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badchoicesposts · 4 years

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In A Land of Myth...

Chapter 11

Summary: When Selene, a young sorceress, arrived in Stormholt she had every intention of remaining anonymous. King Constantine Rys had strict rules on sorcery. The act itself was punishable by death, and she had no desire to be burnt at the stake for her “crimes”. However, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to remain unseen when she becomes Prince Liam’s personal maidservant, and it seems that it’s her job to protect him from everyone that wants to kill him.

Disclaimer: This AU is a cross between TRR, The Crown and The Flame, and BBC’s Merlin. Merlin follows the tale of King Arthur and the sorcerer Merlin. Merlin comes to Camelot where magic is outlawed and is made Prince Arthur’s servant. You do not have to watch the show to understand this fic, but it is based on the BBC show Merlin so the story line will be similar. I don’t own the plot to Merlin or any of the TRR characters.

Word Count: 2,394

Author’s Note: This series is finally back and with a new mood board! Thanks so much for being so patient with the fact that it took so long!

Taglist: @flowerpowell, @bobasheebaby, @alexintheskyy, @slytherincursebreaker, @kingliam2019, @furiousherringoperatortoad, @goldenbirdcrystalcage, @burnsoslow, @zilch3, @desiree-0816, @sanchita012

Let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from the taglist!

Catch Up: Masterlist

“An afanc,” Constantine said, “I’ve never heard of such a creature.”

Bastien stood before him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He was holding the avanc shell behind his back as he thought about the best way to tell his king the news he had just discovered.

“It’s a creature made of clay conjured only by the most powerful of sorcerers. Prince Liam defeated the creature, so all of those currently afflicted are expected to make a full recovery. The prince is in the dungeons releasing Drake Walker as we speak,” he said, refusing to make eye contact with the man in front of him.

“That’s great news,” Constantine responded happily. “So why do you seem troubled?”

“Sire, this was found at the water reserve. It is the afanc’s shell. It bears the mark of Lucretia,” he said slowly, watching as Constantine’s face paled.

“No,” Constantine breathed out, his breath coming in heavy pants. “Will I never be rid of her?”

“Sire,” Bastien began.

“No,” he said, raising his hand to silence his most trusted knight. “Leave me.”

~~~

Liam unlocked the door to Drake’s cell, and Selene threw herself into his arms before he even had a chance to step out.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered in his ear, as he chuckled softly.

“Looks like you saved my life too,” he responded, wrapping his arms around her as well.

“After being the one to put you in danger in the first place,” she said softly, pulling away from the hug and allowing her hands to slip down from around his shoulders and to his chest.

“Everything worked out fine,” he replied, squeezing her hips gently and pulling a small smile from her.

Liam cleared his throat loudly behind them, causing them to finally move away from each other. Drake moved forward and pulled him into a hug as well, clapping his good naturedly on the back.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’d be dead without you.”

“You were an innocent man,” Liam responded. “There’s no way I would have let that happen.”

“I should get home and see Savannah,” Drake said, beginning to make his way out of the dungeons.

“Sleep easy tonight,” Liam said as they began to part ways. “You deserve it.”

“Do you mind if I walk home with you?” Selene asked, looking to him hopefully.

He nodded and the two of them made their way to his small dwelling in a comfortable silence.

“Drake!” Savannah called, throwing herself into her brother’s arms as soon as they walked through the front door.

Selene stayed back and smiled as she watched the two of them interact, as Drake squeezed his sister to his body tightly. They were the only family the other had, and in that moment it was painfully obvious how much they cared for and needed each other. Another surge of guilt bubbled up in Selene’s chest, and she forced herself to push it away, trying to remember that he was safe now. He was still alive.

“Sav, can you give us a minute?” he asked, nodding towards where Selene was standing by the door.

The woman nodded and retired to her bedroom, giving the two of them some privacy.

“Drake,” she began, wanting to apologize once again.

“Don’t, Selene,” he said. “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

She looked at him for a moment, biting her lip anxiously. She finally nodded and began to address the other elephant in the room.

“About my… magic. You can’t,” she began to say, struggling to find the right words.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone,” he said, crossing the room to stand in front of her.

“Bas would kill me if he knew you found out,” she said, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “He keeps telling me that I’ll die if anyone finds out. Which I guess he’s not completely wrong about.”

“I won’t tell him.”

Selene was caught off guard at how close they seemed to be standing to each other. Her breath hitched as she remembered the kiss they almost shared in this same room two days earlier. Butterflies erupted in her stomach at the thought of his lips on hers. She bit her lip again and decided to throw caution to the wind. She pushed herself onto the tips of her toes and grabbed onto his shoulders to steady herself.

Selene crashed her lips onto his, his eyes going wide for a moment, before reciprocating her actions. Drake grabbed onto her hips and pulled her body closer to his, making sure there was no space between them. She moaned softly as she felt his tongue across her bottom lip and moved her hands up to softly tug the hair at the nape of his neck. They parted briefly to catch their breath, and Selene looked up at him in a mixture of both hopefulness and desperation. She made to pull his lips back to hers but was stopped by his strong hands gripping tightly onto her shoulders. The butterflies that were in her stomach just moments before suddenly disappeared as she took in the confused look on his face.

“We can’t,” he breathed out, pulling her close to him and resting his forehead against hers. “We can’t do this.”

“Why not?” she asked, the hurt evident in her voice as she gripped onto the front of his shirt.

“Liam.”

“What?” she asked,moving away from him.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“Why does that matter?” she asked. “I’m here with you, Drake.”

“It matters because you look at him the same way,” he said, with a pained expression.

“Drake, I care about you,” she practically pleaded with him.

“I know you do. But, you care about him too,” he said, smiling softly at her. “It’s okay.”

Selene wrestled with his words for a few moments. She hated herself because he was right. Leo and Maxwell were right. She cared for Drake, so much so that she didn’t know what to do herself. But, deep down she did have feelings for Liam as well. She had been trying to tell herself that it didn’t matter because he was a prince and she was his servant, and maybe because of that it didn’t. But it wouldn’t be fair to Drake to pursue a relationship with him if her heart wasn’t completely in it.

The feeling of guilt she had become so accustomed to over the past few days once again bubbled up in her stomach.

“I’m sorry. I should go,” she said, turning on the spot and running out the door as tears gathered in her eyes.

She could hear him calling after her as she ran back to the castle, her cloak blowing in the wind behind her as she angrily wiped at her eyes. She slipped into her and Bastien’s chambers keeping her head down so that he couldn’t see her red rimmed eyes.

“Selene, we need to talk,” he said, as she made a beeline towards her room.

She took a deep breath and wiped her face before turning back to him.

“What is it?” she asked, looking over to where he was sitting at the table with the afanc shell.

“What’s happened?” he asked, sitting up straighter in his chair and beckoning her closer when he noticed her puffy eyes.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“I may not have much experience dealing with… young women,” he said uncomfortably “But, if something was bothering you, you could speak to me.”

Selene smiled at his words and sniffled softly.

“I know. Thank you, but I’ll be fine. What did you need to speak to me about?” she asked, sitting down beside him.

He pointed to a small mark on the eggshell. Two “v’s” intersected in the middle to form a diamond with a small dot in the center.

“This is the mark of Lucretia,” he said.

“Lucretia?”

“She’s a High Priestess of the Old Religion,” he said, fidgeting with the shell. “Extremely powerful and extremely dangerous.”

“How do you know her?” she asked, noticing the shadow that crossed his face at her question.

“We… were friends before The Great Purge. She barely escaped Stormholt with her life, and he’s intent on getting revenge. She loathes Constantine and anyone who willingly associates with him,” he responded.

“What are you keeping from me?” she asked knowingly.

There was something he wasn’t saying, something he was holding back.

“I can’t fully know the extent of what we’re dealing with unless you’re completely honest with me,” she pushed, causing Bastien to sigh.

He looked at her intently for a moment before taking a breath.

“Selene, when I tell you this, I need you to promise that you’ll keep this information entirely to yourself. I need your word.”

“I promise.”

“Before the Great Purge, before Liam was born, there was a group of people that lived in the Blackspine Mountains. They possessed the power to command fire and heat, and had the ability to transition back and forth between dragon and human form.”

“Dragons? So, The Great Dragon that Constantine captured,” she began to ask.

“He was a fire-user.”

“If they have the power to transform back and forth between human and dragon form, how did he get stuck in dragon form?” she asked.

“The chain he uses to keep him tied in the caves is bewitched to stop him from transforming back to his human form,” Bastien explained, causing Selene to rise from her seat angrily.

“That’s unbelievable! That’s inhumane! And of course it’s just like Constantine to use magic when it’s convenient to him, but to kill anyone else who does it!” she continued pacing angrily.

“It’s actually interesting that you would say that,” Bastien mumbled under his breath causing her to stop.

“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting down when Bastien motioned for her to.

“Lucretia had spent some time studying with the the fire-users. She didn’t have the same abilities as they did, but she still wanted to learn from them. They told her of a prophecy that was popular amongst their people,” he said, causing Selene’s heart rate to speed up. She had a feeling she already knew what he was going to say. “Constantine would have a second son that would lead Stormholt into a new age. An age of peace and prosperity. She told Constantine about it, and he became obsessed with having a new heir. He was desperate for it, but Liam’s mother, Queen Eleanor, couldn’t get pregnant.”

“He used magic didn’t he?” she whispered.

Suddenly all of it made sense. Constantine’s hatred for magic, why he persecuted sorcerers, and why anyone who had ever been suspected was murdered for it. This is what Bastien had been holding back the day they first met.

“Lucretia said that she could help Eleanor get pregnant, but it came with a price. It would disrupt the balance of the worlds to create a life with magic without ending a previous one.”

“A life for a life. Constantine actually agreed to have his wife murdered so he could have another son?” she asked incredulously.

“No, he thought it would be someone else,” Bastien said quietly.

This caused Selene to stir angrily once again.

“Really? He was willing to let someone else randomly die just so that he could get what he wanted?” she said harshly.

“Yes,” Bastien said simply. “The prophecy spoke of peace, a new land where everyone was happy. He believed that the good of having another son would outweigh the loss of one life.”

“That’s terrible,” she said, staring at the floor. “But, I guess it didn’t work out the way he expected it to.”

“Eleanor died in childbirth, and Constantine was furious. He accused Lucretia of tricking him, and he started The Great Purge,” Bastien concluded. “He confessed all of this to me on the tenth anniversary of Eleanor’s death. He had drank too much wine at Liam’s birthday celebration, and I had to carry him back up to his chambers.”

“Getting drunk at your ten year old son’s birthday celebration? Father of the year,” she said sarcastically, picking at the skin at the side of her nail as she tried to take in all of the information he had just given her.

“Selene, Lucretia is angry, and she’s dangerous. She isn’t going to stop,” Bastien warned.

“What should I be expecting?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But, you should expect something.”

~~~

Madeleine jolted awake, Liam’s name falling from her lips as she frantically looked around the room. Images of Liam’s body sinking to the bottom of a lake filled her head. There was a tall woman with long black hair and brown skin standing over him, smiling down at his drowning form. Madeleine groaned as she climbed out of bed.

This was starting to become a pattern. First with Neville and now with this mysterious, dark haired woman. She had no idea why she kept seeing these images, images of Liam dying horrible deaths. However, what unsettled her more than anything was that they seemed to come true. Or at least to some extent. Even though Neville had tried to kill Liam, he hadn’t succeeded. As Penelope began fastening the back of her gown she pondered what to do with this new information. It’s not like this woman actually existed. It’s not like she really had to worry about it.

“Have you heard about the woman Liam saved in the forest last night?” Penelope asked as she finished the fastening.

“Woman? What woman?” Madeleine asked, feeling her chest tighten at her maid’s words.

“Liam and Selene were coming back from a patrol last night when they saw a woman and her father being attacked. They brought them back to the palace. They’re meeting with the king in the council chambers right now,” Penelope said.

Madeleine took off down the hall immediately. She pushed open the door to the council chambers in time to hear a tall man carrying a long staff with a blue crystal on top of it thank Constantine for his hospitality before pulling his daughter into a deep bow. Madeleine watched as Selene began to lead them out of the council chambers, and held back a gasp of horror when she noticed that it was the same woman from her nightmares.

#the royal romance #the royal heir #trr #trh #liam x mc #liam #king liam #drake walker #drake x mc #drake walker x mc #bastien lykel #bastien #trr bastien #bastien x mc #my fics #choices #playchoices #choices fics #playchoices fics

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icecubelotr44 · 6 years

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Clear and Present Danger (3/16)

Summary: Homicide detective Killian Jones has been searching for a way to bring Milah’s murderer to justice. There’s only one small problem: Robert Gold is the captain of the same homicide division. Enter Emma Swan, Internal Affairs investigator, looking into Gold’s shady dealings. Between the two of them, can they unravel the web of deals and lies that have gotten Gold to where he is?

Rated: T, for violence, some dark themes, angst, and whump (you expected different?

TW: character death, mention of past self-harm, fatal car accident, school hostage situation

Other ships: mentions past Millian in a good light, Outlaw Queen, Snowing

Art credit/link: The totally awesome @cocohook38 made the cover you can see above and on her blog here. Later in the story, she’s illustrated some key points to the fic and I can’t thank her enough for her work! Go show her some love!

Beta reader: @gusenitsaa took on this monster without probably knowing exactly what she was getting into (what do you mean 100,000 words?!) and any mistakes that you find are probably me being stubborn and ignoring her advice! Thank you!

A/N: Written as part of the 2018 Captain Swan Big Bang Challenge. You can catch up with all the other fics that are complete by following @captainswanbigbang and/or subscribing to the Group Collection on AO3 and/or the C2 on FFN. This is complete in 16 parts and will be posted every Sunday from now until its completion.

Take it away, It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Word count: ~ 6,250 (100k Total in 16 chapters)

From the beginning: AO3 / FFN

Current Chapter: ao3 | ffn

CHAPTER THREE: Reasonable Suspicion

Killian’s ears were still ringing from the blow the woman had landed across his jaw. His lungs had only just started working again and he was sure that there would be bruises to hide from Liam in the morning. To say that she’d taken him by surprise was an understatement. He watched her carefully, the glint of the sun on the metal in her hand enough to keep him on edge.

“Gold… murdered someone,” Emma repeated, playing idly with the blade. It wasn’t a question, but Killian nodded reluctantly anyway.

“I… I can’t prove it.” He scrubbed a hand over his face to hide his frustration at that before he continued. “Yet. The bloody crocodile was in the station when it happened and everything I’ve turned up is dead ends. But I know he was responsible. I know he killed her. And if you’re here to investigate him, then-”

“How do you know that I’m investigating him?” she asked, and he could hear the suspicion dripping off every word.

Killian shrugged. “You weren’t doing much to hide it. And there’s not much else going on in the office other than Gold’s hubris, lass. Not that would draw IA’s attention, anyway. But I meant what I said, you can’t trust Isaac. He’s so far into Gold’s pocket that I’m pretty sure they’re wearing the same pants.”

The woman nodded. “I figured that out for myself, thanks.”

“Oh, you’re a tough lass.” Killian was thrilled to see her finally fold up the knife and stuff it into a pocket. “May I have the pleasure of your name now, Miss...?”

“Detective Swan,” she said, sticking out her hand for him to shake. “Emma.”

Killian took her hand and, ignoring the widening of her eyes in surprise, pulled it up to kiss her knuckles in a show of exaggerated chivalry.

“Pleased to meet you, Swan,” he said over her knuckles, tightening his grip when she tried to pull away. “I think we’re going to make quite the team.”

She scoffed. “Who said I was going to work with you?”

“The way I see it, we’re looking for the same thing. We can either keep working separately, or” - he shrugged again, still refusing to let go of her hand - “we can pool our resources. Put Gold and whoever’s making it so easy for him to sit pretty in that office behind bars.”

Emma smiled sweetly, drawing a grin from him that he couldn’t help, before she struck, twisting his grip around until she had him shoved face first against the brick.

“Bloody-”

“Let’s get one thing straight, buddy,” she interrupted his cursing. “Your charm might work on someone else, but not me. You give me what you have on Gold and maybe… maybe I’ll think about keeping you in the loop. But I’m not going to just trust you because you say so. For all I know, you’re just as far into Gold’s pocket as your buddy Isaac.”

“I’d never be caught dead working with him,” Killian muttered against the wall, chagrined to realize that she had him completely incapacitated. “We’re on the same side, luv.”

“Not your love. You can call me Detective.” She released him as quickly as she’d restrained him, stepping back and glaring before he could even turn around. She was strong, she was guarded, and she was dangerous. But she wanted Gold behind bars and he’d worked with less in the past.

“Detective,” he allowed with a nod, “I think we can help each other. And you could use someone on the inside, yeah?”

He could see her mulling it over, the indecision written on her face as clearly as words on a page. There was something about her, despite the knife she’d pulled on him. He knew her job wasn’t easy, knew that the majority of their colleagues would rather vilify her than praise her for taking an impossible job and making it hers. But there was more than that hiding in the depths of her eyes. A deeper hurt that resonated with him. She had the look of someone who’d been thrown away like garbage and it made Killian all the more grateful to remember that Liam had always been there for him.

Even if he was going to take the long way home to avoid the Spanish Inquisition and resultant mollycoddling that was going to come the second Liam saw the bruise forming on his chin.

Her eyes narrowed, searching him, and Killian waited for her to make a decision.

He smiled in triumph a moment before she sighed. “I don’t like working with partners, Jones.”

Killian waited. She was going to let him help, he just had to be patient and not push it.

“But you’re right” - it sounded as if it cost her something to admit that - “that it wouldn’t hurt to have a set of eyes and ears that your coworkers wouldn’t expect. We do this my way, got it?”

“Of course, Swan. You’re in charge.” Killian held out his hand to shake hers again.

She glanced at it. “I’m not going to kiss your knuckles, you know.”

His answering grin was so wide that his cheeks hurt., but Emma didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jones. Watch your back, all right?”

“I’ve got plenty of people in my corner who will do that for me, lass. Keep your eyes up, yeah?”

Killian thought he heard her mutter, “Must be nice,” before she disappeared around the corner. He nodded to himself, turning back to the main road and heading towards the subway station. There was a kernel of hope that hadn’t been there before, a tendril of possibility that Killian wanted to grab onto with both hands and tug. He wasn’t the only one anymore, the only one who saw Gold as more than just an untouchable and necessary evil. Still, they’d have to tread lightly. Gold wouldn’t hesitate to take them down to keep himself safe.

“Jones?” Locksley called, pulling Killian out of his thoughts. “What are you doing down here, mate? Get lost?”

Killian knew he was joking - mostly - but he could hear the worry in his tone. “Aye mate, thought I parked the Benz down here.” He managed to keep a straight face long enough for Robin’s hand to twitch towards the phone on his belt.

“Bugger off!” Robin spat when the grin on Killian’s face gave away the joke.

Killian sobered immediately at Locksley’s tone. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, moving out of the alley to catch up with his partner.

Robin glared at him before walking towards the subway station. “We were all worried, you know. You woke up in the ER and you didn’t know Liam.”

What?

Killian whipped his head around to catch Robin’s eye and he grabbed his partner’s arm when Locksley wouldn’t even look at him.

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” Robin grumbled.

Some of Liam’s hovering over the past few weeks started to make more sense. His brother could give the fiercest mama bear a run for her money on a good day, so Killian hadn’t thought too much about it. He couldn’t have named the emotion half-hidden in Liam’s eyes every time he’d fussed over Killian, not then. But he also didn’t remember much between seeing Hades in the alley and waking up to Liam’s mother henning in the hospital room he’d suffered through forty-eight hours of observation with ill disguised grace.

Maybe not so much on the ‘disguised’ end of the spectrum.

“I don’t remember that,” he muttered when Robin’s concerned stare went on too long.

His partner nodded. “We figured as much. And Liam said not to say anything when you woke up again and everything had seemed to settle.”

“Of course he did,” Killian mumbled under his breath amidst a sigh.

Fear. That was what Liam had been trying in vain to suppress. Killian had scared him again. While he remembered only a knock to the head, Liam had been forced to wait for him to wake up, not knowing if he’d remember his own brother when he did.

There had been plenty of scares in their careers - they were both police officers, after all - and injuries were par for the course. Both he and Liam had spent their share of sleepless nights at their brother’s bedside and the fear that came with that was all-encompassing, but mostly fleeting. It had to be, or they’d never get back out on the streets.

But Killian remembered when Liam had woken up shaking and couldn’t stop - not quite seizing, but close enough to send a tendril of pure terror coursing through him. He remembered how close he had stayed those first few weeks as the neurotoxin settled in Liam’s bloodstream and allowed him to resume most of his daily activities. He remembered that fear. That was what Liam had been dealing with over the last couple weeks as Killian recovered. The unknown quantity.

Didn’t mean that Killian wasn’t going to find a way to exact revenge for the super glue, though. It wouldn’t do to let Liam - and by extension, David - think they could get away with nonsense like that just because they were ‘older and wiser’ as it were.

He and Robin parted ways at the corner, the bustle of the city at rush hour serving to make the headache that Swan had exacerbated even worse. It would be sheer luck if Liam didn’t take one look at him and blow a gasket. He recalled a scene in one of the Harry Potter movies where Harry had been locked in his bedroom - it didn’t take too much of an imagination to picture Liam trying the same tactic.

Swan occupied his thoughts on the ride home, their two brief interactions playing on a loop as he pondered over her - who was she really? What made her tick? Why had she chosen to go into Internal Affairs? She was clearly tough enough to be on the streets and he didn’t think that outside perceptions of her would have swayed her away from a beat patrol before moving up the ranks.

What does she have on Gold?

Killian hadn’t been this intrigued by a woman since the day he’d first set eyes on Milah. He’d been sitting alone in Finnegan’s Tavern, a bottle of Sam Adams forgotten on the table in front of him and his brother off in another corner of the bar getting them something to eat. She’d been stunning to look at, sitting by herself as well and nursing a glass of wine as sharp eyes darted around the room. Her curls falling loose over her back, the lost look in her eyes, all of it intrigued him and he wanted to know more.

It hadn’t taken long for Killian to forget that Liam was even there with him; he’d approached her and been regretfully turned down that evening, but she hadn’t left his thoughts. Who was she and why did she look so sad?

Every minute with her was a gift - and Gold had torn it from his grasping fingers. She’d been Killian’s for a few precious-

“What the bloody hell happened?” The voice broke through his musings.

Killian sighed audibly. As expected, he’d barely managed to get the door open before Liam had pounced on him. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, if only in deference to the headache, and waited for the inevitable inspection.

“You’re supposed to be on deskwork!” Liam stomped through the kitchen, reaching out to turn Killian’s head closer to the light. Killian hadn’t seen the bruise yet, but he could feel it - blood pooling hot and pulsing just under the skin of his jaw, a stark reminder of what it was to be on Emma Swan’s bad side. Liam poked at the bruise, drawing a hushed grunt of pain and - if possible - the frown on his brother’s face deepened to new levels.

Mindful of what Robin had let slip, Killian tolerated the inspection as patiently as he could manage, for as long as he could manage. It didn’t take too long before he was batting Liam’s prodding fingers away anyway. “It’s fine, brother. I spent the entire bloody day sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs like a good boy, all right?”

The smirk on Liam’s face flashed for only an instant before it was hidden behind a mask, but Killian didn’t miss it. He glared and pointedly didn’t mention the super glue nor the fact that he likely still smelled like nail polish remover. He just wanted a shower and some ibuprofen and something to drink.

“So how’d you get the bruise then?” Liam asked, his fingers twitching like he wanted to poke and prod at it some more.

Killian moved safely out of reach before he snarked back. “I was attacked by a Swan on my way home. It took us awhile to come to an understanding.”

Liam just blinked. Killian waited just long enough to see the confusion start to turn to concern before he cracked a smile, waving his brother off and rooting through the fridge for a drink. The shower would have to wait until Liam was satisfied, but at least he could get rid of the cottony feeling in his mouth.

“Killian!”

He sighed. “Relax, brother. I’m fine. There’s an IA officer looking into Gold. She and I… we didn’t get off on the right foot, so when I went to try again…” he trailed off, waving over his jaw.

Liam snickered, a look on his face that left Killian’s ears red. “I assume you put things right, little brother?”

“Younger, Liam,” he whined, cringing a little at how petulant he sounded. It wasn’t a new argument and, truth be told, it wasn’t one Killian ever expected to win. He didn’t even mind too much when Liam didn’t acknowledge the ‘correct’ moniker as he moved to pull dinner out of the oven. It would be all too easy to make a remark about him becoming a good housewife and Killian patted himself on the back for not giving in to the temptation.

It was a close call, but he’d plan something better in retaliation for his desk.

Emma sunk into the steaming bath water with an audible sigh. She’d left the light off, several candles burning away merrily and filling the small room with soothing scents. There was a glass of wine on the bath caddy and a book lying face down that she only sort of intended to read. It didn’t take too long for the heat to seep into Emma’s muscles and she relaxed into a boneless heap in the water. However much she had intended to leave work at work, she couldn’t get that interaction with Jones out of her head. She had no reason to feel bad; he’d been sneaking up on her, she had plenty of experience with loyal cops showing her how they felt about her investigations, he’d been sneaking up on her.

And yet.

Killian Jones was far more than a pretty face. If he was telling her the truth, he’d been grievously wronged by Gold and could be a valuable asset in her investigation. The key was to get in and get out without getting attached. He was a tool in her arsenal, nothing more. His sarcastic quips and the over-the-top chivalry weren’t going to change anything - she was at the precinct to do a job and that was it.

Bringing someone like Gold to justice would more than make her career. It would make the other detectives start to take her seriously, a woman in a man’s world. She would love nothing more than to wipe the indulgent smirks off the faces of the men in her office. It might be nice to be able to peek out of the armor a little bit. Occasionally.

The water slowly cooled and her glass ran dry, but Emma still lingered in the half haze of sleep that she’d slipped into. It was simple here, in the sanctuary of her apartment, away from all the drama and the politics and the intrigue of her cases and her interoffice relationships. She didn’t have to hide behind the mask she’d crafted or question every interaction she had. Here, there was just her and the safety of her loneliness.

When the water was finally a few degrees too cold to be comfortable, Emma stood and wrapped herself in a towel. She tried not to bring her work home with her; it was hard enough to deal with it during work hours. But with the addition of Jones to her arsenal - and her constant thoughts, it seemed - she’d have to come up with a new plan of attack. Emma wasn’t used to having to consider another person on her side in her investigations. They’d tried to rope her into working with a partner before but it never stuck. They were too inept or she was too prickly, too stubborn, too set in her ways to listen to their ideas.

It was better if she worked alone, that was all there was to it.

Over the next few days, Emma did what Emma did best: she ignored Killian Jones completely. She had plenty of interviews to conduct and spent half of her time driving across the state to follow up with the men and women Gold had put behind bars as well as some he hadn’t. They all had precisely the same thing to say about him.

Absolutely nothing.

Emma didn’t need her ‘super power’ to tell that they were - to the very last man - terrified to speak out against Gold. Someone had gotten to them before her and had bought their silence. It left her irritable and exhausted, unwilling to play the game when Isaac cornered her in the bullpen to “see what she needed.”

She needed to punch someone in the face.

As it was, putting her fist across Isaac’s jaw probably wouldn’t do anything but get her suspended and put the investigation that much further behind. Instead, she plastered on a smile that she hoped looked sincere enough to pass muster and asked for another batch of files that had nothing to do with Gold or the charges against him, hoping that the little weasel would run back to his master and crow about her apparent ineptitude. She’d have to steer the investigation formally towards Gold at some point, but she needed something concrete to go on before then. All she had right now were allegations and rumors that were - so far - unfounded. Emma didn’t believe for a moment that the accusations listed in her file were false, but she needed to find some kind of evidence. Even the evidence from the investigation into Milah Gold was hazy at best and - as Jones had said - didn’t point to Gold’s involvement at all.

The case had, very pointedly in fact, implicated Killian Jones in her murder. Even if Emma hadn’t heard it in his voice the day she’d nearly knocked him out in that alley, she was no longer uncertain about how much Jones had loved Milah. It was written all over the interrogations, the track the evidence had taken, in every entry from the detective who’d investigated. Killian had been cleared quickly - which surprised Emma given Gold’s power - but the damage must have been done.

The problem was, it was all too clean. There was no way that the woman’s brake lines had been cut and no one had been spotted near her car in the police station’s parking garage. The video surveillance gave Emma - and anyone else who had investigated, namely K. Jones on a near-weekly schedule - a perfect view of Milah’s car. Emma watched as the woman got out of the vehicle and walked out of frame, then stared at nothing of note for the half hour she’d been gone, and finally saw her come back to her car and drive away.

All of it was too clean. Every case that Gold had closed, every murderer that he’d convicted, on paper they were all perfectly by the book. Every ‘i’ was dotted and every ‘t’ was crossed. On paper, there was no reason to suspect that he’d ever stepped a toe across the line. But all it took was one look at him to know that he was dirty. All it took was one readthrough of the case file that had been compiled to get the sick feeling in her stomach. Gold needed to be tried for his crimes and, hopefully, the evidence against him would be compelling enough that not even whoever was backing him would come out with their hands clean.

That was Emma’s job, and she looked forward to the end results. She did not, however, enjoy the monotony that came with trying to keep her investigation under wraps. She had Isaac pull Jones’s case files today, trying to get a glimpse into the lieutenant’s process in attempts to understand him better. The mole at her side grinned snidely when he’d commented that it was only a matter of time before Jones was investigated.

“His promotion was a little too convenient,” he crowed before elbowing her in the side in apparent camaraderie, “if you know what I mean.”

Emma stepped pointedly away and resisted the urge to roll her shoulder and stretch where he’d impacted her ribs. Instead, she smiled in feigned interest and cocked her head to the side. “Oh, really?” she asked, hoping Isaac would latch on to the ruse.

He did.

“Oh yes, I could tell you all about Lieutenant Jones and how he came to be in our humble department. Did you know that he was still on patrol just over a year ago?”

She hadn’t.

“Captain Gold requested that his promotion track be accelerated personally. I’ve never understood it, of course. Jones is nothing but a problem. The captain tolerates him, but if you ask me, there’s something fishy about it, because the two of them… well, to say they’re like cats and dogs would be insulting to those poor animals. And yet…” Isaac trailed off meaningfully, his eyes tracking across the bullpen to where Jones had just entered. Instead of finishing his statement, he just shrugged as if the lieutenant’s presence was answer enough.

It didn’t make any sense. From what she could tell, Jones was a Boy Scout. She wouldn’t be surprised to find an Eagle Scout award in his history. She’d known there was no way that he was being backed by Gold - even before she knew what she did about his history with the captain’s former wife. But the mysterious benefactor… Emma didn’t know anything about him. Yet. It was possible that Gold was just an unfortunate middle man, or that they were both trying to force Jones into a position where he couldn’t get free of them. It was possible, she supposed, that Jones was in on the whole thing and was playing her to get information.

Even as she thought it, the voice inside her head laughed at her. No, Jones wasn’t involved with Gold or his backer. If he was, then she would turn in her badge and gun and take up a job at the local Walmart. Emma wasn’t good at people, but she was good at reading them. It made her successful as a detective and horrible to play poker against, but she’d take the former over the latter any time. A cop who couldn’t trust her gut was a dead cop and Emma liked breathing too much not to hone that skill.

Emma focused on Isaac’s retreating back as he headed for the file room - now he was definitely working for Gold, and not in the official capacity. She’d do anything to have him far away from her and her investigation, if only for the drop in stress that would entail.

She almost missed the note on her desk, tucked away under the file marked K. Jones that she’d purposely left out. Who had been near her desk? And what did they want?

Atlantis Marina, 8pm tonight.

It’ll be worth it.

Emma supposed she’d have to go to the marina to find out. She wasn’t naive, but she wasn’t cautious by nature, either. She would, however, be there well before eight in order to get the lay of the land.

Emma worked for a few more hours, digging into Killian’s past just in case her gut was wrong. She finally dug past the insubordination claims that Gold seemed to file on a regular basis and burrowed deep enough into his file to find a redacted report of drunk and disorderly conduct that had never been closed or prosecuted. Further digging, however, revealed that the date of the report coincided with the date of Milah Gold’s funeral, so Emma put it out of her mind. If the man needed a little bit of liquid courage to say goodbye to a woman he clearly loved, then who was she to judge him?

Five o’clock came all too suddenly and Emma locked up the files she didn’t plan on taking home with her before signing out the ones she did. With evening traffic, it could take twenty minutes or it could take forever to get to the marina, and she wanted plenty of time to walk the perimeter and see if she could get an upper hand on whoever had left the note for her. At the very least, she wanted escape routes and a good vantage point of the entrance before whoever planned on meeting her showed up. Emma texted the address to Ruby and Dorothy in case she needed back up, but declined their offer to come down and stake out the place. She had a sneaking suspicion as to whose handwriting that had been, and didn’t think she’d need any of the precautions she was taking.

But Emma had been burned before.

The marina was well maintained. The lights in the parking area and along the docks provided very few shadows that someone could ambush her from and there were men and women in security uniforms patrolling the docks at random intervals. Emma found that she already had a reserved parking space in the guest lot, and the attendant there knew who she was - pointing out that the boat she was looking for was in its slip on B-dock.

The Jolly Roger.

Emma could see it from where she was standing on another dock - she wasn’t entirely sure which dock it was - sitting jauntily in the water and inviting her to come aboard. As if a boat could be jaunty and inviting. There were lights on in the… she thought it was called a cockpit but wouldn’t lay money down on it. But no one was aboard.

It wasn’t new by any means, but it was clearly well cared for. The hull gleamed in the lights and the name on the back was crisp-lettered and pristine. There were a few dings here and there along the hull and the railing, but the metal shined and the windows were streak-free. She had a feeling that whoever owned the boat would be put off by the small imperfections, but was clearly proud of his - or her - ownership.

“You can see her up close, if you like,” Jones’s voice whispered in her ear.

She whirled around, fists up and ready to defend herself. There was a moment of terrifying weightlessness as she stepped back, expecting her foot to impact solid wood and instead finding open air. Emma’s eyes widened in surprise and her breath caught in her throat even as she flailed and caught Killian’s outstretched hands. He pulled her close and Emma latched onto his shoulders, fingers tight in his leather jacket as she tried to convince herself that she was on solid ground again.

“Damnit, Jones!” she shouted in his face. He was terrifyingly close.

He shrugged, the muscles under her fingers bunching with the movement. She realized, a bit belatedly, that she still hadn’t let go of him. Nor he of her. Emma shoved him back, putting enough space in between them that her heart finally started to slow down. It rankled her a bit that he didn’t stumble, just swayed with the push and stood tall.

She glared at him. “I could have fallen in!”

Killian just smirked, something dangerous in his eyes. “That’s a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but next time, don’t stand on ceremony.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You wish, buddy.”

He finally stepped back, although Emma got the feeling he’d have stayed there if he thought he could get away with it. He clasped his hands behind his back, instead, and rocked back on his heels. “I meant what I said, though. You can see her up close, if you like.”

Emma just looked at him in askance.

“You… you did get my note, didn’t you?”

She pulled the crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. “And how, exactly, was I supposed to know it was from you?”

“I signed it,” he explained with a funny little grin, taking the note from her and smoothing it out against his leg. “See?”

Emma looked where he’d turned the paper over, the small caricature of a hook and a swan in the bottom corner. She’d seen the drawing, of course, but she still didn’t understand. She stared at him incredulously, before asking again, “And how, exactly, was I supposed to know it was from you?”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly sign my own name, could I?” Jones shrugged. “Not with your little shadow combing every piece of paper on your desk at all times. It’s all very cloak and dagger, you see, and who’s better at that than a pirate?”

Emma glanced over her shoulder to the nameplate on the back of Killian’s boat. “You had an unhealthy obsession with Peter Pan as a child, didn’t you?”

“Never liked the little demon,” he replied, matter of fact. “Always thought that Captain Hook was the hero of that fairy tale.”

“Even with the waxed moustache and the perm?”

Killian smirked. “You never read the book, did you? Captain Hook was devilishly handsome, after all. Like me,” he preened a little.

Emma just shook her head. He didn’t need the ego boost - clearly. “So what are we doing here, Jones?”

“I didn’t know how else to get your attention. You’ve been avoiding me, lass.” Killian shrugged. “I thought…”

“We can’t exactly be seen working together,” Emma defended her actions. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

She totally had.

One of Killian’s eyebrows raised pointedly. “You might find this a surprising attribute in a detective, Swan, but I’m actually quite perceptive and this” - he gestured between them - “this is avoiding me.”

Emma nodded in spite of herself. There was no use denying what was painfully obvious anyway. “So… what? You thought you’d lure me here with a mystery and…” she shrugged emphatically, waiting for an explanation.

The tips of Killian’s ears went a little bit pink. “One of the first things my brother taught me after I graduated the academy was to limit the amount of work I brought home with me. I know that with Isaac lurking about you’re probably trying to throw him off and that’s got to be exhausting. I thought that you… that we could use the Jolly as some kind of, I don’t know, an in between or something.”

Emma blinked.

Killian just shrugged. “I want to help, Swan. I need to help put him away. For Milah. For… for me. We can’t exactly advertise that we’re working together, I get that. But I can help you.”

There was a reason Emma didn’t work with a partner. She did her own thing, her own way, on her own terms. The only one who she risked being hurt was her and the only one who was responsible for the outcome of her cases was her. She had worked with someone else a time or two, but not since she’d moved to Internal Affairs; she found it just wasn’t worth it.

But maybe just this once, with a case this big and a willing pawn in Killian Jones, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The appeal of having someplace away from both prying eyes and her own sanctuary was strong. Part of Emma still balked - she was better off alone, history had shown her that time and time again - but she pushed past it for the sake of her case.

“All right, Jones, let’s see this boat of yours.”

It didn’t take them long to cover the entirety of the aft cabin in paperwork. Liam would have a fit if he decided to take her out for more than a brief afternoon, but seeing Gold’s demise come together piece by piece was worth the strife Killian knew he’d hear about. Emma had already cobbled together a timeline of Gold’s career, listing cases and complaints alike along with his promotions and the men and women he’d promoted himself.

Killian bristled when he saw his own name listed, the blue star next to his name signifying Gold’s personal involvement in the transfer. “Swan, just so you know, this wasn’t… I didn’t…” he trailed off, still looking at his name on the timeline and uncertain how to explain.

Emma slid another paper over the top of that one, this one listing unsolved cases that Gold had sent to the Cold Case division. “You can tell me in your own time,” she allowed with a small smile.

He nodded. Killian couldn’t deny that the promotion had been a bit of grabbing the tiger by the tail. He knew Gold had it out for him, would try his best to make Killian’s life miserable. But Liam and David had already been in Homicide before Milah’s death and Killian had longed for the chance to work beside his brother. Then he’d met Milah and thought that the price he would have to pay for falling for her was his dream of being partnered with Liam. After her murder, he’d stopped caring how he got to Liam’s side, he just knew he couldn’t do it anymore without his brother. Any of it. The transfer had seemed like the universe paying him back - a little - for stealing Milah from him. And then Liam had been injured because of him and now… well, now it was all about taking down Gold. Killian couldn’t deny that he didn’t really care what happened to his career after that.

Or to himself.

Maybe he should take Liam up on that offer to move to the private sector, after all.

“Are you even listening, Jones?” Emma’s annoyed question made him realize she’d been trying to get his attention for quite some time.

He shook his head apologetically, scratching behind one ear and attempting a smirk. He could feel how forced it was and the look on Emma’s face proved that she wasn’t buying it either. “Apologies, lass, I got a bit caught up in my head.”

“I said, it’s getting late and we should probably get out of here. Do we need to pack this up, or…” she looked at him in askance.

Killian shook his head. “No. No one but myself and my brother have keys to the cabins and I’ll let him know that this is all here.” He groaned internally at the idea of telling Liam about all this - the mess and what he was about to do next. Regardless of Liam’s opinion on the matter, however, he reached into his pocket and handed her a keychain with a pirate ship on it.

Emma stared at it for a moment.

“It’s not going to bite you, lass. I just thought that…” he shrugged. “Well, you need access to the cabin and I might not always be able to get you here. Smee is the parking attendant you met earlier; he knows to let you have the guest parking space whenever you’d like it and you’re on the list of approved guests with access to the boat. No one will bother you.”

She finally reached out and snagged the key, turning the little ship over in her hands. “It’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” Emma asked with a smirk that made the tips of Killian’s ears go hot.

“The appeal of Neverland as a child - an escape where time would stop and I could have all the time in the world to figure out how to get what I wanted - it was intoxicating. I guess it’s never really left me.” He paused and raised one eyebrow. “Although I still think the bloody demon of that island would have made life miserable there.”

Emma laughed, finally putting the key in her pocket after further inspection. She followed him out onto the deck, but didn’t make a move to climb onto the dock again.

“And what did a young Killian Jones want that he couldn’t have?” she asked lightly, a glint of something in her eyes that Killian wanted to understand.

He shrugged in what he hoped was nonchalance. That wasn’t a tale he was ready to get into yet. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he deflected instead.

There was a look in Emma’s eyes that told Killian she might just understand what it was he and Liam had been searching for all those years - a home.

“Perhaps I would.”

tagging: @killian-whump, @gilliangrissom, @nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable

#csbb #cs fic #captain swan fic #cs ff #ouat ff

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scribomaniac · 7 years

Text

Man of Ash and Thorns: Chapter 7

The rattle of a face being smashed against a chain linked fence could be heard all throughout the stadium. The fight had only just began a few moments ago and both Weres were still in their human form. Jared and Will ensured their seats were the best in the house by camping out in the stadium for several hours before the fight even began. Liam was all too ecstatic to be sitting in the first row and was cheering with the best of them. Reyna, though enjoying the fights, didn't love the fact that flecks of blood, spit, and sweat now speckled her shirt. Grimacing, Reyna took a tiny step away from the fence and checked her phone. No new messages. Putting her phone away, Reyna looked over to see her hoard of sweaty men.

Will and Jared at least came prepared and dressed appropriately for the late May heat in shorts and sleeveless shirts. Liam was wearing a t-shirt, and already sweat stains were appearing in its arm pits. The worst of them, though, was Max. He made Reyna's skin crawl with second hand heat waves. He wore a button down business shirt with matching slacks. At least he'd taken off his jacket, but Reyna didn't understand how he wasn't suffering from heat stroke. He looked like he should be with how much he was sweating. Reaching out with her magic, Reyna checked his vitals to make sure he wasn't actually going to collapse from heat stroke. Her magic couldn't detect anything wrong, so she shrugged and turned her attention to his face.

It'd been three weeks since Henry King's death. Only three weeks, and yet Max looked like he'd aged three years. Stress lines that hadn't existed the last time she saw him were now etched deep into his forehead and between his brows and even parts of his hair were turning silver. He was beginning to look so much older than his actual age of twenty five.

His face was alive with excitement and adrenaline, though, as he watched the fight progress. He looked dynamic and invigorated and his actual age. Looking at him, seeing him have fun, made Reyna immensely happy that she invited him. She hadn't been avoiding him since her run in with Clochette—not exactly, but she definitely hadn't been seeking him out. So seeing him tonight, with his haggard face and wrinkled clothes, made her feel so guilty she thought she'd cry. Luckily, she didn't. That would have been so terribly awkward she wouldn't have known what to do with herself.

Looking out to the fight, Reyna saw that the Weres had both shifted, and both had gotten in good hits, but that neither was giving in to the other. She winced. She normally enjoyed the Were fights, but when they got to be this vicious it would sometimes make her stomach sour. Turning to Max, she yelled into his ear, “I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Do you want me to make a stop at the concession stand?” He passed the message down to the others and the answer was a firm yes. So Reyna left her seat and made her way up to the restrooms while repeating the list of snacks in her head over and over again.

The line to the bathroom was long—as it always was for women—and the line for concessions was even longer. Reyna crossed her arms over her chest while she stood patiently in line. She wondered how many fights she'd missed and contemplated texting Liam or Will to see what was happening, but then frowned at the unlikelihood of them hearing their phones. Sighing, she steps closer to the counter as the line moves forward. A warm, fabric covered arm brushed her own and Reyna looks up to see Max looking down at her with a soft smile. “Hey,” he greets.

“Hey, what are you doing up here?”

“You were taking a while so I thought I'd come up and check on you—help you carry some of our snacks.”

Reyna smiled up at him in thanks, “I'm surprised you even noticed I was still gone. You were watching the fights pretty intensely.”

“I always notice when you're gone,” he admits, then his eyes widen as he realized what he said. He turns his head towards the counter, but doesn't retract his statement. Reyna stared up at him with a small frown on her lips. Max knew he didn't have a chance with her. No one did. She was aromantic, and would never feel the way about him and he did her. Sometimes, though, like now, she kind of wished her heart would flutter like a butterfly's wings in her chest and that her breath would catch and her cheeks flush like his. None of that did happen, though, and none of that ever would.

Shaking away those thoughts and the small pang of sadness that accompanied it, Reyna cleared her throat and decided now was as good a time as any to talk to him about what she'd discovered. “I'm glad you're here,” she said, then quickly continued when his eyes widened and his blush deepened. “I wanted to talk to you about your father—and the Fairies.” Max's eyes turned from wide eyed and hopeful to narrowed and focused. “I was able to speak to one. She was a member of the Unseelie Court.”

“What did she tell you?” He turned his body fully towards her now, giving her his utmost attention.

Grimacing, Reyna told him, “Not much, to be honest. Neither Queen ordered your father's death.”

“But,” he prompted.

But,” she nodded, “they wanted it, and allowed it. They're working with . . . someone,” she almost said Dunstan, but cut herself off last second. She had no evidence that Dunstan was back, that he was working with the Fae, but . . . something in her gut told her he had a hand to play in all of this. Somehow. Clochette's questions that night had been too specific. Someone wanted intel on her life and there was no way that person was one of the Fairy Queens. Not telling Max her theory, though, Reyna wasn't sure if she did so because she had no tangible evidence he was behind the attack or for another reason she refused to acknowledge. “Someone who's giving them the confidence and arrogance to kill the mayor of New York City. I don't know what's going on, Max, but I want you to be careful, okay?”

He nodded slowly, his jaw clenched tight. He turned back to the counter and they stayed quiet until they had their goodies and made their way back down to their seats. “Is there any way—” Max began to ask, but it was too loud so close to the ring, so instead he pulled out his phone and began to type, “Is there any way to find out which Fairy killed my father?”

Reyna took his phone in her hands and contemplated her answer. “Yes,” she paused, then continued typing, “it might take me a while, but I could do it. But there'd be no point . . . the Fae don't adhere to human government so nothing would be done unless . . .” she trailed off. She knew he was reading over her shoulder and when he finished because he looked at her, waiting for her to finish. “Unless you want me to kill them.” she finally finished and looked him in the eyes. She'd never killed a Fairy before. She wasn't even sure if she could, depending on how powerful the particular Fae was. And if Max asked her to . . . she thought she knew the answer to the unasked question and wondered if it made her a bad person. Made her as bad as Dunstan.

Max took the phone back and read and reread her words several times as he contemplated the unspoken offer. Eventually he shook his head and erased her text. “No, you're right. There'd be no point finding out if we can't bring them to justice.” Reyna nodded her head, glad that he didn't want revenge. Max put his phone away and they returned to watching the fights.

After three more fights, it was obvious to Reyna that Max wasn't paying any attention to what was in front of him. He didn't even so much as blink when Cosimo Borgia—Max's favorite fighter—took the stage and decimated his opponent in barely five moves. Tugging on his hand, Reyna caught his attention and nodded for him to follow her out of the stands and away from the ruckus and noise of the fights. “I'm sorry,” she said when they were able to hear each other. “I shouldn't have told you. It ruined your night.” And he was having such a good time, she thought as her stomach twisted itself into knots.

“No, no,” he shook his head earnestly. “Thank you for telling me. It's helped me . . . clear my head, I think. It's definitely helped me make up my mind.”

Tilting her head to the side, Reyna hesitated to ask, “Make up your mind about what?”

“My father was . . .” he sighed, “he was a strong man. He had strong principles and values and he stuck with them. But he was also very stubborn. Sometimes that worked in his favor, like when he needed to get laws passed or persuading city council members, but it was also his downfall in a way. He was so adamant against Supernaturals—against magic. I think, though, I think there can be peace between the species. Between humans and the Fae and Vampires and everything else that goes bump in the night.” He chucked to himself, then shook his head, as if chasing away a thought. “I believe we can have peace. Real peace. If we strive for it. And I want to help bridge the gap between the human race and all the others. Even if I don't live long enough to see the day when all the species live together in harmony . . . I'll die happy enough knowing that I helped build that bridge.”

Max's eyes glistened with unshed tears and Reyna's brows furrowed as worry began to grow in her belly. Hadn't she just asked him to stay safe? This did not sound like it would end safely. “Reyna, thank you really, for helping me with my decision.” He smiled gently at her. She didn't reciprocate the action, but he didn't seem to notice. “I've been battling with it for a while, but it's decided. I'm going to run for mayor.” His smile turns cheeky as he continued, “I'm going to take my father's throne.”

Reyna's jaw dropped. She hadn't anticipated this. This was not good. He was walking head long into danger if he ran for office! Max, taking her shocked silence as a good thing smiled wider and wrapped and arm around her shoulders. “It's all thanks to you, Reyna!” Reyna continued to stare at him, completely frozen, while he continued to prattle on about how much good he'd be able to do in office, and how he knew it'd be difficult, being so young and all, but so long as he got the proper amount of signatures no one could stop him, and on and on and on.

All Reyna could think about was the last King campaign office she'd been in and how close Dunstan had gotten to killing Henry King then. How close he'd gotten to killing everyone in that building. She wanted to shout at him, tell him to stop his thinking, but knew he wouldn't hear her. He might be different than is father in some ways, but they had the same stubborn streak. Reyna could only hope that his wouldn't also get him killed. The seven tattoos on her forearm burned at the thought. She would never let that happen. He stopped his jabbering and looked down at her waist, “Is that your phone?”

Blinking, Reyna grabbed her phone from her back pocket and was surprised to find that yes, it was her phone Max had heard. Those were some good ears he had. Seeing that it was a call from Lilith, Reyna answered the call. “Lilith?”

“Reyna! Where have you been? I've called you twenty seven times!” The Vampire Queen shouted in her ear, making sure Reyna had no difficulty hearing her at all.

In no mood to deal with Lilith's dramatics after Max's terribly optimistic speech, Reyna growled back, “Well I'm answering now so what is it?”

“It's Sophie,” Lilith said slowly, letting her words sink in. Reyna turned away from Max and waved a hand around her, cutting off all the noise around her. Her heart thudded painfully against her chest as she waited for Lilith to continue. A chill overcame her fingertips. Numbness crawled its way up her arms. Finally, Lilith continued, “She's missing.”

Read more here!

A03

#fantasy #fiction #lit #supernatural #werewolves #magic #vampires #fairies #fae #aromantic #aromantic characters

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eddycurrents · 5 years

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For the week of 1 April 2019

Quick Bits:

Amazing Spider-Man #18.HU is Gibbon’s tale from Nick Spencer, Ken Lashley, Erick Arciniega, and Joe Caramagna. It’s a gut punch, a kick in the teeth, a few tosses against a tree, and then an attempt to turn you into a porcupine via arrows. While it does do a good job of telling Gibbon’s tale and attempting to make you care about him, it’s not a pleasant comic. It’s kicking the crap out of a z-list character to make you feel “the stakes” and this is really starting to feel cheap. Maiming and killing characters to up the gravity of a story, especially ones we’ve not see for some time, it’s not fun. It’s not shocking. And I’m tired of it. Which is somewhat sad, because this is some of the best art I’ve seen from Ken Lashley for a while. He seems to be channelling bits of Jack Kirby and Keith Giffen into his normal style and it looks really damn good.

| Published by Marvel

Amber Blake #1 is another partnership with Glénat in France, this one a fairly moody crime story from Jade Lagardère, Butch Guice, Christa Miesner, and Robbie Robbins. It’s a fairly dark beginning, delving into sexual assault and human trafficking, but interesting. The art from Guice is incredible.

| Published by IDW

Avengers: No Road Home #8 breaks out some art from Carlo Barberi as we head towards the home stretch of this series. Very nice character moments for Hawkeye, Hercules, and Conan this issue, though the build up of seemingly insurmountable odds from Nyx is adding some incredible tension.

| Published by Marvel

Bronze Age Boogie #1 launches Ahoy’s second wave of series and it’s awesome. The lead story is a bizarre mix of Doom Patrol-esque superheroes, Planet of the Apes alternate realities, and a teenager from nearly 4000 years ago fighting in a world of wizards and zombies. It’s glorious madness from Stuart Moore, Alberto Ponticelli, Giulia Brusco, and Rob Steen with so many ideas you can barely keep up. Rounding out this issue is the usual prose pieces and a wonderful back-up comic of Major Ursa, an astronaut bear, from Tyrone Finch, Mauricet, Lee Loughridge, and Steen that elevates the entire package even further.

| Published by Ahoy

Champions #4 unleashes Kaldera on the team looking to get revenge on Sam, while Miles and Kamala have a confrontation about what happened in Dubai. Lots of wonderful emotion in this one, beautifully depicted by Steven Cummings and Marcio Menyz. Also, Kaldera wanting to eat everyone is just weird.

| Published by Marvel

Conan the Barbarian #5 is another great issue from Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Matthew Wilson, and Travis Lanham. This one taps into Conan’s life as a thief and a pirate while unleashing eldritch horrors from stealing the wrong idol. Great tentacle beasts and a wonderful feeling of dread throughout the story as Conan fights to survive adrift at sea.

| Published by Marvel

Dead Kings #4 gives us some more dark humour as Maria and Sasha get closer to launching the rescue attempt on the prison, while Gena plans a little revolt of his own. Great artwork from Matthew Dow Smith and Lauren Affe.

| Published by AfterShock

Deathstroke #42 continues the “Terminus Agenda” crossover with Teen Titans as Slade looses the bonds of his prison in Robin’s underground supervillain jail, then hangs about and seemingly attempts to needle Damian as their attempt to take down another villain goes awry. This story is odd, but entertaining. Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz, Norm Rapmund, Jeromy Cox, and Willie Schubert are doing something interesting here.

| Published by DC Comics

Die #5 gives us the conclusion to the first arc and it’s pretty dark. Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans, and Clayton Cowles make us question here whether or not our heroes actually are “good” as they systematically start to take apart some of Sol’s toys in order to try to get home. Also, there are some horrifying hints at worse things waiting.

| Published by Image

Giant Days #49 sees Esther go back home for Easter break to try to write her dissertation. And fight a vampire with the 11-year old sister of one of her friends. Wonderful bit of how time changes you from John Allison, Max Sarin, Whitney Cogar, and Jim Campbell.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

The Girl in the Bay #3 chronicles a bit of Hugh’s side of the story to his monstrous clay-like hallucination buddy, as Kathy continues to try to make sense of her double existence and the older version of her’s death. There’s definitely something else at play here as JM DeMatteis, Corin Howell, James Devlin, and Clem Robins keep building this mystery.

| Published by Dark Horse / Berger Books

The Green Lantern #6 is relatively muted compared to previous issues, but still has an incredible impact as Hal goes through seemingly the last of the Blackstars’ tests and is granted an audience with Mu, from Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp, Steve Oliff, and Steve Wands. Mu here definitely seems to be insane, which is chilling for someone trying to control everything. There are some very interesting twists throughout, including another form of sacrifice from Hal, leading him to a strange place and a very old character who should give a hint as to where they are now.

| Published by DC Comics

Immortal Hulk #16 is another incredible issue from Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy José, Paul Mounts, and Cory Petit. This team really seems to be able to do no wrong and each subsequent issue is another masterpiece in horror, weaving together an impressive amount of Hulk history in a compelling and enticing way. Along with a very interesting development for Betty.

| Published by Marvel

Impossible Incorporated #5 concludes what has been an excellent all-ages series from JM DeMatteis, Max Cavallaro, and Gabrielle Gomez. This final issue leans heavy into quantum reality and divinity experiencing itself through permutation and self-reflection.

| Published by IDW

Justice League #21 is another interesting chapter in “The Sixth Dimension” from Scott Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sánchez, and Tom Napolitano. This issue it become explicitly clear as to how it progresses the broader arc started in Metal as the stakes seem to be raised again. Stunning art from Jimenez and Sánchez.

| Published by DC Comics

Lodger #4 gets a little messy as the Laphams deliver the penultimate chapter of this series, inching closer to Ricky’s final confrontation with Dante. The disparate threads of the past, present, and Dante’s travelogues converge to a very strange perfect storm.

| Published by IDW / Black Crown

Marvel Team-Up #1 is an entertaining debut from Eve L. Ewing, Joey Vasquez, Felipe Sobreiro, and Clayton Cowles. This first issue teams up Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel presenting both sides to their day as they attend a speech from a noted ESU alumnus who has created a mind transfer device. Those things always go well. There’s some interesting contrast between wanting to be young again and wanting to be older faster.

| Published by Marvel

Oberon #3 continues to twist the tale as Oberon is confounded a bit by what Bonnie isn’t, from Ryan Parrott, Miloš Slavković, and Charles Pritchett. It seems as though nothing is as it seems in this story which leads to some intriguing surprises.

| Published by AfterShock

The Punisher #10 has some great incidental humour as Frank continues to cut a swath across a country of villains in “War in Bagalia”. Very entertaining work again from Matthew Rosenberg, Szymon Kudranski, Antonio Fabela, and Cory Petit.

| Published by Marvel

Red Sonja #3 is another excellent part of the story from Mark Russell, Mirko Colak, Bob Q, Dearbhla Kelly, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. This one hits hard on the value of mercenaries and what actually breeds loyalty.

| Published by Dynamite

Self/Made #5 takes off in yet another direction as Amala tracks down a scientist who has been searching for proof that ours is not the top level reality and is actually another simulation. It’s truly amazing as to how Mathew Groom, Eduardo Ferigato, Marcelo Costa, Mariana Calil, and Troy Peteri keep turning this story on a dime, with new revelations and new changes each issue without any of it feeling like a trick and delivering an engrossing narrative each time.

| Published by Image

Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #7 focuses on some of the odd jobs that Gwen is getting through her website, pushes forward the problems she’s having with her headaches, and complicates her personal life a bit more. Seanan McGuire is very nicely developing Gwen’s character and relationships, all with some beautiful artwork from Takeshi Miyazawa and Ian Herring.

| Published by Marvel

Summit #14 concludes this arc with Val and co. attempting to rescue Fiona and JB from Agent Wald’s clutches. The team-up with Noble and further development of Jamila helps re-emphasize the broader shared universe of Catalyst Prime. Also, how far all of the astronauts involved in the Event have come. Gorgeous artwork from Marika Cresta and Bryan Valenza.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst

War of the Realms #1 begins the culmination of almost seven years worth of storytelling as Malekith’s forces finally invade Earth. This is epic. Jason Aaron, Russel Dauterman, Matthew Wilson, and Joe Sabino deliver on the massive promise of this story with a brilliant, beautiful, and surprising opening chapter that levels a huge threat at the world.

| Published by Marvel

Young Justice #4 goes into some of the politics and problems that Amethyst was having on Gemworld prior to the disparate youth of Young Justice arriving to the realm. Some nice character moments here from Brian Michael Bendis and really wonderful art from Patrick Gleason, John Timms, Alejandro Sánchez, and Alex Sinclair.

| Published by DC Comics / Wonder Comics

Other Highlights: Betty & Veronica #4, Black Hammer ‘45 #2, Captain America #9, Curse Words: Spring Has Sprung Special, The Dreaming #8, Eclipse #14, Female Furies #3, Gasolina #17, Ghostbusters 35th Anniversary Special, GI Joe: A Real American Hero #260, Giantkillers, Hack/Slash vs. Chaos #4, Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Sirens #1, Lightstep #5, Magic: The Gathering - Chandra #2, Marvel Action: Black Panther #1, Mirror #10, Now #6, Night Moves #4, Paper Girls #27, Redlands #12, Section Zero #1, Six Million Dollar Man #2, Solo: A Star Wars Story #7, Star Wars #64, Vindication #3, The Witcher: Of Flesh & Flame #4, Ye

Recommended Collections: Animosity - Volume 4: Walled City, Paper Girls Deluxe Edition Hardcover - Volume 2, Stray Bullets: Sunshine & Roses - Volume 4, Transformers: Unicron, Unstoppable Wasp: GIRL Power, Witchblade - Volume 2

d. emerson eddy is one crow short a murder.

#This Week in Comics

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thesffcorner · 6 years

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Dishonored Retrospective Part 1: World Building and Characters

If you know me at all (or if you came here from my main blog), you know that I’m a huge fan of the Dishonored franchise. For all intents and purposes, the original Dishonored is what got me into mainstream gaming; I played it for a Video Game Writing and Narrative class in my senior year of college, and I’ve loved and played each game since.

It’s an excellent series, and while there is some debate around this, in my opinion, every single expansion of the game has been an improvement on the original. So I wanted to do an overview and talk about how the series changed and improved, and the overall story that it tells. I will touch upon every aspect of these games, including story, characters, world-building, mechanics, and gameplay.

So, what better way to start than with a quick overview?

Story and Overview:

Dishonored is a 2012 first person stealth/action-adventure game developed by Arkane and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was followed by 2 pieces of DLC released the following year, the Knife of Dunwall and the Brigmore Witches, and then a sequel game, Dishonored 2 in 2016. The final piece of the franchise was Dishonored: Death of the Outsider that came out summer 2017 and for now concludes all the plot-lines and character arcs from the characters we have been following since the first game.

Dishonored is set in the fictional Empire of the Isles, a fantasy world loosely based on the UK. The setting is a mix of late 18 century politics and aesthetics, combined with early 20 century costuming and technology. The Isles are ruled by the Kaldwin family from the capital of Dunwall.

In the first game you play as Royal Protector Corvo Attano, Empress Jessamine Kaldwin’s closest ally and lover. When Jessamine is murdered by the Whalers, assassins lead by Daud and her daughter Princess Emily is kidnapped, Corvo is framed for the murder and set for execution.

The game proper starts 6 months after the assassination. Corvo is broken out of prison with the help of the Loyalists and the rest of the game follows his quest to save Emily, clear his name and thwart the plan of the people who orchestrated the whole thing from taking over Dunwall.

The story of the original Dishonored is, in my opinion both the weakest and the most ‘video game-y’ in the entire franchise. It’s not bad, but it’s a rather simplistic, straightforward revenge plot, the kind that you would find in the standard Liam Neeson/Jason Statham action films. Corvo gets framed for the murder of his family and spends the rest of the game trying to save his daughter and either kill or dispose of everyone who was involved in framing him. There are a few twists here and there, but the plot is otherwise indistinguishable from dime-a-dozen other action stories. Where the first game really shines is the world-building, gameplay and character writing.

World-building:

Like I said the world is very loosely based on the UK, and this much is apparent in the design of Dunwall. It’s an industrial port city, build on a traffic heavy river, with lots of grey, metal buildings that tower over the narrow, crime infected streets. It’s a city of factories, poverty, gangs, assassins, and disease. It’s a harsh world made even harsher by the backdrop of the Wheeper plague; the rich throw lavish parties while the poor are terrorized by supposed law enforcement as well as the gangs; corruption is rampant and we see this immediately with the scene where Corvo is tortured in the prison by his captors who, only a few minutes ago in game-time were his closest allies.

I absolutely love the setting. Dunwall is a gorgeous place that feels like a real city; it’s clear the developers spent a lot of time making sure the levels correspond to different parts of a city and fit together in a cohesive way. This is why most of my favourite levels are the ones that take place on the Dunwall streets.

Despite the abundance of grey and black industrial buildings, sewers, prisons and factories, the setting is still beautiful, and there are enough locations in the game that are bright and colourful to break up the monotony. You can enter random houses and apartments, and find letters and remnants of the people who inhabited or still inhabit Dunwall and even interact with random non-aggressive NPCs on the streets.

The Wheeper plague is another incredibly effective way of linking you to the world. The first time I actually saw a Wheeper was terrifying; they mindlessly charge at you, scream and puke bile and flies at you and look like the first stage of a zombie transformation. Even the noise they make when they are close by and not aggressive is eerie, this quiet sobbing and retching. They are the final product of the rat plague that has swept Dunwall and are a pitiful and yet still horrifying enemy.

Many sections of the city are blocked off or seized by the government because of the plague and you even explore the district where the plague started, the Flooded District. Like its inspiration, the bubonic plague, this one too is carried by rats which are also aggressive enemies that will attack you in swarms. The sectioned off areas form natural boundaries to the levels and I found this a clever solution to keeping the player confined to where the developers wanted you to be.

Additionally, there are tons of notes, posters, books, journals and letters to discover that give even more character to the world. My favorite are the various posters, general notices and advertisements plastered all over the city. I especially love the smaller details like the cancelled signs over concert announcements or the plague warnings. Likewise, you get to hear the thoughts of both important characters and random NPCs by either listening to their audio-graphs or pointing the heart and listening to their secrets.

Speaking of the heart, the other thing that makes this world fascinating is the presence of magic in conjunction with the technology. Dunwall, and by extension the Isles are powered by the use of whale oil; in fact we spend an entire level in the Knife of Dunwall in a whale oil refinery. The oil is used as fuel for electricity, which in turn powers trams, tallboys, streetlamps, machinery and various weapons like arc pylons, guns, electric bolts and mines.

However, people also use whale bones to craft and collect bonecharms, which are supposedly blessed by a chaotic neutral demigod called the Outsider who marks people and gives them superpowers and lives in a place outside of time and reality called the Void. And the best part? It’s all true.

One of the very first things you do after escaping Coldridge Prison is meeting the Outsider who marks you, giving you a variety of superpowers. This also facilitates the collection of runes and bonecharms that upgrade these abilities and award you more of the same.

Fascinatingly, not only does the official religion, the Abbey of the Everyman know about the Outsider, both the Sisters of the Abbey and the Overseers also consider him a heretic and a tempestuous trickster. They aren’t entirely wrong; the Outsider marks very few people and those he marks are crucial to history in some way, but that way can be highly destructive. We see time and time again throughout the game that the poor and downtrodden turn to the Outsider often as they build shrines to him, but it’s hard to tell (at least in Dishonored) how much he responds, if at all.

Speaking of the Outsider, let’s quickly go over the characters, which also happen to be one of the point for which I have the most complicated feelings.

Characters:

Our silent protagonist is Corvo Attano, and he’s an excellent character. Depending on how you play him, he’s either a vengeful violent man who is willing to avenge himself in very violent ways or a clever if somewhat petty man who takes the violence the world dishes at him and doesn’t let it destroy him. Even though I love the fact that he gets a voice in the sequel, I think a lot is delivered about his character from how he reacts to certain things, or rather how you, as a player think he should react.

Like any silent protagonist, Corvo is what you want him to be which is a good thing in terms of the first game, because then the experience of playing as him feels better. But in terms of the franchise overall, it gets complicated, especially when we get into the games’ ‘canon’.

One thing I don’t quite understand is his relationship with Emily. In the first game, it’s pretty clear that Emily doesn’t know Corvo is her father; yet in the sequel it’s common knowledge that he is?

Likewise if Jessamine is unmarried and the Empress, and there is no law that forbids her from marrying commoners, why aren’t they married? And if it’s a secret that Corvo is her lover/Emily’s father, than how come no one thought it was super weird that the Empress suddenly has a child without a husband? I feel like I missed something.

Other important characters (some of which we’ll touch on later) are: Princess Emily Kaldwin; the Royal Spymaster/Lord Regent Hiram Burrows; High Overseer Campbell; the Pendleton siblings Custis, Morgan and Treavor; the assassin Daud; Admiral Havelock; Overseer Teague Martin; Granny Rags; the Bottlestreet Gang Leader Slackjaw; the Boyle sisters; and inventors Anton Sokolov and Piero Joplin.

Let’s start with my number 1 complaint; the female characters. There are 8 named female characters with speaking roles. Those are: Jessamine Kaldwin, Emily Kaldwin, Calista Curnow, Granny Rags, Lady Boyle, Lydia, Cecilia and Madame Prudence.

Prudence and Lady Boyle are killable NPCs who have about 2-3 lines. Lady Boyle is especially egregious as she is an assassination target without having done anything wrong; the alternative to killing her is actually EVEN WORSE than just killing her (Dishonored does that a lot).

Cecilia and Lydia are likewise characters that have about 10 lines total and though Cecilia does serve a purpose, neither is very necessary or interesting.

Calista is a lot more relevant, but she doesn’t exactly have a lot of personality. There is also a scene in which you can spy on her taking a bath (?) which like…. Isn’t a thing that Corvo would do? At all? Especially not to his daughter’s governess?

Jessamine Kaldwin is killed immediately, and spends the rest of the game as a LITERAL spirit guide to Corvo, her soul trapped in the heart by the Outsider. We never really get to see what she was like as Empress, only that she was ‘good’. She’s a pretty bad trope of a character.

Emily is the precocious child character who honestly could be quite annoying. The fact that she constantly needs to be saved and protected doesn’t help, and some of her lines are outright terrible (and Chloe Grace Moritz’s voice acting is… not good. She’s not good at playing a precocious child).

The only female character that I legitimately loved is Granny Rags. She is an old witch who in her youth was so powerful and impressive that lords and royalty fought for her hand, but she rejected everyone because of the Outsider. In the DLC we find out that her name is Vera Morley and she is one of the marked ones.

She is voiced by Susan Sarandon and has pretty entertaining dialogue. Her side-quests are quite good and fucked up (poisoning the entire Bottlestreet Gang?) and the fact that she turns out to be a pretty dangerous antagonist if you reject her was a nice twist.

So to recap, out of the 8 characters, one is actually good, isn’t in need of rescuing, isn’t sexualized, and isn’t killed immediately. Nice one, Arkane!

To be fair, a lot of the male characters are killable or even supposed to be killed, some in rather gruesome ways. However, the fact that literary every single person who is a villain is a man, and the one female target is on the list purely out of coincidence is really frustrating in a game series that’s otherwise pretty progressive. There are also no female hostiles, but both are moot points now, since even the DLC improves on this. I still feel like it’s worth mentioning.

Part 2 will be a breakdown of the gameplay and level design, as well as a closer look at the first three levels.

> part 2

#dishonored #dishonored retrospective #moni talks

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