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saphirered · 3 years

Text

The Lovers

Spoilers for Campaign 2 Ep141

Man oh man oh man. I've had this one written since the day after the last episode but I've been soooooo hesitant to post it at all 🙈. Anyway... I'm just gonna regardless because it's just sitting there staring at me to either delete or post it 🤭. I hope you enjoy because I'm still so conflicted about his piece of writing 😅. Unless people actually like it I might just end up deleting it after all.

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Jester had asked you to come along on another journey of the Nein Heroez. She needed your expertise for something but couldn’t get across what for within the twenty-five word limit. Regardless, the opportunity to see and travel with your friends is not one you’re just going to pass on so of course you happily made your way to Nicodranas. Maybe the ocean would do you some good. It’s been a while after all.

In the first few days of your journey Jester had been keeping a close eye on you, watching your responses and reactions. Specifically your reactions to any and all interactions with a certain lavender tiefling. When she was certain your responses to the tiefling in question were not in any way negative and cordial if not friendly you found yourself being paired with him more often than not. Watch, hoisting the sails or dropping them, food shifts and even at the helm a few times.

You caught an argument between Fjord and Jester a few weeks later. Fjord was defending you and telling Jester she couldn’t just play matchmaker after everything that had happened between the previous inhabiter of Kingsley’s body and you and how it might still be a painful subject of not once but twice being faced with someone that’s not the person you loved and lost.

Jester seeing reason in Fjord’s arguments put aside the love story she’d been trying to unfold with you and the poor tiefling as her main characters. The shifts you shared with Kingsley came to a close and would be no more often than any shifts shared with anyone else on the crew.

One day the Nein Heroez made port to stock up on some supplies after being hit by a storm and running short on food. The crew was given some downtime to enjoy the many pleasures port has to offer but you decided to stay back at the ship. You asked Jester for the cards.

You’re sitting crosslegged on the docks watching the sunset as the crew leaves in groups bidding you goodbye while they go. Once the majority of them have left you take out the cards and begin laying them in certain patterns starting with simple ‘yes/no’s onto the past present future and more complicated readings. You’re not paying attention to any particular results but instead study the drawings fondly.

“You’d call me a sentimental fool.” You snicker as the fool card is revealed in front of you.

“Sentimental? Yes. A fool? I’ve yet to decide.” You turn around at the familiar voice seeing the tails of the black sleeveless coat you’ve grown accustomed to seeing around. You pick up the cards and put them back in their order stacking them.

“Oh really? You’d think a few weeks of being not so inconspicuously paired together on any task possible would give you enough time to form an opinion on that?” You tease beginning a new read.

“Maybe that makes me the fool then.” You can almost hear the smirk in his words.

“Care to find out?” You put down card by card face down. You know how to push for certain results. A trick you’d picked up from your former lover. It feels right to use it against him in a strange twisted way like this. Not really him but close enough.

Kingsley sits down to the side, not trusting you to not push him off the docks if he were to make an offensive (in jest of course) remark. Gathering the cards back up you start over. Time for a bit of fun. You push for the first card setting it down face up in front of him.

“The owl and the bear. Some might say the most deadly combination when put together. Be watchful of the owl’s words or you might find yourself at the ends of the bear’s claws.”

“So it was a good idea to sit on this side and avoid meeting my waterlogged demise.”

“Are you doubting my capabilities, Kingsley?” You smirk and watch the tiefling gulp. You move on to the next card making a show of pulling it from the deck and displaying it.

“Look at that! What did I say. The fool has appeared. The cards have spoken. my fool.” You take a bow as if addressing the most pretentious royalty around limited only by your crosslegged position on the docks. Kingsley can’t help but let out a chuckle at your theatrics.

“The cards have spoken indeed! A fool I must be.” He plays along. You begin picking up the two cards and restack the deck.

“Hey hey hey, isn’t there supposed to be three cards for this one? Not two?” You stop. He’s not wrong technically. You raise an eyebrow at him, fan out the cards and allow him to pull one from the deck as per the variant of this reading, putting the fate in the hands of the drawer. Not really of course. Usually you’d still be able to push for a card for them to draw but for this one you’d leave it up to the divines. You’ve had your fun.

And fun it was until Kingsley kept the card for himself, studying it closely. You were curious to see which one he pulled but you hadn’t exactly paid attention to that like you’d otherwise done. You wait for him to either give it back or tell you what it is but he takes a long time.

“So what is it?” You ask, your curiosity getting the better of you. It still takes a good few seconds before he lowers the card so you can see it too.

“Oh.” Is all you manage to vocalise upon seeing the card. The Lovers. The familiar drawing of a lavender tiefling looking at another figure arm outstretched and love in their eyes. The image of the tiefling reaches for the outstretched hand of the other figure; your figure. You’re staring back at your own face and the expression Mollymauk had claimed to have plenty of visual references for to know he could properly draw you but would always ask for one more just to remind him.

“I’m so sorry.” Kingsley hands the card back to you and you keep staring at it. He stays for a little bit to make sure you’re alright as you’re hit with a whirlwind of emotions. Once he’s sure you’re alright he begins to get up.

“I’ll leave you to the rest of your evening. Someone’s gotta make sure these fools drink just enough and start a brawl or two.” You snap out of it putting the card back into the deck.

“Kingsley. It’s alright. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” The whirlwind subsides and you return back to a peaceful state of mind. You offer the tiefling a kind smile and he halts himself sitting back down still somewhat tense. He opens his mouth to say something but is quick to close it again. There’s a moment of silence between the two of you as you shuffle the cards absentmindedly. You catch onto the conflict and hesitation in Kingsley’s features.

“If there’s something you wish to say please do say it.”

“When you said you loved him… I think it never registered it was anything other than the love the others held for him. Strongly yes but I always assumed it was akin to Yasha’s. Why didn’t you say anything?” Kingsley states piecing things together watching you closely.

“It’s not a burden for you to bear.” You pull the Lovers card back up to the top and study it closely.

“I might not know much but I don’t think being faced with your dead lover’s body inhabited by someone not him doesn’t bother anyone. That’s just cruel.”

“It doesn’t bother me. Not anymore. I’ve grieved Molly when he died. I grieved him again when Lucien returned. I’ve gone through it all and accepted he’s not coming back and that’s okay. Everything comes to an end at some point. I don’t think it’s cruelty. I think everything is as it should be.” You speak honestly stroking your thumb over the card.

“I have so many questions.” Kingsley states. You get it. He woke up one day, recovering from death not knowing who he is or was before that moment beyond emotions and flashes of a past that didn’t feel like his. That’s exactly why you wanted to spare him another previous relation to figure out. Yes it might make things slightly more difficult for you but that’s not his fault. That’s no one’s fault.

“And I believe Beau gave you her notebook so you can read back about your predecessors. But you’re not ready for that yet, are you? That’s okay. Don’t read it until you feel ready.” Kingsley’s head shoots up to look at you. Why do you understand him? Maybe you’re wiser than he gives you credit for but he thinks you’re already pretty wise.

“Expectations. Everyone expected something of me but I didn’t live up to it. I’m not who he used to be and that disappoints people. But from you, you never expected anything from me. Why?” He’s piecing it together bit by bit. You never slipped up. Never asked him to put on a coat that wasn’t his or asked him if he remembered something. You never even asked him if he recalled anything about you or sought to involve yourself in his life without his permission.

“It’s unfair to expect someone to be or become someone they’re not and never will be. You get to be your own person free of the constraints of the past.” The answer is simple. There’s no deceit or doubt. No hidden message or intent behind it.

“How is it you of all people can say that without pain or regret or wishing it were different?” You turn the card back around and put it back in the deck in its place and put the cards away. You take a second before answering trying to formulate a proper answer as Kingsley waits studying every micro expression.

“Bear with me for this one.” You start and he nods. “Lucien was born lonely forced to fend for himself and make friends out of the need to survive. Molly rose from a grave alone and scared. He was taken in by friends but he had to find a home his home with them. He found that home and got kindness and love. You awoke surrounded by friends, no family you didn’t even know but would still love you regardless. No matter what, you’d always have a home with them. You’d be neither alone nor lonely unless you choose to be.” You explain and take breath before you continue.

“You plant random seeds in the ground it’s very unlikely you’re going to receive the same flower twice. The only similarity they have is that they are seeds and will grow as long as they have the right foundations to do so. When I look upon you I see Kingsley Tealeaf, a man that became a sailor after we brought him back from the Astral Sea. There may be similarities, your roots may even be the same but you are not the same. You are separate.”

Kingsley takes in your words very carefully with a sense of understanding and something with in him he couldn't quite pinpoint until now. Acceptance and content. Whatever might have been holding him back before, he’ll have to come to terms with that. That’s the past and if the past comes searching for him one day, so be it. Until then, Kingsley Tealeaf has a life of his own to live and to enjoy. Enjoy all life has to offer, to its fullest and don’t hold back.

Let the sailor become captain of his own ship knowing he has a home and a family that will welcome him with open arms to return to. Let the eight be nine despite the expectations of others. Be free and be happy. Live content.

#critical role spoilers #critical role #critrole x reader #critical role x reader #mighty nein x reader #mighty nein #kingsley tealeaf #kingsley x reader

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crystaljins · 4 years

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Equinox

Characters: Jimin x Reader

Word count: 7.2K

Synopsis: When it first was announced that the King of Spring was to marry the Queen of Winter, shock and outrage poured across the nation. Now, six months later, Jimin can’t help but feel maybe the Queen of Winter isn’t as evil as she seems.

King of spring!Jimin x Queen of Winter!reader

Notes: This is NOT the huge fic I’m working on LOL. It’s a drabble that turned into a BIG drabble, in dedication to my good friend, who wanted to see a fic where both main characters are royalty.

Well, here we are.

Warnings: Not really any? Pining, maybe, mentions of death and tragedy, and maybe one big kiss?

Jimin has spent an entire three months of the year in the Central Palace every year since his coronation as the King of Spring. Yet, despite his familiarity with the luxurious building, this year it feels particularly unbearable.

It isn’t the palace itself that is unbearable. After all, the Central Palace fulfils any need he could have for luxury and then some, with expansive grounds and an imposing throne room and a ball room that many have only dreamed of seeing. It almost reaches the point where he’s sick of it sometimes- the gold rimmed pillars and the intricate carvings of the stairwell railings and the other numerous unnecessary and excessively decadent detailing.

It’s just... He much prefers his small cottage and the lovely little orchard he looks after. Sometimes children from the local village will sneak in and steal fruit but he merely smiles privately to himself when he hears the peals of laughter filter through the open windows of his home. And ever since he received a letter a week ago informing him that you had made his cottage your current abode, he has been inexplicably eager to return home.

The end of his current stay (which has actually been a six month stay this time around instead of the usual three) draws near, with Spring just on the precipice of Summer. As the reigning King of Spring, it is his duty to oversee the entire kingdom during the season where his powers are strongest, to manage the season and ensure his people prosper, and then prepare the way for the Queen of Summer to take his place for the next three months.

Today is one of the days where his duty feels particularly tedious- he has never particularly minded Haeun and her chatty nature, but today she just seems absolutely asinine. Perhaps it is the fact that she seems uninterested in discussing anything aside from the current status of the Queen of Winter when there are so many more important things to discuss, like the crop maturation this year and how much sunlight would best benefit their ripening, or even the Equinox Ball tonight which marks the official changeover between his season and her’s. Instead, the only words that have been coming out of her mouth are with regards to you, and him, and your fairly recent wedding.

When he had been wedded to you on the Winter Solstice, many had been shocked, but none more so than the Queen of Summer. After all, for the last few hundred years, the one who bears the crown of Summer had always been betrothed to the ruler of Spring. It was only natural, as Spring prepares the way for Summer, and such a pairing enhances the powers of both parties. The kingdom had faced many centuries of prosperity thanks to what was essentially a match forged in the heavens. No doubt in Haeun’s mind, her rightful place was as his bride. And Jimin can’t blame her- for many years, he had thought the same thing. He had assumed his life would follow a similar path to those of his predecessors and that he would inevitably end up marrying Summer. And yet, here he is, married to the evasive, mysterious, and apparently cruel Queen of Winter.

It had been the Elders to make the call to arrange such a shocking match up. To have the Queen of Winter marry the King of Spring was unheard of- ridiculous, even. But you were unlike the rulers that had gone before you- your powers were endless, unstoppable, and the Winters brought by you were unforgiving and cold, and many lost their lives. Something had to be done- your powers had to be balanced since you couldn’t seem to reign them in. And since it has always been Spring to conquer the cold aftereffects of Winter, to warm the earth and coax life back into places where frost had chased it away, it fell to Jimin to take the place as your husband and to prevent disaster striking the Kingdom. A duty which he had taken up with a resigned sense of obligation.

At least at first.

“So are the rumours all true about her?” Haeun enquires. Her question seems innocent enough. For whatever reason, you had always remained frustrating allusive to the others. Locked away in your wintry fortress (or at least, everyone assumes that’s where you must be despite the fact that no one has ever confirmed the presence of a fortress within your domain), everyone reports that you must be ruthless and cold-hearted. Perhaps even evil- after all, when you are seated upon the throne, the harshest and most brutal Winters ever seen in history terrorise the lands.

But the question has Jimin on edge, for he has found that you do not fit nicely into the box of icy and cruel that he had thought you would.

“I would say those rumours do not hold an ounce of truth to them.” Jimin offers mildly, pausing from where he strolls along Haeun to observe a rose bloom that has begun to wilt. Normally, the palace gardens are impeccable, and the gardens thrive during Jimin’s reign, but things always seem to get a bit messy at the transition between seasons. This particular bloom must be the victim of his and Haeun’s powers clashing as she prepared to take the throne for her season. He gently runs his fingers over the drooping petals and instantly the rose brightens, petals curling upwards as it finds new life in response to his presence. It reminds him of the first time you had borne witness to the effect of his powers and the quiet awe on your face. Not for the first time since Spring began, he feels a strange ache in his chest at the thought of you. You’re at his cottage right now, surely. What kind of expression are you wearing as you gaze upon his carefully kept orchard?

“Really? She’s always so haughty at the Equinox ball that I was sure she thought she was better than us. Just because her powers are stronger- does she not know that people die because of her?” Haeun sniffs, clearly displeased by the way Jimin has not joined in her obvious attempts to complain about you.

“I think she is aware of it.” Is all Jimin offers to Haeun, but internally he recalls the way you lock yourself in your quarters for the night whenever word reaches you that another innocent has died at the cold hands of Winter, and the way you spend most of your free time pouring over books and texts trying to learn how you might control your powers and soften your Winters. Haeun makes an annoyed scoff and folds her arms across her chest.

“Being aware of it isn’t enough, Jimin.” She says, and Jimin does not miss the way she uses his name when it is customary to call him by his season. “She needs to control it. We all do! It is the whole reason we take the throne. What use is she, if she cannot manage her own season? If I had were Winter, I would-“

“Haeun.” Jimin says firmly, and her eyes widen because even though she often takes liberties and calls him by his name, he has always been respectful and referred to her as Summer when it comes to the transition meetings between seasons. “It is not my place to discuss the personal life of Winter. And as her husband, I respectfully ask that you do not speak so liberally about my wife again. Unless you have anything further to discuss about the Equinox Ball tonight or about the occurrences during my season, I’ll be taking my leave now.”

He bows deeply, demonstrating the respect her position demands, before turning on his heel.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” She calls out. Jimin pauses, glancing over his shoulder. The sun peeking through the pillars of the pathway catches Haeun’s hair and highlights the softness of her features. Across the land, she is known as the sunlit beauty- warm and gentle and pretty, like the Summer season she reigns over. When he was young and still a prince and everyone had thought she was his future wife, he had even harboured a crush on her. “That you’re stuck with her? All she brings is coldness and death. You were forced into it- I know you were! Doesn’t it hurt to be wedded to her?”

The unspoken sentiment that Haeun does not voice is “when you could have been with me”. Looking at her now, perhaps her sudden interest in you has more to do with Jimin than any real sentiment towards your actions.

And perhaps, Haeun’s words are closer to the truth then he wants them to be. Initially, it had bothered him. Why had the Elders had forced him to marry you? Was there not an easier way to subdue your immense powers? Why could you not just... control them? Even Autumn, free-spirited and lazy as he was, kept his season well-managed. And why did it fall to Jimin to fix something that was your own fault? Haeun was a much better match for him in terms of strengthening his powers, and he absolutely loathed the season of Winter- marrying the ruler of his least favourite season is certainly not something he had ever imagined doing.

He had spent the first three months of his marriage staying with you in the Central Palace fuelled by that sentiment and at first you had made yourself very scarce. It had suited Jimin just fine- after all, he did not bear any particular affection towards you- perhaps he even detested you a little, and if the rumours were to be believed, he’d be better off interacting with you as little as possible.

And then things had changed, for whatever reason. He can’t be sure what prompted you to do it, but one morning you had been sitting across from him in the dining quarters, enjoying your breakfast in silence as had become customary for the two of you, when you had decided to speak.

“Winter isn’t as bad as you think.” You had said softly, taking a long sip of your drink, before fixing Jimin with a level gaze. He had glanced up in surprise- at that stage he could probably count on one hand the number of times you had spoken in his presence.

“I never-“ Jimin had begun, ready to defend himself but you had cut him off.

“You didn’t have to.” You had said, though your tone had not been unkind. You actually have a very sweet voice, one that contrasts with your icy reputation. “But, today I have nothing scheduled, and I wouldn’t mind showing you a few things. It must be better than wondering aimlessly around the palace.”

Against his better judgement, perhaps, Jimin had accepted. Whatever his feelings were towards you, he was sick of wondering aimlessly. He missed his little cottage and he was beginning to grow sick of the giant, draft-y Central Palace. Any change to the lethargic rhythm of his days, even if it meant spending the day with you, was a welcome one.

And you were right. Wintertime is more than coldness and death. As the ruler of Spring, he had always thought of it as such- after all, it has always been his duty to remedy the devastation left behind by Winter. But Winter is also a time of festivities- of huddling in the warmth of a fire along side your family. Its catching snowflakes on your tongue and children laughing as they skate over frozen lakes and form little ice sculptures from snow. He hadn’t known it until he spent those three months with you. And after that first day where you had taken him out to a frozen lake close to the palace and shown him how to ice skate, spending time with you had become more of a regular occurrence.

Which brings him to today.

“I’m not stuck with her.” Is what Jimin finally says to Haeun, who deflates, just slightly. He does not explain any further- he’s not sure he can. He certainly doesn’t feel the burden of obligation that had weighted his every step when he first married you. He perhaps even misses you, after three months of separation. It’s all a little scary and confusing but all he knows for sure is that being married to you is no longer the offensive chore he initially viewed it as.

This time when Jimin turns away, she does not stop him. He is relieved- he is sick of hearing Haeun speak so disrespectfully about you. He’s sick of the way servants whisper in the halls when you walk past. He’s sick of the way travellers tell stories of evil Winter, who takes lives for fun and revels in the cruelty of her blizzards. He doesn’t know why, given that it has only been six months since he married you, and three whole months since he even last saw you in person, but he feels a strange protectiveness towards you. Just the thought of those whispers when he knows of you, curled up beneath the security of a warm blanket on the hearth, with the fire’s glow highlighting your features, still studying away even after a full days’ worth of royal duties so that you can learn to control your powers makes his heart ache. He wishes, just once, that he had been brave enough to curl up beside you and to listen to the steady sound of your breathing, the rhythmic turn of a page, the crackle of the fire’s warmth. Or brave enough to hush the terrible whispers. Anything to wipe that expression you get on your face when you know people are thinking unpleasant things about you. That guarded, reserved expression that he knows is concealing a broken heart.

“My Lord!” Jimin hears a voice call, and he almost curses. He wants nothing more than to return to his quarters and begin packing up. It has now been six months since he has been in his actual home, and when he received that letter from you a week ago informing him that you had taken up residence in his home, he had only been more eager to return. He wants to know what his home looks like with you in it. He wants to know what you look like in the brightness of Summer, away from the grief and cold of Winter. He wants to see you again to the point it is almost alarming. “My Lord!” The voice calls again, and one of the servants skids to a stop before Jimin. It is Namjoon. Jimin recalls his name because Namjoon is one of the few servants you are rather fond of.

“Hello, Namjoon.” Jimin greets warmly, and Namjoon looks surprised and delighted at the sound of his name. “How can I be of service?”

Namjoon is slightly out of breath, and he reaches for the pocket of his trousers, fishing around until he produce a single crumpled piece of paper.

“It is a letter from Winter.” Namjoon says. “She asked me to relay to you that she will not be attending the Equinox Ball and that she shall see you tomorrow at the your domain.”

Jimin’s eyes widen and he quickly snatches the paper from Namjoon’s hand. He does not mean to be quite so aggressive with his movements, but he is shaken at the way you have abruptly cancelled. Without even realising it, he had hyped himself up at the thought of seeing you again after a long three months.

It’s a lengthy apology, neatly written and well-articulated. It basically gives an entire, eloquent list of flimsy excuses as to why you should not attend.

But Jimin sees straight through it. Perhaps in the past, he would have let it be. Let you sit at home and then awkwardly greet you in his cottage the next morning. But now that he knows the way your expression shutters when people mutter rude things under their breath about you, now that he knows the way you lie awake at night, haunted by grief and guilt, he knows that you are running away. After all, the whispers had only gotten worse after your marriage- the Evil Queen of Winter shackling the charming and kind King of Spring is certainly quite the tale to set tongues wagging.

And while Jimin hates the thought of you spending an evening in discomfort when there are about a thousand better ways for you to spend your time, he hates the thought of people thinking of his marriage to you as a tragic event even more. He wants to stroll into the ballroom with your hand in his, to proudly show off that he is not some tragic heroine trapped in a loveless marriage to an evil overlord. He wants people to see you, your kindness and your sweetness. He wants people to realise that Winter can be even warmer than Summer sometimes, in the right circumstances.

“Is she currently in my domain?” Jimin asks softly, but he knows from the floral, woodsy scent of the paper that it was written in his home. Namjoon hesitates before offering an awkward nod.

“I believe so.” He admits. “The messenger who brought the letter was one of the keepers of your orchard.”

Jimin nods, tonguing thoughtfully at the inside of his cheek. A well-cared for horse would allow him to reach his home within a couple of hours. He keeps his own horses at the cottage who would be able to take the two of you back in time for nightfall. He is to give a speech at the Ball and that will be his last official duty until next year. And for whatever reason, he does not want to give the speech if you are not there, amongst the crowd. It’s still possible if he leaves now.

“Ready a horse for me, Namjoon,” Jimin finally says, shoving the letter into the pocket of his trousers. He’ll have to change into gear more appropriate for a long ride.

“But, my liege, the ball-“ Namjoon protests.

“I’ll be there.” Jimin reassures him, though his expression is grim. “And so will my wife.”

Namjoon doesn’t need to be told twice.

Jimin has really, truly missed his home. Nothing quite compares to it. When they had first identified him as heir to the throne of Spring, the Elders had initially planned for him to stay in the castle inhabited by his predecessors. After all, since he did in theory bear their spirit, the castle should technically be to his tastes.

But he guess he differs to his previous incarnations, since he only lasted a few weeks before he moved into the cottage his parents owned close to the castle. It’s not unusual for tastes to change like that with different incarnations of Spring- though he feels that he can recall their previous lifetimes if he thinks very hard about it, they are different people and incarnations. The only traits he shares with those who had gone before is his power over the season of Spring.

Perhaps that is why, despite the fact that previous Springs have deeply loved Summer, he cannot stop thinking about Winter. Especially as the edge of the orchard draws into view.

Oddly, you aren’t in the cottage when he enters. There’s evidence that you’ve been staying there- some of your books are scattered over his work desk and the gardening implements around the back of the cottage are shifted around as if someone has been sorting through them. But it does not take long to locate you deep in the orchard, crouched beneath the orange tree. You don’t seem to have registered his presence yet given that you continue to mutter to yourself as you stab aggressively at the soil with a tiny hand shovel he recognises from the implements he keeps around the back of his cottage.

He’s about to confront you, but the sight of you, crouched down and wearing oversized trousers and an ugly, soil covered shirt he recognises from the very back of his wardrobe, has him completely frozen. It’s hard to explain the emotion- a powerful, roaring wave crashing down on the peaceful shorelines of his heart.

“(Y/N),” your name comes in a exhale of his breath, one that’s not entirely voluntary. It’s his mistake though, because you were absolutely not anticipating his presence, and you leap about a metre in the air in your shock.

Stumbling back a few steps in a sort of awkward crab walk, revealing your handy work. A small hole you had been digging and a handful of withered, lifeless daffodils.

“J-Jimin,” you stutter, and your accidental use of his name when you had previously only referred to him as Spring has his heart racing in his chest for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. “T-this isn’t what it looks like!” You cry. “I was just...”

It takes a moment, but Jimin manages to shake himself out of the trance long enough to realise that the withered and lifeless daffodils just so happen to be his favourite flowers from

his front garden. Immediately, whatever mysterious emotion that had overcome him prior is replaced by abject horror.

“My daffodils!” He cries, stricken with grief. And they had been so young, as well! Such lovely, bright blooms, withered and dried up! Abruptly, you scramble to your feet and dust the soil from your hands and knees, scrambling towards him.

“I was just trying to water them!” You cry, hands outstretched in an attempt to calm him in his distress. “I don’t have any flowers in my domain since the ground is not very fertile and I was just trying to tend to them!”

“They’re dead!” Jimin points out. “How much did you water them?”

You pause, shrinking under his gaze, before holding up ten fingers.

“Ten?” Jimin asks, and you nod. “Ten what?”

You mumble something he doesn’t quite catch. He steps closer in an attempt to decipher your sheepish mumblings.

“What?” Jimin asks, and you sigh before fixing him with a steady glare.

“Ten buckets!” You cry. “I asked your gardener and she told me that these are fickle plants that require constant moisture!”

“So you watered them with ten buckets of water? You drowned my daffodils!” He cries. You deflate, just slightly, glancing forlornly at the fallen remains of his beloved babies. He’d so carefully tended to them as well! They were just reaching the point where he could lift the buds and replant them. There’s a nice sunny spot at the back of the orchard that they would have thrived in, and now... and now...

“I’m sorry for your loss.” You finally offer, stepping forward to comfortingly pat at his shoulder. “They lived a good life, under your care,” you continue. “And once you finish off your duties at the Equinox Ball tonight I’m sure you can...” You trail away slowly, and the hand stroking his shoulder slows its pats. And then you gasp in horror when you register that Jimin is here, in his orchard, grieving over some dead daffodils instead of finalising preparations for the Equinox Ball. “Jimin!” You cry. “The Ball! How can you be here? You’re supposed to be preparing for the Ball.”

“Well,” Jimin snaps, perhaps a bit more grumpy than the situation really warranted, but you also killed his lovely daffodils. “I am supposed to be there, but my lovely wife decided she’d much rather kill my daffodils and hide the evidence instead of attend the Ball as is her duty!”

You flush, a shade that he can’t help notice is a rather endearing shade despite everything. Dimly, he recalls that overwhelming feeling he’d experienced when he first saw you earlier, but he pushes it down. There are more pressing matters to attend to- his daffodils can be given a proper burial later.

“Yes, well, as you read in my letter, I thought it would be far better for me to-“ you begin, clearing your throat awkwardly as you often do before giving a formal address. It only irks him further that you’re placating him as if he’s a random parliament member who needs coddling or a foreign emissary you have to charm. He’s your husband and he’s sick of people- you included- pretending otherwise.

“You’re running away.” He offers quietly, and your eyes widen. Perhaps you had been expecting him to dance around the bushes. After all, three months ago during Winter, though you had grown undeniably closer, there had always been the feeling of treading on eggshells around each other. Like neither of you really knew how to react together. But a lot has changed, in three months. Jimin has had three months to overthink and to pretend he doesn’t know the name for the feelings of longing he can’t shake off and to deny that he misses you and now that you’re finally here in front of him, he does not want to waste another second.

That crashing, roaring wave in his heart will not quieten, and finally he gives it a platform to pour out.

“You’re scared. I get that. You don’t know what you’re feeling and everyone and their mother seems to have an opinion on our marriage and maybe you think it will be easier if you stay out of the public eye,” Jimin tells you urgently. He steps forward as if he is approaching a startled deer. “But it won’t be. They won’t ever stop. So why let them dictate what makes you happy?”

You just stare at him, speechless, and he takes your silence as permission to step a little closer. Every movement he makes is slow and steady- you have to option to pull away at any moment. He stretches out a hand, wraps his fingers around yours and then raises your hand slowly towards his heart, letting you rest your palm flat against the thrumming rhythm.

“I missed you.” They aren’t the words he intended to say. He’s not even entirely sure what words he had planned to convince you to come with him. But those words are the ones that burst forth. He can’t hold back anymore. He feels like he’s spent three whole months trying to prevent a volcano from erupting, and he’s exhausted. He can’t hold back anymore, he can’t keep up the facade that he’s ok, when you took his heart with you when you agreed to move out of the Central Palace at the request of the Elders three months ago. “I want you to be at the Ball with me. If we leave now, we can make it. Please- do this with me.” He begs.

He’s met with silence. The longer it stretches out, the more dread slowly filters into his heart. It takes him a long few moments, but when he finally gains the courage to gaze upon your expression, his heart drops into his feet.

Tears pour over your cheeks. You’re normally so put-together, but with your guard down in his absence, dirt smidges your cheeks and the sun gilds your skin. You’re so heart achingly beautiful. It’s like the sensation of stone giving way, the way he feels a crevice form in his heart at the sight.

“Jimin,” you finally say, and your voice is barely above a whisper. “We can’t...”

You trail away, but it’s enough. He feels a bit like you’ve slapped him. He’d thought... he’d thought it had been the both of you struggling in your separation, but it seems it was only him. He’s a fool- how could be have ever thought he was strong enough to thaw the frozen heart of Winter?

“Right.” He says, humiliated by the way his voice cracks. “Well. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Duty calls.”

He turns on his heel so that you can’t see the way tears sting at the back of his eyes.

You don’t stop him as he leaves.

The Queen of Winter is a dignified woman. Tucked far away in her fortress, the common folk speculate that she does not have a heart.

For a long time, you’d thought maybe it was true, but this constant ache in your chest is proving otherwise.

“Are you just going to watch him go?” Yoongi, your personal guard, asks lazily. He is reclined in one of the cosy arm chairs in the centre of Jimin’s cottage, munching away at one of the apples he stole from the tree at the front of the cottage. You spare him a glance over your shoulder, before returning your gaze to the cantering horse that moves further and further away with each passing moment.

“What else can I do?” You finally ask, tearing your gaze from the window and settling into the chair opposite Yoongi. Unlike him, you sit neatly, with your knees pressed together and your ankles tucked delicately to the side. Yoongi shrugs, crunching through another mouthful of apple.

“Well you could have said no one was home when Summer knocked on your door last week like I suggested. But no. You had to invite her in and make her tea and let her get under your skin and now here we are, missing the feast of the year so that you can sulk.” He grumbles, crunching a bit more aggressively. Normally, Yoongi is a placid, lethargic sort of guy, but he’s been grumpy ever since Haeun showed up unannounced last week. Well, actually, he’s been like this ever since you received the order from the Elders to vacate the Central Palace in case you disturbed the prosperity of the oncoming Spring. After all, their plan had worked- having Jimin stay with you in the Central Palace had been enough to curb your Winter, but they didn’t want to offset his powers of Spring.

“Yoongi,” you begin tiredly, ready to feed him the same ridiculous lines about your duty and your out of control powers that you’re sick of saying, but he cute you off.

“No.” He snaps, the most forceful he’s ever been with you in perhaps his entire life. “You listen to me.”

You’re too surprised by his aggression to retort, which gives him the opportunity to launch off in a furious tirade.

“You finally had a good thing going for you. Finally someone who didn’t blame you for your Winters, someone who was kind and made you smile for the first time in literal years, and now you want me to sit here and accept that a cantankerous, overheated she-witch has the power to take that way with a couple of weak and not very witty jibes?” He demands. “What happened to the Queen of Winter? The woman who ate hearts for breakfast and drank the blood of her victims as wine?”

“She never existed.” You frown. “I faint when i accidentally kill a mosquito-“

“But you let those rumours circulate. You never tried to correct them because you never gave a damn about the small fry, so why are you letting some over-baked half-wit get to you?” He demands, pointing an accusing, half-eaten apple in your direction.

You are silent as you recall the encounter the previous week. You had just finished penning a letter to Jimin to inform him you were looking forward to meeting with him when he returned to his cottage, when there had been an unexpected banging on the door.

Haeun and you have never had a good relationship. Instinctively, Summer and Winter are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but she’d also always loathed the way your powers ran wild. After your cold, unforgiving Winters, she always had to burn hotter, and more intensely during the Summer to compensate, and it probably took its toll on her. And to add insult to injury, you had married the love of her life at the request of the Elders. The knowledge that you had taken something so important from her had been why you couldn’t just slam the door in her face even though Yoongi had gestured for you to do so just out of her view.

He’s usually right though, since he’s quite gifted at reading people, and he was right that you should have kicked her out then and there. Haeun had nothing but poison to spill forth from her lips.

Logically, you know the things she was saying were said with the intent to hurt you. Jimin had proved his kindness and warmth again and again during the three months you had lived together and it had even started to reach the point where it felt like he was your real husband. Not just an assigned keeper with the legal right to receive your belongings if you one day died. It felt like he actually cared- the way he sat with you on long, cold nights, the secret smiles he offered over breakfast, the way he left tea outside your bedroom door when he knew you had been up late studying.

Jimin had done the impossible, warming the cold, frozen tundra your heart had lived in, and what you long for in return is to be the person who brings warmth to his Winters. Who holds him in the cold. Who rejoices with him in the bright months of Summer. You’d spent the whole of Spring in a joyful, happy cloud, remembering the way your Winter had been gentle and soft for the first time in your whole life.

And then you’d heard what Haeun had to say.

“I’m just concerned.” She had told you, dress in a dainty Summer dress that allowed the warm Spring sun to warm her shoulders. She always wears loud, cheerful colours and on that day she had worn a bright yellow to match the daffodils you had desperately been trying to keep alive. “I’m only saying this because I know you care about him too, and I would want to know this if I were in your shoes.”

Yoongi had been watching the whole exchange with an expression on his face like he’d swallowed a sour lemon and he had rolled his eyes when she’d said that. And yet, you hadn’t been able to approach her words with the same disdain.

“You know how beloved Spring is. For him to be wedded to you is causing a lot of distress within the kingdom! And the things people are saying about him- that he’s bewitched by your enchantments, that he’s weak-willed and unworthy to lead.” She gazes at you with a glare and the hardest part of all this is that she’s telling the truth. She really came here out of a sense of duty to Jimin because she wants you to stop interfering with his life. “Why couldn’t you have just learned to use your powers instead of turning his life upside down like this?”

And hadn’t that been the final nail in the coffin. Even now, a week later, you are still reeling from her words. It had been with a heavy heart you had decided not to make an appearance at the Ball.

But you hadn’t expected this to happen- for it to hurt just as much to refuse Jimin’s request to go with him. Why does it hurt both way? Why is it that if you have him, you ruin his life, but if you reject him, he looks at you like that? Like you’ve betrayed him? Like you’ve set fire to his orchard before his very eyes?

“Because I love him.” You admit to Yoongi. He chokes for a moment, surprised by your admission, before staring at you with wide eyes.

“You what?” He demands, and you offer him a weak smile.

“I love him, Yoongi.” You say again, and Yoongi’s gaze softens because he’s known you since you were a child in the Central Palace for the first time and he’s never seen such warmth in your eyes. You aren’t the Queen of Winter for nothing. “I love him so much I don’t know what to do and I just feel like no matter what choice I make it hurts.”

You hate the way your voice chokes, and Yoongi lifts from his chair, walking over to you to rest a warm hand over your own.

“So if your choices are being hurt and miserable and being hurt and happy, why not choose the path that has at least a little bit of good in it?” Yoongi asks you gently. You stare at him, surprised, and he offers you a grin. “There’s a dress in your wardrobe with your name on it and if we leave now we should make it in time for Spring’s Official Address.” He tells you, straightening and stretching out with a yawn. “Better go get my riding boots.” He sighs.

For a moment, you are frozen at Yoongi’s words, but then slowly a grin splits your face.

He’s right. Both choices hurt- so why not choose the one where you get to be with Jimin?

You gaze out the window at where the Sun is just beginning to sink into late afternoon.

You have a Ball to get to.

Jimin isn’t sure how he’s made it this far into the night. He feels like he’s just hollowly going through the motions and it’s a wonder that no one has picked up that he feels like he’s walking around with a stomach full of glass shards. If he’d known a broken heart hurt this much, he’d have long ago cast aside his heart to save himself the pain.

“Are you excited?” Haeun questions cheerfully. She wears a long, golden dress that shimmers and catches the lights of the chandelier overhead as she moves. Her hair is carefully braided over her left shoulder, leaving her collar bones and delicate throat exposed. Yet the sight of the daffodil flower crown woven into her hair atop her head just seems to mock him.

“I suppose.” He answers, with an empty smile. Haeun beams in response. She’s in an awfully good mood today and it only seems to worsen his own mood. “I’m ready for a nine month break from my duty.”

She offers him a bright laugh, and the two of them are interrupted by a firm clap against Jimin’s shoulder. He winces and turns to find Taehyung beaming at him.

“Hello, brother!” He says cheerfully. “I haven’t seen you since the start of Spring! How is your lovely wife? I was just thinking I should pop over to visit her and then I learned that she wasn’t in her domain. Imagine my surprise when I head that she’s been staying in the Spring domain for the past three months. I trust the marriage is going well?” He questions, with a suggestive waggle of his strong brows.

Jimin is unable to stop his expression from falling. All night, he’s managed to at least keep up a facade that he’s ok, but those words hit just a little bit too hard. He just and quickly slips the false smile back onto his face, but the King of Autumn has always been quick-witted, and he does not miss the devastation on Jimin’s face.

“Jimin?” He asks slowly. Haeun looks a little confused at the slow, careful tone of Taehyung’s voice and at the use of Jimin’s name. “Is everything alright?”

Jimin offers him another hollow smile but he is saved the effort of lying when his advisor comes rushing over.

“My Lord!” Seokjin cries. “It is time for your address! Please hurry to the stage.” He clicks his tongue a few times, corralling Jimin towards the stage.

He supposes it is now or never.

The tradition for the handover of Spring to Summer is fairly straight forward- at the Ball, Jimin is to deliver an address, celebrating the prosperity of Spring and wishing Summer well for her season. It’s usually one of his favourite duties- to gaze upon the faces of his subjects, to know that his words kickstart a weeklong festival where people will dance in the streets and sing with joy at the arrival of their long awaited Summer. But today, he feels as if he is made of wood as he takes the stage.

“I thank you all for coming,” he begins. A simple spell cast upon the stage allows his voice to be amplified so that everyone can hear him. “As you all know, this particular Spring has been a big one for me. I have spent not three, but six whole months in the Central Palace, overseeing the seasons.” He offers a fake cheeky smile. “Safe to say I’m a little homesick.” That earns him a little chuckle for he is infamous for his simple and modest home. “But it has been my most triumphant Spring yet, because I...”

No one is more surprised than him at the way his words seem to fail him.

“Because I...” he tries again, but the words are choked off and the audience starts to murmur in confusion.

He can’t do it- he can’t fake happiness and merriment. Not when you aren’t even here. Not when you had been the source of his happiness for the last six months.

“Because...”

And then the doors to the ballroom swing open and he gazes upon the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

You wear a floor length gown. As is custom, your dress matches your season, shimmering blue with diamonds cast upon it that catch the light and dance like floating snowflakes. You hair falls around your face, flushed with exertion and your eyes are bright, even from across the room.

An eerie hush falls upon the room. No one has ever seen Winter so dishevelled; and yet she is by no means ugly or unappealing. No, in fact, for years after people will sing songs about your beauty this night- how your eyes shine brighter than the stars in the sky and how your smile holds a joy no one had ever thought you capable of.

Slowly, you step towards him. The crowd parts around you, and yet it is like you are the only person in the room. Even if he had wanted to speak, he would have been incoherent. The roaring feeling in his heart is now a tsunami- he’s swept away. He’s in love beyond what he ever thought was capable. He loves you- he loves you!!

“Jimin,” you say, smiling sweetly when you finally stop in front of him. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

And then you kiss him, bold and happy, in front of the entire ballroom and Jimin feels his heart may explode.

There is, of course, much to discuss after your arrival to the Ball. Haeun’s words- your fears and insecurities- Jimin’s own feelings. There is so much to discuss and yet that night, Jimin is only capable of one thing. After his address finishes, he holds you in his arms as the two of you sway in a gentle waltz. He presses a gentle kiss to the crown of your head and he feels you smile into the crook of his neck.

There is so much to say, and so much to do, but the two of you have your whole lives together to discuss it.

#jimin x reader #park jimin x reader #bts fluff #jimin fluff #park jimin scenarios #writing

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catsnkooks · 4 years

Text

Knight in Tested Armor

Commander Wolffe x princess!reader

summary: Separatist attacks and threats against your home planet lead to Jedi Master and General Plo Koon and his famous Wolfpack assisting with guarding the royal palace until the threats have alleviated. Being in close proximity to the clone commander leads you to a new understanding and respect for the sacrifice he and his brothers give to the Republic, as well as a little more.

Everyone says a knight in shining armor will save a princess if she is in need. A knight in shining armor has never had his honor tested. He will not defend you properly. A knight in tested armor has proven his honor, and will not fail you. Not now, and not ever.

word count: 1,675

rating: g for now but rating may change

warnings: mentions of violence, mostly just general introductory stuff

a/n: here’s the first installment of the wolffe series i’ve been talking and teasing for so long!! idk how many chaps there’s gonna be but i hope y’all stick around for the ride!!

taglist: @wille-zarr @readsalot73 @cherieboba @rishi-moon @clonewarslover55 @littlevodika @highlycommendable

here it is on ao3!!

---

Chapter 1

The wind whistled in your ears on the landing pad. You stood beside your mother and father, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Republic battalion who were to be your protectors for the near future. Your hands fisted your dress at your sides, and you glanced nervously at the charred remains of the Separatist flying droid at the other end of the landing pad—one of the many reasons why three Republic LAAT/i gunships were now landing on your planet.

The door to the leading ship opened and out stepped a Kel-Dor in brown Jedi robes followed by a tall man in white and gray plastoid armor. One of the clone troopers, you guessed, the ones you heard about from your friend in Coruscant.

“Good afternoon, Master Jedi,” your father greeted, bowing slightly. You followed his example and bowed respectfully.

“Good afternoon, your majesty,” the Jedi replied, also bowing. His voice was surprisingly deep from behind his mask. “I am Master Plo Koon. This is Commander Wolffe of the 104th Battalion.”

The commander had already taken off his helmet and he snapped to a smart salute. You weren’t sure what you were expecting, but the warm, tanned skin that greeted your eyes was not it. You recognized the features your friend gushed about after a few too many drinks from the clone bar she frequented—high cheekbones, defined jawline, the barest hint of corded muscles, and honey gold eyes. Well, eye, in the case of Commander Wolffe. Your eyes traced the sharp scar that ran through his right eye, his milky white cybernetic staring straight ahead.

“I assure you, your majesty,” Master Koon continued, snapping you out of your thoughts, “no harm will come to you or your family while we are here.”

“Your assurances are warmly welcomed,” your mother said. She linked her arm through your father’s arm. “Let us talk more about this as we show you around.” She turned and motioned for him to follow.

“That would be wonderful.” He gave her a small bow before turning to the commander and giving him a small nod. Commander Wolffe nodded back and turned to the gunships as the rest of his men unloaded.

As Master Koon fell into step beside your parents, you spared one last glance at the clone commander. He stood in front of the lead gunship, talking to another clone with silver hair. He must have felt himself being watched, for he turned around to meet your gaze. Your eyes widened and you quickly ducked your head, trailing behind your parents.

What you failed to see was the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of Wolffe’s lips.

---

You retired to your room after the tour with Master Koon assuring you the first patrol of guards would be ready before dinner. Sure enough, a knock came to your door right as you were finishing getting ready for dinner.

“Tell them to come in, please!” you told your maid as she reached for the control pad of the door.

Two clone troopers entered, holding their helmets at their sides and snapping to a smart salute. You could see their resemblance to their commander, though they had different hairstyles: one with stark silver hair and the other with two stripes of red going down his head.

“Sergent Sinker and Trooper Boost for your guard, your highness,” said the one with silver hair.

You turned to face them and smiled. “Pleased to meet you both. I'm almost done getting ready, but in the meantime, would you like to sit?”

They both looked to the seats that you had gestured to, before turning back to you.

“Thank you, ma’am,” began the silver-haired one again. “However, it is our duty to—.”

The other man interrupted him by jabbing an elbow into his side. “What Sinker means to say,” he said, extending his hand in a formal gesture, “is that it is our duty to serve you and that we would be honored to sit and wait.”

You smiled again at their antics, as the one called Sinker grumbled to the other, Boost. “What’d you do that for?!”

“You can't say no to royalty, vod!”

As your maid finished securing the last of your elegant pins in your hair, you talked to the two troopers assigned to you for the evening rotation. You learned that they referred to each other as their brothers, and that Sinker and Boost were particularly close because they were batch mates. They loved working with their general, Master Plo. Yours was the prettiest planet they had been on so far. And they had been told to keep you away from their newest member, a “shiny,” who had a penchant for getting in trouble around pretty girls.

“And how is Commander Wolffe?” you found yourself asking after a lull in the conversation.

Sinker shrugged and Boost grinned. “He’s not that bad,” Boost said. “He seems like he’s all tough and everythin’, but on the inside, he’s a total softie.” He winked at you. “Why do you ask?”

“I would just like to get to know him better,” you said, willing your heartbeat to return to a normal speed, and hoping he couldn’t see the flush you felt rising to your cheeks. “I would like to know the man who is in charge of keeping me and my family safe.”

This time Sinker elbowed Boost in the side. “He’s a really great commander,” Sinker said in earnest, turning to you. “We’ve been through a lot with him an’ the general, an’ I would do anything if I was by their sides.”

“Then I know we’ll be in good hands,” you said, smiling at the way they both lit up with pride for their commander, their brother.

---

“Darling, would you like to tell Master Plo here about your love for Jedi?”

You groaned and put your face in your hands. Your father liked to tell embarrassing stories to dinner guests, especially this dinner guest. “Father, please.”

“Oh, no, please, I am interested,” Master Plo, as he’d requested you call him, said. Although you could not see much of his face, you could sense his joy in his voice.

“One of your order came to see us,” your father began. “It was quite a time ago. I believe his name was Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Master Plo nodded. “Yes, I remember Qui-Gon mentioning he visited here before he tragically died. And Master Kenobi still talks about his time here during council meetings.”

“Yes, we were so distraught hearing about Master Jinn,” your mother tutted. “But it is nice to know little Obi-Wan still talks about us.”

“How old were you, darling, when they visited?” your father asked you.

You huffed and held your head up with one arm, pouting. “I was five, father.”

“Oh, yes!” your father exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “She was absolutely fascinated by Master Qui-Gon. She probably begged him to do your Force tricks five times a day.”

“Indeed?” Master Plo brought a taloned hand up to where his mouth would be, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

You puffed out your cheeks in indignation. “I still think it’s cool,” you muttered, pushing your remaining food around in your plate. You heard laughter behind you, and you turned around in your seat to find Boost and Sinker laughing at their spots along the wall. You stuck your tongue out at them before your father called your name.

“You may leave now, my dear,” he said.

“Before you tell any more embarrassing stories?” you taunted. However, you stood and walked to his chair, giving him and your mother a kiss on their cheek. “Goodnight, father. I will never see you again.”

Everyone left at the table laughed as you scurried away to your room, a smile stretching across your face. You paused under an archway in the hallway to wait for Boost and Sinker to escort you to your room. However, you only heard one set of footsteps approach you and you turned to face them.

“Oh! Commander Wolffe!” You recognized the gray patterning on his armor and he nodded to you. You felt the flush return to your cheeks. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“I was assigned to your evening guard, your highness.” His voice was much the same as Boost and Sinker, although you thought it was much gruffer. The low growl of his voice sent a shiver down your spine. He motioned in front of you, breaking you out of your trance. “Shall we?”

“Oh, of course.” You turned and walked down the hallway, willing your cheeks to return to their natural shade. The door to your room opened automatically and you took a step inside before turning back around to face him again.

“Have you eaten yet, Commander?” you asked.

“Not yet, your highness,” he replied, standing tall and broad in front of you, his hands behind his back. “I will after my replacement shows up.”

“And when will that be?” you asked again, crossing your arms.

“Sometime in the night,” he replied again.

Your eyebrows shot up. “That is much too long to go without food. Please, go eat something. I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

“I'm afraid I can’t do that, ma’am,” he said. His resolve was much stronger than yours was. “I will be fine until then.” He paused before adding, “I promise.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you promise to eat as soon as your replacement comes?”

Commander Wolffe sighed, but his voice did not show any annoyance. “I promise.”

You held up your hand, pinky extended. “Pinky promise?”

A sound came from behind his helmet, and you swore it was a quiet chuckle. “Pinky promise.” He extended his own pinky and you clasped them together before releasing them.

“Goodnight, Commander,” you said, smiling up at him.

“Goodnight, your highness,” he said, nodding to you respectfully and stepping to the side of your door.

You hoped he was smiling under his helmet.

#star wars #the clone wars fanfiction #commander wolffe #commander wolffe x reader #commander wolffe x fem!reader #royal au #kinda #plo koon #sergeant sinker #clone trooper boost #my writing #i yearn #that's it send tweet #edited already bc i'm a dumbass and forgot to put link to ao3 and read more link

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thefloatingstone · 5 years

Text

Akhenaton “the Alien hybrid” pharaoh according to Ancient Alien theorists

The argument is “WhY dOesS AkHenAtOn lOok DiffreN to OhEr PhaRaOhs? ALIEMS????”

Here’s the answer and its a wild fucking ride, lemme tell you.

Akhenaton was a fucking revolutionary Pharaoh and almost single handedly tried to rewrite ALL of ancient Egypt’s religion during his rule. He;

1: Moved Egypt’s Capital to a new city further down the Nile called Akhenaton after himself which is entirely based on worshiping the singular god, Aten. 2: Established a new religion that saw a singular god called “Aten” rather than an entire pantheon and esentially said “Yeah all those other gods we’ve been worshiping for literally thousands of years? Yeah just throw those out. They’re not canon now” 3: Re-worked how ancient Egyptian art was drawn (and this is the big one) where he was essentially bored with the “Eyptian style” of art and instead urged all HIS depictions in art capture his appearance more accurately to real life. His frescos also, unlike any other pharoah, show him in domestic scenes, spending time with his wife and children in very mundane, every day situations

(an image of Akhenaton with his wife playing with their young children. Akhenaton is shown kissing one of his daughters in fatherly affection)

Akhenaton was not traditionally handsome (probably thanks to hundreds of years of inbreeding thanks to how Ancient Egyptian royalty worked) and did not want to be depicted in a way that wasn’t true to himself. So his image is always shown as gangly with long limbs, slightly over-weight with a belly, elongated features and pronounced lips.

So..... this kind of really REALLY fucking pissed off literally every high ranking priest in all of Egypt because they’re now, to put it plainly, out of a job. Akhenaton’s moving of the capital also severely crippled the religious structure, moving political power away from where most of the greatest temples were, and since the Pharoahs are meant to be living gods on Earth, what does it say when the gods of Earth don’t live in the same city any more?

Akhenaton dies from unknown reasons but most likely the same genetic disease that gave him his appearance (some have obviously suggested assassination but there is no proof of this that’s been found and it remains up for debate) and the priests and historians go about striking his name from history and destroying and defacing artwork depicting him and his new religion.

(whoops)

He is then excluded from the king lists and is referred by later Dynasties as “The Enemy” or “That Criminal” in archival records. When Akhenaton’s mummy was located his sarcophagus and funerary mask were both deliberately destroyed.

You may have heard of his wife, btw. Nefertiti.

You ever wonder why she’s called the most beauiful woman in history? It’s probably because she was one of the few Pharaoh women accurate sculpted to relfect what she really looked like, versus a stock style.

also fun fact, this most famous image of her is an incomplete wooden bust found in the ruins of a sculptors’ workshop, presumeably because she was killed before he could finish it and he was like “aw shit... NOW what do I do with this?”

Now the problem is, the priests can’t just appoint a brand new Pharaoh, because pharoahs are descended from the gods themselves and their blood can’t be mixed with that of mere mortals (which is why Egyptian pharaohs marry their mothers and sisters. To keep their godly blood “pure”). So, the hastily appoint Akhenaton’s son who is 9 years old as the new pharaoh (and of course the child will have advisors to help him rule until he is an adult... of course.)

Problem. Akhenaton’s son’s name is Tutankhaten. “Living Image of Aten” and that just won’t do. So 2 years into his reign (aged 11) his name is changed to Tutankhamun, “Living image of Amun”after the sun god Amun or Amun-Ra. The city of Akhenaton is abandoned and falls into ruin.

All is well and Tutankhamun’s kingdom is ruled by his advisors... until he’s about 18 or 19. Whoops! Now he’s an adult and probably wants to start actually doing his job as the ruler of Egypt.

Oh wait no nevermind. he conveniently died. We’re not sure how exactly because, oh... uhm... it seems there are no surviving records of King Tut’s final days! Whoops!

Ok that’s an over simplification. In truth, thanks to many... many... many.... MANY scans and autopsies, we now now Tut broke his knee recently before he died, had a very aggressive strain of malaria which led to a bone disease and also, due to being inbred as FUCK because of how Pharaohs work, also suffered from mild kyphoscoliosis (a curved spine), pes planus (flat feet), hypophalangism of the right foot (missing bone), bone necrosis of the second and third metatarsal bones of the left foot, and a club foot that was so bad he could not stand unless aided by walking sticks. However the exact cause of death is still unknown but it seems direct assassination is unlikely.

But anyway.

So King Tut dies as does the two stillborn children of his and Akhenaton’s family line reaches an end. It did not end well for Tut’s wife either as she disappears from history after a war which left Egypt defeated and her new husband, Ay the new Pharaoh, with a sudden second wife. After Ay’s death a new Pharaoh comes into power by usurping the throne and has a complete and utter “Stricken from history” campaign against all of Tutankhamun’s family, including father, mother, daughters, wife, half sisters, and all other family members.

King Tut is buried in an unusually small tomb most likely due to his sudden death, that became forgotten and buried.

Fast forward 3,245 years to 1915 and his tomb is discovered by Archaeologists. The tomb is one of the most intact and untouched tombs EVER discovered in the history of all Agyptian Pharoahs, and almost single-handedly caused an absolute obsession with Ancient Egyptian culture and kickstarted what we now call “Egyptology”. A fascination which has never truly died even in modern times today.

.....

Anyway Akhenaton wasn’t an alien.

#History #Akhenaten #Akhenaton #Egyptology #Ancient Aliens #This is that thing I said I wrote last night #Hopefully somebody actually reads it 8'D

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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Circe Invidiosa

Circe Invidiosa has 11 stories at Gossamer, but there are even more X-Files stories at her website. Some of my favs I’ve recced here before, like Make It Worse and Slap a Goatee On Me and Call Me Evil. She also made a bunch of X-Files collage art, including some cover art for fics (hers and others), which you probably saw if you were reading fic back when authors posted fics on their own websites where art could be shared. Big thanks to Circe Invidiosa for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Well, it would surprise me if people did read my fic. As it happens, I don't hear much feedback from my fic these days. Probably because the bulk of it is on Gossamer and my own site rather than AO3. Also, I was never a BNA. I worked a lot behind the scenes – hosting other authors' sites and making fanart and dustjackets. I think that's what I'd be remembered for, if anything.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience?

I miss the collective excitement and discussions we had as groups. When you got in with a group in the XF fandom, you felt like you knew everybody there. Now the fandom feels a little faceless except for the people I still follow from my old groups.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Most of my experience was on Yahoo Groups. I joined Scullyfic while it was still there and then E-muse when it became an e-mail list, which I'm still a part of. I was part of several Yahoo Groups (can't remember all of them now), where I'd post my fic, RealPlayer slideshows (remember those?!), and collages. I never really took part in discourse because I'm shy and don't think anyone cares about my opinions (still don't!). The e-mail address I used for those groups was purged a couple of years ago, so I've lost all those messages.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

My take away is that fanfic made me a better writer, thanks to having some great betas, and it made me a better professional writer for it (my real-life work is writing but not fun writing) because I learned to take criticism.

I also used to make a lot of fanart, collages and dustjackets for fic mostly. My big take away from that was that I really got into graphics and I got super proficient at Photoshop, which helped my own artistic endeavours and photography. I didn't realize how much skill I had developed until I've had to help someone with their graphics or photo editing.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

My mother was watching X-Files before I was and she was raving about it. I don't have a great relationship with my mom, but one thing she was usually right about was TV shows. It's where I got my love of Sci-Fi.

I think the first episode I watched was Ice, which definitely hooked me. As for when the shipping started, I remember we were watching Lazarus, and when Mulder was yelling at Lula (I had to look that up) about hurting the hostage Scully, my mom said, "Oh, he's so in love with her." And I was all, "What?! Pfff." But then I could not stop thinking about it. And then I thought about it way, way too much.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I was in my late 20s, and it was around the end of S7 and I kept thinking about what if these two dumb idiots actually talked one day. And I kept thinking about dialogue in my head about what they'd actually say. The internet was still in its infancy back then, but I'd seen fan sites here and there. So I decided to search around to see if other people were talking about it and thinking about it like I was. I was such a noob I'd never even heard of fanfic. Imagine my delight when I discovered it. I found a few stories and thought, 'Well, I can do that.' And I wrote up my first story, found a place to post it (wasn't Ephemeral the best?), got some kind feedback, found a really nice person (not sure she wants to be named since she used her real name in the fandom back in the day) who encouraged me a lot and directed me to all the e-mail lists and Yahoo Groups that I needed to be on, and then, Bob's your uncle, I wrote more and more.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Periphery. Most of my experience in any fandom is now on Tumblr because that's where my attention span is. Show me pretty pictures and funny stuff. I am old now and don't want to think hard.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Veronica Mars was my next fandom experience. A number of my XF friends got me hooked on VM. The VM fandom was a LOT younger compared to the XF fandom. When I joined the XF fandom, I was the kid compared to most of the other fans who were all goddesses and royalty in my eyes. But in the VM fandom, I was in my 30s and the rest of the fandom were all in their early 20s if not younger. It often showed, so I stayed out of discussions and just posted my fic once I started writing it. I took a new handle (invida) when I started writing VM fic. Just in case these kids felt like my writing sucked, I didn't want it getting back to the XF fandom that I’d branched out and failed spectacularly.

By then fandom experiences had moved over to LiveJournal. I never really got involved in the discourse or the fandom fights. I knew what people were saying and where the schisms were, but I was all about the fanfic and the pretty pictures. Most of my LJ friends just discussed the episodes and posted their fic and that was good with me.

What got me writing fic for VM was Anjou's brilliant VM fic Into the Blue. Seriously, if you love VM S1, read her fic. Just so beautiful.

VM was also where started writing a WIP, which was a wild trip. I wrote a much-loved WIP called Damn, Damn the Circumstance which people still ask me about finishing to this day. Someday…*wistful sighs*

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Scully. She was everything! Lapsed Catholic, degrees in science, skeptic, always trying to work within the rules but still not taking crap. Yeah, she was the best.

Veronica Mars was great until she wasn't. I have a lot of issues with her beyond S2. And don't even talk to me about S4. For me, S1 was the best, I enjoyed the movie, the books were okay, but nothing else happened after that. NOTHING.

And the first character I ever loved was Princess Leia. She was also everything to me growing up. I wanted to be her. I still do.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

Now and then. Not as much as I used to. I sometimes have it on in the background when I'm doing other things. Back before the pandemic, my BFF and I would have get togethers where we would play Scrabble, eat a lot of candy, and binge several XF episodes. I miss doing that. Hopefully, we will get back to that soon.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I am not an active XF fanfic reader right now. I will read any stories my friends put out. Otherwise, I only occasionally read some I come across on Tumblr in my feed, but I am not seeking them out. I will beta for any XF author who asks me as well.

I am reading fic in other fandoms though – Endeavour, Broadchurch, Sherlock…huh, I'm just realizing that's a lot of British stuff. I have been really into British detective series for the last few years.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I used to run an XF fic recommendation site called How Will It End usually with at least one other person (I went through at least 4 partners on that project because I'm a control freak). We'd compile our recs and then I'd post them on my site. We'd also feature authors we really liked and interview them. Not unlike these interviews!

I'm terrible at giving feedback/comments. So I solved that problem by making a rec site. That way I could tell authors I loved their fics by recommending them. I didn't have to comment, I'd just say, 'I'd like to rec your fic'. And then they'd get promotion. Win-win. Back in those days, the fandom would absolutely roast you for promoting your own fic, so to get on a rec site was a big deal. Not that I had a popular rec site or anything. But I think authors really enjoyed being asked.

All that to say I've liked a lot of fics. I can pull up the archives of HWIE and show you all the faves I liked. :)

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Back in the day, E-muse would hold Improv Challenges, where other members would give you a prompt that you had to include in your fic. I was always really proud of the stories I created from those challenges (No Earthly Means and Elephant in the Room if you want to read them).

I enjoyed writing Dead to Rights which is an XF/Dead Like Me crossover because I loved the challenge of writing a crossover. It was the first crossover I ever tried writing even though I only recently published it.

Otherwise, I like re-reading In a Graveyard, Importuning Life for Life, and Some By Virtue Fall. Of my more recent fic, I like Slap a Goatee on Me and Call Me Evil because the premise was ridiculous and I think it's funny as all get out.

Probably my favourite of my VM fic was Stay Outta Riverdale. Because: 1. The title is a Simpsons reference who doesn't love a Simpsons reference? And 2. I think I was hilarious throughout it.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I'm always open to writing more fic (and, of course, I don't mean my WIPs…don't look at me like that). Lately, my only motivation has been from writing prompts on Tumblr. I haven't had anyone give me a prompt in over a year, so here we are. I have snippets of dialogue in journals and word documents that have never found their way into stories. I'd be happy to dust off any of those and shoehorn them into a new story.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

The last fanfic I wrote was a mini-fic over a year ago (with a prompt from Lilydale!). I've written a bit of original fiction but I haven't been able to finish it. Otherwise, I do have a number of real life hobbies which are where my creative outlets lie now.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Lately, challenges and prompts. It used to be from wanting to see more from a scene. I really had a thing for fill-in-the-blanks or scene continuations. And sometimes my motivation is just plain old spite. :)

What's the story behind your pen name?

Circe Invidiosa is the title of a painting by John William Waterhouse. Love the colours and the absolute malice on the face of the subject. It felt like a good pen name – the envious witch. That's me!

I chose it when I posted my first XF fic (which I cringe to read now, ugh so terrible) without knowing there was already a Circe in the fandom. Whoops. I tried to go by the full Circe Invidiosa or Invidiosa as much as possible after realizing that (invidiosa is my url and my username on a lot of sites, etc.). Now I think that I've been around long enough that it doesn't matter as much but I still like it.

As I said, I took the name Invida for the VM fandom which is just a shortening of Invidiosa.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My significant other knows and that was quite a reveal (oh how awkward). However, the SO has been very supportive and has read all my stories since the reveal and sometimes betas them. The SO also wants us to collaborate on writing some original fiction but we haven't found a project that works for both of us creatively or timewise.

My BFF knows because I dragged her into the online fandom. We've known each other since we were 14, but our love of XF really solidified our bond in our 20s. She wrote some short but sweet fics under the penname Helen Quilley which I bullied her into posting, and we wrote Of Ladies Most Deject and Wretched together. She is mostly embarrassed that she wrote fanfic now but we still fangirl together.

No one else really knows other than fandom folks I've met in real life. And some friends know I've written 'short stories' but I don't elaborate. I work in a stodgy, uptight industry where anything fun or actually having a life is frowned upon.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Over the first lockdown, I got my shit together and got my fic site, invidiosa.com, up and running again. My site houses fic by Rain (now @doctorhelena on Tumblr and AO3), Helen Quilley, ML (who I miss so much), Folieadeux, Shelba, TLynn, Oracle, Piper Sargasso, Diehard, and me. And I made all their dustjackets (except Folie's). The site got hacked a few years back and it was so much work to get running again that I put it off for years and years. I still feel terrible that I did not get the site back up before ML passed away, especially when ML had asked me about it a few months before she passed.

Anyway, all my XF fic is here: circe.invidiosa.com. I have 3 of my newer XF stories on AO3. And my fic-LJ also has some of my stories. Some of the newer stories are on Tumblr but the tagging is so erratic that I'd have to list several tags before you'd find them all. I don't know why I haven't moved everything over to AO3. Probably laziness.

I'm @invidiosa on Tumblr. I'm still on E-muse. I'm still on LJ. I'm always reachable by e-mail (invidiosa at gmail).

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Thanks for reading, writing, and commenting. It is always appreciated.

(Posted by Lilydale on January 5, 2021)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #circe invidiosa

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aubergineanathema · 4 years

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Secrets behind stone walls

Part 1 - The ruin in the clearing: Preface Part 2 - Whispers in darkness Part 3 - Käsdorf and Wulvosburg ---- Part 4. The full moon shone over Wulvosburg, filling the halls with an eerie luminescence through the various windows, light of various colors filtering through the stained glass. The windows in every hall had been commissioned to be crafted with luxury, although in the darkness of night their splendor was muted. Heavy velvet curtains, bolted to the wall high above, were pulled back on either side of each tall, narrow, window, punctuating the gray walls with deep red lengths of color, and every dozen feet or so, a painting or some other finely-wrought object was on display.

Brighter than the moonlight within the walls was a warm candle flame, flickering as it hovered down the corridor. Carrying this flame was a young woman, her bound brown hair drooping with the weight of a long day. She wore a simple red woolen gown, overlaid with a worn apron, dusty and stained from the events of the day. She was hesitant in her step, as though she were trying to remember exactly where this corridor led. She glanced at the walls and the ornate displays her lord had devised over the years, pausing every so often, and clearly fascinated by objects collected here. Small figures of exotic animals with strange exaggerated features sat on a wooden cabinet, their names unknown to her, carved of some gleaming white stone. A strange sword, curved and sharpened on one side, not straight like the ones she had seen men wield before, hung from the wall with a hilt of gold and intricate spirals curving along the blade.

She stopped briefly to stared at a portrait. It was of a beautiful woman, the paint creating a facsimile of lusciously folded red garments and carefully twisted golden hair. Her framed face was pale and angular, her gaze sharp and stoic. There was something in the expression that was a mystery to the servant, something guarded and opaque, and compellingly sad. Something about the face of a long-dead noble, staring possessively out into a world that was no longer hers. One could not help but get lost in such a face, at least for a moment. “You’re papa’s new servant.” A knowing voice declared from the darkness.

The servant gasped and fumbled, startled by the sudden knowledge that she was not alone. She dropped the candle that lit her way, hastily snatching it up again to prevent the flame from going out, realizing a second later that liquid tallow had splattered across a beautiful red and gold rug. “I’m so sorry!” She stammered, staring at the mess she had made. “I’ll clean it up once the wax cools! It shouldn’t be--” She stopped at the shrill sound of giggling, and looked toward the source of the voice. Stepping out from the shadows, without a candle of her own was a beautiful young woman. She wore a bright emerald evening gown of silken material, the edges of which were intricately embroidered with gold thread. The elaborate pattern was mesmerizing, as were her piercing blue eyes. The servant stared as she approached, an uncanny feeling of familiarity washing over her as she saw the sharp angular face and rich blonde curls, done up with such exact perfection so late at night. She glanced again at the portrait on the wall, and it was as though it had come to life. The young woman in the green gown noticed this association and sighed. “Mama was so beautiful, wasn’t she? She’s gone now, but this is only one of the portraits Papa had commissioned.” She stopped just beside the servant, closer than anticipated, and stared up at the portrait for a moment, too. The servant grew uncomfortable as the delicate satin brushed against her coarse woolen sleeve, but did not know if it would be appropriate to step away. She could not even think to give condolences for the woman in the portrait.

But then it was over. The young woman stepped back with a laugh and twirled so that the green gown unfurled around her. “Maid, you may call me Angelika, daughter of Lord Alastair of Vorsfelde. And what is your name?” The servant was still reeling my the suddenness off the conversation that it took her a moment to reply. “It’s Helga, Lady Angelika.” Helga bowed quickly in response to the introduction. She was not yet well-versed in the etiquette of a noble household, and seemed anxious not to displease. “Helga? Hm.” Angelika seemed to ponder the name for a moment. “And you are from the village?”

Helga nodded. “Yes, it is an honor to be here. And, it is an honor to for my family to serve yours!”

Angelika waved a hand and scoffed, as though she cared not to talk about such things. In fact, she seemed a bit annoyed with the pleasantries altogether.

“And what are you doing wandering the halls so late at night!″ Angelika changed the subject, her eyes flashing with curiosity.

“Oh! I was looking for the servants’ quarters. The cooks had me working in the kitchen all day doing inventory, and when I finished, everyone else was gone.” Helga replied sheepishly. She had been wondering if she had worked too slowly. “And, I’m afraid I still get lost in this place. It’s so large compared to the village.”

“I can show you where that is, I suppose.” Angelika gave a polite smile. “But first, let me show you something much more fun.”

Helga, who had been on her feet since dawn, felt weary at the idea of doing anything but sleep, but weakly she nodded anyway. She did not think she could reject the offer of the daughter of a lord even if she wanted to. “Wonderful!”

Angelika lunged forward and took Helga’s hand before Helga could even blink and began to pull her along. She stumbled after her, nearly dropping her candle again as she regained her balance. She noticed with faint surprise that Angelika’s hands were gloved in soft white leather, and yet again wondered why that might be. Why was this woman dressed as though she were entertaining royalty on a quiet night like this? Perhaps, she reasoned tiredly, this was just how nobles were.

“Oh, and don’t worry about the rug. They don’t mean much to Papa.” She explained nonchalantly as she led the servant away. “They were... inherited, not sought out.” Helga looked down at the beautiful rugs that seemed to line each corridor. She didn’t understand how such beautiful things could be so disregarded, but did not dare to say anything about it. She resolved in her head to return the next day to clean the mess she had made, if only for her own peace of mind.

They traveled in silence for awhile, Angelika keeping a firm grip on the servant’s hand as they walked. Helga did not think it was proper to necessarily speak if not spoken to, and so she looked at the various paintings and decorations instead, and tried to use these as points of reference to gather her bearings. They went down a flight of stairs, and then another, and Helga recognized the corridor that would lead to her quarters. But then they continued down another stairwell, and the burning question of what this woman wanted to show her was threatening on the tip of Helga’s tongue.

“Sister! Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Came a voice from behind them.

Helga gasped again, as Angelika used her grip on her hand to essentially fling the servant behind herself as she turned on a dime to face a young man, strolling towards them from the darkness. Helga caught herself from falling and looked back, mute with confusion.

The man who approached them wore an easy smile of bright white teeth. He had the same angular face, and blond hair. His hair, however, was less perfectly coiffed, and pulled into a knot at the back of his head, only allowing a few strands to fall around his face in ringlets. The clothes he wore, too, were not nearly as luxurious. He wore a dark brown tunic and pants, with only the slightest hint of gold embroidery along the cuffs and collar. “Don’t act so startled, sister. It’s unbecoming. I just wanted to introduce myself to the new help.” He nodded in Helga’s direction. “I’m Lucian, son and heir to Lord Alastair of Vorsfelde. And you?” “H-Helga of Kasdorf.” Helga managed, unsure of the situation. She hesitated and then bowed again awkwardly. “I just didn’t expect you back so soon from your gallivanting.” Angelika grimaced in his direction and returned to Helga’s side. “And anyway, go away. You’re bothering us.”

“Bothering you, my dear and noble sister? Under this roof? I wouldn’t dare!” “You just want to steal this servant away from me. Go and play with one of the toys father gifted you. Go on.”

When Lucian simply smiled and continued to follow them, Angelika grabbed an ornate censer from a nearby cabinet and lobbed it directly at Lucian’s head with force and clear intent to hit. Helga stood frozen, shocked at the sudden violent outburst, but Lucian dodged it easily and laughed. It clattered dully across the rug and crashed against the wall.

“Come on, sister. I only want to accompany you.” Lucian continued, undeterred. “You’re going to show her our most esteemed guest, aren’t you? Father’s newest import from Spain? I’m coming with you, or I’ll tell our father you’re tormenting the help again.” “Fine.” Angelika growled with exasperation, dramatically latching on to Helga’s arm and leading her away. “Just keep your distance, Lucian.” “Where are we going?” Helga finally managed to ask, her voice wavering. The grip Angelika had upon her was even tighter than before, and it was clear to her that she had no choice but to follow.

“Don’t worry your little head. We’re almost there.” Angelika replied.

Another flight of stairs, and they were underground now. The only light came from slits in the stone walls far out of reach, near the ceiling, and of course from Helga’s candle. She saw that they were passing by cells with bars on either side. It was too dark for her to tell if there were poor souls sequestered inside. The shadows seemed to stretch in odd ways down here, playing tricks on the eyes. Helga felt the grip of cold and dampness in the air.

Ahead of them, there was movement and the sounds of grunting, but they were not close enough for the candlelight to reach. At her back Helga felt Angelika nudging her closer, so as to illuminate the cell further with the candle. “Hey, wait!” Helga did not want to get any closer to the cell than she already had to be. She shuffled backwards as much as she could against Angelika’s firm grip.

Within, there was a brief moment of silence. Then, the sounds of labored breathing and sniffing. Something massive churned behind the bars, and it knew they were there. “Well, this is boring.” Lucian stepped forward and shoved Helga at the bars.

Helga yelped and fell to her knees, too shocked to feel the stone scrape her skin. The candle was dropped and rolled away from her. Her eyes could only stare as it as it rolled, slowly, off to the right, illuminating a small part of the cell before her. She heard growling and unable to breathe she lifted her gaze slowly. A huge snarling beast loomed over her, just beyond the bars. It was all matted fur and limbs and glinting fangs as large as kitchen knives. Spittle smelling of blood and dirt and death dripped down from quivering jaws. Rabid eyes fixed upon her.

She screamed.

The beast howled in response. ----

This has been Part 4. For more, see my Fiction Updates post.

---- If you like this or my other original work, please feel free to share with your friends (with credit of course). I would really like feedback, so don’t be shy to talk to me about it!

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brokenbuttonsmusic · 3 years

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Howard Tate: A Philadelphia Soul Resurrection

This post is a near- transcript of the Broken Buttons: Buried Treasure Music podcast (episode 1, side B). Here you’ll find the narration from the segment featuring the great Philadelphia soul singer Howard Tate, along with links, videos, photos and references for the episode.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Anchor or Mixcloud.

Music history is packed with bands and artists that had the talent, the songs and even the fully realized recordings to make it big, only to be passed over. Some miss their window, or worse, some get their big break, but somehow self-destruct or fail to capitalize on it. It’s the reason why I decided to do this show. There is so much overlooked and under appreciated music out there to be found and enjoyed.

This next artist doesn’t quite hit any of those scenarios exactly though. Howard Tate got his break and made it happen. Howard Tate hit big and he hit fast. Tate said he came home from work one day and a big limousine was sitting in front of his door.

“You gotta get in here right away. You gotta get a suit. You’re playing with Marvin Gaye tomorrow night.”

Between 1966 and 1970 Howard Tate had six top 40 R&B singles. And then he disappeared. Plunging into obscurity, almost as quickly as he soared within sight of the summit. Tate never completely crossed over. While he regularly appeared on the R&B charts, the highest he ever placed on the Pop charts was #63.

Let’s start our dive into Tate, by hearing his highest charting single. One of three top 20 R&B hits in his catalog. This is Ain’t Nobody Home by Howard Tate.

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Ain’t Nobody Home by Howard Tate.

Here’s what the Rough Guide to Soul & R&B has to say about that recording and the chemistry of the whole crew who made it happen.

“With a groove laid down by keyboardist Richard Tee, guitarist Cornell Dupree, bassist Chuck Rainey and drummer Herb Lovell, the production of Ain’t Nobody Home by Jerry Ragovoy both borrowed from and influenced the music coming from Memphis and Muscle Shoals, and set the precedent for Atlantic’s first recordings with Aretha Franklin. While the music was great, however, it was Tate’s vocals that made the record. Sounding like a less overwrought Percy Sledge, Tate’s simultaneously Northern and Southern phrasing was impeccable, and economical use of his falsetto made it all the more effective.”

Tate had the voice, which many compared to Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye. He also had a distinctive gospel-blues delivery that sticks with you for days. But the tunes came from somewhere else.

Before his quick ascent, Tate was singing in a group with Garnet Mimms. Mimms was the original singer of the Janis Joplin hit, Cry Baby. He also introduced Howard to record producer Jerry Ragovoy, who co-wrote Cry Baby. Ragovoy is known for writing Time is On My Side for the Rolling Stones and another Joplin hit, Piece of My Heart. Clearly Janis liked the songwriting of Jerry Ragovoy. In fact, she also performed this Ragovoy composition that you’ve probably come across at one time or another.

That’s Janis Joplin singing Get It While You Can from her massive second album Pearl in 1971. What you might not know is that Get it While you Can was originally performed by Howard Tate, five years earlier in 1966.

Ragovoy was taken with Tate’s voice and began recording him as a solo artist for Verve Records. Ragovoy’s memorable, punchy Northern soul production paired with Tate’s soulful blues phrasing was a perfect match.

Here’s Howard Tate’s version, the original version, of the Jerry Ragovoy penned Get It While You Can.

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That was Howard Tate with Get It While You Can from the 1966 album of the same name.

American rock critic Robert Christgau had this to say about Tate and his collaboration with Jerry Ragovoy.

“Tate is a blues-drenched Macon native who had the desire to head north and sounds it every time he gooses a lament with one of the trademark keens that signify the escape he never achieved. He brought out the best in soul pro Jerry Ragovoy, who made Tate's records jump instead of arranging them into submission, and gave him lyrics with some wit to them besides. In return, Ragovoy brought out the best in Tate.”

Despite the magical team up on early singles and a debut album, Tate recorded his second album without Ragovoy, instead working with Lloyd Price and Johnny Nash. Released in 1969, Howard Tate’s Reaction is more uptown soul than the grittier southern soul of its predecessor, but it’s another recognition worthy collection of performances.

Ragovoy and Tate reunited for 1972’s eponymous Howard Tate. This time an Atlantic release. Critics knock this album as being a notch below Ragovoy’s best songwriting, but I think it’s a worthy piece of Tate’s catalog. Tate sounds great, as always, and there are a couple of really explosive, interesting covers. The Band’s Jemima Surrender and this one.

Bob Dylan’s Girl From the North Country. Listen to this voice.

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Howard Tate covering Bob Dylan’s Girl From the North County from 1972.

After recording a handful of additional songs—one single for Epic and a few for his own label—Tate retired from the music business. Frustrated with his lack of crossover, but downright bitter about how little he was paid for his successes, which again, included 3 top 20 R&B hits—he quit. Disappeared, really.

But not everyone was ready to forget. And while his name would fade from memories over the coming decades, Howard Tate’s impact was undeniable.

One of Tate’s heroes, BB King, covered Ain’t Nobody Home. So did Bonnie Raitt.

Ry Cooder and Grand Funk covered Look At Granny Run Run

Jimi Hendrix covered Stop

Foghat covered Eight Days on the Road and so did the one and only queen if soul.

And not everyone forgot. Tate’s old partner, record producer and chief songwriter Jerry Ragovoy made many attempts to track down his old friend over the years. He contacted old business associates and got them in on the search. They all came up empty.

A New Jersey DJ named Phil Casden had developed somewhat of an obsession with Tate’s whereabouts. Casden hosted a weekly radio show, spinning soul, blues and R&B and had taken to asking his listeners for any information about the missing (by this time) cult soul legend.

Even Verve, Tate’s old record company, had given up trying to track down the long retired crooner. The 1995 CD reissue of Tate’s Verve sessions included liner notes that flat out said: Howard Tate is probably dead.

''It wasn't sufficient to leave a story like that open-ended,'' Mr. Casden said. ''I had to find out: 'Is the guy alive? Is he dead?' There had to be something more than, 'He just rode off into the sunset.' ''

In 2001 the mystery was solved. Ron Kennedy, singer of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes recognized Tate at a grocery store and the old pals played catch up after nearly 30 years. They exchanged numbers. Kennedy put the New Jersey DJ, Casden, in touch with Tate. Casden enthusiastically announced the good news to his listeners and the soul fanatics across the internet. Howard Tate was alive! He even put Tate in touch with a lawyer to help him recoup past royalties from his reissues.

Apparently Tate had quite a loyal following overseas. Eventually, a British journalist reached out to Tate’s old partner-producer Jerry Ragovoy for a reaction. The only problem was, Ragovoy didn’t have a reaction to give because he didn’t know Tate had been found. Ragovoy was elated at the news. After reconnecting with his long lost friend and confirming he was doing well, the next thing on his mind: could Howard Tate still sing?

Before we answer that, let’s answer this: where had Tate been all those years after walking away from the music?

After becoming resentful and disheartened by his missing paydays, Tate decided to go missing himself. He didn’t intentionally go into hiding, he just bailed on the industry that he felt wronged had him.

He worked as a securities dealer with Prudential for a while and then darkness hit. He lost his 13-year-old daughter in a house fire. In 1981, after 20 years, his marriage fell apart. Soon after, Tate unraveled too. He tumbled into drug addiction and lost everything. He lived on the streets for years, struggling to get by and feed his habit. Finally, in the mid 90s, he started to climb out of the hole. He cleaned up and found god. He became a minister and dedicated his life to helping the poor and homeless.

And that brings us up to the moment of his big reunion with Jerry Ragovoy and loyal fans awareness that Howard Tate was alive and well after all those years. But now more than your die hard R&B/soul enthusiasts were interested.

But did he still have that voice? Could Howard still sing?

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Uh, yeah. Jerry Ragovoy was stunned at how strong Tate sounded after decades of being out of the game. And he was REALLY out of the game. Howard claims he never sang a note all those years. Not until Jerry approached him about recording a comeback album and got him into the studio. Tate also says he had no clue that Janis, B.B., Jimi, Ry or any of the others had ever covered his songs or took an interest in his music.

Howard and Jerry recorded a new album in 2003. It’s called Rediscovered. And remember that Elvis Costello quote from the intro to this episode? Elvis called Tate the missing link between Jackie Wilson and Al Green. Tate asked Costello to write a song for his new album and he agreed.

Let’s here that now. From his comeback album, Rediscovered, more than 3 decades in the making, here’s Howard Tate with Either Side of the Same Town, written by Elvis Costello.

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That was Either Side of the Same Town from Howard Tate’s first album after 30 hears away from the music business. But not his last.

Tate had quite the victory lap. He made numerous tv, radio and festival appearances in the ten years after his reemergence. He recorded two more studio full lengths and a live album. On December 2nd, 2011, Tate passed away of complications of multiple myeloma and leukemia.

With a superb first act and a spectacular resurrection that led to the near doubling of his recorded output, there’s plenty of Tate music to check out and enjoy.

Other sources for this segment are listed below.

I referenced several NPR features in this episode, including the obituary they did for Tate.

Deep Southern Soul - This blog did a great post on Howard Tate. Lots of other good stuff here, but they recently announced they are closing up.

Gadfly Online - Another nice write up on Tate and his back story.

New Jersey new feature - The clip of Howard talking is from this segment. They did a feature on Tate’s rediscovery.

Trunkworthy - Post about Tate and his comeback. This site digs into music, movies and TV you might have missed. They also did a post about the Elvis Costello song featured in this episode. Elvis’ version is on The Delivery Man album.

New York Times Obituary for Howard Tate

The Guardian Obituary for Howard Tate

Billboard Magazine, July 26, 2003 - Article about Howard’s return after 30 years.

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classic-laugjhing-hollywood · 3 years

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Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.

Lloyd is considered alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. His bespectacled "Glasses" character[2][3] was a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who matched the zeitgeist of the 1920s-era United States.

His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street (in reality a trick shot) in Safety Last! (1923) is considered one of the most enduring images in all of cinema. Lloyd performed the lesser stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio. An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, and was almost undetectable on the screen).

He was far more prolific than Chaplin (releasing 12 feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million).

Lloyd was born on April 20, 1893 in Burchard, Nebraska, the son of James Darsie Lloyd and Sarah Elisabeth Fraser. His paternal great-grandparents were Welsh.[6] In 1910, after his father had several business venture failures, Lloyd's parents divorced and his father moved with his son to San Diego, California. Lloyd had acted in theater since a child, but in California he began acting in one-reel film comedies around 1912.

Lloyd worked with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and his first role was a small part as a Yaqui Indian in the production of The Old Monk's Tale. At the age of 20, Lloyd moved to Los Angeles, and took up roles in several Keystone Film Company comedies. He was also hired by Universal Studios as an extra and soon became friends with aspiring filmmaker Hal Roach. Lloyd began collaborating with Roach who had formed his own studio in 1913. Roach and Lloyd created "Lonesome Luke", similar to and playing off the success of Charlie Chaplin films.

Lloyd hired Bebe Daniels as a supporting actress in 1914; the two of them were involved romantically and were known as "The Boy" and "The Girl". In 1919, she left Lloyd to pursue her dramatic aspirations. Later that year, Lloyd replaced Daniels with Mildred Davis, whom he would later marry. Lloyd was tipped off by Hal Roach to watch Davis in a movie. Reportedly, the more Lloyd watched Davis the more he liked her. Lloyd's first reaction in seeing her was that "she looked like a big French doll".

By 1918, Lloyd and Roach had begun to develop his character beyond an imitation of his contemporaries. Harold Lloyd would move away from tragicomic personas, and portray an everyman with unwavering confidence and optimism. The persona Lloyd referred to as his "Glass" character (often named "Harold" in the silent films) was a much more mature comedy character with greater potential for sympathy and emotional depth, and was easy for audiences of the time to identify with. The "Glass" character is said to have been created after Roach suggested that Harold was too handsome to do comedy without some sort of disguise. To create his new character Lloyd donned a pair of lensless horn-rimmed glasses but wore normal clothing; previously, he had worn a fake mustache and ill-fitting clothes as the Chaplinesque "Lonesome Luke". "When I adopted the glasses," he recalled in a 1962 interview with Harry Reasoner, "it more or less put me in a different category because I became a human being. He was a kid that you would meet next door, across the street, but at the same time I could still do all the crazy things that we did before, but you believed them. They were natural and the romance could be believable." Unlike most silent comedy personae, "Harold" was never typecast to a social class, but he was always striving for success and recognition. Within the first few years of the character's debut, he had portrayed social ranks ranging from a starving vagrant in From Hand to Mouth to a wealthy socialite in Captain Kidd's Kids.

On Sunday, August 24, 1919, while posing for some promotional still photographs in the Los Angeles Witzel Photography Studio, he picked up what he thought was a prop bomb and lit it with a cigarette. It exploded and mangled his right hand, causing him to lose a thumb and forefinger. The blast was severe enough that the cameraman and prop director nearby were also seriously injured. Lloyd was in the act of lighting a cigarette from the fuse of the bomb when it exploded, also badly burning his face and chest and injuring his eye. Despite the proximity of the blast to his face, he retained his sight. As he recalled in 1930, "I thought I would surely be so disabled that I would never be able to work again. I didn't suppose that I would have one five-hundredth of what I have now. Still I thought, 'Life is worth while. Just to be alive.' I still think so."

Beginning in 1921, Roach and Lloyd moved from shorts to feature-length comedies. These included the acclaimed Grandma's Boy, which (along with Chaplin's The Kid) pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the highly popular Safety Last! (1923), which cemented Lloyd's stardom (and is the oldest film on the American Film Institute's List of 100 Most Thrilling Movies), and Why Worry? (1923). Although Lloyd performed many athletic stunts in his films, Harvey Parry was his stunt double for the more dangerous sequences.

Lloyd and Roach parted ways in 1924, and Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films. These included his most accomplished mature features Girl Shy, The Freshman (his highest-grossing silent feature), The Kid Brother, and Speedy, his final silent film. Welcome Danger (1929) was originally a silent film but Lloyd decided late in the production to remake it with dialogue. All of these films were enormously successful and profitable, and Lloyd would eventually become the highest paid film performer of the 1920s. They were also highly influential and still find many fans among modern audiences, a testament to the originality and film-making skill of Lloyd and his collaborators. From this success he became one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in early Hollywood.

In 1924, Lloyd formed his own independent film production company, the Harold Lloyd Film Corporation, with his films distributed by Pathé and later Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox. Lloyd was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Released a few weeks before the start of the Great Depression, Welcome Danger was a huge financial success, with audiences eager to hear Lloyd's voice on film. Lloyd's rate of film releases, which had been one or two a year in the 1920s, slowed to about one every two years until 1938.

The films released during this period were: Feet First, with a similar scenario to Safety Last which found him clinging to a skyscraper at the climax; Movie Crazy with Constance Cummings; The Cat's-Paw, which was a dark political comedy and a big departure for Lloyd; and The Milky Way, which was Lloyd's only attempt at the fashionable genre of the screwball comedy film.

To this point the films had been produced by Lloyd's company. However, his go-getting screen character was out of touch with Great Depression movie audiences of the 1930s. As the length of time between his film releases increased, his popularity declined, as did the fortunes of his production company. His final film of the decade, Professor Beware, was made by the Paramount staff, with Lloyd functioning only as actor and partial financier.

On March 23, 1937, Lloyd sold the land of his studio, Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The location is now the site of the Los Angeles California Temple.

Lloyd produced a few comedies for RKO Radio Pictures in the early 1940s but otherwise retired from the screen until 1947. He returned for an additional starring appearance in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, an ill-fated homage to Lloyd's career, directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes. This film had the inspired idea of following Harold's Jazz Age, optimistic character from The Freshman into the Great Depression years. Diddlebock opened with footage from The Freshman (for which Lloyd was paid a royalty of $50,000, matching his actor's fee) and Lloyd was sufficiently youthful-looking to match the older scenes quite well. Lloyd and Sturges had different conceptions of the material and fought frequently during the shoot; Lloyd was particularly concerned that while Sturges had spent three to four months on the script of the first third of the film, "the last two-thirds of it he wrote in a week or less". The finished film was released briefly in 1947, then shelved by producer Hughes. Hughes issued a recut version of the film in 1951 through RKO under the title Mad Wednesday. Such was Lloyd's disdain that he sued Howard Hughes, the California Corporation and RKO for damages to his reputation "as an outstanding motion picture star and personality", eventually accepting a $30,000 settlement.

In October 1944, Lloyd emerged as the director and host of The Old Gold Comedy Theater, an NBC radio anthology series, after Preston Sturges, who had turned the job down, recommended him for it. The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, beginning with Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young.

Some saw The Old Gold Comedy Theater as being a lighter version of Lux Radio Theater, and it featured some of the best-known film and radio personalities of the day, including Fred Allen, June Allyson, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Herbert Marshall, Dick Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, and Alan Young. But the show's half-hour format—which meant the material might have been truncated too severely—and Lloyd's sounding somewhat ill at ease on the air for much of the season (though he spent weeks training himself to speak on radio prior to the show's premiere, and seemed more relaxed toward the end of the series run) may have worked against it.

The Old Gold Comedy Theater ended in June 1945 with an adaptation of Tom, Dick and Harry, featuring June Allyson and Reginald Gardiner and was not renewed for the following season. Many years later, acetate discs of 29 of the shows were discovered in Lloyd's home, and they now circulate among old-time radio collectors.

Lloyd remained involved in a number of other interests, including civic and charity work. Inspired by having overcome his own serious injuries and burns, he was very active as a Freemason and Shriner with the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children. He was a Past Potentate of Al-Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles, and was eventually selected as Imperial Potentate of the Shriners of North America for the year 1949–50. At the installation ceremony for this position on July 25, 1949, 90,000 people were present at Soldier Field, including then sitting U.S. President Harry S Truman, also a 33° Scottish Rite Mason. In recognition of his services to the nation and Freemasonry, Bro. Lloyd was invested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honour in 1955 and coroneted an Inspector General Honorary, 33°, in 1965.

He appeared as himself on several television shows during his retirement, first on Ed Sullivan's variety show Toast of the Town June 5, 1949, and again on July 6, 1958. He appeared as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? on April 26, 1953, and twice on This Is Your Life: on March 10, 1954 for Mack Sennett, and again on December 14, 1955, on his own episode. During both appearances, Lloyd's hand injury can clearly be seen.

On November 6, 1956, The New York Times reported "Lloyd's Career Will Be Filmed." It said, as first step, Lloyd will write the story of his life for Simon and Schuster. Then, the movie to be produced by Jerry Wald for 20th Century-Fox, will limit the screenplay to Lloyd's professional career. Tentative title for both: “The Glass Character,” based on Lloyd wearing heavy, tortoise-shell glasses as a trademark. Neither project materialized.

Lloyd studied colors and microscopy, and was very involved with photography, including 3D photography and color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home (these are included as extra material in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD Box Set). He became known for his nude photographs of models, such as Bettie Page and stripper Dixie Evans, for a number of men's magazines. He also took photos of Marilyn Monroe lounging at his pool in a bathing suit, which were published after her death. In 2004, his granddaughter Suzanne produced a book of selections from his photographs, Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D! (ISBN 1-57912-394-5).

Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and particularly Jack Lemmon, whom Harold declared as his own choice to play him in a movie of his life and work.

Lloyd kept copyright control of most of his films and re-released them infrequently after his retirement. Lloyd did not grant cinematic re-releases because most theaters could not accommodate an organist to play music for his films, and Lloyd did not wish his work to be accompanied by a pianist: "I just don't like pictures played with pianos. We never intended them to be played with pianos." Similarly, his features were never shown on television as Lloyd's price was high: "I want $300,000 per picture for two showings. That's a high price, but if I don't get it, I'm not going to show it. They've come close to it, but they haven't come all the way up". As a consequence, his reputation and public recognition suffered in comparison with Chaplin and Keaton, whose work has generally been more widely distributed. Lloyd's film character was so intimately associated with the 1920s era that attempts at revivals in 1940s and 1950s were poorly received, when audiences viewed the 1920s (and silent film in particular) as old-fashioned.

In the early 1960s, Lloyd produced two compilation films, featuring scenes from his old comedies, Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy and The Funny Side of Life. The first film was premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, where Lloyd was fêted as a major rediscovery. The renewed interest in Lloyd helped restore his status among film historians. Throughout his later years he screened his films for audiences at special charity and educational events, to great acclaim, and found a particularly receptive audience among college audiences: "Their whole response was tremendous because they didn't miss a gag; anything that was even a little subtle, they got it right away."

Following his death, and after extensive negotiations, most of his feature films were leased to Time-Life Films in 1974. As Tom Dardis confirms: "Time-Life prepared horrendously edited musical-sound-track versions of the silent films, which are intended to be shown on TV at sound speed [24 frames per second], and which represent everything that Harold feared would happen to his best films". Time-Life released the films as half-hour television shows, with two clips per show. These were often near-complete versions of the early two-reelers, but also included extended sequences from features such as Safety Last! (terminating at the clock sequence) and Feet First (presented silent, but with Walter Scharf's score from Lloyd's own 1960s re-release). Time-Life released several of the feature films more or less intact, also using some of Scharf's scores which had been commissioned by Lloyd. The Time-Life clips series included a narrator rather than intertitles. Various narrators were used internationally: the English-language series was narrated by Henry Corden.

The Time-Life series was frequently repeated by the BBC in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, and in 1990 a Thames Television documentary, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius was produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, following two similar series based on Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Composer Carl Davis wrote a new score for Safety Last! which he performed live during a showing of the film with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to great acclaim in 1993.

The Brownlow and Gill documentary was shown as part of the PBS series American Masters, and created a renewed interest in Lloyd's work in the United States, but the films were largely unavailable. In 2002, the Harold Lloyd Trust re-launched Harold Lloyd with the publication of the book Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian by Jeffrey Vance and Suzanne Lloyd and a series of feature films and short subjects called "The Harold Lloyd Classic Comedies" produced by Jeffrey Vance and executive produced by Suzanne Lloyd for Harold Lloyd Entertainment. The new cable television and home video versions of Lloyd's great silent features and many shorts were remastered with new orchestral scores by Robert Israel. These versions are frequently shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable channel. A DVD collection of these restored or remastered versions of his feature films and important short subjects was released by New Line Cinema in partnership with the Harold Lloyd Trust in 2005, along with theatrical screenings in the US, Canada, and Europe. Criterion Collection has subsequently acquired the home video rights to the Lloyd library, and have released Safety Last!, The Freshman, and Speedy.

In the June 2006 Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Silent Film Gala program book for Safety Last!, film historian Jeffrey Vance stated that Robert A. Golden, Lloyd's assistant director, routinely doubled for Harold Lloyd between 1921 and 1927. According to Vance, Golden doubled Lloyd in the bit with Harold shimmy shaking off the building's ledge after a mouse crawls up his trousers.

Lloyd married his leading lady Mildred Davis on February 10, 1923 in Los Angeles, California. They had two children together: Gloria Lloyd (1923–2012) and Harold Clayton Lloyd Jr. (1931–1971). They also adopted Gloria Freeman (1924–1986) in September 1930, whom they renamed Marjorie Elizabeth Lloyd but was known as "Peggy" for most of her life. Lloyd discouraged Davis from continuing her acting career. He later relented but by that time her career momentum was lost. Davis died from a heart attack in 1969, two years before Lloyd's death. Though her real age was a guarded secret, a family spokesperson at the time indicated she was 66 years old. Harold Jr. died from complications of a stroke three months after his father.

In 1925, at the height of his movie career, Lloyd entered into Freemasonry at the Alexander Hamilton Lodge No. 535 of Hollywood, advancing quickly through both the York Rite and Scottish Rite, and then joined Al Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles. He took the degrees of the Royal Arch with his father. In 1926, he became a 32° Scottish Rite Mason in the Valley of Los Angeles, California. He was vested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH) and eventually with the Inspector General Honorary, 33rd degree.

Lloyd's Beverly Hills home, "Greenacres", was built in 1926–1929, with 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens, and a nine-hole golf course. A portion of Lloyd's personal inventory of his silent films (then estimated to be worth $2 million) was destroyed in August 1943 when his film vault caught fire. Seven firemen were overcome while inhaling chlorine gas from the blaze. Lloyd himself was saved by his wife, who dragged him to safety outdoors after he collapsed at the door of the film vault. The fire spared the main house and outbuildings. After attempting to maintain the home as a museum of film history, as Lloyd had wished, the Lloyd family sold it to a developer in 1975.

The grounds were subsequently subdivided but the main house and the estate's principal gardens remain and are frequently used for civic fundraising events and as a filming location, appearing in films like Westworld and The Loved One. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Lloyd died at age 77 from prostate cancer on March 8, 1971, at his Greenacres home in Beverly Hills, California. He was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. His former co-star Bebe Daniels died eight days after him, and his son Harold Lloyd Jr. died three months after him.

In 1927, his was only the fourth concrete ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, preserving his handprints, footprints, and autograph, along with the outline of his famed glasses (which were actually a pair of sunglasses with the lenses removed). The ceremony took place directly in front of the Hollywood Masonic Temple, which was the meeting place of the Masonic lodge to which he belonged.

Lloyd was honored in 1960 for his contribution to motion pictures with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1503 Vine Street.[39] In 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

In 1953, Lloyd received an Academy Honorary Award for being a "master comedian and good citizen". The second citation was a snub to Chaplin, who at that point had fallen foul of McCarthyism and had his entry visa to the United States revoked. Regardless of the political overtones, Lloyd accepted the award in good spirit.

Lloyd's birthplace in Burchard, Nebraska is maintained as a museum and open by appointment.

#harold lloyd #silent era #silent hollywood #silent movie stars #silent comedy #early film #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #old hollywood #1910s movies #1920s hollywood #1930s hollywood #1940s hollywood #comedian #slapstick comedy #comedy legend

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saturnis777 · 3 years

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The Six Million Dollar Anime Girl

As a fan of anime we must look at both sides of the coin, in most anime the people depicted as main characters are above average in the gold and silver department. Lets start naming a few magical girl franchises and we will see a clear trend!

North American audiences probably never gave much contemplation on the economic class that Sailor Moon belongs too. To the average North American viewer, Usagi and company were typical middle class, living in typical homes in a seemingly average neighborhood. However, if you know anything about Tokyo, you’d realize Usagi and the other Sailor Scouts are pretty well off. Every one of the five main characters live in the Juuban district in Tokyo, which is a very affluent area.

On top of that Haruka Tenou said her monthly rent was a million yen which works out to 10 thousand dollars. Michiru Kaiou had her own apartment which presumably had similar if not higher rent, on top of that she owned a giant palace outside of town, and rode in a helicopter to and from school. Yeah that's what you call normal middle class living, yeah right, give me a break! And don't even get me started on Dr Tomoe, and the multi billion dollar Mugen Academy Corporation that he founded.

North American viewers who watch Cardcaptor Sakura think Sakura is a typical middle class girl with a somewhat wealthy friend Tomoyo Daidouji. Well if you pay attention to the details you will realize she lives in an extremely affluent fictional district called Tomoeda. just one look at the schools architecture, as well as the area in general reveals that Sakura Kinomoto is borderline wealthy by any standard. However it gets even better it turns out she inherits her grandfathers fortune witch includes a giant five story mansion with servants to boot. So much for middle class living, we are talking 100 wealthiest people on earth material, and that's just from the story who knows what corporation Sakura's grandfather owns to amass such wealth?

Many Americans when they see Saint Seiya think that Saiori Kido lives in an upper middle class home, with a butler working out of devotion for her. Actually Saiori Kido is extremely wealthy, in fact if she were in this world she would be the wealthiest woman by far, and that's even before she awakened as the Goddess Athena.

Now with this scale set lets scroll down the list of magical girls.

The plus signs in the following are not coincidence they are the sub orders of magnitude within each corresponding class.

Billionaire

Billionaire+ greater x10

Billionaire++ much greater x100

Billionaire+++ massively greater x1000

Example billionaire +++ is a potential trillionaire.

Note the cheeky term Zillionaire refers to fictional characters with untold wealth.

.................................................

Usagi Tsukino... Upper Middle Class+

Usagi Tsukino's ascension to Neo-Queen Serenity Zillionaire+++

.................................................

Saiori Kido... Billionaire+

Saiori Kido's ascension to Goddess Athena... Zillionaire++

.................................................

Tomoyo Daidouji in Cardcaptor... Billionaire+

Tomoyo Daidouji in Tsubasa... Billionaire+++

.................................................

Sakura Kinomoto... Billionaire+

Michiru Kaiou... Billionaire+

Haruka Tenou... Millionaire+++

Ami Mizuno... Upper Middle Class

Rei Hino... Upper Middle Class

Minako Aino... Upper Middle Class+

Makoto Kino... Middle Class+

Amilia Will Saillune... Billionaire++

Bulma Briefs... Billionaire

Hotaru Tomoe... Billionaire+

Snow White... Billionaire+

Ice Queen Elsa... Billionaire+

Queen Anna of Arendelle... Billionaire+

Little Mermaid Ariel... Billionaire++

Alice in Wonderland... Millionaire++

Sleeping Beauty... Billionaire+++

Akiho Shinomoto... Millionaire+

Princess Kairi... Millionaire+

Princess Zelda... Billionaire+++

Barbie... Millionaire++

Lina Inverse... Middle Class+

The less than 0.000001% of humanity gets most of the Anime glory.

I need not even go on with this list its pathetic, one thing i can plug Dragon Ball Z on is at least Son Goku wasn't rich, nor was he an elite saiyan ether, he was a commoner.

Undoubtedly the wealthiest of all these magical princesses was Usagi Tsukino, when she became Neo-Queen Serenity and inherited the literal universe of Silver Millennium. The second closest was Saiori Kido who as Athena ruled the sanctuary dimension.

Yes that’s Queen Serenity’s crystal palace with spires towering several miles into the sky, it totally dwarfs all the skyscrapers around it.

Heck even Scrooge McDuck incarnate wasn't that rich. The true wealth of Tomoyo Daidouji is unknown, but the fact her future self is depicted running a future global corporation indicates she is at least Scrooge McDuck level, probably higher. Bulma Briefs would rank the same level as Princess Tomoyo, and come to think of it there was a scene where Bulma said to Vegeta, if your the Prince than that makes me the Princess.

The little mermaid is the same thing, you can't just be a mermaid, no its got to be the richest mermaid in all the seven seas.

Virtually all the magic girls are spoon fed from golden platters, with one exception to this rule.

There's only one magical girl out of all the listed characters that is based on a somewhat typical common girl, and that is Lina Inverse, the anti-heroine of the Slayers Anime.

Lina Inverse lived with her two parents and sister who ran a grocery store in a small town called Zephilia. Out of all the magic girls I have ever seen in my life, Lina Inverse is the only one who is not borne of some royal lineage.

To simplify matters Lina Inverse is the only staring character I know of that isn't dirty, filthy rich.

However even Lina Inverse was depicted with a repeating fixation on becoming a wealthy princess that repeated throughout the series. Not only that there are several times where Lina refuses to help people unless they pay her lots of gold coins, one of the jokes of the series was she rarely got her reward. But still the fact she only offered to help oppressed people if they gave her money is kinda rotten even for a comedy based anime.

On top of that one of the main villains in the story bent on ruling the world turns out to be a peasant living in a garden shed, or more precisely a run down falling apart old shed.

Yep that's the headquarters of the Zein, an organization created by Galev and his sole underling Zahhard.

Well to be fair I will give the slayers a pass on this one, especially considering the entire show is comedy based, and doesn't knock people by class. Lina is Lina after all and regardless what class one may be she will deck them if they dare make fun of her.

However I will not be giving any passes to Sailor Moon, Kingdom Hearts, Cardcaptor Sakura, Saint Seiya, Tsubasa Chronicle, and the infamous Disney Princess Movies. They all blatantly program children with princess like delusions of grandeur, and in my opinion that is not cool in any way.

You will be surprised to learn all the girls I listed above are called princess, not just the Disney characters. To me that is crystal clear proof of the subliminal princess agenda! Its very in the face what is going on here, it's clear this whole princess/wealthy girl theme is a subtle program.

I haft to ask the question is this the magical girl genre, or is it the wealthy girl genre? I'm asking this question because it kinda looks like the latter to me, and that is kinda sad.

Kind of like Batman became a hero because he was a billionaire and had the resources to build himself a sleeked down inspector gadget suit. What kind of lessons are they setting for kids, seriously what kind of role models are these magical girl themes creating?

Seriously why can't they feature ordinary characters, why do they all haft to be royalty, and billionaires.

They are almost all Scrooge McDuck level or higher, needless to say these are totally unrealistic goals for children.

Talk about ten minutes to ruining ones childhood dreams, you ether haft to be extremely aristocratic, or in some cases not even human to be a magical girl. I call it monarch butterfly syndrome, only those born in certain lineage make it in this world.

Make no mistake this is a subliminal class system aimed at our children, and its happening all across the board. What is the message that children receive watching these shows, is it good morality, doing the right thing, or is the message to love money?

One last thing before I sign off this blog post, what if the magical powers they are depicting are actually something else entirely? What if its trans humanism and only the super rich could afford this technology upgrade?

The image above is Hotaru Tomoe after being turned into a cyborg by her father Professor Tomoe. There are claims she is the only cyborg in Sailor Moon, but how do we know for sure, they even said they originally intended for Ami Mizuno to be a cyborg. Its possible all the sailor senshi were biologically enhanced super soldiers. One of the ways to tell was when Hotaru Tomoe experienced pain from her body rejecting the enhancements. There are scenes in the new Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Hen show depicting Sakura passing out for no apparent reason, and going through all the symptoms Hotaru Tomoe did. In Sailor Moon Crystal there is a scene where Usagi Tsukino collapses to the ground and says she feels like her body is being ripped apart. I don’t know are these subliminal hints that something sinister is going on? Throughout Kingdom Hearts Roxas is often depicted holding his head in anguish, and Sora was once in a strange pod to allegedly put his memories back together, was it that or did they augment him somehow? The very first people that will be augmented with transhuman technology will be wealthy people, most likely ones near death like Hotaru Tomoe who was injured in a serious lab accident. Then it will spread to all wealthy children being upgraded, and eventually it will trickle down to a fair sized percentage of human beings. Imagine an augmented person being capable of downloading a library worth of books into their digitized brain in the span if a few weeks.

Could you imagine a class of people with limitless knowledge and nigh immortality? Anyone who isn’t augmented with this nano tech serum will be totally obsolete, there will be no place in society for them. This is the technological singularity they are trying to create for us. If this agenda transpires in the following decades the gap between rich, and poor will become totally insurmountable with aristocratic magical people with godlike powers and several thousand year lifespan ruling over the short lived plebs.

You see that in many Disney movies where the prince and princess are tall and beautiful well everyone else is short and ugly. Yeah some of it is due to animators not wasting time on side characters, however there is a clear gap between two kinds of people.

That is exactly what the fallen angel archons would like to manifest, the return of the gods to lord it over the pawns like something out of hunger games, or game of thrones. Because lets face it the ultimate plan is the total borgification of humanity. Is this the reason why the magical girls with the exception of Lina Inverse all have magical tools, pens, wands, and staffs. Is this the real reason why they are all extremely wealthy? Are they depicting our future, one in which humanity splits into two factions one being a Star Trek civilization, and the other a class of subservient plebeians?

If you think getting augmented is cool maybe the following image will change your mind.

The title for this episode of Cardcaptor is the threads that bind, its an episode where Eriol Hiiragizawa literally turns Syaoran Li into a puppet, as if he were playing Geppetto the puppet master. If you understand anything about augmentation technology this is exactly what can, and most certainly will happen to those who take the upgrade. That’s how a hive mind will work, in the end there will be a collective of augmented elite living in the cities whereas everyone else is banished from society. The choice will most likely be take the upgrade, or hit the road Jack and don’t you ever come back.

You even see that depicted in the bible where it describes one group of people deemed righteous living in a city with streets of gold, and outside the city lived the dogs, sorcerers, liars and moral outcasts.

I don't know about you but that is trans humanism based on a social credit score, if you obey the mandates you live in paradise, if you disobey you are banished from society.

That is the true new world order being laid out for all to see, and don't forget any tyrant can call themselves righteous, and even the borg in Star Trek believed their collective was 100% pure perfection.

Lastly the only place where we see streets paved with gold are the connections on a computer chip, that is the yellow brick road, and the Wizard of Oz was a man operating a holographic machine, and don't forget that.

Really something when you realize they depicted a hologram being used to control people back in 1939, and they even depict the fog, another thing that can be used to enhance holographic projection, the steam makes a screen with which to reflect the image upon. Many people don't know but it requires steam, or some kind of glass screen to project a 3D hologram upon.

It will take a whole post just to touch base on the subliminal trans humanist ideals portrayed in anime and comic books. However there's one thing i will say right now, they cannot transform people into superheroes, technology cannot turn people into Sailor Senshi, technology cannot make you a Card Captor, and technology can’t make you Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Captain America, Iron Man, Green Lantern, etc. Life doesn’t work like that, the only thing that combining technology with human beings will do is create the borg, and that is not cool by any standard. The only two things they are promoting right now is the rich magical girl, and transhuman agendas. They did try the rich boy thing before with Richie Rich but it didn’t seem to catch on, not like the princess programing. Back when I was still into religion i heard several preachers say to the women your princesses, your daughters of the great king. To me this is further enforcing the princess program that starts in kindergarten, and goes on into the teen years with anime, and disney movies.

Oh i forgot there were two disney princesses that started out as commoners, however in the end its still part of the princess spell. Still i put this in here to correct the record.

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lanaisnotwool · 4 years

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400 How I Retired Twice

http://moneyripples.com/2020/06/15/400-how-i-retired-twice/

Chris Miles, the "Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor," is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results. Listen to our Podcast here:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/moneyripples/2020/05/22/400--how-i-retired-twice

--------------------------------------------------------Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles, your Cash flow Expert and Anti-financial Advisor. Hey, I want to welcome you out for another show. A show that's for you. And it's about you guys. It's about those of you that work so hard for your money, and you're now ready for your money so start working harder for you today. You want that freedom. That cash flow. That prosperity. Right now! Not 30 or 40 years from now, but today. So you have that life that you love doing what you love being with those that you love. But guys, it's so much more than that. Isn't it? It's about having that life of freedom. A life of happiness. Of quality. A life of service for other people. Because as you prosper financially, you can bless more lives. And as you bless more lives, you create a ripple effect through people's lives. And that's what it means to be a Rippler. And I'm excited to be that Rippler on with you. Thank you so much for allowing me to create a ripple effect through your guys's lives. And to be able to teach you and guide you and help you to prosper today. Because without that, without you guys doing these things and actually taking action, this I'd be wasting my breath right now. It wouldn't be worth it. I would just be doing my own thing, making my own money, but I'm so happy that I can be able to share this stuff with you guys today. So thanks so much.Speaking of sharing, if you guys want to find more ways to find more cash, you can check out my website. MoneyRipples.com. There's the book Beyond Rice & Beans, Seven Secrets to free up cash today that you can check out there. By the way. Also, if you've got questions for me thinking, Chris, I think I'm ready to take my money to the next level and get it work for me. Shoot me an email, [email protected] and say, Chris, like, what can you do with my situation? By the way, just on that topic, I'll just let you know, I just got done with the client we've worked with for the last few months. And the cool thing is he didn't have a huge amount of money, right? He just had a few hundred thousand to play with, but between everything we're able to do both freeing up cash flow by paying off loans and by investing. And this is even without him having quite enough credit to do extra leverage or anything like that just found out today, we calculated all the totals and he has cash reserves. So he's emergency savings too.So he's feels protected in this time. And he's got extra cash flow. The cash flow total was 2,911 bucks a month, or just shy of 35,000 a year. This year that he's going to have to be able to put that money away, build up and create an income snowball. So guys, that's the fun stuff I love. That's the reason why I'm still doing, I'm doing because man, when I see what, what people aren't doing and what is possible, it's so much fun to be able to create a new reality. So anyways guys, again, thank you so much for tuning in. Today, I want to talk about, I really want to go more into a, I want to make this episode special. I want to have my wife on this podcast. I am actually really disappointed to get a recording out soon enough, but we'll get her all right. And, and I'm putting pressure on her right now for that reason, because she should have been doing recorded episode. That would have been awesome for you guys. So I wanted something that was a good consolation prize of what am I going to do for episode number 400. So I want to go with the number one question that everybody asks.Chris, how did you retire twice? How did you do that? Here's the short answer first and foremost, it shouldn't have been twice if I did it right. I shouldn't have had to retire twice. The reason of course, as you guys know my story, if you followed enough, is that I was able to get out of the rat race back in 2006, came out of retirement, 2007 to start teach people how to get out of the rat race. And then of course, when the recession hit, I went from, you know, being financially free to being over a million dollars in debt within about a year, about $1.1 Million of debt to be exact.So I went to a massively drastic place in the whole 16,000 a month. So because of that, I had to stop teaching people how to gather rat race. Cause I was back in it I'd be a total hypocrite for trying to teach something that I wasn't living myself. So anyways, over the next several years, you know, really from 2009, sort of build things back up again. And then of course by 2016, I was able to be out of the rat race once again. Now, for those who aren't, you know, maybe you don't understand what the rat race is. I know many of you already know cause it's such a Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad term. You guys probably read over and over. But what it means is that you've got residual and or passive income coming in without you having to work actively, right?You're managing it, but you're not actively working in it where you're able to pay for expenses. Now, the first time was easy for me, right? The first time, you know, it was, I only needed 4,000 a month and that was it. Now with a blended family of eight children, 4,000 a month is impossible in my opinion. So for us, plus we have an at least a little bit of a lifestyle, even though we don't live an extravagant life, it's about 15,000 a month. And so that's why it took me several years to get to that point. But I want to talk to you about that secret. What really did it because yes, I have investments. I do invest in real estate and syndications and other things just like we talked about on the show, but you know what? That is not the main thing that got me there. Now, you know, we can talk about like, you know, I'm not gonna talk about transactional income and all that kind of stuff.I mean, here's the thing is that your business or your job is the primary engine that helps you get there. But then you always have to be thinking too is all right, that's my active stream of income. What can you do to create passive or residual? So there's two different types of streams of income I'm going to cover briefly. Cause I just talked about this in a recent episode, you know, one passive income. I label this as anything you can do with investments where it pays you cash. It could be interest earned from investments, interest earned, especially from different types of funds or whatever it might be. It's also money that you earn from cash flow on real estate and things like that, right? It's actual income that's coming in, being paying out from your money. It's your money making money for you without you having to necessarily work super hard for it, right?This is not the same as someone going in say, they go and flip a house that is not passive income. That is active income. That is a business. That is not the same thing, right? We're talking about stuff that you can do that is paying you on a regular basis. You know, like I said, interest from a fund though, I be paying you a certain amount. We advertise HP a lot, right? You hear about that. They pay interest on their money. You know, it could be getting passive income on your real estate properties where after all expenses are paid, you're getting cash flow each and every month. Again, thing that maybe you put some up from work into or some money into, but then it pays you.The second stream is residual streams of income, right? Residual streams are going into more of what I refer to as those business streams, they could be like passive streams, but I consider more residual because it's from your business. These are things that maybe you created once and then it pays you over and over. You know, it could be that you wrote a book and then you get paid royalties on that book. It could be your produced, you know, an online program or something like that. And it keeps paying you over and over. Now you might, you know, pull the trigger and you click some buttons to make sure that, that, you know, things are working, they're active, but you get paid on that. You know? So those are the, the residual streams.So here's the thing guys, is that I learned this the first time I retired and it blew my mind because the real principle and this goes true for anything is if you want to make more money, passive or active or residual, if you want to make more money, you got to always answer the question of, how do I create more value for more people? What can I do to create value for people? What can I do to create a win, win for them, to give them what they want to solve a problem to serve them, just fulfill a need that money is just a natural byproduct?Now see, when I understood this actual principle, right? This is a true principle from the beginning of time, it said. If you want to be paid, you got to give something in order to receive it's that law of the harvest you got to give in order to receive. So I started obsessing over that question. Now it wasn't until one of my friends who was wealthy said, Hey, Chris, you know, do you like doing mortgages? This is back in 2006. And that was the one active thing I was doing. And I said, well, I like advise people on it. And I like helping them get the end result.But I hate paperwork. I hate dealing with all the application process. Those you have that done in life insurance through me, already know that's the same exact thing I do now. I'll help design the policy and get it just right. But then I'll pass it on to my team to let them handle all the backend on the underwriting side of things. Right. And that's the way I like to be. And so I told them, I said, I really don't like that. And he said, well, why don't you find somebody who does like doing that? So I did, you know, I went to the company, the brokerage I was working with and I found a guy that was great at the backend. It wasn't necessarily the guy that was the most outgoing, but he had a really decent bedside manner. He was able to give people they want.And I went to him. I said, listen, if I get people to the point where they already know what kind of mortgage they want, you just have to help them do it and apply for it. Would you, would you split the deal 50-50 with me? And he said, yes. I said, great. Well, the next thing I know, I started meeting with people for half an hour to an hour and then month or so later, there's a check in the mail for a thousand or 1500 bucks or so. I'm like, that's awesome. That's super easy. You know, I didn't have to do all the work, all the legwork. Right. And that's the key thing guys. And that's the real secret that I started to understand was, wait a minute. How can, if I can't do it myself now, if I can do something to create value, awesome.That's where active income comes from. But what if I'm not the best person for the job? What if I just know that somebody has a need and I can introduce them to that person that can fill that need, how can I be that connector? And I realized I was really naturally, really good at connecting. And this is what I'm going to recall. Wealth sharing. I'm going to call this wealth sharing. And I think right now with the situation the world is in right now, this is absolutely essential for all of you to understand, because as a society, for us to prosper as a whole, there has to be this other principle in play. So it's not just dollars follow value. That's principle. Number one, principle. Number two is exchange creates wealth. Exchange creates wealth. The faster we exchange goods and services with other people, the more movement, the more free market, right?As you might hear, people say, right? The more movement there is a value exchange happening. There's also money exchange happening. And the more money that's being exchanged and changing hands, the more prosperous everybody becomes, especially if it's something of use, right? So again, that money moving, this is why all the stimulus money is going. That's why they keep trying to put money in your hands. They understand that the principle is that if people don't have money to exchange, the wheel stop. The cogs and everything just explodes. It's just like whenever you see the movies, right? And they, they stick some sort of, you know, metal bar into the cog and then the thing starts heating up and then boom, it explodes, right? Same thing happens to our economy. The when way to get out of this bad economy is how do you get those cogs moving?How do you keep the money and value exchanging, especially that value gives something of greater value to that person. And this is not about ripping people off this that should never be a conversation in your head. The conversation is all about how can I serve people and solve problems. And if I can't do it, if they have a problem that needs to be solved, can I connect them with someone who can? And so, you know, so give an example, like I've had people send me referrals. Some people that are like, you know, podcast host of other shows saying listen, your stuff is amazing. I think I want to create an agreement that if they go to you, you know, you can pay me. Now, depending on what kind of service, if it's just like my consulting fees, great it's easy to pay. Now, if someone becomes a life insurance client, unless their life insurance license, I can't pay them because that's against the law. Right?But that's how I do that. And that's the same concept that happened when I was using that mortgage broker saying, Hey, why don't you do this kind of the work? He enjoys the work, by the way, it wasn't like I was pulling the wool over his eyes. He willingly went to this agreement saying, this is good. I like this. But for me, I want something that was more, you know, residual, right? And so that's where that comes in by sharing with other people, by helping other people, by connecting people who, to each other, to help people solve problems and prosper. Everybody, everyone becomes more prosperous. And by the way, when your friends and your neighbors and families become more prosperous. So do you, because as money starts circulating and it all works. Now I'll give you an example. And I've used a story in a few other episodes, but I remember about six or seven years ago.I remember I was doing, I was in the first quarter of that year. I believe this was actually the year of 2015. In fact, I actually, yeah, I do know it's a, it was 2000, no, sorry. 2014. It was 2014 first quarter. And that quarter, for whatever reason, even after I have a great year in 2013, my numbers were down, you know, my revenue in the business was down and I was like, man, people aren't committing, they're having a hard time. And I remember I was frustrated, right? I was, I remember him calling my friend. It was by March, about early March of that year, I was still fresh as saying, Man! Why isn't this working? You know why? And I was even telling, I was like, yeah, people aren't exchanging like, like there's like, people are frozen. People need to move in order for this to happen.They need to exchange with one another. And then it dawned on me. I said, I need to exchange. I need to lead by example. So what did I do? I started like, I actually wrote a blog post. And I, this blog post said, here's the five areas of business. And by the way, it's still on MoneyRipples.com. If you go there way back. Right. But I said, here's the five areas of business you need to address. And I brought up like, you know, coaching, I brought up, you know, the finances of business by the way. I of course plugged myself for finances. But I also included some of my competitors who, by the way, eventually became my wife, ironically enough. She was a competitor. In fact, she was shocked. She was like, why would you resend me referrals? I said, because I don't do what you do.That's why, you know, and you don't do what I do. So there you go. I had all these different areas, marketing and sales and all that kind of stuff. Right? Like things, basic things in business. I'm like, here are the people I recommend. I got to probably look at that list. I'm sure some of those people, most of those people are going to be in business still, but some might not be, I don't know, but it was, those are the people I referred to at the time. Here's the thing. I got no referrals from those people, at least not short term. But I remember like I was not making a lot money. I was making about 40% of what I normally made in that quarter. But the dam broke. I call it karmic debt. Again, I'm going to do a podcast on that topic alone. But that point, because that exchange was happening, what happened is I got people from other places.I ended up breaking records the next month in April. You know, I never made that much money in my business ever. And it blew my mind what was possible. The cool thing is eventually those people did start sending me referrals. Right? But not at that moment. That's the coolest part is that it created that kind of, you know, karma for me, you know? And so that's the thing, guys, when you create exchange, when you start doing that yourself, you'll realize they don't come back to you in many different ways. And that's a true principle that always works is that when you, the more people exchange with another, the faster that money and value changes, people's hands and goes in and out of people's lives. The more prosperous the entire society becomes. When people hold on to money at a fear at a scarcity, that's when everything breaks down. That's when you get those great depression. That's when people are holding on to money and fear and scarcity, they're not spending, this is what's happened with the COVID era, right.You know, what's been going on this year when people aren't spending money, things collapse, right? That's the key. People can say all they want, Hey, go eat at your local restaurant. You know, if they're open, you know, go wear a mask and all that kind of crap, right? It's like, go eat there. Well, here's the thing. If you're not getting paid, it's kind of hard to go eat there. Isn't it? So the fastest, easiest ways. And by the way, this is, what's created a lot of residual income for me over the years is realizing that when there's a need, when there's a question that people keep asking, can I find the person to help that. Help that person, you know, can I find the people, connect them to, to solve that problem or create that kind of value for them? And by the way, you look like a hero, when you connect them to the right people, I've had people send me referrals all the time and they're like, Hey Chris, you know, people that have barely even know me and saying, you should talk to Chris.And they're like, wow, this is so cool. What you do for these people. And it actually helps reinforce to me like, yeah, you're right. I'm creating great value. This isn't just cause I'm used to it. And it's just everyday life for me. It can literally change people's lives. So think about that in your life. Think about who are the people you can connect people to, you know, Hey, you're welcome. It doesn't even require money exchange. Right? I mean, now granted, there's a money exchange. Be willing to, to go to that business owner to say, listen, I got a lot of referrals for you. Would you be willing to cut me in like on a referral fee or something like that? This is where you can create cash flow from no money out of pocket, just because you're creating some sort of value. Guys and I'm telling you, that's how I retired the first time.And then I added investments later. That, that first time, the second time I started adding investments. But again, I was still doing the same thing, you know? And just so you know, just to be perfectly clear, most of the people that show up as guests on this show, we have no agreement, no financial agreement at all. I just bring on because I think it's valuable, right? So almost everybody you hear on this show, there's no financial agreement, but I guarantee you that if there's a big show, that's a hit. I'm going back to that person say, listen, you got a lot of leads from this show. Well, lets work on a deal. If it's not just exchanging leads and exchanging, you know, people and contacts, Hey, let's exchange money. Yeah. Let's do something there. You know? So that's how it works on my life. They'll be completely transparent.That's a lot of the stuff that I do. For you that can look like so many different ways. But the key thing is, Is that regardless if you start just focusing on other people, instead of just your own problems, focus on what other people want and need and find ways to help them get that. I can assure you as long as you give people what they want, you will never want. I guarantee it. That's a true principle. It worked. Even when I've been broke, it's worked when I've been rolling in the dough. Right. So either way it works, guys. I want you to focus on this and make us a big focus for this week. Happy episode number 400. Hey, we'll talk to you later.

#Money Ripples #Financial Freedom #Entrepreneur #Debts #Cash flow Expert #Cash flow #Anti-financial Advisor #Chris Miles

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blognhungdongkhongaulove · 3 years

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“Những Dòng Không Đâu” is the real and full name of my blog.

I’m posting today something about my home town, Hue, Vietnam. The ancient royal capital is well known and watered by The Perfume River (Sông Hương). The Perfume River

by tôn thất tuệ Around the world, many rivers become the embodiment of their hosts: Thames of London, Seine of Paris, Danube of Vienna, Moldau of Prague, to mention a few…and Beethoven never forgot his 'father' Rhine. In my case, the Perfume River incarnates the City of Huế, ancient royal capital of Vietnam. She is, herself, nourishing the mind of generations after generations; she is spelling the term of endearment. In 1802, after pacifying the whole country to become the first king of the Nguyễn House, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh settled down in Huế and sped up the construction of the royal citadel. Why did he choose a narrow strip of land pushed to the sea by the Annamite Chain, the like of La Sierra, USA? Historians provided with many convincing theories. But for the Hueist who wish to claim the famous emperor to their camp, the prime reason dwelt in his love of the Perfume River. To compare with the Mekong in the South where Nguyễn Phúc Ánh emerged as a prevailing warlord, the Perfume represents just a piece of gossamer, having no commercial or strategic interests. Her values are embedded in her peacefulness and her romanticism. They are attributed not only to her geographical disposition, but also in her witnessing a flow of historical events with more vicissitudes than splendors. In 1876, the great grandson of the dynasty founder was outnumbered by the French expeditionary legion that fusilladed the capital. This marked the total colonization of Vietnam. While the resistance was smoldering, spot by spot in the whole country, the Perfume received a young and dynamic king in a getaway sampan on her water. Duy Tân, disguised as a commoner, left the Forbidden Palace, crossed the river toward the mountain to raise the banner of the national recuperation. His dream was annihilated by betrayal. He was arrested, and banished to the Reunion Island, North Africa; many of his followers were beheaded. Then came the immolation of the ailing monarchy. In 1945, the last king abdicated in favor of the new authority. In a stone throw from the Perfume, Bảo Đại surrendered the tokens of the royalty: the seal and the sword. The worst scare to the water body was carved in 1968. On the Monkey Lunar New Year, the Communist forces invaded the whole city. The South government took it back in fierce battles. The usurpers ran away after committing a mass murder. They killed in a hurry or buried alive those they detained during their one month long occupation. Of the new millennium just ushered, the maiden year of 2003 chronicled a large toll in the river but the Perfume was not guilty, not the villain. The Annamite Chain, as a vertical cliff, retained all the moisture from the Pacific Ocean then unleashed torrential rains into her and her sisters in the Center of VN. The whole City of Huế was engulfed in a yellowish lagoon. If Hue dwellers suffered quite a bit from this catastrophic flood, it seemed that they enjoyed around August and September mild chronic inundations that made the river closer to them by her swollen bosom. Once the murky water siphoned off into the sea, the Perfume repossessed her perennial limpid mirror reflecting the old royal wall punctuated with watchtowers. The sandy bed and marine plants are noticeable like in a giant aquarium endowed by the nature. A Western tourist, a century ago, wrote home that he roamed a boat in the Perfume smoothly as in a small lake. Wooden sampans moved slowly on the silver fluvial artery as if unfolding music scores celebrating the sauntering crepuscule. Up to the 1970 there were almost no motorized canoes, which helped boost the stillness. But at times, roaring nautical ski boats infringed the holy pastoral reverie. That kind of sport, province of the rich and privileged, revealed the other aspect of the city which she reflected too as she reflected the royal complex. Right at the beginning of the domination, the French started to urbanize the undeveloped Right Bank. Administrative service, hospital, treasury, school … swallowed rice paddies, as hungry lions dealt with innocent gazelles. They built a river front sport club as well as churches for themselves and for indigenous adherents to the new religion. Sumptuous villas in European architecture, house to Gallic rulers, appeared in sub tropical gardens. The entire national power was shifted from the Left Bank with a toy king to the Right Bank of His Excellence the Omnipotent Envoy. At the wake of the political downfall, a poet referred to the Perfume as a stream of tears mourning the defunct national sovereignty. I share this collective infliction, but I grew up when its acuteness has been somewhat alleviated by the latent healing effects of the time. Hue became introvert, kept silent the most possible.I used to wander along the river, mainly when the sky was somber, adrift like an autumnal dead leaf. One time I wondered what if I had to leave the town and this river, and I said to myself I should die. Ironically, after high school, I went down to the South for higher studies, was assigned to government jobs, then got married, I never came back to see the river, and I never die. (Actually I did come back but in many one day long official missions which kept me in meetings and formal dinners). If someone asks me which is the most speaking feature of the Perfume, I would pick the swans crossing the river in school days; swans in quotation marks. I would elaborate as follows:On the Right Bank, there were two famous and adjacent schools, one for boys and one for girls. (Forget, please, the one for boys, I’m boy). The girls’ uniform was white; conical leaf hats, white too, are not mandatory but all of them donned these. The campuses were situated right in between two bridges. It was too far for a walk, that’s why young ladies in white residing in the Left Bank decided to make a short cut. Roofless sampans helped them. Each student played part of a feather of the colossal swans skating smoothly on the undisturbed water.This must have been the most immaculate image since the time when time was created. I’ve just returned to the ancient royal city, after five decades, to discover that the beloved swans had been butchered. A bridge was built right at the place where female students boarded the sampans. The white uniform was crossed out from the school handbook. Walking then crossing the river was not practical. Motorcycles replaced sampans instead. I walk onto the new bridge. Watching the mountain in the river, I got a chill. An old mystical revelation surged back to my mind. A long time ago, shortly before the twilight, I was on the old bridge. I watched the indigo mountains, and uttered these words: “the real master of my life is the chain of mountain that plunges into the river, tainting dark the river to be embraced by the river”*. I’ve kept trying to decipher the enigma. I hope that I could fathom it, not analytically but intuitively and that the Perfume River retains this mysticism Now the drifter me, back as a tourist, as an outsider, still was not immune from the sacred attachment to something unreal but real. The prodigal son came back to enliven the remembrances of the time lost. May his last visit, shorter than a blink of the eye, be transcended into eternity; may the Perfume embalm the rest of his life, shower him with tranquility. But, helas, wisdom has it that the devouring nostalgia stays incurable, incurable forever.===

#Hue

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fatefulfaerie · 5 years

Text

Resolve

Zelink Week prompt #5/10

Link sat on the wooden fence rather comfortably, the cold air whipping his air to and fro as he sat, tapping at the Sheikah Slate.

Of all the places to catch up on his adventure logs, Rito Village was by far his favorite.

The ever-changing whistle of the wind appeased his ears greatly, the frigid breeze concerning him little with the Rito feathers in his clothing keeping him snug.

Not to mention, of course, the breathtaking view of the mountains when he occasionally looked up from the slate, the fresh mountain air, how the peaks to the north seemed to glow with a unique and different iridescence with every sunrise, every sunshine, every starry night sky.

If he were lucky, he could spot in the distance glowing northern lights, a sight he had never captured with the camera feature of the slate because it was a sight to behold all on its’ own. Seeing it in person was something Link would never want to shortchange.

Of course he had his home in Hateno, but there was something so serenely peaceful about the calm of Rito Village. It offered his mind a time for reflection and recollection, to write entries in the compendium and in his adventure log without worry of a Lizalfos archer or a camp of Bokoblins around the corner.

It eased him greatly as he sat there, on a wooden fence that faced the mountain range. If he were a small child, a mother would certainly have rushed forward and insisted that he get down from there immediately. A bit of a tip forward and Link would need more than Revali’s Gale to save him from the depths below Rito Village.

But Link liked it, just a little bit of danger, a little bit of risk made him feel more free.

He remembered well a memory where he was warned of his recklessness, which he took to heart.

But, he still couldn’t help himself. After all, he was fueled by an adventurous spirit as well as a heroic one, and with the great wild land of Hyrule as his training ground, he fulfilled it quite well.

After a few final taps at the slate, Link looked up at the mountains with a thankful smile, thinking with a warm heart of the words he just wrote.

The snow in the distance had an orange glow, the sun starting to set and the hour of twilight setting dusk upon Hyrule.

“I want to see her smile again with my own eyes,” he heard a young voice say beside him, his eyes widening. He felt himself flush warm with embarrassment as he looked over quickly to see the Rito youth Molli.

He hadn’t even heard her land next to him, let alone notice her looking over his shoulder.

Link quickly put away the Sheikah Slate, obviously trying to hide something.

How long had she been standing there?

“Who are you writing about, Mr. Hero?” Molli asked rather innocently.

“N-No one…” Link replied as he swung his legs around to hop off the ledge, his feet landing on the small bridge that connected the small portions of Rito Village together.

“Sounds like someone pretty special to me,” Molli continued nonetheless as Link faced her, looking down into her wide, curious eyes, “Is she pretty? You should bring her by sometime…let us see if she’s good enough for you.”

Link gave a slight chuckle of disbelief with rolled eyes at those words.

If anything, Link didn’t think he was good enough for her.

“Is there a reason you are prying into other people’s businesses?” Link asked, wanting very much to get away from this line of conversation.

“Father heard you were visiting, so he sent me to come fetch you,” Molli replied, “says he has something to share with you.”

Link’s eyebrows furrowed slightly with confusion.

He’d done all the shrines linked to Kass’ late teachers’ songs. Was there another shrine around here he missed?

Link considered the possibility as he approached the Rito bard with intrigue.

It was quite an oddity that Link noticed, for Kass not to be playing on his accordion, but to simply stare out in silence.

He really was waiting for him this time.

But why?

“Ah, we meet again!” Kass said excitedly when he spotted Link out of the corner of his eye, turning to face him.

“You wanted share something with me?” Link prompted when he stopped in front of him.

“Yes, I do,” Kass replied, “I’m taking a moment’s rest from my tireless search for the ancient songs to perform in my hometown. So much of my late teacher comes to me when I play here and as it happens, there is a song he wrote that you have yet to hear, that, well…it only feels right for you to hear.”

“Oh…o-okay…?” Link made out, still suspicious of the whole ordeal.

“I wish to speak with you, so this will take some time, is that all right?”

“That’s…fine…” said Link, not a clue why the Rito was acting so oddly serious.

“Thank you ever so much,” Kass started, seemingly quite pleased with Links’ interest, “I wanted to talk to you about my late teacher. My teacher was of the Sheikah tribe. He was the court poet for the Hyrulean royal family. At the time, there was a beautiful princess in the royal family, quite close to my teacher in age, apparently.”

Link gave a small smile at the thought of her, his eyes lighting up before Kass continued,

“Though he must have known it was doomed to be unrequited, my teacher fell in love with her…”

Links’ eyes quickly blinked away the joy in his expression at Kass’ next words. He didn’t remember much about a court poet. Perhaps, Link thought, there was a reason why as his gaze went downward.

“But the princess herself only had eyes for her knight attendant.”

Link looked up quickly at Kass, his bright, blue eyes wide with surprise. His lips parted as a sharp exhale of disbelief escaped from his lungs, the words registering further into his mind. His eyes seemed to dart from one focus to the other as he searched nothing in particular, obviously processing something quite new. Kass knew well that he must have just taken Link a great distance away from Rito Village.

“My teacher was consumed with jealousy,” Kass continued, “he fumed that the knight was neither nobility nor royalty himself.”

Link didn’t know what to do with himself, with how vulnerable he felt. He felt his temperature rising, his heartbeat quickening, his face surely reddening.

If Kass didn’t know who he was referring to as ‘her knight attendant’, he surely did now.

“And then the Calamity struck,” Kass said, pulling a deep breath and sad eyes from Link,

“My teacher believed a hero would appear to beat back the Calamity,” Kass continued as he turned to face outward, “he poured that belief into a song. And that song is what I need you to hear.”

Link turned the same direction as Kass started to push and pull at his accordion, looking out at the mountain range as he registered everything.

“An ancient hero, a Calamity appears,

Now resurrected after 10,000 years,

Her appointed knight gives his life,

Shields her figure, and pays the price,

The princess’ love for her fallen knight awakens her power,

And within the castle the Calamity is forced to cower,

But the knight survives!

In the shrine of resurrection he sleeps,

Until from his healing dream he leaps!

For fierce and deadly trials await,

To regain his strength, fulfill his fate

To become a hero once again!

To wrest the princess from evil’s den,

The hero, the princess, hand-in-hand,

Must bring the light back to this land.”

Link was silenced, utterly silenced, and, for a very simple reason, kept his gaze on the snowy mountain range.

Kass looked at the back of Links’ head as he continued, the boy not moving a muscle to signify that the song was over.

“My teacher fled the Calamity and returned to his hometown of Kakariko Village. But on his way, he witnessed the princess’ knight sacrifice himself to protect the princess. The elder of Kakariko village, Impa, explained these circumstances to him, and his mind was made up. He would seek the songs of the hero who sealed the Calamity away in an age past, so they could be passed on to the knight once he returned. All so that the princess might be saved…those were my teacher’s last words, passed on now through me…”

“So…appointed knight,” he prompted, “will you accept this song from my departed teacher?”

“Y-yes,” Link replied, his voice weaker than Kass had ever heard it.

“Thank you so much! I knew you would, I was sure of it,” Kass continued nonetheless, “my teacher would often speak of the princess’ beauty. I would love to meet her and craft a song worthy of her. Thank you for spending this time with me.”

Link didn’t reply at all.

It wasn’t that he was rude. In any other circumstance, because he had done so many times in the past, he surely would have piped a calm and collected ‘you’re welcome’ back at Kass. But he was neither calm or collected, barely hearing anything past what his mind was now endlessly consumed by.

“I…uhh…I have to go,” Link said quickly with a fleeting glance to Kass, before Link quickly departed in a hurry.

Kass’ beak parted in surprise when he realized that upon Links’ cheeks he saw the drops of tears.

Link was crying.

——————————————————————————————————

Impa’s eyes widened with a jolt of shock when Link burst through the doors, the haste he exuded making Paya stand up in surprise.

“L-Link?” Paya stammered.

Yet any other words from her were stopped completely by Impa’s raised hand, the old Sheikah narrowing her eyes at the remains of tears under Link’s blue eyes, at his panting breaths, at his distant and ever-searching gaze.

“Link?” Impa ventured cautiously as she brought her hand down to her knee, slightly leaning forward.

“Is it true?” Link asked, his focus finding a spot on the floor, almost scared to look Impa in the eyes, to hear the answer to the question in his mind.

“Is what true?” Impa asked with a maintained caution.

For Link of all people to be in this sort of state…

“Was she in love with me?”

Impa leaned back, giving Link a skeptical look.

Paya, of course, was completely frozen.

Link looked up when he heard the rustle of fabric, surprised to see that Impa was standing up.

“I’m going for a walk, Paya,” Impa said as she headed to the door, both Link and Paya watching her intently, “don’t worry, it will only be a small stroll. I don’t have the energy for much else these days.”

Impa stopped just before the door and sighed before turning back around.

“For goddesses sake, Link,” Impa said, “do you think I’m doing this to talk to myself?”

“R-right…sorry…” Link said as he walked forward, opening the door for the old woman before they slowly descended down the steps.

Impa looked straight ahead of her as Link matched her speed, or rather her lack of speed, looking down at the woman and waiting for her words.

“I have a question for you, Link.”

“Okay.”

“When I first met you after your time in the Shrine of Resurrection, you were all eagerness to save Hyrule. You knew nothing of your past, and it was still the truth. Why was that?”

“I guess seeing all the devastation it had caused…it only felt right to do something about it.”

“And is there some reward you expect? Any reward you feel like you are owed for completing such a task?”

“Of course not,” Link replied, as if the notion were preposterous, “I want to see Hyrule safe and see Zelda happy and free. Just that is enough of any reward. Does she not deserve that?”

“Oh, she does.”

“No amount of rupees amounts to that,” Link continued, “just to see her smile once more is all I need, no matter what happens afterwards. I want her to live her own life, even if that means it’s separate from mine.”

Link heard Impa sigh with a slight shake of her head.

“Goddesses,” she muttered under her breath, “both of you.”

“What?” Link asked

“Nevermind,” Impa said with a smirk.

They were coming upon on the exit of Kakariko Village, the castle in the distance coming into view.

Impa stopped on the hill, Link following suit as they looked out at Hyrules’ beauty.

“Just a couple miles away,” Impa said, “and it’s taken you months to reach it.”

“Ever since the beginning it was obvious I had failed her,” Link said to his defense, “I didn’t want to do it again.”

Impa nodded.

“Zelda was the same, so I shouldn’t be surprised. All that time you spent together, within arms reach, and it took her months to realize the truth.”

“The…the truth?” Link retorted.

“She worried so much about harnessing that sealing power that she couldn’t see what was right in front of her.”

Link watched as Impa knelt down and gently plucked a Silent Princess from the ground, running her finger along its’ petals.

Impa offered the flower to Link and said once he took it,

“Bring her home Link, for her sake and for yours. You no longer need worry about failing her. You’ve proven yourself many times over.”

Impa headed back to the village, leaving Link on the hill.

“Wait!” he yelled after her, “You didn’t answer my question!”

“Ask her yourself,” Impa replied, gesturing her head to the castle before turning back to Kakariko Village.

“Besides,” she said quieter, out of Link’s earshot, “I can tell that you already know the answer.”

#zelink #zelink week #zelink week 2019 #zelda #link #impa #kass #botw #botw 2 #breath of the wild #breath of the wild 2 #paya #calamity #hyrule #rito village #silent princess #hero of the wild

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lord-taika · 4 years

Text

You’re somebody else Din Djaren x oc Xitlalli

synopsis: Din had always finished his missions and was a big believer in honesty but what happens when his latest bounty makes him rethink his philosophy.

Warnings: mentions of abuse. I think that's it

A/N: this is by far one of the worst imagines I wrote but it seemed like a good plot when I was thinking about it. I’m sorry for any grammar and misspelled words. I’ll probably rewrite this when I have more time on my hands.

“Mando, can I ask you a question?” He heard a voice ask from behind him. Of course, he didn’t speak, he rarely did especially when he was flying. Deciding to proceed even with all the thoughts in her head told her to leave the mercenary alone and not speak unless she was spoken to “I’ve been on your ship for two almost three months now so I know what you usually do to your bounty-” gulping she continued “-I guess what I’m trying to say is how come I haven’t met the same fate as them?” she spoke already regretting having come up to the cockpit to talk to her warden as she secretly referred to him as. "Would you like to meet the same fate as them?" his modulated voice said. "No, I was just curious" she spoke looking up only to see that he already turned his chair and was looking at her or at least that's what she thought, it was hard to tell with the visor. The Mandalorian studied her face noticing the way her Cornelia blue eyes stood out against her russet skin and yet they complimented each other. "I need someone to watch the kid. When I found you, you were playing with the village children. You would be good to watch him while I capture other bounties" he spoke seeing the saw her features contorted from pleased to confusion and then to questioning. “Okay, one or two last questions. Who set the bounty on me? and why haven’t you turned me in yet?” she asked. “ I don’t ask questions. Someone promised a hefty payout for you and I took it. As far as not turning you in yet, I told you previously, I need someone to watch the kid.” he spoke and turned his seat back around before she could speak again signaling that the conversation was over. Sighing she turned around and made her way back to the lower level where Mado had made her own bed and deciding to sleep as they made their way to the next destination.

She had woken up a short while later deciding she wasn’t going to be able to fully sleep yet so instead she made her way to the child's sleeping pod only to see he wasn’t there. She didn’t panic though, she knew he had to be on the ship somewhere. Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard squeaks coming from the cockpit followed by the modulated voice of the Mandalorian “I trust her. Don’t give me that look, I see how you get when she holds her. You trust her too” he spoke before another squeal was heard and at that point, she didn’t know if she should laugh at the fact that the big bad Mandalorian was talking to the same child he referred to as a womprat or smile because he said he trusted her. She decided to leave the two alone to bind as she read one of the many books that were left around.

It had been about a week since Mando and Xitlalli had spoken in all honesty she was confused as to why she was receiving the cold shoulder. Maybe she had said or done something to upset him? Maybe she shouldn’t have been so persistent in asking him questions? Whatever the reason was Xitlalli missed having someone to talk to or in Mandos case have someone grunt back when she would talk and now the ship felt much lonelier than it previously had even when she kept herself busy with the child but yet here she was laying down in her cot trying to figure out a way to apologize or even figure out if she had anything to be sorry for. Before she knew it she had fallen asleep and only woke up because of the sound of heavy footsteps stepping on the razer crest, getting up she was met with her nightmare. Armored men where on the ship looking at her while one of them got ready to put restraints on her but being the person she was she tried fighting them off yet she wasn’t a match for them so with her arms chained behind her back along with the ankle restraints she had to prevent her from running they made there way down the ship and she kept her head down only looking up when she heard some voices ahead of her. Looking up she made eye contact with Mando, her heart immediately breaking “Mando, please. Please help me” she spoke not caring that tears were already leaving her eyes, without acknowledging her Mando turned around and continued his conversation, thanking that his face was covered so no one could see the regret he had when he saw them carry her down the alleys as she pleads for him to help her.

“Why was there such a high bounty on this one?” Mando asked “ you were just in the presence of royalty. Queen Xitlalli of - well actually I don’t know how to pronounce it.” “A queen? Why would a queen have a bounty on her?” he spoke again. “Well, from what I heard she bailed on her wedding so her fiance was willing to pay whatever price to have her home,” Greef spoke handing Mando his earnings. “What's going to happen to her now?” Mando found himself asking. “Well, he's probably going to marry her and then have her killed so he can have both his kingdom and hers. A really good strategy if you ask me” Greef spoke “but that’s not our problem. We got paid and returned her” Greef said before leading both him and Mando into the cantina. Mando was clearly distracted. He couldn’t help but think about how he should have just kept her on the ship. He didn’t know she was going to be killed. When he spoke to Greef a few nights ago he had told the Mandalorian that her family had missed her and wanted her home as soon as possible.

Mando made his way to the armorer as he usually did after a bounty to give her the credits he hadn’t used for fuel or food. “You don’t seem like yourself” the armorer spoke as she began to make a new Beskar for him. With your offering, we will be able to better take care of many foundlings” she paused and continued “you are usually proud when you can help provide for the next Mandalorians. With your recent donation you should be proud” she spoke. " I am always proud to help the foundlings. I am not proud over how I acquired the currency" he spoke looking at her before continuing "she trusted me and I just send her to certain death" he spoke waiting to see what knowledge she would bestow upon him. "If you are not happy with what you have done only you can go back and change it." she said, "And I am done with your new Beskar" she spoke before helping Mando into it and going on her way.

Of course, he had to go help Xitlali escape from wherever they were keeping her they probably weren’t going to stay for very long so he knew his time frame was almost non-existing. It wasn’t difficult to spot where they were keeping Xitlali when there were about ten guards outside of one of the many unoccupied homes, without even having a second thought the Mandalorian found himself firing at all the guards taking them down one by one before he reached the door. He could hear footsteps inside but they were far too light to belong to any of the guards. “Xitlali” He found himself whispering as he made his way inside the building. “Mando?” he heard her voice come from his left. “What are you doing here?” she spoke as she made her way to him. “I came to get you. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have turned you in. But you’re safe now” he spoke as she came into view, he couldn’t help but look at her, her once flawless skin now had bruises forming from eyes down to her arms, back, and legs. “What happened?” “Don’t pretend like you care now Mando.” her voice dripping with venom. “What happened to the guards?” she spoke suddenly realizing that there was no one firing at them. “I took care of them. We have a straight path from here to the razor crest and then were free to go wherever you want” he spoke grabbing her arm and leading her outside. “I- I can’t leave with you” she spoke causing him to stop in his tracks and look at her, tilting his helmet covered head to the side as if asking her to elaborate. “You can’t just betray me, deliver me on a silver platter to someone that wouldn’t think twice about killing me and then come back and ‘rescue’ me. I’m grateful for you getting me out of there but I can’t trust you anymore.” she said looking at him, noticing the way his shoulders slumped. “Under different circumstances, I would love to come back to you and the kid but I'm not sure that you won't cash me in for a different bounty? Maybe next time I see you I’ll be open to thinking about your offer but for now? For now, this is where I leave you. Good luck on whatever it is you are doing. “ she spoke before walking past him and disappearing around the corner.

_____________________________________________

As always make sure to leave a like and a comment. and if you enjoyed my story give me a little reblog.

#din djaren #din djarin x reader #din djarin x oc #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin imagine

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quillsareswords · 5 years

Text

Robin, Meet Robin.

Damian Wayne

Requested (anonymous [4]; @annielimajackson ; @crissy1603)

Prompt List // Masterlist (both in bio)

"My name's Robin," you answered politely.

The first time he had heard your name, he hadn't thought too much of it, beside the automatic twitch at hearing his moniker.

It was admittedly a bit difficult for the first few months when you had first started attending Gotham Academy. You were in quite a few of his classes, and for the first few weeks, it took an exhausting amount of awareness and control not to react every time someone addressed you.

When you ended up becoming friends? That was far more difficult. Especially given your similarities in personality. You were often just as bitter and biting as he was, which, coincidentally, is how you bonded: you hated all the same people.

Calling you by your first name always bother him. Not only was it strange addressing someone with the name he thought of ad his own, but to add the fact that it was an entirely secret name made it all the more uncomfortable. This is why he often refers to you by your last name.

[L/N] didn't make it sound as if he was talking about himself in third person.

When he realized he had somehow, accidentally, uncontrollably fallen for you? Oh, it was ironic and painful.

He didn't plan on telling you. He never planned on telling you anything about the mask or his feelings. Maybe it wasn't fair to you. You'd subtly expressed interest before, when you were younger, but now you both stood evenly at seventeen, and you'd gone on dates with other men.

In any case, he refused to tell you anything. He had a plan. A plan that meant you stayed friends until you were utterly sick of him, and you'd never know a thing.

And yet, it all came crashing down in a blazing ball of fire one stormy night in May.

You had been in the sitting room of Wayne Manor with him. Papers and projects scattered around the floor you sat on and the couch beside you, carnage of the joint effort of trying to finish as many papers and projects as you could before the school year was up. You'd been here since noon, and now it was nearing eleven. You had decided hours ago to take up the guest room adjacent to his balcony tonight.

Presently, you were sitting beside him on the couch, papers shoved to the side for the time being, eyes glued to the plasma flat screen mounted to the wall.

The wreckage of the Joker's latest attack was displayed on the news channel, the reported speaking rapidly as words of warning scrolled across the screen, all screaming to stay out of the mile surrounding the harbor.

You were still on the phone with your mother, making sure she made it out of the bowling alley safely.

"Okay. Tell Dad I said goodnight," he hears you say. "Love you too. Bye."

You withdraw the device from your ear, a low breath parting your lips. You click the big red button on your screen, leaning your head on Damian's shoulder.

It's an action that sets his skin on fire, makes his heart beat just a little harder. Oh, how badly he wishes to comfort you properly, with an arm around you and a kiss on your forehead.

"Mom made it home," you report quietly, eyes jumping back up to the television, phone dropping in to your lap. "She said the streets are as empty as she's ever seen them." Your tone is grave.

"Good. People should be staying inside."

You don't reply. For a few long moments, you sat in silence together.

Then, the double doors to the kitchen burst open, and Tim races into the room. "Robin!" You both whip around to face him.

"What?"

He realizes his mistake a beat too late. He can feel the confusion in your stare, but Tim continues with an apologetic expression and a hard tone. "Bruce wants us downstairs A.S.A.P."

"Tell him I'm on my way."

You look between the two of them as they move, Tim bolting back through the kitchen, and Damian standing from the couch.

He's aiming to get out of the room before you can put it together, but he should have known better than to think it would take you that long.

You reach out, catching him but the hem of his tee shirt. "Damian?"

He turns to face you, green-blue eyes locking with yours. He finds confusion and a hint of fear. It's understandable: you are sitting in a seemingly easy target during a ruthless Joke attack, and he's leaving you here alone.

He moves closer, dropping to his knee in front of you. He trades your grip on his shirt for a grip on his hand. "I will be back. I'll explain then, alright?"

"But Damian-"

"Please," he beg, "trust me."

You hesitate. Eyes dart toward the television. The wreckage is ready beyond measure, and the body count is only going to get higher. Your eyes move back to meet his. You nod twice. "Okay."

You could say that plan of his was a phoenix. Sure, it burnt up in flames, but, a sunrise later, it was revised incredibly.

For starters, no longer were you clueless. Now you knew damn near everything.

For another, you were no longer just friends. The moment a confession of love rolled off his tongue, you'd had half a mind to slap him silly. You the went on to explain that, yes, you'd gone on dates, and you had called one or two of them a boyfriend for a short amount of time, but you'd only been trying to move on from him.

It was a moment he had wanted to simultaneously sing with joy and scream with frustration.

Months passed comfortably now, without the strife of secrets and names tripping off tongues.

He had taken to calling you any bird name he could think of, besides Robin. You'd heard too many to remember; bluejay, parrot, mockingbird, cardinal, finch, sparrow -- if you'd seen it, you'd heard it. Though finally, he did settle on one he seemed to like the best.

"Hummingbird," he groans, "please turn that dreadful nonsense off."

You crossed your arms, leaning back against his headboard. "Nonsense?" You freign offence. "The Marvolus Misadventures of Flapjack is art, you uncultured acorn."

He turns to look at you over his shoulder, combined the glow of two computer monitors alluminating his features unevenly. "What did you call me?"

To any sane person, his tone was an obvious threat. A warning, if you will. To you, it was a challenge of power. A question of weather or not you had the balls to call him anything other than royalty.

"An uncultured acorn," you repeat.

He sighs heavily, turning back to face the left screen, skimming the panel of images, stills from security cameras. "I've been to more countries than you could name," he reminds. "Most women in this city would kill to sit in your place."

You uncross your arms, repositioning yourself so you lay on your stomach, your head propped up on your hands at the foot of his kind size bed. "Sure, but you can't wash my sink out of your sheets, so you haven't got a choice, do you, Feathers?"

You can hear him chuckle adoringly, followed by the low, loving mutter of, "No, but I can burn them."

With the nicknames practically set in stone, the two of you were set apart easily. However, it wasn't quite as simple for most of his family.

Alfred, ever formal and polite, addresses you as he always has: Miss [L/N].

Bruce calls you by your first name, though there isn't any confusion as to who he's talking to, as he uses a much firmer tone when addressing Damian with is moniker.

Dick doesn't find any difficulty in keeping g your original nickname. Birdy, he calls you. He says it reminds him of a younger you (likely because that's when he first gave you the title, much to a 10 year old Damian's dismay).

Jason, however, struggles greatly. You weren't introduced before you and Damian we're dating (he was officially dead, and because you didn't know about the masks, you couldn't know about him), so he didn't feel he had any place to give you a nickname. He also calls Damian by his hero name fairly often, using the same tone as he does for you. It was months before he finally gave up, forever referring to you as "the demon's sidekick" or "she-bird". Including when he speaks directly to you.

Tim nearly never calls Damian by his mantle, so he doesn't particularly see any reason to call you anything other than your name, despite Damian twitching every single time. It was only recently he's started calling you by your middle name instead, after figuring out that Damian was slowly becoming desensitized to anyone calling for him on patrol.

His sisters, though you don't see them quite as often, have cycled through too many nicknames and random words that you gave up keeping track.

Outside of his family, Jon is one of the only one you see on a regular basis. He's always thought the whole thing is hilarious. He's taken to calling you "moroon", an inside joke the three of you share that relates to an ever present memory involving an eggplant, a purple shirt, and an entire pack of Crayola colored markers.

Had he known what he knows now, this would have been a much different story. Had he known just how much the name of a common bird would ever hope to impact his life, maybe -- just maybe -- he would have paid a little more mind when he first heard you say it so long ago.

#damian wayne #damian wayne imagine #damian wayne x reader #robin

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gatesofember · 5 years

Text

Frailty and Fortune: Chapter 4

PJO Arranged Marriage/Royalty AU Part 10

Rating: T | Pairing: Solangelo

Prev | Next | AU directory | Read it on AO3 (Recommended) | Arranged Marriage AU Masterpage

Summary: A few months have passed since Prince Nico’s wedding to William of Solace. Even with his husband at his side, Will sometimes feels lonely as he settles into his new life. He misses his home, his family, his friends, and his studies in Venadica. Meanwhile, Nico is uncertain how to help him, awkward about expressing himself, and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to truly make his husband happy. As time goes by and Will continues to feel lost in his new home, Will and Nico must both learn how to make their marriage work.

Nico woke up late the next day. Very late. Reyna was not pleased with him.

Despite her lecture, Nico was in no hurry to get up until she reminded him of two things: firstly, that Midas had noticed his absence all morning, and secondly, that Nico’s husband had been entertaining their host alone.

Nico shot out of bed at that. He quickly dressed and readied himself, decided that he could wait until lunch to eat, and then hurried with Reyna to find Will and Midas.

Reyna brought him to a windowed drawing room where the early sunlight made Will’s hair more golden than anything in Midas’ estate. He was standing with Midas at a large round table littered with maps.

Midas politely greeted him, which Nico ignored, and Will smiled kindly. At first, Nico was overwhelmed with relief to find him safe, but once the feeling passed, it was quickly replaced by anger. How dare Will meet with Midas alone? Had Nico not been very clear about what he thought of that?

You were sleeping, reminded a rational voice in Nico’s head. Nico ignored it. Yes, he should have woken up earlier, but that wasn’t a reason for Will to meet with Midas alone. He should have at least taken Reyna with him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Will said, oblivious to Nico’s fury. “We’ve been looking over maps of the mines and making projections of what an extension of the slope would entail. Engineering isn’t my specialty, but I thought I’d have a look.”

Will looked well-rested, happy, and eager. Hadn’t he seemed disinterested in helping just the night before? Now he suddenly wanted to be involved? After leaving Nico and Reyna to deal with him before, he suddenly decided to speak with Midas on his own? Had he forgotten that Nico was the duke? That Nico was supposed to lead their discussions?

Will didn’t mean anything by it, Nico tried to tell himself. It didn’t make him feel better.

“The outdoor pony stables should be here, at the slope’s entrance,” Will said, pointing at the top of a cross-section map. “I suggest building them as soon as possible, at least so that the ponies on the first three levels can start using them while work on the slope progresses.”

Nico’s lips pursed. Will was only trying to help, he reminded himself. Really, he was doing exactly what Nico had asked of him. Nico shouldn’t be angry.

When a manservant entered the room and took Midas’ attention, Will leaned closer to whisper in Nico’s ear. “I’m glad you’ve finally woken up.”

Nico made a noncommittal sound in response. He was not in the mood for teasing.

Will frowned. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Nico grunted.

Will didn’t seem satisfied by that answer. For a moment, it seemed like he might drop the matter anyway, but then he reached for Nico’s hand. “Nico?”

Nico snatched his hand away. “You may not call me that here,” he hissed. “I have already told you the circumstances in which you are allowed to use that name.”

Nico immediately regretted it. He’d lashed out at Will like that once before, when he’d berated Will for touching him during Prince Percy’s wedding. Will’s expression this time at least wasn’t as confused and scared as it had been back then, but he still looked hurt. And not just hurt, either—it was like a cold steel wall had suddenly sprung up around him. He looked angry.

“I didn’t mean to snap,” Nico said quickly, determined not to get himself into trouble like he had the last time.

Will nodded slowly, but his features didn’t soften. Before Nico could apologize, Midas returned.

“Lityerses has everything prepared for you to leave,” he said. “Your man is already waiting.”

“Man?” Nico repeated. He was Will’s man.

“Hedge,” Will explained.

Nico nodded. That was alright, then.

Then Nico caught himself and forced his thoughts to grind to a halt. Of course it was alright. He had to keep his penchant for resentment in check. There was no reason to be getting jealous.

“Then I will leave you to your talks,” Will said, standing up straight and fixing his coat. “Will you send the documents I requested to my room, Lord Midas?”

“I already have someone locating them,” Midas answered.

And the jealousy was back. What documents? Why hadn’t Will mentioned these documents to Nico?

Nico mentally trampled the thoughts away.

“Thank you,” Will said, then he turned to Nico. “Until this evening, Your Highness.”

“Yes,” Nico said, because that was the only thing he could think to say other than “Don’t leave yet!” He tried to discreetly touch Will’s hand as he passed, but didn’t manage to reach him in time.

Nico watched him go with an uncomfortable wrench in his gut. He’d thoroughly spoiled what could have been a perfectly good morning.

* * *

Will had worked as a healer long enough for examinations to become second nature to him. He made his way through the mine’s ponies without needing to think much about it. It was a good thing, because Will’s mind was preoccupied with his husband.

He knew why Nico was angry; Nico had asked him to be careful around Midas and was upset when he found out that Will had met with him alone. Still, Will couldn’t explain that they’d been discussing his daughter’s health. He did feel guilty for worrying Nico and keeping Zoe a secret, but he wasn’t sure that he had a choice. Zoe deserved confidentiality. Will didn’t have the right to tell Nico about her health.

Anyway, Will thought Nico’s anger was unreasonably inflated. He could understand the frustration, but honestly—snapping at Will for the mistake with his given name? It was all quite ridiculous and even a little bit offensive. Why was Nico so against his husband using his given name in public? Why was he so ashamed of Will?

Much to Will’s surprise and relief, Lityerses made a good conversation partner. He helped keep Will from dwelling too much on Nico while he worked on the ponies.

“The Prince must have told him to keep a close watch on me,” Lityerses said, referring to Hedge.

Will glanced at Hedge, who was glowering at Will and Lityerses from the entrance of the stables. There were in the first level of the mines and Will was sitting on a stool, working by lamplight to examine a pony’s hooves. Hedge had made no attempt to hide his distrust of Midas’ son.

“Yes, well, my husband is worried about my safety and Hedge is suspicious by nature,” Will said. “I’m sure no one meant any offence.”

Lityerses raised an eyebrow. “Your Highness, I do recall the way the Prince objected to my accompanying you at dinner last night,” he said. “Besides, I am well aware of what he thinks of my family.”

Will paused while examining one hoof, and all he managed to say was, “Oh.” After a second, he gathered his thoughts and added, “Well, really, it’s just your father.”

But Lityerses shook his head. “Oh, no, the Prince doesn’t like me, either,” he said. “He rejected me quite quickly when I was considered as a candidate for Royal Consort.”

Will sat up so quickly that he knocked his head on the wooden slats behind him with a loud crack.

“Your Highness?” Hedge called.

“I’m fine, Hedge,” Will answered quickly, lest he come back inside and start breathing down Will’s neck again. He’d been so distracting that Will had been forced to ask Hedge to keep an eye on the mine from the entrance of the stables within ten minutes of arriving.

Lityerses eyed him curiously. “Didn’t your husband tell you I was considered?”

“He...uh...neglected to mention that,” Will said, rubbing the throbbing spot on the back of his head. He supposed it wasn’t surprising that Nico hadn’t said anything, given how much he’d teased Nico about his failures with Cecil and Ellis. Nico had probably been embarrassed. Given how much Nico despised Midas, any attempt by Lityerses to court him must have been disastrous.

“It fell through immediately,” Lityerses said again. “Hardly worth mentioning. Suits me well, anyway; being the Prince’s consort would have been nice, but I’m needed here to take the county after my father. Zoe...well, we always assumed that Zoe wouldn’t live long enough to do it.”

Will wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. Lityerses must have misinterpreted his uneasiness, because he said, “You don’t need to worry about my relationship with your husband. It was bound for failure. He never would have accepted my father’s son.”

“Right,” Will said, racking his brain for another topic of conversation. Nico wouldn’t have wanted him to talk to Lityerses about this. There had been a reason Nico hadn’t mentioned courting Lityerses and Will didn’t feel right learning about it from someone other than his husband.

He got to his feet and opened the pony’s mouth to examine its teeth. “I’ve noticed that these ponies all seem quite young,” he said. “At least, that’s what I’d assume based on their teeth.”

“They are,” Lityerses confirmed. “That’s actually what I wanted you to look for in the records. It’s always been this way.”

“They’re too young,” Will said, stepping back to look over the pony. “He’s even quite small. He can’t be more than three years old.”

“Some are younger.”

“Younger?” Will repeated. “What age do they send them here?”

“Two or three, according to the records I’ve looked at,” Lityerses answered. “Then they work here for the rest of their lives.”

“And I’d wager that isn’t very long,” Will grumbled angrily as he left the pony’s stall to move to the next one.

“It’s not. Three more years, if they’re lucky.”

Will halted in his tracks. “Three?”

“Three,” Lityerses confirmed. “Pit ponies usually only live to about five.”

“But they’re not even fully grown before five!”

“I know.”

“They’re practically children!”

“I know.”

“Do you realize how long ponies are supposed to live? Twenty years. Twenty! This is only a quarter of how long their lives should be! I expected their lifespans to be short, but I thought they’d at least make it to ten.”

“I know,” Lityerses said again. “I’ve been looking into this for at least the past two years. It’s all in the records that I told you to ask for.”

Will ran a hand through his hair, forgetting how dirty his fingers were. “And your father,” he said. “What does he think of all this?”

“He doesn’t particularly care,” Lityerses answered.

“But you do,” Will said. It was halfway between a statement and a question. “You do, and you can’t let your father know. Why? Why haven’t you confronted him?”

Lityerses sighed. “You have to understand—he’s my father. Every son worships his father when they’re young.”

Will couldn’t say he agreed with the sentiment. He liked his father well enough, but he’d always been very much aware of Apollo’s flaws.

Will nodded for Lityerses to go on anyway and chose not to voice his thoughts on the matter just yet.

“I only recently started to realize that something was wrong here,” Lityerses continued. “Or, at least, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally came to terms with it. I’ve known for a long time. You’ve heard about my father’s trial, I presume?”

“I’ve heard.”

Lityerses crossed his arms and averted his eyes. “I knew about the baiting before the trial,” he said. “My father took me to watch matches when I was younger. At the time, I thought it was just a normal sport. It wasn’t until the trial that I found out it was illegal. Even after that, it took time for me to accept that it was wrong, because if it was wrong, then my father was a bad person. I didn’t want to believe that.” Lityerses looked up at Will, and whatever expression he was wearing made Lityerses close his arms further over his chest. “I’m not proud of it, Your Highness.”

“I imagine not,” Will said. He didn’t mean it judgmentally, but he certainly wasn’t feeling compassionate, either. “Continue.”

“I assumed that he changed after the trial. In fact, I was desperate to believe it. But sometimes he said things—things that seemed...flippant. Like he didn’t care. Eventually, I started to suspect that he could still be causing harm to animals, or even to people.”

“Lityerses,” Will interrupted. “Is he still baiting?”

“No, I haven’t found evidence of that,” Lityerses answered. “That was one of the first things I tried to find out. He doesn’t travel enough for me to think he attends matches elsewhere and I’d have found out by now if he were holding them in Phrygia. We’d have more guests, for one thing. I even looked at financial records, and everything seems to be accounted for—no large, unexplained sums of money that he could have earned or lost off bets. It’s possible I missed something, but...if there are still active baiting circles in Pluto, somehow I doubt my father would be invited to join. The last time he was found out, he gave names.”

Will nodded. It was unlikely that anyone would trust Midas after he betrayed the last baiting circle.

“No baiting, then,” Will said. “But you did find out about the ponies. What else?”

“Well, ponies don’t leave the mines. Accidents aren’t exactly rare. The work hours are long—for ponies and humans. And the pay is barely enough for the workers to feed their families. Actually, quite a bit of it gets back to my father through taxes, so it’s like he’s hardly paying the workers at all.”

“But Phrygia hardly seems poor,” Will said. “It’s so clean.”

“He’s willing to spend his tax income on improvements in the city, but I suspect it’s out of vanity rather than concern for Phrygians,” Lityerses explained. “He pays sanitation workers, then taxes them so much that they may as well have done their jobs for free. The streets are clean, but the people who live in them are starving.”

“Ni—the Prince told me that your father is well-liked in Pluto.”

“Oh, he is—by the aristocracy and merchant class vying for his favor,” Lityerses said. “He’s the wealthiest man in Pluto; people know what kind of advantages his friendship can offer. That’s how he acquired some very powerful connections.”

“And he earned everything off the labor of animals and the poor.”

“Labor, if not their lives,” Lityerses said. “I did try to ask my father about the ponies once. I mentioned that I noticed the lifespans were rather short. He just told me that it was normal for pit ponies and that all mines are that way. And he’s right—I even checked. All this?” Lityerses gestured to the ponies in the stable around them. “This is happening in mines all over Pluto, Your Highness. My father isn’t an outlier. He may be worse than most—that’s why he has the highest profits—but he’s hardly the only guilty party.”

“Gods above,” Will murmured. “And no one cares?”

“I care,” Lityerses said. “And you care. I suspect that the Prince would care, too. Your Highness, I only just started finding out about all this and I’m hardly a capable researcher, so I know that there are things I’ve missed. It took me years to deduce everything I’ve told you. I know I can’t convince my father to change anything and I’ve been too afraid to confront him further because if he stopped trusting me, then there wouldn’t be a way for me to keep investigating. There is very little I can do. Even if I could, I wouldn’t know how to start fixing any of this. You, though—you’re a consor. You’re the Prince’s husband. Your aunt is the Matestra. You can do something.”

Will’s mouth felt dry. Lityerses was right.

If anything were to change, it had to start with Will.

* * *

That realization should have terrified Will. He was still growing accustomed to the fact that he was a member of the Royal Family and hadn’t quite mentally grasped exactly how much power he now held. He wasn’t the illegitimate son of a duke anymore. He was the husband of the future King of Pluto.

But this was exactly why Artemis had arranged for his marriage consultation with Nico in the first place. Will remembered what his aunt had told him when he expressed his doubt that he’d make a suitable match for a prince— “ You are a consor,” she’d said, “which, I daresay, is exactly what the Royal Family needs.”

There were other consors and sorors acting as advisors in the palace—Reyna, for one—but there was a very clear difference between serving the Royal Family and being a part of it. And unlike some of the advisors Will had met, he was also a healer, and that had fostered a nurturing quality in him which their personalities lacked. They made fine partners to discuss theory with, but were too stolid and analytical for Will to enjoy a more casual conversation—with the exception of Reyna, who Will had discovered made quite a good friend. The rest of the palace advisors were often too concerned with rigid numbers and charts and intellectual discussions to step back and think of people as people or of Pluto as a home for millions of individuals.

But Will—Will not only could, but wanted to make a change. And it wasn’t just Midas. It wasn’t just Plutonian mines. There was Plutonian healthcare, too, and the appalling rate of poverty throughout the country.

Will could change all of it.

His thoughts were interrupted by Zoe’s wet cough jostling the thermometer in her mouth. He checked the reading and offered her the cup water at her bedside.

“I really hate having my temperature taken,” she said.

“Well, at least we know your fever has gone down,” Will said as he recorded the information in his papers. “Actually, there are smaller, faster types of thermometers now. You ought to ask your father to buy one.”

Lityerses sighed from the other side of Zoe’s bed, where he was sitting to watch over his sister while Will tended to her. “Faster thermometers?” he said. “Then I’ll never get her to be quiet. The only time she stops talking is when she’s having her temperature taken.”

Zoe snickered. “Or when I’m being sick all over my bedsheets.”

“Hopefully, that won’t happen as much anymore,” Will said. “It’s your sacred duty to annoy your brother.”

Zoe looked like she was about to say something, but then she started coughing again.

“Keep drinking,” Will said. “I know you don’t want to, but you can’t be healthy without it.”

Zoe was too busy coughing to answer. When it finally calmed, she took another sip of water. Will encouraged her to drink more before he took the cup back.

“I hate this,” Zoe whispered, her voice thick with phlegm.

“I know, but this is a good sign,” Will said. “The cough always gets worse at the end.”

“Then the medicine is working?” Zoe asked.

“Yes, I believe it is,” Will answered. “You’ll be able to get out of bed soon—definitely by the time I leave at the end of the week.”

“I wonder if you could treat my skin condition, as well,” Zoe said, looking up at Will with large, hopeful eyes.

Will thought carefully before replying. He’d expected Zoe to ask about that at some point. Patients with skin conditions always wanted to know how to hide it. “Right now, I think it’s most important to take care of your illness,” he said.

“Is the rash difficult to treat?”

“No,” Will said. “It’s actually quite simple. Unfortunately, the treatment counteracts the medication I’m already giving you.”

“Counteracts?” Zoe repeated.

“Yes, it....” Will paused, realizing that Zoe didn’t understand what he was saying. He considered his answer for a moment, then folded his hands in his lap and said, “Zoe, do you know why you have rashes?”

“Because I’m ill,” Zoe answered.

“Your rashes aren’t caused by your illness,” Will said. “They’re trying to protect you from your illness.”

Zoe frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Let me try to explain,” Will said. “Right now, your body is working very, very hard to keep you healthy. You’re trying to fight off the sickness inside you. One of the ways your body fights is by raising your temperature, and that’s why you have a fever. So your fever isn’t really a bad thing; it’s helping you heal. Of course, having a fever that’s too high can also be dangerous, so we have to regulate your temperature externally—” Will stopped, realizing that he was letting himself ramble. He had a habit of that. “Anyway, your body also is fighting on the surface of your skin, which is why you get rashes. Rashes mean that your body is working hard to keep you safe. Do you understand?”

Zoe nodded.

“Unfortunately, it also means that your body is wasting energy fighting in the wrong place,” Will said. “But if I try to get rid of your rashes, I would have to make your body weaker, and that’s the opposite of what I want. The medicine I’m giving you will help your body fight harder. Unfortunately, this means that your fever will rise and....”

“And my rashes will get worse,” Zoe said.

“Yes,” said Will. “But once you’re better, your body will be able to stop fighting so hard and the rashes will go away like they always do.” Will patted her hand. “It’s late. You ought to rest now.”

Zoe tucked herself further under the blankets of her bed as Will cleaned and packed up the equipment he’d used. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lityerses smile gently and kiss his sister’s forehead, but by the time he turned around, Lityerses was standing and ready to escort Will back to his chambers.

Lityerses looked surprised when Will invited him for a drink in his room, but he accepted the offer and found a manservant to bring them tea. Will waited until the servant left them alone with the door shut to ask the question that had been on his mind since their conversation in the mines.

“Does Zoe know?”

Lityerses blew at the steam rising out of his cup. “No,” he said. Will waited patiently while Lityerses took a sip. Lityerses glanced at him and sighed, like he’d hoped Will’s question ended there. “Zoe’s too young to remember his trial. I was only twelve at the time and I was confused, so I defended him because I didn’t realize....” Lityerses paused again and his shoulders dropped. “He’s my father,” he said. “It’s not easy to realize that your father isn’t the hero you thought he was.”

“You only knew what you’d been taught.” Will didn’t say it to be comforting. He meant it more as an observation than an expression of sympathy.

Lityerses’ eyes looked downwards, focusing on the gold-brown ripples on the surface of his tea. He didn’t seem to find much relief in Will’s words, either. “I’d been taught wrong. I understand that now. But Zoe isn’t like me—you have to know that. I had to unlearn everything I knew and completely ruin my image of my father just to be half as kind as her. I don’t want her to have to go through that.”

“So you want her to live in ignorance?”

Lityerses looked up and met Will’s eyes again. “You don’t agree with me.” He didn’t sound accusing. Instead, he sounded questioning, almost pleading, like he was begging Will for his thoughts and guidance.

“I understand your reasoning, but there are too many secrets in your home, Lityerses,” Will said. “Your father’s trying to cover everything wrong that’s happening here, his criminal record is being kept from your sister, your sister’s health is a secret, and you can’t voice your objections to your father.”

“And I want to protect Zoe from all that,” Lityerses said. “At least until she’s older.”

“She’ll start to notice things eventually, just like you did,” Will said. “I think you ought to talk to her before she does. You don’t want her to feel like she’s alone.”

Lityerses nodded. “When she’s older,” he said again. “And healthier. Right now she ought to focus on recovering.”

“Good,” Will said. “And you need to stop hiding from your father. Nothing good will happen if you allow him to continue what he’s doing.”

“I can’t rebel against him.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you?”

Lityerses’ mouth fell open, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m not saying you have to rebel,” Will went on. “But voice your opinions more often. You have an excuse now—you’re only trying to ensure that the mine follows the guidelines left by the Prince. Then a little later you can start to have an input on how the city is run, on the taxes, and on ways to use your father’s wealth to help people. My husband and I are leaving at the end of the week, Lityerses. Do you want everything to go back to the way it was, or do you want things to change?”

For a long moment, Lityerses remained silent. Finally, he took a breath and started to speak.

He was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Will heard the click of the handle as he looked up, and there in the doorway stood Nico.

* * *

Nico was livid.

He’d been bothered by what had happened that morning all day. When he met with Midas’ head engineer, he hardly listened to her speak because his mind kept echoing the words he’d snapped at Will for using his given name. Will hadn’t deserved it, he knew. He’d been angry for a foolish reason and had lashed out at Will over a minor offence. And the sight of Will’s face? He had never looked at Nico with a gaze so cold.

Nico hadn’t gotten the chance to speak with Will since he arrived back at the estate after being in the mines all day. He had barely looked at Nico over dinner and he’d once again declined the invitation to meet with Midas. He wanted to read, he’d said.

And then, when Nico went to Will’s rooms to apologize for that morning, he’d found Will not reading, but instead sharing tea with Lityerses. Lityerses, of all people.

“Your Highness,” Will said. There was still a hint of that steely, guarded air around him, but he smiled at Nico. Nico, however, was too furious to care.

“Don’t you think it’s time for you to retire, Lityerses?” Nico said sharply. “It’s awfully late to be in a room alone with another man’s husband.”

The guarded air came crashing back around Will.

Lityerses quickly got to his feet. “Yes, Your Highness, my apologies,” he said, and he left the room with short goodbye to Will. Nico shut the door behind him.

“Why was he here?”

“Because I invited him,” Will answered calmly.

Nico blinked. “You what?”

“I invited him,” Will repeated. He took a sip of tea.

“Invited?”

“Yes, Your Highness. I believe that is what I said.”

Nico’s jaw clenched. “Do not tease me now, Will,” he snapped. “And you did the same thing this morning, too! You sought out Midas alone. I asked you very clearly not to be alone with them.”

“No, you didn’t.” Will set his tea down on the table beside him, right next to the one Lityerses had left behind, and folded his hands primly in his lap. “All you told me was to be careful around Midas.”

“And Lityerses is just as bad as his father! You knew that I didn’t trust him. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

Will tapped his fingers on his knee once. “I think that Lityerses must have given you a bad impression when you met,” he said slowly.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous—”

“Really, Nico,” Will said, fixing him with a tired, annoyed glare. “He’s helping me with the ponies. He approached me and said that he’d heard I was hard on his father about their welfare, then he gave me some information he thought I might like to know. If you had simply asked instead of accusing me as soon as—”

“It’s a trap,” Nico said. It didn’t even bear thinking about. “Midas must have set him up to it.”

Will sighed like he was dealing with a difficult child. “Why can’t you entertain the possibility that Lityerses is better than his father?”

“Because he’s not!”

“Is this because he’s a failed suitor?”

Nico’s blood at once went icy, and then just as suddenly was hot with fury. Will knew. He knew what Lityerses’ family had done, he knew that Nico hated being reminded of his failures as a suitor, and Will knew, somehow, that Lityerses had been offered to him—a memory that Nico had tried very hard to forget. “Do you think,” Nico growled, “—do you think that this is some petty grudge?”

“Nico—”

“Because I must have been such a horrid suitor, is that it? After all, how is it possible that I failed every attempt at courting until you came along? Clearly— clearly it must have been my fault. Clearly there must have been something wrong with me because it simply isn’t possible for all my suitors to have been so awful. Surely I was immature, saw the worst in everyone, purposely sabotaged every arrangement—”

“Nico—”

“So obviously, if I ever speak ill of someone who was offered as a potential fiancé, then I must be wrong about them. It’s all in my head, isn’t it? I know that’s what everyone’s thinking.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yes, you were, Will. You were.” Nico turned away before Will could answer. “Goodnight,” he said as he left. He heard Will call his name just as he slammed the door shut.

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