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animatorweirdo · 2 years

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Dancing memories part 2

(Second part for the dancing memories. Hope you enjoy)

Here’s a link for: part 1

Context: You have been living in Lindon for a while with your two foster sons. Everything was peaceful and it was almost time for a festival party, but then a stranger who calls himself the lord of gifts, arrives and insults your family. You decided to have a little chat about his future.

Warnings: tough talks, intimidation, mentions of possible death, angst talk, teen romance, longing, memories.

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It took you a while, but you managed to find a chance to have a little privacy to chat with Annatar. You claimed you wanted to apologize for your early rudeness with the introduction, and he took the bait.

You chose a private but not secluded place, and you trusted Elrond and Gil-galad to notice if you suddenly disappeared for some reason. It was risky, but after living hundreds of years in this world, you honestly didn’t care if you died or not.

You looked out for people, then closed the door. You turned your attention toward the fair man in the room. “I’m surprised you suddenly wanted to talk and apologize for our first meeting. Maybe you aren’t so uptight, bystander,” Annatar smiled. You started pouring some drinks without much of an expression, then went for it.

“You can cut the acting. I knew who you were from the beginning when someone said there was a stranger who called himself the lord of the gifts,” You explained. Annatar looked at you with a cautious expression. “If we’re gonna talk, we might as well use our real names, right, Sauron?” You asked, sharing a drink. “Or should I refer to you as your real name, Mairon the admirable,” You said.

Annatar’s eyes flared in an instant, and his voice changed. “You seem to know me, “ He began. “But I do not believe we have met before,” He said.

“Funny, isn’t it?” You asked. “I know a lot about you, but not only what you were in the past. I know what you will be in the future,” You explained. His eyes brightened with interest. “Is that so?” He questioned. “Yeah, like your future names and titles,” You said. “The sorcerer, Zigur, Tar-Mairon, the necromancer, the shadow, the nameless, the ring maker, and - “ You chuckled. “The dark lord of Mordor,” You said. Annatar stared at you.

“Honestly, I do not see a point in having a ridiculous amount of names, and I thought my ex-lover had a stupid amount of names,” You said. “Who are you?” Annatar asked.

“I wasn’t lying when I said no one important. My purpose is merely to stand in the background and see what will happen next. I’m technically there but also not there. I record history. Not the most exciting job when I already know what will happen next,” You explained.

“And what is going to happen next?” Annatar asked.

“You either leave and try your luck elsewhere or something unpredictable and yet risky to keep yourself hidden,” You explained.

“I don’t know why you need to dominate the world. I think the war of wrath would have been enough to rearrange my life choices,” You said. “Don’t you know the annoying cycle of good always wins the evil?” You asked. “Do you want to join your master in the void that bad because it will happen in the end?” You questioned.

“What makes you so certain?” Annatar asked. “Because I have seen it,” You answered. He stood quiet after that.

“I could tell you what caused your downfall, but usually when people know their fate, they try so hard to change it, only making it worse and not knowing they have already sealed their fate,” You explained. “I could suggest taking back the plans and retiring for your own’s sake, but you’re not going to do that, aren’t you?” You asked rhetorically while putting the drink away.

“Well, you’re not going to gain any trust here, so you might as well leave and go somewhere else,” You looked away for a moment, then found him standing right in front of you, towering over you. You looked up to him in the eye, showing nothing. You did not show fear because you had already lived beyond the point where you would be scared for your life.

“I do not know who you are. But now that I look at you. I remember,” Mairon stated, his breath almost touching your face. You almost grimaced with disgust. “You’re Maitimo’s little sweetheart, aren’t you?” He chuckled. “I was curious who was this maiden I saw in his mind and now that you stand before me. I’m rather surprised. You were different from how dear Maitimo saw you,” He said, touching strands of your hair.

“Time has a cruel way of changing people,” You said, brushing his hand away. “And a former sweetheart is a bit exaggerated term for it since he’s no longer around,” You added. “Did you know his fate as well?” Mairon asked. “Did you know the oath will destroy him and watch how he died, doing nothing to change his fate?” He added. You remained quiet for a moment.

“How cruel of you, but I supposed you couldn't do anything about it since something kept you back,” Mairon said. “Did the valars prevent you from taking action to control the future? Or would you suffer a grave punishment for going against the rules?” He questioned. You leaned closer to him.

“Fun fact - “ You began. “No one told me I couldn't change anything,” You said. Mairon looked at you for a moment before you suddenly took him into a close hug. His eyes widened, and he did not know where to keep his hands.

“You will fail. Your armies and precious Bara-dur will crumble to dust. The light shall embrace your land of darkness, and your death will come where you least expect it, and you will do nothing about it because there isn’t anything you could do about it,” You whispered to his ear while you held him close. Mairon felt his heart quicken for a moment, and in a flicker, he saw visions of what seemed to be his tower falling and his fea fading from existence.

“But alas -” You said, releasing him from your hold. “How you want to live your life is your choice alone, “ You said with a casual smile. “It was not my business nor right to change anything just because I didn’t like how it would end, so that’s why I never interfered with drastic events,” You explained. “It would have been too risky. I can’t simply change to lives of many to save only one,” You added.

“I don’t have any power to defeat you, so I will continue watching from the sidelines and see how the history will turn out, “You then patted his shoulder. “So, good luck with your world domination,” You walked toward the door. You left the room, leaving the maia with his thoughts.

Two nights had passed, and you quietly stood at the tables with a glass of whatever was available. The hall was bustling with people, chatting and dancing on the dance floor with lovely music played by talented musicians. The atmosphere was joyful.

It almost reminded you of those days when the celebration was purely out of enjoyment and celebration of something good. Not out of political success, war, and success of something that had little reason to be joyful.

Elrond walked up to you and stood beside you.

“I like what you did to the place,” He started, referring to the hall you decorated with the servants and workers. “It feels different but refreshing. Even though you still mixed the flowers. They have balance with colors and their meaning. Maybe life isn’t nonsense to you just yet,” He said. “Nah, it is still nonsense,” You said back. “Be happy I didn’t decide to come up with something dark and sad and make the party a funeral instead,” You explained, making him chuckle a bit.

“Your sense of humor never ceases to amaze me,” He said. You hummed, smiling for a brief moment.

“It seems like our friend Annatar decided to leave the city,” Elrond said. “Really? Well, that’s a pity. He’s missing out on a good party and drinks that are somewhat tolerable in taste,” You said, taking a sip from your drink. “I rather have coffee,” You stated, staring at your drink which looked and tasted bland. Elrond smiled, then looked at you.

“Are you certain whatever you did with Annatar will not affect the future?” He asked. “I hope so,” You said. “I might have made something worse, but usually nothing changes, even when you know the future,” You explained. “Then what made you sure you could interfere this time?” Elrond asked.

“I was not going to, taken he might have eventually left,” You explained. “But -” You sighed, then glanced at Elrond. “I guess I didn’t like how he looked at you,” You said. “And he called you Peredhel with hidden distaste. I guess that triggered my inner aggressive mother bear,” You added.

“Oh, (Name),” Elrond said. “You do not need to risk anything for me,” He stated with a gentle smile.

“Well, you and Gil-galad are the only thing I have left of a family, so if someone decides to be a shithead and look down upon you… I guess I can’t sit put and tolerate it,” You explained, almost struggling with the words. “Damn, I would most likely throw my stupid book into Morgoth’s face if he dared remark you with insults. The hell with the fate,” You said with a tone that made him chuckle.

“Knowing you, I have no doubts that you would,” Elrond said, then gently touched your shoulder with a smile.

“You have already done a lot for me and having you around is more than enough,” He said. You hummed, staring into the nothing. “I wish I could have been that to others and done more,” You stated.

Elrond looked at you with sadness. He stepped closer, bringing his arm around you and gently bringing you in a soft hug. He leaned his head against you while you returned the gesture by leaning back with closed eyes.

“You have done more than you realized... even to him,” Elrond said gently. “I have never blamed you for it, nor had Elros, “ He added, thinking about his brother. “So, please, don’t blame yourself for what fate had decided,” He said, looking at you.

You took a deep breath. “I try,” You said almost in a whisper.

Elrond smiled and brought back his arm. You two stood there for a moment, observing the party.

“Will our peaceful times end soon?” He asked. “Unfortunately, “ You answered. “So, you might want to start being careful and watch out what our friend decides to do next,” You glanced at him, then at your drink. “But in the meantime. Like Gill-galad once said, we should enjoy it while we can,” You said, bringing up your glass to meet his. He smiled and grabbed a random glass to meet with yours.

“Cheers,” You two clicked the glasses, then took a drink.

You then noticed how his eyes latched onto something else over your shoulder.

You took a glance and saw Galadriel’s daughter entering the hall with her mother and father. She was smiling and looking dazzling as ever. Elrond looked away, but his ears went red as he tried to look away to find something else, most likely a reason to avoid confrontation.

You rolled your eyes at his nervousness. He has been crushing on her for almost a millennia. He will never end up with anyone at this rate.

“Celebrian is here,” You said, making an obvious statement. “I… noticed her presence,” Elrond said, still refusing to look at her. “Wanna go ask her to a dance?” You questioned, making him almost jump with a startle. “Won’t that be a bit too soon? She just arrived with her family,” He said, almost squeaking like a blushing school boy. You shook your head and brought his head down with your arm.

“Listen, if I wanna stay alive to see your future kids, you might as well get on to it and stop acting like a shy elven teenage boy you are,” You pinched his cheek. “Uhm -” He trailed off, his face red at the thought of children. “I can see you love her, but if you’re just going to stand in the background and do nothing like me, then I will end my life right here out of shame,” You stepped behind him. “It’s for your good. Go for it. Ask her for a dance!” You pushed him forward.

“But!” Elrond turned to look at you. “You will be fine, go!” You said, then watched as he mustered courage and approached Celebrian.

You watched the confrontation with anticipation. You couldn't hear what the two were saying, but Celebrian smiled and gave her a hand as Elrond led her to the dance floor.

Elrond gave you a happy look, and you gave him thumbs up.

You watched them dance along to the music and enjoy their time together. It brought a smile to your face as you knew their love would grow over time, and one day they will end up with a family. You also felt something familiar watching them together.

“May I have this dance, my lady,” Someone appeared, holding their hand to you.

You glanced at the hand before glancing at the mysterious stranger with a smile.

A handsome red-haired tall ellon stood there with a smile you adored for centuries. His face was free of scars, and his eyes held that lovely carefree, playful, yet kind spirit he possessed all those years ago.

You smiled, shrugging your shoulders. “I don’t know, Mae. I think there are a lot of more suitable partners to dance with a prince like you,” You said. He chuckled. “But what if I want to dance with you?” He asked. You stared at him for a moment before chuckling and giving him your hand, accepting his offer.

“Aren’t you sweet with words, do tell me what makes me so special tonight that you want to dance with someone like me than someone important?” You explained. “A close friend of mine isn't someone important? You wound me if you think someone special like you is not someone important,” Maedhros said with a smile. “Especially someone whose ears seem to itch all the time and is quite loud-mouthed when approached from behind,” He chuckled.

You snorted, rolling your eyes at him.

“You’re never gonna let me live it down when I cursed like a sailor and almost hit you in the face with a thick book?” You asked. “Well, I can’t deny that you have made my life more interesting from that day forth,” He said, kissing the top of your hand.

“Then shall we have an interesting night?” You asked with a smile. “Let’s. I hope you’re willing to stay a little longer. Your company would save me from the boredom this feast brings,” Maedhros said, making you giggle while taking you to the dance floor.

You held your hand toward the dance floor as his hand vanished, and the memory wandered away. You stood there, watching the elves dance with their partners. They looked happy and had fun.

When was the last time you managed to have fun like that with the one you loved?

You took another glass but a beverage this time.

You looked at the night sky. The stars sparkled with Elbereth’s light and brought many memories, like how you and Maedhros slowly danced one last time before fate became cruel and took him away for good.

He might return one day at the end of the world, but would fate be kind enough to let you have enough strength to stay in this world for him? You would love to have one more dance with him.

#maedhros x reader #maedhros #elrond #elrond x platonic reader #silmarillion #silmarillion x reader #silm fic #tolkien #mairon #sauron #annatar #celebrian #middle earth x reader #middle earth #silmarillion fanfiction #modern reader #human reader

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yostresswritinggirl · 2 years

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Ngl, Scara does it on purpose. It’s punishment for making him leave puppet reader’s side even if it’s not for a terribly long time. Traveler’s lucky he doesn’t go further. He gotta get as much loving as possible before he has to leave, ya know? Scara gets grumpier the longer he’s away from them. It does get slightly better if Albedo is there since they can chat about stuff and puppet reader’s condition. Nahida and Zhongli also soothe the tensions pretty well.

A mini series on puppet reader and the adventures they have with the archons? Zhongli and puppet reader basically having a “take your kid to work day” and he shows puppet reader what he does at the funeral parlor *cue Hu Tao*. Nahida and puppet reader just chilling and being cool as they hang out with their other friends. If they are Inazuma, puppet reader having to take care of Ei is pretty funny. She can’t cook and Scara has been feeding puppet reader for centuries so the question is if puppet reader slowly acquires skills to cook or if they gotta hunt for someone instead. Venti might take them to Angel’s Share and it’s just a stark difference between them and the atmosphere in there. Puppet reader just watching Venti let loose.

Going with Kouta for the name, puppet reader likely refers to the dusk bird as “the child” or “child” too. Just gotta hammer in the whole first born thing. Tighnari finds puppet reader’s behavior to be absolutely delightful. Given how their life turned out, puppet reader might have the Marie Kondo way of thinking and treat their items with a lot of care.

I got Childe and Gorou and I will have to leave Yae in the dust for puppet reader’s husband. But it is pretty interesting how Ei electrocuted Tomo and then Yae fried puppet reader and then Scara unintentionally yeeted Tighnari. Like, clearly it’s electro users with a connection to Ei who are menaces. These electro immortals, man. I will build Thoma because he threw a spear at the Shogun to protect the Traveler. That’s bestie behavior.

Ah, maybe it’s Albedo who paints Scara and puppet reader’s wedding portrait since I get the feeling they’re that married couple with it hanging right in the entry way.

Bloom anon

(previous post) Doesn't go further hehe that's what I thought too- he needs kisses that compensates the length of time he's gone, but he phrases it the other way around so he doesn't look desperate, although it's true both ways. Scara would be the type of teammate to force them to move on, move fast since day 1 so the expedition shortens as much as possible

The only way to ease his nerves indeed is to pair him up with familiar faces like Albedo and the others! I also have a sad thought, angst perspective of Scaramouche leaving after listening to the song Ikanaide (Don't Go)

Omayghad I forgot about Venti I don't think Scara would like that ahahaha but hell yeah archon hangout! Zhongli would like to immerse them with all of Liyue culture but I also like to think he would like to introduce them to the other adepti, and maybe even the place where the archons from before would get together to see if he can make them remember the times they attend with Makoto.

Nahida organizing a day of play and games that she's always wanted to play with others, even perhaps a bazaar set up for reader to look around with her. And yes, puppet reader can cook simple dishes like Scaramouche but I'm sure they would bond over simple dango while overlooking the view of Narukami island. Maybe they go out together for one of the Yashiro commission's festivals because they both need time outside lol

They call Kouta "our child" when talking to Scara to encourage him to like the dusk bird too. I dunno why it feels fluffy to imagine Scara with Kouta perched on his hat, his shoulder, his fingertips awwwee Puppet Reader gets a new title from Other Lord to Master Craftsman (omayghad they play Minecraft)

Fuck I forgot about Tomo ahahdhshha well Puppet Reader canonically fried someone so indeed, they are a happy family of cooks <33 And fair, Thoma deserves that much at least. And yes, Albedo would draw it for free for his dear artificial friends, it's propped up on a table in front of their house seal which you see after opening the first silk screen door, and a tiny one that Scara can put inside the omamori his spouse gave him yess

#bloom anon #Scaramouche #wanderer #exile.goblet #exile.reader #about kintsugi

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randomprose · 3 years

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Shang Qinghua is, for lack of a better word, a pushover—a pathetic, cowering, pushover.

He doesn’t talk back, mostly because everyone around him is so much more OP than him and he lives in constant fear that any one of them would be the cause of his demise (accidentally and/or otherwise).

So, Shang Qinghua just lets things slide, like, a lot of things. For self-preservation purposes. So he gets taken advantage of for it, so what? As long as he’s useful, he at least doesn’t have to fear being unceremoniously eliminated.

Shang Qinghua lives his life like this—except during the bi-annual Peak Lords’ Conference.

The bi-annual Peak Lords’ Conference is where they discuss the sect’s general administrative matters and most important of all, the sect’s financial records. It’s the time all the peak lords are scrambling to complete their administrative reports and the busiest season for An Ding Peak—especially Shang Qinghua.

It’s also the only time of the year Shang Qinghua doesn’t think about the importance of not crossing anyone in the name of self-preservation.

A couple of years since the end of the original novel officially transpired, and after also officially being saddled with the Northern Desert’s palace account and affairs, Shang Qinghua has decided he has had enough and will no longer be pushed around into doing the other peaks’ paperwork for them!

Shang Qinghua gets mean and snappy at these meetings. He’s so sleep-deprived he doesn’t even have the energy to be guilty about it. That’s how exhausted he is. If someone comes for his throat during this meeting he wouldn’t even flinch. He’d probably be angrier if they somehow don’t finish the job. Put him out of his misery or don’t waste his fucking time.

If this made the other peak lords lowkey scared of him singling them out during these bi-annual meetings, that’s just a bonus.

A hush falls among the peak lords already present in Cang Qiong’s main conference hall when Shang Qinghua enters. His Head Disciple and inner disciples carrying each peak’s individual reports in tow, placing it down on Shang Qinghua’s table while the peak lord himself goes straight to the podium to load today’s presentation in the crystal mirror projector screens.

It’s times like these that Shang Qinghua is so thankful he thought about writing in projection screens in Proud Immortal Demon Way. Imagine having to write and present a whole sect’s financial report in scrolls! He’d sooner throw himself off of the top of Jue Di Gorge.

He sticks a rectangular slab of crystal to a port and activates it with a short burst of his qi. The crystal mirror lights up with the first page of Shang Qinghua’s presentation and he eyes it for a second before walking to his table.

Yes, it functions like a USB, and no he doesn’t care that ‘it goes completely against xianxia logic!’ because contrary to what Cucumber-bro says, this is actually another thing that Shang Qinghua is grateful he wrote in because it’s a fucking stroke of genius.

An An Ding disciple comes in just before the start of the conference, saying a messenger bird of a merchant lord just sent a missive labeled ‘important’.

“This is not important at all,” Shang Qinghua says before sitting down, grabbing a paper, and writing a reply anyway. He hands it to his disciple, “Here send it back. If they reply unfavorably, tell them—"

Just then Shen Qingqiu enters, flanked by Ming Fan and Luo Binghe, which startled the An Ding disciple to drop the note. Luo Binghe picks up the paper to hand it over to the startled disciple, who bowed in thanks before Shen Qingqiu snatches it and opens the note.

“'To Lord Mao," Shen Qingqiu reads. "'Is that a challenge? If so, this peak lord will engage with Lord Mao. This peak lord knows the law of this land and will gladly see Lord Mao in court. Note, this peak lord knows what happened five days after last year’s harvest moon and supposes that, too, is up for discussion. Signed Peak Lord Shang.’” Shen Qingqiu turns to Shang Qinghua as he folds the note again and hands it back to the disciple, who bows to all of them before taking his leave. “Lord Mao? The merchant that supplies some of Wan Jian Peak’s blacksmithing tools? What did this Lord Mao do five days after last year’s harvest moon?”

“Nothing and it’s none of your business,” Shang Qinghua mutters shortly as he re-arranges his scrolls while the rest of the peak lords start to file in.

It’s a testament to how exhausted Shang Qinghua is that he doesn’t even flinch when Luo Binghe levels him with a dark glare and a snarl of, “Don’t speak to Shizun like that.”

“Binghe, stand down. Shang-shidi is just under a lot of pressure. This is a busy time for An Ding Peak after all.”

“No, Luo Binghe is right,” Shang Qinghua sighs. “That was out of line, shixiong, even if what you said was true.” He bows slightly to Shen Qingqiu in apology before smiling tiredly. “Lord Mao did nothing I think. I just—”

“What is this I hear about Shang-shidi being at odds with a merchant?” Qi Qingqi pipes up clearly having heard their conversation. “Really, Shang-shixiong. What are you doing? It better not be something shady again.”

“Rest assured, Qi-shimei, this shixiong knows what he’s doing.”

“This one sure hopes you do,” Qi Qingqi says not without suspicion at the same time Shen Qingqiu asks, “Do you really?”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Shang Qinghua says, moving his hand in a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry about it.”

Later, while Shang Qinghua is in the middle of speedrunning through the peak’s expense reports, because his martial siblings have very short attention spans for such things and anything else that isn’t gossip or doesn’t directly involve them, the same An Ding disciple comes in. He slinks quietly to An Ding’s Head Disciple, who is taking notes dutifully, to inform her of the missive.

The Head Disciple gives him the go signal to report and raises her hand to get Shang Qinghua’s attention.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Shifu, but Lord Mao has responded.”

“Oh? And what did he say?”

An Ding’s Head Disciple nudges her martial sibling, who looks unsure and a little unnerved at all the eyes trained on him, to deliver the message.

“Lord Mao said—” he clears his throat. “Lord Mao said there is no need to make a big deal out of nothing and agreed to meet on the twelfth day of next month.”

Shang Qinghua looks to his Head Disciple, rapidly flipping through a small pocket notebook before looking up and shaking her head no to Shang Qinghua.

“This peak lord is not available on that date. Tell Lord Mao to move it on—Xiao Lian?”

“Shifu’s next available date is on the twenty-fifth of the month after next.”

“There. Tell Lord Mao to move the meeting to the twenty-fifth day of the month after next.”

“Hey, now,” Shen Qingqiu says because his husband has gone, Ming Fan is taking notes for him, so now he’s bored and this is the most interesting thing that’s happened since this whole meeting started. “Isn’t Shang-shidi pushing it?”

“It’s fine. This master knows what he’s doing,” Shang Qinghua says as he waves away his disciple and goes right back to drilling Liu Qingge about Bai Zhan Peak’s expense report.

Around the concluding hour of the meeting, Shang Qinghua’s messenger disciple returns yet again with a response.

“This disciple apologizes a thousand times for interrupting once again.”

“The meeting is about to end. Wait beside your shijie for a bit, yeah?”

“Yes, Shifu.”

But before the An Ding disciple could do as he’s told, Wei Qingwei speaks up.

“It’s fine. At this point, I think this peak lord speaks for all when he says we all want to know what Lord Mao has said.” Not in the least because they’re all bored out of their wits and this is a very welcome distraction. “He's one of Wan Jian Peak’s suppliers is he not? This peak lord has a vested interest in this exchange.”

“Alright then,” Shang Qinghua says, no longer caring and just wanting this whole meeting to end so he can go back home and catch up on some sleep for a day or three. “Let’s hear it then.”

“Lord Mao agreed to meet Shifu on the twenty-fifth of the month after next and offered to host Shifu on his manor.”

“Fat chance,” Shang Qinghua says. And what? Hand himself over for a potential assassination plot? Shang Qinghua did not last this long and survived everything that’s happened in the original storyline only for some canon fodder merchant lord to get the jump on him. He makes a mental note to look for a new supplier for Wan Jian Peak’s blacksmithing needs if Lord Mao doesn’t agree with the terms he’s laid out—ones that are very much in Cang Qiong’s favor 70-30 now that he’s pissed Shang Qinghua off. “Tell Lord Mao this peak lord will receive him in An Ding Peak at no later than Wu Shi.”

The disciple bows and leaves to send the message and Shang Qinghua turns back to conclude his presentation.

Then later, after the meeting is adjourned, Shen Qingqiu sidles up to him with an amused, “Well, that was something, Peak Lord Shang. The bi-annual Peak Lord’s Conference really brings out your backbone, huh?”

Shang Qinghua just regards his friend with an exhausted flat look at the obvious mocking use of his title before smirking, “I told you I know what I’m doing.”

“So what did Lord Mao do five days after last year’s harvest moon?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Shang Qinghua replies in earnest with a shrug and a confused frown. “I just thought of a random date and hoped for the best that it held some importance to him. Guess Lord Mao does shady things on the regular.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. Time to find Wei-shixiong a new supplier. I just hope he’s not partial to the ones that shady Lord Mao provides.”

ao3

#shang qinghua #shen qingqiu #cang qiong mountain sect #cang qiong peak lords #an ding peak #an ding peak disciples #it's expense report season my dudes #and sqh is so exhausted ™️#if they file the wrong forms again #sqh is gonna start smashing kneecaps #scumbag system #scumbag villain self saving system #svsss #svsss fanfic #writing

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veliseraptor · 3 years

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Hi! Can you give a brief spoilery summary of the Untamed? I just read [the pretties from your posts] died? Oh no. I tried getting information through google but it’s confusing for someone who doesn’t know the characters.

oh lord. there are all kinds of ‘brief summaries of the Untamed’ out there but I’ve always found them vaguely irritating so...I guess that means it’s time for my comeuppance in the form of having to do it myself? I’ll do my best.

I didn’t know how detailed you wanted me to get so I decided to get pretty detailed, since you did ask for spoilery. so this is like. entirely spoilers. spoilers for everything.

also, you can use, if it’s helpful, my brief character overview (‘brief’) which includes some plot information, and could be useful as cross reference also. I’m playing pretty fast and loose with a lot of terminology for the sake of intelligibility, because otherwise this would get even longer and have a lot more links.

also, because you asked me specifically for this, it’s going to have some bias. I tried to keep my interpretive commentary to a relative minimum? but. uh. yeah.

the briefest basic plot overview is (going off The Untamed canon, which you will also see abbreviated as CQL from the pinyin transliteration of the Chinese title (Chen Qing Ling)):

Wei Wuxian, a cultivation (think, loosely, magic) prodigy and creator of his own particular style of cultivation, dies reviled by most of the known world. Sixteen years later he’s raised from the dead by Mo Xuanyu, an outcast and the bastard son of one of the leaders of the main sects of the cultivation world, in order to take revenge on Mo Xuanyu’s enemies (specifically his abusive family and ~an unknown person~).

And here is where we get into the details.

Pretty much immediately upon Wei Wuxian’s resurrection, people start dying at Mo Manor, before Wei Wuxian has even done anything, because of (it turns out) a very angry spirit of a semi-sentient weapon. Wei Wuxian books it out of town after his old best friend/crush Lan Wangji shows up to help the Lan ducklings he’s shepherding (including most notably Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi, the only named characters of that bunch), only to wind up running into him again on the road - and not only him, but his orphaned nephew (shorthand, go with it) Jin Ling (Wei Wuxian was responsible for his parents’ deaths) and Jiang Cheng, his martial brother who (at least according to rumor) killed him sixteen years ago and still bears a hell of a grudge. In order to save Jin Ling, Wei Wuxian summons the “Ghost General” Wen Ning, who was supposed to be destroyed and whose presence confirms his identity to a very pissed off Jiang Cheng. Lan Wangji recognizes Wei Wuxian as well. Wei Wuxian passes out.

followed any of that? no? that’s fine, because now we’re heading into a thirty episode flashback that’ll clarify some things. (but not before you forget a whole bunch of things from the first two episodes.)

I’m going to split this into arcs. I’m also going to put this under a read more, because...yeah, this came out to just a little over 10,500 words. I’m...sorry.

have fun?

Cloud Recesses Summer School Arc

The time card says “sixteen years earlier” but it isn’t sixteen years earlier because that would make no sense, but it’s better to give up on timeline now or you’ll just drive yourself nuts.

This is the part of the show where you meet the main characters, some of whom you saw earlier (notably Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian’s younger sort-of brother), and some of whom you only know from reference (Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian’s older sort-of sister) and some of whom are significantly important (Lan Wangji). You also meet Jin Zixuan, the snotty heir to the Jin Sect, who will be important later. Jiang Yanli is clearly into him and he seems to very much not return the feelings.

At this point, there are five main sects that the characters belong to. They are (with the characters you’ve met from them so far: the Jiang Sect (Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli), the Nie Sect (Nie Huaisang, a flighty and sort of feckless fellow), the Jin Sect (Jin Zixuan, his social skills translator Mianmian), the Lan Sect (Lan Wangji, his brother Lan Xichen) as well as the Wen Sect (more on them in a moment). Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian meet and immediately...something. Wei Wuxian wants to make friends, and Lan Wangji seems to emphatically Not.

You also meet Meng Yao, who is Nie Huaisang’s brother Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, and also the bastard son of Jin Guangshan (the leader of Jin Sect). He is also the son of (using the words of literally everyone) a prostitute, which people remind him of at every possible moment, in case he was in danger of forgetting, or something. He and Lan Xichen have kind of a moment.

Later on, members of the Wen Sect, led by Wen Chao storm in, posturing disrespectfully, and drop off Wen Qing to “learn” (but secretly she has a mission looking for the Yin Iron/Metal). The Wen are ascendant in power and seem to be flexing their muscle looking for trouble.

Wen Qing comes as a set with her brother Wen Ning - the pair of them are from sort of...a secondary branch of the main Wen family, and she’s being coerced into supporting Wen Ruohan despite being not thrilled about it. Wei Wuxian bonds with Wen Qing’s younger brother Wen Ning, who has a weird situation that makes him vulnerable to possession (this is important later).

At one point Wei Wuxian proposes - in response to a question! He’s just being innovative! - to put it simply, necromancy, which is, to say the least, not a hit. Remember that for later!

Eventually, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian end up falling by accident into some ice caves, where they learn from one of Lan Wangji’s ancestors (Lan Yi, she’s cool) about the Yin Iron, of which she has a piece. It is an spiritually corrupted metal that can’t be destroyed so it was broken into pieces and hidden in different places. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji resolve jointly to find the other pieces.

Wei Wuxian, Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng (henceforth “the Yunmeng siblings”) are picked up early by Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng’s dad (Jiang Fengmian) because Wei Wuxian causes problems both on purpose and not. Wei Wuxian, however, puts together that Lan Wangji is going off on his own chasing the Yin Iron, and ditches the rest of his family to go help.

Yin Iron Hunt Arc

Wei Wuxian meets up with Lan Wangji, who is not thrilled to see him (at least, apparently). They run into Nie Huaisang, who joins them. They come to a town where everyone seems to have vanished and there is nothing fishy going on in the cave with the statue that looks like a dancing lady at all. Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng leaves home to go track down Wei Wuxian and bring him back.

The statue comes to life, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji fight together to defeat it, and then a bunch of...undead villagers (sort of, they get better) attack them, only to be lured away by Wen Qing playing a flute (this ability will never be brought up again). Jiang Cheng reveals himself as having been hanging out watching this go down. Ultimately, by killing the Stygian Pigeon that belongs to Wen Chao, the villagers are freed and they move on.

After a brief stopover in a village, they hear some rumors about a haunted house and take off to go check it out. When they get there, everyone is dead and Xue Yang is on the roof just kind of vibing. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan manage to get him pinned down and taken captive. This is important and not just because I said so.

Nie Huaisang, who Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji ditched in town, arrives here with Meng Yao, who proposes bringing Xue Yang to Nie Mingjue for justice purposes (which when I write it like that sounds...um. moving right along), which is where everyone heads next, less Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan who have their own things to do. Wei Wuxian realizes that Xiao Xingchen had the same master as his mother, and gets really excited about it; it’s adorable.

They go to Nie Mingjue, who is talked out of executing Xue Yang because they’re trying to find out where he put the Yin Iron (which they figure he has, because reasons. there are reasons, I just don’t feel like going into it.) Lan Wangji leaves in the night without saying goodbye, and then Wen Chao arrives. He is accompanied by Wen Zhuliu, who is called the Core-Melting Hand for reasons that will be important later. There’s a fight, Xue Yang gets loose, and Nie Mingjue finds Meng Yao in a very compromising position (killing a captain of the guard and among a bunch of other dead bodies). He kicks Meng Yao out of the Nie Sect.

Meanwhile, the Wens attack Cloud Recesses. Lan Xichen’s uncle makes him leave to preserve himself and the most important texts. Everyone retreats to a cave that’s hidden and walled off; Su She (who was introduced briefly earlier) caves to threats to his life and tells the Wens how to get into the Lan’s cave sanctuary. Lan Wangji returns with Lan Yi’s Yin Iron and gives it and himself up to Wen Chao’s older brother Wen Xu to spare everyone else.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian leave for home (Lotus Pier). We witness family dynamics, which are terrible. The Wens want everyone to send their kids, specifically their heirs, to be reeducated in Wen territory, but they’re not hostages, we swear. No, really.

Reeducation Camp Arc

To reeducation camp with the Wens we go! Where Lan Wangji is not looking so hot, and Wei Wuxian rapidly causes problems on purpose to try to get to talk to him, but mostly just ends up getting himself tossed in a dungeon where he gets attacked by a very bad puppet of a dog. Wen Qing has told Wen Ning not to associate with Wei Wuxian because they’re on thin ice with their boss (Wen Ruohan), but Wen Ning sneaks him some medicine against Wen Qing’s orders anyway.

They go on a hunt, with the non-Wens featuring as bait. Here is where you meet Wen Chao’s main squeeze Wang Lingjiao, who was formerly a servant. Everyone ends up in a cave that contains a creature whose name is unfortunately translated as “Tortoise of Slaughter.” we’ll go with “Xuanwu of Slaughter” instead, it feels better. Wen Chao and his accompanying entourage make a run for it and ditch everyone else in the cave; they manage to sneak out but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji end up trapped with no way out. They team up and kill the Xuanwu, partially because Wei Wuxian acquires a very cursed sword. Afterward, he is feverish and asks Lan Wangji to sing - enter Wuji! their theme. You see Lan Wangji mouth that it is called “Wangxian” before Wei Wuxian passes out. (Yes, he did name his composition after their ship name. Aww.)

I’ve skated through that very fast but it is important because it’s like...the point where they seriously bond in a major way and it’s all very...like, there was only one bed only they’re trapped in a cave and injured and forced to rely on each other. So not actually really like that.

Wei Wuxian comes around outside of the cave with Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan, who brought help to rescue him and Lan Wangji; Lan Wangji, however, is gone.

Oh Shit Things Went Downhill Fast Arc

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian go back to Lotus Pier, where Wei Wuxian is in big trouble with Jiang Cheng’s mother (Yu Ziyuan, seen later emotionally terrorizing all her children), who already doesn’t like him and accuses him of bringing trouble down on them by defying the Wens. Jiang Cheng’s dad is terrible, Wei Wuxian reaffirms that he and Jiang Cheng will be Together Forever, you, the viewer, know that is absolutely not how that’s going to go.

Word comes that the Wen have attacked one of the smaller sects, and Jiang Cheng’s dad (Jiang Fengmian) goes with Jiang Yanli to talk to Jin Guangshan about how to deal with the Wens.

Then Wang Lingjiao arrives with word that they’re gonna be in big trouble if they don’t punish Wei Wuxian right now. Yu Ziyuan uses her lightning whip to beat the shit out of Wei Wuxian, but Wang Lingjiao wants her to cut off his hand. Then she makes the mistake of saying that they’ll be making Lotus Pier a supervisory office of the Wens, thank you.

Yu Ziyuan reacts...poorly, Wang Lingjiao calls on her backup Wen Zhuliu (and everyone else); seeing the writing on the wall Yu Ziyuan grabs Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, puts them on a boat, and sends them away, bequeathing her sick-ass lightning whip (Zidian) to Jiang Cheng. They run into Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli; Jiang Fengmian adds Jiang Yanli to the boat full of crying children and goes to sail back to Lotus Pier.

Lotus Pier falls, everybody dies, Jiang Cheng goes semi-catatonic and then disappears, having been captured by the Wens after going back for his parents’ bodies. (Which is more important than it probably sounds, from a Western perspective.) Wei Wuxian follows him and finds Wen Ning, who smuggles Jiang Cheng out and takes him, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli to Wen Qing for safekeeping.

Jiang Cheng wakes up; his golden core (the...thing that lets him do superpowered things, let’s go with that) was destroyed by Wen Zhuliu. Melted, if you will. And it’s not the kind of thing you can just, you know, fix. He descends into absolute despair as Wei Wuxian looks frantically for a way to fix it - and finds one! Though Wen Qing is not happy about it, she still agrees.

at this point we see the return of an old friend! Song Lan, who has a bloody bandage over his eyes, but has eyes that work, despite the fact that he was blinded by Xue Yang who also killed his entire temple. He explains that Xiao Xingchen said that he was taking Song Lan to his master Baoshan Sanren, the immortal who can cure anything, and doesn’t remember anything else.

Wei Wuxian takes Jiang Cheng to Baoshan Sanren to get his core back. Psych! It’s a lie that he totally made up to explain the fact that he’s actually getting his own core transplanted into Jiang Cheng in a highly experimental procedure. Importantly, Wei Wuxian does not tell Jiang Cheng this.

Post-surgery, rather battered Wei Wuxian gets caught by Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao, who torture him and then throw him into a place called the Burial Mounds, which is more or less what it sounds like, is Very Cursed, and from which no one has emerged alive. Then this happens:

(I want you to appreciate how hard I’ve tried to not put any screencaps in here. but I had to do this one. I just had to.)

and you go oh shit and also well that’s sexy.

Jiang Cheng, delighted to have his core back, descends the mountain only to find that Wei Wuxian is...not there.

Cool! That seems fine.

Sunshot Campaign Arc

Timeskip to three months later! The rest of the sects have allied together to take down the Wen Sect (this is what ‘Sunshot Campaign’ refers to, because the symbol of the Wens is a sun). Things aren’t looking good for the Wens, including Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao. Wang Lingjiao hallucinates to the sound of a flute and ends up killing herself. Meanwhile, Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng have teamed up to look for Wei Wuxian. On their way, they start finding piles of Wen bodies killed in a mysterious and grotesque manner involving an unfamiliar method of cultivation.

(Side note: around now is where Jiang Cheng frees Wen Qing from where she was imprisoned by the Wens for being a dirty traitor during the war and gives her the comb of pining he bought way back in the Cloud Recesses arc, telling her that he will help her if she asks. This isn’t...exactly important, except I wanted to note it.)

Eventually, they find a house where Wen Chao has holed up with Wen Zhuliu, and watch as it’s revealed that he has gone through some nasty shit, is terrified and traumatized and badly injured. Ominous signs: begin to happen! Flames going out: happen! Shots of someone climbing slowly and menacingly up stairs: happen!

Yeah, it’s Wei Wuxian. New and improved, darker and meaner and very sexy about it, and with a new sick-ass flute. He starts attacking Wen Chao, and when Wen Zhuliu moves to attack Wei Wuxian Jiang Cheng jumps down and hangs Wen Zhuliu with Zidian. Lan Wangji confronts Wei Wuxian about this darker and meaner version and Wei Wuxian breaks up with him; Lan Wangji leaves Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian to kill Wen Chao because the family that murders together stays together!

(They won’t, but.)

The war goes on, but the tides have turned, and the Wens are losing. Both of Wen Ruohan’s sons are dead. Soup drama happens here, which I don’t need to explain fully but it is clear that Wei Wuxian is extremely emotionally unstable, and also will no longer carry his sword despite everyone telling him he needs to carry his sword. All is not well with the Wei Wuxian! But nobody knows why. Lan Wangji’s repeated “LET ME FIX YOU” overtures are not well received. Lan Wangji also has a nice conversation about how the Lan rules did not prepare him for moral complexity.

Eventually Nie Mingjue proposes going to attack Wen Ruohan on his own while the others move on the Wen stronghold at Nightless City (at this point, they have received a map of Wen defenses from a ~mysterious spy~). Nie Mingjue is captured, and it is revealed that Meng Yao decided that after getting kicked out of Qinghe he could find a better boss somewhere else. Outside, an undead army shows up to kick everyone else’s ass. Things don’t look good for our heroes!

Wei Wuxian brings out his secret weapon the Yin Tiger Seal and...takes over the undead army. This is very troubling to everyone involved, but it does bring Wen Ruohan out to see what the deal is. Wei Wuxian delivers one of the sickest lines in the entire show:

(i’m restraining myself! trust me! i am!)

so yeah, that’s a normal and reassuring thing to say.

And then Meng Yao stabs Wen Ruohan in the back. And that’s it for Wen Ruohan! Our major antagonist is dead! Surely everything will be fine now.

Well We Won the War, Now What Arc

[cracks knuckles] and here’s where the politics starts.

Ready and totally psyched to step into the power vacuum left by the fall of the Wens is Jin Guangshan! Leader of the Jin Sect, least impacted by the war by vitue of joining up late. He recognizes Meng Yao as his son now that he’s, like, someone that is valuable to him politically, and Meng Yao gets a commensurate name change > Jin Guangyao. Pretty much immediately Jin Guangshan starts manuevering to consolidate power - pushing to marry Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, pushing to get access to Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tiger Seal, subtly undermining everyone else...the works.

Jin Guangshan is the worst, is what I’m saying here.

Meanwhile, Nie Mingjue is very unhappy about the whole “Meng Yao helping the Wens and fucking with him when he’s captured” thing, but then Lan Xichen (remember, Lan Wangji’s older brother) steps in and reveals that Jin Guangyao was a spy delivering information, actually, and also saved his life when he was on the run from the Wens, so don’t hurt him please. Nie Mingjue is still very suspicious, but he backs off. Subsequently, after agreeing to place the Wen (civilian) captives in a holding camp, Jin Guangyao has them killed (impliedly at the order of his father).

We are given cues that Jin Guangyao is bad news. Like, heavy cues. If you are me this makes you love him.

This is also where Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, and Jin Guangyao become sworn brothers, which is a big deal.

Meanwhile, back in Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian is...not doing so hot! He’s drinking heavily, shirking his responsibilities in a way that is making Jiang Cheng particularly very upset with him, generally being weird and traumatized but nobody knows how to deal with that, or him. Then Jin Zixuan arrives to invite everyone to a special hunt being hosted by his father including Jiang Yanli because he, he means his mom, really wants her to be there.

The hunt goes great! By that I mean Jin Zixuan is a spectacular failure at expressing his feelings to Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian almost starts a fight with Jin Zixuan, Jin Zixuan’s enormous asshole cousin gets nasty until Jiang Yanli makes him apologize, in a seriously badass moment. The whole thing comes off with Wei Wuxian really not looking good, including his decision to ditch the celebratory banquet. But also Jiang Yanli getting a liiiiittle closer to something she wants (i.e. Jin Zixuan). Jiang Cheng is like “dude what the fuck” at Wei Wuxian and gets zero percent explanation. Meanwhile everyone in the vicinity pokes at his massive insecurities, because the cultivation world’s favorite activity is actually gossip.

Things only get worse at the very bad after party. This is where we meet Su She again, who has gone and founded his own sect! Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji are sort of bitchy about it. But the real issue comes when Zixun peer pressures Lan Xichen into drinking despite the fact that it’s pretty solidly against the rules of the Lan Sect. Lan Xichen does it with a very “fuck you” smile, despite Jin Guangyao’s attempts to forestall the situation.

(I feel like I have not expressed the relationship between Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen? It’s a whole thing. Let’s just say that it’s a fairly popular ship for a reason.)

Lan Wangji, however, is not as diplomatic as his brother.

And then Wei Wuxian arrives! To ruin another party. Because he found Wen Qing wandering around in the streets and turns out that Wen Ning was taken prisoner by Jin Zixun and friends and removed to whereabouts unknown. Wei Wuxian proceeds to give the sexiest countdown ever to annihilating Jin Zixun if he doesn’t tell him where Wen Ning is.

Wen Ning, unfortunately, is in a pile of bodies. Because the Jin have been...well, experimenting on Wen prisoners, basically. Wen Ning is...not dead in this universe because censorship, but everything makes more sense if you just say “he’s basically dead and Wei Wuxian resurrects him to fuck up everyone in the vicinity who was responsible for his death, which is...everyone other than the other Wens. Eventually Wei Wuxian stops him by yelling his second (courtesy) name that no one else has used for him in speech up to this point (Wen Qionglin), because love is stored in the name. Wei Wuxian gathers up the survivors and takes off only to run into Lan Wangji standing in his way.

They have a point of no return moment. Wei Wuxian basically says “let me go or you have to kill me” only it’s better than that because what he actually says is like “if I’m going to be killed I should be killed by you, then I would know it was right” and it’s a whole fucking thing and anyway Lan Wangji steps aside and lets them all go and it is quite literally “I’m not crying, it’s just raining on my face” except he is also crying.

So...fuck.

Burial Mounds Arc

Wei Wuxian takes the Wens to the one place nobody’s probably going to follow them: namely, the Burial Mounds. Home sweet home!

Outside in the main world, rumors are flying about the army Wei Wuxian is building and the sect he’s planning to found and how ambitious he is and how he’s disrespecting Jiang Cheng and actually Jiang Cheng he probably never loved you anyway and is better and stronger and what are you good for, but I’m saying this out of concern and to be helpful (paraphrased from Jin Guangshan).

Accordingly, Jiang Cheng agrees to go and check things out and see what’s going on in Chez Burial Mounds. What is going on is basically a bunch of civilians eking out a very depressing living. There is also a child, a-Yuan, who is adorable. This will also be important later.

(are you keeping track of all this?)

Jiang Cheng also goes to see Wen Ning, who is...recovering from being dead/undead and Wei Wuxian is working on fixing him. Jiang Cheng says he has to die, and Wei Wuxian has to come home, and things are really bad, man, so stop worrying about these losers and avoid the entire cultivation world being really pissed with you, maybe?

Wei Wuxian isn’t going for it, and tells Jiang Cheng to cut him out of Jiang Sect in order to protect Jiang Sect’s reputation. It’s upsetting. They stage a very dramatic duel and Jiang Cheng announces that friendship ended with Wei Wuxian, he has no new friend actually.

This is also where Wen Qing significantly returns the comb of pining that Jiang Cheng gave her way back (remember that?) and is like. so you wouldn’t’ve helped me and Wen Ning actually, would you. And that is the end of Chengqing as a sidebar ship that never really sailed. Well done, you two.

Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan gets his shit together and proposes to Jiang Yanli by way of making her a lotus pond at Jinlintai. So that’s nice!

A bit later Lan Wangji comes to visit! Only it’s totally coincidental, he was just passing through, that’s all. He and Wei Wuxian hang out for a little while, pretending things are sort of normal, but they have to rush back to the Burial Mounds because the Wen Ning is out. They manage to get him under control and awaken him to proper consciousness again, though! Great! Things are looking up. :)

Lan Wangji does not stay for dinner, though. :(

In my notes I have written “meanwhile...political shitshow” and that is basically a summation of what’s up in places that aren’t the Burial Mounds. Specifically, Jin Guangshan, who seems to have deputized Jin Guangyao to do his dirty work generally, is making noises about how something needs to be done about that Wei Wuxian, and what about that Yin Tiger Seal anyway, doesn’t it seem Yin Iron-like, shouldn’t something like that not be in the hands of a random person? Probably it should be in someone else’s hands instead. Someone responsible with no ulterior motives. You know.

Also in here...somewhere, Mianmian tries to stand up for Wei Wuxian being maybe right about some things, gets shouted down, and decides to leave the Jin Sect entirely. Like...just walks out. Several people look at her like ‘you can do that?’, Lan Wangji is jealous, it is a total boss move. Mianmian hasn’t been a major character but this is important enough and cool enough that I had to mention it.

Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng come to Yiling (by the Burial Mounds) for a very secret rendezvous where Wei Wuxian gets to see Jiang Yanli’s beautiful wedding dress and eat some of her famous soup and it is very sweet and nice and Jiang Cheng is like “so do you have a plan for if everyone attacks you” and Wei Wuxian is like “absolutely. I will kill everyone is my plan.”

also possibly Jiang Yanli is already pregnant at this point??? she and Jiang Cheng are certainly exchanging a lot of conspiratorial smiles when she tells Wei Wuxian to give her future son a courtesy name.

She is for sure pregnant later, because there is a baby named Jin Ling who shows up! (Remember that name? No? He was the bratty teenager from episode 2.) Jin Guangshan does not allow Jin Guangyao to hold the baby, for which he deserves what he gets. For Jin Ling’s 100 day/three month (again! timelines, fuck em) celebration, Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan, and Lan Wangji tag team to get Wei Wuxian invited, where he will come and it will be nice and everyone will discuss this Yin Tiger Seal issue like civilized people.

An invitation is sent for Wei Wuxian to come to the celebration! Wonderful! This is in no way going to go horribly wrong.

Oh Shit, Things Went Downhill Fast (Take Two) Arc

It goes horribly wrong.

On the way to Jinlintai to greet his new baby nephew, accompanied by Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian is confronted by - surprise! - Jin Zixun, accusing Wei Wuxian of putting a curse on him. Wei Wuxian denies it, naturally, since he didn’t. Jin Zixun decides the best way to deal with this situation is to kill Wei Wuxian, which will definitely break the curse that Wei Wuxian definitely cast on him.

He attacks, and Wen Ning goes Ghost General on everyone’s ass, and Wei Wuxian brings out his flute. Things are looking pretty hairy when Jin Zixuan shows up to call off the fight, trying to get Wei Wuxian to back down; he does not back down, because that would just mean getting shot full of arrows.

Wen Ning, who seems to have completely lost his mind, fists Jin Zixuan. Through the chest. This does, in fact, kill him.

His dying words are to say that Jiang Yanli is still waiting for Wei Wuxian to show up, just to make everything worse. Wen Ning kills Jin Zixun as well. This is not actually what Wei Wuxian wanted to happen.

Back at the Burial Mounds! In the wake of Jin Zixuan’s death, an ultimatum has been issued to give up the Wen siblings or else. This is pretty clearly (in my opinion) a pretext that doesn’t mean anything, but Wen Qing and Wen Ning have already decided to sacrifice themselves. Maybe they’re hoping it’ll work? Or at least that it’ll give Wei Wuxian some time? Wen Qing knocks Wei Wuxian out so he can’t stop them. The whole thing is really fucking heartbreaking.

Wei Wuxian comes around and goes to Jinlintai, where he sees Jiang Yanli, who is mourning her dead husband who got killed by her baby brother! Cool! She sees Wei Wuxian but he runs before she can say anything, partly because guards have been sicced on him. He is pretty clearly having a mental breakdown, hallucinations and all!

Cut to a gathering of...pretty much everyone important and all their followers at Nightless City, for a combination commemorating the dead/affirming the deaths of Wen Ning and Wen Qing/gearing up to kill Wei Wuxian.

Who spares them the effort of coming to find him by showing up on the roof! He proceeds to sic dark magic on everyone there except, conspicuously, for the Jiang Sect. Lan Wangji arrives to defuse the situation and fails to defuse the situation until Wei Wuxian hears Jiang Yanli calling for him.

Because she’s arrived on an active battlefield! Not her best idea but it’s not like I can actually blame her considering the week she’s having.

Wei Wuxian goes to look for her, as does Jiang Cheng who also heard her, and...suddenly loses control of his dark magic. Cool! One of the...undead? people there wounds Jiang Yanli. Even better! Jiang Cheng pleads with Wei Wuxian to get things under control, which he can’t! They have a moment while a lot of people around them are dying but you know what, they deserve it.

because like literally a second later Jiang Yanli pushes Wei Wuxian out of the way of a sword meant to stab him in the back and instead takes it herself. And dies.

So. Yeah.

Wei Wuxian loses the last threads of his sanity and destroys the Yin Tiger Seal. While everybody is fighting over it, he goes over to the edge of a cliff, and now we’re back here where we started! With Lan Wangji clinging to Wei Wuxian’s hand as he dangles over the edge of a cliff and tells him to let go.

Jiang Cheng arrives to defuse the situation, by which I mean “he tells Wei Wuxian to go die and stabs down.” He only hits rock; Wei Wuxian breaks himself loose of Lan Wangji’s grip and falls. You are left on the image of Lan Wangji’s absolutely devastated face.

nice! great. well, that brings us up to speed for the flashforward to the future, where you have probably completely forgotten what happened in the first two episodes.

For instance: remember how we saw Wen Ning despite the fact that he’s supposed to be ashes? Yeah.

And We’re Back in the Present Now Arc (Good Times in Qinghe Arc)

For some reason this is the part of the show where I remember the least and it all kind of blurs together with the exception of one scene? so I had to go look at Wikipedia episode summaries to make sure I was putting things in the right order.

Back in the present at the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji discover that the very angry sword spirit last seen killing people at Mo Manor (remember that?) is pointing them in the direction of Qinghe (the Nie Sect territory). They leave to go there and run into Jin Ling, who semi-accidentally terrorizes Wei Wuxian by way of dog.

By asking around, they also learn that there are rumors of a man-eating fortress in the woods, and that it hasn’t been dealt with because the leader of the Nie Sect is absolutely useless. The leader of the Nie Sect who is now - hey, been a while! - Nie Huaisang, since his older brother disappeared under mysterious circumstances after losing his mind years ago.

The dynamic duo go off to investigate the man-eating fortress, naturally, and what they find is a tomb full of swords and a wall full of skeletons, and also Jin Ling.

They remove Jin Ling from the wall, Lan Wangji goes chasing a mysterious attacker, and Wei Wuxian takes Jin Ling to safety only to end up running into - oh boy! - Jiang Cheng.

They have a calm talk about their feelings and address their dysfunction in a reasonable manner.

Nope! Jiang Cheng corners Wei Wuxian with Jin Ling’s dog, throws a cup of tea at a wall, and yells at Wei Wuxian about how he both didn’t come home right away and also how he should die ten million times (no, like, actually). Fortunately, Jin Ling arrives, lies out his ass about how he saw Wen Ning to get Jiang Cheng to leave, and lets Wei Wuxian go.

Back to that mysterious figure Lan Wangji went running after! Turns out it was none other than Nie Huaisang, who confesses - reluctantly - that the man-eating fortress belongs to his family and is a safe home for bloodthirsty swords after their owners die, which is a normal thing to get as a family heirloom. This is also where it becomes increasingly clear that (a) the sword spirit is Baxia, Nie Mingjue’s sword, and (b) Nie Mingjue is most likely hella dead, specifically murdered.

With this new information, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian move on, tracking the directions of the angry sword spirit. They overhear some very depressing story about Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang, specifically how things turned out horribly for them (though without details), which drives Lan Wangji to drink.

Lan Wangji cannot hold his liquor, at all. Wei Wuxian takes his unconsciousness as an opportunity to flute Wen Ning to him again, and removes a massive metal needle from his skull, which fixes the whole “unconscious zombie” issue. Unfortunately, Wen Ning remembers nothing about what happened to him between going to Jinlintai with Wen Qing and when he heard Wei Wuxian calling by way of flute.

And now we have Drunkji, who is the most adorable, hilarious thing ever. He gives Wei Wuxian chickens, with utmost sincerity. They are wedding chickens. It is very important that Wei Wuxian have these chickens.

This interlude is not important to the plot but it is hilarious. There is also a not hilarious interlude of Lan Wangji being very sad about how he didn’t help Wei Wuxian before, and also admitting that he likes rabbits. Again: not plot important. It is adorable.

Wei Wuxian herds Drunkji back to the inn, where a mysterious masked man attempts to steal the pouch holding the angry sword spirit, but is driven off and teleports away. Remember this guy! He’s important.

The next morning, they set off and hit the road for a place called Yi City, which if you’ve spent any time on this blog you know is deeply important in my heart if not, like, in terms of show space.

Yi City Arc Yi City Arc Yi City Arc

yes this is three episodes but this is my summary post so I get to give it its own section if I want to.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji arrive at Yi City, which is empty, and very spooky. They run into the pack of juniors (Jin Ling, Lan Sizhui, sassmaster Lan Jingyi and consummate romantic Ouyang Zizhen are the named ones), and shortly thereafter into a whole bunch of undead. They also run into a ghost (???) girl who is blind and has no tongue. They also also run into Xiao Xingchen, severely wounded.

Psych! It’s Xue Yang in disguise and he has an undead Song Lan under his control. what a fun twist this is! and he wants one thing specifically: for Wei Wuxian to help him bring someone back to life. Problem is that their soul is in need of some serious super glue and super glue doesn’t work on souls.

Xue Yang informs Wei Wuxian that his consent is optional and he will be participating in Xue Yang’s necromancy experiment fantasies whether he likes it or not. Lan Wangji objects strenuously to this idea. While Lan Wangji is fighting Xue Yang and Wen Ning is fighting Song Lan (corpse fight! corpse fight!) Wei Wuxian herds the juniors into a safe courtyard where the corpses won’t go, led by the aforementioned ghost girl, who shows them a coffin.

the coffin has Xiao Xingchen in it. The actual real one. There’s a bandage over his eyes, because he doesn’t have any.

Wei Wuxian goes into the ghost girl’s memories in order to find out what happened using a technique called Empathy, and the next chunk of things I’m just going to tell in full chronologically even though there’s a break where you don’t see all of it until an episode later.

The ghost girl, a-Qing, is a con artist who pretends to be blind; she runs into Xiao Xingchen (who is actually blind) when she steals his money, and he just gives it to her after stopping someone else whose money she stole from beating him up. A-Qing decides they’re friends now. They’ve been traveling together for...some amount of time when they stumble on a badly injured man on the side of the road. Xiao Xingchen picks him up and takes him home with him (to an abandoned coffin house in Yi City). You get one guess who he’s rescued and who is totally psyched to discover that his life has been saved by Xiao Xingchen, who doesn’t know who he is, because he’s blind.

So you know, everything is coming up Xue Yang.

What follows is three years of domestic bliss, including hits like “entire villages dying by Xiao Xingchen under sort of suspicious circumstances” and “threatening grocers.” And then who should show up but Song Lan! Looking for Xiao Xingchen and he’s so happy to have finally found him.

Only he notices Xue Yang first.

A fight ensues, in which Xue Yang...sort of talks Song Lan to death by digging into the fact that Xiao Xingchen is blind because he gave his eyes to Song Lan, actually, and Song Lan hurt him so bad when they broke up, and because Xiao Xingchen is blind Xue Yang has been able to trick him into killing living people when he thinks he’s killing undead ones, and oooh do you feel bad now, well, guess what, you’re gonna feel worse when I poison you into becoming undead and cut out your tongue. :D

And even worse when this means that Xiao Xingchen stabs him because, you know, undead monster.

Cool! Things are going great.

Or they would be only a-Qing saw everything, reveals it to Xiao Xingchen, who puts it together and greets XueYang coming back from grocery shopping with a sword (rude). They break up, and by “break up” I mean “Xue Yang reveals his tragic backstory, Xiao Xingchen is not convinced that his tragic backstory means all the murder was justified, Xue Yang decides it’s time to make this all go nuclear.” So tells Xiao Xingchen about how he’s been killing people actually! And guess what, bonus, one of those people was your BFF/life partner/whatever, Song Lan. isn’t that amazing, Xiao Xingchen, isn’t that so cool--

Xiao Xingchen kills himself and this is, it turns out, Not What Xue Yang Wanted. So guess who’s in the pouch Xue Yang was hoping to resurrect? Yeah.

Back in the present, with help from a-Qing directing Lan Wangji, Xue Yang gets...hella stabbed, but not before he kills a-Qing. Song Lan, freed from Xue Yang’s control, kills Xue Yang.

Oh yeah, and then we see Xiao Xingchen tenderly laying pieces of candy on a bed, which is symbolically important, and also Xue Yang dies looking at the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, and now I’m going to cry. anyway Yi City Arc, you’re welcome. Where the only person who survives did not, in fact, survive!

Oh, yeah, I guess it’s also important that there’s a headless body buried here and it gets...pretty conclusively identified as Nie Mingjue because the sword spirit (remember that?) takes the shape of his very distinctive large sword (Baxia). Also Xue Yang recreated the Yin Tiger Seal but it gets snatched away by the masked man from earlier. There’s also a bunch of stuff about the Yin Iron plot but you can ignore it, it doesn’t actually really matter that much.

Honestly at that point I was crying too much to pay a whole lot of attention to the whole point of them being in Yi City to begin with. So sue me.

The Plot Thickens, and Secrets Are Revealed Arc

Exeunt Yi City, rendezvous with Lan Xichen to discuss, obliquely, who could be responsible for Nie Mingjue’s death. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji delicately imply that maybe it was Jin Guangyao; Lan Xichen is unconvinced and informs us that there are no curse marks indicating that he’d teleported on Jin Guangyao’s body, he would know, and also they’ve been together every night so he wouldn’t have time to get up to shenanigans anyway.

Hm.

Still, they go ahead together to ruin another party/investigate at Jinlintai, with Wei Wuxian safely in disguise (barely), unfortunately as Mo Xuanyu, who is not exactly welcome in the Jin Sect because he got kicked out of it earlier. Mo Xuanyu is a whole...thing that I’m not really going into here because the show doesn’t really get into it either.

Wei Wuxian ducks out to investigate, and in the form of an animated paper man, to the tune of music we have never heard before in this show and will never hear again (look, it’s just weird to me), goes sneaking into Jin Guangyao’s rooms to do some poking around. His investigations are interrupted when Jin Guangyao’s wife Qin Su, in a state of severe distress, returns, followed shortly by Jin Guangyao. They argue about an unknown revelation in a letter Qin Su received that has resulted in her being disgusted by...something, we don’t know what, and angry with Jin Guangyao. She accuses him of killing their kid.

Eventually he paralyzes her and removes her to a secret room through a mirror, which is a thing everyone has, especially one with a bunch of torture instruments and a body sized table with dried blood on it. Normal!

Remember how the body in Yi City was headless? Yeah, we found the head now.

And it’s time for another Empathy flashback!

Empathy Flashback feat. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao’s Bad Relationship Mini Arc

This time with Nie Mingjue (and Jin Guangyao). We see Jin Guangyao very quickly elevated from a servant who is spat upon by the other Nie cultivators to Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, like, literally in two seconds. Flash forward to episode 10 - remember that? - where Jin Guangyao has just been caught in a compromising murder position. Nie Mingjue accuses Jin Guangyao plotting all along and is a conniving little snake who was in league with Xue Yang (which is a thing that does not make sense, actually), and kicks him out.

We next see Nie Mingjue in Nightless City, having been captured and currently being taunted by a very sexy Meng Yao, who kills some other Nie cultivators and threatens to fuck up Nie Mingjue by shattering his sword (which would be catastrophic and is, we are informed, how Nie Mingjue’s dad died). Nie Mingjue is understandably rather displeased by this to the point of probable murder, though Lan Xichen reminds him (as he did in the previous scene) that Meng Yao was acting as a spy and Meng Yao argues that he needed to play his part.

The relationship between the two of them continues to deteriorate as Nie Mingjue becomes more unstable (something that just happens to the Nies by virtue of their cultivation style). That deterioration is being delayed by healing music from Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen teaches Jin Guangyao the healing music. Jin Guangyao seems to be possibly doing something not healing with the healing music.

This all escalates into a confrontation at the top of the stairs of Jinlintai, where Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao argue about class politics and justifiable violence (no, really) until Nie Mingjue explodes and kicks Jin Guangyao down the stairs.

And then proceeds to, as Jin Guangyao looks on, have a qi deviation, which is...well, let’s just call it both a physical and a mental breakdown. Nie Huaisang arrives to see this happening, and while we saw this before and it looked like Nie Mingjue was threatening Nie Huaisang because he didn’t recognize him, this time it is more apparent that he’s directing it at Jin Guangyao.

Next we see, Nie Mingjue is chained to that body sized table in the secret room. Xue Yang is there, and uses Nie Mingjue’s sword to behead Nie Mingjue. He’s psyched as hell about it. If you’re me this is adorable.

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming Arc

Flashback ends! And we are back in Jinlintai. Wei Wuxian goes to get Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen to storm Jin Guangyao’s bedroom, to which Su She objects, but Jin Guangyao eventually allows. They all file together into the secret room and look around, but there is no longer any severed head where Wei Wuxian left it. Whoops.

Then Qin Su kills herself, Jiang Cheng arrives to defuse the situation while Jin Guangyao pleads innocent, and Wei Wuxian, by way of drawing his sword that nobody else could draw before now, reveals that he is, in fact, Wei Wuxian. Everyone in this room actually already knew this information except for Jin Ling, who is not thrilled to discover that his cool uncle is the guy who murdered his parents. Nobody else does a very good job of faking surprise.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian make a run for it only to be cornered on the stairs. Extreme romance ensues where Lan Wangji announces his intent to stand by Wei Wuxian forever against the world.

This is where the “I was like, SCREAMS” meme kicks in.

Anyway, after that love confession (look, they can’t say ‘I love you’ but basically) in front of everyone, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian fight their way out together and are well on the way to freedom when Jin Ling stabs Wei Wuxian.

Nobody is happy about this, including Jin Ling.

Wei Wuxian is okay overall, though he does faint and have to get swept off to the Cloud Recesses and undressed and redressed in Lan Wangji’s underwear. Don’t worry about it. And now it’s time to talk to Lan Xichen, who is currently feeling very “what the hell is going on, you have no proof and are accusing a person I trust completely of something horrible without any proof.”

They still don’t have any proof, but Wei Wuxian reveals that in the flashback he heard Jin Guangyao playing the soothing music but different, and it comes out that there is evil Japanese music that can kill people and be used to poison someone slowly over time. It’s literally this post:

Lan Xichen is not entirely convinced but agrees to investigate; Jin Guangyao comes to Cloud Recesses and has an absolutely heartbreaking conversation with Lan Xichen about how is our friendship over, Zewu--jun :( while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji eavesdrop.

That conversation isn’t plot important either, I just personally find it very upsetting.

The Burial Mounds, Take Two Arc

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji leave the Cloud Recesses, heading toward the Burial Mounds because Jin Guangyao mentioned something being up there. But they end up meeting - surprise! - Mianmian, who is living her best life. This is mostly important because she is literally the only female character who makes it out of this show alive.

She mentions that there’s been some trouble around the Burial Mounds, so they head in that direction, running into Wen Ning along the way, who has been following them around because he loves Wei Wuxian. The Burial Mounds are indeed full of active undead and they fight their way up to the old farming commune location, which is less empty than expected because there are a bunch of kids tied up in Wei Wuxian’s old lair/cave/house. Like, all of them. Including Jin Ling, who really is having a terrible time lately, and I just feel the need to note that sometimes.

As they free the children and start to leave, everyone else arrives with the plan of killing Wei Wuxian again, because once wasn’t enough and obviously he’s Up To No Good, where else would these corpses be coming from, huh?

Speaking of corpses.

A small army of them shows up! All the cultivators who aren’t children lose their powers! Everyone has to retreat back into the lair/cave/house where they’ll be safe! So this is all...going well.

Fortunately, everyone being stuck in one place gives Wei Wuxian the opportunity to get his Hercule Poirot on and walk everyone through a series of deductions to get them to a place of realizing that (a) they were poisoned by evil music, (b) the evil music came from Su She, (c) Su She is working for Jin Guangyao who (d) planned all of this whole ‘everyone is going to the Burial Mounds to get killed’ thing.

Su She panics, inadvertently reveals that he alone still has his powers, and teleports out. Wei Wuxian decides that a reasonable solution to all these problems is to make himself bait for all the undead so everyone else can make a run for it, because Wei Wuxian is kind of like that.

It’s okay, though, he and Lan Wangji make a spectacular battle couple.

(Oh, yeah. Throughout here it is becoming increasingly clear that Lan Sizhui’s identity is Significant and actually we Might Have Seen Him Before.)

Back to Lotus Pier Arc, or Jin Ling Has a Very Bad Day, Continued Arc

Safely out of the Burial Mounds thanks to Wei Wuxian, everybody goes ahead and invites themselves back to Jiang Cheng’s house. To be fair, it is closest.

My notes here say “Wen Ning figures out that Lan Sizhui is a-Yuan, Jin Ling has an emotional breakdown” which is a more or less accurate summation of the situation. Honestly, though, I feel so bad for Jin Ling at this point, he’s had an absolute nightmare of a month and then today happened and like. I feel for him.

But Wen Ning reuniting with the last remaining member of his family! Though he doesn’t...actally tell Lan Sizhui this, and Lan Sizhui doesn’t have any memories of his early years.

Jiang Cheng reluctantly allows Wei Wuxian inside. Wen Ning has to stay on the porch, but Lan Sizhui stays with him to keep him company, because he is a good boy.

This next part...hoo boy. It’s a lot of exposition featuring two ladies who appear to relate their stories about Jin Guangyao, featuring the part where he murdered his father by using a bunch of sex workers (who then were murdered in turn, except for one), also involving necrophilia, and the one where Qin Su was Jin Guangyao’s sister, actually, and he knew it and still married her. Sect Leader Bad Takes says that’s probably why Jin Guangyao killed their kid, because children of incest inevitably have developmental problems? Yeah, sure, buddy.

Anyway, everyone starts shouting for Jin Guangyao’s head, which is very familiar to Wei Wuxian, who leaves in some disgust. While wandering with Lan Wangji, they wind up going to the family shrine (which is, to be clear, a pretty sacred place). Which is where Jiang Cheng finds them! And once again they have a reasonable and emotionally steady conversation.

Nope. Jiang Cheng talks shit trying to provoke a fight that Wei Wuxian won’t have. As he and Lan Wangji attempt to leave, Jiang Cheng pursues because he’s not done yelling dammit, lashing out with Zidian. Wei Wuxian faints, and Wen Ning arrives to stand in between him and Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng, holding Wei Wuxian’s sheathed sword (remember, the one nobody other than Wei Wuxian can draw). Wen Ning proceeds to initiate one of the single best devastating beatdowns of the show without laying a hand on Jiang Cheng, specifically by shoving the sword at Jiang Cheng and telling him to draw it, because hey you can do that now! Wonder why that is? Wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on there, Jiang Wanyin?

Remember way back when Jiang Cheng lost his core and got it back because Wei Wuxian gave him his core? Yeah, this is when he finds out about that. Psych! Your brother loves you and also the only reason you got to be as strong as you are is because he sacrificed himself for you! Which is also the reason why he took up demonic cultivation in the first place!

Seriously, it’s so good, I love this scene. Probably one of my favorites in the whole show.

Jiang Cheng runs away; Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a moment on a lake where Lan Wangji indulges Wei Wuxian by eating stolen lotuses with him. It’s sweeter than it sounds when I put it like that.

Guanyin Temple Arc

oh god, how do I. how do I describe Guanyin Temple. partially this is hard because by virtue of censorship about dead bodies, among probably other things, there are huge gaps that make portions of it make no sense so I’m gonna go ahead and...fill in some of those that are intelligible pretty much only with some knowledge of book plot, imo.

Wen Ning, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go to a place called Yunping because Jin Guangyao bought some land there for some reason. There they find a slightly suspicious temple (Guanyin Temple). They come back at night, leaving Wen Ning to stand guard, and spy on the courtyard, where a bunch of conspicuously armed monks are there, along with Lan Xichen aaaaand...Jin Guangyao.

Jin Ling arrives! And decides it’s a good idea to climb over the wall. Wei Wuxian blocks someone from shooting him by using the bamboo flute he’s been using this whole time, so he now functionally has no weapon, and also he and Lan Wangji have been exposed, so now the two of them and also Jin Ling are in the courtyard. Lan Xichen admits he was tricked and doesn’t have any of his powers. Jin Guangyao threatens Lan Wangji into sealing his by threatening Wei Wuxian with a wire. It’s sexy.

Everybody goes inside the temple, where several monks are digging up something ??? under the floor. This is never explained and that is because it is supposed to be Jin Guangyao’s mother’s body, and there are very strict rules I understand about what can be done with dead bodies in dramas like this one. Anyway, Jin Guangyao loved his mom very much and built a temple where she was buried where the statue has her face. He is exhuming her so he can take her body with him when he flees the country, which is what he was planning here. Of course, now he has a bunch of unwanted hostages (and one wanted hostage), which was not actually part of the plan.

The next person to join the party is an unconscious Nie Huaisang, brought in by Su She, who basically says “I have no idea what he was doing here but...here he is” and Jin Guangyao is like. Well, guess he’s here now.

Next to show up is Jiang Cheng! Making an excellent and extremely dramatic entrance. Unfortunately, he still gets injured and taken down as Jin Guangyao starts poking at his very obvious emotional weak spots, including revealing that Jiang Cheng knows about the golden core thing. Wei Wuxian, who did not know that secret came out because he was unconscious at the time, goes “wait, what?” and thus ensues the epic emotional catharsis crying and yelling conversation I was waiting for for 47 episodes. Seriously, it’s really good. They end up in a place where all is not solved but things are...maybe a little better?

Of course, they’re still hostages.

Meanwhile, back at the dig site, something gets unearthed that is not Jin Guangyao’s mother’s body but is in fact a coffin with Nie Mingjue’s body, now complete with head, in it. The reveal also drops here that Su She has the marks that indicate he cast the curse on Jin Zixun that Jin Zixun accused Wei Wuxian of casting.

A very ugly argument ensues where everyone is poking at everyone else’s things that they’re sensitive about, until finally Lan Xichen recovers his powers and turns the tables on Jin Guangyao by putting a sword to his neck.

The next part is basically...explaining how all the bad things that happened were Jin Guangyao’s fault? Or at least that’s the explanation given. I find it personally very frustrating as a narrative choice and sort of unnecessary, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, Jin Guangyao is pleading for mercy from Lan Xichen, saying he’ll leave and never return, the whole thing is very emotional.

We also find out that Jin Guangshan kicked Jin Guangyao down the stairs. People really need to stop doing that.

And now Wen Ning arrives! Punting Lan Sizhui in ahead of him. He is possessed by a very angry sword spirit (namely, Baxia). Lan Wangji cuts off Jin Guangyao’s right arm, because Lan Wangji likes doing that, apparently. Baxia-possessed Wen Ning then targets Jin Ling because Jin Ling has Jin Guangyao’s blood on him - only for Wen Ning to stop the blade with his bare hand and save Jin Ling’s life, because Wen Ning is both a badass and very good.

Jiang Cheng throws Wei Wuxian his old flute, which he apparently has just been keeping under his bed or something for sixteen years, which is a thing that I will always never be over, and Wei Wuxian flutes the very angry sword into the Nie Mingjue-holding coffin.

Which would be fine, only then Nie Huaisang starts yelling about how Su She totally stabbed him, no, really, look, he’s bleeding. Baxia kills Su She. Then Wei Wuxian manages to put the sword back in the coffin, as well as the Yin Tiger Seal, and locks both away.

Whew.

Everybody’s sitting down and recovering a little as Lan Xichen tends Jin Guangyao’s wounds. He turns around to get medicine from Nie Huaisang, who tells him to look out because Jin Guangyao is attacking you!!!

Lan Xichen runs Jin Guangyao through.

Oh boy.

Jin Guangyao is a little impressed about Nie Huaisang having been plotting this all along. Because he was. He absolutely was. He’s absolutely been planning this for years. Everybody needs a hobby.

But it’s Lan Xichen who he really addresses here, telling him that he’d never hurt him. The actual line really hurts but I’m trying to not reproduce lines here, except I am going to say that he drags Lan Xichen - still with a sword through him! - deeper into the temple and says “stay and die with me” as the temple starts to collapse. Lan Xichen, who was about to strike and presumably push himself away, lowers his hand, and Jin Guangyao abruptly pushes him away and out of the collapsing building.

Romance!

(No, but seriously, it’s a lot.)

Thus ends Jin Guangyao.

Outside in the courtyard, everyone’s taking a breather. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian stare longingly at each other across the room and say nothing. Jiang Cheng walks away and we learn that - surprise! - the reason Jiang Cheng was caught by the Wens way back when is because he was keeping the Wens from catching Wei Wuxian instead.

Everybody in this family in just a big circle of self sacrifice. In the words of Wen Qing:

(Who misses Wen Qing? I do!)

Anyway, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian leave with each other, only to be caught on the road by Lan Sizhui and Wen Ning - Lan Sizhui, who has remembered that he was a-Yuan and finally someone tells Wei Wuxian this, and ahhhh, okay, I know what I said about limiting screencaps but I can’t not:

Now that’s what I call a hug!

They part ways again, Lan Sizhui leaving with Wen Ning for some family time and for Wen Ning to find his own way. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian...seem like they’re going in different directions, but then they’re at Cloud Recesses together, playing music, hanging out, vibing. They talk to Nie Huaisang, but don’t directly confront him about his scheming. Mostly just making sure he’s not, you know, gonna do anything else.

Then Wei Wuxian leaves to go on a roadtrip to find himself. People really do not like this, but I personally really do like this, especially because the last shots of the show are Wei Wuxian playing his and Lan Wangji’s theme song (the one that Lan Wangji wrote, remember, from the cave? It’s come up a lot, I just haven’t mentioned it here), and when he finishes Lan Wangji’s voice says “Wei Ying” and he turns around and just like. Smiles. It’s scrunchy and happy and perfect.

Like this:

aaaaaaand scene! fifty episodes later your life has been ruined and you will never be the same.

and the thing is that this is leaving out, like. a lot, and probably is biased because I focus on different things than another person would, &c &c, but at least it might be a starting point for...the entire plot.

and also congratulations if you made it this far, I am impressed. have a screenshot of wei wuxian as a reward, whose mental breakdown does make him look sexy

you’re welcome.

#anonymous #conversating #HOLY SHIT THAT WENT SOMEWHERE #anon if this isn't what you wanted....i'm very sorry send me another ask and i can link you to someone else's summary #but i started going and then i couldn't stop #and now here we are #the sad queer cultivators show #you know what i am going to tag this because it was kind of a lot of work #the untamed #cql #thanks for reading this and making sure it made any kind of sense james #lise does meta #i guess??????

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david-talks-sw · 3 years

Text

About the supposed “dig at Rey” in the Mandalorian finale.

So a lot of people have taken to YouTube and social media, saying that Luke’s line about “talent without training (being) nothing” is a dig at Rey “bEcAuSe ShE’s A mArY sUe who’s good at everything and never trained!!”

No.

Quick recap: The Mandalorian is created by Jon Favreau, and he develops it with Dave Filoni (who created The Clone Wars with George Lucas, invented Ahsoka Tano, and created Star Wars: Rebels), among others.

As far as Dave is concerned, Rey is no different than Ahsoka, she’s not “OP”, she’s not a “Mary Sue”. He’s all for strong, independent, female characters.

He talked about this at the National Center for Women & Information Technology, you can find his full speech here. If you want to see the extracts specifically about Rey and female character in Star Wars, you can find it here (though I’d advise just ignoring the intentionally-triggering title and seeing the video for what it is).

All the backlash he saw about Rey? He saw it for Ahsoka too.

“Oh, she’s fighting Grievous and she’s only, like 13?! That’s so OP!”

“She feels like a Mary Sue written for a prequel based fan fiction.”

“Oh, she disobeyed an order from Yularen on Ryloth?! She’s so snippy!”

“Ugh, I hate her and her stupid voice!”

“She’s always pointing out stuff other characters have missed, like she’s so perfect! She's a Mary Sue with an annoying voice and personality.”

And honestly? I remember that period. People hated Ashley Eckstein and Ahsoka, just like they hated Hayden Christensen, and most Prequel-related content.

So no, that line is not a dig at Rey. If you expect that to ever come from Dave, big chance you’ll be disappointed. He is all for Rey, as a character (as am I, tbh). There may be issues with how she’s written, but none of it is related to her being too strong, or her being good at everything. Guess what? Captain America and Goku are good at everything too.

What The Mandalorian tackles, with that line, is a debate with bigger implications than just Grogu.

We get two sides of the same debate, from both Ahsoka, and Luke.

“I cannot train him. His attachment to you makes him vulnerable to his fears. His anger. I’ve seen what such feelings can do to a fully trained Jedi Knight. To the best of us. I will not start this child down that path. Better to let his abilities fade.”

“He is strong with the Force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the Child… but he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.“

The subject they really subliminally tackle is:

Should Anakin Skywalker have been trained to be a Jedi?

On the one hand:

Anakin has the potential of being the most powerful Force-user in galactic history, as the Jedi know it. It’s just a matter of time before he accidentally Force chokes someone in a fit of anger, or when submitted to extreme stress. He needs to be trained to hone his skills so he’s not a danger to himself and others.

Jedi Training would also help him get over the trauma of growing up as a slave on Tatooine, as it is aimed at keeping your emotions under control, whereas Anakin isn’t even acknowledging their existence (he pretends he’s not afraid in front of the Jedi Council, and seems to be the only person in the room to think that he should hide his fears). His hidden fears, his anger… Jedi Training would teach him to confront them.

Also, there’s a big chance the Sith are back! If they let this kid just go out into the wild, who knows, maybe the Sith Lords pick him up and make him one of their own. Better to keep the boy close.

Anakin is a good boy, raised by a loving mother, with a kind heart. If anything, he’s got the drive to do good as strong as that of any Jedi’s. Him being down-to-earth more than your average Jedi can potentially make him the best out of all of them. He could bridge the distance between the Jedi and the Senate, he could lead the Jedi into a new age. If anyone could be the next, better and improved Yoda, it’s Anakin Skywalker.

On the other hand:

Jedi training is for Jedi only. AKA, it’s perfect if you’re raised in the temple at a very young age to be a diplomat/wizard who upholds the values of the Republic, in control of your emotions and in Balance with the Force. But if you’re not? Then the strict rules of the Jedi Order will basically seem like an insurmountable (bordering on unreasonable) obstacle.

Any normal person will see these rules as attempting to turn you into a sociopath. Because if you’re a normal person, they might. For all intents and purposes, Anakin is a super-powerful normal person. If they take Anakin in, 10 years old, with the attachments he’s formed (his mother), the emotions he represses, the trauma from his upbringing - all of which, in a normal person, are totally fine and common - and try to force him in a mold he just won’t fit in, that’s just a recipe for disaster.

Of all people, Qui-Gon Jinn - Mister “I’m always right because I follow the Will of the Force and you don’t” - who is not the most forthcoming of people, as opposed to Obi-Wan, is insisting that he should train the boy. You give a chaotic Master a chaotic Padawan? That’s adding extra ingredients to the recipe for disaster.

The BEST thing to do would be Qui-Gon leaving the Order with Anakin, and raising Anakin as his surrogate son, teaching him his values, rather than training him as a Padawan and teaching him the values of the Jedi (which he’s too old for and which essentially make the Jedi the Senate’s lapdogs). But Qui-Gon’s insisting that he train him as a Jedi.

Anakin’s mind is too fragile as it is. If they add the stress of being a Jedi to that too, there’s a big chance he won’t be able to take it, and bring about the destruction of everything they are, stand for and care about.

And, to be honest? Both points are fair.

Because Anakin was both…

… the best of them…

… and their destructor.

But then, should Grogu be trained?

In my (and Luke’s) opinion? Yes.

Ahsoka’s logic makes sense… but it only applies to how things were before, back when the Jedi served the Republic as Force-sensitive diplomats/ambassadors, making decisions that impacted whole planets and their billions of inhabitants, keeping the peace through mediation, and occasionally investigating a crime.

But in Grogu’s case… things are a bit different.

The Republic is gone.

The Jedi’s mission of upholding its values seems to be gone with it.

So literally any surviving Jedi, has a new mission: just help people.

Be it Ezra & Kanan helping the Rebellion during the Dark Times.

Or Cal Kestis, saving the Force-sensitive children.

Or Ahsoka, helping the village of Calodan, after the fall of the Empire.

Or Luke, literally being a space-vagabond/Jedi archeologist for 10 years and helping out wherever and whoever he can.

The Jedi no longer have to deal with planet-sized problems, or mediations, or investigations, because the New Republic hasn’t included them in its government, seeing as they have their rangers, now.

So now, the pressure of “upholding the Republic’s values” and “going on missions which impact billions of lives” is gone.

Now, the Jedi operate at a smaller scale and just help people out. As they did, before they became Republic officials.

Sure, they still keep their emotions in control, but that’s simply for the sake of living a healthy life, rather than for the sake of objectiveness and diplomacy.

In these circumstances? It’s totally fine for Grogu to be trained, as he should be.

The line was about the fact that training Grogu to hone his skills is fine, and should be done, before he becomes a danger to everyone around him.

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keldae · 3 years

Text

New Beginnings

Sorand had known for most of his life that he had never completely been a child of the Empire. Sure, he'd been born as a citizen in Imperial Space, along with his brother, and he'd known his father was also Imperial by birth. But his mother, the Corellian Jedi who had hidden her Jedi training and come to Imperial Space with her husband… she had never become a citizen herself, a secret she’d held until her death. And he knew now that his parents' plan had been to take their sons and escape to the Core Worlds before Sith Academy recruiters came snooping for young prospects.

And then his mother had been murdered only days before their planned flight, and life had gone to hell, and Sorand still wound up on Korriban after all. He had still looked for a way to escape to the Republic once he was free of a slave's chains -- first as an apprentice under Darth Zash, and then as a Lord while trying to survive Darth Thanaton’s schemes. But with a Dashade constantly looming nearby, and Imperial eyes always watching, and both Zash and Thanaton tracking him too closely for him to slip away… besides, would the Jedi have believed his claim to be the son of one of their own, even if he had been able to defect? Ashara's first masters on Taris certainly hadn't been willing to talk to him. Honestly, until he had met his sister, Ashara had been the only Jedi willing to hear him out, seeing beyond the black robes and red lightsaber.

And then the odds of a Dark Councillor being able to defect after he’d been abruptly elevated by Darth Marr… less said about that, the better. But at least by then he'd found his father, and the Empire was more bearable with Reanden there. Knowing that his brother and sister were both safely in Republic territory helped, even if he was envious of his siblings for being free of the Empire.

When he had slipped away from Dromund Kaas to join the fledgling rebellion against the Eternal Throne, he hadn't been thinking of any possible citizenships, or really, anything beyond a desperate attempt to rid the galaxy of Zakuul. He hadn't been surprised to hear that Acina had been furious enough to rescind his Imperial citizenship and his title as a Darth. But he had a place in the Mandalorian clans with Shara, and then a purpose in helping free his sister and backing up her efforts to fight Arcann and Vaylin. After Valkorion's destruction, he had joined the rest of the members of the Alliance in asking "Now what?"

Of course, he hadn't had time to think about that, between the uprisings across the galaxy and the Iokath debacle. At least being Xaja's stand-in to run the Alliance while she had been first pregnant, and then too distraught by Theron’s dumbassery to function, had kept him busy, even if he had started finding a worrying amount of grey strands in his dark hair after Umbara happened and Theron staged that (stupid, idiotic, dumbass, shittily-planned, plain moronic) betrayal.

Ossus was the first time that he had properly been able to work with Republic forces. Tau Idair had given him some serious side-eye when she heard the Imperial accent that still lingered in his voice, and Nadia Grell had eyed him with no small amount of caution; but Doc had remembered him from the Revanite incident and greeted him as a friend, and Master Gnost-Dural had cautiously accepted him after Xaja vouched for him. From the looks the other Jedi and the colonists gave him, he figured he wasn’t going to be accepted readily, despite being the Hero of Tython’s brother, and quietly resigned himself to the suspicious stares and mutters. At least one good thing had come out of his duel with Darth Malgus in the ancient library: despite getting his ass handed to him and nearly being killed by the Sith, he seemed to have earned the respect of other Jedi and the colonists for standing with Gnost-Dural.

But even after that, and with the resurgence of the conflict over Onderon and Mek-Sha, he had never dared to let himself hope that he would be permanently free of the Empire. Now that he was in the heart of the Republic fleet, surrounded by other members of the Odessen crew and Republic personnel, the new (and perfectly legitimate) identicard that labeled him a Republic citizen still didn't seem real. He subtly pinched his arm, just to confirm this wasn't a dream.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Reanden offered his youngest son a smirk, leaning back against a table in Carrick Station's cantina with a tumbler of Corellian whiskey, looking as comfortable as if he had always been a Republic citizen, not an Imperial one. While Sorand knew his father had been a deep cover SIS operative for longer than he or his siblings had been alive, he was pretty sure this was the first time Cipher Nine had been able to openly relax in Republic Space.

"I never thought it would actually happen," Sorand murmured, still staring at the identicard. A former member of the Dark Council, one who was still known as Darth Imperius to more than a few Imperial soldiers and citizens, holding proof of his new Republic citizenship… Darth Zash and Darth Thanaton would both be turning in their graves at his new status. That thought pleased him almost as much as what his mother's reaction would have been. He looked at his father and gave him a small, melancholic smile. "Mum would be so thrilled if she could see this."

Reanden's dark eyes softened for a moment. "This was the endgame she and I had planned, getting the lot of us back home where we'd wanted you to be. Took the long route getting there, but we got here eventually." For a moment, his contentment vanished behind a scowl. "And just in time for me to be informed that I'm being retired from active field work and getting put to work in training cadets. In case you ever meet him -- the Director’s a dick."

"Aww, I'm sure there's plenty of miscreant cadet spies who need to get whipped into shape. Besides, knowing you, you’ll get bored enough to make him send you back out on missions." Sorand grinned and nudged his father's arm, earning an incoherent mutter and an eyeroll over the whiskey. He then looked at Shara on his other side, contemplatively sipping on an ale. "How are you feeling about this, cyar'ika?"

"It still hasn’t sunk in yet. Never thought I’d be offered Republic citizenship -- I almost wonder if that old Chancellor might’a put in a good word for me or somethin’." Shara shrugged and offered a small half-smile. "Never woulda thought Mandalore would be takin’ up with the Republic either. Weird how life works out -- but I think it’ll all turn out fine." She glanced at a small cluster of station personnel, all eyeing the former Imperials cautiously. "Once that lot all gets over hearin' Mando'a an' Kaasian accents, anyway. Odessen used to be almost half ex-Imp, so there’ll be lotsa Imp accents kickin’ around for a while."

"Trying to change accents is a pain in the ass,” Sorand said with a short laugh, with a passable accent that wouldn’t have been out of place in Hutt Space. Force knew he’d had years of practice in listening to and mimicking Hutt Space accents as a youth. "It’s a work in progre-- oh, hello, Master." He inclined his head to Gnost-Dural, who was just making his way up to the group.

"Ah, just the former Sith I was looking for." Gnost-Dural nodded. It was hard to tell with the mask, but if the warmth in the Force was any indication, Sorand was pretty sure the old Jedi was smiling. "I was hoping I could steal you for a moment, Impe-- Sorand."

"Of course." Slipping his precious new identicard back in his pocket, Sorand followed the Kel Dor a few paces away to a quiet alcove. The flickerings in the Force gave him no indication of what the Jedi was thinking. "What can I do for you?"

"Less a favour, more a proposition for you. One that your sister might have asked of you if--"

They both heard the muffled shriek of "Kira!" from the upper ring around the cantina, and Sorand could feel a burst of relieved joy from Xaja, accompanied by hurried footsteps as she ran to greet her former protégé, dignity be damned by the sounds of it.

"... If her former Padawan and the former Wrath hadn't just walked up." Gnost-Dural chuckled. "She'll be occupied for a while."

Sorand grinned, glancing up in the direction of Xaja's bright Force-signature, then back to Gnost-Dural. "And she's already the happiest I've seen her in years. Being back in the Republic is good for her."

"The Republic is fortunate to have her back," Gnost-Dural agreed. "But how are you feeling with this change? It's certainly not the Empire."

"Definitely not," Sorand nodded. He hesitated for a moment. "Force knows I wish I’d been able to leave the Empire far sooner. If I had had my way, I would have defected on my own years ago. Being a Sith was… a survival mechanism, and by the time I was elevated to a Darth…" He shrugged. "I honestly figured the Republic would have no place for a former Dark Council member, if they didn’t just shoot me on sight."

"You are far from the first high-ranking Sith to turn their back on the Empire," Gnost-Dural assured him. "Your sister had the Wrath leave with her, after all."

"Yes, but Scourge never really swore himself to the Republic," Sorand pointed out. "He was more focused on taking down Vitiate than in helping defeat the Empire entirely."

"Not untrue. But you…" Gnost-Dural seemed to be looking him up and down. "Every dossier I ever found about you showed you trying to change the Empire from within, or trying to aid Republic operatives when the opportunity presented itself. It is a pity we couldn't open a path for you to come to us before now." He sighed. "But, this is one positive that came about from the changes we've endured over the last few years, ever since the Zakuulan invasion. It's been easier for people like you to slip away in the chaos, whether to the Republic or to the Alliance."

Sorand nodded his agreement, his hand brushing over the pocket of his nondescript jacket where his identicard rested. "After everything that's happened, it feels surreal that this is finally happening. I still feel like I'm going to wake up any moment now."

Gnost-Dural chuckled, then seemed to grow more serious. "What are your plans, now that Odessen is a member world of the Republic?"

"My wife and I haven't discussed it much yet," Sorand admitted. "With Mandalore signing on with the Republic as well, Shara's thinking of contracting out her hunting skills. There were a lot of families that were split up during Zakuul's invasion, and the SIS can't find everyone."

Gnost-Dural nodded. "And yourself?"

"I'm not sure." Sorand shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Xaja will still want me around as her deputy, at least until Odessen has a finalized government beyond being a military outpost." He frowned slightly. "Although I dearly hope she's not planning on asking me to be the Senate representative."

That got a chuckle from the old Jedi. "You really are like your sister. She has never been fond of politics either." He paused for a moment. "I may have a proposition for you, one that should hopefully give you an 'out' from being a Senator."

"What is that?"

Gnost-Dural shifted to cross his hands behind his back, comfortably at ease. "The Jedi Order has a long road back to recovery, as you know. Your sister accepted a role on the newly reforming Jedi Council, but we do need all the help we can get. You would be a great asset. I would like to formally offer you a place in the reforming Jedi Order."

Sorand had spent years learning to hide his emotions, masking his reactions and thoughts to everyone around him during his years as a Sith. And every bit of those honed instincts abandoned him right then, eyes widening, mouth falling open for a second before he recovered. "A place in the… you're serious?"

"Dead serious. Your knowledge of the Sith is helpful, but your power with the Force; your skill with healing; and your knowledge of the history of both Jedi and Sith is a rare and valuable asset." Gnost-Dural nodded. "You wouldn't be a Master to start, of course -- you would start as a Padawan. But I don't see you staying in that rank for long." He chuckled. "And you're far from the oldest recruit to join our ranks."

A Jedi… even in his wildest, most deeply secret dreams of defection, Sorand had never dared to truly let himself imagine being offered a place in the Order's ranks. Even if he was restarting as a Padawan, this was already a dream he had never dared to hope for. "I don't know what to say. I'm… I'm incredibly honoured," he breathed out, then hesitated. "... I am married with a family, though, and my first commitment is to them. Will that be a concern?"

"A decade ago, perhaps. But I think the Jedi are evolving with the galaxy -- some things do change. Besides, your sister is also rejoining us with a husband and a child. It would be rather hypocritical for her to keep her family, and to ask you to give up your own. I understand you're both Corellian as well -- it is the tradition of the Green Jedi to have families."

"It is," Sorand acknowledged, inwardly trying to control his sheer excitement at being extended this offer. "Who would be my Master?"

Gnost-Dural chuckled again. "Well, if you're content with having an old man as your Master, I think it's time I took on a new Padawan myself. And after fighting against Malgus with you on Ossus, I would be pleased to have you at my back. You're a good man, despite what the Sith tried to turn you into."

"I had a good teacher as a child," Sorand murmured, thinking back to the lessons his mother had taught him… the lessons that had kept him sane and attuned to the Light, even in the darkest parts of the Empire. Even looking past his excitement, he could feel the Force all but pushing him to accept the offer. He swore he could feel his mother's spirit proudly beaming at him. "I… I'm honoured to accept. I can think of no better teacher."

He was sure Gnost-Dural was smiling under his mask. "The honour is mine, Padawan. The Jedi are fortunate to have both your sister and you." The old Jedi reached out to clasp his new student's shoulder, then stepped back. "Take the evening to relax and enjoy your new citizenship. We'll begin your training tomorrow."

"Thank you, Master." The phrase that he had absolutely loathed during his years as a slave, and his tutelage under Zash, felt comfortable and easy here, when directed to a Jedi. He managed to keep his elation somewhat tempered down until after Gnost-Dural took his leave… and then let the broad, excited grin take over as he made his way back to his father and his wife.

Reanden raised an eyebrow as his younger son rejoined them. "Well, you look particularly gleeful, buddy. What's up?"

Sorand felt his grin lessen slightly as he wondered how the news of his new status would be taken. "Well…" he slowly said, "of all the titles I've had or planned to have… I never expected 'Padawan' to be on that list."

Reanden's eyes widened. "Padawan, is it?" Then he looked over at Shara and grinned as he held his hand out. "I win. Pay up, kiddo."

“Wait.” Sorand blinked. “Did you two have a bet going for what that chat was going to be about?”

"Totally thought it was gonna be Alliance osik," Shara ruefully said with a smirk as she pulled a few credits out of her pocket and handed them to her father-in-law, then looked at Sorand. "The Jedi know we're a package deal, right?"

"Yes. Apparently that's going to be a little less of an issue in the new Order." Sorand grinned and hugged Shara across the shoulders, kissing her forehead. "You're still stuck with me, cyar'ika… just with much less ambient lightning."

Shara laughed and stretched up to kiss his cheek. "Long as you ain't replacing that with jetiise preachy osik, we're good. I can't wait to see your brother's face when he gets the news."

Oh, Korin's reaction was going to be hilarious, Sorand knew… even if he was pretty sure Theron was trying to push the spacer in the general direction of the SIS. But that was something to think about later. Right now, it was an evening to celebrate. The Empire reeling from a successful Republic blow; a new citizenship and a place in the ranks of the Jedi; and the knowledge that he would never, ever need to return to the Empire…

Yes, he thought, smiling as he waved his brother over to tell the news to. Life was the best it had been in years.

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labyrinth-runner · 3 years

Note

can we be alone for a bit? For obi wan x reader, please? 👉👈 thank you

Title: A Royal Flush

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: None

Summary: Reader is a Queen returning home after war. Much has changed and she must learn whether she will change for it, or fight against it.

I know I use this gif a lot, but he just looks so soft in it. Thank you, @coredrive for posting it because its truly lovely.

Because I’ve watched way too much Bridgerton, I shared a yearning list, so here’s some yearning. Thanks, @the-mandalorian-clone-lover for putting up with my incessant questions.

The battle had been long and tiring, but eventually it was won. You’d lost so many, and there were still so many more wounded as he siege to take back your kingdom came to an end. Your kingdom was yours again, free from the clutches of your enemy. Now, you were to negotiate a deal with the Republic, represented by the man at your side. Their assistance for yours. It was simple enough after the months of fighting, but you knew the fight was far from over. While you knew you owed the Republic everything, you also knew that some of your court would not feel the same. That would be another battle entirely.

Walking up to the castle across the bridge felt odd. The scorched earth on either side of the path left an acrid smell that stung your nose. It mixed with the singed smell of your dress from where you’d narrowly avoided becoming one with the Force multiple times over the course of the week as you traveled with the warriors to rid the world of the last few holdouts. Your knight and protector had insisted this was no place for you, but you had reminded him that you were not defenseless, knowing your way around a weapon.

“It will be a while before the earth is viable again,” you commented to Master Kenobi as you walked side by side.

“Unfortunately,” he agreed with you, “We can only limit the damage so much.” His brow furrowed as he struggled to ask you something.

“Speak, Master Kenobi,” you bade him, “You know I’ll always listen, even if I don’t take your words to heart.”

“Are you nervous?”

“About coming home to my people?” you asked as you stopped to look up at the palace in front of you. It was large and imposing, towering well above the landscape and leaving you swathed in its shadow. The shadow of the crown that had always been heavy on your head, but even more so now with the deaths of your people on your hands because you had been too naive. “Yes. I’d be foolish if I didn’t worry about them blaming me for all of this.”

“Why would they blame the one person who fought the hardest for them?” Obi-Wan asked incredulously.

“Because at the end of the day, they were left defenseless. I should have known that the kingdom would be invaded. I was too naive to think that being neutral could have spared us. In the end, the people suffered. My people suffered,” you said emphatically. “Now, come on, my people have been waiting long enough.”

You walked faster, pushing your way into the throne room where the rest of the court waited. A hush fell upon the room as they all turned to look at the intruder. There was a man in your seat. You set your chin in a hard line.

Obi-Wan came to a stop behind you as you started to stride forward. One by one, heads bowed down and knees bent for their fierce warrior queen. You were covered in soot and ash, and your hair was falling out of the intricate braids they had been woven into, but you were relentless. Your footsteps were confident and sure as they carried you back towards your throne. The man vacated, stepping to the your left. You sat, looking out over the awed assembly.

“Welcome home, your Majesty,” your advisor to said.

You leveled him with a gaze, “It is good to be back at court. However, our presence brings with it some conditions.” You looked up at Master Kenobi, your lip tugging up ever so imperceptibly at the sight of him. “We owe the Republic our lives, and that is a debt we intend to pay.”

Master Kenobi held your gaze until you broke it, turning to address the people around you. “We will have a treaty drafted by the end of the week. That will give the troops enough time to recover before they are sent somewhere else.”

“They have earned that much,” a man said from the doorway as he strode over to you.

You raised a brow at the man, having never seen him before. “And you are?”

“Kane Gridlow, your Majesty,” he said, dipping into a low bow at the foot of your dais.

You cast a look on your advisor who cleared his throat. “Lord Gridlow has kept the court together in your absence, your Majesty.”

Your eyes flashed with slight anger and hurt that some man could give your people the strength you could not. “Well, we thank you for your service, then,” you said as you sat up straighter.

“Your Majesty, I was hoping to get a moment of your time,” Lord Gridlow murmured, looking up at you imploringly.

A pit of dread formed in your stomach as you caught your advisor’s eye and nodded. “Leave us.”

The court filed out, jostling Obi-Wan with it and you were left with your advisors and the man who had ruled in your place.

“State your purpose, Lord Gridlow,” you ordered with a dangerously even voice.

He shared a look with your advisor. “Your Majesty, the advisors and noblemen seem to think that it would be best for the stability of the kingdom if we wed.”

You almost scoffed. Almost. Until you noticed that your advisor looked gravely serious. “You wish to corner a queen into a marriage.”

“We just think-”

“Not we, you,” you corrected. “We are the acting authority.”

“You were absent.”

“We had no control of that,” you shot back. “And we do not appreciate being spoken to like this.” You stood up and came to stand in front of him. “We will not be forced into things. Not by our enemies, and certainly, not by you. Dismissed.”

“Your Majesty-”

“Dismissed.” You repeated.

Lord Gridlow hung his head, giving you a mocking bow. “As you wish, your highness.”

Your eyes narrowed at his retreating figure. How dare he insult you by using the wrong honorific? Rounding on your advisor, you saw him wither in the crosshairs of your eyes.

“Your Majesty, I can explain-”

“Oh, can you? You can explain how you were willing to just give us out to the first nobleman that came knocking? Is that it? You were going to whore your queen out for the good of the kingdom?” You asked, voice rising in pitch. It was rare that you were mad, but beneath it all, you were hurt.

“The nobles will not support a treaty if you are alone,” your advisor simply stated.

You looked down at your folded hands, feeling quite young despite the power you held. You dropped all pretense and all formality, becoming the woman in a man’s world who was the only heir. The only option. You’d always known that they had never really wanted you, but you never quite felt that until now. You swallowed the lump in your throat and gave him a sad look, “I fought for you. I only ever ask that you should do the same.”

You gave him a nod of dismissal before crossing over to your balcony to look out over the courtyard. Leaning on the rail, you took in the people milling about below. They were preparing for a ball to mark your return. Perhaps they also thought it should mark the announcement of your betrothal as well. You looked up to the heavens as if asking for strength to get you through it all. You’d always told yourself that you would do what must be done for your people, that in the grand scheme of things, you were but one, the sole guardian of the many.

The weariness in the people passing by was apparent upon second glance. Young women wore the worry lines of widows who wondered how to feed their children. Children laughed in sparing doses, the knowledge of the world weighing down their mirth with the absence of their innocence. They looked how you felt: tired. The campaign had been hard on all, but on your people most of all, you could now see.

Yet, could you commit yourself to that odious man who had prostrated himself in public, yet dared to berate you in private? Was that the man you were expected to grow old with? Your eyes fell to the statue of your father in the middle of the square. He had married your mother for love, turning down multiple arrangements before you could even talk in order to give you a fighting chance at the same. A sigh passed your lips at the realization that it was all in vain.

“If I could choose,” you murmured wistfully as you looked down at a young man in a brown robe who had stooped to smell a rose, “I’d choose you.”

As if sensing your gaze upon him, he turned to look up at you. The action dropped his hood from his face, shining the sun on his auburn hair. You gave him a sad wave and his brow furrowed in concern. His eyes held a question in them that you couldn’t bring yourself to answer. You never wanted to lie to him, but you couldn’t burden him with the truth either. Casting your eyes down, you backed away, retreating to your rooms in order to finally take the bath that you should have had days ago but never seemed to have the time for.

You dismissed your attendants as soon as the water was filled. Having spent months on the battlefields, you had learned to take care of yourself. You knew it was an honor to be a part of your retinue, but right now all you wanted to do was be alone with your thoughts.

Lazily, you took your wash cloth and ran it over your skin. With your eyes closed, it reminded you of the time you had cut your arm during a fall and Obi-Wan had cleaned you up. He had teased you for being so stubborn and actually fighting, telling you that he never met a monarch with a death wish before you. He had been so gentle with you that night, kind. A kindness you might never know again. Slowly, you let yourself slip below the water, exhaling a barrage of bubbles as you opened your eyes. The light refracted along the water, glinting off the gilded tub. Only when your lungs started to burn did you resurface, sputtering water as you did so. Your lungs heaved at your stupidity, and you soon found that you were crying as more water droplets splashed into the water. You looked down at your reflection in the water and threw the wash cloth into it, sending ripples through the water. Taking a steadying breath, you got out and wrapped yourself in a towel before heading into your room to be dressed.

“Your Majesty, it is good to see you,” a voice murmured as you sat down at your vanity. You met the owner’s eyes in the mirror and smiled.

“Not as good as it is to see you,” you reassured her.

“It’s been too long,” she squealed before going to find you the perfect gown. “But, I must ask, what is the story of the man who came in with you?”

You turned on your stool to face her, “Liz, he’s off limits. Their kind don’t take wives.”

“He doesn’t look at you like he’s off limits,” she said coyly.

You felt your face heat up at her words. “It doesn’t matter now,” you sighed sadly, “They wish to marry me off to that Lord.”

“What they wish and what you do should not always be the same thing,” Liz said pointedly. “They do not have to live with all the consequences of that decision. You do. You are their Queen. Make your decision, and they will surely fall in line.”

“They won’t support the treaty otherwise,” you replied. “With the Republic at war, they need safe passage through the kingdom. They helped us defeat their enemies on our soil. It only makes sense that we should pay that good will forward.”

“I’m sure they’d understand if you couldn’t,” Liz replied.

“I gave them my word,” you replied. “I need him- them, I need them to know that means something.”

Liz looked down at the dress in her hands and sighed. “Well, should this be your last night of freedom, then we will make it your best. We will make you look so good that they will still believe in the divine right of kings.”

You cracked a smile at that, “Well, I’d certainly like to see you try.”

“As the old monks used to say, ‘do or do not, there is no try,’” Liz winked as she set about to work a magic that was often unappreciated by other nobility, but not lost on you.

By the time she was done, you were exquisite. Your hair was a series of intricate twists and braids that cascaded in all the right places to frame your face. Your dress sparkled in the light as you tentatively ran a hand down the intricate beadwork. It was white and pure. You looked like an angel that had descended from the heavens specifically to save them all. To add further evidence of your right to be there and the fact that you and you alone were their cause for freedom, Liz nestled your crown atop your head.

“Lest they forget who their true ruler is,” she remarked.

“I had almost forgotten how heavy this was,” you mused.

“Heavy the head,” Liz murmured as she pinned it in place, a hairpin held in the corner of her mouth as she added, “If he doesn’t confess tonight...”

“Lord Gridlow?” you asked in confusion as she finished and stepped back.

“No, Lord Kenobi,” she said pointedly.

You blushed, “Obi-Wan isn’t a lord.”

“Obi-Wan? You use first names, your Majesty?” she asked with a waggle of her eyebrows.

You shook your head slightly at her as you got up from your seat and slipped into your shoes. “Titles mean nothing on the battlefield. All are equal when on the end of a blade or a blast.”

“Do you view him as an equal?”

You looked at the crown on your head, “Yes. I do believe I do.”

Music drifted up the corridor from the ballroom down below.

“I believe that is my cue,” you sighed as you went towards the doors.

Your footsteps were light as you followed the melody, but your heart was heavy. As you came to a rest at the top of the stairs, you could see the party down below. Murmurs ceased and heads bowed in deference as you floated down the stairs. All eyes were on you, but your eyes scanned the crown for a familiar brown cloak. Disappointed when you could not find it, you reached the bottom of the stairs, casting your gaze to your feet.

“Your Majesty, may I have the honor of your first dance?” a lightly accented voice inquired.

Your eyes flicked up to the owner and you allowed yourself to smile. “I believe the honor would be all mine.”

Gently, you placed your hand in his. He held it like it was the most precious thing in the world as he led you towards the middle of the ballroom. He bowed. You curtseyed, and then you danced.

“I almost thought you didn’t come,” you murmured, “I hardly recognized you.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve worn clothes like these,” he admitted with a smirk that didn’t meet his eyes.

You wanted to melt into him, but instead you just allowed yourself to be as close as was proper. “You look very handsome, but uncomfortable.”

“I could never hide anything from you, could I?” he asked softly. “And neither can you hide from me. Darling, what happened earlier?”

You wanted to admonish him for the use of that pet name. After all, it wasn’t proper, but you loved the way it rolled off his tongue. He hadn’t always called you darling. It was a term of endearment that you had earned about halfway through the campaign on one of the instances you had almost died. A blast from a canon had knocked you clear off your feet and into the dirt. Your ears had been ringing and you could feel the blood trickling down your face from where you had hit a rock. In a minute, he had been at your side, begging you to hold on.

Darling, stay with me.

“Darling?” Obi-Wan asked.

You blinked, refocusing on his face. “Hmm?”

“Stay with me, I know I’m a horrible dancer, but it’s almost over,” he grinned, but his eyes showed concern.

“There’s nothing horrible about you,” you replied as the song came to an end.

He was left speechless in the wake of you as you withdrew to mingle with people you hadn’t seen in over a year who you were certain could not care less about your presence here tonight.

In your bones, you had known this wouldn’t be the triumphant coming home that you wished it would be, but that still didn’t make it sting any less. An inconvenient queen without a King. That was all you were.

Lord Gridlow asked you for a dance and you could not refuse, however every spin around the room had you searching for Obi-Wan’s eyes. When you deemed it proper to take a break, you went to stand by the sidelines as you sipped a drink.

“He seems dreadful,” Obi-Wan murmured as he stood next to you.

“They would have him be King,” you replied absentmindedly.

Obi-Wan blinked for a moment at your indifferent attitude to it all. “Does the Queen not have a say?”

You looked at him out of the corner of your eye as you felt the warmth of his hand next to yours. Your smallest finger brushed against his. His hand moved to envelope yours, but then you remember not only where you were, but also who you were. You cleared your throat and prepared to make your rounds. “Excuse me.”

After the lukewarm reception you received from the majority of your nobles, you began to feel the weight of your crushing reality. You had won the war for them, but in doing so had lost their respect. You wanted to laugh, but most of all, you needed air.

It felt wrong to stand in the stuffy high society after experiencing the hardships of war. There were villages that were decimated, children who starved, and yet here they were practically throwing wealth out your gilded windows in your absence. They wouldn’t notice you were missing, not with Lord Gridlow taking care of their interests and protecting their investments. The nobles, you realized, were content to watch the world outside the palace burn so long as the flames stayed far away. Hell, you thought, they might as well use it to warm themselves without remorse as well.

Slipping out of the crowd, you made your way into the night. The air cooled your skin and filled your lungs. You wanted to scream. You weren’t cut out for this. Not anymore. You stood on your balcony as you looked up into the starry night. A feeling of disappointment settled in.

“You can see less of the constellations from here,” Obi-Wan mused as he came to stand beside you.

“Light pollution,” you replied, remembering how clear the sky was when you slept under it during the campaign.

“Can we be alone for a bit?” he asked softly.

A breath of relief passed through your lips, “Yes, please. I need a moment.”

A small smile tugged at his lips as he nodded, offering you his arm. You wanted to laugh at the formality of it all as you slipped your arm into his.

“You followed me,” you murmured as the two of you started down a path towards the hedges.

“I’m always following you, darling. If you blaze so many trails without looking where they lead, then I have to,” he said with a small smile.

“You shouldn’t say such things,” your face burned at his comment. The two of you came to a stop next to a fountain. It was all perfect. The stars above, the hedges around, the faint music heard over the bubbling of the fountain. He was your prince and this was your fairy tale. Except it wasn’t. You knew it couldn’t be.

You settled on the edge of the fountain, taking the crown off entirely and holding it in your hands. “It’s so silly,” you murmured. “One circlet of precious metals and stones represents my station.” You tossed it into the fountain.

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened and he pulled up his sleeve to fish it out.

“Are you alright?” he asked, knitting his brow as he reached up to fix your crown on your head.

“Do you ever doubt your duty?” you asked him, turning to face him, to study him as he answered.

“I fight for freedom and peace,” he replied. “There can’t be a nobler cause than that.”

“What about love?” you asked softly.

“I suppose at the root of it all, I fight for love,” he admitted, looking at you as if in a new light. “Do you fight for love?”

You paused, drowning in the depths of his eyes. You fought for the kingdom that you so dearly loved, and now you found yourself willing to stop that fight when it came to the person that you loved.

Averting your gaze, you murmured, “No. Not always, at least. Sometimes I fight out of duty.” Like now, you thought, as you were fighting your feelings for the man in front of you.

“Where is this coming from?” he asked softly, tilting your chin up to look at him. His eyes searched yours as he looked for meaning.

You licked your lips, feeling your mouth go dry. Your cheeks burned under the scrutiny of his gaze.

There had always been a pull towards Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was a pull that made men follow him into uncertain situations. It was a pull that made conquered villages want to thank him. Now, that pull was making you want to leave your kingdom behind for him if that were the only way for you to be with him.

His gaze flicked to your lips as you leaned into his hand on your cheek, allowing yourself the comfort of his touch for the briefest of moments as you closed your eyes. In that moment, you could see it all: the two of you, together, happy and laughing arm in arm as you took on the world. A dream that could not be. His nose bumped yours and you pulled back.

“I... I can’t do this,” you breathed out, feeling like your lungs would collapse in on themselves. Getting up, you raced to get away, but a hand came around your arm to stop you.

You swallowed, looking up at the owner as his eyes pleaded with you. There was a fire there that threatened to consume. It spread through his body and into yours where you touched, licking up your arms and sending a wave of shock through your spine. Your eyes locked into each others and in that moment you made a decision.

Regardless of what happened after the dust settled in your kingdom, you wanted to know Obi-Wan in a way that only a few did.

Your hands slipped up into his hair as you pulled him into you, crashing your lips against his. His arms encircled you, pulling you flush against him as he kissed back with the same ferocity as he fought. You wanted to lose yourself in this moment, to hold onto it forever, but you knew it could not last. It was the nature of a moment. They were short, fleeting. To hold onto singular moments was to miss the grand scheme of life, but moments, too, were pivotal. You could see where things had changed between the two of you so very clearly now. In hindsight, it was, in fact, a gradual fall. A domino effect of hundreds of tiny moments that led to the two of you crashing together like two planets on an inevitable course of collision. You could only imagine what wreckage would be in its wake. Should people find out, you thought. So they just mustn’t find out. You pulled back, knowing that to continue to prolong this moment would only risk further exposure.

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened at the sudden retraction. The crown felt heavy on your head.

“Darling-” he started to say, reaching back for you.

You ran.

#obi-wan kenobi #obi-wan x reader #obi x reader #fem!reader

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 3 years

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Devotional Hours Within the Bible

by J.R. Miller

The Ministry of John the Baptist (Mark 1:1-8, Luke 3:1-20)

Mark's gospel opens with the title of the book, "The beginning of the gospel." It was not a very promising beginning from an earthly point of view. As we look at the gospel now, it is a great river, whose streams run through all Christian lands and into many portions of heathendom. For centuries men sought in vain for the source of the Nile, at last finding it in the heart of Africa. Just so, if we trace back the streams of the gospel to their source, where will our quest lead us? Back to the heart of God we must go, if we would find the real beginning. It began in the love of God. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." The gospel was, first of all, a thought in the Father's heart, a stirring of the divine compassion. Then it grew into a purpose. All great achievements are first thoughts, then purposes, before they become acts. The gospel was first a feeling of love and pity in the divine heart. This was way back in eternity. Far back in the story of creation, when there was only chaos, we are told that the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters. The words indicate that even then God was thinking of His children yet to be, as He was planning and preparing for their good. His love had no beginning.

John the Baptist was a great character. He had been foretold and his work described by the ancient prophets. Evidently John's life was "a plan of God." He was thought about and his mission mapped out, long before he was born. He came as God's messenger to prepare the way for the Messiah. He is spoken of as "a man sent from God." Every man is a man sent from God. Many forget that God has anything to do with their lives, that He thought of them before they came, or that He had any purpose in making them and sending them into the world. But we do not drift into this world in any accidental way. God thought about us before we were born, then made us, and sent us to do what He had planned for us to do. If only we realized this truth, it would give a new meaning to our life and a new glory to our work.

God's plan for everyone is noble and beautiful. He never made anyone to live a marred and stained life. He never sent any man into this world to be a curse, to hurt other lives, to poison the springs from which people drink, or to scatter ruin and devastation. He made everyone for a beautiful character and a worthy career. But it is possible for us to spoil God's plan for our own lives. We can carry out the divine purpose for us - only by doing God's will day by day as it comes to us.

John was a very humble man. He shrank from human praise and commendation. When they asked him if he were the Messiah, he said he was only "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." He did not care to have his name emblazoned. All he wished to be was a voice proclaiming the divine message. The message was: "Make ready the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight."

There is a picture which shows a hand holding up a cross. The person is not seen - only the hand. It is good to be a hand that holds up the cross. It is good to be a voice that proclaims the Christ. We would all do well to keep ourselves out of sight - and get people to look upon Christ. Too many of us want people to see us, and so project our own personality, that we hide the vision of the Christ that we ought to exalt and honor. We want people to see us, to hear and admire what we say, to love us and honor us. But what can we do for them? What can the teacher do for her scholars, in their sinfulness and need? What can the preacher do for those who are in penitence and sorrow? We would better hide ourselves away - and get people to see Christ. It is enough for us to seek to be only a voice, speaking out clearly to tell men of Christ, while we ourselves remain unseen and unknown. It is enough for us to speak our word or sing our song - and pass out of sight; while the word we speak and the song we sing - lives to bless the world.

The mission of John is described in the words which "the voice" proclaimed: "Prepare the way of the Lord!" Christ wants a way to be made for Him. He wants a way into people's hearts, our own hearts, first of all. Is the guest-chamber ready? He wants to walk with us; but He will accompany us only on paths of holiness and righteousness, in the way of obedience. He will never go with us in any crooked way. If we expect His company with us - we must see that the paths are straight. Enoch walked with God, because He walked in the same way in which God walked.

Then, Christ wants us to make ready the way for Him to other hearts and lives. If we can open a door for Christ into people's lives, we have brought them heaven's best blessing .

One great word summed up the substance of the Baptist's preaching. He preached REPENTANCE. John taught that those who repented must be baptized; but he made it very clear that his baptism did not cleanse the heart, and that those who were baptized with water - must be baptized also with the Holy Spirit. Water is a fitting emblem. It implies that there are stains which need to be cleansed. Yet we know well that water cannot wash off sin's stains. The spot that sin leaves on the little white hand - cannot be removed by any amount of washing. All the water of the ocean, would not make it white. Only the Holy Spirit has power to remove sin's stains. If we truly accept Christ as our Savior, He will wash us in the water of regeneration. We ought to be baptized with water - the Master instituted this ordinance and sacrament - but we first need the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

John's tribute to Jesus as he announced His coming, was very beautiful. He said that he himself was not worthy to perform this lowest of all ministries for the Messiah. As we read these words and think of John's spirit of humility, we must not forget that one night, at the ending of His life, Jesus Himself took water in a basin, and a towel, and washed and wiped the feet of His own disciples. Thus He himself condescended to the place and the task of the lowliest servant. Surely this should rebuke our pride, when we stop to ask whether we are required to perform this or that lowly service for some little one of His.

John's words to those who came to be baptized, were searching. We like to say pleasant things to people, sometimes complimentary things. John had little time for flowers or compliments. He told the people frankly that they were terribly wrong - and must get right, if they would be saved. We talk to people about their splendid ancestry and about the advantages of heredity; John told his hearers that their fine ancestry would amount to nothing, unless their own lives were right. Personal character was the test, he said.

It was solemn warning which he gave in the picture of the ax lying at the root of the tree. An ax meant judgment. The business of an ax is to cut down. The doom of sin was clearly told. But the ax was not active. It was lying quietly beside the tree. There was mercy in the delay. Judgment was waiting, that the people might have time to repent. God is patient. He does not wish to destroy. He wishes men to repent and be saved. He is slow to wrath. He waits to be gracious.

It is encouraging to see how the people seem to have been affected by John's stern preaching. "What shall we do then?" they asked. They seem to have confessed their sinfulness, and to have desired to turn from their evil ways. This should always be the attitude of those who hear voices of warning and calls to repentance. John's answer to the questions of penitence was plain and simple. The man who had two coats - should give one of them to the man beside him who had none. This is the great lesson of love which Jesus taught so often. The publicans who were proverbially unjust, extorting from the people more as taxes than they ought to collect - were touched by the preacher's stern words and asked what they should do. "Begin to be just," he answered. "Exact no more than that which is appointed to you."

These words of John's impress the truth that God wants nothing unreasonable. "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you - but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

#J.R. Miller #Devotional Hours Within the Bible #The Ministry of John the Baptist #Mark 1:1-8 #Luke 3:1-20 #May 29 #2021

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whereflowersbloom · 4 years

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Shadows and thorns.

Part III

‘Let them talk’ Those were the words that echoed in her mind, over and over, and in many different ways. In panic, fear, delight, thrill, in many others she couldn't put a finger on. When she reached the castle, panting, she took a deep breath and tried to find composure. ‘Let them talk’, with his his deep, smooth voice her mind screamed, and she closed her eyes tight to expel the thought.

As a daughter of Azarath, Rhachel has been told all her life she must do everything to fulfill her duties. Including marrying a High Lord or Prince and bear his children. It also meant leaving her homeland, wed a man she did not know, she may not even like. That was her destiny. Wed Wallace West that was the arrangement. Not Prince Damian Al Ghul. Never in her six and ten years of life she had experienced so many emotions in a short period of time. She closes her eyes, telling herself to get a grip. No matter her name, her title, she will always be a Roth, brave, noble and true. There’s no reason to be afraid.

“I was growing concerned about your absence.” Constantine muttered quietly, his blue eyes asking silently for the reason behind her noticeable absence. His presence had caught her asleep at the wheel. She couldn’t tell him the truth.

“You worry too much. I was at the stables with Melchior.” she replied, unable to control her shaky voice, her bottom lip quivers as she tries to force a smile. She wasn't fine. She was struck to the bone with a feeling, the very same one that she felt when she first laid eyes on the prince. It burned and delighted her all at once. She was filled with breathless wonder and overwhelming sorrow that both brought tightness to her chest and a lump in her throat. “I thought he might be agitated in this foreign land.”

Constantine raised a brow in disbelief. “Be mindful of your words and actions. This place is a bloody pit of vipers.” John breathed to her ear, only she could hear his voice, firm and wary. It took her several minutes to tranquilize herself. Entering the grand dining hall, the guests were engaged in raucous conversations, men laughing and drinking wine of the finest quality, couples dancing. She finally found a place to sit with other noble ladies, as far as possible from the royal family’s table. Away from him.

Rhachel averted her gaze to look at Wallace a few tables over, drinking and laughing with his friends. He hadn't spoken to her since the feast started, she couldn’t blame him, though she may have purposely made herself unavailable. She observed him, everything about him emanated masculinity, strength and youthful arrogance. Prince Damian though was completely...no. Those intrusive thoughts again.

Damian was gentle, alluring, tempting. Yes, he was all that and much more. His hair shone softly with the color of the night sky. It was shorter and not nearly as curly as Wallace’s red locks. He had prominent cheekbones, high on his face, and lips as inviting as any Rhachel had ever seen. Lips that could that make her soar the sky, with the lightest brush against her skin, whispered kind and inviting words. Perhaps the most striking of all his features were his eyes. They were a vivid shade of green, resembling emeralds, that sparkled with intelligence and depth and darkened with desire and mischief.

~~~

Damian sat gracefully with his face leaning against his hand as he tried not to look as bored as he felt. He just came back more than a couple of minutes ago yet, he was already bored, which made his mind wander to Rhachel Roth. He closed his eyes, remembering, feeling the sudden urge to see her and hear her daring, charming voice. The white Raven soon to be his if her guardian agreed to break off the betrothal to the West heir. His eager eyes searched for her in the dining hall, until they found her.

She was staggeringly beautiful in her long gown, a lovely garment of lavender silk whose bodice was chased with dainty silver filigree and some precious stones. The neckline was low enough to bare the swell of her cleavage, and it hugged the deep curve of her waist so that every man, lady could see her body had developed, completely, wonderfully. She was only sixteen he had heard, but she had already possessed a woman's figure. His thoughts already ran wild with what that young figure may look like under all those silks.

A bold idea emerged in his mind, as a boyish smirk appeared on his face. Impatiently he rose from the table, not caring to give a proper explanation to his grandfather or Lady mother. He walked confidently across the dinning hall, towards a corner of it, where she was sitting with other ladies he couldn’t identify for the time being. His mind deliberately set on asking the Azarathian princess for a dance.

The white haired girl was too occupied, thinking of ways to avoid the audacious prince when she heard the ladies at the table tattling, ‘he’s coming’, sighing in awe. She didn’t have to look up, she felt his peculiar and magnetic presence. She silently prayed for Azar to give her strength to remain collected. She raised her head to meet his gaze.

"Lady Roth.” Damian said expectantly, voice rolling over the words like silk. “Would you honor me with a dance?” He bowed gallantly and stretched his right arm to her.

Her eyelashes fluttered as nervousness seeped through her veins. The table went silent, numerous sets of eyes focused on her. She had to reply. She couldn’t decline his offer, it could be seen as an offense. She nodded faintly. “Of course, Your Grace.” she whispered weakly. She hesitated for a minute, but reached for the hand he offered to her cordially, letting his wrap his warm fingers around hers and draw her into the dancing crowd.

“Your Grace. I do not understand your intentions.” She cleared her throat and spoke nervously, gazing at him as she frowned.

He surprised her, when his other hand, found her waist, bringing her body closer to his. He started to twirl them gently around the room, attracting the attention of other couples dancing. Rhachel had tried to shut down her heart. Explaining the feelings Damian Al Ghul had awakened within her with that one single heavy word that filled her with anxiety and dread. No, she wouldn’t dare pronounce it.

"I cannot help but feel that we are fated to meet more than once, my princess of thorns.” He confessed solemnly and Rhachel flinched. "When I first laid eyes on you. I wished to speak to you. The gods allowed me that moments ago at the royal stables, but I fear I cannot get enough now.” His words knocked down her walls, and she suddenly felt very vulnerable. "Rhachel, May I call you by your name?" He breathed urgently and huskily close to her ear, she went weak at her knees and could barely remain standing.

“It’s not appropriate, Your Grace.” She breathed, turning her head away slightly. Her name sounded so poetic on his tongue. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she had to swallow in order to wet her lips.

Damian ran fingers ran through her moonlight hair, feeling it soft as silk against his calloused fingers. He bent forward, taking a deep breath of the lavender she seemed to have bathed in. The touch was electric, sending a warm tingle coursing through her frame. A fluttering sensation which spread its wings like a butterfly, journeying in a flight until it settled somewhere in the lower part of her belly.

“They say that before the tournament ends. The King will announce your betrothal to Lady Troy.” The words slipped out of her mouth unconsciously. It was not something she had intended on bringing up. It was not her concern who the prince married, shared his bed with, fathered children or anything he did. Yet the thought of the distinguished Amazonian princess on Damian’s arm or any woman, made her stomach clench.

“They don’t get a say in my betrothal. It is for me to decide who will be my bride.” He raised his voice, declaring indignantly, resolutely, with an air of authority he wore like a second skin. His face had hardened. Certainly, she could see Damian Al Ghul becoming a wise, righteous and admirable ruler of Nanda Parbat.

“Besides, I already have another lady in mind. She’s thoughtful, assertive, bewildering as lovely. She has brought indescribably joy into my life.” He looked at her with a playful, confident smirk, as he spun her in an exhilarating waltz.

She cleared her throat. “This all sounds scandalous, Your Grace. It seems to me you wish to kiss this lady.” she had whispered, feeling emboldened by his words. The suffocating feeling grew strongly inside her, constricting her chest tightly. All she wanted to do was to push him away, right there, in the middle of the hall. Run away from him.

“Rhachel.” He pronounced her name slowly, tenderly, pressing his body against hers. "Did you feel it too? When you first saw me, were you struck breathless, as I was?" He was dangerously too close. She could perceive his fervent and overwhelming desire emanating from his figure. Yes, she wanted to say. A million times, yes. Yet, she buried her yearning for him. It was forbidden, even if they wanted to cancel the betrothal. She can’t.

He expertly twirled her across the room. To describe Damian as ordinary would be a terrible injustice. He was holding her steady, knowing exactly when to turn and when to slow down. He was in complete control, he has mastered the art of dancing.

She then closed her eyes, and breathed in deep. When she opened them, she looked down at her feet, gathering courage before saying. “I cannot give you the answer you wish to hear, your Grace.” Delight and sorrow seemed to blend together in her heart, brewing a poisonous mixture.

“You can’t or is it fear stopping you?” He grasped her tiny wrist carefully, calculating his force, he did not want to hurt her, his brows knitted questioningly.

Rhachel smiled at Damian, beginning to take a liking to this enigmatic prince, but her smile faded as he stopped dancing and she broke away from his arms. It felt strange to suddenly be separate from his body despite only embracing for a short while. Rhachel shook her head, denying her own feelings. Her dream was, she knew deep down, a mere fancy, a remnant of a desire that would forever remain unspoken. “I have to retire to my chamber, Your Grace.” She muttered quietly, broken. A lump forming in her throat, teary eyed.

“Call me Damian. At least grant me that wish.” Damian didn’t want let her go. He debate to take her in his arms, keep her close and safe, taste those pink lips. Her soft pearl like skin. The scent of her essence, it was mysterious, floral and pleasant. He wanted her urgently. His desire for the princess went beyond reason. “Please” he never pleaded but for her, he’d put his pride aside, just to hear articulate his name with her melodious, soft voice. “Good night, Damian.” She whispered only to him, dropping into a curtsy, unable to hold his gaze, before leaving for her chambers.

“Rhachel Roth, I will make you the next Queen of Nanda Parbat.” Damian promised to himself, he clenched his fists and remained where he was. Determination and fire running through his veins.

New update sorry it’s so slow. 😭😭😭😭 @lunastar92 @xxitzmikoxx @chromium7sky @quoth--the--raven 💜💜💜❤️❤️

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agentrouka-blog · 4 years

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ASOIAF - Dany and the persimmons of doom

The persimmon is mentioned 13 times, 12 times in Dany chapters.

What’s a Persimmon?

The word Diospyros comes from the ancient Greek words "dios" (δῐος) and "pyron" (πῡρον). A popular etymology construed this as "divine fruit", or as meaning "wheat of Zeus" or "God's pear" and "Jove's fire". The dio-, as shown by the short vowel 'i', has nothing to do with 'divine' (δῑoς ), dio- being an affix attached to plant names, and in classical Greek the compound referred to "the fruit of the nettle tree".

The word persimmon itself is derived from putchamin, pasiminan, or pessamin, from Powhatan, an Algonquian language of the eastern United States, meaning "a dry fruit".

The name was misconstrued to mean something a lot more elevated, something divine, olympian, fiery and impressive, when it really is a lot more basic than that.

Kind of loving where this is headed already.

(Long, because many quotes.)

The first and only persimmon mention outside of a Dany chapter is in AGOT, Eddard V. It’s contained in a list of offered refreshments by Pycelle, while Ned has gone to him to inquire about Jon Arryn’s death.

"Lord Arryn's death was a great sadness for all of us, my lord," Grand Maester Pycelle said. "I would be more than happy to tell you what I can of the manner of his passing. Do be seated. Would you care for refreshments? Some dates, perhaps? I have some very fine persimmons as well. Wine no longer agrees with my digestion, I fear, but I can offer you a cup of iced milk, sweetened with honey. I find it most refreshing in this heat."

(AGOT, Eddard V)

Things in a list are, in my opinion, very often symbolically loaded.

Dates. Persimmons. Milk sweetened with honey.

Dates, counting just the actual fruit, are also most heavily associated with Dany (7 mentions) and to a lesser degree Tyrion (3 mentions) and Arys Oakheart and Arianne (1 each). Also, Dorne in general.

Milk with honey, which is what Ned ends up choosing, as a combination is associated with Brienne, Jaime and the Riverland mess, oddly enough, and, sweetened milk in general also with the suppression of Sweetrobin (sweetsleep). I’m sticking to the persimmon for now.

So, what are persimmons about for Dany?

The first mention occurs in Qarth, close to the beginning of Daenerys III.

Descendants of the ancient kings and queens of Qarth, the Pureborn commanded the Civic Guard and the fleet of ornate galleys that ruled the straits between the seas. Daenerys Targaryen had wanted that fleet, or part of it, and some of their soldiers as well. She made the traditional sacrifice in the Temple of Memory, offered the traditional bribe to the Keeper of the Long List, sent the traditional persimmon to the Opener of the Door, and finally received the traditional blue silk slippers summoning her to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones.

(ACOK, Daenerys III)

Another list. Hmm...

A sacrifice in the Temple of Memory... (If I look back, I am lost. What was Hazzea’s name again?)

A bribe to the Keeper of the Long List. (Keeper of lists... Arya keeps a kill list. Other list keepers might be the maesters at the Citadel for marriages births and deaths. There are two specifically mentioned “long lists”, Pycelle’s list of people who should swear fealty to Joffrey, and Hizdahr’s list of Dany’s enemies after smashing the slave trade.)

A persimmon to the Opener of Doors. (The red door likely foreshadows her Burning of King’s Landing, which is what I think this refers to. Elsewise, Jon significantly opened the gates of the Wall for the wildlings to march through. Jon, and Dany both open doors in significant dreams or visions.)

Then she receives the blue silk slippers and is summoned to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones. (Blue silk is heavily associated with Sansa, where it’s associated with catastrophe, violence, betrayal and defeat. To a lesser degree same for Brienne and Cersei. And the blue bard. This is not a happy fabric.)

But anyway, so the persimmon is associated with the Opening Of The Door. And what else?

The Pureborn reject Dany’s offerings and do not give her a fleet. She grumbles. She contemplates returning to Vaes Tolorro and making a home there but rejects the idea. Xaro asks her to marry him. A lot. Quaithe says reaches out to her again and gives her the “To go North you must go south etc” prophecy. She decides to go see the HOTU. (Destruction will follow.)

So, persimmon -> rejecting non-conquering path. And Quaithe egging her on.

Next Mention, still in Qarth. The persimmon opens the chapter.

She was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when Irri brought her a Qartheen gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. "Take it away," Dany said. "The docks are no place for lady's finery."

If the Milk Men thought her such a savage, she would dress the part for them. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals.

(ACOK, Daenerys V)

She consumes persimmon, and returns to her Dothraki garb, rejects Xaro’s proposal of marriage, finds herself unloved by the smallfolk of Qarth and pressured to leave.

They know who I am, and they do not love me. Dany could tell from the way they looked at her.

Xaro refuses to help her get a fleet. She contemplates the visons in the HOTU. We get a book series title drop.

“I remember,” Dany said sadly. “They murdered Rhaegar’s daughter as well, the Little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon’s sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?”

“It’s no song I’ve ever heard.”

Dany wanders the docks and meets Barristan Selmy and Strong Belwas, who save her from a poison assassination attempt by the Sorrowful Men. Selmy and Belwas were sent by Magister Illyrio along with three ships. She accepts them, and renames them for the three conquering dragons Vhagar, Meraxes, Balerion.

So, all in all we are on theme here with Dany embracing her inner dragon and rejecting alternative options of making a home. Aegon the Conquerer with Teats it is. Thank you, persimmon.

Next up, A Storm of Swords. Dany goes Unsullied-shopping in Astapor. The persimmon is at the beginning of the chapter.

“Your ears heard true,” said Dany. “I want to buy them all. Tell the Good Masters, if you will.”

She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed.

(...)

Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no matter the price, she told herself. The city had a hundred slave traders, but the eight before her were the greatest. When selling bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men were rivals, but their ancestors had allied one with the other for the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood built Astapor, and brick and blood her people.

(…)

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her mouth. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. "Give me all," she said, "and you may have a dragon."

(…)

“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.” Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the dust and heat. “If you stay with me you will serve as one of my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shall keep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.” “This one will stay,” the girl said. “This one … I … there is no place for me to go. This … I will serve you, gladly.”

(ASOS, Daenerys III)

Persimmon & “buy them all, have them all, give me all” on triple display. Gee, I wonder if we will have another dragon escalation coming up?

Also, Dany’s special brand of slave liberation is in full swing. You are free to leave - with no alternatives provided for you. Or stay and serve as my “handmaid”. Ask Irri what that means.

The night before the transaction, she dreams she is Rhaegar on dragonback, bathing her enemies in dragonfire. A good dream, for Dany. She gets a visit from Quaithe. The next day, she dresses in Dothraki garb again. Fire and Blood.

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air … and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” “Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire.

It would appear that the persimmons signal the proximity of a dragon escalation. Persimmons always appear at the beginning of a chapter where Dany chooses Dothraki garb and dragonfire.

Does it hold up?

A newly conquered Meereen has the next persimmon mention right at the top of the chapter:

Dany broke her fast under the persimmon tree that grew in the terrace garden, watching her dragons chase each other about the apex of the Great Pyramid where the huge bronze harpy once stood. Meereen had a score of lesser pyramids, but none stood even half as tall. From here she could see the whole city:

(…)

And beyond the walls was the pewter sea, the winding Skahazadhan, the dry brown hills, burnt orchards, and blackened fields. Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world.

(…)

All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror.

(…)

“My city,” said Dany. “I was looking for a house with a red door, but by night all the doors are black.”

“A red door?” Missandei was puzzled. “What house is this?” “No house. It does not matter.” Dany took the younger girl by the hand. “Never lie to me, Missandei. Never betray me.”

"I never would," Missandei promised. "Look, dawn comes."

(…)

On the terrace, a few flies stirred sluggishly. A bird began to chirp in the persimmon tree, and then two more. Dany cocked her head to hear their song, but it was not long before the sounds of the waking city drowned them out.

The sounds of my city.

(…)

“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo. “Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.”

(ASOS, Daenerys VI)

After the first persimmon mention, she reflects on the conquest of Meereen in a terrible, savage sack. (Incidentally, using the same kinds of weapons to attack their gate as Jon defends against the Wildling attack on the Wall, specifically the “turtle” and ram. Jon/Dany romantic foreshadowing, surely.)

Persimmon -> Dragon and dothraki. Yes, it holds up.

But there is a second persimmon mention. Persimmons in the middle of a chapter tend to signal a rejection of the dragon path.

After a series of bad news from Astapor and beyond, making her question the success of her actions, she decides to change her plans. The birds draw her attention to the persimmon tree of dragon escalation BUT the sounds of her city drown them out. She turns away from the siren call. She decides to try and responsibly deal with actual ruling.

So far, so on theme. Will the persimmons make a comeback when Dany re-dragons? Yes. Yes, they will.

ADWD gives us more persimmons. Many more.

Daenerys II. Middle-chapter persimmon -> Dragon rejection.

She is unrestful. The Sons of the Harpy killed Missandei’s brother, and many more. She agrees to have a suspect’s young daughter tortured to get answers. She grows very tired of ruling. She struggles to comfort Missandei who asserts Dany’s Mhysa identity. But Dany is lonely and longs to be loved, longs for Daario. She takes a bath and, hello, Quaithe!

A woman stood under the persimmon tree, clad in a hooded robe that brushed the grass. Beneath the hood, her face seemed hard and shiny. She is wearing a mask, Dany knew, a wooden mask finished in dark red lacquer. "Quaithe? Am I dreaming?" She pinched her ear and winced at the pain. "I dreamt of you on Balerion, when first we came to Astapor."

(…)

“Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are.” “The blood of the dragon.” But my dragons are roaring in the darkness. “I remember the Undying. Child of three, they called me. Three mounts they promised me, three fires, and three treasons. One for blood and one for gold and one for …”

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?"

Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe.

A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once. "I was praying," she told the Naathi girl. "It will be light soon. I had best eat something, before court."

(…)

If I look back, I am doomed, Dany told herself … but how could she not look back? I should have seen it coming. Was I so blind, or did I close my eyes willfully, so I would not have to see the price of power?

(…)

I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

(ADWD, Daenerys II)

Dany is chaving under the pressures of ruling, already resorting back to cruelty, and under the persimmon tree, Quaithe beckons and tries to lure her back down the dragon path. Dany hesitates. She considers Hizdahr’s 7th proposal to open the fighting pits and questions Ser Barristan on his escape from Joffrey. She visits her dragons and questions herself, harshly.

This chapter is one big hope spot before it all goes to ashes.

Daenerys III. Closer to the beginning of the chapter, but not quite up there. -> less enthusiastic dragon rejection.

A banquet to honor the visit of Xaro from Qarth. Sensual dancing. Food and trade on the forefront of Dany’s mind, longing for Daaaaario in the background.

Daenerys held out her cup for Irri to refill. The wine was sweet and strong, redolent with the smell of eastern spices, much superior to the thin Ghiscari wines that had filled her cup of late. Xaro perused the fruits on the platter Jhiqui offered him and chose a persimmon. Its orange skin matched the color of the coral in his nose. He took a bite and pursed his lips. "Tart."

"Would my lord prefer something sweeter?"

“Sweetness cloys. Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor.” Xaro took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “Daenerys, sweet queen, I cannot tell you what pleasure it gives me to bask once more in your presence. A child departed Qarth, as lost as she was lovely. I feared she was sailing to her doom, yet now I find her here enthroned, mistress of an ancient city, surrounded by a mighty host that she raised up out of dreams.” No, she thought, out of blood and fire.

(ADWD, Daenerys III)

Tart v. sweet. Right now, a sweet queen? The persimmons beckon. She and Xaro philosophize on the relative merits of slavery. He would buy olives, she has to wait seven years for the newly planted trees to bear fruit. She hears of all the alliances made against her. Then he offers her a fleet to leave Slaver’s Bay and go home. Selmy likes the idea. Dany is sorely tempted, but the swirling rumors cause her court to question her and she lets go of the plans. She rejects Xaro’s tart persimmon-flavored offer of sailing off to conquer elsewhere. Xaro regrets not having killed her in Qarth. They part on bad Terms, she receives declaration of war the next morning.

Daenerys IX. The persimmon’s open the chapter. Uh oh.

The sky was a merciless blue, without a wisp of cloud in sight. The bricks will soon be baking in the sun, thought Dany. Down on the sands, the fighters will feel the heat through the soles of their sandals.

Jhiqui slipped Dany's silk robe from her shoulders and Irri helped her into her bathing pool. The light of the rising sun shimmered on the water, broken by the shadow of the persimmon tree. "Even if the pits must open, must Your Grace go yourself?" asked Missandei as she was washing the queen's hair.

(...)

My handmaids are Dothraki, she told herself. Death rides with every khalasar. The day she wed Khal Drogo, the arakhs had flashed at her wedding feast, and men had died whilst others drank and mated. Life and death went hand in hand amongst the horselords, and a sprinkling of blood was thought to bless a marriage. Her new marriage would soon be drenched in blood. How blessed it would be.

(…)

He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I. Daenerys Targaryen vaulted onto the dragon’s back, seized the spear, and ripped it out. The point was half-melted, the iron red-hot, glowing. She flung it aside. Drogon twisted under her, his muscles rippling as he gathered his strength. The air was thick with sand. Dany could not see, she could not breathe, she could not think. The black wings cracked like thunder, and suddenly the scarlet sands were falling away beneath her. Dizzy, Dany closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she glimpsed the Meereenese beneath her through a haze of tears and dust, pouring up the steps and out into the streets. The lash was still in her hand. She flicked it against Drogon’s neck and cried, “Higher!” Her other hand clutched at his scales, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Drogon’s wide black wings beat the air. Dany could feel the heat of him between her thighs. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst. Yes, she thought, yes, now, now, do it, do it, take me, take me, FLY!

(ADWD, Daenerys IX)

Well. I’d say the pattern fits. Persimmon tree shadow breaks the image of a new dawn on the water, dothraki references, FIRE AND BLOOD.

And her final ADWD chapter?

Daenerys X. Persimmon joins us close to the beginning of the chapter, but not quite at the top. But Dany makes up for that with enthusiasm.

Hers had been a lonely sojourn, and for most of it she had been hurt and hungry … yet despite it all she had been strangely happy here. A few aches, an empty belly, chills by night … what does it matter when you can fly? I would do it all again.

Jhiqui and Irri would be waiting atop her pyramid back in Meereen, she told herself. Her sweet scribe Missandei as well, and all her little pages. They would bring her food, and she could bathe in the pool beneath the persimmon tree. It would be good to feel clean again. Dany did not need a glass to know that she was filthy.

She was hungry too. One morning she had found some wild onions growing halfway down the south slope, and later that same day a leafy reddish vegetable that might have been some queer sort of cabbage. Whatever it was, it had not made her sick. Aside from that, and one fish that she had caught in the spring-fed pool outside of Drogon's cave, she had survived as best she could on the dragon's leavings, on burned bones and chunks of smoking meat, half-charred and half-raw. She needed more, she knew. One day she kicked at a cracked sheep's skull with the side of a bare foot and sent it bouncing over the edge of the hill. And as she watched it tumble down the steep slope toward the sea of grass, she realized she must follow.

Dany set off through the tall grass at a brisk pace. The earth felt warm between her toes. The grass was as tall as she was. It never seemed so high when I was mounted on my silver, riding beside my sun-and-stars at the head of his khalasar. As she walked, she tapped her thigh with the pitmaster’s whip. That, and the rags on her back, were all she had taken from Meereen.

(…)

Below, she saw men whirling, wreathed in flame, hands up in the air as if caught in the throes of some mad dance. A woman in a green tokar reached for a weeping child, pulling him down into her arms to shield him from the flames. Dany saw the color vividly, but not the woman’s face. People were stepping on her as they lay tangled on the bricks. Some were on fire. Then all of that had faded, the sounds dwindling, the people shrinking, the spears and arrows falling back beneath them as Drogon clawed his way into the sky. Up and up and up he’d borne her, high above the pyramids and pits, his wings outstretched to catch the warm air rising from the city’s sun baked bricks. If I fall and die, it will still have been worth it, she had thought.

(…)

No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to.

(…)

“Quaithe?” Dany called. “Where are you, Quaithe?” Then she saw. Her mask is made of starlight. “Remember who you are, Daenerys,” the stars whispered in a woman’s voice. “The dragons know. Do you?”

(…)

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away.

(…)

Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you.

(…)

As the western sky turned the color of a blood bruise, she heard the sound of approaching horses. Dany rose, wiped her hands on her ragged undertunic, and went to stand beside her dragon. That was how Khal Jhaqo found her, when half a hundred mounted warriors emerged from the drifting smoke.

(ADWD, Daenerys X)

She WANTS the persimmon tree. There is the Dothraki environment. She WANTS Quaithe. She starts acting like a literal dragon, nesting, eating Drogon’s leavings, wanders the grasslands half-crazed, suffery dysentery, miscarries (Mhysa v. Mother of Dragons) and makes her sacrifice to the Temple of Memory (Hazzea), which was the first step to the Hall of Thousand Thrones in Qarth.

Next up, a bribe to the Keeper of the Long List, persimmon to the Opener of (Red) Doors and then it’s Hello, Blue Silk Slippers of (stabbing) Doom in the Hall of Thousand Thrones.

Considering how consistent the theme of the persimmon is, I’m kind of excited about it seeing how GRRM will use it in TWOW and ADOS.

Next up I think I’ll look at the context of dates, and milk with honey, just to find out why GRRM chose to have Ned reject the persimmons and dates and did let him choose the milk and honey, in that very first mention. Iced milk and honey.

#asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #persimmon #foreshadowing #fruit symbolism

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idealnreal · 4 years

Note

Please overanalyze the shadows in his palace I am begging you.

@appleyjuiceboy / jester owns my braincells of course i would do this for u

Okay so i think its best if i go about the order of shadows we meet in the game so. I’m not going to go into the persona/shadows in maruki’s palace. I’ll leave that for some other day. Now! Lets hope i can remain fully coherent.

1) The fluffy haired noodle shadow we meet for (ka)sumi’s awakening

First off, look at the design of this shadow--it has the fluffy hair parted to the right like maruki, its androgynous figure, and that swirly face mask as well! The mask has two eyes, and it even looks like theres a smile there, lopsided.

We have never seen any other palace shadow taking a similar shape as the palace ruler (except maybe the yaldaboath palace). Shadows are meant to emulate what the ruler thinks of as protectors of their heart. Maruki doesn’t trust anyone other than himself with this secret. And particularly at this phase of his distortion -- there are no scientists, to attendants, no patients. Just an empty, beautiful palace -- with possibly only one type of shadow and protector. The type that represents himself.

(Also androgynous/nb maruki confirmed ?? yes)

Okay then lets look at what this shadow says to Kasumi.

Shadow: ... Heresy. You dare to spurn our lord’s mercy. Accept yourself... Our lord laments the foolishness birthed from your pain.

Having the context that Kasumi is Sumire here ... Because this scene comes about because Kasumi sees a cognitive version of herself (Sumire) blaming herself -- and so, a part of her is probably trying to remember that she is Sumire. Thus ‘spurn(ing) our lord’s mercy’. And yeah accepting herself as Kasumi instead of trying to remember that she is Sumire.

But most important is the fact that Maruki’s palace shadows refer to him as a religious or god-like being (’our lord’s mercy’ calling back christian themes). Someone who is merciful and, most of all, does feel grief over one’s pain. Painting an ideal picture of a loving and caring god, ala abrahamic religions. This is a running theme with all the shadow’s dialogs. Let’s put a pin in this for now.

These design shadows are seen again later in the container room of the palace. They’re slightly faster. The container room is a strange one -- because it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the laboratory/hospital/garden of eden thing going on. While yes labs and hospitals do have storage areas, i cant imagine them being a container warehouse like this. I do headcanon that this is a storage area for the pain and suffering that Maruki has taken on from other people in order to heal them, due to his hyper empathy -- but i’ll analyse the room some other time. For now it’s interesting that the Maruki-like shadows are now relegated to this specific and really dark section of the palace.

Like the throne room/centre of eden that the Maruki boss fight takes place in -- He resigns himself to the darker gloomier parts of his palace. And the same goes for these shadows. This is where he belongs.

Also abso-fucking-lutely we’re going to talk about how this shadow transforms when it ambushes you:

Skin suit opening up to reveal fangs and rows of teeth, and a formless monster inside. Maruki ... dude ... are you okay? If these shadows are meant to emulate him -- is this how he sees himself sometimes? HHh boy...

2) First lab coat wearing shadow at the start of his palace investigation

Prior to this, while we understood that Maruki was a researcher, it was never a defining feature of him. Like the first thing that came to my mind on Maruki was that he was just the school counsellor and snack purveyor. Now this entire researcher, scientist, side of him is in full display. And this is the most common type of shadow we see, some which are violent, and others are non violent. Maruki sees scientists as the main residents of his palace -- his drive towards investigation and discovery, to puzzling out the intricacies of the human heart, human mind, and human pain. To better further his ability to heal. But there’s also a sort of cold, methodical nature to these scientists. Their ‘healing’ is methodical, based in science.

This coupled with the religious reverence and ideology that their dialog suggests, is a nice contrast. Experiments, data, research, are people’s salvation. Not the simple belief of a deity or of a higher purpose -- but science. Science, in many ways, becomes part and parcel of their religious belief.

Shadow: Those guises ... You aren’t among those who desire salvation. Leave. You are unwanted intruders. Do not disturb our lord’s research-- this world’s salvation. Why do you willingly strive for self-suffering? Why are you reaching out to your own pain?

So here -- the shadow wants them to leave the palace well enough alone. To leave Maruki to his research, and to allow this reality to exist. They don’t want this to end violently and it seems like they’re okay with the trio not ‘desiring salvation’. And when the trio refuse to leave, the shadow asks them why they want to suffer. It’s something inconceivable to them. Maybe even challenging their resolve-- to reconsider their current path, which will only lead to more pain. Also ‘salvation’, ding, on the christian theme counter. Deliverance from above from sin, even redemption. Not for one person, but for the whole world.

We see this type of shadow again before the scene in the auditorium.

Shadow: You are misguided. Do not search for pain. Only tragedy awaits you beyond here. [After defeating it] Such a fool, rejecting our lord’s mercy. In that case -- witness it for yourself.

Same themes. Delicious. Lets move on now shall we.

3) Hastur -- the shadow that appears with Maruki at his reveal as his second-in-command / bodyguard

I don’t think i’ve talked about how much i love the lopsided smiles on these masks. Because i love it. it’s just the right amount of unsettling and creepy. fUCk. And the twitching, twisting, and the weeping blue paint that Hastur’s shadow form does before transforming is /chefs kiss. I wanted more.

Anyway, onto Hastur’s design. Not a labcoat this time, just an ordinary looking white suit with no tie. This is the only time we see Maruki have a bodyguard shadow -- something else he relies on. Hastur’s presence in this scene only shows how deeply afraid and uncomfortable Maruki actually is with intruders in his palace. This experience is a reminder that someone had come into Rumi’s parents house to kill him years ago (a theory for another time). Like that incident years ago, he doesn’t resort to violence here -- he did and does try to negotiate. But when that didn’t work, at least now he has something that can fight for him.

( It is only in the second infiltration when we see Maruki actually take a more active role -- but I won’t get to that here. )

Hastur: Stubborn imbeciles, rejecting our lord ...

There is a running theme here, unfortunately. The shadows again cannot comprehend why anyone would choose to reject Maruki’s salvation, why anyone would choose suffering. And words like ‘foolish’ ‘misguided’ and finally ‘imbeciles’ here are all used to describe those who choose to reject it. While i do think Maruki only bends reality if the person wishes it (subconsciously or consciously), and does accept that there are people who won’t accept their wishes being granted and is aware of the reasons why-- He cannot fully understand or emphatise with it.

4) These deformed Maruki-like shadows guarding the control room

Jesus christ above, i don’t like these, because they contrast with all other designs as these are more brutish and deformed. There’s used as gatekeepers at certain points of the palace, in the first control room, and later on in the brain-pod-room (my brain cells are stopping to work now excuse me) before the garden puzzle portion, at his final will seed and the entrance to the garden of eden.

We know Maruki isn’t a brute strength kinda person. And yet we see these few who’s only purpose is to defend certain things and areas with force. Its uncharacteristic, but at the same time, given the things that these shadows are defending -- it makes sense. No cunning, no wit, no negotiation, no compassion -- just forcefully defending very important parts of his heart and his work.

Shadow (at the control room): So you dare defy His Excellency. You shall not interfere with our master’s work!

Shadow (brainwash room): Foolish rebels! You won’t take one step past here!

Shadow (entrance to garden of eden) : You?! I can’t believe you’ve made it so far ...

I had to do a double take on this. I think this is the only time this title ‘His Excellency’ has been used in the palace. While it is used for catholic bishops and that sort -- its mostly used in the context of heads of state, ambassadors-- more secular roles. The other times this shadow speaks is also similarly less reverent, less religious orientated. Of course this makes sense if the only function of these shadows is to use force to defend. They’re not the scientists or the first maruki-imitation shadows -- they’re not as devoted, and they dont have to be.

5) Finally, these limbless noodles

This one is found during the horticulture portion of the palace. I can’t exactly figure out why. And as far as i can tell, they only appear in this portion of the palace.

As far as the design goes -- these are probably the most unhuman like. Slender, androgynous with only a mask. I’ve got nothing. Braincells ran out. Sorry!

(Haha androgynous maruki go brr)

SO! That’s it. thanks for coming to my ted talk and following me down this rabbit hole. I need to go and drink some fuckin tea.

#(( jester being a real bro here #(( enabling me and my insanity #f: notes #c: the self #takuto maruki #(( slides this into the main tag #appleyjuiceboy #p5r spoilers

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rawritzrobin · 4 years

Text

Angel Amongst Bats Chapter 4

Title: Angel Amongst Bats

Pairing: Jason Todd x Stella Covington (My OC)

Warnings: Cursing, past major character death, a little bit angsty, fluff.

Summary: Tim spills the beans as Stella finally gets the answers she is looking for.

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

A/N: Yes, I am aware that Renegade was Dick's character. But I liked the name for Jason instead (:

Chapter 4: Answers

Stella stared at Tim’s outstretched hand for a few seconds.

She was confused at the gesture. What did he mean by nice to meet you? They have been friends for years. Just then, it hit her. If she really died when she was a teen in this world, she never would’ve met him.

She shakes her head, rubs the back of her head with her left hand and shakes his right hand with her other hand. “Stella! Sorry. I kinda forgot where I was for a second there.”

They shook hands for a few seconds and pulled apart.

“Alfred. Do you mind if I steal Stella from you for a while?”

Alfred smiles down at Tim. “Of course not.” He nods in Stella’s direction. Stella smiles nervously.

“That is, only if you want to.”

“Of course!” Stella was more than willing. Maybe Tim would finally tell her why everyone is avoiding her questions about Jason in this universe. She stepped behind Tim’s wheelchair and wheeled him towards what she knew was Tim’s favorite place in the manor.

Once they were settled deep inside the gardens of Wayne Manor, Stella took a seat on one of the many wicker chairs surrounding them. It was a nice sunny fall day. There was a chill to the air, but that just made the sun more welcoming. Stella and Tim both stared into the beautiful greenery around them for a few moments. The silence was welcomed.

Stella was the first one to break the ice.

“So. You said Jason threw you off a building? Care to elaborate?” Stella asked curiously. Her elbows resting on her thighs and her chin resting on her hands.

Tim chuckles. “Do you want the full story that leads up to that? Or just that part of the story.”

“What do you think?”

“Well I can’t give you the full story since I joined the team late. But I can tell the things I have heard. It all started when you died.”

Stella nods. It was still weird for her to hear that she was dead in this universe. She was dead and yet life goes on. The world continues to function without you. It was surreal.

“Jason blamed Bruce. He kept repeating over and over again that he should have went for you first. It was already too late by then. And well, after the funeral, Jason sort of snapped. He left the manor one night and broke into Arkham.”

Stella listened intently, leaning closer to Tim. He went on.

“He took the Joker from his cell, and broke him out. Jason ripped the tracker in his arm off so that made it impossible to track him. It took them nearly 2 weeks to find him. By that time it was too late. Based on what they found it looked like Jason tortured him for a few days before leaving him to die, drowning in his own blood.”

Stella covered her mouth with her hands in shock. Jason hated the Joker, but she could never imagine him torturing Joker until he died. But then again, he had Stella to calm him down when he lost his temper. She wondered if he could really pull that off if she was the one who died that night. She thinks back to the day she tried to take her own life, how empty she felt without him.

Yeah, she could see Jason snapping the same way she almost did.

“He disappeared for a few years after that.” Tim continued. “That was when I joined. I only heard stories about what happened. I never even met him at that point. A year in we ran across a string of murders. Each as violent as the next. The only thing connecting them was the fact that they were all drug dealers. We didn’t put two and two together until one day we caught him, in the middle of killing Black Mask.”

Stella was silent. Her brain still trying to comprehend everything Tim has told her so far.

“He was wearing a black motorcycle type helmet. Called himself ‘Renegade’. It wasn’t until we caught a sample of his blood off Black Mask’s corpse that we realized it was him. The first time Dick and Bruce confronted him Dick ended up with a broken leg and Bruce nearly came home in pieces. Ever since then he’s just been sort of around. His latest victim was the Penguin.”

Stella gasped. “What?!” She asks.

Tim sighs. “Yeah. After that he sort of took over Gotham as one of the big crime lords. We tried to talk to him. One by one. But he wouldn’t listen. Well, when it was my turn he was furious. Called me ‘replacement’ before beating the shit out of me, and throwing me off a building. And well, here we are.” He says gesturing to his wheelchair.

At this point Stella was at the edge of her seat. She wanted nothing more than to return to her own world. Hearing such stories about the man she loved, even in a different dimension, was heartbreaking.

“The fall severed my lower nerves from my vertebra. I landed directly on the side of a trash can. The pain was excruciating, at first. But then everything went numb. Doctors are trying to find a cure, but I know better. I’ve actually gotten used to this by now. I kinda hated patrol anyways. I would much rather be on the computer supporting the team you know? Like a sort of watcher. Or…”

“Oracle.” Stella finished.

Tim smiles, “Yeah. Thats a good codename actually. Might have to take that one from you.”

“Well it’s not mine to take. You see back in my world…” Stella goes on, telling Tim the details from her world.

The two talk for hours. Exchanging stories from their own world. Stella tells Tim her Jason’s story. How he died, came back to life, and went mad before finally settling down with the Bat family once more. She told him how the Tim in her world was currently donning the name ‘Red Robin’. How the Joker in her world took away Barbara’s ability to walk..

Tim listened intently. Taking in every story and noting every difference between their worlds. Little did they know, Bruce was also listening in from the Batcave, through a few bugs he had planted in the garden.

By the time Stella was finishing her part of the story, Dick, Barbara, Damian, and even Alfred were gathered around the Bat computer. Barbara shivered at the Joker story, Dick pulled her into his arms.

“And that’s that. I was actually waiting for Jason to get back from patrol when I was sent here. By who and how I still don’t know. And believe me, even though my Jason seems a lot less violent than yours, there’s a running list of people who would love to get revenge on him.”

Stella lays back on the chair she was sitting in and sinks in. Closing her eyes, she slowly takes in everything Tim has just told her. So Jason did exist in this universe. He was just a psychotic murderer who was also a crime lord, but he also kills bad guys. Not to mention the fact that he has tried to murder each and every member of the family. Even Alfred apparently.

Tim studied her. To him she seemed like just your average girl. He couldn’t believe that this was the girl Jason went on a murder rampage for. She seemed so, normal. Sweet even. How did Jason land a girl like her? What was their story?

Stella sits back up. “Wait. So now that I have the full story. Can you tell me why Conner seems to despise me? By the looks of it he never even met this worlds version of me.”

Tim rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, he blames Jason for what happened to me. I have told him over and over again that Jason’s not in his right mind, but he still wants to kill him. I guess to him, knowing that you were the reason Jason snapped, he blames you for what happened to me.”

Stella raises her eyebrows. “First off, I am not the same Stella in this world, though she does sound cool. Second, it’s not like I did it on purpose. And third, IM NOT EVEN FROM THIS WORLD! And it’s not like I wanted to die!” She screams as she crosses her arms in and angry puff.

Tim smiles at her sheepishly. “I know. But he’s been extra protective of me ever since it happened.”

Stella wiggles her eyebrows at him. “Im guessing you two are dating in this universe too?”

Tim blushes. “Yeah. Is the Tim in your world with Conner too?” He asks.

“Pftt. No. They both have the hots for each other. But they’re both too proud to admit anything. It will probably take a life changing moment for those two to get together. Like..”

“Like the accident that brought Conner and I together in this world.” Tim finishes.

Stella looks at Tim sadly. “I’m sorry.” She looks down at her feet.

Tim rolls his chair closer to where Stella was sitting. He places his arm gently on her shoulder. She looks up.

“It’s not your fault. It’s not any of our faults.”

“Except that stupid clown.” Stella mutters under her breath.

Tim sighs. “Yeah.” He says as he turns to face someone. “Hey Alfred.”

Stella turns around to see Alfred approaching them. It was then she realized the sun had set, and it was already night time.

“Master Tim, Bruce is looking for you. Something has come up and they require your help.”

#Jason Todd #Jason Todd x OC #Stella Convington #Red Hood #DCU #Alternate Universe #Fanfiction #iwritethings #alfred pennyworth #Tim Drake #Renegade

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yakocchi · 4 years

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Be My Princess Social // Yakov Chernenkov, Season 1, Episode 1

// The Great Prince of the Country of Ice

o wats this, self-indulgent crap?? haha the joke is that all the translations i post are self-indulgent crap, thank you for coming to the press conference

This is going to be part of a translation of the Yakov Chernenkov route for the Be My Princess Social Platforms (GREE, Joshige, Eternal Kiss, etc.)

I figured this should be… relatively all right given that it seems like Voltage is done with BMP Social games forever in terms having English versions. tbh kinda surprised no one ever took the task of doing it. publicly at least? i searched a bit, found nothing. if someone already did it pls tell me lol …..but i guess something like this is a stan’s job to do, right (ﾟ▽ﾟ*)

idk, we’ll see how this goes… only did 1 ep as a test run to see if i feel like doing this rn lol this is lengthy endeavor

Image-heavy!! Please credit if you take any of it, thenk u (･ω･*)

Intro & Legend

This route is similar to Zain’s in that they wipe just about everything from the Paid version (the one with Sergei and the Anastasia backstory…lol that was wild thinking abt it) and start anew with the character. But Yakov is different from all the other BMP1 characters in that they also changed his personality almost completely. This is reflected in his profile when they change his blood type and age from the Paid version (B → O, 25 → 31)

If you’re familiar with the Social Zain route, you can kinda see through his bits how they changed him. A BMP fansite master describes him as “high-handed, but charismatic - a person with the character of a king” which sums it up better than anything I could ever think up

So I guess it would be a good idea to not carry over expectations from the Paid app route to this route because that’s just a recipe for disappointment lol. i know a lot of people like the Yakov from the Paid route, so I wanted to put that out there. It’s a shame bc that character is effectively “gone” but… the yakov i stan is the social one, so if that had to happen so my 2d man could come into existence…well…

thank u for ur sacrifice

➤ are my own commentary.

➢ are the choices that pop up. For the most part I have both (iirc I don’t have one near the end bc I forgot I was trying to pick the wrong ones on purpose lol). Note that all my wrong answers are from the original version’s text and thus they may have been changed for EK. Correct answers are labeled with ❆

➼ at the end of a line signals that the choice text has “ended” and it returns back to the general text. The general text resumes on the line that begins with a ➼. This is mostly just for organization on my part - the docs I type+format these on get very, very annoying to scroll through, so

Bolded dialogue reflect the screencaps.

I hope you enjoy some part of it! ( ´◡` ) Thanks for reading

Episode 1 // The Great Prince of the Country of Ice

➤ Interestingly, the original title they used for GREE and Joshige is The Cold, Rational Prince of Sanct Sybil Kingdom. I dunno why they would change it except maybe it was too long for the title card to look pretty lol

When I opened the door at the sound of the chime, there stood a man wearing a gentle smile on his face. Taking note of my presence, he places his hand to his breast and gracefully bows.

[Zain]: “You must be Miss Kara Go. I am Zain, the personal steward of Nobel Michel Castle.” [Zain]: “As promised, I have come to pick you up.” [Kara]: “Y-Yes. I am indeed Kara Go.” [Kara]: “To go out of your way to come here - thank you so much.” (Am I really… not just dreaming here?) Pulling a letter out from my pocket, I recall the events over the past few days that had led up to today.

I had torn the seal of a blank-white envelope that had no written return address, and my eyes widened in shock. “I want you to become an exclusive designer.” In the enclosed message - along with a bit of contact information, the end of the letter had been signed by Nobel the XIII, the lord of Nobel Michel Castle. (This must be some sort of mistake… A-Anyhow, I should try to verify it.) Thinking that, I call the contact number on the letter…

But, indeed - the letter was not a mistake, and they spoke to me about wanting to have a proper consultation about the position. I was told that Lord Nobel wanted some time to talk in-person with me, and eventually the promised day where I felt that my dreams were coming over the horizon… finally came. (Even when it’s finally here, in front of me of like this, I still can’t believe it…) [Zain]: “Thus, His Grace awaits. Let us depart.” [Kara]: “O-Okay…” With a spring to my step, I get onto the limousine with Zain.

(It would’ve never crossed my mind that I’d be going to Nobel Michel Castle for a second time.) (And on top of that, I’ve been called here in terms of being a designer of all things…) I was pretty nervous the time I had come here for Jean Pierre’s errand, but now I’m even more nervous compared to that day. I felt my heart noisily thumping as I waited for Lord Nobel, and eventually the parlor door opened.

[Zain]: “My Lady, we must deeply apologize.” [Zain]: “His Grace’s conference is going longer than expected, so it seems you will have to wait a few moments longer.” [Kara]: “I see…” [Zain]: “Since you took your most valued time to come here― Would you like to take a look around the castle gardens until the conference is over?” [Kara]: “Castle gardens… you say?” [Zain]: “Indeed. Several varieties of the rare flowers we raise are currently in bloom– so if it pleases you, I can guide you around.” (You don’t get the chance to tour the Nobel Castle gardens everyday.) [Kara]: “Then, if you may.” [Zain]: “Very well. Shall we go now?” With Zain as my guide, I get to visit the castle gardens.

[Kara]: “Wow… it’s absolutely stunning.” [Zain]: “Thank you. Everyone who visits these gardens tend to voice similar sentiments about it.” The courtyard stretched over a vast space, and it was a feast for the eyes even with a simple glance. (In a way, it’s as if I’ve been sucked into a fairy tale.) As Zain explained the parts and features within it, I was completely enamored by the beautiful garden― When an teenage boy clad in a butler’s uniform comes running to us from the castle.

[???]: “Zain! So this is where you were.” [Zain]: “…Theo, you are before a guest.” [Zain]: “I must apologize, My Lady.” [Zain]: “This is Theo, who is training in this castle as an apprentice steward.” The boy called Theo – at being scolded by Zain, straightened his posture accordingly.

➤ i can’t believe bmp2 stans denied us from having the wacky family sitcom a theo route would have smh my head bro

[Theo]: “…I am Theo.” [Kara]: “I’m Kara. Nice to meet you, Theo.” [Theo]: “M-Mhm…” Theo, whose face still held remnants of childlike youth, averted his eyes shyly. Then Zain, who had witnessed all of this, lightly presses the boy in a gentle tone. [Zain]: “Theo, did you have any matters to discuss with me?” [Theo]: “Ah-, right! I was sent by His Grace to relay this message to you.” [Theo]: “He urgently wants your input on something, so you gotta come to the conference room.” [Zain]: “His Grace does?” [Zain]: “But, right now…” His eyebrows knit together, as if troubled. With a smile I turn to him. [Kara]: “I’ll be all right by myself. Though while I wait, may I take a look around the garden?” [Zain]: “Yes, of course.” [Zain]: “I apologize for being unable to guide you around myself for now– but if you could meet with me afterwards…” [Zain]: “Can you wait just a moment?” [Kara]: “All right.” Sounding apologetic in his words, he then goes with Theo towards the castle. (Being the exclusive butler to Lord Nobel must be quite the busy job…) I thought about that as I took a stroll around the calm gardens, sunlight beaming… When―

[Man]: “Please, at least, once more– Please consider thinking about it…!” The cries of a man at his wits’ end cut through the silence of the courtyard. (Is something going on…?) Looking in the direction of the voice, I find three men standing from the other side of the building. The shouting from earlier seems to have come from a man who looked slightly older from other two, and said man also seemed to be desperately calling for something. [Man]: “…The state of the administration right now still is unstable.” [Man]: “If we act too carelessly, the balance of the three nations could collapse once more!” [???]: “…I have long past made a decision.” The words that had answered the aggravated man were bound to a terribly icy voice. As this man stood with his back facing me, I was unable to see his face; but from pitch alone he seemed to be a young man. With his long, platinum-blond hair having been pleated into a single braid, he silently rebuffs the rage of the older one.

[???]: “Even if you did indeed manage to chase me all the way here― Decisions are not something to turn back from.” [???]: “That is all that need be said, so I shall leave first.” [Man]: “…Yakov–Sir, why are you this impatient?!” [Man]: “It can't be that you don’t realize that now is a crucial time for the country, is it…?!” In pure exasperation, the older man grabs onto the man called Yakov. But in doing so, a man in a butler’s uniform that had stood across from him swiftly yanks the man off.

[Butler]: “What are you thinking in that head of yours, grabbing onto someone of his (Yakov’s) status?” [Butler]: “Even if you get imprisoned for disrespecting the state, this is an inexcusable situation you’ve found yourself in.”

➤ so the term he uses is specifically for lèse-majesté, which is the fancy term for insulting the ruling sovereign, monarchy, ruling state, etc. etc. but i didn’t want to just throw in that term bc i felt like it’s not… very common? idk i feel like the bmp mc wouldn’t know what that is granted i guess you could do the galaxy brain take and be like “she doesn’t know what that term is and that’s why she couldn’t piece together that yakov is royalty”

[Man]: “Urgh…!” The older man was then pinned to the ground, and as his arms were confined behind his back, he groans in pain. The moment I see the expression on his face, a cry spills out from my lips.

[Kara]: “Ah…!” [Yakov]: “…!” Hearing my voice, the platinum-blond man whips his head around.

His eyes, peeking out from behind his long bangs and deep blue like the sea, then sharply leveled at me. [Yakov]: “…What is your business?” [Kara]: “Uh…”

(What should I answer with?) Menacingly asked to speak, I…

➢ I’m unable to say anything. ➢ “He’s in pain.” ❆

➢ I’m unable to say anything. (This person… has an awfully intimidating air to him.) Unable to say anything particularly impactful, I only turn my eyes to the man held to the ground. ➼

➢ “He’s in pain.” [Kara]: “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’ve gone too far… He’s in pain.” [Yuri]: “Of course. It’s only natural for it to hurt when you’re bound down like this.” The man in the butler’s uniform answers me with a smile plastered on his face. (What the-… He’s smiling, but it’s honestly quite frightening-) [Kara]: “B-But… if you end up injuring him, that’d be terrible, no…?!” While paralyzed with fear, I managed to raise my voice at him. ➼

➼ With that, the platinum-blond man shifts his eyes to the man in the butler’s uniform. [Yakov]: “―Yuri, release him.” [Yuri]: “…” At his words, the one called Yuri immediately relinquishes his hold.

➤ Yuri’s name might actually be Urey, as one of Ivan’s Birthday Event routes note how Ivan’s wolf Urey and butler Yuri have the same name (by coincidence). But the JPN version always spells it as Yuri so I’m just used to it. Not that you should really be taking the app’s romanization as official though given they have stuff like “Lewis” (Louis), “Jean” (Jan), and the occasional “Robert” for Roberto ( ´_ゝ｀)

As the older man staggers back up from the ground, the blond man speaks to the two of them. [Yakov]: “Do not start trouble in the castle grounds of other kingdoms.” [Yakov]: “ ―Regarding what happened here today, I shall overlook it this time. Good?” [Yuri]: “Understood.” [Man]: “…My sincere apologies.” As the two men lower their heads, the man called Yakov then directs his piercing gaze towards me.

[Yakov]: “Forget what you just saw and heard here. Not a word to anyone.” With only those words to me, he leaves with the other two following behind him. (That “Yakov” person, and “Yuri” too… what terrifying people.) Alone in the garden, I was completely petrified to the spot from the overwhelming pressure those men had left me with.

[Theo]: “―Miss Kara, here is where His Grace’s been hanging o– awaiting your presence, rather.” Afterwards, Lord Nobel’s conference had ended and Theo had come to take me to him. While heading to the parlor where His Grace was waiting, Theo’s innocent self causes a smile to crack my features. [Kara]: “Just ‘Kara’ is fine, Theo. On that note, you don’t have to speak so formally with me.” [Theo]: “Uh- But…” [Kara]: “I’ll be more at ease and less nervous that way.” [Kara]: “Besides, I’m in a similar situation as you.” [Theo]: “‘Similar’?” [Kara]: “I’m only a rookie designer.” [Kara]: “So like how you’re an apprentice butler, it’s kind of a similar position.” [Theo]: “Gotcha…” At my explanation, Theo, apparently happy about some part of it, breaks into a smile. [Theo]: “…I get you. Then- When we’re together like this, I’ll be sure to do it.” [Theo]: “Since only super-distinguished people ever come to this castle, I get pretty stressed out.” [Kara]: “Hehe, I’m feeling the same too. Just entering this castle makes me anxious.”

[Theo]: “Right?! Lord Nobel and Zain treat me really well so it’s all right for now, but…” Theo wore a smile that was quite fitting for a young boy like himself. Calmed by his pure sincerity, I enter the reception room.

[Theo]: “…Your Grace, I have brought Miss Kara Go.” [Nobel]: “Thank you for your hard work.” [Nobel]: “Kara, sorry for making you have to wait on me when I was the one who called you up here.” Lord Nobel wears a merry smile on his face as he kindly welcomes me. I bow my head down in gratitude. [Kara]: “I am, indeed, Kara Go.” [Kara]: “Thank you for inviting me to such a meeting.” [Nobel]: “You don’t have to greet me so formally,” [Nobel]: “as the truth still stands that I was the one who summoned you today. I just wanted to talk with ya about something.” [Nobel]: “―So, Kara, do you know of the country of Sanct Sybil?” [Kara]: “Yes. I’m only knowledgeable with news and info that’s been reported to the public, but…”

Sanctis, Sybil, Versurk― Those three countries had united into one, and the resulting nation is apparently called “Sanct Sybil” from what I’ve heard. With this as my sole knowledge of the country, Lord Nobel speeds up the conversation.

[Nobel]: “Then I’ll cut to the chase.” [Nobel]: “The truth is that Sanct Sybil is planning to join the Nobel Michel Alliance.” [Nobel]: “As they’re still a new nation, they’re searching for talent both inside and outside the country.” [Nobel]: “In pursuit of capable individuals, the prince of Sanct Sybil has come to me for some guidance, so…” Cutting his own words short, a smile then markedly graces his features.

[Nobel]: “Kara, you are to be the exclusive designer of Sanct Sybil Castle.” [Nobel]: “I thought that I’d like to go see you work there.” [Kara]: “Uh-…” (I’m… going to be the exclusive designer… for a royal castle?!)

[Nobel]: “Besides yourself, I’ve been in talks with other talented folks in all sorts of industries.” [Nobel]: “It’s only the designer position that’s yet to be decided.” [Nobel]: “I personally wanted to recommend you, but… what do you think?” [Kara]: “Um… I’m truly grateful to be able to have this conversation with you, but…” [Kara]: “Since I’m still new to this, I don’t have any achievements to show for anything.” [Kara]: “Knowing that, why did you call on me for this…?” I can’t hide my own utter confusion from his sudden invitation. Voicing my bewildered thoughts with that question, the corners of his lips quirk up into a smile.

[Nobel]: “I learned about you through a list I asked from Jean Pierre.” Lord Nobel, upon consulting with the prince of Sanct Sybil, requested Jean Pierre to produce a list of designers with promising futures. (Jean Pierre himself put me on that list…) [Nobel]: “Certainly, you don’t have any prior accolades… but within the multitude of applicants, I saw your design sketches,” [Nobel]: “and I was considerably charmed by them.” [Nobel]: “I grew delighted just from simply looking at that design.” [Nobel]: “And for that reason I wish to bring you to Sanct Sybil, a nation newly born into this world.” [Nobel]: “I think that a person full of zeal like yourself is necessary for such a place.” [Kara]: “Your Grace…” [Nobel]: “By all means, please consider it for me.” (I’m simply unworthy to be having this sort of discussion…)

At Lord Nobel’s invitation, I…

➢ “Give me some time.” ❆ ➢ “If it is all right with the other party…”

➢ "Give me some time.” Having heard all of this from Lord Nobel so far, the feeling of wanting to give it a shot comes to me. (But…) [Kara]: “…Could you give me a bit of time to think about it?” [Nobel]: ”Of course. You should go ponder it a great deal before coming to a decision.” ➼

➢ “If it is all right with the other party…” [Kara]: “If it is all right with the other party, I feel that I would like to accept this offer.” [Kara]: “However…” There’s an uneasy feeling in my heart about it, and my words drift off. Then Lord Nobel, as if he understood my thoughts nods his head once. [Nobel]: “It’s all right if you don’t rush yourself to a decision.” ➼

➼ [Nobel]: “Can you give Zain an answer a few days from now?” [Kara]: “Understood.” Putting my answer on hold for a moment, I depart Nobel Castle.

(The chance to be the exclusive designer for a royal castle won’t ever come by me again, but…) (While Jean Pierre is having a hard time, I can’t just leave him like this.) Turning down the offer to be dropped off at my apartment, I head towards the office of Jean Pierre.

[Jean Pierre]: “Oh my, is that ma petite?” [Kara]: “Pierre!” Not expecting to meet him like this, I’m surprised to see him here. As if he had sensed something about me, he smiles.

[Jean Pierre]: “…With a face like that, looks like you got something to talk about, hmm?” [Jean Pierre]: “Instead of standing around outside to chat, please just come on in.”

Pierre unlocks the door to his office and I come inside. [Jean Pierre]: “You somehow came all the way here… Could it be that you had talked with Lord Nobel?” [Kara]: “…Yes.” [Kara]: “I received an invitation to work as the exclusive designer of Sanct Sybil Castle.” [Kara]: “But for someone like me, who has no experience nor achievements, to take up such a grand job is…” [Kara]: “I don’t really have the confidence that I can do something like that.” [Kara]: “And on top of that, I want to be further taught by you…”

[Jean Pierre]: “What are you saying?! Is this not a good thing? This is your big chance!” He looks at me with a serious expression. [Jean Pierre]: “In that list I submitted to Lord Nobel, there were also designers that had prior achievements.” [Jean Pierre]: “Despite that, I was convinced that you would be the one to be chosen.” [Kara]: “Why… is that?” [Jean Pierre]: “From your designs, I feel this power to them.” [Jean Pierre]: “There are some parts that are rough around the edges, but there’s this energy, one that can completely transform people, hidden within!” [Jean Pierre]: “Lord Nobel definitely sensed that too, I bet.” [Kara]: “Ah…” (Thinking about it, Lord Nobel did say something along those lines…) (He said that the designs- from simply looking at them, he grew delighted…)

[Jean Pierre]: “Please believe in yourself.” [Jean Pierre]: “I, as well as His Grace, would never recommend someone who we’d feel couldn’t do the job.” [Jean Pierre]: “I believe in your potential, ma petite.” [Kara]: “Pierre…” Even though he himself is in a difficult position, he’s so firmly supporting me in this. With my heart overwhelmed with such emotion that I couldn’t speak, Jean Pierre smiles. [Jean Pierre]: “I’m also going to use this moment as a source of encouragement for myself, as I plan to work hard as a designer once more.” [Jean Pierre]: “One day, no doubt in my mind― the offices of Jean Pierre will be restored!” [Jean Pierre]: “And that’s why, ma petite… without worrying about these offices, please just go and try what you want to try.” [Kara]: “…Thank you!” (I can’t let this chance from Jean Pierre and Lord Nobel just pass me by.) Urged on by Jean Pierre, a smile appears on my face as my chest is enveloped in this determination.

―That night. Resolute in accepting the offer of exclusive designer, I contact Zain as soon as I return to the apartment. [Kara]: “Concerning the aforementioned position of Sanct Sybil’s designer… I think that I will accept the invitation.” [Zain]: “Thank you very much. I think that His Grace will be quite pleased to hear that.” In a soft tone - As if thinking for a moment, Zain continues to speak. [Zain]: “If I can be honest with you, the prince of Sanct Sybil himself is actually coming to stay at the castle for official business.” [Zain]: “Normally, we would hold your interview over at Sanct Sybil, but…” [Zain]: “Since the prince will be coming over, how about you two introduce each other here at Nobel Castle instead?” (Is that so?) (Even if Lord Nobel is recommending me, it could become a situation where the prince of Sanct Sybil is not too impressed by me.) [Kara]: “I see… If you could reserve some time for that, that’d be great.” [Zain]: “Then, I shall make the proper arrangements and contact you again.” And with that, it was decided that I would meet the prince of Sanct Sybil.

A few days later―

I’ve been called to Nobel Castle once more. While having a spot of tea with Lord Nobel and Theo, I bow my head again. [Kara]: “―Thank you for granting me an opportunity like this.” [Nobel]: “Ohohoho.” [Nobel]: “At any rate.. you’ve become quite resolute about this.” [Kara]: “…Yes. Your Grace has given me words of immense appreciation, and Jean Pierre has also encouraged me.” [Kara]: “I think, as a designer, I want to take advantage of these chances given to me.” (But… with no achievements of my own, I wonder if the Prince will approve of me…) Anxiety running through my heart, Lord Nobel smiles while stroking his beard. [Nobel]: “I also have hopes for you, Miss Kara.” [Nobel]: “I believe that, surely, the prince of Sanct Sybil will indeed require your power.” [Kara]: “Thank you…!” When I beam at Lord Nobel’s kind words, Theo then cuts into the conversation.

[Theo]: “So Kara… really is a designer, huh.”

[Theo]: “But… if it were possible, I was hoping that you’d become the designer for this castle.” [Kara]: “Hehe, thank you.” [Kara]: “I think that I definitely wouldn’t be able to be the designer for Nobel Michel, but I hope one day I’ll be able to make clothes for you, Theo.” Replying to Theo with a smile, Lord Nobel watches us with a gentle look on face. [Nobel]: “Ho ho, looks like you two have become quite close.” [Nobel]: “As I thought, Kara, you seem to have this charm that just mellows out everything around you.” He laughed heartily when there came a knock on the door. [Zain]: “Please excuse the interruption,”

[Zain]: “For I have brought Prince Yakov of Sanct Sybil.”

➤ “op are u just making excuses to post caps of zain as much as possible” perhaps PERHAPS if im gonna need to break down the blobs of text, zain is nice to look at

(Ah…) I get up from my chair, and face the doorway nervously. But at the next moment, my eyes instinctively open wide. (That, person…) The figures that followed behind Zain were two men I was familiar with―

The platinum-blond man with the air of intimidating beauty, and the man in the butler uniform who had worn a smile on his face―

The people I had witnessed in the courtyard days before.

[Prince Yakov]: “―As I have heard that you have found a candidate for the designer position, I have come.” [Prince Yakov]: “Your Grace, I give you my humble gratitude for granting my request.” [Kara]: “Eh…” [Prince Yakov]: “…” I inadvertently let out a small cry of surprise, and the Prince finally meets my eyes. For a split second his eyes had widened, but almost immediately after it shifts into a sharp gaze. (A person like him is the prince of Sanct Sybil, of all things…)

Steeped in the shocking reality of it all, I stare dumbfounded at Prince Yakov―

➤ now part of me was thinking, do people really need all the screencaps of when he makes the -_- face but honestly him doing the -_- face for half of his portraits on this route is part of the experience

To be continued…

(Letter)

➤ so uh this might be a crapshoot in terms of placement bc there’s diff letters based on the special story you choose, and also i forget where the last few letters go loool but that won’t be a problem until later

From: Yakov Title: (untitled)

…So you are the designer recommended by Lord Nobel? If you come to my country, you will be treated to the finest hospitality. Therefore you should not ponder over unnecessary matters and just bring yourself here. Good?

―Yakov

holy fucc idk why this is more tiring to translate than other stuff. maybe bc this is a slow route where we have exposition and non-romantic chara development we have to tread thru first. also lol translating the bmp writers’ style seems like more work? vs stuff like cybird? idk it’s hard to explain. i’m not a super big fan of what i have rn…. in fact i’m like wtf what is this incomprehensible garbage i made... but i’m too tired to do revisions rn…… aye… but i’ll definitely look over it again in attempt to give it more clarity+readability so yea. there’s nothing’s “wrong” in terms of the literal meaning per se - it’s more like i’d like to make it flow better and actually follow grammar rules instead of cheating with dashes and line breaks hahaaa

anyway guess ill see u at the next part when (if?) i bother to do it. hrmmm i should try to make the chunks larger given that this story is 15 eps + 3 special stories (with ~3 variations for each story) + epilogue but fuuu ill get there when i get there

Next Episode…

“If you wish to hear of my tastes - you will have to ask me in a more alluring voice.”

yea thats rite im hitting u with the azn drama cliffhanger. well now i have to do this translation or else this would be mean….. this is a psychological effort to get me to not leave this unfinished

Again, thanks for reading!

#be my princess #yakov chernenkov #bmpYCS1 #yea thatll be my tag for this shit so feel free to block it #bmp

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sheliesshattered · 4 years

Text

The Message

Doctor Who fanfic, 3200 words. Post s12e03 Orphan 55. Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald, Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswald. Hurt-comfort and the Doctor’s mardy mood. Posted under the same title and username on AO3.

The Message

“Doctor?” Yaz said, trying to keep out of her voice any trepidation over breaking the quiet of the console room.

“Hm?” the Doctor said, not looking up from screen on the console that she’d been glued to for the last hour or more. Yaz clenched her teeth but tried to push her annoyance away. At least she’d responded at all, which was a marginal improvement from her behaviour of the last day or two.

Ryan and Graham had eventually tired of her terse silences and retreated to the deeper, cozier parts of the TARDIS, but some nagging feeling had kept Yaz in the console room with the Doctor, though she had hardly even acknowledged her presence.

If Yasmin had thought things had been bad after their run-in with the Master, it’d only gotten worse following their misadventure on Orphan 55. The Doctor’s mood had fallen further, souring in a way that Yaz struggled to understand. Gone was her cheerful, bubbly friend, and she wasn’t at all sure about the woman who remained.

But she was still the Doctor, she’d argued with herself, half a dozen times already. Still the same woman she would follow to the end of the universe and beyond. Just because she was in a strop didn’t mean she wasn’t her, and Yasmin wouldn’t be much of a friend if she let her faith waver any time the Doctor was a bit moody. Or so she kept trying to convince herself.

Besides, the thing she needed to talk to the Doctor about was actually starting to genuinely worry her. “There’s a light on the console, just there,” she said, pointing. “It’s been blinking the last several days. Never seen it do that before.”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, still pretending her attention was completely absorbed in whatever it was she was browsing on the galactic hub.

“Should it be doing that?”

The Doctor sighed noisily. “It’s just a light, Yaz. It’s built to flash. That’s its sole purpose in existing.”

“Doesn’t it mean something, though?”

“Usually does.”

Yaz clenched her teeth again. “Something bad, I mean?” All things considered, she’d managed to keep her voice impressively neutral.

“Why would it mean something bad?” the Doctor demanded, finally looking up from the screen in front of her. Where once that question might have come with a curious, confused tone, now she just sounded annoyed, maybe even offended.

“Well, on a car, a light blinking like that usually means refuel or check engine or whatever.”

“Right, because the TARDIS is so much like a car,” the Doctor said sarcastically, turning back to the monitor.

Maybe she just needed to come at this from a different direction, Yaz thought, struggling for patience. “Why’d it just start doing it recently?”

The Doctor was quiet for a long moment, and Yaz started to wonder if she was going to end the conversation by simply refusing to answer. “It’s like a blinking light on an answerphone — no, wait, you’re too young to remember answerphones. It just means I have a message, that’s all.”

“I understand what voicemail is, Doctor,” she replied, and oh, there was some of her own tetchiness that she’d been trying to keep under wraps. “Why haven’t you listened to it?” she asked, smoothing out her tone.

“Haven’t you ever ignored a message you’d rather not see?”

“I suppose,” Yaz said. “But curiosity usually gets to me in the end, even if it’s someone I’d rather not hear from.”

“Keep that curiosity then, Yaz,” the Doctor said, clearly a dismissal. “It’ll serve you well.”

“And where’s your curiosity gone?” she snarked back before she could stop herself.

The Doctor looked up from the console screen again, leveling a look at Yaz, her eyes ancient and unamused. Yaz stared her down, despite the chill creeping up her spine, until finally the Doctor shook her head and dropped her gaze back to the monitor. “That’s the TARDIS-to-TARDIS messaging system,” she said, her voice grudgingly more open. “So far as I know, there are only two other TARDISes still out there, besides mine. And I don’t particularly want to talk to the pilots of either. And if curiosity wants to try having a staring contest with me, we can check back in in a century or so and see which of us is winning.”

Bit Wicked Witch of the West, but you get the gist, O had said, in the moments before they’d found out who he really was. It wasn’t until much, much later that she’d put together the pieces, realised that the flying house they’d seen was the Master’s TARDIS, disguised the same way the Doctor’s TARDIS was disguised as a police box. Who did the other one belong to, then? Some other ‘Time Lord’ — that was what the Doctor had called herself, wasn’t it? Avoiding the Master Yaz understood, but it could just as easily be from the other TARDIS, couldn’t it?

“Are you worried it’s from... him?” she asked, trying her very best to be sympathetic to how the Doctor must be feeling.

“Like I said, not anxious to talk to either of them.” Once again it was clear the Doctor meant to end the conversation there, but this was the most she’d talked in days, and Yaz wasn’t about to walk away now and let her wallow in her quiet misery alone, no matter how much her nerves were fraying.

“Who’s the other one? The other pilot the message could be from?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Doctor bit out. “Listen, just forget the message, Yaz, I’m not going to listen to it.”

“Could be important, though, couldn’t it?”

“Leave it alone,” the Doctor snapped, jerking her gaze up to her.

Yaz blinked, taken aback. She’d never heard that tone from the Doctor before, certainly not directed at her. “You know what, Doctor?” she said, anger making a flush creep up her neck. “You’re right: curiosity does serve me well.” She reached for the button next to the blinking light, mashing it down even as the Doctor lunged to stop her.

A hologram flickered to life a few feet away, and to her relief it wasn’t the familiar image of the Master, but rather a woman with straight brown hair, cut not unlike the Doctor’s. Her hologram stared directly ahead, shifting her weight slightly and tucking her hair behind her ears, as if nervous.

“Hello, Doctor,” the image of the woman said in a Blackpool accent. “If I’ve managed the messaging system like I think I have, this should reach you at the right point in your timestream, the one best chrono-aligned to mine. Which hopefully also means you remember who I am. If not this could be... awkward. But please know, I’m only contacting you because I need your help—”

The hologram shut off, and Yaz looked over to find the Doctor with her hand on a lever, hunched over, chin tilted down so that her hair obscured her face.

“I told you,” she said, voice heavy with what Yaz suspected were smothered tears, “to leave it.”

“Who was she, Doctor?”

She breathed raggedly for a moment. “An old... friend.”

“Like you and the Master are old friends?”

“No,” the Doctor bit out. “Clara is nothing like— No.”

She was definitely crying, and if she’d been any less defensively closed off in her posture, Yaz might have tried to hug her, offer some kind of comfort for whatever it was she was going through.

“What, then? Like an ex?”

The Doctor actually seemed to flinch at that, and despite her annoyance with her friend these past few days, the last thing Yaz wanted to do was hurt her. A surge of guilt flashed through her, overwhelming the rest.

“Yes, an ex,” the Doctor ground out, her face still hidden.

Yaz didn’t know what to do with that information. The idea of the Doctor having past romantic relationships seemed so odd to her. There had been times, of course, when Yaz had thought they might have been building towards that themselves, but always talked herself out of the possibility, convinced herself that romance simply wasn’t the way the Doctor was built. And yet that was apparently exactly what this beautiful young woman from Blackpool was to the Doctor.

Or, well, she might in fact be a Time Lord, she reasoned. Why wouldn’t she be, after all? The Doctor’s accent was pure Yorkshire, despite being from a planet Yaz had never heard of before, and the Master sounded so thoroughly British that he had fooled all of them into believing he was human. Having a Blackpool accent and an ordinary name like ‘Clara’ hardly proved anything.

“Well, I can understand wanting to avoid an ex,” Yaz said, aiming her voice for reasonable and soothing. “But she said she needed your help—”

The Doctor stood and turned away in a flurry of coattails, pressing the heel of each hand to her eyes. “She’s clever,” she said with her back to Yaz. “Really, astonishingly clever. Whatever it is, she can figure it out herself.”

Yaz was about to reply, but was cut off by a knock at the door of the TARDIS, and she turned to look at it, startled.

“Don’t answer that,” the Doctor said, her tone no less commanding for the trace of tears still in it.

“But... We’re in the Vortex,” she said, confused. “How can there be someone at the door when we’re in the Vortex?”

“Please, just, don’t answer it. I’m begging you, Yaz.”

“Doctor?” came a muffled call through the door. The woman with the Blackpool accent — Clara, the Doctor had called her. “I know you’re in there,” she went on. “I need to talk to you.”

“Please,” the Doctor whispered. “Don’t.”

“I’m going to use my key, Doctor,” Clara said. “Please, I just need to talk to you.”

“She has a key?” Yaz hissed at the Doctor.

“Of course she has a key, of course she kept it,” the Doctor muttered, though Yaz wasn’t sure it was entirely meant for her.

There was the sound of a key turning in a lock, and the Doctor went rigid. Yasmin threw a look her direction, then took a few steps towards the door, just as it opened and swung inwards by a fraction.

“Okay, new desktop,” Yaz heard, though it was spoken quietly, “that’s a good sign.” The woman angled the door slightly more open and poked her head inside, looking exactly as she had in her hologram. Her gaze fixed immediately on the Doctor, still stood with her back to the door, then slid over to land on Yaz.

“Hi,” she said, smiling kindly. “My name’s Clara. Sorry to drop in on you like this.”

“Yasmin Khan,” she replied. “How did you do that? Knock on the door like that, when we’re in the Vortex?”

The woman’s eyes flickered to the Doctor and back again, and she stepped fully inside and closed the door behind her. “The TARDIS messaging system can be used as a tracer, if you know what you’re doing.”

“And you always know what you’re doing, don’t you?” the Doctor said, her voice subdued.

Clara took a deep breath as though steeling herself. “Hello, Doctor.”

The Doctor finally turned around and faced them, her eyes rimmed in red. “Hello, Clara.”

“You know who I am, then,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’ll make this easier.”

“Nothing can make this easier,” the Doctor said immediately, some of the sharpness returning to her tone.

“Faster, then, if nothing else,” Clara replied. “I need your help.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” the Doctor said.

“I know,” Clara sighed. “It’s dangerous, I know that. And believe me, if I had any other options...”

“No, I mean, you should have gone a long time ago. You shouldn’t even be— Why are you still here?”

Yaz was stood close enough to her to see the tears start to gather in the stranger’s eyes, and as much as she felt like she was intruding on an intensely private moment between this woman and the Doctor, she couldn’t tear herself away.

“I had wiggle room and a TARDIS, and I needed time to process... everything,” Clara said. “I was always going to go back. I know that I have to— I know how important it is. That’s why I had to see you.”

“Can we skip the last hurrah, this time? It never seems to go well for us.”

Hurt flashed across Clara’s face, but her voice was level as she said, “You’ve been back, haven’t you? I’ve been tracking your TARDIS’s movements, I saw you land there. That’s why I sent you the message now, I had to be sure that you knew, that you’d seen Gallifrey—”

“What do you know about it?” the Doctor snarled, taking a large step towards Clara.

“Not as much as you, I’m guessing,” Clara said, seeming unflappable in the face of the Doctor’s anger. “I went back, like I promised I would, and when I saw what had happened, my first thought—”

“Your first thought was of me?” the Doctor demanded, bitingly sarcastic. “Well, rightly so, I’d reckon. You know my track record on that front better than anyone. That’s just the sort of thing I’d do, isn’t it?”

“Doctor!” Clara snapped. “Of course I didn’t think you’d done that! I was worried you were somewhere in that rubble. That Rassilon had come back looking for revenge, or the Daleks had found a way through Gallifrey’s defenses, or I don’t even know! I was worried about you!”

Rubble, on Gallifrey? That the Doctor had seen? Yaz frowned, thinking through the Doctor’s moods of late, trying to remember when exactly it’d started, and just how long that message light had been flashing.

“Well, I’m touched,” the Doctor said flatly. “But as you can see, I’m fine.”

Clara blinked back tears and nodded. “My second thought,” she said, then paused to swallow heavily. “My second thought was that there’s no way for me to get back, now. That’s why I had to see you.”

“Get back where?” the Doctor asked, sounding genuinely confused to Yaz’s ears, if still rather sharp.

“The Trap Street,” Clara said, whatever that meant. “There’s no one left to put me back. And I— I don’t know what to do, Doctor. I don’t know what comes next.”

The Doctor closed her eyes and shook her head. “You shouldn’t have waited so long.”

“I know I shouldn’t have done, but it’s too late now. I tried to get to an earlier version of Gallifrey, but my TARDIS wouldn’t cooperate.”

“Temporal safety protocols. You’ve seen it now, you can’t go back to before it happened. Can’t risk corrupting the timeline.”

“We did it once before,” Clara said, voice tinged with hope.

“With the help of the galaxy-eater,” the Doctor said. “No such luck, this time.”

She sighed and nodded. “So what happens if I can’t go back?” she asked. “If I can’t... If I’m stuck like this? Is it a danger to the universe?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” the Doctor demanded. “A civilisation gone and you’re worried your continued existence might poke a hole in the universe?”

“And unravel the Web of Time? Yes, that’s what I’m worried about! Why aren’t you? What is wrong with you, Doctor? This isn’t like you.”

“You don’t have any idea what I’m like. New face, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Don’t you do that, don’t you dare,” Clara said, eyes bright with tears. “Don’t treat me like I’m somebody else. I know you, I know all your faces, and I know when you’re not yourself! Last time it was that whole business with your confession dial, so go on, tell me what it is this time. What happened to you?”

“What happened?” the Doctor thundered, striding over to Clara with such ferocity that Yaz took a step back, watching as Clara stood her ground and lifted her chin. “What do you think happened?? I went home to Gallifrey and found that, that’s what happened! And it was the Master—” She cut herself off with a choked sound, hands curling into fists.

“Missy?” Clara asked, her eyebrows drawing together.

The Doctor shook her head. “He regenerated. Back to his old tricks again. Do you remember what you said to me, that day in the graveyard with the Cybermen? You said that if I’d ever let the Master live, everything that happened was on me. And I just don’t learn, do I? I keep making the same stupid choices, out of the same stupid hope that this time, this time it’ll be different. And now—”

The tears finally seemed to catch up with the Doctor, and she crumpled forward with a tortured, muffled sob. Yasmin took a step towards her out of instinct, but Clara was closer, quicker, and caught the Doctor, pulling her into a tight hug.

“It’s not your fault,” she said fiercely. “You’re not responsible for what the Master chooses to do.”

The Doctor pressed her face to Clara’s shoulder, hands clenched in the back of her jumper. “Of course it’s my fault. You were right back then. Every time I’ve let him live, all the destruction he’s caused, again and again. And now you’re stuck, and they’re all gone, Clara, they’re all gone. That whole planet, not a single life-sign. I didn’t push the button this time, but I may as well have done.” Her words dissolved into repressed cries, and Yaz’s heart twisted.

Gallifrey. A civilisation gone. Not a single life-sign. Can we visit your home? she’d asked, never once considering that there might not be anything left to visit.

Clara met her gaze over the Doctor’s shoulder and gestured her over with her eyes. It only took her a moment to catch her meaning, and then she was crossing the short distance between them, wrapping herself around the Doctor’s back and holding her tight, half hugging Clara as well. The Doctor found one of her hands behind Clara’s back and clung to it like a lifeline, her grip almost painful.

“Did you know?” Clara asked her quietly.

“No,” Yaz said, and only then realised that she was crying as well. “Something had obviously been bothering her, but I had no idea. I’m so sorry, Doctor,” she added, clutching her close.

“Oh Yaz,” the Doctor said, voice thick with tears, “I’ve been so awful to you. I’ve just been so, so angry.”

“You never were very good with grief,” Clara said gently.

“Is that what this is?” the Doctor asked, sounding lost. “Maybe if I could just grieve properly, I could get past this, come to grips with being... being orphaned again. But it’s my fault, the Master being alive at all, and look what’s come of it. I just never thought he’d do something like this.”

“Hey, Yaz,” Ryan called, accompanied by his approaching footsteps. “Do you know where—” He stopped, and she looked over to find him frozen on the stairs, his eyes wide. “What’s going on?” he asked, sounding worried.

“You should tell them,” Clara said softly, in a voice meant just for the Doctor. “Tell them everything. What you’ve lost and why it hurts. They’re your friends, and friends stand by you in times like these.”

“No,” Yaz said, hugging the Doctor tighter, “we’re not just her friends. We’re her family.”

105 notes · View notes

swtorpadawan · 4 years

Text

Theron Shan in Absolute Trust

Author's Notes: FYI - This is an older piece written a couple of years ago. The Alliance Commander depicted in the following story is decidedly NOT my OC, Corellan Halcyon, but another JK Outlander. It takes place shortly after Knights of the Eternal Throne.

This is all just between us, right? Strictly our little secret? Good. Because you know I'd hate to have to kill you.

So, go ahead and pull up a chair. I'll buy you a Corellian Brew, and then I'll tell you a story.

People ask me, 'Why stay with the Eternal Alliance?' Oh, sure, back when the Eternal Empire was off subjugating the galaxy, it was easy to see why so many people would jump at the chance to join an organization dedicated to taking it down, especially when most of the really big players had rolled over to it. But why stay afterwards? Now that the war is over, hasn't the Alliance fulfilled its purpose? Shouldn't we all just go back to being Republic, or Empire, or Zakuulan, or whatever?

Well, for me, the answer is simple: Our Commander is the reason I stayed. He's the reason I've believed in the Alliance for as long as I have.

I have a great story to illustrate my point, but first it needs some background on my friend and leader.

Nowadays, people just call him the Commander. So much so that most seem to have forgotten his actual name.

He used to be called 'the Outlander' by the masses, a name Arcann gave him as an insult but that he turned into a title of respect among friends and enemies alike.

Before that? Oh, he had a bunch of other titles. Master Jedi. Hero of Tython. Battlemaster of the Jedi Order. The Conqueror of the Sith Emperor. He held the honorary rank of General in the Galactic Republic. I think he was also a Paladin of House Organa of Alderaan - you know, If you're into that sort of thing. The Gree call him the 'Black Bisector of Coruscant'. (Yeah, I don't know either.) Oh, and a few of our recent Zakuulan recruits quietly call him the 'Dragon of Zakuul' when they think no one can overhear them. There's a story there for another time. The Commander's been a bunch of things over the course of a relatively short life. He's been a Jedi, a soldier, a hero, a Champion of the free galaxy, a rebel, a savior and now finally a peacemaker.

Yeah, it's true – his reputation has always been as a warrior first. And probably the greatest in the galaxy. That's one reason why he's inspired so many martial types – Jedi, Sith, Republic and Imperial Commandos, Mandalorians, heck, even gangsters – to his side. And then keep them there. He wins a lot. I admit, I really do regret not being present for his showdowns with Arcann or Vaylin or Valkorian. What can I say? He needed me someplace else in each case. I do remember his fight against Revan a few years ago, though. A bunch of us fought by his side. Myself, Lana Beniko, Satele Shan - the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Lord Scourge - the Sith Lord who used to be the Emperor's Wrath, Darth Marr - who was basically running the Sith Empire at that point, Shae Vizla - who went on to become Mandalore, Jakarro - this Wookie bounty hunter we had buddied up with – all serious customers. Even with all of us behind him, the Commander – who was still just a Jedi Master at the time - stood out. Watching him in that fight was like nothing else I've seen. There's no way we could have taken down Revan without him. And if anything, he's only become more powerful since then. It's kinda scary when you think about it.

What's that? Who am I? Oh, sorry. Theron Shan, at your service. Former agent of the Galactic Republic's Strategic Information Service (that's "spy" to those of you not in the know), sometime hero and adventurer, now a senior adviser to the Commander of the Eternal Alliance.

But getting back to the Commander - This man has taken blows that would have crushed anyone else. Falling to the dark side, then bouncing back. Losing those years of his life when he was imprisoned in carbonite, knowing most of his friends were missing and maybe even dead, seeing almost everything he'd fought for destroyed in his absence. Then being hounded by the Eternal Empire with just a handful of allies when he finally got free. Then later watching his nascent Alliance being abandoned by the Senate of the very Galactic Republic he had once championed. Watching friends and allies die in the final battles to take down the Eternal Empire, and finally overcoming Valkorion in a battle for his own mind.

I've seen him win so many battles and lose so much along the way, I honestly don't know how he keeps going. But he does. And deep down, I knew he always would.

And I think everyone else in the Alliance pretty much thought the same.

What's that? Am I related to… Oh, kriff, really? Alright, yes, fine. I am the illegitimate son of Master Satele Shan, former Grand Master of the Jedi Order. (Who incidentally was the Commander's boss at the time we met.) Yes, I am a descendant of Bastila Shan, hero of the Jedi Civil War centuries ago. And if the name Revan means anything to you, yeah, I can claim him as an ancestor, too. And heck, why shouldn't we bring up the fact that my father is Jace Malcolm, the Supreme Commander of the Republic military? And that I didn't even meet either of my parents until I was almost thirty? And that my mother apparently went into hiding years ago after the Eternal Empire invaded, and that she didn't even bother to send me a message to tell me she was alright?

Not that I'm, you know, bitter or anything.

Anyway…

The Commander and I, though, we've been through a lot, since well before Zakuul invaded. Heck, we even met a couple of times before that Korriban operation went sideways and eventually led to us meeting Lana and squaring off with Revan. We kept that hush-hush, though. My old bosses at the SIS wouldn't have approved of what we were doing. It's possible my mother wouldn't have been okay with it either. Story for another time.

In all our time together, he never brought up the fact that Satele was my mother. Or that I was raised as a Jedi initiate as a kid before washing out because I didn't have 'the gift' of the Force. Don't tell anyone, particularly him, but I always… really appreciated that.

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging here, but I don't think I'd be totally out of line if I told you I'm probably the Commander's best friend at this point. Nothing touchy-feely, you understand. In my job, I don't place too much stock in terms like that, but it's likely true. There are only two people in the whole Alliance he's known for longer than he's known me, and both of those are members of his old crew, back when he was just a Jedi running around the galaxy with five companions in one small ship. They're both good people, don't get me wrong, but one is an AstroMech droid who talks in beeps and whistles and the other is a drill Sergeant with the personality of a Durasteel wall. So as far as confidantes go, yeah, I feel I'm at the top of his list when it's time to share memories over a beer.

Not that he does that a lot, being a former Jedi, but we have.

Of course, then there's Lana, who is a very special case.

Lana Beniko, the former Minister of Sith Intelligence. Brilliant. Ruthless. Beautiful. Deadly. We'd become partners of convenience years ago when were both on the run during the Revanite Crisis. We worked well together. I respected her. I even liked her. We were friends. Even good friends. But I never forgot that she was a Sith. She and I had a little incident back on Rishii when she let me get captured and tortured by the Order of Revan so she and the Commander could find their base by tracking me down.

I mean, that was a long time ago, so I'm mostly over it.

Mostly.

Anyway, so Lana was the one who freed the Commander from that carbonite prison in the Spire on Zakuul. She searched for him almost non-stop for five years, even after everyone else had given him up for dead. She risked everything to rescue him, convinced that he was the only one who could defeat the Eternal Empire. Since then, she's been totally dedicated to his cause, building the foundation of the Alliance up from nothing and rarely leaving his side, except when he needed her to. Heck, she even chose the location of our headquarters here on Odessen.

Eventually, she and the Commander even started sharing a bunk. So, you know, they're close. Special case, like I said.

(And just for the record, Lana's interest in the Commander as more than just an ally? Totally called it years ago. This was right after that thing on Ziost, when she didn't have the Commander and I killed for not turning a Vitiate-possessed Jedi Master over to her for an 'examination'. Believe me, she didn't hold off for my sake.)

If the Commander was the heart and soul of the Alliance, Lana was the mind. Her intelligence and ruthless determination helped forge a grassroots resistance movement into an organization rivaling the great powers of the galaxy. The Commander consults with her on every major decision.

(Me? I try to be the Alliance's conscience. Hey, don't look at me like that. Someone needed to do it.)

Some of the troops – the few who were with us way back on Yavin years ago – they still call the three of us the Triumvirate. Sounds like a gang of spice dealers of Nar Shadaa, I know. But just between us, I always kind of liked it. A Jedi, a Sith and an SIS Agent. Sounds like the opening of a bad joke.

Instead, we saved the galaxy. More than once.

But here's my story. So, a few months after the Commander took down Valkorian and claimed the Eternal Throne, Lana and I were vetting the application for a potential recruit. We'll call the guy Slade, though you can bet your last credit that it wasn't his real name.

He was ex-Sith Intelligence, one of their 'Watchers'. He had briefly worked for Lana years ago before the Eternal Empire had invaded.

Now I'm a spy by trade myself, but this guy was shifty even for my line of work. Lana was suspicious of him right from the start when he came to us. Said she remembered Slade as being too "old Empire", loyal only to the most powerful Sith within arm's reach. She also assessed that he changed loyalties too fast to be trusted with important assignments. She said he could be insufferably flattering to a superior, and equally arrogant to his subordinates. Lana concluded that it was incredibly suspicious that he was choosing to join us now, and not months before, when the rebellion was in full swing.

I tried playing devil's advocate for a while, but Slade's background check generated too many red flags, including the suspicious shifting of a large amount of credits to his accounts through the Hutt Cartel, but originating elsewhere. We couldn't trace the origin, but when he waffled on his explanations for where the money came from, we both agreed it was best to give him the boot.

Lana and I were escorting Slade to the shuttles with a couple of Alliance troopers – one ex-Republic, the other former Imperial. That's how we try to do it. No restraints; we were still treating him with kid gloves at this point. We were walking past the war room – basically the command center of the whole base – when Slade spots the Commander. He was talking to Hylo Visz, our former celebrity smuggler turned Head of Underworld Logistics for the Alliance. They were probably going on about trade routes, but Hylo is one the few people in the galaxy who can honestly relate with the Commander's experience of having spent a few years frozen in carbonite, only to wake up to a galaxy that looked very different from how they left it. So I guess they did have that much in common, anyway.

Arcann was by his side, too. Yes, it was that Arcann. Valkorian's son, who had seized the Eternal Throne and invaded the rest of the galaxy. The one who had imprisoned the Commander in carbonite for five years, then hunted him and his allies down for months. The one most of us had joined the Alliance to stop in the first place. But when the time came, the Commander barely hesitated to trust that Senya, Arcann's mother, was right that there was good in him. How crazy is that? But then he joined us after being redeemed, helping us stop both Vaylin and Valkorian. Arcann was now one of the Commander's most powerful supporters.

In a private moment, Arcann had once asked the Commander how he had been able to forgive him for everything Arcann had done, both to the Commander and to the rest of the galaxy. The Commander just told him that if he hadn't given Arcann that chance, everything the Commander's life had stood for would have meant nothing.

Yeah, every once in a while, the Commander could be as enigmatic as the most wizened Jedi Master.

Anyway, Slade suddenly makes a break for it, running straight towards the Commander. He was a slippery one to make it as far as he did. Now if we hadn't already been convinced we didn't want him around, the sheer stupidity of making this move right there, right in the heart of the entire Eternal Alliance, would have been enough. Immediately, I drew my blaster and called for Slade to freeze, and our escort leveled their rifles. Six more Alliance members interposed themselves between the intruder and the Commander, ready to give their lives if needed to protect him. Arcann stepped forward as he ignited his lightsaber, wary of this apparent intruder.

Of course, all of that was superfluous when one of the people who had been escorting the target was a highly-motivated Sith.

I could tell Lana was furious that we had let this guy get anywhere close to the Commander. I mean, yeah, we had checked him for weapons and other 'toys' and it's almost impossible to think he could have actually harmed the Commander personally without them. But Lana didn't really care. She reached out with the Force, and next thing you know poor Slade is levitating in the air, grabbing his own throat in pain and desperation. Force-Choke is still part of Lana's repertoire, even if she's embraced the Commander's "tactical restraint" doctrine. She stepped towards him in full-on Sith mode, totally prepared to kill him on the spot. Naturally, by now, everyone's watching this exchange. Between communications staff, analysts, guards and Alliance members just passing through, there must be have been over thirty people watching this guy struggle for his life as Lana approached him. I sighed and holstered my weapon, hoping I wasn't about to have a corpse to cleanup.

Then came the very distinct sound of a throat being cleared, and all those eyes turned. It was the Commander himself. He had stepped forward and was holding up a forestalling hand to Lana. His expression to her was patient; his old Jedi training and discipline still occasionally served him well in his new role. Lana obviously knew that look. She didn't look at all happy, but she reluctantly lowered her arm, releasing Slade. The man fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Arcann and the others stood down, but were still wary.

The Commander stepped towards Slade and helped him to his feet, then he moved back and gave him a few moments to recover. He stood with his hands folded behind his back and his feet shoulder-width apart, looking every bit like the rock that the Alliance was built on.

"Mister Slade, was it?" the Commander spoke in a polite but very formal voice. "I'm sorry we won't be working together, but everyone who becomes part of the Alliance has my complete trust." He gestured around the room for effect. "And I'm afraid Lana and Theron have strongly advised against adding you to that list." There was a firmness to his statement that made it clear that this point was not open for discussion.

Slade, apparently, didn't pick up on that.

"But Commander." The little weasel was still recovering his breath, but his nerves were apparently doing fine. "There are things you don't know about these trusted advisors of yours!" he pointed wildly back at Lana.

The Commander didn't budge. He merely raised a questioning eyebrow at the man as people started tensing up, Lana among them.

"For example." His expression became rather smug as his confidence grew. "Did you know that after you fought side-by-side on Yavin, Darth Marr's first assignment for Lana Beniko as Minister of Sith Intelligence was to have her develop a series of tactics the Empire could use to 'neutralize' you specifically if you turned against them? She was planning ways to kill you!"

The entire chamber suddenly turned deathly silent.

"How dare you?!" Lana's voice cut through the room, her face taking on a murderous rage. Her eyes, which had already been glaring intently at Slade, seemed to shift into daggers.

I hadn't known about Slade's revelation, but I was hardly shocked by it. I stepped forward and gently put my hand on Lana's shoulder, just hoping I could keep her from making a bad situation worse. She shrugged the hand off, and then gave me a look that told me that if I were almost anyone else, I'd have lost the hand.

The Commander's eyes never left Slade. He simply raised a hand to forestall Lana from acting again. She just stood there, simmering. This two-bit operative had successfully gotten under her skin.

He hadn't gotten under the Commander's skin, though. The man still hadn't budged an inch at Slade's revelation. In fact, he had never looked away from Slade. Without looking, without even using the Force, I could tell he was appraising the room. Gauging the mood, and finding a solution.

"Well." The Commander's tone of voice was amiable, but the pitch of his voice allowed everyone listening to hear him clearly. "Then I'm very glad she never had the opportunity to use them."

That let a lot of the air out of the chamber. People relaxed just a little bit, some of them visibly exhaling from holding their breaths. There were even a few nervous chuckles from around the room, and Vette, our Twi'lek professional thief turned crack saboteur let out a high-pitched laugh. Lana still looked angry, but she blinked. Slade? He just stood there with his mouth open in disbelief.

Evidently, he had never put together a 'Plan B'.

The Commander finally started moving, pacing around Slade like a Nexu who was trying to decide if the bark rat it was stalking was worth the trouble.

The Commander's voice was level and calm. It was as if he were giving a lightsaber lesson in the training grounds. "But let me tell you another story, Mister Slade. I once met a wise man on Tatooine. To tell you the truth, he was kind of a strange, old hermit. But he taught me a few important things, including the difference between complete trust and absolute trust."

"Complete trust, you see, is what they call it when you trust someone so much that you would still trust them even if they were holding a dagger at your throat."

Here the Commander stopped, smiled and beamed proudly. "I have to tell you, Mr. Slade. The second-best part about my job is that I now have a literal army of people at my back, each of whom I trust completely." Here his arms spread wide, indicating everyone in the chamber. Still, his eyes never left Slade's.

And just like that, all the tension in the room just melted away. Guards stopped clenching their weapons. People swallowed and looked around at each other. A lot of people even smiled proudly. It wasn't just because of all the things the Commander had accomplished; it was because of all the things people hoped he'd achieve in the future. They believed in him. All of them. And knowing he believed in them empowered each of them to do whatever he asked of them.

"Now, absolute trust, on the other hand, is a little bit different." The Commander continued. "Absolute trust is what they call it when you'd still trust someone even after they had just slit your throat and left you to die with your life's blood spilt across the desert sand." He continued to use hand gestures to express the concept.

The former Imperial finally found his voice. "But… that's insane." Slade sputtered.

"No. That's trust." the Commander replied crisply. "And Alliances are built on trust."

He resumed his pacing around Slade. The operative looked like he was getting smaller and smaller the longer he held the Commander's attention.

"The point, Mister Slade, is that in this strange life I've led, I've met four remarkable people whom I trust absolutely." The corners of his lips turned upward for the briefest of moments. "Not counting AstroMech droids, of course." He smiled over at Tee-Seven, the old member of his crew, who rolled forward and returned his comment with a series of beeps.

The Commander turned back to Slade. "Now two of these four people… are lost to me forever." His eyes closed as he inhaled the air, and I could feel the sadness in his voice.

A full moment of silence was observed before he exhaled and his eyes suddenly came open, focused on Slade's and full of intensity.

"The remaining two are now standing at your sides."

I started at that, giving a little glance around. I realized that the two he was talking about were Lana and myself. She realized it, too. I saw her lips part just a little, and her eyes took on this glazed look. For the first time in the encounter, her complete attention was now on the Commander and not Slade.

Because Slade no longer mattered.

There was this enigmatic look the Commander occasionally took on. A look that was decidedly not 'Jedi'. A look that forced me to remember that for nearly a year, Valkorian had inhabited the Commander's mind as a 'back seat driver', and that while the old Emperor might be long gone (finally!), there were some lessons that he might have left behind about leadership, power and loyalty. The Commander's eyes were full of these lessons as he smiled intently on Slade.

"And if anyone needed any additional proof of Lana's loyalty, Mister Slade, then consider this: You are still alive."

I've never seen a man shrink like Slade did just then. There was nothing this weasel, this small fraction of a man, could ever do to even scratch the veneer of either the Commander or the Eternal Alliance. There was silence in the room again. But this time, people weren't nervous or apprehensive. This time, almost everyone seemed to be following the Commander's lead, looking upon Slade as an intruder. An enemy. Someone who had dared to even try to disrupt the Eternal Alliance, and was now being cast out.

For a second there, I thought we'd have to get Slade a new pair of pants.

"But since I'm in a good mood today, I'll let Theron be the one to escort you out." The Commander's smile became marginally kinder, but in a formal, detached way. His tone of voice was somehow intimidating without being threatening as he leaned in and spoke in Slade's ear, still loud enough to be heard. "Go and tell whatever masters you serve that the Eternal Alliance will not fall today."

Then, for almost the first time in the whole encounter, the Commander looked away from Slade, smiling over at me and giving me the nod.

Just like that, it was all over.

I hung back once Slade was restrained and firmly in the hands of our armed escort. I just didn't want to miss the post-credits scene. The Commander gave a confidant smile as he turned and addressed the troops.

"Back to work, everyone. The galaxy isn't going to save itself."

Everyone did just that, and let me tell you, it left them all with a renewed sense of confidence in the Eternal Alliance and what we stood for. Yeah, we all came from different places and had different views of how the galaxy should work. But every one of us believed the Commander was the man to make all that work, and that he'd find a way to win when it came time. Most of these people had endured years of hardship and loss, which was bad enough. Worse still was the uncertainty, particularly for the future.

Now they had something – someone - ensuring that they had a future worth fighting for.

It was only then, with relative privacy, that he turned to Lana with a smile. A different smile than one he gave to me or the troops; one that was just hers. I couldn't help myself. I used the cybernetic implant in my ear to eavesdrop on their exchange. Not a skill I often advertise, but it has its uses

(Hey, i am a spy.).

Lana immediately started to speak. I couldn't see her eyes clearly from this angle, but I didn't need to. She desperately wanted to explain herself. "Commander, I – " she began.

"Shhhh." he gently silenced her, reaching up and caressing her cheek. "I don't question your love. Don't question my trust."

Lana blushed, and if they hadn't been standing in a public area, I imagine she'd have been doing much more.

He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "And for the record, the time I spend with you is the best part about this job." He grinned. It made him look almost boyish. He'd accomplished more than most people would in ten lifetimes, but for all of that, he wasn't quite thirty.

"Come on." He reached down and took her hand in his. "I'll take you to dinner, and you can tell me all about these special 'tactics'." He seemed positively cheerful now, like the galaxy was finally moving in the right direction.

Lana just smiled, taking his hand and following him out.

Wow, am I right? I mean, who wouldn't walk into a Corellian hell for a man like that?

That's why I've stayed with the Alliance all this time. I'll never have a boss I admire as much as him. Or a friend.

After all, he'd given me his absolute trust.

***********************************************

After I put Slade on a shuttle headed for Nar Shadaa, I was walking out of the docking bay area when I ducked into an empty maintenance closet. I quickly unscrewed the control knob on my blaster, then I used a short length of wire from my jacket to connect it to my implant. Neither object was suspicious in and of itself, but combined they did a little bit more than you'd expect. Alliance Headquarters has security measures for this sort of thing, of course, but I designed most of them, so they wouldn't be a problem. Alone and unobserved, I spoke aloud.

"Begin transmission. Scorpion reporting. Slade was a non-starter. Next time, send an asset who's halfway competent, not to mention plausible. The Iokath Gambit remains on schedule. End transmission."

I killed the device, putting the knob back on my blaster and securing the wire between the fibers of my jacket. Then I let out a guilty sigh as I shook my head sadly.

"He's never gonna see it coming."

Hey, I did say this was all just between us, right? Our little secret?

#swtor #swtor writing #swtor fanfiction #theron shan #lana beniko #eternal alliance #i had never posted this here and thought people might like it

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