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urlneverheardofit · 4 years

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Chapter 1: The Black Prince

So I'm working on a rewrite for my project and just put out chapter 1 2.0. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions on it

The last black dragon in all of Azeroth was residing in a faraway land, nestled in a mystical continent was a long mountain range that blocked a third of the land from the rest. In this mountain range was a series of peaks that were shrouded in mists. The peaks were home to a narrow mountain pass which in turn was home to a lone tavern. This tavern was a two-story building, had a balcony overhanging a hot spring and was heavily guarded.

This is where The Black Prince took shelter. Surrounded by trained guards and assassins sworn to protect him, in the middle of nowhere on a continent largely unheard of until recently.

The Black Prince. Such an honorable title for such a hated position.

He was a dragon.

Son of a mad king.

He was the last of his bloodline.

The Black Prince had a lot stacked against him when it came to his reputation, that madness and corruption that ran in his blood didn't help.

Still, The Black Prince, more informally known as Wrathion, did his best to alleviate the concerns of the other dragon orders, and the rest of the world. After all, his father Neltharion was not the only Aspect to go mad.

The Dragon Aspects were leaders of the different orders of dragons, called Dragonflights, and they ruled over their respective colors, while none held more power than any other.

The Red Dragonflight was charged with protecting life of all forms. They were lead by the beautiful Alexstrasza, the Life-Binder.

The Blue Dragonflight protected all the magic of the world, helping the mortal races understand and use magic themselves. They had originally been led by Malygos but after the Nexus wars and Malygos' descent to madness, the young dragon Kalecgos had taken the mantle of Spell-Weaver.

The Bronze Dragonflight were the keepers of time. They were led by Nozdormu, who, in an alternate timeline, went mad and became the Infinite but in the current present, stood proud as the Timeless One.

The Green Dragonflight were the protectors of the Emerald Dream, as well as patrons of nature itself and were lead by Ysera the Dreamer.

Finally, the Black Dragonflight, the once noble protectors of Azeroth had been corrupted, twisted to insanity. Now all the remained of them was a horrible memory of their once leader, who was originally named Neltharion the Earth Warder, but would forever be known as Deathwing. The last living fragment of the once-proud order was Wrathion himself, spared of the corruption thanks to the actions of a red dragon.

The Earth Warder, the Spell Weaver and the Infinite, all lost to madness of one form or another.

He understood, to some extent why others reacted the way they did, but he had not yet proven himself to be following in their footsteps. It was not fair to judge him for the sins of his fallen ancestors.

After Deathwing's defeat, ironically taking place on the day Wrathion hatched, the world had moved on, according to the other flights. Since the mysterious lands of Pandaria had been rediscovered in the southernmost part of the world, Wrathion had been interested in the new land. He refrained from exploring this new land himself until some years after its discovery. Partially because he had been so young and he had needed time to mature and learn what he could from his predecessors, save the insanity, of course.

He had begun his life in the mountain fortress known as Blackrock Mountain. The former lair of Nefarian, more famously known by mortals, who were responsible for his death, as Blackwing. Nefarian's lair had provided a perfect hatching ground for a black dragon whelp. With the lower level of Nefarian's lair being submerged in magma. It was in the accursed lair of his half-brother that Wrathion's studies had begun.

Nefarian, in life, and in undeath as well, had been an avid experimenter, his studies and tests had been long and painful on its draconic victims of all colors. Dragons that had been taken as captives by Blackwing's lackeys and were tormented in unspeakable fashions.

Their slow deaths had not been in vain, however, because Wrathion had been able to glean much of the study's results from Nefarian's meticulous notes. He had learned much of the history of his beloved Azeroth within those tomes.

A dozen years passed in a lair he hated even the thought of. Wrathion had noticed early on he was not growing any larger as a normal dragon would. He had also realized at the end of those years that he would need to introduce himself to mortals at some point or another and thus moved nests, knowing he needed a more suitable location for him to begin to work on transforming himself into a mortal so as to hide the fact he was, in truth, still a whelp.

Thus Wrathion had traveled to from the continent known as the Eastern Kingdoms to the continent on the Western hemisphere known as Kalimdor. Thankfully, he had recruited a blue dragon to help transport him via a portal to his destination. His new den was located in a cave that spiraled down for miles and whose mouth looked like a dragon's toothy maw. This cave had once belonged to his half-sister, known as Onyxia, who, while not the scientist that Nefarian was, and had assisted Deathwing by hatching his army of dragons instead.

He spent another six years of learning to perfect his transformation. His human form was a tall, lean human with caramel-colored skin, blazing red eyes, and long curly black hair. He even had something of a beard starting to grow in.

Despite his human form aging accordingly, for the time being, his dragon form remained a whelp. A small black scaled whelp with big red eyes and absolutely no useful natural weapons yet. Small as the day he had hatched. Still, his humanoid form looked like a grown human. So it would be child's play to fool mortals, simply do not transform into a dragon around them and none would be the wiser.

Only after he had mastered staying in his human form for extended periods of time did he set off to Pandaria. He had inherited his father's hoard and was able to fund himself a number of guards and agents. Again Wrathion enlisted the assistance of a blue dragon to simplify his transport to Pandaria. Securing a place to stay and a group of sailing mages he began to set up his studies once again. Pandaria was interesting to the dragon because after so long of isolation the secrets it may reveal to a young dragon were alluring on its own. Plus it allowed for practice interacting with mortals of all stripes.

Which brought him to the present moment. He sat alone at a sturdy wooden table with similarly crafted benches on the long sides of the furniture. To the north was an open archway to the hot spring Wrathion liked to soak in at sunset. It was as close to familiar as he got out here. In the Northeast corner was a staircase leading up to the guest chambers. East of that was a two-person bar. The tavern was staffed by a mated pair, both of the Pandaren race, who were humanoid bears for lack of a better description. The male ran the bar and the female was the one who served the food and drinks to anyone sitting at the table. Given that Wrathion was the only patron in this quaint tavern the male had busied himself with refurbishing the building to accommodate the tastes of a dragon. In the south of the room was the open doorway out in the mountain pass. He had two bodyguards who stayed at his side at all times. One was an orcish woman called Left. The other was a human woman called Right. Right guarded the door to the hot spring. Left guarded the threshold out to the mountain pass while Wrathion wandered in thought, having taken the day off after a particularly daring delve into ancient ruins.

"You have visitors," Left grunted, and shortly thereafter Wrathion heard them too. Turning and setting his elbows on the table so he could listen and watch. Many hoofbeats thundered down the gravel-road pass and stopped outside the tavern. There was shifting in equipment, the rustling of armor, and hushed voices as the mortals approached the tavern.

Wrathion didn't have to wait much longer before he could see them through the doorway. It was a patrol of about nine soldiers bearing blue and gold coloring on their otherwise undecorated white plate armor.

In the center of the organized square of the soldiers were three individuals that stood out. The first was a wolfman. He stood on two feet like a human but he was covered in shaggy gray-and-white fur from head to toe, had enlarged fangs and claws, and bore no other weapons. He wore thick leather armor, which paired well with his stern blue eyes, and his ears were flattened to his head.

The second was a hulking human man with long brown hair, deep brown eyes, and wearing heavy blue and gold armor adorned with lion head pauldrons. He carried two massive blades that were forged around globes of light, a deep scar over his eyes and nose, and a firm set scowl on his face told Wrathion he meant business.

The last was a short, slim human boy with a shock of blonde hair, eyes as blue as the sea. He wore decorative blue and golden clothing. He walked with a cane and a severe hobble yet he was clearly the youngest of the group, but he kept up well with his faster companions. He looked shy and timid, glancing around as though some unseen predator would leap out of the shadows cast by the mountain range to swallow the boy whole.

Wrathion's attention was yanked from the boy forcibly when the big human male stood in the doorway, blocking out Wrathion's view of the other two.

"Dragon," The man began in a gruff voice, gazing right into the eyes of Wrathion without flinching, "I am King Varian Wrynn of the Alliance. We come to ask for your assistance."

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lawrenceop · 4 years

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Mary’s Patronage of the Dominican Order

In January 2020, I was honoured to preach the annual retreat for the Studentate of the Holy Name Province (California). The twelve talks looked at joyful, sorrowful, and glorious aspects of the Dominican life. Below is the 10th talk on our being led to glory under the patronage of Our Blessed Lady.

On the 22nd of December in 1216, our holy father St Dominic knelt before Pope Honorius III, at the Lateran Palace in Rome. And he received from the Holy Father a papal bull entitled ‘Religiosam vitam’, which extended “apostolic protection”, that is to say, papal approval, for the newly-formed Dominican brethren. This marked the beginning of the Dominican Order for this document gave to St Dominic and his brethren various legal rights and privileges and safeguards that secured our place in the Church as a religious order. In particular, it allowed St Dominic to “receive and keep” both members of the clergy and lay men who would “flee from the world to enter religious life.” A month later, the same Pope issued another document that granted to St Dominic’s Order the unique title of “Order of Preachers”, a term that until then had been used collectively to refer to the college of bishops. Incidentally, I believe that certain distinctively episcopal gestures and symbols were conceded to the Order, and these are found throughout the Dominican rite of Mass and in the rite of confession, for example, as signs of our sharing in the episcopal ministry of preaching.

These days, the anniversary of our Order is barely recalled liturgically - it is, after all, very close to Christmas, and falls within the ‘Golden Nights’ of Advent on the day proclaiming Christ to be O Rex Gentium. However, if we look in the old calendar, the 22nd of December – at least in the early 20th-century – was highlighted by the feast of the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Therefore, on a day that recalls the apostolic protection of a pope, we recall that ultimately, it is to the Mother of God that we look, for protection, for help, for succour. It is one of the glories of the Order that we have Our Lady as our patroness, and in particular, I want to consider the blessings she has given to us that lead us to heavenly glory.

According to some historians, the feast of Our Lady’s Patronage was instituted in the 13th-century when Pope Innocent IV had revoked some of the privileges granted to the Order, leaving us vulnerable to the attacks of the secular clergy. With no earthly patrons to help us, we looked to Our Lady whom the Vitæ Fratrum acknowledges as the true founder of the Order, and eleven years later, Pope Alexander IV restored the rights and privileges of the Order. The Constitutions, therefore, call her the “immensely caring mother of our Order”, but even this is somewhat less effusive than the old Constitutions which acknowledged Mary to be “our special Advocate and our most tender Mother and Patroness, who ever intercedes for us with God.” Apparently, we didn’t want to appear special, lest other Orders become jealous, just as some no longer wanted to claim the Rosary or the white Scapular as Our Lady’s special gift to the Order. However, for centuries, the Order claimed the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but this wasn’t because we were special friars. Rather, Our Lady instituted the Order of Preachers, and she protected it and safeguarded its mission because Our Lady has a special love for the salvation of souls. It is because of our mission, and the grave import of preaching the Gospel of her Son for the good of souls, that we find in Mary so great an advocate and patroness. For the Order is Our Lady’s gift to the world to help the Church in her most essential work of proclaiming the Truth to the world.

Thus the Vitæ Fratrum begins in this way: “It is clear from a careful study of holy Scripture, that the blessed Virgin is a compassionate advocate and powerful helper of mankind. By her prayers the fire of God’s wrath kindled against sinners is tempered lest they perish, and countless blessings are showered down upon the world… One of the examples of this is the fact, revealed to many of God’s servants, that this great Order was raised up by Almighty God’s mercy for the salvation of souls, through her all-prevailing intercession.” In an astonishing vision reported by a monk, he then sees Our Lady pleading with her Son to save sinners. But Jesus replies: “Holy Mother, what can I do, or ought I to do, further for the human race? Have I not sent them patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and doctors of the Church for their salvation? Have I not delivered myself up to death for their sakes?” But Our Lady continues her prayers, saying that she cannot teach the divine Wisdom what to do, but she is sure that if he desires, Jesus will “find some remedy for this perishing people.” At last, on the third day, the Lord says: “I know, sweet Mother, that sinners are being lost for want of preachers, having none to break to them the bread of the holy Scriptures, or teach the truth, or open the books now sealed to them. Wherefore, yielding to thy entreaties, I will send them new messengers, an Order of Preachers, who shall call the people and lead them to everlasting joys; only then shall we bar the gate to all slothful, accursed, and empty-handed souls.’ After this the monk beholding this vision saw brethren clothed in the habit which we now wear, and the Son and the Mother sent them forth with their blessing, giving them power to preach the Kingdom of God.”

In this vision, we have no cause for any sense of entitlement and privilege; no cause for complacency because we’re special. Rather, to speak of Our Lady’s patronage is to remember the responsibilities and duties entrusted to us as friars preachers. We’re to “preach the Kingdom of God” by exposing the truth of the Scriptures and the doctrines of the Church to our contemporaries. As we’ve already noted, therefore, we must prayerfully study Scripture and theology to equip us for this divine mission of calling souls and leading them to heaven. I’m reminded of a fresco in the Chapter House of our first convent in Florence, at Santa Maria Novella, and painted on an entire east wall, to the right of the altar, is a work by one Andrea da Firenze begun in 1366. It is entitled ‘Via Veritatis’ and it shows the Dominican Order leading souls to heaven through their preaching, teaching, refutation of heresies, assisting the pope and bishops who govern the Church, and through the sacramental ministry of hearing confession. Seated in the Chapter House before this great painting, the Florentine Dominicans could not have failed to recall the many duties entrusted to the Order by Christ and his Blessed Mother. As we hear Our Lord say in the Vitæ Fratrum: “I will send unto them preachers and men of truth, through whom the world shall be enlightened and reclaimed. If it so prove, it is well; but if not, there remains no further remedy, but I will myself come in judgement and be avenged upon them.”

So, given this high but arduous calling, we might ask, who will preach to the preachers? Who will pray for these men of truth? Who will give sweet rest to these labourers in the vineyard of Christ’s Church? Our Blessed Mother herself will come and be our “immensely caring mother”. For Theodoric of Apoldia recounts a vision given to St Dominic which assures him that we are protected under her mantle, and he says that it is Mary “by whose loving hands that we are blessed, who bestows on us the dew of so many graces, and who preserves us by her intercession from countless dangers!” Therefore, following the order in which Theodoric enunciates them, I want to consider these three Marian gifts in our Dominican life: the Salve procession, the Holy Rosary, and the white scapular.

The nightly Salve procession after Compline is distinctive to the Order, and it seems that Our Lady herself gave it to us as a nightly protection from the attacks of the devil. Listen again to the Vitæ Fratrum: “The Virgin Mother of all love both cherishes with a very special affection and watches over this Order which she has founded, while the devil – who is jealous of everything that is good, and who hesitated not to tempt the Lord of all – assailed our brethren in Bologna and Paris.” The understanding here, not made explicit, is that during the night the brethren were tempted by the devil in various ways, sometimes through frightening visions, but also other “horrible torments” inducing them into sin. In 1226 Blessed Jordan of Saxony therefore declared that we must turn to our special patroness, and so he instituted the Salve procession, and at once “the phantoms were put to flight, those who had been tormented were left in peace, two who had gone mad were restored to their wits… and from that time all went well with them.”

Moreover, several people had visions of Our Lady coming from heaven to bless the brethren during the Salve procession. As the Salve was being sung, Mary would bow to the brethren in greeting, she would kneel before the Lord as our Advocate, “praying for the preservation of the Order”, and then as we sang O dulcis Virgo Maria and bowed low, she would bow back, and then give her blessing before returning to heaven. Every night, therefore, Mary intercedes for the Order and she desires to come and greet us, to bless us, to kiss us goodnight as our own mothers would have when we were children. Let us, therefore, not neglect this beautiful practice of the nightly Salve for through it, Our Lady opens the gates of heaven, and she comes to bring us the light of Christ, the light of his grace that would protect us from the temptations and fears of the night, and confer on us the rest that we need after busy days of preaching, teaching, and study. Hence the Vitæ Fratrum recounts that “Brother Seyer, a professor of Cambridge University, who was renowned for piety and learning, reported to us how a certain holy man used often to behold a globe of light come down from heaven and rest upon the heads of the brethren while they were devoutly singing blessed Mary’s anthem after Compline.”

The Salve then, becomes, like our lullaby that resounds in our heads as we head back to the silence of our cells and soon, it is hoped, to sleep. However, it is especially moving to sing the Salve when one of our brothers falls asleep in Christ – I will say more in my next talk.

In Theodoric’s list, after being blessed by Our Lady’s own hands, he tells of the “dew of so many graces”. I believe that this is a reference to the Holy Rosary because the word rosarium, although it can refer to a rose garden, could also be derived from the word ros meaning ‘dew’. This makes sense when we recall that Our Lady said to St Dominic when she gave him the Rosary that his preaching wasn’t effective because he was trying to cultivate dry ground. Therefore, she says, “preach my Rosary” because heresy will not disappear until prayer rises like dew from the earth. The beads of the Rosary, Mother Theodosia Drane OP says are thus like drops of dew which water the dryness of the heart with the dewfall of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, the Rosary is Mary’s gift to the Order; it prepares the ground for our preaching and teaching. In the Rosary Shrine in London, for example, we have monthly candlelit Rosary processions, and these draw many people, including non-Catholics, who are looking for a time of quiet reflection, of muted beauty, and of peace. And then, during these processions, we preach and teach through the brief reflections that we give on each mystery. The sweetness of Mary, Mater misericordiæ, draws them, and many people who might not come to Mass are happy to join in a Rosary procession; people will accept a Rosary during our street evangelisations, and they ask for our prayers; and in prison ministry, many inmates ask for Rosaries as a sign of their hope in divine protection. The old Dominican blessing for a Rosary thus asks that the Rosary itself – and not just the praying of the Rosary – “be endowed with such power of the Holy Spirit, that whoever carries one on his person or reverently keeps one in his home, or devoutly prays to [God] while meditating on the divine mysteries” should share in the graces, privileges, and indulgences granted to the Confraternity of the Rosary. And, moreover, we ask that these persons will be “always and everywhere be shielded from all enemies, visible and invisible, and at his death deserve to be presented to you by the most blessed Virgin Mary herself.”

For whoever devoutly holds on to the Rosary will, by Our Lady’s intercession be brought to pray the Rosary, and to love God. I can say this from my own perspective. For years, as a convert to Catholicism from a devout Protestant family, I thought Marian devotion was extraneous and unnecessary, and I did not really understand the Rosary. In fact, I felt guilted into praying it! But Out Lady has other plans for me: first she put me in the Order of the Rosary. But even this didn’t get me to pray the Rosary regularly – I intellectualised it too much, and I think I tried too hard to like it. And then, Our Lady had me assigned to her Rosary Shrine in London where I became its Rector. By this stage, I had learnt to pray the Rosary as a matter of obedience. And then, now, Our Lady arranged for me to be the Order’s Promoter General of the Rosary, and for me to teach Mariology in Blackfriars Oxford! By a tremendous grace, at the time that the Master appointed me to this position in his Curia, I found I was able, with some ease, to pray 15 decades of the Rosary daily. Nevertheless, to begin with, all those years ago when I was a teenage convert, the Rosary was just something given to me at my first Communion, but it wasn’t something I used often. St Louis Marie de Montfort thus tells “several stories of great sinners who were converted through the power of the Rosary”, and I am sure there were many devout Rosary-praying Catholics who prayed for me and whose prayers continue to sustain me today.

Mary protects those who revere her Rosary, which is why she gives it to us. It hangs by our left side as a spiritual weapon, but it hangs there as a visible sign to others. On occasion when I am travelling people have commented on my Rosary when they see it, and this becomes an opening for a conversation about the Faith; children for example, love playing with the beads, and this is an opportunity to speak to their parents. During the two centuries or so when priests were not allowed to minister in Japan because of persecution, the Japanese Christians kept the faith alive by praying the Rosary, and many members of the Confraternity of the Rosary in Japan shed their blood for the Faith. Without mentioning the miracles of Lourdes and Fatima, these are just some examples of the many blessings given to the world and to the Order through the Rosary. Therefore, St Louis Marie de Montfort says: “As long as priests followed Saint Dominic’s example and preached devotion to the holy Rosary, piety and fervour thrived throughout the Christian world and in those religious orders that were devoted to the Rosary. But since people have neglected this gift from heaven, all kinds of sin and disorder have spread far and wide.” A century ago, Our Lady of the Rosary appeared at Fatima to remedy this, telling us to “pray the Rosary daily” for peace. And on subsequent occasions, and through Pope St John Paul II, Mary has again and again asked us to pray the Rosary. As Dominicans, to whom the Rosary was entrusted by Providence, we must therefore pray the Rosary and promote it both within and without the Order. I ask you, brothers, please to help me in this necessary work because it pleases Our Lady and Christ so very much. For as St Louis Marie de Montfort says: “Our Lady not only blesses those who preach her Rosary but she highly rewards all those who, by their example, get others to say it.” Truly, this is the chain of grace, by which we are rescued from the Enemy and pulled up to heaven!

Lastly, Our Lady’s third sign to her favoured sons is the scapular which she gave to the Order through Blessed Reginald. Like our own mothers who clothed us, so our heavenly mother clothes us in garments that anticipate the wedding garments of heaven. We have already looked at this, but I wish today to just remind you of those words which used to be said when we received it. The scapular is “the maternal pledge from Heaven of the love of the Blessed Virgin Mary towards us, under whose wings thou shalt find a shelter from the heat, and a bulwark and defence in death from all dangers both of body and soul.” Kiss the scapular, therefore, before you put it on, as a sign of your love for Our Blessed Mother and of trust in her great patronage; this devout act used to be enriched with indulgences.

Let us pray:

O God, who, for the salvation of souls, placed the Order of Preachers under the special protection of the most blessed virgin Mary, and was pleased to pour out upon it her unceasing favours: grant to your suppliants, that we may be led to the joy of heaven through the aid of that same protectress. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Collect for the feast of Our Lady’s Patronage of the Order)

#Dominican #retreat #friars preachers #Our Lady #Mary #patronage #blessed virgin mary

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ladywindrunner · 4 years

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try + deathwing :')

try + (character) // accepting ::

D E A T H W I N G

He, who was the greatest of calamities, a triumph in destruction – found himself destroyed before his symphony of ruin was complete. Merciful oblivion took him in the throes of deserved agony, and that devastating torture that wracked his body finally ceased.

He’d been nothing but a plague of misery and ash, a pestilence of consuming fire and malevolence. In the quiet now, without distractions he could consider his failure properly. His memories, twisted as they were, played out before him and he saw how his pathetic servants had fallen short of their duties.

How entirely vexing, the short comings of others.

For a briefest flash, free of the intrusive thoughts that he’d been unable to fight off, he thought he may deserve this fate. To be nothing save a foul memory. He can almost recall who’d he been before, almost grasp the concept of honour, duty, and valour. All things once attributed to him at his grandest—

NO.

Neltharion was dead. Destroyed beyond recognition, not even a corpse remained for those to mourn the fool who thought himself guardian. Imbecilic idealist who’d believed mortals even worth consideration. He was the champion of a rotting tomb, a hollow memory with a crumbling memorial somewhere on that pathetic world.

If even that.

Good. Let the world forget the Earth Warder. Let those who cling to his memory and beliefs suffer. Their weakness should be punished!

Within this sacred abyss was Deathwing. Greatest of all the dragons, he who could not be conquered without those fools mucking about with precious time. His laugh rung out to the nothingness about his incorporeal form. He laughed at his latent victory.

Who were they now to stand on mighty kingdoms of righteousness? For they had sinned as he had. They played with machinations said to be forbidden. But they did so with the naivety of children. They clung to their delusions of morality. Perhaps they’d struck him down, but their actions had unleashed unknowable catastrophes.

Fate would see them punished for their crimes, yet they would not possess the serenity of oblivion. They would fight, tooth and claw, to cling to that pathetic rock of a world. Their wars would simply draw more chaos, peace would never last.

What he pitied, was he would not be there to watch their misery. The Old Gods, whispering horrible truths, played their hand too early. Their patience was endless but limited. They were festering paradoxes, and in the silence death brought, it was a relief now that Deathwing did not have to endure their plots.

Such simple schemes they were, too. To rule a world empty of resistance, to corrupt it and twist all those on it to the void.

He barked out a bellowing laugh, for here he could mock them. Their deaths, without he as their dark vanguard, would be swift and well deserved.

Old Gods indeed, free of their madness, he could see just how archaic their designs were. They wrought ruin for ruin’s sake.

But was that not the simplicity sicknesses incurred? A disease has no drive beyond mutation and death.

If Deathwing felt shame, it was only because he’d permitted them to warp his own desires. They offered him power eons ago, but who truly had worked to obtain it?

He had. He’d done the work; and suffered for it. He’d walked amongst the mortals and manipulated them, he’d tricked the other Aspects. What had the Old Gods done but offer empty promises from their long lost prisons? He’d wanted freedom from a burden thrust on him undeservedly so, and why? Because beings claiming to be his betters wanted to witness what would occur. They who could not even bother to care for their own world, gave the responsibility to dragons undoubtedly out of sheer convenience.

The abyss contained within it, no semblance of time. Here, he sensed there was no beginning nor ending. This was existence at its worst. To be something almost tangible, with thoughts and goals, but without a means to properly act. The predicament was inconvenient. Infuriating that this was the end the Old Gods had brought him.

Where are your whispers now, you filth. I so wish to witness your demise. I know of many who you thought to rule who planned to betray you. Let them taste victory, if there is any semblance of justice within the cosmos, you will be nothing but the fleeting terror in the dreams of infants!

Resentment was a fine companion. One worthy of his hatred.

“And my father is dead, because of the Old Gods.”

Wrathion.

His son, a runt hardly worth a thought. Deathwing’s contempt for him is only matched by his amusement. The purge of his flight had failed then, though it was a shame that it was one so wretchedly weak that survived. Was he to believe that it was Wrathion who lead the struggle against the Old Gods?

There is a flicker of pride for the boy, though it is fleeting. How grand would it be if it should be his son to strike down the disease? It would not be so difficult to imagine; the Old Gods were arrogant things. They thought themselves untouchable because they were as real as nightmares.

Fools, as maddening as their designs were, they were fragile.

Falsehoods. Fakes. Lies. Mirages of the worst sort, but illusions all the same.

Prove yourself useful, whelp. Deathwing rumbled, the void about him shaking in resonance. Even here, in this nothingness, he possessed power. Surely you tire of being such a disappointment.

The silence around him is deafening. He waits to see if oblivion bestows him with another glimmer. He knows many of his former masters have perished. He delights in it. Somehow, in this vast emptiness, his knowledge has expanded. This abyss is as much their fate as it was his. Only they, without the fear of mortals to sustain them, are withering. Their greed and lust to be worshipped and dreaded is their downfall.

He was not so simple, and that was the only gift Neltharion bestowed upon him. His existence before corruption promised that Deathwing would not be so easily vanquished. No, he was to suffer. As if somehow, being free of the crushing weight of Azeroth, and the madness it seeded was a punishment.

Oh, how he laughed.

I am destruction. What this oblivion seeks to do, is my very being. I am imprisoned here, but with it comes immortality.

His voice rings out to the emptiness, his new seat of power. There is a flicker of something forming. A wisp, a mote of existence within nothing. Shadow and flame, an ember of defiant, vicious truth.

“In N’Zoth’s name, his wings will darken the sky once more!”

His fury is immediate. A thunderous roar threatens to send the abyss fleeing in terror as it rings out. How dare anyone proclaim it would be some disease that would see Deathwing rise! The insolence! He seethes with loathing, and his being violently lashes out at the nothingness.

This was the first time oblivion felt as though it were a prison. He could not reach out and snuff out the proclamation. He could imagine the Old Gods laughing, mocking him even as they become grains of sand to be blown away by history.

His connection to this one is different. She is not his child, but the daughter of Onyxia. Yet her spirit burned truer than his son’s. She did not wish to be weak as the other dragons were. She valued power, control, and knew that to obtain such things one could not be so limited by ethics.

He fought against the ignorance this place wished to bestow upon him. He would have her name.

Nalice.

That inkling of flame grew larger as he stretched forth his mind and found the boundaries of oblivion.

It was vast, but not limitless.

Another lie of the gods. Old, new, and those who were timeless. The darkness that awaited the unworthy and wicked was not endless. It had walls, a floor, a ceiling.

Or… had he given it such things?

This was his domain after all.

That spark of smoke and flame descended into the floor.

Deathwing reached out for the worthier of the two descendants. He touched her mind, graced her with dreams of N’Zoth’s destruction. That infestation’s inevitable demise. He, the Destroyer, severed the old god’s hold on his granddaughter. She dreamt of Azeroth aflame, and the skies blackened by a thousand shadows.

The Black Dragonflight reborn.

You, child. He spoke to her, his words near beyond comprehension. He shook her sanity with his rampant might. May yet prove worthy of my gaze.

Oblivion caught fire, and the ground heaved.

The floor split open, a vast river of lava given light to an empty realm. Tectonic plates, suddenly thrust into existence, slammed into one another, forging ugly, jaded mountains. Lakes of tar seeped up from hairline cracks, and the abyss now reeked of sulfur and brimstone. Vents of noxious gas sprouted like wildflowers, spewing toxins into the air.

Hellish light illuminated the corpses of the old gods. Fire consumed them until they were nothing.

The tallest of mountains erupted. Plumes of ash and choking smoke exploded into the sky as debris rained down onto the valleys of lava. Magma roared outwards next, running down the cliffs in thick, murderous streams.

This realm is mine. His voice sees the new forged ground quake. Great crevices sundered open, and out from them crawled twisted elementals. Abyssal creatures of fire and earth.

Out rose a form from the belly of the volcano, a marvel of darkness. A draconic monster wrapped in smoke, lava running off seething scales and oblivion plate. He arose as a black dragon of oblivion, and he permitted his terrible power to breathe out of him. His wings smoldered and spat fire, magma leaked from his maw in a horrific fashion.

Deathwing, Lord of Oblivion, Emperor of the Abyss.

Fiery gaze turned upward as he coiled his form around the peak of the sundering mountain.

Pitiful mortals. He snarls, lips curling back as he peers up at that infinite dark. Watch as your world comes to an end.

An earthquake shakes the continent of Kalimdor. The lava fields of Sulfuron Spire churn. Temperatures rise as an early summer sweeps across the land.

And rallying call reaches the mind of those he deems worthy.

All will burn beneath the shadow of my wings.

#deathwing #neltharion #// with cameos of wrathion #// and windrunnerrs' nalice #// x.x hope dis is okiii #✯:: I trust you will not waste my time ( memes )#terraforged

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maximus-bruin · 4 years

Text

Event One: Ambrosia

tw: blood, abuse, suicide mention, death, rape, self-harm, drowning, burning I. Principia

Maximus sat with his back against the wall, watching carefully as he was handed his golden chalice. The young man eyed the contents of the drink carefully, swirling it around as he listened to the offered proposal. He wasn’t exactly sure if he was going to drink just yet. Being more observant and cautious, he was unsure if this was the best move. Just to save for any side effects that happened, other than the aforementioned pain and immense suffering. All parts of it spoke of poison to him, but at the same time, he wasn’t exactly sure there was much left for him. Hopes of returning home while he was stuck in Norway seemed unlikely, and it was either play along with this or suffer something probably worse. Still, the prospect of this being covered as poison and possibly killing him didn’t exactly calm him in the slightest.

Staring at the liquid in the chalice, only illuminated briefly by the candles in the hall, Maximus steeled his nerves and drank away, letting the cool liquid slip past his lips and down his throat. It was mildly sweet to him, not overpowering or bitter. For something that was supposed to have such horrible effects, it wasn’t bad tasting at all. He drank it all in one go, not bothering to prolong it any longer. If this meant that he was done and could go back to sleep, then he’d much rather do that, instead of sitting around and waiting to see what other lectures he was about to receive. Whether or not he lived to see tomorrow, Maximus figured he’d find out the next morning.

II. Semper Fideles

There was this funny thought that kept running through his mind, the thing about if a tree falls in a forest but no one hears it, did it really fall? But replace all that with screaming, and that was how he felt. And what were they doing, but just staring at him. Letting it happen. Holding torches and walking up as a crowd to throw in onto his pyre. The young man thrashed at the vines that dug into his skin, but he was tied up tight, a point that was taken very clearly. Prickly points caused little rivulets of blood to trail down his skin, but it didn’t stop him from trying. Tied against the post as he heard their low, arcane chanting. But they were people that he knew. People he went to school with, teachers, neighbors. Mouths were covered, and yet it felt like they were drowning out his scream and pleas for help. And still, the fire grew closer.

It was licking at his toes now, and Maximus was trying his best to not be another reenactment of the witch trials. But all he heard was the thumping bass of their chanting. Cast him out. Cast him out. What did they nickname in high school again? Right, the Outcast. Fitting. He wasn’t the conventional pretty boy or the athletic boy or even the indie boy. He was the poor boy that got bussed in early mornings, lived off hand-outs and worked in his spare time. Not the richy rich or even the middle class. And if they saw him now, drinking chalices and having hallucinations like this, maybe they were right to burn him at the stake. Was he a witch? Going insane? The fire grew higher, continuing to consume his legs with this all-consuming hellfire. Tears streamed down his face as his voice grew hoarse with his screams. The pain was unbearable, slow and painful, yet searing hot and inflammatory all the same. He wished, as it rose up to his chest, the tips of the flames encroaching his neck, that it happened all at once. A flash fire, or even the grease fires he’d seen before at work. Nothing like this. This… was pain. Agony he was unfamiliar with. And Maximus’ eyes closed for his last, he thought.

III. Vero

He awoke with a start, clutching at the blanket that laid over his body. A dream. Nightmare. That was… reassuring, Maximus supposed. It felt so… realistic though. The way his skin felt heated, the way the burns were almost traceable on his body, even if they weren’t there. Glancing over, he saw that the candle by his beside had burned out, and perhaps the hot wax had dripped onto his hand. That must have been what woke him up. Rubbing his head, the dark-headed boy chuckled softly to himself. Right. Ambrosia. Poison. Sure. Just to be sure this wasn’t some other dream and such, he pinched himself hard on the back of his hand. You know, the whole pain to wake you up, to make sure it was real. And sure enough, it hurt like hell. Ouch. Worth it, he supposed as he adjusted his bed to sleep once more. But there was soft voice, this calling. It sounded like… “Mom?”

Climbing out of his cot, Maximus walked over to the closet, where the sound was emanating from. As he popped it open, he met the gaze of one of his earliest crushes. Someone who he adored, who he couldn’t ever bring himself to tell that he loved, because how could he. But the sounds they made, they felt like his mother calling out to him. Asking him for help, yet at the same time, reassuring him that things were fine. His mother’s voice, but his love’s face. It should have clicked for him, but it didn’t. As the young man reached down to help them up from the floor of the closet, the other person grabbed his wrist. Tight. Too tight, in fact, where he heard his bone practically crack. Crying out, the dark-haired boy fell to his knees, trying to dull the pain of the broken bone.

Useless, it hissed, shoving him down onto the wooden flooring. With a grunt, Maximus reached up towards the other with his other hand, watching in horror as it gripped his wrist with a clawed grasp. The creature wore a face so familiar to him, so recognizable that he wanted to trust it. But the eyes, those beady black eyes almost glowed in the darkness of his room as it pried away his hold. “W-Wait…” he stammered, but it slammed the closet door shut on him. And there he was in complete darkness, feeling the walls of the closet slowly compress and move in on him. At first he was sprawled on the ground, and the next instant, his limbs were pressing into his chest as the closet boxed him up. The clustering pain, the enclosed space was encroaching him, forcing him into more and more uncomfortable positions. Trying to push back against the trap, he knew he was fighting a losing battle from the moment it began to close on him. Maximus began tumbling, as if his box was falling down an endless flight of stairs. One bump after another, bouncing him continuously away into the dark void below that seemed to swallow him whole.

IV. Corpus

The water he splashed on his face seemed to jolt him, washing away the remnants of such a horrid dream. Maximus shivered, the cold water enough to keep him going he thought. He scrubbed his face, trying to rub down the weariness that seemed to seep out from his skin. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five fingers on the left, good. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five fingers on the right. Not a dream. He counted his fingers over again, just to be sure. Double check his work, right? The nightmares were excessive at this point. It was getting too much, blending together in a way where he wasn’t even sure anymore if he was asleep or awake anymore. But he learned about this trick. This should work. This was reality.

And as if to prove him wrong, the walls around him began to shake, and Maximus began sliding. It was as if the whole place began to turn, rotated on a wheel. The walls slowly merging and blending together, until he was rolling around in this tube. There was nothing for him to grasp, everything around him crashing down and tumbling just like him. Maximus gasped, trying to avoid begin crushed while making it to the end of the curved hallway. Just to stop the spinning for a second, to grab onto the edge and hang if he had to. Pushing his way through, the young demigod lunged forward, fingers grasping tightly to the edge that seemed to drop off into darkness. What happened to the world he knew? To the water that he was just splashing on his face? But the rumbling failed to cease. In fact, it only got louder. Maximus’ face paled as he saw an enormous head rising before him, bloodshot eyes all too familiar. That face, that sneering expression. It carried so much weight behind it. Power that he had difficulty overcoming, a control that seemed to have a hold over him. It spoke of lust, of anger, of that… man. Every bit of him was just so familiar, so realistic, it was hard to believe he was even here. Maximus had thought he had gotten away.

Suddenly, the tube began spinning quicker, shifting and morphing into a sphere. The edge he once grasped melted away, and Maximus was tumbling head over heels once more. It was like he was in this snow globe of horror, that face imprinted everywhere he saw. And he could hear it too, with his large hands clasping either side of the globe. You’re so perfect. So pretty. Don’t worry; I’ll make you feel good. You’re mine. All mine. Forever.

V. Hereditas

Bursting out of that room, the young man shut the door behind him tightly. His chest was heaving, eyes widened in fear. He needed this to be over, he wanted it all to stop. He needed a break, just to breathe. Sliding down the door, Maximus reached into his pocket, clutching onto his keepsake. It was a trick his mother had told him her family passed down through the generations. Some object that kept you grounded, and if you focused on it long enough, all dreams faded away. Knowing it like the back of his hand, Maximus traced the small outlines of the leather keychain, the end of it a feather. The mini dreamcatcher was his only father’s gift to him, or so his mom had said. He never knew him, so the young man could only take what his mother said at face value.

And all around him, there was just one resounding click. Like the hand of a clock, but it was. amplified through all-surrounding loudspeakers. Doors appeared all around, shooting down the infinite hallway. The click sounded urgent, demanding. As if trying to force him away from one room to the next. That or an impending monster, clicking its way down the hallway towards him. Not eager to test that last theory out, Maximus opened up the following door, his keepsake still in hand. And there he was, an exact copy of him. Hand where hand was, face mimicking the same movements. He stared on in fascination, because it was just a mirror. That was it. Except mirror reflections didn’t move on their own. It didn’t reach down and grab the knife that was so conveniently there and slice away at his wrists. Maximus staggered back in surprise, watching in horror as blood began to trickle out of his own reflection’s wrists. It was so frightening that he dropped his own keepsake. He could feel something drip down onto his own fingers, and when glancing down, the dark-haired man was greeted with the sight of his own wrists bleeding. Except he didn’t do that. His reflection did that. Not him, not him, not him. He could only do what he did best, which was run. And so, the young man fled the horrifying specter, bursting into another room. The resounding click rang throughout the space as the door opened, just as insistent as the last time.

And there he was. Hanging. Rope around neck, dangling like a slab of meat he had seen so often in the back freeze of the diner. Eyes unflinching as they held his gaze. There was a tightness around Maximus’ neck unlike anything he had felt before. Gasping for breath, the young man pushed on, one door after another. Drowning. Click. Pills. Click. Falling from a height that left him with a sickening crunch and blood splatter. Click. It was one death after another, and it was too much for him. The rooms were endless, just visions of how he could kill himself if he wanted. Oddly enough, the clicks felt rhythmical, controlled in a way that dictated he remain in each room for a certain amount of time. Just enough to witness the death happen, and to have it happen to him in turn. Perhaps this was the poison that he feared for so long, bubbling up inside of him and spilling out as he lay on the ground, struggling to reach the handle for the next door, as if, by some sheer dumb amount of hope, the next one would be his escape.

VI. Offero

He wasn’t sure if he slept at all. The way his body was covered in a sheen cover of sweat, the way his feet crunched against the cold, frost-covered leaves. It was a wonder he was even alive. Why the fuck did he have to come here, of all places? In the winter? So much for the holidays; his feet were so numbed and yet so pained, Maximus was certain he had frostbite. There was no way he wouldn’t. He didn’t even know where he was, only staring out over some lake, where the waters lapped at the shoreline. He would’ve appreciated the beauty if he wasn’t huddled against the side of a tree, arms wrapped around his bare chest as he tried to cover himself and warm himself. Maximus wasn’t sure at what point in the night he had scratched himself, if he did, but there was no way to tell for sure with the dried and frozen blood on his fingertips and the claw marks on his chest. From the way his back stung, he could tell he went berserk there.

The worst part about this, despite being too cold to really move with what little willpower he had left, was that Maximus wasn’t even sure he was still awake or if he was dreaming. All the tricks he thought he knew, about pinching yourself, counting the number of fingers you had, testing out some mental object that he had traced with such explicit detail, all of those tricks failed. So this, to him, was no less a nightmare. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. He whimpered softly, suddenly feeling the world spin underneath him. And the young man was leaning over, retching again and again with his insides suddenly coming outside of him. There were voices, voices that he wasn’t sure if they were stuck inside his mind or actually voices around him. Could he trust the voices? More tricks and troubles coming his way. His eyes fluttered weakly as he saw a trail of torches cutting through, making its way closer and closer to him. For now, he’d stay here. The pain in his head, the tattered shirt around him, the way the snow could envelop his toes and fingers and numb what he was feeling, even if it was just a dream… Maximus figured he’d just stay a little longer, letting the feeling wash over him and lull him to sleep. Who knew you could sleep in a dream? Just for a little bit; he needed the rest.

#gsevent #tw: blood #tw: abuse #tw: death #tw: suicide mention #tw: rape #tw: self-harm #tw: drowning #tw: burning #event: ambrosia #self para

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xxwritemeastoryxx · 5 years

Text

Hidden Skeletons Part 2

Author: xxwritemeastoryxx

Pairings: Eventual Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Word Count: Almost 2K

Warnings: Mentions of some of the horrible things that happened during the final season of The Originals.

Author’s Note: Here is part 2 for you guys. I apologize for how long it has taken for me to get this out. I hope you guys enjoy.

The flight to New Orleans had been surprisingly comfortable to Y/N. It must have been either money or compulsion that Klaus had used to get a flight that quickly with very little questions. During the flight, Klaus had explained in detail about the events that lead him to go looking for Y/N.

He explained the tales of the Hollow and what she had been capable of. All details that Y/N had known about from stories that had been passed down. Klaus also explained the lengths they had went to to ensure his daughter was safe. In the process they had lost loved ones and for some time, family turned their back on each other. But in the end, it was Hope that had fought to keep them all together. Now the dark magic from the Hollow had been consuming her.

“You’re right.” Y/N said as watched Klaus from her seat. She could see that he was broken about this. His daughter was in danger and he was a father that was willing to go to any lengths to keep her safe. “Your plan would save her, but that would leave her without a father. There are other ways to deal with it than to sacrifice yourself.”

“Taming the darkness has done nothing to help her.” Klaus said shaking his head. “Unleashing it just speeds up the process leading to her death. If there is a way to do it without forcing my family to separate corners of the world again, I’m all ears.”

Y/N gave him a small smile. “You’ve got to trust me. If Hope asked for me, between the two of us, we’ll be able to free her from this. You just have to trust me that we’ll find a way before its too late.”

Klaus chuckled softly. “Trust is earned, Y/N. I can’t just hand it over as you are asking.”

“You trusted that I would meet you after the gathering. You trust what your daughter sees in me to travel across the country to ask for help. I say you trust me in the slightest.” Y/N nodded her head. “But from what you are telling me, Hope only has days left. I promise you, we’ll find a way to keep your family together and alive.”

“If we don’t,” Klaus said with a serious look. “I will personally see to it you won’t go home with a heart beat.”

Both Klaus and Y/N walked into the compound to find Hope and Freya in the courtyard. The moment Hope’s eyes landed on both of them, her eyes widened and she stood from her spot.

"You can't just go around kidnapping witches." Hope scolded her father with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I didn't kidnap her." Klaus said rolling his eyes slightly as they came to a stop in front of her. "Y/N came willingly."

"You did?" Hope asked as she looked over at Y/N. As much as her father had tried to keep his murderous tendencies under control, Hope knew when it came to her Klaus could take drastic measures.

Y/N nodded. "Klaus said that you had a problem that I may be of some help towards." Y/N ran her hand up along her arm. She honestly felt out of place there. She wasn’t used to being in a city like New Orleans, let alone being in the presence of the Mikaelson family. “I wasn’t going to leave a witch in distress, no matter who you are related to.”

“Y/N Y/L/N.” Freya said from her spot. It was in the way that Freya had said her name that made Y/N feel like she was being analyzed. “I’m surprised the Coven let you leave with my brother.”

“They didn’t.” Y/N shook her head. “They were set on allowing your niece to deal with her suffering just for having ties to the Mikaelson family.”

“What is it that you have to gain for helping us?” Freya asked eyeing her.

“Freya, that’s enough.” Klaus said looking towards his sister. “Y/N isn’t here to gain anything. She had fought with her mother in front of the coven about helping Hope. That shows she’s only here to help, not take us down.”

Freya sighed softly as she looked at the woman before her. “Fine.”

Klaus gave a small smirk before looking at Y/N and gesturing with his hand towards Hope. “Please.” There was desperation in his voice that Y/N had caught right away.

Taking a step towards Hope, Y/N held her hand out towards her. “May I?” She asked giving her a smile.

Hope had eyed Y/n’s hand for a moment before placing her hand into the woman’s. Y/N tightened her hold on Hope’s hand slightly as she closed her eyes and began whispering a spell she knew.

As she did, Freya and Klaus watched both of them. Waiting for something wrong to happen but also holding their breath for their to be some relief if there was something that can be done. As she continued to whisper, Hope’s eyes turned bright blue, and if anything, the dark veins that had been growing up her neck grew darker as they spread further.

“Y/N.” Klaus warned as he watched things seem to get worse. But Y/N had continued to on with her spell, ignoring his voice.

Placing her free hand on Hope’s neck, Y/N continued with the spell for only a moment before she stopped completely. She sighed softly as she watched as the bright blue in Hope’s eyes returned to normal and the veins on her neck completely gone. “How do you feel?” She asked hope watching her.

Hope looked at Klaus before looking at Y/N. “The whispers aren’t as prominent as they had been.” There was excitement growing in Hope’s eyes. “I can actually hear myself think and there isn’t this need to act violently towards anyone.”

“It’s only a temporary solution while we come up with a plan for what we need to get it out of you.” Y/N said as she let go of Hope’s hand. “Doing this will buy a few more days.”

Y/N could hear a sigh of relief coming from Klaus and Freya beside her. “Thank you.” Klaus said as he placed his hand on Y/N’s shoulder for a moment.

“It's why you asked for me to come here.” Y/N said with a nod. “She won’t have to live with this for much longer.”

“Thank you for coming.” Hope said taking a step towards Y/N and hugged her.

Y/N smiled and hugged her back. “Of course. I couldn’t just stay and let something horrific happen. We’ve got a lot of prep work to do tomorrow. You should get some rest.”

Hope pulled away from her and nodded. “Bright and early?” She asked taking a step back.

Y/N shrugged. “We can push it to after breakfast.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Hope said before making her way towards the stairs.

“I’ll be up in a minute.” Klaus said to Hope before looking towards Y/N. “What spell was that?” He asked curiously.

“It’s a temporary cleansing spell.” Y/N began to explain. “My coven uses it whenever someone gives in to the darker magic that they can’t handle. Its one of the first spells I learned as a child. It clears the body of the darkness that has taken a hold in the body. With Hope, it’s barely hitting the surface. It’s gonna take a lot to tear the Hollow from her.”

“That’s a lot of darkness that you are trying to just cleanse.” Freya said shaking her head slightly. “All of that needs to be placed somewhere else, it can’t just be gone.”

“It’s not.” Y/N agreed as she lifted her hand for them to see. It had been the hand Y/N had held at Hope’s neck. On the palm of her hand were similar black veins that spread towards her wrist. “Temporary storage until I can extract it from myself later tonight with another spell.”

“How is this any different than placing the Hollow into me?” Klaus asked.

“The difference is I’m not planning to extract the whole thing into me. This was just temporary to buy us a few extra days.” Bringing her hand back down to her side, she shook her head slightly. “My coven has a spell, one that we’ve used a few times. The only problem is, I can’t do this on my own.”

“How many more witches do you need?” Freya asked ready to volunteer herself.

“Between me being a Y/L/N and you a Mikaelson, we’ll need at least one more witch with enough experience that we wouldn’t need to teach them much.” Y/N explained.

“Its a good thing Kol and Davina are still in town.” Klaus said with a shrug as he began to pull out his phone. “You two work out the details while I call them. The faster this can get done the better.” Without hearing a response from the two, Klaus left up the stairs. Y/N assumed it had been to make the phone call and check in on Hope.

“What else do you need?” Freya asked.

“At this moment, a few different healing crystals.” Y/N said looking at Freya. “Just to extract this.” Y/N said as she lifted her hand for a moment before bringing it back down to her side. “After that I’ll create a list for what we need. We’re going by memory here.”

“You don’t have a grimoire with the spell in it?” Freya asked shocked.

Y/N shook her head. “If I left with my mother’s grimoire, she would know where I am at the moment and would send several people to retrieve me. But its something we’ve done a few times.”

“What make you think your mother wont do a locator spell to find you?” Freya asked.

Y/N laughed. “Have some faith, Freya.” Y/N said giving her a smile. “A cloaking spell was the easiest thing to master. It will take them weeks to get through the one I’ve created.”

“Just how much power do you have?” Freya asked with a raised brow.

“At the moment, probably a lot less than you.” Y/N lied. “While I’m capable of doing what needs to be done for your niece, I’m not some all powerful witch.” At least not yet. She thought.

“Alright.” Freya said with a sigh. “Let’s get you taken care of and then we’ll get started.” She said leading Y/N upstairs to get the items she needed.

Just outside the doors, a male stood within the shadows listening to the conversation. As he listened to the sound of retreating footsteps, he pulled out his phone, typing out a text message before hitting send.

He brought the witch. Say the word and I’ll make a grab for her.

A moment later a new message flashed on the screen.

Not yet. I’ll let you know when.

Hidden Skeletons: @kenmen02 @depressed-with-anxiety @happy-sunny-flower @physically-a-cheesecake @vampiregirl1797

Always & Forever Tag: @rissyrapp20 @taylordrunkonwhiskey @thewolf-and-thesheep @wayward-dan @neeadinghugs @hawaiianohana15 @fafulous @vibhati123

Bold tags mean I can’t tag you for one reason or another. Let me know if you would like to be added to, or taken off, any of the taglists. ♥ ♥ ♥

#The Originals #The Vampire Diaries #Hidden Skeletons #Klaus Mikaelson #Klaus Mikaelson x Reader #Reader insert #TVD #TO #Fanfics #Freya Mikaelson #hope mikaelson #hybrids #tribrids #Klaus Mikaelson x you #Hidden Skeletons part 2 #klaus mikaelson request #Hidden Skeletons Series #taglists

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dukesmemior-blog · 5 years

Text

Reginald Johnson

Professor Robert Lunday

English 1301

June 16, 2019

Rising from Submersion of Provocation

[Preface]

Life is anything but simple and this is often a lesson learned during adulthood. As a child many times one cannot evaluate the complexity of the world we live in due to numerous factors. Innocence serves as a child's blessing but can also serve as a burden when faced with an unusual situation and having to decipher fact from fiction. I was faced with many situations early in life that unfortunately stripped me of my innocence leaving me to swim in a pool of provocation and subjectivity. Unprepared, unequipped, and unaware I was unable to prevent the commencement of drowning but through trial, error, and perseverance I was able to retrieve myself from a place and build a great man in the process.

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Boom! My heart starts to race as fear overcomes me. The hairs on my arms are standing at attention as if my Spidey senses are tingling. “Please stop, Mouse!” “Duke, help me!” “AHHHHH! Please stop, please, stop, please!” The alarming scream of desperation sent chills down my spine; she was being brutally beaten. Unable save herself she reluctantly prompted my help in her emancipation. Little did she know, I an 8-year-old boy, held more fear in my heart of her abuser than she probably did, I was frozen. Stuck in between the innate response to help a person in distress and the fear of the ramifications that followed if I proceeded, I stood there, stiff. The hallway was like a tunnel cold, hard, and imperfect recently stripped of carpet, leaving behind little patches of padding and spike strips for reimplantation, I was uncertain. “Where you think you goin-! Get back in this room!” Her abuser filled with adrenalin rolled and leaped out of his chair to tackle the girl before she could escape the hallway. Tussling in efforts to regain her freedom the young girl was in fight or flight mode. Her tussle wasn’t the type of tussle you’d expect granted her dire situation, it was preserved in a way as if she didn’t want to escape, as if she was scared to defend herself.

The moment the girl and I locked eyes we could see the dread on each other’s face we were being abused and held captive with no means of escape. “Duke! Help me boy”, this time I acted without hesitation, with haste, with a sense of urgency. I wasn’t prompted by desperation; I was commanded by authority! As I engaged in the tussle I yelled to my uncle, “Grab her legs, Unk I have her arms”, as I assisted in the assault of this young woman. My natural being was tapped out and the boy my uncle was breeding was fully engaged. We tussled and fought as the energy that I previously witnessed from the woman amplified. Upon my engagement, in opposition to her initial request for my help, she exhibited a feeling of betrayal and wanted to hurt me for this inconceivable act. All parties involved were now fully engaged as if we all had a shot of caffeine-laced epinephrine and I don’t think anyone could truly conceive the true damage that we were all adversely causing ourselves. We fought without care because this had become personal to all. My uncle and I dragged the woman back into the room after the hard-fought tussle in the hallway. This woman was strong, her levels seemed to constantly rise like a super Saiyan from a Dragon Ball Z cartoon. I saw her forehead swell; her veins were pressurized she moved like she was condemned, and we were performing an exorcism. She tossed from wall to wall, her eyes were bloodshot as I tried to distinguish her sweat from tears. Her abuser was a different type of demon and no matter what she did his strength engulfed every ounce of her energy.

“Get out of here and close the door!” As I ran down the hallway to my shared dungeon, I felt horrible. I started to calm down and regain my composure as a rush of empathy and then shame overcame me, but I was unable to exhibit my true emotions. Knowing that if I shed a tear, cried aloud, or showed any form of negative emotion that I’d be the next victim and wearing the title of a “Punk” wasn’t acceptable. In my house, that title carried heavy negative weight and disallowed you any form of respect and acceptance which causes a lifetime of pain and anguish. Sitting upon my futon I listened as the screams worsened becoming louder and viler than before and, at this moment, I wasn’t scared. My heart was at ease and I knew that I was mentally damaged, caged, and there was no changing it.

This was the account of an innocent young boy who was unknowingly being prepared to engage in an act that would strip him of his innocence changing his life forever. I was unknowingly programmed to act immediately when this figure spoke and during that moment, I was in a state of being completely controlled. You see, as a child, my conception of life was very distorted. I thought I saw things through my own lens but in actuality, I viewed everything from the perspective of my uncle who I thought of as a man. In life the Alpha male often rules as everyone else sits aside away from his raft, my uncle was an Alpha. I have come to realize that there are different forms of Alpha, men that hold themselves in high regard below no other but refuse to exhibit their strength unless necessary. There are those who thrive on this energy and cannot conceal it for a moment which causes everyone around them to either challenge it or submit and this is where the problem lies. For a long time, I walked around causing trouble and pain thinking that I was becoming a man through my actions though it didn’t feel natural. It wasn’t until I was able to step from under my uncle, gain my independence, and learn life when I realized that I am a natural Alpha but my form of expression is different. I’m not the problem, I’m the solution and this is what it truly is to be a man.

Mouse; my best friend, my mentor, my inspiration, my uncle, the abuser, a Jack of All Trades and Master of None, was my teacher and my lessons weren’t structured. I had to learn on the fly and there were no notes. See, Mouse had a rough childhood. He became the oldest of 3 that once was 4 before the accidental death of his brother. Wearing his brothers’ blood on his hands, imprisonment since a juvenile, abuse, pressure, misguidance, and anger is what led him to become a cold-blooded man. His plight was unfortunate, nonetheless, his early adaptation proved successful within his chaotic community. He utilized his negatives to create his positive. Becoming the man in your section was a prideful feat where he was from, having the ability to translate that positioning across many different sections served as his evolution into true manhood. Money, power, respect the tokens of kings which Mouse held near and dear, he was as the top of the game and seemed invincible, until tragedy struck. A traumatic car accident stripped him of his newfound identity by taking his ability to walk. Mouse had become partially physically paralyzed and completely mentally paralyzed.

September 23, 1993, I was born into the world. Thinking back on the stories my mother told me she vividly broke down the details of my birth. My mother carefully holding me as I cried, she was asked “what’s his name” and she was uncertain. Sitting aside her bed throughout the entire birth consoling her was her now oldest brother who was once her second brother, Mouse. Mouse had a name picked out when he received the news of conception and he couldn’t wait for this moment to disclose his wishes, wishes that would help him with closure, wishes that would heal. “Sis, name him after our big brother.” Hearing these words from mouse made it very clear what the name of her first child would be. These words evoked strong emotions causing laughter and tears as if it was destiny. Knock, Knock. May I come in, its Mrs. Patterson again here to see if you needed more time picking a name for the baby. “No ma’am, I’m ready. His name will be Reginald Stephon Johnson!” Regal and full of the essence I had been blessed with an angel and destined for a bountiful life of greatness.

My mother often tells me stories of my early days, the good time that I can’t recollect myself. My grandmother hadn’t laid eyes on me until this moment, “OMG! He looks so much like his uncle Reggie it's crazy.” It was as if she was looking at her late son in the flesh by the way she gazed in awe upon my family features. Everyone adored me as if I were some kind of doll that brought about the feeling of joy when you held me. For my mom it was scary; for my uncle it was perfect. Uncle Reggie was known as the sweetheart and protector all in one. Everyone had nothing but positive memories of his existence making it seem as though he was heaven-sent. Little did I know that I also served as a purpose, I was the remedy to the tragedy my family faced. After the loss of Uncle Reggie, my families were a broken people and my existence was like the glue that would hold them together as they fixed one another and became whole--once again a true family.

See being awarded such a title was more than just the casual blessing of distinction from others, this name held weight and cam with great responsibility. I carried an invisible burden that everyone but myself could utilize but me but this wasn’t an unfortunate situation for me, it was a blessing. The ability of enjoying the fruit of one who served as a remedy without the struggle that typically followed only brought about more joy a fulfillment an I felt whole within my family. This energy assisted in my development mentally and emotionally as I grew more and more happy, intelligent, proud, and compassionate through all the positive love I received. As an adult, my name continues to carry weight for those in my family and still serves them fulfillment as they recount the memories of my late uncle when in my presence. I now have come to understand the strength within my title, and it serves me well during times of insecurity or doubt. My name is less common and when introduced to peers I receive positive remarks in the regards such as, “Your name is very proper, regal if I might say.” My name provides me with a sense of honor and respect and as a man, I think that it can serve no better purpose.

My early childhood was (from what I can remember and the stories that I’ve been told) an absolute fairytale. I was the only child, the baby in the family, meaning that all of the attention and energy was on me. I hold nothing but happy memories of my early childhood: The holidays were awesome, family gatherings still existed, and I lived in a two-parent household while also remaining the prince of my grandparent’s kingdom. Life was great without complaint until my mom and stepfather decided to have more kids. This is when things started to slowly take a turn for the worse. I soon would experience the extreme effects of the mental, physical, and emotional trauma of which I had no idea even existed or let alone knew how to prepare and defend myself.

We were a perfect family in my eyes. One baby and then the addition of twins one year later. My siblings were angels, however, the death of one of my twin siblings crushed us all and to me seemed like it tore my parents apart more than it brought them together. They were absolute blessings just as I was but for us as a unit couldn’t prevent our parents from making very selfish decisions. Boom! “Get out of my house!” these are the arguments and fights between our parents that would wake my siblings and me during the night. Next, both our mother and father would storm into our room disputing if we would be leaving with one or staying which ultimately was nothing more than a final ploy to tip the scales of the argument in ones favor rather than true concern about our well-being. My fairy tale was dwindling in front of my eyes and my brothers, having yet to truly encompass such a feeling we're being taken through the trauma that they viewed as normal.

The trauma was anything but temporary and it was forced upon us without true warning and explanation, maybe our parents were ignorant of the depth of destruction they were causing. It’s possible that they stood in the middle of a tunneled mind state where they could only process their personal interests due to the emotions involved coupled with their adolescence. My mother was 15 years old at the time of my conception and she had recently endured the trauma of my grandparents getting a divorce after being together with her entire life and this affected her tremendously. She was ill-prepared for the life of adulthood in which she was hastily granted so she chose to respond with anger and maleficence by leading a life of deviance in revolt to everything her parents upheld. In her process of teaching them a lesson about pain and deceit she mistakenly conceived her first child and this to her was her punishment for the spiteful actions she engaged in and a lesson in the reality of such moves. At war with my grandparents, my mother was poorly cared for during that pregnancy as she lacked the knowledge and resources to ensure positive care for her and the baby, she was subjected to the will of my grandparents to facilitate her care and they had a point to prove. My mother was completely deflated at the news of her losing her first child and contrary to a popular opinion so were my grandparents and they understood that things had been taken too far and needed immediate reparations.

Reparations had taken full effect in my family from both parties and there was love in the household, my father arrived at the pinnacle of this movement and helped change my family’s life forever. My birth was explained to me as the cherry on top of the cake as I became the centerpiece of the family and a reason for continued love and unity. My parents, though very young at the time, set out to never allow me a life of turmoil and pain by committing to one another and focusing on building an unbreakable bond with time and effort. Promises are sometimes broken, and bonds torn in ways that can’t be mended was the typical summary of a relationship split where I’m from and my mother and father were critically torn but this tear was far from typical. My father was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison for murder shortly after my conception ending the covenant and subjecting my mother to a potential life of single parenthood and me his unborn child to the unfortunate of a bastardized child. Humans are forgiving beings, it is within our nature to forgive as it brings a feeling of peace upon our souls when we are free of burden and full of joy, my family finally understood that.

Similar to a glass sculpture my mother had climbed from the fire a bundle of indistinguishable greatness until she chose to mold herself with the experiences and hardships into a very hard sculpture of beauty that was hard to break. My mother made good on a bad situation and transformed our lives for the better on her own without me noticing any flaw or fault in her progression. All good things come to an end and those too good to be true come sooner and more aggressively, for the first time in life I was traumatized. My mother’s relationship with my step father came with many blessings but also brought along the largest burden when my brothers and I lost our father to prison and our mother to a broken spirit and a search for a second chance at life. My little family had been torn apart and dispersed with me being the odd man out, my mother moved herself and my brothers away and left me under the care of my grandparents and this is where the I learned some of the most valuable lessons. This is the place where I unknowingly developed my heaviest depression, a deep traumatic scar, and a lesson on what the world really holds and how demons can lurk within.

I today stand as a man of immense morality with a true sense of respect and honesty, I work hard for the things I want and own and I cherish every moment without the fear of deprivation or deceit. These trials have become my triumph in life as I am presented with new plights, I am able to adapt well and overcome. Experiencing things like abuse, neglect, and depravity unnoticeably allowed me to develop a very thick skin and the ability to recreate myself in a positive image. My uncle Mouse was the best and worst thing to happen in my life. The lessons I learned from him will forever fuel my ambition while also keeping me tamed and conscious of the way I treat others. I refuse to allow my past to stifle my present or my future and I owe this determination to surviving the pool of provocation.

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master-sass-blast · 5 years

Text

Strong as Stone --Part Forty-One

Wow, this just flowed out of me.

Last time: We got to see the end of Thanos! Nebula killed him! The world was saved! Fuck yeah!

This time: things take a turn for the better --and the surprising.

Rating: T for nightmares, doctor’s appointments, and stress.

Oh, and mentions of pregnancy. *waggles eyebrows*

Pairings: M’Baku x Okoye, Shuri x OC, and T’Challa x Nakia.

@skysynclair19, @the-last-hair-bender

Death is not an end, only a transformation. Destruction is not an end, only an opportunity to rebuild. Even the future is not an end to the present, because all the future is the coming moment.

Look for beginnings, my dears, not ends. Some of the most beautiful flowers grow among the ashes of what we once knew.

The air smelled like blood and death. Screams carried on the wind, human and alien alike.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

One kill, another kill, and another, and again. Again. Again. An impenetrable sea of black limbs and mouths and teeth, pressing in on her until she was suffocating.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

He stood above it all, massive and terrifying as he parted the waters of death and destruction. His smile was cold, cruel, as he lifted his hand to let the sunlight catch on the gauntlet sitting there.

Every instinct in her told her to freeze, to make herself small in the sight of this monster.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

The stones glowed for a single, horrible moment, and then he snapped his fingers.

The world exploded into ash. Faces and bodies --friends, family--dissolved into the wind, falling away like distant memories.

T’Challa. Shuri. Dewani. Aneka. Ayo. M’Baku.

She screamed, over and over as they faded away again and again and again--

And then the scene changed, and it wasn’t her new family she was screaming for, but the old one. Two bodies laying in a field, bloodied and mangled in the wake of an explosion.

She was alone, surrounded by smoke and ash.

Always ash.

I can’t breathe--

“Okoye! ‘Koye, wake up!”

She came to with a sob, hands shaking and sweaty in the still darkness of the pre-dawn.

M’Baku’s arms were already around her as he pressed his lips against the top of her head, her forehead, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose. “It was just a dream, ‘koye. Just a dream.”

She trembled in his arms, trying --and failing--to not cry. “I keep seeing everyone die! It’s the King, then the Princess, and Dewani, and Ayo, and you, and then it’s just my parents, and--”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just a dream. It’ll take a whole lot more than some over-sized purple idiot with his head up his own ass to take me away from you.”

She let out a thready laugh. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m not.”

“But I lost you, just like I lost my parents. I lost Ayo, Aneka, half my team, my friends. Everywhere I go in life I just keep losing--”

“And you saved them. You saved me.”

“But I can’t always save everyone.”

“You don’t have to.” He kissed her temple. “Thanos was a once in a lifetime opponent, and he’s dead. I seriously doubt there’s anything else in the universe that could manage what he did.”

She sniffed and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t have to. If I spend every day worrying about what could fall out of the sky, I’ll miss what’s right in front of me.”

She sighed. “I know, I know, it just--”

“It hits deep for you, ‘koye. I know it does.” He pressed a series of kisses against her knuckles. “You’ll find your feet again. I know you will.”

“Not without a lot of falling on my ass first,” she grumbled bitterly.

“That’s just a part of life.” Another kiss on her temple. “And I’ll be right by your side to help you back up when you do.”

She sighed, somewhat soothed, and tucked her face into the crook of his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She tried to go back to sleep, really tried, but was too wired to get anywhere. The dream, albeit gone, still lingered in the corners of her mind, along with a certain itch at the base of her gut. An ache.

A need.

“Are you still awake?”

“Yeah. You alright?”

By way of response, she started kissing his neck, trailing kisses up his skin until she reached his mouth.

He kissed her back with the same intensity, the same heat she’d kissed him with. He drew her up in his arms, clutching her against his chest before rolling and positioning her underneath him.

She clung to the massive span of his shoulders, to him. “Please. Please, please, please--”

“It’s alright,” he murmured as he pressed his lips against her jaw. “I’ve got you.”

She shivered as he moved his lips lower and wrapped her legs around his hips. He always does.

It was Ayo who’d noticed first. The headaches, the dizziness, the stomach problems that wouldn’t go away. “Maybe you picked something up from the Avengers when they helped us defeat Thanos. Or maybe it’s something from the Soul Stone realm, or from where Thanos was hiding.”

Okoye sincerely hoped it was the first option. A mild flu or virus, she could deal with.

Some sort of supernatural or extraterrestrial infection, though? Nope. That was well out of her league.

Either way, it didn’t change where she wound up: sitting on a chair in an exam room in a private medicinal practice reserved for the Dora Milaje and the War Dogs. The practice itself specialized in physical illnesses from the outside world not common to Wakanda, and Okoye felt confident that whatever she’d picked up could be easily dealt with.

The door to the exam room swung open, and a diminutive woman with dreadlocks that hung down her back and clear, bright eyes nodded at her. “General. What brings you to us today?”

“I think I picked up something while working with the Avengers,” Okoye started before she outlined her symptoms. “I’ve been dealing with them for a few weeks now, and nothing seems to help.”

The doctor nodded as she took her notes, then frowned thoughtfully as she looked through Okoye’s file. “You wouldn’t happen to be overdue for your contraceptive shot, would you?”

Okoye froze. “I --what?”

“All the symptoms you described combined together are a dead match for the early onset of pregnancy, General. And... ah, as I thought, you are overdue for the shot. The appointment was scheduled during the midst of the Thanos crisis; that’s probably why you missed one.”

Okoye blinked. She’d been prepared for some sort of illness, maybe even a deadly extraterrestrial disease, but... Pregnant? Could I really be pregnant?

“Have you engaged in unprotected vaginal intercourse in the past few weeks that resulted in ejaculation? Have you noticed any irregularities in your menstrual cycle, or any odd spotting?”

Her period wasn’t that far off, and she’d definitely been stressed enough to set it back a week or so, and as far as sex...

Well, near death situations did make for fantastic reunion sex.

“Fuck. I mean, I have--”

The doctor smirked and nodded. “We’ll do some bloodwork and test for pregnancy and a few viruses that would also match those symptoms. If nothing comes back, we’ll do some more specific tests, alright?”

It’s not like she had a reason to refuse. The best approach to this is to be practical, she told herself as the doctor left to send a phlebotomist in. Panic won’t help anything.

The blood was drawn and the phlebotomist left, and then she didn’t have anything else to distract herself with.

Focus on your breathing, she told herself as she felt her irritation with the unknown start to creep up her spine. You and M’Baku have already talked about and planned on having kids. And you don’t even know if you’re pregnant or not. There’s no point in freaking out when you don’t even have all the information--

A knock on the door sounded, and then the doctor was walking back in. “You’re pregnant.”

Well... shit.

“You’re back early.” Ayo arched an eyebrow as she watched Okoye move around her office. “I thought they gave mandatory time off for the flu.”

“I don’t have the flu.”

“Mono, strep, whatever--”

“I’m pregnant, Ayo.”

At a different point in time, the look of sheer, unadulterated shock on Ayo’s face might’ve been laughter worthy. “Well... okay.” The Commander gave her a careful look. “Is this a ‘congratulations’ situation, or a ‘I’d give you wine if you weren’t growing a baby’ situation?”

That did make her laugh, just a little. “M’Baku and I were talking about having kids, only after Dewani’s trial. And it’s so soon after Thanos, and--” She sighed. “I’m just really tired.”

“I’ve heard that can be one of the side effects.”

“Oh, fuck off. You know what I mean.”

Ayo smirked. “It’s a lot, back to back.”

Okoye nodded, then sighed. “I need to head to the Jabari lands to tell M’Baku. I don’t want to wait, or have him find out from someone else--”

“Go. I’ve got you covered here.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Ayo was quiet for a moment, then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her best friend in a hug. “Congratulations, Okoye.”

She smiled --finally--and hugged her back. “Thank you.”

She had to keep herself from sprinting into the Great Lodge when she finally landed in the main courtyard. You’re going to have to start taking it easier. May as well practice it now.

She might’ve power-walked, just a little. She was too keyed up from the flight to take things slow.

O’Chenga furrowed his brow when he saw her walk into the lodge. “General. Not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you here? Is something wrong in the lower lands?”

She shook her head. “I need to speak with M’Baku. Immediately. It’s a... personal emergency.”

He regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “He’s in a meeting, but I imagine he’ll clear everyone out when he realizes you’re here.”

She followed him to the throne room, fighting the urge to activate her spear and carry it with her. This isn’t a fight. You don’t need a weapon.

She’d known different soldiers to sleep with various weapons or armor pieces for comfort; she’d never thought of herself as the type to assign those sentiments to a sharpened piece of metal.

“Wait out here,” O’Chenga said. “I’ll let him know that you’re here and it’s urgent. Come in once the advisers start leaving.”

She did as told, keeping to the shadows when the doors to the throne room opened. She could hear M’Baku’s voice, hear the pause in conversation as O’Chenga walked in and made his way to the throne--

“I need you all to excuse yourselves for a moment. An urgent matter has arisen that needs my direct attention.”

She waited until various advisers started leaving, then slipped past them and into the throne room.

“What do you mean she didn’t say--”

“She just said it was a personal emergency, and I figured if it was urgent enough for her to fly up here unannounced that you’d want to see her,” O’Chenga said. “She’s here now; you can ask her yourself. I’ll give you two a moment.”

M’Baku was across the throne room in the blink of an eye, simultaneously holding her close and keeping her at arm’s length so he could inspect her, as though whatever she was dealing with would be visible and easily discerned. “‘Koye, what is it? Are you alright? Why are you here?”

She waited until O’Chenga had closed the doors behind him, then ducked her head and swallowed hard. “I went to the doctor’s today, to see what was wrong with me--”

“Are you sick? Is it serious?”

“No. I mean, it is serious, but I’m not sick.”

“Then what--”

“I’m pregnant, M’Baku.”

He stopped, mid-ramble, and stared down at her. “What --are you sure?”

“They did bloodwork to find out. Unless you doubt the legitimacy of that, there’s no way I’m not pregnant.” She fiddled nervously with the cuff of her coat when he didn’t respond. “It’s yours, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” M’Baku said after a moment. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “I’m worried about why you look so upset. Is there something wrong with the baby? Are the doctors worried about the pregnancy posing a danger to you?”

“No, no, it’s too early to tell any of that and I’m perfectly healthy. I just... we weren’t planning on having kids until after Dewani’s trial. I don’t want her to feel abandoned by us having a kid of our own.”

“If it’s the timing that’s bothering you, we can always terminate and try again later. It’s not like either of us are on our last legs of life.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think we can. This baby is the heir to your title. I don’t think we can terminate the pregnancy, not without everyone flipping their collective shit.”

“Well, how many people know besides the two of us?”

“My physician and Ayo. I... I told her before I came to see you; I needed her to cover for me today.”

M’Baku nodded and kissed her forehead. “Well, the doctor’s bound by patient-doctor confidentiality, and I know Ayo would take the news to her grave and nowhere else if you asked her. If you’re not ready --if you don’t want to keep the baby--then that’s it. It’s your body, Okoye. This is your choice, and I’ll support you either way.”

Relief flowed through her, and she let her forehead rest against his chest. “Thank you.”

“Do you want to? Terminate the pregnancy, that is?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head with a soft smile. “No. I really do want to keep it. I’ve only known for half a day and I already love them so much. I’m just--”

“Worried about Dewani,” M’Baku finished. “How about we ask her how she feels about it? If she’s fine with it, we keep the baby. If not, we’ll figure things out from there.”

Okoye nodded, feeling more at ease than she had in a while. “That works.”

“Wait. Are you serious? Are you really serious?”

Okoye nodded. “Ye--”

Dewani let out a whoop and pumped her fist. “Fuck yeah! I’m gonna be an aunt!”

M’Baku shushed her with a laugh. “Easy. It’s not common knowledge yet. We wanted to check with you first--”

“Check with me for what? I’m not the one that has to carry it.”

“We wanted to be sure,” Okoye interjected. “That you wouldn’t feel... abandoned if we chose to keep the baby, in light of your trial coming up.”

Dewani blinked, then lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Okoye. “Keep it. Please. It’ll give me something to look forward to for when all this bullshit is over.”

Okoye hugged her back. “We just wanted to be sure.”

“Look, it’s your baby and body. If you want to terminate, terminate, just don’t --don’t do it for me, okay? I’ll be fine.”

“Well, we both want the baby,” Okoye said as she stepped back. “So termination isn’t going to factor in unless it’s a matter of life and death.”

Dewani nodded, then grinned. “Oh, Hanuman, this is so cool. Oh my gosh. I’m gonna teach them so many swear words. Holy shit.”

“You better not,” M’Baku said, grin undercutting the warning tone of his voice.

“Watch me. Anyway, what’s next?”

Okoye sighed. “Well, ‘next’ involves flying back to the capital and alerting the King so I can start delegating different work duties for the better part of the next year... and then telling my friends, I suppose.”

“Can we come with? Can I come with? I wanna see Shuri.”

“I don’t see why not.”

M’Baku jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Go pack us a couple bags. I’ll come with, too.”

“Awesome!”

Okoye chuckled and shook her head as Dewani took off down the hall at a dead sprint. “To be that young again.”

“I’m good with where I’m at.” M’Baku was quiet for a moment, then grinned down at her. “We’re having a baby.”

She grinned back, excitement sweeping through her. “We’re having a baby!” She giggled with him, and smiled with dizzy euphoria when he swept her into his arms and kissed her. We’re having a baby.

After several months of frustration, it was nice to finally have something good.

As it turned out, though, they weren’t the only ones expecting. As soon as she’d informed T’Challa and Nakia of the news --and, inadvertently, Ramonda and Shuri, since they’d been in the room--Nakia had smiled softly and told her that she’d found out she was pregnant earlier that morning as well.

M’Baku had blinked, then looked over at Dewani and said “I’ve never been so grateful that you’re a lesbian until now.”

The room had exploded into cackles of laughter --a welcome sound in the wake of so much stress, loss, and rebuilding.

Aneka and Djabi --along with a few other women--had outright squealed when she’d broken the news to her women, while others had started trading money.

Because there’d been a betting ring going for when she’d get pregnant. Apparently.

She’d been to happy, coasting on the high of ‘having a baby, building a new family of my own’ to really give it much reaction.

Now, though, she was tidying up her office; it needed a good decluttering, anyway, and it was enough of a low impact task that M’Baku was flipping out --as much as he flipped out, anyway--over her doing it.

“I’ve already talked to Princess Shuri,” M’Baku said. “She said she can have the rail system fully functional in four months.”

Okoye nodded as she filed some old mission notes from when they were tracking down Ross into one of the cabinets behind her. “Is it weird that I kind of want to find a new apartment? I’m still happy to stay with you and use the transport system to commute, but I don’t want to stay at the palace when you’re here. I like having a place outside of work in Birnin Zana, and I’ve got more than enough money from Trump’s settlement suit to make it sustainable.”

“That sounds fine to me.” He grinned. “Honestly, I can’t believe this is really happening. I almost feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Want me to pinch you?”

“No, but I can think of several other things I’d like to have you do to me.”

“And here I thought I was supposed to be the one with the hormonal surges.” She smirked, then looked up when someone knocked on the office door. “Come in.”

Aneka walked in, holding a letter marked with the Border tribe insignia. “This just came for you.”

Okoye raised her eyebrows. “Someone sent a physical letter to me?”

Wakanda had a functioning postal system, but most interactions were kept digital for efficiency’s sake. Physical mail was saved for formal functions or letters, and death notices.

“According to the note that came with it, the person who sent it is claiming to be your late mother’s sister.”

She felt her entire world go sideways. After everything she’d been through, it seemed impossible. After all this time... is there really someone left? How’d they even find me?

She could feel M’Baku helping her into a chair, distantly hear him thanking Aneka--

And then he was kneeling in front of her. “Hey. Deep breaths. Everything’s okay.”

“It is,” she agreed quietly. “It’s just... a surprise. A big one.”

He nodded. “I know.” He looked down at the small, crisp envelope in his hand, then back up at her. “What do you want to do with this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”

He shrugged back. “There’s no harm in checking it out.”

He was right, she decided. If everything turned out to be a bust, she could walk away from whatever --whoever--she found through the letter. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She took the letter from his hand and opened the envelope.

#sass writes #black panther fanfiction #okoye x m'baku #shuri x oc #t'challa x nakia #i literally started writing this this morning #and it's done before noon #go me!#wakanda forever

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randomrichards · 5 years

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THE BEST MOVIE MOMENTS OF 2018:

HONORABLE MENTION:

The Opening/Closing Credits from BUDDIES

I’m putting this as honorable mention because this is an older movie recently rereleased.

The first film about the AIDS Crisis, Buddies strikes at the heart with its opening credits with a typed list of AIDS victim up to 1985. Set to a mournful score by Jeffrey Olmstead, the never ending list of lives cut short puts you in tears.

Alex Honnold faces Boulder Problem in FREE SOLO

Most thrillers can only wish they could be as gripping as in the moment when Alex Honnold maneuver’s his way through the most challenging section of El Capitan Wall without rope in this Documentary.

Ray Offers Wisdom from Mid90s

“If you looked in anybody else’s closet, you wouldn’t trade your shit for their shit.”

Ray (Na-kel Smith) and his friends may not be the best role models for the impressionable Stevie (Sunny Suljic), but in this moment, Ray teaches him a lesson in perspective.

Glenn Close’s performance in THE WIFE

I’m not referring to any moment. Just Glenn Close’s acting. She speaks more volumes with her face than most actresses could with dialogue.

10) The Beach Scene from ROMA

Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is an extraordinary woman. Sure, her life hanging towels and cleaning dog poo doesn’t seem like anything special. But like many lower working-class people, she endures. Boy does she endure a lot of shit in this movie. Not only does her deadbeat boyfriend ditch her to practice martial arts, but her baby is born dead. Despite all this, she not only continues her work, but she shares a close bond with the family. She showcases this bond and her strength when a fun day at the beach goes horribly wrong.

When Paco (Carlos Peralta) and Sofi (Daniela Demesa) swim too far out, Cleo walks into the ocean to save them despite not knowing how to swim. We watch in dread as she faces severe waves to find the kids, the camera always close to her.

This scene also contains a beautiful scene of the family hugging Cleo when she tears up over losing her baby. Seeing them all huddled together in front of a bright white sun captures the heart.

9) “A Place Called Slaughter Race” from RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

Admit it, it’s fun to take pot shots at Disney Tropes. Hell, even Disney gets in on the fun. And boy do they seize on every moment to mock Princess tropes when Vanellope Von Shweetz (voiced by Sarah Silverman) encounters the Disney Princesses. Of course, it helps that Director Rich Moore and Head of Story Jim Reardon creates some of the best episodes of the Simpsons. Though there are many hilarious moments[1], none can hold the candle to Vanellope’s “I Want” song.

As she reflects over a puddle, Vanellope sings about her longing to be in the gritty game “Slaughter Race.” Seeing this little girl perform this lighthearted musical number over a background of riots and dumpster fires is comedy gold. Nearly every element of this number elevates the comedy, from singing shark (with cats and dogs in its mouth) to the creative lyrics (“Am I a baby pigeon spreading wings to soar?/ Is that a metaphor?/Hey, there’s a dollar store”). And the number still finds time to emphasize Vanellope’s fear of hurting Ralph (John. C Reilly).

Kudos to Alan Menken for mocking the trope he (and the late Howard Ashman) introduced to Disney. Just as deserving of Kudos is Silverman, who faced to task of singing in Vanellope’s high pitched voice.

8) Charlie Loses Her Head from HEREDITARY

With her unusual hobbies, connection to her late grandmother and that clicking sound, you’d assume Annie’s (Toni Collette) daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) would be the centre of the whole film.[2] Boy, were we in for a surprise.

Spoilers!

When Charlie suffers a peanut allergy reaction, Peter (Alex Wolfe) races her home. On his drive, he sees a mysterious figure in the middle of the dark road. In his attempt to dodge it, he doesn’t see Charlie hanging out the window. Seeing her head slam right into a pole leaves us as traumatized as Peter is. To see them kill off a main character so early in the film is downright shocking. With this death, predictability goes right out the window and we are left uncertain of what direction this film will go.

7) Neil Armstrong Soars in the X-15 Rocket Plane in FIRST MAN

It’s funny how the most exciting scene in this film isn’t the moon landing. Don’t get me wrong, the scene’s still breathtaking in its realism, but it’s surprising how thrilling the opening scene.

Damien Chazelle hits the ground running with Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) soaring the atmosphere in an X-15 Rocket Plane. He soars higher and higher into the skies until he flies out of earth’s surface and gets stuck in space

Albeit, you know he will be back on earth in time for the moon landing. And yet, I found myself on the edge of my seat, wondering how he’s going to get back to earth. Most of it is thanks to the visual effects, which contains some of the most believable since 2001: A Space Odyssey. The effects leave CGI in the dust with practical effects that look so real, you’d think Gosling was actually flying into space.

6) The Ferris Wheel Scene from LOVE, SIMON

High School Movies are home to many unforgettable romantic scenes. There’s Samantha (Molly Ringwald) and Jake (Michael Schoeffling) standing over a birthday cake in Sixteen Candles. There’s Patrick (Heath Ledger) singing to Katarina (Julia Stiles) on the bleachers in 10 Things I hate About You. And who can forget Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” outside Diane Court’s (Ione Skye) in Say Anything. Be ready to include the closing scene of Simon (Nick Robinson) waiting on the Ferris wheel for online pen pal Blue from Love, Simon.

After being outed by a student, infuriating his friends for deceiving them in his attempt to stay closeted and abandoned by Blue, Simon makes a plea to meet with Blue face to face on the Ferris Wheel at a carnival. As he rides on the Ferris Wheel, he, fellow classmates and the audience wait in anticipation for Simon’s happy ending.

5) The Book Heist from AMERICAN ANIMALS

When Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) and Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) plotted to steal extremely valuable books from the Transylvania University library in Kentucky, they thought they had the perfect heist. With the help of their friends Erick Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas Allen (Blake Jenner), they thought they pull off a heist as smooth as Oceans 11.[3]

But reality hits them like a sledge hammer when they try to pull off the heist. Unlike their dreams, Librarian Betty Jean Gooch (Ann Dowd) doesn’t get knocked out with one taser jolt. It also isn’t easy to lug a six-foot book down a flight of stairs. Then there’s the fact the basement has no exit. That’s just a few of many problems they never consider. From then on, we witness them pay a huge price for their hubris and lack of real-world understanding.

Only youths as smart as they are to come up with such a stupid plan.

4) The Mutant Bear from ANNIHILATION

Biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) and her team find themselves in a quite a bind. After entering the Shimmer, physicist Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson) has barely survived an attack from a mutant alligator and Anthropologist Cassie Sheppard (Tuva Novotny) has been attacked by a bear. Now paramedic Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez) has gone mad and has tied up Lena, Radek and Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh). But when they hear Sheppard’s cries for help, they will soon find Anya is the least of their worries.

Their journey delivers many grotesque, nightmare inducing visuals (especially the slithering intestines.) But the most memorable moment in this film was the image of the helpless crew trapped in a cabin with a mutant bear. Bears are scary enough on their own, but a faceless one is pants spitting meeting. And then you hear it imitate Sheppard’s screams and suddenly you need a new pair of pants.

3) The Great Snap from AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

The whole Marvel Cinematic Universe had been leading up to this moment. The fact that nearly every character had a moment to shine in this one movie demonstrates the astounding direction of the Russo Brothers. But despite all the epic fight scenes, everyone agrees that this film’s greatest scene is the heroes moment of defeat.

Despite every effort made to stop in, despite outnumbering Thanos and despite Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) sacrificing Vision (Paul Bettany) to destroy the mind stone, Thanos still got all the infinity stones. And with a single snap, Thanos succeeds in wiping out half the universe’s population. One by one, we watch many of our heroes vanish into dust while others watch in helpless horror. But none are more heartbreaking that the moment when Spider-Man (Tom Holland) falls into Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) arms, crying “I don’t want to go.” All because some characters couldn’t make the sacrifice needed

Yes, we knew he was going to succeed in the end.[4] And yes, you know most of the heroes won’t stay gone.[5] And yes, their return will likely involve the surviving heroes sacrificing themselves.[6] But the ending still feels powerful despite this knowledge.

It all concludes with Thanos sitting near a cottage, content in his triumph. If the MCU ended here, it would have been a perfect ending. But I’m still curious to see how this will go.

2) The Closing Close-Up in CAPERNAUM

The closing image of Zain’s (Zain Al Rafeea) face will haunt you beyond the closing credits. Throughout the film, we’ve seen this kid struggle through hell on the streets of Lebanon, trying to protect his sister from their resentful parents and helping an Ethiopian Migrant Worker take care of her son. But when he’s sent to prison for assaulting a pimp who bought his sister, he decides to sue his parents for the crime of bringing him into this miserable world. Writer/director Nadine Labaki never looks away for a second to the brutality of Zain’s world and how it brings out the worst in Zain.

When the film freezes to the image of Zain smiling for a Passport photo, your heart breaks for him as Khaled Mouzanar’s haunting score plays out.

1) Tish and Fonny’s Walk Through the Park in IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

No other opening scene has done a better job of putting its audience under its spell than when loving couple Tish (Kiki Layne) and Alfonzo “Fonny” Hunt (Stephan James) stroll through a park holding hands.

There’s beauty in every element of this scene, from Nicholas Britell’s romantic score to the warm looks in the character’s eyes. But what really sells it is James Laxton’s lush cinematography. The colours pop through the yellows and blues on the couple’s clothes and the green of the grass. You are as in love with this couple as they are for each other.

Then the film cuts to Tish visiting Fonny in prison, this time the yellow is the prison, the blue is Fonny’s jumpsuit and the green is on Tish’ outfit. From then one, we know why their love is worth fighting for.

[1] Mostly at the expense of Ariel (Jodi Benson)

[2] Especially when she appears so prominently in the advertisements.

[3] As indicated by a fantasy sequence.

[4] Since we know this was going to be a two parter.

[5] Especially when there are already planned sequels to Black Panther, Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. After all the money Marvel’s got from Black Panther? They’re not going to give up that meal ticket.

[6] What with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans retiring their characters.

#random richards #Random Richards Reviews #If Beale Street Could Talk #ralph breaks the internet #Capernaum #Avengers #infinity war #annihilation #American Animals #Love Simon #Buddies #Free Solo #Mid90s #Roma #The Wife #First Man #Hereditary #a place called slaughter race

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aster-ria · 6 years

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Heirs of Prythian Profiles

Name: Artemas "Art"

Birthday: 31. December

Age (600 Years after Acowar(a.A.)): 571

Epithets/Nicknames:

Moon's Hunter

Nightbringer

Most Powerful Fae/Being/Future High Lord

Archer of Destruction and Death

Little Moon (by family)

Position/Titles:

Prince of Night

Heir of Night

Future High Lord of the Night Court

Magical Abilities:

Misting

Glamouring

Winnowing

Healing

Daemeti Power

Flight by Wings

Magic of all Courts (Same as Feyre's)

Family:

Rhysand and Feyre (Parents)

Arianna and Asteria (little Sisters)

Nesta, Elain, Leda Morrigan and Amren (Aunts)

Cassian, Lucien, Azriel and Varian (Uncles)

Hemera, Helena, Aurelia, Callista, Felicia, Cadan, Cleon, Echo, Morena, Morpheus, Pluton (Cousins)

Tamlin, Rosary, Primula, Briallen, Rubin, Jaicen (In-Laws)

Sexuality: Demisexual

Romances:

Jemima (ex-girlfriend)

Laverna (Mate/Wife)

Best Friends: Cadan, Hemera, Nikos, Rubin

Squads:

Heirs of Prythian

Night Court's Future Inner Circle

Night-Archeron Cousins

Hem-Cad-Art Trio

Hobbies: Painting, Hunting, Reading

Three characteristics to describe them:

Lazy, Charismatic, Cunning

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Aesthetics: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4

Well I would love to know where to start with him.... But he is in fact the only character who I have developed in so much details in my head so far .... But let's see ... This is going to be a long one ... Ah I know!

On the last day of the year in the early hours of the evening, the High Lady of the Night Court was going into labor, the heir would be born soon, in excitement und anticipation the family of the High Lord and Lady waited in front of the room, the High lady was giving birth in. After hours of waiting, in the middle of night, the heir was born with a mighty scream that shook the whole night court itself. The newborn heir released so much magic that all the other High lords took notice.

And with that Artemas announced his presence, his magic, and his power to Prythian.

Of course the Court of Dreams (and family) were surprised, they did expected strong magic in Art but not on that level nor at that age, since he was not even a minute old. But after the first scream, no other powers were released from Art, but they still could feel the power radiating off him. But this didn't hinder nor squished the joy of the family to welcome their newest member. The High Lord himself was crying while holding his son.

Art was powerful from the very beginning and had strong magic as a baby. His temper tantrums - from when he was young - are very famous in the Night Court, because if he felt something too strongly, his magic acted out.(It still does that sometimes, but only when he gets a panic-attack. And when he does have a panic-attack, don't try to help, just run and wait until the dangers of dying are over. Only then help him. He is probably unconscious by then and save to approach.)

When he once was 6 months old, he started crying so hard and so loud, that he plunged Velaris in complete darkness for half an hour, because than Feyre, Rhys, Nesta, Cadan, Elain, Hemera (the Archeron sisters were meeting for tea and cake with their children and Rhys winnowed later in panic to them after the darkness came) got him to calm down and sleep. This is one of the famous "temper tantrums events" Cadan and Hemera (especially Hemera) will tease him about for eternity. And Art is actually really easy to tease, because he will blush and huff and pout and whine no matter his age.

Rhys doesn't have the ability to really say no to his children or his nieces and nephews. So Art, Ari and Asta are spoiled, none of them will deny it. So therefore Art always gets what he wants one way or another. When he was little, he simply mostly made puppy-eyes and pouted at the adults and he almost always got whatever he wanted. But now he uses mostly loopholes, manipulation and a little blackmailing. He is very cunning and knows exactly how to talk to people to get what he wants.

Art was on both parts a very easily to entertain and a very easily distracted child. It depends on how you try to entertain him. Because if you gave him paper and colourful crayons (or at least the Prythian equivalent of that) or paints, there was a good chance that he will barely move from his spot for hours.

(Fun story: Elain was once babysitting Art when he was 3, but it was good weather outside, so she decided to do some gardening outside. So she put Art on the magical enchanted blanket, like she did with Hemera and Cadan before, under some shadows with some paper, fingerpaint, colorful pencils, his bottle with juice and some snacks. The blanket had spell on it e.g. to warn her if the baby wants/tries to leave the blanket, to keep the baby on it until someone is there to take baby, to warn Elain if something is wrong with the baby, to keep the baby from harming itself accidentally, etc. Everything to keep a baby safe, in one place, alive and protected. And she didn't go that far off, to do some gardening. At first she looked after Art every few minutes, but after three hours straight, she realised she hadn't looked at him once and no spell was activated. So in growing panic she turned around and is stunned. Because Art was lying on his stomach, talking to himself and drawing. His bottle was almost empty and half of the snacks were gone. And Art looked happy that nobody was bothering him. Elain didn't want to disturb him but it was getting late and she had promised Art to decorate his favourite cookies (sugar cookies (he loves to decorate them)). So she gently asked him what he was doing and Art almost jumped out of his skin, turned his head, looked Elain dead in the eye, smiled and said: "Auntie Elain! I forgot about you! Sorry!" He only then looked at his surroundings and than sat up and yelped: "We wanted to decorate cookies!" He stood, took a giggling Elains hand and dragged her inside. And with that everyone found out later how easily you can entertain Art, if you leave him to himself sometimes.)

Or you could read him/let him read a story and if it is either a love story/fairy tale or a spooky/horror story, he will listen/read wide-eyed and curious/awed glimmer in his eyes. Everything else was a gamble, if he would be entertained or would abonden it and do something else.

Art is a logical thinking Fae even as a child, he understood pretty early on how powerful he is or even more going to be. Which makes him on some level practically invincible, so little Art came to the easy conclusions that no real creature/monster could kill him, so his last shards of fear of them fall away on a very young age. But he never really got scared of anything to begin with, nothing is too horrifying or terrifying to him.

He finds Bryaxis cute (when he was five, he begged Rhys and Feyre for months to allow him to make Bryaxis his pet. They only allowed him that as long as he stays in the library when they are in Velaris and that he will never ask them again, if he could have any other creature as a pet. Because he did that a lot.), the Suriels are really interesting and cool (he liked to sit in their laps when he was little and listen to the stories they would tell him), various monsters, that haunt the forest of Prythian, are either pretty, beautiful (on an odd level) or cute and also very easy prey. No Creature or Being scares him. He even finds Hewn City aesthetically pleasing and appealing to the eye (he still doesn't like most of the people there but he likes to chill and party there with friends).

The only thing/being Art is scared of, is the Cauldron itself. At first he wasn't afraid of it, but when he was about 300 years old, they (Night-Archeron Family) visit Drakon and Miryam on their island. And since the Cauldron is hidden there, It wanted to have revenge against the Archerons and Amren. And It wanted it to happen, where it would hurt them the most, so It attacked their children. However the spells and enchantments on the Cauldron, prevented It from killing them directly, so the overgrown bathtub took a more mental and also more painful approach. And so after a few minutes after the Night-Archeron Family touched down on the island, Art, Ari, Asta, Cad, Cleon, Hemy, Hely, Aura, Feli and Pluton (yes, not Calla because the Cauldron loves her) fell to the ground spamming, screaming and holding their heads. The Archeron Sisters and Amren of course had felt the Cauldron and It's doing, tried to counter It. But their Children started bleeding from their eyes, noses, mouths and ears. The Cauldron had released a loud white noise in their heads. Their brains were being fried and they came very close to dying. But Rhys, Mor and Az had all of them winnowed as far as possible and as fast as possible. They barely survived and they needed months to recover from that horrible experience. Since then Art and the Rest are mentally scarred for life. And the Cauldron still sometimes taunts them in the back of their head. Even the mere possiblity of the Cauldron being in near proximity to them, will send all of them running in the opposite direction. (Yes to answer your unasked question, if Art could get close to it, he could destroy it with only a few little problems. But he will never (if the world isn't ending) get close to it.)

Artemas did go to the Illyrian Training Camps, because he mainly needed allies from the Illyrians (and to know how to fight without magic, but that was just an afterthought). Art's Dream for when he is the High lord is to a unifie the Night Court between the Illyrians, Hewn City and Velaris. And with that create a strong, more peaceful and powerful Court. But for that he realised he needed allies in both Velaris and Hewn City. But he also needed close friends and allies from the Illyrians to get most of them on his side. So he went to the camps with the full intend to make as many friends as possible there. That friends making wasn't the problem though, because Art always has been a very charismatic, kind, funny and respectful. Making friends is easy to him. This is also where he met and befriended his best friend/future Commander of the Illyrian Armies Nikos, and his future General Commander Of the Night Court's Armies Marcella (short Marcy).

The only problem he had, was that he didn't like close physical fights, because his first instinct for everything is magic. And since he had a lot it didn't end very well for him and his opponent, when he accidentally used some while sparing. So he needed very early on a lot of restrainers on him, to block his magic but the older he got and the stronger his magic grew, the more restrainers he needed because he kept breaking them a lot. But his magic wasn't the only thing that hindered him but also his sheer dislike of physical confrontation and fights. They made him uncomfortable. (well they still make him uncomfortable and also send him sometimes into panicking) Because of that he developed a fighting style, that mainly is about distance, dodging, hiding and getting the opponent defeated as fast as possible and with as little contact as possible. It worked but none of the camp lords nor most of his opponent were any kind of happy with that. He was always walking on a thin line in the camps when it comes to the rules and traditions. It was also here, where his enjoyment of loopholes and finding the easy way out began. The camp lords were angry and annoyed with this behaviour and he was almost punished every other week (no not leashes (he only got 3 leashes in his entire stay there) just some work here and there, some cleaning up etc.) And through that he learnt a lot of patience and discipline (which he lacked as a child). And this was the only other good thing that come out of his stay and training. He still very lazy though, that didn't change much.

All of this is also the reason why his preferred weapons are bow and arrows. He loves it. The distance, the concentration, the calculation, the easiness to hold a bow, the elegance, the creativity with the arrows. He swears he was born to be an Archer. It is perfect for him. Feyre had taught him when he was around 7, because he saw her using a bow and was immediately interested. But he honed his skill to near perfection in the camps. This was one of the only things the camp lords were never annoyed about with him.

He ended his training barely within the standards and was actually glad to go home and not partake in the bloodrite, but after he was almost done with packing and only a few hours before the bloodrite, the camp lord informed him that he actually would participate in it. Art's Brain shut down after the lord was done explaining and it only restarted when was already thrown out in the forest for the rite. But the rite wasn't actually that hard for him. It still wasn't easy, but not as hard as he feared it would be. Marcy found him by accident and was surprised to see him there. They started to search for Nikos right after. After they found him, they come to the agreement that Art would provide them with the fastest and safest way and how to survive in this wilderness. Marcy and Nikos would fight the others off. So began the literal hide and seek between the other Illyrians (who wanted either revenge for lousy fights or just wanted to get their hands on a quarter-breed and the heir of the night) and Art (who didn't fought once in the entire bloodrite and was glad about it), since he avoided them as much as possible. And within a week the come to the top of the mountain and finished the bloodrite almost as fast as Rhys, Cass and Az did. Art spent his Bloodrite just hiding and running away from fights. And he will proudly announced that to anyone who asks him about it.

Art has absolutely no pride in being a warrior or being from Illyrian blood, he finds the notion of having pride of something like that very stupid for himself. Though he does respect people who has that kind of pride in them, it's just not up his alley. He will admit publicly that he is not good at fighting and that almost anyone with combat training could beat him, well as long as it is purely combat, but if magic is allowed, you will get your ass handed to you in seconds, because even then Art doesn't want to fight anyone any longer than he needs to.

There is also another reason for why he will avoid fights involving any kind of weapons like his life depends on it, but more on that someday later. It has something to do with his PTSD. He has three triggers that will give him panic-attacks. They have various levels of how fast they make him panicking and lose control. The slowest is being surrounded by at least three armed individuals who are trying to kill or fight him. The next one is being hanged by his wrists over his head. It gets worse if he can't touch the ground with his feet or if can't use his magic. And the fastest is having any kind of blade near his throat or neck. If he panics in any of this situation, he will shortly after fall unconscious and his magic will explode out of him and destroy everything in a few miles radius. (he once almost completely halft a Mountain) If you are really close to him when that happens, you are most definitely death, since Art has no control in that moment. But these moments don't happen really that much since Art is avoiding them like they are a plague and with almost childish stubbornness.

So to make one thing clear, Art is a lazy ass. Everyone knows it. Art is lazy. If he finds a way not to do something himself or an easier way to get it done, then he will not hesitate to use that way. He will also never hesitate to ask for help, if he thinks someone will make it easier or do it completely for him, because they can do it better than. Art knows what he can and can't do, therefore he will not waste time and energy to try to do it himself, when he can just ask someone right away to help him. Art never does more than he absolutely needs to do. And these things he will do fast, efficiencently and perfectly. It is an absolute nightmare to get him to train, because you will need literal years to have him agree to training. He almost ever refuses to do everything that is taxing or tiring (except hunting, flying, archery(he loves all that shit)). But also if someone, who he loves (his friends and family), loves that activity that they ask him to join in, than he will probably do it for them with a lot of complaining (in a mostly teasing and humourous way)(well except for fighting even if it is Ari's and Echo's favorite thing in the world). Art loves to make people happy and likes to help them. But he will never go completely out of his way for anyone (except for Laverna), but he will try to help as best as he can manage.

He has a lot of people employed in his office even before he is high lord, because they make his life a lot easier. And yes he has an office building, because his parents are giving him a lot work to do, to prepare him to take over the Night Court. He also has three writers employed just for his paperwork, because him writing something longer than half a page is preposterous. He would either mentally or verbally dictate what they should write down. (They also have a better handwriting than him. Artemas handwriting is messy, rushed and inconsistent, which contradicts his artistic side and makes him mad at himself.)

(Fun Story: The Heirs need to do reports about their findings and solutions in the Biannual "Prythian Court Meeting", since they have their own little meeting. Art tried to get his writers to do it for him, but Rhys (as a little revenge plan) made the law about them so airtight that Art - to his horror and dismay - was forced to handwrite all the reports. But since all the heirs were not that happy with this law, they decided to make their longest report yet. This was their revenge, because their parents need to read them. So they made a 150 paged report, were every possible solution was listed and every solution was explained in excruciating detail and also how effective they would be etc. It was informativ but also very painful to read, because the writing style was awful and overly overcomplicated. And the High Lords and ladies needed to read them. And the heirs even controlled and tested if they read them with some buzzwords that were hidden in the texts. And since neither the HoPs nor the High Lords and Ladies wanted this to ever happen again, so decided that the maximum number of pages is 50. The only really good thing that came out of this, was the combination of two solutions for the problem, of which one the high lords and ladies never thought of.)

Art at this age has already a complete Inner Circle and all of them are monster when it comes to magic, powers and/or combat. His Inner Circle has ten members (if you count the future high lord and high lady in than they have 12 but I don't so just ten). Five males and five females. (Five of them are family to Art) They are going to be the strongest and most efficient Court in whole Prythian and also in history. And also the most independent, since Art is "training" and "designing" them into being able to function without him or with only the minimum input from him.

Since this is already over 3k Words long, I think that this will be enough for now. And I am not done with Art yet, but I don't think I will write for any another of my HoPs even close to that number. I will probably continue Art someday, since I love him so much. He such a Lazy Smartass. He is the best. 😉

If someone has any questions about Art or any of the other Characters, feel free to ask. I'd love to answer them. 😊

Which one of the Heirs should i do next? (please no little siblings except for Ari, because i don’t really want to do younger siblings berfore older ones. Thanks)

Tags: @thelaziestgeek @iamthebonecarver @mindnumbmikey

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argyle-s · 6 years

Text

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME CHAPTER 33/38

Rating: Mature

Read at Ao3

Start at the Beginning

Kara gets a phone call, and Leslie wakes up.

Thanks to @ifourmindbeso for her great work as a beta. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

Chapter 33 - The Enemy of My Enemy is My Frenemy

“Lady Kara,” Kolex said.

Kara jumped slightly as the interruption broke her concentration. She took a moment to take a deep breath, then looked away from the monitor displaying Leslie’s vitals.

“Yes, Kolex?” she asked.

“Your sister is attempting to reach you.”

“Put it through,” Kara said.

“Kara, are you there?” Alex asked.

“I’m here,” Kara replied.

“Would you mind telling me where here is?” President Marsdin’s voice cut in.

“Kolex, patch through video,” Kara said. The monitor when had been displaying Leslie’s vital signs switched to a split screen view. One side showed the Oval Office, and the other side showed J’onn, Alex, Susan and Lucy all sitting at a conference table in one of the DEO briefing rooms. “Hello, Madam President. I’m currently a few hundred miles off the California coast. A little vacation house I keep, similar to my Cousin’s.”

“Well, perhaps sometime when you’re not wanted for kidnapping and attempted murder, you could give me a tour,” Marsdin said.

“Well, I’m guessing the story leaked,” Kara said.

“If by leaked, you mean ‘is currently the front-page headline on every news website in the country,’ then yes,” Marsdin said. “The CatCo and Daily Planet websites are trying to put a positive spin on it, but Cat isn’t sure how long that will last. Apparently, the board is holding an emergency meeting at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. Cat believes she’ll be removed from the CEO’s position at that time. It’s also likely CatCo will formally cut all ties with Supergirl under the moral turpitude clause in the contracts.”

“That won’t happen,” Kara said.

Olivia leaned towards the camera. “Miss Danvers, that is exactly what will happen unless you can clear your name in the next seven hours. Please, tell me you have good news.”

“The Regeneration Matrix has managed to repair the damage to Leslie’s brain, not to mention every other major organ and her bones. Physically, she’s in better shape than she was before the attack. Probably in better shape than she’s been at any point in her life.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Marsdin said.

“But the technology was designed to work on Kryptonians. Our physiology is naturally regenerative. Even without our powers, we will eventually heal from anything that doesn’t kill us. Under a red sun, we’re as prone to scarring as humans, but the Regeneration Matrix was designed with that in mind. It can repair gross physical damage down to the genetic level, but with a Kryptonian brain, that would be enough. You fix the damage, and neural activity will re-initiate on its own. Humans… not so much.”

“In English, please, Miss Danvers.”

“I’ll put it in High Durlan if you like, but the long and short of it is, Leslie’s in there, her mind and memories intact, but she needs a jump start.” Marsdin was good, Kara had to admit. She would have missed the flinch when she mentioned Marsdin’s species if she hadn’t been watching for it, but it was there.

“Do you have any way to do that?” Marsdin asked. “If she could tell us who attacked her, a lot of headaches would go away.”

“Well, there are two things that might possibly do it,” Kara said. “The first is a telepathic kickstart.”

“We don’t have access to a friendly telepath right now,” Marsdin said.

Kara frowned. “A moment, Madam president,” she said, and keyed in a quick command that cut Marsdin out of the conference with the DEO.

“I thought we were going to brief her on Peru,” Kara said.

“Did you just put the President on hold?” J’onn asked.

Kara shrugged. “I can loop her back in if you want to have this conversation with her on the line.”

“Kara,” Alex said, cutting in, “she didn’t give us time. Once she came on the line, she demanded to speak with you, and wouldn’t hear anything else.”

“Fine,” Kara said. “Look, Director, I know I made a bit of a unilateral decision with regards to something that impacts you personally-“

“It was the right decision,” J’onn said. “If you’re right about who’s behind this, what happened in Peru would come out sooner rather than later anyway. Best get ahead of it.”

“Right. I’m bringing her back in.”

Kara touched a control.

“Supergirl, I’m not sure how things were done on Krypton, but here, you do not put the President on hold.”

“Sorry about that I, but I needed to find out why you hadn’t been read in on a certain issue that has a material impact on our current situation.”

“I see,” Marsdin said. “And would you like to read me in now?”

Kara turned to Kolex. “Is this line secure?”

“Yes, Lady Kara.”

Kara turned back to the video pick up. “Olivia, how familiar are you with Director Henshaw’s record with the DEO?’

Marsdin frowned. “More familiar than I’d like, if I’m honest. I seriously considered removing him based on the early portion of that record. If there hadn’t been such a drastic change in the way he managed the organization after he lost his team in Peru, Director Henshaw would be scrubbing toilets at McMurdo Station, unless I could find some other, less pleasant duty for him.”

“That’s fair,” J’onn said. “But there was a good reason for the change in management styles.”

“I imagine getting a bunch of good men killed pointlessly was a good motivator.”

“For the Hank Henshaw who lead those men to Peru, probably not,” J’onn said. “However, the mission report for Peru leaves out a few details.”

“Would you care to fill them in?” Marsdin asked.

“During the mission, Jeremiah Danvers got separated from the team. That much is in the report. What isn’t in the report is that the alien he found there wasn’t the threat that Hank Henshaw expected. He was a refugee. The last of his kind. A Green Martian, driven from his home world when the White Martians started a civil war and slaughtered his people. The Martian saved Jeremiah’s life, and the two of them began talking. They became friends. Jeremiah even told him about Kara and Alex. Then, Hank Henshaw found them, and before Jeremiah could stop him, Henshaw attacked and wounded the Martian. Jeremiah tried to protect him. He and Henshaw struggled, wounding each other before Jeremiah threw Henshaw off a cliff. Jeremiah died shortly there after.”

“The Martian, grieving for the only friend he’d known since the death of his species, decided that hiding did no one any good. So, he took on Henshaw’s form, and he returned, and stepped into Henshaw’s place as director of the DEO, where he could help protect this world from the fate of his own, while also protecting the aliens from Henshaw’s excesses. He was also able to keep the DEO from touching Jeremiah’s family, right up until he recruited Alex Danvers as an agent.”

J’onn stood up and transformed.

“Holy shit!” Lucy shouted as she pushed back from the table.

“My name is J’onn J’onzz, I am the sole survivor of my race, and the Last Son of Mars.”

“/.:zhaolium zw rroskilahres :dhiviao/” Kara muttered under her breath.

“You mean to tell me that an alien shape shifter infiltrated the very organization that was tasked with hunting him down, took it over, and has done a better job leading it than the person whose place he took?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do,” J’onn said. He shifted back into his human form and sat down.

Marsdin shook her head. “I don’t know whether to laugh or order Major Lane to shoot you,” she said. “I’m taking it from Agents Danvers and Vasquez’s reactions that they were already aware of this situation?”

“We were,” Susan and Alex said together.

“Well, this is a new and horrible political shit storm you’ve handed me,” Marsdin said. “But leaving that aside, why does this have any bearing on the fact that Cat Grant’s pet superhero is wanted for at least two felonies?”

“Because the real Hank Henshaw is alive,” Kara said. “You’re aware of project Cadmus?”

“Yes,” Marsdin said. “And I have the executive order terminating Cadmus sitting right next to the Alien Amnesty Act and the stack of Pardons, all awaiting my signature on Monday.”

“Well, Henshaw has been modified using alien technology. Cadmus rebuilt him into some kind of Cyborg Superman,” Kara said. “He’s got almost the full package. Heat vision, Kryptonian-level strength. Flight. The only thing they couldn’t give him was freeze breath.”

“So he attacked Willis,” Marsdin said. “And after you gave Leslie the little on-air verbal smackdown, everyone will assume it’s you. Perfect. Wonderful. How the hell did you piece all this together from the middle of the Ocean?”

“I didn’t,” Kara said. “I’ve known about Cadmus for a while. I’ve been delaying a confrontation, hoping I could get the situation with the Kryptonians and other Fort Rozz prisoners settled first, but I think my confrontation with General Lane on Sunday may have pushed them into acting.”

“So, we have a Kryptonian-level threat in National City, which is being supported by rogue factors within the US government, including Major Lane’s father, and now I have to figure out how to leave an alien imposter in control of our major arm of law enforcement for aliens. Meanwhile, Cat Grant’s media empire is about to be destroyed, likely taking my political future down in flames with it. Does that about sum it up?” Marsdin asked.

“Well, there’s one other thing,” Kara said.

“Oh, please. I don’t hate this day nearly enough yet,” Marsdin said.

“If the telepathic jolt doesn’t wake Leslie up, I have a backup plan,” Kara said.

“That’s actually good news,” Marsdin said, sighing with relief.

“Maybe,” Kara said. “Leslie Willis carries the metahuman gene, which means that given the right circumstances, that gene could be triggered. Metahuman expression is almost always accompanied by a biological reset, which includes neural activity.”

“Metahuman expression is wildly unpredictable,” Marsdin said.

“It is,” Kara said. “Which is why I want to try the telepathic jump start option first, but if that fails, I’ll be triggering her meta gene.”

“I notice that you’re phrasing that as a statement.”

“Leslie did not deserve this,” Kara said. “I might not have been happy with what she said on the radio the other day, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted to see her hurt, and she was hurt because of me. If I have a way of giving her back the life Hank Henshaw took from her, I will. You don’t get a say in that.”

Marsdin’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “You know, I don’t think anyone is ever going to enjoy being on your bad side.”

“If they do, I’m doing something wrong,” Kara said. “Madam President, I know I’m the cause of your current problems, but I do need to ask one small favor.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re aware, no doubt, that Lillian Luthor is heavily involved with Project Cadmus.”

“I am,” Marsdin said. “That’s part of why I want to close it down, and not just restructure it.”

“Can you assign a protection detail to her daughter, Lena?”

“Okay… I wasn’t expecting that request. Would you mind telling me why?”

“I’m afraid Lillian might kill Lena. As Lena’s only living relative not in prison, she’d stand to inherit, and I suspect the LuthorCorp board would be far more amicable to Lillian taking over, which would give Lillian unfettered access to all of Lex’s hidden toys.”

“You think she’d kill her own daughter?” Marsdin asked.

“Lena’s not Lillian’s biological daughter. Lionel had an affair and adopted Lena after the mistress died.”

“Right,” Marsdin said. “Protection detail it is. Get Willis back on her feet as soon as possible. Once that’s done, we’ll go from there. Remember, the CatCo board meets at 10:00 AM.”

“We’ll get it done.”

Marsdin cut the line from her end, leaving Kara with just a connection to the DEO.

“Lucy,” Kara said.

“Yeah?” Lucy asked.

“How you holding up?”

“I… I think I want to vomit?” Lucy immediately paled and turned to J’onn. “That wasn’t directed at you,” she said. “It’s just… my dad…”

“It’s okay, Major,” J’onn said. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Kara said. “I wish we had time to talk about it, but please believe me when I say this isn’t how I wanted this to play out.”

“I do,” Lucy said.

“Good,” Kara replied. “J’onn, you have your phone?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Stand by for transmat.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” J’onn said.

Kara hit the activation button for the transmat system, and J’onn disappeared from the screen and appeared next to her. Kara tried not to laugh as he scrunched up his face like he’d just bit into a lemon, and shook his head.

“That was almost as unpleasant as being in the room with General Lane,” J’onn said.

“Yeah,” Kara said. “You once described it as feeling like you were trying to phase through solid kryptonite. Which, don’t. No one came out of that looking pretty.” She shuddered at the memory of the day J’onn had phased them both through a kryptonite barrier to get her out of a Cadmus trap.

“Noted,” J’onn said. “Where’s Leslie?”

“In the next room, but I think it’s best if you transform before you go in. Her waking up to the sight of Hank Henshaw isn’t going to do either of us any good.”

“Point taken,” J’onn said, as he shifted into his true form.

Kara stood up and lead him into the next room, where Leslie lay in the Regeneration Matrix. The sight made Kara uncomfortable, because Kara had never known Leslie to be still. The first three times they’d met, Leslie had tried to kill her, but after that, after the battle of CatCo plaza, Leslie had become an ally. There was too much between them to ever really be close. Leslie blamed her for Cat dying, which Kara couldn’t argue with since she blamed herself, and their grief had turned into a brick wall between them. That hadn’t stopped Kara from caring about her, if for no other reason than Leslie had been one of her last links to Cat.

Kara stepped up to the console, and deactivated the Regeneration Matrix, opening the crystalline enclosure.

“Autonomic functions are normal,” Kara said. “She’s breathing and her heart is beating without outside support. We just need to restart higher brain function.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” J’onn said, stepping up next to the platform Leslie lay on. Kara could easily see the look of concentration on his face, but her attention was focused on the brain activity monitor, which didn’t move a bit. J’onn kept trying, working for almost half an hour, before he finally sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing for me to latch on to. Without at least a spark of consciousness, there isn’t really anything I can do.”

Kara nodded, feeling the disappointment, and more than a little dread setting in. “It’s okay,” she said. “Thanks for trying. Do you want to transmat back, or would you rather fly?”

“I’d prefer to fly, but I think I the transmat would raise fewer eyebrows at the DEO,” J’onn said.

“Just think, pretty soon, that won’t be an issue.”

J’onn raised his eyebrow and tilted his head slightly. “Or Marsdin will cut her losses and have me locked up.”

Kara shook her head. “Won’t happen,” she said. “I have too much leverage.”

“You know something about Marsdin?” J’onn asked.

“Just that she’s a Durlan,” Kara said. “Reptilian species with limited shape shifting abilities. Sort of super chameleons. There’s a huge colony here on Earth. Been here four centuries. Heck, Marsdin’s actually a natural born citizen and everything.”

“You threatened her,” J’onn said, with a look somewhere between annoyed and impressed.

“We do what we have to do to protect the people we love.” She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Go on. Kolex will send you back. I’ve got to turn a woman whose career I just ruined into an insanely powerful metahuman with abilities that can actually hurt me.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” J’onn asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kara said. “I’ve already watched Leslie die for my sins once. I’m not up for it again.”

J’onn nodded and headed out of the medical hall. A moment later, Kara heard the transmat working, and turned back to Leslie. She closed the Regeneration Matrix, and turned the system back on, feeding in the metagenetic profile of Livewire she’d brought back with her from the future. There were a couple of small tweaks to it. This time, Leslie’s ability to produce melanin shouldn’t be damaged be the transformation, and she’d tweaked the regenerative powers up just a notch, so Leslie would heal almost as fast as Kara did.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Kara said as she triggered the gene sequencer, and began the process of writing Livewire’s meta genes into Leslie’s body. It took about ten minutes before the process was done. Then Kara took Leslie out of the Regeneration Matrix and carried her over to a table she’d had Kolex prep for just this moment. She lay Leslie down on the table, took her hand and recited the invocation Zatanna had given her to disable the wards on her soul.

“Hit me, Kolex,” Kara said.

The robot floated around behind her, putting Kara firmly between itself and Leslie as it extended the device Kara had ordered it to build earlier. A betahedron connected to an arc projector. The device fired an arc of electricity the strength of a lightning bolt right into Kara’s back. Kara felt the current run down into her arm, through her hand, and into Leslie.

A moment later, Leslie sat up screaming.

“Easy,” Kara said. “Easy. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Leslie scrambled back, trying to get away from her, but the table wasn’t much bigger than Leslie, and she slipped and started to topple off, so Kara used a burst of speed to zip around the table and catch her. The fall only seemed to make Leslie panic harder, and when she suddenly found herself in Kara’s arms, she reached, swinging her fist out, and punching Kara in the chest. If she’d done it the day before, she would have broken her hand, but with her meta gene activated, the punch was accompanied with a massive surge of electricity, which threw Kara across the room, slamming her into a wall.

Kara winced as she pulled herself to her feet, her chest throbbing even as her powers healed her. As much as it hurt, Kara was glad it happened, because it the shock of it seemed to break Leslie out of her panic. She sat on the ground, next to the table, looking down at her hands as electricity arced between her fingers.

“What the hell?” Leslie asked as she sat staring at her hands. It only took a moment for a smile to spread across her face, then she looked up and thrust a hand towards Kara.

Nothing happened.

“It’s a side effect,” Kara said as she stood up.

“Of what?” Leslie asked.

“You got hurt,” Kara said. “You remember?”

“Yeah,” Leslie said. “One of your super groupies came after me.”

“Not one of mine,” Kara said. “You remember what he looked like?”

“Yeah,” Leslie said. “Black guy. Muscular. Sour expression on his face, like some teenager just stole his parking space.”

“Kolex, project an image of Hank Henshaw.” A hologram of Henshaw appeared in front of Leslie, and from the way she flinched and backed away, Kara didn’t have much doubt she’d been right. “Is that him?”

“Yes,” Leslie said. “But what does that have to do with me shooting lightning out of my hands?”

“Kolex, end projection,” Kara said as she walked over to Leslie. “Your injuries were bad. When he attacked you, he tore some blood vessels deep inside your brain. The doctors couldn’t do anything, but I have a medical device from Krypton that could, so I brought you here.” She knelt down in front of Leslie.

“The machine didn’t have any problem fixing the physical damage to your brain, but Kryptonian and human brains work a little differently. It couldn’t restart your neural activity. I tried a few things, but I couldn’t wake you up. Most people wouldn’t have made it, but you carry the meta gene. You know what that is?”

“No, Sunshine, I haven’t read the news in about twenty years,” Leslie snapped.

Kara rolled her eyes. “Fine. When the meta gene is activated, one of the things it does is basically reboot your entire body. I activated yours to wake you up.”

“Why?” Leslie asked. “First you send talk dark and deadly to kill me and now you’re giving me super powers? And why can’t I do it again?”

“You think I sent him to kill you?” Kara asked. “Why would I do that?”

“You were pretty pissed the other day,” Leslie said.

Kara sighed. “Leslie, if I killed someone every time they insulted me, my high school would be a smoking hole in the ground, and all the guys I went on dates with in college would have heat vision holes in their head.”

“I thought you were gay,” Leslie said.

“I am, but a lot of guys called me a frigid bitch before I figured that out.”

“Assholes,” Leslie said.

Kara couldn’t keep the shock off her face.

“What?” Leslie said. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to have a date get pissed when you won’t put out?”

“No,” Kara said, “I’m just a little shocked you said something nice to me. Well, not nice. I mean, you called every guy I ever dated an asshole. But sort of nice, because-”

“Oh, for the love of God, either shut up, or kill me.”

Kara laughed. “Okay, that’s more like the Leslie Willis I know.”

“So, why can’t I zap you again?” Leslie asked.

“You’re out of juice,” Kara said. “You’re like a capacitor. You can store energy and let it go whenever you want, but when you run out, you need to recharge. If we were in the city, you could pull from the power grid, but power in this room is heavily shielded.”

“Well, expect to get good and cooked as soon as I’m charged up.”

Kara smiled as she sat down next to Leslie.

“So, why did you really think I sent him?” Kara asked.

“When he grabbed me the first time, he said ‘You can thank Supergirl for this,’” Leslie replied.

“And you believed that?” Kara asked.

“I don’t know,” Leslie said, shrugging. “I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it.”

“You do now,” Kara said.

Leslie frowned, and shook her head.

“Doesn’t really seem like your style,” Leslie said. “If you wanted me out of the way, the cops would show up at my apartment with a warrant and find a kilo of coke under my bed.”

“Were you born this cynical?”

“Hard to buy the little Miss Sunshine act when you got me fired,” Leslie said.

Kara laughed. “You should thank me,” Kara said. “She bought out your contract, when she could have just assigned you to traffic.”

“Laugh it up, Sunshine, but sooner or later, she’ll get tired of you, too.”

Kara sighed and shook her head gently. “I don’t think she got tired of you. I think she just looked at you and couldn’t see anything but the ways she’d let you down. That’s not an easy thing to live with. I feel it every time I see my cousin.”

“Spare me,” Leslie said, but it lacked the normal enthusiasm of her retorts.

“Well, either way, you’ve got your chance at revenge,” Kara said.

Leslie looked down at her hands, still sparking with the last remnants of electrical power in her system. “I suppose I can skin a Cat now.”

“No,” Kara said. “Try it and I will stop you.”

“You think you’re ready to throw down, Sunshine?”

“Yes,” Kara said, and watched as something in her tone made Leslie flinch. “You wouldn’t need your powers though. When we leave here, I’m taking you to NCPD headquarters to give a statement about the attack. You have two choices.”

“Really?” Leslie asked. “Do tell.”

“You can lie. Say you don’t remember the attack, or say I was the one who attacked you. Do that and I’m finished. Everything I’m trying to build will go straight in the toilet. No alien amnesty, no protection for other refugees. Every remaining Kryptonian except my cousin will spend the rest of their lives in a cage. And to top it all off, the board will take CatCo away from Cat. She’ll be out on the street, watching some walking personification of white male privilege run everything she’s built straight into the ground.”

“Sounds fun,” Leslie said. “What’s the catch?”

Kara nodded. “The catch is, the man who attacked you walks away.”

“I could find him myself,” Leslie said.

“Maybe,” Kara said. “Maybe not. But even if you find him, what about the people who hired him? He wasn’t some Supergirl groupie out to defend my reputation. He’s an assassin, working for an anti-alien group who will do anything to kill the alien amnesty act. So, ask yourself something. Who do you want more? Me and Cat, or the people who tried to kill you?”

“Tough choice,” Leslie said. “The men who tried to end my life, or the women who destroyed it.”

“Oh, please,” Kara said. “With your ratings, you know Cox and Sirius are both going to be knocking on your door inside of a month, offering you anything you want. Hell, as good looking as you are, Fox News might give you your own show.”

“Awww, thanks. That’s sweet but you’re not my type,” Leslie said.

“Yeah, well, I’d say you weren’t my type either, but I’d be lying. Prickly, badass blondes with more baggage than an American Tourister warehouse are going to be the death of me someday. Hopefully not today, but someday.”

Leslie tried to hide it, but Kara spotted the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “Well, I suppose you can look, as long as you keep your hands to yourself.”

“That’s going to make flying you back to National City a bit tough,” Kara said as she stood up. Leslie’s eyes went wide with just a hint of panic.

“No way,” Leslie said, shaking her head. “You are not carrying me.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “I save your life, I give you super powers, and still no respect,” she said as she held up her hand to help Leslie up. Leslie just glared at her and climbed to her feet without taking the help. “There’s a change of clothes for you in the room over there,” Kara said, pointing to a door in one side of the med lab.

“It better not be a set of tights,” Leslie said as she walked over to the door. Kara waited until the door was closed before turning to Kolex.

“Kolex, connect to Konex. Get an update on the media situation.”

A moment later, dozens of websites were displayed in the air before her. CatCo’s front page headline was “Supergirl Working to Save Leslie Willis,” while Fox News had, “Maxwell Lord Calls on President Marsdin to End Supergirl Threat.” Most of the rest of the major news outlets were going with some variation of “Supergirl Wanted for Questioning.”

Kara took her phone out of her boot, and pulled up her texting app, selecting Cat from her contacts.

Kara: She’s awake and getting dressed.

The reply came faster than Kara expected.

Cat: Thank god.

Cat: And thank you, Kara.

Kara: There’s nothing to thank me for. This was my fault.

Cat: No. Nothing that’s happening is your fault. You couldn’t have known.

Kara: I knew I had enemies.

Cat: Do you know who’s behind this?

Kara: I’m working on it. Is Jackson still with you?

Cat: Yes.

Kara: Good. Keep him with you. I’ll talk to you soon.

Kara fired off the last text to Cat, then she called Maggie.

“What part of ‘Supergirl can’t go anywhere near this’ was unclear?” Maggie growled as she answered the call.

“The part where staying away meant Leslie would die,” Kara said. “Did Alex read you in on the current situation?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “But I can’t tell any of it to my boss until I get it from Leslie’s mouth, assuming she’s well enough to be questioned.”

“She’s in better health than she was before this happened,” Kara said.

“Well, that’s good,” Maggie said. “I need you to come in.”

“As soon as Leslie’s changed out of the hospital gown,” Kara said. “I’ll have Kolex transmat us to the front of NCPD headquarters.”

“Have him text me first. I don’t want anyone getting shot,” Maggie said.

“Good call,” Kara replied. She turned at the sound of the door and saw Leslie walking towards her. “Actually, we’re on our way now.”

“Give me five minutes,” Maggie said.

“See you soon,” Kara said, then she ended the call and tucked her phone back in her boot.

“Man, Sunshine, you would never know it looking at you, but you do have good taste in clothes,” Leslie said as she ran a hand over the opposite sleeve of the dark blue leather jacket she was wearing. “I wasn’t sure about color when I saw it, but it looks good once I put it on.”

Kara smiled as she took Leslie in. The Doc Martins were classic Leslie. Kara had paired them with a pair of black leather jeans, a royal blue shirt, and a dark blue fitted leather jacket that flared at the waist. The outfit design was similar to something Gideon had made for Livewire on the Waverider, though Kara had tweaked the color palette, and the “Leather” was actually the same Kryptonian barrier fabric as her cape. Soft as kid leather, but nearly indestructible.

“A friend designed my suit for me,” Kara said. “My first choice would have been a Kryptonian military battle uniform, but Kal-El had an established look.”

“Riding to the top on your cousin’s cape, huh?” Leslie asked, a taunting smile on her face.

“You better hope not,” Kara said. “I’m pretty sure the guy who tried to kill you could take my cousin in a fight, and he might make another run at you.”

“You’re not making this ‘saving your and Cat’s ass’ thing sound more appealing,” Leslie said.

“If I want you to trust me, I can’t lie to you,” Kara said. “I just wanted you to understand why I’m going to do what comes next.”

“And what’s that?” Leslie asked.

“Kolex is going to charge you up,” Kara said. “When your energy reserves are topped up, you have a pretty good chance of taking out Henshaw. Or my cousin. And before you ask, yes, you’d have a chance of taking me out, but *not* a good one.” She turned to Kolex. “Nice and slow,” she said. “Let her get used to the load.”

Leslie looked at Kolex as he approached. “How does this work?” she asked.

“Just hold out your hand towards Kolex,” Kara said.

Leslie raised her hand, and Kolex extended the lightning generator. Electricity jumped out of the device and into Leslie’s hand, and Kara heard her suck in a surprised gasp.

“It’s so warm,” she said as the electricity poured into her.

“More?” Kara asked.

“YES!” Leslie shouted.

“Give her all of it, Kolex.”

The robot obeyed, opening up the device until it was pumping a lightning bolt’s worth of electricity into Leslie every second. Kara waited until she noticed the sparks arcing along Leslie’s eyelashes that meant she was near capacity.

“Enough,” Kara said.

Leslie whimpered slightly as the power cut off, and turned towards Kara, looking furious.

“I wasn’t done,” Leslie said.

“You are,” Kara said. “You just don’t know it yet. Much more power, and you won’t be able to hold a physical form.”

“What does that mean?” Leslie asked.

“Lady Kara,” Kolex said before Kara could answer Leslie’s question. “It has been five minutes.”

“Thank you, Kolex,” Kara said, then she turned back to Leslie. “It means, you need to learn to control your powers before you absorb your full capacity or you will lose control and hurt someone you don’t mean too. I’ll explain everything later, but we have to go.”

“Okay,” Leslie said.

“Now, Kolex,” Kara said, and a moment later, the transmat took them.

Translated from the Kryptonian:

.:zhaolium zw rroskilahres :dhiviao Literal: Fucker who habitually seeks glory Semantic: Fucking Drama Queen

#supergirl #supercat #supercanary #sanvers #fanfiction #the shape of things to come #kara danvers #alex danvers #cat grant #maggie sawyer #sara lance #j'onn j'onzz #susan vasquez #lois lane #clark kent #james olsen #winn schott jr.#future shock

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one-that-had-to · 6 years

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Far Away Fate

(Only-Your-Soulmate-Can-Kill-You Soulmate AU. With names on wrists, cause I was too lazy to world build properly.)

Tatiana does her best to ignore the name on her wrist throughout school. She hopes that somehow by ignoring it hard enough, it will cease to be and she can continue to live her live as she pleases, without being tied to the United States any more than she has to be.

It is not the case, and not even any attempts to hide the name with watches or burns makes people stop asking. Eventually, she gives up altogether and flat out ignores any question regarding her supposed soulmate.

The mark is not entirely useless, as much as she despises it. It forces her to live, despite her efforts otherwise. No matter how many times she is shot at while in the army, she never fears for her life. She nearly loses her leg, yes, but her life is always safe.

By the time she’s out of the field, she is certain in her desire for life for the first time since she was ten. She still does not want to be bound to an American, but the matter of having a soulmate is less of an issue. She hasn’t accepted it, but she’ll live with it.

The name of her second in command sets off Tatiana’s nerves the moment she opens the personnel files while flying back from Prague. She glances at her wrist and wishes she’d thought to cover the name with a bit more makeup before she’d left.

It doesn’t matter, ultimately, because by the time she arrives to the base she has gone nearly 30 hours without sleep, and not even the council would get in between her and her quarters.

She reintroduces herself to Central early the next morning, and twists his hand around to force him to show off his wrist. Her name adorns it just like she had dreaded, and she doesn’t know how to react other than to laugh.

The alarm sounds before either of them can so much as begin to explain.

He sees her for the first time months after the base falls. She’s only there for a lingering moment, but she’s there, and he has no doubts about it.

No one else he tells believes him, but there is enough going on in the world that a brief hallucination is not much of an issue.

The haven bustles around him, and if he closes his eyes and ignores how the world got to be this way, he could almost believe everything was normal. A few of the haven’s leadership fiddled with a newly build radio in the distance, people chattered away around him as they went about their business, and birds chattered in the trees, all like the world wasn’t slowly ending around them.

If it weren’t for the pain in his leg from where they’d dug a bullet out, he could give in and let himself believe.

A noise beside him makes John look up. The Commander leans against a box, looking so casual like she’d been there the entire time.

“Not going to tell me off for getting shot?” he asks.

She looks at him without smiling. “We’ve both been shot before, we both know getting told off doesn’t help. Just focus on healing,” she says firmly.

“You’ve got to be here for something, though, don’t you? You usually appear to give me advice I didn’t ask for,” he retorts. “My subconscious is an ass for hallucinating you.”

“Maybe even hallucinations want to enjoy a nice day,” she replies matter of factly. As though to prove her point, she tucks her hands behind her head and leans back, turning her face towards the sky.

He stares at her for too long in silence.

“Or, perhaps you just didn’t want to be sitting here alone,” she adds.

The comment picks at a still too raw wound inside him. “I’m still alone. You aren’t real.”

She pauses, then tilts her head to look at him. “I might be. We don’t know —”

“No,” he interrupts quickly. “You’re not. You can’t be dead —”

“We don’t know what happened after I was taken.”

Silence stretches between them as deep as the river Styx. After a moment, the apparition sighs and curls up on herself somewhat. “I can go away, if you’d rather.”

“Please don’t,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper.

“Of course.”

She vanishes into the crowd ahead of him before he goes through the gate into the unification day celebrations. He hopes vaguely that he does not see her again, at least not the apparition that has haunted him for twenty years.

Tatiana is alive, that much he is sure of. Everything pointed to it: the information from the Skirmishers, the investigation from the Reapers, the fact that he was the only one capable of killing her.

He and Kelly pluck the stasis suit from the fake clinic, and finally he has some hope for the future.

The moment the Skyranger lands again, Shen and Tygan race to prepare everything needed for the surgery. John is left unable to do anything but pace nervously, watching. The moment everything is ready, Tygan steps in to open the suit.

A long second passes and nothing happens. “What’s the hold up? We don’t have all day,” he says.

“The faceplate is stuck,” Tygan says, giving it another forceful jerk.

“Let me see,” John says, stepping closer himself. It takes a solid tug, but the plate comes off to reveal the Commander, looking just as she did twenty years ago.

They have only a second to wonder in the unfortunate power of the aliens before it all starts to fall apart. The Commander takes a breath, and with it comes a horrible rasping sound. All of Shen’s machines start to blare with alarms a heartbeat later, and it is only then that the realization hits.

John stumbles backwards and lets the faceplate clatter to the floor of the Avenger. He covers his hands with his face but it’s not enough to look away to stop the inevitable from happening. The alarms from the instruments do a fine job blocking out the sound, but he is still forced to hear Tatiana takes her final few breaths.

The death rattle stops after too long and the Avenger is filled with only the sound of a flatlining heart monitor. He collapses to the ground and soon enough his own sobs join it.

The Avenger is to make its first flight in the morning and so anyone leaving with it spends the night before saying their goodbyes to those staying in the haven.

There is only one place John needs to visit before they leave. He stands at the foot of Tatiana’s grave in silence, unsure of how to proceed after spending the last few days blackout drunk mourning her in the same spot.

“I’ll bring you back to Manhattan eventually,” he promises the grave.

Someone walks up beside him silently, but he does not turn to look to see who it is. “Underneath the locust tree, right?”

He jumps and turns to see Tatiana’s ghost standing there, at rest and looking more solemn than he’d ever seen her. He rubs his eyes just to make sure that she doesn’t disappear on him like so many times before.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I was hoping I was still alive — actually alive, that is — but it just wasn’t meant to be.”

“I’m the one that should be sorry. I should have found you earlier, before —”

“I first appeared less than a year after ADVENT took over,” she interjects. “You had no hope of finding me before anything happened. You did the best you could.”

“I still killed you.”

“The Elders killed me.”

“It wasn’t the Elders’ names on your wrist,” he retorts. “You didn’t die of natural causes, and so that just leaves me.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “It’s not your fault,” she says again, more firmly. “I don’t blame you, and I never will.”

He cannot find the words to reply.

“At least put your guilt aside long enough to get revenge for me,” she adds, something almost like fear in her voice. “I’m still here, and there’s still a world to save.”

He looks over at her again, and a weight is lifted off of his shoulders, just minutely. “Right. We should get back to the Avenger,” he says, offering her a weak smile.

She returns it and they turn to head back with a new kind of hope to look forwards too.

#xcom #soulmate au #one shot #sendtoarchives #bradford #tatiana mercier #so what if im stretching the meaning of 'kill'#from the moment i saw this au i know i had to do this one #also some teeny tiny sneak peeks of tntm and the psuedosequel #ghost au

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erinvanzyl-blog · 6 years

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Beyond Illusions

My battle with fear & anxiety began in August of 2014, just a handful of weeks after I got married to my best friend and high school sweetheart. I had been suffering with pain in my stomach (which I later learned was from a parasite) and was in the early stages of visiting doctors to discover the cause. Everything else in life was humming along. My business was doing well, my children settling into their new routine and Ash and I were enjoying making a home together. We both put on some weight (early marriage bliss definitely to blame) and life was exciting.

Then...

11th August 2014, I woke to breaking news of Robin Williams suicide. My heart sank and felt like it was wrenched apart. He was a familiar face, someone I had been a massive fan of all my life. Memories from childhood of popcorn, movies & laughter; his hilarious persona, warmth and friendly face. It stayed with me for days. I thought about it constantly and couldn’t seem to shake it. I was overwhelmed with sadness and grief over someone I didn’t know but felt a connection to. I thought to myself “how could he feel so miserable’, ‘how could he take his own life’, ‘how did people not know and come to his aid’. To be completely honest, this was the first time in my life where I thought about the reality of death. I found myself so deeply and profoundly touched by this tragic event. I had never really been here before, at this level of pondering the meaning of life and dying.

I started to think about death from the moment I woke and could hardly sleep at night. I thought about the plane that went missing earlier in the year. I kept my eyes on all the news. Little William Tyrell went missing and all of a sudden I was surrounded by all the horrific things that were taking place around the world. I started having panic attacks and night sweats out of my control. Frozen with fear. I felt anxious about everything. Driving down the Wakehurst Parkway had now become a nightmare and filled me with dread. I noticed every tribute and cross placed along the road where there had been fatalities. The panic inside me was so real and so dominating. I dwelled on how people had died and how their families must have felt and I would get completely overcome with worry about my children. I was so gripped by fear, I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. Small daily tasks felt heavy and overbearing. I didn’t know how to cope. My health was up in the air and I didn’t want to go there, I didn’t want to know what was wrong. I was so afraid that I was terminally ill as that was my frame of mind and a scenario I had already constructed in my head. My world felt like it was crumbling around me. My honeymoon to NZ was around the corner. I felt more and more anxious and more and more paralysed by fear as the date got closer. I was going to be leaving my kids for 6 long days. The smallest details about the trip bothered me. I pulled up the flight path on my maps at least 10 times a day to look at the journey over the ocean. Why did it have to be a 3 hour flight? What if our flight went missing? What if I never saw my kids again. It was all too consuming.

Ash had been supporting me the best way he could. He was super encouraging and really tried to understand but when I looked at him, I knew, he didn’t get it. How could he. I could not share the extent to which the fear had gripped me. I had to tell him that it was impossible for me to go on the honeymoon. At last a tiny moment - a deeper fear that outweighed the storm I was facing - a fear of upsetting or disappointing him. He said he understood and that we could take the trip at another time but as I looked into my partners eyes, I faced a minute glimpse of reality. I was more afraid of hurting him.

Having never gone through anything like this before, I decided to open up and talk about it with my mum. After letting it all out and hearing myself talk about it, I felt more at ease. She too, shared a time when she had had a similar experience of fear when she had to leave us in South Africa when she had to fly to Australia to check it out before we immigrated.This made me feel worlds better about the trip. Enough to call Ash and say that we would definitely go. She expressed that what had helped her was prayer and knowing that fear was a spiritual attack.

My nightmare was far from over. Facing the almost unbearable torture that was my mind, I got to New Zealand, trembling the whole way. I remember thinking as we landed ‘ok so I didn’t die on the way here, maybe I’ll die on the way back!’ Much of the trip is a blur and as much as I hate to admit it to my husband, a horrible experience that was endured from start to finish in terror regardless of the most beautiful surroundings. We were road tripping from the top to the bottom of the South Island over 5 days and every time I got in the car, I was petrified. I won’t go into how tough the whole trip was as you can already imagine. I was losing the fight against my thoughts. No matter how hard I fought, with what felt like vengeance, they hounded me further. On our final day, we were travelling to our last destination before flying home when we were stopped by police only to hear that there had been a fatality on the road just ahead and we were redirected. A young female tourist had been speeding and had lost control of her vehicle. I don’t have to tell you what a mess I became. This was now a war and I was on a battlefield.

The flight home was agony. My head was screaming ‘you are going to die’ ‘you are never going to see your family again’ all the way!!!! We experienced turbulence which resulted in a longer flight time and I can tell you that in those moments, I wanted to die to escape the panic. We didn’t hear from the captain to let us know that we were behind schedule so in my mind, I had already created a whole scene and decided we were going missing, the pilot was taking us far out to sea and that was that. We were going to be another MH370.

Ash comforted me as much as humanly possible. I still don’t know how he was so chill.

When we landed all I could think about was seeing my kids faces. I had survived and all I wanted to do was hold them.

The onslaught of torment continued. I’ll fast forward to the Martin Place siege in December. Well, apart from it being the most horrible thing to witness (I was glued to the television all day) my two brothers were working within a few hundred metres of the building where the siege took place. Just a bit too close to home. Just one more traumatic event that stays with me even now.

I wanted to draw a picture for you with real stories and examples of how anxiety and fear can spiral out of control and come out of, what seems, nowhere. Pinpointing exactly or being 100% certain about the initial development of the fear & anxiety for people who suffer with it can be very difficult. There are many triggers. Mainly physical and emotional trauma. Looking at my circumstances at the time and on reflection, I believe I know how it all unravelled. My body was under immense physical stress with sickness that I was yet to know about and I had unresolved emotions about a previous traumatic relationship. These underlying issues, I feel must have played a part. The sadness that came from learning about the death of a great man was enough to tip me over the edge and caused a reaction. Our mind is so powerful and we only have to lose control over our thoughts for a small amount of time for it to run away with us captive to it.

Healing my mind only commenced when I decided I had had enough and that I wasn’t going to let this thing beat me. I remember having to say it to myself. Like ‘that is enough Erin, you are tougher than this.’

That was honestly my first step forward. My second step was writing about it which became it’s own kind of therapy. When I wrote about it and read it out aloud, it seemed so silly and far fetched, almost like I was reading about someone else. It dawned on me how it had evolved and how I had allowed myself without really knowing it at the time, to get carried away with these ugly thoughts. I had made choices to watch tv, listen to news and create in my mind, a reality of darkness and gloom. Looking at it from a distance really helped me see it in the light. Writing about it saved me and spun me in a different direction. It allowed me to breathe again and opened a tiny gateway, a space for new thinking. Little by little, I started to feel myself again. I wrote and wrote until the big yucky things in my mind became so small on paper. I had to write that I accepted the fact that I was not in control of my fate or the fate of loved ones. I had to come to terms with the fact that horrific things happen in the world and I can’t change that.

I was faced with mortality and the terrible truths of life and decided I was going to be okay with it all. I realised I had grown even further (down a road of healing and toward recovery) for having been through this ‘attack’ and saw that the healing process from my previous relationship with a psychopath was still underway (Mind matters). I decided I was going to learn from this experience and knew in my heart that there was a reason, that I was going to get to really understand the importance of and how powerful my mind, my thoughts, the way I perceive myself and my self worth are in making or breaking me. And now I do. I trust me to be in charge of my mind and take control of my thoughts when they are not serving me. I have continued to study and learn about the mind and our ability to transform our thinking and therefore, our emotions. I recognised that this battlefield of my mind was preparation for the next one I was going to face. The journey of restoring my health.

#anxiety #fear #mindmatters #psychology #trauma

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sinrau · 4 years

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On Friday, Donald Trump and his wife Melania attended an early Independence Day celebration held at Mount Rushmore.

This article first appeared on Salon.

There were fireworks, a military flyover, and “patriotic” songs such as “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

The entire spectacle embodied the worst kind of superficial juvenile patriotism.

More than 130,000 Americans are dead from the coronavirus pandemic. The country teeters on the edge of a second Great Depression. A neofascist regime rules in Washington. Donald Trump is in thrall to Vladimir Putin and Russia and in doing so actively betrays the United States and the American people.

Music and fireworks and loud planes are distractions for a country facing an existential crisis.

Donald Trump’s early July 4th celebration had little to do with uniting America in a time of trouble and pain. Instead the gathering at Mount Rushmore was just a Trump campaign rally in disguise where the Great Leader spat out his usual themes of racism, neofascism, authoritarianism, ignorance, violence, Orwellian doublespeak and lies, Christian fascism, white identity politics, and other right-wing dreck to his red hat MAGA political cult members.

Throughout his time in office, Donald Trump has made it clear through his words and deeds that be views his personal interests to be the same as the nation’s.

Such thinking is like that of King George III and the other despots who the founders rejected with the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and the United States Constitution.

In the end, because he is a malignant narcissist, Donald Trump thought that all the pageantry was to honor him and not the country’s birthday.

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign advisers have suggested, apparently not facetiously, that they want his face added to Mount Rushmore. They are enabling his delusions of grandeur.

History sometimes has a dark sense of irony and coincidence all its own.

Because he does not read and is proudly ignorant, Donald Trump most certainly does not know that “The Star-Spangled Banner” channels his white supremacist and racist values. If Trump knew such a thing, he would likely love the song even more.

Francis Scott Key’s anthem has a third verse which is rarely sung, after the ones we have all heard before sporting events and on other occasions.

The lyrics are:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion A home and a Country should leave us no more? Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

As many historians have documented, “hireling and slave” refers to self-manumitted Black people (that is, slaves who freed themselves) who served with the British military, fighting to liberate other enslaved Black people in America.

In the third verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Key is celebrating the Colonial Marines who were burned alive or drowned in Baltimore Harbor.

Trump would find much to admire about Key, who owned Black human property during the time he wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” and was an enthusiastic defender of white-on-Black chattel slavery.

Like Donald Trump, Key was wealthy. He was also a friend and adviser to Donald Trump’s favorite president, Andrew Jackson, who was not merely a white supremacist but literally a slave driver. Jackson also ordered that Native Americans be expelled from their home regions to endure a death march later known as the Trail of Tears. While serving as a general prior to being president, Andrew Jackson led a military campaign against the Seminole nation and the free communities established by self-manumitted Black people in Florida.

The racism and white supremacy embedded in “The Star-Spangled Banner” provide a soundtrack for Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party in other ways as well.

Donald Trump leads a movement that is waging a counterrevolution against the civil and human rights of Black and brown people in the United States and around the world.

To maintain and keep power, Trump and the Republicans have embraced the white supremacist ideology, politics and symbols of the Confederacy. This began in the 1960s with a backlash against the civil rights movement, first with 1964 Republican nominee Barry Goldwater and then with Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” meant to appeal to white racists uncomfortable with the civil rights movement. More than five decades later, right-wing appeals to racism and white supremacy are in some ways less restrained with the rise of Trumpism.

As part of that strategy Donald Trump and his party are defending the legacy of the Confederacy and its statues and other monuments to white supremacist terrorism.

Trump recently issued an executive order proclaiming any person who dares to “vandalize” American statues, monuments or memorials can be charged with a federal crime and imprisoned for up to 10 years.

Trump is also refusing to change the names of military bases that bear the names of treasonous Confederate military leaders. He has even threatened to veto the military’s 2021 budget if such changes are made.

Here are the president’s own words from his failed “comeback” rally in Tulsa:

The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments, tear down our statues, and punish, cancel and persecute anyone who does not conform their demands for absolute and total control. We’re not conforming…. This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans. They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose a new oppressive regime in its place.

The repeated use of “our” is a signal to the fact that Trump views white America as his tribe. Nonwhites are explicitly and implicitly not welcome. In essence, Trump behaves as though he is only beholden to those white people — his MAGA cultists and “real Americans” — who vote for him.

Trump has retweeted and shared videos of his supporters yelling “white power!” and of white people brandishing weapons at Black Lives Matter and other human rights protesters. In the last few weeks Trump has also shared videos on Twitter of Black people attacking white people. Of course, he provides no context for the latter.

The goal here is twofold. First, to mobilize his voters by exciting decades-old or centuries-old white nightmares of a “race war” and possible Black “domination” over white people. Second, to encourage acts of political violence by his right-wing followers against his and their “enemies.”

Writing in the Washington Post, Greg Sargent explains this:

With nearly 125,000 Americans dead and cases spiking again from a pandemic that Trump horribly mismanaged, and amid the most pronounced civil upheaval in a half century, Trump’s propagandists want to convert disorder to his advantage.

That’s obvious enough. But the true nature of it is often shrouded in euphemisms — Trump is “stoking division,” or “throwing a match on gasoline,” or some such phrase, which implies Trump is a passive bystander to societal conflicts that he’s merely cheering on for cynical purposes.

It’s much worse than that. Trump and his propagandists are actively trying to engineer violent civil conflict, by signaling to white Americans that they are under siege in a race war that they’re losing.

The rub is that this signaling requires actually saying this in one form or another. And that forces Trump and his propagandists into a position where they must be cagey about his actual intended meanings when he does things like tweet out supporters yelling “white power.”

Trump and his propagandists want a lot of white Americans to think they need to take sides in a race war.

In total, Trump and the Republican Party’s dedication to causing pain and harm to nonwhite people is not collateral damage or coincidence: Such outcomes are integral to permanently maintaining society-wide white privilege and white power. This embrace of racism is so extreme that social scientists have shown that Trump supporters and other white conservatives would rather America be an authoritarian society than live in a democracy where they would have to share power with nonwhites.

The Confederacy shared such goals as well. In his infamous Cornerstone Speech in March 1861, shortly before the first battles of the Civil War, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

From the founding to the present there is a terrible reservoir of racism and white supremacy that now provides the raw energy and fuel for Trumpism and the Republican Party in post-civil rights America.

America will need another revolution and founding to fulfill its hopeful potential as a true “we the people” multiracial democracy. Donald Trump and his movement of racist reactionaries stand against such progress and are actively working to send America back to a time when white men’s rule was (at least in their minds) uncontested, universal and eternal as the natural order of things in America and around the world.

On this Fourth of July weekend Donald Trump is grandly reminding the world that patriotism is the last refuge of traitors and scoundrels. Trump may wrap himself in the American flag and other vestments of “patriotism,” but his heart and mind are truly of the antebellum South and Jim and Jane Crow America. Trump claims to be a greater president than Abraham Lincoln. Trump in his delusions believes he is as great as George Washington. But Donald Trump is really a 21st-century Jefferson Davis, president of the treasonous Confederacy. May he be remembered in the same ignominious fashion.

#IFTTT #WordPress

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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As Tourists Flock to National Parks, Nearby Restaurants Brace for the Coronavirus

Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

While campers can return home after a trip, they might leave COVID-19 behind in small communities under-equipped to fight the pandemic

The permanent population of Boulder, Utah, is less than 300. “We are considered to be one of the most remote towns in the lower 48,” says Blake Spalding, who co-owns and co-chefs with Jen Castle at Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm, located at the Boulder Mountain Lodge. Every summer — well, almost every summer — travelers visit the town as they pass through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and enjoy a destination meal.

Spalding and Castle have worked to save the monument from the Trump administration, which cut it in half in 2017 to allow for extractive industry. But recent national efforts to reopen the country during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic pose an entirely new danger: The crush of tourists looking to leave virus epicenters could spread infection to towns like Boulder, putting restaurants that serve those travelers in a difficult position.

“It was unbelievable what happened here over Memorial Day weekend. I’ve never seen so many people. It felt really uncomfortable,” Spalding says. Hell’s Backbone was closed that weekend as the team worked on kitchen renovations and a patio to allow for more outdoor dining. A Payment Protection Program loan, as well as an online shop and the restaurant’s regenerative agriculture farm, have kept the operation afloat, but financially Spalding and Castle have to reopen the restaurant somehow, even if doing so imperils the shop and farm too. “We love our guests,” Spalding says, “but it feels weird to be kind of scared of them.”

“We love our guests, but it feels weird to be kind of scared of them.”

It isn’t illogical for travelers to want to leave big cities, where infection rates are high, to visit wilderness destinations, where infection rates have generally stayed low until now. The virus doesn’t spread as well outdoors, making national parks seem like convenient escapes. But while campers can return home after a trip, they might leave the virus behind in small communities under-equipped to fight the pandemic. In remote towns like Boulder, which is an inholding within the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument, it can be hard to acquire PPE, like masks and gloves, and other essential equipment. If a restaurant runs out, it could be a week before the UPS truck shows up with more. “There is a clinic that’s 45 minutes from here, but our health care situation, like most rural places, is pretty modest,” Spalding says.

And restaurants in so-called “gateway communities” near national parks are gearing up for a summer of more visitors. Despite warnings from the CDC about the potential summer death toll and a National Park Service campaign dissuading would-be parkgoers, campers are still flocking to public sites after being cooped up for months. RV sales are up, and Airbnb has seen a boom in vacation rentals too. According to an April survey by Kampgrounds of America, nearly half of travelers who canceled travel plans due to COVID-19 have decided to camp instead, and 41 percent of campers said they were following through on planned trips.

As traffic ramps up, tension is also rising within park communities between businesses that rely on tourism and locals who don’t want to be exposed to visitors. Charles Tanner owns K-Bar Pizza and Two Bit Saloon in Gardiner, Montana, directly across the street from the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. He says that when the pandemic first began to spread, locals stopped coming to his restaurants, even for takeout, because they feared interacting with tourists.

In 2019, tourists spent $500 million and supported 7,000 jobs around Yellowstone in towns like Gardiner, and they spent $21 billion total in park communities across the country. Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced many parks to close in March, local businesses have been ailing, and year-over-year sales are still relatively low for most. A second wave of infections could force states to close later in the year too, forcing some restaurants to reopen despite the risks.

“The parks are national treasures, but for our community they’re the reason we’re here in the first place,” says Fred Peightal, owner of Cafe Genevieve in Jackson, Wyoming, just outside of Grand Teton National Park. Peightal is concerned about welcoming visitors from elsewhere, but he doesn’t see any other option, especially since the restaurant has mostly been closed since July 2019 due to a fire. “One way or the other we’re going to have to do it, or we’re going to close up shop,” he says.

Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A worker at Yosemite National Park’s Base Camp Grill after it re-opened in June 2020.

Peightal estimates most restaurants in Jackson do 60 to 70 percent of their yearly business during the summer high season, from July to September. While the high season varies between parks and regions, remaining closed during those critical months can easily sink a business. “If we lose our summer,” Peightal says, “I don’t think we’d make it through another year. Especially if [COVID-19] comes back in the fall and we lose our winter. It could be devastating for just about every restaurant in town.” For seasonal businesses that don’t open during the winter at all, the pressure is even higher to make the best of the warmer months.

Chef Ian Boden saw a peak in domestic tourists when he opened his first restaurant in 2007, just before the Great Recession, which inspired many people to travel and spend locally. Boden expects to see that happen again at his current restaurant, the Shack, just outside of Shenandoah National Park in Staunton, Virginia. The restaurant offers a feasible destination for folks from D.C., Philadelphia, and New York, without a flight, which made Boden hesitant to reopen even as Virginia began allowing businesses to do so in May.

“Knowing that 80 percent of our clientele was coming from out of town, from large markets with higher infection rates than us, it was a concern for me for my staff,” Boden says. A positive review in the Washington Post earlier this year could attract even more citydwellers to the Shack. “That’s part of the reason I feel it’s irresponsible for us to open back up, even [serving food] outside. As soon as we open back up, I know our dining room will be full of people from out of town again. I would feel fucking horrible if one of my staff members got sick because someone from D.C. came to Staunton.”

Evidence from parks’ first wave of visitors isn’t heartening. A few days before Yellowstone even opened, Tanner noticed travelers arriving in the area from Seattle, LA, and San Francisco. But he also noted one glaring absence.

“I think a lot of people have that thought in their head, that it’s okay here, but we’re not immune to anything.”

“I didn’t notice any tourists with masks,” he says. “I might have expected some tourists who ordered just to go because they didn’t want to be in a public space, but I think we’re getting quite the opposite, the people that are very much happy looking for normalcy.”

Tanner guesses excited, early travelers are simply less concerned about infection, but they’ve already revealed a deeper vulnerability in gateway communities. Rural areas seem safe compared to cities. Visitors don’t feel as much pressure to protect themselves — or locals — from infection as they might in their hometowns. Nearly half of respondents in the KOA survey said they consider camping the safest form of travel, but that doesn’t mean travelers take precautions.

Jeannie Allen is business and operations manager at the Log Cabin Pancake House in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She suffers from asthma, which has made her especially cautious around the maskless visitors she has seen walking around.

“When you go out on vacation, you think you’re immune to it because this area doesn’t have a lot of cases,” she says. “You don’t have to worry because you’re in Gatlinburg. You don’t have to worry about anything when you’re in Gatlinburg. You can walk up and down the street at night and it’s safe. I think a lot of people have that thought in their head, that it’s okay here, but we’re not immune to anything.”

Tanner is confident he can provide that security. He’s working with the health department to test and monitor his staff to control any risk of infection. “Anybody who’s going through the trouble to open, especially in these gateway communities, is being extra precautious because we need that revenue so badly,” he argues, adding that every business owner in town feels pressure to follow health guidelines to the letter.

Many locals in Gardiner have come around since the state began looking at recovery, but the divide reveals how difficult it can be to mitigate risk in vulnerable communities near national vacation destinations. Decisions to relax precautions in one area inevitably affect surrounding areas, just as reopening a single business can affect a whole town. “It’s like opening a peeing section in a pool,” Boden says. Tension may only build as traffic — and risk — increase in parks.

If there’s one silver lining, it can be found inside the parks themselves, which have flourished without the crush of tourists. Congress capitalized on public interest in outdoor recreation to push through a bipartisan bill to grant the parks greater funding, too. Peightal says some of his restaurant workers might even enjoy the park themselves this year if traffic remains down.

“I don’t know that we’ll ever recover financially from this,” Spalding admits, “but I also don’t know that we won’t if we never try.” And the ideal of a park restaurant seems worth fighting for. “I’ve really seen the power of a lovingly prepared meal and jaw-droppingly beautiful wilderness. It’s a combination that can actually be transformational.”

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3eyPpXZ https://ift.tt/2NtkuR5

Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

While campers can return home after a trip, they might leave COVID-19 behind in small communities under-equipped to fight the pandemic

“We love our guests, but it feels weird to be kind of scared of them.”

Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A worker at Yosemite National Park’s Base Camp Grill after it re-opened in June 2020.

“I think a lot of people have that thought in their head, that it’s okay here, but we’re not immune to anything.”

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3eyPpXZ via Blogger https://ift.tt/3fWyQFF

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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nakedfullmonty-fr · 7 years

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i rememebered i wrote this a month ago and never posted it like i intended to, so have some actual albiet vague lore in the form of one of the letters Temahae sends home to her father Kolya, in another clan

The package is a large wooden box, though it has been wrapped carefully with brown paper and string, and has been marked as fragile in several places. It is in great contrast to the accompanying letter, which is written on fine parchment, in an envelope sealed with wax. The letter's handwriting is elegant, but looks forced in places, much like some of the language used; a handwriting that was learnt, rather than a handwriting that forms naturally. It reads:

Dearest Father, I hope this letter finds its way to you and mother, and I hope it finds you well. Regrettably, it’s been some time since I last wrote, and for that I can only apologise. I promise that I haven’t forgotten about you, I could never, but in recent times things in Ogygia have been…un-permitting. As it stands right now, I cannot share details on the recent events that I have borne witness to, but perhaps it is for the best. It seems the more I learn about the world, the less I wish to know. There are things out there that are the stuff of myths and legends and children’s cautionary tales alike, that surely should not exist, and yet they do, as if they simply walked right off the pages of whatever dark grimoire they were written into. I pray you do not encounter them. Nowadays I take the legends of the Wendigo Winters more seriously than ever. I suppose, more importantly, an update on myself is in order. I have stories, of things that have happened and the people I have met, that are far too numerous to fit into a mere letter. Over the years, Ogygia has continued to grow and grow at an astonishing pace, and just recently has found itself established as fully recognised city-state (Can you believe? Niet, a Queen, and myself, an illegitimate Princess!). For the most part it’s a pleasant place to live, although admittedly I mingle with the common clanfolk far less than I should, and dragons from all across Sornieth have found themselves drawn to it. As you, and mother, are still alive and recognised as my parents, I am not accepted as a true heir to Ogygia, but quite frankly I’m fine with that. High titles come with high responsibilities, and I am not afraid to admit that true royal life sounds like a complete bore that only serves to draw me away from my books. I have, however, found one particular duty that I will always gladly partake in. Though infrequent due to the small numbers of Ice dragon in Ogygia, occasionally it falls upon me to read the Preservation Recitations for those who partake in such religions even outside of our Flight boundaries. Even though I have not been to the Icefields since my childhood, it still fills me with pride to have the honour of filling such an important role within our culture. On that topic, if luck is on my side, then this letter should come with an accompanying parcel – please treat it carefully, it contains the bones of an Ogygia resident - named Jorlias - who, in the days prior to his death, asked that his bones be cleaned and sent back home to be preserved and buried where they belong; in the Icefields. If you would be so kind as to comply with this request, it would be greatly appreciated. My time in Ogygia has served my magic studies well – if not for my eyes, I doubt I would be distinguishable from the natives. The mixing of cultures within the city, and our various ties with other clans, has permitted that I learn the basics of Light magic, however such magic is so far removed from the Ice and Water magic that I’m familiar with, that I find progress is slow. I think perhaps this brings me to the true subject of this letter. After a great deal of self-reflection, I have come to realise that I have…settled. The Southern Icefields are my birthplace, but after living here for so long I know Ogygia is my home, it is where I belong. This is not new information, what is new to me is the realisation that I lament this fact. I left home with the goal of studying every form of magic Sornieth has to offer, for to do otherwise would be to squander the potential that I was so lucky to have been born with. I reached Ogygia very early on in my life, when I was still a child, and so perhaps stayed initially because I missed the warmth of company and family so far away from my home. For a time this worked for me, because Niet and Yastrebok were more than happy to tutor me in Water’s magic. But I had a plan. I’d always had a plan, even back then, to only spend a few years at most within one territory. To master the magic within and then move to the next, because the world is a big place and to study and master all magic I come across would take a lifetime even then. Except I became complacent, I discarded my plan and stayed because I loved these new people that I’d found, and I was happy. I understand that my existence in Ogygia is part of an allyship pact. I do not know the rules of such pact, but now, as an adult I am sure I am permitted to make my own way in this world. I have decided to move on from Ogygia. In truth, I am unsure of where I will go. The Sea of a Thousand Currents is a very central point, so any journey I undertake will be a lengthy one. Most likely I will travel North towards the Viridian Labyrinth, to study Nature’s magic, a logical next step considering its close ties to the magics of Ice and Water. That said, perhaps now is as good a time as any to take that long overdue trip back to the Icefields. It would be most lovely to be able to see you all in person again, and like I said, I have too many stories to fit into writing. I think perhaps what brought about this change in mind, is that I feel I am no longer happy.

Midway through the letter, the text changes. A significant portion of the letter is not written in common, and instead switches to the native Ice script of Warden-Tongue. The elaborate handwriting and extensive vocabulary seem to vanish as it continues:

It is most likely foolish and horribly irresponsible of me to share any of this with you, but you are my family, however distant, and I know I can trust you. In recent years, things in Ogygia have not been going well. The city itself and its citizens are fine for the most part, most are none the wiser, but up top, there are chips in the foundations. As I mentioned previously, I cannot currently share details on the exact events of recent times, but the most important takeaway is this: Lockheed, founding council member and head of Ogygia’s militia, has fallen heroically in battle. Mind you, she is not dead, not yet, but it is inevitable, and most unfortunate. She deserved a swift and painless death, not this. In a last attempt to save those involved, including myself, she reached within herself and tapped into the purest form of magical essence known to dragons – the soul. Such an act is rarely done, and as such there is little known of its effects and even less known on a cure. The major Gods we have reached out to have not responded, and the minor deities say it is something far beyond their power. She will die a hero, will be remembered as one, but this is not a death befitting of a paladin, a defender of good and protector of innocents. It is slow, and it is painful, for her and for us. Nowadays she is a bedridden, her sight is failing, and she sleeps more often than not – a blessing perhaps. When she wakes, she is no longer herself. Every day she loses her grip on her identity a little more. Her husband, Bermuda, does not leave her side, even though she has long forgotten him. Her wife, Magpie, has become bitter and angry, and spends most of her time on the hillside just past the gates of the city, watching only for the return of their daughter, Europa, who is away from home and blissfully unaware. Her other daughter, Io, has been doing her best to keep face as a military general herself, to hide the situation from the public, but the already aggressive flame inside her burns only brighter. It has been a long time since anyone has seen her son, Ganymede. Lockheed was as much an older sister and mentor to me as any other member of the Ogygian counsel, and to pretend that I am unphased by this would be a terrible lie. But it is not my time. I must hold my composure until her passing, because the city relies on its counsel. We must do our best to hold through the passing of one of our members, and the devastating grief of two more. We cannot afford to crumble. As the face of the city, Niet knows this, more than any of us. As her younger sister, figuratively, I can see through her well-practised straight face better than anyone. We have faced many losses through the years, but this is the first time loss has hit so close, and it has rattled her. Unfortunately, this is not the only dilemma she faces, and as things continue to pile up my worry increases. The military has a strong but generally positive presence in Ogygia – We are small, with enemies on all sides, so we value those who defend us. Sooner or later the public must learn of Lockheed’s fate, and without a doubt it will cause unrest among the people. The hints of civil unrest are already taking root in some places. As a primarily Water based society, we are no stranger to prophecies, especially ones pertaining to death and doom, but these are easily dismissed as misinterpretations of visions, or simple scams. But recently, more and more prophets have been making themselves heard, all calling on the same vision – That there is a great beast in a deep slumber, but soon it will awaken and drag Ogygia to its blackened fate. I know not what it means, nor if I believe it, but it is become harder to ignore, and soon people will want answers. Yastrebok, Niet’s mate, has been riddled with similar prophecies for all the years I’ve known him, to add to the mystery. But the people of Ogygia will not turn to him, they will turn to Niet. The people have no faith in Yastrebok – the Absent King, they call him – and for good reason. Yastrebok has always had the awful habit of simply vanishing at times. Years and years ago, it’d only be for a day or so, but as time goes on his trips become longer and more frequent and now he disappears for weeks on end. When he returns he says he remembers nothing of where he goes or what he does. I’ve attempted to use Water magic to scry on him, to find where he goes or to tell if he lies, but every time I find my power blocked, whether it be by him or some external force. It puts a strain on their relationship. Niet mourns the loss in private, but when he returns, they no longer have civil words for one another, they just fight. Mostly verbally, sometimes physically. In the old days, when I was young and they loved each other, when they disagreed they would spar their frustrations away until they were tired, and then they would lie in the golden wheat fields and talk until it was better. Now they just fight for hours and hours, and then go their separate ways without a word. Niet confessed something to me recently, a grave something, that she said she has never spoke a word of to anyone else before. I will not share it, I cannot, but knowing that and then looking at the problems she faces now fills me with dread. I have no doubt that she is strong, but everyone has a limit, and I worry she will reach hers soon. I worry what will happen to her, to the counsel, to the city, when she does. Please forgive me, Father, for unloading this unto you. I know it is not your cross to bear, and most of this means little to you. Now that I think about it, I’m unsure why I felt the need to write it all down to begin with. Perhaps I just needed to share it with someone. Yes, I think I’ve found it a little cathartic, my heart feels just a little lighter now. Previously I shared things like this with my younger sister Ricin, but she feels the stress as much as I do, and her mental health is deteriorating. In all good conscience, I cannot burden her with this. If I can ask you of this, Father, once you have read this letter, and shared it with Mother, I request that you burn it. Or, if you simply must keep it, you ink out the parts pertaining to the inner workings of Ogygia. It is foolish of me to have written it at all, but it would be disastrous if our political weaknesses were made public, even in the Icefields so far away. We are small, now more than ever, and cannot afford more enemies in this state. I trust you to do this, and thank you Father.

Once more the text changes, and for the last few lines the text reverts once more back to common, and elaborate writing and vernacular return:

I understand that one clan leader such as yourself would find yourself terribly busy, but if you ever find yourself with but a spare moment, if it is not too much trouble, perhaps you could write back to me? I feel selfish to have written so much about myself – Truly, I would love to know how you and Mother fare back home, and in what endeavours my siblings, Lyudmila, Faris and Tsvetanka find themselves in. And if you could, please tell them that they too are welcome to write to me, or to come and visit any time. As I mentioned previously, if at all possible, I wouldn’t hesitate to return home, under the knowledge that you have the availability of course. I am unsure of when exactly I plan to vacate my home in Ogygia; it will not be an easy feat, and my heart will undoubtedly be heavy, heavier than it’s ever been. However, once the deed is done, and I find myself on the road once more, I’m sure that through various couriers I will find myself able to write and send more letters, for I truly regret my lack of recent contact. Oh, and one more thing, if you could keep this part a secret Father, but I have found that for a Fae, I have grown rather tall, and I will admit I’m somewhat proud of it. It has been so long since I’ve seen you, I would love to keep it as a surprise for Mother. Ever yours, Temahae

#flight rising #my lore #actual prose #temahae #tems letters #4 #warning its a bit wordy #also astro i hope its fine that i used a pic of kolya at the top haha #i should use tems letters as like. event summaries honestly

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