife: only careful pressure against his chest and the soft dig of nails into the exposed skin near his neck. A shudder rolled down from scalp to toes, spending an extra throb in his groin against whatever she had so carefully placed there. His hips shifted, something he would swear was only for comfort and not for whatever vestiges of contact he could muster in such a position. But even this less than subtle motion was subdued by a slightly harder press against his chest. The nails bit in deeper and, for the first time, Aern spoke up since the blindfold had gone on. “Be patient… okay?”

It was supposed to be reassuring, but only made Silver groan. “Surely you’re not going to leave me in such a state for too long.”

The nails against his chest pulled down an ilm or two until they caught cloth. He bit his tongue to keep from swearing as he pulled against the cuffs again. If he really got desperate, it wouldn’t be impossible to break the links and say it was a failure in design. He had more than enough strength to do it and surely it wouldn’t be a disaster if things didn’t work out. Settling into a comfortable posture again, Silver paused and waited for the proper time to break out. It had to be perfect or else she might be suspicious and then…

He felt an odd little tremble between his thighs before there was a shift in weight. The nails that had been against his chest had curled up up and then there was only a fist pressed against skin, trying to keep him seated and still. And there was also the softest sound above him of pages turning furiously.

Surely she wasn’t…

“Sunflower… Are you flipping through that book for instructions or what?”

The sound of something crashing into the tea set on the table beside him was the only answer he got. It was at that point that it all became too much. No delicious pressure or thrill of inevitable sex could quell the laughter that spilled out of him.

“Y’know y’don’t have t’be so godsdamned astute, Sylb.” The fabric around his eyes loosened and dropped off, light stinging his eyes for a second before they focused onto Aern’s form again. There was a shaking knee, from fear or nerves or both, placed between his thighs and a resigned expression plastered on her face. “S’not like I’ve ever done this before… I figured help would… yanno?”

“I know,” Silver never thought he would be so pleased to see her red hair and freckles as much as he was in that moment and took a brief moment to simply drink up the sight of her before finishing his thoughts. “and while I appreciate all of this effort and warm up, I don’t believe we need all of this to enjoy each other.”

“I know we don’t but…” Aern shifted herself to perch neatly on Silver’s lap. The chair beneath groaned in protest at the addition of another Roegadyn, but she only tilted her head to press against Silver’s brow. “Can y’blame me for wanting to do something new? I’m always worried with everythin’ changing that… Well. What if tomorrow somethin’ wild happens. All the sudden we’re back on the run again? Maybe when things are safe an’ secure is th’best time t’change and play an’ see new things.”

Without looking, Silver blew a kiss towards Aern’s cheek. His burst of lust had slowly burnt itself down into a smolder; it was easy enough to focus on her words over the tension in his body. His voice was barely more than a whisper as he spoke up. “It’s fine. Even if this rest of this realm changes tomorrow, I will always be completely and wildly enamored with you, darling. You never have to do more than simply continue being the beautiful, adventurous woman who stole my heart.”

“S’that all?” A twinge of a laugh was present as she moved her head in to kiss Silver’s nose gently.

“That and tell whoever made you that ridiculous set of undergarments to make you about eight more of them so I don’t feel guilty ripping them clean off when you unhook me.”

That made Aern laugh in earnest, straightening up only to lean in once more and finally kiss her husband properly. Without pulling away from Silver, she shifted her weight in his lap, brushing against whatever half wilted erection was left with whatever she could carefully manage.

“So…” Her voice slipped down into a sultry purr as her hips rolled slowly, Silver cursing under his breath between occasional tugs against the chair, “Does this mean you’d like to be fr-”

CRACK

“Well what a surprise! Miss Aernthota here after her busy evening. I am to assume that means your plan and subsequent purchases were successful?” Kurt’s voice was clearly pleased, albiet concerned with the slight limp the Roegadyn seemed to carry as she approached him in the Goblet. Though that hardly seemed to be any of his business, honestly. Despite all of his assistance in acquiring materials needed, he had asked very few questions at all throughout the whole process. Perhaps that was why Aernthota had come to him in the first place.

After the appropriate greetings and required hugs, she nodded and held out a burlap sack for the man to take. “Y-Yeah it turned out fantastic but say… Y’think I could call in a quick favor? Things may have gotten a little…”

Before Aern could finish, Kurt had lifted a hand to silence her and reached for the sack. For a second he looked entirely confused as his hand fished around before upturning the whole thing into the middle of his lush lawn. Splintered wood and brackets tumbled out, their delicate sylvan glyphs and designs almost impossible to discern.

The miqo’te man remained silent when faced with the destruction before him until he simply could not contain himself any further. “My gods woman, what happened to this poor chair? Did thirty of you try sitting in the damned thing?”

“Ah… No just… Well just two of us! There was a fair bit of… well. Movement I suppose.” There was no shame in Aern’s voice as she spoke up, something that made interest in her evening and her limp wane even further.

Kurt Fahrenheit had heard many things in his life but this… His ears flattened as he carefully nudged the broken chair pieces into a more uniform pile and placed the bag down on top. With a polite cough and another lift of the hand, Kurt swished his tail and cut her off.

“No no. Miss Aernthota, I respect you far too much for you to tarnish your standing with me by finishing whatever explicit story I am sure you were going to regale. So let me go to my workshop, do “something” for you, and pretend like I never actually had any contact with your coitus chair. I will send you a… Carefully worded message on the Linkpearl when your request has been finished.” And without another glance down, Kurt strolled back to his workshop space with a small determined glint in his eye.

Perhaps he would make the next set of chairs for the Roegadyn something more sturdy if that was the kind of thing they enjoyed.

#fiction #life of aernthota #silver #silver aern fiction #pg 13 shit #the roemance

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Summer Latin Music Festivals Offer Music And Opportunity

This year we mark our annual summer Latin music festival show with an accompanying deeper dive into the reason some of these festivals exist: lack of inclusion on the big summer festival stages.

Listen to the podcast and read how the Latinx community is dealing with representation in the music industry.

There is a growing musical movement underway, fueled by the same spirit of confronting exclusion that launched female-led music festivals like Lilith Fair in the late 1990s, this time focused on and powered by Latinx musicians. As a response to under-representation on major summer music festival stages and the lack of summer gigs in general that include Latinx culture, festivals like NuevoFest in Philadelphia, Afro-Latino Fest in New York City, RuidoFest in Chicago, Viva! Pomona in the Los Angeles area and Los Dells near Madison, Wisconsin have all popped up over the last several years

In June, the Kansas City-based band Making Movies wrapped up its very first run of a travelling collective of bands they call Carnaval. Though not on the massive scale of Lilith Fair, these game-changers feature an invigorating mélange of Latin grooves and Latin fusion.

The members of Making Movies created their annual Carnaval as a Kansas City, Mo. based mini-fest four years ago; this year it featured nine acts and two local youth performances. Along the way they had an idea: If the big, mainstream summer music festivals were not going to hire them or the bands that they invited to K.C., then they would take their music directly to Latin music fans in 21 U.S. cities.

But when Making Movies began the traveling version of Carnaval in Boulder, Colo. in May, there were not a lot of people to witness history in the making.

"When we started the tour, we played to smaller crowds of 100 or more people," says band member Diego Chi. "But by the time we got to Pomona, Calif., three weeks later, 700 folks were singing and dancing their hearts out with us. The celebrating could be heard for blocks outside the venue."

Carnaval actually began as an answer to under-representation in the Kansas City music scene: Making Movies had better luck getting gigs by promoting itself as a rock band without mentioning its brand of Latin fusion. So it set out to change things. What started as a homegrown youth music camp, with invitations to SoCal Latin alternative bands Ozomatli and Las Cafeteras to come teach, soon grew organically into a carnaval, a Latin carnival.

"It became like a jam session of like-minded musicians, then community organizations started to show up" giving the band the idea of mixing music and social activism, says Diego Chi's brother and band mate, Enrique.

Blending "folkloric performances alongside innovative international artists," they enlisted Latin Grammy-winning artists Alex Cuba and Flor de Toloache to join Making Movies and Las Cafeteras on the inaugural tour this year, and added other bands on the road.

For Enrique Chi, 21 cities is just the start.

"For me the big dream is to make it a national tour next year and create music that really fits our spiritual, musical path ... and integrate the tour more effectively with community and social justice organizations."

Social justice and cultural awareness are also at the heart of Brooklyn-based Afro-Latino Fest.

"There wasn't anything that could bring together Afro-Latinos in the community from across nationalities," says Director Amilcar Priestley, whose wife, Mai-Elka Prado Gil, founded the festival in 2013.

Priestly says identity is an essential topic because even within the Latinx community, those who have roots in the African diaspora can feel marginalized.

"There are a lot of people who don't know what Afro-Latino is. People often want to pigeonhole you, and say, 'You are this but you are not that. You are that but you're not this.'"

The first Afro-Latino Fest set up music and vendors by a subway station in 2013 to attract passers-by.

"Many engaged in the event," said founder Prado Gil in the lead-up to this year's festival, held July 13-15 in Brooklyn. "Last year the maximum of 500 people attended the conference and the concerts sold out with 1,300 people. This year we expect 1,500 for the concert, 500 again for the conference, and 800 to 1,000 for our first full film festival."

An awards ceremony included a posthumous award to Afro Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco, who was assassinated earlier this year.

"More are coming into their own and identifying as Afro-Latino," says Priestly. "The conversation about Afro-Latinidad has exploded, here in the U.S. especially, and we're at an important time. I think we've been fortunate to be a bit ahead of the curve in the conversation and how it pushes forward."

A short drive down the New Jersey turnpike the same weekend as Afro-Latino Fest, NuevoFest has been moving the needle on inclusion and integration in the City of Brotherly Love. Since its launch six summers ago, the annual Latin music festival has drawn a healthy cross-section of Philadelphians to the one-day free concert.

It was founded by Marángeli Mejía-Rabelland Rahsaan Lucas of AfroTaino Productions in association with NPR member station WXPN's Latin Roots program. The acts have ranged from traditional to alternative Latin music.

According to Mejía-Rabell, "We went from 50 guests in our first year, consisting of mostly locals, to 1,500+ guests throughout the event's duration, and a lot are coming from out of the city: New York, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and the outer Pennsylvania burbs."

"Here's what I think is problematic with major festivals," Mejía-Rabell says. "My perception is that sometimes people take the concept of inclusion very lightly; like with a Band-Aid approach. I'm not saying that every time it's malicious, but I think it's taken for granted, like a quota they gotta meet: 'Let me throw in a Latino act. Or let me throw some color in there.'

"This is not something you can fake. With those who [approach] it with a clear intention and respect — mindfully and with integrity — you get to see a different outcome; a different kind of investment."

The lesson for mainstream curators: Develop trust and relevancy with the Latinx concert-goer.

"You have to make an insightful investment in building relationships with content creators, with programmers, with artists and planners to curate experiences" Mejía-Rabell says. "Never compromise the integrity and what needs to happen to meet that criteria [for Latinx audiences]."

It's a lesson that has seemingly been learned and applied in Chicago, where Ruido Fest was developed outside the Latino community. It's a partnership between Chicago-based production company Metronome Chicago, corporate event producers StarEvents, who organize the once-grassroots punk-rock enterprise Riot Fest, along with Eduardo Calvillo, a Latin alternative promoter and the founder of the Chicago radio show Sin Anestesia.

The June festival, now in its fourth year, features top Latin alternative acts and a new focus on developing stronger local talent. Metronome Chicago owner Max Wagner says its debut attracted some 25,000 thousand festival-goers over three days to the heavily Mexican American community of Pilsen. He says the next year drew 30,000 and then 35,000 last year, with a projected increase of 10% for 2018.

"You're smart to work with people who live and breathe that art," says Wagner, who works with Calvillo to curate the line-up.

"Latin Americans are no different than other Americans. They have broad interests in tastes in music and culture. Sometimes they have a connection to Spanish and sometimes they don't .... It's important to have the fan's perspective. We want to be relevant and important and a cultural touchstone for our niche audience," Wagner says. He adds that "a burgeoning local scene should, in the long run, help to create more opportunities for those same artists in mainstream venues."

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, Viva! Pomona, held in August, is becoming a destination for emerging Latinx artists. The bilingual festival was founded by skateboarder Rene Contreras seven years ago in association with local nightclub The Glass House. It began with Contreras' desire to "bring people to the burbs" with punk bands and no budget and quickly blossomed into an international multi-genre Latin music exchange that "graduates" bands into the indie market.

Contreras says he launched it on a cover charge basis. "It started off with 14 local bands in three stages and took over the block in downtown Pomona. Like 400 people showed up." By the second year talent bookers and artists were contacting him. "Some bands offered to come on their own dime with only a guarantee to play – just to have that platform." Since then City Hall has allowed him to use its main stage, and the festival has doubled in size. One turning point he describes seeing is "when the opener would move up on the lineup; like an ecosystem to headline the show."

Contreras curates the show, books the bands, and markets everything. "The biggest challenge is the process," he says. "It's like a triathalon."

Contreras was doing such a good job at curation that two years ago the mega-mainstream summer festival Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took notice of his upstart festival in Pomona and hired him to help them reach out to Latin musicians. They also decided to create a mini festival in April called Chella featuring four Latin music bands for the local Indio, Calif. community. It drew 4,000 people, "primarily Latino and largely farmworkers ... from grandmothers to kids."

"If done right, Latin music in major festivals is a must and it's important to the U.S. and the world," he says.

The five days of panels, workshops, networking and deal-making attracts thousands of industry people, bands from the U.S. and throughout the Spanish-speaking world as well as international media.

There are also numerous concerts and performances that feature hundreds of Latin alternative artists around Manhattan's clubs and theaters, plus major concerts in Brooklyn in conjunction with summer-long Celebrate Brooklyn concert series and SummerStage in Central Park.

Two years ago, the LAMC, Nacional Records and Cookman's management company came under the umbrella of Industria Works, an artist development partnership. Industria Works General Manager Jennifer Sarkissian, who oversees LAMC now, says it takes time build a presence. She helped put together the first Supersónico festival in Los Angeles a few years ago. "It sold out, so we did it again and it sold out again, so we'll be bringing it back this [fall]. It's exciting to see more Latin-focused fests around the country. And I think LAMC helped pave the way for that."

Sarkissian says she'd also "like to see major festivals featuring more lineups with Anglo and Latin artists side-by-side."

Among major mainstream festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) is the only festival that has been significantly increasing it's Latin music presence. Thanks to Latinx curator Alicia Zertuche, it kicked off the festival season this year featuring some 200 Latin music artists — its largest booking yet — out of some 2,000 artists overall.

"The audience is there for that," Sarkissian says. "The time is right. That's the world we live in now."

So, until those bigger stages become more diverse, these festivals offer lots of music for long time fans and adventurous new comers as well.

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