#The Milan Sword

[kultofathena]

The Milan Sword has a hot-peen construction that melds the blade and hilt together at the pommel and gives this sword a very strong and lasting hilt construction. The crossguard and pommel are crafted from steel with an antiqued finish and the grip is carved from Poplar and tightly bound in leather to complete the sword.

#Kult of Athena #KultOfAthena #The Milan Sword #Vision #Angus trim #Valiant Armoury #sword #swords #weapon #weapons #blade #blades #European Swords #European Weapons #Medieval Swords #Medieval Weapons #5160 High Carbon Steel #Battle Ready

[illustratus]

Siegfried Fighting with the Dragon by Achille Beltrame

#siegfried #dragon #art #achille beltrame #fafnir #fafner #dragons #richard wagner #milan #theatre #la scala #opera #der ring des nibelungen #the ring of the nibelung #german #germany #germanic heroic legend #norse mythology #germanic mythology #nibelungenlied #fáfnir #europe #european #mythical creatures #sword #gram #nothung #balmung #völsunga saga #sigurd

[wrongydkjquotes]

“Cut me some slack, okay? Can you two even begin to imagine 500 uninterrupted hours of consciousness? Forget Mole People! About halfway through, I swore I saw the face of God! Until I realized it was just the night janitor, Milan. On the plus side, I gave him a hell of an ego boost. Man was riding that compliment for days."

- cookie masterson

(Source: Kayaba, Sword Art Online Abridged)

#Sword Art Online Abridged #Milan ydkj #ydkj Milan #ydkj #you don't know jack #wrongydkjquotes #cookie masterson

[medievalsnippets]

"There are in this place an amazing number of weapon forges, that produce daily every kind of arms, like mail shirts, coats of plates, breastplates and splints , great helmets, basinets, caps, collars, gloves, greaves, cuisses and polcyns, spears, and swords, etc. They are all [made] from hardened and polished steel, gleaming like mirrors…. There are shield-makers, who manufacture shields and other weapons in incredible numbers. From here from this city supplies other cities of Italy with all kinds of weapons, by whom they may be exported even to the Tatars and Saracens"

Source: The chronicle of Milan

#poleyn #gamboissed cuisse #greaves #bascinet #greathelm #coat of plates #hauberk #cervelliere #spear #sword #shield #breastplate #milan

[ljaesch]

Milan Records Releases the Sword Art Online -Progressive- Anime Film Soundtracks

Milan Records has released the soundtrack albums for the Sword Art Online -Progressive-: Aria of a Starless Night and Sword Art Online -Progressive-: Scherzo of Deep Night anime films, and they are available to stream globally for the first time. You can check out Aria of a Starless Night‘s soundtrack here, and Scherzo of Deep Night‘s soundtrack here. This is what composer Yuki Kajiura had to say…

View On WordPress

#anime #Milan Records #Sword Art Online

[memories-of-ancients]

Sword crafted in Milan, Italy, circa 1560-1570

from The Louvre

#history #antiquities #art #swords #sword #16th century

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Now I’m Covered In You [Chapter 10: Chronology] [Series Finale]

A/N: This is a fic that was never supposed to exist. It yanked me out of my (ridiculously short) retirement and I was SO NERVOUS about diving into another series so unexpectedly! Thank you for giving NICIY a chance. I go back and re-read old messages, comments, and reblogs ALL the time when I’m feeling doubtful about writing, and my fics are only made possible by the support of awesome people like you. 💜

Series summary: Aemond is a prince of England. You are married to his brother. The Wars of the Roses are about to begin, and you have failed to fulfill your one crucial responsibility: to give the Greens a line of legitimate heirs. Will you survive the demands of your family back in Navarre, the schemes of the Duke of Hightower, the scandals of your dissolute husband, the growing animosity of Daemon Targaryen…and your own realization of a forbidden love?

Series title is a lyric from: Ivy by Taylor Swift.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), dubious consent, miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, violence, warfare, murder, alcoholism, sexism, infidelity, illness, death, only vaguely historically accurate, lots of horses!

Word count: 6k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @borikenlove @myspotofcraziness @teenagecriminalmastermind @quartzs-posts @tclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @chainsawsangel @itsabby15 @padfooteyes @arcielee @travelingmypassion @what-is-originality @burningcoffeetimetravel @randomdragonfires​ @aemcndtargaryen​ @jvpit3rs​ @sarcastic-halfling-princess​ @flowerpotmage​ @ladylannisterxo​ @thelittleswanao3​ @libroparaiso​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @girlwith-thepearlearring​ @minttea07​ @trifoliumviridi​ @deltamoon666​ @mariahossain​ @darkenchantress​ @doingfondue​ @atherverybest​ @namelesslosers​ @skythighs​ @moonlightfoxx​ @partypoison00​ @bellameshipper​ @coffedraven​ @greenowlfactif​

Rain from the sky, blood from the earth: skulls and femurs crush beneath Vhagar’s hooves. Daeron and Tessarion stride alongside Aemond, always on his left where he was blinded. Daeron is different now. He’s not broken, no—and Aemond would recognize it if he was—but there’s something older about him, something severe and world-weary. One of Aemond’s hands holds the reins while the other swings his sword, though his attackers grow few and penitent. The Greens and their allies have beaten back the usurpers. The field is strewn with dead Scots and Northern Englishmen. Behind Aemond are soldiers—from the South, Milan, Castile, the Holy Roman Empire, Navarre—bellowing triumphant howls that meld with the thunder. They strip enemy bodies of rings, necklaces, coins, swords and daggers. They slice off fingers and scraps of skin to bring home with them as keepsakes. Look, wife, here is a piece of a man who fought for Daemon and Rhaenyra. Look, son, see what becomes of those who align themselves with kinslayers.

Behind the Blacks’ forces, on horseback and shouting to each other in frantic words that Aemond cannot hear over the cannons and the storm, are Rhaenyra and King Corlys of Scotland. Corlys is shaking his head and pointing back towards the direction they came from. He is advising Rhaenyra to retreat, Aemond knows. He is impelling the stark realities upon her: that her soldiers are fleeing in great numbers, that her cause is lost, that she has nothing to gain by remaining here except more deaths. Jace and Vermax—a bay Marwari who has always been dutiful yet placid by nature—are galloping at a dizzying speed towards his mother to join her in the now inevitable withdraw from the field of battle. As the would-be prince evades sword-wielders and axmen, an arrow loosed by a Navarran archer pierces him through the throat. He sways drunkenly in the saddle and then tumbles to the mud where he is immediately descended upon by Green soldiers like vultures on carrion.

“No!” Aemond can hear Rhaenyra wail, a sound like the shattering of glass. She is stopped by Black loyalists when she attempts to ride to her eldest son’s body, an instinct that in the haze of her grief she cannot understand is suicidal. They eventually resort to dragging her off Syrax, throwing her into the back of a supply wagon, and ferrying her away from the battlefield as Corlys directs their remaining forces to fall back.

Aemond spies Luke—untalented and doomed, yet brave—on Arrax and stabbing Milanese men who are clawing at him like a cat guts mice. Aemond sheathes his sword, wheels Vhagar around, and races for Luke, calling for the soldiers to disperse. They run from Vhagar’s immense, drumming hooves. Too swift for Luke to resist, Aemond grabs him by one arm and wrenches him out of the saddle; he can hear the bone pop from its socket. Luke drops to the drenched earth and lies there muddy, condemned, his sword knocked from his grasp.

“Go, Arrax!” Luke commands his horse. Tears stream down his face, indistinguishable from the rain. Lightning flashes. But Arrax does not obey. The small dun Marwari stands over Luke, his head shielding his fallen rider, until Daeron and Tessarion—who easily outweighs Arrax by a thousand pounds—force him back.

Aemond dismounts from Vhagar, his boots sinking into deep mud. He walks to where Luke lies helplessly in a sea of rain and earth and blood.

“Mercy!” Luke cries, shielding his eyes from the torrents of rain that blow into him. His hair hangs in dark, sodden curls against his boyish face. “Please, Aemond! I’m sorry for what happened when we were children. I was wrong. I was trying to protect Jace and I struck out without thinking. I did not intend to maim you. But then it was too late to take it back. It’s not too late to stop this bloodshed now. I was wrong. I beg you to have mercy upon me, mercy that the Blacks never showed you. I want to live. I want to see my mother again. I want to marry Rhaena someday, as I have sworn to. As I have dreamt of more times than I could number. I beg you for mercy.”

Aemond looks to Daeron. And it takes several long, slow seconds for Daeron to understand why. He is being given the choice. He is the man who lost Nico. Daeron says softly: “He’s not the one who murdered her. I have no use for his blood.”

Aemond nods. And then, as the wind tears dripping, silver strands from his long braid, he offers his hand to Luke. Luke seizes it with his good arm, sobbing openly with relief.

“You were in London when the princesses were slain,” Aemond says.

“Yes,” Luke replies. “But I did not know it would happen, nor did I desire it. I swear to God, Aemond, I swear on every god men have ever believed in. None of us knew, my mother had forbidden harm to come to them—”

“And Jace was there too.”

“Yes,” Luke admits, weeping for his dead brother.

“You and Jace were in London with Daemon, and now you’re here on the battlefield. But that beast isn’t. Not that I’ve seen. So where’s Daemon?” Aemond asks Luke. “Where’s Daemon?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me to spare you?” Daemon doesn’t move like a man. He stalks like a wolf, like a phantom, off-kilter, inhuman. He grins, white teeth and violent eyes. “Aren’t you going to beg for mercy?”

And for a moment, the words fill up in your mouth like blood in a wound: Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll go back to Navarre and never return, you’ll never hear soldiers cheer for me, you’ll never see me again. Please, please, just let me go so the baby can live.

But Daemon would not be moved by your pleas. They would only give him wicked, ghastly pleasure, a high like the knowing touch of a lover. You cannot stomach the thought of it. You can only bring yourself to twist the allegorical knife deeper. “If you had taught Baela mercy, she would still be alive. If you had any within yourself, Rhaenyra would be winning this war.”

“Too proud,” Daemon says, but he doesn’t sound furious anymore. He sounds awed. And you realize that all along underneath that hatred had been something else too: a venomous admiration, a hunger that corrupts and burns. He lays the point of his sword against your throat. Rain flows down the length of the blade in cold, crystalline rivulets. You sob, unable to help it. Your mind is a tapestry of all the things you’ll never live to see. “Aegon is a nonentity. But you were different. I saw that from the start. Just a girl from a minor kingdom offered like a sacrifice to be neglected and violated by some drunken, ambitionless, catastrophically weak prince. Yet you didn’t seem to know it. You had that intractable, defiant ruthlessness. So much like Rhaenyra’s when she was younger. So much like Aemond’s. So much like mine. And I knew I could never call myself worthy of the throne without breaking you. Rhaenyra comforts herself with the notion that none of this is personal. That I would have had the same contempt for the Milanese girl or the Holy Roman Emperor’s daughter if either of them had been the one to marry Aegon. Rhaenyra feels sorry for you, I believe. She has a mother’s compassion. But this has always been personal for me. And now it’s finally over.”

There is a sound above you at the top of the gorge, huffing and stomping. Reflected in Daemon’s blade, you see Midnight, her legs and chest painted with blood from kicking through the walls of her stall and then the stable door. She takes a few tentative steps down the slope and then is forced to retreat. If she falls, she’ll shatter her legs or snap her neck and drown in the current of mud and rainwater. She can’t come to you. But if you can get to her…

Caraxes is dead. Daemon wouldn’t be able to catch me.

Time ticks by slowly, impossibly slowly; and you are reminded of all those nights you spent under Aegon waiting for him to finish, a long-clawed eternity lurking in the doorway between seconds. You are reminded of how each hour you spent pregnant felt like forever as the possibility of having a child of your own receded like a ship dropping over the edge of the horizon, and then farther, and then farther. You are reminded of how you counted the days until Kunigunde would marry Aemond and possess him in ways that you still have only dreamt of. Since your arrival in England almost two years ago, you have been a prisoner of time. Now—as you scavenge for a chance at a future almost too bright to imagine—you are grateful for it.

Too late, you think, but it’s not a statement. It’s a question. Too late?

“Do you know what, Navarre?” Daemon asks. He traces the point of his blade around the curve of your throat, drawing a half-moon of crimson as thin as a spider’s thread. Then he hooks his left hand into the white velvet of your gown—drenched with rain, stained with blood and earth—and wrenches you upright, devouring you with wild, wolfish eyes. You strike at him to no avail. “I think before I gut you, I’ll enjoy you in the way Aemond never could. That would hurt him best, wouldn’t it? He was always covered in it. That pitiful, dire hunger for you. Written on his ruined face as stark as ink. Now he can have whatever pieces of you are left when I’m done. Scraps, butcher’s cuts, your child, your eyes, your heart. If he’s still alive.”

Too late??

You don’t have a sword, you don’t have a dagger or a bow, you don’t have the physical strength to fight Daemon. You never have, even before your hand was crushed and shredded by his Scottish deerhound. At the crest of the gorge, Midnight paces and whinnies.

What DO I have? What the hell do I still have?

Suddenly you feel it, cool and unyielding against your chest: the ivy leaf necklace made of gold.

With your mangled hand, you rip it off you—destroying the clasp, drawing blood at the back of your neck—and stab at Daemon. He rocks his head back swiftly enough to save his eyes, but not his mouth; you shove your fist in as far as you can, pushing the jagged charm of the necklace down his throat to choke him. With your free hand, you cling to him like a lover so he cannot create enough space between you to swing his sword. He screams, and you do too, as the gashes in your hand are split wider and deeper by his teeth, as his jaws close around your wrist and he tries to bite through the flesh and into your veins; but you do not relent. The pain is dreadful but not disorienting. You’ve had time to learn how to think through it.

Daemon flings you away and—choking, retching, doubled over—tries to claw the necklace out of his throat. You bolt for the embankment and begin climbing up towards Midnight. You have to move quickly; each time you hesitate, the saturated earth begins to disintegrate beneath your palms and bare feet. Rain falls in stinging sheets. Rods of lightning break the sky in two. Midnight is stomping and snorting at the apex of the gorge, waiting for you. You are halfway to her when you realize you can hear Daemon behind you.

He’s wheezing and weighted down by his armor; when you glance back at him, there are tendrils of blood spilling from his mouth. Still, the insanity in his eyes is alight and glittering. You claw for the summit desperately. When you get close enough to reach out to her, Midnight lowers her head; you throw your arms around her vast neck and she drags you over the top of the gorge and onto flat, muddy ground. But there’s no time to catch your breath. You clamber to your feet and try to pull yourself onto Midnight’s back. It’s no use; she’s too tall, you’re too weak. She looks at you with her attentive volcanic-glass eyes and upright ears, and then she understands. With ungainly effort, she drops down to her knees so you can climb onto her back. When Midnight stands again, you steady yourself and twist your fingers into her mane, and then she charges towards the stone bridge—

There’s a shrill, glass-sharp roar and a hand on your gown. Daemon is yanking you off of her. Midnight is whirling and shrieking, trying to shake him. There’s not enough for you to hold onto, no reins, no saddle. Daemon drags you down to the earth. You hit hard, the breath knocked from your lungs, your vision stunned black. You can feel that Daemon is on top of you with his sword at your jugular; you scratch and shove blindly at him. And then Midnight is stomping and kicking and there is a new sound: a crack muffled by gelatinous flesh like the sheet around a corpse, a great fracturing like the world splitting in half. And Daemon is gone.

Your sight materializes: black to grey to color, shadows to shapes. When you haul yourself upright, the rain is slowing and Midnight is nudging your head with her velvet-soft muzzle. Daemon is ten feet away. He has propped himself up against the entranceway of the bridge, his legs splayed out in front of him. When you go to him and kneel down in the mud—thunder growling distantly, moving into the west—you see that his jaw has been broken from the impact of Midnight’s hoof. It hangs disjointedly, ruinously from his face. A moon-white dagger of bone juts from the torn flesh. His teeth are a garden of ivory shards and excavated pits. Blood pours down his throat and chest like a river, like a sea. He cannot speak. He can only gaze at you with glassy, vacant eyes, the knowledge dripping in slowly, piece by piece, like waking up from a dream: he’s dying. And it occurs to you that sometimes dying is the end, and sometimes it’s just killing the version of yourself that existed before, sacrifice, spring after frost, a blade born from a forge, resurrection.

You press your hands to the blood that hemorrhages from Daemon and then drag them down your face, palms and fingertips, coppery-tasting scarlet like wine, like rubies. “You once told me that I’d look better covered in red,” you say to him as the last vestiges of consciousness flicker in his eyes. “That was on Christmas, just before you murdered my son in the womb and I spent weeks bleeding fragments of him out of me. How do I look now, Prince Daemon? Now you’re the one who’s bleeding. Now you’re the one who will never grow old.”

He hears you. You can see that he hears you: horror, agony, disbelief, mourning.

“I want you to think about that as you lie here dying alone. I want you to think about all those things you wanted—those glorious, ruthless things—and how you stole them from yourself.”

You stagger to your feet. Daemon’s hand, weak like a whisper, juts out and grabs your muddied ankle. You rip free of him without looking back. You are the last person to ever see him alive.

Midnight follows you back to the palace. Your damaged hand hangs limply by your side; the other cups your belly. You wait for the cramping to begin, the razorlike severing, the blood. It seems unthinkable that your child could have survived, that Daemon could have departed this earth without stealing one last life from you. But for all the places where you hurt terribly, that isn’t one of them. When you reach the well, you brace yourself for what you’ll discover there. You grip the cool grey circle of stones and peer over the edge.

“Your Majesty?!” Criston exclaims, gaping at you. He’s wading in water up to his chest. “Oh, thank God! I heard the footsteps and thought it was Daemon!”

“He’s dead,” you reply in a voice that sounds very little like yours: cold like winter, hard like steel. The rain has faded to a misty drizzle.

Criston shakes his head, not understanding. “How did you…? What did you…?”

“I’ll find a way to get you out,” you say, and leave him.

You procure a length of rope from the stable and—with considerable difficulty, your wounded hand trembling and nearly useless—tie one end around Midnight like the harness of a plow. You toss the other end down to Criston. He emerges from the well with a broken leg but otherwise relatively unscathed. He limps, leaning against Midnight (an only semi-willing ally), to where Daemon’s body lies by the bridge.

“Oh my God,” Criston marvels, staring down at him: ruined face, empty hands. “He’s gone. He’s really gone. He was the greatest weapon the Blacks had, and he’s gone. What the hell will Rhaenyra do now?”

You pry your sword from Caraxes’ corpse and then return to Criston. “I need you to help me. My blade is too small, and even if it wasn’t, my sword hand is practically unusable. I can probably do the first part, but I’ll need you to chop through the spine.”

Criston is horrified. “What are you talking about? The spine…?!”

And then you tell him.

You have just finished when you hear the rumble of hooves approaching. Vhagar and Aemond are at the front of a detachment of cavalry. The cannon fire in the distance has stopped; Daeron and Alonzo are doubtlessly overseeing the clearing of the battlefield. Aemond leaps down from the saddle and rushes to where you stand to meet him on the bridge, his gaze flying from your ragged hand to the streaks of red on your gown and your face. Your other hand is hidden behind your back.

“Are you—?!”

“I’m alright,” you say. “The blood isn’t all mine.”

And then you throw Daemon’s head—clutching it by his long, white, Targaryen hair—out onto the grey stones for everyone to witness. It rolls several times before coming to rest face-up, the last raindrops falling into Daemon’s vacuous eyes as the sky begins to clear. Aemond grins, a fiercely proud, wonderous grin; and the soldiers’ cheers are carried on the calm, cool breeze: “The Queen from Navarre! The Queen from Navarre! The Queen from Navarre!”

A physician is fetched to set Sir Criston’s leg and to tend to your hand. It is scrubbed with boiling wine (excruciating) and then the deepest gashes are stitched closed with a needle and thread (even worse). The process takes several hours. You are offered strong wine for the pain, but you don’t want to risk harming the baby. Aemond stays with you. He knows exactly what this feels like: the serrated agony now, the scar tissue that will grow through the rubble like roots. It will pain you all your life. You will never be free of it.

Aemond cleans Daemon’s blood from your face and allows you to squeeze his hand until your fingernails leave crescent-moon indents in his palm. And then he begins to distract you. He brings his lips to the curve of your jaw as one arm hugs your waist, and as he dusts your skin with tantalizingly slow kisses and teasing nips, you are reminded of the February night when he touched you beneath your nightgown for the first time, when he showed you how hot desire could burn and how kindly it could treat you. As your flesh is mended like a torn tapestry—the physician’s head bent low over his work—Aemond nuzzles you and murmurs to you and traces his fingertips lightly over your throat, your collarbones, the nape of your neck.

Miraculously, after a while you barely notice the pain at all. After a while, you are covered in nothing but weightless, glimmering desire for him.

In the room of Castle Rising that has become your bedchamber: back to the wall, hands in his hair, loose and wild and silver. In the starlight that streams in through the open windows, it has an opalescent sheen like moonstone. He’s kissing you like fire consumes forests; he’s breathing you in like smoke. You can feel him growing through you, flames licking, ivy climbing the trellis of your ribs and vertebrae. He’s tearing off your gown—once white, now red, impure and unrepentant—as you undress him and litter the floor with all the leather and fabric that once separated you. As Aemond’s hands skate up your bare thighs, you remember other moments with him: in the royal stables on a July afternoon, your miscarriage after the Christmas feast, on the bearskin rug in February, his wedding night at the end of April, here in the bathtub before the battle.

“Please, Aemond,” you beg as his fingers slip between slick warm folds of needful flesh, circle the place that raises euphoria in you like the moon pulls the tides. “I need all of you.”

“No,” he pants between fevered kisses. The ruby of his missing eye glints hungrily. “You first. I’m not going to last, I know it. You have to go first.”

Your unbandaged hand knots in his hair, tugging him ever-closer; his tongue darts into your mouth; his bare chest and hips press insistently to yours. You can feel his hardness, his length against your inner thigh, and this time there is no trepidation that roils in your mind like the waves of the sea. You want him with everything you’re built of, every minute and mineral and memory. You could not silence your moans if you tried. You can feel your shoulder blades bruising against the wall, heavenly pressure, delicious bites of pain, trapped blood that tomorrow will be swimming with recollection.

“Aemond, it’s happening—”

“Good, good,” he purrs through your disheveled hair. He slides one finger into you, and then another, kissing the slope of your cheekbone as your hips rock with his rhythm. “Come for me, Ivy. You wanted me to be the one to have you and now I’m here, I’ll be here forever, I’ll be here until the world ends. Let me show you how good it will always feel.”

You cry out against him, shuddering and rapturous. You can feel the past slipping away like a dream you can’t recall in the morning, a flash here, a phrase there, but otherwise indistinct, shadowy, the jagged parts sanded down until they no longer sting.

“I love you,” Aemond whispers, his fingers still inside you, buried to the knuckles in your pulsing warmth, your wetness, relics of the pleasure only he showed you was possible.

And you reply with his own words, cradling his face in your palms, half-scarred and yet entirely beautiful: “I would love you anywhere and at any cost.”

He draws you to the bed. He’s on top of you, he’s touching you, he’s tasting you, he’s stroking you until you plead for him to give you everything. But Aemond wants to be sure you’re ready. When he finally eases himself into you, it is a smooth and gliding action, overwhelming and unfamiliar but in no way painful. You hear his promise—I won’t hurt you, I’ll never hurt you—and you know that he has kept it. The intense fullness is a sensation you’ve never known before, never even imagined. When he moves, very carefully at first, it hits at an angle that rekindles your lust, somehow deeper, less pointed, more total than the peaks you knew before. You can’t catch your breath; you feel like if the wave doesn’t break, it will kill you.

“Again?” Aemond murmurs, stunned yet ecstatic.

“Again,” you gasp helplessly. He threads his fingers through yours on your good hand and pins it above your head, thrusting more powerfully as he kisses you, bodies and souls alike tangled up together, inseparable, irrevocable. When you come, it is an indescribable high; it is a force that feels like it could snap ropes of muscle and break bones. Aemond, unable to wait a second longer, empties himself with a trembling, reverent moan of the name he gave you: Ivy, Ivy, Ivy. And he holds you—tightly, to his chest, to his heart—for a long time before he pulls himself away, as if he is afraid that the moment he lifts his hands from you you’ll vanish.

Gently, he pushes your thighs apart when you move to close them. “Let me look at you,” he says. And he sighs, transfixed, as he watches his seed spill out. He takes a corner of the sheet that you’ve torn from the mattress and whisks the pearl-white river away. Then he smiles, his gaze flicking playfully to yours. “One day this won’t go to waste.”

You bathe together in water murky with steam and herbs and rose petals, washing away the past, cleaning the slate for the future. And when you return exhausted to the bed remade with fresh linens, neither of you stare up at the ceiling and wonder at the cruelties of time. You fold into Aemond—your head on his chest, rounded belly pressed against him, an arm slung across his waist—and you are asleep before you can begin to count the beats of his heart.

As soon as you arrive back in London, you and Aemond marry in the small private chapel, not illuminated by candlelight but by the sun, radiant afternoon beams refracted by stained glass scenes of kings and saints, colors on your skin like gemstones: ruby, sapphire, amethyst, emerald, amber, ruby again, treasures from the earth born only from suffocating pressure and the passing of time.

Two years to the day after you first set foot on English soil, Aemond is officially invested as regent pending either your deliverance of a daughter or your son’s coming of age in eighteen years. During the feast that follows, Alicent tends fretfully to Sir Criston: feeding him morsels of bread and meat, asking after the pain in his still-mending leg, forbidding him from rising unnecessarily from his chair. She finds excuses to touch his hair and his hands, and you observe them—furtively, from behind sips of honeyed mead, trying not to intrude—with warm blood blossoming in your cheeks. You are happy for them. You know exactly what it feels like to taste passion after a lifetime without it. It is better than a paradise, an oasis, a port in the storm. It is magic. It is a spell.

You and Aemond traverse the Great Hall of Westminster Palace to thank the Southern nobles for their loyalty, their sacrifices, their dead sons and widowed daughters. You collect wary apologies from Northerners who must now somehow be rewoven into the fabric of English society. You are offered praise for your heroism, condolences for your dead husband, well wishes for your unborn child who might one day be the king. And when, suddenly, you gasp and grab at your belly with your scarred hand, Aemond reaches fearfully for you.

“What—?”

“He’s moving,” you say, incredulous, beaming. And then you lay Aemond’s palms on your bump so he can feel it too. “He’s alright. He’s alive.”

“Of course he’s alive,” Aemond says; but you can see on his face that only now does he truly believe it, and that all along he was so adamant only because he knew it was what you needed.

The nobility—Greens and reformed Blacks alike—try not to raise their eyebrows too much when you and Aemond announce that you wed immediately upon your return to London. Yet they accept it, and so do the kingdoms of the Continent, and—after some adept persuading by your father and Alonzo—so does the Pope in Rome. There are far greater sins still fresh in everyone’s memory. And no one can deny that Aemond was built for ruling. He is the best thing for England, for all of Europe. So are you. You are beloved by the people. The name they call you—the Queen from Navarre—lives in the same breath as martyrs and saints.

Daeron is rarely left alone. Even the Duke of Hightower has compassion for him. Aemond takes him hunting and sparring, you walk with him in the gardens where Nico once sat and wept as she read his letters. He does not forget her—not at all, not even a little bit, not ever—but he does learn to remember her with more affection than bitterness. Bitterness does not come naturally to Daeron; he sheds it more swiftly than other men could. Someday he will have to marry, of course, but he is allowed time to mourn. The promise of the child you carry grants him that. And Aemond asks you to sew a new banner for the Greens: two roses, one red and the other emerald, entangled on a field of golden yellow like the flags of Milan and the Holy Roman Empire. Yellow for Nico, yellow for Kunigunde. Yellow for the dawning future they helped pay for in blood.

As retribution for his daughter’s murder, the Holy Roman Emperor demands that Rhaenyra’s three children with Daemon be sent to him as wards…including her only girl. And so Aegon III, Viserys II, and Visenya—still young enough for the memories of their true parents to be essentially obliterated—are shipped off to the Continent, never to raise armies or enlist poisoners, never to marry into the illustrious families of Northern England, chess pieces removed from the board. Luke and Rhaena relocate permanently to Scotland where they will one day inherit the throne; Aemond corresponds with them regularly, seeking to establish a rapport that will spare both kingdoms from further bloodshed. Joffrey is raised by King Corlys and Queen Rhaenys. Rhaenyra is banished to an abbey on the irrelevant, dreary, windswept island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. As long as she commits no treachery, she is permitted to have visitors there. But she may never leave without forfeiting the lives of her children held as perpetual hostages by the Holy Roman Empire.

In the bleak depths of November, your labor pains begin as you are visiting the royal stables, feeding Midnight and Vhagar and Tessarion knobby carrots from the gardens and handfuls of oats. The midwives and physicians are baffled by Aemond’s insistence upon staying with you during the birth. He is similarly baffled by their assumption that he would rather be off somewhere else: hunting, sparring, writing, politicking, gifts he possesses in equal measure. And mercifully, for all that you have suffered in pursuit of motherhood, this particular trial passes as unremarkably as possible. Your labor begins one afternoon and ends the next with the birth of a small yet healthy, living, white-haired son. The midwives let Aemond catch him, cut the umbilical cord, and place him on your chest, a weight you have waited nearly two and a half years to feel.

“You did it, Ivy,” Aemond whispers, kissing your temple with tears in his eye, as if he had no part in it at all. And the rest of your life suddenly lines up in front of you like stars in a constellation: teaching your children to walk, to read, to ride horses, to fight for themselves and their country if the fragile peace the Greens have brokered ever crumbles.

When Daeron comes to see you, you tell him as he cradles the baby in tentative arms: “We’ve named him after Nico.”

“Nicoloso?” Daeron replies, pleased yet rather amused. It is a ludicrous name for an English monarch.

“Nicholas.”

“Ah. Yes. Grandsire won’t hate that quite so much.”

Daeron studies the infant king, his tiny flailing hands, his drowsy yawns, and when Nicholas grips his thumb Daeron laughs for the first time that you can remember since Nico was alive. And you think as you watch them that maybe time is less like a wheel—something that crushes and repeats—and more like a vine that climbs ever-higher. Maybe chronology is less like a prison than an open door.

Tonight, Aemond is cross-legged on the bearskin rug and holding Nicholas, smoothing his downy silver hair in the amber firelight, telling him the same stories he once told you: King Arthur, Beowulf, Robin Hood, the Rollright Stones, Saint George and the slaying of dragons. On the wall hangs the tapestry that Aemond moved from his rooms to the bedchamber you now share. In the trunk at the foot of your bed are his poems, your sword, the letters that Aegon sends from Navarre. You are reading the most recent one now. It is—peculiarly—written in Spanish.

Wife,

I have endeavored to compose this letter in the language of your homeland. (I’ve begun taking lessons with Alonzo. Am I any good yet?)

No, he’s not; he’s made at least six grammatical errors and has confused the word patria (homeland) with patear (to kick).

I offer you my most heartfelt congratulations upon your safe deliverance of a son. I am sure it has brought you and Aemond immeasurable relief. The court here has celebrated with a feast of traditional English food (a crime! have I crossed the sea only to still be tormented by black pudding and salmon pie?) and plenty of dancing. But don’t grow too proud. They still gossip about your hasty second marriage to a man whose own wife was barely cold in the grave. You should be thankful for Rhaenyra’s brazen mating with her loathsome, deranged uncle. Your supposed transgressions seem mild in comparison. No one mourns me much. I suppose that is the mark of a life not properly lived. I’m hoping to remedy that. I really am.

You wrote that the baby looks a lot like me. That made me smile, although I’m not sure why. I’d like to meet him someday, once you have fully recovered and he is old enough to travel. Summers are beautiful here, as you well know. You and Aemond should visit in June. It will be the anniversary of my death. We can celebrate with rosado and lamb.

I had this thought recently that I can’t seem to shake. It feels too insightful to be mine. Sometimes endings are more like beginnings…don’t you think?

Whatever the color of his hair and eyes, I hope Nicholas is more like you than me.

I’ll be dreaming of you. Both of you.

With great affection,

The King in Navarre (and Sunfyre)

You re-fold the letter and place it in your trunk. Then you look to Aemond and the child he considers his own. “Navarre in June?” you say hopefully.

Aemond smiles, warm like embers. He ruby eye reflects the firelight: crimson comets, red stars. “Navarre in June,” he agrees. “It’s been too long already.” And then he touches his lips to Nicholas’ tiny, flawless forehead before laying him in the cradle.

Once, as golden afternoon light poured into the royal stables, Aemond had asked you what brought you happiness here in England. Everything, you would answer now if he asked you again.

Everything.

#aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x you

[blackswaneuroparedux]

If Caravaggio were alive today today, he would have loved the cinema; his paintings take a cinematic approach. We filmmakers became aware of his work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and he certainly was an influence on us. The best part for us was that in many cases he painted religious subject-matter but the models were obviously people from the streets; he had prostitutes playing saints. There’s something in Caravaggio that shows a real street knowledge of the sinner; his sacred paintings are profane.

Martin Scorsese on Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi, known to most of us as “Caravaggio,” was born on September 29, 1571 in Milan, Italy, to parents who were from the small town of Caravaggio. In the span of his 38 years long life he revolutionised painting with innovations like a unique use of chiaroscuro - with dark shadows contrasting with dramatic areas of light - and a deep sense of realism that later inspired the Baroque movement. But most of all, he developed such an iconic style that most of us can probably look at a painting and know if it’s a Caravaggio, or Caravaggio-inspired. 

Merisi spent the first few years of his life in Milan, studying painting, and later moved to Rome, where his early talent impressed Cardinal Del Monte, who introduced the young painter to other high-profile Catholic figures who became commissioners of some of Caravaggio’s best work. It seemed there was no end to the artist’s creative genius. Caravaggio, much to his patron’s delight, would pump out one masterpiece after another. It seemed the more out of control his personal life became (cheating, brawling and murder were standard fare), the more his art would become more refined, more potent.

In the long list of masterpieces he left behind, both secular and religious works stand out. But it is perhaps in his religious works that the artistic transition of the master is more evident. Caravaggio is, in fact, known to have changed his style after harsh personal life experiences led him to reassess his outlook on life.

In May of 1606 Caravaggio took part in a deadly brawl in Rome and was charged with murder. He fled to Malta, in search of asylum from the Order of Saint John, a Catholic order dedicated to helping the sick and the poor. The order commissioned some of the most important late life works of the Milanese artist.

It is in these works that we notice the shift in Caravaggio’s art, from a strong focus on aesthetics to an interest in the spirituality of his subjects, which critics believe was motivated by his own introspection.

On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and sword fights were regular occurrences. In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes.

By representing biblical characters in a naturalistic fashion, typically through signs of aging and poverty, Caravaggio's populist modernisation of religious parables were little short of trailblazing. Although not without his critics within the church, by effectively humanising the divine, Caravaggio made Christianity more relevant to the ordinary viewer.

For some, though, his art was too real. Bare shoulders, plunging necklines, severed heads; this raw humanity didn’t always fly in 17th century Rome. As a result, many of his pieces were rejected as altar pieces and as church hangings. One such piece, the Madonna of Loretto (now hanging in a church in Rome) was widely criticised upon its unveiling. The people of the day were shocked to behold the Mother of God leaning nonchalantly against a wall in her bare feet while holding baby Jesus in her arms.

It is ironic that the very art that today we consider “classical” and “iconic” to the Catholic faith was considered questionable and perhaps void of modesty and virtue. Yet, the fact remains that no individual artist has made such a lasting impression on the world of modern art. Truly, many have called Caravaggio the “first modern artist”. It is no surprise, then, that his style has sparked both widespread admiration and imitation throughout the centuries.

Before Pope John Paul II refined a theology of the body beautiful, Caravaggio's paintings suggested a reverence for the inherent beauty of human form.

Troubled though he may have been, his art speaks eloquently of the dignity of the mundane. Though the original medium may be weathered and cracked, the message of beauty still echoes down the centuries. And this same beauty still fuels, escapes and reduces artists to relentless seekers as surely and as forcefully as it did in Caravaggio's life.

#scorsese #martin scorsese #quote #art #artist #caravaggio #art history #aesthetics #modern #sacred #profane #rome #catholic church #christian #beauty #realism #art of the mundane

[adracat]

The Cycles of GWitch

This notion has been brewing in my head since I wrote my analysis on GWitch's Cinematic Rhythm. With the second cour nearly finished I can confidently say my suspicions were correct.

When we look at its wealth of influences from The Tempest, Utena, previous Gundam, Norse and now Arthurian myth the truest pattern is Cycles. More distinctly, how the past connects to the present and future.

The Tempest

The most blatant cycle is something we as a society are deeply familiar with. Revenge. It's a base and consuming thing, as we see from Prospera and also her namesake Prospero. The story goes the sorcerer Prospero was once the Duke of Milan until his brother with help from the King of Naples, usurps him. He flees to an isle with his young daughter Miranda and takes a fairy/spirit, Arial, and an island native, Caliban, as his servants.

For years Prospero was consumed by hate and the idea of revenge. However, after he commands Arial to sink the king's ship Miranda falls in love with Prince Ferdinand at first glimpse. And he loves her in turn. Prospero then relinquishes his revenge once he recognizes Ferdinand's love is true and reconciles with King Alonso and Antonio. For its loyal service, the spirit Arial is set free. The cycle of revenge in this story is broken.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

The cycle of Utena is not immediately made clear. The show keeps to the pretense of being innocuous until well into its runtime. But then we're introduced to the Black Rose Duelists, and swiftly afterward the school's headmaster and Anthy's brother, Akio Ohtori. A former prince who styles himself as The End of the World.

Abuse, filial obligation, the horrifying reality of womanhood beneath the yoke of patriarchal systems. These cycles are grounded and are hidden by a veneer of childhood innocence and fairytale mythos. The Prince was the savior to humanity, but was selfishly hidden by a witch. This witch is therefore punished eternally for her sins, pierced by the Swords of Human Hatred. She accepts this role only as someone who loves her brother and wants to protect him. She is branded a witch by the world. But as the show says, if you're not a princess you must be a witch. That's the truth of the Rose Bride. And in the end, all girls are like the rose bride; something we're witnessing now with Miorine.

The cycle Akio implements is to groom a champion with the ideals of princehood, the champion to quest for eternity with the Rose Bride's temptation and guidance, then using the champion's sword to bash down the Rose Gate in the vain hope of regaining his princehood. It's a cycle that has repeated for countless unknown years. And all the while weaponizing his sister's suffering. But just like The Tempest, the Rose Cycle is broken by love. The unfettered and earnest love between Utena and Anthy grants the witch the courage to escape her stagnant coffin.

Ragnarok and Arthurian

The Ragnarok Cycle is a series of myths that depict the birth, reign, and death of the Norse gods. I have an ongoing series of analysis where I discussed gwitch's usage here, and here. More I'm sure will follow. But as dire as it sounds, Ragnarok isn't just about the end of the world and its many gods. It itself is a continuous cycle. The gods will return and so will the world. It's a story of renewal.

The same can be said of the Arthurian Cycle. The tales of King Arthur and uniting Britain are end-capped with a messianic promise that the King shall one day return to rule Britain. Hope, despite the tragedy that follows King Arthur upon Camlann. The fact GWitch is now harking to Arthurian with Suletta in Arthur's role (and possibly Miorine as The Lady of The Lake) is intriguing. But the bones for this twist were there from the start.

Suletta, akin to Arthur, is a child orchestrated by a 'gentle magician' to receive a peerless 'sword'. And it's through Aerial's might she becomes engaged to Miorine, a 'King's daughter. Now, it appears she's to wield Calibarn or Caliburn; a direct link to King Arthur. Whether it will go smoothly is another matter. But the reference remains interesting and again reiterates the theme of cycles.

A Hopeful Note

The ultimate take away from these references is clear in my opinion. It's no coincidence that at the forefront is a positive message that not all cycles are terrible or absolute. They can be broken with love. Gwitch is deeply humanist when you consider everything it's pulling from and I hope this settles a few doubts. Cour 2 is incredibly hopeful, even with the fraught ongoings among the cast. Our protagonist is embodying this message the clearest. Doing something for gain leads to misery. Yet a helping hand costs nothing and connects us all in a cycle itself.

#cycles can be beautiful or tragic #but they're ultimately a sign of life #g witch #g witch spoilers #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #gundam witch from mercury #rgu spoilers #the tempest #norse mythology #arthurian mythology #revolutionary girl utena #analysis and speculation

[ltwilliammowett]

Nef of a galley made of rock crystal, decorated with gold, rubies, enamel and emeralds, made by Saracchi in Milan, late 16th century.

The hull of the ship with the so-called chart house is decorated on the long sides with scenes from the Greek mythological world.  

One recognises the flying Perseus with sword and Gorgon shield, who will save Andromeda, chained to a rock, from a ravenous sea monster. Zeus can also be seen in the form of a bull. On his back he carries the king's daughter Europa to abduct her to Crete. On yet another shore, the beautiful Helen is stolen by Paris and his companions and taken in a ship to Troy. And so a final scene leads to the north-west coast of Asia Minor, where King Agamemnon and his army lay siege to the city of Troy.

#naval artifacts #nef #wine nef #rock crystal #16th century #age of sail

[kultofathena]

The Milan by Vision Collaboratively Crafted by Angus Trim and Valiant Armoury

Please note – Kult of Athena’s full range of pictures will be added shortly.

The Valiant Armoury X Angus Trim Vision Line is a collaborative effort between famed swordmakers Angus Trim and Valiant Armoury. Models will be released in limited batches. After a production run, the model will not be available again for another 12 to 24 months.

Vision creates premium, entirely made in the USA swords that meld Trim’s magnificently optimized performance blades with the hilt design, robust construction and superior leatherwork that is the hallmark of Sonny and Zach Suttles at Valiant Armoury. The final product preserves the ideal blade harmonics and balance needed for each sword to perform to its fullest potential and is a heirloom-tier sword.

The blade of the Milan arming sword is well suited to powerful and decisive cutting and is crafted from 5160 high carbon steel with a spring-tempered hardness of 51-53 HRc. The hot-peen construction that melds the blade and hilt together at the pommel gives this sword a very strong and lasting hilt construction. The crossguard and pommel are crafted from steel with an antiqued finish and the grip is carved from Poplar and tightly bound in leather to complete the sword.

#Kult of Athena #KultOfAthena #Vision #Angus Trim #Valiant Armoury #New Item Wednesday #Limited Edition #sword #swords #weapon #weapons #blade #blades #The Milan #Milan #European Sword #European Swords #Medieval #Medieval Weapon #Medieval Weapons #Medieval Sword #Medieval Swords #Single Hand Sword

[featherwurm]

The Shenanigans are never-ending as the winter break draws to it's conclusion before everyone regroups in the spring:

Vol was so happy to spend time with Pazu they learned to tinker a bit over the winter. Thankfully with their natural armor they don't need thimbles.

They also tried to shoot their shot with Kasimir but one thembo and a nat twenty is not enough for a depressed for a 300+ year old depressed Elf. They had some quality floor time though.

Ya man Blinski has a whole bunch of new toys some of them look... familiar.

Milan and Guillaume have decided to spend a little quality time together.

Mirabel, Sonya, and Alenka owners of the Blood of the Vine decide to have a little fun with our dear Mortimer. Mortimer learns some EXCITING new things. Irina is very busy but finds amusement in catching up.

I guess Lythander digs it because he has DIRECTLY blessed his favorite boy.

Garland takes up smiting, much to the enjoyment of the general male-interested population of Kresk.

Garland finds out some stuff about his cursed sword (his dead husband, Creed, is in it) and has some quality time with him.

Garland and Osry check out the Abby. It's sus as fuck but they have shit to do so we'll just worry about that later.

Osry found something VERY INTERESTING in the library though...

Nothing bad better happen to Siegfried.

Getting down from the Abby proved tricky for these two. Thankfully the bard has featherfall

Next week... we'll see! Who knows what will happen in Curse of Strahd: Off the Shits - apologies to our DM @ankoku-jin

#Curse of Strahd #more or less #D&D #Dungeons and Dragons #Kasimir #Vol #Milan #Orsry #Garland #Mortimer #Irina #Tiefling #Simic Hybrid #Water Genasi #changeling #Bard #Barbarian #Sorcerer #Art #Personal #Sketch #Cleric #Paladin

[orthodoxadventure]

Healing Prayer of Saint Ambrose of Milan

Thee alone I follow, Lord Jesus, Who heals my wounds. For what shall separate me from the love of God, which is in Thee? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine? I am held fast as though by nails, and fettered by the bonds of charity. Remove from me, O Lord Jesus, with Thy potent sword, the corruption of my sins. Secure me in the bonds of Thy love; cut away what is corrupt in me. Come quickly and make an end of my many, my hidden and secret afflictions. Open the wound lest the evil humor spread. With Thy new washing, cleanse in me all that is stained. Hear me, you earthly men, who in your sins bring forth drunken thoughts: I have found a Physician. He dwells in Heaven and distributes His healing on earth. He alone can heal my pains Who Himself has none. He alone Who knows what is hidden can take away the grief of my heart, the fear of my soul: Jesus Christ. Christ is grace! Christ is life! Christ is Resurrection! Amen.

#Christianity #Orthodox Christianity #Saint Ambrose of Milan #Prayer #Mental Health

[searidings]

reading wrap up 2022 GO

ok so my goal this year was to read 100 books and then i went ahead and read 109. and if i read the locked tomb series three times through that's no one's business but mine <3

italics are queer, bold are amazing, bold italics are queer and amazing

jan:

middlesex - jeffrey eugenides

the mountains sing - nguyên phan qué mai

the vegetarian - han kang

the galaxy and the ground within - becky chambers

to be taught, if fortunate - becky chambers

when we were orphans - kazuo ishiguro

americanah - chimamanda ngozi adichie

h of h playbook - anne carson

klara and the sun - kazuo ishiguro

the space between worlds - micaiah johnson

feb:

normal people - sally rooney

circe - madeline miller

blood of elves - andrzej sapkowski

gideon the ninth - tamsyn muir

time of contempt - andrzej sapkowski

baptism of fire - andrzej sapkowski

march:

the tower of the swallow - andrzej sapkowski

lady of the lake - andrzej sapkowski

harrow the ninth - tamsyn muir

the last wish - andrzej sapkowski

we should all be feminists - chimamanda ngozi adichie

a memory called empire - arkady martine

burnt sugar - avni doshi

a psalm for the wild built - becky chambers

april:

the alchemist - paul coelho

sword of destiny - andrzej sapkowski

oranges are not the only fruit - jeanette winterson

the colour purple - alice walker

the midnight library - matt haig

where the crawdads sing - delia owens

10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world - elif shafak

the discomfort of evening - marieke lucas rijneveld

crying in h mart - michelle zauner

my year of rest and relaxation - ottessa moshfegh

the shadow king - maaza mengiste

the virgin suicides - jeffrey eugenides

sapiens - yuval noah harari

the manningtree witches - a. k. blakemore

may:

parable of the sower - octavia butler

hot milk - deborah levy

an unkindness of ghosts - rivers solomon

the water dancer - ta-nehisi coates

pure colour - sheila heti

this is how you lose the time war - amal el-mohtar & max gladstone

five little indians - michelle good

june:

indian horse - richard wagamese

ducks, newburyport - lucy ellmann

the vanishing half - brit bennett

medicine walk - richard wagamese

crier's war - nina varela

a quality of light - richard wagamese

after the quake - haruki murakami

death in her hands - ottessa moshfegh

the school for good mothers - jessamine chan

bluets - maggie nelson

of women and salt - gabriela garcia

lapvona - ottessa moshfegh

mcglue - ottessa moshfegh

songbirds - christy lefteri

july:

to paradise - hanya yanagihara

sankofa - chibundu onuzo

the argonauts - maggie nelson

jane: a murder - maggie nelson

eileen - ottessa moshfegh

iron widow - xiran jay zhao

homesick for another world - ottessa moshfegh

a desolation called peace - arkady martine

the art of cruelty: a reckoning - maggie nelson

the witch's heart - genevieve gornichec

dune - frank herbert

aug:

never let me go - kazuo ishiguro

the island of missing trees - elif shafak

the marriage plot - jeffrey eugenides

almond - won-pyung sohn

all over creation - ruth ozeki

the water cure - sophie mackintosh

drive your plow over the bones of the dead - olga tokarczuk

sep:

the remains of the day - kazuo ishiguro

the blind assassin - margaret atwood

go set a watchman - harper lee

a pale view of hills - kazuo ishiguro

seven fallen feathers - tanya talaga

an artist of the floating world - kazuo ishiguro

the atlas six - olivie blake

the inconvenient indian - thomas king

a tale for the time being - ruth ozeki

ru - kim thuy

split tooth - tanya tagaq

wintering - katherine may

nomad century - gaia vince

dune messiah - frank herbert

the unbearable lightness of being - milan kundera

oct:

nona the ninth - tamsyn muir

indians on vacation - thomas king

severance - ling ma

nocturnes - kazuo ishiguro

nona the ninth - tamsyn muir

a prayer for the crown-shy - becky chambers

nov:

gideon the ninth - tamsyn muir

harrow the ninth - tamsyn muir

nona the ninth - tamsyn muir

embers - richard wagamese

dec:

starlight - richard wagamese

the buried giant - kazuo ishiguro

autobiography of red - anne carson

notes on grief - chimamanda ngozi adichie

cloud cuckoo land - anthony doerr

on fire: the burning case for a green new deal - naomi klein

sufferance - thomas king

#thanks for asking bro!! #read some bangers this year that's for sure #read some stinkers too but hey #gotta cast your net wide right #hope you had a great reading year too!! #yes tamsyn muir owned my entire ass this year and what about it #if anyone has great recs that align with the greats i've read this year i am all ears!!! #happy holidays my bro #book recs

[neixins]

#save me fun romance save meeeeee

[thegreatstoryteller]

SpyWatch Chapter 4: The Bar

A few minutes earlier

Phillis walked into the bar and was determined to meet up with Milan’s old contact in the area. Get in. Get out. Get back to her new friend with the watch waiting for her in the car. When she saw the handsome bartender waiting inside, she knew they were in the right place.

The man was all neatly trimmed stubble, muscle, and tattoos. Not an inch of him could be more daunting or alluring for the right individual. He towered over the counter as he narrowed his eyes at Phillis who entered unphased by his impressive presence.

“I heard this place looked better on the inside.” Phillis speaks, looking back towards the door wistfully. Her brief glances revealed a sophisticated lighting system and a well-maintained building interior. Something you wouldn’t be able to tell from the outside.

“Who’d you hear that from?” the bartender grunted with a furrowed brow, not expecting that phrase. His curious voice having an edge to it.

“An old friend. I believe you two met and… bonded over drinks before. I believe he had some S.o.t.B.” Phillis stated, turning back to the barkeep with an arched eyebrow.

The man blushed but maintained a stern look. “Fuck. You’re a friend of Milan’s aren’t you? You can drop the code stuff I had a feeling someone like you would be coming along. Haven’t heard from him in days.”

Phillis let a tired smile slip. “Then I hope this’ll be quick. I’m here to pick up a case Milan left here before he went on mission two days ago. From what I know you’re much smarter than the average bartender and when Milan… made contact with you he left something here for safekeeping. Do you have it?”

The man sighed. “First off princess, it’s Reggie. Second, your boy has a lot of nerve if he thinks he can just send his lacky in without calling and not answering my tests-“

“Milan was taken Reggie. You know what he does. I need what’s inside that case to help get him back.” Phillis said finally letting out a little more genuine expression.

Reggie stared at her stunned for a second before letting out a sigh. “That idiot. I make one safehouse for the guy and he gets into shit before he can even use it. When I get my hands on him I… Ok. Fine. I’ll be back in a second. Help yourself to whatever. It was a slow night anyway.” The bartender went back to another room, walking off angrily.

Unfortunately, Phillis knew this wasn’t the only guy Milan had pissed off. The guy had a knack for connecting with people and gaining intel. However, that was a double-edged sword when he could get too close too fast. No one was ever terribly mad at him, but there was a certain limit that others reached when he didn’t even bother to call the next day.

As Phillis reminisced about the good times she’d had with her partner, she failed to notice a pair of men coming in with suits. Once they got within a few feet of her, she’d already started typing on her phone and caught their reflection on her screen.

“We found her.” One of the men in suits said as he got even closer to her.

“You’re coming with us,” the other said as he grabbed Phillis’ shoulder.

However, they were met with the woman just shaking her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.  With a single tap on her phone,  she revealed the program she’d run to hack the lights in this building. Every single lighting fixture in the place went dark, allowing Phillis to duck out of reach from her two assailants. No one in the room could see the two bottles Phillis had picked up from the bar, but they could definitely hear them break over the heads of the two men after her. Once the lights returned there were two unconscious men on the floor. She looked down proudly at her handy work, but her expression changed once more when more suited individuals flooded into the bar.

She was about to put up more of a fight before they began pointing their guns at her. Phillis knew when she was beat and raised her hands up tentatively. Behind her she heard Reggie begin to open the door to re enter the room, so she raised her voice and said, “What the hell do you want with me? Leave the people INSIDE the bar ALONE.”

Reggie appeared to have got the message and stopped in his tracks as one man emerged from the crowd.

“Always the fighter. Rumors of your tenacity precede you Agent Phillis.” The man greeted, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt.

“Wait… that voice… Mousier Ramiz? You…. Look different than the last time we saw you.” Phillis said shocked.

“Well, the wonders of modern technology. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will press you for yours.” Ramiz pushed Phillis into the bar counter firmly with surprising ease.

“Tell me where the watch is.” Ramiz said flatly.

“What makes you think I even know where it is?” Phillis growled back.

“Funny. Your friend said the same thing. Though you and I both know you’re much smarter than he was. Now my men have confirmed the faint energy readings in the area, and we found you. Now speak up before we escalate this further.” Ramiz says producing his gun and pressing it firmly against Phillis.

A quick scan of the room didn’t show anything immediately helpful to her in this moment. She could move, attack, or dodge, but all those actions wouldn’t outpace a bullet at this range. Phillis thought she was out of options until she heard what sounded like an approaching stampede.

Suddenly the doors burst open and a bunch of burly sweat men from the nearby gym entered in!

“Bartender! Let’s get some drinks!” “We’ve got a hungry guy over here let’s fill em up!” “Someone turn up the music in here!”

All the men in suits were completely caught off guard with this display, but that brief confusion gave Phillis an opening. She hit another button on her phone and the lights began to strobe! This disoriented Ramiz long enough for her to hop behind the counter. Reggie saw this as his opening too and opened the door to activate the sound system nearby. In a matter of moments this dreary bar was blasting music and strobing lights.

“Alright guys what’re you having!” Reggie called out causing a row of hefty men to charge the bar! All of them requesting two drinks, one for them and the other for a special someone.

Cal came in at the rear, panting and sweating amidst a group of burlier men who would refuse to leave his side. They were offering some protein bars and some belly rubs with every step towards the bar, and they weren’t stopping now.

“Fuck. Why does this taste so good? I never have eaten this much, but I love it.” Cal muttered with a mouthful of granola. Despite feeling less nervous Cal could continue to feel himself sweating from the body heat of his new admirers.

Before long, drink after drink was being presented to him. Cal wasn’t much of a beer or wine guy. In fact, he hadn’t had more than 3 shots of anything since his 21st birthday. However, instinct seemed to be taking over and he began pounding away pint after pint. Each gulp sending pleasurable shivers down his spine. Or was that the various hands roaming his body? The heat of the moment seemed to be tinting this scene with rose colored glasses as now Cal felt more at ease and excited.

His attention began to drop towards his bulging belly. The guys had offered him some clothes along the way, but he was quickly taking them off. Unlike his other bodies Cal felt more relaxed than ever when all he had to do was eat and drink to his heart’s content. Not only that, but it was clear he’d kept his attraction to guys this time. Sure swimming as the water template and running through the fire as Ignis was cool, but this body felt the most fun! He was having fun!

Cal waddled over to the bar pushing aside the strange suited men, while rubbing his big gut around his admirers. “I’ll uh take two Uh…. Wait is that you Ph-“ Cal began before he was shushed. Peaking out from behind the counter was Phillis who appeared to be ducking out of sight.

“Cal?! Why’d you transform?!” she screamed at Cal with a whisper.

Even her stern comments couldn’t get Cal down at this point, so he just smiled and replied, “Phillis I’m having so much fun! This body is the best. What was I doing? Oh right! I saw these guys coming to the car and changed so I could help you! Is this helping? Damn I need a drink! Bartender! Another round please!”

As Cal called for this, a majority of the patrons cheered. Phillis let out a sigh. “Phermonic controls are certainly manifesting an… unexpected side effect. Though I won’t argue with efficacy. Cal. I need to find my contact and you need to change back. It’ll be easy to track once you leave a crowded room, but hard once the signal weakens. It’ll at least buy us some time… so uh… get busy.” Phillis says shoving Cal into the crowded mass of shirtless men all vying for his attention.

While Phillis reached Reggie by the sound system, Cal was confused and stumbling around the center of the bar where patrons had begun dancing. He wasn’t sure what was happening with all these hot guys pumping and grinding around him, but he sure liked it. He began to take in just how good it felt. He was being swarmed on all sides, feeling strong hands stroke his broader back, tight abdominal muscles tickling his stomach, and even a few roaming fingers reaching their way to his hardening crotch. Cal found himself embracing all of it, lifting up his huge ham sized arms to the sky as he danced. To his surprise, even more joined the dance floor after that, all with the express purpose of getting closer to Cal’s musky pits. Cal could even feel a few tongues going in deep and licking up Cal’s sweat as he danced around the room.

The room soon smelled like a drunken gym as drinks were being spilled everywhere. This was an amazing party Cal never wanted to end. His dick was thinking the same thing as the grinding got even tighter around him. Being so turned on for so long, Cal couldn’t hold back. After the room had reached peak pleasure a low moan could be felt from the center of the dancing masses and Cal blacked out for a second.

When he awoke Cal was in a mass of men who were equally collapsed. All moaning and muttering in pleasure.

“Shame that big guy is gone now. He was the life of the party.” “Fuck I’ve never felt anything like that.” “I’m definitely coming back here next week”

Now with a clearer head and an embarrassing stain in his pants, Cal stood up and headed to the exit where Phillis was waiting. She held a small silver brief case in her hands and seemed to be one of the only people standing amidst the room of people on the ground.

“That… was unexpected. No time to dawdle on that though. It got us a way out. Let’s go Cal. Post phermonic bliss will only last so long. They’ll snap out of it soon.”

Without a clue as to what she meant Cal followed her out.

“Damn. It was so hot in there I was sweating up a storm! What was that? What was I doing just now… it felt so good? I never knew having such a big bulging hairy stomach could feel so good… my hand… their hands…” Cal said surprised remembering the fluttering feelings that had started only moments ago.

Phillis shook her head with a laugh as she opened the case. “It’s a template that was one of our riskier ideas. An agent form that could persuade with the use of the pheromones produced by the human body. You… managed to take it to a new level with how much body heat you generated with those guys.”

“I guess so. It really…. Made everything feel like… more. I wanted to help you at the bar. We all went to the bar. I wanted to eat, they gave me food. I wanted to dance and-“

“And you knocked everyone out with how good you felt.” Phillis completed. “Unexpected, but effective. I’d love to have measured your pheromone levels at the time. But that’s besides the point. I’ve got what we need right here.”

As they got back to the car, Phillis opened the entirety of the case to show Cal. “This is essentially a portable charging station for the watch. Should it ever get drained or damage, this case was good to provide enough energy to repair any damage sustained by missions. Place your wrist right here.”

Without hesitation, Cal placed his wrist inside and the machine clamped around his wrist. There was a light whirring sound and a moment later the device released his wrist. The watch now shined pristine and new in the moon light.

“Incredible. Ok. Now we could see if Milan stored any info on the watch!” Phillis began to type some info into the watch when they heard a slam. The doors to the bar slam open as some dreary looking men in suits stumble out. The first one out was Mousier Ramiz!

“Crap. They’re awake. We need to getaway fast. Prioritize speed over stealth.” Phillis clamored into the driver’s seat and pressed a few buttons. Soon the vehicle compacted inside shifting into the image of a large motorcycle.

“Woah! You can drive a motorcycle?” Cal said surprised.

“No. But you can.” Phillis takes Cal’s wrist and presses 3 buttons simultaneously as a bright light shines the way forward.

#SpyWatch #weight gain #weight loss #shapeshift #thegreatstoryteller