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supernovafeather · 2 years

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Ok, ok, I have a request. May I please have a sequel to The Lonely Child. I want to see the development of the father/child relationship between the reader & Leto. I also would like to see her interact with Lady Jessica and I want to see her shock at the strong bond between those in the Atreides house. I need the angst (with a happy ending lol)!

You don’t have to write this if you don’t like it, it’s completely okay!

Thanks for this request, I have looked for a sequel idea for a while and it was what I needed !

The Lonely Child (Part 2)

Leto Atreides x F!Reader

Content : Father/Daughter relationship, mention of war, mention of potential arranged marriage.

Link to Part 1

Dishonor is too sour to get swallowed back at the sight of your reflection. Now that your planet got assimilated by Leto Atreides with the Emperor's blessings, you feel obligated to wear the same kind of dress they wear on Arrakis. Humble, straight, relatively long. It could look austere to the extreme from the outside yet you could feel the high material quality of the fabrics. Objectively it suits you well and with the appropriate behavior and posture there is no reason for anyone to judge you too harshly. As the daughter of a former powerful enemy House you have to keep your head down.

"In three days from now on, a ship is going to bring you to Arrakis." The Duke explained you in your cell. "We expect you to wear the clothes offered by our House, and you are going to remain in the palace until further notice. Your parents won't accompany you. They will remain on your native planet and accept the judgement they are going to face, most certainly they will keep reigning there under our watch."

No death penalty for them, only forced submission to Arrakis. For now the House Atreides treated your people relatively well despite the countless deaths that could have been avoided.

This sole thought makes you regret having accepted his comfort especially as it's not going to last forever. Whatever his aim is by forcing you to go to his palace on the so-called inferno, you doubt it is good for you. Ripping you out of your roots is a terrible choice, and you doubt his concubine is going to be happy about your presence. You have already thought about the possibility that this Duke wanted to keep a younger woman by his side to make you his mistress but it doesn't match his words and behavior around you. You hope so. You may have commanded an army but you are not about to start a battle with a woman from the Bene Gesserit. You heard and saw enough things to know when a battle is lost before the war even starts. You wish you knew it as well when Leto Atreides came to you.

The day of your arrival you do your best not to look too eager at everything surrounding you. Arrakis was wonderful, magnificent from space, like a massive fireball illuminating the darkness containing it. But now despite the bright yellowish tones on the ground and from the dunes so far away from there... you can feel that melancholy, some undescribable grief. Something that disturbs you as you walk slowly towards the Duke and his family escorted by your soldiers that are going to pledge allegiance to this House as well. Your veil follows the wind, caressing your face as your eyes wander on the crowd retained by soldiers with different uniforms. No one is cheering, it's more... it's this melancholy as well. You can't grasp what it was but you have no doubt that the Harkonnens left deep scars here. Much worse than the Atreideses are going to do to your native planet.

"My Lady," the Duke nods to welcome you as you arrive before him. "How was your travel ?"

"My Lord. It was... interesting. Arrakis was a beauty up there."

"Please follow me. I am going to introduce you to my family."

You decided to play along whatever he was planning with you. With showing much warmth to you is still acts polite and confident of his grasp on what surrounds him. Suddenly you hear the crowd cheering, pushing the guards as a young and tall dark-haired man comes out of the shadow with a graceful woman. The voices scream things you don't understand, a local language you deduce, distorded by the wind and distance. For a moment your attention derails from the House welcoming you to focus on the veiled women and from afar. It's not distress or hatred they show. Some kneel. Cheer. They can't be worshipping the whole House they would have been doing this before your arrival. That Lady Jessica then ? Do they worship the Bene Gesserit here ? Did they manage to corrupt such an ancient people as Fremens ? Are they even Fremens, aren't they supposed to live in caves in the desert or something ? You are not sure about this, you feel like drowning in such an unbalanced place. You want to go home.

"Here is my concubine, Lady Jessica." He says with an undeniable respect.

As he introduces you to her, you know you were right about her. Calculating eyes veiled behind curiosity as she inspects every detail on your face. Her own is also covered by a thin transparent fabrics but it doesn't weaken this strength. She is terrifying. Then comes the young men, Paul Atreides wearing a similar outfit as his father. However he looks so unlike to him, higher, thinner features, no beard if not for his stance and dark hair. His eyes seem kinder than his mother's yet reserved as he greets you politely. He's pale, so pale for a man on such a planet. The Duke must keep him safe in the palace. You have a dark impression of this desert. Is this House any better ?

Maids make you visit this huge place dug, carved masterfully in some mountain you think, keeping the temperature down to make it liveable. Despite the huge space and the straight lines and angles looking too sharp to make you feel like home, you appreciate how it fits the Duke in some way. Straight to the point, a shelter from the flames. Maybe you are extrapolating but this is how you feel.

"I hope you are going to find some landmark here with us my Lady." The Duke says with a slight bow. "We know all too well how it feels to have to leave your native planet, the land of your ancestors."

"I will do my best my Lord." You say with a new curiosity awakening.

He regrets his departure from Caladan. This grief darkening his gaze is so obvious. Maybe this was purely the Emperor's choice to send them all here on Arrakis despite what your father thought sourly as he talked about some favoritism. Some kind of punishment ?

"Here, you are going to receive the Atreides education, the same as Paul." He pauses as offense bubbles in your belly. "So you can learn more about this planet and it's people. The day you come back to your parents you will be an important bridge between our Houses and populations."

"What does this education imply exactly ?" You ask as you calm down slightly. "Classes with your adults from important families ?"

"Your safety needs you to remain here between those walls. So you will spend most of your time learning by your own, maybe with my son Paul. As you wish."

You nod, taken aback by the glare the woman sends you without blinking once. She is not pleased by the idea of a stranger in presence of her son. You hope she is not some kind of a possessive mother manipulating her husband - concubine in this case. Their heir looks more peaceful yet staring at you as well. No hostility there, just observing. But you can't handle such pressure in an unknown land. You have to create your boundaries, make them clear.

"What is the point of this ?" You ask firmly as you maintain the icy eye contact from Lady Jessica. "I could have received such education from a professor from Arrakis with a program you would have adopted."

"Your House has a History rooted almost as deep as ours in Time." She starts with a shockingly polite voice. "As your parents accepted to serve us in the right way we wish to maintain this link."

"This makes no sense. You still could have kept me isolated in our underground castle, getting fed all the knowledge and propaganda you want me to absorb." You argue as you turn to the Duke.

"Your parents insisted on sending you here due to the risk of civil unrest to protest against our presence." He explains.

You won't get a more plausible answer apparently. You doubt it is the sole reason, they never talked about it. They wouldn't have make you lead the resistance on the northern frontline if that so.

You remain mostly alone during the evening, familiarizing with the new architecture and the Atreides banners hanging on those flat walls. Your own castle was carved into rocks as well but with an important place given to vegetation due to the massive rainforest covering it. Huge rooms letting roots hanging to carry your flamboyant yellow flags in the middle, wooden statues sculpted artfully from trunks either coming out of the ceiling or standing by the walls. Without being overwhelmed with details anyone could still feel the richness of colors and life and the important place culture has. But here it's a different kind of finesse. Sharp, where survival comes before joy and from the fresh air permitted thanks to partial darkness and this elegant light.

"How are you feeling my Lady ?" A voice asks behind you.

You notice only now that Paul never talked to you before this. Maybe a word or two at your arrival but your sense were so conflicted at that time that you couldn't pay much attention to him. He stands there by your threshold as you hold a book in your hands. You wonder if he had been there for a while. On your planet you could keep your door open but you should know better here. Despite how caring Leto Atreides sounded like once you got captured, you never know.

"I have already felt better my Lord. Worse as well." You lie as you invite him to come in.

"Father told me about the way you got captured." He says as he paces with a frown. "I am sorry that he did it in such a way. Himself didn't feel like it was necessary."

"It was war. Violence is required." You answer without a smile. "I would have done the same. I refused to surrender."

"This was brave of you. I wouldn't like to stand to him like this."

"Are you afraid of your own father ?"

"Absolutely not." He says with an hint of surprise. "I meant that he is an Atreides. Without wanting to brag about it, it would be enough to intimidate many."

"Never underestimate the pride of a people even in front of imminent death. We have families. Friends. Gods. History."

"This is why I'm passionate about the Fremens, what happened with the Harkonnens and before their arrival." He says with a thoughtful face. "You just escaped war so maybe you certainly know their feelings more than I do, but it is fascinating. I only ask you not to think we are the villains here. Father got to come here after the Emperor sent a delegation to Caladan."

"You shouldn't give away so much information to a potential opponent that could want to take revenge." You blurt out at his inconsiderate behavior. "I thought your parents would know better."

"You are no enemy here." He argues gently. "You are welcomed and protected."

"Say that you your mother my Lord. I feel like she is more dangerous than the Emperor himself."

He scoffs at this, visibly embarrassed by something.

"I wasn't expecting her to act in such a way, I am sorry. She is not like that normally. From what I've heard... the Bene Gesserit is extremely... cautious when it comes to your House. Maybe she heard some stories that worried her. I don't know for sure. Usually she expects a lot from me but... she is still my mother. She is a protector, as much as Father."

There is an undeniable love in his words and this is when you decide to be more careful. As heartwarming as it is this means they communicate between them, and if the Bene Gesserit treated your family in such a distinct way it is no good. You are in plain sight of their spies, as well as the man possessing your planet and your family in his hands now. But really... was it this much the Duke's fault ? Between their arrival on Arrakis and that useless war... he doesn't sound like willing any of this. More obeying.

"Is he going to try to bring our planets and Houses closer through my education ?" You ask.

"This is the main goal for now, yes." He nods. "This planet suffered a lot and Spice cannot be exploited fully anymore. The Harkonnens made sure of it."

"So you want to exploit my planet and it's resources." You add with a forced smile.

"We won't. Even if we wanted to do so it would be too expensive. Without much Spice left after exportation to the Emperor and the Guild, it won't be worth it for a while. There are greater thr..."

He stops there, closing his mouth as you realize how right you were to fear danger on this planet. So the Harkonnens sabotaged the massive Spice exploitation, putting the whole galaxy at risk of massive instability with the inability to travel through it ? Oh by the Gods. Paul keeps talking a bit but now that you grasped the global risks you can't really focus. You doubt he realizes how much you understood of this predicament, and maybe it's better this way. Their House is in big trouble and got distracted and weakened by this war. The Duke must know it. No wonder he wants to keep your House close to his.

You must have been right earlier, they do communicate a lot between them. Lady Jessica looks more relaxed around you, as much as such a woman can be around someone that could have killed her partner. At least you understand her more now.

"Our son told me you got the opportunity to discuss a bit." She says as she cuts her vegetables.

The Duke send her a warning gaze but she is looking down at her dish. Even while eating she looks naturally noble. Our hope you match her grace. Those people rarely take others into consideration if they are seems as weaker.

"We did discuss. He was asking me how I felt here and he talked about the Fremens a bit. He sounds passionate."

"He is." The father confirms with a proud grin. "He learns pretty quick. As you look pretty clever and educated as well I do think you are going to get along with him pretty good. You are a grown up so you must have some knowledge already."

"In the military field and in our own religions and mythologies. And I doubt our army is organized in any close way to what it was on Caladan or on Arrakis."

"Certainly. But it is a formidable force. Admirable soldiers."

"Thank you my Lord." You whisper as a lump forms in your throat.

"We are going to free the prisoners in two hours. They are still on our ships out there. They got treated well don't worry. The bodies got restituted to their families already." He adds in a calmer tone.

"This war was not needed." Lady Jessica says with a gaze more gentle than what you could have anticipated. "We promised to limit the damages as much as possible."

"Did you take part to this war in any way ?" You ask her as you remain on guard. "You sound pretty involved in everything linked to government my Lady."

As she exchanges a gaze with her concubine you notice several things. The slight hand rub on her wrist, his encouraging nod. The slight tension disappearing from her forehead.

"I did." She confirms. "Leto and I govern together."

"Were you in favor of killing off me and my family ?"

"We never was in favor of this war. We got to negotiate for sever weeks to make sure we could avoid unnecessary losses from both sides. At least as much as possible." She adds. "Then, Leto noticed your bravery and it convinced him to stop right there."

"As I told you," he starts with a saddened and angry gaze, "you seemed desperate. As powerful as your army was, you looked like a child following her mother's decisions blindly. If we thought you were an actual threat we wouldn't have allowed you between these walls. I wouldn't have allowed you next to my son. My only heir."

Lady Jessica brings a hand on her flat belly as she moves uncomfortably on her chair. Is it possible that..?

"Family is important to us." She says as she looks up at you, her hand disappearing behind the table. "And we know it's the same for you. Our Houses are closer than what you might think. Sadly, war was the only chance we got to see it fully and to reach to give help and ask for it."

"House Atreides doesn't seem ready for another war." You say as Leto nods sadly. "Neither on Arrakis nor on my planet. "I can't bring anything to you immediately. It would take years to create this bond between our families and cultures. You are not even leading a unified planet, you are so different from Fremens as well."

"That is the main danger. We lack time. And let's make it clear, the Emperor isn't by our side."

You were right. That is some horrifying perspective. But at least they have all this precious Spice on their side. The Emperor wouldn't choose to get rid off this planet as this would turn the whole galaxy against him. At least you hope so.

"Are you planning on making me marry your son ?"

The Duke almost chokes on his food and Lady Jessica turns to him with a raised eyebrow. Apparently this is a good question for her as well as she clasps her hands on the table.

"I am not planning this kind of union. All of this is more to make you see through your own eyes the way we work, and how much of a nuisance the Baron has been here by getting blinded by his own greed." He says as he rests his elbows on the table, his bearded chin resting on his closed hands. "I see you - without exaggerating much - as some daughter. I saw some pride similar to the one I feel as an Atreides. I would too choose to sacrifice myself instead of abandoning my family, of stopping the fight to avenge or defend them from my enemy." He looks down for a bit before focusing back on you. "As I consider you this way I wouldn't encourage this union. Yet I barely know you and I know you don't share any blood with us. I don't know how well you and Paul are going to get along. And if one day you decide that this union is the outcome you desire - the both of you because I won't force my own son nor you to marry someone they don't appreciate - then I wouldn't stop you."

You swallow hard and blink at how sincere he sounds. Leto Atreides may look intimidating to many, but his benevolence and protective instinct is so... unique. It's unexpected. Usually people described this way are the result of lies, propaganda and mockery. Even in such difficult times he doesn't rely on the traditional means to prove his power. He isn't even married to his possibly pregnant concubine whilst they look actually in love, he could have forced you to marry him or his son not to look like the tyrant destroying your planet and turning to diplomacy instead.

"Thank you for the respect you show me my Lord." You say quietly with a slight nod.

"You don't need to thank me." He sighs. "Consider yourself as an Atreides for the time you are here. There is no fear to have. I only hope we have enough time."

Lady Jessica rests her hand on her belly again as she looks at her partner lovingly. Now that you noticed it you don't think he lowered his eyes even once. Maybe you are wrong and just too much on your guard.

- - -

Thank you for reading, please comment and reblog if you liked it !

@salome-c @stevenngrant @lavenderluna10 @one-hell-of-a-disappointment @dailyreverie @thecursivej @lady-targaryen @general-latino @harrys-tittie @laura-naruto-fan1998

#leto atreides #leto atreides x reader #leto atreides x you #duke leto x reader #duke leto x you #duke leto

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literary-illuminati · 1 year

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Book Review 9 - Forge of Darkness by Steven Erikson

Okay, after roughly a decade of nagging and peer pressure from a friend who adores the series (and has the terrible curse of often recommending stuff I end up loving in the least appealing-to-me ways possible), I finally broke and agreed to read some Malazan. But a ten-book series of thousand page tomes was still too much, so, the prequels trilogy! Or the first volume of it, anyway.

So, this was a, as they say, real fantasy chonker. Nine hundred pages, like literally over a dozen POVs, unexplained but extremely detailed magic systems and worldbuilding and so. Many. Proper. Nouns. Being a prequel, it’s also literally set before humans existed, as far as I can tell – the main caste is all what were described to me as the setting’s elves (well, the overwhelmingly majority of them, anyway). Also, 900 pages long. Which is just too long for a single book, I think.

Anyways, given all that, surprisingly readable? Not necessarily objectively – it was absolutely a slog at times – but compared to what you might expect from a story that expects you to pick up the meaning and significance of every bit of jargon by use and context and will loop back to any given POV every hundred pages or so, if you’re lucky. You could fit the number of names I remember on one hand, but the book does a good job of giving you enough context and providing enough little reminders that I could remember who any given POV/what any given plot thread was within a paragraph or two of being dumped back into it, anyway. (Except Ursander’s captains. Like, I know they got characterizations but relying on social rank and narrative role to tell people apart really failed on the five different ones running around doing genocide or atrocity to start a civil war).

Plot wise it’s an awkward but interesting halfway point between brutal gritty realpolitik and mythic epic fantasy? Like, the better part of the plot in concerned with aristocratic decadence and Machiavellian scheming and a seemingly inevitable slide toward civil war and all that, but also the only reason any of that could happen is because the guy who could probably fight every army involved singlehandedly was out of town that month trying to do some father-son bonding/accidentally sponsoring a demigod who invented blood magic and human sacrifice to complete his commission of a present for his girlfriend. Or the careful diplomacy around noble hostage-taking being almost derailed because there are three kids who are just actually immortal demons and decided to kill everyone in the castle and go on a trip. The two tones interact in interesting ways at points, and lead to some real tonal dissonance at others.

There is some thematic purpose to that, I think – there’s absolutely a recurring motif of people with power and influence refusing to use it, and ostensible subordinates acting in their name running around and making everything worse in ways they did not understand or approve of while they sat around. From one lens the whole book is one long warning about the horror of delegated authority. Or even broader than that – the distance between someone’s reputation or how they’re regarded, what they think their reputation is, and who they actually are comes up a lot. So much angst and miscommunication.

Beyond that, the best way to describe the plot is ‘three different standard epic fantasy pseudo-chosen one plots happening independently and possibly mutually exclusively, and also a bunch of different views of a pretty fucked society sliding into complete bloody anarchy and religious genocide.’

Character-wise – well, the downside of having so many POVs is that even when there is enough wordcount to actually give several of them real depth and development, it’s incredibly easy to miss it. So it’s utterly possible that there was tons of subtle and nuanced character work I totally failed to notice, but as far as my actual reading experience went most of the arcs were fairly broad and obvious, and focused on the really larger than life operatic characters. (Though as far as somewhat generic fantasy stories go, Korya and Haut are the best and I won’t be accepting disagreement on this.)

Like I’m fairly sure every big fantasy chonker in existence, the book’s ever so slightly Weird about sex. Also one rather extreme (and plot-critical) bit of on-screen sexual violence, though that’s thankfully not the bit the book’s weird about.

The setting was interesting, though buried under so much jargon and proper nouns that it took a fair bit of page count before you begin to understand absolutely any of it. Still, the sea of chaos and the savanna of razor-sharp grass were both really vividly described, even if there’s no chance in hell that I could tell you what their names were.

I really did enjoy the book, on the whole, but it was also kind of an exhausting read? The whole book’s got the whole pseudo-archaic tone and vocabulary you expect from map fantasy, which did help sell it but also do make reading it a bit more of a slog.

Overall, I mean, does ‘extra-worldbuilding heavy prequel set in the lost mythic age of an already famously and world-building heavy fantasy world’ appeal to you? Because if so this book absolutely lives up to expectations. But I’m not going to read anything over 500 pages for a solid bit now, I think.

#book review #Forge of Darkness #Steven Erikson #Malazan #sff

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sepublic · 2 years

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Amphibia’s Intellectual and Logistical Downfall?

So what @emptyspace2001 brought up just made me realize, but Andrias and the Core likely contributed to Amphibia’s Dark Age, even beyond the loss of its power source.

Because if you have the smartest minds of society being stuffed into a mechanical Core who remains hidden and is generally apathetic towards the populace, until the Calamity Box returns and it can resume production of its armies? Then you’ve got no leaders, teachers, innovators, etc. Historians and scientists, doctors? Gone. We don’t know the exact standard for what the Core deems as worthy of its hive mind, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrias made Amphibia’s social collapse even worse.

Obviously losing your technology sucks, but the frogs and toads are largely uneducated and scattered, most newts aren’t better off and those who attend college are crippled by debt, and the very capital’s infrastructure lacking until a thirteen-year-old fixed it. Amphibia was a dying civilization, a fallen empire- And contrary to what Andrias believes, he may have done more to cause this than his own friends literally pulling the plug on imperialism. It’s no wonder the quality of life has gone down, paradoxically in Andrias’ attempts to go back to the ‘good old days’. It’s no wonder the death rate is so high, with life so perilous and amputations a necessity!

Which, society suffering as education and knowledge is hoarded to a select few at the top, who seek to bring back the colonizing past? Well, what else is new. Now it’s possible that not a lot of people were assimilated into the Core, and/or that it’s been guiding Andrias’ rule over his kingdom... But with how terrible and chaotic things are, I’m guessing that things would be better if Amphibia’s smartest minds were spread across the country.

Andrias might parallel Marcy in a lot of ways, but if his coloration is any indication, he’s no Wit- Hence why he’s been so terrible as both a ruler AND antagonist to Anne, with Darcy even mocking him over it. Not that the Core has been much better if at all, but maybe we still need to see it in action.

People who would be better rulers than Andrias have instead been stewing at the bottom of his basement for a thousand years, and are only just now getting to exercise their minds- But to waste it for dumb things like conquest, alas. Not improving infrastructure for their own nation, whose environment is being destroyed no less! Resources are being consumed at an unsustainable rate, and conquest that also needs to be successful might not be enough to compensate.

But again, colonizers being short-sighted and illogical in their desire for immediate power and gratification, their desperate clinging to the past and ‘tradition’, all while acting like they’re more objective than the uneducated populace- What else is new? Even without the protagonists, Andrias would probably gonna wear down Amphibia through attrition regardless, overextending into other worlds when his own kingdom is already overextended across just Amphibia!

Maybe THAT’s another reason his friends stopped him- Not only was the conquest morally wrong, but the hoarding of knowledge for the Core, as well as the cost of war, actually atrophied Amphibia in the long run. But it’s easy to not notice the country falling apart when you live from the cushy capital who is the only place to benefit from this way of life... Whose infrastructure you take for granted until it collapses when it’s up to you to run things.

TL;DR I have to wonder if the show will reveal that Andrias is doomed to fail, but his attempted conquests WILL take down Amphibia with him in the process, and thus is still a threat of his own regardless- As a direct result of being a fool who doesn’t know what he’s doing but has the power to do actual damage, an incredibly dangerous combination reminiscent of real life leaders. A critique and discussion of the fall of empires... Topical. The Romans would be proud. War and mindless colonization really IS unsustainable, and will only worsen the situation, not add to it- And just harm both the invaders and natives.

#amphibia #amphibia andrias #king andrias #andrias leviathan #amphibia marcy #Marcy wu #amphibia darcy #the Core #speculation #theory

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Corruption

“Corruption” conjures images of bags of cash changing hands in deserted parking garages, but I’d like to propose a simple and concrete definition that goes beyond that: “Corruption” is when something bad happens because its harms are diffused and its gains are concentrated.

Here’s what I mean. West Virginia is known as coal country, but coal is actually a small, dwindling industry in WV; WV’s biggest industry is chemical processing, dominated by Dow — chem processing, like many industries, is heavily concentrated into a few global monopolies.

WV has a water crisis, with frequent “boil water” advisories. Its origins are in the chemical industry — specifically, in a regulatory proceeding where state regulators sought comment on whether to relax the EPA’s national guidelines on chemical runoff into drinking water.

Dow, acting through the manufacturers’ association it controls, argued the people of WV could absorb more poison than the national average because they were much fatter than the median American, and when they drank, it was mostly beer, not water.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/

No, really.

Here’s the thing. I’m not qualified to set the safe levels of different kinds of runoff in water-tables. It’s probably not zero (at least, not for most chemicals), but it’s also not “anything goes.”

It’s a question that requires subtle, interdisciplinary expertise: chemistry, health, environmental science. It’s an area where people of good faith can disagree.

These thorny, high-stakes technical questions that cross disciplines are the norm, not the exception.

Even if you have the technical knowhow to evaluate whether wearing masks fights covid, that doesn’t answer questions about vaccine safety, or whether zoom-school will turn your kid into an ignoramus.

Answer those questions and you’re left with still more: should you get in one of Southwest’s recertified Boeing 737-Max airplanes? Is the code specifying the reinforced steel joist that holds up your roof adequate, or is your building gonna collapse?

Should you eat carbs? Will your 401k preserve you through a dignified retirement? Answering all of these questions definitively for yourself requires earning 50+ PhDs, but also, people who have those PhDs don’t all agree with one another.

In a technologically complex world, there will always be official advice whose technical arguments we can’t understand. Our only reassurance is the process by which that advice is arrived at.

We may not understand the arguments, but we can recognize an open, independent process refereed by neutral regulators who show their work and recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest.

We don’t always understand what goes on inside the box, but we can tell whether the box itself is sound. We can tell judges are financially interested in outcomes, whether they publish their deliberations, whether they revisit their conclusions in light of new evidence.

That’s all we’ve got, and it depends on a balance of powers that arises from a pluralistic, diffused set of industrial interests.

When an industry says with one voice that West Virginians are so fat that we can poison them without injury, it carries a lot of weight.

(so to speak)

It’s a stupid argument. It’s a wicked argument. It’s a lethal argument. It’s the kind of argument that might get you laughed out of the room if it is filled with hundreds of squabbling chemical companies looking to dunk on one another.

That’s the thing about conspiracies (and Dow was, in fact, engaged in a conspiracy to poison West Virginians to enrich its shareholders) — they require a lot of discipline, with all the conspirators remaining loyal to the conspiracy and no one breaking ranks.

The bigger a group is, the more it struggles to keep a united front. That’s why there’s so much billionaire class solidarity. Sure, it’s hard to maintain unity among a clutch of grandiose maniacs, but it’s much harder to maintain unity among billions of their victims.

Monopolization is corruption’s handmaiden — not just because it lets Dow hire fancy lawyers and “experts” to dress up “fat people are immune to poison” as sound policy, but because the industry can sing that awfful song with one voice.

Dow spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to win a policy that will save it millions — and cost the people of WV hundreds of millions or even billions in health costs, lost productivity, and, of course, the intergenerational trauma of ruined and lost human lives.

The reason millions in gains can trump billions in losses is that that the millions are reaped by just a few firms, who can wield them with precision to secure the continued right to impose costs on the rest of us, while the losses are spread out across the whole state.

For Dow to corrupt West Virginia’s legislature, it need only tithe a small percentage of its winnings to political causes and dark money orgs.

For West Virginians to fight corruption in the cash-money world of political influence campaigns, they have to overcome their collective action problem and outspend Dow — all while bearing the human and monetary costs of Dow’s corruption.

America is a land of manifest, obvious dysfunctions, and close examination reveals their common root in corruption.

Take the health-care system: Americans pay more for worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world.

Their healthcare is rationed by faceless, cruel bureaucracies. They ration their medicine or skip necessary procedures. Patients hate this — but so do doctors and nurses, who have to hire armies of bureaucrats to fight with insurers.

Everyone hates this system. Everyone knows it’s rotten. Everyone — except for a handful of pharma, hospital and insurance monopolists, and the propagandists they pay to busily race through the crowd, busily swapping hats and shouting, “SOCIALISM! BOO! SOCIALISM!”

But while the US healthcare system is terrible at providing healthcare, it’s very good at jackpotting for monopolists. They reap billions while costing the public trillions, and they hand around millions to keep that situation intact.

We can see that in action right now. Nina Turner is running to take over a Congressional seat in northeastern Ohio vacated by Marcia Fudge when she joined Biden’s cabinet.

https://www.dailyposter.com/dems-launch-proxy-war-on-medicare-for-all/

For 30 years, every Congressional rep for Ohio’s 11th supported Medicare for All — a commensense measure to end the long waits, price gouging and cruel bureaucratic rationing of for-profit care. Unsurprisingly, Turner also supports M4A.

https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1404793650895331337?s=20

In response, a group of corporate, establishment Congressional Dems have launched an all-out attack on Turner’s candidacy, joining forces with health-care lobbyists to raise vast corporate fortunes to support her primary challenger, Shontel Brown.

The seven Dem lawmakers attacking Turner have collectively taken in $5m from pharma and health-care monopolists. James E Clyburn alone has pocketed $1m from pharma. He’s leading the charge against Turner.

https://twitter.com/TaylorPopielarz/status/1405121330433957888

Before Clyburn accepted $1m worth of pharma money, he co-sponsored Medicare For All legislation. Now he’s its most bitter opponent, insisting that it’s political poison (a majority of his constituents support M4A).

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/live-blog/south-carolina-primary-live-updates-democrats-vote-2020-candidates-n1145296/ncrd1146076

One million people in Ohio lost their jobs — and health care — during the pandemic. The system is murdering and maiming people. It’s a wasteful boondoggle that’s bad for everyone except a tiny minority of shareholders and the corrupt officials who accept their blood-money.

It’s not just healthcare. Think of Exxon Mobil’s crime against humanity and Earth: the 40-year coverup and disinformation campaign to delay action on the climate emergency. Exxon spent millions, made tens of billions, and cost us all trillions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crisis-crime-fossil-fuels-environment

The megadroughts, once-in-millennium heatwaves, raging wildfires, annual floods-of-the-century and zoonitic plagues Exxon bought with their millions were objectively a very bad deal — but their concentrated gains beat our much larger diffused losses (so far). #ExxonKnew.

But corruption creates policy debt, and the interest on that debt compounds — in a degraded environment, worsening health, precarious work, and a collapse in trust in institutions. The corrupt have a structural advantage, but it’s not a sure thing.

Take Ohio (again). The GOP-dominated Senate passed legislation to ban Ohio cities from offering municipal broadband. Now, municipal broadband is the best internet in America: cheaper, faster and more reliable than anything the telecoms monopolists offer.

There are ~900 (mostly Republican) towns and counties where people get their internet from their local government:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

And they fucking love it, just as much as their Comcast-burdened peers elsewhere hate their service:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180808223947/https://www.consumerreports.org/phone-tv-internet-bundles/people-still-dont-like-their-cable-companies-telecom-survey/

Muni networks are better at everything to do with the internet: connection speeds, price, and customer service. There’s only one area in which they underperform relative to telecoms monopolies: generating profits for shareholders by overcharging and underinvesting.

There’s only a tiny minority of people who’d trade good internet service for profitable internet service (namely, the people receiving the profits). But the pro-monopolists have concentrated gains, while the public experiences diffused losses.

That’s why the Ohio Senate passed its budget bill banning municipal networks. But when the budget was reconciled in the Ohio House, the measure was killed, thanks to an all-out uprising led by the people of Fairlawn, who stepped up to defend Fairlawngig, their muni ISP.

The victory for muni broadband is a triumph of evidence over corruption — proof that the diffused nature of corruption losses can be overcome. It’s cause for hope, especially in light of this week’s collapse of the antitrust case against Facebook.

https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-antitrust-case-against-facebook-very-much-alive/

Facebook escaped justice by citing the theories of Robert Bork, Nixon’s chief criminal co-conspirator and Ronald Reagan’s court sorcerer. Bork insisted that anittrust law had but one purpose: to keep prices down.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/28/dubious-quant-residue/#incinerators-r-us

Any other consideration, especially political corruption arising from market concentration, was out of scope.

The court agreed. No surprise; 40% of the US Federal judiciary has attended a lavish “Manne Seminar,” junkets where they are indoctrinated into Borkism.

But the absurdity of ruling that Facebook isn’t a fit subject for anti-monopoly law is the beginning of the end for Borkism, prompting bipartisan calls — led by Elizabeth Warren — to explicitly redesign American antitrust.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/facebooks-surprise-antitrust-victory-could-inspire-congress-to-overhaul-the-rules-entirely/ar-AALCJz8

Corruption has many costs: monetary, human, environmental. But every bit as important is the cost to institutional credibility. Remember, none of us are capable of understanding the technical nuances of the dozens of life-or-death decisions we face daily.

If we can’t trust our institutions — if we don’t believe that regulators are neutral, good-faith experts in ardent pursuit of the truth and the public good — then our very idea of shared reality collapses, as Snowden has written:

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt1

It’s hard to overstate the sheer, reeling epistemological terror of institutional collapse. When the EPA allows the chemical industry to poison America, how can you know whether the products in the store can be trusted not to kill your family?

https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/

Remember, the Flint water crisis came about as the result of corruption: the promises of “experts” that taking shortcuts to save money would come out all right, despite the copious evidence to the contrary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Water_Crisis

What parent of a permanently damaged child, poisoned by lead deliberately introduced to save pittances for a tiny group of people, could ever trust any “expert” process again?

Michigan Republicans saved millions at the expense of billions, but the gains were concentrated among the wealthy white taxpayers of the state who enjoyed cuts to the top marginal rate, and the costs were born by the Black families of Flint. That’s corruption.

#pluralistic

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dailyadventureprompts · 4 years

Note

For the adventure prompt thing: How about an inland city with a towering lighthouse dominating the skyline? Instead of warding ships from the coast, the lighthouse projects a magical field of energy every night to keep out the hordes of monsters in the wilderness. People need to venture out of the city for supplies, but woe to anyone caught outside the ward after sunset.

Oooh, lots to work with here, let me see what I can do:

Adventure: A Fading Memory of Light

“On that terrible night when the beacon tower died, the whole city’s hope went with it. The Corpse-king’s ghostly legions, long denied the promise of conquest that bound them to the living world, were able to march against the fortifications that had so long kept them at bay.

In a single night, the city was swept clean of life, drained to feed the corpse-king’s armies or tolled to the well of darkness from which his power sprang. Only a score of survivors managed to flee the fall of their home and cross the haunted waste to civilized lands.

may this account teach us that there are limits to what we can accomplish under our own mortal power, and that there is some darkness in this world that not even our brightest light can withstand.”

-A history of the strongholds of humanity, volume IV: Southeastern continent

Setup: The party comes into possession of a most unusual object: the diary of a refugee who fled Svivolda, a magocratic city as it was overtaken by an army of undead. So traumatic were these events, that anyone who reads the journal ends up bodily transported into a dreamlike memory of the days leading up to the conquest, able to live and relive the city’s trials before being returned to their previously unconscious body, no worse for wear and only a few hours having passed.

Little more than a ruin reclaimed by the wilderness in the present day, Svivolda was once a city ruled over by a powerful mages, that for all their power failed to prevent the rise of a conquest hungry necromancer called “The Cadaver-King”. Whatsmore, when the threat presented itself, the masters of the city refused to heed the call and join their neighbors in dispatching the foe, trusting instead in their walls and wards to ensure the safety of their holdings. This isolationist attitude saw all of Svivolda’s contemporary settlements wiped out, as the corpse-king’s influence spread and turned the surrounding landscape into a haunted wasteland. They held out nearly a generation, before some agent of the corpse king snuck into the city and managed to destroy the city’s protective beacon tower in an act of cataclysmic sabotage.

Today the city of Svivolda is known mostly for its tragic end, spoken of by sages and skalds as one of the most obvious examples of what happens when good does nothing but bide its time in the face of an overwhelming darkness.

Adventure Hooks

The party starts their first loop awakening in a disused tavern (as the isolated city has little need in way of hospitality for outsiders) after the conclusion of some kind of festival the previous night. they are granted a few days to explore the city before, at sunset, the city’s beacon tower explodes, leading to a night of furious resistance as the corpse-king’s forces appear out of the mist to besiege the now unwarded city. After the defenders fall, its a few days of panic and nightly purges as the city either flees into the wastes or attempts to hide from the phantom army. After a few days of carnage, the loop suddenly ends, kicking the heroes back out to the real world.

It the players are wise, the book can be more than just a historical curiosity: as the rumors have it, the final, deepest vault of the magisters, with all their riches and wonders survived the corpse-king’s plundering, as well as his defeat some decades later. A smart band of treasure hunters can follow likely suspects and perhaps ascertain the location of the vault and perhaps a manner to circumvent its defenses. After that, all that’s left is to plan an expidition to the city’s ruins, through the blasted wasteland left by the corpse-king’s defeat.

The barrier beacon of Svivolda is perhaps one of the greatest works of abjuration magic ever developed, and was thought to have been lost to the ages when the city fell. If the party can somehow steal its plans or otherwise reproduce its function, they may be able to shield their own holdings or vessels from powerful opponents as well.

Challenges & Complications:

While the events experienced while inside the book’s memory are only illusions, the characters present within those illusions act as if they were real: the populace are warry of outsiders, and the city watch is alert for those breaking the peace. If the characters aren’t careful, its likely that they’ll be apprehended as spies and spend the rest of their loop rotting in some dungeon.

Somewhere in the city, the journaler is alive, a young man who works as a servant in one of the grand households and acts as an attendant to one of the city’s magister lords. Should the party manage to find the journaler and keep him “alive” during the days of fear and tumult, they can add extra time to their run. Doing so is easier said than done, as they’ll have to work backwards from the details left in what remaining journal pages they have. Unlike other changes made in the memory, these changes actually stick, resulting in new entries (though written in vaguer prose) appearing in the journals accounts and allowing the party to start earlier in the loop, or spend more time in the fallen, undead haunted city.

Art Sources:

https://www.deviantart.com/gerezon/art/Endless-Legend-intro-image-488261045

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8ldvkE

#secondaristh #D&D #D&D adventure #Homebrew Adventure #Adventure #DnD #city #race against time #timeloop #undead #mid level #high level #treasure hunt

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incorrectbatfam · 4 years

Note

For the vampier au: how do they each get turned?

The year is 1000 BCE. Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul rule the Persian empires as two of the first vampires in existence, existing largely in secret. They make it their goal to turn as many people over to their side as possible, whether by battle or biting. Biologically, Damian was born a vampire and they utilize some arcane magic to make him appear as a child forever, because even back then people knew that children were far better at getting their way than adults. Honed as a weapon for literally millenia, Damian Al Ghul practically becomes a cryptid in his own right. Villagers shared stories of people who saw the child and never being the same—or worse, never returning. The Al Ghuls were responsible for the most well-known vampires in history, including the famous Count Dracula.

The year is 800 BCE. At 200 years old, Damian was still considered very young for a vampire. He is sent on a mission to turn to their side a young lady who was practically viewed as a goddess by other women, and who aspired to become one of the greatest poets of all time. Talia dropped Damian off on the island of Lesbos. Faster than lightning, the child warrior swooped down and bit the legendary Sappho. Now an immortal, Sappho dedicated her eternity of free time to her passion for writing, where she composed her famous Ode To Aphrodite. Eventually she got bored of Greece, so she changed her appearance and set off exploring the greater Asian continent.

The year is 1206. Genghis Khan had conquered much of the world. Under the Mongol empire, it was as common for women to serve in army as men. One of Khan’s most distinguished fighters came from the Manchuria region. She was a mercenary for the army, a lone wolf. And though she found thrill in battle, she was lonely. And, as fate may have it, so was Sappho. They met in a village where the army was stationed and forged a tight-knit partnership. They laughed together, they fought together. And the thought of being separated was unimaginable. So when Sappho revealed herself to be a vampire, the Mongol warrior jumped at the chance to become one too. And so she was transformed with consent, and together they roamed the world in search for adventure.

The year is 1775. The two girls had heard of this supposed New World and the colonies Britain established. They wanted to see it for themselves. Changing their names and appearances to something more Anglican, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain boarded a ship set for what would become modern-day New Jersey. Immediately they found a stark lack of immortals there and they didn’t want to be the only ones, so they set off on a biting spree, turning men, women, children, and even a few farm animals (two dogs, a cat, a cow, and a turkey) without care. One of these victims was an elderly English nobleman named Alfred Pennyworth. Cassandra took the animals under her wing, while Stephanie felt bad for Alfred because he seemed to have nobody around. So the girls “adopted” Alfred as their grandfather so he wouldn’t be lonely either.

The year is 1871. Haly’s Circus was the most popular traveling show during Europe’s Industrial Age. Disguised as mother and child laborers working behind the scenes, Damian and Talia were on the lookout for new potential soldiers. And who would make a more perfect killer than the swift, agile Flying Graysons? Talia tried persuading John and Mary nicely, using Damian’s adorable boyish face, and they did give in. At least, at first. But within a few months of John, Mary, and Richard being turned, the parents changed their mind. They wanted nothing to do with Ra’s Al Ghul’s agenda and threatened to expose the vampires to the world. Talia had no choice but to get rid of them. She paid a lower-level mortal criminal to rig the ropes and douse the trapezes in holy water, which would lead to the downfall of John and Mary. The press reported it as a tragic accident. Alfred, who was at the circus during his holiday when it happened, couldn’t help but notice the burn marks on their hands. He chalked it up to coincidence or a prior unrelated injury in the end

The year is 1920. All that the grieving Richard Grayson wanted was to get away from the ghost of his past. He traveled to America, settling in the subpar city of Gotham, New Jersey. As much as he wanted to drink his troubles away, it was just his luck that he arrived at the beginning of Prohibition. His apartment was near a speakeasy, though, so he frequented that. The underground bar itself was owned by mob boss Jason Todd, who was notorious for brandishing guns and picking drunken fights—and winning all of them. But his streak would end when he had one too many glasses of moonshine and challenged an unwilling Richard Grayson to a fistfight. “What, you gonna back out, ya little dick?” Jason taunted. The former Flying Grayson himself wasn’t in the most sober state ever, so after some convincing and people placing betting money on the table, they took up the challenge. It was the roughest fight that bar had ever seen, and in a final act of self-defense, Richard bit Jason. (Granted, it wasn’t in the neck, but a bite was a bite). Jason becoming vampire wasn’t the worst consequence. No, it the older one being stuck with a terrible nickname: Dick.

The year was 1965. One of Ra’s fortune tellers predicted an influx of young soldiers arriving in Vietnam before war was even declared, and Ra’s sent his grandson to a rural village in the country undercover to find more recruits as the League of Assassins’ influence was diminishing. The environment of thick, bushy jungles worked in Damian’s favor as he was able to hide and strike on French and U.S. soldiers. He even managed to turn all but two members of a New Jersey infantry. Later on, the government reported one of the drafted soldiers, Duke Thomas, as missing, but in reality the young man went into hiding with two other vampire soldiers on his squad. And it was a reasonable move—mass media was on the rise and the last thing anyone needed was vampires being exposed as real to the public. Not only that, but Duke displayed abilities that the other two didn’t have, likely attributed to the combined effects of vampire magic and chemical agents like Napalm used at the time, and neither General Grayson nor Lieutenant Todd knew what to make of it.

The year was 1999. A teenage Tim Drake was out on a late-night grocery run to get more supplies, because 2000 was in just a few months and everyone was preparing for the supposed end of the world. He made the grave mistake of taking a shortcut through Crime Alley in an effort to get home on time, and was bitten in the leg by a “homeless” kid who seemed to appear out of nowhere before scurrying off. He didn’t experience anything strange for the next few years. He got plenty of sunburns, but he burned easily even before the incident. He kept his bedroom dark and stayed awake all night, but so did a lot of teenagers during that grunge/post-punk era. Silver felt weird, which he brushed off as an allergy. He avoided churches but that was because religion was never his thing. He craved red meat and avoided garlic, but hey, people had their likes and dislikes. It wasn’t until about five years later, when Tim realized he hadn’t aged a day, that he considered doing some research.

The year was 2019. Bruce Wayne was at one of his famous Wayne Enterprises gala on New Year’s when he met a stunningly beautiful woman named Talia. She slipped a little something into his drink when he wasn’t looking. Bruce couldn’t remember what happened after that, only waking up with a killer hangover and strange hickey on his neck. He had been Batman for a while now, and when he started experiencing unexplainable things he sought the help of the magician Zatanna, who found out that somebody turned him into a vampire. If he wasn’t brooding before, he definitely was now, and it didn’t help that the butler was a smartass. Alfred revealed to Bruce that he had been a vampire the whole time, looking over the Wayne family since Thomas’s father’s father, because the wealthy Waynes made easy targets for the supernatural. In an attempt to make Bruce feel less alone, Alfred invited Stephanie and Cassandra over for dinner (“Alfred, great to see you again! It’s been, like, a hundred years!”). It was over dinner that Bruce asked questions and the older vampires told their stories, and Alfred offhandedly mentioned something about Haly’s Circus that caught Bruce’s attention. Fresh burn marks from touching a trapeze? Something didn’t seem right. Though the case was over a century old, Bruce did some searching on the Batcomputer and found too many discrepancies in the Flying Grayson case for it to be just a regular accident. With Stephanie and Cassandra’s help, Bruce traced the parents’ deaths back to the League of Assassins. But one new questioned surfaced after all this: what happened to Richard? That question would be answered a few weeks later when Bruce dug up another cold case: a file about an MIA Vietnam War soldier from Gotham, Duke Thomas. He tracked down Duke’s whereabouts, and it turned out he was hiding from the League of Assassins with two other missing people from history: the circus performer Richard Grayson and mobster Jason Todd. Bruce offered him the best damn thing in their eyes: sanctuary. He took all three of them under his bat wing and they joined his immortal crusade against Gotham crime. Some time later, Talia introduced Damian to Bruce under the guise that Damian was Bruce’s son, citing the night she met Bruce at the party. Damian only agreed to Talia’s infiltration plan because he was sick of how Ra’s treated him, like an object rather than a being. So although the paternity test came out negative, Bruce still insisted that Damian was his son and kept him. As for Tim Drake? His story is pretty much the same: deducing Batman and Nightwing’s identities and demanding to join them—classic Timmers move

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bookwormscififan · 4 years

Text

Lacuna

Read on AO3!

Lacuna: A blank space; a missing part.

A/N: Happy birthday, @purp-man! I wrote this for you, inspired by my wanting to give you something when you returned to the Trail Mix, then I disappeared from the server, so have this kinda vent-y, angsty, song fic!

Song used: The World is Ugly by My Chemical Romance

Word count: 2012 words

Warnings: slight violence, self-doubt, feelings of dread, panic, and helplessness

Characters: Roman, Virgil, Guardian of the Deep Mind

These are the eyes and the lies of the taken These are their hearts but their hearts don't beat like ours They burn 'cause they are all afraid For every one of us, there's an army of them But you'll never fight alone 'Cause I wanted you to know

The clock ticked, incessantly echoing its passage of time through the room. Apart from that, the place was silent.

Darkness loomed from outside the window, drowning everything in shadows. The lamp beside the television was turned off, and the bulb had been taken out. A single spider crawled his way up the curtains, pausing to poke a leg at each cartoon spider on the fabric.

A shadowy figure created a darker spot at the stairs, moving slightly to the beat of unheard music.

As the figure sank into the calm of his music, he suddenly froze, pausing his music and lowering his headphones.

He stood up, moving slowly to the middle of the room.

He lowered his hood, revealing smudged eyeshadow.

Virgil closed his eyes against the images flashing in his mind.

“Roman…”

That the world is ugly But you're beautiful to me Well are you thinking of me now (now)

The Imagination was silent. Dust was settling, following the path of someone’s journey.

A dark-clothed figure stood at the gateway to the Deep Mind, whistling a sad, forgotten tune as they inspected their fingernails.

The sounds of frantic footsteps echoed through the area, causing the figure to straighten up.

“Roman.” The prince raised his scarlet hood, eyes defiant.

“I need to go through. I need to be a hero.”

The figure shook their head, stepping in front of the gateway and folding their arms across their chest.

Roman sighed, dropping his shoulders.

“Please, I need to do this.” Roman’s hand rested on his sword in warning.

“I cannot let you through. You will get lost. Thomas needs you.” The figure watched Roman nod in defeat, then turn and leave.

Smirking beneath their hood, the guard turned around to look into the gate.

Suddenly, a solid object hit their head, and they fell to the ground. They opened their eyes weakly as a flash of scarlet brushed past him.

Lifting a heavy arm, the figure passed out.

When they came to, the guard had no idea how much time had passed.

They raised themselves to their elbows, lifting a hand to their forehead as numb pain registered.

Roman was nowhere to be seen. The gateway to the Deep Mind looked like some sort of warzone.

The figure sighed, adjusting their hood, and slowly came to a stand.

They closed their eyes, trying, with some difficulty, to send a message to anyone in the Mindscape.

These are the nights and the lights that we fade in These are the words but the words aren't coming out They burn 'cause they are hard to say For every failing sun, there's a morning after Though I'm empty when you go I just wanted you to know

The images continued through his mind, causing Virgil’s heart to beat louder than the ticking of the clock.

Something bad was about to happen. Or was happening.

A cold, empty feeling settled in his stomach.

What was Roman doing?

Biting his nails, Virgil allowed his fringe to fall into his eyes. He knew where the images were set. He knew there was a place in Thomas’ mind where Sides go, somewhere to find themselves.

The last thing Virgil wanted was for Roman to go there, but he had no say in anything the prince did.

His voice left him, and he silently screamed as the images became overwhelming.

That the world is ugly But you're beautiful to me Are you thinking of me Like I'm thinking of you I would say I'm sorry, though Though I really need to go I just wanted you to know

The realm beyond the gateway was crowded with figures. All the colour had drained from the people, and the area was a strange monochrome.

The feeling of loss and defeat hung heavy in the air, acting as a sort of vacuum that sucked the life and strength from every side here.

The realm was infinite, and the empty Sides wandered the space with no clear destination. It seemed that every person had forgotten their purpose for being here, or that they just… no longer cared.

Roman turned as each figure brushed past him, feeling no warmth or solidity from any arm that was near his.

Fear began to settle in the pit of his stomach, and he tried to call out. His voice was swallowed in the muffled murmurs of the figures aimlessly walking past.

The prince froze, figures rushing past him, as his heartbeat began to ring in his ears.

Slowly, without his notice, Roman’s cloak began to fade.

I wanted you to know I wanted you to know I'm thinking of you every night, every day

Virgil opened his eyes as his panic began to ebb.

He took a deep breath and flexed his fingers. Pulling himself to a sitting position, he looked around the room and swallowed thickly.

Roman was still in trouble.

The images had stopped flashing in his mind, matching the slow beat of his heart.

Brief glimpses of a scarlet cape moving through a gateway kept repeating themselves behind his eyelids.

Virgil crawled to the couch, resting his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

“I have to help him,” he croaked to himself.

He couldn’t ask anybody for help, so he cracked his knuckles and set his jaw.

He had only managed to save Roman once, when the whole group had stupidly gone into his room.

Closing his eyes, Virgil sank out.

These are the eyes and the lies of the taken These are their hearts but their hearts don't beat like ours They burn 'cause they are all afraid When mine beats twice as hard

The anxious side stood in the middle of the Imagination, heart pounding in his ears.

He clenched his teeth, walking toward the gateway to the Deep Mind.

The closer he got, the louder the murmurs of the lost echoed in his direction.

He stopped, clasping a hand over his ears in a vain attempt to block out the echoes.

He raised his head, eyes wide, as a voice echoed above all the others.

I have to be the hero. I need to prove myself.

“Roman.”

The anxious side shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets and set off at a faster pace to the gateway.

'Cause the world is ugly But you're beautiful to me Are you thinking of me Like I'm thinking of you I would say I'm sorry, though Though I really need to go I just wanted you to know That the world is ugly (I just wanted you to know) But you're beautiful to me (I just wanted you to know) Are you thinking of me

Virgil stood at the gateway to the Deep Mind, staring at the figure on guard.

“Roman is going to lose himself,” the figure told him.

“What if he’s already lost?” Virgil’s voice echoed in the silence. His anxiety was getting the better of him, and he gripped the hem of his hoodie nervously.

“Sides don’t lose themselves that quickly. The fastest has been twelve minutes inside the Deep Mind,” the guard stated, stepping aside to let Virgil through.

The anxious side bolted through the gate, freezing immediately as he saw the flood of grey and black hooded cloaks.

This is where the Lost Sides live. Is he here? Thoughts raced in Virgil’s mind, but he pushed them down as he began to count the seconds he spent in the area.

One, two, three, four… Roman, where are you? Nine, ten, eleven, twelve…

A flash of red caught his eye. Stuck somewhere in the middle of the sea of grey.

Virgil squared his shoulders and pushed his way through the flood, arm outstretched and ready to grab his goal.

Roman watched people go past, feeling his emotions drain. Chills began to run down his spine, making him shudder. Cold set into his body, travelling from his feet up to his chest.

His breathing shallowed, and panic began to set in.

What if I never get out? I need to be a hero, but can a hero actually work on his own? I need a villain to fight. Where is my villain? Who is my –

A hand grabbed his elbow, solid and firm. Warmth flooded his body, starting from his elbow. Roman turned around to look at the person who had saved him….

Stop your crying, helpless feeling Dry your eyes and start believing There's one thing they'll never take from you

“You’re an idiot.” Virgil’s face was firm, mouth turned down in a frown, but his eyes showed multiple emotions: relief, concern, anger, fear.

“I wanted to be the hero…” Roman looked down, watching the colour at the base of his cloak fade.

“Going into the Deep Mind to prove you’re a hero is a stupid idea, Roman,” the anxious side turned the prince around and began to walk him back to the gateway.

Roman walked slowly back, mind whirling. What have I done? Why did I do that?

When they rose up in the main Mindscape, Roman sat on the couch and dropped his head into his hands.

Virgil stood opposite him, hands in his pockets.

“Thomas doesn’t see me as a hero anymore,” the prince said, voice soft.

Virgil rolled his eyes, then crouched down in front of Roman.

“Thomas has always seen you as a hero. True, you feel terrible, but you’re his creativity. You are the most important Side here. Without you, nobody would have anything to do. You cannot leave.”

“But I forced him to attend the wedding. I thought that was what he wanted, but it wasn’t. And we all made his mental health worse. That snake –”

“Don’t blame Dee for your own selfish stupidity. Not everything is your fault. I shouldn’t even have to deal with this, but you cannot go into the Deep Mind to find yourself. It’s hopeless.” Virgil stood up, adjusting his hoodie, then looked Roman in the eye.

“I want to see you at the next dilemma, Roman.” With that, he sank out, leaving the prince to sit on the couch with his thoughts.

The prince sat in the main Mindscape, thinking hard about his choices.

He still didn’t feel like the prince that Thomas needed. He felt… empty, as though he had left some of himself in the Deep Mind.

If he was supposed to be the hero in this story, why did he feel more like the villain? Why did he feel like he was just making Thomas’ problems worse?

Roman stood up, pulling his hood over his head.

If Thomas needed a prince, he would have to wait.

His prince had to find himself first. No amount of questing in the Imagination was going to help him reach his goal.

He had to go back to the Deep Mind.

(And then your face, will be lost forever, we'll never be the same Like ghosts in the snow Like ghosts in the sun)

“Roman. I cannot let you into the Deep Mind.” The figure glared at the prince.

Roman’s appearance was horrible; his eyes were red and puffy, his cloak was slightly torn, and his hair was a mess.

“I need to go in. I need to prove myself.”

With a sigh, the guard stepped to the side.

“Nobody has ever gotten out of the Deep Mind. You won’t get out.” Roman set his jaw, then stepped forward.

“I’m going to be the first.”

The next time someone asked to see Roman, they were met with Thomas’ blank look and question of, “Who’s Roman?”

Creativity was gone.

Virgil stood in his spot, staring at the floor. He felt somehow responsible for Roman’s disappearance.

Roman was gone, and there was nothing Virgil could do about it.

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ghoultyrant · 3 years

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Craftworld Context stuff

I first got into 40k primarily via Dawn of War, the relevancy to this post being that I was initially not even aware Warhammer Fantasy was a thing at all. Furthermore, even when I did become aware of Warhammer Fantasy being a thing and in fact 40k is first and foremost Warhammer In Space, I wasn't terribly interested in digging into it, as the things I found most striking about 40k had no chance of being replicated in a more traditional fantasy context.

More recently, however, Total War: Warhammer caused me to become fairly significantly familiar with Warhammer Fantasy as a setting. (Among other points, the Total War framework made certain aspects of the setting really obvious from right off the bat, like that Warhammer Fantasy is very directly fantasticalizing the real world, including much of the geography paralleling reality and assorted political entities being Real Nation But Wacky Fantasy Version)

This has, in turn, caused me to see what the root cause of an element in 40k that's bothered me basically the whole time: the way Craftworld Eldar tend to be written by secondary and tertiary materials. (ie novels, video games, fanfic, etc; basically anything that isn't a Codex)

See, I've always seen people broadly describe Craftworld Eldar as High Elves In Space, in the same way they describe Orks as Orcs/Greenskins In Space, or Tyranids as Lizardmen In Space. (And Crossed With The Starship Troopers Bugs) Before I had relatively direct exposure to Warhammer Fantasy lore, this seemed reasonably natural and logical, and the handful of times I bothered to look up factoids about the High Elves this seemed to be born out, such as how High Elves and Craftworld Eldar both have much of their fighting force as essentially reservists rather than professional soldiers. This, in turn, made it difficult to pin down exactly why it bothered me that Craftworld Eldar tended to be written as, well, fairly close to High Elves. (Or more precisely as a very specific subset of High Elves, but that's a whole other thing)

With more direct, significant exposure to Warhammer Fantasy, it's become obvious to me that this is... more or less completely missing the point, in a manner that suggests to me that the majority of people writing Craftworld Eldar are either entirely unfamiliar with Warhammer Fantasy or are technically familiar with the relevant bits but completely failed to contextualize the implications of drawing these connections to Craftworld Eldar.

First of all, the Craftworld concept is, itself, Black Arks In Space. That's a Dark Elf-proprietary concept, note, not a High Elf one, and even more glaring is that Eldar Corsairs are a thing, using the same terminology as Black Ark Corsairs and associated with Craftworld Eldar. This is some strong meta-signaling right there that Craftworld Eldar aren't High Elves In Space at all, so I'm genuinely baffled why I've never seen it pointed out.

Second of all, Khaine. Playing Dawn of War and reading up on Eldar lore made him sound like the overall Eldar god of war, and when I saw references to him existing in Warhammer Fantasy as well they tended to also make it sound like he was the overall Elf god of war.

Um, no. Khaine is a god of murder. Like, that's not me going 'war is murder' or something, I mean that it's literally the case that Khaine is all about killing people in general. Killing in combat is an option, the one we see lore on most heavily, but that's because Warhammer Fantasy is a wargame, not because it's a particular focus of Khaine's.

Furthermore, he's one of the 'Cytharai'; in Warhammer Fantasy, Elven gods come in two sets, with the other being the Cadai. The Cadai are the Good Pantheon, worshipped by High Elves. The Cytharai are the Evil Pantheon, known to exist by High Elves but only openly worshipped by Dark Elves. (Also Wood Elves in later editions, but shhh)

Put another way, Khaine is an Elf Satan figure, literally an evil fiery god in charge of the underworld pantheon.

Warhammer 40k doesn't do anything to signal that its Khaine is particularly different from Fantasy's Khaine, either, and indeed explicitly retains major backstory moments of being a terrible person, like murdering a fellow god, blood eternally dripping from one hand as not-even-a-metaphor blood on his hands.

Which means Craftworld Eldar worshipping Khaine, using him as the basis of literally their entire warrior system, is a clear meta-signal that Craftworld Eldar approach war in a deeply concerning way, and is also consistent with the broader undertone of Craftworld Eldar codices that they are a people driven to desperation by their circumstances, which is to say they're doing terrible things because they feel they have no other choice.

This all makes blood sacrifice to summon Avatars of Khaine a pretty concerning thing to be part of Craftworld Eldar toolkit, but it gets even worse if you dig into the details. The 40k backstory for Avatars of Khaine is that back in the day Khaine got beat up so bad him and his sword -Widowmaker- exploded into a bazillion itty-bitty pieces, where a fragment is used as the basis of summoning an Avatar. Back in Warhammer Fantasy, Khaine's sword is an actual physical object within the setting that is credibly believed to be capable of destroying the world if drawn, and there's this whole thing where an Elf by the name of Aenarion wielded it for a bit back in the day so now his entire lineage is cursed for, apparently, eternity. So, uh, Craftworld Eldar periodically summon a literal murder god's avatar using, in part, his cursed sword of the apocalypse.

That's very metal, but it also makes it pretty clear Craftworld Eldar are not a good and gentle people who do their utmost to be moral or the like. They clearly have a distressing amount in common with Warhammer Fantasy's Dark Elves.

This kind of thing also puts a whole different spin on the Exodite Eldar really, really disliking Craftworld Eldar. I'd been given the impression, historically, that this was more like 'take your technology away from our Amish community'. Now I'm pretty sure it's more like 'The only reason we're not killing you Satan-worshippers on sight is because our people are already so few... but if you give me an excuse I'm getting my shotgun regardless.'

Notably, when you dig into the army lists themselves, the Craftworld Eldar-Dark Elf connection continues to exist. For example, Howling Banshees are basically Witch Elves In Space, in terms of female (-presenting, in 40k's case) melee berserkers worshipping Khaine. (Less blood-drinking and whatnot, admittedly) There's not a clearly equivalent unit on High Elf lists.

Third of all, an element of Craftworld Eldar that tends to be downplayed or ignored by secondary materials (Again, including fanfic) is that using Soulstones to run their war machines is considered to be an act of necromancy, basically calling the dead back from their slumber. Broadly speaking it makes sense to me this doesn't tend to get people villainizing Craftworld Eldar -it's viscerally less repellent than conventional necromancy, for starters- but Warhammer Fantasy is quite consistent that necromancy is Very Bad, and every time 40k deliberately invokes the comparison it's once again treated as Very Bad.

This is, of course, another example of Craftworld Eldar driven to terrible actions by how desperate they feel their situation is, which certainly sets a different tone than Dark Elves revelling in suffering for its own sake and all...

... but for one thing 'driven to desperation' is more a part of Dark Elf character than I usually see people acknowledge, with their lands being a miserable hellhole filled with monsters and not a lot of arable land and so on, among other issues.

More importantly, this ties fairly directly into my point about why I've long been frustrated by secondary materials depicting Craftworld Eldar: everything the codices tells us, explicitly and more implicitly via callbacks to Warhammer Fantasy, is that Craftworld Eldar are, as a collective people, driven to a dark edge by deep desperation, with an extra layer of miserable to the whole thing from the fact that they have to stoically control their emotions because if they vent about how much everything sucks this may literally get their soul eaten.

Which is thematically consistent with 40k as a whole! There's a reason 'grimdark' can be traced to 40k; it's supposed to be pretty widely a darker, more terrible place than Warhammer Fantasy.

Nonetheless, secondary materials are strangely prone to writing Craftworld Eldar as more like rich dilettantes, their lives secure and the most stressful thing they have to deal with being a feeling of aimlessness. Which. What?

Even when I’ve seen fanfic that hated Craftworld Eldar, they’ve stuck with Snooty Bored Dilettante Eldar!

It’s not like the bored dilettante angle makes for more interesting societies or characters...

#wh 40k #Craftworld Eldar

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monstersdownthepath · 4 years

Text

Deity: The Keeper of Masquerades

(Art by @celenewashere!)

Lawful Evil Archfey of Clocks, Fear, and Surveillance

Domains: Darkness, Evil, Knowledge, Law Subdomains: Shadow, Fear, Espionage, Tyranny

A mire of mystery surrounds the entity known as the Keeper of Masquerades, a fog so thick that anyone attempting to learn about him can expect to be turned around and lost before they even finish following the first thread. Hundreds have sunk permanently into that mire, never to be seen again. Perhaps they found answers, but more likely than not they found nothing but their own ends. The Keeper seems very keen on keeping any and all information about himself hidden from everyone and everything. His name, if he has one, is unknown. His true form, if he has one, is unknown, the most anyone ever sees of him being the shadow-shrouded mannequin bodies he inhabits now and again. His past? He certainly has one, and it is the first verifiable fact of his existence; he was once member of Count Ranalc’s inner circle, a dutiful butler and notekeeper for the shadowy Eldest. Ever since the Count’s disappearance, the Keeper has apparently begun attending to the affairs of the land Ranalc left behind.

Despite his status as an Archfey, he has at times sat in on meetings among the Eldest--an honor that must normally be granted by one of the demigod Fey themselves, yet the Keeper does not seem to require permission--though he has no true say in their matters and holds very little sway over their actions. He is merely there to record and offer polite advice when asked, ostensibly assuring that the distant Count is kept up-to-date on all matters the Eldest still discuss and all goings-ons in the First World. He is subservient and obedient, and willingly offers his services to the Eldest, despite their role in removing Ranalc from power.

For those below the Eldest of the First World, however, the Keeper is an entity to be avoided at any cost. An enforcer of a terribly rigid and inflexible order; the second verifiable fact of his existence is that there is little he despises more than needless chaos.

The Keeper holds the unique position of bringing law to the lawless the First World, though the laws he upholds seem arbitrary to the whimsical inhabitants. He believes in ideas such as how time should always move forwards, never backwards and certainly never side-to-side, that gravity should always be aimed downwards, that point A should always lead to point B. Yes, he believes in a First World that more closely mirrors the rigidity of the Material Plane, seeing the Material as the perfect culmination of the God’s work and thus something to be imitated, rather than ignored for the sake of--eugh--freedom.

Few things are more of an anathema for the Keeper than the concept of true freedom. The messiness and the wasted time that come from countless individuals merely lazing about in their own little worlds infuriates the shadowy being, to the point that the third verifiable fact of his existence is that there’s absolutely nothing he despises more than people wasting his time. The Keeper carries on his person a pocketwatch, a simple thing with no apparent magical power. When it is closed, he is speaking. When it is open, that is when you are allowed to speak, with him carefully measuring how much time you’re allotted. If it shuts in the middle of your sentence, you’d best end it right there, for continuing to speak after your allotted time will see the wrath of the Keeper visiting you. There is a morbid joke among fey that most are born with a reflex that quiets them upon hearing the soft, metallic click of the watch shutting, while mortal-folk have to learn the hard way.

The “Masquerades” that the Keeper keeps fourfold. The first and most publicly-known is the literal masquerade balls he holds at the borders of Ranalc’s realm, Nighthold, during which the invited disguise themselves entirely as they feast, frolic, and dance about for the amusement of the hidden host which, rumor says, dances among them. While most will make their own objectives upon being invited, the true purpose of these events is as much a mystery as the Keeper himself, with many believing them to be little more than a means for the Archfey to bring himself some levity. However, if it were simply a case of harmless fun, the invitations would not be so insistent.

“It’s a bad idea to go, but a worse one to decline” is the common saying when regarding the Keeper’s parties. Ignoring or, even worse, tossing out the invitations will see more of them appearing in more worrying and private locations, such as within the bathroom, within secret getaway rooms, within clothing, or even tucked inside the recipient‘s hand upon waking. It’s not known what happens to those who decline one too many times, though such beings are never seen again.

The second masquerade for which he is Keeper is the masquerade of safety (or privacy, as some would say) in the First World. In the stead of Count Ranalc, the Keeper oversees an army of Ankou and shadowy fey that is unrivaled in its size and spread, with rumors sometimes hyperbolizing that the Keeper has eyes all over the entirety of the infinite First World. This is not nearly the truth, but it is a lie he enjoys playing into. Whatever its true size, it gives the Keeper a significant enough reach to hold a knife to the throat of any fey that gets a bit too big for their britches, or one who starts antagonizing the rulers of the First World a bit too much.

Agents of one great Fey or another, even those of the Eldest or Archfey, may find themselves visited in the darkened hours by the servants of the Keeper to deliver polite cease and desist warnings. “Failure to heed these warnings can be costly to one’s estate,” quoth the Keeper, “And I will neither condemn nor curtail the actions of my associates in their pursuit of justice against those who threaten the balance of power.” While trickery, throne theft, and backstabbing are common pastimes of the ever-whimsical Fey hoping to stir the pot, most have learned that such acts are best done in the daylight, where the claws of the Keeper struggle to reach. At least then they get a head start.

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Obedience and Boons

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Not a single being has ever seen what the Keeper truly looks like (though if rumors are to be believed, many or all of the Eldest know; the Lantern King is the usual suspect). Even his most trusted Feysworn are spoken to entirely via his mannequin proxies if he deigns to meet them ‘in person’ at all, and those who’ve served him without failure or falter for their entire lives are still not allowed to set a single toe inside his shadowy lair, the Nevermoor. Barely a handful can truthfully claim to have done so much as step on the threshold of the Nevermoor, and just what secrets and treasures it may or may not contain is the third masquerade none but his chosen know the truths behind.

“Secret Police” is a polite way to describe the Feysworn who bow to the sinister mannequin. His fey minions are more comfortable in the dark, so it is his mortal minions within the First World walking among the general population during the daylight hours, enforcing his will and keeping the peace. Inquisitors are the most common breeds of adventurer to flock to the Keeper, though the investigative and attentive types of any class are welcome. Those with a knack for assuring the pecking order is disturbed as little as possible, and maniacal chaos and disruptive disorder are kept to a relative minimum. The Keeper prefers mortals who can deal with such messes both quickly and quietly. In return for their service, they earn certain freedoms both in and out of the First World, the sigil of the Keeper serving as something of both a badge of authority and a permit to excuse certain actions... though reckless abuse of this authority can earn one’s own disappearance.

The Keeper’s grip rarely expands into the Material Plane, as that is the realm of the Gods, not the Fey. Agents in the Material are typically delegated to settling matters of fey origin and little else, slapping at the hands of upstarts seeking to dig their wretched little nails into what does not belong to them. However, in a strange way it can be said that the Keeper cares for the Material, seeing it as the ultimate creation of the Gods and thus something to be preserved and protected. His grip falters, but his eyes still gaze with a curious mixture of fondness and envy. Threats to lands he has grown especially fond of are responded to with his aid, though rarely ever directly; as he is not ‘authorized’ to meddle in the Material, he does so entirely in secret, his Feysworn masquerading as members of other faiths if they display Divine magic at all.

Using the Fey Obedience feat, a worshiper of the Keeper gain s certain Boons upon reaching a certain amount of Hit Dice. These Boons are granted at 12HD, 16HD, and 20HD, though the Feysworn Prestige Class allows someone to achieve the Boons much, much sooner. The Keeper’s status as an Archfey means he grants very simple Boons; spell-like abilities that may each be cast 1/day.

Obedience: Pretend to meditate for an hour to a sound that is soft but repetitive and unrelenting, such as the ticking of a clock, dripping water, construction work, or a distant waterfall. During this time, keep one of your eyes open just a crack and listen closely, watching and listening to what everyone around you is doing. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus to Sense Motive checks and saving throws against Fear effects.

Boon 1: Clairvoyance/Clairaudience

Boon 2: Symbol of Fear

Boon 3: Weird

The Keeper does not seek the power of the Eldest. He is happy with his own station and does not overreach. Overreaching is a result of greed, after all, and greed is what began the First War. His station is set, and he shall remain in it. So too shall he assure others remain in theirs.

#original concepts #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons #not 100% happy with this but i can't let this beautiful art languish in my drafts anymore

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dessarious · 4 years

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Summer Solstice Pt1

Okay, first I’ll apologize for not updating any of my fan fics tonight. Overtime and sleep deprivation apparently destroyed my brain and all it will concentrate on is future parts of OS&NB and some original ideas. I’ll get back at it bright and early tomorrow and hopefully have some longer chapters for you guys. It the mean time I thought I’d post the first part of an original story from a fantasy world I created. Again, sorry for the wait.

Dess turned away bored as she listened to Seth bargain with the vendor. She had never liked dealing with people and that went double for people who tried to jack up prices if they thought for one second you could afford it. She tried to remember how she had managed before she found Seth and shuddered at the thought. There was that time she got so frustrated she beat a baker badly because he tried to charge her five times what he’d charged the person in front of her. She had lost her temper a little. On the plus side, everyone in that town remembered her so she generally didn’t have to bargain for anything on her brief trips there. Listening to Seth try and get a fair price for feed for the horses was trying her patience.

She caught site of a familiar strut across the street and scowled in hatred as she recognized the bastard. Geht was a slaver. In fact he’d tried to sell her once. That had not gone well for anyone. He had not changed much, same cocky grin same stupid strut. His clothes were finer than she had seen them. Silk unless she missed her guess. Where had that ugly two timing ass gotten silk? She did not believe for one second he had come up in the world. She watched him talk to the butcher across the street and watched him flash gold. Stupid, now the butcher would at least triple his prices. It begged the question though, where had he gotten gold. Geht had always been a bottom feeder; catching and selling the lowest people possible. The ones no one would miss. They were also the ones that most people did not want. Servants were all well and good, but most wanted some that had been raised as servants. Having to train someone that was found in the gutter of society was not something most of the wealthy class was willing to do. So he would end up selling them to miners or other hard labor task masters for barely enough to feed himself. He got off on the pain of those people though; the money was honestly just a bonus. Dess began to edge closer making sure to stay out of his line of sight.

As she got close enough to hear, she also got close enough to smell, which she could have done without. It was obvious he had not changed his hygiene habits since gaining money. The smell of body odor, which had to have taken decades to build up, was the same as she’d remembered. Unfortunately it was made even worse by the cologne he had found somewhere to try and cover it. She had not been aware they made a stench so terrible. The poor butcher had tears in his eyes. He worked around dead animals all day and looked ready to throw up. He wanted no more than to end the transaction so he could find clean air, but Geht being the windbag he was wanted nothing more than to talk. Specifically about his new wealth.

“It’s great; I’m getting paid twice for the same slave. Her family is willing to pay any ransom I name and the one who hired me to grab her is beyond wealthy. I figure I’ll get her there then see how high I can make him go.”

Oh yeah, that was a great idea. Get the object he wanted in his sight and then try to cheat him. On the plus side it looked like Geht would not be around much longer to bother anyone. The ransom was another matter. It was smarter than she would have given him credit for, but then again she didn’t know the details of the money exchange. Most likely he hadn’t thought it through and would have the girl nearby for that too. She should just stay out of it. There were hundreds of slavers and thousands of slaves what good would it do to intervene? She had almost convinced herself to walk away when Geht’s lapdog came out of the inn leading a woman in silk. She was bound and gagged with her feet free so she could walk. How stupid did he have to be not to change her clothes? Any slaver seeing her was likely to try and kill Geht to get her. There were plenty of people willing to pay for a slave that was noble born, and there was no doubt that she was noble born. The way she held herself spoke of a dignity and haughtiness only found among royalty. Dess almost thought it showed her own bad personality until the girl locked eyes with her. Dess remembered that look. It was a pleading look begging someone, anyone to do something. There was no way she could just walk away from that look. Damn.

“We following them?” Seth had walked up behind her. She had not even heard him because she was focused on the scene in front of them. At sixteen he had seen more than his fair share of misery as well. He would be willing to do just about anything to help someone in need. Dess was more selfish though she did have a hard time walking away from certain situations. This happened to be one of them.

“Gather all the supplies and take them to that cave up by the range. I’ll trail them and see what I can do. You can follow but if you do be careful not to leave traces. Geht’s a moron but his lackey is a good tracker.” She would have told him to stay in the cave, but Seth thought she was trying to baby him when she did things like that. She was not but she did not want to piss him off by saying that she could work better without worrying what he was doing and if it would get in her way. For the most part they had been with each other long enough that it was not an issue, but when the stakes were this high she really didn’t want to take chances. He was apparently of the same mindset.

“I’ll stay at the cave and make sure everything is ready. I do not feel like chasing you around the country side today.” Dess grinned at him and clapped him on the shoulder before turning away and getting her horse. Geht had not seen her but to be safe she stayed in the shadows between buildings as she watched them prepare to leave. Once they started off she stayed a good distance behind them, tracking them rather than staying close enough for them to spot her.

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Solstice could not believe that no one was willing to do anything to help her. Slavery was an abomination, which was why it was outlawed in Paldar. She had to keep reminding herself that this was a different kingdom with different laws, but that did not help her understand all the people who simply turned away and pretended not to see what was right in front of them. She just didn’t understand how anyone could see such suffering and do nothing. Her father had instilled a deep sense of justice and right and wrong in her. As the king of Paldar, Mathis had made sure all his children understood all his decisions and laws. Solstice had been a good student, though she was beginning to realize that understanding laws and classes didn’t help her understand people at all. Looking at everyone that had turned away from helping her, she had originally been mad. The more it happened she had to wonder at the mindset behind it. She was a princess. She had never had a problem giving orders and having them followed. If she had seen someone being carted off as a slave she would have ordered their release. It was that simple. Of course she would have an army to back her if needed. Until this had happened she had never felt powerless. She definitely didn’t like it.

Walking from the inn to the stable she held her head high. She was a princess and she would act like one no matter her circumstances. She tried in vain to catch the eye of someone, anyone, but they all seemed adept at not seeing what they didn’t want to see. She heard Geht boasting loudly and glared at him. That’s when she saw her. She was certain in was a girl even though she was in boys clothes. She had enough experience with her twin sister to be able to tell the difference. What shocked her was that she did not turn away or drop her gaze. She looked Solstice straight in the eye, and it stunned her. Not because she was the first person who had in this town, but because of the commiseration and heat in the look. She understood Solstices situation and wanted to help, she could see it. The girl turned to glare at Geht in pure hatred. She either really hated slavers or she knew that bastard personally. Possibly both. A boy walked up behind her and she saw them talk. After giving him money the girl went to get her mount from in front of one of the shops. Solstice thought she had been forgotten but she had been around trackers, had learned the basics of tracking herself, and she noticed that the girl kept them in her peripheral vision and she groomed her horse and checked to any issues. To most people it would just look like she was taking good care of her horse but Solstice could see the tension and occasional glances that said she was paying much more attention to them than to the animal. It gave Solstice hope, until Geht put her on her horse and started out of town. The girl did not follow and Solstice felt betrayed, and helpless. She hadn’t felt either to this extreme before and she did not like it.

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Dess waited until full dark to make her move. Geht had not changed his preferences for sleeping out of doors. She wasn’t sure why he always picked places it was easy to infiltrate without being seen but she was glad for it all the same. In the fall it would have been a bit more difficult to not make noise, but in full summer, with hundreds of trees to offer cover she had been able to get to a point that she could see into the camp without being detected. It was honestly sad how easy he was making this. They had gone to sleep without banking the fire which was good for her. She was much more worried about the girl making sound than anything else, but anything could happen.

Once she was sure they were asleep she moved in closer. This was stupid, really stupid. It was none of her business and she should have just kept going. But no she had to play the bloody hero because the girl had looked lost and she’d seen the hope flare in her eyes. Stupid, beyond stupid. She kept cursing herself the entire time she had been following them, and as she snuck into the camp site the inner dialog got more and more profane. She crouched down next to the girl and covered her mouth immediately to keep her from giving them away. The second Dess touched her, the girl started awake. The fear and panic in her eyes made Dess even madder. She honestly hoped in that moment that Geht would wake and attack them so she’d have a reason to kill him. She got herself undercontrol by reminding herself that his employer would likely torture him for days.

Dess held a finger to her lips and watched recognition flare in the girl’s eyes. She nodded and Dess moved to undo her bindings. Now for the fun part, getting out of here without making enough noise to wake the dead. In her experience royalty, especially women, could not do anything quietly. She really should have grabbed the horse first just in case, one more thing to wish she’d done differently. Instead she leaned down as closes as she could to the girl’s ear and whispered, “Follow as close as you can and try to step where I step. And try not to make more noise than necessary.”

Of course their ideas of necessary might be different but Dess hoped her desire to get away would make her more cautious. Getting another nod she helped pull the girl to her feet then turned and put her hand on Dess’s shoulder figuring it would be the best way to lead her. She was completely shocked when that contact was the only way she could tell the girl was following. She honestly did not think she could be that quiet wearing skirts. Dess lead her to where she left her horse before saying anything else.

“Wait here.”

“Where are you going?” Oh yeah there was a definite command in that tone, she was definitely royalty. Dess hated being told what to do or being second guessed. This was going to be fun.

“I’m going to get your horse unless you would rather leave it and make our chances of getting caught higher by doubling up on mine.” She didn’t wait for a response before heading back to the camp.

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Solstice bristled as she was left standing by herself. How dare she talk to her like that? She was more annoyed that the girl thought she would not understand why a second horse was necessary than by the tone. Though honestly she was not happy with that either. No one spoke to her that way, not even her siblings. As she stood there fuming her anger started giving way to fear. What if she did not come back? What if she was captured? Solstice had not heard her even though she had been awake but what if that was a fluke? What if the horse made too much noise? Her mount was well behaved but who knew what an animal would do if spooked. All these fears running through her mind made her all but oblivious to her surroundings and she almost screamed when the girl tapped her on the shoulder. Spinning around she glared, daring her to say anything. The girl just handed her the reins. Her look was, if Solstice was not seeing things, one of compassion. Solstice could not help but wonder again who she was. She had not been able to stop thinking about her since they had made eye contact and she did not know why. They mounted up and headed out into the dark.

“Can I ask where we’re going?” She whispered even though chances they were being followed were slim. The girl blinked at her, Solstice thought she looked surprised, before she answered.

“There’s a cave near the range we can hole up in for now. I want to see what Geht does when he finds you gone before we do anything else. Just to be safe.”

“You know him?” Solstice could not hide her curiosity once the girl used her captor’s name. The hatred that heated her gaze was frightening and Solstice immediately wished she had not asked.

“I do.” That was it but the hatred and contempt in her voice was immense. Solstice could not honestly remember feeling anything so strongly. They continued until almost morning, passing through the forest with surprisingly little noise. Solstice had to admit she was impressed with the girl’s obvious comfort and knowledge of the area and the wild in general. She stopped suddenly and cocked her head listening. Solstice opened her mouth to ask what she heard but the girl held up her hand to forestall her. Solstice was not happy about the gesture and fumed silently until the girl let out a curse.

“Follow me; stay as close as you can if you want to stay alive.” That was definitely not on the list of things Solstice wanted to hear right now. She did not have time to dwell on it however because the girl set her horse to a gallop and Solstice had no choice but to follow. A couple minutes later Solstice heard a high pitched screech. Her horse no longer had to be urged and it was keeping pace with the girl’s steed. Up ahead she saw the boy that had been in the market waving at them frantically. Like they needed more encouragement. His look suddenly turned panicked.

“Dess look out!” She turned to see what he saw and pulled her bow from its spot on her saddle.

“Keep going get to the cave no matter what do not stop.” Solstice would have argued but her horse was not about to let up. She was still shocked when the girl, Dess apparently, pulled her mount up short and turned to face whatever was after them. When she reached the cave the boy helped calm her horse and get her down. When she turned to look for Dess she almost had a heart attack. She was pretty sure she did scream. The creatures bearing down on them were hideous, Solstice had never heard of anything like them before. Their wings were bat like, leathery, the skin looked to be covered with coarse hair but she was not close enough to be sure, and did not want to be close enough ever. They sort of reminded her of birds the way their body was formed but without the grace and majesty. Dess was stopped in the middle of the clearing, arrow knocked, and waiting. Solstice could barely breathe as she watched the creatures come at her. She had to admire Dess’s bravery, she was certain she would have turned and run by now. As it was she could barely keep herself from calling out to shoot. What was she waiting for?

------------------------------------------

Dess sat ready waiting for the Chuaru to come in range. She could easily hit them from here but her arrows would not pierce the skin. Best not to waste the effort. It was a full pack, eight total, bearing down on her and her mind whirled trying to figure out why. Chuaru never ventured this far west. Never. She could only come up with one explanation and she really hoped she was wrong. The lead Chuaru was bearing down ahead of the others and Dess took aim. Taking a deep breath she released and was relieved when the arrow found its mark. The creature fell, already dead from a shot in the eye and through the brain. Dess lined up another shot.

-----------------------------------

Solstice was amazed by her calm and skill as Dess picked off the creatures one by one. The last one was only feet away from her when her final arrow took it in the chest and her horse actually had to move to the side to avoid its body as it crashed to earth. She let out the breath she had been holding as the boy gave a shout of exultation. He ran out to meet Dess

“That was amazing! The best shooting I’ve ever seen.”

Dess was not even paying attention she was staring east frowning. She knelt by the creature that had almost landed on her and pulled a medallion from its neck, then started cursing foully. She had quite a vocabulary; Solstice had to give her credit for that.

“Inside now.” She led her horse constantly looking back the way they had come, with the boy praising her aim and skill as he replayed the entire thing verbally. “Seth.” He looked at her expectantly. “Shut up and get inside.” Solstice was stunned by the cold manner and harsh words but the boy just grinned and darted into the cave.

“That was not necessary.” Dess just looked at Solstice. That’s it, but it made her uncomfortable enough that she took her reins and led her horse inside without another word. Once they were in Seth and Dess used a lever to block the entrance with a large boulder. The cave was a good size and well lit with torches but Solstice was not happy about being closed in.

“So what were those things? Other than ugly and stupid.” Seth tried for a joke but Dess frowned at him.

“What makes you think they are stupid?”

“You were dropping them one by one and they just kept coming.”

“That’s not stupidity, it is determination. They were on a mission and they were going to complete it or die trying. The thing we need to worry about is who or what could make them so determined.” She looked at the medallion in her hand and frowned. “These Chuaru were elite fighters. I wish I knew why they came this far west, and who they were actually after.” She met Solstices gaze as if seeking the answer.

“I didn’t even know what those things were; they couldn’t have been after me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Do you have any idea who the buyer Geht had for you was?”

Solstice shook her head. “He never mentioned a name, just talked about how rich he was going to be between the rest of that payment and the ransom he was extorting from my family. Not that he is likely to survive that meeting.” Her siblings would probably kill him themselves.

Dess sighed and traced the design on the medallion in thought. “We should probably get some sleep. We’re safe enough here for now. I hope.” She turned and walked to the back of the cave without waiting for a reply, deep in thought. Solstice stared after her wondering what exactly ‘I hope’ meant but did not honestly have the courage to ask.

“Don’t mind Dess, she’s never one to look on the bright side. It’s all doom and gloom. I’m Seth by the way.” He held out a hand then put it down quickly thinking he might have offended her.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Solstice.” She made the same gesture and he took her hand with a lopsided grin. Solstice liked him immediately, he reminded her of a couple of her brothers. Dess on the other hand.

“Any idea why she’s so worried about a threat that she destroyed?”

Seth shrugged. “Not a clue, but I wouldn’t discount her paranoia; it’s saved both our lives more times than I can count. If she’s worried there’s a reason. Whether she shares that reason is another matter entirely. She tends to keep details to herself unless there’s a real need for anyone else to know.”

“She’s your sister?” Solstice thought it was a good theory but Seth just laughed.

“No, she picked me up in a village when I was twelve. I was living on the street. I don’t know why she decided to have me tag along with her to be honest. I thought she was going to kill me at first.” He cocked his head in thought. “She saved my life instead. No telling where I would’ve ended up if she had just left me where I was.”

“What about your family?”

“Don’t have any, at least not that I know of. My first memory is being in an orphanage. Dess is my family, she’s all I have.”

“And she doesn’t have any family?”

“Not that I know of, though to be honest she’s not really open about most things. She’s a little better with me most days but I’ve learned there are certain topics that are off limits. Basically any questions about her past are met with glares and silence, but that’s not really different from any other questions now that I think about it.”

“I can still hear you, you know. “ Dess had rolled up in her blanket and sounded moderately exasperated. “You two need to get some sleep while you can. It’s probably going to be a luxury from now on.” Solstice looked at Seth but he was frowning at Dess. When he met Solstice’s gaze there was wariness and a touch of fear.

“We better do as she says. She’s usually right about these things.”

He wandered to his own bedding before Solstice could ask which things exactly he meant. She yawned and realized how tired she was. Deciding she wanted sleep more than she wanted to be obstinate she pulled her own blanket off her horse and lay down close to the fire. It had been a long and draining night. She was asleep before she hit the ground.

Kofi

#original characters #original worlds #original work #fantasy

67 notes · View notes

chloe-gayzer · 5 years

Note

Fan fiction trope 1.Historical/ royal / criminal . #Chlodine

Thanks! I really enjoyed this one. Didn’t really mean to make it this long, but oh well.

[Read it on AO3]

Nadine sighs and makes a dismissive gesture. The servant before her doesn’t protest and makes a quick turn back to the pile of fabric she’s been forced to choose from. The servant lays aside the garb and picks up the next piece.

This bit is worse than the last.

Nadine has no interest in this charade. It’s all for show. That their nation, her nation, is strong, is beautiful, is dangerous. An ally you want to have.

They don’t need this masquerade for that. They’ve proved it time and time again in the power of their ships, the look of their fleet, and the ability of their army.

But she’s been asked to do this at the request of her father. So, for her father, she does this. She’ll find something that feels right when she wears it and she will be the princess her father needs her to be.

Ugh. Princess. She doesn’t care for that word. It carries with it a sense of fragility that doesn’t fit her, has never really fit her.

She’d rather be anywhere but tucked away in a stranger’s castle. Her ship, for one, but it’s a long way away at home. She’d been sent here on her father’s ship as a passenger, rather as a captain. It kept her from going where she wanted– hunting slavers, maybe. Protecting her nation. Anything but waiting out the next few days until being forced to mingle with other “royalty”. Dukes, duchesses, kings, queens, none of which had ever put in a real day of work in their lives. They have all this power and do so damned little for the people suffering under their rule. Many are more concerned with feathering their own nests or marrying into still more rich or important families.

She’s got no interest. She knows her preferences, her father knows her preferences (and doesn’t care, bless him), and marriage isn’t something she looks forward to. She dreads the day she’s asked to marry– for the kingdom, to continue their prosperity. Do her part in producing an heir.

Feeling fed up, Nadine dismisses the servants from the room. She’s got three days more to find what she can wear.

Her mask, thankfully, is already sorted. It’s simple. Mostly white, the forehead has a golden half-relief of a flower, not unlike the vygies from her home. It covers everything above her mouth.

Nadine tugs her tunic off and tosses it to the side. She despises the bulky clothes most women of her station wear. Layers and layers that require help from at least one servant. Instead, she’s allowed her military uniform more often than not. Her father allows it to show the country’s strength. To show even the women are forces of nature and not to be tampered with.

Many talk about her and her ways, but she doesn’t care.

She rolls her shoulders. The sun is setting, but she could probably go for an evening horseback ride. It’s too dark for falconry. Besides, all her best birds are back home.

Instead of something physical, as she’d like, she’ll grab a book and relax. If she can. This whole place is stifling to her. She can’t wait until she’s allowed to leave. A bunch of white royalty who act like she should be serving them rather than mingling all suffocate her. She detests how they look at her as an oddity.

Her reading material is limited, but something is better than nothing. She can sit by the window and get fresh air as she gets through whichever book she chooses.

A noise comes from outside the open window. Almost like a voice. Someone swearing? Her quarters are rather high up to hear anything but birds. Maybe shouting or loud laughter, but this sounds like a whisper of a curse.

Nadine tenses. Moving slowly and keeping quiet, she gets to the window. Before she can lean out, a hand appears on the sill. She takes two quick steps back and drops into the ready position. A second hand appears beside the first. Each has a gaudy ring or two. One of them is familiar– a small, ebony elephant’s head with ruby eyes. The tusks are lines with gold. Before Nadine can take in more information, someone hoists themselves into her room and manages to land on their feet before her.

It’s a woman. Her long dark hair is barely tied back. On it rests a rather rich looking cavalier, complete with colourful feather. Her garb is that of a man’s: red silken shirt to fine trousers. Her boots are that of a worker’s but take nothing away from her style.

The woman seems shocked, for just a moment, when she sees Nadine there, but all too quickly she catches herself. She gives a suave grin.

“Terribly nice to meet you, your highness.” She removes her cavalier with a flourish, holds it to her chest, and bows low. “I’ve heard of the formidable Captain Ross, but how the stories did not tell me of your beauty, I’ll never know.” She takes Nadine’s hand then and kisses the back of it.

Nadine tugs her hand away, almost offended. “Would you like to explain why you’ve appeared in my quarters through the window?” They’re being civil for the moment, it seems, so Nadine won’t jump straight to attacking. She’d rather size up her opponent first if there should be a fight.

The woman stands again. Her grey eyes sparkle as she takes in the sight of Nadine. “Perhaps, dear lady, you may wish to cover up before I explain myself. I’ve no objection to your state of undress, but I get the feeling you might.”

Nadine realizes she’s standing there with her upper half bare but for her underclothes. It had been perfectly fine with her alone in the room. But now…

She grabs her tunic from where she’d tossed it and pulls it back on.

“Explain yourself.”

The dark haired woman gives a little flourish with her hand. “Of course.” She leans against the window sill. How she’s so nonchalant, Nadine will never know.

She returns her hat to her head. Some simple necklaces hang around her neck and her wrists each bare a golden bracelet.

“I, dear Captain, am a thief.”

Nadine hadn’t expected her to be so blunt.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m not stealing from you. Your room was just the easiest open window to reach.” She grins again. “Like I mentioned, I’ve heard of you. The mighty warrior princess who’d rather be on her ship than speaking to other royalty. No one would dare steal from you so outright.”

Nadine remains quiet and waits for further explanation. A thief, a criminal, has just appeared in her rooms and admitted the fact. The only positive here is that the woman is focusing on her title of Captain, rather than of Princess. It’s near refreshing but it doesn’t change the fact there’s a thief before her.

“Not far from here, there’s a lord by the name of Hunton-Blather. I just need to relieve him of a few assets.”

Nadine knows the man. He’s insufferable and treats his people poorly. He’s been bragging for days about jailing “poachers” in “his” woods. Travelers at best, passing through on the roads there, more like.

“No one will get hurt. Hell, fewer people will be hurt if I do this.”

With a level gaze and a sense of composure she’s practiced many times, Nadine nods. “Alright.”

“Alright?” the woman questions.

“I’ve no issue with you taking from that man. But be careful your theft does not make things worse for those under his rule.”

She nods. “I’m no amateur.” She gives Nadine a slow once over before looking at the pile of clothes left on a side table. “Might I inquire as to what seems to be troubling you?”

“Fairly presumptuous for a woman who hasn’t introduced herself.”

“Ah, how rude of me.” Again, she bows low. “Chloe Frazer, at your service. Whatever that may entail.”

Nadine knows the name. That’s why the elephant ring she wore was familiar. It was the figurehead of the well-known ship The Golden Fish. Captain Frazer’s ship. “The pirate captain?”

Chloe grins wide. “I see my reputation precedes me. All good things I hope?”

Surprisingly, at least some of what Nadine has heard is positive. At least, in regards to a pirate. She’s known as a gentleman pirate, or perhaps gentlewoman, given her gender. She steals, yes, but she’s been known to free slaves, assist those who’ve been shipwrecked, and she never kills those on the ships she captures. There are worse than her, certainly.

Not that Nadine will let her know that.

“I make it a priority to know who I might run into on the sea.”

“Pity we haven’t crossed before now. Women such as yourself are always welcome on my ship.”

Is this her flirting? It’s rare to find a woman so forward given the view on same-sex relations. Though most would think two women could only have a “passionate friendship” rather than be able to make love. Still, Nadine is certain this woman, this pirate captain, is implying something.

She ignores it in favour of asking a question. “How is it that The Golden Fish can dock in a port where so many royals have congregated?”

Chloe scoffs. “I own more than one ship, your highness. Necessary if one wishes to avoid hanging.” Again, she looks at the discarded clothes. “Having a hard time finding something to wear?”

Really, Nadine should be calling for her guards or attempting to apprehend this woman herself. But she doesn’t care to. Maybe she doesn’t understand why, but she has no wish to send this woman to the gallows.

“Ja. I must attend the masquerade.”

“Must? Doesn’t sound like you’re terribly thrilled about it. Isn’t this sort of thing where you might find potential marriage candidates and what not?”

It’s Nadine’s turn to scoff. “Not for me.”

“Hm. Suppose I might relate to that.” She crosses one arm across her front and rests the elbow of her other on it, her hand at her chin. “Though if you didn’t go, many might look more lovely if you’re not there to compare. Should you go, you’ll likely outshine any and every other woman who dares show herself near you.”

Nadine feels the warm rush of blood redden her face. “Quite talkative for a pirate captain, aren’t you?”

“I told you, everyone who speaks of you to me has mentioned all sorts of positive traits– strong, smart, and the like– but how they missed on telling of a face like yours, I’ll never know.” Oh so casually, she walks over to the pile of clothes. Picking one up, she gives a soft chuckle. “Though even your face might struggle to redeem this. They make anything these days.”

Nadine frowns. “One of the women here sent it over. Likely to embarrass me.”

“Who?”

She hesitates. She’s not sure what this might mean. “Lady Cecily.”

“Pfft. Have you seen how she dresses? Might not be to embarrass you, but I certainly advise against wearing it.” Chloe looks Nadine over again. “Warm colours, I think, would look best. Or maybe some nice blues?” She lifts another piece, a dress with gold sleeves, and holds it by Nadine. “Ooh, gold would look good on you. Brings out those warm eyes of yours.”

Nadine doesn’t know what to think. A pirate captain, a well known pirate captain, is in her room giving her fashion advice. Maybe even trying to help pick an outfit.

She drops the dress back onto the pile. “Hm. Which do you like better, dark blue, or a rosy sort of pink?”

“Uh, either.”

“Come on, choose one.”

“Blue then.”

Chloe eyes her, but this time it’s less as if she’s someone to ravish and more like she’s a doll to dress up. “Hm. I do have some ideas for you, but for now… I should probably get to what I’m here for.”

Nadine makes a choice then. “I can send the guards away so you can take the hall. Or the servant’s passage might work.”

“Thank you, sweet, but I think I’ll take the window.” She sits herself down on the sill. “Nice to meet you, Captain. Hopefully, we cross paths again.” With that, Chloe winks and falls backward out the window. She must catch herself, as Nadine can hear her moving around it and up farther.

She closes the window.

An hour later, Nadine feels as though she’s dreamed the encounter.

It turns out the encounter was not a dream, Nadine realizes the next day. Things have gone missing, and not just in Hunton-Blather’s chambers. Lady Cecily’s jewelry has disappeared and she claims to have witnessed, in her words, “a feminine man with dark hair” making off with it. Apparently, a woman in men’s clothing is beyond her.

And it could’ve been a coincidence, but Nadine returns to her rooms after a long session of horseback riding and finds Chloe Frazer reclined on her couch. She’s got a glass of wine in one hand. She’s still dressed as a man. And she’s even sporting a small sword on her hip.

“Was wondering when you’d get in. Rather dull here. Had to hide from a servant coming in to start the fire.”

Nadine sighs. “Any reason you’re back?” She tired and sweaty and plans to retire early.

“Hard to find good company in these parts, lovey. Besides my own crew, you’re about it. And I spend plenty of time with my crew.” She takes a sip of her wine and Nadine finds herself watching those sultry lips on the edge of the glass. Chloe certainly notices. She grins. “Perhaps you find my company better than the others of your class?”

Nadine won’t admit as much, not outright. “Perhaps if you didn’t break in and instead called like a standard visitor I might.”

“Oh, but your highness! If I did that, think of the rumors. Some pirate captain asking to see the most beautiful princess this castle has ever held? Scandal.”

“Dress as a woman and you might have better luck.”

“Whether I dress as man or as woman, there would be rumours. They’ll talk about anything round these parts.”

Nadine huffs, but steps behind her divider. She needs to change before, well she’s not sure before what exactly, but she’d rather be out of her riding clothes. It’s worse that she’s forced to ride side saddle more often than not. Her standard riding clothes– trousers, like a man’s– had been deemed too scandalous by many in the court, so often she’s forced into a dress as well. They’re bulky, hard to get into and out of. She usually has a servant for the second part.

She does her best, but inevitably, she’s half stuck in a restrictive bit of her outfit. She could, possibly, ask Chloe to hide so she could call her servant to help. Otherwise, she has to figure it out on her own.

“Need some help, Captain?”

She turns and sees Chloe leaning on the edge of the divider. Her eyes are focused on Nadine’s face, thankfully.

Nadine narrows her eyes at the intrusion and wonders whether or not she should accept the help.

But then Chloe steps closer. “I can be your lady in waiting. Help you get out of this.”

Nadine is about to correct her on exactly what a lady in waiting does, but then Chloe’s fingers brush the nape of her neck. She works at the knot at the top that Nadine had been having trouble with.

“You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been a while since I helped undress a lady of such high status. I’m out of practice.”

Nadine, despite herself, chuckles. “That was horrible.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Seems to be working in my favour.”

That sobers Nadine a touch. This is the second time Chloe has broken into her rooms. She should have had her tossed out the first time. That’s what would have been right. It was the way things were supposed to be.

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Nadine murmurs.

A scoff. “I’ve done many things I shouldn’t do. This happens to be a more pleasurable instance.”

“If they find you, you’ll be hanged.”

“Hempen halter aside, I like where I am right now. You’re interesting. I like interesting.” She tugs a bit at the fabric she’s working with. “Why else would I have come back?”

Nadine doesn’t understand it. “You stole Lady Cecily’s jewelry.” It’s not a question.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Chloe shrugs. “She needs to be taught respect.”

“And that will teach her?”

A chuckle. “No, but it will annoy her. I don’t have the time to properly teach her. No one has that sort of time.” She hums. “Arms up, dear. We’ll get this off you.”

Nadine feels better when she’s less restricted. She’s got two more layers before she can put on something simpler, but at least she can handle it on her own now.

Despite this, Chloe starts after the next piece of clothing. “No, I doubt that woman will ever show you proper respect, but I had to do something. Couldn’t just let her insult you.” She guides Nadine round so they’re facing each other.

Nadine feels… she’s not sure. She doesn’t really understand why Chloe came back. Doesn’t understand why Chloe was offended at the insult against her.

“Why not?”

Chloe doesn’t answer. Her eyes are resting on Nadine’s scar at her throat. She seems lost and one hand moves as if she’s going to touch it. There’s a moment where Nadine wants her to. Where Nadine craves Chloe’s touch, her kiss. To feel those rough, sea-ready hands on her hips. To be taken.

It’s a trail of thought she should be avoiding. Chloe is a criminal. And she, she is royalty. She is set to take the throne. There’s something unnatural here, surely. This isn’t something she should want.

But it seems she’s not the only one who wants it. Chloe is only just holding herself back, Nadine is certain. There’s not much distance between them; it could easily be closed.

There’s the sound of her door opening. “Your Highness?” comes a voice. It’s one of Nadine’s servants, a young woman she knows by the name of Portia. “There’s a message in for you.”

A message, not a messenger.

Nadine takes a deep breath and betrays nothing as she calls back. “Leave it on the table, Portia.” A pause. “I should not need your help tonight. I intend to retire early.”

“Oh, yes, your highness. But I’m not far if you need me.”

The door closes again.

The spell between Nadine and Chloe seems broken now. Chloe has returned to assisting with the next bit of clothing, behind Nadine. She says nothing.

“I should be able to handle it from here,” Nadine says quietly. “I don’t need help.”

“What if I want to help?”

A sigh. “If you must, then.”

Then, so softly, “Hey, you’re the focus here. Do you want me to?”

Nadine realizes what Chloe is actually talking about. And part of Nadine wants to say yes. She’s certain Chloe could give her a very good night. She thinks on the urges, the thoughts that had tumbled through her head not moments ago before Portia had unknowingly interrupted. Had the question been asked then, she would’ve said yes with so little hesitation as to be meaningless. Then, in her moment of weakness, she would’ve gathered Chloe up in her arms and let whatever she desired happen.

It’s been a long while since she took a woman to bed. And even longer since a woman took her. Chloe shows promise to be the latter.

Logic, though she fears it may be her own cowardice, surfaces. There’s a reason she’s had no lady visitors. At home, she had servants she could trust with secrets and loyalty that kept people quiet. Here, she has none of that. The only servant to follow her from home had been Portia, and while clever, she couldn’t hide everything for Nadine.

No. This couldn’t happen. Not right now. Even if Nadine wanted it.

She does. Badly.

“No… Not now.”

Chloe raises an eyebrow, trying to look unaffected. “Not… now ?” she emphasizes. “So, perhaps… another time?”

Nadine takes a deep breath and turns to face Chloe. She tries to make her expression as blank as possible. “There’s too much risk when I’m away from home. If you find yourself there once I’m back…”

“Oh, but dear Captain, that’s so long away. Surely we can take the risk. Just once.” Chloe gives her a sultry sort smile. They’re still so terribly close. “Visit my ship. My crew can keep their mouths shut. They’re good men and women.”

“I’m not one for risks, Captain Frazer,” she admits. “Trustworthy crew aside.”

Chloe hums. “Please, call me Chloe. And all right. Well… There’s still a full bottle of wine out there. And I’ve got some time. Let’s sit. Enjoy some wine and each other’s company. Risk-free.”

It’s not risk-free, but Nadine aches for decent company here. And Chloe… there’s something about her, past the obvious that she shares with Nadine. Some wine, almost a nightcap at this point, and Chloe’s company sounds lovely. Like she’s found a kindred spirit in this wolves den. But then, Chloe is the wolf here.

Perhaps she is too, judging by the looks the other royals give her.

“Company sounds just fine.”

“Excellent. Then how about we get you into something you can relax in. Once done, I’ll pour you a glass.”

A day later, Nadine finds the rest of the castle near unbearable after her brief hours of respite.

The fact she gets along better with a pirate captain than she does the other women of her class is… well, she wishes it was a surprise, but it’s not. The captain understands things about her that few others do. From the call of the sea to the preference of women’s company, Nadine had been able to truly be open with the woman.

Now, Nadine is back to being near silent and unwilling to join most conversations. Her thoughts stay on that of her parting with Chloe and the woman’s soft promise that they’ll see each other again. It’d been almost a whisper just before Chloe had excused herself and, as was her way, climbed out the window.

Nadine is no idiot. She’s doubtless been placed on a list of women Chloe wants to bed if only to say she’s been with royalty. But despite this, Nadine finds she doesn’t care. She likes Chloe, even if she isn’t sure why. Even though she knows she shouldn’t.

It won’t matter until after the masquerade. She can suffer through it. It’s only hours until the event and once it’s over, she’s writing a message to her father requesting to come home. Or maybe she’ll just find her own way back. Either way, she doesn’t want to be here anymore.

The outfit she’s decided on is still horrible, but there could be worse.

She heads back to her rooms early, well before she has to get ready. Everything is boring today and she may as well be bored in private rather than around people she can’t stand.

Stepping into her room, she’s immediately occupied.

Laying out on her bed is a handsome dress in dark blue with gold accents. The buttons are shaped like tiny ebony elephant skulls.

Beside it is a note.

Nadine picks it up.

So perhaps I stopped in for more than your company the other night. Needed your measurements to get you this. I’m certain it will be stunning on you, and it even has a handy little space for a dagger on the hip, should you need it. Til we meet again.

It’s signed C. Frazer.

At least she’ll look good in her misery.

Her servants ask no questions on where the dress came from, not even Portia who tends to speak up when she finds something strange.

She’s going to find her own passage home, she’s decided. If there’s promise of seeing Chloe again on top of simply being at home with her own horse and her dogs and the simple fact she won’t be here, it’s worth annoying her father.

The dress fits well, but it’s not as restrictive as the popular styles. She can move in it better than most of her wardrobe, and certainly better than the dress she had originally planned on. It flows beautifully and surprisingly, she actually feels good in it.

It doesn’t keep the masquerade from feeling torturous. She dances a little but then stays on the side simply waiting for it to be over.

Nadine is lonely. It’s something she can admit to herself here among strangers and royalty from other nations. She’s got acquaintances, but the only person she might count a friend is her own servant. It’s sad really.

Perhaps she should have let Captain Frazer into her bed. That regret will follow her until she sees Chloe again.

At home she has friends. Many are military officers, some are her own crew from her ship, but all are her friends. Parties there are actually fun. Here, she can’t enjoy herself amid the strange looks and the uneasiness of any she might try to interact with.

“Might I have this dance?”

Nadine looks up, intending to send the man away, when she sees the mask worn. Most of it looks not unlike the upper half of a human skull, but on either side of where the teeth would be are gold lined tusks, like those of an elephant. At first glance, she might mistake this person for a man, but upon further inspection, this couldn’t be anyone but Chloe.

“Captain Jupiter Jones, at your service.”

She’s disguised herself as a man, binding her breasts and wearing a lovely red suit, not unlike military finery. While she had toned her voice down for the question, she whispers a compliment in her normal voice. “You look stunning.” She offers a hand.

Nadine takes it, but says nothing, allowing herself to be led out to dance. Not until they’ve begun to dance can they talk.

“And here I thought I wouldn’t see you until I got home.”

Chloe grins, grey eyes sparkling behind her mask. “How could I stay away from such woman as yourself?”

Chloe is leading the dance, guiding Nadine over the floor. None nearby can hear them over the music. It’s not quite like those cliche stories say– she doesn’t feel like she’s floating. There’s no illusion that they’re alone on the floor. But she’s happy. Not something she’s been while away from home.

“So, how handsome a man do you think I make?”

Nadine chuckles. “Very. I’m sure many of the young women here have eyes on you.” She looks away, as if trying to spot any that might be interested in Chloe, but meets her eyes again. “But I prefer you as a woman.”

The dance brings her to a spin, Chloe’s hand on her waist, guiding her through it. “I’m afraid if you’d like to keep dancing, I’ll have to appear a man.”

“And if I don’t want to dance?”

“Alas, there’s to much company around for us to do more.”

“A pity.”

Chloe chuckles. “I believe I gave you an opportunity for more when we were alone last. Too risky, my dear, don’t forget.”

“Perhaps. But it didn’t mean I didn’t want more.”

The first song ends and the next dance starts. They continue on.

“I’d give you anything you don’t already have, should you give me the chance. Myself included, dear lady.”

Chloe is close. The only things keeping her back are the tusks on her mask and the people around her. Nadine finds herself wishing to be out of sight so she might at least kiss this woman before her.

Nadine has found herself trapped in the arms of a woman she wants more of, wants all of, with sweet nothings being whispered in her ear. It’s near torture knowing they can’t do anything more.

She wants to do more.

Eventually, Chloe is asked to dance by a young lady from the court. Nadine allows it and steps away, feeling Chloe’s eyes on her as she goes. It’s just as well. Nadine feels as though she’s boiling in the heat of the room, though she hadn’t noticed it while dancing.

She fans herself as she heads for the doors. This night has found her in a much better mood than she ever expected. She doesn’t care to think on how Chloe is able to turn her mood towards the better so simply.

“Do you need anything, your highness?”

The question comes from Portia, who’s found her in the crowd.

“No, thank you. Not more than air, and I can reach the garden on my own.”

Portia steps back, allowing her by.

The night is cool. Most seem to have stayed inside, so Nadine is alone among the hedges and flowers. As is popular, there’s a small hedge maze. She steps in and wanders until she finds the fountain she tends to spend time near. It gives her privacy from the others in the castle and the peace and quiet that’s hard to find here.

She finds a seat on one of the benches there.

It’s some time before she’s joined.

Chloe finally makes her way around the corner and spots her. “There you are. As soon as you were gone, those women surrounded like wolves. I’m lucky I wasn’t torn to bits.”

Nadine chuckles. “Jupiter Jones is a handsome man with some amount of mystery. What woman could resist?”

“All of them, should they know I’m truly Chloe Frazer.” She sits beside Nadine. “Though, perhaps I might be lucky if that were the case. None are quite as lovely as you.”

Nadine flushes but smiles. “You keep saying that, Captain Frazer, and I might think you want something from me.”

“Oh, you already know I do. Why would I hide it?” She tugs her mask off and sets it aside. “And please, call me Chloe.”

Nadine hums. “Chloe.”

She’s greeted by a shark-like grin. “That’s much better.”

Slowly, Chloe reaches forward and undoes the ties keeping Nadine’s mask on. It falls away and joins Chloe’s mask to the side. “You know, I didn’t intend to stay in port more than a night.” She caresses the side of Nadine’s face, tracing over her cheekbone and then, so slowly, to her lips. “But I ran into someone who… was worth staying for.”

“Oh? You should introduce her to me,” Nadine jokes.

Chloe laughs low. “Oh, you’ve certainly met her. Long before I did. A beautiful princess with dark skin, covered in freckles, and most definitely worth more than the whole rest of them combined.”

“High praise from a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“I’m certain you’re in that same boat, my dear princess. You’ve your own reputation, you know. Slavers avoid the waters near your nation to avoid you.”

“Good.”

“Speaking of ships,” Chloe says, changing topics. “My crew is anxious to leave. The tide will change in the morning and my ship has to take it. There are military types in the area and…”

“You’re leaving,” Nadine murmurs. The wind feels like it’s been taken out of her. She doesn’t understand why. Three hours ago, she’d thought Chloe had already left.

“Yes, but… Well, I’ve got an offer for you, should you like it.” Chloe brings her thumb back over Nadine’s lips, seemingly lost in thought, but then she takes a deep breath. “The masquerade will be over soon. You’ve done as you’ve promised and attended. If you want to leave… My ship is yours. As long as you’d like to be aboard, whether it’s only until home or longer. I’ll give you passage.”

It’s then that Nadine kisses her. She pushes close and steals the woman’s breath as quickly as she can. It starts near innocently and quickly grows hot, Nadine clutching at Chloe’s clothes and pulling her ever closer all while Chloe does her best to get her hands on any bit of Nadine’s skin.

When they pull away, Chloe is dazed and grinning. “Is that a yes? Felt like a yes.”

“I already had plans to arrange passage. The fact I can do so on your ship makes things easier. Better.”

Now this, just maybe, could be her floating. It makes no sense. She met this woman four days ago. But she’s happy and hopeful and willing to board Chloe’s ship for the months it will take to travel home. Maybe for longer.

“I may even have room in the captain’s cabin. My cabin,” Chloe offers. “I mean, you are a princess. You’re supposed to get the best possible conditions, no?”

“As long as I can stay in there with you, I can stand it.”

“So you’ll come with me?”

“Yes. I’ll have Portia start packing right away.”

Chloe grins again. “That woman of yours knows too much. I asked her where you’d gone and she gave me this look like she knew I was a woman, and told me where to find you.”

“She’s a good woman. Came with me from home.”

“She’s welcome on the ship to come back with us.” Chloe kisses her again. “Do you need help getting there?”

Nadine thinks on it. “As long as I can get a horse, I’ll be fine. What’s your ship name?”

“The Swift Return.”

“I’ll be there before you leave in the morning.”

Again, they kiss.

“You know this is a risk, right?” Chloe murmurs low, lips not far from Nadine’s ear as they have their cheeks pressed together. “The very reason we didn’t do anything before now?”

“I’ve realized this one is worth it.”

Nadine can feel the smile on Chloe’s face. “Yeah?”

“Ja. You make it that way.”

#chlodine #chloe frazer #nadine ross #royalty au #historical au #criminals au #my writing #the lost writing #Anonymous

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jflashandclash · 6 years

Text

The Fall of the Sun (Traitors of Olympus IV)

One: Will

A Stroll in the Dark

Will had only shadow traveled with Nico a few times. Although he didn’t like to dwell on it, he used to be afraid of the dark like the rest of his siblings, but, he always knew Nico would take care of him in the shadows. Despite Nico’s insecurities, Will knew Nico was strong and courageous, even if he did need the occasional reminder to floss his teeth.

Now, Will needed to do more for Nico than a quick dental exam. Hades’ words echoed over the scream of air around him, You can bring Nico back from the shadows and stop Melinoe.

Unfortunately, Hades wasn’t big into How To guides, something Will had been trying to change.

When Will saw Melinoe, the Greek Goddess of Ghosts, suspend Nico in a shadow state—Nico’s mouth quivering with a scream, his limbs writhing as her ghouls phased through Nico’s torso like it was no more than a sewer gate to crawl out of the Underworld, Nico’s skin dimming in and out of the darkness—Will took the only course available.

His sister, Kally, had nodded to Will and said, “I’ll sustain you two! Go!” and Will ran towards the son of Hades. He went to shadow travel.

In the past, Will had compared shadow traveling to riding in the sun chariot at full speed without a windshield. Percy had once described it as “going so fast that it feels like your face is peeling off.” This was different.

Normally, Mrs. O’Leary sprinted through the shadow realm or Nico would take Will’s hand and pull Will full speed—often forgetting that Will was faster and liked to tease him about it.

Now, everything slowed down. No map. No guide. No objective exterior to Nico.

One moment, he was running at Nico. The next, everything muddled to black. He could no longer see the undead army charging Camp Half-Blood with Reyna leading a dismally small dispatch of Romans to defend its fallen borders. He could no longer see Melinoe laughing beside Phobetor, the ghastly God of Nightmares with a terrible taste in bowties.

Will tried to stumble to a stop, but it felt like he’d wadded into an icy maelstrom. There was black tar everywhere, swirling thickly around him, like the shadows wanted to maul him. From his previous travels, what he’d mistaken as a blast of cold air was really their fingers desperately clawing at him. What he’d mistaken for the whistle of speed was their screams. Thousands of screams.

This is what he feared entering the dark would be like when he was a child: smothering, eternal, inescapable, cold.

Was this really what Nico went through every time?

A mounting sense of panic twisted Will’s insides. He’d never find Nico here—in this vast expanse of nothingness and torrid shadows, with no sense of direction other than—

Warmth gently tingled his back.

Will exhaled.

When he turned around, he could see a dim shaft of light piercing through the blackness. He remembered when Hades had cracked the ceiling of the Underworld, to give Persephone a ray of sunshine for her garden, killing hundreds of people for a few moments of her smile. He remembered Hades asking Will if he’d do the same for Nico. Will had hesitated.

Will had no idea why there was a ray of familiar sunshine cascading through this darkness. Dawn shouldn’t hit Camp Half-Blood for another ten minutes. While Will really didn’t want that sunshine to come from the death of hundreds—as he had no control over it—he would be sure to write a haiku for them if that was the sacrifice.

With the sunshine acting as some directional orientation, Will could take a calming breath.

He was undead now. He focused on everything Nico had taught him over the lazy months of summer—what Will could remember from when he’d been plotting over how to get the son of Hades to open up to him. From what he could recall, Will should be able to become one of these shadows to move around and turn back into a typical ghost after existing in shadow form. Shadow travel should be safe for him.

Will stepped forward, the world feeling less like a maelstrom and more like a lake of pudding.

Over summer, he had struggled to remind Nico that he was always there to listen if Nico ever wanted to talk about Tartarus, or being captured by Giants.

But, looking at all of this that Nico handled so casually, Nico deserved so much more than a smilie band-aid or a happy sticker that Will swiped for him from the infirmary.

As the pounding of Will’s heart quieted, and he stepped directly away from the light, he discerned the faintest echo of a sob over the shrieks of the shadows.

Nico was crying in front of him.

The shadows seemed to weave into the flickering form of his Death Boy. Unlike outside, where Nico was suspended upright by Melinoe’s powers, here, Nico knelt by the dim figure of a gravestone. No—he didn’t kneel by it. He was half-way melded into it. His hazy silhouette—the crazed, black hair, those hollow eyes—intermeshed with the shadows around them.

Will could barely make out his features.

The part most in focus was the gravestone’s etching, recording the names and dates of three people: Maria di Angelo, Bianca di Angelo, and Will Solace.

Will opened his mouth to shout for Nico, but choked.

Persphone’s instructions. He’d almost forgotten her warning—You can’t talk to him. You can’t acknowledge him. If you fail to ignore him, you’ve damned you both.

At the sound of Will’s choke, Nico’s fading outline glanced up. “Will?” Nico asked. Even his voice sounded detached, like an old recording.

Will turned away. He clenched his fists, trembling.

“Will?!” Nico repeated, his voice more desperate.

The pain in Nico’s voice made Will bite his lip. Will wanted to reassure Nico, to hug him, to tell him that he wouldn’t leave, that he’d somehow find a way to undo his death and the current threat to the camp. But he had to get Nico out of the shadows first. How was Will supposed to lead Nico out of this if he couldn’t talk to him?

You need to have faith that your love will be enough to bring him back and defeat his despair.

Will took a step towards the dim ray of light.

“Stop—please!” Nico sobbed, “Y—you’re the only one left th—that has time to care about me—”

The screams of shadows withered to nothing compared to Nico’s quivering voice. Will wasn’t sure if it was because the son of Hades had command over shadows, or because the terror in Nico’s voice sounded worse than anything the other shadows could produce.

Like the sound was amplified for twisted assurance, Will could hear Nico stumble once after him. He tried not to envision it: Nico half crawling from that tombstone. “You’re the only one that hasn’t l-left me. N-no one else has time for me. I know they’re all good intentioned. B-but Reyna’s a praetor. Gleeson has a kid. Percy’s getting ready for college. You’re—you’re—you’re d—”

Will was hoping Nico would run after him.

He froze in horror when something dropped behind him. No more footsteps. Nico must have collapsed.

Will closed his eyes, grinding his teeth to keep himself quiet. His body trembled to turn around and run to Nico, to assure him everything would be alright. But, he couldn’t do that. If he turned around, everything wouldn’t be alright.

They could do this. They had to be able to do this. He wasn’t about to let Nico disappear into shadows. He wasn’t going to let Melinoe use Nico’s body as a conduit for an undead army to destroy Camp Half-Blood. The original hero who tried to return someone from eternal darkness, Orpheus, had failed his quest. Orpheus had doubted his and Eurydice’s love and violated the conditions of the quest by looking back. But Will wasn’t Orpheus. And Nico wasn’t a wood nymph or a daughter of Apollo…. Fortunate since that would be very weird.[1]

Will visualized the first time Nico had kissed him: running late for archery class, Will scolding Nico for not getting enough sleep the night before, Nico leaning up and surprising Will before rushing toward the archery range. For the rest of the day, Will couldn’t stop singing. Nico kept complaining it was embarrassing, especially since campers kept high-fiving them and giving them congratulatory gifts. But Will loved Nico’s blushes and the way he pretend to be angry and Will had to express—

“Every time you kiss me it’s like sunshine and whiskey,” Will sang aloud to himself.

The shadows seemed to silence their wails.

Will remembered how Nico’s blush extended all the way to his ears when Nico parceled out the words the first time.

“Alright, you hit me like fire, shot me like a bullet.

Burned me up and down, no way to cool it—”

Nico’s sobs stopped.

Will couldn’t hear Nico get up, nor could he hear Nico’s footsteps. But Will continued towards the dim ray of light piercing through the blackness. He felt like Persephone was testing him with the silence. Yet, somehow, Will felt calm. He knew they could make it through the darkness—their love would be enough.

Come on Death Boy, he thought as he continued to sing. Let’s get you some sunshine.

Will stepped forward, leading Nico toward the illusion of safety: a camp under siege by two gods with no plan of what to do when they got there.

Author’s note: I’m baaaaaccckkkk! XD

Sorry for the delay, and those *ehem* cliffhangers.

For those of you who might be new: Welcome! This is the fourth and final book of the Traitors of Olympus series. If you enjoy being flummoxed, not knowing what’s going on, and to further empower Eris (our beautiful goddess of chaos and strife) then please continue to read without catching up on the others books in the series and be sure to throw your computer/tablet/phone/printed out copy (*author fans self at the idea of printed-off copies*) across the room as hard as you can each and every time you read a name you’re unfamiliar with or find a plot point that confuses you. Eris will assuredly flutter down on her black wings and give you little Discordian welcome stickers and appreciate your contribution to her cause. Otherwise, if you liked the writing in this chapter and like to keep order in the world, feel free to check out the rest of the series before you read this one!

To those of you returning: Thank you for coming back to put up with this series’ nonsense! It has been a rough past six months, and your comments and support have really helped pull me through. You guys are awesome and I want to give each of you a personalized hug! (complete with adoring attack weasels!)

We should be back to weekly updates for the rest of summer with the occasional short! I hope you guys enjoyed and are ready for next week’s chapter: Kalypso—I Run to the Dumbest Spot Possible.

[1] Pax: *pouts* Must be nice not to have creepy siblings.

Eris: *pats his back* Welcome to godhood, my son!

#Traitors of Olympus #Heroes of Olympus #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #PJO #HOO #Fanfiction #Will Solace #Nico Di Angelo #Kally #Weird start--but eh--we'll catch up with Kally in the next one :D #*tries to remember where Jack put the Pax brothers*

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themyskira · 6 years

Text

Wonder Woman #45

Previously in hey, remember when Wonder Woman used to be the protagonist of this comic? Does anyone remember that?

Darkseid wants a powerful army, so he’s decided to enslave the Amazons. He built a Stargate capable of reaching Themyscira, and sent Grail through to conquer it single-handedly. The Amazons, being the incredible army that they are, are completely overwhelmed by this invasion of one, and Grail begins zapping them and turning them into parademons, because apparently that’s something she can do now?? And she never thought to use to turn Diana and Jason into her loyal minions, because reasons???

Diana can’t follow Grail because Robinson — either through not paying attention or not giving a shit — has rewritten canon, and now instead of Themyscira being near-impossible to find by design because it houses Ares’ prison, it’s governed by some weird arbitrary rules around not permitting anybody to return after they leave, except if their feet never touched the ground. This is purely an excuse to send Jason through in Diana’s stead.

So instead, Diana has mostly been punching Darkseid ineffectually while raging about how she hates him and wants to hurt him because he killed her daddy. By the end of this issue, she will have done precisely one thing to impact the plot in this entire arc, and it’s love her daddy so much that his ghost comes and beats up Darkseid for her.

The issue opens with parademonised Amazons pouring out of the portal from Themyscira, and Diana, Steve, Jason and the ARGUS goon squad struggling to fight them off.

Since the New 52 relaunch, the Amazons have — with the exception of Rucka’s year on the book — alternately been turned into beasts, killed people en masse, or been killed en masse. So of course Robinson managed to find a way to incorporate all three. This isn’t something unique to the New 52 — between 1986 and 2011, I don’t think there was a single extended run on Wondy that didn’t involve a mass slaughter of Amazons — but it doesn’t make it any less awful this time.

Robinson’s exposition goes into double-time, as the characters frantically remind each other/us what happened last issue, while simultaneously Steve’s narration boxes remind us what’s happened so far in this arc.

In amongst this, there’s a hilarious moment where an ARGUS soldier runs over to Steve with Diana’s sword, like it’s just found the Holy Grail.

“Colonel Trevor, I found it! Wonder Woman’s swor—!”

Wonder Woman’s sword not some magical super-weapon that’s going to turn the tide of the battle. It’s just a sword, same as the ones the Paramazondemons are using.

You know what is a magical super-item that could turn the tide of the battle? The goddamn Lasso of Truth. You know, unbreakable divine relic? Capable of cutting through illusion and mind control, even self-deception? You don’t think it would be worth trying that on your mind-controlled sisters before you start stabbing them?

But suddenly this perfectly ordinary sword is the most important thing in the world! When the ARGUS goon is impaled from behind and drops the sword, Jason swoops in to pick it up.

“Got it! Sword’s on its way, sister!”

After a brief time out for some more exposition, Jason tosses Diana the sword and flies through the portal (because his feet never touched the ground the first time he was there blah blah).

Jason’s powers still look idiotic, and Temofonte’s lettering choices are still irritating.

Steve [narration]: I have to admit… I’m starting to like Diana’s brother.

Good lord, why? Since when?!

A couple of hours ago, Steve disliked Jason on account of Jason being a reckless, glory-hounding, dangerously inexperienced, untrustworthy wanker. He spent a lot of time listing all the reasons he didn’t trust him! And all of those things still hold true. Maybe Jason’s taking this fight a little more seriously than previous ones, but he’s still substantially the same person that he was two hours earlier. Realistically, Steve should be less than thrilled that his people’s lives and the lives of the Amazons are in the hands of an untrained, undisciplined, ego-driven turncoat whose recent exploits include henching for Darkseid, trying to kill Diana and acquiring super-powered armour under suspiciously vague circumstances.

Now with that all-important sword in hand, Diana continues to be… pretty ineffectual against Darkseid.

Diana calls Darkseid insane. This is something she’s been doing at least once every issue, and each time she does, it grates on me. Part of it’s the excessively casual use of pejoratives — because even by the standards of the superhero genre, which historically hasn’t been great at handling mental illness and is quick to default to labels like ‘crazy’ and ‘mad’ and ‘insane’, Robinson’s Diana throws these words around a lot, and it’s deeply out of character.

But more than that, it makes no sense, because of all the characters in this godforsaken comic, Darkseid’s behaviour may be the least erratic. His agenda has been consistent from day one: he wants to regain his power so that he can retake Apokolips, and all of his actions have been effectively targeted to take him towards that goal. He’s cruel, ruthless, callous, vicious, dictatorial and arguably evil, but you couldn’t really call him “insane”.

It gets worse, because the reason Diana thinks Darkseid is mentally unstable is that — even having had it spelled out to her three issues ago by Grail under the compulsion of the Lasso — she still can’t figure out what his plan is. “I know you’re insane, Darkseid,” she says, “but this — transforming my sisters into parademons — this madness has no rhyme at all.”

At this stage, Diana knows

Darkseid wants an army — one that is both extremely powerful and unquestioningly loyal (per Grail),

With this objective in mind, Darkseid has gone to great lengths to open a portal to Themyscira, and

Now Grail has gone to Themyscira, where she is turning Amazons into extremely powerful and unquestioningly loyal parademons

…and she still can’t put the fucking pieces together. That’s how checked out of the plot Diana is: we’re ten pages from the end of the arc, and the villain is forced to explain to her what she should have twigged to sixty pages ago.

Jason enters Themyscira and sees Hippolyta fighting Grail. He rushes to her aid, but in a rare non-terrible writing decision from Robinson, his presence is entirely unnecessary: Hippolyta proves perfectly capable of taking down Grail without any help.

Cue the nauseating reunion.

Jason: Mother! It’s me. I… I’m your son! Hippolyta: Jason? Oh, my beautiful boy. It is you. To finally see your face—

Diana, meanwhile, continues to be completely ineffectual. Battered by Darkseid, she whimpers to Steve that she’s starting to think that she can’t win. Steve tells her that no matter what, he loves her, and Diana sits bolt upright.

“That’s it, Steve! LOVE! Hatred won’t win this — violence — but love just might!”

Look, I’m glad that Robinson has finally figured out that Diana’s greatest strength as a hero is the depth of her love and compassion, rather than a propensity for excessive violence — because, hey, better late than never — but this is straight out of left field.

And the annoying thing is, under other circumstances, this plot point — Diana besting Darkseid not through force, but through love — could be done well. Has been done, in fact, fifteen-odd years ago by Phil Jimenez.

Good comics interlude: During the ‘Our Worlds at War’ crossover, Diana has to team up with Darkseid to save the universe. With Raven’s help, she channels her faith and the faith of all her sisters into Darkseid in order to restore his power so that he can blah blah convoluted plot stuff. At the story’s end, Darkseid gloats that he is back at the height of his power, while Diana has lost almost everything — her mother has been killed, along with hundreds of other Amazons. Themyscira is no more. Diana even lost a piece of her very soul to Darkseid through the act of empowering him.

Diana smiles slowly.

“Surely you must be joking, Darkseid? Or don’t you know?

When Raven channelled our energies through you, she infected your dark spirit. She didn’t just give you my power, she used her empathic powers to fuse that part of my soul into your own. A part that I give freely, each and every day… and which you took gladly, without understanding the consequences.

There’s a piece of me inside you now, Darkseid. A piece that believes more than anything in joy and hope and peace. So ponder on that, New God — each and every time your feelings and actions are tainted by some undeniable longing for kindness… or the next time the Fates decide you should commit an unidentifiable act of compassion towards your minions and people in the name of some abstraction called ‘love’. Ponder that.”

SHE INFECTED HIM WITH HER SOUL SHE IS SUCH A FUCKING BOSS.

A year and a half later, Jimenez delivers an insight into just what this means for Darkseid. And while he’s much the same villain as before, there’s a stubborn splinter of pure compassion embedded deep within his soul. It torments and infuriates him. Every so often, it drives him to feel things, do things entirely alien to him — like show mercy to a slave.

Darkseid: Foul woman! What have you done to me? Diana: What’s wrong, Darkseid? Had moment or two of inexplicable compassion? I warned you. The portion of my soul you stole will corrupt you from the inside out. You’ll be kissing babies and freeing slaves before you know it. Darkseid: What do you want, Amazon? Diana: Just to remind you of your invitation, New God. It seems some of the Amazons are actually willing to forgive you for your hateful transgressions against them and would like to negotiate a more peaceful relationship with the Lord of Apokolips. You should come. Who knows? You might even learn a thing or two. Although it seems to me you’re learning plenty right now… Darkseid: [raging] AAAAAHHHHHHHH!

That’s how Diana owned Darkseid with the power of love last time.

And this is how Robinson’s Diana… enables Zeus’s ghost to own Darkseid on her behalf through the power of her love for her daddy:

Her boyfriend says ‘I love you’, and this gives her an idea. She walks up to Darkseid and informs him that she’s not going to fight, she’s just going to let him pummel her while she aggressively loves Zeus at him. This causes the ghosts of all the gods Darkseid devoured to to pour out of him. Zeus manages to stick around long enough to tell Diana that he’s proud of her, then fades away while Diana’s all ‘noooo daddeeeee come baaaack’. Then Darkseid appears to spontaneously combust, the end.

Steve points out that whatever happened to Darkseid has affected the portal as well — it’s now closing, with Jason and Grail still on the other side.

On Themyscira, the Amazons have just about contained their parademonised sisters, when they see that the portal is closing. Cue another nauseating scene of Hippolyta waxing emotional over how much she loves Jason and he’s the best son ever and, here, have this super-special magical god-weapon, why don’t you?

“Take this spear. Designed by Artemis, crafted by Hephaistos — enchanted and unbreakable.”

boo.

Steve and Diana wait anxiously by the Totally-Not-A-Stargate.

Steve: So what do you want me to do, Angel? I mean, you can’t go through, obviously… but I could.

What are you talking about, no you bloody couldn’t!

Robinson has been quite clear about the portal rules. They’re dumb rules, and they fly in the face of established canon, but they’re clear.

If you have ever been to Themyscira before, you cannot enter the portal.

You only register as having been to Themyscira if your feet touched the ground.

Steve has been to Themyscira. His feet touched the ground. You cannot go changing up the rules with only four pages to go.

But of course Jason gets back just in time, and Diana is unrealistically excited to see him, and it’s all, ‘I met my mummy and she loves me!’ ‘I met my daddy and he loves me!’ ‘Oh PS, we’ve got a bunch of parademon-Amazons in custody now. I guess maybe somebody should work on turning them back to normal?’

Grail wakes up chained in Ares’ prison. At a cursory glance, this seems like a reasonable solution: Grail is a prisoner, and no prison is more secure than the one Themyscira guards over.

But then, unlike Robinson, I thought about it for more than a second and what the hell this is a terrible idea. The whole point of Themyscira is to prevent anybody who might conspire to release Ares on the world from reaching his prison, and they’ve just locked a supervillain in with him and his evil sons. Unleashing War on the world is exactly the kind of thing Grail would do if it means securing her escape and furthering Darkseid’s plans.

It’s also a dick move on the Amazons’ part, because Grail is supposedly one of their own. She has a lot to atone for, and there would undoubtedly be Amazons who’d want to see her pay for her crimes, but I doubt it would escape the council’s notice that Grail has essentially been used and manipulated by trusted parental figures for her entire life. Her mother bore her, raised her and trained her to be a weapon whose only purpose was to destroy Darkseid. Her father turned her into his loyal minion. She has never been her own person, never had any family that didn’t see her as a means to an end. Surely the Amazons would ultimately see it as their responsibility not just to punish and contain her, but to rehabilitate her. That can’t happen if she’s locked away in a cave with only Ares for company.

Also, you know, she’s probably the best chance they have of curing their parademonised sisters, so… maybe do something about that as well?

Meanwhile, somewhere on Earth, Darkseid is wandering around, naked, human-ish, and amnesiac; the end.

#comics talk #the james robinson shitshow

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ofgunsandlipstick · 6 years

Text

Chill

@mrgaretcarter MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I am sorry this took me so long to get out. I hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday season! I tried to give you a little angst and a little fluff. Hope you enjoy!

Title: Chill Rating: G+ (for mild language) Summary: Steve’s plane has been found. Peggy won’t see him.

Read on ao3

She barely keeps her grip on the telephone receiver. “Peggy? Hello? Carter?” Howard’s voice crackles to life in her ear, tinny and loud, each question sounding more and more concerned. “Peg, you still there?”

Peggy takes a shaky breath. “Yes, Howard. I’m still here.”

“I found him, Peg. I found Steve.”

. . .

She has too much to do to greet the ship. But that doesn’t mean it’s far from her mind. In fact, each and every day, she thinks that she should stop by the facility where Howard tells her Steve is recovering. But she doesn’t.

Peggy tells herself it’s because she’s too busy, she’ll stop by the moment she gets a free one. She can’t slack off at work; it would give the men too much to point to as a flaw. There is no room for a woman’s imperfection in the bullpen of the SSR.

A treacherous little voice in the back of her head points out that the reason she’s so busy is because she chooses to be. She works longer hours, more shifts, than anyone else in that office. No one would notice if she were to take a single day.

She chooses not to think about it too hard. Peggy’s not given over to introspection.

The weather grows colder, fall turning to winter. Peggy bundles up in scarves and heavy coats and still can’t summon the courage to make it to the facility. Howard phones weekly with updates.

Steve wakes and—Howard tells her in a voice really more self-righteous than he has any right to—asks after her. She almost sends a cordial note expressing gratitude for his recovery, but that seems even worse than simple silence somehow.

Peggy finds herself restless and far more snappish than she’s been. She spends hours in the agency’s gym, pummeling punching bags. And more than once going into work with taped up hands. She’s losing weight too—her cheekbones stand in sharper relief than they usually do—so she avoids looking in the mirror if she can help it.

At least the bulkier clothes of winter hide the way she’s growing gaunt. And her snappish demeanor keeps most of the other agents out of her way.

It doesn’t do her any favors at the automat.

“Alright, English, spill,” Angie says, sliding a piece of chocolate cake in front of her before untying her apron and plunking down in Peggy’s booth.

“Don’t you have customers?”

“I’m on my fifteen. Let’s go.”

“There’s nothing to spill, I’m afraid,” Peggy sniffs imperiously. “Unless you count my coffee, of course.”

The stare that Angie gives her could only be described as withering. Generals in the United States Army would be well-served to study her. Peggy does her best to keep her face completely straight, but even she finds herself bowing under the pressure.

“You’ve been nothing but a ball of anger for the past month and a half,” Angie informs her. “At first I was thinking you were sour with me, but then you talked the same way to Mr. Fancy. So then I thought, well, maybe it’s just that time of the month-”

“Angie!”

Angie steamrolls right past her objection. “But no, you’ve been downright mean for the past six weeks. So who’s the guy?”

The nonsensical connection takes Peggy by enough surprise that she almost laughs. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“You’re not eating, you’re a piece of work almost all the time, you’re running around at all hours of the night. My nonna says anybody acting like that’s in love or out. But it’s one of the two. So spill.”

“Angie-”

“Don’t you dare, English. Don’t you dare try to tell me different.” She gestures forcefully with the metal fork, suggesting just where Peggy might find that fork if she doesn’t think about her next few words very, very carefully.

The stubborn set of the woman’s jaw tells Peggy that if she doesn’t share now, she’ll be paying for it until she does. In a myriad of increasingly torturous and creative ways. Peggy puts nothing past Angie Martinelli.

After the fiasco with Howard, Angie knows enough to be caught up on Peggy’s history. But somehow she can’t find the words to explain exactly what has happened. Besides, as far as she knows, Captain America’s triumphant return continues to be a state secret.

“It’s just… an old friend of mine’s returned.”

“Boyfriend?”

Peggy’s lips purse. “Well, uh, no, not exactly. We never, that is…”

She wouldn’t have called Steve her boyfriend at any point in their time together. The word is simultaneously far too much and entirely inadequate, which gives Peggy a slight headache.

“Gotchya.” Angie nods knowingly and Peggy’s surprised to realize that she trusts that she does. “So your special friend is back in town and you saw him and it went disastrously.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean not exactly?”

“I haven’t seen him yet. I just know he’s back.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, English! You don’t get to be this miserable over somebody you haven’t even seen yet!”

“It’s not-”

Holding up a hand, Angie silences her with a single withering glance. “Oh, no, no, no, honey, don’t even start.”

Peggy sighs, dropping her chin into her hand.

“Yup. That’s lovesickness if I ever saw it.”

Peggy groans and rests her head on the table.

Her friend pushes the cake further in front of her. “Eat up, English. Put some meat on those bones. Then we’ll deal with the rest.”

. . .

They come up with a plan of attack. Peggy will go to the facility and Steve, fully prepared to grovel. She will be honest but kind, and goose her story with just a hint of the whole national security responsibility thing. It makes her feel better to have a plan.

She needn’t have bothered.

Peggy’s running late for work and in a thunderously poor mood. Thompson has gotten less directly antagonistic lately, but he’s still looking for any and all reasons he can sneer at her work ethic, the bastard. A delay of ten minutes could very well be a cataclysm in his eyes. She enters the bullpen spoiling for a fight, ready to stand up for herself when Thompson inevitably makes a comment about the time. Instead, she runs into a brick wall.

Well, not so much a brick wall as a person with the size and tensile strength of a brick wall. Before she even looks up, Peggy is hit by a dizzying wave of aftershave. It’s not strong, but she knows it and she knows when she looks up, it will be Steve’s face looking back at her.

She’s not wrong.

His face is more angular than she remembers and he’s grown a slight beard. She’s never liked facial hair and yet somehow it only makes him look more attractive. He’s always beautiful—how many times had she nearly lost herself during a meeting staring at those soft blue eyes and long, dark lashes. And those hands…

Peggy shakes herself. Not the time. She takes a step back and that’s when she notices the determined set of his jaw.

“Agent Carter,” he greets her and she supposes she deserves the cold formality, but it’s surprising how much it hurts. He’s wearing an ill-fitting suit that somehow manages to be too tight in some places and baggy in others.

“Captain Rogers.”

There’s an awkward, pregnant pause before he looks around and sighs. “Look, can we talk?”

“Aren’t we already?” She can’t help but be slightly antagonistic if he’s going to be so withholding.

He looks pained. “Peggy.”

She sighs and says, “Follow me,” before leading him into the conference room, shutting the door but leaving the blinds open. No need to encourage gossip. Turning to face Steve, she waits.

More silence. Steve paces. He’s nervous, she can tell, but the pacing is a good sign. Steve only goes still if he’s deathly serious. At least, that’s how he used to be.

Peggy just waits, watching in silence as he rakes a hand through his hair. After several laps around the room, he stills, looking over at her.

“It’s customary to say hello,” she comments.

“I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure so is visiting your friends in the hospital.”

Peggy raises her eyebrow. “Is that what we are then? Friends?”

There’s color high in his cheeks, but to his credit, he pushes on. “If we’re anything else, you’re digging yourself a deeper hole.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry, Steve. I did mean to call.”

“Call.” His brows furrow, his lips pinch and she knows she’s said the wrong thing again. Jesus, she’s terrible at this.

She blinks and says nothing. Another bad move. He sighs heavily.

“It was good to see you, Peggy,” he says and walks out the door.

Peggy swears under her breath.

. . .

She goes another two days without incident. Peggy does her Christmas shopping—there isn’t much to do. Bourbon for Howard, schnapps and sheet music for Angie, good chocolates and decent tea for Mr. Jarvis. She walks by a set of beautiful colored pencils and picks them up for no particular reason (at least, that’s what she tells herself).

Dropping by the automat to drop off Angie’s gift, she’s met with a most unwelcome sight—Angie, leaning her hip against Peggy’s usual booth, which is occupied by none other than Steve.

She stalks over. “Are you stalking me now?”

Steve shrugs. “Howard said you eat here a lot.”

Angie’s jaw hangs open for a moment. “Maybe I’ll just go get you two some coffee…” she says in a way that makes Peggy certain she’s going to stand by the coffee pot and watch.

“You could sit if you want,” Steve offers. He seems less unsettled than the other day. Peggy slides into the booth across from him, hands folded in front of her as she waits for him to speak.

But he says nothing, just watches her, staid and quiet.

Peggy fidgets under his gaze. He waits.

“I wanted to see you,” she admits finally. “I just…”

“I got you a Christmas gift,” he says, throwing Peggy off yet again. She hates how off-kilter he’s gotten her. He slides a flat package across to her.

It’s a record—Bing Crosby. She tilts her head. When she looks up, Steve has a small, hopeful little smile that sets her heart fluttering in a way it hasn’t in two years. Since he smiled at her last.

“I shouldn’t have cornered you at work like that,” he says. “But when you didn’t come, I thought- well, I don’t know what I thought. But I wanted to see you and that was the only way I could think of.”

“I could have given you a warmer reception,” admits Peggy.

“Look, Peg, I don’t know what’s going on in your life anymore. I tried not to ask Howard too much- didn’t want to pry. I know it’s been awhile and things change. You’ve probably moved on. But I just figured this way you could get your dance. With whoever the right partner is.”

He’s so earnest, so beyond anything Peggy’s behavior the past few months deserves. She could cry. Looking down, she bites her bottom lip before speaking. “I wanted to come see you, Steve. Really. But I- at first, I just didn’t want to see you in that bed and then… I was scared, Steve. Made it through a whole war and the thought of seeing you again terrified me.”

“Why?” He’s never been one to pull punches.

And he deserves honesty. “Because if you didn’t look at me in the same way, it would have crushed me.”

Steve reaches out, takes her hand “You’re the only one for me, Peggy. You always have been.”

Her heart hammers; there’s a lump in her throat making it nearly impossible to speak. “I’ve missed you, Steve. Every single day.”

In a single fluid move, Steve’s pulled her to standing and banded solid arms around her. She wants to step away—they’re in public after all—but she’s never letting him go. Not again. So she buries her face in the side of his neck and sighs. For the longest time, that’s all they do. There’s tension in his body that suggests he’d like more and holding back on her account.

Reaching up, Peggy pulls his face down to meet hers, pressing her lips softly to his. “Happy Christmas, Steve,” she murmurs. “Thank you for finding me.”

The tips of his ears are bright red and his grin could light New York for the whole of a year. “Merry Christmas, Peggy. Thanks for letting me.”

When Angie drops off two pieces of chocolate cake, they’re sitting on the same side of the table.

Peggy discovers that it’s very difficult to eat with a single hand. But Steve’s got a tight grip on her other one and she’s not going to pull away from that. Not ever again.

#mrgaretcarter #steggysecretsanta #steggy secret santa

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d-clarence · 7 years

Text

Samurai Jack Episode CI Headcanon/Fanfic

I’ve brought this up on an Ask and another post I reblogged, but I just got the motivation to fully flesh it out and type it out while it is still fresh in my mind.

Warning, potentially spoiler heavy and quite a lengthy post!

- — -

*Imagine the final battle with Jack’s forces against Aku’s at the latter’s fortress. Jack’s allies have rescued Jack from captivity and he recovered his sword.*

The Fate of the entire Universe hangs in the Balance as Samurai Jack faces Aku.

The plan was simple. Circle around Aku's fearsome tower fortress as a distraction force against Aku while Samurai Jack got in close enough to vanquish Aku. The Scotsman’s new army has assembled together for what may be their last battle. Their forces are consisting of many of the people Jack affected in his life, including the Archers, Woolies, and even Da Sa-Moo-Rai’s rag-tag group from his bar. The face off will be against seemingly never ending legions of Aku’s Beetle Drones, interstellar bounty hunters, and his summoned minions taking place outside in the crater surrounding Aku’s fearsome tower fortress. However, Jack's objective was side tracked as he was forced to face off Corrupted Ashi as Aku watches from his throne cackling in mad laughter.

“Yes… the simplest solution is usually the best one…” Aku mused.

“Ashi! You can’t let it end this way! Please Ashi, fight!” Jack begged.

The Samurai tried desperately to get Ashi to fight the corruption controlling her, but to no avail. Her whip-like attacks from her new limbs toss Jack around as he cringed at every slash from his blade that made her scream in agony as tendril after tendril, burned away to ash and regenerated at an astonishing pace.

“Aah! I… can’t! You have to kill me, Jack! There is no other way! Don’t let me live like this!” Ashi screamed as she temporarily broke away, tears pouring from her eyes, only to be silenced by the blackness of Aku’s curse.

As a powerful backhand sends Jack flying into a stone pillar of fire, he sees his situation. His hair was let loose in a mess and precious gi was completely torn off at the top half and bloodied and tattered from the waist to the bottom. Slashes, bruises and blood seeped from his wounds, and the love of his life utterly lost to Aku’s will as the demon smugly folds his gargantuan arms from his throne.

There is only one way.

No. There has to be another.

But it is what she wanted.

She needs to fight harder!

But she can’t.

Please. Grant her peace. You know what you have to do.

Ashi sprung forward, lunging at Jack as he in turn raised his sword at the ready, fighting back tears that still rolled down his blood-smeared and dirty countenance.

“Forgive me…” he whispered one last time.

He likewise sprung forward thrusting his sword, when the unexpected happened.

Seeing that Jack will be the victor, Aku did the one thing that would break his eternal adversary’s sanity. The one thing that would top all of the evil acts Aku ever did in existence.

As the lovers charged and were about to make contact, Aku pulled his influence and essence from Ashi leaving her in her former human state, in the drab prison outfit and black boots she wore beforehand. She didn’t know at first why she still ran to Jack, arms outstretched above her head. Confusion struck both their faces.

Then it hit her.

Tip pierced flesh. Blade pushed through. Her insides shredded as the sword went through her for what felt like an eternity, but twas only a moment. With a resounding crunch and snap, the sword drenched in her blood shot through her spine and out her back. The deed was done.

“No…” Jack whispered. He wanted all of this to be nothing more than a nightmare, but no, it was more real than ever. He drove his mighty sword through her to the hilt.

Tears welled up in both of their eyes. He let go of the blade as she staggered and began to fall for the last time. Jack caught her, right arm around her waist, left hand around the side of her neck. He saw she was losing focus and felt her pulse began to slow down.

The pain was too much for her to bear as it shot through her abdomen. She couldn’t feel her limbs anymore. The last thing she felt was his blade.

Blood pooled around them in the crimson floor of Aku’s chamber as he smiled in content.

She tried to speak, to give her final words of forgiveness, gratitude, and love to Jack, but she only coughed out blood and gurgled. Over 50 years of combat experience couldn’t prepare him for this.

“No no no! Ashi… I’m so sorry!” he cried as rivers spilled down his face and his voice cracked. She was done for.

The lovers shared one more solid look in each other’s eyes as he cradled her, she could only give a faint smile to Jack before the light in her eyes went away. The smile dropped.

Ashi lies dead in her lover’s arms.

“Hahahahahaha! Foolish Samurai!” Aku thundered. “Did you really think that you really deserved her? Star-crossed lovers is what you both were! Never meant to be, never will be!” The taunts persisted.

Samurai Jack held her lifeless body close, hoping for a miracle, but that never came.

“I’m… so… sorry…” he cried as he buried his face next to hers.

Aku’s laugh echoed through the inner sanctum as the tower shook from the battle outside. Explosions that were barely audible resounded in their ears. Aku headed over to show Jack the true weight of his failure. He pulled down what seemed to be a zipper on the wall as it opened with a mysterious hiss.

Jack could only helplessly look up at how much worse things were going.

The window opened to a horiffic sight. The battle was not going well. Despite the growing mounds of corpses of Aku’s terrible horde, it was a desperate fight for survival for Jack’s men and women. Their ammunition began to run dry, their blades ran dull. Bloody pools of reds, blues, and greens mixed with the black of Aku’s sentries littered the battlefront. Screams and shouts were drowned out by the clatter of bladed, mechanical legs. Several legions began to retreat. Lone survivors lingered in a dazed and shocked awe, some missing limbs, others searching for loved ones buried in the corpses.

Hope was lost.

The black demon bent down, facing Jack, a devilish green smile that stretched before him. “Annihilating your scum will set an example to all who dare oppose Aku!” He rose and laughed maniacally once more.

Enough.

Jack collected himself as his rage fueled high. He clenched his fists and he let out a yell that might as well have been heard around the world.

“AAAKUUUUU!!!!!!!” Jack pulled out his sword from Ashi’s gut as her limp body fell back into her pool of blood. He didn’t bother giving her a second look as he jumped high in the air, sword held above his head, about to strike.

Aku was too absorbed in what he perceived to be his victory to realize what came down upon him.

Jack screamed and brought the blade crashing down on the cursed demon, slicing down from his neck to the ground. The wisps of darkness burned to ash and blew away.

They both came crashing down as the evil one attempted to retaliate, sending scores of his black tendrils after the Samurai, only for them to be cut down with precision and ease. Eventually, only his upper torso and left arm was left, him weakly gripping the pillar behind him that he rested his head on.

“Heh heh heh… killing me won’t undo the past, nor bring back your sweet Ashi.” he proudly, but weakly spat. “My unspeakable evil has reached through the stars and eons!”

“No.” the Samurai said. He pointed his sword at him and shouted, “your unspeakable evil ends today! The present and future shall flourish in your absence!”

Jack yelled and leaped once more and drove the sacred blade between Aku’s eyes and twisted. The devil screamed and convulsed as his body lit and burned away to ash. The reign of Aku’s terror was finally over.

Slowly coming back to his senses, Jack calmly sheathed his sword and turned away. He almost let the madness drive him again, but not this time. He turned to Ashi and met her eyes once more, still wide open and the tears that cascaded down her face were dried and present. He closed her beautiful, lifeless eyes gently as he planted a kiss in her now cold lips and picked her up on front of him in his exhausted arms. Her blood dripped from her wound, further staining what was left of Jack’s gi. She’s become another memory, another casualty. Just as he feared.

He marched onwards to the front gate that opened to the light of the outside world. Much to Jack’s surprise, a miracle occured! He wondered in the back of his mind how he was going to go through the remnants of the armies of Aku, but no more thought was necessary. The beetle drones, the destroyers of many, were all offline! The bots fell and lay where they once stood. The remaining minions and mercenaries scattered in panic and retreat in realizing their main support was lost for good. Loud cheering echoed with the machine gun fire, sword clashing, and explosions that rocked the barren wasteland. It seems that when Aku died, his control over his machines and minons vanished as well, leaving them either permanently disabled or lost and demoralized.

Many of Jack’s friends came over charging and dealing with the stragglers with ease.

“At least they made it.” Jack sighed and looked down on his love. “Oh, how I wish you could see this, Ashi…”

The first to arrive was Flora and some of her sisters. They were hurt from battle, but that didn't sour their spirit. “Woohoo! We hit them right in their daddy bags!” she cheered. Many others joined in.

But when she looked at Jack, her joy dropped harder than a boulder off a cliff. The others came around to their hero.

“Jack… What happened?” Flora inquired. Her father, the Scotsman, appeared behind her in shock of the scene before him.

“I defeated Aku, but it came at a terrible price. Ashi is gone.” he calmly spoke.

“Jack… I’m so sorry… I…” the Scotsman apologized.

“No.” Jack interrupted. “You both have nothing to be sorry for. This is a great victory, and we all gave our lives and more to make sure it happened.”

Flora took charge and carried Ashi’s body respectfully from Jack’s arms. She could only offer a smile for him. Her father said, “We’ll make sure this lass gets a proper funeral, laddie!”

“Thank you.” the depression clear in his voice as he walked away, head down. He couldn’t bear seeing the one he loved so much taken away from him. They all wanted to offer him support, but couldn’t. He always left before anyone could.

He walked on seeing rebels, soldiers, knights, Spartans, and civilians from many cultures and races cheering and raising their worn weapons in victory. Others scrambled to tend to the survivors, the grieving, and the wounded. The most prominent was Olivia, from the village of kids Jack saved from a rave cult decades earlier. She slung her father’s old, beaten hunting rifle on her back and jumped atop a tall mound of robot corpses. Despite the blood from her bandaged injuries, she still rose her hands high and proclaimed,

“Samurai Drop!!!”

The crowds around rose their hands in the signature “S” shape and sang their song of praise and danced the Samurai.

In any other day, Jack would have admired, even joined in on the display, but now was different. This war cost so many, and he lost too much now. He lost his Empire and parents. He lost many of those who fought alongside him. Now, he lost his one chance at true love in his disastrous and lonely life in an instant. He walked on, the crowds’ cheering left them unaware of his sudden departure.

As he reached the edge of the crater where the limits of Aku’s fortress began, he saw a figure, standing at the edge, observing him. Jack gripped his sword at the sight of this unknown man. One of Aku’s minions? No. He was something more. Upon better observation, he noticed the following:

Tall and well-built, in a black bodysuit, clearly worn from combat. He wore a raggedy cloak that covered his chest, part of his head, and flowed to the wind from his back. He carried in one hand, a large katana that sported a red and black diamond pattern on the hilt, the blade dripping black from the oil of the drones. On the other, he shouldered a large silver and chrome plated heavy machine gun, barrel smoking from use and magazine half-empty. His face was expressionless, but seemed familiar. Blue skin, bald and covered his eyes with cracked red sunglasses.

“Could it be?” Jack wondered.

Before he could investigate further, the figure turned and walked away. He gave chase, and when he reached the edge and looked, the man was gone, except for a trail of footprints that continued for as far as the eye can see to the northeast.

“There’s nothing there except for…” before Jack could continue, a faint pillar of light emerged from the distance. Dark storm clouds collected around the faint sparkle and thundered.

Upon realizing the obvious, he spake to himself, “This could be my one chance to set things right. For Ashi, for everyone.”

Near him, he found several discarded transports his army used to get to battle, among them was a motorcycle very similar to the one he drove for many years. Upon inspection, the engine worked, hull was intact, and there’s more than enough fuel to get over to the light.

As he headed off with newfound vigor in his spirit, he mouthed the phrase that became his mantra,

“Gotta get back, back to the past… Samurai Jack…”

#samurai jack #season 5 #episode ci #series finale #jashi #ashi #jack #aku #headcanon #fanfic #typed this out on my phone lol #the first fanfic i wrote in my life

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